Enchantress (Medieval Trilogy 1)

Ware sighed. “I do not believe even she can.”

“Then you’re the fool, my friend. For I have seen her powers. But I knew not that I, too, was blessed with the gift of sight.”

Ware snorted. He remembered Cadell’s last vision — the voices that had led them into Strahan’s trap. “Why have you not told me this before?”

“Because I hardly believed it myself. My visions are not so bright as hers. I had none until this winter past when my voice began to ring with strange notes and hair appeared on new parts of my body.”

“So your ‘gift’ came to you as you became a man?”

Cadell’s eyes shifted to Ware’s, and they seemed to hold an eerie light. “Mayhap it was always there, but as a lad I was unaware of it.” His expression was troubled. “I’ve heard no voices — no wind talking to me.”

“Until today,” Ware reminded him.

“As I said, my sight into the future is much weaker than Morgana’s gift, and I have not been able to use it to my advantage.” He rubbed a hand against the soft down on his dirty jaw. “But in time, I think, these visions of things to come will serve me well.”

“If you live long enough.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying.” Cadell scrambled over to the side of the cell where Ware was slumped against the earthen wall. “I have seen my own future, Ware, and I will not die — at least not by Strahan’s hand. I will escape this dungeon, and I will prevail.”

The boy was in one of his moods again. Letting his imagination run wild. He had no more sight of the future than did Ware.

Cadell’s face crumpled when he realized that Ware didn’t believe him. Glancing over his shoulder, as if he suspected unseen eyes in the darkness of the prison, he whispered. “Look what I found.” He held up a small bone. “Left over from the last meal of some prisoner, I’ll wager. Whoever was in charge of cleaning this place missed this.”

“’Tis only a bone.”

“Nay, Ware,” Cadell said with a knowing smile. “’Tis a knife, sure and true. Look.” He ran his thumb along the

curved edge of the bone. “Sharp enough, if rammed into a man’s eye, to wound him.”

“You are going to attack the guard?” Ware asked, but his heart was beating faster. It just might work.

“Aye. You call him over. Complain of an injury or something. Make him take his eyes off me. That shouldn’t be too difficult, for he thinks I am but a boy, nothing serious to worry about. I will jump him, and as I stab him, you grab his sword.”

“What if there are two guards?”

“Then take the man in front of you, and I’ll handle the second.” Their gazes met in the darkness. “’Tis our only chance,” Cadell whispered, and Ware knew the lad was right. Even though Strahan had promised not to hurt Clare and Glyn if Ware and Cadell remained prisoners, Strahan could not be trusted. Even now the women might be suffering torture or rape. Garrick’s return wouldn’t help, for he was walking into a trap — a trap Ware himself had helped to set.

They were half a day’s ride from Abergwynn when Morgana pulled up short. The air around her stirred, then became still. Heart in her throat she waited for the vision she knew would appear.

“Hey! What’s this?” Sir Randolph queried.

“Get on, Lady Morgana,” another knight suggested.

But Morgana held Luck’s reins tight and hardly dared to breathe. The hills and forest had disappeared, and again she saw the boy child crying, his face streaked with mud, his eyes round with fear. There was darkness around him and damp fog.

Without regard for the men, she slid from the saddle.

Garrick ordered the company to stop. Several men grumbled, for they were anxious to be home, but they pulled up obediently and Garrick told them to rest the horses and to eat.

“You see something,” he said approaching her.

“Aye, ’tis Logan.”

Garrick’s throat tightened, and his lips thinned. “Alive?”

“Aye, but frightened and bound.”

“I’ll kill whoever did this.” He grabbed her arm. “Come with me,” he ordered, then commanded one of his men to look after his horse. Wolf snarled as Morgana half ran to keep up with Garrick’s long, determined strides as he set off on an overgrown path through the forest. “I’m tired of your visions, for they are unclear. They give me hope, but no true way of finding my boy. Now, sit there” —he pointed to the stump of a fallen pine tree and shoved her in that direction— “and tell me everything about my son first and then about Abergwynn. We’ll wait here all day and night if need be.” He stood, arms crossed, and watched her. Wolf, sensing Garrick’s anger, growled and paced restlessly in the brush.