by Griff Hosker
The man was a fool. He was already a dead man walking but claiming to have tortured Daffydd meant it would be a slow death. He stepped back and swung again. This time I spun in the opposite direction to his swing and brought my sword across the back of his knees. It sliced through the tendons and he collapsed to the ground. I stepped over to him and wrenched the axe from his hands. He flinched as he waited for the death blow.
I laughed and sheathed my sword and seax. “You will not die so easily.” I felt the edge of the axe it was sharp. I ripped open his tunic revealing his pale and dirty torso. “You shall die by your own weapon!” I dragged the edge across his midriff. It split open like a ripe plum. I looked over to where the warriors were despatching the dead. “No one touch this man. He will die slowly and the animals will feast on his remains.”
“Aye, Warlord!”
“Kill me quickly, I beg of you.”
“Had you honour then I would but you do not.” I looked up at the peak of the mountain; it was some few thousand paces from me. It looked bare. My men had killed all of the others. “Search around here for any others and then take their weapons back to the fort.” I handed the Danish axe to the leader.
“And what of you, Warlord?”
“I shall walk to the top of the mountain and spy out the land. Fear not there is no one left. They are all dead.”
The leader’s whining voice accompanied me all the way up the mountain. His sobs gradually subsided. Had he had any honour then I would have given him a warrior’s death. I knew why I had treated him thus. Morgause had not suffered enough. I had thought that the poisoned water would have made them all sleep. Perhaps only Morcar and Morgause had used that water. Perhaps it was wyrd.
I remembered my father telling me that he found the walk to the cave at Wyddfa cleared his mind and helped him to think better. I knew I needed that now. I had only been taking these decisions for a few days and yet I had made many mistakes already. I had begged my father to retire and let me lead the warriors. He had been right to deny me that opportunity. I had thought I was ready and now I knew that I was not. It proved that he was a greater Warlord than I would ever be. He had been leading King Urien’s armies since he had been younger than I was and he had saved Rheged. I could not even recover a sword held by a squire!
The air was much clearer as I neared the top. A few hundred paces from the peak I turned to look to the south east and my home. I saw a smudge that was Wyddfa. There would be my wife and my children. There would be Myfanwy. Myrddyn and my father’s body, along with Gawan should be approaching St.Asaph by now. By the time we had finished and returned it would be time for the burial. I turned and began to clamber towards the top. I looked to the right and saw the mountains of Rheged. It was so close I thought I might be able to touch it. Would I be able to save it? Could I guarantee its future?
One thing my father’s death had done was show me how much we relied on Myrddyn. Without him the land would be chaotic. He brought some order. It was not just his magic it was his wisdom and his foresight. When I returned I would learn as much as I could from this man. When I descended and rejoined my family I would ensure that he was protected as would my brother. Those two would be the most important men in my land. There were spies in my army and I needed to weed them out and find the loyal warriors.
As I stood on the windswept top I turned all the way around. There was Hibernia; would the brothers return there? Then there was Gwynedd; it was the rock we needed to help us rebuild Rheged. And there was Rheged itself. A rocky little landlocked island that looked somehow vulnerable from where I stood.
And then I saw the Saxon ship. It was heading for the Lune which I could see as clearly as my sword. There too was Daffydd ap Gwynfor following behind, the wind filling his sails. I almost jumped for joy. I knew where Aethelfrith’s sons were going. When my father was buried I would pursue the brothers and Morcar. As I turned to climb down I wondered if the brothers had tired of Morcar and taken the sword from his dead hands. That would be a pity; I wanted to be the one who killed him.
I do not know if it was my mood or the spirits but, as I descended I caught a movement some five hundred paces down the slope. There was a warrior left alive and he was moving cautiously and surreptitiously down the mountain. I was the only warrior left; I had sent the rest back to the fort. He was not one of my men and I would finish him off.
I moved stealthily but swiftly. The rest at the top had enabled me to get my breath back. I saw that the warrior held a sword. That, in itself, was surprising. It was easier to move down hill, as I was, with hands free. There was something familiar about the warrior and I wondered if one of Tuanthal’s men had been a little tardy getting down from his search. It was when he half turned to negotiate a boulder that I recognised him. It was Morcar!
I began to move quicker and that proved to be a mistake. I set off a small fall of rocks which tumbled down to him. He turned round and saw me less than two hundred paces from him. He ran. I saw the direction he was taking and I took a route which would enable me to cut him off. He had been taught well by my men and he did not look back. His younger legs began to extend his lead. However he could not resist a glance back at me. When he saw what I was up to, he jinked to the side. It was a mistake. His foot slipped and he rolled down the hillside a little. I ran directly for him.
He sprang to his feet and set off like a startled hare. As luck would have it he had landed on the path and he began to make good time. I stuck to my plan of cutting him off. I had no idea where he was going but, as he appeared to have purpose, I assumed that he had confederates waiting. His path took a sudden turn and he had the choice to begin running across open ground or continue along the path. He hesitated and I closed a little with him. He ran along the path. I hurled myself at him when he passed just below me. My shoulder hit him and we both rolled down the slope. The landing took the wind from me and, by the time I had recovered, he was racing towards me with the sword raised.
I rolled away and Saxon Slayer sent sparks from the rock it struck. I jumped to my feet and took out my sword. I knew that he was a good swordsman; Pol had told me that. He was also quicker than I was. The only things in my favour were my experience and right. He held Saxon Slayer but he had no right to it. I had to believe that the spirits were on my side and I would prevail. I held my seax in my left hand to parry the sword.
As luck would have it we were both on the same level. “I take it that it was you who poisoned the water and killed my love?” I nodded. He grinned and it was an evil grin full of malevolence and cruelty. “And you will die slowly for I have coated Saxon Slayer in Wolf’s Bane. You will die as your father did. A fitting end for a wolf. I shall take the lion as my symbol for that is more regal.” He slipped his own seax into his left hand.
“It seems to me that a dog would be more appropriate. You turned on your own family. What would your father think?”
He feinted with Saxon Slayer and there was a blur of metal. I barely parried the sword but his seax gouged a red line in my arm. I was too accustomed to fighting in mail.
“My father was a fool! He could have ruled Mona and been king. It is the richest part of Gwynedd but he would not. I begged him but he said that his brother was Warlord and that was enough! Well it was not enough for me! I was born to be king. My mother was a princess! She was heir to Elmet! If my father had not been a weak warrior then we would have stayed in Elmet and fought for our land. I would be King of Elmet and it would be I who conquered Northumbria!”
He came at me again but I was ready for the sudden burst of flying blades. I countered Saxon Slayer with my seax and pushed hard with my own sword. As our faces closed I saw the poison glistening on the edge of Saxon Slayer. It was an uncia away from my hand and death. He grinned. “It is a deadly poison. I watched it make uncle look like a baby. When you are cut I will watch you die slowly!”
He swung again with the sword and this time, when I met it with the Saxon seax, the poorly made blade shattered
in two. I leapt backwards as he crowed for joy. “Now what will you do?”
I slipped my hand down and took the dagger my father had given to me at Yule. I felt a surge of power as I held it. The blue stones were magical; they came from deep within the mountains of home. I felt more confident. I used my experience. I was going to head butt him. However I risked catching the poisoned blade and so I put my right foot between his and punched at his face with my sword. He fell backwards and rolled down the hill. The wound on my left arm was bleeding so much that it was making the hilt of the dagger slippery. My evil cousin was winning.
I could see his confidence as he advanced towards me, “Resorting to dirty tricks eh? Not like the behaviour of a warlord is it?”
“But stabbing your uncle in the back is?”
I could see that the barb had struck home. “It was his own fault. He should have made himself king!”
I looked in his eyes and saw pure naked ambition. “And this still would not have saved my father would it? He would still have died, and Gawan and me?”
He cocked his head to one side, “Probably. You are too weak. All of you are weak. I am the only one strong enough to rule.”
“And what of you and your weakness? You gave in to Oswald and Oswiu too quickly.”
“Ah that is where you are wrong. They were going to make me king of Rheged and Morgause would have been my queen. When we two had power then we would have used the cult of the mother to destroy Oswald and Oswiu and we would have taken over the kingdom of Northumbria. Did you know that Edwin is converting to Christianity?” I saw his eyes flick towards my sword.
As I expected he attacked again in a flurry of quickly moving blows. All he needed to do was to break my skin with the poisoned sword and I would die. He had, however, made the mistake of being below me so that I could jump up the hill away from his blows. He fell to his face on the ground. He expected me to strike while he lay prone and he rolled away to the side.
As he got to his feet I darted in with my dagger and scored a long cut on the back of his left hand with is razor sharp edge. “I think we are even now, cousin.”
“We will not be even until you have lost your love as I lost Morgause.”
“Morgause? Your love? She was a witch and a whore!”
My insult was deliberate. I wanted the blood pumping around his veins and out of his hand. “You lie!” This time I did not meet Saxon Slayer with my seax but instead I swung my sword with the whole weight of my body behind it. I swung from over my left shoulder and he held up Saxon Slayer to parry the blow. I drove Saxon Slayer towards him and he watched in horror as the side of the blade touched the wound on his left hand.
I sprang back. “What was that you said about Wolf’s Bane? That it just needed to touch a wound and a man would die? How are your legs, cousin? How is your heart? Do your eyes still see?”
He tried to lurch towards me to strike once more but it was as though someone had pulled his legs from beneath him. He collapsed to his knees. The deadly blade was still held in his hand and he looked at it in horror.
“You will soon be with your witch in the underworld. You will not see Lord Lann for he will be in Mag Mell and you will not. You will suffer torment for all eternity while your father will try to understand why you gave in to the dark side of your character.”
“End my torment now, cousin, I beg of you.”
“Do you think me a fool? The moment I close with you then you will strike with the poisoned blade! The poison must have reached your mind already!”
His eyes flashed anger, “I will take you with me!”
He tried a sweep with the sword but he fell on his face and the sword flew from his hand. It stuck between two stones and the hilt vibrated. Strangely it sounded as though it was singing.
I stared at his dying eyes. “You will not take me with you for when I die I shall go to the Otherworld, I shall go to Mag Mell.”
I walked over to the sword and watched the poison dripping, still, from it. Tuanthal and a handful of men raced up with weapons drawn. “Warlord, are you hurt?”
They saw the blood puddling from my hand. “It is nothing but Morcar here has caused his own death. His eyes were still open but he could not speak. I walked over to Saxon Slayer and I drew it from the stone. It seemed to scream as it came from between the rocks. I wiped the blade on the grass and then raised it.
“I name this sword Caledfwlch. Saxon Slayer was the name my father gave the weapon. I have drawn the sword from the stone and it told me its name. The sword from the stone!”
The last thing Morcar saw, before his eyes closed and he died, was the sword. He had died by the sword, Caledfwlch. He had died by his own hand and that told me the sword was alive. It would not suffer to be used by those with evil in their hearts.
Chapter 23
We left Morcar’s body for the birds and the foxes. We trudged slowly down the mountain. I was weary. I had taken no pleasure in witnessing the death of my cousin. I remembered him as a child when we played at the Yule gatherings. I could not believe how much he had changed. I would give my children closer attention now. I would watch for those signs which would tell me they were becoming like Morcar and I would stop them.
As we descended Tuanthal asked, “Why did you rename the sword? Saxon Slayer was a renowned blade.”
“Aye it was, but when my father found it he did not know its name. He named it for himself. The name has a history. It would have been named before.” I told them of the combat and how the sword had stuck in the stone. I shrugged, “The name seemed to come to me. I will live with the name, for good or ill.”
By the time we reached the devastated village it was almost night time. The Northumbrians who had survived were chained together and the few slaves we had freed were made comfortable. The bodies of the dead were burned and we set a watch. No-one had seen any more Northumbrians and the freed slaves told us that we had accounted for them all. However I took no chances.
I woke early and rose. Tuanthal stirred but I told him to rest. The guards at the gate let me out and I wandered down to the beach. I had much to think on. Since the murder of my father I had had no time to think. I had just had to react to what was happening. Now that the sword had been safely recovered I had time to reflect.
I walked to the water and laid the sword in the salty sea. I wanted every particle of poison washing off. When I took it from the water I rubbed it in the sand and then thoroughly dried it on my tunic. I felt better. The sword felt clean.
Thanks to my father we had won. Rheged was free. However we had paid a high cost. Not only my father but also Aedh and many other irreplaceable men had been lost. I needed to use the warriors and leaders that we had already. Northumbria was huge. It was far bigger than Mercia. Who would rule there? Should I leave The Narrows and take my family north to rule our old lands? Morcar would have done so but would my father have done that? I needed to hear Gawan’s words. Myrddyn was correct; we were two halves of my father. I was not my father and I would need to do things my way but Gawan would be the voice which would show me the right way.
I saw the sun begin to rise over the sea to the east. It was a new day and I was decided. We would bury my father in the tomb which Myrddyn had built in the mountain. I would return to the east and end the war then, and only then, would we be able to sit around my father’s war table and talk of the future and peace.
Appropriately, having made a decision, I saw a sail in the distance and knew that it would be Daffydd ap Gwynfor. We would be able to leave Manau. We could take the second Saxon ship to enable us to travel more comfortably. As I walked back into the village, now coming alive, I looked up at the whale mountain. Gawan’s dream had come true. There was, however, nothing to keep us on this island. When we left it would revert to the wild and empty place we had always had as a neighbour.
“Tuanthal, get a crew for the Saxon ship and begin to load her. It looks like Daffydd has returned.”
“Aye Warlord.” He gest
ured to the village. “Do we burn this before we leave?”
“No, let us leave it. We do not want the island but there may be others who wish to live here. They will, at least, have a roof and walls to protect them.”
By the time Daffydd had tied up we were ready to leave. My captain looked tired. I daresay he had had little sleep in his pursuit of the brothers. His face looked drawn and serious.
“Warlord we followed the Saxons to the estuary of the Lune.”
I nodded and pointed up at the mountain. “I saw you both heading there from the peak of the mountain.”
“Aye but what you did not see was the fleet of ships which were anchored in the river. The brothers have raised an army. There were many Saxon and Hibernian ships anchored there. I was lucky to escape undamaged. We should leave quickly before they return here.”
“They will not be coming here.” Now I knew why the brothers had sailed out while we watched. Now I knew why they had taken Morcar with them. They had been recruiting others to their cause and using the allure of the famous sword as bait. Once they had paraded him they did not need him any longer. They had not been searching for us when the ships had left. They were meeting with the other ships and chiefs. They had their own alliance. Oswald wanted his throne back. We had done the hard part for him. We had weakened King Edwin to the point of defeat. My dreams of a conquered Rheged had lasted hours.
“Warlord?”
“Sorry Daffydd. You have done well and my mind was elsewhere. When the ship is loaded we sail home. Let us bury the Warlord and then face these brothers again.”
It was not a speedy voyage but we all had much to reflect upon. Aedh’s body had been placed at the prow and I stood with Tuanthal as we headed south east. “The two of us were both boy riders for your father. I too had been a scout. I always wanted to be the horseman and ride to battle. Aedh never grew out of being a scout. He loved the freedom. He was a fine warrior and would have made an equite but he chose to go into the most dangerous of places.”