Chapter Seventeen
Spring 524
At Din Eidyn, war was as much of a ritual as the turning of the year was to those who worked the fields. In the smithy, weapons were prepared and stored. The kitchens stockpiled rations of dried meat, salted fish, cheese, and other non-perishable food items that would sustain us on the long journey to Catraeth and into the siege beyond.
By the time the winter melted into spring, Din Eidyn was home to a motley band of approximately five hundred trained warriors from Evina, Accolon, and Constantine’s armies and another three hundred aspiring soldiers. We had lost a small band of less than fifty boys a few weeks prior when they decided to go off alone in pursuit of the Saxons who had taken Lancelot. Their bodies were found a week later, skewered on pikes in th
