The sound shivered the air as the dark tongue boomed out from the top of the mound and echoed across the plain. “Dyrnod tymestl, rhuo tymestl! Terfesgu! Terfesgu!”
Cold wind shrieked in the heights; clouds—swarming, swelling, surging—streamed over the plain. The storm struck fierce and strong. Rain pelted down in stinging sheets, scouring the plain.
The tempest crashed. Thunder rolled. The warriors advanced, mounting to the slopes of the holy mound. Llew shouted, taking up an oaken staff as a weapon. Bryno lifted his face to the sky and called down the wind and the rain.
The enemy advanced. The remaining Derwyddi descended to meet them; better death than suffering the foeman’s foot on the holy mound. And they did die. The attackers, grim-faced and determined, made quick work of the unprotected, unarmed bards. The foemen wiped the gore from their blades on the bodies before them and moved on.
The first warriors reached the top of the mound. I gripped my staff and dashed at them, swinging the stout length of rowan like a club. The warrior—I knew the man; he was a kinsman!—stumbled back. I struck at him with the staff, catching him on the top of the shoulder. He screamed in pain and dropped the sword.
Before I could strike again, a blade flashed, cleaving the staff in two. I heard a rush behind me and felt strong hands on my throat. I tore at the hands and more hands seized me, grabbing my arms and holding them back.
“Llew!” I shouted, fighting furiously. From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Llew struggling with three foemen. They had him pinned to the ground and were hammering at his face and chest with their fists, trying to subdue him. One of them raised the hilt of his sword and smashed it down on the top on Llew’s skull.
“Llew!”
I screamed like a beast. I flailed with my feet and was dragged down. As I fell, I saw Bryno sitting on the ground with his back against the pillar stone. Rain streamed down his face, mingling with the blood flowing freely from the gash in his throat. Blood smeared the pillar stone behind him and soaked the ground. One of the Wolf Pack stood over him, wiping his blade on Bryno’s beard.
Blood and rain and howling wind. The screams of the dying . . . death . . . abomination in the sacred center . . . atrocity and death . . .
It was quickly over. With Bryno silenced, the storm dispersed, melting away, sunlight breaking through the swiftly dissolving clouds. I squinted against the light and looked at the bodies of my brothers lying where they had fallen. The holy mound, the gorsedd, had become their grave.
All those not already dead were put to the sword. Llew and I only were saved.
Llew was dragged unconscious from the mound. I was half-thrown, half-carried down the slope to stand before Prince Meldron, who greeted me with a fist in my teeth. Siawn Hy laughed to see it, and his wicked laughter pierced my heart more cruelly than the red-stained spear blade in his hand. His eyes were wild and cold with hate.
“Did you think you could escape me, bard?” Meldron demanded.
I spat at him. He hit me again, and warm blood filled my mouth.
“Seeking alliance with the Cruin,” he continued, shaking his head in mock disappointment. “That was very chancy. You hoped for support, but Calbha turned you out instead.”
Llew groaned where he lay. Meldron stepped to him, grabbed a handful of hair, and snatched his head upright. “Foolish to travel without weapons,” the prince observed mildly. “Especially for a king.”
“Perhaps he is the king of fools,” Siawn Hy remarked.
The prince laughed and released Llew’s head. Turning again to me, he said, “You left before I finished with you. I always finish what I have begun; you should know that, Tegid.”
“Do what you will, Meldron,” I muttered through bleeding lips. “Kill me and be done with it. You will receive nothing from me.”
“I want nothing from you, bard,” he sneered, “except what belongs to me.”
I knew what he wanted, but I would die before giving it to him. “I have given the kingship to Llew. He is king of Prydain.”
“I am king of Prydain,” Meldron insisted with a snarl.
“I will never see you king,” I replied.
“For a Wise One, you are very stupid,” he said, his voice hard-edged as the blade at his side. “Do you still say that Llew is king of Prydain?”
“Yes, I say it!”
Meldron glanced at Siawn, who smiled wickedly.
“But is it true that a maimed man can never be king?” Siawn asked, leaning casually on his spear.
“That is the truth of it,” I replied. “The blemished man cannot be king.”
Llew moaned and opened his eyes. Consciousness returned to him, and he struggled in the arms of his captors. “Simon!” he hissed, calling Siawn by his former name.
“Good of you to join us, friend,” Siawn replied darkly, and then nodded to Meldron.
“Stretch out his sword arm,” Meldron ordered, drawing his blade.
The men holding Llew forced him up onto his knees. After a struggle, one raised Llew’s right arm, and another took hold of his hand, and together they stretched it between them. “No!” shouted Llew, struggling to pull his hand away.
“Do not do it, Meldron!” I shouted.
Meldron moved to the kneeling figure. “I want him to see this,” he said. “I want everyone to see it.”
The third warrior seized Llew by the hair and turned his head to look along his outstretched arm. “N-n-n-o-o-o!” Llew groaned.
My own head was held in a tight grip so that I could not look away. “Stop!” I shouted.
Meldron brought the sword up and dropped the blade sharply. There sounded a dull chunk, the sword rang, and Llew’s right hand came away in a bright spray of blood. His eyes fluttered in his head and he collapsed.
Meldron picked up the severed hand and held it before me. He removed the gold ring which his father, Meldryn Mawr, had given Llew and placed it on his own finger. I made to look away but could not. “You see?” he said, dangling the hand before my face by the forefinger. “Llew is blemished. He is maimed. He can no longer be king. Now you must choose someone else.”
“I will never see you king.”
“So be it,” Meldron replied savagely.
The sword in his hand flicked out. Instinctively, I jerked my head back, but it was held fast in the grip of my captors. Meldron slashed the blade across my eyes.
I screamed. The world blazed red-hot red, molten red, and then . . . black.
9
CAST ADRIFT
We were dragged down from the White Rock to the beach and tumbled into one of the curraghs waiting there. Half-conscious, I felt the boat shoved across the sand and into the water, and we were cast onto the mercy of the waves.
My eyes were on fire. I lay in the bottom of the curragh, aware of nothing but the blazing agony. I screamed, and heard the voices of men laughing in reply. These dwindled and became the voices of gulls. I heard water lapping at the sides of the boat . . . and I fainted.
I do not know how long I swooned. But the flaming ache in my head roused me, and I sat up. The movement brought such pain that my stomach heaved, and I vomited over myself. I slumped back and fell over Llew.
He groaned and I remembered his hand. His hand!
I struggled upright, clawing at the side of the boat. It felt as if my head would burst. My face throbbed. I leaned over, scooped sea water into my hands and splashed it on my face. The salt water stung my wounded eyes and the pain flared white-hot pain like a firebrand burning into my eyes. I gagged and fell back.
My head cleared and I pulled myself upright. Cursing Meldron and my own torment, I stretched my hands over Llew’s inert body and began to examine him.
He was lying on his side, his arms bent at the elbow, the forearm hanging across his chest. I felt carefully along the length of the arm to the wrist and hand. It was whole; he was lying on his wounded arm.
I raised myself up on my knees beside him and, with difficulty, lifted him and rolled hi
m onto his back. The wounded arm came free. Carefully, carefully, I raised the arm and cradled it against me while with gentle fingers I probed the wound.
Blood bubbled from the stump, warm and thick. I think he had been lying on the wound and the weight of his body on the doubled arm had constricted the flow of blood; this had saved his life. By turning him I had started the bleeding again, but I had no other choice; and if I was to help him, I had to complete my scrutiny. With my fingertips, I softly brushed the raw stump of his arm. Meldron’s blade was sharp; the bones and flesh were cut clean.
I lowered the stump carefully and quickly seized the edge of my siarc between my hands and ripped it. I then tore the cloth into a wide strip and, groping for the side of the boat, I wet the strip of cloth in the sea.
My head felt as if it would burst at any moment. Grinding my teeth against the pain, I forced myself to finish what I had begun. I gathered the wounded arm to me and began to wrap the handless stub with the sea-soaked cloth.
Blood surged from the wound with every pulse of Llew’s heart. I could feel it leaking through the cloth. I tore another strip and bound that around the first; and then a third strip, which I used to bind the other two, tying the ends as tightly as I could. I bent the arm at the elbow and nestled it against his chest, hoping he would not bleed to death. There was nothing more I could do for him. Dizzy and weak from my exertion, I ripped another length of cloth from my siarc; I wet it in the sea and, braving the stinging lash of salt water, bound the strip around my eyes. I vomited again. And then, strength spent, I slumped back in the boat, groaning with fatigue and pain.
Blind! All was dark and formless to me. I would never again see the faces of my kinsmen and brothers—never again see the light. Blind! My world had become as dark as grief, as dark as the sealed tomb, as dark as Uffern’s black pit, as dark as endless death.
I lay curled in the bottom of the small boat and wept bitterly for my lost vision, and for the agony of my ruined eyes until at last, exhausted by misery, I sank into an empty sleep.
The torment of my slashed eyes woke me. I did not stir, but lay listening for a moment. The wind remained but slight; the wavelets slapped against the side of the boat without force. The tide flow around the island was not heavy; it would take us but a little distance out from the western shore of Ynys Oer. Then we would be subject to the sea currents and the weather.
If the winds held steady from the north we would be blown south along the western coast of Albion, to be driven aground somewhere on a strip of deserted coastland. If the winds became fitful and erratic—much more likely in this changeable season—we would drift further westward and arrive I knew not where.
At best, landfall was merely a remote possibility. We had no oars, no sail, no provisions. A single large wave would easily capsize us; a small tip of jagged rock would pierce the stretched leather sides of the curragh. We were at the mercy of the wind and rocks and water.
Meldron had been canny. He had not murdered us outright, but left our fate to the sea. That way he could, in all truth, claim not to know how we had fared. He would incur no blood debt for our deaths.
Oh, but the blood debt he owed for the deaths of the Derwyddi was vast indeed. Had he owned a gleaming mountain of gold and all the sheep, cattle, handmaids, and serving men in the Three Realms, still he could not have paid it.
Sun and stars, bear witness! Lord Nudd, Prince of Uffern and Annwn, King of the Coranyid, Sovereign of Eternal Night—he it was who had slain the bards of Prydain. But Prince Meldron had slain the rest. No bards were left in Caledon or Llogres. No bards were left in the Island of the Mighty.
No, no . . . I was yet alive a little longer, and Scatha’s daughters were safe on Ynys Sci.
Llew moaned and came awake with a scream. I raised my throbbing head and put out a hand to him. “Be easy, brother,” I told him. “I am here. Be still.”
“Tegid!” he began, and then convulsed in agony. He shut his mouth and stifled a cry; the sound emerged as a tortured whimper. My fumbling hand found his back. I could feel him straining against the pain, muscles tight, sweat drenching his clothes. He fainted again and lay still.
I drowsed.
When I woke again, the air was cool on my face and the sea still. I reckoned by this that it was night. Llew must have been waiting for me to awaken, for when I stirred, he said, “Where are we? What has happened?” His voice cracked, and his words slurred with pain.
“We are cast adrift,” I told him. “Meldron has abandoned us to our deaths.”
He was silent for a time, and then said, miserably, “I am so cold.”
“Here, take this.” I found my cloak and held it out. He took one end of it and I the other; we shared the cloak between us.
“My hand, and your eyes . . . Tegid, what are we going to do?”
“That is for the sea to decide. It is for us to wait.”
We waited: through an endless, everlasting night. All the next day we lay in the boat, hardly moving. When the sun slipped below the rim of the world, we huddled together in the bottom of the boat to keep warm. We drowsed fitfully, never fully asleep for the throbbing of our wounds. My eyes, his hand—what could we do?
The weather held fair and we counted that a blessing. From time to time, Llew raised himself to look around. But we were far from land, and I could get no sense of our location from Llew’s description.
On the fourth day, the wind rose and swung to the west. The waves grew, lifting our small boat, tossing it from side to side. With each lurch and shudder we were slammed against the sides, against the curved wooden ribs of the curragh. Llew cried out whenever his wounded stump was jostled.
Night gave us no relief. The storm strengthened. The sea heaved; waves swelled and toppled over us. Exhausted, Llew swooned, and I cradled him against me so that he would do no further hurt to himself. I held him, and he muttered incoherently as the troubled sea tossed our little vessel. I heard a strange grating sound, and I listened to it for some time before realizing that it was Llew grinding his teeth. I tied a knot in the corner of my cloak and thrust it between his teeth, lest he bite through his tongue.
The gale increased through the night. I heard thunder growling and felt the sting of wind-lashed rain on my face, but saw no lightning flash. As the furious heart of the storm swept down upon us, Llew roused himself. “Sing, Tegid!” he shouted above the shriek of the wind.
I thought him ranting. “Peace, brother. Be easy. It will soon end,” I said, thinking that our boat would founder on the next wave, and we would be spilled into the sea to drown. We would soon join the bards of Albion in death—but two more among all the others Meldron had murdered.
Llew struggled upright. “Sing!” he insisted. “Sing us to shore!”
Though the wind wailed high and wild above us, and the sea swell crashed on every side, I raised my voice and sang—haltingly at first, finding my way. The gale snatched the words from my mouth and hurled them back in my face. “What is the use?” I shouted.
“Sing!” demanded Llew. “Sing to the Swift Sure Hand, Tegid!”
I lifted my voice in a song of deliverance to the Many-Gifted. I sang the manifold virtues of the Great Good God; I sang the zealous pleasure of the Swift Sure Hand to heed and help all who call upon him.
And as I formed the song and gave it utterance, images, sharp and clear, sprang into my mind. I saw . . . a steep-sided glen in deep forest, tall pines straining for the sky . . . I saw a hidden lake and a fortress of timber . . . I saw an antler throne on a grass-covered mound, adorned with an oxhide of snowy white . . . I saw a burnished shield with a black raven perched on its rim . . . I saw a beacon fire burning bright from a distant hilltop, and answered from the top of nearer hills . . . I saw a rider on a pale yellow horse, galloping out of the mist, the horse’s hooves striking sparks from the rocks . . . I saw a mighty war band washing themselves in a high mountain lake, the water stained red with blood . . . I saw a white-mantled woman standing in a green bow
er with the light of the sun flaring her hair like golden fire . . . I saw a cairn in a hidden glen, a secret, secluded grave mound . . .
I sang, and the tempest raged. Our leather boat pitched and lurched, now lifted high and now flung low. We were blown over the billowing swell like a fleck of sea foam before the gale. Water cascaded over us, drenching us, chilling us. The salt water burned in my wound and filled my mouth.
With every lurch of the boat, Llew yelped with pain. “Sing, Tegid! Sing!” he kept shouting, and I thought he must be delirious in his torment. Yet he persisted, and so I sang. And the visions swarmed and danced in my head, crazy as the tempest whirling around us.
“Do you hear, Tegid?” cried Llew, his voice swallowed in the wind roar. “Hear it?”
I listened and heard nothing but the wind’s wild shriek, and the water’s roar as waves crashed on the rocks—the rocks!
“Do you hear it, Tegid?”
“Yes! I hear it!” It was the sound of waves beating and breaking over rocks. The storm was driving us toward the shore. “Can you see anything?”
“No,” he replied. “Wait! I see something. I see the rocks. I can see where the waves are breaking.”
“Can you see land?”
“It is too dark.”
He grasped my arm with his good hand. “Keep singing, Tegid! Sing us to land!”
I sang, and the sound of crashing waves grew to fill the tempest-tossed night. Closer, I could almost feel the jagged teeth of the rocks gnashing in the storm, looming ever closer, clashing out of the darkness to tear and crush and destroy. Water gushed in torrents over us as the sea rent itself in the rocks all around. My voice was drowned in the wave roar, yet I sang, claiming a small circle of safety for our little boat amidst the sea wrack.
I felt the sea gather beneath us like a beast, bucking and heaving. We were thrown high, spun around, and flicked as lightly as a leaf in the swirl. Sea thunder sounded from every side, shattering ear and mind, shaking the soul.