End of the Century

by Chris Roberson

  The thought of wives, though, and of children, reminded Galaad of that which he couldn't forget, and he tightened his hands into fists, his throat constricting and his tongue feeling thick and useless in his mouth.

  Clearly seeing the discomfort evident in his cousin's expression, Geraint hurried to change the subject. “But you haven't traveled all this distance to return to such old topics of conversation. Come, sit by me and tell me the reason for your journey.”

  Geraint motioned to one of his servants, calling for a chair to be brought forth and placed beside his on the dais. Artor nodded and mounted the dais, and the three were seated, Geraint in the middle, his wife on one side and Artor on the other.

  Galaad and the others had slowly made their way from the hall's entrance as the two kings spoke, and Geraint now turned his gaze upon them. “And what reprobates have you brought with you on your travels?” the Dumnonian king said, waving the captains forward. “Ah, dour Lugh and grinning Caius, obedient Bedwyr and the ever bickering twins, light and dark. Welcome, friends, welcome.” He paused, wistful. “I have often found myself fondly remembering our days together and the rough fellowship of the battlefield. Home and hearth are things to cherish, but still and all I prize the memory of those younger days and sometimes wish for their return.” He shook his head, as though knocking loose the clinging memories, returning to the present moment. “But as I say, you are most welcome to Llongborth, my friends. Most welcome.”

  Geraint's gaze drifted past Galaad, and he paused, raising an eyebrow.

  Galaad swallowed hard, uncomfortable in the lengthening silence and squirming under the king's gaze. “My name is Galaad,” he quickly said, voice quavering, “from Glevum, in Powys in the west.” He paused, and then quickly added, “That is, Powys to the north of here, and somewhat to the east I suppose…” He was babbling in his nervousness, but unable to stop himself.

  Beside him, Lugh covered his eyes, muttering under his breath. Caius, a little more charitably, reached forward and laid a hand on Galaad's shoulder, and in a quiet voice said, “I imagine that the Dumnonian king knows where Glevum is, friend.”

  A deep red blush rose in Galaad's cheek, and he began to stammer his apologies.

  “The youth travels with us,” Artor said, rescuing him, “and is in fact the reason for our journey.”

  “Ah,” Geraint said, nodding. “In which case, you are likewise welcome, man of Powys, as would be any traveling companion of Artor.” He looked from the captains and Galaad before him to his wife, and then quickly to Artor. “But I have been terribly derelict,” he said, admonishing himself. “Your majesty, brave captains, please allow me to present my wife, the lovely Enid ferch Ynywl.”

  The woman at his side, handsome and sturdy, nodded graciously to the High King, and then inclined her head to the standing captains.

  “And this is our son,” Enid said, “Cadwr ab Geraint ab Erbin.”

  “A proud lineage.” Artor's disquiet on the topic of children had not left him, and he fidgeted in his seat, regarding the infant.

  “Yes.” Geraint beamed, his gaze lingering on his wife and babe-in-arms. Then, seeming to snap from this brief reverie, he clapped his hands together, brightening. “But you must be famished from your long journey, and in much need of refreshment.”

  “A fair drop of the liquid variety,” Lugh said with a sly smile, “would not go far astray, majesty.”

  “And you shall have it!” Geraint snapped his fingers, motioning for his pages. “Bring tables and chairs for our friends. And trenchers of meat and vegetable, loaves of bread, and wine enough for each man to drink his fill.”

  “Now he's talking my language,” Gwrol said in a loud whisper. Pryder punched his brother in the arm to silence him, but Galaad did not fail to notice the smile playing on Pryder's own lips.

  Not that Galaad could blame them. He could use a fair drop of the stuff himself.

  The day wore on, as Galaad and the others surfeited themselves on the Dumnonian king's generosity. The sky outside, glimpsed when the hall's great doors were infrequently opened and quickly closed, grew increasingly dark as sunset rapidly approached.

  The more time they spent within the hall, in the company of Geraint and his people, the more Galaad began to notice a strange undercurrent to everything that went on around him. A tension permeated the room, an almost palpable sense of dread, or even fear, that underlay even the most boisterous song, dance, or wrestling bout. At first, he wasn't sure if he'd just been blind to it initially, but as the hours slipped past he came to realize that in fact the tension was growing. As nightfall drew closer, the smiles on the faces around them became less easy, less wide, the laughter more infrequent and more forced.

  Too, Galaad noticed that the number of people within the hall increased as sunset approached, more and more entering from the cold, and few abandoning the warmth within to venture back outside. In time, it began to seem as if the entire population of Llongborth must have gathered within the walls, and none showed any indication of leaving any time soon.

  Galaad saw that he wasn't the only one to have detected the shift in the hall's tenor. The captains seated around the rude wooden tables spoke in low voices, glancing around the room with narrowed eyes. Even Artor, seated upon the dais next to the king and his wife, the bones of their meal lying on the long table that had been set before them, clearly had sensed the tension.

  “Cousin,” Artor finally said, curiosity evidently getting the better of him, “I cannot help but note the crowded state of your hall, these last hours. Nor less the fact that so many of your people glance to the opening doors with expressions of apparent dread. Wherefore this disquiet?”

  Geraint's jaw tightened, and he glanced to his wife, who had blanched immediately at Artor's words.

  “The Huntsman,” Enid whispered, drawing her son close to her bosom.

  Artor raised an eyebrow, but when Geraint turned back to face him, it was with an unconvincing smile painted on his face.

  “An unpleasant topic, and one I'd sooner not discuss at present,” Geraint hastened to say. “But what of yourself, Artor?” He reached over and patted the High King's knee. “You've not yet explained the reason for your journey, nor what business brings you here to Dumnonia.” He glanced in Galaad's direction. “You mention it has something to do with this young man from Powys?”

  Artor nodded, eyes narrowed, clearly still somewhat suspicious about the tenor of the hall. “It does indeed,” he said at length, and then motioned to Galaad. “Come forward, if you will, and relate to our host the tale you first told me in Caer Llundain.”

  Galaad swallowed noisily and, pushing back from the rough-hewn table, stood on shaky legs. He glanced to the captains, as though for encouragement, but was greeted instead by shrugs of indifference, with Caius's too easy smile the only friendly sign. Wiping his sweaty palms on the fabric of his linen tunic, nervously, he tentatively approached the dais.

  “M-majesties,” he stuttered, managing a bow.

  Geraint waved his hand in a regal gesture, lounging in his chair.

  “As I have said, my name is Galaad, and I am from Glevum”—he bit back the desire to place the city geographically—“and since the summer last I have been visited by visions of a White Lady. She shows me the image of a smooth-sided mound atop an island, and atop the mound a tower of glass. The island is surrounded on all sides by waters but is connected to the mainland by a spit of land.”

  Finishing, Galaad bit his lip, expecting the Dumnonian king's reaction to be laughter, or scorn, or dismissal. But to his surprise, Geraint instead narrowed his eyes and regarded Galaad thoughtfully, his expression unreadable.

  “Go on,” Artor instructed, nodding to Galaad. “Tell the rest.”

  “Well,” Galaad said, uneasily, “As I told the High King these days past, I do not know whether the woman in the vision is Ceridwen, or the Holy Mother, or some other spirit or saint. She is dressed all in white, with hair the color of snow and strai
ght white teeth. All I really do know is that the White Lady sends for assistance, and that she requires rescuing, imprisoned somehow in the glass tower she shows me.”

  “The tower which is atop the island with the smooth-sided mound, rounded on one end and sharp on the other, connected by a narrow bridge of land to the shore,” Artor said.

  “Exactly so.” Galaad nodded.

  Artor turned to Geraint. “Now, tell me, cousin. Does not the island which the youth describes confirm in all particulars to that which lies just to the north of Llongborth, further up the Dumnonian coast? On hearing the boy's tale, I was immediately minded of the time I wintered here with the forces of Ambrosius, when we two were but boys ourselves, and spied that island through the mists.”

  A brief smile tugged up the corners of Geraint's mouth. “But those were good times, weren't they? The Saeson aside, they were good days.” For a brief moment his eyes seemed to settle on the middle distance, as his thoughts drifted back. “But that was twenty years ago, or more,” he finally said, snapping back to the present. “Another time.”

  “But do I err, or is that not the island which the boy describes?”

  Geraint nodded, seeming reluctant. “Yes,” he said after a lengthy pause. “But it has been some years since I, or any of my people come to that, have laid eyes on that island of happier memory.”

  “What?!” Artor was taken aback. “But it cannot be more than a few hours leisurely ride from here. What bars your way?”

  “More that something obscures our vision,” Geraint explained, cryptically. “At least initially. Though now indeed something does bar our free travel, preventing even the approach.”

  Artor glanced at his captains, seeking some explanation, but saw that they were just as confused as he, and Galaad even more so.

  “What do you mean, cousin?” Artor's tone grew more grave, his expression serious.

  Geraint drew a ragged sigh, and his wife reached over and put her hand in his, comfortingly. When he spoke again, his voice sounded distant, lifeless, funereal. “The hedge and the Huntsman.” He shut his eyes, some remembered pain lining his features. “That is the cause of our distress, and our sorry state of dread and woe. The hedge and the Huntsman.”

  “It was some years ago, ten or more, that the hedge of mist first caught our notice,” Geraint explained, while Galaad and the others listened intently. “In those early days, it seemed to cling to the top of the mound you mention, atop that small island to the north. We thought little of it, save that it was strange than on otherwise bright and warm days that so thick a white cloud of fog should remained so localized, so persistent. But as time went on, the cloud expanded, growing slowly but inexorably larger, never wavering in the fiercest winds or in the brightest sunshine. In time, it hugged the whole of the small island you remember, cousin, until the island itself could not be seen, only a dome of white mist hanging over where the island had been.” He paused and shook his head. “There was no tower, of wood, stone, or glass, on the island in those days, but who can say what the years since have wrought?”

  Artor mulled over Geraint's words, thoughtfully tugging at the fringe of his beard with thumb and forefinger, but his captains were more vocal in reaction.

  Lugh was the first. “Do you mean that none of your people have had the stones to walk a few steps through a bit of mist to see for themselves?”

  Bedwyr, looking alarm, rushed to add, “I'm sure that my comrade means no disrespect, your majesty.”

  “Well,” Gwrol said, sloshing the wine in his cup, his words somewhat slurred, “if it comes to it, I've no fear of walking through mist or fog or such like. Let me at it, and I'll show you.”

  Pryder didn't speak, just clicked his tongue disapprovingly and shook his head.

  For his part, Geraint responded with a dark look, eyes flashing, but then seemed to soften gradually, sighing. “If you were to brave the mists, you'd not be the first. Many were the men from my court who sought the mysteries of the mist.”

  “And with what intelligence did they return?” Caius asked.

  Geraint drew his mouth into a tight line. “None who went through the hedge was ever seen again.”

  “Still,” Bedwyr said, affecting a casual indifference he clearly did not feel, “if it is just a mist atop an uninhabited island, what is the concern?”

  “Perhaps,” Geraint said, his tone level, “if the mist had confined itself to that unnamed isle. But it has not. In all of the months and years since first it was sighted, the hedge has expanded, growing always wider, always higher. Now, it covers an area many miles in circumference, reaching up into the sky almost further than the eye can see. And there is no sign of its abating, no indication its steady increase will not continue indefinitely.”

  Galaad shivered, feeling despite the warm air that ice crept up his spine, freezing him by inches.

  “But that is not the worst of it, my brothers.” Geraint's face had taken on a haunted look, and his gaze darted to the door of the hall. “Not the worst by far. For the mist, in its slow march across the coast, can at least be avoided, at least at this point. But that which comes from the mist…” His jaw tightened, and his hands gripped the arms of his chair in white-knuckled fists. “What comes from the mist must be fled.”

  Artor leaned forward, wearing a wary expression. “What comes from the mist, cousin? What is it?”

  Geraint looked away, as if afraid to meet the High King's gaze, but Enid sat upright with a sudden intake of breath, and said, “The Huntsman. It is the Huntsman.”

  The Dumnonian king looked to his wife, and nodded gravely. “Aye. It is the Huntsman.”

  All around them came the susurration of whispers as those gathered in the hall heard the words of their king and queen. Some made the sign of the cross, while others moved their fingers in ancient pagan sigils meant to ward off unkind spirits. Fear was evident on every face, young and old, man and woman. Fear of this Huntsman.

  “You mentioned such earlier,” Artor said. “What kind of man is this hunter to inspire such fear?”

  “Not a man at all, some would say,” Enid replied, arms wrapped tight around her infant son.

  Geraint nodded. “Or if he were a man, at some point, that hour has passed. Mayhap he was tossed up from the grave, or else from beneath the waves. He is said to have the coloration of corpse flesh, hairless, and with dead-seeming red eyes, and does not speak, but lets the barking of his spectral hounds instead give voice to his wrath.”

  “It is said…?” Artor repeated, suspicious. “Have you not seen him yourself, then?”

  “Only from a distance,” Geraint answered, with evident gratitude. “But some of our people have been fortunate enough to flee his presence and carry back to us more detailed descriptions than long sightings would allow.” He shook his head, ruefully. “Those that have stood their ground and faced the Huntsman's red sword…” He trailed off, eyes shut.

  “What?” Bedwyr asked, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. “What happened?”

  Geraint took a deep breath and let out a ragged sigh. “The Huntsman carries a sword whose blade is the red of the hellfire with which it sometimes seems to glow. And when this blade meets flesh or iron or wood…”

  He paused, turning his head away, as if he could escape the sight of the memories that sprang before his mind's eye.

  “We have found the Huntsman's victims in the following mornings, or rather what is left of them. This red sword of his cuts through anything like a hot knife sliding through warm butter, severing heads from shoulders in a single clean sweep, or hands from arms, or feet from legs. Not hacked and chopped, like a woodsman and his axe, but single strokes, clean through.” He shuddered at the memory.

  “You mentioned something about dogs?”

  Geraint nodded. “A pack of dogs. They are ever close at his heels, always with their horrible baying.”

  “Artor and I know well to fear dogs,” Caius put in. “The Pictii use specially trained war-dogs, which we
had to face two springs past, when going north to meet with the kings of the Scotii in Caledonia.” He shivered. “Foul creatures, all teeth and claws, always in motion.”

  “No, my friend.” Geraint shook his head, sadly. “These are like no dogs used by the Picts, or raised by any man alive. They are the same corpse-flesh white as their master, with red on the tips of their ears and tails, and fangs and claws the incarnadine hue of fresh spilt blood. And their baying, strange as it may seem, sounds more like the calls of wild birds in flight than any dog you or I might ever have raised from a pup.”

  Artor glanced around the hall, which had grown quiet and still while the Dumnonian king had spoken. Anxious dread was etched on each face, and often eyes glanced to the barred doors of the hall, with horrible anticipation.

  “And it's in fear of this Huntsman that your people gather here in the hall, I take it?” the High King asked.

  “Just so,” Geraint said with a beleaguered sigh.

  Artor regarded him, thoughtfully. “It is a difficult story to credit, cousin,” he said at length. “And were I to hear it from any lips but yours, I'd scarcely believe it. But I have known you too long, and can hear the timber of truth in your words.” He paused. “How often is this strange figure seen?”

  “Not every night, but often, and then always when the sun is gone and the stars shine overhead. We don't know if he fears the day, but light seems somehow to hold him at bay, as he is never seen in close quarter with a well-fed fire. In these last years, though, he has come more and more often, and always venturing farther afield, so that once he was only seen out in the hills and vales by night, but now he can be found roaming the streets of Llongborth herself.”

  Geraint paused and look from the High King to his captains and back again.

  “You must not think me a coward, brothers,” Geraint went on, shamefaced, “for sheltering inside stout walls while this monster roams the streets of my city unchallenged. In the early days, as I say, many of my bravest stood against him and his spectral hounds, in my name, and not one was ever seen alive again.” His hands began to shake, and a tremor crept into his voice.