Daughter of Time: A Time Travel Romance by Sarah Woodbury

cut him down from behind. I turned away.
    The power drained from me, more quickly than
when I was a younger man. I dismounted and rested my head against
my horse’s neck. I closed my eyes and whispered my thanks and
encouragement to her, before straightening and gazing at the
carnage. Goronwy knelt next to the man whose life he’d guarded with
his own. It was Geraint.
    Not Geraint.
    “He’s alive but perhaps not for long,”
Goronwy said in an undertone as I crouched beside him.
    “Damn those bastards to hell,” I said.
    Goronwy ignored my profanity. “He has a head
wound and a gash in his side that has bled heavily.”
    “Where’s Marged?”
    Goronwy pointed with his chin back down the
road to the north. “In the trees. I should have left Geraint beside
her, but he insisted on riding with us.”
    “Fool,” I said, though my throat closed on
the word, and I was angry at myself for not ordering my old friend
to stay behind. Sweet Mother of God, he would have obeyed
me.
    Hywel planted himself stiffly in front of
me. I read in his face the bad news he carried, and stood so as to
give his report the honor it deserved.
    “We’ve lost eight men and three more are
grievously wounded,” he said. “Several others are less so. All of
the men who rode from the village are alive, with few injuries. We
caught them completely by surprise.”
    “We did exactly as they should have
expected, Boots,” I said. “Why weren’t they prepared?”
    Hywel shrugged. “Perhaps they assumed we’d
see the village but ride to it along the road. If our thoughts were
fixed on the village, we would have been unprepared for an assault
here, at the Gap.”
    “Possible,” I said. “And they wouldn’t have
known we had warning. The real question now, is who knew we would
come this way this morning and had the wherewithal to set a
trap?”
    “Someone at Criccieth,” Hywel
said .
    I was grateful he didn’t give voice to what
he thought—what every one of my advisors would think after half
second contemplation: Dafydd. He’d not come with us, and
we’d only taken this road with such urgency because of his
news.
    And then there was Marged.
    “Haul these men off the road. I don’t want
to leave them in the way,” I said, damping down my anger but
knowing that my words had come out stiff and pointed. “For the
rest, I want a survivor I can question.”
    “Yes, my lord,” Hywel said. He bowed and
strode away.
    “We must send to that village for help,”
Goronwy said. He eased Geraint’s helmet off his head and threw it
across the road. It rolled away and came to rest in the ditch among
the fallen leaves. “Geraint needs a healer.”
    “The village is destroyed and her people
absent,” I said. “Whether dead or missing I don’t know.”
    Goronwy absorbed this news without speaking
but tightened his grip on Geraint’s hand. “We have bandages in a
pack on Marged’s horse.”
    “I will find her,” I said.
     
     

Chapter Seven
    Meg
     
    G oronwy directed the men forward as we approached the gap. At
this location, the road ran through a narrow crevasse, which
Goronwy informed me led ultimately to the ford across the Eden. A
young man remained beside me, not Rhodri, Bevyn this time, who
wasn’t even old enough to shave. He focused his eyes ahead,
however, and I could tell he resented the duty of riding with me if
it was going to keep him from the forefront of a fight.
    As the hills rose up on
either side, Goronwy suddenly signaled a stop. He glanced back at
me and Bevyn and tipped his head.
    “ We must stay here, my
lady,” Bevyn said. “Get well back into the trees.”
    He and I dismounted and
led our horses away from the road, Anna still high in the saddle,
clutching the pommel with both hands. I could hardly believe how
well she’d done these long hours of riding, but she seemed
unfazed.
    Bevyn tethered my horse to a tree but kept
the reins of his horse, prepared to launch out of the woods to save
his companions if