The Pendragon's Champions (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 5)

by Sarah Woodbury

  Another pause and then Angharad felt for Dafydd’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m glad it’s you I’m with.”

  A stick snapped in the forest, which saved Dafydd from having to answer.

  “What was that?” Angharad’s voice came out a whisper. “Could some of Mabon’s men have tracked us all this way?”

  “Stay down.” Dafydd put his hand to Angharad’s shoulder, listening hard, and then pushed to his feet.

  Angharad didn’t obey. Instead, she rose with him and slipped her hand into his useless one. “I don’t want to get separated.”

  He didn’t want that either. An enemy could draw him away from her into the woods and then attack the camp. They’d left their supplies on the horses for just that eventuality. Dafydd’s fingers lay lifeless in Angharad’s and he wished he could tighten his grip.

  He scanned the trees, grateful he hadn’t dared to light a fire. Then he swung his pack over his shoulder and unsheathed his sword.

  “Are we in danger?” Angharad said.

  “I don’t know yet.” He glanced down at her, although all of her he could really make out was a darker shape among the trees. “Take out your knife.”

  She obeyed and, leaving the horses, they crept from tree to tree, circling in ever deeper spirals away from the campsite.

  A whisper came to him. It was more sense than sound, and he froze. Angharad instantly stilled beside him. After listening for a dozen heartbeats, Dafydd risked taking a step. Unfortunately, it was directly into the tip of a sword. It poked him in the breastbone, and it was like his heart fell through his chest into his boots. That, and he felt like puking, but then, he’d felt like that ever since Mabon had sliced his arm.

  “Do not move.”

  “Jesus, Goronwy!” The exclamation burst from Dafydd the instant he recognized his brother’s voice.

  Goronwy stepped back, and both men sheathed their swords.

  “I had no idea that you might have followed the same path we did,” Dafydd said.

  “I might say the same for you. Not that I’m not pleased to see you, of course.” Goronwy squinted into the murk in Angharad’s direction. “And your friend.”

  Dafydd pulled Angharad forward. Without thinking about it, his arm slipped around her waist. “Goronwy, this is Angharad ferch Clydog of Ceredigion. Angharad, this is Goronwy.”

  “What of the men you were supposed to find for King Cadwaladr?” Goronwy said.

  Dafydd shook his head, reluctant to put into words his failure in that regard.

  Angharad stepped in front of Dafydd. “Circumstances have changed, Lord Goronwy. Sir Dafydd is bringing King Cadwaladr something far more valuable.”

  Dafydd almost laughed, her tone was so fierce. “It’s all right, Angharad. Goronwy is my elder brother, and he also serves King Cadwaladr.” He grinned. “And I see that he doesn’t have any men with him either, despite a similar mission to mine. What of the armies of King Arthur?” Dafydd lifted his chin and looked past Goronwy. A woman stood in a small clearing thirty paces behind him. A ray of moonlight pierced the cloud cover overhead and shone directly down on her. She held a knife in her hand.

  “King Arthur is dead,” Goronwy said. “Along with the men he hoped to bring north to fight with us.”

  Dafydd stared at Goronwy. “What? All of them? What happened?”

  “Mabon paid us a visit on the road,” Goronwy said.

  Angharad spun around to gaze up Dafydd, one hand on his chest and pressing hard. He looked into her eyes, which gleamed up at him, and then back at his brother over her head. “Mabon came to Ceredigion. When you saw him, did he ask you for something—it again like at Deganwy? Something that King Arthur possessed?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Because he asked the same of Angharad’s father,” Dafydd said.

  Goronwy gazed into the distance for a long moment. “This just gets worse and worse. Bring your things to our fire. We need to talk.”

  Angharad led the way back through the woods to their campsite, and Dafydd followed. Her shoulders were back and her chin up. He read anger and determination in that stance. When they reached the place they’d been sleeping—or not sleeping—she picked up her pack, swung it over her shoulder, and then snapped. “What does Mabon think he’s doing? He’s mucking about with everybody’s lives as if he has a right to them.”

  Dafydd found himself relaxing in the face of her anger, partly because it wasn’t directed at him, and partly because he liked her so much more this way: defending him and talking to him as if he were a friend, rather than a potential suitor she treated badly at Lilwen’s urging. “Mabon is a god, the son of Arawn and Arianrhod. He does what he likes.”

  “And destroys everything in his path in the process?” Angharad said. “It was one thing to come into my father’s house. My father had men prepared to withstand him. But King Arthur was an old man.”

  “It is as you said. Mabon does what he likes. Two months ago, he had King Cadfael, Queen Rhiannon’s father, killed,” Dafydd said. “He sees nothing in taking a human life.”

  “Well I, for one, hope that King Cadwaladr can do something about it.” Angharad grabbed her horse’s reins and began leading him towards Goronwy’s campsite. Still bemused, Dafydd followed with his own horse. They’d just reached Goronwy’s camp when Angharad stopped and looked back at him. “Wait a moment, my lord. You’ve held Dyrnwyn. You fought with King Cadwaladr. What happened the first time he faced Mabon? Why didn’t the king deal with him then?”

  Dafydd snorted a laugh. “One sidhe at a time, Angharad. The King banished Arawn to the Underworld. Cade’s foster brother, Rhun, skewered Mabon with a knife through his throat, but—”

  “But it didn’t kill him,” Goronwy said, from his seat on a log near the small fire, smokeless as Dafydd’s had been when he’d dared light one. Dafydd was glad to see that Goronwy’s skills hadn’t deserted him, even if he rarely had to use them anymore. It had been Goronwy who’d taken Dafydd on his first adventure into the wild, the week before Goronwy had left the Isle of Man for Gwynedd. Dafydd had been six, Goronwy eighteen, both of them trying so hard to be older than they were.

  Goronwy gestured to the woman. “This is Catrin, a healer, who saved my life in the south.”

  Dafydd stepped forward, his right hand out. “Thank you for that.”

  She took his hand and canted her head. “My pleasure, for all that your brother resented needing it.”

  Dafydd laughed. Goronwy and Catrin were getting along about as well as he and Angharad had at first. Probably something to do with traveling with a woman with ideas of her own she didn’t mind sharing. But Goronwy surprised him.

  “I did thank you,” he said, looking at Catrin.

  Catrin canted her head, giving nothing away, though she answered politely enough. “You did. And agreed to allow me to accompany you to Caer Fawr. King Cadwaladr might have need of both of us.”

  Goronwy turned to Dafydd. “Catrin is more than just a healer. She can sense the use of magic. If Mabon is near, we’ll know it.”

  “That’s a relief,” Angharad said, obviously still feeling a bit tart since the comment came out sarcastic rather than genuine.

  Catrin shot Angharad a look of amusement and patted the space on the log next to her. Dafydd took the reins Angharad held and led both horses to where Goronwy had picketed his and Catrin’s. He didn’t recognize either beast.

  “I lost Cadfarch in the battle against Mabon’s men,” Goronwy said, coming to stand with him. He stroked the nose of the new addition. “We found these two in the woods. I think this one is King Arthur’s own.”

  Dafydd rubbed his horse’s nose with his knuckle, then glanced at his brother. “Did Mabon himself fight?”

  “He left it mostly to his men,” Goronwy said.

  “Ah, yes, how noble of him,” Dafydd said.

  Goronwy spoke in an undertone. “Did you fight him?”

  “Yes,” Dafydd said.

  “And won?”
>
  Dafydd shrugged. “Yes.” He rested his head against the horse’s and closed his eyes.

  Goronwy placed a hand on Dafydd’s shoulder. “This wasn’t the walk in the woods we’d hoped it might be, was it?”

  Dafydd turned to his brother. “When Rhiann and I shot the demons at Llanllugan, lives other than our own hung in the balance. I knew it, of course. But this was different.”

  “Because you, alone, had to make the decisions,” Goronwy said. “Angharad’s life depended on your choices, not another’s.”

  Dafydd nodded. “What is most strange to me is why Mabon insists on interfering in our world. As Taliesin once said, he is like a child, clumsily knocking over blocks to get to what he wants.”

  “He lacks understanding of his own actions,” Goronwy said. “And that makes him dangerous.”

  “Can’t we—” Dafydd paused. “No, that’s stupid.”

  “What?”

  “Can’t we talk to someone? One of the sidhe, I mean. What about Arianrhod?”

  “She can’t control Mabon,” Goronwy said. “At least that’s how it appears to Cade. Besides, how would that work? I have never encountered one of the sidhe in my life before Caer Dathyl, and now they’re everywhere.”

  “Something must have happened,” Dafydd said. “In the Otherworld, I mean. Something has changed that has pushed Mabon upon us. Or made him think that he wants to live among us.”

  “I couldn’t say.” Goronwy was looking at him curiously, and Dafydd ran a hand across his brow, not sure what his brother was seeing. “Come. I have an it to show you.”

  Dafydd managed to nod, though as they’d been speaking, Goronwy’s shape had wavered in front of his eyes. He blinked his weakness back. “And I to you, if Angharad will let me.”

  Goronwy looked into Dafydd’s face. “What’s wrong?”

  Dafydd drew his right hand down his left arm. “I don’t feel well. Mabon’s sword cut me—”

  Goronwy grasped Dafydd around the torso as he staggered. “Catrin!”

  An instant later, Catrin was on Dafydd’s other side. “I thought something was wrong the moment I laid eyes on him. His aura wasn’t right.”

  Between the two of them, they managed to get Dafydd to the fire and lay him down on a blanket near it. Dafydd wanted to tell them that the wound was healing, but they talked over the top of him.

  “You mean you sensed magic?” Goronwy said.

  Catrin shook her head. “It wasn’t that clear. I thought it was coming from the stone, since I’ve felt it nudging at the back of my mind all day.” She turned to Angharad. “Where is he hurt?”

  “His upper arm,” Angharad said. “I’ve checked it every day. It doesn’t fester.”

  “How did he get it?” Goronwy said.

  “From Mabon’s sword.” Angharad had fallen to her knees, a step beyond Catrin and Goronwy. She waved a hand in the direction of Dafydd’s horse. “Mabon dropped it when Dafydd defeated him, and we brought it with us.”

  Catrin unwound the bandage and gazed at the wound. Dafydd watched her through half-closed lids and a haze of fever. She met his eyes and then looked up into Goronwy’s. “I—I’ve never seen anything like this before. There are some things I can try…”

  “There’s only one thing I can think of that can counter a magic sword,” Goronwy said, “and that is another one. We must get him to King Cadwaladr.”

  Chapter Ten

  Rhiann

  Rhiann had tried to convince Cade that he couldn’t possibly travel to Caer Fawr without her. It was, in effect, their first fight, and Rhiann had lost it.

  “I can’t tell you that this is the right course, Rhiann,” he’d said. “But it feels right.”

  “You sound like Taliesin!” Rhiann had said.

  Taliesin himself stepped forward at that, putting in his nose where Rhiann didn’t want it. “But this time, Taliesin agrees.”

  Rhiann had stared at him, aghast. “Why?”

  Irritatingly, Taliesin had refused to answer.

  But his words had clinched it for Cade. “Right. You’re staying where it’s safe.” What had started out as a hopeful proposal on his part had turned into an opportunity to exert his husbandly authority over her.

  “It isn’t safe anywhere, Cade,” Rhiann said. “And if I’m not safe with you, how can I ever be with you?”

  “The Saxons are gathering at Shrewsbury today,” Cade said. “We have a week at most, Taliesin thinks, before they drive west across the Severn River.”

  Rhiann had glanced at the bard to see how he was taking this. He’d given her a mild look that told her nothing. She’d liked him better when he couldn’t see.

  They’d left her. Even Geraint had gone, riding north and west to gather more support for Cade. Out of desperation, she’d turned her attention to making Dinas Bran habitable, even if she was grinding her teeth all the while. On her own, she’d hired a few local women from the village of Llangollen as servants, along with an army of workmen who swarmed all over the fort. In the three days since Cade and Taliesin had departed with the bulk of their men, they’d made substantial progress. Enough so, that Rhiann was beginning to think it could be a kind of home again.

  “I see things are going well here.” Madog, a villager in his middle forties, pushed open the door to the hall.

  The hall was the only part of the complex that had sustained minimal damage from lack of attention in the years since Cade’s father had fallen. Rhiann was using it as a work space until a more private space could be refurbished for her.

  “They are,” Rhiann said from a table near the fireplace. At Madog’s approach, she stood. She didn’t like this self-appointed counselor to kings as he called himself, for all that he was the leader of the village elders. He claimed to have been away when they’d first arrived, but had appeared almost immediately after Cade had left. Rhiann suspected that Madog had correctly perceived that Cade wouldn’t have tolerated him.

  She, however, didn’t feel that she had the authority to go against the wishes of the villagers, if indeed they’d appointed him their leader as he’d said. Certainly, none of the women questioned his assertion, even if they did scurry out of his way. If it hadn’t been her duty to speak to him, she would have scurried too.

  His first smarmy visit had set Rhiann’s teeth on edge, and she’d had the same reaction each day thereafter. He claimed to be checking on the progress of the work. The garrison captain, a man named Alun who was one of the five soldiers Cade had left to mind the fort, leaned in to speak into Rhiann’s ear. “Shall I get rid of him for you, madam?”

  “Yes.” The word hissed through Rhiann’s teeth.

  While Alun strode to intercept Madog and usher him back out the door, Rhiann turned away. “I hate that man! I hate being here alone! I can’t believe Taliesin backed Cade up!” Rhiann gathered the leftover cups from an earlier meal onto a tray so she could return them to the kitchen. It wasn’t necessary. She had servants for that, but she’d been a servant once and still remembered how it was done.

  Then she heard a step behind her. She stopped, the tray in both hands, and turned. Madog, apparently having evaded Alun’s arresting arm, halted five paces from her. She couldn’t ignore him.

  He bowed. “My lady.”

  “What is it?” Rhiann peered around him looking for someone—anyone—to aid her, but Alun had disappeared. She was on her own.

  “I informed your captain of a small matter with one of the workmen. He is seeing to it,” Madog said.

  Rhiann narrowed her eyes at the man. That didn’t sound right. “What do you want?” She was done with being polite, even if it got her off on the wrong foot with the villagers. “It’s time you went back to wherever you came from.”

  Madog blinked, and then his face contorted. “How is it that you see through me when your husband isn’t even here?” And then between one heartbeat and the next, Madog transformed into the more familiar form of Mabon.

  Rhiann took a step back, trying not
to let Mabon see the panic rising to her throat. He had confused her bravado for certainty. She swallowed hard and then threw off her fear. Dafydd had shared with her his theory that, for all his pride and grandeur, Mabon didn’t have any power in the human world but what humans—or his father—gave him. If there was any time to put that to the test, it was now.

  “I ask again, what do you want?” she said. “Why are you here?”

  Mabon sniffed. “I admit I was disappointed to find your husband already gone when I arrived. I’d hoped that we’d have a chance for another chat. Where is he, by the way?”

  Mabon’s question appeared casual, but it raised Rhiann’s hackles even more. Why wouldn’t he know, and how should she answer? “South. Fighting the Saxons as you should well know.”

  “Ah, the Saxons. They are always so malleable.”

  This time, instead of stepping back, Rhiann took a step forward, her blood running cold. “Are you working with the Saxons? What have you done?”

  Mabon’s face took on a look that Rhiann could only describe as gleeful. “I suppose your husband will find out soon enough, won’t he?” Mabon turned on his heel and headed for the kitchen, leaving Rhiann aghast and speechless. Before he left the room for the stairs, however, he reached out a hand and set a carved image of a king, one finger in length, on the edge of a table the servants used as a sideboard during meals. “Give your husband this, if you will—with my regards.” Mabon shot Rhiann one more grin and disappeared down the stairs.

  Rhiann ran after him, afraid of what havoc he might wreak in her kitchen. She rushed through the doorway, but skidded to a halt at the three pairs of eyes that looked up at her from the chopping board and cooking pots. “Did a man in black come through here just now? Madog was his name, from the village.”

  “No, my lady,” Gwen, the head cook, said. “Not that I’ve seen.”

  Rhiann looked back up the stairs to the hall. Mabon, as usual, had disappeared at his whim.

  “I grew up in Llangollen and I don’t know of any man named Madog,” Gwen said.