The Silver Hand

  There was never enough food, so she and Twrch had taken to the woods to fend for themselves. They spent most of the time hunting, bringing back whatever they could catch to share with the holding. “Even a hare or a squirrel,” she said. “It was the only meat we could get.”

  “Ffand,” said Llew, “you are a wonder. Are you hungry?”

  “More thirsty than hungry,” she replied. “The water is bad hereabouts.”

  I returned to my mount and the food bag tied behind my saddle. I brought out a portion of hard cheese and some of the small barley loaves we carried. These were accepted gratefully. Then I gave her my water skin, which she all but drained before offering the rest to Twrch; the dog drank what was left, and then licked the skin.

  Ffand broke one of the loaves and began to eat at once. As I suspected, she was ravenous. The dog sat beside her, licking its chops but not otherwise complaining.

  “I do not wonder that Meldron fears you so much,” she said, breaking a loaf in half and stuffing it into her mouth.

  “How do you know that Meldron fears us?” I asked.

  “Ever since you came to Caer Modornn,” she said, chewing happily, “Meldron has been searching for you. There is no one in all Albion who has not been questioned by Meldron’s Wolf Pack: Where is the cripple Llew? Where is blind Tegid?” She swallowed and said, “He has vowed to destroy you. He has said that anyone who finds you will be granted lands and wealth—much wealth.”

  “So,” said Llew, “you have come looking for me.”

  Ffand took his jest seriously. “Not for him! Never for Meldron!” she gasped, suddenly horrified that he should think that of her. “I came to warn you and to bring Twrch. He is a good dog—I trained him myself—and every king should have a good dog.”

  “And I thank you, Ffand,” Llew replied warmly. “I could use a good dog—even though I am no longer a king. It seems that once again, I am in your debt.”

  The last of the wagons had disappeared over a rise of hill. “We must go now,” I said. I turned my head and cast my inward eye toward the way stone. “We should not linger here any longer.”

  “Tegid is right, we should rejoin the others.”

  “Come, Ffand, you can ride with me until we reach the wagons.” I swung myself into my saddle and let down my hand for her.

  She looked up at me curiously and bit her lip. “Can you see me?” she wondered.

  “Yes,” I answered without explaining, “so stop gawking and give me your arm.”

  I pulled her up behind me on the horse; Llew remounted, and we continued on our way. Twrch trotted along between us, first beside Llew, and then beside Ffand and me—as if he would happily divide his presence between two masters.

  Before my inward vision darkened once more, I glimpsed the great hound, head lifted high to scent the wind, long legs loping gracefully along beside Llew as if he had always enjoyed the easy pleasure of a noble position.

  Then the image faded and darkness reclaimed my sight. I was left to muse on the meaning of what had taken place. Ffand’s appearance was no threat to us, certainly. All the same, my feelings of dread were equally certain—indeed, had not abated. I still felt deep foreboding in my bones. The Giant’s Stone still loomed over the trackway, a dark, brooding bulk, but we passed by unharmed.

  It seemed to me then that I felt a peculiar pulse in my stomach and chest. And then the sound reached me: something heavy moving, slowly, ponderously—the sound of large millstones grinding. I pulled on the reins and turned my mount on the road.

  “Ffand,” I said urgently. “Look at the way-stone—the Giant’s Stone—look at it and tell me what is happening. What do you see?”

  “I do not—”

  “Quickly, girl! Tell me what you see!”

  My shouting alerted Llew, who halted and called back to me. “What is it, Tegid?”

  “I see the stone,” Ffand told me. “I see nothing else. It is just . . .” She paused. “What was that?”

  “Did you see something?”

  “No, I felt something—here in my stomach.”

  The horse grew skittish; it whinnied and stepped sideways. “Keep your eyes on the stone,” I told her. “Do not look away. Tell me all you see.”

  “Well,” she began once more, “it is just there. As I said, it is—”She gasped. “Look!”

  “What? Ffand! Tell me what is happening!”

  “Tegid!” Llew shouted, and I heard the sharp clatter and chop of iron-clad hooves on stone as his horse shied and reared.

  My horse tossed its head and neighed in fright. I wound the rein around my hand and held it taut. Ffand gripped tight to my cloak.

  “Speak, girl!”

  Llew clattered to a halt beside us. “The stone is moving,” he said. “Trembling, or vibrating very slowly. And the ground around it is splitting.”

  I heard a sound like that of a stump groaning as it is uprooted . . . and then silence. “What else? Is there anything else?”

  “No,” replied Llew after a moment. “It has stopped now.”

  I heard another deep rumble and realized that the sound was coming from Twrch; the dog growled softly, a note of menace low in his throat. “Quiet, Twrch,” Ffand scolded.

  I heard the keen of a bird . . . no, a whistle—it was a signal; someone was signaling with a whistle . . .

  Twrch barked. I heard a scrabble of claws on the paving stones, and Ffand shouted, “Twrch! Come back!”

  “Tell me what is happening!” I cried. “I cannot see it!”

  “The dog,” Llew said. “Twrch is running toward the stone. I do not see—”

  “Look!” cried Ffand. I could feel her slender body trembling with excitement. “There is something . . .”

  “Tell me! Tell me!”

  Llew answered. “It is an animal. A fox, I think. No, its legs are too short and its head is too big. Maybe a badger . . .” He paused. “No, it is too far away—I cannot quite see what it is. But it has come out from the base of the stone.”

  Twrch barked again. The sound was further away.

  “Now the animal has seen Twrch. It is running away.”

  “Which way?”

  “It is running at an angle to us away from the stone. Twrch is chasing it. He is going to catch it—”

  “Twrch!” Ffand screamed from her place behind me. “No!”

  She hooked an arm around my waist, bent sideways, and slipped off the horse. I heard her buskins slap the paving stones as she raced after the dog, shouting, “Twrch! Stop! Come back!”

  In the middle distance, I heard Twrch bay as he closed on the animal. I heard a snarling growl as the other beast turned to defend itself. The snarl became a frightened yelp—abruptly cut off. Even at a distance I heard the snap of its neck as the great hound seized the hapless creature and shook the life from it.

  “Well,” Llew said, “that is that. Whatever it was, Twrch killed it. Come, we will see what it was.”

  We left the sarn and rode a short way out onto the turfy plain to the place where Ffand stood holding the straining hound by his chain-link collar. Twrch barked eagerly as we dismounted, pleased with his kill.

  “No,” Llew groaned. “Oh, please, no . . .”

  “What is it?” asked Ffand, her voice rising on a puzzled note. I could tell she was staring at the dead thing lying in the grass before her and was mystified by what she saw.

  “Do you know this creature, Llew?” I asked.

  “It is a dog—a kind of dog,” he answered, in a tone of misgiving and regret.

  28

  DYN DYTHRI

  Adog? Are you sure?” asked Ffand.

  A corgi, I think.”

  At his utterance of the odd word, my inner vision flickered to life with the image of a strange, short-legged creature with a dense coat of mottled red, yellow, and brown. It had a big head with foxlike ears, and a short muzzle; its body was thick, stout, and tailless. A curious beast, it appeared half fox and half badger, but with the grace and virtue o
f neither.

  The image faded, but not before I had glimpsed Llew’s anxious glance towards the Giant’s Stone.

  “I think we should go,” he said uneasily.

  Even as we were climbing into our saddles once more, we heard the hollow grinding of the trembling stone and felt the deep earth-pulse in our entrails. The ground shivered beneath my feet. The horses whinnied. I held tightly to the reins to control the animal as the uncanny sound grew louder and the deep, rhythmic throbbing grew stronger.

  Twrch growled and ran toward the Giant’s Stone. Ffand shouted, and dashed after him. And Llew, in the saddle now, lashed his mount forward to catch her, shouting, “Ffand! Wait!”

  My mount reared beneath me. I pulled his head down hard to keep him from bucking and bolting.

  The deep trembling stopped.

  “Hold him, Ffand!” shouted Llew.

  My inner eye remained dark, and I cursed my lack of sight. “What is happening?” I cried, following him. “Tell me!”

  “A hole—a passage has opened beneath the stone,” he told me. “I saw something moving. It is gone now, but I think it was a person.”

  He dismounted and thrust the reins into my hands. “Hold these!” he said. “Twrch will tear him to pieces.”

  Before I could reply, Twrch began barking wildly again. Ffand shouted, scolding him. But the dog did not heed her. In almost the same instant, I heard a shout from the direction of the stone—a human voice, that of a man. The voice called again, speaking a word I did not know.

  Llew shouted at Twrch to quiet him. “Hold him, Ffand,” he commanded. “Whatever happens, do not let him go.”

  I heard another shout in the odd tongue, and an answering call. Llew shouted something I did not understand. And then—“Tegid, get down!” he shouted.

  In the same instant, the air convulsed with quick thunder. I felt the pressure of the sound on my skin. Something flew past my ear, whizzing as it went.

  “Twrch!” Llew shouted. “No!”

  The sharp thunder cracked again. Ffand shrieked. Twrch’s growl became brutal and fierce, a lethal warning. Llew shouted to stop him.

  “Twrch!” Llew cried, his voice tight, frantic. “Twrch, no! Stop him, Ffand!”

  A third thunderclap shattered the air. I heard a man scream.

  And then I heard Twrch growling and Llew shouting. I ran toward the sound. “Llew!”

  “Twrch!” Llew bellowed.

  “Llew! What is happening?”

  My ears buzzed and my head ached from the sound. I smelled sour smoke in the air. Llew was yelling at Twrch to stop. Then all went very still and quiet. Twrch growled softly, as if gnawing a bone. Llew murmured something that sounded like, “He has done it.”

  I moved quickly to where Llew stood. “What has happened?”

  “It is a man, a stranger—Dyn Dythri,” he said, indicating that the stranger was from his own world. “He had a gun—a weapon.”

  “A weapon made that sound?”

  “It did.” His voice still shook with excitement and alarm. “He was frightened. He started shooting at us—”

  “Shooting?”

  “Sorry—using the weapon, I mean—he started to attack us with the weapon. Twrch killed him.”

  “That is too bad. The stranger showed an uncommon lack of prudence.”

  “You can say that again,” agreed Llew sourly. “He was stupid to—”

  Before he could finish, I heard a scratching sound coming from the direction of the Carreg Cawr; Llew tensed. “Clanna na cù! There are more!” he darted forward to seize the dog. “Twrch! Stay, Twrch!”

  To me he called, “Do not move, Tegid. I will speak to them.”

  “How many have come?”

  “There are two,” he said. “No—wait . . . three. There is another one coming out now . . . ” He paused, and then I heard him shout a strange word: “Nettles!”

  “Nettles!”

  This peculiar utterance awakened my inward eye. The darkness thinned and brightened, and I saw that a cavern hole had opened at the base of the Giant’s Stone. Standing before this tower were three frightened men, slight of stature and dressed in the curious drab clothing of strangers; their hair was cut close to the scalp, revealing skin of an unhealthy yellow-gray pallor. Clearly, the light of life did not burn brightly in them.

  The Dyn Dythri stood hunched together, their hands to their faces, tears streaming from their weak eyes. When at last they dared peer out from behind their fingers once more, they gaped at us, hands hovering at their pallid faces, as if their eyes hurt. Their mouths were slack with surprise; their wasted limbs trembled. These cowering strangers were dull, spiritless creatures indeed.

  “Nettles!” Llew cried again. One of the men started, and I realized the peculiar word was his name. He was smaller than the others, round-faced, with a sparse mist of silvery hair on his head like clouds wafting round a barren mountaintop. On his face glinted a singular ornament: two round crystals bound by metal rings joined together with thin silver bands.

  The man, eyes wide behind the crystals, regarded Llew for a moment and then smiled with recognition. One of those with him, still quaking at the sight of us, muttered something, and I realized I had heard the rough speech before: it was the tongue Llew spoke when he came to us. And it marked these visitors as members of his clan.

  “Tegid! It is Nettles—Professor Nettleton. I told you about him, remember?” Llew turned and approached the small man. The two looking on shrank even further into themselves—as if they would disappear completely.

  Llew said, “Mo anam, Nettles! What are you doing here? You should not have come.” He spoke to the small man, who then merely gazed blankly at him, his smile uncertain. Then Llew, remembering his former tongue, said something to the man, who replied. They talked together for a moment. Llew looked at the two other men, who cringed from his glance, then pulled the small man over to where I stood.

  “This is Nettles. He is the nearest thing to a bard that we have in our world. He is the one who helped me.”

  “I remember,” I replied. My inner sight held his image before me, and I saw that despite his frailty and ugliness, his eyes gleamed with the bright intelligence of a keen and sagacious mind.

  With much halting and stammering, the two spoke together, and I turned my attention to the other two who still stood shuddering beneath the stone. They had seen the man Twrch killed—the body lay facedown a few paces from them—and were shaken by it.

  One of the men—a handsbreadth taller than the other—wore the air of a leader. He stepped toward the body. Twrch growled, his hackles rising. The man immediately stepped back. Twrch subsided.

  The small man glanced at the body, and then said something to Llew, who answered him in his own tongue. They talked a moment, and then Llew said to me, “I told him what happened. I asked if they carried any more—um, weapons. He does not know.”

  Llew’s eyes narrowed as he glanced at the two men standing before the stone. “This is a disaster, brother,” he declared bluntly. “You know how much trouble Simon has caused here—these men are worse. I have seen them before, but they do not recognize me. The tall one—Weston—is the leader. Twrch killed one of his men.”

  In his clumsy tongue, Llew addressed the small man Nettles, then said to me: “They must be watched and returned to their own world as soon as possible. Nettles agrees; he tried to stop them,” Llew explained. “He has prevented them from coming for a long time. But they got lucky today—or rather, unlucky.”

  I did not fully understand what Llew was saying—though I knew he was referring to the arrival of the strangers. He was angry and wanted them to go back—that I understood.

  After a moment, Llew and the small man walked to the place where the others waited. The two strangers cringed at Llew’s approach—as well they might. For, though he had but one good hand, he could have slain either of them with a single blow.

  Seeing him before them reminded me how much Llew had changed. Hi
s shoulders were wide and his back broad, his arms corded with muscle, his legs long and strong. As the Giant’s Stone soared above him, so he towered above the frail creatures cringing beneath it.

  He stepped before them, and I saw in my mind’s eye their craven faces pinched with fear; I heard them speaking in their uncouth tongue with the one called Nettles.

  Llew returned to me. “Nettles is telling them what is to—” He halted, running around quickly. “Wait! Where is Ffand?”

  Suddenly, Llew was racing away. “She is shot!” he shouted. “That idiot has shot Ffand!”

  “What?”

  “Over here, Tegid! Hurry!”

  She lay crumpled on the ground—little more than a cloak flung on the grass, it seemed. A deep red stain spread slowly over her side.

  “She is bleeding. It is bad, Tegid.” He gently probed the wound with the fingers of his good hand. “The bullet—” he said, “I think it went through. The wound is clean, but she is bleeding badly.”

  I tore a strip of cloth from the edge of her cloak, folded it, and pressed it to the injury. “We will bind the wound,” I said. “That is all we can do until we reach Dun Cruach.”

  Llew held the folded cloth to the wound while I bound it with another strip torn from her cloak, tying the knot tightly over the injury to hold the cloth in place.

  “I hope that serves until we get to Dun Cruach. You must take her to the wagons, Tegid. I will deal with these—these intruders.” He spoke the last of these words through clenched teeth. “Can you see?”

  “Well enough.” I stooped to gather Ffand in my arms and heard behind me the sound of horses approaching: Bran and Alun had arrived. The sudden appearance of these two Ravens, with their blue markings, armbands, spears, and shields, alarmed the strangers anew. They cowered close to the Giant’s Stone, watching the warriors with wide, fearful eyes.

  “We heard a strange noise,” Bran explained, eyeing the strangers, “and thought to discover what had happened to you.”

  Alun regarded the strangers with a frown. “Dyn Dythri,” he muttered.

  “Fret not, Alun,” Llew said coldly. “They are not staying long. They are going back where they came from as soon as possible.”