My hesitation almost cost me my life. For, as my swordpoint wavered, the warrior thrust at me with his spear. With a shout I jumped back. Paladyr’s spearpoint flashed. In the shattering firelight I saw his lips draw back in a snarl of rage. His mount, guided by the pressure of his master’s knees, turned and drove toward me, eyes wild, nostrils flaring, sharp hooves biting the earth.
I raised my shield to meet the blow. My blade came up under the shield, ready to flick out the instant the shield lifted clear. Even as I readied to strike, my mind was struggling to find the meaning of this strange turn of events: Paladyr. Here. Attacking me!
Was it Paladyr indeed? Or had a cunning demon taken the great warrior’s form to confound and defeat me?
Though the enemy before me might not be human, the rage in his eyes was real enough. Human or not, he meant to kill me. His spear shaft crashed against the iron rim of my shield. The shock shivered the bones in my arm, and my knees buckled. But I raised the sword and cleanly deflected the thrust which followed. The spear swung wide, and I saw the great man’s chest exposed.
In his rage, he had left himself vulnerable. I might easily have pierced his heart with the point of my sword. But I stayed my hand. This was no demon.
“Paladyr!” I shouted. “Hold!”
The fierce snarl of rage that curled his lips relaxed. In the fire glare I saw bewilderment softening those stony features. He glanced to either side and saw that Tegid and I fought alone. His eyes noted the ruin around him, exposed in the light of the beacon flare. His confusion deepened.
I called to Tegid. “Hold, Tegid! These are our kinsmen!”
Tegid left his attack on the second horseman and raced to my side. “Paladyr!” he cried. “Do you not know us, man?”
Recognition dawned in the huge warrior’s eyes. He raised a hand in salute, but the spearpoint remained leveled at our chests. “Tegid?” he said. “How come you to be here, brother?”
Tegid thrust his spear into the ground at his feet. The king’s champion threw down his spear in turn and called for the other warriors to put up their weapons. He dismounted and came to stand before us.
He glanced at the beacon fire and then at the ruined stronghold. He looked long upon it and was shaken by the sight. When at last he found his voice, he spoke. “What has happened here?”
The simple question held a world of anguish. Those with him sat on their horses and mutely contemplated the devastation, stunned, bereft of words.
Tegid stepped toward Paladyr. “Sycharth is destroyed,” he replied. “Our kinsmen are dead. Search where you will, all have entered death’s dark hall and will no more be found in the land of the living.”
Paladyr passed an enormous hand before his eyes. He swayed on his feet, and his jaw muscles worked, but he did not fall or cry out. I saw then how tired he was. They must have been riding for days.
“We saw the beacon,” the champion said. “We thought . . . we thought the caer was . . .” He straightened himself, turned, and mounted his horse. “The king must be told.”
He rode back down the trackway and disappeared into the darkness.
“The king is alive, then,” remarked Tegid. And, indeed, it was Meldryn Mawr himself who appeared before us but a few moments later—haggard and red-eyed from lack of sleep, but it was he. With a small escort of warriors, he appeared at the ruined gate, dismounted, and proceeded to make a circuit of his desolated fortress.
In the lurid glow of the beacon fire, I watched as he moved slowly through the ruins alone. He bore the outrage bravely at first, but the devastation was too great. When he reached the scorched and broken timbers of his hall, he staggered to the ravaged hearth and fell upon his knees, filled his hands with sodden ashes, and flung them over his head. A ragged cry ripped from his throat—a single heartrending shout of unutterable grief and anguish and pain. The warriors, who had begun loudly clamoring for revenge, were shamed into silence by their lord’s distress.
After a time we went to him. His face was smudged with filth, except where his tears had washed twin trails down his cheeks. He stood as we approached. The sadness in his eyes, and in his voice, broke my heart. “Where is Ollathir?” he asked quietly. I think he already guessed the answer.
“He lies under a grave mound on Ynys Bàinail,” Tegid answered.
The king nodded slowly and turned his eyes to me. “Who is this man?”
He did not recognize me from our one brief meeting. I would have answered him, but the question was not for me. “He is the wanderer you sent to become a warrior,” Tegid answered. “He was with Ollathir when he died.”
Despite his shock and sorrow, the king welcomed me and said, “Ollathir is gone, thus Tegid Tathal is become my Chief of Song. Therefore, you are become his sword and shield. Never depart from him. We will all have need of a bard in the days to come. Guard him well, warrior.”
“With my life, Great King,” I pledged.
The king raised his hand to Tegid. “You, Brehon, are all that is left to me of your kind. From this night you will be my bard and my voice. As the voices of my people are silent, so I will be silent. For I tell you the truth, until the voices of my people are heard again in this place, I have no voice.”
The king lifted his head and scanned the black ruin of his once-great stronghold. He stood for a moment, contemplating the horror of death and devastation, as if to fix it in his mind. Then he turned abruptly, swung into the saddle, and started down the track.
As the remaining warriors filed slowly down the trackway, Tegid and I returned to our horses. “Take heart, Tegid,” I told him. “We have held off death a little longer.”
“We have exchanged one grave for another,” he grumbled. “That is all.” “So gloomy,” I told him and heard Goewyn’s soft words in my ear.
“We are still alive. Why think the worst?”
The bard grunted his disdain but stirred himself nonetheless. We pulled up the tether stakes and mounted our horses. Twrch, shivering from the excitement of the fight and fire, barked lustily as I gathered him to me and rode from the caer.
27
THE FLIGHT
TO FINDARGAD
Together with his war band the Great King made the circuit of his lands: Caer Dyffryn, Cnoc Hydd, Yscaw, Dinas Galan, Caer Carnedd. In each settlement and holding he viewed the wicked destruction with the stone-hard silence of a mountain, remote and impenetrable in his grief. None could tell the king’s thought, for he spoke to no one, but viewed the carnage and waste with an unflinching eye.
The warriors howled for justice; they screamed for revenge. They raged. At each place of destruction, at each atrocity of desolation, they renewed their cries for vengeance. Like frenzied hounds baying for blood, they filled the air with their bellowing, shouting taunts and curses, urging the king to ride in pursuit of the enemy. They imagined the enemy could be fought with sword and spear.
But the king knew better. When he had seen enough, King Meldryn turned away from the desolation of his lands and, much to his warriors’ dismay, rode for Findargad, his ice-bound fortress in the vast heart of the high northern peaks of the Cethness Mountains. There the Great King would gather the ragged remnant of his people. For, by some fabulous chance, there were survivors. A few settlements had escaped annihilation: smaller, hidden holdings where the Demon Host did not come. Perhaps these were overlooked in the frenzy of destruction, or were deemed insignificant. However it was, when Meldryn Mawr turned his back on the lowlands and set his face toward Findargad, six hundred souls followed in his train.
Of those six hundred, nearly one hundred and fifty were mounted warriors. The rest were farmers and craftsmen from the holdings. At each settlement where people endured, we gathered only those provisions we could carry easily and moved on. We needed food and warm clothing in order to survive the journey north. Yet we were compelled to travel swiftly and silently lest we attract the notice of Lord Nudd. We could not be burdened with heavy baggage, nor slow our pace for ox-drawn wago
ns. If we went hungry, at least we went quickly.
At Yscaw on the banks of Nantcoll, the river whose headwaters issued from the snowbound heart of Cethness, Tegid erected an ogham tree: an oaken post squared on one side and carved in ogham letters revealing to any who came after us that we had survived.
Then we proceeded along the banks of the swift-racing water northwards into the highlands of the Cethness Mountains. Sollen, most cruel of seasons, showed no mercy—save in one regard: the cold froze the water marge and allowed us to travel at pace along the banks, leaving little evidence of our passing.
We were all kept busy, morning to night. Moving so many people quickly and quietly is arduous work. “It is impossible,” growled Tegid. “Sooner herd a shoal of salmon with a willow wand!” He had reason to complain. The brunt of the chore fell to the bard, for the king would speak no word to anyone except Tegid, who remained by Meldryn’s side at all times. And as I was pledged to Tegid’s aid, I, too, was busy.
Owing to my duties and my vow to watch over Tegid, it was not until the evening of the third day after turning north that I learned that Simon was still alive. In truth, I had not thought about him since leaving Ynys Sci. So much had happened since then that I had scarcely a spare thought for myself, let alone Simon.
But I caught sight of him among the retinue of warriors in Prince Meldron’s band. And the shock of seeing him again brought with it the sharp realization of where I was and why I had come. In that instant, I understood exactly how Simon had felt that day when he discovered me on the battlefield. I deeply resented the reminder that I was a stranger, an outsider, and I lived in a world not my own.
Simon did not see me, so I was able to observe him for a few moments before going to him. He moved in the company of Prince Meldron, who, I quickly learned, maintained an elite force among the warriors—his Wolf Pack, he called them. These had been given the task of guarding our escape, riding at the rear of our procession to challenge any pursuit, which is why I had not seen him sooner. And Simon had won pride of place in the prince’s Wolf Pack. One had only to look at the way the others deferred to him to know it.
He had added some weight to his athletic frame—all of it muscle, especially through the upper arms and shoulders. His back was broad and his legs powerful. I watched him move among his swordbrothers and recognized the old assurance and easy confidence—now heightened by the many victories he had won in Meldryn Mawr’s service. He was a chief of battle, and looked it, with his hair grown long and bound in a queue at his neck. His breecs were fine blue linen, and his siarc was bright yellow; his cloak was green and blue checked. He wore no torc, but boasted four broad armbands of gold and golden rings on the fingers of each hand.
Disagreeable as was the shock of seeing him, I was glad he was alive and well—despite the changes wrought in him during our time apart. For he was no longer the blithe young man I had known, but a Celtic warrior through and through. He might have said the same of me, for I had undergone a similar transformation.
When I had finished my scrutiny, I went to where he sat on a red calfskin beside a small twig fire he shared with three others. “Simon?” At the sound of his name his head swiveled toward me. His eyes played over me for a moment, and recognition broke slowly over his features. “Lewis!”
“So you do remember me, after all.”
He rose to stand before me but did not grip my arms in a kinsman’s greeting. “It is good to see you, friend. I heard you had returned.” Though his tone was light and welcoming, I felt the restrained coolness of his greeting and knew that he was not at all happy to see me. “I have been meaning to find you.”
He was lying, but I let it pass. “You look well, Simon.”
He cocked his head to one side as if trying to decide what to do with me, then laughed softly. “It seems an age since I saw you last,” he said. “How was the island? I hear Scatha has very lovely daughters.” Simon laughed again. His friends smiled and nudged one another.
“That is true,” I replied. “How have you been, Simon? Rising in the world, I see.”
His face clouded suddenly in a frown, and he glared at me for a moment. “I am Siawn Hy now,” he replied quietly, pride and scorn blending in his gaze. His jaw bulged menacingly. I looked at the face of the man I had once known well, and now knew not at all. He had changed—in more than name. “You seem to have done well for yourself.”
“I am still alive.”
Simon accepted this explanation readily. “You always did surprise me.”
“We have all had a few surprises the last few days,” I told him. “I did not mean to disturb you.”
The tension went out of him, and he became expansive in his pardon. “Think nothing of it,” he said loudly. “It was nothing. Less than nothing!” This was said more for his friends’ sakes than for mine. “Here, sit with us; share our fire. We are always glad to have a sword-brother.”
The other warriors heartily concurred, expanding their circle to make room for me. I settled among them, feeling instantly a part of their fellowship. I wondered at how quickly they welcomed me, and then realized that they must have seen me with Tegid and the king and speculated about my exalted position. “They say you were with Ollathir when he died,” said the warrior sitting across the fire from me. It was the accepted way of fishing for information: by indirect statement of fact, usually attributed to someone else.
“I was there,” I replied tersely. It was a subject which I had no wish to discuss openly.
“He was a great bard,” put in the warrior next to Simon. “A king among his kind. His counsel will be keenly missed.”
“That is true,” said another. “If he had been there, Sycharth would not have fallen.”
I could feel the sadness of the warriors; it was no greater than my own, but the horror of devastation was still fresh for them, and they were struggling to imagine the enormity of the loss.
One of them turned to me. “They say you and Tegid lit the beacon. Were you there when the destroyer came? Did you see it?”
The question carried with it the mild insinuation that Tegid and I should have done something to save the stronghold. “No,” I told them. “Like you, Tegid and I came after. But as to that, why were you not there to protect your kinsmen?”
There I had probed the raw wound of their regret. They all winced and gazed sullenly at the fire. One of their number, a warrior named Aedd, spoke for all of them. “I would gladly die a thousand deaths to save even one of my kinsmen.”
“Ten thousand,” added the warrior sitting next to him. “If we had only been there . . .”
I could not take away their grief, but I could ease their pain. “It would not have mattered,” I told them. “I have seen the enemy, and I tell you the truth—you would have been slaughtered with all the rest.”
“Who is it?” they wanted to know, suddenly angry. They leapt up as if they meant to seize their weapons and ride away at once. “Who has done this?”
Before I could answer, Simon spoke up. “Sit!” he commanded. “You have seen Caer Dyffryn and Yscaw and Dinas Galan. We could have done nothing.”
“It may be as you say,” Aedd replied, slowly taking his place once more. “But a warrior who fails to protect his own is worse than a coward. Better that we should have died with our kin.”
“Your presence there would have made no difference,” I repeated with as much conviction as I could muster. “There is no virtue in useless death.”
“Well said,” agreed Simon quickly. “Dead we can do nothing. But alive we have a chance to avenge our kinsmen.”
They all agreed heartily with this and voiced their approval with solemn vows to kill as many of the enemy as possible when the day of retribution came. They still did not comprehend the hopelessness of our predicament. I did not have the heart to disappoint them; they would learn the truth soon enough.
The warriors accepted the small comfort I offered. “The blood debt to be repaid is heavy indeed,” Aedd obse
rved. “Still, it is shame to me that I was not with my kinsmen in their time of travail.”
“That is what we thought to prevent,” Simon reminded him.
“When Tegid and I arrived at the caer,” I said, returning to my question, “we thought you dead. We could not imagine what had taken you from the stronghold.”
“We rode to the summons,” Aedd replied and went on to explain how word about a coming invasion had reached them from the southwest coast. Thinking to forestall the assault, the king had raised the warriors of his hearth and left the caer. They ranged far in protection of the realm but sighted no invaders, and after many days with the weather growing worse, they had turned back.
“When we saw the beacon fire, we thought—” Aedd halted abruptly, unwilling to go on.
The soft splutter of the twig fire and the sigh of the rising wind made a melancholy sound in our ears. After a moment, Simon said, “Hear me, brothers. The blood debt will be repaid. We will avenge our dead. The enemy will be crushed into dust beneath our feet.”
Despite Simon’s brave words, the warriors’ sorrow was too great to shrug aside easily. Given time, bold words would again ignite the spark of their valor; they would rise up and clasp courage to their hearts. But not now, not this night. This night, and for many more nights to come, the lament for the lost would fill their souls, and their hearts would remain heavy with mourning.
I left them to nurse their grief and returned to my place with Tegid and the king. Prince Meldron was there, too, vainly trying to pry some word of explanation from his father. At last he yielded to the king’s stubborn silence and stormed away, saying, “You talk to him, Tegid. Perhaps he will listen to you. Tell my father that we cannot reach Findargad like this. It is too far and too cold. The high mountain passes will be filled with snow. We will lose half our people before we ever come within sight of the towers. Tell him that, Tegid!”
“I have already told him,” Tegid mumbled, when Meldron had gone. “He will not listen.”