Frost Against the Hilt (The Lion of Wales Book 5)

by Sarah Woodbury

  “As it should,” Arthur said, “as we’ve always known it would.”

  The circle around the two kings widened. Nell had seen Huw racing into the middle of the battlefield towards the place Myrddin stood, ten paces away from the king, holding the reins of King Arthur’s horse. Like Anwen and Nell, Huw dodged through the army of men, many of whom were too exhausted to do more than weave on their feet, though they made way for him.

  Anwen had seen Myrddin too and urged the horse in that direction, circling around behind the front rows of onlookers. They reached Myrddin nearly at the same time Huw did.

  Myrddin had put out a hand to his son to bring him into the circle of his arm, but then his eyes widened as he spied Nell and Anwen atop her horse. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I could be nowhere else.” Nell dropped from the horse’s back. “As with everything we’ve done, we will see this through together.”

  Myrddin’s attention returned to the king, but Nell inspected Huw up and down. He had blood on his surcoat. “You are hurt?”

  “I’m not, but father is.” Huw indicated the gash near Myrddin’s left ear, which had bled profusely, covering his left shoulder with blood.

  Myrddin made a dismissive motion with his fingers, his eyes still on the king. “It is numb only.” He appeared to be talking about his left arm, which hung uselessly at his side. His fingers were all that he could move. “The bracer saved me from losing it below the elbow. I think the leather contains a hidden metal plate. I will have to thank Urien when I see him.”

  Nell didn’t laugh. Neither did Huw nor Anwen, though all understood that Myrddin was making light of his injury as a way to counteract the tension in the air. While Nell had been talking to Myrddin and Huw, Modred and King Arthur had been circling the interior rim of the arena.

  As always, Modred seemed to like the sound of his own voice. “Agravaine foresaw your death, old man.”

  “Since he did not see his own, I wouldn’t necessarily believe everything he told you,” King Arthur said. “His sight was obviously limited.”

  Modred pressed his lips together, irritated by the truth of Arthur’s words, and Nell had a moment of silent pride that she followed a great man rather than the petty child Modred had grown to be. She had known what Modred was before she’d rescued Myrddin from Rhuddlan Castle, and everything that had happened since then had only reassured her of her choices. Modred had gained power by being more ruthless than any of his rivals, but that didn’t make him fit to lead. The Welsh might lose. They might ultimately bow to him—but they wouldn’t willingly follow.

  “I hear that you sought to disinherit me, your rightful successor, by claiming a different heir. He is here?”

  King Arthur actually laughed. “You heard that I have an heir but not his name?”

  Modred made an impatient gesture with one hand.

  King Arthur tipped his head in Myrddin’s direction. “He’s just there, Modred. You know him, though not by his full name. He is Myrddin ap Ambrosius.”

  By now the king had paced halfway around the circle and had reached a point directly opposite Myrddin and Nell. The men of Modred’s army could have broken the contract with Arthur by attacking him from behind, but they didn’t. It seemed Saxons had some honor, even if they fought for Modred. Then again, Gawain and Geraint, along with many of their men, had inserted themselves within the Saxon ranks, such that Saxon and British intermingled all around the circle. If the battle descended again into hand-to-hand, there would be no lines, no shield wall, only carnage.

  Modred didn’t look behind him to where Myrddin and Huw were standing, but simply kept moving around the edge of the circle until he was able to see them out of the corner of his eye to his right. He barked a laugh. “Ambrosius fathered Myrddin? You have proof?”

  “I do.” Cedric stepped to the edge of the circle just far enough to separate him from the ring of men.

  “And I.” Gareth lifted a hand.

  “I am surrounded by traitors,” Modred said.

  “You are surrounded by men who defend their land and their lives against an invader. Mercia has no claim to Wales, nephew, and the moment you chose to lead an army of Saxons against your king, against your own people, you were lost.”

  The two kings had started out speaking in Welsh, but Arthur’s last words had been in English, for the benefit of his Saxon listeners. A murmur of discontent swept among them, which King Arthur noticed.

  He held up a hand, and Nell saw that he not only still wore his cloak to hide his armor, but also a surcoat. He couldn’t disguise the levered metal on his arm, however, though Modred hadn’t yet taken note of it. “Saxon friends, I never wanted this war, and if you fight for Modred because you believe him to be the rightful heir to the throne of Wales, then know that the true heir stands before you: he is Myrddin, son of King Ambrosius, who ruled before me. His claim to the throne is, in fact, greater than mine.”

  Here the king canted his head. “And if you care little for kingship or right of inheritance but fight because you want our land, I say that we will resist, and we will keep on resisting to the last breath of the last Briton, who would rather die than give up his language, his laws, or his land.”

  In the silence that followed, King Arthur set down his shield so it leaned against his thigh, reached up to his throat, and undid the toggles that bound his cloak closed at the throat and chest. As the cloak dropped to the ground, he also pulled off his surcoat, revealing the full glory of his armor. And then, just as it had on the battlement, the sun came out from behind a cloud and shone down on the scene. The fight had begun at dawn, and now it was noon, so the sun was as overhead as it could be on a winter day in Britain. Though stained with the blood of the men Arthur had killed, Caledfwlch shone with equal brilliance in his hand.

  Modred bared his teeth. “You harbor a thief among your retinue, uncle. But it makes no difference—”

  Between one heartbeat and the next, he attacked, leaping the distance that separated him from the king and bringing his sword down with all his strength. King Arthur barely reacted in time, grasping his shield and bringing it up to block the blow. They were on the edge of the circle, and the people behind King Arthur gave way to afford him room to stumble backwards as he twisted away from Modred. In a flurry of attacking blows, Modred’s sword came down again and again on the king’s shield, such that all he could do was retreat around the circle, very much on his heels.

  King Arthur’s shield was made of wood, and it shattered, but rather than toss it aside, Arthur threw it at Modred, who barely got his own shield up in time to knock it away. Then, a knife in his hand to replace the lost shield, King Arthur leapt forward in imitation of how Modred had sprung on him, hammering blows of his own. Modred resisted, retreating as King Arthur had retreated. And in the same moment that King Arthur landed a brutal blow with his sword on Modred’s shield, he unexpectedly sliced under Modred’s guard with the knife in his left hand, opening a gash in the middle of Modred’s thigh.

  Modred spun away with a grunt of pain. He’d thought himself the cat and Arthur the mouse. He’d been almost laughing beneath his shield as he’d retreated, thinking himself the superior swordsman. The wound wasn’t mortal, of course, and he responded with a renewal of his earlier fury, delivering blow after blow, many of which Arthur only just managed to evade. Then Modred swept his own blade from right to left, intending to cut through Arthur’s midsection as Arthur had cut through Modred’s thigh. Rather than slicing through Arthur’s chain mail to reach his skin, however, Modred’s sword rebounded off the solid metal of King Arthur’s cuirass.

  King Arthur leapt backwards into the middle of the arena. Recovering quickly, Modred started after him, but both men were breathing hard, and Modred was limping from the gash in his thigh. At some point during the fight, Modred’s shield had also cracked, so he tossed it towards where Arthur’s shattered shield lay, after which he pulled a knife from a sheath at his waist to match Arthur. “You think y
our armor will save you? I say it’s a cheat!”

  Beside Nell, Myrddin scoffed, and he lifted his chin in order to call out across the ring. “What would it have been if you’d been wearing it, Modred?”

  Modred’s eyes narrowed, and Nell could see him wondering if it had been Myrddin himself who’d taken it.

  King Arthur, however, straightened. “You think I cheat by wearing what you would have worn?” He canted his head. “So be it. I will remove my armor if you remove yours.”

  Nell, Huw, and Myrddin started forward at the exact same moment. “No, no, no—”

  Modred threw out a hand. “Stay back! You will not aid him!”

  Arthur held out his hand too, though much less menacingly. “Do as he says, Myrddin. Nell can help me.”

  Nell swallowed hard, but she crossed the thirty feet of trampled grass and mud that separated them. The snow was long gone here, and the day had warmed under the noon sun such that she was almost hot in her many layers of clothing and wool cloak. Gareth stepped forward to hold the king’s sword and knife for him, and as Arthur took off his helmet, she saw that he was sweating. The king held his arms out at his sides in preparation for Nell’s assistance in taking off his gear.

  Nell spoke in an undertone. “My lord, this isn’t a good idea. It’s what we saw—”

  “No, my dear, it isn’t. Modred wore this armor in the dream. Now neither of us will have it, and it will be a test of true strength.” Arthur smiled gently. “God is with me, Nell, in life and death. You must know by now that sometimes the only way out of peril is through it.”

  Shaking her head, though she did know his words for truth, Nell worked at the fastenings on the king’s shoulder armor and chest plate.

  Modred, meanwhile, with the help of a young Saxon squire, shed his mail and padding. Finally, both men stood in only shirt, breeches, and boots. Far less encumbered than before, they set themselves opposite one another. Nell retreated to Myrddin’s side. She slipped her hand into his, and he squeezed it. “Do not fear, cariad.”

  And amazingly, Nell found that she did not. As he crouched in a fighting stance before Modred, the King Arthur who was the embodiment of every legend ever told about him was revealed. Here was the warrior who’d led the British in victory after victory. Here was the man who’d inspired an outnumbered and beleaguered army for three days at Mt. Badon. Here was the king who’d kept the Saxons at bay for thirty years. He was an old man now, but the spirit inside him that had inspired the victory over the Saxons at Mt. Badon—against all odds—was the same.

  The two men attacked at the same time. In a flurry of movements, they countered sword with sword, blocking, slashing, and driving back and forth across the clearing. Unlike before, at no point did one man seem to have the upper hand. Even when King Arthur nicked Modred’s upper arm with his knife, drawing more blood, Modred ignored it, instead swinging his sword downward for another slash at Arthur’s belly. Arthur leapt out of the way, but as he landed, his heel sank into a hole in the uneven ground, and he sprawled flat on his back.

  Modred pounced, bringing down his sword in a killing blow, except Arthur rolled away at the last instant. Nell acknowledged that if King Arthur had been wearing his armor, he might not have been as agile. Perhaps at Arthur’s age, the loss of the armor’s weight was more to his advantage than to Modred’s.

  Arthur came up from the ground in a crouch, sword and knife again in hand, but this time his sword was in his left hand and the knife in his right. As Modred brought down his sword as he’d done dozens of times so far in the fight, Arthur met the blow not with the knife blade, but with the sword, in a countering move so powerful and which swept upward with such force that Modred’s sword was flung from his hand. The weapon flew through the air and landed fifteen feet away.

  Shocked silence greeted the move. For a moment, Modred was off balance and as surprised as everyone else to find himself disarmed. Arthur used that instant of distraction to lash out with his right boot to Modred’s left knee. The awful crunch of a broken kneecap could be heard across the field. Gasping in pain, Modred collapsed to the ground, though he still had the presence of mind to scrabble for his sword, dragging his useless left leg behind him. Arthur calmly strode over to the fallen sword and kicked it towards Gareth. It slid across the grass, and Gareth took one step out of the ring of onlookers in order to stand with his foot on the blade.

  Modred spoke through gritted teeth: “Mercia will win in the end. One day there will be no more Wales.”

  “One day perhaps,” King Arthur said, “but not today.”

  Modred’s profile as he looked up at Arthur was all Nell could see, and that was fortunate because the angle allowed her to see the moment Modred flung his knife—not at Arthur, who would have been ready for it—but at Myrddin. The knife revolved end over end, its aim true, straight to Myrddin’s heart.

  Nell cried a warning, but Huw, who was standing on his father’s right side, had already reacted. He brought up his shield, which he’d continued to hold in his left hand during the fight, and blocked the knife. The point stuck in the shield two inches from the rim, quivering.

  Myrddin gripped Huw’s shoulder tightly, in thanks and relief, but even with the gasps and cries from those surrounding them, the attention of both men never left the scene before them. King Arthur’s eyes had followed the path of the knife, and the moment he saw that Myrddin was safe, he bent to relieve Modred of his last weapon, a knife in his boot. Then he circled the wounded Modred, who glared at him from the ground.

  “You don’t have the mettle to kill me, do you?”

  Arthur pressed his lips together and almost seemed to sigh as he looked down at his wayward nephew. “You are right that I never wanted it to come to this, Modred. But you are wrong about how it ends.” He put his boot into Modred’s chest to force him completely flat onto his back. Then straddling Modred with a foot on either side of his torso, King Arthur raised his sword. “What you never understood was that for Wales, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do.”

  And he drove Caledfwlch straight down into Modred’s heart.

  Chapter Fifteen

  17 December 537 AD

  Myrddin

  Myrddin wouldn’t have thought it possible for an entire battlefield to be completely silent, but for several heartbeats, this one was. Then, before the Saxons could coordinate themselves to renew the attack, if that was what they had in mind, Gawain, Gareth, and Geraint leapt into the clearing on either side of the king, followed by Cedric and Edgar, both again on horseback. Cedric stood in the stirrups, his sword swinging around above his head, and he shouted, “Stay back and lower your weapons. This battle is over!”

  Perhaps it wasn’t surprising that it was Cedric who had acted. One of the drawbacks to having a capricious and powerful ruler like Modred as lord was that he tended to slap down—or kill—anyone who was powerful in his own right, seeing him as a threat. Modred had allowed Agravaine to live, but Agravaine had enjoyed staying in the shadows and hadn’t wanted the kind of power Modred craved. Even if Agravaine still lived, he wouldn’t have stepped forward now. He would have gone around to Cedric and Edgar, after they’d taken charge, to attempt to manipulate them into doing what he wanted.

  As it was, however, Agravaine was dead, and Modred’s captains were shocked and angry. They would have fought—slaughtered everyone on the field out of mindless rage—but Cedric outranked every one of them, and even if he had fought on Arthur’s side today, he had lived for all but the last day among them, as one of their lords.

  Perhaps Urien of Rheged would have been the one to disobey, especially since he was British, not Saxon, but he was not of those who either defended the king or put himself forward to take charge of the Saxon army.

  Nell stood on tiptoe beside Myrddin. “Did Urien withdraw?”

  “He was here earlier. I saw his banners on Modred’s right flank.” Huw stood with his arm around Anwen’s shoulders.

  Myrddin glanced at his son, a small smil
e on his lips at how that might play out in future, and said, “I called him Urien the Betrayer. And so he will be known.”

  “No, he won’t.” Urien edged between two Welshmen just to Myrddin’s right and stepped into the ring of men. He held his sword flat across his palms. Gawain and Gareth allowed him to within ten feet of the king, at which point, Urien went down on one knee and held out his sword. “Please know that my men did not kill a single Briton today. Although I came here to fight with Modred, my son convinced me of the error of my ways. Once the battle started I held my men back.” He looked up into Arthur’s face. “I am a stubborn old fool, Arthur. Please forgive me.”

  Myrddin might have made a comment about how Urien’s behavior revealed him to be a double betrayer—of Arthur and Modred—but Arthur was more forgiving. He looked down at Urien for the space of a single breath, and then he stepped forward to grasp the hilt of Urien’s sword. “You are forgiven, old friend.” He reversed the sword and handed it hilt first back to Urien. “You and I are too old, and Britain in too great a need, to hold a grudge.”

  Myrddin held his breath, because this was the moment Urien could have driven his sword through Arthur’s midsection, armorless as the king was, but Urien didn’t. Owain appeared at Myrddin’s side, nudging his shoulder with his own. “I see you reached the key.”

  “Nell did.” Myrddin gave a low laugh. How many times in his life had help come from unexpected places? It seemed, here on the battlefield of Camlann, amidst the carnage and the bodies of the fallen, King Arthur truly had achieved peace.

  Owain went to join his father in his obeisance to Arthur, but Myrddin turned away from the scene. His put his arm around Nell’s shoulders, more exhausted than he’d ever been in his life, and pulled her to him. All he wanted was to sleep and not dream. With Nell tucked close to his side, he took a step towards where he remembered leaving his horse … and came face-to-face with his old friend, Ifan, whom he hadn’t seen since before the battle of Buellt.