The Pendragon's Challenge (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 7)

by Sarah Woodbury

  “We are evacuating the city now.” The messenger nodded at Rhiann. “King Penda asks that you stay on the wall while he speaks to Oswin. If he can stall, we can get everyone out but the last few before the Northumbrians attack.”

  “That means you need the archers to stay the longest,” Rhiann said.

  The messenger bowed. “Indeed, madam.” He straightened. “King Penda requested that I find King Cadwaladr and ask him to join him. Do you know where he is?”

  “I can’t tell you at present,” Hywel said, and though that wasn’t entirely a lie, Rhiann was glad that he’d taken it upon himself to deceive, rather than leaving it to her. “But I’ll get the message to him.”

  “Thank you.” And the messenger ran off.

  Both Rhiann and Hywel looked at Cade, though to an outsider it appeared that they were looking at each other.

  “I’ll go down to the gatehouse,” Cade said.

  “But—” Rhiann started to protest.

  “It’s raining harder than ever, and I’ll wear my regular cloak and helmet. Nobody will wonder at that because it’s raining. I’ll be fine.” Rhiann saw the ladder shift, indicating that Cade had started down it, but then it stopped moving, and all of a sudden, she found herself swept into his arms. They kissed, and then she moved back a few inches so she could smile up at him. She was invisible to everyone else, but since she was touching him, she could see him.

  Hywel looked around. “Uh … my lord?”

  Cade laughed. “Stand on the far edge of the wall-walk, so it looks as if Rhiann was behind you all this time.”

  Hywel did as he was bid, and Rhiann bumped into his back. He turned around. “Does it feel any different?”

  She laughed. “No, which is why it’s so strange.”

  Hywel laughed too. “I wouldn’t say that’s the only reason.”

  They looked down towards the gatehouse in time to see Cade step out of the guardroom at its base as if he’d been inside it the whole time. Penda was just coming from the hall. They’d sent all the horses away with Dafydd and Angharad, so he was on foot, which might appear somewhat odd to Oswin when Penda walked instead of rode from the gatehouse, but it was unlikely that it would be something he’d remark upon. He wanted the city. How he got it wouldn’t matter to him.

  Rhiann then turned to look at the oncoming Northumbrians. They’d stopped just beyond the first markers as if they knew they were there—which perhaps they did. Saxons weren’t archers as a rule, but they’d been fighting the Britons long enough to account for their presence among an enemy’s ranks and maybe even employ a few of their own as Penda had.

  The same messenger who’d come to speak to them before appeared below once again, this time with a white flag on a long pole. He tossed it up to Hywel, who caught it, and then the man climbed the ladder to reach the wall-walk.

  “Thanks,” he said breathlessly, and then ran to a second ladder that would take him to the top of the gatehouse tower. He began waving the flag back and forth above his head.

  The Northumbrians couldn’t miss it, but no commander stepped forward from Oswin’s line. Rhiann approached the edge of the battlement, her brow furrowing. Refusing to acknowledge a white flag wasn’t unprecedented, but it was rare and deeply concerning. And then a horn sounded from within the Northumbrian ranks, followed by the roar of two thousand voices.

  Oswin wasn’t going to talk. The Northumbrians were charging.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Catrin

  Catrin began to chant words in the old language that she dredged up from somewhere deep inside her, words that she almost didn’t know the meaning of until she spoke them:

  An ancient watchman

  Stands on the castle walls

  Blood turns to bone and then stone

  The wind whistles in the passages

  The Cymry are abandoned

  And evil shows itself at last.

  Catrin cut the fat part of her left hand and matched it to the cut Goronwy had already made in his. They clasped hands as their blood joined and dripped into the bowl.

  “Why evil?” Goronwy asked.

  “Shh!”

  Boots pounded on the stairs, and Catrin counted them lucky to have made it this long without being caught. She gripped Goronwy’s hand tightly, even as he turned to look at the door. But it was as if a veil were shimmering between them and it. The door burst open at the behest of an enormous, wild-haired man with an axe blade bigger than Catrin’s head. Then the room wavered one more time—and vanished.

  They both staggered, and Goronwy reached for the post that appeared at his left shoulder. Their right hands were still joined, and Catrin stumbled towards him and thumped into his chest.

  He held her close. “It’s all right.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “It feels like it to me.”

  Goronwy touched his forehead to hers—just a quick movement, such that she almost wasn’t sure he’d done it until she looked up at him.

  He smiled.

  Goronwy didn’t smile often, except at jests he himself might tell, but in this moment his smile lit his whole being, and it was as if he had a halo of joy around him. “I wouldn’t have forgone this journey for all the silver in the treasury.”

  Catrin looked away, but she couldn’t keep her own smile from her lips. “Is that so?” She glanced around to examine where they found themselves. The tower room was gone, to be replaced by a common stable. To distract herself from thinking about Goronwy, she said, “Is this where Taliesin went?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think so.” All of a sudden, something in his tone changed, and the glow that had surrounded him disappeared, to be replaced by a sudden darkness. “Taliesin will be fine.”

  Her brow furrowed in puzzlement. “I know, Goronwy. If anyone can take care of himself, it’s Taliesin.”

  Goronwy nodded, as if she’d answered a question for him. “I don’t want to see you hurt, Catrin.”

  “Why would I be hurt?”

  “Does he know how you feel?”

  “Does who know how I feel? About what?” She felt a rising impatience. They were running from gods, and he was talking in riddles.

  Goronwy sighed. “Do I have to say it out loud?”

  “Apparently you do, because I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She peered around the corner of the stall, but it was so dark in the stable, she couldn’t see beyond a few feet. Time didn’t pass normally in the Otherworld, as Taliesin was always telling them, and she had no idea if hours had passed since they’d arrived at Caer Wydr or only heartbeats.

  “Taliesin. Does he know that you’re in love with him?”

  Catrin froze, and she was glad that the darkness in the stall in which they found themselves prevented Goronwy from seeing her clearly because she knew she’d flushed red to the roots of her hair. Then she straightened, telling herself not to be a coward, and looked directly into his face. “I am not in love with Taliesin.”

  “You do remember that I can see auras, right?” Goronwy’s voice was gentle. “Even in the dark, yours tells me that you are in love.”

  Catrin took in a breath and, before she could change her mind, said. “Not long after the battle at Caer Fawr, Taliesin told me, in that casual way of his that makes it seem like he feels nothing, that he had seen a future—one future out of a hundred other possible futures—in which I walked beside him. But once followed, that path led to darkness and despair, and he would not take it nor allow me to think it possible.”

  She canted her head, revealing what was in her heart in a way she had told herself she never would again. “I’m not a fool or a girl just barely into womanhood to love where love isn’t wanted. I’m not one to cry into my pillow at love unrequited. Taliesin meant what he said, and for months I’ve had no hope in that direction—nor have I wanted any.”

  Though she’d managed to be straightforward until this moment, now she evaded Goronwy’s eyes. She’d spoken the truth, but
not all of it. To have the little attention she’d paid to Taliesin deflected had set her back a pace for a while. It had been a long time since she’d cared enough about any man to let her feelings show. It had been a long time, living in the woods alone as she’d been before Goronwy came to her, since she’d had any friends at all.

  “I admit that I thought I was in love with him, but he isn’t like you and me. Did you know that, inside, he’s a hundred generations old?”

  “I suppose I did.” Goronwy stood still as a stone.

  “While he needs love and human companionship, lest he become something other than a man, he can see in a way no other man in this world sees.” She faced Goronwy, able again to look into his eyes without embarrassment. “I cannot imagine living that way, knowing everyone’s secrets, dreams, and desires—not because he can read minds but because he can see future outcomes and paths followed.” She supposed if Taliesin had been interested in her in the way she’d been interested in him, those long spells of detachment might have eventually driven her mad. Of course, they’d been part of his attraction in the first place.

  “You are beautiful, wise, and kind,” Goronwy said. “You have a tender heart, and for that reason alone, Taliesin should be sorry to have walked away from you. I suspect part of him is sorry too.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be.” Catrin lifted one shoulder. “It truly is no matter.”

  “But—” Goronwy frowned, and she could tell he was looking at her still with his inner eye. She hadn’t known that his ability to see auras could expose the truth in her so profoundly. She should have known it perhaps, since she could see auras too sometimes, but apparently not like he did.

  She sighed. “Goronwy, I am in love, but not with him.”

  Catrin took in a breath, on the verge of saying more, but she caught herself before she did. The companionship she’d gained from living at Dinas Bran had changed her life. She had come on this journey in part to take care of Taliesin, who needed taking care of—if nothing else was true, that was—and in part to figure out where she was going to go from here. Looking at Goronwy now, she accepted for herself, even if she never spoke the words out loud, that a woman didn’t always have to wander far afield. The best answer could be right in front of her.

  She saw the moment that understanding hit him too.

  He cleared his throat. “You’re—you’re in love with … me?”

  She smiled sadly. “I would never have said anything, since I know you don’t feel the same way. But you had to see auras—” She shook her head, gazing up at him, wanting what she could never have. And then she threw caution to the winds. They were in the Otherworld, in peril, with no way back and no notion of what lay ahead. It was a time for taking risks. She gripped the fabric of his cloak as it lay on his chest, stood on her tiptoes, and pressed her lips to his.

  Though he kissed her back, he didn’t put his arms around her. Feeling like a fool, she let go and backed off from him, intending to pretend the kiss had never happened.

  But before she’d gone two steps, Goronwy caught her hand. “Actually—” He pulled her back to him, and this time his arms came around her fully.

  The kiss was slow and sweet, and by the end Catrin was trembling in his arms.

  Goronwy smiled down at her. “You can see auras like I can. You should have known that I’m in love too.”

  “Well, well. I was wondering when one of you would make it here. I confess, you are not what I expected.”

  They both spun around at the voice, Goronwy still with his arms around Catrin. A man stood fifteen feet away near one of the stalls, carefully brushing out the mane of a coal-black horse Catrin could have sworn hadn’t been there a moment before. Beyond him sat a golden chariot that shimmered and glowed, almost as if it was giving off its own light rather than reflecting the light of the man’s lantern.

  Goronwy’s hand went to the hilt of his sword, and the man put out a hand in appeasement. “Now, now. No need for that.” He was broad-chested, built like the most imposing blacksmith Catrin had ever seen. His size alone made a mockery of his soothing words. He wore gold war bands around his biceps, a long cloak that trailed the ground, and black, knee-high boots, polished until they shone like a mirror. Though Catrin didn’t know exactly who this was, he was no man.

  Goronwy recognized it too. He swallowed hard and bent his head. “I apologize for disturbing you, oh great one.”

  “No need for that either, especially when you bring me such lovely company.” The god-man dropped his brush onto a nearby shelf and approached.

  Catrin was still holding Goronwy’s hand. Instead of dropping it in her nervousness, as she might have done yesterday, she clenched it tighter. At least their hands had stopped bleeding. As children of the sight, both had been well aware of the power of blood even before they’d used it just now, and she didn’t want to leave any more of themselves lying around this fantastical palace than they already had.

  “My lord.” Goronwy bowed. “I beg your forgiveness for infringing on your place, and ask if you would honor me with your name.”

  The god grunted. “So you are educated in the important things.” He pointed a finger at himself. “I am Manawydan.” He indicated the doorway behind them. “Few have the ability to escape the guards.”

  “Do you mean the chess pieces?” Goronwy said.

  “Of course.”

  “We weren’t running from them,” Catrin said. “They were dead before we arrived.”

  Manawydan’s eyes narrowed. “Just because they’re immobile doesn’t mean they’re dead.”

  “You misunderstand, my lord,” Catrin said as tactfully as she could. “Their bodies lay scattered about the castle’s courtyard.”

  Manawydan’s staggeringly handsome face froze into position for a moment, not unlike one of the chess pieces. However, he absorbed that news without further comment. “But you found the doorway to here.” He had a tendency to make statements that could have been questions if his inflection had been different.

  “If by doorway you mean Catrin used the scrying bowl,” Goronwy said, “then yes. Otherwise, the room at the top of the tower was a dead end.”

  Manawydan cocked his head. “You think so?”

  Catrin looked at Goronwy. “He’s right. Taliesin and Mabon got out.”

  “They don’t count,” Goronwy said in an undertone.

  Manawydan’s attention had become fixed on Catrin’s face. “Mabon is here?” He took a step towards them, and for the first time his tone was menacing.

  “Taliesin brought him, at Arianrhod’s request!” Goronwy pulled Catrin a few steps away from Manawydan, towards the chariot. Without having to talk to one another, they both knew what it was, knew they wanted it, but didn’t know a way to take it without either inspiring the wrath of Manawydan or outright stealing it. In truth, they needed to take both the horse and the chariot, and they couldn’t do that without Manawydan’s permission.

  “Manawydan! Cousin! I must speak with you.” The voice came from outside the stable and was that of the man in the hall who’d shouted at the woman—and presumably had followed them from the room at the top of the tower.

  Manawydan growled under his breath. “What is Hafgan up to?”

  “Perhaps he is helping Mabon in his search for the Treasures of Britain?” Catrin said.

  If Manawydan expression had been menacing before, now it was downright terrifying, but this time his ire wasn’t directed at Goronwy and Catrin. “It was my grandfather’s intent to pull Mabon’s teeth, not spur him to greater insurrection.” He paused. “Unless—” Without finishing the thought, he started walking towards the exit. “Coming, Hafgan!”

  “My lord, unless what?” Goronwy put out a hand. “Please tell us. We are on a quest for the Treasures ourselves, but not because we want to use them. Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon, my liege lord, seeks to keep them safe.”

  Manawydan hesitated. “I have heard of this Cadwaladr. He has made an impression even here, for he
was made by Arianrhod, and his doings have entwined with Mabon’s.”

  Catrin curtseyed deeply. “Please, sir. We are mortals caught up in events beyond our understanding, but we seek only to serve.”

  His lips pursed, Manawydan waved his hand. Between one heartbeat and the next, the stable and everything inside and out became encased in a thick mist. Then he grabbed Goronwy’s arm, and to Catrin it looked as if lightning had struck the knight. The god’s grip was like a vice, and Goronwy could neither move nor speak. Manawydan leaned in and spoke in Goronwy’s ear, words that Catrin couldn’t hear. Then he pulled back and said in a hoarse voice. “I will speak to my grandfather about what has passed this day. Take the horse and the chariot and go! Stop him.”

  “We will try,” Goronwy said, and then he staggered as Manawydan released him. A moment later, the god had disappeared out the door.

  Catrin was shaking from head to foot, but she pulled the halter from her pack and ran towards the horse. “What did he say to you?”

  Goronwy had recovered enough to move to the chariot, grab the tracers, and haul it towards her. It was made of gold but was lighter than any mortal-made vehicle and moved with barely a whisper.

  He set the yoke around the horse. “Just the name: Efnysien.”

  “Manawydan’s half-brother?” Catrin gaped at him, horrified. “May the gods preserve us.”

  “Why? Who are these people?” Goronwy looked contrite. “I endeavored to forget everything my mother taught me.”

  “Manawydan is the son of Llyr, Lord of the Sea, and the grandson of Beli. Efnysien is his half-brother, and he makes every jealous and malicious younger brother—human or sidhe—appear benign by comparison.” Catrin felt a grimness settle on her shoulders. The glow of warmth of Goronwy’s attentions was long gone. “We need to go now!”

  “How? Where?” Goronwy took the reins in one hand and helped Catrin into the chariot with the other.

  “Just speak the place where you want to be or the name of the one you want to be with and the chariot will take you there.” Catrin gripped the bar in front of her as if they were already riding the winds.