Merlin's Nightmare (The Merlin Spiral) (34 page)

Old Brice tried to sit up, but failed. Then he found the boil on his cheek, grabbed the edge, and tried to rip it off. “Get it awa’! It’s a rat, I say, a rat that’s eatin’ me cheek!” But his thick fingers couldn’t get a grip on the shiny mass, and the skin popped. Black pus sprayed them all, and a huge glob landed on Natalenya’s skirt.

She backed away along the wall-top, trying to flick it off, and in the process knocked over Tinga, who had stolen up from behind. As she fell near the edge of the wall, Gaff, her little puppy, barked and jumped from her hands.

“No!” Taliesin reached out, but he was too far away. The pup landed on the top of the stonework — and then slipped over the edge.

Tinga shrieked.

Taliesin sucked in his breath as the dog fell headlong down the massive, slanted wall. Halfway down, one of the stones jutted out and Gaff hit the outcrop, spun, yelped, and continued plunging down until she landed in a dry, brown bush.

Tinga began sobbing. “My doggie! My doggie! Get my doggie!”

Mother scooped her up and hugged her. “Are you all right? I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry.”

And down the hill, just then, they heard the blast of a war horn as the Picti began climbing the hillside for another assault upon the fortress. There was little time before the mount would be swarming with invaders intent on killing them.

Gaff began whimpering from below, and Taliesin knew what he had to do.

The first thing Arthur did when they arrived at the foot of the ruined hill fort was to find the fastest way up along the western side where the jut of land was more gently sloped. The Saxenow would pass through a valley on the east, exactly under the fort’s watchful eye.

Here, Arthur placed the archers under Culann’s leadership, instructing them to wait until the first supply wagon was ablaze, and then to fire on all within range of the cliff. Arthur then positioned his men in hiding around a ridge of land toward the south, a place where they could spy on the enemy ranks of warriors as they passed . . . until the slower supply wagons brought up the rear.

When the first Saxenow emerged from a forest track far away, Arthur whooped with excitement.

Dwin shushed him.

“They can’t hear me,” Arthur said, resentful at the rebuke.

“Best not to assume,” Dwin said.

“What . . . do the screaming, axe-wielding Saxenow have you worried?”

“Me? No. And you?”

“Of course. I’m not daft.”

Onward the Saxenow came, thousands upon thousands of foot soldiers. And they were all headed north to pluck the prize of Dinas Marl from the Britons like a sweet, damson plum is sucked from the pit.

Arthur’s anticipation built. Little did they know that he had reoccupied the fortress and lay in wait for them.

Soon, the companies of foot soldiers began to thin, and Arthur saw his true prize: the supply wagons lumbering forward, pulled by teams of draft horses and oxen.

“Wait until I give the word,” Arthur whispered back to the others, but Dwin nudged his arm.

“We can’t attack,” he said.

“What do you mean? The wagons are almost here.”

“Haven’t you noticed?”

“What?”

“The horsemen . . . they’re bringing up the rear.”

Arthur wanted to swear, as much for the fact that Dwin was right as that he had missed it. He had counted on the horsemen and chariots passing by first and being far away when they attacked the wagons. But he had forgotten in his excitement, and now he could see them emerge from the woods and come galloping forward, perhaps a thousand strong.

“Shall we call it off?” Dwin’s eyes looked hopeful.

“You mean retreat?”

“Yes.”

“I’m done retreating. The taste of death I left behind last night is still bitter.”

“But the archers won’t shoot until one of the wagons is on fire. You told them — ”

“Then I’ll just have to light one on fire myself.” Arthur rose, his legs poised to move.

“No! There are too many and they’ll catch you!”

“Then watch me get caught.”

Arthur mounted his horse and lit his two torches using their bronze box of live coals. Passing the box back to the others, he kicked his horse forward into a trot, and then a gallop.

“After him!” Dwin yelled.

They all lit their torches and rode out in a ragged line.

But Arthur felt only the wind in his hair and the thrill of challenging death. Life coursed through his veins, banishing the doubt and the waiting and the defeat of the preceding day. This was what he was made for.

“Come on, Hengist! Do your worst!” he yelled as the dry grass of the valley floor fell away beneath his horse’s hooves and the nearest wagon rose up before him. Riding by, he thrust the pine-resined torch into
the heart of the wagon’s supplies and then drew his sword. It only took moments to slay the drovers and then he was off to the next wagon.

War horns blasted through the valley, and the earth began to shake under the pounding of the thousand enemy horsemen approaching from the forest.

Soon he set another wagon ablaze, and his men had lit six more. But they wouldn’t make it if they didn’t ride forward into the protection of the archers.

“Forward!
”
he yelled and kicked his horse until it was galloping north. By the time they came to the area below the fortress, the archers had been raining down arrows long enough that most of the Saxenow were either dying or had fled the area. This gave Arthur and company a brief opening to increase their speed as their horses dashed before the oncoming storm. Unaware of the archers, the Saxenow horsemen stampeded after Arthur and his tiny band, and many perished beneath the sharp tip of a British arrow before they pinpointed the source of the threat and swung wide.

Breaking through the long thin line of straggling infantry took little effort, and soon Arthur and his men traversed a ridge of land straight for Dinas Marl.

And then came the chase . . . down into the broad valley, across the dry, grass-choked remains of what had been a stream, and then up again to the fortress. Only then did Arthur realize that Culann and the archers had never joined them. They had been instructed to ride away once Arthur and his men passed the fortress, so where had they gone?

Arthur turned and saw a small battle going on. A mass of Saxen horsemen had apparently taken a more westerly route, intercepting the archers, and Arthur saw flashes of red as the Britons and their mounts went down under the spears and axes of the Saxenow.

“Dear God Almighty,” Arthur prayed, “have mercy . . .” But there was none given that he could see, and Arthur ground his teeth at his own shortsightedness. Twenty men dead. If he had called off the attack instead of going ahead with it, then maybe . . .

The thunder of chariots cresting the nearest ridge put an end to Arthur’s second-guessing. With a shout, he urged his men forward to Dinas Marl, where they rode in just before the gate was shut.

And there was Merlin, standing alone beyond the guards, his white face and pursed lips accusing.

“Where are the archers?”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Arthur said, dismounting and throwing his reins to a nearby warrior.

“I asked a question . . . where are the archers? And where is Culann?”

“A moment of peace is all I ask,” Arthur said, and his words felt bitter on his tongue. He climbed a nearby ladder to the top of the wall, as much to get away from Merlin and his condemning eyes as anything, and looked out in hope he had been wrong. Had the archers survived? But he couldn’t see any among the mass of Saxen warriors approaching.

“Everyone to the wall!” Arthur called, and the men responded quickly, already having prepared for the oncoming assault by donning their armor.

Now that Arthur had escaped, the Saxenow took their time to organize themselves and prepare for the attack. And when it came, it began with Hengist approaching in his chariot and addressing Arthur.

“Artorius,” he called, waving a broad, short blade whose steel blazed in the sun. “Ye are a fool to haf come. Surrender de fortress, or I’ll see dat yer head is smashed an’ yer brains spilled out.”

Arthur laughed at the man, but it was a nervous sort of laugh, revealing more of his feelings than he wanted. Dwin stood on his left, but the spot on his right was empty. How could he face a siege, knowing that Culann might be out there on the field, dying, alone and without help? He was a brother in all but blood, and rich in counsel. Yet there was no going for him, not while this Saxen dog kept barking at him.

“Yer High King es dead. Why fight on?”

This gave Arthur an idea. Perhaps there was a way to shut the man up. He began to pace back and forth, all the while holding up a hand for Hengist to wait, and the Saxenow warrior did so until Arthur finally turned to speak.

“You say that my High King is dead, and this is true. Yet another High King stands before you, one uncrowned as of yet but a High King nevertheless. And not just any High King, but one whose forebears have never made peace with you, and one who never will.”

Hengist laughed. “Who is dis High King? All de lines haf failed and der is no such man. Or is der a Roman among ye who came across de sea? If so, den beware! De Picti killed one legion . . . we Men of de People killed three!”

Arthur laughed at this. “No, he is not from Rome.”

“Den let him step forth and do battle with me!” And at this he plucked a javelin from its basket and launched it at the wall in front of Arthur. It jabbed the wood between two staves, and stuck fast.

As the javelin vibrated in the wind, its sound reached upward, tilting the world strangely, and Arthur felt himself falling, floating. Hengist’s jeering face was replaced by another, that of a very ancient man with a long, curly white beard who stared into Arthur’s face with an unholy eagerness. A mottled fur of black and white lay over his shoulders, and under that he wore a shiny red tunic embroidered with white thread.

But Arthur felt small, young. Scared.

Was he remembering the past? His past?

And the world had become cold . . . so cold that Arthur’s fingers were turning blue, yet as Arthur looked down at his hands, they had changed from the rough, strong hands he relied upon and knew so well to the hands of a little boy, and there was a rope tied tightly around his wrists. He suddenly felt even smaller. Insignificant. Powerless.

All around people danced upon bloody snow, and a fear clutched at Arthur’s throat like a garrote, tightening, ever tightening.

The old man bent forward, and he held out a knife to Arthur as his glistening, yellowed eyes sized him up like a cut of meat.

The knife plunged into Arthur’s stomach and he screamed. The world flashed as pain pulsed upward and outward . . . until all his flesh was on fire, as if the edge of the knife had cut his very soul.

Yet there was Merlin, through the haze, running toward him. Fear and sorrow, agony and ache were all etched there upon his face. Yet Arthur saw something else too — an assurance of faith and hope.

And Merlin held the bowl, the shining, ghostly bowl before him, and all the world faded in comparison to the brilliance of that beautiful object.

Yet even the bright image of the bowl faded to black as Arthur felt his soul slip from his body like a grain of wheat is pushed out from a dry, lifeless husk. The pain disappeared, and Arthur looked down upon his small lifeless body. The blue lips of the child’s face had ceased quivering, for his lifeblood had been poured out upon the pagan altar from his torn abdomen.

Arthur’s soul flew, then, far away to the lands of the south, to another time, to another place where he felt again the fresh breeze of a marsh and heard the ethereal croak of frogs and the buzz of insects. And there before him stood the woman in the raven-feathered wrap. She looked toward him with the one eye that wasn’t covered by her long, black hair, and there was a beauty and inner strength about her that amazed him. Yet she was hiding something from him. Arthur longed to know what.

“Arthur,” she said, “please come . . . You know how to find me, for you have been shown the way in your dreams. I need you. I’m so alone here, so alone.”

She knelt then before a cairn of weathered, moss-encrusted stone, and she wept.