The High King (Chronicles of Prydain (Henry Holt and Company))

by Lloyd Alexander

  “Gwystyl?” Taran stammered. “How …”

  “Never mind,” replied Fflewddur. “We’ll tell you later. If there is a later.”

  They had nearly reached the stables. Taran caught sight of Gwydion. The Prince of Don’s wolf-gray head towered above the milling warriors. But Taran’s relief at Gwydion’s safety turned to despair. He saw, through the shifting clouds, the tide of battle was turning against the companions. Only a handful of Smoit’s men had been able to rally for an attack; the others were cut off, locked in combat throughout the courtyard.

  “To the gates!” Gwydion commanded. “Fly, all who can!”

  With sinking heart Taran realized the little band was grievously outnumbered. Dimly, Taran saw the gates had been opened. But more of Magg’s warriors had joined their fellows and the way to safety was blocked.

  Suddenly a mounted figure galloped into the courtyard. It was Rhun, astride his dapple gray. The King of Mona’s boyish face shone with a furious light. As the steed reared and plunged, Rhun swung his sword about his head and shouted at the top of his voice:

  “Bowmen! Follow me! All of you, into the court!” He spun the mare about and beckoned with his sword. His words rang above the clash of arms. “Spearmen! This way! Make haste!”

  “He’s brought help!” Taran cried.

  “Help?” echoed the amazed bard. “There’s no one within miles!”

  Rhun had not ceased to gallop back and forth amid the struggling warriors, shouting orders as if a whole army streamed behind him.

  Magg’s men turned to face the unseen foe.

  “A ruse!” exclaimed Fflewddur. “He’s a madman! It will never work!”

  “But it does!” At a glance Taran saw their assailants had broken away, seeking, in confusion, to engage what they imagined to be fresh attackers. Taran brought his horn to his lips and sounded the charge. Magg’s men faltered, believing the foe was now at their backs.

  At that instant Llyan burst through the gates. The men who saw her shouted in terror as the huge cat leaped forward. Llyan paid no heed to the warriors, but raced across the court while the swordsmen dropped their weapons and fled at her approach.

  “She’s looking for me!” Fflewddur cried. “Here I am, old girl!”

  King Smoit’s embattled fighting men seized this moment to press forward with a mighty surge. Many of Magg’s warriors had already flown; fear-driven, they slashed and stabbed among themselves in blind panic. Rhun galloped on and vanished into the smoke.

  “He’s duped them well!” Fflewddur shouted jubilantly. “For all the good those eggs and mushrooms did us—it was Rhun who turned the trick!”

  The bard hastened to Llyan. Gwydion, Taran saw, was now on horseback. Golden-maned Melyngar streaked across the courtyard, as Gwydion urged the mare to overtake the retreating foe. Smoit and Coll had also leaped astride their steeds. Behind them galloped Gwystyl. Smoit’s warriors, too, joined the pursuit. Taran ran to find Melynlas, but before he reached the stables, he heard Eilonwy call his name. He turned. The girl, her face smudged, her robe torn, beckoned urgently.

  “Come!” she called. “Rhun is badly hurt!”

  Taran raced to follow her. Near the far wall the dapple gray stood riderless. The King of Mona was sitting on the ground, his legs stretched in front of him, his back resting against a cart still smouldering from Gwystyl’s fiery mushrooms. Gurgi and Glew, both unharmed, were at his side.

  “Hullo, hullo!” Rhun murmured and waved a hand. His face was deathly white.

  “The day is ours,” Taran said. “Without you, it would have gone differently. Don’t move,” he cautioned, loosening the young King’s bloodstained jacket. Taran frowned anxiously. An arrow had sunk deep in Rhun’s side and the shaft had broken.

  “Amazing!” Rhun whispered. “I’ve never been in battle before, and I wasn’t sure of—of anything at all. But, I say, the oddest things kept running through my head. I was thinking of the seawall at Mona Haven. Isn’t it surprising? Yes, your plan will work very well,” Rhun murmured. His eyes wandered and suddenly he looked very young, very lost, and a little frightened. “And I think—I think I shall be glad to be home.” He made an effort to raise himself. Taran bent quickly to him.

  Fflewddur had come up with Llyan loping at his heels. “So there you are, old boy,” he called to Rhun. “I told you we’d have more than our share of trouble. But you pulled us out of it! Oh, the bards will sing of you …”

  Taran lifted a grief-stricken face. “The King of Mona is dead.”

  Silent and heavy-hearted, the companions raised a burial mound a little distance from Caer Cadarn. The warriors of Smoit joined them; and at dusk, horsemen bearing torches rode slowly circling the mound, to honor the King of Mona.

  As the last flame died, Taran came to stand before the burial place. “Farewell, Rhun Son of Rhuddlum. Your seawall is unfinished,” he said gently. “But I promise you your work shall not be left undone. Your fisherfolk shall have their safe harbor if I must build it for you with my own hands.”

  Soon after nightfall Gwydion, Coll, and King Smoit returned. Magg had eluded them, and the fruitless pursuit had left them worn and haggard. They, too, mourned the death of Rhun, and did honor to all the fallen warriors. Gwydion then led the companions to the Great Hall.

  “Arawn Death-Lord gives us little time for grief, and we shall mourn others, I fear, before our tasks are done,” he said. “I must tell you now of a choice carefully to be weighed.

  “Gwystyl of the Fair Folk has left us, and continues his journey to King Eiddileg’s realm. Before we parted, he told me further of the gathering of Arawn’s hosts. Magg’s words were not evil boasting. Gwystyl judges, as do I, that Arawn means to defeat us in one last battle. His armies gather even now.

  “There is grave risk, and perhaps fatal risk, in leaving Dyrnwyn in Arawn’s grasp,” Gwydion went on. “Yet we must face the more pressing danger. No longer will I seek the black sword. Whatever strength it may yield him, in my own strength I will stand against him to the death. I ride not to Annuvin but to Caer Dathyl to rally the Sons of Don.”

  No one spoke for some moments. At length Coll replied, “To my mind, you have chosen wisely, Prince of Don.”

  Smoit and Fflewddur Fflam nodded their agreement.

  “Would that I were as sure of my wisdom,” Gwydion replied heavily. “So be it then.”

  Taran rose and faced Gwydion. “Is there no way one of us can breach the Death-Lord’s stronghold? Must the search for Dyrnwyn indeed be given up?”

  “I read your thoughts, Assistant Pig-Keeper,” Gwydion replied. “You will serve me best if you obey my commands. Gwystyl warns that a journey to Annuvin can mean only wasted life—and more than that: a loss of precious time. Gwystyl’s nature is to conceal his nature, but among the Fair Folk none is shrewder or more trustworthy. I heed his warning, and so must all of you.

  “Gwystyl has promised to do all in his power to gain help from the Fair Folk,” Gwydion went on. “King Eiddileg has no great fondness for the race of men. Yet even he must see that Arawn’s victory would blight all Prydain. The Fair Folk would suffer no less than we.

  “But we dare not count too heavily on Eiddileg. Our own armies must be gathered, and our battle host raised. In this, our greatest help will come from King Pryderi of the West Domains. No lord in Prydain commands a mightier army. His allegiance to the House of Don is firm, and between us are strong bonds of friendship. I will send word to Pryderi, and pray him to join his host with ours at Caer Dathyl.

  “There must we all meet,” Gwydion continued. “Before then, I ask King Smoit to muster every loyal warrior in his cantrev and the dominions closest to his.” He turned to the bard. “Fflewddur Fflam Son of Godo, you are a king in your own Northern Realms. Return there without delay. To you I entrust the rallying of the northern cantrevs.

  “And you, Assistant Pig-Keeper,” Gwydion said, seeing the question in Taran’s eyes, “your own task is urgent. You are well known to the folk of
the Free Commots. I charge you to raise whatever force you can among them. Lead all who will follow you to Caer Dathyl. Gurgi and Coll Son of Collfrewr will ride with you. So, too, will the Princess Eilonwy. Her safety is in your hands.”

  “I’m glad,” Eilonwy murmured, “there’s been no talk of sending me home.”

  “Gwystyl tells us many of Arawn’s liege men are already marching,” Coll said to her. “The Valley Cantrevs are too dangerous, whatever. Otherwise, Princess,” he added with a grin, “you would long since have been on your way to Caer Dallben.”

  Well before dawn Gwydion and Fflewddur Fflam rode from Caer Cadarn, each to follow his separate path. King Smoit, girded for battle, set out from the castle, and with him went Lord Gast and Lord Goryon, who had learned belatedly of the attack on their king and now hastened to join him. Faced with the common danger, the two rivals had put aside their quarrel. Goryon declined to take insult at Gast’s every word, Gast refrained from giving offense to Goryon, and neither so much as mentioned cows.

  That same morning a gnarled, gray-headed farmer strode up to Taran in the castle courtyard. It was Aeddan, who had befriended him long before in Smoit’s cantrev. The two clasped hands warmly, but the farmer’s face was grim.

  “There is no time now to speak of time past,” Aeddan said. “I offer you friendship—and this,” he added, unsheathing a rusted sword. “It has served once and can serve again. Say where you ride and I will go with you.”

  “I value the sword, and value more the man who bears it,” answered Taran. “But your place is with your king. Follow him and hope that you and I will meet on a happier day.”

  As Gwydion had ordered, Taran and the remaining companions waited at Smoit’s castle, hoping Kaw might arrive with further tidings. But when the following day brought no sign of the crow, they made ready for their own departure. Eilonwy’s needlework had gone unscathed and she carefully unfolded it.

  “You’re a war-leader now,” she said proudly to Taran, “but I’ve never heard of a war-leader without a battle flag.”

  With leather thongs she bound the still-unfinished embroidery to the end of a spear.

  “There,” said Eilonwy. “As an emblem Hen Wen may not be properly terrifying. And yet, for an Assistant Pig-Keeper, she’s very likely the most fitting.”

  They rode through the gates. Gurgi, at Taran’s side, raised the spear high and the wind caught at the banner of the White Pig. Above the smoke-blackened fortress and the burial mound, whose fresh earth was already frost-covered, the clouds had grown heavy. Soon there would be snow.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Messengers

  From the moment he left Caer Dallben, Kaw had flown directly toward Annuvin. Though it was the bird’s pleasure, aloft, to revel in the limitless reaches of the sky, to swoop and soar above the white sheep flocks of clouds, he now put aside all temptation to sport with the wind and held steadily to his course. Far below, Avren glinted like a long trickle of molten silver; fallow fields spread in patches; the treetops rose black and leafless, broken by dark green stretches of pine forest following the curves of the hills. Kaw pressed ever northwestward, resting seldom during the hours of daylight. Only at dusk, when even the crow’s keen eyes could not search beyond the gathering shadows, did he drop to earth and find haven among the branches of a tree.

  Days he flew high above the clouds to profit from the wind tides that bore him swiftly as a leaf in a stream. But, as he passed over the Forest of Idris, drawing closer to the harsh peaks of Annuvin, Kaw checked his gliding flight and dove earthward, alert for any stirring among the mountain passes. Shortly he glimpsed a column of heavily armed warriors marching northward. At closer range, he saw them to be Huntsmen of Annuvin. For a time he followed them and, when they halted amid the scrub and stunted trees, flapped to a low branch and settled there. Squatting at their cook fires, the Huntsmen prepared their midday meal. The crow cocked his head and listened intently, but their muttered speech told him little, until he heard the words “Caer Dathyl.”

  Kaw shifted his position and cast about for a closer branch. One of the Huntsmen, a brutish warrior garbed in bearskin, caught sight of the bird. Grinning cruelly at this chance for sport, the warrior reached for his bow and nocked an arrow to the string. Quickly he aimed, and loosed the shaft. Rapid though the Huntsman’s movements were, the crow’s sharp eyes followed them as quickly. Kaw flapped his wings and dodged the arrow that went rattling through the dead branches a little distance over his head. The Huntsman cursed both his lost arrow and the crow, and made to draw again. Delighted with himself, jeering raucously, Kaw sped above the trees, intending to circle back and find a safer listening post.

  It was then the gwythaints appeared.

  For an instant, bent on returning to the Huntsmen’s camp, Kaw did not see the flight of the three huge birds. From a bank of clouds they plunged downward in a rush of black, beating wings. Kaw’s self-satisfaction vanished. The crow veered from their attack and strove desperately to climb higher, not daring to allow the deadly creatures to command the air above him.

  The gwythaints, too, swiftly veered. One broke from his fellows to pursue the fleeing crow; the others, with powerful strokes of their wings, rose toward the clouds to renew their assault.

  Kaw forced himself ever upward and the gwythaint had gained only slightly when the crow burst through a sea of mist into a sunswept vastness that nearly blinded him.

  The other two gwythaints were waiting. Shrieking in fury, they dropped toward him. Behind the crow his pursuer drove him closer to the oncoming creatures. Kaw glimpsed the flash of glistening beaks and blood-red eyes. The gwythaints’ screams of triumph ripped the empty sky. The crow suddenly checked his flight, feigning confusion. When the gwythaints were nearly upon him, he summoned all his strength in a single lunge that carried him beyond the talons slashing like daggers.

  The crow had not gone unscathed. One of the gwythaints had struck him beneath the wing. Despite the pain that dizzied him, Kaw fluttered free of his attackers. The open sky was no refuge for him. No longer could he rely on swiftness of flight to save him. He plunged earthward.

  The gwythaints were not outwitted. The scent of blood had maddened them, and they would not be deprived of their kill. They streaked after the crow to overtake and prevent him from reaching the forest below.

  The highest trees rose up toward Kaw. He avoided them to drop closer to the underbrush. The tangle of branches slowed his pursuers. Without slackening speed, Kaw skimmed above the ground, deeper and deeper into the maze of bushes. The huge wings of the gwythaints which had served so well aloft now kept them from their prize. They screamed in rage, but made no attempt to venture farther into the woods. The crow, like a fox, had gone to earth.

  The day had begun to fade. Kaw settled himself painfully for the night. At dawn, he fluttered cautiously to a treetop. The gwythaints had gone, but his senses told him he had been driven far east of Annuvin. Stiffly he launched himself from the tree and flapped his way aloft. Southward, Caer Cadarn lay beyond the reach of his ebbing strength. He must decide quickly, while life still remained to him. Kaw circled once, then flew heavily toward his new goal and his only hope.

  His flight was now a constant torment. Often his wings faltered and only the wind tides held him aloft. He could no longer travel a full day’s distance. Long before sundown, his wound forced him to alight and hide himself amid the trees. Nor could he fly closer to the sun’s warmth, but made his way only a little above the ground, nearly brushing the treetops. Below him, the countryside was springing to life with warriors, both on horseback and afoot. During the times he halted to husband his strength, he learned their destination, like that of the Huntsmen, was the fortress of the Sons of Don. His alarm grew sharper than his pain and he flew onward.

  At length, in the numbing cold of the mountains northeast of the River Ystrad, he dimly spied what he had been seeking. Surrounded by sheer walls of cliffs, the valley was a green nest amid the snow-capped s
ummits. A small cottage came into sight. The blue surface of a lake flashed in the sunlight. Against the protected side of a hill slope stretched a long, boatlike shape, the vessel’s ribs and timbers overgrown with moss. Beating his wings feebly, Kaw dropped like a stone into the valley.

  He was vaguely aware, as his eyes closed, of jaws firmly about him, lifting him from the grass; then a deep voice asking, “Now, Brynach, what have you brought us?”

  The crow knew nothing more.

  When he opened his eyes again, he lay upon a soft nest of rushes in a sunny chamber. He was weak, but his pain had left him; his wound had been bound up. As he feebly fluttered his wings, a pair of strong hands deftly reached to hold and calm him.

  “Gently, gently,” said a voice. “I fear you will be earthbound for a time.”

  The man’s whitebearded face was as gnarled and weathered as an ancient oak in a snowdrift. White hair hung below broad, knotted shoulders, and a blue gem sparkled from the golden band circling his brow. Kaw, without his customary squawking and jabbering, humbly bowed his head. Never before had he flown to this valley, but his heart had always known such a refuge awaited him. A secret sense, like some hidden memory he shared with all the forest creatures of Prydain, had guided him unerringly; and the crow understood he had come at last into the abode of Medwyn.

  “Let me see, let me see,” Medwyn continued, knitting his heavy brows in search of something long stored in a corner of his mind. “You would be—yes—the family likeness is unmistakable: Kaw Son of Kadwyr. Yes, of course. Forgive me for not recognizing you immediately, but there are so many crow clans I sometimes get them mixed. I knew your father when he was a spindly-legged fledgling.” Medwyn smiled at his own recollections. “The rogue was no stranger to my valley—a broken wing to be mended, a leg out of joint, one scrape after the other.

  “I hope you do not follow his example,” Medwyn added. “I have already heard much of your bravery and—a certain bent, shall we say, for boisterousness? It has reached my ears, as well, that you serve an Assistant Pig-Keeper at Caer Dallben. Melynlas is his name, I believe. No—forgive me. That is his steed. Of course, Melynlas Son of Melyngar. The Pig-Keeper’s name escapes me at the moment. But no matter. Serve him faithfully, Son of Kadwyr, for his heart is good. Among all the race of men, he was of the few I allowed within my valley. As for you, I judge you and the gwythaints have been at close quarters. Have a care. Many of Arawn’s messengers rove aloft these days. But you are safe now, and will soon be up and winging.”