Tegid was thunderstruck. He knelt in the long grass with his hands resting on his thighs, staring blankly at the bare hump of weather-worn rock protruding from the ground. Cynan used his

215

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

sword to hack away some of the turf while Scatha and I looked on. The wind gusted fitfully around us and the horses whickered uneasily. I noticed that though the grass was long and green, the horses refused to eat more than a few mouthfuls.

Cynan sliced with the edge of his sword, and rolled away grass and earth in a thick mat. Then he dug with his hands. When he had finished, a portion of grey stone lay exposed to view. The flat, smooth surface of the stone was incised with lines deep-cut and even-the remains of the saining symbols originally carved into the pillar stone.

We all stared at the peculiar marks and struggled to imagine how the great standing stone would have appeared to those who had built the mound and raised it. A relic of the remote past, before the Fair Land declined, the broken stone seemed to defy understanding even as it commanded veneration. It was as if we were confronted by a presence that both overwhelmed and beguiled. No one spoke. We just stood looking on...

Tegid~ was first to shake off the unnatural fascination. Rising slowly, he staggered and made an arc in the air with his staff. "Enough!" he said, his voice thick and sluggish. "Let us leave this place."

As he spoke, I felt a sudden and virulent resentment at his suggestion. I wanted only to be allowed to remain as I was, quietly contemplating the broken pillar stone. Tegid's voice reached me as a grating annoyance.

"Llew! Cynan! Scatha!" he shouted. "We must flee this place at once."

Into my mind came an image of Tegid lying on the ground bleeding from his nose and mouth; I could feel his staff in my hands. I was seized by an urge to strike the bard down with his own staff. I wanted to punish him for disturbing me. I wanted to make him bleed and die.

"Llew! Come, we must-"

His face swam before me, concern creasing his brow. I felt his hands, grasping, clawing...

"Llew!"

216

SONG OF ALBION

I do not remember moving-nor raising my silver hand at all. I saw a shimmering blaze out of the corner of my eye and felt a jolt in my shoulder. And then Tegid-lurching, falling, hands clutching his head

Bright red blood on green grass, and Tegid's staff in my hands... and then Cynan's arms were around me and I was struggling

in his grasp as he lifted my feet off the ground.

"Liew! Let be!" Cynan's voice was loud in my ear. "Peace, brother. Peace!"

"Cynan?" I said, and felt myself returning as if from a great distance, or emerging from a waking dream. "Release me. Put me down."

He still held me above the ground, but I felt his grip loosen somewhat. "It is over, brother," I reassured him earnestly. "Please, put me down."

Cynan released me and together we knelt over Tegid, who was lying dazed on the ground, bleeding from a nasty gash over his temple.

"Tegid?" I said. His eyes rolled in his head and came to rest on me. He moaned. "I am sorry," I told him. "I do not know what happened to me. Can you stand?"

"Ahhh, I think so. Help me." Cynan and I raised him between us, and held him until he was steady on his feet. "That metal hand of yours is harder than it looks-and quicker," he said. "I will be better prepared next time."

"I am sorry, Tegid. I do not know what came over me. It was... uh, I am sorry."

"Come," he replied, shaking off the assault, "we will speak no more of it now. We must leave here at once."

Cynan handed Tegid his staff, and threw me a wary glance. "The horses have strayed. I will bring them," he said, but seemed reluctant to leave.

"Go," I said. "I will not attack Tegid again." Still, he hesitated. "Truly, Cynan. Go."

As Cynan indicated, the horses had strayed. Indeed, they had

217

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

wandered far across the plain and were now some distance from us. "They must have bolted," I observed, watching Cynan stride away. "But I do not remember it."

Wiping blood from his face with the edge of his cloak, Tegid squinted up at the sky and announced, 'We have lingered here longer than we knew."

"What do you mean?" I asked, following his gaze skyward. I tried to gauge the position of the sun, but the bright morning had faded and thick clouds now gathered overhead. How long had we stood there?

"The day has passed us," the bard declared. "It will be dark soon."

"But that cannot be," I objected. "We dismounted only a few moments ago."

He shook his head gravely. "No," he insisted, "the day is spent. We must make haste if we are to reach camp before dark." He called to Scatha and started off after Cynan.

Scatha made no move to join us. Her spear lay on the ground beside her. I retrieved the weapon, and put my hand on her arm. "Scatha?" The skin was cold and hard beneath my touch-more like stone than living flesh. "Tegid!" I shouted.

He was beside me in an instant. "Scatha!" He shouted her name loud in her ear. "Scatha! Hear me!" He shouted her name once and again, but her eyes stared emptily ahead-wide and eerily intent, as if she were transfixed by something that demanded all her attention.

When she did not respond, Tegid groaned deep in his throat and, dropping his staff, seized her by the arms and turned the unresisting Pen-y-Cat bodily away from the stone. He shook her, but she did not respond.

"Let us take her away from here," I suggested. "Maybe-"

The bard's hand flicked out and struck her cheek. The sound of the slap shocked me, but brought no response from Scatha. He slapped her again, and shook her hard. "Scatha! Fight it, Scatha. Resist!"

His open palm connected and her head snapped back. I could

218

SONG OF ALBION

trace the print of his hand on her cheek. He shook her and raised his hand to strike again.

"No!" I said, catching his wrist. "Enough. It is enough. It is not working." On a sudden inspiration, I suggested: "Here, I will carry her."

Without waiting for Tegid's assent, I swept Scatha into my arms and began moving away from the stone. Her body, at first rigid, relaxed as soon as I lifted her feet off the ground and turned my back on the broken stone.

She moaned softly, and closed her eyes. In a moment, tears slipped from under her lashes to slide down the side of her face. I stopped walking and put her down. She leaned heavily against me. "Scatha," I said, "can you hear me?"

"Llew... oh, Llew," she said, drawing a shaky breath. "What is happening?"

"It is well. We are leaving this place. Can you walk?"

"I feel so-lost," she said. "A pit opened at my feet-I stood at the edge and I felt myself falling. I tried to save myself~ but I could not move... I could not scream.. ." She raised her fingertips to her reddened cheek. "I heard someone calling me. .

"This place is cursed," Tegid said. "We must go from here."

Supporting her between us, we began walking to where Cynan was laboring to catch the horses. They were skittish and he was having difficulty getting close enough to grab the dangling reins. We watched as he stole closer, lunged, grabbed-only to have the horse shy, buck, and run away. Cynan picked himself up off the ground and stamped his foot as the horses galloped further out of reach.

"It is no use," he said, as we drew near. "The stupid beasts are frightened and flee at shadows. I cannot get near them."

"Then we must walk back to camp," Tegid replied, moving off.

"What about the horses?" I asked. "We cannot-"

"Leave them."

"We need our weapons, at least," I maintained. Scatha had kept her spear, but Cynan and I had left ours beneath our saddles when we dismounted.

219

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

"Leave them!" the bard shouted, turning to confront us. His voice resounded emptily over the plain. "Believe me when I say that this mound is no safe place for us after dark. Our only protection lies within the circle of the fire."

He turned away again and began striding through the grass with long, swinging steps. Cynan, Scatha and I followed. Tegid was right, the level expanse of the circular plain was unbroken by any feature we could use to advantage. There were no trees, no rocks, no hollows for hiding.

I glanced back at the stump of stone behind us, and saw the eastern sky dark with fast-approaching night. How odd, I thought-I had never known daylight to fade so swiftly.

And with the advance of darkness, there arose a distant, wailing whine, like the howl of the wind in high mountain peaks-but there were no mountain peaks nearby, and it was not the wind I heard.

220

21

 

 

The Sluagh

 

 

Darkness overtook us as we hastened from the broken pillar stone. I do not think that even with our horses we could have reached the camp before nightfall. The way back was farther than I remembered it, and the weird twilight came on with unnatural speed. Horses could not have outrun it. Also, with the swiftly-deepening night, the eerie wail increased, as if the source of the uncanny sound were drawing relentlessly nearer.

Tegid kept one eye on the sky as we hurried along. As soon as he saw we could not reach camp before night overtook us, he announced, "We must make for the nearest slope. There we can find fuel for a fire at least."

"That is well," Cynan agreed. "But where is it? I can see nothing in this murk."

Tegid's plan was a good one; the banks of the mound were thickly forested, and firewood abounded. But how could we be certain which way to go when we could not see two steps in front of us?

"We should be near the edge of the plain," Tegid said. The pillar stone marked the center and we have been moving away from it--"

"Aye," allowed Cynan, "if we have not been making circles around it instead."

Tegid ignored the remark, and we rushed on. We had not

221

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

advanced more than a hundred paces, however, when Scatha halted.

"Listen!"

I stopped, but heard only the weird wailing sound which, apart from growing slightly louder, had not altered in any significant way. "What is it?"

"Dogs," she said. "I thought I heard dogs."

"I hear nothing," said Cynan. "Are you cert-" The bark of a dog-short, quick, unmistakable-cut him off.

"This way! Hurry!" shouted Tegid, darting ahead.

No doubt the bard thought we were right behind him, following in his footsteps. But I turned, and he had already melted into the darkness. "Tegid, wait! Where are you? Cynan?"

A muffled answer reached us. "This way... follow me. . ." "Tegid?" I called, searching the darkness. "Tegid!"

"Where have they gone?" Scatha wondered. "Did you see?" "No," I confessed. "They just vanished."

The dog-barked again-if dog it was.

"It is closer," Scatha said, and the bark was immediately followed by another, a little further off and to the left.

"Yes, and there are more than one." I glanced this way and that, but could see nothing in any direction to guide us. Darkness had penetrated all, obliterated all. 'We'd better keep moving."

"Which way should we go?" Scatha wondered aloud.

"Any way will be better than standing here," I replied. I put out ny hand and grabbed hold of Scatha's cloak; she took the end of mine. "We will stay together," I told her. "Hold tight, and keep your spear ready."

Clutching one another's cloaks, we proceeded into the formless dark. I did not for a moment entertain any false hopes of eluding the beasts behind us. But I thought,we might at least find a place to make ~ stand if we reached the slope of the mound before the creature on ~ur trail reached us.

We went with as much speed as we dared. It is unnerving running blind. Every step becomes a battle against hesitation, igainst fear. And the steps do not grow easier with success. Indeed,

222

SONG OF ALBION

the fear grows with every step until it becomes a dominating force.

But for Scatha's presence beside me, I would have halted every few steps to work up my courage. But I did not care to appear weak or fainthearted in her eyes, so I braced myself for the inevitable bone. breaking fall-and ran on.

All the while, the barking of the dogs grew louder and more insistent as they drew nearer. Their numbers seemed to have increased as well, for I thought I could make out at least five individual voices-at least, there were more than the two we had heard before.

Whether we would ever have reached camp this way, I will never know. Likely it was as Tegid had said-that darkness held no safety for any creature alone on the mound, and fire offered the only protection. We did, however, reach the rim of the plain and fell sprawling over one another as the ground tilted away beneath us without warning.

I fell, half-tumbling, half-sliding down the unseen slope, and landed on my side, knocking the breath from my lungs. It was a moment before I could speak. "Scatha!"

"Here, Liew," she replied, catching her breath. "Are you all right?"

I paused to take stock. My jaw ached, but that was from clenching my teeth as we ran. "I seem to be in one piece."

From the plain directly above us came the sudden swift rush of feet through the grass-as that of an animal making its final rush on its prey.

"Quick!" I yelled. "Down here!"

Diving, falling, rolling, down and down the slope we slid, until we came to rest in a sharp-thorned thicket. I made to disentangle myself, but Scatha said, "Shh! Be still!"

I stopped thrashing around and listened. I could still hear the dogs, but it sounded as if we had somehow managed to put a little distance between us and our pursuers. I was for moving on while we had a chance, but Scatha advised against it. "Let us stay here a moment," she urged, pushing deeper into the thicket.

Following her example, I wormed my way into the prickly

223

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

embrace of the bush and settled down beside Scatha to wait. "Do you still have your spear?" I asked.

 

"Good," I said, and wished yet again that I had remembered to retrieve my spear when we dismounted. And then I wished for a flint and striker to make a fire-if not that, then at least a single firebrand to light our way. But neither wish appeared likely to be granted.

Yet, as we sat in the inky darkness, waiting for we knew not what, the accursed night loud with the barking of the dogs, I imagined that my silver hand began to shine. The merest gleam at first, the faintest wink of a shimmer. I raised my hand to my face... the gleam vanished. I lowered my hand and it returned.

I craned my neck to look up and, to my surprise, glimpsed a pale eye peering back at me: the moon. Cloud-wrapped, a cold, wan and waxy blur in the Sollen-black sky, and fitful as a ghost, it gave me heart nonetheless, and I willed the light to stay.

The dogs were right above us on the plain. They were almost upon us. I expected them to be at our throats at any moment...

Scatha shifted. The glint of her spearblade pricked the gloom as she crouched forward to meet the attack. I felt around me for a stick to use as a club, but found nothing.

Meanwhile, the sound of pursuit had risen to a pitched din. The dogs were all around us, their cry deafening. I drew a last deep breath. Come on, I thought, do what you will. Amidst the baying I discerned the quick scatter of feet tearing through the undergrowth, and then, as quickly as it had grown, the sound began to dwindle away. Clasping one another's hands, we held ourselves deathly still, hardly daring to believe we had escaped. Only when the sound had diminished to a distant echo did we relax.

The moonlight grew stronger. I could see the glimmer of Scatha's eyes as she gazed steadily up the slope towards the plain. She felt my stare, turned her face towards me and smiled. In that moment, she looked just like Goewyn. My heart clutched within me. She must have sensed my distress, for she said, "Are you hurt?"

"No, I was thinking of Goewyn."

224

SONG OF ALBION

"We will find her, Llew." Her tone offered certainty, warm and confident. If there was any doubt at all in her heart or mind, she kept it buried deep within her, for I heard no trace of it in her voice.

It was now light enough to distinguish broad shapes on the slope. We waited, listening. I became cold sitting still so long. "We should move on," I said at last. "They might come back."

"I will go first," Scatha said, and began slowly disentangling herself from the thorns. She crept from the thicket and I followed, stepping free of the prickly branches to discover that we stood on the edge of an overgrown wood. In the faint moonglow, I could just about make out the rim of the circular plain a short distance above.

"The sky is clearing somewhat. We may be able to see the camp from up there," I said, thinking that if we could not find Tegid, we might at least locate the camp.

Scatha agreed and we climbed slowly back up the slope, gained the rim, and stood gazing across the plain. I had hoped to see the yellow fireglow from the camp-the ruddy smudge of the blaze reflected on the low clouds, at least-but there was nothing. I thought of shouting for Tegid and Cynan, then thought better of it. No sense in alerting the dogs.

"Well," I said, "if we stay close to the edge, we should reach camp eventually."

"We can also retreat to the wood if need be," Scatha pointed out.

Quickly, silently, like two shadows stealing over the dull grey field, we fled. Scatha, spear ready in her hand, led the way, and I maintained a constant lookout behind, scanning the plain for any sign of the camp, or of Tegid-I would have been delighted to find either. We ran a fair distance, and I became aware of a spectral flicker out of the corner of my eye. Thinking I had seen the campfire, I stopped walking and turned.., but if I had seen anything it was gone.

Scatha halted when I did. "I thought I saw something," I explained. "It is gone flow."

A moment later, it was back.

We had hardly put one foot in front of the other when I saw the

225

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

strange flittering shimmer once again-just on the edge of sight. And as before, I stopped and turned to look.

"There is something out there," I told Scatha.

"I do not see anything."

"Nor do I. But it was there."

And again, as soon as we began walking, the glimmering image returned. This time, I did not stop, nor did I look directly at it. Rather, [let the subtle shifting glow play on the periphery of my vision while I tried to observe it to learn what it might be.

All I could perceive, however, was a fickle gleam in the air-as if the chill moonlight itself had thickened and congealed into elongated strands and diaphanous filaments that streamed through the night. dark air, rippling and waving like seaweed under water.

Yet, each time I turned my head, thinking to catch a glimpse, the phantoms vanished. There was, I decided, a phenomenon at work similar to the erratic light of certain stars which are clearly discernable when the eye is looking elsewhere, but which disappear completely when an attempt is made to view them directly.

We walked along and I soon observed that the amorphous shapes were not confined to the plain; they swarmed the air above and on every side. Whichever way I turned my head, I glimpsed, as if on the very edge of sight, the floating, curling shapes, merging, blending, wafting all around us.

"Scatha," I said, softly. She halted. "No-keep walking. Do not stop." We resumed, and I said, "It is just that the shapes-the phantoms seem to be gathering. There are more of them now, and they are all around us. Can you see them?"

"No," she said. "I see nothing, Liew." She paused for a moment and then said, "What do they look like?"

Bless you, Pen-y-Cat, I thought, for not thinking me mad. "They look like.., like shreds of mist, or spider's webs drifting on the breeze."

"Do they move?"

"Constantly. Like smoke, they are always blending and changing shape. I find that if! do not look at them directly, I can see them."

We walked on and after a while I began to discern that the

226

SONG OF ALBION

phantom shapes were coalescing into more substantial forms, thicker, more dense. They still merged and melted into one another, but they seemed to be amassing substance. With this change, I also felt my silver hand begin to tingle with the cold-not the hand itself, but the place where the metal met flesh.

I thought this an effect of the cold night air, then reflected that cold weather had never affected me in that way before. Indeed, my metallic hand had always seemed impervious to either heat or cold. Always, that is, except once: the day I discovered the beacon.

I puzzled over this as we ran along. Could it be that my metallic appendage, whatever other properties it possessed, functioned as some sort of warning device? Given the fantastic nature of the hand itself and how it had come to attach itself to me, that seemed the least implausible of its wonders. Indeed, everything about the silver hand suggested a more than passing affinity with mystery and strange powers.

If my silver hand possessed the ability to alert its owner of impending danger, what, I wondered, did its warning now portend?

So absorbed had I become in these thoughts, that I ceased attending to the shifting shapes on the edge of my vision. When I again observed them, I froze in mid-step. The phantoms had solidified and were now of an almost uniform size, though still without recognizable form they appeared as huge filmy blobs of congealed mist and air, roughly the size of ale vats. Something else about them had changed, too. And it was this, I think, that stopped me: there was a distinct awareness about them, almost a sentience. Indeed, it was as if the phantom shapes seemed eager, or excited- impatient, perhaps.

For, as I hastened to rejoin Scatha, I sensed an agitation in the eerie shapes-as if my movement somehow frustrated the phantoms and threw them into turmoil. A strange and unsettling feeling Overcame me then, for it seemed that the wraiths were aware of my Presence and capable of responding to it.

Meanwhile, the frosty tingling in my silver hand had become a definite throbbing chill, striking up into my arm. I quickened my

227

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

stride and drew even with Scatha. "Keep moving," I told her. "The phantoms know we are here. They seem to be following us."

Following was not the precise word I wanted. The things were all around us-in the air above and on the ground on every side. It was more that we were traversing a dense and hostile wood where every leaf was an enemy, and every branch a foe.

Without slackening her pace, she raised her spear and indicated a patch of darkness to the right. "I see the glow of a fire ahead."

A dull yellow glow winked low on the horizon. "It must be the camp," I said, and an icy realization washed over me. That explains their agitation, I thought. The phantoms do not want us to reach camp. "Hurry! We can make it."

The words were hardly out of my mouth when Scatha threw her arm across my chest to stop me. In the same instant, a sweetly gangrenous stink reached my nostrils-the same as I had smelled coming from the dead horses. The gorge rose in my throat.

Scatha recognized the odor, too. "Siabur," she cursed, all but gagging on the word.

I heard a soft, plopping sound and saw a bulbous shape fall onto the ground a few paces ahead of us. The sickly-sweet stink intensified, bringing tears to my eyes. The round blue.black blob lay quivering for a moment, and then gathered itself like a bead of water on a hot surface. At the same time, it seemed to harden, for it stopped trembling and began to unfold its legs from around a bulging stomach. Its head emerged, beaded with eyes on top and a crude pincer mouth below.

I understood then what I had been seeing. The wraiths were those creatures Tegid called the sluagh. And now, by means of whatever power they possessed, the things had gathered sufficient strength to take on material form as a siabur. The immaterial had solidified, and the form it took was that of a grotesquely bloated spider. But a spider unlike any I had ever seen: green-black as a bruise in the moonlight, with a hairy distended belly and long spindly legs ending with a single claw for a foot, and freakishly large-easily the size and girth of a toddling child.

228

SONG OF ALBION

The immense body glistened with a liquid ooze. The siabur made a slobbering sound as it dragged its repulsive bulk over the grass.

"It is ghastly!" breathed Scatha, and with two quick strides she was over it, her spear poised. Up went her arm, and then down. The spear pierced the creature behind its grotesque head, pinning it neatly to the ground. The siabur squirmed, emitting a bloodless shriek; its legs twitched and its mouth parts clashed.

Scatha twisted the spear the fragile legs folded and the thing collapsed in a palpitating heap. She raised the spear and drove it into the creature's swelling middle. A noxious gas sputtered out and the loathsome thing seemed to melt, its body losing solid form and liquefying once more into a blob that simply dissolved, leaving a foul-smelling blotch glistening on the grass.

My feet were already moving as the siabur evaporated. I caught Scatha by the arm and pulled her away. I heard the sound of another soft body fall just to the right, and another where we had been standing a moment before. Scatha twisted towards the sound. "Leave it!" I shouted. "Run for the camp."

We ran. All around us the night quivered with the sound of those hideous bloated bodies plopping onto the ground. There were scores, hundreds of the odious things. And still they kept coming, dropping out of the air like the obscene precipitation of a putrid rain.

The stench fouled the air. My breath came in ragged gasps that burned my throat and lungs. Tears flowed down my cheeks. My nose ran freely.

The long grass tugged at our feet as if to hinder us. The plain was alive with crawling siabur heaving their gross shapes over the ground, scrabbling, struggling, straining to get at us. Their thin legs churned and their drooling mouths sucked. They would swarm us the moment we halted or hesitated. And then we would become like the horses we had seen that morning dry husks with the lifeblood sucked from our bodies.

Our path grew difficult and running became hazardous as we were forced to dodge this way and that to avoid the scuttling spiders. My silver hand burned with the cold.

229

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

A siabur appeared directly in my path and I vaulted over it. As my feet left the ground, I felt a cold weight between my shoulder blades-long legs groped for my neck. Its touch was the stiff cold touch of a dead thing. I flailed with my arms, dislodged the creature, and flung it to the ground where it squirmed and shrieked.

Another took its place. The dead cold weight clasped my shoulder, and I felt a sharp, icy bite at the base of my neck. An exquisite chill spread through me from the neck and shoulders down my back and sides and into my thighs and legs. I stopped running. The darkness became close~ suffocating. My face grew numb; I could not feel my arms or legs. My eyelids drooped; I longed for sleep... sleep and forgetting... oblivion.... I would sleep-but for a small voice crying out very far away. Soon that voice would be stilled....

Hearing my shout, Scatha whirled around and, with a well-placed kick, detached the siabur from my neck. A quick jab of her spear pierced the spider through its swollen sac. The wicked thing wriggled, then dissolved into jellied slime and melted away.

My vision cleared and my limbs began to shake. I felt Scatha's hands lifting me. I tried to get my feet under me, but could not feel my legs. "Liew, Liew," Scatha crooned softly. "I have you. I will carry you." She helped me stand. I took two wobbly steps and pitched onto my face. The siabur rushed in at once-they could move with startling speed. I kicked out and struck one. It squealed and scurried out of the way, but two more charged me. Their claw-tipped legs snagged the cloth of my breecs as I thrashed on the ground.

Scatha stabbed the first one as it clawed at me and, with a quick backward chop, sliced the second in half. Then, planting her foot, she pivoted to the side and skewered two more as they scuttled nearer. A third tried to evade her, but she pierced the swell-bellied thing, lifted it on the point of her spear and flung it hissing into the air.

Using all her strength, Scatha hauled me upright and drove me forward once more. Tottering like an old man, I stumbled ahead. Moving helped; I regained the use of my limbs and was soon covering ground quickly again. We bolted for the edge of the plain and the wooded slopes below, where I hoped we might more easily

230

SONG OF ALBION

elude them. A cluster of siabur tried to cut off our escape, but Scatha's inspired spearwork cleared the way and we reached the slope to a chorus of sharp angry squeals.

We gained the edge and plunged down the slope. The air was clean and I gulped it down greedily. My vision cleared and my nose and lungs stopped burning. Upon reaching the first fringe of the wood, I glanced back to see the siabur boiling over the brim of the plain in a vile~ throbbing flood. Although I had expected pursuit, my heart sank when I saw their number: the scores and hundreds had become thousands and tens of thousands.

They flowed down the slope in an enormous pulsating avalanche, shrieking as they came. There was no stopping them, and no escape.

231

Yellow Coat

 

 

My heart sank. The hideous cascade of siabur inundated the wooded slope. We could not long evade them; there were just too many.

Scatha appeared at my shoulder. "Take this," she said, thrusting a stout branch into my hand. Ever resourceful, Pen-y-Cat had found me a weapon-suitable for spiders at least.

Taking the branch, I glanced back towards the hillside. The spiders were not coming as fast as before. Their movements were sluggish and they clumped together in an awkward press. "1 think they are stopping."

"They are tiring," observed Scatha. "We can outrun them. This way! Hurry!" Scatha began pushing deeper into the brushy tangle.

I took two steps and screamed as pain shot up through my arm, stabbing into my shoulder. "Aghh!"

Scatha's hands were on me. "Are you hurt, Liew?"

"My hand---my silver hand... ahh, oh, it is so cold." I stretched my hand towards her. "Do you feel it?"

Scatha touched the metal gingerly at first, then grasped it firmly. "it is not cold at all. Indeed, it is warm as any living hand."

"It feels like ice to me. It is freezing."

Turning back to the hillside above us, the siabur had halted their advance and were drawing together into heaving, throbbing piles.

22

232

SONG OF ALBION

The stench reached our nostrils as a gush of fetid air. Though the moonlight was not strong, I could see their misshapen bodies glistening in lumpen knots as they writhed and wriggled with a sound like the mewing and sucking of kittens at the pap.

And then, rising up out of one writhing heap: the head and forelegs of a hound-a monstrous, fiat-headed cur with huge pointed ears and long, tooth-filled jaws. Its coat was a sodden mess of pitch black hair, and its eyes were red. The ugly head thrashed from side to side as if struggling to free itself from the spider mass, which had become an oozy quagmire of quivering bellies and twitching legs.

I watched in sick fascination as the beast clawed its way free, pulling its short back and hindquarters up and out of the stinking, squirming muck. But the helihound was not escaping, it was being born of the abhorrent couplings of the siabur. Even as this thought took form in my mind, I saw another head emerging and beside it a third and, a short distance away, the snout and ears of a fourth.

"Run!" Scatha shouted.

The first hound had almost freed itself from its odious womb, but I could not tear my eyes from the loathsome birthing.

Scatha yanked on my arm, pulling me away, her voice loud in my ear. "Liew! Now!"

From higher up the slope I heard a slavering growl and the rush of swift feet. Grasping my club and without looking back, I lowered my head and darted after Scatha. She led a difficult race, lunging, bounding, ducking, springing over fallen branches, and swerving around tall standing trunks. I followed, marvelling at the grace and speed with which she moved-flowing through the tangled thickets and trees with the effortless ease of a flame.

The unnerving sound of their weird spectral baying assured me that the first hound had been joined by the other three. They had raised the blood-call--cruelly fierce, baleful, unrelenting-a sound to make the knees weak and courage flow away like water. I risked a fleeting backward glance and saw the swarthy shapes of the beasts gliding through the undergrowth, their eyes like live coals burning in the moonglow. We could not outrun them; and with but one spear

233

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

between us, neither could we fight them. Our only hope was to keep ahead of them.

We ran for what seemed like an eon. I could hear the demon dogs tearing through the brush behind me. From the noise they were making, I judged that they were gaining ground on us and that there were more of them than before.

Chancing another backward look, I saw that the hellhounds were indeed very much closer now. Three or four more had joined the pack with others, no doubt, on the way. The sound of their baying blood-call cut through me, raising the hair on my scalp.

When I turned back, Scatha had disappeared.

"Scatha!" I cried. What if she had fallen?

I ran to the place where I had last glimpsed her, but she was not there, and nowhere to be seen. I could not stay and look for her, nor could I leave her.

"Scatha! Where are you?"

"Here, Llew!" came the answer-close at hand, but Icould not see her.

A howl broke into a snarl as the foremost hellhound closed on me. I turned to meet the beast, putting my back to the nearest tree and holding my makeshift weapon before me, ready to strike. I could reckon to get in at least two good blows before the other hounds arrived. What I would do after that, I did not know.

The creature attacked with breathtaking speed. I braced myself to receive the weight as it sprang...

The butt end of a spear shaft descended directly before my face. "Take hold!" a voice cried from above.

I dropped the club, seized the spear with my flesh hand and jumped, swinging my legs up towards the boughs above. Hooking a branch with one knee, I caught another with my metal hand. A hair's breadth beneath me the hound's jaws closed with the force of a sprung trap. Clutching for dear life to the shaft of the spear, I felt myself lifted higher. "Let go the spear, Liew," my savior told me. "There is a branch beside you."

But I could not release my grip on the spear-the instant I did so, I would plummet to the ground. Another hound had joined the first

234

SONG OF ALBION

and both were leaping at me, jaws snapping, teeth cracking.

"Let go, Llew."

I looked to the right and left. If I released the spear I would fall and be torn apart by the hounds.

"Llew! I cannot help you if you do not let go."

I hesitated, dangling dangerously close to the snarling creatures below. A third hound bounded over the backs of the other two and snagged my cloak in its teeth, almost tearing my grip from the spear, and dragging me down with its weight.

"I cannot hold you!"

Clinging to my cloak, the helihound tugged furiously, trying to pull me from my precarious roost. The fabric of my cloak began to give way. A second hound caught a corner of the cloak and began to yank, its forelegs lifted off the ground. My grip on the spear began to slip as I was dragged down yet further. More hounds had reached the tree and were leaping at me, trying to snag a piece of my dangling cloak.

"Llew! Let go!"

Grip failing, slipping backward bit by bit, cloak pulled tight against my neck to choke me, there was nothing for it but to let go of the spear and try for a more secure handhold on the unseen branch.

"I cannot hold you!"

I released the spear and flung my hand out. The weight of the hounds jerked me down. But my hand closed securely on a branch and I quickly wrapped my arm around its sturdy length and held fast.

Scatha was there beside me, trembling with the effort of supporting my weight on the end of her spear. "I might have dropped you," she said.

"I could not see the branch," I replied through clenched teeth.

Kneeling on the branch beside me, Scatha leaned low and thrust down with the spear. A rabid snarl became a squalling yelp and the weight on my cloak decreased by half. Another quick thrust of the spear brought another bawl of pain and I was free. I fumbled with the brooch pin and somehow managed to unfasten the brooch and let the cloak fall free.

235

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

I pulled myself upright and climbed higher into the tree. Below were no fewer than eight helihounds-some leaping frantically in the air, others running insanely around the tree, and at least two trying to scale the trunk by their claws. One of these managed to reach a fair height but, gripping the branch with one hand, Scatha leaned down and stabbed the creature in the throat. It fell yelping to the ground, landed on its spine and thrashed around, furiously biting itself as the black blood gushed from its wounded throat.

The beast died and, like the spiders, simply dissolved into a shapeless mass that quickly evaporated leaving nothing but a glutinous residue behind. But there were a dozen or more dogs running beneath the tree now. They sprang at us, clashing their teeth and snarling. Often one would try to climb the tree, whereupon Scatha would spear it, and it would fall back either wounded or dead. The dead quickly dissolved and disappeared, but were just as swiftly replaced by others.

We were trapped, clearly, and I began to think that by sheer strength of numbers the hounds would bring down the tree. Just watching the swirling, vicious chaos of their frenzy made me fearful and weary. Scatha, too, felt the futility of fighting them; for, although she still gave good account of herself with her spear when opportunity presented, I noticed that she seemed to be losing heart. Gradually, her features lost all expression, and her head drooped.

I tried to encourage her. "We are safe here," I told her. "The camp is near. The warriors will hear the hounds and come in force to rescue us."

"If they are not themselves under attack," she replied bleakly.

"They will find us," I said, doubt undercutting my words. "They will rescue us."

"We cannot escape," she murmured.

"They will find us," I insisted. "Just hold on."

Nevertheless, it soon began to look as if Scatha was right. The monstrous hounds did not tire, and their numbers, so far as I could tell, continued to increase. Scatha eventually ceased striking at them with her spear. Instead, we edged higher into the tree and sat staring hollow-eyed at the frenzy, growing gradually numb from the cold

 

 

 

236

SONG OF ALBION

and the continual shock of the baying, snarling, howling cacophony below.

Watching the moonglint on teeth and claws, and the dizzy tracery of red-glowing eyes, my mind began to drift. The gyrating black bodies seemed to merge into one savage torrent like a raging cataract, fearful in its wrath. And I wondered what it would be like to join that swirling maelstrom, to become part of that horrific turbulence. No intent but chaos, no desire but destruction. What defiance, what strength, what abandon-to give myself over to such fury.

What would happen to me? Would I die? Or would I simply become one of them, primal and free? Knowing no limits, no restraint, a creature of naked appetites, feral, possessed of a savage and terrible beauty-what would it be like to act and not think, to simply be-beyond thought, beyond reason, beyond emotion, alive to sensation only...

I was startled from my dire reverie by the sudden shaking of the branch beside me. Scatha, eyes fastened on the tumult raging around the trunk of the tree, was standing on the limb, teetering back and forth, her arms outflung to keep her balance. She had dropped her spear.

"Scatha," I called. "Do not look at them, Scatha! Take your eyes off them."

I continued speaking as I cautiously crept closer along the branch until I was sitting beside her. Standing slowly, I put my arm around her shoulders to steady her. "Let us sit down again, Pen-y-Cat," I said. She yielded to this suggestion, and allowed herself to be guided to a sitting position on the branch. "That is better," I told her. "You had me worried, Scatha. You might have fallen."

She turned blank, unseeing eyes on me and said, "I wanted to fall."

"Scatha, hear me now: what you feel is the sluagh--they are doing this to us. I feel it, too. But we must resist. Someone will fmd us."

But Scatha had turned her gaze once more towards the howling, boiling mass beneath us. Desperate for some way to distract her, I fought the urge to return to my own contemplation of the turmoil below, and scanned the surrounding wood for some hopeful sign.

237

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

To my astonishment, I saw the faint glow of a torch moving down the slope.

"Look! Someone is coming. Scatha, see-help is on the way!"

I said this mostly to divert Scatha's attention, but I took heart myself. There was no logical reason to believe that rescue had come, but a multitude of reasons to assume that some fresh horror had found us instead.

Indeed, my hopes were all but extinguished when Scatha said, "I see nothing. There is no torch."

It was true-the glow was not a torch. What I had seen, burnished by hope into bright-gleaming flame, appeared now to be nothing more than a dull moonstruck yellow glow. It moved steadily through the wood towards us, however, and I gradually became aware that it moved to a sound of its own-difficult to hear above the snarling, growling, hellhound yowl, but distinct from it all the same.

"Listen .. can you hear it?"

Scatha listened for a moment, turning her eyes away from the maelstrom below. "I ... urn, I hear... barking," she concluded uncertainly.

"That is it," I assured her. "Barking, exactly-the same as we heard before the siabur appeared."

Scatha regarded me sceptically, as well she might, considering how we had fled in terror of the sound upon hearing it. Odd to find comfort in it now. And yet, I did take comfort in it. I peered intently through the close.grown wood as the strange yellow glow wafted through the trees. The barking sound grew as the glow drifted, and there could be no doubt that it was the same that we had heard earlier.

My silver hand, which had long since become a chunk of ice on the end of my arm, began to tingle. A moment later, I glimpsed several smooth white shapes racing through the underbrush towards us.

"Something is coming!" I gasped.

The warming tingle quivered up into my arm as three sleek

238

SONG OF ALBION

white dogs broke through the undergrowth and drove straight into the impossible turmoil of hounds beneath our tree. White as new ~flOW from snout to tail-except for their ears which were bright, blood red-the dogs were smaller and leaner than the black hellhoUflds, but swifter of foot and just as fierce.

I expected them to be torn apart in an instant, but to my amazement the helihounds reacted as if they were being scalded alive. They reared on hind legs, leapt in the air, and scrambled over one another in a desperate struggle to escape the onslaught of the newcomers. And, as soon became apparent, with good reason.

The red-eared dogs charged in a frenzy of bared teeth, each seizing a hound by the throat, ripping furiously, and then lunging to another kill. The stricken hounds whined and crumpled, decaying into shapeless jelly and vanishing within moments.

Like lightning shattering the stormcloud, the three white dogs routed our assailants, killing with keen efficiency and striking again. Within moments of their arrival, dozens of their opponents were dead and hellhounds were fleeing for cover, clawing one another to get away. Soon the wood rang to the sound of the dogs' triumphant howls as they pursued the retreating hounds into the wood.

"They are gone," Scatha said, releasing her breath in a rush.

I opened my mouth to agree, and then I saw him: standing almost directly below us and looking in the direction the dogs had gone. He was wearing a long yellow coat with sleeves and a belt. It was this coat I had seen moving through the trees like a will-o'-the-wisp.

He stood for a moment without moving, and then he raised his face to look into the branches where Scatha and I were hiding. I almost fell from my perch. Peering up at me was easily the ugliest man I had ever seen: big-faced, gross in every feature, his long nose ending in a fleshy hook, and his mouth the wide thick-lipped cleft of a frog. Ears like jug handles protruded from under a thick pelt of wild black hair, and large wide-spaced eyes bulged balefully from beneath a single heavy ridge of black brow.

He held my gaze for the briefest instant, but long enough for me to know that he saw me. Indeed, he lifted his hand in farewell just

239

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

before he stepped from beneath the branch and disappeared into the wood once more.

Only after he had gone could I speak. "I have seen that face before," I murmured. Once, long ago... in another world.

I felt a hesitant touch on my arm. "Llew?"

"It is over," I told her. "The dogs belonged to him."

"Who?"

"The man in the yellow coat. He was just there. I saw him; he-" I broke off. It was no good insisting. Clearly, Scatha had not seen him. Somehow that did not surprise me.

"We can go now," I told her, and began easing my weight from the branch.

I lowered myself to the lowest branch and prepared to drop to the ground. Just as I released my hold, Scatha called from above, "Wait! Listen!"

But her warning came too late. I landed awkwardly and fell rolling on my back. As I did so, I heard something big and heavy crashing through the wood. I jumped to my feet, searching wildly for Scatha's fallen spear, wishing I had saved the club.

"Liew!" Scatha called. "There-behind you!" The spear lay a few steps behind me. I ran to it, picked it up, and whirled to meet... Bran and Alun Tringad, swords drawn, along with twenty or more torch-bearing warriors.

"Over here!" I cried. "Scatha! It is Bran! We are saved!"

Bran and Alun advanced warily, as if I might be an apparition.

"Here I am!" I shouted again, lowering the spear and hurrying to meet them. "Scatha is with me."

"Llew?" the Chief Raven wondered, lowering his sword slowly. He glanced at Alun, who said, "I told you we would find them."

"We were returning to camp and lost our way," I explained quickly. I hurried back to the tree and called to Scatha. "You can come down now. It is safe."

Scatha dropped from the branch and landed catlike on her feet.

"Are Cynan and Tegid with you, too?" Alun asked, peering up into the branches.

240

SONG OF ALBION

"We became separated," I replied. "I do not know where they went."

"They did not return to camp last night," Bran said.

"How did you know where to find us?"

"We heard the dogs," Bran explained. "They circled the camp,

and Alun saw someone-"

"Three times they circled the camp," Alun put in eagerly. "The fellow with them beckoned us to follow."

"I did not see anyone," stated Bran firmly. "I saw only the dogs."

"This fellow," I asked Alun, "what was he wearing?"

"A long mantle with a broad belt," Alun replied readily.

"And the mantle-what color?"

"Why, dun colored it was. Or yellow." Alun allowed. "Difficult to tell in the dark, and he carried no torch."

"And the dogs?"

"White dogs--" said Bran.

"With red ears," added Alun Tringad. "Three of them. They led us here."

"You heard nothing else?"

"Nothing else, lord," Alun answered.

"The baying of hounds perhaps?" I prodded. "Here in this very place?"

Bran shook his head. "We heard only the dogs," he declared. "And there were but three of them."

"And the man," Alun maintained.

"Yes, there was a man-the man in the yellow coat," I confirmed. "Scatha did not see him, but I did."

"I saw only the dogs," Scatha said with relief. "But that was enough." I noticed she said nothing about the hellhounds or the spiders. But then, neither did I.

241

23

 

 

Crom Cruach

 

 

Tegid and Cynan had in fact returned to camp before us and were waiting for our arrival. The sun broke above a grey horizon as we entered the still-smoldering circle of the protective fire. Upon stepping across this threshold of ashes, I was overcome with exhaustion. My legs became leaden and my back ached. I stumbled and almost fell.

Tegid grabbed my arm and steered me to a place at the campfire. "Sit," he commanded, and called to a nearby warrior. "Bring a cup!"

I stood swaying on my feet, unable to make the necessary movement The ground seemed very far away.

Cynan, none the worse for lack of a night's sleep, hastened to Scatha's side, put his arm around her shoulders, and brought her to where I stood.

"Sit, brother," the bard urged. "You are dead on your feet."

I bent my knees and promptly collapsed. Scatha, dull-eyed and pale from our all-night ordeal, crumpled beside me.

The cup arrived. Tegid pressed it into my hands and helped me raise it to my lips. "What happened to you?" he asked as I drank.

The ale was cold and good, and I all but drained the cup before recalling that Scatha was thirsty too. I passed the cup to her as I replied, "We lost you in the dark. We called for you -we could not have been more than ten paces apart. Why did you leave us?"

242

SONG OF ALBION

"But we heard nothing," Cynan declared, mystified. "Not a sound."

"No?" It did not surprise me in the least. "Well, when we could not find you, we made for the edge of the mound."

"We were chased by hounds," Scatha said, shivering at the all-too-fresh memory.

"Then the dogs came and drove the hounds away," I told them simply. "Bran and Alun arrived a few moments after that and brought us back."

"Tell me about the dogs," Tegid said, kneeling before us.

"There were three of them-long-legged and lean, with white coats. They came through the wood and drove the others away."

Scatha supplied the details I had neglected. "The hounds had red ears and there was a man with them. I did not see him, but Llew did."

"Is this so?" the bard asked, raising his eyebrows.

Before I could reply, Alun answered, "It is so. I saw him, too. He was wearing a yellow mantle and running with the dogs."

Bran confirmed Alun's report. "I saw the dogs; they circled the camp three times and then led us to the very place where Llew and Scatha were hiding."

Tegid shook his head slightly. "What of the hounds?" he said.

I did not want to speak of them. I saw no point in planting yet more fear in the warriors' hearts-there was enough already.

"Well," I said slowly, "there is not much to tell. They were big, ugly beasts. Fierce. If Bran and Alun had not come when they did we would not be here now."

"The man with the dogs, you mean. He saved you. We came after." said Alun, dragging the facts before us once more.

"The point is," I said, "we could not have survived much longer."

"The hounds," Tegid persisted, "tell me about them."

"They were just hounds," I replied.

"They were sluagh," Scatha informed him.

Tegid's eyes narrowed. He did not ask how we knew this, but accepted it without comment. For this, I was grateful.

"The same as attacked our horses?" Cynan demanded.

243

~i1~rt1tN LAWI-ItAl)

"The same," Tegid replied. "The sluagh change bodies to suit their prey."

"Changelings!" Cynan shook his head and whistled softly between his teeth. "aanna na th. It is a fortunate man you are, Liew Silver Hand, to be drawing breath in the land of the living this morning."

Tegid said nothing, his expression inscrutible. I could not guess what he was thinking.

But Cynan was eager to talk. "After you and Scatha wandered away in the dark," he volunteered, "we found a grassy hollow and settled there to wait until sunrise. Oh, but the night was black! I could have seen no less if I had been struck blind. By and by the sky began to pale and the sun came up. We came on to the camp then. Indeed, we were no great distance away-but did we ever see the fire? No, we never did."

Tegid rose abruptly. "This mound is cursed. We cannot stay another night here."

"I agree. Send out scouts-two parties of four each, one to ride east and the other west around the perimeter of the mound. If they see any sign of an encampment two are to keep a lookout, and two are to return here at once."

"But they must not be long about it," Tegid added. "We will leave at midday."

"It shall be done," the Raven Chief said, rising to leave.

"I will send Gweir to lead one of the parties," Cynan offered, "and they will return the swifter."

Bran and Cynan moved off to begin organizing the scouts. I lay down to rest until the scouting party returned. But 1 did not bear the waiting easily, for I fell into an anxious reverie over Goewyn. Where was she? What was she doing at this moment? Did she know I was searching for her?

I entertained the idea of building a tremendous signal fire to let her captors know that we were here. In the end, I decided against the notion, however. If they did not know, we might yet surprise them; and if Paladyr and his thugs knew already, it would be better to keep

 

 

 

244

SONG OF ALBION

them guessing our intentions.

Near midday, Tegid came with some food for me. He placed the bowl beside my head and squatted at my side. "You should eat something."

"I am not hungry."

"It is not easy to fight demons on an empty stomach," he told me. "Since you are not sleeping, you might as well eat"

I raised myself on one elbow, and pulled the bowl toward me. It was a thick porridge of oats flavored with turnip and salted meat. I lifted the bowl and sucked down some of the mush. Tegid watched me closely.

"Well, what is on your mind, bard?"

"How are you feeling?"

"Tired," I replied. "But I cannot rest. I keep thinking of Goewyn."

"Goewyn will not be harmed."

"How can you be so certain?"

"Because it is you they want, not her. She is the bait in the trap."

Tegid spoke frankly. His calm manner allowed me to speak my deepest fear: "If that is true, they might have killed her already." My heart skipped a beat at the thought, but it was spoken and I felt the better for it. "We would not know it until we walked into the trap and by then, of course, it would be too late."

Tegid considered this for a moment, then shook his head slowly. "No." His tone was direct and certain. "I do not think that is the way of it." He paused, looking at me, studying me-as if I were an old acquaintance newly returned and he was trying to determine how I had changed.

"What is it, bard?" I said. "You have been inspecting me since I walked into camp this morning."

The corner of his mouth twitched into an awkward smile. "It is true. I want to hear more about this man with the white dogs-the man with the yellow mantle."

"I have told you all I know."

"Not all." He leaned towards me. "You know him, I think."

"I do not know him," I stated flatly. Tegid's look of reproof was

245

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

quick and sharp. "I have seen him before," I confessed, "but I do not know him. It is not the same thing."

"Where did you see him?"

Anger spurted up like bile into my mouth. "It is nothing to do with any of this. Leave it."

But the bard did not desist. "Tell me."

Tegid's probing was making me remember my life in the other world and I resented it. I glowered at him, but complied. "It was not in this worlds-realm," I mumbled. "It was before, when I was with Simon-Siawn Hy-in the other place; he had gone into the cairn, and I was waiting for him to come out. I saw the man nearby."

"Describe this cairn," said Tegid. And when I had done so, he asked, "Did you also see the white dogs?"

"Yes, I saw the dogs-white with red ears. But they were with someone else-a farmer, I think-oh, it was all so long ago, I cannot remember. They were all there, I think."

The bard was silent for a long moment; at length he mused, "He was the same."

"Who was the same?"

"With the dogs or without them, it makes no difference," Tegid announced cryptically. When I asked for explanation, he said:

"Yellow Coat is usually seen with the dogs, it is true. But you saw the dogs and you saw him-together or apart, it makes no difference."

"Bard, make plain your meaning."

"Crom Cruach, Tuedd Tyrru, Ctysmel Hen-he goes by many names and in many forms," he said, his voice falling a note. "But in all he remains who he is: Lord of the Mound."

Tegid spoke the name and I felt a clammy hand at my throat. "I do not remember any mound," I said.

"When a warrior sees the Washer at the Ford," Tegid said, "he knows that death is at hand."

I had heard stories of this sort before. Typically, a warrior going into battle arrives at a river ford and sees a woman-sometimes sometimes wonderfully fair, sometimes brute ugly-washing

246

SONG OF ALBION

bloodstained clothes in the water. If he asks whose clothes she is washing, the MOlTigan will tell him that they are his own. By this the warrior knows his doom is near. I considered this, then asked, "Is it the same with Yellow Coat?"

"Only those whose affairs concern Crom Cruach may see him,"

Tegid replied with typical bardic ambiguity.

"Does it mean death?" I demanded bluntly. He hesitated. "Not always."

"What does it mean then?"

"It means that Crom Cruach has acknowledged you."

This explanation fell somewhat short of full elucidation, and Tegid appeared reluctant to expand further. "Is this connected with me breaking my geas?" I asked.

"Rest now," Tegid said, rising. "We will talk later."

I finished my meal and tried to sleep. But Tegid's dark insinuations and the bustle of the camp kept me awake. After a time I gave up and joined the waiting men. We talked idly, avoiding any mention of the disturbing events of the previous night. Cynan tried to interest the warriors in a wrestling match, but the first grappling was so half-hearted that the game was abandoned.

The morning passed. The sun, almost warm, climbed through its low southern arc, trailing grey clouds like mouldered grave-clothes. Just before midday, the first scouting party returned to camp to report that they had discovered no sign of the enemy. The four who had ridden east, however, did not return.

We waited as long as we dared, and longer than was wise. Tegid kept one wary eye on the sun, and muttered under his breath while he Stumped around impatiently. Finally, he said, "We cannot stay here longer."

"We cannot desert them," Cynan said. "Gweir was leading. I will not leave my battlechief and warriors behind."

The bard frowned and fumed a moment, then said, "Very well, we will go in search of them."

"What if it is a trap?" put in Bran. "Perhaps that is exactly what Paladyr expects us to do."

247

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

 

 

 

"Then we will spring his trap and be done with it," Tegid snapped. "Better to face Paladyr and his warband than spend another night on this accursed mound."

"True," agreed Bran.

"Then we ride east," I said.

We rode across the plain following the trail of the missing scouts through the coarse grass-granting the stubbed pillar stone a wide leeway-and reached the eastern rim as daylight dwindled. We stood looking out across the treetops at the land beyond: all brown and mist-faded grey, what we could see of it below the low-hanging clouds.

"This is where the trail ends," Bran said, his voice low.

"Ends?" I turned to look at him. His dark aspect was made darker still by the thick black beard he was growing; he seemed to be slowly changing into a raven.

He pointed to a trodden place in the grass; the snow was well trampled with hoofprints, but there was no sign of a skirmish of any kind. "The scouts stopped here, and here the trail also stops. They might have gone down into the wood," he said doubtfully.

"But you told them not to do that."

"Yes. I told them."

We started down the long wooded slope. The dense wood made our going difficult. We had not ridden far, however, when we were forced to dismount and blindfold the horses. As before, the animals stubbornly refused to be ridden into the wood, and we had to lead them on foot in order to continue. Even so, this did not slow our progress much, the undergrowth was so thick and the tangle so impenetrable.

Bran led, ranging the Ravens on either side of him in the hope that we might raise the trail of the missing scouts. But by dusk we had not seen a single footprint, much less any sign of a trail. We moved with maddening slowness, hacking a halting path through the underbrush with our swords. And despite this exertion, I noticed that the further down the slope we went, the colder it got-so that by the time we began looking for a likely place to camp, we were all wrapped chin to heel in our cloaks, and our breath hung in frosty clouds above our heads.

248

SONG OF ALBION

We made camp under a great gnarled oak beneath whose twisted limbs we found a reasonable clearing. Brushwood was gleaned from round about and heaped into three sizeable piles from which we would feed three good fires. Tegid lit each fire himself, saying, "With three, if one goes out there are always two with which to rekindle it."

"Are you thinking the fires will fail?" I wondered.

"I am thinking that it is dangerous to be without a fire at night," was his reply. Accordingly, we appointed men to tend the fires through the night just to make certain they did not falter.

The night passed cold, but uneventful, and we awakened to nothing more sinister than a dull dogged rain. The next day brought no change, nor did those that followed. We pushed through an endless succession of barbed thickets dense as hedge, hauling ourselves over fallen trunks, wading through mud and mire, scrambling over and around great rocks. By day we shambled after one another in a sodden procession; by night we did our best to dry out With every step the air grew colder so that by the fifth day the rain changed to snow. This did nothing to improve our progress, but the change was welcome nonetheless.

We walked in silence. Scatha, grim-faced and morose, spoke to no one; nor did Tegid have much to say. Cynan and Bran addressed their men in terse, blunt words, and only when necessary. I could find nothing to say to anyone, and slogged along as mute and miserable as the rest.

The slope flattened so gradually that we did not realize we had finally left the mound until we came to a slow-moving stream fringed with tall pines and slender birches. "It will be easier going from now on," Bran observed.

Although we had not been attacked by the sluagh again, I felt a rush of relief wash over me once the mound was left behind. I sensed we had also left behind its preying spirits. We rested under the pines and followed the stream all the next day. The trees were old and the branches high; the undergrowth thinned considerably, which made the going easier. Gradually, the stream widened to become a small,

249

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

turgid river which wound between mud-slick banks among the exposed roots of the pines. From time to time, we glimpsed a desultory sun through breaks in the close-grown branches overhead.

As daylight faded in a dull ochre haze, we reached the end of the wood at last and looked out upon a wide valley between two long rock-topped bluffs. Snow covered the valley floor, but the snow was not deep. The river took on new life as it flowed out from the wood over a rocky bed. There were few trees to be seen, so we decided to stay the night at the edge of the wood where we would be assured of fuel for the fires. We spent all the next morning amassing firewood and loading the horses with as much as they could carry. Still, despite a late start, we made fair progress and by day's end had travelled further than we had any day since coming to Tir Aflan.

The sun remained hidden behind a solid mass of low, swart cloud for the next few days as we traced a course along the river, stopping only to water the horses and to eat and sleep. The weather continued cold, but the snow fell infrequently, and never for long. We saw neither bird nor beast at any time; neither did we see any track save our own in the thin snow cover.

For all we knew, we were the only people ever to penetrate so far into the Foul Land. This impression lasted for a long while-until we began seeing the ruins.

At first it seemed that the bluff-top on the left-hand side of the valley had simply become more ragged with impromptu heaps of stone and jagged, toothy outcrops. But, as we pushed further down the length of the valley, the bluffs sank lower and closer to the valley floor to reveal the shattered remnants of a wall.

We looked on the ruined wall with the same mixture of dread and fascination we had experienced on encountering the mound. Day succeeded day, and with every step the wall grew higher and more ominous: snaking darkly along the undulating ridgetop above us, gapped where the stone had collapsed and slid down the sheer bluffsides into broken heaps below. On the sixth day we came in sight of the bridge and tower.

The tower sat on a bare hump of rock at a place where the valley

250

SONG OF ALBION

nan-owed. The remains of a double row of demolished columns stumbled across the valley floor and river to the facing bluff opposite. We proceeded to the huge round segments lying half-buried in the ground-like the sawn trunks of megalithic trees- sinking into the land under their own bulk and an enormous weight of years. Here we halted.

At some time in the ancient past, the river must have been a roaring torrent spanned by a great bridge-a feat for giants. And guarding the bridge at one end, a bleak, brooding tower. The same questions were on every man's mind: who had raised the tower? What lay beyond the wall? What did they keep out? Curiosity grew too much to resist. We halted and made camp among the half-sunken columns. And then Cynan, Tegid, the Ravens and I scaled the bluffside.

The tower was stone, comprised of three sections raised in stepped ranks. There were odd round windows, like empty eye sockets staring ut across to the other side. At ground level was a single entrance with ~ gate and door unlike any I had ever seen: round, like the windows; md the door was a great wheel made of stone, not wood, banded with iron around its rim and set into a wide groove. The surface of the gate ~nd door were covered with carved symbols which were now too weathered to comprehend. The remains of a stone-flagged road issued from the gate and ended where the bridge had once joined the bluff. fudging from the width of the road, the bridge would have been wide enough for horsemen riding four abreast.

The wall joined the tower level with its first rank, easily three times a man's height. There was no way in, except through the round gate, and there was apparently no way to budge the great stone door. But Alun and Garanaw grew inquisitive and began examining the gate. It was not long before they put their shoulders to it, and between the two of them got it to move.

"It will roll," cried Alun. "Help us clear the groove."

The track in which the stone rolled was choked with rock debris. In no time, with the help of Emyr, Drustwn, and Niall, they succeeded in removing the grit and stone. And then they turned their attention to the door itself. The five Ravens gave a mighty heave and pushed.

251

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

To everyone's amazement the stone rumbled easily aside, revealing a darkened chamber beyond.

After warily poking their heads inside, they reported that they could see nothing. "We need torches," Tegid advised, and at a nod from their chief, Emyr and Niall scrambled back down the cliff to fetch a bundle each. We waited impatiently while Tegid set about lighting them. But soon the torches were kindled and distributed and, with pulses pounding, we passed through the imposing gate and into the strange tower.

252

24

The High Tower

 

 

Cautiously, shoulders hunched, walking on the balls of our feet, prowling like thieves desperate not to wake the sleeping occupants, we entered the dark tower.

The air was damp and smelled of earth and wet stone like that inside a cave. And even with the torches, it was dark as a cave. Gradually, however, as our eyes became adjusted to the fluttering light, we began to pick out individual features in the darkness.

We stood in a single large chamber, two or three times larger, for all I could tell, than any king's great hall. There was a single row of stone pillars through the center of the room supporting the floor above. Huge iron rings were fixed in the pillars at various heights.

"Here!" called Drustwn from a little way ahead. "Look here!"

In a jumbled heap, as if tossed aside in a moment's wrath, were a score of bronze chariots, their wheels warped and poles bent or broken, the metal green with age. The high, circular sides of the chariots appeared to be wicker, but were in fact triangular strips of bronze woven together, immensely strong for their weight.

Lying a little apart from the chariots was a small pyramid of large di~, stacked one atop another. And beside this, a pile of oversized ~eheadsunusual in that they consisted of a short stout blade on one side balanced by a blunt spike on the other. There must

253

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

have been several hundred of these and as many discs which, on closer inspection, turned out to be bronze shields.

Bran pulled one of the shields from the stack, causing a dusty avalanche. He lifted the round device by the rim and held it before him; it was huge, much larger than any the men of Albion used, and plain. Its only markings appeared on the center boss: a few curious symbols worked in raised bronze around the simple image of a peculiar thick-bodied serpent.

"Whoever carried this was a stronger man than me," Bran ~-emarked, replacing the shield, and retrieving his torch.

We continued our examination but, aside from a neat row of short, heavy bronze thrusting spears, we found nothing else in the lower chamber, and took our search up a flight of stone steps to the next level.

The round windows in the center of each of the four walls allowed some light to enter the large, square room, the floor of which was littered with helmets and war caps-high crowned and rising to a slight point at the top, all of bronze, and all with a bronze serpent coiled around the rim with its flat head raised upon the brow. Alun picked one up and set it on his head, but it was made for a man twice his size. There were perhaps two hundred or more of these serpent-crested helmets scattered on the floor, but nothing else in the room.

On the floor above we discovered a great stone table set with huge bowls of silver and bronze, with one gold vessel among them. The silver was black and the bronze green, but the gold was good as the day it was made; it gleamed dully in the light of our torches. Also on the table were three piles of coins in the rotted remains of leather bags. The coins were silver and gold. The silver coins were little more than black lumps, but the gold shone bright. We took up some of these and looked at them.

"Here is their king," said Tegid, holding a coin before his eyes. "I cannot read his name"

The coin showed the image of a man as if etched by a precocious child. The man clasped a short spear in one hand and a spiked axe in the other. He was bareheaded and his hair was long, curling down to

254

SONG OF ALBION

his shoulders; he wore beard and moustache almost as long. His chest was bare-he bore no torc or other ornament-but he wore what appeared to be striped breecs or leggings, and tall boots on his feet. Words in strange letters clustered like wasps around his head, but they were impossible to read.

We each took a handful of the coins to show the others, and Cynan took the gold bowl. "For Tángwen, when I see her," he said.

Beside the table stood a large iron tripod bearing a huge bronze cauldron. Beneath the cauldron was a ring of fire-blackened stones, and inside it the baked, brick-hard shards of the last meal. But the outside of the cauldron was what caught my eye. The surface was alive with activity: warriors in chariots charged around the bottom of the cauldron lofting spears, long hair trailing in the wind; on the next tier above, narrow-eyed men on horses galloped, brandishing swords and spears; above these were ranks of warriors on foot, shoulder to shoulder, bearing round shields and helmets such as we had seen in the lower chamber; on the highest tier a number of winged men were running, or perhaps flying, and each bore a serpent in his right hand and a leafy branch in his left. The rim of the cauldron was a scaly serpent with its tail in its mouth.

"The Men of the Serpent," Tegid said, indicating the warriors.

"Do you know of them?"

"Their tale is remembered among the Derwyddi but, like the song of Tir Allan, we do not sing it." I thought he would not say more but, gazing at the cauldron, he continued, "It is said that the Serpent awoke and with a mighty war host subdued the land. When there were no more enemies to conquer the Serpent Men fell into disputes and warring among themselves. They destroyed all they had built, and when the last of them died, the Serpent crawled back into the underworld to sleep until awakened again."

"What awakens it?" I asked.

"Very great evil," was his only reply.

Strewn about the room were objects of everyday use: more cups and bowls; many short, bone-handled swords fused to their Scabbards; a few round shields; a collection of small pots, flasks, and

255

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

boxes carved of a soft reddish stone-all of them empty; several long, curved spoon-shaped ladles and long-handled forks for getting meat and broth from the cauldron; numerous axeheads; knives of various sizes; a mask of bronze showing the glowering face of a bearded warrior with a great flowing moustache, elaborately curled hair, and a serpent helmet on his head, his mouth open in full cry; four very tall lampstands, one in each corner, bearing stone-carved oil lamps.

Underneath one of the shields, Emyr found a curious object-a circlet of small shield-like discs linked together around a protruding conical horn. Turning it this way and that, he announced, "I think it is a crown." Like most of the other objects we had seen, it was made of bronze and, when he put it on his head, it was shown to have been made for a much larger head.

"Mo anam," muttered Cynan, trying the crown himself, "but these serpent men were giants."

"Look at this!" called Garanaw, holding his torch to the far wall.

We crossed to where he stood and saw a painting on the wall. It was well done, and no doubt brightly colored at one time. And though the colors had faded to an almost uniform grey-brown, leering out at us was the face of a serpent man, fleshy lips curved in a mocking smile, pale reptilian eyes staring with frozen mirth, his mouth open and forked tongue extended. A mass of coiled curls wreathed the face, and below the chin it was still possible to make out the winged torso and a raised hand grasping a black serpent which coiled around the arm.

We turned from the painting and Niall called our attention to an iron ladder set in a recess of one wall. The ladder rose through the stone ceiling to the roof above. He climbed it and then called down for us to follow. There was nothing on the roof, but the view was breathtaking. Looking to the south, far below us in the riverbed among the fallen columns, lay our camp, men and horses gathered near the grey thread of moving water.

To the west rose the gigantic hump of the mound, its top lost in the low-hanging cloud, and to the east only the river flowing on between its rock-bound bluffs. To the north, behind the high stone

256

SONG OF ALBION

wall stretching away to the east and west, lay an endless series of low, snow-covered hills, rising and falling like white sea waves in a frozen ocean.

The size and emptiness of the landscape, like that of the dark tower and its objects, made us feel small and weak, and foolish for ~espassing where we did not belong. I scanned the rolling hillscape for any sign of habitation, but saw neither smoke nor any trail by which we might go. "What do you think, bard?" I asked Tegid, who stood beside me.

"I think we should leave this place to its dire memories," he answered.

"I am all for it, but where do we go from here?"

"East," he replied without hesitation.

"Why east? Why not south or west?"

"Because east is where we will find Goewyn"

This intrigued me. "How do you know?"

"Do you remember when Meidron cast us adrift?"

"Mutilated and left to die in an open boat---could I ever forget it?"

"In exchange for my eyes, I was given a vision." He made it sound as if he had merely traded one pair of breecs for another.

"I remember. You sang it in a song."

"Do you remember the vision?"

"Vaguely," I said.

"I remember it." He closed his eyes as if he would see it anew. He began to sing, and I listened, recalling the terrible night that vision had been given.

Softly, so that only I would hear, Tegid sang of a steep-sided glen, and a fortress on a shining lake. He sang of an antler throne adorned with white oxhide and established high on a grass-covered mound. He sang of a burnished shield with the black raven perched on its rim, Wings outspread, raising its raucous song to heaven. He sang of a beacon-fire flaming the night sky, its signal answered from hilltop to hilltop. He sang of a shadowy rider on a pale yellow horse, riding out of the mist which bound them; the horses' hooves striking sparks from the rocks. He sang of a great warband bathing in a mountain lake, the

257

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

water blushing red from their wounds. He sang of a golden-haired woman in a sunlit bower, and a hidden Hero Mound.

Some things I recognized: Druim Vran, Dinas Dwr, my antler throne; the golden-haired woman in the bower was Goewyn on our wedding day. But other things I did not know at all.

When he had finished, his eyes flicked open again and he said, "This land has a part in my vision. I did not know it before coming here to this tower."

"You mentioned no tower in your vision-was there a tower?"

"No," he confessed, "but this is the land. I know it by the feel and taste and smell." His dark eyes scanned the far hills, rising and falling one behind another to the edge of sight and beyond. "In this worlds-realm a mighty work waits to be accomplished."

"The only mighty work I care about is rescuing Goewyn before-" I broke off abruptly. The others were not listening, but they were close by.

"Before the child is born," Tegid finished the thought for me.

"Before anything happens to either of them."

"We will journey in hope, and trust the Swift Sure Hand to guide us."

"A little guidance would not go amiss right now," I confessed, gazing out at the trackless waste of hills and empty sky.

"Liew," he said, "we have ever been led."

We left the roof, retreating back through the tower to the gate. Tegid advised us to close the door, so we rolled the stone back to its place. Then we climbed down the bluff to rejoin our waiting warband. We showed them the coins we had found and they wanted to go back up and get the rest, but Tegid would not allow it. He said further disturbance would not be welcome.

They let it go at that. The tower had a dolorous air, and even those who had not been inside felt the oppressive sadness of the place. Besides, it was already getting dark and no one wanted to risk being caught outside the fire-ring after nightfall.

That night we listened to the plaintive cry of the wind tearing itself on the broken stones of the wall on the bluffs high above. I slept

 

 

 

258

-4

SONG OF ALBION

ill, my dreams filled with winged serpents and bronze-clad men.

Twice I wakened and rose to look at the tower-a brooding black bulk against a blacker sky. It seemed to be watching us, perched on its high rock like a preying bird, waiting to unfold its wings of darkness and swoop upon us. I was not the only one bothered by bad dreams; the horses jigged and jittered all night long, and once one of the men cried out in his sleep.

We continued on our way the next day, listening to the wind hiss and moan through the valley. The snow fell steadily and drifted around our feet; we pulled our cloaks over our heads, bundled our saddle fleeces around our shoulders for warmth, and slogged through the weary day. The scenery altered slightly, but never really changed-always when I lifted my head there were the sheer bluffs and the wall looming ragged and dark above.

For five days it was the same-cold and snow and deep starless nights filled with wailing wind and morbid dreams. We struggled through each day, riding and walking by turns, shuddering with cold, and huddling as close as possible to the fires at night. And then, as the sixth day neared its end, we saw that the bluffs had begun to sink lower and the river to spread as the valley opened. Two days later we came to a place where the bluff ended and the wall turned to continue its solitary journey north over the endless hills.

Rising before us was the dark bristling line of a forest.

Seeing it, like a massive battlehost arrayed on the horizon, my spirit quailed within me. Tir Aflan was a wasteland vast beyond reckoning. Where was Goewyn? How would we ever find her in this wilderness?

"Listen, bard, are you sure this is the way?" I demanded of Tegid when we stopped to water the horses. We had left the wall behind and were drawing near the leading edge of the forest, but there was still no clear sign that we were going in the right direction.

Tegid did not reply at once, and did not look at me when he did. "The forest you see before us is older than Albion," he said, his dark eyes scanning the treeline as he rolled his ashwood staff between his palms.

259

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

"Did you hear me?" I demanded. "Is this the way we are to go?"

"Before men walked on Albion's fair shores, this forest was already ancient. Among the Learned it is said that all the world's forests are but seedlings to these trees."

"Fascinating. But what I want to know is, do you have even the haziest notion of where we are going?"

"We are going into the forest," he answered. "In the forest of the night, we all find what we seek-or it finds us."

Bards!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

260

25

The Forest of the Night

 

 

Taking the river as our only guide, we passed into the forest. The snow, which had drifted deep in the exposed valley, was but scant under the trees. And such trees!

There were trees of every kind: along the river were stands of silver birch, willows of various types, thickets of elder, blackthorn, hawthorn, hazel and holly; and on the broad meads stood great groves of oak, chestnut, hornbeam, lime, elm, sycamore, plane, walnut, ash, larch, and others; on the high ground there were evergreens: fir and pine and spruce in abundance, as well as cedar and yew. Lichen and moss flourished, making every trunk and branch look as if someone had slathered it in thick, grey-green plaster.

I could well believe that the forest was ancient. The moss-bound branches were bent and the trunks bowed by ages of years beyond counting, eons of accumulated leafmould cushioned the forest floor, dry grass like wisps of unkempt hair clustered in elderly hanks around massive curving roots. The trees were old.

And big! The river, wide and deep as it entered the forest, seemed to dwindle to the size of a mere brook beneath those massive boles. Some of the larger limbs stretched from one bank clear across to the other, arching over the river like huge arboreal snakes.

261

We moved in a world of outsize proportions. And the further into the forest we penetrated, the smaller and more vulnerable we felt- shrinking in our own eyes. In the shadows of those ancient trees we were not men at all, but insects: insignificant, powerless, futile.

Dismaying though it was to be a mere insect, more unsettling by 4 far was the silence.

As we entered the forest, the sound of the world beyond faded, and it diminished further with every step until we could hear nothing at all-not even the wind. No alien birdcall reached our ears, no tick of leafless branch, or creak of sagging limb. Our own footfalls were muffled in the spongy leafmould, and the river flowed mute in its slime-slick bed.

I was speculating whether the cold had stolen my hearing, when 4 Cynan called out, "Mo anam, brothers! But this quiet is not natural among men of noble clans. What do we fear that we dare not raise a j~ pleasant tune when and where we please?"

When no one answered him, the red-haired hero began to sing, roaring out the words as if he were bending horseshoes with them. Full-throated, his head thrown back, he sang:

 

The, up! Rise up, brave and dauntless friends!

The sun is red ongorsey hill,

and my black hound is straining to the trail.

Hie, up! Rise up, bold and doughty men!

The deer do run on heathered brae,

and my brown horse is tending to the trace.

Hie, up! Rise up, raven-haired lady fair!

A kiss before I join the chase,

A kiss before Ifly.. . Hie!

 

 

It was a valiant effort, and I admired him for it. He even succeeded in rousing some of the men for a time, but no one had the heart to sustain it. This angered Cynan, who sang on alone for a time out of sheer stubbornness. But eventually even Cynan's brash spirit was stifled by the vast, all-absorbing silence of the forest.

Thereafter we pursued our way with hushed steps, dull in sense

 

 

 

262

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

SONG OF ALBION

and dispirited. The forest seemed to prey upon our minds and hearts, stirring our fears, bringing doubt and dread to the surface where they could wear away at us with their corrosive power. I suspected that we were being watched, that in the forest around us, hidden from sight, the enemy waited.

In the lattice-work of limbs high over us, in the shadow-choked darkness beyond the river trail, behind every trunk and bole, cold eyes watched and cold hands waited. I imagined a multitude of v~'inged serpent-men clutching their short bronze thrusting spears, eyeing us with icy reptilian malice. I imagined that they moved as we moved, matching us stride for stride, gliding with the silence of snakes in the silence of the forest.

I told myself that my fears were mere inventions of my mind, but I watched the shadows all the same.

Night stole secretly over the forest, and it marked little change. In this place, ever dark and preternaturally still, daylight was a weak and alien presence. Coed Nos, Forest of the Night, is what Tegid had called it, and he was right. The sun might boldly pursue its diurnal course, might rise and set in blinding flames that caught the outside world alight, but we had entered Night's own realm and the sun had no power in that place.

We made camp by the deep-flowing river and banked the fires high. If I hoped fire would offer us some comfort, I was deceived. The forest seemed to suck the warmth and light, the very life, from the flames, making them appear pale and wan and impotent. We sat with faces close to the tepid blaze and felt the stealthy silence hard at our backs.

I could not rest. I could not eat or speak to anyone, but every few moments I must turn my head and peer over my shoulder. The feeling was strong-I was certain of it-we were being stalked. Others felt it too, I think; there was no talk, no genial exchange around the fire as there usually is when men gather after a long day's journey. It seemed that if we could not overcome the allSubduing silence, we preferred to sink into it, to let it cover us and hide us from the things that stalked the shadows.

263

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

We made a miserable night of it. No one slept; we all lay awake, gazing into the crowded tangle of limbs and branches faintly illumined by our feeble fire. That does not mean, however, that we did not dream. We did. And I think each man among us was visited by queer, disturbing nightmares.

Sitting hunched over my knees, staring hollow-eyed into the limb-twisted darkness, I saw a faintly glimmering shape that resolved itself into a human form as it approached: a woman, slender, clad in white. Goewyn?

I jumped to my feet.

Goewyn!

I ran to her. She was shivering, her arms were bare and cold, and it was clear that she had been wandering in the forest for many days. She must have escaped from her captors and fled into the forest.

"Goewyn! Oh, Goewyn, you are safe," I said, and reached out to take her hand, forgetting that my metal hand would be cold against her skin. I touched her with it and she cried out.

"I am cold, Liew," she whimpered.

"Here, take my cloak," I said, drawing it from my shoulders. "Put it around you. Come to the fire. I will warm you," I said, and thrust my silver hand into the flames of the campfire.

In a moment, the metal warmed and I turned and took Goewyn's hand in mine. The metal was too hot and it seared into her flesh. Acrid smoke flared up, stinging my eyes. Goewyn screamed and pulled away, but the skin stuck to the metal and came off as she jerked her hand from my grasp. And not the skin only-the burned muscle stuck too.

Screaming in agony, she raised her hand before her face, but only bones were left. Without the muscles or ligaments to hold them together they separated and fell to the ground and were lost in the snow. Goewyn clutched her stub of arm and screamed.

I stood in a panic of indecision, wanting to comfort her, but not daring to touch her for fear that my touch would maim. Tegid ran to us. He took Goewyn by the shoulders and began shaking her violently. "Be quiet!" he shouted. "Be quiet! They will hear you!"

264

SONG OF ALBION

But she could not control herself. Tears flowed from her eyes and she sobbed, holding her arm. Tegid kept shouting at her to be quiet, that she would alert the enemy.

Bran came running with his sword. Without a word to anyone, he struck Goewyn. She turned toward him and he thrust the blade into her heart. He pulled it out again and a scarlet stain flowed down her white mantle. She turned and cried out. "Llew! Save me!"

But I could not move. I could do nothing to save my beloved. She fell, scattering drops of blood from her wound. She lay on her back and raised her arm toward me. "Liew. . ." she gasped, her voice already fading. My name was the last word on her lips.

Her warm blood seeped from the wound, melting deep into the white-drifted snow. And the snow began to melt-and went on melting. Soon I could see green showing through the snow; grass was growing, growing up where the blood melted the snow.

I raised my eyes to look around. I was not in the forest any more. Tegid and Bran had departed and left me standing alone on a hilltop above a stream; across the stream stood a grove of slender silver birches. I watched as the snow melted from the sides of the hill and hundreds of yellow flowers appeared. The clouds parted, revealing a bright blue sky and a warming sun.

When I turned back, Goewyn was gone, but there was a slight mound in the place where she lay-little more than a grassy hump of earth. Upon this mound a cluster of white flowers grew: a yarrow plant had sprouted where Goewyn lay.

With tears in my eyes, I turned away and stumbled down the hill to the stream where I knelt and bathed my face in the clear cold water. While I was washing there, I heard a voice coming from the birch grove-a melody falling light as birdsong. I rose and splashed across the stream and entered the grove.

I stepped softly through dappled green shadows and passed among the slender white birch trees, following the song. I came to a clearing and paused. In the center of the clearing in a pool of golden sunlight sto(yj a bower made of birch branches; the song was coming from the bower.

265

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

My senses quickened. I moved cautiously from the cover of the trees and entered the meadow. At my approach the singing stopped. I saw a movement from within the green-shadowed interior, and I, too, halted.

A woman clothed in green and yellow emerged. Her hair was softly golden in the sunlight, falling around her face and, with her head bent, I could not see who it was. She stepped gracefully from the arbor and cupped her hands to the sun as if she would gather in sunbeams like water. And then, though I had not moved or even breathed, she turned to me and said, "Liew, there you are. I have been waiting for you. Why do you tarry so?"

At this she pulled back the hair from her face. I gaped in disbelief. She laughed at my distraction and said, 'Well, where is my welcome kiss?" And oh, her voice was sweet music to my ear.

"Goewyn?"

She held out her arms to me. "I am waiting, best beloved."

"Goewyn, you are dead. I saw you die."

"Dead?" She said the word as gently as a butterfly lighting on a petal. Still smiling-her lips formed a delicious curve that swept into the fold of her soft cheek-she lifted her chin in mock defiance. "I am done with dying," she said. "Now, where is my kiss?"

I stepped willingly into her embrace and felt her warm lips on mine and a taste like honey on my tongue. I crushed her to me, kissing her mouth and cheek and neck, holding her tight lest she slip like bright sunlight through my fingers.

"I thought I had lost you," I told her, tears of joy welling in my eyes. I breathed in the warm living scent of her as if! could breath her in with it, make her part of me. "Never leave me, Goewyn."

She laughed softly. "Leave you? How could I ever leave you? You are part of me now, as I am part of you."

"Tell me, again. Please, tell me you will never leave me."

"I will never leave you, my soul," she whispered. "I love you for ever.., for ever. .

"Liew? What are you doing?"

The voice was Tegid's. I turned on him with some exasperation.

266

SONG OF ALBION

a~ you not see what I am doing? You are not wanted here. Go awaY."

"LIew, come back to the fire. You have been dreaming."

"What?"

Tegid's face grew dim, as if a cloud had passed overhead, blotting out the sun.

"Come back to camp with me," he said. "You have been walking in your sleep."

With these words, the sun-favored clearing vanished. I looked around and saw that I was back in the forest and it was night. The leafy bower was gone, and Goewyn was nowhere to be seen.

 

I spoke to no one for two whole days after that. Heartsick, discouraged and embarrassed, I avoided all my companions. If any command was required, Cynan or Bran saw to it and gave the order.

We pushed deeper into the forest. The trees grew larger, their great entwined limbs and interlaced branches imprisoning the light, making our passage dim and, if that were possible, even more silent. If we had been sewn in leather sacks it could not have been closer or more stifling than Coed Nos had become.

An air of malignant weariness emanated from the twisting roots and boles around us; languor seeped like an ooze from the soft leafmould under our feet. Lethargy, like the grey lichen that covered everything, clung to our limbs, bleeding strength with every step.

We rode single file, heads down, shoulders bent. Those on foot went ahead so that no one should be left behind. Tegid feared that if anyone fell back, we would never see them again. Cynan and Bran took it in turn to lead, changing every time we stopped to rest and water the horses. They did their best to keep a steady pace and keep the men moving despite the torpor.

Even so, we seemed not so much to journey as to view a slowlyrevolving trail. We moved, but did not advance; we proceeded, but never arrived. We staggered steadily forward toward a perpetually receding destination. Day passed day, and we gradually lost track of the days. We slept little, talked less, and drove ourselves relentlessly on.

267

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

Food became scarce. We had hoped to hunt in the forest-at least to encounter game we might take along the way. If there was game in the forest, we never saw it, nor crossed any animal trail. Our dried meat gave out, and we subsisted on old bread and ale, soaking the crusts in our cups to soften them. When the ale ran out, we used water from the river. The bread became moldy and unfit to eat, but we ate it anyway. There was nothing else. And when the bread was gone, we boiled the precious little grain we had left with roots and bark that Tegid found to make a thin gruel. The horses ate the grey lichen which we harvested from the trunks with knives and swords, and bound into bales for them. It was food ill-suited for such noble beasts, but at least there was an unending supply of the stuff and they ate it readily enough.

We grew long-bearded, and sallow-skinned from lack of sunlight. But we bathed regularly in the river-until the men began to encounter leeches whenever they entered the slow-flowing water. Thereafter, we left off bathing altogether and contented ourselves with washing only.

Cynan grew restive. As the days progressed, he urged us to greater speed and complained with increasing regularity that we were not making enough effort to get clear of the forest.

"Be easy, brother," Bran advised. "Nothing will be gained by pushing too hard."

"It is taking too long," Cynan grumped. "We should have come through this forest long ago."

"Do not lose heart," I told him. 'We will come to the end soon."

Cynan turned on me. "My wife is taken, too! Or have you forgotten? I tell you she is no less a queen than your precious Goewyn!"

"I know, brother," I soothed. "Please, be-"

"You think I do not care for my wife?" he challenged. "You think, because I say nothing, that I do not speak her name in my heart with every step?"

"I am sure you do, Cynan. Calm yourself. We will find them both." I put my hand on his arm. He knocked it away, glared at me,

268

SONG OF ALBION

and then stormed off.

Some time later-two days or ten, I no longer knew-we stepped from the forest into a clearing bounded by the high rock bluffs of the river. And in the center of the clearing on the left bank stood a city, ruined and deserted, carved into the red stone bank. I call it a city, though closer scrutiny soon revealed that it was a single structure: an enormous palace with hundreds upon hundreds of dwelling places, halls, walls, columns, courts, and shrines, all heaped together in a haphazard jumble of red stone.

We came upon it suddenly and stood blinking in the light of a faded day. It was the first we had seen of the sky for days uncounted, and all we could do was to stand and stare, our hands shielding our sore eyes. And then, quivering with the shock of the sun and sky and easy air, we crept cautiously forward-as if the strange red palace were a mirage that might vanish if we glanced away.

But the structure was solid stone from the countless pinnacles of its high.peaked rooftops to its many-chambered foundations. Most of the columns were broken and the roofs collapsed; the round eye-socket windows stood empty and unlit. However, by far the greater part of the palace remained intact. Carved figures of animals and birds were placed in the pediments, but we saw no human figures represented. The edifice had been constructed to front the river. Indeed, a single round entrance like that of the high tower, but larger by far, opened onto a terrace which ended in a wide sweep of steps descending directly to the black water. The stone-carved walls flowed in curves, bending into one another like limbs, merging without joints or straight lines. This gave the place a disturbingly organic quality which Cynan identified at once. "Aye, see it lying there-like a great red lizard asprawl on the riverbank."

"Indeed," agreed Alun Tringad. "It is a sleeping lizard. Let it lie."

Nothing moved; no sound could be heard among the rubble. The red palace was as lifeless and deserted as the tower we had seen before, and just as old. And yet, whatever power preserved the structure had not entirely abandoned it. For clearly the palace still exerted dominion over the forest, or else the red stone would have

269

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

been overgrown long ago. Something yet lingered which prevented the vegetation from invading and reclaiming the clearing and its deserted edifice, root and branch.

At the far end of the terrace, the broken remains of what appeared to be a wide, stone-paved road led from the city at an angle away from the river. Tegid observed the red palace for a long time, and then counselled us to move on, saying, "It is an evil place. We will find nothing but misery here."

Alas! We should have heeded his wise counsel.

270

26

Even in the short time we had been contemplating the ruin, daylight began to dwindle; it would be dusk soon, and night followed swiftly. We would have to find a place to make camp, and I was determined not to spend another night in the forest. So we decided to pass by the palace to the road beyond and see where it might lead.

In two tight lines, we moved out onto the terrace. Strange to feel solid rock under foot, stranger still to hear the hollow echo of hoofs after the smothering silence of the forest. We crept slowly across the wide terrace, every step ringing in our ears, reverberating from a hundred angled walls.

Bran, leading the procession, reached the center of the terrace- midway between the river steps and the gaping entrance to the palace. I saw him look to this door, turn, and stop. He raised his hand for those behind him to halt. "I saw something move in there," he explained as Cynan and I joined him.

I looked to the entrance-round as a wheel, and five times the height of a man, it was also dark as a pit; I could not imagine how he saw anything inside.

"Let us move on," I said, and was still looking at the empty doorway when we heard the cry: plaintive, pitiable, the wail of a lost and frightened child.

Yr Gyrem Rua

271

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

"Mo anam," muttered Cynan, "there is a babe in there."

We stared at one another for a moment, wondering what to do. "We cannot pass by and leave the poor thing," Cynan said. "It is not right."

Loath as I was to agree with him, I conceded to a quick investigation. "It must be swift indeed," Tegid warned. "It will be dark soon. We dare not linger."

Leaving Scatha and the rest to guard the horses, Bran, Emyr, Garanaw, Tegid, Cynan and I prepared torches and crept toward the red palace, watching the vacant entrance as we drew nearer. We saw nothing and the cry did not come again.

At the threshold, we paused to light the torches and entered an enormous, empty hail. Surprisingly, the room was many times larger on the inside than it appeared from the outside. The reason for this, Tegid immediately discovered. "It is all one," he pointed out. "There is but a single chamber."

All the hundreds of windows which, on the outside, appeared to open onto separate rooms, served to shed light on this single gigantic chamber. Even so, there was precious little illumination, just enough to see that we stood on a ledge with wide, shallow steps leading down to a floor somewhere below. Neither the floor below nor the roof above could be seen from where we stood, and the light of our torches did little to challenge the darkness of the place.

The air inside the hail was dank and cold-colder than outside. We stood and listened, our breath hanging in clouds around us. Hearing nothing, we started down the steps, shoulder to shoulder, torches held high. Each step stirred an echo that flitted like a bat into the darkness.

"A cheerless house, this," muttered Bran, his voice ringing in the vast emptiness.

"Even with a blaze the hearth would be cold," added Emyr.

"Still, I would welcome a fire now," Garanaw said. "The darkness here is dark indeed."

Six steps down, we came onto a wide landing, and then six more to another landing, and a final six to the floor, which was covered

272

SONG OF ALBION

with six-sided glazed black tiles. The tiles glistened with moisture and made a slick surface for our feet as we moved slowly to the center of the hall where the firepit would be.

"Your hopes for a welcome fire are in vain, Garanaw," remarked Tegid. "There is no hearth."

No hearthstone, no fire-ring, nor even a brazier such as we had seen in the tower. The room, as far as we could tell, was devoid of any furniture whatsoever. Instead, where the hearth would have been, there was a mosaic picked out in small red, white and black tesserae depicting the same winged serpent emblem we had seen in the tower. The serpent here, however, was less stylized and somewhat more lifelike: sinuous red coils shimmering in the torchlight, red eyes glaring, reptilian wings spread behind its flat head. And there was a word spelled out in red tiles beneath it, which I took to be the creature's name.

I looked at the image traced upon the floor and my silver hand sent a warning tingle up my arm.

My eyes were better adjusted to the dark now, and I saw that the great room was oval-shaped, its many-peaked roof supported by rows of tapering columns whose tops were lost to the blackness above. Directly opposite the entrance door across the expanse of floor, a second round doorway, nearly as large as the first, opened into the smooth rockface of the bank.

We proceeded warily across the room to this second doorway, which proved to be the opening of a cave-elaborately dressed with fine finished stone without, but nothing more than a ragged rock tunnel inside. It came to me that the whole palace was but a façade built to conceal or, more likely, to enshrine this single cave entrance.

"Well," said Cynan, eyeing the tunnel doubtfully, "we have come this far. Will we turn back without seeing what lies beyond?"

Up spoke Tegid. "Do you yet wonder what lies beyond?"

"Enlighten us, bard," Cynan said. "I cannot guess."

"Can you not? Very well then, I will tell you. It is the creature whose image we have seen since coming to the Foul Land."

"The beast set in the floor back there?" wondered Cynan,

273

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

gesturing to the empty hall behind us.

"The same," said Tegid. "It is in my mind that this hole leads to the lair of the beast. Yr Gyrein Rua is its name."

"The Red Serpent?" murmured Cynan. The warriors glanced around warily. "Do you know this beast?"

"Unless I am much mistaken," the bard replied, "the creature within is that which the Learned call the Red Serpent of Oeth." He hesitated. "Some call it Wyrm."

"Wyrm. . ." Bran muttered, glancing over his shoulder.

Sick dread broke like a wave over me; I understood now why the palace consisted of just one room, and why the bronze men of the high tower revered the image of the serpent it was their god; they sacrificed to it. And this was Yr Gyrem Rua's shrine and sanctuary.

"Let us leave this place while we may," urged Bran.

With that, we turned from the door, retreating back across the floor but three paces when the cry sounded again-the thin, tremorous whimper of a forlorn and miserable infant.

"The child has wandered in there," gasped Cynan, hurrying back to the cave entrance. Peering inside, he put his hands to his mouth and called to the child, waited, and when he received no reply, started into the tunnel.

I snatched him by the cloak and pulled him back. "You cannot go in there alone."

"Then come with me, brother."

I turned back to the others. "Stay here," I said. "We will take a quick look inside."

Trembling in every limb, Cynan and I started down the tunnel, the light of our torches flickering on the damp red stone. We moved cautiously on, but encountered little more than a strong smell: musty and somewhat sweet, but with a ripe gamey taint, like rancid oil or fat.

Fifty paces more and I saw a glistening mass lying on the floor of the passage. My metal hand went suddenly cold and I stopped in my tracks.

"What is that?" breathed Cynan, gesturing with his torch.

I stepped closer and held my torch nearer. My stomach tightened

~74

SONG OF ALBION

and my mouth filled with bile. I gagged and choked.

Lying in a pool of vomitus on the floor before us was the undigested head of one of our missing scouts. The flesh was badly corrupted, the face horribly marred; even so, I recognized the man.

Cynan made to brush past me, but I swung towards him and put my hand in the center of his chest. "Brother, no. -. It is Gweir."

He strained forward, anger, sorrow and disbelief battling across his features. He glanced over my shoulder. "Saeth du!" he cursed and turned away.

There was nothing to be done for Gweir, so we moved on, the odor growing more potent with every step. In a little while the passage turned and widened out somewhat, forming a low grotto. The stench hit me full force as I stepped into this inner chamber it rocked me back on my heels, but I choked back the bile and staggered ahead. Cynan entered quickly after me.

In the center of the grotto was a hole in the rock floor. The rough edges of the hole were smoothed to an almost polished luster. It was not difficult to guess how the rough stone had gained its glassy sheen.

Scattered on the floor of this hateful chamber were various body parts of our missing warriors and their mounts: a foot still in its buskin, a mangled horse's head and several hooves, jawbones, human and animal teeth, the stripped rib cage and spine of a horse. There were other, older bones, too, skulls and broken shanks scoured clean and brown with age-sacrificial victims of a distant age.

I could not bear the sight and turned away. The eerie child-like whine sounded again, rising from the depths below, and I realized it was the Wynn itself, not a child, that made the cry. Tightening my grip on the torch, I stepped towards the hole. A blade of ice stabbed up into my arm.

Cynan caught me by the shoulder. "Stay back," he barked in a harsh whisper, pulling me roughly away. "We can do nothing here."

We retraced our steps to the great hall. Tegid saw the grim set of our faces and asked, "Well? Did you find the child?"

Cyrian shook his head, "There was no child," he answered, his

275

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

voice a low growl in his throat. "But we have found the serpent... and our missing scouts as well."

Tegid swallowed hard and bowed his head as we described what we had seen. "The evil which has slept untold ages has awakened," the bard said when we had finished. "We must leave this place at once."

The sky outside had lost all color and light. Bran wasted no time moving the men along. We hurried towards the road beyond the palace. The first warriors reached the far end of the terrace, and paused to allow the rest of the party to assemble before moving on. It was then the Wyrm struck.

The attack came so swiftly and silently, that the first we knew of it was the choked-off scream of the man it seized and carried away. Hearing the man's dying shriek, I spun around in time to see a sinuous shape gliding into the dusky shadows.

A heartbeat later, we were all racing back across the terrace to where the others had halted. "Did you see?" they shouted. "The Wyrm! It took Selyfi"

I shouted above the clamor. "Did anyone see where it went?"

The Wyrm had attacked and vanished once more into the shadows without a trace. "We cannot go that way," Bran concluded, staring in the direction of the road. "We will have to go around."

I peered around doubtfully. On one hand, the river, itself as silent and deadly as a serpent; on the other, the red palace and its evil occupant. Behind loomed the forest, rising like a massive, impenetrable curtain. Turning towards the forest with great reluctance, I said, "This way; we will try to find another path."

"What about Selyf?" Cynan demanded. "We cannot leave him behind."

"He is gone," Bran said. "There is nothing to be done for him."

Cynan refused to move. "He was a good man."

"And will it help Selyf if we all join him in the pit?" Bran asked. "How many more good men must we lose to the Wyrm?"

My sympathies lay with Cynan, but Bran was right - -fleeing made the best sense. "Listen to him, brother," I said. "What benefit

276

SONG OF ALBION

to Tángwen if you are not there to rescue her? The serpent could return at any moment. Let us go from here while we have the chance."

Leaving the terrace, we entered the forest, pausing only long enough to light torches, before moving on. Bran led, with myself and Cynan behind, keeping the river to our backs. We worked our way into the undergrowth in an effort to skirt the palace. The further we moved from the river, the more tangled and close-grown the wood became. We slashed and hacked with our swords, and forced our way, step by step, until we reached a rock wall rising sheer from the forest floor.

"It is the same bank from which the palace is carved," said Bran, scratching away the moss with his blade to reveal red stone beneath.

Raising our torches, we tried to gauge the height of the bank, but the top was lost in the darkness and we could not see it. "Even if we could climb it," Cynan pointed out, "the horses could not"

Keeping the rock bank to our right, we continued on, moving away, always away, from the palace. When one torch burned out, we snatched up another brand from the snarl of branches all around us. Time and again, we stopped to examine the bank and, finding neither breach nor foothold, we moved on. A late-rising moon eventually appeared and poured a dismal glow over us. Now and then, I glimpsed its pale face flickering in the wickerwork of branches overhead.

"I see a clearing ahead," called Bran from a few paces on.

"At last!" It seemed as if we had walked half the night and had yet to discover any way we might cross the stone bank. I signalled for the rest of the men to stop while Bran and I went ahead to investigate the clearing. Shoulder to shoulder, we crept slowly forward, pressing ourselves against the rock bank. We entered the clearing to see the red palace directly before us and, a little distance to the right, the darkly glimmering river.

"We have come full circle," I remarked. Indeed, we were standing just a few paces from where we had started.

"How is it possible?" wondered Bran.

277

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

"We must have become confused in the dark. We will go the other way."

Retracing our steps, we informed the others of the mistake, and struck off once more. Again, we kept the rock bank hard at the right hand so that we would not go astray. The moon reached the peak of its arc and began descending. We pressed relentlessly on, arriving after another long march at yet another clearing. Bran and I stepped together from the shielding edge of the wood into the open: the palace stood directly before us, and off to the right, the dark river.

I took one look and called for Tegid. "See this, bard," I said, flinging out my hand, "it makes no difference which way we go, we return to this place in the end. What are we to do?"

Tegid cocked an eye to the night sky and said, "Dawn is not far off. Let us rest now, and try again when it is light."

We gathered at the edge of the clearing near the river and set about making a rough camp. We lit fires, established a watch, and settled down to wait for sunrise. Cynan wrapped himself in his cloak and lay down. I had just spread a saddle fleece on the ground and sat down crosslegged, a spear across my knees, when Tegid leapt to his feet.

He froze. Listening.

A faint, rippling sound reached me. It sounded like a boat moving against the nverflow. "It is coming from the water," I whispered. "But what-"

"Shh!" Tegid hissed. "Listen!"

Faintly, as in the far-off distance, I heard the nervous whicker of a horse; it was quickly joined by another. Cynan rolled to his feet, shouting, "The horses!"

We flew through the camp towards the horse picket. I felt a sharp icy stab of pain in my silver hand and in the same instant saw, outlined against the shimmering water, a monstrous serpent, its upper body raised high off the ground and great angular head weaving slowly from side to side. The enormous body glistened in the faint moonlight; the head, armored with horned plates, swung above three tremendous coils, each coil the full girth of a horse, and a stiff forked tail protruded from between the first and second coil.

278

SONG OF ALBION

Two long, thick, back-swept ridges ran down along either side of its body from just below the ghastly swaying head.

A trail of water led up from the river. Obviously, the creature had more than one entrance to its den. It had come up from the river close to the horses, no doubt intent on gorging its fearsome appetite on horseflesh. The horses, terrified, bucked and reared, jerking on their picket lines and tethers. Several had broken free and men were trying to catch them.

The Wynn seemed keenly fascinated by the commotion, its plated head swerving in the air, eyes gleaming in the firelight. I saw the plunging horses and the campfires...

"Help me, Cynan!" I shouted. Dashing forward, I speared one of the lichen bales with which we fed the horses, and ran with it to the nearest fire. I thrust the bale into the flames and lofted the spear. Then, with the courage of fear and rage, I ran to the serpent and heaved the flaming spear into its face.

The missile struck the bony plate below the monster's eye. The Wynn flinched, jerking away from the fire.

I whirled away, shouting to those nearby. "Light more bales!" I cried. "Hurry! We can drive it away."

Cynan and two other warriors bolted to the stack of fodder, skewered three bales and set them ablaze. Cynan lunged to meet the Wynn, raising a battle cry as he ran.

"This Draig!" he bellowed. The two warriors at his side took up the cry. "Bds Draig!"

Returning for another spear and bale, I saw Scatha running towards me. "Rally the warband!" I shouted. "Help Cynan drive the serpent away from the horses." Turning to Tegid, I ordered, "Stay here and light more bales as we need them."

Bran and Alun, having seen my feat, appeared with bales ablaze. I quickly armed myself again and joined them; together we charged the Wynn. Scatha and the warband had taken up a position on the near side, midway between the serpent and the river-dangerously close to the creature, it seemed to me. They were already strenuously engaged in trying to attract the beast's

279

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

attention and draw it away from the camp.

I made for a place opposite them, thinking that if the serpent turned towards them, we three would be well placed for a blind-side attack. Upon seeing our approach, the Ravens, flying to meet us with weapons alight, sent up a shrill war cry, distracting the serpent. Scatha and her band saw their chance and rushed forward, weapons low and shields raised high. They struck at the huge coils, driving their blades into the softer skin of the belly between the scales. The huge snaky head swung towards them.

"Now!" I shouted, sprinting forward. My silver hand burned with a freezing fire.

Scatha's band stood fearless to the task, jabbing their spears into the Wyrm's side. The annoyed beast lowered its head and loosed a menacing hiss. As the awful mouth cracked open, I heaved the shaft with all my might. The unbalanced missile fell short, striking the creature on the underside of its mouth with a great flurry of sparks, but no hurt to the creature at all. As my first missile fell harmlessly away, I was already running for another.

Alun had no better luck with his throw. But Bran, seeing how we had fared, managed to compensate for the top-heavy spear with a well-judged, magnificent throw. The serpent, aware of our presence due to our first clumsy attempts, swung towards Bran, hissing wickedly.

As soon as the great wide mouth opened, Bran's spear was up and in. The Ravens cheered for their chieftain. But the serpent gave a quick shake of its head and dislodged the barb and fire bale.

I thought that Bran, like Cynan and me, would return to Tegid for another fire bale. Instead, he simply bounded forward and took up the shaft I had thrown. He impaled the fiery bale and prepared for another throw.

Perhaps the beast anticipated Bran's move. More likely, Yr Gyrem Rua, enraged by our attack, struck blindly at the closest moving shape. I glanced around just in time to see the huge horny head swing down and forward with breathstealing speed just as Bran's arm drew back to aim his throw.

280

SONG OF ALBION

The serpent's strike took the Raven Chief at the shoulder. He fell and rolled, somehow holding on to his weapon. He gained his knees as the Wyrm struck again, raising the spear in both hands as the head descended so that he took the blow on the shaft instead. The spear with its flaming head fell one way and Bran was sent sprawling the other. The serpent drew back and tensed for another strike.

The Ravens leapt forward as one man to save their chieftain. Alun, reached him first and, taking up the fallen weapon, flung it into the serpent's face while the others dragged Bran to safety.

"Alun! Get out of there, man!" Cynan cried.

Diving sideways, Alun hit the ground, rolled, and caine up running. But instead of retreating to the campfire with the others, he stooped to retrieve the spear Bran had thrown.

I saw him do it and shouted. "No! Alun!"

281

Battle Awen

 

 

The Wynn struck. Alun whirled, throwing the flaming bale at the same time. The throw grazed the serpent's jaw and bounced away as the head descended, knocking Alun off his feet and throwing him onto his back.

I seized a spear Tegid had readied and ran to Alun's defence. Garanaw and Niall heard my shout, turned, and ran to his aid. Scatha's warriors redoubled their attack. They drove in close, stabbing fearlessly. Scatha, by dint of sheer determination, succeeded in forcing a spear into a soft place between two scales on the serpent's side. With a mighty lunge, she drove the blade in. I saw the shaft sink deep into the beast's flesh, and I heard her triumphant cry: "Bds Dra~!"

Spitting with fury, the red serpent hissed and the long neck stiffened; the two ridges on the side of its body bulged, then flattened into an immense hood, revealing two long slits on either side and two vestigial legs with clawed feet. The legs unfolded, claws snatching, and suddenly two great membranous wings emerged from the side slits behind the legs. These huge bat wings shook and trembled, unfurling like crumpled leather, slowly spreading behind the Wynn in a massive canopy.

Scatha gave the embedded spear another violent shove. The

27

282

SONG OF ALBION

serpent hissed again and swivelled its head to strike, but Scatha and her warrior band were already retreating into the darkness.

Meanwhile, Garanaw and Niall pulled Alun away. And I took advantage of the momentary lapse to position myself for another throw. Cynan, flaming spear streaking the night, ran to my side. As its evil head turned, the Wynn's mouth came open with an angry, rasping, seething hiss.

"Ready?... Now!" I cried, and twin trails of fire streaked up into the monster's maw. Cynan's spear struck the roof of the serpent's mouth and fell away causing little hurt; mine hit on one of the long fangs and glanced away. I ran back to the campfire. "Give me another spear," I demanded. "Hurry!"

"It is not working," Tegid began. "We must find another way to-"

"Hurry!" I shouted, grabbing the firebrand from his hand and setting it to the nearest bundle. I took up a spear and plunged it into the bale. "Cynan! Follow me!"

Scatha had seen us return for more bales and understood that we meant to try again. As we flew once more to our positions, she launched another attack on the Wynn's side. This time both she and one of the warriors with her succeeded in forcing spears between the thick scales. Two other warriors broke off their attack and leaped to Scatha's side, adding their strength to help drive the shaft deep into the serpent's flesh.

Scatha's success inspired the Ravens, who raced to repeat the feat on the opposite side. Drustwn and Garanaw charged in close, working their weapons into a crack between scales. They, too, succeeded in wounding the beast.

Yr Gyrem Rua screamed and flapped its enormous wings; its forked tail thrashed from side to side like a whip.

Cynan and I took up our positions. Placing the butt of the spear in the palm of my metal hand, I stretched my other hand along the shaft as far as I could reach. As the Wynn's head veered towards me once more, I crouched low, my heart racing. The flames flared; sparks fell on my upturned face and singed my hair.

 

 

 

283

I

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

"Come on, you bloated snake," I growled, "open that ugly mouth!"

The massive neck arched. The hideous head tensed high above me. I saw the fireglint in a hard black glittering eye.

With a shout of "Die, dragon!" Cynan took his place slightly behind and to the left of me. The serpent shrieked, and the sound was deafening; its awful wings arched and quivered, and clawed feet raked the air. My stomach tightened. I clenched my teeth to keep from biting my tongue.

"Strike!" I taunted. "Strike, Wynn!"

The enormous mouth opened-a vast white pit lined with innumerable spiked teeth in a triple row. Two slender fangs emerged from pockets in the upper mouth. The blue-black ribbon of a tongue arched and curled to a frightful screech.

And then the awful head swooped down.

I saw the fangs slashing towards me. My body tensed.

"Now!" cried Cynan. His spear flashed up over my shoulder and into the descending mouth. "Liew!"

I hesitated a rapid heartbeat longer, and then heaved my flaming missile with every ounce of strength I possessed. My metal hand whipped up, driving the missile into a high, tight arc.

Cynan's spear pierced the puffy white flesh and stuck fast My spear flashed up between the two fangs, over the teeth, and into the throat.

The red serpent recoiled. Its mouth closed on the shaft of Cynan's spear, driving the spearhead even deeper into the soft skin and forcing the mouth to remain open. The creature could not close its mouth to swallow, which would have allowed it to quench the flames now searing its throat

The Wynn began thrashing violently from side to side. With great, slow strokes, the terrible wings beat the air. Burning lichen rained down on our heads. The lethal tail slashed like forked lightning, striking the ground with killing clouts.

"Run!" Cynan shouted, pulling me away.

We fled to the fire where the Ravens now stood shouting and

284

SONG OF ALBION

cheering. Bran lay on the ground bleeding from a wound on the side of his head. Alun sat slumped beside him, white-faced, a foolish, dazed expression on his face.

Blood oozed from Bran's head, and Alun's eyelids fluttered as he fought to remain conscious. Rage seized me and spun me around. I saw the winged serpent slam down its head as if to bite the earth. The force of the blow splintered the spear holding open its mouth. The huge jaws closed, the throat convulsed, and up came my spear with the smoldering bale still attached.

Wings beating a fearful rhythm, the serpent slowly lifted its flat head and upper body, loosed its coils and began half-flying, half-slithering away. Our campfire guttered in the gale of its retreat.

"It is fleeing!" shouted Drustwn, lofting his spear in triumph.

"Hie-e-ya!" crowed Emyr with a jubilant whoop. "Yr Gyrem Rua is defeated!"

"The Wynn is conquered!" Cynan shouted. He grabbed me and clasped me to his chest. I saw his mouth move, but his voice had become the irritating buzz of an insect. His face creased with concern; sweat gleamed on his skin in the firelight. The glint of each bead became a needle of stabbing light, a naked star in the frozen universe of night. The ground beneath my feet trembled, and the earth lost all solidity.

And I felt my spirit expand within me; I was seized and taken up, as if I were no more than a leaf released from a branch and set sailing on a sudden gust of wind. My ears pounded with the bloodrush; my vision hardened to a sharp, narrow field: I saw only the winged serpent-scales gleaming blood red in the shivered light of our fire, grotesque wings stiffly beating, lifting that huge body to the freedom of the night sky. I saw the Red Serpent of Oeth escaping; all else around me dimmed, receded, vanished.

A hand grasped my shoulder, and then two more laid hold to my arms. But Ollathir's battle awen burned within me and I would not be held back. Power surged up in a mighty torrent. Like a feather in a flood, lightly riding the currents, upheld by them, I became part of the force flowing through me. The strength of the earth and sky was

285

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

mine. I was pure force and impulse. My limbs trembled with pent energy demanding release. I opened my mouth and a sound like the bellow of the battlehorn issued from my throat.

And then I ran: swift as the airstream in the wind-scoured heights, sure as the loosed arrow streaking to its mark. I ran, but my feet did not touch the earth. I ran, and my silver hand began to glow with a cold and deadly light, the etchwork of its cunning designs shining like white gold in the Swift Sure Hand's refming fire. My fist shone like a beam of light, keen and bright.

A gabble of voices clamored behind me, small and confused. But I could not be bound or deflected. Can the spear return to the hand that has thrown it?

I was a ray of light. I was a wave upon the sea. I was a river beneath a mountain. I was hot blood flowing in the heart. I was the word already spoken. The Penderwydd's awen was upon me and I could not be contained.

The serpent's bulk rose like a curving crimson wall before me, and I saw Scatha's spear buried mid-shaft in the creature's side. Grasping the shaft with my silver hand, I pulled myself up. My flesh fingers found a crack between scales and my foot found the spearshaft. One quick scramble and I reached the serpent's back.

Solid beneath me, but fluid, like a molten road undulating slowly over the land, the red beast fled, fell wings stroking the air. Moving with the quickness of a shadow and the deftness of a stalking cat, I skittered over the sinuous backbone~ over scales large as paving stones. A notched ridge down the center of the creature's back made good footing as the earth dropped away below. The foul beast had gained the air, but I heeded it not.

With the uncanny skill of a bard's inspiration I climbed towards the vile creature's head, and passed between the buffeting wings. Keen-eyed in the night, I glimpsed a fold of skin at the base of the serpent's skull and, above it, a slight depression where the spine met the skull; thin skin stretched tight over soft tissue.

The Wynn's body stiffened beneath me as it rose higher. Mounting to the bulging mound of muscle between the two wings, I

286

~UNU 01' 1~L.b1UI'~

planted myself there and, raising my silver hand high, I smashed it down hard.

The metal broke the skin and slipped under the ridge of bone at the base of the serpent's skull. I stabbed deep, my metal hand a thrusting blade-cold silver sliding as in a sheath of flesh, plunging, piercing, penetrating the red serpent's cold brain.

A blast like the windscream of a Sollen gale rent the night. The wingbeats faltered as the immense leathery wings struggled to the sprung rhythm of a suddenly broken cadence.

"Die!" I shouted, my voice the loud carynx of battle. "Die!"

I slammed my fist deeper, metal fingers grasping. My arm sank past the elbow and my fingers tightened on a thick, sinewy cord. Seizing this cord, I ripped up hard and my fist came out in a bloody gush. The left wing faltered and froze. The Wynn slewed sideways, plunging deadweight from air. I clung to the bony rim of scales and held on as the earth rushed towards me.

My feet struck the ground with an abrupt bone-rattling jolt. I rolled free and stood unshaken. The Wynn convulsed, recoiling, rolling over and over, wrapping itself in itself, pale belly exposed in twisted loops.

The Red Serpent began striking its underbelly. The poisoned fangs slashed again and again, sinking into the exposed flesh. I laughed to see it, and heard my voice echo in the empty depths of the nearby shrine.

Once more I felt the hands of men on me. I was encircled in strong arms and lifted off my feet. Laughing, I was hauled from the path of the writhing serpent I glimpsed men's faces in the darkness, eyes wide with awe, mouths agape in fright and wonder as they carried me away from the writhing Wynn and out of danger.

The death throes of Yr Gyrem Rua were harrowing to behold. The serpent screamed-curling, twisting, spinning, crushing itself in its own killing coils, clawed feet raking the soft belly, battered wings rent and broken. The forked tail lashed and stung, striking the earth in a violent frenzy.

The Wyrm's paroxysms carried it to the portal of the palace

287

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

shrine. The tail smashed into the stone, loosened the ancient pillars and knocked them from their bases. Chunks of stonework began falling from the time-worn façade. The serpent spun in a knot of convoluted wrath, shattering the forecourt of the obnoxious temple, which began to crumble inward like an age-brittle skull. The dying serpent squirmed, beating against the hard shell of its cavern sanctuary. Red stone crashed and red dust rose like a blood mist in the moonlight. The frenzy gradually began to ease as the life-force ebbed. The movements became languid and sluggish; the sibilant shrieks dwindled to a pathetic strangled whine, its last cry a monstrous parody of a child in distress.

Slowly, slowly, the potency of its own poison began to work its deadly effect. Even so, the red Wynn was some time dying. Long after the thrashing had stopped, the forked tail twitched and a broken wing stump stirred.

As I stood watching, my eyesight dimmed and my limbs began to twitch. The trembling increased. I fastened my teeth onto my lower lip and bit hard to keep from crying out. I wrapped my arms around my chest and hugged myself tight to keep my limbs from shuddering.

"Liew! Liew!" a sharp voice assaulted me.

Pain exploded in my head. I felt hands on me. The taste of blood filled my mouth; words bubbled from my bleeding tongue and I prated in a language unknown to those around me. Faces clustered tight over me, but I did not know them-faces without identity, familiar strangers who stared in anguish. My head throbbed, pounding with a fierce and steady ache, and my vision diffused, dwindling to vague patterns of light and dark, shapes with no clear features.

And then I tumbled over the edge into senselessness. I felt waves of warm darkness lapping over my consciousness and I succumbed to oblivion.

I awoke with a start as they laid me on the ground beside the fire. The awen had left me-like a gale that has passed, leaving the rain;oaked grass flattened in its wake. I struggled to sit up.

288

SONG OF ALBION

"Lie still," advised Tegid. Placing his hands on my chest, he pressed me down on the oxhide.

"J-Ielp me stand," I said; my words slurred slightly as my wooden tongue mumbled in my mouth.

"All is well," the bard insisted. "Rest now."

I had no strength to resist I lay back. "How is Bran?"

"Bran is well. His head hurts, but he is awake and moving. Alun is unharmed-a scratch; it will heal."

 

"Rest now. It will be daylight soon and we will leave this place."

I closed my eyes and slept. When I woke again the sun was peeping cautiously above the trees. The men had struck camp and were ready to go. They were waiting for me to rise, which I did at once. My arms and shoulders were stiff, and my back felt like a timber plank. But I was in one piece.

Tegid and Scatha hovered nearby. I joined them and they greeted me with good news. "We have scouted the high road beyond the shrine," Scatha reported, "and it has been used recently."

A spark of hope quickened my heart. "How recently?"

"It is difficult to know for certain," the bard answered.

"How recently?" I demanded again.

"I cannot say."

"Show me."

"Gladly." Scatha, haggard and near exhaustion, smiled and her features relaxed. "All is ready. You have but to give the command."

"Then let us go from here," I said. "It is a hateful place and I never want to see it again."

We passed the ruined temple to reach the road. Little of the shrine remained intact. Scarcely one stone stood upon another; it was all a jumble of red rubble. In a twisted mess amidst the debris, lay the wrecked body of Yr Gyrem Rua. A single broken wing fluttered in the wind like a tattered flag. The venom of its bite was quick about its grisly work of dissolving the muscled flesh; decay was already far advanced. The stink of the decomposing Wynn brought tears to our eyes as we rode quickly past

289

While it stood, the temple had hidden much of the road which could now be seen stretching out straight and wide, leading on through the forest and away from the river. It was, as Scatha had said, a proper high road: paved with flat stone, fitted together so closely and with such cunning that no grass grew between the joins.

"Show me the evidence of its use," I said as Tegid reined in beside me.

"You will see it just ahead," he replied. We continued on a short distance and stopped. Tegid dismounted and led me to the side of the road. There, nestled like round brown eggs in the long grass, I saw the droppings of perhaps three or four horses. A little way beyond, the grass was trampled and matted where a camp had been established. There was no evidence of a fire, so we could not tell how long ago the travellers had sojourned there. Nevertheless, I reckoned it could not have been more than a few days.

We returned to our horses, remounted, and moved out upon the high road with a better heart than at any time since entering the Foul Land.

290

28

On the High Road

 

 

Once on the high road, we journeyed with something approaching speed-a mixed blessing, as it soon exposed the loss of our horses. Those on foot could not keep pace, and we were constantly having to halt the mounted column to allow the stragglers to catch up. Thus we were obliged to rotate the men, foot~tosaddle, with increasing frequency as the swifter pace began to tell.

At the end of the day, we had travelled a fair distance. Since we planned to camp right on the road itself, we pushed on until it became too dark to see more than a few hundred paces ahead. There were stars shining in the sky and, though still cold, the air seemed not so sharp as on other nights. This served clear notice that time was passing. The weather was changing; Sollen was receding and Gyd would soon arrive.

I begrudged the time-every passing day was a day without Goewyn and empty for the lack. I felt an urgency in my spirit that nothing, save the light in Goewyn's eye, could appease. I was restless and craved the sight of my beloved. The infant was growing now Within her, and I wondered if it had begun to show. I repeated her flame with every step.

As Cyrian and I walked together, taking our turn on foot, I asked, Do you miss Tángwen greatly?"

291

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

His head was bent low. "My heart is sore for yearning, I miss her so much."

"You never say anything," I prodded gently.

"It is my heartache. I keep it to myselL"

"Why? We share this pain together, brother."

Cynan swung his spear shaft forward, rapping the butt sharply on the stone, but kept his eyes fixed on the road. "I keep it to myself," he said again, "for I would not grieve you with my complaint. Bad enough that Goewyn is stolen; you do not need my troubles added to your own."

He would say no more about it, so I let the matter rest. His forbearance humbled me. That Cynan could forswear the very mention of his own hurt lest it increase mine, shamed me; doubly so, since I had scarcely given his suffering a second thought. How could I be worthy of such loyalty?

That night we came to the end of the little grain that remained, and it was a sorry meal.

"The sooner we leave this accursed forest, the better," grumbled Bran Bresal. We sat at council around the fire while the men ate, wondering what to do. "It cannot go on for ever."

"Nor can we," I pointed out. 'Without meat and meal, we will soon grow too weak to travel."

"We have meat on the hoof," Scatha suggested delicately. "Though every horse we take means that another warrior must walk."

"I have never eaten horsemeat," Cynan muttered. "I do not intend to start now."

"I have eaten horse," said Tegid. "And I was glad to. It warmed the belly and strengthened the hand to the fight."

I remembered the time Tegid meant: the flight to Findargad in the mountains of northern Prydain. Then, as now, it was winter. We were pursued by the Coranyid, Lord Nudd's demon host, while making our way to Meldryn Mawr's high stronghold. Freezing, starving, we fought our way step by faltering step to the safety of the fortress. We were not freezing this time; but the starving had begun.

292

SONG OF ALBION

"Nothing good can come of eating a horse," rumbled Cynan, pressing his chin to his chest "It is a low endeavor."

"Perhaps," agreed Scatha, "but there are worse."

I stirred at the sound of footsteps, and Emyr appeared, anxious and uneasy. He spoke directly to Tegid. "Penderwydd, it is Alun. I think you should come and see him."

Rising without a word, Tegid hurried away.

"What has happened to him?" asked Cynan, jumping to his feet. Bran had risen at Emyr's approach and was already following.

We fell into step with Emyr. "Garanaw found him sitting back there," the Raven said, indicating the road we had that day travelled. "He took his turn walking, but he did not join us when we stopped to make camp. Garanaw rode back to look for him."

Alun sat slumped by the campfire. The other Ravens hovered near, quietly apprehensive. They did not speak when we joined them, but gathered close as Tegid stooped before their stricken swordbrother.

"Alun," began the bard, "what is this I hear about you taking your ease by the road?"

Alun's head came up with a smile, but there was pain behind his eyes, and his skin glowed with a mist of perspiration. "Well," he replied in a brave tone, glancing around the circle of faces above him, "I have not been sleeping as well as I might-what with one thing and another."

Scatha knelt beside him. "Where is the hurt, Alun?" she asked, and put her hand on his shoulder. The touch, though gentle, brought a gasp from the Raven. The color drained from his face.

Gently, she reached to unfasten the brooch that held his cloak. Alun put his hand over hers and shook his head slightly. "Please."

"Let us help you, brother," Tegid said softly.

He hesitated, then closed his eyes and nodded. Scatha deftly unpinned the cloak and loosened the siarc. Alun made no further move to hinder her, and soon the shoulder was exposed. A ragged welt curved over the top of the shoulder towards the shoulder blade.

"Bring a torch," the bard commanded, and a moment later Niall

293

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

handed a firebrand forward. Tegid took the torch and, stepping behind the seated Alun, held the light near.

"Oh, Alun!" sighed Scatha. Several of the Ravens muttered, and Bran looked away.

"Fine brave warriors you are!" complained Alun. "Has no one seen a scratch before?"

There was a small rip in the siarc, and little blood; indeed, the scratch itself had already scabbed over. But the flesh beneath was red and swollen, with a ghastly green-black tinge.

Tegid studied the shoulder carefully, holding the torch near and probing gently with his fingertips. Then he placed his hand flat against the swollen shoulder. "The wound is hot to the touch," he said. "It is fevered."

Scatha reached a hand to Alun's head and pressed her palm to his brow. She withdrew it almost at once. "You are roasting, Alun."

"Perhaps I have been sitting too near the fire," he laughed weakly. "And here I thought I was cold."

"I will not lie to you, brother," Tegid said, handing me the torch and squatting before Aiim once more. "It is not good. The wound has sickened. I must open it again and clean it properly."

Alun rolled his eyes, but his exasperation was half-hearted and mingled with relief. "All this fuss over a scratch?"

"Man, Aiim, if that is a scratch only," said Cynan, who could contain himself no longer, "then my spear is a pot sticker."

"Bring fresh water-and clean cloths, if you can find any," Tegid ordered impatiently. Cynan left at once, taking Niall with him. "I need a knife," the bard continued, "and I need it sharp."

"Mine will serve," said Bran, pushing forward. He drew the blade from its place at his belt, and handed it to Tegid.

The bard tested the edge with his thumb and gave it back, saying, "Strop it again. I want it new.edged and keen."

"And hold the blade to the firecoals when you have finished," I instructed. Bran raised his eyebrows at this, but I insisted.

"Do it," said the Raven Chief, handing the knife to Drustwri, who hastened to the task. Tegid turned to the remaining Ravens. "Gather

294

SONG OF ALBION

moss, and spread oxhides and fleeces; prepare a bed."

"I will not need a bed, certainly," Alun grumbled.

"When I am through," Tegid replied, "one of us will be glad of a place to lay his head. I will use it if you will not." He nodded to Garanaw and Emyr, who turned and disappeared at once.

Scatha and I retreated a little apart. "I mislike the look of this," Scatha confided. "I fear the serpent's poison is in him."

"if the poison was in him, he would have been well and truly dead by now," I pointed out "Help Tegid, and come to me afterwards."

Thus, I set about keeping myself and the rest of the men busy until Tegid and Scatha had finished. The horses were picketed and the fires banked high; Cynan and I positioned the guards and saw the men settled to sleep before returning to the fire to wait.

I dozed, and after a while Cynan nudged me awake. "Here now! He is coming."

I yawned and sat up. "Well, bard?"

Tegid sat down heavily. Fatigue sat like a burden on his shoulders. Cynan poured a cup of water and offered it to him. "If I had a draught of ale," Cynan said, "I would give it to you. As soon as I get another, it is yours."

"And I will drain that cup," Tegid replied, gazing at the fire. He drank and, setting the cup aside, pressed his eyes shut.

"What of Alun?" I asked again.

Ignoring me, Tegid said, his voice cracking, "The wound was but a scratch-as Alun said. But it has sickened, and the sickness has spread into the shoulder and arm. I cut into the wound and pressed much poison out of the flesh. I bathed the cut with water and wrapped it with a poultice to keep the poison draining."

"Yet he will recover," Cynan declared flatly, willing it to be so.

"He is sleeping now. Scatha will sit with him through the night. She will rouse us if there is any change."

"Why did he let it go untended?" I asked. "He should have said something."

Tegid rubbed his face with his hands. "Alun is a brave man. He thought the hurt but small, and he did not wish to slow us.

295

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

Until he collapsed on the road, I do not believe he knew himself how ill he had become."

I asked the question uppermost in my mind. "Will he be able to travel tomorrow?"

"I will examine the wound again in the morning; I may see more by daylight A night's sleep can do much." He rubbed his face again. "I mean to see what it can achieve myself."

With that, he rolled himself in his cloak and went to sleep.

We did move on the next day. Alun seemed to be stronger and professed himself much improved. I made certain that he did not walk, and Tegid gave him healing draughts which he made with the contents of the pouch at his belt. In all, Alun looked and acted like a man on the mend.

So we journeyed on-growing more footsore and hungry by the day, it is true, but more determined also. Two days later, we noticed that the forest was thinning somewhat. And two days after that we came to the end of the forest. Despite the lack of food, our spirits soared. Just to see blue sky overhead was a blessing.

And though the land beyond the forest rose to bald hills of rocky and barren peat moor-as wide and empty as the forest had been dense and close-the warriors began to sing as we stepped from the shadow of the last tree. Tegid and I were riding at the head of the column and we stopped to listen.

"They have found their voices at last," I remarked. "I wonder how long it has been since such a sound was heard in Tir Aflan?"

Tegid cocked his head and favored me with one of his prickly sidelong glances.

"What have I said now?"

He straightened, drew a deep breath, and turned to look at the road ahead-stretching into the hill-crowded distance. "All this by the Brazen Man is come to pass," he intoned, "who likewise mounted on his steed of brass works woe both great and dire."

It was the Banfáith's prophecy, and I recognized it. With the recognition came an arrow-pang of regret for Gwenllian's death. I saw again the dusky shimmer of her hair and her bewitching emerald

296

SONG OF ALBION

eyes; I saw her graceful neck and shoulders bent to the curve of a harp, her fingers stroking the strings, as if coaxing beauty from thin air.

"Rise up, Men of Gwir!" I said, continuing the quote just to show Tegid that I remembered. "Fill your hands with weapons and oppose the false men in your midst"

Tegid supplied the final section: "The sound of the battleclash will be heard among the stars of heaven and the Great Year will proceed to its final consummation."

To which, I replied: "Bring it on. I am ready."

"Are you?" the bard asked.

Before I could reply, we heard a shout "Tegid! Liew! Here!"

I swivelled in the saddle and saw Emyr running towards us along the side of the road. I snapped the reins and urged my mount forward to meet him. "Come quickly!" he said. "It is Aiim."

We raced back along the high road to where two riderless horses waited. A cluster of men stood at the roadside, the Ravens among them. We pushed through the press and found Alun lying on the ground. Bran and Scatha bent over him, and Cynan was saying, "Lie still, Alun. You are ailing, man. It is no shame to tumble from the saddle."

"I fell asleep," Aiim protested. "That is all. I fell asleep and slipped off. It is nothing. Let me up."

"Alun," said Tegid, hunkering down beside him, "I want to look at your shoulder."

"But I am well, I tell you." Aiim's insistence fell somewhat short of absolute conviction.

I motioned to Cynan, who leant his head towards me. "Move the men along. We will join you as soon as we have finished here."

"Right!" said Cynan loudly. He rose and began turning men around. "It is for us to move on. We can do nothing for Alun- standing over him like trees taken root The road grows no shorter for stopping."

Reluctantly, the warriors moved along, leaving us to examine Alun's wound. Tegid deftly unfastened the brooch and drew aside

297

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

the cloak. The siarc beneath was caked with dried blood.

"You have been bleeding, AIim," observed Tegid, his voice dry and even.

"Have I?" wondered Alun. "I did not notice."

Tegid proceeded to draw aside the siarc, pulling it carefully away from the skin. A sweet smell emanated from the wound as the cloth came free. The whole shoulder and upper back were inflamed and discolored now, the flesh an ugly purple with a grotesque green-black cast. The scratch Tegid had opened was raw and running with a thin yellow matter.

"Well?" said Alun, twisting his head around to see his injury.

"I will not lie to you, Alun," Tegid's tone was solemn. "I do not like this." The bard pressed his fingers to the swollen flesh. "Does that hurt?"

"No." Alun shook his head. "I feel nothing."

"You should," replied Tegid. He turned to Bran. "Take Garanaw and Emyr, and ride back to the forest. Cut some long poles and bring them to me. We will make a cadarn for him."

Alun twisted free and struggled up. "I will not be dragged behind a horse on an infant's bed," he growled. "I will ride or walk."

The bard frowned. "Very well," he agreed at last, "we will spare you that. But you will endure my medicine before I let you take the saddle again."

Alun smiled. "You are a hard man, Tegid Tathal. Hard as the flint beneath your feet."

"Leave us the horses," Tegid instructed. "We will join you when I have finished."

Bran and I left Tegid and Scatha there, and returned to the column. "Tegid is worried," Bran observed. "He does not want us to know how bad it is." He paused. "But I know."

"Well," I replied lightly, doing my best to soothe the Chief Raven, "Tegid has his reasons. No doubt it is for the best"

We took our places at the head of the line with Cynan. And though the men continued to sing, the good feeling had gone out of it for me.

298

SONG OF ALBION

The day ended in a dull, miserable drizzle. A cold wind whined across the rocky wastes and made us glad of the firewood we had collected to bring with us upon leaving the forest The wind, mournful and cold though it was, made a welcome change from the stifling close silence and dead air of the forest. So we did not begrudge the chill and damp.

We ate thin gruel, mostly water, boiled with handfuls of a sort of coarse, spiky grass which we pulled from side of the road. The grass lent a stimulating aromatic quality to the brew, and served to flavor it somewhat, although it added little bulk. The water, collected from small rock pools, was far better than that which we got from the river. Some of the warriors scouted the nearest braes for mushrooms, but found none.

Tegid and Scatha watched over Alun through the night. At dawn I went to them to see how the patient had fared. The bard met me before I came near Alun. "I do not think he should travel today."

"Then we will camp here," I said. "We could all use the rest, and the horses have grass enough to graze. How is he?"

Tegid frowned; his dark eyes flicked away from me, and then back. "It is not well with him."

"But he will recover," I asserted quickly.

"He is strong. And he is not afraid of a fight. Scatha and I will do all that can be done to heal him." He paused. "Meat would help as much as rest."

"Say no more. I will see to it."

I chose one of the smaller horses, though not the youngest whose meat might have been more tender. But I was not choosing for culinary value; I wanted to keep the more experienced war horses as long as possible. Bran approved the choice, and Garanaw helped me slaughter the poor beast.

Cynan insisted he would have nothing to do with either killing or eating horses. He kept muttering, "It is not fitting for a king of Caledon to devour his good mount, his helpmate in battle."

"Fine. Then just hold your tongue when the stew starts bubbling and the smell of roasting meat tempts your nostrils."

299

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

Despite the cold, Garanaw and I put off our cloaks, siarcs, breecs and buskins. We led the animal a little apart and made the swordthrust as quick and painless as possible. The horse fell without a cry, rolled onto its side and died. We skinned it quickly and spread the hide on a nearby rock. Then we began the grisly task of hacking the carcass into suitable joints. We were covered in blood when we had finished, but we had a fair amount of good meat stacked on the hide.

Niall, Emyr and Drustwn, meanwhile, busied themselves preparing spits on which to roast the meat. Garanaw and I distributed the meat to the men, saving the choice pieces for Tegid's use. Shivering with cold by the time we had finished, we knelt beside a peaty pool and washed away the blood, dressed again, and hurried to warm ourselves while the meat cooked.

Soon the wind carried the smoky-sweet aroma throughout the camp, dispersing any lingering qualms about our meal. When the meat was done, it did not look or smell much different from beef and the men consumed it happily-not to say greedily. I could see Cynan's resolve wavering, but I knew if I asked him again, he would say no again out of stubborn pride.

Scatha came to his rescue. She collected a double portion and sat down crosslegged beside him. "I always told my Mabinogi," she began, chewing thoughtfully, "that a warrior's chief task is to stay alive and remain fit for battle. Any warrior who fails to do all he can to achieve this aim is no help at all to his kinsmen."

Cynan frowned and thrust out his chin. "I remember."

"I taught you to find birds' eggs and seaweed and-" she paused to lick the juice from her long fmgers, "and all such that might make a meal for a hungry warrior away from his lord's hearth."

The broad shoulders bunched in a tight shrug, but the frown remained firmly fixed.

"That is why I make certain to serve horsemeat to all my brood," Scatha continued casually.

The red head turned slowly. "You served us horsemeat?"

"Yes. I find that one taste and it --~"

300

SONG OF ALBION

Some of those sitting near overheard this conversation and grinned. No one dared laugh aloud. Cynan's chagrin was genuine, but wonderfully short-lived.

Scatha raised a portion of roast meat and offered it to him. Cynan took it between his hands and stared at it as if he expected it to reproach him. "Never let it be said that Cynan Machae spumed the learning of his youth."

So saying, he lifted the meat to his mouth and bit into it. He chewed grimly and swallowed, and the subject was never mentioned again. We slept well content that night, our stomachs full for the first time in many days. But my sleep was cut short. Tegid came to me and jostled me awake. The wind had risen during the night and was blowing cold from the north.

"Shh!" he cautioned. "Come quickly and quietly."

He led me to where he and Scatha had made a place for Alun between two small fires, one at his head and the other at his feet Bran stood beside her, leaning on his spear, his head lowered. Scatha had a rag in her hand, and a bowl of water in her lap; she was bathing Alun's face. His eyes were closed and he was lying very still.

Tegid bent over the ailing warrior. "Aiim," he said softly, "Liew is here. I have brought him as you asked."

At this, AIim's eyes flickered open and he turned his head. The vile purple stain of the rotten wound had reached the base of his throat. "Liew," Alun said, his voice little more than a whispered breath, "I wanted to say that I am sorry."

"Sorry? Alun, you have nothing to be sorry about," I replied quickly. "It is not-"

"I wanted to help you rescue Goewyn."

"You will, Aiim. You will recover. I am counting on you."

He smiled a dry, fevered smile. His dark eyes were glassy and hard. "No, lord, I will not recover. I am sorry to leave you one blade less." He paused and licked his lips. "I would have liked to see the look on Paladyr's face when you appeared. That is one fight I will be sorry to miss."

"Do not speak so, Alun," I said, swallowing hard. My throat

301

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

"The land is dead," he said, shaking out his cloak. "All was as we saw it before. Nothing has changed."

I called for some of the stew we had prepared the previous day, and left them to their meal. Meanwhile, Tegid and I set to work preparing the pyre for Alun's cremation. The wood had been dumped in a heap beside the road, and the bard was busy sorting it according to length when I joined him. When the ordering was finished, we carried armloads of selected timber to a large flat rock nearby and began stacking the wood carefully.

I fell in with the task and we worked together without speaking, carrying and stacking, erecting a sturdy wooden scaffold limb on limb. It was good work-the two of us moving in rhythm-and it put me in mind of the day Tegid and I had begun building Dinas Dwr. I held that memory and basked in its warm glow as we labored side by side. When we finished, the pyre stood on its lonely rock like a small timber fortress. Some of the men had gathered as we worked and now stood looking dolefully at the finished pyre.

Tegid observed them standing there and said, "When the sun sets we will light the fire."

The mist cleared as the day sped from us and the sky lightened in the west, allowing us a dazzling glimpse of golden light before dusk closed in once again. I turned from the setting sun to see the warriors coming in twos and threes across the moor to the rock where Tegid and I waited.

When all had gathered, Alun's body, which had been covered and sewn into an oxhide after his death, was brought by the Ravens and laid carefully upon the pyre. Tegid kindled a fire nearby and prepared torches, giving one to each of the remaining four Ravens and Bran.

The bard mounted the rock and took his place at the head of the pyre. He raised his hands in declamation. "Kinsmen and friends," he called loudly, "Alun Tringad is dead; his body lies cold upon the pyre. It is time to release the soul of our swordbrother to begin its journey through the High Realms. His body will be burned, but his ashes will not abide in Tir Aflan. When the fire has done its work, I

306

SONG OF ALBION

will gather the bones and they will return with us to Albion for burial on Dniim Vran."

Then, placing a fold of his cloak over his head, the Chief Bard raised his staff and closed his eyes. After a moment, he began to chant gently, tunelessly, a death dirge:

 

When the mouth shall be dosed,

When the eyes shall be shut,

When the breath shall cease to rattle,

When the heart shall cease to throb,

When heart and breath shall cease;

 

May the Swift Sure Hand uphold you,

And shield you from evil of eve?y kind.

May the Swift Sure Hand uphold you,

And guide your foot along the way,

May the Swift Sure Hand uphold you,

And lead you across the sword-bridge,

May the Swift Sure Hand shield, lead, and guide you Across the narrow way

By which you leave this world;

 

~4 nd guard you from all distress and danger, And place the pure light ofjoy before you, And lead you into Courts of Peace, And the service of a True King

In Courts of Peace,

Where Glory and Honor and Majesty

Delight the Noble Kin for ever.

May the eye of the Great God

Be a pilot star before you,

May the breath of the Good God

Be a smooth way before you,

May the heart of the Kingly God

Be a boon of rich blessing to you.

 

May the/lames of this burning

Light your way...

May the/lames of this burning

Light your way...

May the flames of this burning

Light your way to the world beyond.

307

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

So saying, the Chief Bard summoned the Ravens. One by one they stepped forward-Garanaw, Emyr, Niall and Drustwn-each bearing a torch which he thrust into the kindling at the base of the pyre. Bran came last and added his torch to the others. The fire ruffled in the wind, caught, and began climbing towards Alun's body lying so still on his rough wooden bed.

Like those around me, I watched the yellow flames licking up through the latticework of wood to caress the cold flesh of my friend. Grief I felt for myself~ I would never again hear his voice lifted in song, nor see him swagger into the hail. I would miss his preposterous bragging, his bold and foolish challenges-like the time he challenged Cynan to a day's labor plowing land and felling and hauling timber, nearly ruining himself with the exertion, and all for a golden trinket.

I felt the tears welling in my eyes, and I let them fall. It was good to remember, and to weep for what was lost and could not be again.

Farewell, Alun Tnngad, I said to myself as the fire hissed and cracked, mounting higher. May it go well with you on your journey hence.

A voice, hoarse with grief, rent the silence: "Fly, Raven! Try your wings over new fields and forests; let your loud voice be heard in lands unknown." Bran, his noble face shining with tears in the firelight, drew back his arm and lofted his spear skywards. I saw the tip glint in the cold starlight and then it disappeared into the darkness-a fitting image of release for the spirit of a warrior.

The flames grew hot; I felt the heat-sheen on my face and my cloak steamed. The flame-crack grew to a roar; the light danced, flinging shadows back into the teeth of the ever-encroaching darkness. In a little while, the pyre collapsed inward, drawing the hide-covered corpse into the fierce golden heart of the funeral fire, there to be consumed. We watched long-until only embers remained, a glowing red heap upon the rock.

"It is done," Tegid declared. "Alun Tringad has gone." Whereupon we turned and made our way back to camp, leaving Tegid to perform the tasks necessary for reclaiming the bones from the fire.

308

SONG OF ALBION

I found myself walking beside Bran. I thought his farewell apt and told him so. "It was a fitting farewell to a Raven who has gone."

Bran cocked his head to one side and regarded me as if I had suggested that I thought the moon might sleep in the sea. "But Alun has not gone," Bran observed matter-of-factly, "he has only gone on ahead."

We walked a little further, and Bran explained: "We have made a vow, we Ravens, to rejoin one another in the world beyond. That way, if any of us should fall in battle, there is a swordbrother waiting to welcome us in the world beyond. Whether in this world or the next, we will still be the Ravens."

His faith in this arrangement was simple and marvellous. And it was absolute. No shadow of doubt intruded, no qualm shadowed the bright certainty of his confidence. I, who had no such assurance, could only marvel at his trust.

 

We departed the next morning at dawn. Mist gathered thick, making our world blurred and dull. The sky, dense as wool to every horizon, drooped like a sodden sheepskin over our heads. As the unseen sun rose towards midday, the wind stiffened, rolling the mist in clouds across the darkening moor.

We moved in a ragged double column, shivering beneath our wet cloaks. The horses walked with their heads down, noses almost touching the ground, hooves clopping hollow on the stone-paved high road.

Wet to the skin, my hair plastered to my scalp, I stumped along on numb feet and longed for nothing more than to sit before the fire and bake the creeping cold from my bones. So Tegid's abrupt revelation, when it came, caught me off guard.

"I saw a beacon last night."

My head whipped around and I stared up at him, incredulous that he had not bothered to mention it before. He did not look at me, but rode hunch-shouldered in the saddle, squinting into the drizzle:

soggy, but unconcerned. Bards!

309

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

"When the embers had cooled," he continued placidly, "I gathered Alun's bones." My eyes flicked to the tidy bundle behind his saddle wrapped in Alun's cloak. "I saw the beacon-flare when I returned to camp."

"I see. Any particular reason why you bring this to my attention now?"

"I thought you might like to hear a good word." At this, my wise bard turned his head to look down on me. I glared up at him, water running down my hair and into my eyes. "You are angry," he observed. "Why?"

Frozen to the marrow, having eaten nothing but horsemeat for days, and heartsick at Alun's death, the last thing I expected or wanted was my Chief Bard withholding important information from me. "It is nothing," I told him, heaving my anger aside with an effort. "What do you think it means?"

"It means," he replied with an air that suggested the meaning was obvious, "we are nearing our journey's end."

His words filled me with a strange elation. The final confrontation would come soon. Anticipation pricked my senses alert my spirit quickened. The dreariness of the day evaporated as expectation ignited within. The end is near: let Paladyr beware!

We pressed our way deeper into the barren hills. The peat moors gave way to heather and gorse. Day followed day, and the road remained straight and high; we travelled from dim grey dawn to lead grey dusk, stopping only to water the horses and ourselves. We ~te only at night around the campfire when we could cook the flesh of yet another horse. We ate, bitterly regretting the loss with every bite; but it was meat, and it warmed an empty belly. No one complained.

Gradually, the land began to lift. The hills grew higher and the valleys deeper, the descents more severe as the hill-country rose towards the mountains. One day we crested a long slope to see the faint shimmer of snow-topped heights in the distance. Then cloud and mist closed in again and we lost the sight for several more days. When we saw them again, the mountains were closer; we could make out individual peaks, sharp and ragged above darkly streaming clouds.

310

SONG OF ALBION

The air grew clearer; and though mists still held us bound and blind by day, nights were often crisp and clear, the stars sharp and bright as spearpoints in a heaven black as pitch. It was on such a night that Tegid came to me while I slept beside a low-burning fire.

"Llew. -

I caine awake at the touch of his hand on my shoulder.

"Come with me."

"Why?"

He made no answer, but bade me follow him a little way from camp. A late moon had risen above the horizon, casting a thin light over the land. We climbed to the top of a high hill, and Tegid pointed away to the east. I looked and saw a light burning on a near-distant ridge and, some way beyond it, another. Even as we watched, a third light flickered into existence further off still.

Standing side by side in the night, straining into the darkness, my bard and I waited. The wind prowled over the bare rock of the hilltop, like a hunting animal making low restless noises. In a little while, a fourth fire winked into life like a star alighting on a faraway hill.

I watched the beacons shining in the night, and knew that my enemy was near.

"I have seen this in my vision," Tegid said softly, and I heard again the echo of his voice lifted in song as the storm-frenzied waves hurled our frail boat onto the killing rocks.

The wind growled low, filling the darkness with a dangerous sound. "Alun," Tegid said deliberately and slow, choosing his words carefully, "was the only one among the Ravens to see Crom Cruach."

At first I did not catch his implication. "And now Alun is dead," I replied, supplying the answer to the bard's unspoken question.

 

"Then I am next. Is that what you mean?"

"That is my fear."

"Then your fear is unfounded," I told him flatly. "Your own Vision should tell you as much. Alun and I-we both saw Yellow

311

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

Coat. And we both fought the serpent. Alun died, yes. But I am alive. That is the end of it."

Indicating the string of beacons blazing along the eastern horizon, he said, "The end is out there."

"Let it come. I welcome it."

The sky was showing pearly grey when we turned to walk back down the hill to the camp. Bran was awake and waiting for us. We told him about the beacons and he received the news calmly. "We must advance more warily from now on," he said. "I advise we send scouts to ride before us."

"Veiy well," I concurred. "See to it."

Bran touched the back of his hand to his forehead and stepped away. A little while later, Emyr and Niall rode out from the camp. I noticed that they did not ride on the hard surface of the road, but in the long grass beside it. They would go less swiftly, but more silently.

So it begins at last, I thought.

I followed them a short distance from camp and watched the riders disappearing into the pale dawn. "The Swift Sure Hand go with you, brothers!" I called after them; my voice echoed in the barren hills and died away in the heather. The land seemed unsettled by the sound. "The Swift Sure Hand shield us all," I added, and hastened back to camp to face the day's demands.

312

30

 

 

Dead Voices

 

 

The hills grudgingly gave way to an endless expanse of rock waste-all sharp-angled, toppling, sliding, bare but for tough thickets of thorny gorse. The land tilted precariously all around, yet the road held firm and good. Rain and wind battered us; mist blinded us for days without end. But the road held good.

And with each day's march the cloud-shrouded mountains drew nearer. We watched the wind-carved peaks rise until they crowded the horizon on every side-range upon range, summit upon summit fading into the misty distance. Brooding, fierce, and unwholesome, they were no kindly heights, but loomed stark and threatening over us: white, like splinters of shattered bone or teeth broken in a fight.

Enough grass grew along the roadside to keep the horses fed, and the horses fed us. This meant losing another mount every few days, but the meat kept us going. We drank from mountain runnels and pools, numbing the ache of hunger with cold water.

Gyd, Season of Thaws, drew ever nearer, bringing wet gales to assail us. The snow on the lower slopes began melting and filling the gorges, gullies and rock canyons with the icy run-off. Day and night, we were battered by the sound of water gushing and smashing, gurgling and splashing, as it rushed to the lowlands now far behind us. Mists rose from deep defiles where waterfalls boomed; clouds

313

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

hung low over crevices where fast-flowing cataracts clattered and echoed like the clash of battle-crazed warbands.

The bleak monotony of naked rock and the harshness of the wind and crashing water bore constant reminder-if any was needed- that we journeyed through a hostile land. The higher we climbed among the shattered peaks, the greater grew our trepidation. It was not the wind that screamed among the ragged crowns and smashed summits; it was fear, raw and wild. We lay shivering in our cloaks at night and listened to the wind-voices wail. Dawn found us ill-rested and edgy to face the renewed assault.

Twice during each day's trek, we met with the scouts-once at midday, and then again when they returned at dusk. The Ravens took it in turn to carry out the scouting duty, two at a time, rotating the task among their number so that each day saw a fresh pair ride out. One day, Garanaw and Emyr returned as we were making camp for the night beneath a high overhanging cliff.

"There is a better place just beyond the next turn," Emyr informed us. "It is not far, and it would prove a much better shelter should the wind and rain come up in the night."

As we had not yet unsaddled the horses or lit the fires, we agreed to move on to the place they suggested. Garanaw led the way and, when we arrived, said, "This is as good a shelter as these bare bones provide."

Cynan heard this and replied, "Broken bones, you mean. I have seen nothing for days that was not fractured to splinters."

Thus, the mountains became Tor Esgyrnau, the Broken Bones. And what Cynan said was true; through naming them, they became less threatening, less frightening-however slightly. At least, we began looking on them with less apprehension than previously.

"That is the way of things," Tegid offered when I remarked on this a few days later. "Among the Derwyddi it is taught that to confer a name is to conquer."

"Then get busy, bard. Find a name with which to conquer Paladyr. And I will shout it from the crown of the highest peak."

Later, as darkness claimed the heights, I found him standing,

314

~UN(j UP ALbIUI\

peering into the gloom already creeping over the lowlands behind. I stared with him into the distance for a moment, and then asked. "What do you see?"

"I thought I saw something moving on the road down there," he replied, still scanning the twisted ribbon.

"Where?" I looked hard, but could make out nothing in the murk. "I will send someone back to see."

Tegid declined, saying, "There is no need. It is gone now-if anything was there. It might have been a shadow."

He walked away, but I stayed, staring into the dull twilight, searching the darkness for any sign of movement. We had climbed a fair distance into the mountains and, though the days were slightly warmer now, the nights were still cold, with biting winds sweeping down from the snow-laden peaks above. Often we woke to frost on our cloaks, and the day's melt frozen during the night to make the road treacherous until the sun warmed the stone once more.

For warmth we burned the hard-twisted knots of gorse trunks we hacked from their stony beds with our swords. They burned with a foul smell and gave off an acrid, oily smoke, but the embers remained hot long after the fire had gone.

We reached a high mountain pass and crossed the first threshold of the mountains. I looked back to see the land dull and shapeless behind us; a bleak, treeless, mist-obscured moor, colorless, sodden and drear. It was good to leave it behind at last. I stood long, looking at the road as it stretched into the distance. Ever since Tegid's suggestion that we might be followed, I had spent a fair amount of time looking back, and this time even managed to convince myself that, yes, there was something, or someone, back there-very faint and far in the distance. Or was it only the fleeting shift of mist or cloud shadow?

Up among the barren peaks, the wind whined and howled, swooping down to tear at our flesh with talons of ice. The gale was unrelenting, save for the chance protection afforded by a rock or wall as the road twisted and wound its tortured way along-sometimes no more than a footpath clawed from the mountainside, little wider

315

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

than a scar. Everyone walked, for we dared not risk a fall on such a treacherous trail.

Since we could no longer ride, we loaded all the horses with as much hard-scrabble gorse as they could carry. Each animal looked like a walking furze hillock bouncing along. We went more slowly than I would have liked. Still, but for the road, we could not have made the climb at all.

On and on we went, dragging ourselves blue-lipped and shivering from one march to the next, cringing, tears streaming from our eyes as the wind and cold pared us to the bone. We grew hard as leather and sharp as knives. We grew hungry, too, with a fierce and gnawing desire no feast could satisfy. It was a longing to be healed as much as filled, a yearning to return to Albion, and allow the sight of its fair hills and glens to salve our ravaged hearts. It was taithchwant, the profound hunger for home.

But I could not go home. I would sooner abandon my life than my beloved. My enemy's head would adorn my belt before I turned my steps towards Druim Vran; my wife would stand once more beside me, before I turned my face towards Dinas Dwr. My queen would return with me to Albion, or I would not return at all.

At dusk, the first night after crossing the mountain threshold, we sensed a change in the mood of the land. But it was not until two nights later, when we had penetrated deep into the mountain fortress, that the change began to make itself felt. Where the lowland moors had been bleak and broody, the mountains were threatening where the forest had been forbidding, the mountains were menacing. And it was not merely the threat of plunging from the narrow road to die broken on the rocks below. There was a wary malevolence aprowl among the peaks, a dark power that deemed our presence an invasion and reacted accordingly.

On the third night we finally understood the nature of our adversary. The day's march had gone well; we had made good progress and had found a suitable refuge for the night in a deep Jivide between two peaks. Solid rock walls rose sheer from the '~oadside, the surface raked jagged as if the road had been hacked

316

SONG OF ALBION

through the mountain with a dagger; the peaktops were lost in cloud above us. Here the wind could not reach us so easily, thus the place provided a welcome respite and made as good shelter as could be found in those bare crags.

We huddled close to the fires, as always, but that night as the gale rose to its customary shriek, we heard in the wind-wail a new and chilling note. Tegid, ever alert to the subtle shifts and shades of light and sound, was first to perceive it. "Listen!" he hissed.

The talk, low and quiet around the fire, ceased. We listened, but heard nothing-save the icy blast tearing itself on the naked peaks of Tor Esgyrnau.

I leaned close. "What did you hear?"

"Did and do," Tegid said, cocking his head to one side. "There- again!"

"I hear the wind," Bran volunteered, "but nothing more."

"Nor will you if you keep drowning it with your own voice."

We waited a long while. When the sound did not come again, I asked, "What did it sound like?"

"A voice," he said, hunching his shoulders more tightly. "I thought I heard a voice. That is all."

The way he said it-curt and dismissive-made me curious. "Whose voice?"

He poked a loose ember back into the campfire with the tip of his staff, but made no reply.

"Whose voice, Tegid?"

Cynan and Bran, and several others sitting near, looked on with increasing interest. Tegid glanced around, and then back to the fire quickly. "The storm is rising," he said.

"Answer me, bard. Whose voice did you hear?"

He drew a breath, and said the name I least expected to hear. "Ollathir's," he replied softly. "I thought I heard Ollathir."

"Ollathir? He has been dead for years. He is-"

"Well I know it!"

"But-"

"You asked me whose voice I heard," he replied, speaking angrily

317

STEPHEN LAWHEAD

 

 

 

and low. "And I am telling you the truth. I thought I heard Ollati Chief Bard of Albion, long dead in his grave."

The words were still hanging in the air when Bran leapt to] feet. "I heard it!" He stood over us, his face in shadow. "There!:

you hear?" He paused. "And again! But it is not your Ollathir-ii Alun Tringad!"

Cynan turned a baleful eye towards me. "There is somethi uncanny here, I feeL" His voice was a wary whisper, as if he feat being overheard.

The fire creaked and ticked, and the wind cried. Then Cyn himself rose slowly to his feet, placing a finger to his lips. "No no. - ." he said, his voice little more than a sigh, "it is not Alun I he it is.. ."-amazement transformed his features in the firelight "Cynfarch... my father!"

Soon the whole camp was in turmnoil, as everyone succumbed