The severed rabbit's head lay on the damp earth before their barricade, a small, pathetic offering to the encroaching wilderness. Its glassy eyes stared sightlessly at the bruised dawn sky. Beside it, the crudely drawn symbol – that spiraling, watching eye, rendered in what was unmistakably dried blood – seemed to pulse with a malevolent energy.
A stifled gasp came from Griff. Owain looked away, his face green. Dai leaned heavily against the tower wall, his coughing more pronounced, his gaze fixed on the grisly token with a kind of weary horror. Rhys swore, a string of guttural Brythonic curses that Cadogan was beginning to understand all too well. Madog, ever silent, merely squatted, examining the offering with the detached intensity of a hunter studying spoor.
"They know we are weak," Rhys finally spat, his one good eye blazing with a mixture of fear and fury. "They mock us. Leave us trinkets like we're children to be scared." "It is a warning," Madog rumbled, straightening. "A claim. This is their hunting ground. We are the quarry." Cadogan nodded, his own stomach churning, though he fought to keep his expression neutral. A wave of cold nausea washed over him, more potent than any sickness from the fouled well. It wasn't just the sight of the blood or the dead creature; it was the brazen intimacy of the act. They had been here, at his very door, while he and his men huddled blindly inside. The thick stone walls of the tower suddenly seemed as frail as old parchment, the wind whistling through its gaps a mocking whisper of their vulnerability. Through the rest of that morning, every shadow seemed to move, every gust of wind carried a threat.
The foul water from the well, even after boiling with their last scraps of gathered firewood, continued to plague them. Rhys retched violently after drinking his share. Owain and Griff complained of sharp stomach pains, their young faces pale and sweaty. Dai seemed to shrink further into himself, his cough growing wetter. Only Madog and Cadogan, though both felt the internal unease and a persistent, dull ache in their guts, managed to keep the worst of the physical symptoms at bay, perhaps through sheer force of will or a stronger constitution in Madog's case.
The firewood was now gone. The small fire they had nursed through the night had died to grey ash. Without it, they could not boil more water, however tainted. They could not cook, had they anything to cook. And the nights in Glyndŵr were bitterly cold.
"We cannot stay like this," Cadogan announced late that morning, his voice hoarse. He had gathered them in the dim, circular space of the tower's ground floor. "The well water is poison. We have no fuel. We are trapped." "So we run, lordling?" Rhys challenged, his voice edged with desperation. "Flee back to your father with our tails between our legs? If these… things," he gestured vaguely towards the forest, "don't pick us off like rabbits ourselves?" "Fleeing through that wilderness, with them knowing we are here, would be suicide," Cadogan stated, echoing his thoughts from the previous day. "They would hunt us down. We are sick, tired, and they know the land."
He looked at their faces. Fear was a tangible presence in the small space. "Madog," Cadogan said, turning to the scout. "The stream you spoke of. North of this valley. You said it was a half-day's march." Madog nodded. "Rough country. But the water should be clean. It flows from the high hills." "If we stay here," Cadogan continued, his gaze sweeping over each man, "we die of thirst, or sickness from this foul well, or the 'others' will eventually overrun us when we are too weak to fight. Our only chance, as I see it, is finding good water, water that won't kill us. And that stream is our only hope for it."
A heavy silence followed. Owain looked on the verge of tears. Griff stared at the floor. Dai coughed into his hand. "A water party into that?" Rhys gestured again at the unseen forest. "They'll be waiting. It's what they'd expect." "Perhaps," Cadogan conceded. "Which is why not all of us will go. We need to defend this tower, such as it is. And we need to move quickly, with as small a footprint as possible." He took a breath. This was the gamble. "Madog, you will lead. You know the way, and your skills in the wild are our best asset. Rhys," he looked at the one-eyed man, "your strength and experience will be needed. I will go with you."
Rhys stared at him, his one eye wide with disbelief. "You, lordling? You can barely stand straight. You'll slow us down, get us all killed." "I will not ask any man to take a risk I am unwilling to take myself," Cadogan said, his voice colder than he intended, drawing on some reserve of authority he didn't know he possessed. "And I need to see this stream, assess its defensibility as a long-term source." He knew it was madness. He was weak, a liability in a fight. But he also knew he couldn't command these men from the relative safety of the tower while sending them into mortal danger. His leadership, however fragile, demanded this. "Owain, Griff, Dai," he continued, turning to the remaining three. "You will hold the tower. Barricade the entrance securely once we leave. Keep watch. If we are not back by dusk tomorrow… then you must make your own choices." The implication was clear: assume the worst.
Dai looked up, a flicker of something – respect? Pity? – in his old eyes. "May the spirits of the place be blind to your passing, Arglwydd Cadogan." The youths just looked terrified. Cadogan ignored the churning in his own stomach. "We take all the waterskins. Minimal rations. Our best weapons. We leave in one hour. The sooner we go, the sooner we might secure our survival." Or meet their end, he didn't add.
The decision hung in the air, heavy and unpalatable. But it was a decision. A desperate, perhaps foolish plan, but a plan nonetheless. In the silence of the ruined tower, surrounded by hostile wilderness and hunted by unseen enemies, it was the only currency they had left against the crushing weight of despair.