Boudica: Dreaming the Hound
Chapter One
Chapter 1
The water was cold, and made brown by peat and recent rain.
Breaca of Mona, known to all but her family and closest friends as the Boudica, leader of armies and bringer of victory, knelt alone at the side of a mountain stream and washed her face, hands, and the bleeding wound on her upper arm in the torrent. The water ran briefly pink where she had been. She cupped clean water in both palms, rinsed her mouth and spat out the iron aftertaste of blood.
A blue roan mare dozed in the shelter of a nearby beech thicket, the end result of a lifetime's breeding and better than anything Rome could offer. She was haltered but not tethered and came to call, her feet bound in soft leather to dampen the sound of her progress. Mounted, Breaca travelled north and a little east, moving up into the mountains, keeping to rocky trails where Coritani trackers, paid by Rome, would be least likely to find signs of her passing.
If she had scaled the peaks, she could have looked west past further mountains and across the straits to Mona, but she did not. The standard-bearer's warning echoed, disturbingly, with the muted footfalls of her mare and would not be made silent. Y< ... read full excerpt from Boudica: Dreaming the Hound ebook
