Merlin's Shadow

by Robert Treskillard

  MERLIN’S

  SHADOW

  BOOK TWO IN THE

  MERLIN’S SPIRAL SERIES

  ROBERT TRESKILLARD

  For Robin

  Psalm 33:20–22

  Contents

  Title Page

  Maps

  THE STORY SO FAR …

  PROLOGUE REMNANTS

  PART ONE FOOL’S CHOICE

  CHAPTER 1 STUMPED

  CHAPTER 2 PURSUED

  CHAPTER 3 DINTAGA

  CHAPTER 4 GORLAS

  CHAPTER 5 THE STROKE FALLS SHORT

  CHAPTER 6 AT THE CLIFF’S EDGE

  CHAPTER 7 UTHER’S MYSTERY

  CHAPTER 8 BROKEN PROMISES

  CHAPTER 9 RHYMES AND RUINS

  CHAPTER 10 SNARES AND SECRETS

  CHAPTER 11 THE FATALITY

  CHAPTER 12 THE BETRAYAL

  CHAPTER 13 CHILDREN OF THE SALMON

  PART TWO FOOL’S LOSS

  CHAPTER 14 TAKEN NORTH

  CHAPTER 15 THE KNOCK O’ BHAIRDS

  CHAPTER 16 THE WOUNDED KING

  CHAPTER 17 A DESPERATE NEED

  CHAPTER 18 GIVING UP

  CHAPTER 19 PLOD AND PLOT

  CHAPTER 20 SAMHAIN

  CHAPTER 21 ESCAPE

  CHAPTER 22 REVENGE

  CHAPTER 23 THE BITTER TREK

  CHAPTER 24 THE BITTER SCHEME

  CHAPTER 25 A DEADLY BARGAIN

  CHAPTER 26 A DEADLY RUSE

  CHAPTER 27 THE MORTAL THROAT

  PART THREE FOOL’S FAITH

  CHAPTER 28 THAT WHICH IS LOST

  CHAPTER 29 THAT WHICH IS FOUND

  CHAPTER 30 THE GIVING OF SECRETS

  CHAPTER 31 THE STEALING OF SOULS

  CHAPTER 32 RIPPLES OF THE STORM

  CHAPTER 33 POWER OF THE STORM

  CHAPTER 34 LAND OF THE DEAD

  CHAPTER 35 SHADOW OF THE DEAD

  CHAPTER 36 THE RAVEN GROVE

  CHAPTER 37 THE TEMPLE OF ATLEUTHUN

  CHAPTER 38 THE SCARS OF FAILURE

  CHAPTER 39 BLOOD AND DARKNESS

  CHAPTER 40 NATALENYA

  EPILOGUE

  PRONUNCIATION GUIDE

  GLOSSARY

  Preview

  CHAPTER 1WOLF KILL

  About the Author

  PRAISE FOR THE MERLIN SPIRAL

  Other books by Robert Treskillard:

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Maps

  THE STORY SO FAR …

  The Stone — In 407 A.D., a meteorite crashes to Britain, depositing a black stone in a crater, which fills with water to become a mysterious lake. In 463, Merlin’s mother supposedly drowns in the lake, and her body is never found.

  Mórganthu — The arch druid finds the Stone in 477. With it he can enchant the Britons, and intends to restore the power of the druids — starting in Merlin’s village.

  Merlin — The swordsmith’s son. Half-blinded by wolves seven years ago, he is protected from the Stone’s enchantment because he can’t see it. Despite his weakness, he begins to fight against Mórganthu and the Stone.

  Natalenya — The seventeen-year-old daughter of the Magister, and Merlin’s love interest. She must see beyond Merlin’s scars to his courageous leadership and join with him to fight the Stone.

  Ganieda — Merlin’s nine-year-old half-sister; she seems to have an affinity for wolves.

  Garth — A friend of Merlin who is an orphan and a rascal. He lives at the abbey and despises the abbot’s discipline. He is the first to be enchanted, motivating Merlin to fight against the Stone.

  Owain — Merlin’s father, and a swordsmith, who deserted the High King’s warband many years ago. He also becomes enchanted by the Stone.

  The Blade — Made by Merlin’s father, who gives it to the newly arrived High King Uther to appease his wrath. When the king is not satisfied, Owain gives Merlin to him as a servant.

  Uther — The proud High King and father to Arthur. When the druids prevent the villagers from swearing fealty, he cuts off the head of Mórganthu’s son. Mórganthu swears revenge.

  Colvarth — The king’s bard, a former druid and now a Christian, who agrees to mentor Merlin. In his new role, Merlin advises the king to destroy the Stone.

  Vortigern — A battle chief. He is enchanted and betrays Uther and Arthur to the druids.

  Arthur — The young son of King Uther. Garth sees Mórganthu’s cruelty, and his plan to murder the royal family, and saves Arthur’s life.

  Dybris — A monk who works with Merlin and Owain to take the Stone and destroy it before a key druid ritual could increase its power. He discovers the other monks were caught by Mórganthu and will be burned to death during the ritual. While trying to free his fellow monks and remove the Stone, Dybris and Owain are captured, leaving Merlin to try and save everyone on his own. In the end, Merlin conspires with a sympathetic druid named Caygek.

  Connek — A thief hired by Mórganthu to kill Merlin, and by Vortigern to kill Natalenya after she refuses to marry his son. When Natalenya visits the mill to borrow a mule to haul the Stone away, Connek hides there and tries to kill Natalenya, but he dies when the millstone falls on him.

  The Murder — During the druid ritual, Uther and Owain are to be sacrificed to the Stone, and the monks to be burned. Vortigern hides his men and arrives to make sure Uther is dead. When he finds the High King alive, he intends to kill him, and after a brief skirmish with Merlin, he succeeds. The druids, cheated of their sacrifice, attack. Vortigern calls his men to fight.

  The Escape — The monks are freed by Caygek’s friends, and Owain is freed by Caygek himself. Merlin, Owain, and Dybris escape with the Stone, but are chased by both the druids and Vortigern’s warriors. Natalenya rescues them, and they haul the Stone to the smithy, barricading the doors.

  The Fight — Owain can’t destroy the Stone. While trying, Vortigern’s men try to break in, and Garth sets fire to the fortress where their horses are kept. The warriors run off, and the druids break into the smithy alone. Mórganthu enters with the dead king’s new blade. Dybris and Owain are injured, but Merlin cuts off Mórganthu’s hand and reclaims the blade.

  The Hammering — Natalenya is trapped by flames erupting from the Stone, and Merlin must save her. He tries to hammer the blade into the Stone, and burns his hands in the process. Natalenya steadies him, and they are both given a vision.

  The Vision — is of Natalenya being taken to a red dragon and a white dragon so they can eat her. Merlin fights the dragons, chops off a fang from one, and stabs the other in the eye.

  The Victory — The vision ends. Merlin and Natalenya hammer the blade into the Stone, which causes an explosion, knocking out the druids.

  The Aftermath — An angel heals Merlin of his blindness, and he, along with Natalenya, Colvarth, and Garth, take Arthur away to save the boy from Vortigern. Before leaving, Merlin visits the lake where his mother supposedly drowned and finds her alive — a water creature freed from serving the Stone, but forever confined to the lake. Vortigern rallies his men in pursuit, setting the stage for book two, Merlin’s Shadow.

  PROLOGUE

  REMNANTS

  NEAR THE VILLAGE OF BOSVENTOR IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 477

  In the half-light of a dying day, Ganieda wept in her mother’s embrace. She felt again the burning of her mother’s forehead.

  Ashen birds silenced their squawking and watched the two with hungry eyes. Dark clouds gathered overhead, and farther up the tree-lined ravine, a spring gurgled out brown water that trickled past them in dirge-like procession toward the marsh.

  Ganieda had been hungry in the morning — so hungry — but now fear had soured her stomach. As the day had worn on, her mother began to rave, refusing to drink and scratching
her puffed, infected arm. Now screeching cries filled the gaps between her mother’s words.

  Ganieda pulled her hand from her mother’s forehead. How it burned!

  Her mother shrieked, her jaw shaking and lips curled in cracked anguish. “Dark, Gana, my bairn … so dark … the worms are eatin’ ma skin.”

  Ganieda trembled, for the wound on her mother’s left arm had burst open, oozing forth pus and blood.

  “Merlin … he’s killed me, ya hear?” her mother rasped.

  “No. I won’t let him.” Ganieda beat the ground, pretending it was her brother’s scarred face. She didn’t understand how, but her brother, Merlin, had caused her mother’s infection, as well as their father’s death. Unwanted images from the previous night jabbed at her soul: Her father lying dead and bloody, sprawled in the garden. The cone-shaped roof of her father’s smithy crashing down in flames. Their house, the only place she had ever known, on fire. Finding a sword driven deeply into the Druid Stone, the object that could have saved their entire village and given her and her mother power. Now the druidow were scattered, the stone stagnant, and the world turned asunder.

  Ganieda cursed Merlin’s name.

  Her mother cried out again, gurgling and choking. Her eyes rolled back, and she groped the horrid dirt. Breath fled from her lungs like grain spilling from a torn bag — and she moved no more.

  Ganieda lifted herself from the ground and ran, leaving her mother’s body to lay forever dead beside the woodland ferns. She screamed and pulled at her hair, twisting and ripping it out. And with every step, she cursed her brother’s name.

  Hours later the moon rose and called to Ganieda, laughing. Its gleaming robe of darkness drew her forth like a friend, and she followed it — cold, and alone — until she found herself again on the edge of her family’s property. Her hand searched vainly for even a crumb of food in the bag that hung from her belt.

  Through tear-blurred eyes, she climbed over the rock wall and beheld her home standing just as she had remembered. The conical roof reached up to the stars in thatched splendor. The low stone walls lay stout and strong. And there stood her father, Owain, with a hoe in one hand — waving to her. Ganieda smiled as Mônda, her mother, stepped over to him and placed an arm around his waist, her black hair tossed in the breeze, her smile a delight, and her cheeks full of youthful color. She knelt and beckoned.

  Come!

  Ganieda ran, arms outstretched. Mammu. And as Ganieda was about to fall happily into that loving embrace, her mother vanished. Ganieda fell upon a pile of stones — a cairn. The wicked edges of the rocks cut her fingers. She cried out, looking everywhere for her mother, her father, her house.

  They were all gone, and nothing existed but the burnt timbers of the roof perched over the broken walls, like a great black spider sucking the life juice from its prey. The smithy beside it was worse. Even the timbers had fallen, broken amidst the firestorm of the previous night. The fire that Merlin had started. He was responsible. He destroyed it all. He caused her mother to die by destroying all she loved.

  The blood from her hands dripped down upon the rocks of the cairn. The cairn? There had been no cairn here — this was their garden. The cabbages lay smashed and broken — kicked, forgotten, and weed-strangled. What was a cairn doing here? Her father. His precious body lay under it, eternally cut off from her. Entombed.

  Never again would she hold on to his belt. Hear him sweetly call her name. Feel his rough hands combing her hair. Swing from his arms. Look into his eyes. They were sad eyes, and she never knew why. And the cruel rocks whispered at her, raising their voice for justice. Calling out for the blood of her brother. It would never be sated. She screamed. She would never be sated.

  A dog barked from over near the smithy.

  But it wasn’t a dog — it was a wolf. Was it her wolf? “Tellyk?” she shouted.

  The wolf whined in answer.

  She pulled her hands from the jagged grasp of the stones, ran to the smithy, and Tellyk stood before its charred and fallen wall. Her special wolf among the many wolves she had befriended, creatures who in turn became her protectors.

  He raised his snout, closed his green eyes, and licked the blood from her left hand as she pet his soft, furry head with her right. But Tellyk pushed his head against her firmly. Almost too firmly. “Stop it, Tellyk. What do you want?”

  The wolf pushed her farther now, toward the broken door of the smithy. He padded before her into the gray ash of the interior.

  She followed, her feet warmed by the thick layer of ashes, and stepped warily through broken, heaped timbers that still smoked and hissed like black snakes waiting to strike.

  The wolf led her to the forge, its sides intact despite the furious blaze of the previous night. In the center of the forge lay a large black stone, from which protruded a long blade — the blade she had seen her father crafting these many weeks. It stood shining and perfect — strangely unmarred by the fire. The red triple spiral inlaid in the hilt sparkled in the moonlight.

  Ganieda’s eyes opened wide, and she reached out to grasp it — but the wolf growled and shoved her back. She fell amidst the ashes and burned her hand on a live ember. Standing up again, she sucked her fingers and was surprised to see Tellyk digging at the base of the black stone — the Stone — the Druid Stone! The special Stone of Mórganthu, the arch druid, her grandfather.

  And the blade had killed it. Merlin had done it. Ganieda and her mother had seen through the doorway as he thrust the sword into the Stone. Everything he touched, he destroyed.

  But the wolf had found something, and whimpered at her with mournful eyes.

  She leaned forward, and there in the bottom of the forge, amid a black and sticky liquid, lay a luminous orb slightly larger than a chicken egg. She snatched it up and pulled it to her chest, the liquid staining her fingers and dripping onto her dress.

  She felt the entire surface of the orb. One side was smooth, almost glasslike, while the other felt rough. From the rough side trailed out broken fibers, like a horse’s tail or a plant’s cut roots.

  She studied the shiny side — and then yelped. The orb almost slipped from her fingers and fell, but she held on to it. Inside flashed purple fire, and then the image changed to glimmering stars and wheeled around until she beheld the scarred face of her brother standing in the dark next to a tree. The faint sound of crickets could be heard, and the rustle of leaves.

  She sobbed. “If only I had a dagger, I’d hurt you! Really hurt you …”

  Tellyk whimpered again.

  She pulled her gaze away from the orb and saw his paws scratching into the forge once more. Underneath his snuffing nose there lay a curved, sharp spike coated in the dark liquid. Some old nail, she mused, dropped by her father into the forge. She reached out a trembling left hand and picked it up by two fingers, sliming them. She wiped it clean on her skirt — and the spike shone a pale ivory in the moonlight.

  This wasn’t iron, and it wasn’t copper. It looked like one of Tellyk’s fangs, only much longer, maybe half a foot, and much sharper. The curve felt good in her hand, and as she held it, a thrill tingled in her fingers. It fled up her arm like a bat caught in her sleeve.

  A voice rasped from behind her, “What? What have you found there?”

  Tellyk growled and Ganieda whirled around, her heart pulsing up into her throat.

  An old man hobbled forward through the gaping hole where the front doors had been. His left arm leaned upon a long staff, and his right arm protruded from his sleeve, ending at a stub bound in a bloody rag.

  His long sweat-streaked hair lay gray and black upon his green robe, and his face —

  “Grandpa,” she cried, and ran to him.

  PART ONE

  FOOL’S CHOICE

  FAST AS THE FOX, THE HIDER HIDING; WILD AS THE WOLF, THE HUNTER HUNTING; HARD AS THE HORSE, THE BURDEN BEARING; HIGH AS THE HAWK, THE SEARCHER SPYING; PRISON BY SEA, FEAR THE RED SUNRISE.

  CHAPTER 1

  STUMPED

>   THE WILDS OF KERNOW

  IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 477

  The sun had long ago sunk below the granite-boned horizon, and Merlin crept up the mound hoping to catch the stranger asleep. Halfway to the top he drew his sword — gashing his arm on a blackthorn bush. He bit his tongue and continued to climb through the shadowed grass, once again thankful he could now see, and see clearly. Unfortunately, the miracle that had restored his sight had not made him a perfect scout.

  Whoever this man was who had camped so close to them, Merlin and Garth had to find out. Hopefully Garth would quietly scale the other side of the hill and not disturb the man’s horse they had heard. If the stranger was alerted to their presence, and if he was one of Vortigern’s men, Merlin might need to capture — or kill him.

  They had all been wary ever since yesterday, when three of Vortigern’s warriors rode past their hasty hiding place. Natalenya had cried afterward, and the orphaned Arthur had studied her with his gray-blue eyes, his little fists holding tight to her long, brown hair.

  So when Colvarth had spied some flitting smoke near their nighttime camp, he had thought it wise to make sure they weren’t being tracked.

  The beeches lining the hillside twitched their ovate leaves in the light wind as if sensing Merlin’s presence. At the top of the hill, the trunks reflected a ghostly flicker from the man’s fire as the mold-scented smoke curled upward.

  Leaves crunched lightly in the distance, and Merlin sucked in his breath, praying Garth wouldn’t make any more noise. Merlin found a foothold and lifted himself enough to see over the grass where the man sat stiffly near a fire. His back was turned and his green cloak covered his head to keep the chill off. In the distance, his horse stood silently tied to a tree.

  Setting his sword on the ground in front of him, Merlin pulled himself up and crouched behind a towering oak. The man didn’t stir and must have fallen asleep before the fire, which would make it easier for Merlin to sneak up and see if he was one of Vortigern’s soldiers — as long as Garth could keep his big toes off the branches.