‘If you see me tired, brother,’ Fergal replied, ‘you will know that you are dreaming. I have never been stronger.’ He put his head back and drew a long deep breath. ‘It must be the sea air.’
‘Aye,’ agree Conor, ‘it will be the air.’
He was still speaking when Mádoc shouted. ‘Scálda ships!’
23
Conor spun around and scanned the dull green-grey sea. Rising mist obscured the horizon, but in the dim light of dawn he could just make out two dark hulls to the seaward side and still some way off. He turned back to gauge the distance to the shore and made a swift calculation; the Scálda ships were, he thought, about as far from them as their vessel was from the coast. With any luck, they might reach shore before their pursuers and escape on horseback into the forest—providing they could find a landing place.
‘Fergal!’ he called. ‘We’re making for land.’
Fergal saw the red-sailed ships and loosed a groan of exasperation; he tightened his grip on the spar ropes. ‘I thought we had lost them,’ he shouted back.
‘They haven’t caught us yet,’ Conor told him, and turned his attention to the shoreline.
The eastern coast was rough and rocky, but with a few coves and narrow bays where landfall might be possible. Conor swept his gaze along the tumbled cliffs and steep-walled sea bluffs until at last he spied what appeared to be a suitable landing place: a small rock-bound cove with a pebbled beach. Hard by this inlet was another—little more than a gap between two large stone headland bluffs that stood like ruined towers or the broken feet of giant effigies—a slender cáel providing a channel for an upland stream.
He shouted to Fergal, pointing at the narrow opening. ‘There! We make for the cáel.’
Fergal acknowledged the decision with a wave, and Conor, throwing the steering oar wide, shouted, ‘Turn!’
Fergal plied the ropes—loosing one and hauling on the other. The full-bellied sail spilled and emptied.
‘Too much and too fast,’ called Fergal. ‘We’ve lost the wind.’
The ship continued under its own momentum, but slowed quickly and soon sat dead in the water. Conor cast a hasty glance at their pursuers; the Scálda vessels came on apace, their course unaltered. ‘Mádoc! Hurry! Take the oar,’ he shouted; jumping down from the pilot’s bench he ran to where Fergal was struggling with the ropes, trying to swivel the spar to allow the sail to recapture the breeze. The druid took his place at the steering oar to watch as Conor and Fergal worked the ropes—twisting the spar first one way, then the other, and back again in an effort to find the wind. After several futile attempts, the limp cloth at last puffed out and the vessel began to move once more.
The ship swung onto its new heading and even collected some small part of its former speed. Sweating from the effort, Fergal swiped his arm across his face and, looking around to the Scálda ships, declared, ‘They know how to sail and we don’t. I will fetch our weapons.’
‘We may not evade them,’ Conor said, watching the twin black hulls; he could see the white froth splashed up by the prows as they cut through the waves. ‘Nor can we fight them.’
‘What then?’
Conor frowned, his mind racing furiously for a solution. There was none. ‘Mádoc,’ Conor shouted, ‘can you do anything to help us?’
‘Given time enough and a few essential materials, perhaps, I might—’
‘Mádoc!’ snapped Conor. ‘Can you do anything?’
The druid glowered at the ships closing fast upon them. ‘Alas, no.’
Turning back to Fergal, Conor said, ‘We stay on course. Help Huw ready the horses—as soon as the keel touches land, we ride.’
Fergal opened his mouth to object, then closed it again. He handed Conor his rope, and hurried to the mast where Huw stood waiting with the horses.
‘Mádoc!’ Conor shouted over his shoulder. ‘Steer for the gap there—between the rock stacks. We are going to make a run for it.’
The old druid turned his eyes from the oncoming ships to the slender breach between the tumbled bluffs. ‘Impossible,’ he cried. ‘The cáel is much too narrow.’
‘Just do it!’ Conor shouted. ‘We have no other choice.’
‘I yield the oar to you,’ Mádoc called. ‘If we are to survive, you are our best hope.’
Lashing the ropes to the oar post, Conor seated himself on the steersman’s bench and took up the relinquished oar. He explained what he intended and ordered Mádoc to help Rhiannon make Donal ready to flee the ship as soon as they touched the shore. ‘That will not be an easy thing to do,’ the druid told him as he lurched across the deck.
‘Nothing ever is,’ Conor muttered. ‘Just do your best.’
Conor looked to the Scálda ships and saw that they were closer now, as expected, but that their progress had slowed somewhat—the wind fell away for them, too, as their vessels neared the coast. Conor allowed himself a grim smile. As for the hare, so for the hound, he thought.
Fergal returned to his ropes and announced that the horses were ready to release on his signal. There then followed a series of frenzied manoeuvres in which Conor did his best to align the prow of the ship with the gap in the crumbling rock wall of the headland bluff—a chore easier said than done for, the closer they came, the harder it proved to keep the Scálda craft on course. Small corrections of the oar produced no effect, and larger movements caused the prow to swing too far to one side or the other. Each lurch brought fresh cries from Fergal, who manfully fought to keep the sail filled. Meanwhile Huw and Mádoc had their hands full with the horses; it was all they could do to keep the frightened animals from bolting and either running amok on deck or leaping into the sea.
Conor glanced back to see that the Scálda ships had so shortened the distance between them that he could see the glint of sunlight off the blades and battle caps of the warriors. He counted heads to gauge the enemy strength, and took some small comfort in the fact that, close as they might be, they were somewhat fewer in number than he had imagined—at least, the ones that he could see. Likely, the pursuers had put to sea with the search party they had, rather than wait for more warriors from the fortress. Nor did he see any horses on board. If only he and Fergal could get everyone onto shore, they stood a good chance of outrunning the pursuit.
Even as this thought was passing through his head, Conor heard the waves breaking on the rocks. Whirling around once more, he saw the cliff base dangerously close on his left-hand side, and the sea flinging gouts of spray and foam into the air. A sea swell passed beneath them, lifting the vessel and driving it forward—and pitching Conor from his perch.
There was no time to think. No sooner had he steadied himself on the bench once more, the next swell was rising beneath them. The rocks loomed hard on the right-hand side and Conor threw the oar to the left as far as it would go. ‘Hold on!’ he cried, clinging to the shaft of wood. Fergal gave out a growl of despair as the sails spilled and fell slack. Mádoc, grim-faced at the mast, muttered dark oaths and hurled them at the foe behind.
As the next swell gathered beneath them, Conor rose and shouted, ‘Get down! We’re hitting the rocks!’
Fergal dove for the rail, and Huw embraced the mast. Conor flung himself to the deck and wrapped his arm around the post supporting the steersman’s bench as the sea swell lifted the ship and the surge flung the craft forward. There was a fall as the wave passed and Conor thought they might just have eased through. But then he heard a tremendous crunch, and the entire ship shuddered with a terrible rending, grinding shiver.
The deck heaved and bucked beneath him. The ship slewed sideways. Sea and sky changed places. ‘Free the horses!’ he shouted, throwing off his cloak. He saw Huw struggling with the halter rope and Mádoc diving beneath the half deck platform as for one shuddering heartbeat the vessel seemed to hang in the air.
Another wave smashed the hull against the rock wall, battering its tightly overlapped planks with a shock that jolted the stunned passengers. The vessel tilted and
slid, falling back as the next wave struck, spinning the helpless craft sideways. The deck fell away sharply. Unable to hold on any longer, Conor began to slide. ‘Rhiannon!’ he cried with his last breath as the cold green water closed over his head.
24
The shock of frigid water stole the air from his lungs. Thrashing blindly, Conor fought to find the surface, but could see nothing in the murky, wave-churned depths around him. Then, forcing his limbs to cease their flailing, he held himself still and his body began to rise. He righted himself and, directly above, made out the blurred outline of the hull. Kicking his feet he rose and, upon reaching the submerged rail, grabbed hold and pulled himself into the air. With a gasp, he dashed salt water from his eyes, and looked around furiously.
Fitful waves slapped the broken hull of the wrecked ship; the small portion of the sharply slanting deck that he could see was empty. The next wave slammed into him before he could see more. He went down again and came up coughing and spitting. ‘Mádoc!’ he called, scrabbling for a handhold on the rail. ‘Mádoc! Rhiannon! Fergal!’ he shouted again and again, but heard only the thump and crash of the breakers smashing against the quickly splintering hull.
Releasing the rail, he spun around in the water and glimpsed the head of a horse breaking the surface—Grían, Fergal’s red stallion. The animal thrashed and plunged, glassy eyes wide with terror, nostrils wide and mouth open, screaming, straining for breath as its forelegs churned the water. Conor whistled to the animal to draw its attention; he started toward it—then saw the blood streaming from the gash in its throat. Conor stopped, treading water. The poor beast sank beneath the surface—only to rise again but lower in the water, its efforts frenzied, but less strong. It sank again, and this time could not lift its head from the water.
‘Conor! Here!’
Conor whirled toward the cry, and saw someone clinging to the rocks nearby. ‘Fergal!’ he shouted. ‘Are you injured?’
Before Fergal could reply a wave crashed against the rock on which he clung. The water subsided in streaming white rushets down the black rock face, but Fergal was no longer there.
‘Fergal!’ Conor shouted again. A moment later, Fergal’s head bobbed to the surface. ‘Here! Here!’ Conor beat the water with his free hand to draw Fergal’s attention. The sea swell lifted him and he glimpsed, a little farther off, two horses—one the dun mare Ossin, and the other Búrach, his grey stallion—swimming for the strand.
‘Conor!’ spluttered Fergal as he swam to join Conor. He reached for Conor’s offered hand and Conor pulled him to the rail. ‘Donal and Rhiannon—where are they? Where are Mádoc and Huw? Where are the others? Do you see them?’
A savage breaker shivered the wreck just then, forcing the broken vessel higher onto the rocks. A low, grinding moan like that of a great oak being felled sounded from above and the tall mast began to sway precariously. The next wave struck the ruined hull with a thunderous clap and the wreck lurched sideways; the water slid away and the stricken vessel rocked with a tremendous groan of rending timbers.
‘Swim for shore!’ shouted Fergal. He dived and began swimming away. Tilting precariously, the unsteady mast gave way, splintering from its base; the heavy beam came crashing down, plunging into the cáel with a thunderous splash. The backwash threw Conor against the submerged rail. He gulped down a mouthful of seawater and almost choked on it. Coughing and spitting, he made a last hurried search for anyone nearby, then started for the shore—almost immediately colliding with the body of Grían; the red roan stallion, having succumbed to its injuries, was now floating half-submerged, its struggles over. Conor pushed away from the still-warm corpse and continued on, threading his way amidst the pieces of broken planking, rope, and chunks of debris now floating in the wave chop. Now and again, he knocked against something hard or sharp—a shard of timber or fragment of rail or deck—and once he became ensnared in a coil of rope that threatened to drag him under. The shore stubbornly refused to come any nearer and Conor’s efforts grew more desperate until, kicking wildly, his foot struck a rock. Pain streaked through him. He gave out a gasping cry and inhaled a gout of water that burned his lungs, and came up coughing and retching. Sinking down again, he felt stones beneath his feet. Gathering his legs beneath him, he hauled himself upright and stood, finding himself in waist-high water. Still coughing, he hobbled exhausted from waves to collapse on the beach half in and half out of the water, cradling his injured foot. Blood oozed from a bluish scrape beneath which a knot was already swelling. Out of the water now, he shivered with cold in his soggy clothes. Hearing moaning nearby, he turned his head and saw Fergal sprawled on the pebbled strand, wheezing and groaning.
‘Are you hurt, brother?’ called Conor between snatched breaths.
‘Ach, nay—only drenched to the very bones of me, and those are drenched, too.’ With an effort, Fergal pushed himself up onto his elbows. ‘Do you see there what you did?’
Conor looked where Fergal indicated and saw that the hull had rolled onto its side and, having been driven sideways by the tide surge, was now all but wedged into the breach between the rock stacks—effectively blocking the narrow channel leading into the cove. The Scálda ship in fast pursuit had reached the cáel—too close behind to avoid the wreck—and was now caught up in the disaster. Prevented from entering the cove, the Scálda were desperately trying to disentangle themselves from the wreckage. The shouts and cries of the frantic warriors could be heard as they attempted to get clear. The second vessel had managed to veer off, but was in danger of being swept onto the rocks itself.
‘That will slow them down,’ Fergal observed. ‘But we dare not linger here or they will catch us yet.’
‘Not without the others.’ Conor looked around the shingle where bits of flotsam were now washing up: snaky lengths of rope and rigging, bits of wood, some of Huw’s utensils and supplies—but nothing else. ‘We have to find them.’ He rolled over and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and was immediately overcome with a fatigue so powerful that he almost swooned. Black circles wheeled before his eyes and his empty stomach heaved. He vomited bile and fell back onto the beach with a groan. ‘Uh…’
‘The faéry spell is wearing off,’ concluded Fergal. ‘I do not think I can move.’
Conor closed his eyes and drifted off. A voice came to him out of the air. ‘Why are you lying there?’
‘Aoife?’ he asked.
‘Who is Aoife?’
Conor opened his eyes to see that it was Rhiannon standing over him. Her hair was wet and tangled, her brilliant gown a soggy ruin, but her eyes were keen with concern for him. ‘Are you injured?’
Conor shook his head. He rolled over and sat up. ‘Mádoc and Huw?’ he said. ‘Have you seen them?’
Rhiannon shook her head and knelt down beside him.
‘Donal?’ he asked, fearing her response.
‘He, at least, is saved.’
‘How?’ wondered Conor aloud.
By way of reply, the faéry merely pointed toward the wood above the high-tide mark. Donal, pale and unmoving, lay on the shingle. A little farther up the beach stood Ossin and Búrach; of Mádoc, Huw, or the pony there was no sign.
Fergal dragged himself to his feet and shambled over to where they sat. ‘We cannot stay here. We have to go.’
‘Not without Mádoc and Huw,’ Conor insisted.
‘There is no time, Conor,’ Fergal told him. ‘We have to go now—or join them in the grave.’
‘We don’t know that they are dead!’
Rhiannon glanced at Fergal, who shook his head. ‘Look around you, brother; if they were alive they would be here with us.’
‘Maybe they are still in the water.’ Climbing to his feet, he limped into the waves.
‘Wait!’ called Fergal. ‘Here—’ He sloshed through the surf to a hank of rigging rope that had washed up. Returning, he unwound the coil and passed the end to Conor. ‘Tie this around you and I will hold you fast.’
Knotting the rope ar
ound his waist, he started into the surf once more, shivering as the cold water hit his skin. He drew a breath and launched himself out toward the middle of the bay and soon encountered the body of Drenn, Mádoc’s bay mare. The creature had become entangled in the halter rope and drowned; its ruddy brown coat was slick with brine and splotched with bits of seaweed. And from its belly protruded a long, jagged spike of wood, rammed like a spear through the creature’s gut. The dead horse stared up at the sky with a wide, black unseeing eye, its head and legs flopping gently in the wash of the waves. Conor drew air deep into his lungs and dived, quickly searching the area in the immediate vicinity of the drowned animal. The muck stirred up from the seabed clouded the water and made it difficult to see; he pulled on the line dangling around the horse’s leg and it came free—at least, there was no one attached to it.
Resurfacing, Conor pushed away from the dead animal and swam farther out into the cáel, trying to avoid impaling himself on the splintered chunks of decking lurking in the wave wash. He bumped into the steering oar and held on to it for a moment as he searched the water—but saw no one in amidst the floating wreckage. He heard Fergal shouting something from the shore and, waving a hand in acknowledgement, swam out farther, dodging bits of broken rail and hull. He came upon a section of floating planks—part of the half-deck platform, maybe—and dove under it. There, trapped beneath the planking, was Mádoc.
The old man’s eyes and mouth were open, his hands outstretched; he appeared about to give a command, or trying, in death, for something just out of reach. His sparse hair floated around his head in a pale nimbus and his flesh was grey-white as cold ashes. Conor took the proffered hand and gave it a tug. There was no response, not the least flicker of life. The hand was as cold as the water around it.
Conor resurfaced, gulped down another lungful of air, and dived again. Taking hold of the old man’s arm, he pulled; Mádoc’s head jerked loosely, but the druid’s cloak was caught in the tangle of wreckage. Conor pulled again, but the body did not come free. Running out of air, Conor returned to the surface and shouted toward shore, ‘I’ve found him! I’ve found Mádoc!’