Jack Whyte - Uther

For two hours she followed Cassandra high into the hills, far from any path, noticing how faint and indistinct were the signs that even narrow, iron-tired cartwheels left in the hard ground. Unwilling to trust in Cassandra's supposed deafness. Nemo rode quietly throughout her pursuit, as careful to make no sound as she was to remain unseen, and kept far away from her quarry. But then Cassandra vanished, and Nemo thanked the gods that she had been watching when it occurred. Had she not, she might have fled in superstitious terror when her quarry vanished between one heartbeat and the next. What she saw was Cassandra and her cart apparently sinking into the earth, turning backwards as they did so. Frightened, Nemo nevertheless gathered her reserves of strength and crept forward, using extreme caution and preparing herself to flee at every step, to investigate what she had seen, and when she reached the point where Cassandra had vanished, she sat high in her saddle, looking down at the entrance to a steep path that doubled back on itself, shrouded on either side by dense bushes, and descended rapidly into a declivity impossible to detect from more than ten paces distant. She pulled on her reins and raised herself until she stood fully upright in her stirrups and gazed around her, her head tilted backwards in an attempt to gauge, from the height and density of the bushes and trees in front of her, just how large and deep this fold in the earth might be.

She sat for a few moments, her eyes unfocused, gazing into the middle distance, and then, afraid to hesitate any longer, she breathed in deeply through her nostrils, gritted her teeth and then used both hands to draw the long sword from between her shoulders, reaching back with her left to push the blade upwards behind her back and then drawing it down and forward over her shoulder with her right. She hefted the weapon for a moment, feeling its balance, and then she kicked her horse forward slowly down the steeply sloping path.

Within moments she was completely shut in by the growth around her, as the bushes on either side of the narrow track shot straight up and then arched beneath their own weight to meet over her head. Summer leaves filtered out and almost quenched the afternoon sunlight, so that Nemo and her mount moved downward through a thickening, green-tinctured gloom. She moved her head constantly from side to side, her nerves stretched tighter than she could ever recall, but there was nothing untoward to see. The ground rose steeply on one side of her and fell away at the same angle on the other, and the dense growth of long, rank clumps of grass, spindly saplings and springy undergrowth seemed to creep towards her from both directions.

She could see that the track she followed now had once been wider, but its edges had been swallowed by the encroaching grass and twiggy bushes, so that in many places the narrow wheels of Cassandra's coach had straddled the pathway completely, leaving tracks in the long grass on either side and sometimes even stripping the bark from fragile saplings. Nemo reached out with her sword, and half of its blade was among the bushes before her arm was fully extended. She knew immediately that she had drawn the wrong weapon and that her sword was useless here, its blade too long for such thick growth and cramped quarters. She reined her horse to a halt and replaced the long blade carefully in its harness, trying to move without making a sound and grateful that she was wearing the long cloak to muffle the grating sounds of iron upon iron as the sword slid down into the ring between her shoulders. When it was safely lodged in place, Nemo bent forward slowly and gathered up the heavy iron flail that hung from a strong hook set into the frame of her saddle close by her right knee. It was an invention of Uther's, a treasured gift to her. She had even painted it a dull, deep red to match his exactly. She slipped her right hand through the leather strap and grasped the weapon's thick wooden shaft, clasping it close to the bottom end, where the iron ring that anchored the short chain was riveted to the wood. Holding it thus, she could feel the weight of the heavy iron ball at the end of the chain, dangling at the level of her right stirrup, pulling her arm straight down by her side. She felt better holding the flail than she had felt with the sword. She kicked her horse forward again and rounded the next narrow bend in the track with less trepidation than she had felt before.

After negotiating several more bends and the steepest part of the incline—a straight, plunging slope of at least forty paces that turned back on itself and stretched as far again without relief—she eventually arrived at the bottom and moved slowly forward until she could look through a screen of trees into a small and very pleasant valley, whose existence she would never have suspected or believed.

It was neither very long nor very wide, probably less than sixty paces at its longest axis, she estimated, and perhaps as long again on its widest, but it was deep and well hidden, steep-sided and secure and filled with trees, mainly birch and willow, as far as she could see. The centre of the place was taken up by a tiny jewel of a lake that seemed to be fed by a sliding fall of water that ran almost soundlessly down the full length of the steep rock face that formed the far side of the depression. From the plunging angle of the rock face's descent, Nemo could guess that the lake, while small, was very deep and probably extremely cold even in summer. A narrow shelf or ledge of beach ran along the water's edge closest to where she sat on her horse, and in the distance, almost completely screened by the trees that flanked it, someone had built a tiny stone hut. The scene was idyllic, and her first sight of it banished any doubts Nemo had held about where Merlyn had hidden Cassandra for so long.

As the thought occurred to her, the door in the stone hut opened and Cassandra herself emerged, holding a basket of some kind that she carried towards a spot that was marked by fire-blackened stones. Kneeling down carefully, she set out very conscientiously to build a fire, and Nemo watched her, fascinated, as a spark instantly— perhaps magically—leaped to flame, reminding her of why she was there. Her chest filled up with fear again. Nemo believed, with all her being, that she was about to die, here in this hidden place, but she was determined that she would die as Nemo the Dragon and that she would take the witch with her into the other world.

Now she lowered her helmet over her head and hooked together the cheek-flaps that would protect her face. Then she hefted the dangling ball of her flail and kicked her horse forward, out of concealment, rowelling the beast savagely with her spurs. Startled, the animal stomped and snorted, leaping sideways and attempting to rear up in protest, but Nemo reined it in brutally, pulling its head hard down and forcing it forward.

The woman in the distance looked up and froze for a moment, attracted by either the noise or the horse's movements. Nemo neither knew nor cared which; she knew only that she had been seen and that her life was now in dire peril. Digging her spurs deep, she launched herself towards the woman at the far end of the beach.

Cassandra watched her coming for what seemed an age, and then she turned and began running as quickly as she could in her swollen condition towards the cart, where the horse yet stood between the shafts. Nemo spurred harder, believing somehow that if Cassandra reached the cart before she reached Cassandra, then her life would be over and Uther's would be forfeit. As she thundered up to the cart, she hauled herself up in her stirrups and swung the heavy flail over her head, whirling it twice and then smashing it down in the killing stroke.

As the lethal ball came whistling towards her, Cassandra lost her footing and fell on one knee. The ball missed her, hissing over her right shoulder and striking the side of the cart, where it tore one of the thick oak side panels loose from its mountings, splintering the wood and twisting the iron bar that secured the panel in place. Whimpering with terror, Cassandra turned and stooped lower, scrambling beneath the belly of the enormous horse that reared above her. She threw herself sideways, to her right, as Nemo's horse reared and turned in the opposite direction. She turned again, this time to her left, and ran away from the water towards the trees.