The Forgotten Kingdom

by Signe Pike

  Angharad fell against Brant as if she’d been struck. Her father? Her father was bringing war upon her uncles? “I don’t understand,” she said. She looked to Lailoken, but he only blinked, for a moment appearing almost childlike.

  Wounded, Angharad realized. Her uncle could believe it no more than she.

  “How many?” Lailoken asked.

  “Thousands.”

  “And how much time have we?”

  “Half a day, less or more,” Maelgwn said. “Pendragon is with Fendwin, gathering what men they can before nightfall.”

  The warriors stood in silence, but beneath their hard exteriors, Angharad felt their churning. An army of thousands marched toward them even now. Angharad felt as small as a raindrop in a lake. They will swallow me, she thought. They will swallow us all.

  Her uncle must have seen her face, for he came to crouch before her.

  “You will have nothing to fear, Angharad. Your father loves you above all. He will send a messenger, someone to trade for you. You will be safe from harm long before any battle begins.”

  “And what of you?” Angharad said. “What of all of you?”

  “You mustn’t fret over us, little cousin,” Brant reassured her. “We have fought many a battle in our day.”

  “But until then, we must keep you safe,” Maelgwn said. “The others must leave for the Caledonian Deep. Will the Selgovae have them?” He looked to Lailoken.

  “Aye, the Selgovae may be fierce, but they will abide by the law of hospitality. They will not turn our people away.”

  “Good. Come, then,” Maelgwn said. “Let us gather the weapons and ready the men. There is no time to waste.”

  The warriors strode from the hall with an urgency that only made Angharad more afraid. Beside the hearth, her uncle hurried to Eira, clasping her hands.

  “You must go from here quickly. Take the women and children to the huts to gather their things. It’ll be no more than two days by foot to the cover of the Caledonian Wood, even with the little ones. The Selgovae will shelter you there. If you leave now, you’ll make good distance before night closes in.”

  A wave of panic struck Angharad, and she rushed to Eira, clutching. “No! You mustn’t leave!”

  Eira reached to smooth Angharad’s hair, looking at her uncle. “I will not leave. I will stay here with you and your uncle. Lailoken, you are consumed with preparations,” she went on. “Angharad is frightened, and you cannot care for her with an army marching near. I will stay until she is delivered to her father. She cannot be left alone!”

  “I will stay with the child,” Diarmid offered.

  Her uncle leaned in, beseeching. “A great army comes, Eira, and Gwrgi and Perdur along with it. You have suffered enough. I would see you safe. How can I be your husband if I cannot be your protector?”

  A look passed between them, and Eira’s eyes filled with tears. “Promise me you will do nothing foolish, Lailoken. I do not care for justice. Only that you should live.”

  “I swear to you I’ll do nothing foolish. Please. Think of the children.” Lailoken pressed her hands, and Eira looked to the ground.

  “Very well. The Caledonian Wood. I will wait for you there.”

  “That is where I shall find you.” Lailoken leaned to brush Eira’s lips with a kiss, then Eira bent, gathering Angharad in her arms.

  “I will see them off, but I will not leave you,” Eira whispered. “If anything should go amiss—anything at all—you must come to me in the hut.”

  “But you promised—”

  “I will show the others the path, then return. If time passes and you do not come, I will know you are safe, and I promise I will flee. Do you understand?”

  Angharad nodded, and Eira kissed her upon the forehead before straightening. “You must promise to be brave,” she said. “And you mustn’t worry for us, Angharad. Only think: soon you will be back with your mother. Just think of that, my love. Think of her happiness when at last she sees you.”

  Angharad’s blood beat in her ears. Death marched in the minds of the men, and she could feel it seeping through the cracks beneath the doors.

  Diarmid came, taking her hand, his brown eyes steady. “Come. Sit with me, then, and close your eyes. We will practice our breathing.”

  Angharad’s stomach soured, but she sat, folding her legs beneath her. Squeezing her eyes shut, she took a breath through her nose.

  “Good,” Diarmid said. “Again. Then tell me the words, and let us pray you shall not need them.”

  Angharad blew the air from her mouth, her voice dutiful and small amid the chaos of the room.

  “Imagine you are brown as dirt. Imagine you are green as bracken. Imagine you are little more than a mouse…”

  CHAPTER 8

  Lailoken

  Battle of Arderydd

  Kingdom of the Pendragons

  15th of October, AD 573

  The pasture was at our backs. Above it, two ramparts protected the fort.

  There had been no grand speeches before we descended. Only our war chant and the feeling of brotherhood as we stood upon the hilltop, each of us knowing the horror to come.

  There would be no victory for the Dragon Warriors this day. It was only a matter of how we wished to die.

  With great difficulty, we decided.

  How many wounds could our bodies sustain until they split open and ceased to obey us? How many of the enemy could we drag kicking and wailing to the land of the dead?

  My nephew was with Rhydderch. I did not want Rhys to witness my end. The vein at my neck thrummed. Had I even known this man I once called a brother? Rhydderch had not even seen fit to trade for his own daughter. He knew my weakness for his child, knew I would send her, and so he conceded nothing. Each warrior coming against us would be under the clearest order to find Angharad and bring her to safety.

  My fury strained, threatening to unleash. Still, I could not be the one to kill Rhydderch. There was another deserving of death even more.

  Bring Gwrgi before me in your chaos, I prayed to the Morrigu, goddess of war. Bring Gwrgi before me so he might pay for all he has done.

  I would gladly die to drag Gwrgi into the afterlife, where he belonged. I only hoped to live long enough to find him.

  Gwenddolau ran his horse along the front line of our army as their footmen neared, his jaw tight in defiance. Pressing through our wall of warriors, I stood before the thundering host and screamed my rage. The cry of all my brothers was deafening at my back.

  Aye. We would die together.

  But first we would make them pay.

  Their spearmen charged.

  The Dragon Warriors rushed into the fray.

  Time on a battlefield is slippery, uncatchable. It is a punishing, bloody fog in which moments become shape-shifters, inhabiting an instant or a lifetime. I was hunting for the colors of Ebrauc. I cannot say how long we had been fighting. But whether it was the bond of our hearts or the bond of our blood that connected us, our eyes locked across the heaving masses.

  Mine eyes and my nephew’s.

  Rhys’s sword was brandished. He’d cast his javelins. At seventeen winters, he stood tall, deadly as any man, golden torque at his neck, black hair hidden beneath his helmet. His green eyes were fierce with battle, but when they fell upon me, they faltered.

  How many days had we sat idly, watching our fish traps in the river?

  How many nights had I passed in telling him tales as he grew to be a man?

  How many times had I guided his feet in sparring or helped him train with his spear? Slide your hand back a palm’s width. Now draw the shaft back, level with your ear…

  Beneath his helmet, his battle mask fell away. And in the heat of the slaughter, I saw Rhys’s fury turn to anguish.

  To fear.

  The sight of me had chased away the beast he’d conjured, leaving in its place only a man.

  “No!” I shouted. “Fight!”

  Rhys blinked as if waking from a trance and gripped his
blade just as one of the Dragon Warriors charged him, battle-axe in hand.

  Rhys was here. We had plowed through enough of their forces so that we had come to the heart of the army—Strathclyde and its men. My eyes scarcely leaving my nephew’s, I ducked a blow and dispatched the warrior before me, turning back only to see Rhys cutting down one of my brothers in a single stroke. He glanced up, tracking me like a fledgling falcon; now that he had seen me, he would not let me from his sight.

  “Rhys!” I shouted. “Mind your back!”

  He rounded, shield raised, just in time to ward off a killing blow. Catching his attacker off balance, he hacked his sword across our warrior’s armored stomach.

  I’d never felt such relief to see my friends die.

  “Fight!” I shouted again, praying Rhys could read the volumes behind my eyes. I would not watch him die on this day. I would offer up my own arteries if only to save him.

  Yet now that he’d spotted me in the tumult, Rhys could not fight as he had before. I took stock of the battle, frantic, for I could see Rhys had strayed too far into the fray. Fool of a boy. What was he imagining, breaking past his own warriors? He was too deep beyond the line held by his father’s men. He should have been fighting within reach of his guard, within reach of his father.

  Movement flickered to my right, and I raised my shield instinctively, nearly too late, for the force of my opponent’s blow sent me tumbling back into the embankment. A brute, then. I scrambled to my feet to see Rhydderch’s brother Morcant standing before me, his sword running with blood, his boarish eyes feral with the rush of gore and battle.

  He mistook my surprise for fear. “Don’t fret, Lailoken,” he said. “It’s a good day to die. Your cousin thought as much.”

  Brant, dead?

  He’s bluffing, I told myself. He means to throw you off. But then I looked over his shoulder. There, beyond the dyke, Brant’s horse had fallen. My cousin lay motionless beside it.

  Gripping my shield, I charged.

  I am a tall man—there were some who said my father was descended from giants—but Morcant was equal in height and denser with muscle. I lost sight of Rhys as I braced and blocked, waiting for an opening.

  Then, somewhere in the midst of our parries, I saw it dawn upon Morcant that while he was more powerful, I was quicker and more skilled with my blade. Blocking my strike, he ducked just out of reach. I grunted and sprang, striking again, but he reached behind him, grabbing a footman by the breastplate and thrusting him before me.

  “Coward!” I shouted, slamming my shield into the face of the approaching man. The blow drove his nose bone into his brain, and as he fell back, I rushed into the crush of bodies.

  Brant was gone, and soon so would I be. I had to find Rhys and get him back behind his father’s line. Victor’s side or no, my nephew would not survive here in the brunt of it.

  Someday I will fight with the Dragon Warriors, he’d said as a boy. Someday, Uncle, I will fight beside you.

  Sweet gods. That was when I understood.

  Rhys intended to fight his way to me. He wanted no part in his father’s war. He imagined he might be the bargaining piece in the trading of men. My nephew meant for me to take him as a hostage. Perhaps he even imagined the kings would be content to slay Gwenddolau and grant his warriors quarter.

  Until that moment, I had not known real fear.

  How could Rhys fail to understand? This was a ridding. An annihilation. We were fighting with the grim honor of warriors who meant to be their own masters, even in death. I was in no position to take hostages.

  I swore and wished for my spear as a soldier caught sight of me and took aim with his own. My arm trembled from the force as I blocked the barbed point. My shield arm was growing weak. With a roar of impatience, I ran at him and finished him with my blade.

  It was then I saw Rhydderch.

  Aye, I spotted my sister’s husband amid the flail and crash of metal upon metal, weapon on skin. Rhydderch, my friend, whom I had called a brother for eighteen winters. He looked up, and suddenly my eyes were locked with those of a stranger.

  Nay. In this battle, there would be no hostages. In this battle, there would be no quarter.

  I caught sight of Rhys and changed my course. The wave of combat had carried him across the field. Nearly one hundred men stood between us now. But that was not what made my guts plummet. Rhys had engaged Fendwin, of all men, seasoned by threescore more battles than my nephew had ever seen.

  “Fendwin!” I shouted, but my voice was swallowed by the din.

  Rhys’s jaw was locked, though his helmet was gone—had been knocked clean off. He blinked blood from his eyes as it streamed down his forehead. Fendwin readied himself. The two collided.

  Rhys dug his heels into the mud and, leveraging his shield against Fendwin’s chest to shove off, gained enough space to reset his stance, slashing at the warrior’s throat. Fendwin’s block sent him stumbling back onto his heels. I raced toward them, blindly hacking with my blade, dealing and ducking blows, my eyes trained on the two warriors.

  Rhys yanked his shield tight, protecting his torso from Fendwin’s sword. But even as Fendwin struck with his blade, I saw him dip low, his free hand skimming the cuff of his boot.

  Rhys did not know Fendwin favored a dirk.

  “Fendwin! No!” I cried. Fendwin rose in a flash, thrusting his dirk home.

  It would feel, at first, like a blow to the stomach. But then the cleaving. The searing hot pain as the blade ripped through the soft and slippery entrails.

  Fendwin spun on his heel as I closed the distance between us. Only then did he see who approached. Only then did he see my expression.

  He looked down at Rhys, and it dawned upon him who his opponent had been. We both could see the boy would not live. Fendwin bowed his head. An apology. An understanding. I fell to my knees.

  Rhys lay on his back, eyes wide with pain, choking on his own blood. His hand clutched at the grass, at his stomach.

  “I’m here. You’re all right. You’re all right, I’m here.” My words were a chant as I bent over him, taking his bloody hands and gripping them to me. But how could he know me? My face was contorted, my voice broken with tears.

  His eyes sought the source of my voice but could not find me. Though my fingers pressed him, I did not know if he felt me near. I held on to him as his body convulsed and his green eyes searched the blue sky overhead.

  Give him peace, give him peace, I pleaded. Mother, Father. Come take him home.

  I pressed his wound as if I could somehow push his entrails back into the cavity of his stomach, but the damage had been too great. Too final.

  Rhys’s breath hitched. His eyes fixed on a distant point, and I watched as they went vacant, translucent as glass. Then his chest rose no more.

  I clutched him as if I could force him to return to his flesh, but his spirit sifted like sand through my fingers. I clutched him until I felt the moment he had gone, the moment his body became a shell.

  From somewhere overhead came the clatter of blade and shield. Fendwin meant to protect me until I regained my wits. Fendwin was a brother. Fendwin was a friend.

  I sobbed into the chaos. “That was my nephew. That was my boy.”

  But the beast heard nothing.

  The beast was consumed in its feeding, tossing back its head as it feasted upon the bodies of the dying and the dead.

  Christians speak of a place called hell.

  They claim it is a world made for the wicked and that those who are doomed travel there when they die. But the Christians are wrong. Hell does not exist in some distant realm.

  Hell is watching a man you once trained with in weapons take a spear through his chest.

  Hell is slashing your sword into the neck of a warrior you feasted with at your sister’s table.

  Hell is the look upon your foster brother’s blood-spattered face as he commands you.

  Run.

  CHAPTER 9

  Angharad

&nb
sp; Caer Gwenddolau

  Kingdom of the Pendragons

  15th of October, AD 573

  Imagine you are brown, brown as dirt.

  Imagine you are little more than a mouse.

  Angharad repeated Diarmid’s words over and over, fingers trembling as she clung to the embankment, pressing herself into the earth. Men were shouting down below. They stood knee-deep in the river with spears, eyes scouring the cliff for any who might flee. Her breath came shallow and quick as a bird’s. She was supposed to call out to them. Her uncle had made her swear to do so, and round her neck she wore her slender gold torque. They would know her for Rhydderch’s daughter. But now the din of battle drowned any sound she might make. Each clang sped her heart faster and faster until she wanted to fling herself from the hilltop if only to make it all cease.

  I want Mama, I want Papa! She closed her eyes and saw her mother’s chamber. She could smell the flower water her mother dabbed at the hollow of her throat, imagined folding herself into her mother’s arms, feeling the shush of her lips against her hair.

  Mama.

  The men roaring as they thrust their spears, the clatter and blood. It was all a horrible dream.

  I want Mama, I want Papa! But there was only the cliff, the battle raging above and the soldiers shouting below.

  Her father was supposed to have traded for her. Something had gone terribly wrong, and Lailoken’s blue eyes had been nearly wild. He had gripped her shoulders so hard his fingers had bruised her. It was then Angharad knew things were very bad.

  You must go to the warriors at the river and tell them you are Angharad of Strathclyde. Tell them you are Rhydderch’s daughter. They will bring you to safety.

  Yet Angharad clung to the cliff between one side and another, unable to make herself cry out. These were not her father’s men. These men were not safe. They were hard-faced and hulking. They jeered and howled like foul creatures, their eyes fixed on the fortress above, their faces painted dark with streaks that looked like blood.

  Brown as dirt, nothing more than a mouse.

  Angharad had heard tales of Wisdom Keepers who could walk unseen among men. But she had only just begun her lessons. It had been only the turning of one year.