The silence that descended after the last shriek from outside was broken only by ragged, gasping breaths and Dai's renewed, choked prayers. The darkness in the tower felt absolute, thick with the metallic coppery scent of fresh blood and the acrid tang of fear-sweat. Cadogan leaned against the cold stone wall, the makeshift stake still clutched in his trembling hand, its point dark and wet. He had struck flesh, felt the resistance, heard the cry. The reality of it was a cold, hard knot in his stomach.
"Owain? Griff?" he managed, his voice hoarse. "Here, Arglwydd," Owain's voice came back, shaky but present, from the upper level. "Griff is… he's being sick over the breach." A testament to the boy's terror, and perhaps the grisly result of his own desperate act with the rock. "The one upstairs," Cadogan called, forcing strength into his tone. "Is he…?" "Dead, Arglwydd," Owain confirmed, his voice flat now. "The rock… his head…"
Cadogan pushed himself away from the wall. "Rhys? Madog? The barricade?" "Holding, for now," Rhys grunted from the entrance. "They're not pushing. Gone quiet out there." "Too quiet," Madog added, his voice a low murmur from the darkness beside Rhys.
Adrenaline still coursed through Cadogan, a strange, jittery energy overriding his exhaustion. "Light," he said. "We need light, however faint. Can we risk even a sliver of the tinder Morfudd gave us, just to see?" After a moment's fumbling, Madog managed to strike a spark to a tiny piece of their hoarded tinder, coaxing a fragile, sputtering flame. By its meager, dancing light, they took stock.
Rhys had a shallow cut on his forearm, already sluggishly bleeding, likely from a splintered piece of the log barricade. Madog appeared untouched. Dai was pale but unharmed, though his coughing was worse. Upstairs, Griff was still retching, while Owain stood white-faced, staring at the still form on the floor. Cadogan climbed the stairs again, the small flame Madog shielded in his cupped hands casting grotesque, leaping shadows. The attacker lay sprawled where he had fallen. In the flickering light, they could see him more clearly. He was wiry, clad in crudely stitched hides and furs. His face, beneath streaks of black and white paint that gave him a skeletal appearance, was lean, hawkish. A necklace of animal teeth and carved bone lay against his chest. His knife, a short, broad blade of chipped stone or fire-hardened wood, lay where it had fallen. Primitive, yes, but undeniably deadly.
"No metal," Cadogan observed, his analytical mind beginning to surface through the shock. "Their weapons are stone, wood, bone. But they have bows, and they know how to use them." He crouched, carefully examining the man's clothing, his hands, looking for anything that might give them a clue. There was little – a pouch at his belt contained only a few dried, unidentifiable berries and a smooth, dark stone. "The Green Men," Dai whispered from the foot of the stairs, having crept up behind them. "As the tales say. They shun the iron of the new folk." "They bleed like any man," Rhys countered, appearing at Cadogan's shoulder, his good eye hard. He nudged the corpse with his boot. "And die like one too."
"We can't leave him here," Cadogan said, rising. The smell of the corpse, combined with the ever-present stench of the tower, was becoming unbearable. "At first light, we drag him out. Far from the tower. Let his own kind deal with him, or the scavengers." He looked at Owain, who still hadn't moved from his spot, his gaze fixed on the man he had killed. "Owain." Cadogan's voice was softer now. "You acted bravely. You saved lives." The boy didn't respond, just continued to stare, his body trembling. The cost of that bravery was a heavy one.
The rest of the night was a vigil of almost unbearable tension. They reinforced the barricade as best they could in the near-darkness, then took turns on watch, two men at a time, listening for any sound, any sign that the "others" were regrouping for another assault. But the forest remained eerily silent, save for the wind. The only casualty on their side was Rhys's arm, which Morfudd's herbs, applied by Cadogan with clumsy care, seemed to soothe somewhat, though the risk of festering was high.
As the first, faint hint of grey began to touch the eastern sky, Cadogan found himself alone at the upper breach again, the taste of fear and stale blood still metallic in his mouth. He had faced death, taken a part in dealing it. It had not been heroic, not strategic, just a clumsy, brutal scrabble for survival. There was no elation in their small victory, only a grim awareness of what this new life in Glyndŵr truly entailed. His father had wanted him to learn "work." He was learning, alright. He was learning the savage trade of staying alive in a world that wanted him dead.
The silence from outside was, in its own way, as unnerving as the attack. Had they given up for the night? Or were they merely waiting, patient as the stones of the tower itself, for a new opportunity, a new weakness to exploit? Cadogan didn't know. But as he watched the desolate valley of Glyndŵr slowly, reluctantly, reveal itself in the dawn's unforgiving light, he knew that the blood spilled in the night was only the first price this cursed barony would demand.