Chapter Twenty: Attack

Adara shivered in the cold evening air. It was dusk, and she rode with Lucan in front of her. He was sleeping, his angelic face poking out of the warm cocoon she had made from her cloak for him.

It was almost nightfall, she guessed, though it was hard to tell, for the sky was overcast with thick grey snow clouds. She estimated that she should be able to get to the village she was aimed for at about an hour after the sun set. She didn't like riding in the dark, but if the other option was to camp in unfamiliar territory, she decided to take her chances in the night. With a small shiver she pushed her horse faster, wanting to get to safety as soon as possible.

She had been sent to a village further inland from her old home, by Merlin. He had decreed that, as her husband was dead, she had no business near the Saxons, and was moving her 'to safety'. Personally, Adara had some doubts about Merlin's motives. Never before had he concerned himself with her well-being, and Adara couldn't see why he would begin now.

Adara assumed that he was planning to get her fighting once more. He had showed some mercy when she had had Lucan, but the boy was old enough to look after himself, and Merlin rarely accepted potential warrior not fighting, for any reason.

Adara sighed slightly to herself as she rode across the quiet landscape, bleached grey by the moon. She didn't want to be a warrior! She was tired, not only physically, but mentally. Every moment of her life had been a struggle, and now she just wanted to watch her son grow up: to see the girls chasing him, and him weild his first sword. She smiled fondly down at the sleeping boy and pulled him tighter towards her warm body.

And then it started.

An arrow whistled past Adara's ear, and she heard the dull thud as it was embedded in the frozen ground. She pulled her horse up sharply, drawing her sword and spinning on the spot, trying to locate the unknown assailant.

Adara's heart began to beat faster, and she found, to her amazement, that her hands were trembling. Never before had she been scared under attack. But this was different. She had something, more precious than even her own life, sleeping peacefully in front of her: the only reminder she had of the man who had stolen her heart, and her fear was entirely for the sleeping boy.

Another arrow whistled dangerously close to her, and she followed its flight path to the trees, not far from where she stood. She felt Lucan wake, and he whimpered slightly, but, for the moment, his comfort was not her concern. The only thing worth worrying about was his life, and at the moment, she was in no state to protect that.

Her eyes scanned the dark woods around her, and finally she found her attackers. The bright moon illuminated the ground, as she saw them as they rode casually out of the trees. There were five mounted men, all dressed in Roman armour, laughing among themselves, even as they raised their bows to fire at her again, completely oblivious of the torturous stream of emotions racing through their victim's brain.

Adara saw the arrow loosened. She saw it speeding towards her. she saw Lucan, woken suddenly for a deep sleep, look up at her with trusting eyes, and time seemed to slow as the arrow inched closer. With an agonised cry, Adara spun the horse to face away from the oncoming missile of death, protecting her beloved son with her own body.

Her body stiffened as the arrow pierced her. It went straight into her back and the bloodied tip protruded from her chest. She gave a rattling sigh, and then her body went limp, and she slumped sideways.

Her horse panicked at the dead weight on its back, and reared up. Lucan slipped from the saddle with the body of Adara, still shouting to his mother to tell him what was happening. As he fell there was a sickening crack as his arm broke. Lucan only gave the smallest of cries as the blinding pain from his arm shot up through his small body, but this was lost in the turmoil in his mind when he saw his mother.

Adara's lifeless body lay on its side a few metres from Lucan, and he tried to crawl towards her, still crying for her, pleading with her to speak to him.

The Roman soldiers, barely looking at the life they had so nonchalantly taken were alerted by the whimpering noises made by Lucan, and they rode arrogantly over towards the place where Adara lay. Lucan was still shaking her body futilely, blind to the soldiers with the power to administer his life or death.

One of the men slipped off his horse, and though Lucan gave nor reaction to the proximity of his mother's murderers, the soldier raised his short sword to deliver the death stroke to Lucan, but, with a warning shout, his companion stayed his arm.

"It's only a child," he pointed out.

Lucan, oblivious to anything happening around him, continued to plead with his mother to open her eyes. He was unmindful of the previously blinding pain of his broken arm, for in his life there was only him mother. She had always been there, and until this moment, he had never even considered a life without her.

"It's still a Woad," the soldier with the drawn sword said, in a cold, hard voice. "It'll die anyway."

"Take him to Marius," another of the soldiers: a tall, lean man with a swarthy appearance said in a drawling tone, leaning haughtily over the pommel of his saddle.

For a moment the sword was held in balance, just above the sobbing boy's neck, and that moment seemed to stretch into eternity as the soldier debated whether to take the life of the small boy in front of him.

Slowly, agonisingly slowly, he raised the blade from where it rested.

And then brought it sharply down on the back of his head.

The flat of the blade hit Lucan's unprotected skull with a dull thud, and the boy slumped forwards over the body of his mother, the pain, grief, and incomprehension of the situation disappearing into a swirling black mist that engulfed his senses and sent him to blissful oblivion.

A/N – I'm sorry! I didn't want to kill her, but there was no way she would have let Lucan be taken from her while she still had her own life. What do you think of the chapter? I'm not sure it came out exactly as I wanted it to – perhaps this is a bit conceited, but I wanted it to sound more dramatic. Any ideas as to how I could do that?