The Endless Knot by Stephen Lawhead Page B

hold?”
    â€œOh, aye,” he said, stepping back from the wall to look at his labor. “It will hold.” He raised his voice to shout the order. “Pull it down! Pull it down, men!”
    Ropes stretched taut. The wall section wobbled and swayed, but would not fall.
    â€œPull!” shouted Cynan, leaping to the nearest rope.
    I joined him, lending my weight to the effort. We heaved on the ropes, and the timbers groaned. “Pull!” Cynan cried. “Everyone! All together! Pull!”
    The timbers sighed and then gave way with a shuddering crash. We stood gazing through a clear gap at the lake beyond. “Those houses next!” Cynan ordered, stooping for his ax.
    Two heartbeats later, a score of axes shivered the rooftrees of three houses as yet untouched by the relentless encroaching flames.
    Seizing one of the rakes, I began attacking the smoldering thatch of a nearby roof, throwing the rake as high up the slope as I could reach and pulling, pulling, pulling down with all my might, scattering the bundled thatch, and then beating out the glowing reeds as they lay at my feet.
    When I finished one roof, I rushed to another, and then another. My arms ached and my eyes watered. I choked on smoke. Live embers caught in the cloth of my siarc, so I stripped it off and braved the burns of falling thatch. The heat singed my hair; it felt as if my skin was blistering. But I worked on, sometimes with help, more often alone. Everyone was doing whatever could be done.
    â€œLlew!” I heard someone shout my name. I turned just in time to see a pair of long horns swing out of the smoke haze. I dodged to one side as the curved horn cut a swathe through the air where I stood. An ox had broken free from its tether and, frightened out of its dim wits, was intent on returning to its pen. The stupid beast was running among burning huts, looking for its shed. Snatching up my siarc, I waved and shouted, turning the animal away. It rumbled off the way it had come, but no one gave chase. We had enough to do trying to stay ahead of the flames.
    Everywhere I turned, there was a new emergency. We flew to each fresh crisis swiftly, but with a little less energy than the one before. Strength began to flag—and then to fail. My arms grew heavy and numb. My hand was raw from the rake handle and from burns. I could not catch my breath; my lungs heaved and the air wheezed in my throat. Still, I doggedly planted one foot in front of the other and labored on.
    And when I began to think that we must abandon our work to the flames, Bran and the Ravens appeared with several score men and warriors. With a shout they swooped to the task. Within moments of their arrival, or so it seemed to me, we were working harder than ever before. Raking thatch, beating flames, smothering sparks—raking, beating, smothering, over and over and over again and again.
    Time passed as in a dream. Heat licked my skin; smoke stung my nose, and my eyes watered. But I toiled on. Gradually, the fire’s glare dimmed. I felt cooler air on my scorched skin, and I stopped.
    A hundred men or more stood around me, clutching tools, vessels, and cloaks in unfeeling hands. We stood, heads bowed, our arms limp at our sides, or kneeling, leaning on our rakes for support. And all around us the quiet hiss of hot embers slowly dying . . .
    â€œA fine night’s work,” growled Cynan in a voice ragged as the remains of his burnt tatters of clothing.
    I raised my head and turned raw eyes to a sky showing gray in the east. In the pale, spectral light, Dinas Dwr appeared as a vast heap of charred timber and smoking ash.
    â€œI want to see what is left,” I told Cynan. “We should look for the injured.”
    â€œI will look after the men here,” Bran said. He swayed on his feet with fatigue, but I knew he would not rest until all the others were settled. So I charged him to do what he deemed best, and left him to it.
    In the grim, gray