The Endless Knot

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  Two bronze-clad foemen sprang into my path, brandishing swords above their heads. Their eyes glinted under their horned helmets, and their teeth flashed above the rims of their shields as they shouted a jeering battle cry. Ignoring their blades, I sliced the air in front of their noses with the blade of my spear, and they halted. Spinning the shaft of my spear, I struck aside first one sword, then the other. Then . . . Crack! Crack! Two sharp raps of the spear butt and both helmets flew off as heads snapped backwards, and the foemen toppled like statues.

  Step by step, we hacked our way up the shingle away from the lake, advancing over the bodies of the slain enemy. We fought well. We fought like champions. And the battle settled into a grim and desperate rhythm.

  We battled through the night. Sometimes we gained the top of the shingle and made a stand. Sometimes the enemy rallied and we were forced back. Once, we stood in water to our knees, hacking with battle-blunted blades at our armored enemy. But Scatha, moving through the chaos with the grace and poise of a dancer, pierced deep into the heart of the enemy line with a small force of warriors. Rather than face her fearful wrath, the foemen fell back and the advance collapsed.

  As the night drew on, the enemy grew disheartened. Fatigue set in. They moved in their heavy bronze armor with a curious lumbering gait. Their shields and weapons wavered in shaky arms; unable to lift their feet, they stumbled back and forth over the flinty strand. Desperate, they lurched at us. We struck. They fell before our skill. The bodies of the wounded and slain began to stack like felled timber around us, yet they would not retreat.

  “Whatever it is that drives them,” Cynan observed, drawing a bloody hand across his sweaty face, “they fear it more than they fear us.”

  We had stopped to catch our breath and leaned on our spears, shoulders heaving with the effort of drawing air into our lungs. “They fear their lord,” I told him.

  “Who is that?”

  “The Brazen Man.”

  “Brazen coward if you ask me,” Cynan snarled with contempt. “I have not had a glimpse of him since the fight began.”

  “True. He has not yet taken the field.”

  “Yet? Yet? His war host is being slaughtered. If he thinks to wear us down, he has waited for nothing.”

  It was true; the weary foe was everywhere falling to the skill and experience of our vastly superior warriors. Darkness and surprise had done their worst, and we had conquered; now we were conquering their numbers as well, slowly, relentlessly paring them down and down.

  It came to me that they had no need of a war leader, because the enemy’s plan had been to overwhelm us. They strove to surround us, engulf and smother us; or, failing that, to drive us into the lake by sheer irresistible press of numbers. We fought against a foe lacking any subtlety or craft, an enemy whose only hope lay in dragging us down by brute force alone.

  The Brazen Man did not care how many of his men fell to us, because he did not care about his men at all. They were simply fodder to our scything blades. He sent them into battle in wave after heedless wave, trusting to the grim attrition of battle to wear us down. When finally we were too few to resist, he would swoop down from his hidden perch and claim the victory.

  Watching the hapless foemen struggling to raise their weapons, my heart softened toward them. They were blind, ignorant, and confused; they were stumbling in the dark, bleeding and dying. And, most cruelly of all, they did not know, would never know, why.

  These men were not our true enemies; they were puppets only, pawns in the hands of a pitiless master. Their deaths were meaningless. The slaughter had to be stopped. I lowered my spear, straightened, and looked around.

  The sky was showing gray in the east; red streaks hinted at a raw sunrise. We had fought the whole night to no purpose or advantage. It was insane, and it was time to stop. Turning once more to the battle line, I saw the bronze warriors standing flat-footed, their heads bowed under the weight of the helmets, unable to lift their arms. With long, bold strides, I advanced toward them. The blunt spears in their hands struggled up as they stumbled backwards.

  “Llew!” shouted Cynan, running after me.

  I reached out and seized the nearest spear and yanked it from the foemen’s numb fingers. I threw the spear down on the ground and grabbed another. The third enemy made a clumsy stab at me with a sword. I caught the blade with my silver hand and twisted it easily out of his hand. It was like disarming children.

  “Enough!” I shouted. “It is over!”

  All along the lakeside, men stopped and turned to gawk at me. I disarmed two more warriors, snatching weapons from limp hands. I brandished my spear and lifted my voice. “Men of Tir Aflan!” I called, my voice carrying along the strand. “Throw down your weapons, and you will not be harmed.”

  I gazed along the battle line. The fighting had shuddered to a halt, and men were gaping stupidly at me. Scores of exhausted foemen swayed on their feet, unable to lift their weapons anymore.

  “Listen to me! The battle is over. You cannot win. Throw down your weapons and surrender. Stop your fighting—there is nothing to fear.”

  The enemy stared stupidly at me. “I do not think they understand,” said Cynan coming up behind me.

  “Perhaps they will understand this,” I replied. Raising my own spear, I threw it down on the rocky strand. I motioned for Cynan to drop his weapon as well. He hesitated. “Do it,” I urged. “They are watching.”

  Cynan tossed his spear on top of mine, and we stood together unarmed, surrounded by bewildered warriors. I raised my silver hand and said, “Listen to me! You have fought and suffered and many have died. But you cannot win and now the fighting must stop. Throw down your weapons, so that the suffering and dying can end.” My voice resounded over the strand. They watched, but no one answered.

  “You fight for your lives,” I continued. “Men of Tir Aflan! Surrender! Throw down your weapons, and I will give you your lives. You can walk away free men.”

  This caused a stir. They gaped in wonder and murmured their amazement to one another. “Is it true?” they asked. “Can it be?”

  Extending my hand toward a nearby warrior, I beckoned him. “Come,” I told him. “I give you your life.”

  The man glanced around awkwardly, hesitated, then stumbled forward. He took two steps, but his legs would no longer hold him and he fell forward to lie at my feet. Reaching down, I caught him under the arm and raised him. I took his sword from his hand and tossed it aside. “You are safe,” I told him. “No one will harm you now.”

  I heard a clatter in the rocks as a shield slipped from the grasp of one who could not hold it any longer. The man sank to his knees. I strode to him, raised him, and said, “You are safe. Stand there beside your kinsman.”

  The man took his place beside the first, and the two stood trembling in the dim dawn light, not quite believing their good fortune.

  The onlookers may have expected me to kill the defectors. But seeing I had not harmed the first two, a third decided to risk trusting me. I welcomed him, and two more stepped forward, laying their weapons at my feet. I welcomed them also and told them to stand with the others. Another defector stepped forward, and then three more.

  “Cynan! Scatha!” I turned and beckoned them to help me. “Get ready! The flood is upon us!”

  Weapons and armor clattered to the stony shingle all along the lake; the battle-weary foemen could not shed it fast enough. After their initial hesitancy, they gave themselves up freely and with great relief. Some were so overcome, they wept at their unimaginable good fortune. Their long nightmare was over; they were rescued and released.

  When we had disarmed the last adversary, I turned to my own warriors standing silent behind me. I looked at their once-fine cloaks, now journey-worn and dirty; I looked at their once-handsome faces, now gaunt and grim, ravaged by want and war. They had given up health and happiness, given up wives, children, kinsmen, and friends, given up all comfort and pleasure.

  Staunch to the end, they had su
pported me through all things, and stood ready still to serve, to give their lives if I asked. Battered and bleeding, they stood as one, weapons at the ready, waiting to be summoned once more. Truly, they were the Gwr Gwir, the True Men of Albion.

  Raising my silver hand, I touched the back of my hand to my forehead in silent salute. The warriors responded with a shout of triumph that sent echoes rippling across the lake and up into the surrounding hills.

  I released them to their rest, whereupon they turned to the lake to drink and to bathe. I stood for a moment watching my ragged warriors lower their exhausted bodies into the water. “Look at them,” I said, pride singing through me like a song of exultation. “With such men to support him, any man might be king.”

  Cynan, leaning on his spear, thrust out his chin, “They would not support just any man. Nor would I,” he said and touched the back of his hand to his forehead.

  The lake proved a blessing. We waded into the chill, mist-covered water and bathed our aching limbs. The water revived and refreshed us, washing away the blood and grime of battle. I felt the cold thrill of the water on my flesh and remembered another time when, after my first battle, I had bathed like this and felt reborn.

  The good feeling proved short-lived, however. Bran and the Ravens had still not appeared by the time the sun had risen well above the surrounding hills.

  “I do not like this at all,” I told Cynan and Scatha plainly. “Something has happened to them or they would have returned long ago.”

  “I fear you are right,” Scatha agreed.

  “We are finished here,” Cynan said. “We can go back to Cwm Gwaed to look for them.”

  I surveyed the armored men sitting splay-legged on the strand. “We will talk to some of these.” I indicated the huddled men. “Perhaps they can tell us something.”

  “That I doubt,” Cynan replied. “But I will do it if you think best.”

  I turned to Scatha who, having washed the soot and blood away, now appeared less like the Morrigan and more like Modron, the Comforter. She had plaited her hair and brushed her cloak, and, from the way the surrendered warriors followed her with their eyes, I thought she might more easily succeed than we in loosening reluctant tongues.

  “I will entrust this task to you, Pen-y-Cat,” I told her. “I am certain they would rather confide in you than in Cynan TwoTorcs here.”

  So we watched as she moved along the former enemy warriors, stopping now and then, bending near one or kneeling beside another, speaking earnestly, looking into their eyes as they answered. I noticed she put her hand on their shoulders in the way of a wife or mother, addressing them with her touch as much as with her voice.

  In a little while, Scatha returned. “There is a caer near here. Some of them have been there. They say that the Brazen Man keeps captives there.”

  “Are Tángwen and Goewyn there?” asked Cynan eagerly.

  Scatha turned to him, her expression grim. “They do not know. But it is known that the Dyn Dythri often go there, and the rhuodimi come from there.”

  “Roaring things?” wondered Cynan.

  The vehicles and machines , I thought. “Then that is where Siawn Hy is waiting, and that is where we will find Goewyn and Tángwen. And,” I quickly added, “unless I am far wrong, that is where Tegid and the Ravens are now captive as well.”

  Scatha agreed. “But there is something else: they say the caer is protected by a powerful enchantment. They are terrified of the place.”

  We turned our backs to the lake and marched east, following the directions we had been given. A gap, unseen from the shore, opened in the hills; we passed through to find ourselves on a broad plateau. The sea lay before us, green and restless under a mottled gray sky. And on the cracked summit of a rocky headland jutting out into the wave-worried sea stood a crumbling stone fortress. Much like the high tower we had seen before, the caer stood lonely and forsaken on its bare rock, a relic of a forgotten age.

  “The Brazen Man has taken that for his stronghold,” Scatha said. We had paused to survey the land beyond the pass and, aside from the ruined fortress and a scattering of stone huts in which the warriors had been housed, the land was empty. The defectors had described the place well.

  Nevertheless, we approached the fortress slowly, watching for any sign from the ragged walls. I walked first, with Scatha and Cynan leading the Gwr Gwir; unwilling to be left behind, the defeated foe followed at a distance. As we passed onto the promontory, I saw the tracks of heavy vehicles pressed into the soft turf. Many rhuodimi had passed this way. The entrance to the special gate Professor Nettleton spoke of must lie somewhere nearby, but I could not see it.

  The sea heaved and sighed around the roots of the headland; the wind moaned over the ruins. Great chunks of fallen stone were sunk deep into the thick green moss below once-soaring battlements. We stood gazing at the toppled walls, searching for any sign of life.

  “Arianrhod sleeps in her sea-girt headland,” I said, thinking aloud, as I looked at the broken gate, black with age and hanging half off its hinges.

  To which Scatha replied, “Only the chaste kiss will restore her to her rightful place.”

  Cynan cast a sidelong glance at us. “Well?” he demanded impatiently. “Are we to stand here waiting all day?”

  “No, but first we must see if there is another entrance to this place,” I said.

  “It will be done.” Cynan gestured to Owyn and three other warriors, who disappeared around the near corner of the stone curtain on the run.

  They reappeared on the far side a short while later. “There is no other entrance,” Owyn said.

  “Did you see anyone?” Scatha asked.

  “No one,” the Galanae warrior answered.

  “Then we will go in.” I raised my spear in silent signal and the war band, ranged behind me, moved toward the gate.

  As we passed under the shadow of the wall, a voice called out. “Stop! Come no closer!”

  My head swiveled to the broken battlement. The Brazen Man stood above and to the left, leering bronze mask in place and spear in hand, gazing down upon us.

  “Your war host is defeated!” I shouted. “Throw down your weapons and release your captives. Do this at once or you will certainly die.”

  The bronze warrior tilted his head and laughed, an ugly, hateful sound. I had heard it before.

  The laughter stopped abruptly. “You do not rule here!” he shouted angrily. Then, softening in almost the same breath, he said, “If you want your bride, come and get her. But come alone.”

  He vanished from the wall before I could answer.

  “I mislike this,” Cynan grumbled.

  “I do not see that we have any other choice,” I pointed out. “I will go alone.”

  Scatha objected. “It is a foolish risk.”

  “I know,” I told her. “But it is a risk we must take for Goewyn’s sake.”

  She nodded, put her hand beneath her cloak and withdrew a slender knife. She stepped close and tucked it into my belt. “I armed you once, and I do so again, son of mine. Save my daughter.”

  “That I will do, Pen-y-Cat,” I replied. She embraced and kissed me, then turned away, taking her place at the head of the war band.

  I took two steps toward the gate.

  “Wait!” Cynan came to stand beside me. “You will not go alone while TwoTorcs draws breath,” he said firmly. “My wife is captive, too, and I am going with you.” He took a step toward the door. “We can dispute the matter, or we can rescue our wives.”

  There would be no dissuading him, so I agreed, and we advanced together through the gate and into the courtyard beyond.

  Dry weeds poked up through the cracks of the paved yard; they shifted in the wind like long white whiskers. Fallen stone lay all around. Arched doorways opened off the courtyard, revealing black, empty passages beyond. At the far end of the yard, opposite the gate, stood a steep-peaked building; the roof was collapsed, and curved roof tiles littered the yard like dragon scales. A short
flight of stone steps led up to a narrow wooden door. The door, twice the height of a man, stood open.

  A chill shivered up through my silver hand, “He is near,” I whispered to Cynan.

  We moved steadily, stealthily, up the steps, paused, then pushed the door open wide. Instantly we were assailed by the stench of rotting meat mingled with urine and excrement. The outside door opened into a dark vestibule thick with filth. The severed heads of two unfortunates were nailed to the lintel above a lower inner door. The doorposts were smeared with blood.

  Stepping cautiously through the low door, we passed into the hall beyond. “I have been waiting,” a voice said. “We have all been waiting.”

  37

  THE HERO FEAT

  Torches illuminated the single great room, casting a thin, sullen light that did little to efface the deep-shadowed darkness. In the center of the room stood the Brazen Man. The torchlight flickering over the facets of his bronze mask made it seem as if his features were continually melting and reforming.

  Behind him were two doors barred and bound with iron. As I looked, Goewyn’s face appeared at the small window of the one door, and Tángwen’s at the other. Neither woman cried out, but both stood gripping the bars of their prisons and watching us with the astonished yet fearful expressions of captives who have long ago abandoned hope of release, only to learn that hope has not abandoned them.

  My first thought was to run to Goewyn and pull that prison apart with my bare hands. I wanted to take her in my arms and carry her away from that stinking hellhole. I stepped toward the Brazen Man. “Let them go,” I said.

  “You did not come alone,” the man said ominously.

  “My wife is captive too,” Cynan spat. “If you have harmed her, I will kill you. Let her go.”

  “Your wife?” the bronze clad warrior queried. “She might have shared your bed, but Tángwen was never wife to you, Cynan Machae.”