Cry of Sorrow Read Online Free PDF Page B

that false king, Morcant Whledig, and his Coranian watchdog, General Baldred, would know that Owein and his people had struck again.
    Owein nodded at Trystan, and his Captain whistled piercingly, like the cry of a hawk in flight. The men and women of Owein’s teulu melted back into the forest, moving silently for all that they were heavily laden with the spoils they had won. Foodstuffs, cloth, wine and ale, rich jewelry, and golden vessels—tributes that had been bound for Llwynarth and Morcant Whledig’s greedy hands.
    But Owein still stood, savoring the burning, savoring the knowledge that he had taken back some of what Morcant had stolen. One day he would take back far more than this. He would wrench it all from Morcant. He would gut the man like a pig and bathe in the blood.
    He would do this. He had sworn it to himself when he had learned of the death of his brother. He had sworn it when he had listened to the death song for his parents, a song that had emptied his soul, leaving him to fill it with lust for the blood of his enemies. With each Coranian who died from his arrows, or with his dagger in their guts, his heaviness, his sorrow, his grief lessened.
    While his hate grew.
    Yet, no matter how much killing he did, no matter how much blood flowed from the enemy to soak the ground of Rheged, it was not enough to blot out the picture he carried in his mind’s eye. Not enough to blot out his mother’s face as General Baldred’s ax had crashed down upon her. Not enough to blot out his father’s cry as he had leapt to deflect the killing blade, and died with Morcant’s dagger through his heart. Not enough to blot out the way his father’s hand had reached out and clasped the hand of his dying Queen in their last moments of life.
    He had not seen these things himself, for he had not been in Llwynarth during that last, terrible battle. He had not been there because his mother had tricked him, sending him away in the company of Trystan. But Teleri, his Lieutenant, had been there and seen it all, and she repeated the story to him as often as he asked her to. And he asked often. For it was his hate that kept him strong.
    As often as he commanded that story, he commanded to hear another—the story of the night his older brother, Elphin, had died in a midnight raid on Morcant’s camp. It was a story he forced himself to hear, for he had both loved and envied his brother, the one passion just as strong as the other. Owein had loved Elphin for his strength, his kindness, his generous heart, and his laughter. And he had envied his brother for Elphin’s birthright. For Elphin would have been, should have been, King of Rheged. He would have, should have, married Princess Sanon of Prydyn, and begotten fine children with the woman whom Owein himself had loved from the first moment he had seen her.
    Not that such a thing would ever matter to her. For Sanon’s heart had been given to Elphin forever. A truth Owein had learned, to his grief, not so long ago.
    Only three months ago he and his sister, Enid, had journeyed secretly to Prydyn, to the caves of Ogaf Greu, and met with the fugitive King Rhoram and his band of Cerddorian. There, Owein had offered for the hand of Sanon, Rhoram’s daughter, and had been refused publicly by the woman herself. She had declared, in front of everyone, that her heart was dead with her betrothed, and she would never love another.
    Even now, as he looked upon the dead, the memory of that moment still filled him with shame. Sanon’s burning dark eyes and her golden hair flamed in his heart. For he saw then, or thought he saw, that Sanon knew of the envy he had felt for his brother. Knew it, and despised him for it.
    The pure lines of her pale face as she repudiated him still filled him with dread and doubt. For, in one moment, he could be sure that Sanon was wrong. He would know that his love for her was true, and had nothing to do with the brother he had both loved and hated. And yet, in the