“I could not see the branch,” I replied through clenched teeth.
Kneeling on the branch beside me, Scatha leaned low and thrust down with the spear. A rabid snarl became a squalling yelp and the weight on my cloak decreased by half. Another quick thrust of her spear brought another bawl of pain and I was free. I fumbled with the brooch pin and somehow managed to unfasten the brooch and let the cloak fall free.
I pulled myself upright and climbed higher into the tree. Below were no fewer than eight hellhounds—some leaping frantically in the air, others running insanely around the tree, and at least two trying to scale the trunk by their claws. One of these managed to reach a fair height but, gripping the branch with one hand, Scatha leaned down and stabbed the creature in the throat. It fell yelping to the ground, landed on its spine and thrashed around, furiously biting itself as the black blood gushed from its wounded throat.
The beast died and, like the spiders, simply dissolved into a shapeless mass that quickly evaporated leaving nothing but a glutinous residue behind. But there were a dozen or more dogs running beneath the tree now. They sprang at us, clashing their teeth and snarling. Often one would try to climb the tree, whereupon Scatha would spear it, and it would fall back either wounded or dead. The dead quickly dissolved and disappeared, but were just as swiftly replaced by others.
We were trapped, clearly, and I began to think that by sheer strength of numbers the hounds would bring down the tree. Just watching the swirling, vicious chaos of their frenzy made me fearful and weary. Scatha, too, felt the futility of fighting them; for, although she still gave good account of herself with her spear when opportunity presented, I noticed that she seemed to be losing heart. Gradually, her features lost all expression, and her head drooped.
I tried to encourage her. “We are safe here,” I told her. “The camp is near. The warriors will hear the hounds and come in force to rescue us.”
“If they are not themselves under attack,” she replied bleakly.
“They will find us,” I said, doubt undercutting my words. “They will rescue us.”
“We cannot escape,” she murmured.
“They will find us,” I insisted. “Just hold on.”
Nevertheless, it soon began to look as if Scatha was right. The monstrous hounds did not tire, and their numbers, so far as I could tell, continued to increase. Scatha eventually ceased striking at them with her spear. Instead, we edged higher into the tree and sat staring hollow-eyed at the frenzy, growing gradually numb from the cold and the continual shock of the baying, snarling, howling cacophony below.
Watching the moonglint on teeth and claws, and the dizzy tracery of red-glowing eyes, my mind began to drift. The gyrating black bodies seemed to merge into one savage torrent like a raging cataract, fearful in its wrath. And I wondered what it would be like to join that swirling maelstrom, to become part of that horrific turbulence. No intent but chaos, no desire but destruction. What defiance, what strength, what abandon—to give myself over to such fury.
What would happen to me? Would I die? Or would I simply become one of them, primal and free? Knowing no limits, no restraint, a creature of naked appetites, feral, possessed of a savage and terrible beauty—what would it be like to act and not think, to simply be— beyond thought, beyond reason, beyond emotion, alive to sensation only . . .
I was startled from my dire reverie by the sudden shaking of the branch beside me. Scatha, eyes fastened on the tumult raging around the trunk of the tree, was standing on the limb, teetering back and forth, her arms outflung to keep her balance. She had dropped her spear.
“Scatha,” I called. “Do not look at them, Scatha! Take your eyes off them.”
I continued speaking as I cautiously crept closer along the branch until I was sitting beside her. Standing slowly, I put my arm around her shoulders to steady her. “Let us sit down again, Pen-y-Cat,” I said. She yielded to this suggestion and allowed herself to be guided to a sitting position on the branch. “That is better,” I told her. “You had me worried, Scatha. You might have fallen.”
She turned blank, unseeing eyes on me and said, “I wanted to fall.”
“Scatha, hear me now:What you feel is the sluagh—they are doing this to us. I feel it too. But we must resist. Someone will find us.”
But Scatha had turned her gaze once more toward the howling, boiling mass beneath us. Desperate for some way to distract her, I fought the urge to return to my own contemplation of the turmoil below and scanned the surrounding wood for some hopeful sign.
To my astonishment, I saw the faint glow of a torch moving down the slope.
“Look! Someone is coming. Scatha, see—help is on the way!”
I said this mostly to divert Scatha’s attention, but I took heart myself. There was no logical reason to believe that rescue had come, but a multitude of reasons to assume that some fresh horror had found us instead.
Indeed, my hopes were all but extinguished when Scatha said, “I see nothing. There is no torch.”
It was true—the glow was not a torch. What I had seen, burnished by hope into bright-gleaming flame, appeared now to be nothing more than a dull, moonstruck yellow glow. It moved steadily through the wood toward us, however, and I gradually became aware that it moved to a sound of its own—difficult to hear above the snarling, growling, hellhound yowl, but distinct from it all the same.
“Listen . . . can you hear it?”
Scatha listened for a moment, turning her eyes away from the maelstrom below. “I . . . um, I hear . . . barking,” she concluded.
“That is it,” I assured her. “Barking, exactly—the same as we heard before the siabur appeared.”
Scatha regarded me skeptically, as well she might, considering how we had fled in terror of the sound upon hearing it. Odd to find comfort in it now. And yet, I did take comfort in it. I peered intently through the closegrown wood as the strange yellow glow wafted through the trees. The barking sound grew as the glow drifted, and there could be no doubt that it was the same that we had heard earlier.
My silver hand, which had long since become a chunk of ice on the end of my arm, began to tingle. A moment later, I glimpsed several smooth white shapes racing through the underbrush toward us.
“Something is coming!” I gasped.
The warming tingle quivered up into my arm as three sleek, white dogs broke through the undergrowth and drove straight into the impossible turmoil of hounds beneath our tree. White as new snow from snout to tail except for their ears which were bright, blood-red— the dogs were smaller and leaner than the black hellhounds, but swifter of foot and just as fierce.
I expected them to be torn apart in an instant, but to my amazement the hellhounds reacted as if they were being scalded alive. They reared on hind legs, leapt in the air, and scrambled over one another in a desperate struggle to escape the onslaught of the newcomers. And, as soon became apparent, with good reason.
The red-eared dogs charged in a frenzy of bared teeth, each seizing a hound by the throat, ripping furiously, and then lunging to another kill. The stricken hounds whined and crumpled, decaying into shapeless jelly and vanishing within moments.
Like lightning shattering the storm cloud, the three white dogs routed our assailants, killing with keen efficiency and striking again. Within moments of their arrival, dozens of their opponents were dead and hellhounds were fleeing for cover, clawing one another to get away. Soon the wood rang to the sound of the dogs’ triumphant howls as they pursued the retreating hounds into the wood.
“They are gone,” Scatha said, releasing her breath in a rush.
I opened my mouth to agree, and then I saw him: standing almost directly below us and looking in the direction the dogs had gone. He was wearing a long yellow coat with sleeves and a belt. It was this coat I had seen moving through the trees like a will-o’-the-wisp.
He stood for a moment without moving, and then he raised his face to look into the branches where Scatha and I were hiding. I almost fel
l from my perch. Peering up at me was easily the ugliest man I had ever seen: big-faced, gross in every feature, his long nose ending in a fleshy hook, and his mouth the wide thick-lipped cleft of a frog. Ears like jug handles protruded from under a thick pelt of wild black hair, and large wide-spaced eyes bulged balefully from beneath a single heavy ridge of black brow.
He held my gaze for the briefest instant, but long enough for me to know that he saw me. Indeed, he lifted his hand in farewell just before he stepped from beneath the branch and disappeared into the wood once more.
Only after he had gone could I speak. “I have seen that face before,” I murmured. Once, long ago . . . in another world.
I felt a hesitant touch on my arm. “Llew?”
“It is over,” I told her. “The dogs belonged to him.”
“Who?”
“The man in the yellow coat. He was just there. I saw him; he—” I broke off. It was no good insisting. Clearly, Scatha had not seen him. Somehow that did not surprise me.
“We can go now,” I told her and began easing my weight from the branch.
I lowered myself to the lowest branch and prepared to drop to the ground. Just as I released my hold, Scatha called me from above, “Wait! Listen!”
But her warning came too late. I landed awkwardly and fell rolling on my back. As I did so, I heard something big and heavy crashing through the wood. I jumped to my feet, searching wildly for Scatha’s fallen spear, wishing I had saved the club.
“Llew!” Scatha called. “There—behind you!” The spear lay a few steps behind me. I ran to it, picked it up, and whirled to meet . . . Bran and Alun Tringad, swords drawn, along with twenty or more torch-bearing warriors.
“Over here!” I cried. “Scatha! It is Bran! We are saved!”
Bran and Alun advanced warily, as if I might be an apparition.
“Here I am!” I shouted again, lowering the spear and hurrying to meet them. “Scatha is with me.”
“Llew?” the Chief Raven wondered, lowering his sword slowly. He glanced at Alun, who said, “I told you we would find them.”
“We were returning to camp and lost our way,” I explained quickly. I hurried back to the tree and called to Scatha. “You can come down now. It is safe.”
Scatha dropped from the branch and landed catlike on her feet.
“Are Cynan and Tegid with you too?” Alun asked, peering up into the branches.
“We became separated,” I replied. “I do not know where they went.”
“They did not return to camp last night,” Bran said.
“How did you know where to find us?”
“We heard the dogs,” Bran explained. “They circled the camp, and Alun saw someone—”
“Three times they circled the camp,” Alun put in eagerly. “The fellow with them beckoned us to follow.”
“I did not see anyone,” stated Bran firmly. “I saw only the dogs.”
“This fellow,” I asked Alun, “what was he wearing?”
“A long mantle with a broad belt,” Alun replied readily.
“And the mantle—what color?”
“Why, dun colored it was. Or yellow,” Alun allowed. “Difficult to tell in the dark, and he carried no torch.”
“And the dogs?”
“White dogs—” said Bran.
“With red ears,” added Alun Tringad. “Three of them. They led us here.”
“You heard nothing else?”
“Nothing else, lord,” Alun answered.
“The baying of hounds perhaps?” I prodded. “Here in this very place?”
Bran shook his head. “We heard only the dogs,” he declared. “And there were but three of them.”
“And the man,” Alun maintained.
“Yes, there was a man—the man in the yellow coat,” I confirmed.
“Scatha did not see him, but I did.”
“I saw only the dogs,” Scatha said with relief. “But that was enough.” I noticed she said nothing about the hellhounds or the spiders. But then, neither did I.
23
CROM CRUACH
Tegid and Cynan had in fact returned to camp before us and were waiting for our arrival. The sun broke above a gray horizon as we entered the still-smoldering circle of the protective fire. Upon stepping across this threshold of ashes, I was overcome with exhaustion. My legs became leaden and my back ached. I stumbled and almost fell.
Tegid grabbed my arm and steered me to a place at the campfire. “Sit,” he commanded and called to a nearby warrior. “Bring a cup!”
I stood swaying on my feet, unable to make the necessary movement. The ground seemed very far away.
Cynan, none the worse for lack of a night’s sleep, hastened to Scatha’s side, put his arm around her shoulders, and brought her to where I stood.
“Sit, brother,” the bard urged. “You are dead on your feet.”
I bent my knees and promptly collapsed. Scatha, dull-eyed and pale from our all-night ordeal, crumpled beside me.
The cup arrived. Tegid pressed it into my hands and helped me raise it to my lips. “What happened to you?” he asked as I drank.
The ale was cold and good, and I all but drained the cup before recalling that Scatha was thirsty too. I passed the cup to her as I replied, “We lost you in the dark. We called for you—we could not have been more than ten paces apart. Why did you leave us?”
“But we heard nothing,” Cynan declared, mystified. “Not a sound.”
“No?” It did not surprise me in the least. “Well, when we could not find you, we made for the edge of the mound.”
“We were chased by hounds,” Scatha said, shivering at the all-too-fresh memory.
“Then the dogs came and drove the hounds away,” I told them simply. “Bran and Alun arrived a few moments after that and brought us back.”
“Tell me about the dogs,” Tegid said, kneeling before us.
“There were three of them—long-legged and lean, with white coats. They came through the wood and drove the others away.”
Scatha supplied the details I had neglected. “The hounds had red ears and there was a man with them. I did not see him, but Llew did.”
“Is this so?” the bard asked, raising his eyebrows.
Before I could reply, Alun answered, “It is so. I saw him too. He was wearing a yellow mantle and running with the dogs.”
Bran confirmed Alun’s report. “I saw the dogs; they circled the camp three times and then led us to the very place where Llew and Scatha were hiding.”
Tegid shook his head slightly. “What of the hounds?” he said.
I did not want to speak of them. I saw no point in planting yet more fear in the warriors’ hearts—there was enough already.
“Well,” I said slowly, “there is not much to tell. They were big, ugly beasts. Fierce. If Bran and Alun had not come when they did, we would not be here now.”
“The man with the dogs, you mean. He saved you. We came after,” said Alun, dragging the facts before us once more.
“The point is,” I said, “we could not have survived much longer.”
“The hounds,” Tegid persisted, “tell me about them.”
“They were just hounds,” I replied.
“They were sluagh,” Scatha informed him.
Tegid’s eyes narrowed. He did not ask how we knew this, but accepted it without comment. For this, I was grateful.
“The same as attacked our horses?” Cynan demanded.
“The same,” Tegid replied. “The sluagh change bodies to suit their prey.”
“Changelings!” Cynan shook his head and whistled softly between his teeth. “Clanna na cù. It is a fortunate man you are, Llew Silver Hand, to be drawing breath in the land of the living this morning.”
Tegid said nothing, his expression inscrutable. I could not guess what he was thinking.
But Cynan was eager to talk. “After you and Scatha wandered away in the dark,” he volunteered, “we found a grassy hollow and settled to wait ther
e until sunrise. Oh, but the night was black! I could have seen no less if I had been struck blind. By and by the sky began to pale and the sun came up. We came on to the camp then. Indeed, we were no great distance away—but did we ever see the fire? No, we never did.”
Tegid rose abruptly. “This mound is cursed. We cannot stay another night here.”
“I agree. Send out scouts—two parties of four each, one to ride east and the other west around the perimeter of the mound. If they see any sign of an encampment two are to keep a lookout, and two are to return here at once.”
“But they must not be long about it,” Tegid added. “We will leave at midday.”
“It shall be done,” the Raven Chief said, rising to leave.
“I will send Gweir to lead one of the parties,” Cynan offered, “and they will return the swifter.”
Bran and Cynan moved off to begin organizing the scouts. I lay down to rest until the scouting party returned. But I did not bear the waiting easily, for I fell into an anxious reverie over Goewyn. Where was she? What was she doing at this moment? Did she know I was searching for her?
I entertained the idea of building a tremendous signal fire to let her captors know that we were here. In the end, I decided against the notion, however. If they did not know, we might yet surprise them; and if Paladyr and his thugs knew already, it would be better to keep them guessing our intentions.
Near midday, Tegid came with some food for me. He placed the bowl beside my head and then squatted at my side. “You should eat something.”
“I am not hungry.”
“It is not easy to fight demons on an empty stomach,” he told me. “Since you are not sleeping, you might as well eat.”
I raised myself on one elbow and pulled the bowl toward me. It was a thick porridge of oats flavored with turnip and salted meat. I lifted the bowl and sucked down some of the mush. Tegid watched me closely.
“Well, what is on your mind, bard?”
“How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” I replied. “But I cannot rest. I keep thinking of Goewyn.”