Chapter Two: A Woad and a Warrior
Three years previously
Dagonet looked around at the devastation that lay around him. Bodies of men and women, shattered swords and blood lay on the frozen ground on the plain. As Dagonet's horse breathed an icy mist appeared, and Dagonet began to feel the cold after the chaos of the battle.
He grunted to his companion, a man by the name of Bors, who was wiping his sword clean on the tunic of a dead Woad.
"Coming?" Dagonet asked gruffly.
"Arthur said we needed a prisoner," Bors reminded his friend. Dagonet never spoke more than he needed to, and when he did his words often seemed harsh and rough, but Bors had known and fought beside Dagonet for ten long years, and accepted his silent friend's manner.
"Forgot about that," Dagonet commented, looking around at the carnage.
"We may have a problem there," Bors grinned cheerfully. "You hit pretty hard with that axe, friend."
Dagonet just grunted in reply and swung down from his horse, looping the reins around the saddle to stop his wandering off.
"There'll be one alive," Bors said optimistically, and the two men started to check the corpses for signs of life.
Finally Dagonet called Bors over, and the big man came to find Dagonet bending over a young woman with a bloodied head.
"She'll never survive," Bors commented, looking at the dent in her skull.
"Have you got any better ideas?" Dagonet asked, and Bors shrugged.
"She's a woman," Bors pointed out. "She won't know anything Arthur wants to know. Let's go any find someone else to fight."
Dagonet looked up at Bors, one eyebrow raised slightly.
"Alright!" Bors exclaimed. "We'll take her…I still don't think she'll know anything," he grumbled as Dagonet lifted her up.
Silently Dagonet pulled back her left sleeve to reveal a brand on the top of her arm, the girl whimpered slightly as she felt his touch through the hazy unconsciousness that clouded her mind.
"The mark of Merlin?" Bors asked in amazement, studying the brand.
"One of Merlin's daughters," Dagonet said, lifting the girl up to his horse's saddle and swinging up behind her. "She'll know everything Arthur wants."
Bors swung up onto his horse and grinned at Dagonet.
"Well it seems we have no reason to pick more fights with the Woads. Let's go back to the wall," and with a reckless grin at Dagonet, he kicked his horse into a canter and set off south across the frosty plains.
Dagonet raised his eyebrows slightly, and pushed his horse forwards into a smooth canter, as he juggled the unconscious woman who lolled in the saddle in front of him, and the eager horse, fighting his reins.
They rode fast all that day, heading south and passing warily through dark forests and across wide plains. At dusk Dagonet slowed his horse to a walk, and turned off the narrow path through the trees onto a scarcely visible track. Bors followed him, his horse hot and sweating despite the snow that was beginning to fall.
Dagonet pulled up at what looked like a pile of stones, and swung down from his horse, gently lifting the trembling girl down, and he carried her through a dark arch in the remains of a house to a dark room.
Bors took hold of the horses, and sorted them out, while Dagonet laid the girl down in one corner, and began to set a fire.
A few hours later, by the time darkness had fallen completely; the small room was warm and lit by the dancing flames of the small fire. Bors was heating some water over the fire, and Dagonet was tending to the cut on the girl's head.
"You could have hit her harder!" Bors commented, glancing over to Dagonet.
Dagonet didn't reply, but took the warm water from Bors, and dipping a cloth in it, began to slowly clean the cut on her head. She murmured and stirred slightly in her sleep, and opened her eyes.
"It's alright," Dagonet said, seeing a pair of luminous dark eyes looking up at him.
The woman had fear written across her face, for although her eyes were blurred and her head throbbing too much for her to think straight, she could see the scarred face of one of the knights that had wrought destruction on her people.
"It's alright," Dagonet said again, softly this time, as the woman's vision blur clouded once more, and she sunk back into unconsciousness.
"Will she live?" Bors asked as he settled himself back against one wall and pulled a cloak around him.
Dagonet shrugged, and having finished tending the girl's wound, pulled some blankets up around her sleeping body.