The Silver Hand

  My staff had grown heavy; my arm ached from holding it above my head. Tears from the windblast streamed from my dead eyes. I gripped the staff with my benumbed hand and steadied my trembling arm. Employing the secret tongue of the bards, I called upon the Swift Sure Hand to enfold the warriors and uplift them.

  “Dagda Samildanac!” I cried, “Gwrando, Dagda! Cyfodi Gwr Gwir, Sicur Llaw Samildanac! Cyfodi A Cysgodi, Dagda Sicur Llaw! Gwrando!”

  The wind shrieked down from the ridge. Cold the blast, keen the gale. My limbs trembled with the power surging around me. I heard the searing crack of lightning and the thunder’s answering roar. My inward parts quivered; the ground beneath my feet quaked. It was all I could do to stand against the tempest.

  “Tegid!” cried Goewyn, pressing close. “They are falling back—the enemy is falling back!”

  “Tell me, Goewyn!”

  “Hwynt ffoi!” shouted Nettles. “They flee!”

  “They are all running to the river!” Goewyn confirmed. “They are running away!” The gale tore the words from her lips almost before she could utter them.

  I grasped the staff by one end and raised its point to the sky. “Daillaw! Gwasgu Gelyn! Gorch Yr Gelyn!”

  Again I felt the vibrating pulse in my hands and arms, in my legs and bones and blood. Despite the buffeting winds, I felt the air shudder around me, and the heavens convulsed.

  The staff in my hand burst into flaming fragments and the hot, dry scent of scorched air filled my lungs as the bull roar of thunder broke over me. My skullbone throbbed under the blow; my heart stopped beating in my chest. Clear white light burned inside my head.

  And it seemed to me that I flew—like an eagle; high, high, into the storm-twisted sky, blown by winds. I saw the battleground far below, and the men moving on it. But I did not see them as men: they were waves on a troubled sea, surging and crashing. I saw it all with an eagle’s keen eye, and then I fell—steeply plunging, swiftly diving.

  Smoke obscured my sight. I fell and fell. And when it seemed that I must strike the ground, the smoke cleared and I saw that I stood in the valley in the midst of battle. All around me streamed fleeing men, eyes wide with terror, stumbling in their haste, trampling their fallen. They fled to the river where, in their desperation to escape, they threw themselves into the vile water.

  Heedless, panic-filled, they leapt from the crowded banks into the flowing corruption. The first enemy plunged in to their thighs and staggered forward through the black ooze intent on reaching safety on the other side. But, after floundering a few steps, they halted as a new horror overwhelmed them.

  Mouths gaping, they turned screaming to their kinsmen in fearful agony. Their cries were appalling. More horrible still was the sight of their shriveled, suppurating flesh.

  For where the noxious water touched the skin, it withered, sores appeared, and blood gushed forth—blood and yellow pus. Their hands and arms blushed red with sores, and their thighs and legs. The poison splashed into their eyes and onto their necks and chests and faces. The shrill moan of the gale soon mingled with the shrieks of tortured men thrashing in the killing waters.

  They staggered and stumbled. Those who fell into the river did not rise again. Yet though their kinsmen rent the air with their hideous cries. more and still more men threw themselves into the deadly flow. They, too, were trapped, mutilated, and killed by the cruel poison. Red blood stained the black water.

  Men—screaming, howling in pain like beasts, flesh streaming, lacerated— struggled toward the far bank. There was no turning back: the press of the fleeting throngs behind them drove them on . . . forced them to their deaths. The black river swelled with floating bodies. None who started reached the far bank alive.

  The horror of this strange death alarmed those on the near bank, and their panic increased tenfold. Men threw down their weapons and sank to the ground: dead but for the shaking of their limbs. On the far side of the poisoned river, men stood flat-footed on the bank and stared in slack-mouthed wonder at the terrible marvel before them.

  I turned from the outrage of this sight and searched for our warriors—Llew and Bran, Scatha and Cynan. Men surged around me in dizzy, reckless flight. Weapons clattered to the ground. Frenzied with fear, the enemy had turned its back on the battle and now sought only to escape. But of our own warriors I could see nothing.

  “Llew!” I cried, staggering forward. I tripped over a body at my feet and fell sprawling upon the ground. Before I could rise, someone seized me . . .

  “Tegid!” I felt hands on me, tugging at me. Goewyn and Nettles held me to the ground as if the wind might take me.

  My ears rang with the echo of thunder as it boomed and rumbled across the valley. I gasped and drew breath. I struggled to my knees. I tried to stand, but my legs would not hold me. Nettles put his arms around my shoulders and supported me.

  Goewyn bent near. I felt her hands on my face. She spoke to me but her voice sounded thin and small. My ears buzzed. I was blind once more.

  “My staff . . . I—where is my staff ?” I put out my hands and groped among the rocks around me, striking the ground with numb fingers.

  Goewyn seized my hands. “You are hurt, Tegid. Your staff is gone.”

  “Help me stand.”

  Goewyn called to Cynfarch, and together the three of them lifted me to my feet. My hands began to ache and then to shake and sting.

  “Listen! I hear screams!” Cynfarch said. “At the river! They are driving the enemy into the river!”

  “Corruption is claiming her own,” I said, and told them what I had seen of those who tried to escape across the deadly river. “But look now and tell me what you see. Quickly!”

  “The river is killing them!” Goewyn gasped.

  “The wind is gone,” Cynfarch said. “The storm is clearing.”

  “The awen has moved on,” I said, more to myself than to the others. Grasping Nettles and Goewyn by the arms, I said, “Come, lead me. Let us go down there. Hurry!”

  We began the arduous climb down the ridge wall to the valley below. Cynfarch went before me, and I kept my hand on his shoulder; Goewyn and Nettles walked beside me, supporting me, for my legs were still unsteady. By the time we reached the valley floor, the main force of the enemy had retreated to the banks of the river. Trapped between our warriors and the killing waters, the foemen stood on the water marge in despair of their lives. Many hundreds threw down their weapons in abject surrender. But the genuine warriors among them were making desperate, futile attempts to regroup and renew the battle.

  We hastened across the valley floor, stepping over the bodies of the unfortunates who had been killed in the crush of their own numbers. Their twisted limbs jutted up from the ground like broken stalks; many did not even have weapons. Yet they had been made to bear the brunt of the Great Hound’s war lust.

  We came to the place where Llew had been surrounded in the early part of the battle, and paused to search those lying in the ground. The long dry grass was slick beneath our feet, and the air rank with the sickly-sweet scent of blood.We found Rhoedd, still clutching the carynx in his hand, and others of our own among the dead, and our hearts writhed within us.

  “Where is Llew? Do you see him?”

  “I think he is among the press at the river,” Goewyn answered. “I see some fighting there,”

  “Take me there,” I said.

  We had but stumbled ten paces before Cynfarch halted abruptly. “What is it?” I demanded impatiently. “What do you see?”

  Goewyn said, “I see it too. Dust. Clouds of dust rising across the glen—”

  Cynfarch cut her off. “Riders!”

  At the same moment I felt the drumming deep in the earth. “Meldron!”

  37

  DEFEAT

  Swift horses racing, Meldron entered the valley to the dull thunder of drumming hooves and the blaring of the battle horn. My inner vision quickened at the sound, and I beheld Meldron advancing across the plain with a war band five hundred str
ong. He did not lead them, but rode in a chariot surrounded by the elite fifty of his Wolf Pack. Siawn Hy rode beside the Great Hound. The traitor Paladyr was not with them, but I little doubted he was near.

  They had come across the hills in order to avoid the river and now came flying over the battle plain, seizing the ground behind us. Even as our war leaders turned to meet the foe, they were ridden down. The enemy was upon us too quickly. There was no time to mount a coherent defense; there was no time to rally, no time to regroup.

  All hope was lost before we had even lifted blade against this new threat.

  Even so, Bran and Scatha made a fight of it. If they had received the benefit of warning, who can say what they might have achieved? As it was, Bran succeeded in pulling down three horsemen, and Scatha made short work of four more before they learned to respect her prowess.

  But Meldron had no intention of merely overwhelming us and cutting us down, which he might easily have done. He had something more diverting planned. Instead of committing his warriors to combat, he assembled them in ranks and formed a retaining wall around us. Then he began slowly to press us, step by grudging step, toward the river. Those we had driven to the bank gave way behind until our warriors stood with backs to the killing river and a tight forest of spearblades at their throats.

  Bran made a fearless, futile lunge for a warrior who had unwisely edged too close. The man was hauled from his horse, and Bran seized the reins and leapt onto the animal’s back. For a moment it appeared that he might break through the ranks. The Flight of Ravens made ready to follow him through the gap, but the horses’s legs were cut from under it, and Bran fell beneath the animal as it thrashed on the ground.

  Goewyn, standing beside me, shouted defiantly as they overpowered him and took him prisoner. She might have saved her breath, for we all suffered the same humiliation soon enough. In scalding shame, brave warriors were disarmed: one by one the Ravens were pinned to the ground with spears and stripped of their weapons; their hands were tied behind their backs and they were bound each to the other—Bran, Alun, Garanaw, Niall, Drustwn, and Emyr—lashed together, with rope nooses around their necks.

  Cynan’s war band endured the same treatment. Those who resisted or tried to fight back were beaten until they lost consciousness, or had the tendons in their arms cut so that they could not raise their swords. And when Cynan had been beaten senseless and his weapons confiscated, they turned to Calbha and Scatha’s forces.

  Only when we were all rendered powerless did Meldron show himself. The Great Hound called out from among his close-crowded Wolf Pack in a bold voice: “Is this the best you could do?” he shouted. “Is this the mighty Llew’s invincible war host?”

  “Where is Llew?” whispered Goewyn urgently. “I cannot see him.”

  “Nor can I.”

  Cynfarch, seething beside me, said, “I think he is there—somewhere in the center. Why does he not resist?”

  “I would stand beside Llew,” I said and began forcing my way toward the place Cynfarch had indicated. Goewyn pressed close, gripping my hand in hers. Nettles, trembling slightly, moved silently beside me. An angry cry, and a spear blade sharp in my back, halted us. We could move no nearer.

  “Can you see him?” she asked.

  “No,” I replied.

  Meldron, too, wondered where Llew could be found. “Llew!” he roared. “Where are you? Come to me, if you are not afraid. I have come searching for you, Llew. Is this how you receive your king?”

  Llew answered from among his men. “I am here, Meldron.”

  “Come out where I can see you,” shouted Meldron. “Foolish to hide from me now, cripple. Must I kill your men one by one to find you?”

  I heard warriors cursing as our tight-pressed throng shifted. “No,” whispered Nettles, his voice fervent and low. “Aros ol, Llew. Stay back.”

  “Do not do it!” Calbha shouted and received the butt of a spear in his teeth. He dropped to the ground. His men surged forward and were forced back by a double rank of spear points.

  “I am here,” Llew answered, stepping out from among the captives. “I am not hiding from you, Meldron.”

  “That is far enough,” snarled Meldron from his chariots. “So! Did you think you could elude me forever? I mean to avenge my honor.”

  “Honor?” inquired Llew coolly. “I wonder you do not choke on the word.”

  “Bind him!” shouted Meldron, and Llew was taken. With his men around him and his adversary disarmed and bound, Meldron felt safe enough to meet Llew face-to-face. The Great Hound stepped down from his chariot. I burned with rage to see the scorn on his haughty face and the swagger in his step as he approached. “You will die for that.”

  Llew offered no reply.

  “Nothing to say?” sneered Meldron. I could see his arrogant grin. The Great Hound’s vanity had grown great indeed; he would indulge himself to the full. He reached out, stroked Llew’s wrist stump, gave it a slap, and laughed. Then, turning this way and that, he shouted, “Where is that blind bard of yours? Where is Tegid hiding? Or perhaps he fears the portion his treachery has earned.”

  Not slow to reply, I struggled forward and answered in a loud voice, “You speak of nothing but fear and hiding, Meldron. But it is well-known that a coward sees cowardice in every man.”

  Meldron turned toward me. “Ah, Tegid!” he gestured for me to be brought before him, and I was dragged forth. Cynfarch made bold to stop them and was struck down. “I did not see you—but you do not see me, either.” He laughed, and a few of his Wolf Pack laughed with him. “To be both blind and a fool, you must have been born under a double curse.”

  I waited while they enjoyed their small insult. Then I replied, “It is ever the way of the sick to imagine their disease in others.”

  By way of answer, Meldron slashed me across the mouth with the back of his hand. “For that you will die last,” he grunted, his face close to mine. “After all the others—you die.”

  It was then that I saw something that made my breath catch in my throat. Bound in gold and hanging from a leather thong around Meldron’s neck was a fragment of white stone: a Singing Stone.

  My gaze darted quickly to Siawn Hy; he wore one too! They all did—all of Meldron’s chieftains and the warriors of his Wolf Pack wore amulets containing pieces of stone. Thinking that the Song of Albion would make them invincible, they had made talismans of the Singing Stones and now each man wore one around his neck.

  I only had a glimpse, for Meldron turned away, shouting, “Take them to the river!”

  My hands were thrust behind me and bound. Strong arms seized me; I was lifted off my feet. Goewyn cried out and was quickly silenced.

  “Meldron!”

  It was Siawn Hy. He had been waiting, lurking in the usurper’s shadow. Words passed between them that I could not hear. Then Meldron turned, and when he spoke again he said, “I have long desired to see this enchanted city that Llew has built. Is there anything to prevent me, do you think? No? Then I will see it at once.”

  Then the Great Hound called out to those who had seized us. “Bring them! Bring them all!” he cried. “Follow me!”

  We were hauled up the ridge, as the enemy whelmed Druim Vran in their vast number. The feet of the foemen struck the track ways, and our hidden glen was invaded. Our people, standing along the ridge wall, wailed to see our defeat. Their outcry struck the ear like the keening of a mother whose child has gone down to death’s dark pit. The lament could be heard streaming across the valley, and it tore my heart.

  Captives all, we were marched down through the forest to the lake. All our chieftains were bound hand and foot, and we were made to stand on the lakeshore. I wanted to be with Llew, to stand at his side, to face death and die together defying Meldron to his face.

  But my hands were tied and I was pressed on every side by enemy warriors. I could not move. Death was close; I could feel the black wings hovering ever nearer with every breath.

  Risking all, risking nothing
—for I had nothing left—I cried out. “Meldron! Great Hound of Destruction! Scourge and Pestilence of Albion, long may your life endure—so that you may savor the condemnation your acts have earned. Great your guilt, greater still will be your shame. Despoiler! Abomination! Live long, Meldron, revel in the hatred you have rightly won! Delight in the loathing your name inspires! Rejoice in the ruin you have wrought in the land!”

  I willed my words to become weapons that would torment him long after my flesh and bones were dust.

  “Meldron!” I shouted, “Hear my accusation! King of Hounds, behold your portion!” I extended my bound hands toward the poisoned lake. “Fill your lungs with its stink! The stench is exquisite, is it not? Behold the splendor of your reign, Meldron, King of Corruption, Prince of Poison!”

  “Silence him!” Meldron shouted angrily, and an instant later a fist smashed into my jaw. A second blow snapped my head back. My mouth filled with blood, and I fell to my knees.

  When I raised my head once more I saw the foul black water gleaming dully in the white light of the naked sun as it struck the surface of the dead lake. Llew knelt a short distance from me along the shore; he was bound at the wrists, knees, and ankles. Meldron towered over him, gloating with immense satisfaction.

  Narrow-eyed, superior, Siawn Hy skulked behind.

  I scanned the tight-pressed crowd, and I happened to glimpse Bran and Scatha in the forefront of the prisoners. Calbha stood nearby with his head down; he was bleeding from wounds to his neck and shoulder. All three of them wore nooses around their necks; their hands and feet were bound. I did not see Nettles anymore, but Cynfarch stood erect with Goewyn defiant beside him, fire in her eyes. After Llew, they would be next to die.

  A boat was drawn up on the shingle nearby. Meldron ordered Llew to be placed in the vessel, and four of his Wolf Pack lifted Llew and roughly handed him into the craft. Then Meldron climbed into the boat with his prisoner and commanded that the boat be pushed away from the shore.