Chapter 45: Through the Storm

Excerpt from The Spring of Llanfyllin, (c) 2019 by Mark J. Sanders

Siannon awoke slowly the next morning, confused by the dim light seeping through the cracks in the walls of the barn and the strange sound coming from above her. She couldn’t tell if it sounded like the ocean or meat cooking in an iron skillet. The noise aroused her from her drowsiness, and she ventured down the ladder and to the barn door to investigate the sound. Her heart sank when she peered outside; sleet fell as heavily as a summer thunderstorm, already accumulating inches of tiny round ice pellets on the ground. They would have no choice but to travel through the storm. She woke the others with the bad news.

“Should we perhaps wait and see if the storm will pass through soon?” Antonio asked.

“Under other circumstances, I would agree,” Osric said. “But Killashandra is still twice as far from here as we traveled last night.”

“We have no choice,” Siannon said. “We’ve already been gone four full days. If we lose a full day of traveling, we risk returning too late. Dylan said he thought they could last a week, but I don’t want to assume we have seven days and find they only had six.”

“You’re right, of course,” Antonio said. “Perhaps Murdock and Baylen could go ahead and return to the ship.”

“What for?” Baylen said.

“Well, you two are the youngest and the oldest,” Antonio said. “If we should be concerned about your health…”

“I’m not going anywhere but where the kira leads me,” Murdock said. “I’ve come too far to turn back now.”

“We made it out of Macnylleth and Caernarvon both, Father Antonio,” Baylen said. “We can make it a little farther now. Besides, nothing is going to stop me from seeing a real, live dragon.”

“That makes it unanimous,” Antonio said. “Before we leave, let me go to the abbey and see if they have anything to help us along on our way.” He bundled himself up against the cold and sleet and left the barn. When he returned, he had the cheerful silent monk from the night before along with a younger monk, both carrying trays lined with steaming bowls of porridge and berries. Antonio’s arms were filled with long brown robes.

“Heavy cloaks that we can wear over our other garments,” Antonio announced. “The abbot tells me they do a good job of repelling rain; perhaps they will help keep the sleet off of us today.”

The monks passed out the bowls to each of the travelers; the porridge was thick and hot, the berries plump and sweet, and it warmed each of them from the inside out. Neither of them spoke, but they did offer everyone in the party the sign of the cross as a blessing. They gathered the empty bowls and departed. The monks had returned inside the abbey by the time Siannon and her party rode their horses out of the barn, and they rode out of Kells without seeing anyone else outside in the village.

The sleet intensified throughout the day as they rode. The cloaks they had received from the monks worked well to keep the sleet off them for a while. The outer weave of the cloaks was tight and smooth, and the beads of ice bounced off. But the sheer volume of the ice eventually saturated the cloth, allowing the ice to stick and freeze. By the time they reached the town of Virginia, the cloaks sported a solid outer coating of ice. The manes and tails of their horses were likewise frozen.

“We have to stop here,” Murdock said. “Allow the horses to eat and get warm.”

“As well as ourselves,” Siannon said.

Virginia, unlike Kells, did have an inn as well as a livery stable. Siannon paid the stable hand two gold coins per horse to feed them and brush the ice out of their hair. His eyes widened as she placed ten pieces of gold in his hand. She met the rest of her party in the common room of the inn. A wave of warm air surrounded her as she entered; a stone firepit sat in the center of the room, a stack of thick logs burning within it. The men had already found a table and were drinking hot spiced wine. Siannon joined them, and Osric poured her a goblet.

“This is wonderful,” she said, taking a deep drink. “Do they have food?”

“Duck and vegetable pies,” Murdock said. “We asked for two of them.”

“I’m tempted to ask if they have enough beds for all of us to stay,” Siannon said. Everyone at the table stared at her, and she laughed. “I said I was tempted. I’m as cold out there as the rest of you.”

“We can stay until the horses are fit to travel again,” Osric said. “With any luck, the storm will have lightened by the time we leave. We are halfway to Cavan, and Loch Auchtair is west of the city.”

“Can we make it before dark?” Siannon asked.

“Only if the weather lets up,” Osric said.

They enjoyed the pies as well as anything they had ever tasted, and the food, along with the fire and the wine made each of them slow and sleepy. They could see the sleet falling and heard it pecking upon the roof of the inn. The stable hand entered brushing sleet off his shoulders and out of his hair to tell Siannon that their horses were warm and dry and ready to leave at any time.

“I don’t know what sounds more cruel,” Antonio said, “forcing ourselves outside or taking the horses back into the cold.”

“It’s just a little farther,” Siannon said. “We can make it.”

As it turned out, they barely did. The sleet did not let up at all that day, and the road between Virginia and Cavan grew slick and treacherous as the sleet accumulated higher and higher. The horses’ footing slipped both going up and going down hillsides, and they started to worry that one of them would fall and break a leg; they worried about their own health if their own horse fell upon one of them. Their concern slowed their pace to no more than a walk, and both people and horses were once again covered with ice. As the sky darkened from dust to slate to charcoal with the setting of the unseen sun, the temperature dropped lower, and Siannon felt her teeth start to chatter uncontrollably inside her mouth. She looked around at the others; Antonio’s hands were shaking inside his frozen gloves; Baylen’s face took on an unhealthy blue cast.

“We’ve got to get out of this as soon as possible,” she said to Osric.

“Not much farther,” he said. “I can see the lights of Cavan down the road.” Although she could also see the lights when he pointed them out—tiny flickers of candles no more noticeable than stars in the sky—not much farther turned out to be almost another hour of traveling. Cavan was the county seat and the largest city in the area, so they had no trouble finding accommodations for the night. They ate together in silence with none of the good cheer or optimism that they had felt that afternoon in Virginia. Each of them was wet to the skin and freezing to their bones. Siannon’s fingers were starting to tingle as the feeling came back, but her feet still felt numb inside her boots. Judging from the looks on the other men’s faces, they felt the same as she did.

“How much farther from here to the dolmen?” Siannon asked Osric.

“I talked to the innkeeper after we arrived,” he said. “He’s ridden past the dolmen before. We go south to a village called Crossdowney and follow the road that turns back to the north. Along the road, we’ll see twin lakes, side by side. We ride in between them, and the dolmen is on the other side of the lakes.”

“How long will that take us?” she asked.

“No more than a candle,” Osric said. “Maybe less, if it’s not sleeting.”

“We’ll leave at sunrise,” she said. “So let’s all get some sleep.” No one offered any objections to her suggestion. The four men shared bunks in a large bedroom, while Siannon took a small bed in a room not much bigger than a closet. She had no complaints, however, and no need for more space. Once she hung her wet clothes up to dry on the back of the door and pulled her nightdress over her head, she fell into the bed and went to sleep at once. For the first time since she left Ellesmere Keep, she didn’t dream of returning to find everyone had already died.