The clean water, cool and life-giving, was a momentary reprieve, a brief island in a sea of encroaching dread. As the six men drank their carefully rationed shares in the gloomy silence of the tower, the knowledge of the armed patrol out in the woods settled heavily upon them. Rhys's grim jest about the murdered reeve no longer seemed like an attempt at dark humor, but a sober assessment of their odds.
Night fell with an unnerving swiftness, the darkness outside the tower's breaches seeming to press in, alive and watchful. Cadogan, despite his exhaustion, took the first watch himself from the upper level, needing the solitude to think, to process. The wind, their constant companion in Glyndŵr, moaned around the crumbling stonework, carrying on it the scent of damp earth and the vast, untamed wilderness that was now their cage and their hunting ground. He stared out into the blackness, his mind replaying the sight of those fluid, hide-clad figures, the glint of their longbows. They were not disorganized savages; they were skilled, adapted to this land, and they had marked this valley, this very tower, as their own.
His father's words echoed: "Make it serve Caer Maelog again. Or die trying." The first seemed an impossibility; the second, a rapidly approaching certainty. His meager historical knowledge of frontier warfare, of holding isolated outposts against hostile indigenes, offered little comfort – those scenarios usually involved trained soldiers, supply lines, and a defensible fortification, none ofwhich he possessed.
When dawn finally broke, casting its weak, grey light into their refuge, Cadogan gathered his men. Their faces were gaunt, etched with fear and lack of sleep. Even the clean water hadn't entirely washed away the effects of the well's foul offerings; a lingering sickness clung to most of them. "They know we are here," Cadogan began, his voice low but firm, ensuring it carried over Dai's intermittent coughing. "They patrol this area. We saw three, but Madog reported ten to twelve at their camp. There may be more. We are outnumbered, outmaneuvered in this terrain, and they are on their own ground." He let the stark assessment sink in. Panic flickered in Owain's eyes; Griff chewed his lip until it was raw. Rhys merely scowled, while Madog remained impassive. "Our first priority was water. We have some, for now." He gestured to the nearly full waterskins. "But it will not last forever, and each trip to that stream is a gamble with death. Our second, equally pressing, is food." He looked at the small, nearly empty sack that had held Morfudd's provisions. "We have perhaps a day's worth of hard bread left. After that, nothing."
"Hunt?" Rhys scoffed, though the fight in his tone was diminished. "In their woods? With them hunting us? We'd be the bait, not the hunters." "And the symbols on these walls?" Cadogan asked, turning to Dai. "You said they were here when your grandfather came. Do you know what they mean? Who made them?" Dai shook his head slowly. "Old tales, Arglwydd. Whispers. Some say this tower was a shrine to the spirits of the deep wood, long before even the Brythons built their hillforts. The symbols are to appease them, or to mark their power. To disturb them… is to invite their wrath." He looked pointedly at the fresh carvings that mirrored those outside. "These new ones… they are a fresh claim, a warning that the old powers, or those who serve them, are still here."
Spirits or men, the threat was the same. "We cannot afford superstition," Cadogan said, though a chill ran down his spine. "We need practical solutions." He looked around their cramped, filthy shelter. "This tower is all we have. We make it as defensible as possible. Rhys, Madog, your experience is needed. How can we strengthen this entrance beyond that log? What are the weakest points?" He turned to the youths. "Owain, Griff, more rubble for the barricade. And we need to clear firing lines from the breaches upstairs, as much as the crumbling stone allows. Dai, your eyes are still useful. From the ground floor entrance, you watch the closest tree line. Shout at the first sign of anything."
The work was slow, back-breaking, fueled by dwindling hope and growing fear. Rhys, surprisingly, offered some practical advice on how to brace the log barricade more effectively using a wedging technique with smaller stones. Madog, silent as ever, used his knife to sharpen stakes from broken pieces of timber found in the shacks, intending to place them in the ground before the entrance. Cadogan, despite his aching body, worked alongside them, hauling stones, his mind racing. They needed a sustainable food source. The deer tracks Madog had seen earlier were a distant, dangerous prospect. Foraging for edible plants in an unfamiliar, cursed land was equally perilous and unlikely to yield much. His 21st-century brain cataloged the problems: security, sustenance, sanitation (the area outside the tower was rapidly becoming a latrine, another future hazard), and morale. He had rudimentary solutions for some, but all required resources they did not have.
Late in the afternoon, as they toiled, Madog, who had been reinforcing a section of the palisade near the tower with sharpened branches, suddenly went still. He held up a hand for silence. The only sound was the wind. Then, from the east, deeper in the valley, carried on that same wind, came a sound that froze the blood in their veins: a long, mournful call, like that of a hunting horn, but deeper, more resonant, somehow both animalistic and chillingly intelligent. It was answered by another, similar call from the north, then a third from the south, seeming to echo off the surrounding hills. They were being surrounded. Or, at least, the "others" were signaling, coordinating, their presence now an undeniable, tightening net around the ruined tower. The last vestiges of hope seemed to drain from the faces of Owain and Griff. Even Rhys's one good eye darted about with open alarm. The "work" of Glyndŵr, Cadogan thought with a grim internal finality, was no longer about making it serve Caer Maelog. It was about surviving the next few hours.