Get your copy in paperback or Kindle ebook starting Monday, October 21! Today's sneak preview comes from Chapter 17: Caernarvon.
Caernarvon Keep was perched high upon a ridge overlooking the Menai Strait, which connected Caernarvon Bay to Conway Bay and separated the northwestern part of the kimdom from the mainland of Llanfyllin. Other than Ellesmere Keep itself, which was built into the side of a mountain, it was the most defensible castle in the kingdom. It was also under siege by a party of Norsemen larger than the one that had taken Aberystwyth the day before. The keep itself was encircled by a wide moat that came right to the foundations of the high walls. With the drawbridge up, there was no dry land with which to scale its walls. That task would have been suicidal in itself, as the Kim of Caernarvon, Dylan’s next eldest brother, Kane, kept the largest standing army outside of the king’s army in Llanfyllin, including archers whose deadly accuracy kept the surrounding Norsemen at a distance behind their own defenses, mainly carts and wagons taken from the city as they approached the castle.
The castle within the grounds of the keep was high and narrow, with towers and parapets that seemed to reach into the clouds themselves, or so it seemed to the residents of the city. Kane stood inside the highest tower, looking out through the narrow window at the situation below. The Norsemen hadn’t faced much resistance upon their landing. Most of the city lay further inland, away from the harbor and the castle. Kane, upon hearing his city was under invasion, ordered his regular troops into a defensive stance inside the keep, while all reservists in the city were to hold a line on the outskirts of the city to prevent the Norse from pushing farther inland.
Kane was the second son of King Malcolm Ellesmere, and spending his life knowing that he would never be king, as would his elder brother, Quinn, nor loved as his younger brother Dylan was, drove him to pour his anger and resentment into his military training. He was more skilled as a warrior than Dylan was as a master mason, which was a testament to how he had devoted himself to honing those skills. His instincts proved true in this situation; by not engaging the Norse, he brought their full forces into a single location. But his problem now was figuring out what to do next. From his vantage point high in his castle, he could see all the way to the harbor on Caernarvon Bay and the road that led uphill to where the Norse forces surrounded him. Horses pulled heavy carts from the Norse ships up the road. Kane knew right away what the horses were hauling—trebuchets, at least half a dozen that he could see. Once assembled, they would begin bombarding the walls of the keep and the castle within. When the time came, Kane would order his men to exit the keep and attack the Norse, but the odds weren’t on his side. By his estimate, the Norse had at least 6,000 men at hand. Kane’s army, large as it was, only numbered 2,000, and there were many more civilians in the castle, including Kane’s wife and children.
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