King of the May

by Myers, Karen

  Gwyn released her hands and looked at George, his eye drawn irresistibly to the black kitten.

  “You look well, great-grandson,” he said. “But who is this?”

  “His name is Imp and he’s brought an… interested spectator with him.” He didn’t try to explain further for now—he expected Ceridwen might already have filled him in.

  They both turned to the front expectantly as the crowd began to hush. All around them the segments were packed with people, all except theirs which was almost empty. George caught a glimpse of Gwion standing with Glesni’s people, at no great distance, in his dark-red livery. He was watching for George and, when he saw that he’d caught his eye, he grinned at him, unrepentantly. One of the traitors, George thought, and his heart sank for his hounds. How could he have done it, to hounds he’d worked with?

  A herald strode out from Lludd’s segment. Before he could speak, a man walked out alone from within Lludd’s encampment, preceded by a wave of people bowing before him. He came to the front of Lludd’s rank and, without pausing walked several yards further into the open arena.

  It was Beli Mawr, alone. The crowd hushed in surprise. Ceridwen muttered in George’s ear, “He almost never comes.”

  Beli Mawr turned and surveyed the assembled domains, then he walked over to stand between Gwyn’s little party and Lludd’s gathering as another independent faction. He looked over at Gwyn, and the entire party bowed and curtsied in response. His glance paused on George’s kitten, and he bowed to it, before facing the front again.

  The herald who had been interrupted cleared his throat and announced the setting of the sun. Ceridwen walked forward from the rank and was joined by Morien, Derlwyn, and other wizards from around the circumference. One of the groups that had puzzled George by its absence of domain colors stepped out en masse, and he realized, those must be unaffiliated wizards.

  All of them stood several yards in from the edge, spread around the circle. Before they started whatever their task was to be, there was another disturbance.

  George felt a new way pop into existence in the open space behind him and spun around. He could tell it was already claimed even as it exited.

  *Joy at meeting, exhilaration at the journey.*

  “Mag!” he cried and hastened to greet her. Seething Magma emerged, followed at a careful distance by Rhodri. George could tell Mag was already claimed but he didn’t know by whom. He hoped it wasn’t Rhodri, whatever the excuse. He laid his hands on her, and she touched him with a pseudopod.

  *You were a beacon for me. It was a wonder, making such a long way.*

  “Yes, I bet it was.” He grinned to see her. He was suddenly conscious of the attention surrounding them. Let’s get you into place at this ceremony, he thought to her, it’s just about to begin. We can talk later.

  He led her over to a spot to the right of Gwyn’s small group and warned her neighbors in Llefelys’s segment that she was dangerous for people to touch.

  *Picture of black kitten?*

  George showed her what Ceridwen thought, and Mag extended a flat pseudopod to George’s shoulder. He monitored the kitten carefully as he boldly pranced over to sit on top of his new friend.

  *Greetings, great lady.* Mag’s attention turned to her guest.

  The smile lingered on his face as he returned to his place in the front rank of Gwyn’s segment.

  Gwyn watched George settle Seething Magma into place. He assumed she must be claimed, or she would never have come, but how had Rhodri accomplished that, other than claiming her himself, something they wanted to avoid?

  It was a relief to get confirmation that the rock-wights could still make ways across the seas. He let himself be distracted by future plans and unanswered questions for a moment then wrested his attention back to the present. If he didn’t defeat Gwythyr shortly, none of this would matter.

  Rhodri interrupted his attempt at focus by striding forth to the edge of his segment and declaring, in a carrying voice, “My lord Gwyn, Seething Magma makes you a gift of this way.” The crowd, fallen silent as their attention was riveted on the rock-wight, a creature out of legend, now murmured as they realized how royal a gift this was.

  Rhodri bowed and transferred ownership of the way to Gwyn. He muttered, just loudly enough for Gwyn to hear, “The other end of this way is at Daear Llosg, and the master-tokens are unharmed.”

  There wasn’t time for more, but Gwyn’s spirits rose. Access to Annwn restored, he thought.

  He turned his head to a noise on his left. His father was blustering something about giving this way to Gwythyr as an added bonus once the contest was won. He ignored him and faced the front again.

  The noise of the crowd continued to rise, until the herald cried out loudly and restored proper silence so that the contest could begin.

  Into the silence, George watched Lludd step forth and cry out loudly, “I call upon my great-granddaughter Rhian to attend Gwythyr, her assigned lord.” He stretched out his hand to her and she blanched.

  Gwyn grabbed her shoulder to hold her in place and made as if to respond, but George shook his head and walked out himself to stand before her and answer Lludd. Rhian had helped him survive Creiddylad, and he would champion her now. This was his fight, not Gwyn’s.

  He stood solidly and addressed Lludd in a carrying voice. “She shall not.”

  “She is my subject and I have made this match,” Lludd insisted.

  “She is not.”

  “This is my kingdom and she belongs to me, by blood and by right.”

  “She does not.”

  George stood unmoving like a wall for these declarations.

  Lludd was enraged. “You forget yourself,” he said through clenched teeth, and he waved his hand at the people in his front rank.

  George’s eyes followed the direction of the gesture. At last, he saw Angharad. She smiled radiantly at him and nodded her approval.

  “For shame, great king,” he said, thickly. “My wife is a guest at your table, under your roof. As were Rhian and I when we were abducted by your daughter and Gwythyr.”

  The crowd murmured at this, but Lludd was not restrained.

  “By Camulos, who will prove my right upon this treacherous huntsman?”

  A voice lifted from Lludd’s crowded segment. “I will, my lord king.”

  The people parted for him, and Rhirid ab Owen Gwynedd, Madog’s brother, made his way to the front. He carried a long straight sword to match against George’s shorter saber. George was the larger man, but Rhirid’s confidence fit a man who had fought all his long life, and George was cautious of him.

  Lludd stepped back into his section, and George and Rhirid were left alone just inside the inner edge of the ring, surrounded by the silent spectators.

  They circled each other counter-clockwise, each leading with his right foot. Rhirid was the first to strike, a probe against his left side defense. George deflected the blow but not entirely its followup, and Rhirid managed to pink him shallowly in the upper right arm while his blade was out of alignment.

  George settled into the fight coldly then, concentrating on trying to anticipate Rhirid’s moves. He drew his long knife as a second weapon and confronted his opponent’s greater reach with a broader and more flexible response of knife and saber. He knew he was slower, so he let Rhirid dance around him.

  He was in no hurry. Let Rhirid make the first mistake, he thought. Rhirid got in one more touch, a lunge that ended in his right thigh, and George decided to finish it while he was slightly off balance. He exploded in a whirlwind of blows with the saber until he finally caught Rhirid in an over-extended block where their swords were engaged, but George’s dagger was at Rhirid’s throat with nothing to counter it.

  They froze in that position. There was dead silence in the crowd as they awaited the death blow, but George ignored them.

  “I did not kill your brother,” he said, loudly enough to be plainly heard, “though I would have if I could have. He tortured me, took my c
ousin hostage, kidnapped a small child, and preyed upon thousands of his own people.”

  Without shifting his position, he raised his head and addressed the crowd. “He planned to do in truth what you have accused me of—to hold the ways for ransom.”

  To his credit, looking death in the face, Rhirid grated out, “I do not believe you.”

  Seething Magma flowed smoothly forward into the open circle until she was visible to all, the kitten perched incongruously on top of her slab-like form.

  She took the time for a private aside to George. *Look what my daughter Cavern Wind has taught us, with her fondness for music.*

  She formed a diaphragm for speech and an opening for air, and then she spoke out loud, so that everyone could hear her. Her voice was deep and hollow, and sounded like nothing else on earth, as if rock had learned to talk.

  “This is truth,” she said. “I killed Madog to rescue my daughter. It was justice.”

  There was dead silence as she flowed back to her place.

  George said to Rhirid, with his knife at his throat, “I will spare your life if you will forswear your vengeance for you and your family.”

  Rhirid blushed for shame and agreed, and George stepped back to release him, standing to watch him return, unwounded, to Lludd’s ranks.

  He turned haltingly to go back to his own place, but Cernunnos alerted him to movement, on his right, and he saw a shimmer in the air headed his way. A glamour? He snorted like an alarmed buck, and reached down for a handful of the dirt churned up in the struggle with Rhirid. He flung it at the flaw in the air as it got closer and the outline of a man became visible. There were gasps in the crowd nearest to him.

  George recognized Scilti and with a furious roar he attacked him. His first tremendous blow knocked the drawn sword out of his hand, though the shock made him release his own sword, too. The glamour dropped, and now Scilti in his normal form stood before him, crouched to grapple.

  Mine, George exulted. He’s mine. He’s not leaving here alive. He can escape me if he runs, so I mustn’t give him the chance.

  He closed with him and tried to kick his feet out from under him, but the wound on his thigh from Rhirid, though not serious, made him awkward, and Scilti targeted it with punches and kicks whenever he could in an effort to weaken him.

  George tried to wrestle with him, but Scilti was strong and lithe. He pulled a short thick knife from his belt and scored a slice across George’s chest through his hunting coat, and then reversed his grip as George tried to pin him, and plunged it over his shoulder and into his back, hitting his right shoulder blade with sufficient force as to lose his hold on it.

  George felt the damage but not yet the pain and waited, taking punches when he had to. Scilti could escape him through the crowd if he released his grip, but he seemed just as eager to finish things as George was. He watched for the right moment.

  “How’s your back?” Scilti said. “I enjoyed seeing my work a few weeks ago, with you all unaware. It was sweet.”

  George snarled, and Scilti smiled at him, delivering another blow and bouncing tantalizingly out of reach for a moment.

  “I understand the doggies are all gone,” he taunted. George’s vision went black and he fought back Cernunnos’s rage.

  He feared to lose Scilti if he tried to escape and, with a sudden exertion of strength he lunged and captured one of his wrists in one hand and hauled Scilti to him, then snagged the other wrist and forced them together into the grip of his broad right hand. He sank onto his left knee and swept his left arm across Scilti’s thighs to pull him up over his upraised right knee, and hold him there off the ground, balanced on his back over his right knee. Then he pressed down on either side, his left arm over Scilti’s thighs, and his right arm, bent at the elbow to hold the wrists, upon his upper chest.

  All he could hear was the pounding of his blood and his own frantic breathing, and Scilti’s, as he struggled to free himself from George’s greater strength as he was bent backward. It was brutal and slow, but neither George nor Cernunnos within was deterred by that. The sound of Scilti’s spine breaking was clearly audible and George felt the sensation of it directly, in every muscle, with revulsion. Scilti’s last glamour dropped away to reveal an unremarkable face—long, thin, and deeply lined.

  George released his hold and let the body slide off his knee. He stayed there for a moment, gathering the strength to rise. He could feel the knife in his back quivering, as he panted for air. His form flickered through the deer-headed man and the horned man, the knife in place for all of them, until he insisted on his own form.

  Finally he stood up, with an effort, and surveyed the crowd. Many nodded to him as his glance went by—wizards he had spoken with, lords he had met while hunting.

  He turned last to Lludd and, beside him Creiddylad and Gwythyr, and gave them a hard look, his lip curling. Cernunnos within was far from sated and urged more, and George took one step in their direction and then another, but then he stopped. Better this way, he told the god, where everyone can agree he brought it on himself.

  He turned away and limped slowly back to his place. He pivoted to face the front and stood there, his stance widened to help him keep his balance, the damn knife starting to throb in his back with every movement.

  Edern grabbed George’s shoulder from behind to push against, seized the knife with his other hand, and pulled it out, wiggling it to dislodge it from his shoulder blade. George grunted and staggered but managed to stay upright. Rhodri reached for his hunting coat to help him get it off and the two of them reduced what remained of his shirt to rags to make impromptu bandages.

  He refused to leave his place, so they contented themselves with rough bindings covering the slash on his chest and the stab wound, and a wrap around the cut on his leg over the breeches, to reduce the blood loss. For lack of anything else, they helped him put the bloody coat back on loosely over his bare, bandaged torso.

  While they worked on him, he looked to his left and caught Angharad’s eye again. He made himself smile at her reassuringly, but he couldn’t hold it as he gritted his teeth while they treated the wounds.

  Her eyes shone with approval and wifely worry.

  When Rhodri and Edern were done, Rhian presented herself before him and curtsied. “Thank you, champion.” She looked him full in the face as if she knew what it had cost him. “I’m glad that Scilti’s dead.” He remembered that she had killed the guard during the escape. Maybe she did know.

  He could still feel the spine breaking, the tension and its sudden release, in his right hand, strained by the extreme grip, in the leg he’d used as an anvil to stretch him over, in the sore muscles of his upper body as they’d struggled to do it. When Gwyn and Edern came to him, each taking a hand to thank him, it hardly touched the sensations already in the muscles of his palms. It was revolting, but it kept looping through his body like a bad record and he wanted to wipe it away.

  They said something, but he didn’t really hear it. All he could think was how hollow a victory this was with the hounds gone.

  CHAPTER 33

  There were no more interruptions. Under the dimming of the sun and the rising of the nearly-full moon, the wizards stood within the boundaries of the circle and invoked a dome of protection that was faintly visible as a haze in the air.

  Gwyn stripped off his clothes, handing them to his brother Edern, until he was barefoot and clad only in breeches, and stepped to the edge of the dome. To his left, he saw Gwythyr do the same. Ceridwen made an opening in the dome for him, as Derlwyn did for Gwythyr, and then they were alone in the broad space, their audience protected from any stray result of their battle.

  Every time they met, some things couldn’t change—Gwythyr was stronger and older. He’s won before, Gwyn thought, when I was uncertain of my power and my right. There’s no room for doubt now.

  He had already removed his glove, but no one could see the thunderbolt etched on the back of his hand from a distance. Is it enough, he wond
ered. I can’t kill him, that’s not allowed. So little time to experiment.

  I’ve only felt the thunderbolt, he thought, not Taranis himself. I must earn his support, I suspect.

  Gwythyr watched him with an expressionless face, and Gwyn only grasped that he’d been caught unaware as he began to gasp for air. He’s smothering me from a distance, he realized. That’s new. Wake up, you fool, and concentrate. He called up his own power and pushed against the barrier, freeing up space all around him to breathe, and then with an extra exertion dispelling it.

  In one smooth expansion he continued the pressure directionally outward and wrapped Gwythyr in a binding to keep him from movement. He’d been working on transitions and he seized the opportunity eagerly, only to watch in dismay as Gwythyr’s fingers, still moving, wove a counter against his will and broke the binding. He didn’t recognize that spell.

  Gwyn frowned and took advantage of Gwythyr’s concentration to raise dirt into the air and blur his sight, then he moved aside and cast a ring of glamour, projecting his image all around his opponent. Each image moved as he did, with a seemingly solid surface. It was a largely defensive maneuver and he took a moment to breathe to consider his next move.

  Gwythyr didn’t give him that respite. He used the same dirt, raising it and casting it through all the images until only the real Gwyn remained. Then he focused and pushed against him remotely, and Gwyn staggered. More of this and he would lose his footing.

  Gwyn reached for a counter and then stopped. This was playing by the old rules, and he was done with that. He straightened up and stood his ground.

  “Enough,” he declared aloud. “We will do this no longer.” He would not seek permissions, he would no longer cooperate with this endless ritual contest. It was time to break the balance and move on.

  Gwythyr was startled by the statement and raised his hand in a gesture to continue, and Gwyn clenched his right fist and split the ground at his feet with a thunderbolt, blinding in the twilight. The sound echoed within the enclosed dome, the crack fading to a dull rumble, and he could hear the murmur of the crowd that followed even through the dome. The royal thunder had been missing for more than 1500 years, longer than the lifetime of many who were there.