Marshal Guy saw the arrows flash and realized they were under attack. He turned to the soldiers who were just then about to enter the house. "Halt!" he shouted. "Don't go in there!"

But the knight's hand was on the door and he had already pushed it open.

With a sound like that of a whip snapping against naked flesh, the first flight of arrows struck home. Four knights fell as one. An errant arrow glanced off a soldier's helmet and careered off at an angle, striking a horse standing in the yard. The animal reared and began bucking in a forlorn effort to relieve the lethal sting in its side.

Then all was chaos, as everywhere knights and men-at-arms were stumbling back, colliding with one another, fleeing the deadly and unseen assault. With desperate shouts and screams of agony they shrank from the arrows that continued to stream into the yard, seemingly from every direction at once. There was no escaping them. With each flight more soldiers dropped-by twos and threes they fell, pierced by the lethal missiles.

"To arms! To arms!" cried Captain Aloin, trying to rally his troops. "Seal the barn! Seal the barn and burn it!"

In answer to the command, three well-armoured knights leapt to obey. Through the deadly onslaught they ran, their shields high before them as shaft after shaft hammered into the splintering wood. One of the knights reached the right-hand door of the barn and flung it closed. He put his back against it to hold it shut while his two comrades flung the left-hand door closed.

"The torches! Get the torches!" shouted the first knight, still bracing the door shut. He drew breath to shout once more and shrieked in agony instead as, with the sound of a branch breaking in a storm, the steel point of an arrow slammed through the planking and poked through the centre of his chest. He gave out a strangled yelp and slumped down, his body snagged and caught by the strong oaken shaft of the arrow.

His two companions holding the left-hand barn door heard the sharp cracking sound and watched aghast as three more arrows penetrated the stout timber doors to half their length. Had their backs been to the door they would have suffered the same fate as their unfortunate comrade.

Meanwhile, arrows continued to fly from the house-from the door and the two small windows facing the yard, which had become a tumult of plunging horses and frightened men scrambling over the bodies of corpses. The wagon drivers, defenceless in the centre of the yard, threw themselves from their carts and ran for safety beyond range of the whistling shafts. This left the oxen to fend for themselves; confused and terrified by the violent turmoil, the beasts strained at their yokes and tried to break their traces. Unable to escape, they stood in wild-eyed terror and bawled.

When the barn doors burst open once more, a tall slender figure appeared in the gap: a man's form from shoulders to the tips of his tall black boots, but bearing the head of an enormous bird with a weird skull-like black face and a wickedly long, narrow beak. In its hand, the creature clutched a longbow with an arrow nocked to the string. The smooth, expressionless face surveyed the churning turmoil with a quick sweep of its head, picked out Gysburne, and directed an arrow at him. The marshal, who was already wheeling his horse, took the arrow on his shield as three more archers joined the creature and proceeded to loose shaft after shaft at will into the melee.

"Retreat!" cried Gysburne, trying to make himself heard above the commotion. "Retreat!"

Arrows singing around his ears, Guy put his head down and raced from the yard. Those soldiers still in the saddle, and those yet able to walk or run, followed. Five more met their deaths before the last of the knights had cleared the yard.

The Ffreinc raiding party continued to a place beyond arrow's reach and halted to regroup.

"What was that?" shouted Captain Aloin as he came galloping in beside the marshal. "What in the holy name was that?"

"That was King Raven," replied Guy, pulling an arrow from his shield, and another from the cantle of his saddle. "That was the fiend at his worst."

"By the blood," breathed the captain. "How many were with him?"

"I don't know. It doesn't matter."

"Doesn't matter!" Captain Aloin cried in stunned disbelief. Gazing quickly around him, he counted those who had escaped the massacre. "Are you insane? We've lost more than half our men in a one-sided slaughter and you say it doesn't matter?"

"Six or sixty," muttered Guy. "What does it matter? We were beaten by those God-cursed arrows."

"This is an outrage," growled the captain of the king's men. "Mark me, by heaven, someone will pay for this."

"I daresay they will," agreed Guy, looking away towards the forest, where he imagined he saw the glint of sunlight off a steel blade.

"What are we to do now?" demanded Aloin. "Are we to retreat and let the bastards get away with it?"

"We run, but they won't get away," said Guy. "Sheriff de Glanville will see to that."

CHAPTER 28

Are they gone?" asked Owain, his fingers tight around the arrow nocked to his bowstring.

"Shhh," said Iwan gently. "Stay sharp. We'll wait just a little and then take a look round." He turned to Siarles, crouched low behind the doorpost of the farmhouse. "See to it, Siarles, but keep an eye out for the wounded. There might be some fight in one or two yet."

Siarles nodded and continued to watch the yard from one of the small windows. Nothing moved outside. The three archers waited a few moments more, alert, arrows on string, listening for any sound of returning horses-but, save for a low, whimpering moan from one of the fallen soldiers, all seemed quiet enough. Siarles rose and stepped lightly through the door, paused and looked around, then disappeared into the yard at a run. He was back a few moments later saying, "They've gone. It's safe to come out."

As they stepped from the house, Bran, Tomas, and Rhoddi emerged from the barn. "To me, men!" Bran called, pulling off the hooded raven mask. When everyone had gathered, he said, "Strip the dead of anything useful. Throw it in the wagons and let's fly home. Scarlet and the others will be tired of waiting."

"Aren't we going to give back all the supplies they've stolen?" asked Owain.

"Aye, lad," replied Iwan, "but not now, not today."

"Your concern does you credit, Owain," Bran told him. "But the enemy will return to the caer and muster the rest of the soldiers to come and retrieve their dead. Unless we hurry, we'll meet them again, and this time we'll not own the advantage."

"Too many Ffreinc around for the few of us," Iwan told him. "We'll return the supplies when it's a mite safer."

"There's eighteen fewer Ffreinc now than there were a while ago," announced Siarles, who had been making a count. "And four more that will likely join 'em before the sun is over the barn."

"Twenty-two!" gasped Rhoddi. "God help us, that must be near half their force-destroyed in one battle."

"There will be hell to pay," muttered Tomas as the realization of the enormity of their success came over him.

"Too right, there will," agreed Bran. "But we must make very sure it is the abbot who pays. Come, men, let's be about our business before the marshal comes back."

So while Siarles kept watch, the other five archers stripped the dead and dying, tossing the various articles into the wagons the soldiers had abandoned in their retreat. Then, leading the oxen from the yard, they departed-not by the road which led away to the fortress and town-but by the field track that led up through the valley towards Coed Cadw, the Guardian Wood.

Owing to the weight of the wagons and the slowness of the oxen, they could not travel as swiftly as the demands of the situation warranted; even so, they reached the edge of the forest in due course without any sign of pursuing Ffreinc. As they drew in towards the line of trees, however, the leaves of the nearby hawthorn bushes quivered, rattling an alarm.