The Eagles Have Flown

by Henry Treece

  The words had begun to come from his lips in a rush, but as he looked about him, his voice quavered and fell. Men were sprawling everywhere on the floor, some of them clutching their throats, some their stomachs. Artos the Bear sat in the great chair at the head of the table, staring before him, like a man left living among the dead. His eyes rested on Festus and the boy backed away from him in fear. They were the eyes of one who had looked beyond death and had now returned for a short space to look upon the last of the living.

  2. Merddin’s Cave

  For many years after, the two boys were to remember that grim day; as though in a strange swirling nightmare they were to recall how they dragged the Bear outside and set him on the black charger, as though he were a sagging sack of oats, all power gone from his body. Then how they returned, time after time, dragging out all who seemed still to be living, lashing them across their saddles, like dangling puppets, helped by those who had either drunk but a little of the poisoned mead, or whose stomachs were too strong for the brew to be fatal.

  And so, at last, exhausted by their efforts, they drove the line of horses through the stone gates and past the stinking midden-heaps where the flies still swarmed. As they went, at scarcely more than a snail’s pace, bright eyes watched them from the shadow of the huts, but no one lifted a hand against them.

  At the gates, Festus stopped and shook his fist back at the village.

  ‘Carrion dogs!’ he called. ‘One day we shall return to avenge those good men we have left behind!’

  And truly, there were many whose souls must have called for revenge, for of the Bear’s great following, not more than a hundred came out of that village of death alive.

  And so the weary march dragged on through the afternoon, until dusk began to fall, and then, as they passed through a dark declivity the thirst-tormented horses began to sniff and to neigh, and even to quicken their pace, as though some scent which excited them had reached their nostrils.

  ‘They smell water,’ said Wulf; and hardly were the words out of his mouth than the boys heard the distant splashing of a small river or hillside cascade.

  A hundred paces further, at a bend in the narrow valley, they saw a white-flecked waterfall rushing down from a rocky eminence which stood up on their right hand, a strangely shaped, triangular outcrop of rock, heavily festooned with Traveller’s Joy, which climbed and hung about it in clusters of such a thickness that the original rock was almost enshrouded, and was given rather the appearance of a great hairy head, from whose open mouth the water gushed in its creamy torrents.

  At their first glimpse of this peak, the boys had started to move forward, but as they did so they drew back again with a cry, pointing and speechless with surprise.

  On the summit of the peak, among the luxuriant and nodding tendrils of the clustering weed, and set against the last rays of the dying sun, a tall dark figure appeared, the figure of a man, who seemed to look down upon them, his arms outstretched, his hair blowing in the evening breeze.

  Aghast with the sudden shock of this apparition, the boys stood still, and for a while the figure above them was as motionless. Then it disappeared among the heavy foliage, and the spell was broken. Those of the riders who had seen it and could speak groaned with horror, and some even tried to turn their horses back down the valley, but could not for the press of the creatures following. For a few moments there was a stifled confusion in the valley. Then Wulf said, ‘You are a Christian, Festus. Say a prayer that will protect us from that tree-spirit, for it can be no other!’

  But Festus had drawn the great sword of Artos and stood before the Bear’s tired stallion, on guard.

  ‘I am thinking that the man we saw will be more moved by the sight of steel than the sound of prayer,’ he said, grimly. ‘It is my duty to protect the Bear, now that I am the only one left capable of doing so. Run, Wulf, if you will. I release you from any tie of slavery they may have put on you. You are free to go where you choose, and no one shall call you to account.’

  Wulf glared back at Festus in such a way that had the occasion not been pressing, more might have come of this incident; but as it was, he merely bent and snatched the knife from Festus’s belt and stood alongside him, before Artos the Bear, on guard, like his friend.

  Then, when their eyes were aching with staring into the dusk ahead of them, they caught a movement of the tangled bushes, and a slight rustle of leaves came to their ears. A man stood before them, in the middle of the path they must take down the valley, and held up his hand in some ancient form of greeting.

  ‘Hail, beaten army of the Bear,’ called a thin high voice, ‘Hail, wanderers without a home! Merddin greets the Bear and his two cubs!’

  Festus plucked up his courage and made two paces towards the man. But the figure did not move and as the boy saw more clearly the sort of man he was, Festus stopped in his tracks and the point of the great sword was lowered.

  Much above normal height, his great eyes burning like moonstones out of his long, emaciated face, his mouth a wide cavern of blackness among the straggling white hairs of his moustache and beard, this strange creature stood, still and foreboding, his arms now folded upon his chest.

  Festus saw the thin coronet of mistletoe about his grizzled head, the ancient tarnished lunula that swung on his breast, the tattered black robe that reached down to the ground, bound in about the waist by a thong from which dangled crazily the skulls of many small creatures of the woodland and the moors, the weasel, the squirrel, the snake, and even the sacred hare….

  He shrank back towards Wulf, whose dagger-arm now rested by his side, as though he too stood in a trance.

  ‘Who is it?’ gasped Wulf, whose childhood had been ruled by weird tales of the forest spirits.

  ‘It is the Old One, Merddin,’ whispered Festus, half-afraid even to speak the name. ‘Some say he is the last of all the druids; some say he is the devil himself; but no one knows. He appears up and down Britain to those who are destined to violent death or great glory.’

  In spite of his fear, Wulf’s hardy northern humour broke forth. ‘I cannot see myself wearing a crown, so it must be death he promises me! I am in no mood to wait long for it, I am half-starved with hunger as it is.’

  And before Festus could stop him the Jute staggered forward down the path, his dagger now raised, crying, ‘A berserker greets you, old man! Your death or mine!’

  In the dusk, it was impossible to see what was happening. Festus could only make out the lurching shape of Wulf and the still, erect form of their strange visitor. But then his friendship overcame his inborn superstition, and he ran too, crying, ‘Wulf, you fool, stand still! I have the longer sword!’

  But then he too stopped, for Wulf had come to a sudden halt when he was within two arms’ length of the old man, and was standing staring, like a terrified rabbit when a stoat dances about him, his long flaxen plaits hanging stupidly before his face, his arms dangling down loosely. As Festus listened he heard the tinkle of the knife as it fell to the stony pathway. ‘Wulf, Wulf,’ he said, ‘are you all right?’

  But his friend only made strange gurgling sounds. Then Festus saw that the old man had traced an imaginary line between them with his long gaunt finger, and that Wulf had stopped at that line and could go no further. He moved forward himself, and struck that same invisible barrier. And as his senses seemed to swim and his sword arm dropped, he heard the thin high voice of Merddin once more. ‘I shall take you when I want you, Festus and Wulf; but I do not want you now! Now I am your friend, and the friend of the Bear who suffers behind you, forgotten. Come, pick up your weapons and follow me.’

  He turned and pushed through the undergrowth again, and as though in a trance, Festus and Wulf did as they were bidden, leading the horses with their sagging riders through the shoulder-high grasses, alongside the rushing stream and at last up a winding, rocky path, that led finally to the cavern from which the stream gushed forth.

  While the thirsty animals drank, the boys looked abou
t them. The mouth of the cavern was more than half-hidden by the hanging growth of foliage. Beyond the entrance, they could discern a great bowl-like room, scooped out of the rock, and lit here and there by rush-lights set in holes about the sheer walls.

  The strange old man turned and said, ‘This is the Cave of Merddin, my friends! No foot but mine had stepped inside these halls until tonight. Do not think to see this place again, for once you have gone from it, you will never find it more.’

  He stopped and laughed back at them, his hair and beard illumined in the faint light of the torches.

  ‘No,’ he continued, ‘men will tell you it is here, or there, in Scotland or Ireland or in the heart of Wales. But they do not know…. Not if they had lived with me here a thousand years…. They would not know, once the spell had been lifted from their hearts.’

  He went on then, into the echoing cavern, and all followed him, as though they were led by iron chains which they could not shake off.

  Only once more did Merddin speak before the boys fell upon the heaped bracken into a strange dreamless sleep, and this time his voice said, as though from an immense distance, ‘Come, Comrades of Britain, here under the hill shall you find strength again and build new hopes. With the meat and drink that Merddin shall provide, all will be well with you once more. Come… Come…’

  And it seemed to the boys that they trod on the air, without effort, along vast tunnels of stone, into eternity….

  3. The Dream of Artos

  So it came about that the horsemen of Britain, or such as were left of them, took shelter in the cavern of Merddin. In later years, when the exact details of this affair were covered with the dust of the Dark Ages, simple men passed on the legend that the army of Arthur, as they came to call him, was always waiting under the hillside for the occasion of Britain’s greatest need.

  When daylight came again, the boys woke to find themselves in a vast, domed hall of rock, down one side of which ran the stream that they had followed in the darkness. Around them, sprawling on cut bracken, lay the riders, some still asleep, others wide-eyed and staring about them in wonderment. All but a few had greatly recovered from the foxglove poison which had been served to them in the village. Only three men had died in the night, and they had perhaps been weakened by hunger more than the others.

  Festus lay on his back for a while, trying to gather his wits in these unfamiliar surroundings. Then he heard the clopping of horses’ hooves from an inner cavern, and everything came back to him.

  He rolled over to see that Wulf was awake too, and looking less pale and haggard than he had done in the days before.

  Wulf said, ‘This water has curing virtues. It has brought strength back to my body even as it has killed the poison in the veins of our comrades here. How did we find this cavern, Festus? It was a lucky chance that brought us here, surely.’

  Festus was troubled by these words. He tried to remember what had happened after they left the village, but no memory came back to him. True, he could recall some barrier falling across him on the road that ran along the valley, something which prevented him from passing…. Then the obstacle had been raised and all had seemed clear again. But more than that he could not recall.

  Then the boys turned and saw their leader, Artos the Bear, lying down, his chin resting on his cupped hand, gazing at them, as though great problems were working themselves out behind those wide-open eyes.

  Festus rose and went to him, and then Wulf followed, for Artos was smiling now as though he had seen clearly what he must do.

  ‘My friends,’ he said to them, simply, as though addressing his equals, ‘we are in a strange pass, we handful of men, left to defend Britain. Something has gone awry with us, who started out so proudly and with such high hopes. Perhaps the misfortune which has befallen us was sent by God; perhaps we were growing too careless, too proud and selfish. Perhaps this blow has fallen on us to weld us closer together, as the smith’s hammer falls upon the iron.’

  The boys knelt and bowed their heads at these words.

  Artos placed his hand upon Festus’s shoulder. ‘Most of what has happened has faded from my mind, yet I remember that you brought me and my friends out of the place of death and found us a shelter. You, my young friend, saved the army of Britain. You and the Saxon with you, who was once a slave, and is now a slave no more, but a free man, and one of my trusted band, like yourself.’

  Artos smiled at them again and took them each by the hand, looking deep into their eyes as he did so.

  Festus tried to remember the binding-oath by which grown men swore allegiance to their lords; but Artos only patted him on the shoulder and said that his actions had already spoken the oath and that he need say no more. But Wulf, although he was secretly proud to be called the friend of Artos, was still a ‘foreigner’ at heart, whose family pride held him back from swearing to serve a man whose army had dedicated itself to destroy his own folk.

  Artos, despite his great strength and ruthlessness, was a sensitive man who understood more from a gesture or a look than most men gather from a scroll of words. He smiled at Wulf, nodding gently. ‘Young berserker,’ he said, ‘do not hang your head with shame. I shall not call on you to betray your kith and kin, never fear. I only ask that you serve me as you will, but that you do not betray me while you are riding with me. Will that promise satisfy your conscience?’

  Wulf nodded, vowing at the same time in the depths of his heart that, come what may, he would never be a traitor to this fierce but generous man.

  Soon after this, two of the riders left the cavern with their bows, to see if they could find a meal in the woodland that stretched out below them. They returned shortly with a magnificent roe-deer, which, they said, had seemed to be waiting for their arrows, as though it expected them to come, and did not attempt to run away when they took aim. Another man came in almost before the great cooking fire was kindled, to say that in the stream below the fish crowded together so thickly that all a man needed to do was to stretch out his hand and take them. He brought a thong, heavily laden with fish, and they too served to swell the provisions of the hungry company of soldiers.

  When fresh grass had been cut for the horses and every man had eaten his fill, Artos drew the two boys aside into a dim corner of the cave, as though he regarded them now as his confidants.

  ‘This place is strange to me,’ he said. ‘Here an army might rest away, well-fed and sheltered against the wind and the rain, for evermore. Is that not strange to you?’

  Festus said, ‘Yes, master. It is as though we were the guests of someone, someone we cannot see and do not know. As though there is some purpose in our being chosen while the others were lost.’

  Artos nodded. ‘I shall say something to you now that I would not dare to confess to any others. Last night, as you led us to this place, Festus, it seemed to me that I saw another before us; an old man who still wore the mistletoe as our ancestors did in the heathen days. It seems in my dream that he gave us this shelter and that he is still guarding us. How does that seem to you?’

  The boys tried to smile, yet beneath their smiles lay an uncertainty which they could not fathom. Artos sensed this and went on. ‘In the depths of the night, this old man seemed to come to me again,’ he said. ‘He seemed to stand above my pallet of bracken and to smile down on me; “Fare forth, Bear of Britain, ” he seemed to say. “Ride onwards to the west, where the three kings await you. ” Then I said to him, “How shall I know them when I see them, old man? ” And he answered, “You will not mistake them, never fear, any more than you would mistake the polecat for the otter. One lacks an eye and an ear; one speaks only the language of the birds; one has skill with fire that no man of flesh has known before. ” I was bewildered and tried to make him stay and tell me more of the kings; but he smiled and drew away from me, towards the rushing stream. “I shall come to you once again, Bear, ” he said, “but that will not be for many years, and even then you may think that I come too soon. ” Then he was gone a
nd his hair and beard had become the froth upon the water as it meets the rocks.’

  When Artos had finished, he gazed at the boys as though they could help him to solve this strange riddle. But they were as helpless as he, and at length Artos said, ‘Let us not speak of the old man again, for it is in my mind now that he may not be a good, omen, however well his hospitality seems to us now.’

  Nor did they mention Merddin again at that time; but after a few days, when the riders were refreshed and well again, a wild-eyed horseman galloped along the valley below them and was ambushed and brought before Artos. He prostrated himself before the Bear and stammered out that he had come in search of Artos, from the south, following his tracks, with a message for him from Ambrosius, who was lying on his death-bed. The message was that two great Saxon lords, Aelle and Cissa, with a mighty army, were ravaging the southern coast and even daring to march inland. With his dying breath, Ambrosius begged that Artos should ride south again, to break these barbarians. He ended his message by saying that the men of Magiovinium were chicken-hearted and would evacuate the citadel unless Artos came to save them soon.

  When the messenger had told his tale, Artos said to those about him, ‘What could we do, with but a hundred horsemen against a great host, such as this Aelle leads? We need more men, many hundreds more. Ambrosius is dying, he will not know any more pain or dishonour; Magiovinium is nothing but a crumbling ruin and will be no loss to Britain if it falls. I counsel that we ride to the west, where there are still great British kings who have armies to place at our disposal. Then, when we have a mighty force, we can turn against the Saxon in the south and crush him completely.’

  The riders in the cavern shouted at these words, as though they were seated at the board in the council hall on the eve of a great war.

  But Festus and Wulf were silent, for they were still only boys and not fully-fledged warriors; and both boys knew that Artos spoke thus because of his dream in the cavern. Had the messenger told his tale but two days before, they would have ridden south, to die skirmishing about the falling walls of Magiovinium.