The Oak above the Kings

by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

  At that thought I laughed in earnest; well, I emitted a ghastly sound, more a strangled hoot than a laugh. What on this earth or indeed any other could possibly strike uneasiness into that?. His power was great enough to give him the mastery of this shape of terror, to put the same shape upon his creatures, to set them to rout our armies: What could there be to set unease upon him?

  Naught much, it would seem; and yet I could sense his—its—fear. Fear for himself? What had he said, he could not be hunted in his form as the Boar until Gwyn son of Nudd came to serve as huntmaster—a thing he clearly thought impossible. I brightened a little: Well, perhaps not so impossible, for did we not know Gwyn our own selves, Arthur and Morgan and I, and was he not our—well, perhaps not 'friend,' but at the least not our unfriend. It could happen, that he came to us here… And with a violent start I realized—indeed, I Saw—that it would happen, and how…

  But other things were happening already: Rallied by Daronwy, still in her eagle shape, soaring over the field, the Companions had launched an attack against Edeyrn's attendant boar-things. Our fighters had formed into the all-but-irresistible configuration called the schiltron, and they were methodically slaughtering the sorcerer-swine. Not without greatest pain and loss; but though Edeyrn could not be hunted by less than the Prince of the Sidhe, or so he said, still he had not chosen to make his creatures quite so proof as he against our blades. It was a long and bloody time of it but one by one they fell. Gwyrch Ereint was first among them, Edeyrn's oldest friend; on the hill called Amman Edeyrn lost a boar and a sow, a banw and a benwic. Soon others heartened and were turned: Kelts all alike, rebel and Raven came together to butcher the Marbh-draoi's evil farrowing.

  But even once those minions were dead on the field, returning to their proper human shapes as they were cut to pieces by the desperate armies, still there was the King-Boar to be dealt with; and as I watched him grow vaster and darker and more terrible as each of his creatures perished, I began to lose hope.

  But I had reckoned without a number of things: chiefest of which was Merlynn Llwyd. I have said that Merlynn took but little part in the fighting or even the advice in council he had once been wont to give,—I see now that this was all part of it. Teach he never so wisely and well, a teacher can teach only so long: At last all his teachings come themselves to be tested, in his pupil, and the worlds will mark how well, indeed, he has taught after all. Merlynn had reached this place with his dearest students: with Arthur, and with me, and with the Companions, and even, I now saw, with Gweniver and Morgan and Ygrawn. He had taught us all; had been prime mover of the Counterinsurgency and the last rebellion we now fought. It had all been on his shoulders, and it had all been carried through to completion,—though not without bitter loss and great costing.

  I ran over the names in my mind as I looked upon Merlynn now: Amris, Leowyn, Gwyddno, Medeni, Gorlas, so many others, Companions and auxiliars and civilians, all gone to feed that great Boar's evil mawings. I looked down as something cold touched my hand; only Cabal, sensing my sadness and anger, seeking to comfort. He had done battle of his own today, ranging out with the Companion schiltrons, along with Morgan's red-brindle bitch Rhymni and two whelps of their last litter, Atver and Liath, who had come with their mistress on campaign. The other dogs were with Guenna; but Cabal had come to me, rescuing me now, as once I had rescued him, from a trap that had all but closed upon me. I ruffled his ears—silky soft, where the rest of his coat was rough and wiry—and spoke a word to him, and, though he grumbled almost humanly in protest, he obeyed, leaving the front rank on the hillside to take up guard next Uther and Ygrawn.

  And Cabal's is no bad thought… I turned and followed him, just as a galloper came tearing up from below, cried out while still ahorse to Uthyr and those by him.

  "The Marbh-draoi's creatures are all slain, Lord! His own armies helped hunt them in the end—"

  "And Owein?" That was Morgan, her tone oddly urgent.

  The rider's own voice was hushed, if harsh. "The Boar himself has slain him."

  A stir ran through our ranks,—but I myself was aware of at least a handful of emotions. So, Edeyrn killed his own heir and creation at the last… There was no love lost between Owein Rheged and the House of Glyndour—since coming to Tara I had lost yet another brother, and my sister Tegau Goldbreast had been wounded sore—but just now I was remembering the man for whom I had harped five long years together. Of course, I had been going by another name just then, or else I might have preceded my siblings to my next life; but strangely enough Owein had been no bad master to me. There had been laughter and banter, a kind of ironic respect even,—perhaps because he sensed I was not afraid of him, perhaps for some other reason. But though Owein had been our longtime enemy and bane, and though I was for no sake sorry he had gone to the Goddess, and would have cheerfully have sent him there myself had that been my dan, I was somehow sorry all the same, and gave a brief silent prayer for his speeding, and knew that I meant the words.

  Meant them even more, when a few moments later the author of Owein's passing turned his attention again to us, upon our hillock. Still in Boar-shape, Edeyrn seemed more fearful now than before; as he lumbered nearer I could see clearly the broken body of Owein Rheged speared upon one of the bristles of the thing's mane, where the tusks had tossed him. And as if at some unspoken signal all we on the hilltop drew nearer to one another, and closer around Uther and Ygrawn, and waited.

  Edeyrn spoke again, in a voice that seemed to come from the deeps of the earth, a voice that smelled of smoke and blood and iron, tinged with weariness, edged with the gloat satisfaction.

  "Did I not tell you that Torc Truith will not be hunted by such as you have sent against him?"

  Arthur drew breath for an angry response, but before he could utter a syllable Merlynn had stood forth.

  "Then, brother, I call a huntsman to suit such quarry. I call your brother…"

  His hand that had been beneath his blue cloak was flung out and up, and from his fingers broke the white folds of the faery flag, the Bratach Ban, the heavy silk catching what sun there was and shining moon-pale through the murk. I had time for one confused thought—What if Seli is wroth with us, after all, that Gweniver did not wave the thing herself?—before the hunt was called.

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  Chapter Fifteen

  IT SEEMED AS IF THE GREATEST WIND in the world awoke around us. It sent the dwimmer-dark flying, dispersing Edeyrn's sorcerous miasms like morning fog on the slopes of the Loom. Cold and sharp and blessedly clean, it came straight from Glenshee, the sacred, secret valley; the trees and grasses bent low before it, seeming to hail it as it passed. As did we: It cracked our cloaks like thunder, set our banners streaming, pushed our hair out behind us and made our eyes tear with its force. But it carried joy upon it, joy and the promise of victory; which is why now I raised my face to it, and breathed it in, and laughed for that joy and the victory to come.

  I did not laugh long, of course; the faerie wind may have blown away the last rags of Edeyrn's enchantings, but the enchanter himself was still very much with us. Yet somehow the terrible Boar that stood before us, cleft hoofs deep in the trodden turf it had itself turned to bloody mire, was—diminished, lessened. Still powerful beyond all right reason, it was nonetheless palpably smaller now.

  And if so, perhaps more vulnerable!… I looked my question: Morgan smiled, and pointed. Following the direction of her upflung arm, I saw what she had already sensed, and my heart that had been gladdened by the coming of the wind now rejoiced ten thousand times over, for sight of what that wind had brought us.

  How shall I tell of it: They were riding down the slopes of the air as a mortal hunt will course over the breast of a hill. They were silent in their coming, save for the horn that chivied them on: Gwyn's horn, that I had heard before, and had not forgotten.

  I turned from that glorious sight to gaze pridefully on Merlynn, who had summoned it to be. He was not looking at the Sidhe's r
ade, but kept his eyes on Edeyrn-Boar, and upon his face was an expression I had not seen for nearly fifty years, not since the night Ailithir had shown the boy Taliesin the death of Gwaelod in the shifting clouds.

  I believe I knew in that instant what was afoot, and was reaching out my hands to avert it—more fool I, as if my magic could do aught in this compall. Time seemed slowed, all battle-tumult silenced; on the edge of my sight I saw Gwyn upon his gold-maned white stallion. But Edeyrn filled all our eyes and all our thought: He was changing as we watched, the Boar-shape shimmering and crazing, vanishing in a direction that we could not understand, going in patches and flakes and waves of darkness.

  In its wake stood Edeyrn, as he was,—though just now he seemed but little less fearful in human form than he had in shape of the Tore. His gaze was not bent on Gwyn, however, but on Merlynn, his rival, his once-friend, now his great adversary, and I divined in an eyeblink what he was about. Not swift enough to stop it; nay, not even my Morgan could avert this dan…

  Merlynn Llwyd, Ailithir, Archdruid, met my glance one last time,—looked at me, looked at Ygrawn and Uthyr, looked at Morgan, looked last and longest at Arthur. Then he was gone, and where he had stood was a column of—ice? Too stunned to weep, too confused to think and too dazed even to try—could feel no pain just yet, what I felt in that first moment was, simply, one long wordless desperate endless No—I stepped forward and lifted a shaking hand, but did not touch it. Not ice, but a prism-prison: a crystal tree, trunked and branched and gnarled, an apple-tree, clear as a diamond where the sun struck it, milk-blue in shadow. And within it—

  But I could not think of him, not yet, not like that… And too, there was still Edeyrn to deal with. Later, then—

  Yet if I had been shock-frozen, others had not had the same reaction: I had forgotten that the fight raged still, and turned at a shout from the place where Ygrawn and Uthyr had so long waited upon the battle's issue.

  They waited no longer: The shout that I had just now heard was the triumphant yell of Ravens breaking the leaguer that had protected the King and Queen. Every one of us within hearing, pushing aside our grief for Merlynn, leaped as one to defend our rulers; but Arthur was first of all, Llacharn, earning its name, alight and dancing in his hand.

  We fought for all our lives now; engulfed by the Raven tide, I glanced away for the merest of seconds to Uthyr where he sat in his high-backed polechair. He was as he had been all this day, pale and unmoving of face and form, like some stern saint carved in painted wood. The Sword Fragarach was cradled as always in his arms, its blade cloaked by the worn leather scabbard. And then a sound rose up behind me that turned my blood to cheese—a sound part groan, part fear, part warning—and I spun on my heel to see.

  What I saw was Arthur standing alone in a ring of Ravens, and Llacharn's blade broken off a foot from the hilt. I think I have never moved so swiftly in all my lives, spinning my own sword point-for-hilt as I ran to him, reversing my grip so that I might flight it to him like the lonna we use in the spear-toss. But before I could get my arm back to throw, I saw that someone else had been swifter.

  Uthyr had risen in his place—he who for the past months had not been able to stand or move without another's arm t( help him, his own force drained away out of the magicked wound—and now he stood strong in the flood of swords that lapped him, an oak on a wind-lashed fellside. With an arm that trembled no more than the thickest bough upon that oak might have done, he raised Fragarach above his head, and with his left hand he stripped off the black scabbard.

  Even I, who am bard and Druid both, am hard pressed to find words for what I beheld, what we all then beheld, as Uthyr Ard-righ, with the last store of life and strength left to him, with all the love he bore, raised himself up unaided from the chair that had been his final throne, and with one mighty motion hurled the Sword Fragarach to Arthur his nephew.

  I say'sword' only for that I knew it to be so; but in truth I saw only a white fire in the air that came to rest in Arthur's hand. He seemed to have no such problem: He caught the faerie weapon by its serpented hilt, casting down Llacharn—the broken blade-shards were caught up by Companions standing by, and lovingly preserved ever after, though that weapon we had won together, Arthur and Morgan and I, from Collimare was never to be reforged—and it settled to his grip as if it had been made for him, or he for it.

  To us who looked on—all this, you understand, happened in a matter of moments, Edeyrn, Gwyn, Merlynn, Uthyr, Arthur, all—it was as if Grian herself had come to Arthur's hand, a blaze of light more silver than golden, so bright that each of us nearby had suddenly a second shadow: a gray and fainter one from Grian above, one of dark and clear-cut black from the Sword below.

  It lasted less than moments: Uthyr fell back fainting in his chair and was carried off the field with care and celerity; Ygrawn went with him, and I motioned half our Companions to follow. The rest of us stayed; stayed, and saw.

  Even in our desperate defense of our wounded King—though just for that one instant it seemed that Uthyr had been hale and whole and strong again, as he had not been since Owein's dolorous blow at Cadarachta, it was good to see him so once again before the end—we had not forgotten there was still a fight afoot. But now, as that fight closed down hard upon us, and I for one began to think about taking with me to the Goddess as many of Edeyrn's creatures as I could when I went, as it seemed likely I should soon be doing; I sensed a sudden altering, and paused in mid-stroke, as if I had heard a call but could name not the voice that had called me.

  I had forgotten Gwyn—never a good or wise thing to do, see you follow not my lead—had forgotten Edeyrn also, in my fear for Arthur and Uthyr and my fight of the moment.Had forgotten even the Sidhe hosting; but as I looked out across the field, I could see plainly that the Sidhe had not forgotten us.

  They had lifted not a single sword against a single Kelt that day, though they came to the field as well armed as any of us; yet where they had ridden only our own were left alive. Ravens had fallen like sheaves at harvest—our enemies, though Arthur had never suffered them to be called so, save Edeyrn and Owein only—and though I had striven mightily to compass their deaths I found I could not look upon this. I turned away, shivering a little, trying not to see the dim glitter of that terrible crystal tree, to find Morgan beside me. I glanced down at her, hoping for comfort, seeking solace, but her face was a mask, and her gaze did not waver as had mine, as she looked out upon the slaughter the Sidhe left in their passing. Nay; it was the gaze of a princess and a priestess and a judge, and I began to turn away even from her, my own love, but her voice stayed me.

  "Not for naught are the Sidhe called the People of Peace, Taliesin ap Gwyddno."

  I did not look at her. "And is that"—I flung out my arm to include the scene below us—"what peace requires, lady?"

  Her face did not change. "Maybe. See who comes now."

  Struck by what the Bratach Ban had wrought, still numb—by the Goddess's great mercy—at Merlynn's fate, I looked where Morgan looked, and saw Edeyrn standing patiently and motionlessly where last I had seen him. It is as if he waits for someone's coming—and where is my brother?"

  No sooner had I thought this, and begun to panic, than one broke off from the van of the faerie host—not Arthur—and came at the gallop straight toward us, toward Edeyrn.

  Gwyn it was, prince under the hill, tall in gold mail upon his snow-colored stallion. Unthinkingly I lifted a hand in salutation, but quailed as I saw his face, and drew back; he swept past us as if we had been emmets in the grass, so intent was he on the one who stood awaiting him.

  Someone came up on my right—Arthur at last, breathing hard, as if he had been running; but he said no word, to me or to any. Far across the stricken field I could see the standards of Gweniver and Keils moving toward us at snail's gait. But I knew it was only distance made their coming seem so slow; in truth, they were riding at foundering-pace to reach us.

  They need not have broken their hearts, or their ho
rses', to do so: The battle here, the fighting in space above us, Merlynn, even Uthyr—all took a far second to Gwyn and Edeyrn as they drew nigh each other. And I took a long shuddering breath as I remembered: These two were indeed brothers. Not even fosterns, as Artos and I, but born of the same mother; one half man, the other not man at all but maybe even god.

  And yet it seemed that they were intending to settle this thing entirely as men, for as Gwyn rode up, Edeyrn drew his sword. The white stallion checked and crabbed sidewise under Gwyn's hand and knee, and then the faerie lord too was afoot, advancing to where his brother awaited.

  I have no explanation, in this life or any other, for what I did next. But before I could think about it, before any could hinder me, before even Arthur or Gwyn himself could thwart my intention, I had rushed forward, straight at Edeyrn, sword upraised, howling some ros-catha, seized by purest bloodlust that only Edeyrn's death at my hands could ease. My father, my mother, my stepfather, my siblings, Prince Amris and King Leowyn and now maybe Uthyr as well, my dear friends and my beloved teacher—nothing would ease my heart save Edeyrn's blood upon my blade. Well, so at least it seemed, in that moment; I will not dignify it with the word'thought,' even, thought was just then the thing utterly furthest from my mind.

  But this was to be a fight of giants: Edeyrn no more minded my lunatic rush than that of a chafer buzzing his head on a summer day, and batted me as easily away. He lifted a careless hand—I do not think that by then he even saw me, much less knew me for myself—and when I recovered my senses I found myself sprawled on the ground a good twenty paces away, not far from where Gwyn stood.