“You think that?” Siawn said. “You, the magician who holds out his hands in hopes of stopping a storm and conjures a light from his staff by worshipping the same devil that we’re about to fight?”
“I believe it,” Taliesin said. “Cadwaladr is a gift to us, whether from my gods or yours. I’d be a fool not to see it.”
“I say the same,” said Rhun, “but not because of all your prophecies and gifts and whatnot.” He waved his hand dismissively. “I believe it because Cade came back from that cave, not to destroy the people he loves, but to save them.”
Taliesin nodded. “Only someone who followed the light; only someone with a powerful conscience and vision, could unite people as different and disparate as those of us who follow Cadwaladr.”
Siawn opened his mouth to speak again, and then swallowed it. Instead, he simply nodded. “Agreed.”
Finally, after nearly an hour, Berwyn returned. The friends scrambled to their feet as the postern gate creaked open.
Berwyn poked his head through the gap between the stone wall and the door. “We’re clear. Come on in!”
Silently, the companions filed through the doorway into Caer Dathyl.
Chapter Six
Cade
Cade hoped that Rhiann and the others were having better luck than his group was. It wasn’t that it was dark, because that wasn’t a problem for him. It was that the mountain was huge, they were on foot, and dense undergrowth covered the northern side of the mountain on which Caer Dathyl was built. The fort itself was some distance to the east of them now, and they were looping west and then south. Eventually, they could walk full circle, back to the main path that led up to the front gate. Cade hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He was deliberately leading his companions higher and further south with every step. Soon they would be above the trees and just under a great, vertical escarpment that they would not be able to traverse.
“I recall mentioning that knights don’t walk,” Goronwy mumbled from behind Cade.
“Remind me to carve that above the doorway at the fort on Ynys Manaw when you return,” Dafydd said. “That will go over really well on an island about the size of this mountain.”
Cade sensed that the brothers had stopped walking, and checked behind him. Goronwy was studying his brother—or what he could make out of him in the oppressive darkness. “I’m not going back,” Goronwy said, finally. “There is no place for me there as it is Merfyn who will inherit. Surely you knew that?”
“Oh,” Dafydd said.
Goronwy nodded and resumed climbing. Dafydd watched his back for a moment, and then followed. “I suppose I’m not going back either.”
Goronwy didn’t check his stride and gave no indication that he’d heard his brother’s reply. Perhaps only Cade had.
“What about our men to the north?” Bedwyr said. “One of us should surely find them and give them word of our shipwreck and that we are continuing as planned. They need to know that we will send word as soon as we’ve found a way to open the fort for them.”
“Good idea,” Cade said. At his words, everyone stopped and turned in the direction of Bedwyr.
“Me again?” he said, outraged. “Why me?”
“Because you are the only one of us, apart from Siawn and Dafydd, whose face has been seen at Caer Dathyl,” Cade said.
Bedwyr wasn’t happy.
“Besides,” Goronwy said, slapping him on the shoulder, “someone needs to lead Wales when we meet our deaths.”
“Oh, aye,” Bedwyr said. “I can see me as King of Gwynedd. The people wouldn’t be thanking me for that. Better Geraint, or even Tudur.”
“They’re not going to want to wait for us for long either,” Hywel said. “When Bedwyr finds them they’ll think to come hightailing to the castle gate as quick as they can.”
“They’ll want to,” Cade said. “But they won’t, right, Bedwyr?”
He looked down at his boots. “Nobody is going to like that.”
“I am King of Gwynedd,” Cade said, “and until further notice, I need them where they are. You will know soon enough if we are successful. Either we will survive, or we won’t; either we’ll find a way to open the gates to our men, or we won’t.”
“It’s also possible that they didn’t make it to the camp either,” Dafydd said, as usual pointing out an unsavory truth. “We have no idea if our diversion to the sea distracted Arawn enough for him to let them pass. That Geraint and Tudur led men through Teregad’s territory might have been enough to encourage him to attack them. Both are far from home here in Arfon.”
Cade pursed his lips. “Then we’d better hurry in case they have become a diversion for us.”
“Well, I for one, have no intention of walking all the way to Geraint’s camp,” Bedwyr said. “By the time I got there, they would have long since given up on us.”
“Surely not,” Hywel said.
“I told Geraint to wait at most three days,” Cade said. “If we’ve not sent word to him by then, he is to look to himself and his people.”
“What of Bryn y Castell?” Dafydd said.
“It’s his,” Cade said. “Rhun and I agreed that he would rule well.”
“This is a cheerful conversation,” Goronwy said. “What’s all this talk of death? We’re going to defeat Arawn, aren’t we?”
“Absolutely.” Hywel nodded vigorously. “There is no question of it.”
At that vote of confidence, Cade held up his hand. The darkness had lifted slightly, thanks to a sprinkling of stars that had appeared in the sky, and he wondered if Taliesin and he had only imagined the way it had smothered them before. Clouds had even begun to play hide-and-seek with the waning moon.
Then an explosion of noise burst from the woods in front of them.
“What is that sound?” Dafydd said. “It’s unearthly.”
“Appropriate choice of words, brother,” Goronwy said. “It can only be hounds: the hounds of hell, as Taliesin warned.”
Hywel gurgled in his throat. “I was bitten by a dog as a child. I’ve never liked them.”
“Well you’re sure to enjoy these, then,” Goronwy said.
“Swords.” Cade grasped Caledfwlch’s hilt and pulled it from its sheath. It shone, as always, with an ethereal light. Cade gripped it tighter, nodding to himself, pleased that the light would draw the dogs to him and ensure that he was the first man they attacked.
“Here they come!” Hywel said.
The feet of the hounds pounded softly on the moist earth of the forest. The creatures’ red eyes glowed and moved closer with every leap. Goronwy stepped beside Cade, and Bedwyr planted his feet on the other side of him. The lead dog gathered himself for a great leap and Cade took one step forward to meet him. The power of the sidhe shot through him and he cut through the hound with one stroke of his blade.
Even with their leader dead, the half a dozen hounds came on undeterred. They leapt at the men from every direction. They didn’t bark, but growled a low-pitched sound that was marked every so often by a squeal as another died. One caught Cade from behind, biting deep into his shoulder. Cade swung around with a growl of his own and his momentum threw the dog from him. It landed with a whine at the base of a tree and lay still.
And then the hounds were either dead or so injured they’d run away to lick their wounds. Cade cast around for something with which to wipe the blood from Caledfwlch and ended up using the tail of his jersey. The cloth hissed as the blood touched it.
“You’re wounded, my lord,” Goronwy said.
“It’s nothing.” Cade rolled his shoulders. He could feel that same sizzle inside his skin where the hound’s teeth had bit. “It’s already healing. Look to Bedwyr.”
Bedwyr was on the ground, his legs splayed in front of him. Hywel knelt beside him. Goronwy and Cade ran to them and crouched down. “It’s my knee,” Bedwyr said. He was finding it difficult to breathe. “It feels as if the hound’s teeth cut right through me.”
Cade sheathed Caledfwlch and
leaned in to look Bedwyr’s wound. “This might hurt.” He took the edges of Bedwyr’s torn pant leg in his fingers and ripped.
Bedwyr gasped. “Christ and all the Saints!”
“Is poison at work?” Hywel said. The gash was bruised and bloody, with torn and ugly edges. Cade wiped at it with the scrap of cloth, revealing several additional punctures on either side of the main wound.
Goronwy spoke low in Cade’s ear, not wanting to frighten Bedwyr any more than he already was. “If even a drop of the hound’s blood has entered his body, he could die from it, more than from the wound itself.”
Bedwyr wasn’t listening. He had squeezed his eyes shut and taken hold of Hywel’s hand. As Cade leaned over the wound, Bedwyr reached out, looking for another hand to hold, and gripped the hilt of Caledfwlch instead.
Instantly, the blood stopped flowing and the holes began to close. The men stared down at the leg as the healing wound followed a similar pattern to when Cade himself was injured. Cade felt at his shoulder with his left hand, sure that the bites of the hound were fading from him too.
“What’s happening?” Hywel said. “The wounds are healing!”
“You’re not ... ” Cade stopped and stared into Bedwyr’s face. As they looked at each other with dread, Bedwyr’s face drained of all color, even more than from the injury. Beads of sweat clung to his forehead and he wiped at them, first with one hand and then the other.
“He’s sweating.” Goronwy breathed a sigh of relief. “He hasn’t become a demon.”
“Then how can this be?” Dafydd said. “His knee is all but healed.”
Cade looked at the wound again. The progress of the healing had stopped and it began to seep blood as before. Hesitantly, Cade reached for Bedwyr’s hand and placed it on the hilt of Caledfwlch once more. Almost immediately, one of the puncture wounds closed.
“It’s Caledfwlch,” Hywel said, awestruck. “The sword heals!”
Bedwyr took in a shaking breath. “I am beyond delighted to hear that I’ve not become a demon.” And then added hastily, “no offense to you, my lord.”
“None taken,” Cade said.
They waited long enough for Bedwyr’s wounds to disappear entirely and then Cade held out his hand to haul Bedwyr to his feet. He took it. His color had returned, but his eyes were wider than usual and he put a hand to his leg to make sure the wound was really gone.
Meanwhile, Hywel had walked away, in the direction from which the dogs had come. Dafydd came to stand beside him, giving Goronwy another chance to speak to Cade in private. “It could be that the sword channels your ability to heal to others.”
Cade shrugged. “For now, I’m not sure that it matters. Entire legends have grown up around this sword, and around the man who wielded it before me. Perhaps it serves every master in a unique way.”
“Those hounds didn’t arise from the earth.” Hywel turned back to the companions. “Whatever the stories say, they issued from somewhere.”
“They certainly did,” Cade said. “We’re going to want to find out from where.”
“Saint Cari’s teat,” Goronwy said, always one for creative cursing. He put a hand on Cade’s arm. “There’s more out there!” In the distance, further up the mountain, and beyond where Hywel stood, a torch appeared, followed by two more.
“They must be following a trail further on,” Dafydd said.
Cade gauged the currents in the air. “They’re human at least. Men and horses.”
“Now that’s more like it,” said Bedwyr.
Because no humans had followed the running of the hounds and discovered them, the friends crept southward, moving closer to whatever was in front of them. After a period of effort, they crested a small rise. It was well treed and they were able to hide among them while peering down the other side. A path lay before them, upon which men and horses walked, coming straight down the side of the mountain like a tumbling brook. The initial rush of men and horses had passed, perhaps twenty riders in all, but still they came, two and three at a time.
“Who are those men?” Dafydd said.
“Teregad’s probably,” Cade said.
Hywel shook his head. “How can they follow him?”
“They swore an oath, just as you did to me, and most could never imagine breaking it,” Cade said.
“That’s all right, my lord,” Goronwy said from behind Cade. “If you were an evil, demon-worshipper, I’d just kick your arse rather than following blindly as you obeyed the mad rulings of a spoiled, petulant god-child.”
“Thank you, Goronwy,” Cade said. “I appreciate your frankness.”
Goronwy clapped Cade on the shoulder, right on the spot where the dog had bitten him. Cade didn’t even feel it enough to wince. “My pleasure,” Goronwy said. “So what’s the plan?”
“I need a horse,” Bedwyr said, “and it looks to me that there are several out there on offer.”
“Any objection to the notion that they’re coming from Arawn’s secret entrance?” Cade said.
The men shook their heads.
“Right,” Cade said. “No time for a complicated plan. I say we hide ourselves right here on the edge of the road and jump out on a pair of them.”
“Excellent,” Bedwyr said. “I like it; not like Taliesin and Siawn up there, plotting some elaborate ruse.”
“As we have swords and they don’t,” Goronwy pointed out, “a ruse is their only option.”
“True,” Bedwyr said, patting his weapon.
“Boys.” Cade cut off their banter. “Any questions?” Nobody had any. “Let’s go.”
The companions slid through the fallen leaves, down to the edge of the trail, but still hidden among the trees. Teregad’s men carried torches so their chance of seeing any approach in advance was slim, especially as Teregad’s men were not demons. When Cade and his men reached the path, it was empty.
“Dafydd and I are going to cross,” Goronwy said. “We’ll take down any men that ride on our side of the trail.”
“Wait until they’re just past us,” Cade said, “then we’ll spring on them.”
Goronwy and Dafydd scuttled to the other side and crouched low in the grass that rimmed the path. They waited through a slow count of twenty, and then hoof beats came again. A light bounced and weaved further up the mountain.
“How many are there, do you think?” Hywel said.
“Two or three again.” Cade glanced across the path at Goronwy, who was looking towards the light, calculating as Cade was what they needed to do. Soon the riders came into view. The one on Goronwy’s side held the torch. All three were conversing among themselves, seemingly unconcerned about haste or their mission, whatever that mission might be. They rode by the companions without seeing them. Just as the right rider’s stirrup passed Cade’s position, he charged.
“Now!” Cade said.
To his satisfaction, they achieved complete surprise. The horse closest to Cade reared, throwing his rider backwards to the ground. Bedwyr caught the horse’s reins. Meanwhile, the middle rider struggled to get his horse under control while still slashing at Hywel’s head.
The third rider whom Goronwy had attacked was also on the ground, although his horse had bolted, and now Dafydd launched himself at Hywel’s opponent. Somehow, he threw himself upwards with terrific force, caught the man around the waist, and carried him off the horse. The pair landed with a crunching sound on the other side, right at Hywel’s feet.
All of a sudden, their three opponents were on the ground: one dead, one unconscious, and one scared to death beneath Cade’s sword. Bedwyr spoke gently to the horse he held, having calmed it enough to stop it from rearing and striking him with its hooves, but it still shook and sweated. Hywel held the reins of the second horse, which seemed calmer.
“Take Hywel’s horse, Bedwyr,” Cade said, “and go.”
Bedwyr gave Cade a look—not disgruntled, but finally accepting—and nodded. Perhaps the incident with the hounds had made him more content with his role in the
adventure. “Yes, my lord.”
Cade turned to Hywel and Dafydd, who’d gotten to his feet, massaging his neck and right shoulder. Otherwise, Dafydd was undamaged. “I want you to walk further up the trail and find the entrance into the catacombs,” Cade said. “Report back here as soon as you can.”
“Yes, my lord,” the two said in unison.
Bedwyr mounted his horse and with a last wave of his hand, trotted away from them, down the mountain. Cade sheathed Caledfwlch and crouched next to the man whose horse had thrown him.
“So.” Cade poked his prisoner in the chest. “Why don’t you tell me what you and your companions were doing out in the woods at this time of night.”
“N-n-no,” he said. “I can’t.” He tried to slide away, wiggling his shoulders as if he was a snake, but something was wrong with his legs because he couldn’t move them. He began to breathe hard, panicking.
Cade pursed his lips, gently rested his left hand on Caledfwlch’s hilt, and allowed the power within him to rise. Rhun had told him once that when he released the sidhe within him, his eyes turned an iridescent green and his face transformed in such a way that he looked nothing like himself, even though Rhun had not been able to pinpoint exactly what the changes were. Perhaps Rhiann could explain it better. “And now?” Cade said. Caledfwlch hummed at his waist, containing most of the light and energy Cade was feeling.
The man’s eyes widened and his face paled further. “I—”
Cade grasped his cloak with both hands and yanked him off the ground. “Where’s Teregad?”
“I-i-in Caer Dathyl,” he said.
“That’s better,” Cade said. “And Mabon?”
“The cavern,” he said. “He sent us out; said that men who were preparing to attack us had camped north of Caer Dathyl. Our orders were to find them and kill them.”
“You were hardly using stealth, now, were you?” Cade said. “Not with the torches and all the shouting.”
“Teregad sent us to clean up after the demons,” the man said.
Song of the Pendragon (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 3) Page 6