Whisper, Penllyn Chronicles #5 EBOOK

Ruadh’s meaty arm swept out and caught my hand as the rock broke loose. Shifter reflexes. Fast. As fast as mine. That was what kept me from plunging into the valley below.

True, the rock face of the cliff sloped away from the valley. Iolo had called it an easy climb. He glanced down.

“The big bear has saved me many times in just such situations,” he called. “Do be careful, milady. I prefer not to lose a new friend.”

“You’re sure this climb is worth it?” I asked.

“Definitely,” Iolo replied as he turned back to the rock wall. “Once you see the view from the cave ledge, you’ll gasp and fall in love with your holding all over again.”

“The valley is pretty enough from below,” I said and swung out of Ruadh’s grasp back to the rocks. This section was almost vertical, unlike the steep but sloped section below. “I don’t know why you two have to climb every cliff you find. There has to be a path to the top of this mountain.”

“Aye, lass,” Ruadh said, laughing behind me as I ascended. One handhold, then a foothold. Then another handhold. “The sunset will take your breath away.”

“I don’t have to breathe, silly. I’m dead.”

“Aye, but you’ll want to lose a breath up there,” my friend replied. “Bleddyn gave you prime land. Had Caer Penllyn no need to be close to the trade roads to get horses out to the other lords and kings, he would move his caer board by board to this summit. ’Tis a beautiful sight from on high.”

More gravel came loose on my next handhold. Rather than chance that grip, I reached wider and used a different section of the crack. The dislodged pebbles tinked several times as they clattered down the wall.

“This better be worth it,” I grumbled, but I kept climbing.

A few moments later, a hand and an arm dropped towards me. I gripped it and let Iolo pull me across the lip. The thin monk clambered easily onto the ledge. 

“Welcome to our little cave away from home,” he said, his eyes alight with mirth.

By the time I stepped away from the edge of the lip, Ruadh was pulling himself up. Once on the ledge, he loosened the strap on the pack he carried. The thinner monk untied a folding stool from the outer ties and sat on it, and then he rummaged about inside the pack. Both men wore trousers and tunics. I matched them with a set of trousers and a tunic, which was what I called my “sword clothes.” I had stopped wearing dresses after the battle against the undead army at the abbey.

“Must you draw this soon?” I chided Iolo. He had pulled out his wooden lap desk, which was just a wooden board with a piece of smooth leather affixed to one side, another leather strap over that to hold his vellum in place, and a small covered well full of ground charcoal. 

“I don’t want to miss the light,” he said, flashing me a grin as he fished a wooden stylus from the pack.

“Pass me that skin, lass,” Ruadh muttered. 

I handed him the wineskin from the pack. He untied the end and squirted a stream into his open mouth. One of his thick hands wiped a residual drop or two from his shaggy red whiskers. They were orangish in the sunlight that reflected off the short mountainside.

I looked off down the land. A steep valley for this part of Britain lay before us, running towards the north-west. Below, patches of trees stood with some farmland, and a small house or three dotted the valley floor at this end. A muddy yet still bluish river drifted lazily through the valley. Above, snow still clung to the upper reaches of the smooth peak.

“You’re right,” I said as Ruadh stepped between me and Iolo. “The view from here is stupendous.”

The other monk was sketching the landscape on his parchment. His stylus seemed to have a life of its own, guiding Iolo’s hand. The monk’s eyes rarely darted down to the parchment. The snow-capped ridge across from us was already taking shape. 

I took the skin from Ruadh and stowed it. Iolo’s busy hand and darting eyes told me he wouldn’t even think of wine until he could no longer see. And, with his fae nature, he was like Ruadh and I. Darkness was no reason to not see. There was the light of the stars to fill in the void. It took a deep cave, like the one behind us, to make me wish for light. Even then, I could see enough to move about. 

“Light,” Iolo said, sensing my unasked question. “It’s about light and shadow. The shadows are long, and the light is soft right now. I can only see this combination right now to draw it. Once the elegance of this sunset is gone, all I have is flat texture instead of this beautiful sight. I need to draw while I can see the shadows.”

Ruadh’s hand rested on Iolo’s shoulder. His other arm wrapped my waist and pulled me in close.

“Aye, lass,” he rumbled. “There be beauty across Briton if ye know where to look.”

“The soft light this time of day makes even Ruadh look pretty,” Iolo said. He glanced at me and winked. Ruadh laughed. I did, too. These two, once Iolo returned, had proved to be almost inseparable. Only when Abbot Heilyn sent one or the other out on an errand alone did they part. 

The valley, the mountains, the land itself—everything was gorgeous. And it was home. After six centuries of undead life, I had found my home, my family, here on the edge of our world. Here in Penllyn. 

I leaned in to Ruadh and wrapped my arm around him as we stared off at the landscape. My friend was warm. He still smelled of bear. Even though The Lady, our goddess, had removed the ties between his curse and the moon, he was still a shifter. In a fortnight, the full moon would rise again, and he wouldn’t care. He had not needed to change into his other form the last several months.

Iolo’s stylus flew about the parchment in the dying light. The rough outline of the valley took shape. I saw the rock walls, the grassy slopes leading up to them, and the thin rivulet of the river below. 

“It’s a pretty valley,” I said. Then I glanced back towards the western end of the long gorge. The walls there looked solid. No danger of a slide. “Be a pity to block that stream,” I said.

Ruadh must have sensed my hesitation. He gave my waist a squeeze. 

“Agreed,” he said with a mirth rumble in his chest. “An overzealous beaver could block the river and flood the valley for a ways. This rock be stable. You’ll not be seeing a dam here unless one of those rats builds one.”

“There are slides,” I said and pointed into the dim reaches below. By now the sun was below the horizon, and the red was fast fading into deep twilight blue.

“Small ones, yes,” he said. “It would take a major shake to dislodge enough to block the mouth.”

“Be a shame to block off this valley,” I said and gave him a smile. “Where else would you two go to climb?”

“I’d take ye up to my brother’s land,” he said. “If Kerr and Frang ever settle their blood feud. One of them I can deal with. But as long as the clan is split between them, I cannae go back.”

“I’ve lost many brothers over the years,” I said. My mind darted back to the last time I had been with Aemi, my brother of the undead. We had danced the dance of blades for almost a week solid, only stopping each day for our undead sleep when the sun rose, then when we awoke, we’d let our steel sing once more.

We weren’t brothers in the normal way. Aemi… Aemilianus had been born to another set of parents a century or so before I had been born. But we share a bond deeper than the one with the siblings from my birth mother. Aemi and our other undead siblings all become undead through the same master. 

If there was anyone I loved as much as Gwen, Emlyn, or Aemi, it was my master. He offered me almost pure immortality. All I needed to do was die. And drink his blood. The same blood he drank from my veins.

Our master was long dead. The True Death. And then my undead brothers and I had gone our separate ways. Aemi and I, we hadn’t danced our dance of the blades for nearly a century.

Ruadh pulled me in tighter. He was as close as a brother to me. We had fought battles together to protect our adoptive family. Lord and Lady Penllyn and their people. 

I leaned into my bearish friend. Just like the others here in this British cantref, he was a friend and family to me. I had found my home. A home I wished to never leave again. Penllyn. Life was good here, finally. And I was happy. The trials of last year were fading into memory, and I was comfortable again. 

I should have known things were about to change, but I didn’t. Neither did I realize just how bad they would get.