The attempt to render the well water drinkable was a grim charade played out over their dwindling fire. Griff and Owain, their faces pinched with disgust, drew up bucket after bucket of the black, oily liquid. They boiled it in their only dented cooking pot, the steam that rose carrying a foul, swampy odor that filled the already stuffy tower. Even after prolonged boiling, the water, when cooled slightly in a spare helmet, remained a murky, unappetizing brown, with a faint sheen still visible on its surface.
"Who tries it first?" Rhys asked, his one good eye fixed on Cadogan, a challenge in his tone. The other men looked on, their expressions a mixture of hope and revulsion. Cadogan met his gaze. "I will." He was their leader, however nominal, however reluctant. If his orders led to this, he would be the first to face the consequences. He took the helmet, the metal warm in his hands, and raised it to his lips. The smell alone was nearly overpowering. He took a small, hesitant sip. It tasted as it smelled: of rot, of metallic earth, of something ancient and decaying. He forced himself to swallow, a wave of nausea churning in his gut. He waited a moment, then took another, larger gulp. "It is… not pleasant," he admitted, his voice carefully neutral. "But it is wet. And the boiling should have killed the worst of what might ail us." He hoped he was right. His 21st-century knowledge of waterborne pathogens screamed warnings, but desperation was a powerful silencer.
One by one, the others drank, their reactions ranging from Dai's stoic acceptance to Griff's barely suppressed gagging. The immediate effect was a quenching of their desperate thirst, but within the hour, a low-grade malaise began to settle over them – stomach cramps for Owain and Griff, a dull headache for Cadogan and Rhys, and an intensification of Dai's already persistent cough. Madog, as always, showed little outward reaction, but even his face seemed a shade paler. The water was keeping them alive, but it was also poisoning them slowly.
Compounding their misery was the rapidly diminishing pile of firewood. Boiling enough of the foul well water for six men and a horse, even in small quantities, consumed fuel at an alarming rate. "We need more wood," Cadogan stated, looking at the pathetic heap of branches they had scavenged from within the palisade the previous day. "We cannot last another night without a proper fire, not with this water needing constant boiling." The prospect of venturing outside the relative, if crumbling, safety of the tower walls was met with a heavy silence. The memory of the murdered man, of Madog's broken arrow, of the unseen eyes they all felt upon them, was a potent deterrent.
"Rhys, Madog," Cadogan said, breaking the uneasy quiet. "You know the immediate surroundings best now. We need a wood-gathering party. We stay close, within sight of the tower if possible, cut only what is dead and dry. Three of us go. Two stay to guard the tower and this… water." He looked pointedly at the steaming pot. "I'll go," Rhys volunteered, surprisingly quickly. Perhaps the thought of action, any action, was preferable to slowly sickening in the tower. Or perhaps he simply wanted to be armed and outside. "Madog with you," Cadogan nodded. "And I will make the third." He needed to see the terrain for himself, to assess the risks, to show he was not above sharing the danger. "Owain, Griff, you guard here. Dai, keep watch at the entrance."
The foray into the tangled woods just beyond the rotten palisade was a tense, nerve-wracking affair. Every snap of a twig underfoot sounded like a thunderclap. The forest was too quiet, the usual chorus of birds and insects strangely absent. They worked quickly, Rhys with his axe, Madog with his knife, Cadogan gathering what smaller branches he could manage, his eyes constantly scanning the dense undergrowth. The air felt heavy, charged with an unseen presence. They had gathered a meager but serviceable pile when Madog suddenly froze, his head cocked, listening. Cadogan followed his gaze. Nothing. Then, a sound drifted through the trees – faint, almost lost in the sigh of the wind, but unmistakable: a low, rhythmic chanting, accompanied by the dry, percussive beat of a hide drum. It seemed to come from deeper within the valley, east, where Rhys and Madog had found the camp.
The sound stopped as suddenly as it had begun, leaving an even more profound silence in its wake. Rhys swore under his breath. "They're out there. And they know we're out here." "Back to the tower," Cadogan ordered, his voice low and urgent. "Now."
They retreated, laden with wood, their earlier caution replaced by a desperate haste. As they scrambled back through the breach in the palisade, Owain met them, his young face white. "Arglwydd," he stammered, pointing towards the main entrance of the tower, which Dai was still guarding. "While you were gone… something was left."
At the foot of their makeshift log barricade, placed with deliberate care, was a freshly severed rabbit's head, its eyes wide and staring, its throat cut. Beside it, drawn in what looked chillingly like blood on a flat stone, was another of the spiraling symbols, the "watching eye" prominent in its center. It was not an offering. It was a message. A territorial claim. A warning. And perhaps, an invitation to become the next offering themselves.
The "others" were not just watching. They were communicating. And their language was one of primal fear and brutal intent. The foul water in their bellies suddenly felt like the least of their worries.