Free The Pendragon's Challenge (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 7) by Sarah Woodbury

ten to garrison Dinas Bran.
    Rhiann walked up to her husband and put a hand on his arm. “What’s wrong?”
    Cade had been gazing pensively towards the keep. At her question, he blinked and looked down at her. “I’m trying to see the future.”
    Despite the tension in the air, or maybe because of it, she laughed. “Taliesin couldn’t tell us exactly what is to come. Why do you think you should be able to?”
    “It is a king’s duty to head off trouble before it starts.” He frowned. “I sent all of my seers off with Taliesin, and perhaps I shouldn’t have done that.”
    Rhiann looked at him quizzically. “All your seers? You mean Catrin?”
    “Goronwy is one too.” He gave a quick shake of his head. “I’m sorry I never told you, but he avoided speaking of it to anyone.”
    Rhiann let out a breath of surprise. “I never even guessed.”
    “I fear the trouble they might find on this path Taliesin has chosen.”
    “The trouble started long before you were born. We may keep it at bay for a time, but we can only do the best we can with what we have been given.”
    He smiled at her. “Accept what is before me and what I cannot change, is that it?” He gently boosted Rhiann onto her horse. She was still early enough into her pregnancy that it hardly showed, but they were both always conscious of the other heart beating inside her and their need to protect it.
    “You said it, not me. I only meant that you didn’t create the problems before us. You inherited them.” Then Rhiann felt a gust of air on her cheek and turned into it. The weather rarely came from the north, especially at this time of year and at this hour of the night. Cade noted her concern and asked about it.
    “I was just thinking that it’s an odd time for the wind to change direction.”
    “Nothing about tonight feels as it should. Taliesin was right. We should get moving.” His hand on the hilt of his sword, as if the weapon would help against the storm that was coming, Cade ran to his own horse and mounted.
    Dafydd was acting as Cade’s captain tonight, and all Cade’s men required was a jerk of Dafydd’s head to know that it was time to go. As they rode under the gatehouse, Cade tucked his horse in close to Rhiann’s, the pair of them third in the line of horses.
    As they left the castle behind them, Rhiann gripped the reins tightly with both hands. “Something is wrong, Cade. Even I can feel it.” They were moving at a canter, which was a little fast for the terrain, but their speed brought them a third of the way down the mountain in a matter of a quarter-hour.
    Cade reached out a hand and briefly squeezed her shoulder. “I know how you feel, but I don’t know what’s wrong—and believe me, I don’t like that I don’t know.”
    Boom!
    Every horse in the company staggered, and then the lead horse reared. The rider, Gruffydd, struggled for control even as he loosened his feet in the stirrups in preparation for jumping off. The horse didn’t give him the chance, however, and a heartbeat later, it took off down the road at a gallop.
    It was only as her own horse bucked that Rhiann realized that the ground, as well as her horse, was shaking. Her elbow bumped into Cade’s as he leaned over to grasp her horse’s bridle. “Follow Gruffydd! Ride now!”
    Dafydd, who’d been keeping to a position just in front of Cade, Angharad at his side, relayed the order. As one, the company charged after the spooked horse. It was actually easier to urge her horse into a gallop than it had been for Rhiann to try to control it. As it raced down the mountain, the horse spent as much time in the air as on the ground and, once in motion, Rhiann hardly noticed the shifting earth beneath its feet.
    They kept going until they were almost to the village, at which point the road narrowed at the river crossing, and they were forced to slow. Normally Rhiann’s horse was as sedate as could be, but she continued to shake. The earth itself, however, had