The Bwy Hir Complete Trilogy (71 page)

Racing through the grass came Gwrnach, Taliesin, Gruff and Llud; all carried a spear in their hands. ‘Ho Brother! We felt the spike of energy – what has happened? Were you attacked?’

‘It is true, Brothers!’ Celyn-Bach called back as they slowed their pace to meet him
. ‘Cwn Annwn stalk the night. We were harried by a pack of them just outside the Dell.’ He panted to catch his breath.

‘Nissyen?’ Glyn-Guinea began a panicked search, grabbing men by the shoulder to search their faces
. ‘Where is Elder Nissyen? Nissyen?’

‘He is not among us?’ Celyn-Bach stiffened.

‘He was right next to me, just as we reached you. He was right bloody there!’ He frantically pointed to his own shoulder. ‘We’ve got to go back!’ He grabbed at Celyn-Bach’s arm and began dragging him towards the Cerdd Carega.

‘We will go.’ Celyn-Bach stayed Glyn-Guinea’s pulling
. ‘My brothers and I go – you stay here.’ They filed past him and vanished as one.

Glyn-Guinea shooed the Druids and Chosen away from the huge stone and paced the clearing as he waited anxiously for their return; it took less than a minute. Celyn-Bach came first carrying a bundle of black cloth in his hands
. He moved immediately away to one side and lay down his burden.

‘Nissyen?’ Glyn-Guinea was the first to reach him. ‘Oh, bugger, Nissyen.’ He fell to his knees and clasped the bloody hand of his arch-enemy.

Nissyen’s scrawny neck poked through the top of his robes. His face was torn and bloody on one side, his eye swollen and closed, his breath coming in shallow rugged gasps as he clung on to Glyn-Guinea’s hand. ‘I fell over my staff.’ His reedy voice sounded ludicrously surprised. ‘Fell flat on my face!’ He tried to smile. ‘I tried to get up but there was a terrible pressure on my back.’ He coughed and a narrow trickle of blood spilled from the corner of his mouth. ‘Damn thing tore a chunk out of me!’ He tried to smile again but his whole body was wracked by tremors. ‘I’m too old and sinewy to be much of a meal, I don’t know what it was thinking!’

‘Shh now, Nissyen,’ Glyn-Guinea squeezed his hand
. ‘Help’s coming.’ He could see the lanterns bobbing in the cross, coming from the centre of the Dell.

Nissyen sighed
. ‘No … I can feel my strength ebbing … I am dying, and about time too.’

‘Stop talking bloody nonsense, you old fool. Who’s going to annoy the hell out of me if you decide to pop your clogs now?’ Glyn-Guinea could feel Nissyen’s hand slowly slipping from his and so he tightened his grip
. ‘Just hold on.’

Nissyen didn’t hold on. Before the Pride could reach him, before Elder
Tomas could reach out and reassure him, the light in his eyes faded, his chest stilled and his last breath escaped from his lips in a gentle release. He was gone.

‘Bugger it!’ Glyn-Guinea shouted at the sky
. ‘Damn it all to hell!’ He threw Nissyen’s hand away from him and pushed himself to his feet, the knees of his trousers were saturated in Nissyen’s blood and his eyes welled with tears as he stalked off away from the men gathered around Nissyen’s body in mute lament, away from the Pride who were moments from offering their aid, away from the Cerdd Carega as it flashed the return of the three Host. He needed air, he needed space, he needed somewhere to rile and wail at the wind. ‘Damn it!’ he yelled to the sky, ‘Bugger it all!’

Celyn-Bach witnessed Glyn-Guinea’s anguish
. His anger was palpable, his fury infectious. ‘Leave him be.’ His voice was rougher than he intended. ‘Let him curse the breeze if it brings him solace, Elder Tomas.’

He stood up as two of the Pride gently set down their lanterns and sank to their knees to tend to the body
. ‘He is gone,’ he announced as he wiped the blood from his hands although his shirt was already sodden. ‘Gwrnach, Tali, escort these men to the fire, see them fed and watered.’ They filed off one by one, morose and dejected.

‘The Dell is a place of peace.’ It was Olwyn’s voice that spoke as she gently placed a fold of Nissyen’s robes over his face
. ‘Yet, two have died here in violence the last fourteen seasons.’

‘And yet one has been born here too.’ Celyn-Bach’s words sounded empty to his own ears
. ‘Be consoled with that, Olwyn. There is always a light to repel the darkness.’ He strolled off in the direction Glyn-Guinea had taken.

Celyn-Bach followed the tell-tale trail of bent grass stalks as Glyn-Guinea’s staggered gait trailed off towards the t
hicket of hazels nestled against one of the many outcrops of rock formations that speckled the Dell. The moon was past its zenith and the sky was clear of clouds allowing the stars to twinkle and blaze in their inky black abode.

He could discern the shape of Glyn-Guinea s
itting slumped on a boulder, he could also smell the aroma of tobacco, see the tiny ball of orange glow that fluctuated in the bowl of the pipe as it was drawn and exhaled, drawn and exhaled. ‘Ho, Elder Chosen,’ he called, ‘may I approach?’

He took the silence that answered him as approval a
nd he moved towards him. ‘I am sorry for your loss.’

‘And sorry for the Druid’s gain?’ Glyn-Guinea huffed. ‘I would rather be dead-dead than dead-then-Helgi
– the whole damn thing makes my skin craw l… It is done? Has he changed already?’

Celyn-Bach took a moment to understand
. ‘Yes. Elder Nissyen is no more, he will have already become … He has begun his new life. He will be tethered until he can be taken by a Seeker to the kennels in Dduallt and commence his training.’

Glyn-Guinea shivered in spite of the clement breeze
. ‘Will he remember? Who he was? What he was?’

‘We do not think so.’ Celyn-Bach spoke softly
. ‘They seem to adapt very quickly to their new form.’

‘It’s bloody creepy.’ Glyn-Guinea drew on his pipe, the orange glow lit up his face for a moment to reveal his haunted expression. ‘I don’t want to see him. Not like h
e is now.’

‘Are you frightened he may recognise you and chew on your leg?’ He gave a lame chuckle
. ‘I noted you were not always the best of friends.’

Glyn-Guinea barked a laugh in spite of himself
. ‘At times, I could have wrung his scrawny neck for him.’ He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs. ‘But he always did what he thought was best and he was a clever old so-and-so. You didn’t get to his age without learning something and there’s the problem – we’ve lost everything that was in his head.’

‘None of us are immortal,’ Celyn-Bach
said, lifting his head to stare at the stars, ‘We all must perish.’

Glyn-Guinea joined in Celyn-Bach’s stargazing and together they sat in silence until a thought occurred to him
. ‘Those things that attacked us, they weren’t Helgi, they were sleeker, meaner. What are they?’

‘Cwn Annwn.’ Celyn-Bach dropped his head and came to sit beside Glyn-Guinea
. ‘When Arawn was alive – in his Bwy Hir form – he would roam the vales with a pack of hounds of his own creation. Vicious hunters, sly and intelligent, they would answer to no one but Arawn himself. They could also travel through Cerdd Carega and were said to roam in y Gwag as easily as they could this world … They did not follow us through this Cerdd Carega and whether that is because they are evil or whether they cannot roam as before, I do not know … Mayhap they are not Cwn Annwn at all … maybe they are offspring of Helgi …’

‘What?’ Glyn-Guinea had been carried away with the story until the last bit had brought him up short
. ‘Helgi are males, aren’t they? How can they have offspring?’

‘Helgi
were
only males.’ Celyn-Bach shrugged his shoulders. ‘But Cadno retrieved a male and female Helgi from Atgas … at least he said they were Atgas’ … I do not know what to believe anymore, but I saw them, both male and female. They were stolen by Arawn during his raid on Maen-Du.’

‘He took a mirror too, didn’t he?’ Glyn-Guinea pushed his pipe between his lips, puffed a few times and then realising it had gone out, he pulled it back out again with a sigh. ‘He’s got Helgi – or Cwn Annwn – Mirrors and Traitors, all he needs is a Bwy Hir body and we’re all buggered.’

Celyn-Bach tipped his head to one side. ‘Buggered? You use that word a lot, what does it mean?’

‘It means,’ re
plied Glyn-Guinea with a perplexed grin, ‘that … well … Bugger means … ah … um.’

‘Curse?’ Celyn-Bach interjected openly, ‘Is it like a curse?’

‘Exactly!’ Glyn-Guinea gave a small sigh of relief. ‘Well clarified!’

‘We should go.’ Celyn-Bach stood
. ‘The others will be waiting for us and I must report to Aeron.’ Glyn-Guinea tapped the bowl of his pipe on the boulder he was sitting on before slipping his pipe back into his waistcoat pocket and following Celyn-Bach towards the welcoming glow of the fire pit in the distance.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Night had once again fallen over the hills of Eryri. The Wraith Warriors were resting by the dark water’s edge, gathered around a flickering torch; its reflection shimmered and sparkled on the crest of the ripples that stirred the surface. Their thirst for blood had been sated by Atgas’ hand, but there was discord among them and whispers of discontent were passed from lip to lip: Arawn’s promise was yet to be fulfilled and he had arranged for Atgas to feed a new squad of Warriors that were due for arrival any moment. They were all displeased.

The largest of them; the one who had assumed leadership of their band listened to the grumblings with disinterest. Arawn had hinted that the prisoner’s body had been set aside for him and him alone. Arawn did not want Cadno’s body. Apparently he had set his sights on another, one that was “more to his suiting.” The Warrior smiled. Soon he would be Bwy Hir again; it was only a matter of time.

‘Look there!’ His attention was grasped by a warning call from one of his Warriors. ‘Look at the Ysbrydion!’

The leader turned his head and looked up into the underside of the lake. It was usual to see Ysbrydion lazily reeling through the water. Like the mirrors that hung in the Halls of the Druid, lakes were in themselves a mirror, a convergence where this world and y Gwag touched.

‘Could it be the arrival of the new squad?’ The
leader got to his feet to take a closer look. The Ysbrydion were frenzied, their usual leisurely soaring and wheeling had been replaced by slashing and darting through the currents, black and red flashes zigged and zagged through the water, agitated and angry. ‘Fetch Arawn.’

Atgas and Arawn were st
anding on a grassy knoll overlooking the lake. They waited side by side in front of the open Dderwydd Drych that would act as a beacon for new Warriors. They had been fed through the allotted Spirit Bowl and were now as the others; half-formed and able to fight their way towards the open mirror. Only the strongest would make it as far as the mirror, it was truly a fight for survival as hungry Ysbrydion would assail them from every side, keen to taste the blood that now coursed through their veins.

Arawn could hear his name been called but chose to ignore it, nothing would distract him from the arrival of his new Warriors. Atgas turned her head in the direction of the shouts and her eyes widened. ‘The Ysbrydion,’ she breathed, ‘something is wrong.’

Arawn turned towards the direction she was looking. The lake was afire with thrashing Ysbrydion. ‘What is happening?’ His voice was urgent, and anxious.

‘I do not know.’ She hitched up her skirts and ran towards the lake. ‘Something is wrong, something is upsetting them!’ She pushed past the Wraith Warrior as he trotted up to Arawn.

‘Where are the others?’ he barked, ‘Bring them to me. I need you armed and in y Gwag now!’ He sent the Warrior off with a rough shove. ‘To me!’ he bellowed, ‘Warriors to me!’

They came running, clutching their spears and hefting their war axes. ‘I need you to pass through and bring out the new squad – quickly now!’ The
leader gave a tight nod and half-stepped into the mirror before twisting sideways and then vanishing into the “in-between.” The others followed after him.

Arawn swung his head towards the lake, his huge antlers sweeping in a
wide arc. ‘Atgas!’ His shout echoed through the cavern. ‘What is happening?’

She was on her hands and knees at the lakes edge, cupping her hands into the water and lifting them to her mouth and taking a sip. She spat. ‘
Hallt
,’ she whispered incredulously, ‘salt. I can taste salt. Why?’ Her eyes darted left and right as she wracked her brain for an explanation. ‘How?’ Her hands shook. She did not understand but she knew the consequences were dire. ‘Call the Wraith Warriors back!’ she screamed as loud as she could, ‘Bring them back!’

Arawn felt the first worms of fear writhe in his belly. Something had gone wrong and his warriors were at risk. Seekers and Helgi began flooding the knoll as they heeded Atgas’ frantic cries. He grabbed a spear off the nearest Seeker and threw himself at the mirror, grabbing the frame as an anchor as he spun himself sideways and vanished into the milky mist.

Atgas scrambled up the incline, pushing past the gathered men to stand in front of the mirror. ‘He went in?’ she shrieked in panic. ‘He went into the mirror?’ Dumbfounded Seekers stood frozen in astonishment, Helgi whined and whimpered. ‘Well, don’t just stand there – go in after your king!’

They took a step back. ‘We cannot enter y Gwag.’ One Seeker shook his head
. ‘We would not pass
through
the mirror much less
into
it, my Lady, only death waits for us there. We must wait for his return and defend the cavern.’

‘Damn you all for cowards!’ she spat, ‘Damn you all for the weakling turncoats you are!’ Her eyes flashed as she loomed over them, waving her arms above their heads
. ‘Craven whelps! Hedge-born felons, every last one of you!’

A guttural roar from the mirror drowned her curses and she skittered away from the bloody hulk of Arawn’s back as he emerged from the mirror. He had been brutally set upon; his shirt was torn to shreds and beneath the tatters of cloth were deep scratches, welts and cuts covering his back and arms. In his hand he gripped his spear arcing it in huge sweeps in front of him in tandem to his huge antlers as he dipped his head and raged at the mirror.

Two Wraith Warriors came after him; the leader and one more, roaring and rampant they swung axe and spear fighting their foe that fled through the mirror after them. Ysbrydion flew from the mirrors and into the caverns. Some were no more than wisps, others had ghoulish faces and grabbing claw-like fingers that flexed and stretched as they whirled towards the cavern ceiling, keening, screeching and fighting amongst themselves as they came.

Seekers immediately opened their hands and shot over their heads at the sceptres. Helgi growled and barked, standing on their back legs and snapping their jaws as if to demonstrate their strength to the Ysbrydion. The Cwn Annwn howled and yelped as they threw themselves against the bars of their cage, eager to be part of the battle.

‘The others?’ Arawn roared.  The leader shook his head and pointed to the swirling mass of skirmishing Ysbrydion. ‘Force the mirror closed!’ A Seeker stepped forward and raised his hands and shot a ball of fire directly into the mirror’s fog. It boiled and hissed before the mists recoiled and the surface solidified into a mirror once more.

Arawn leaned over
, bracing his balance with his spear as he wretched onto the grass. The two remaining Wraith Warriors stood straight, breathing hard as blood trickled from open gashes along their opaque ruby skin. ‘Atgas, heal them.’ Arawn waved his hands toward his Warriors.

Atgas tore her eyes away from
the cavern ceiling. She was shaken to the core, she was also acutely aware that at least for the moment she was trapped there. There was no escape from these caverns.

With as much dignity as she could muster she brushed past the Seekers and sidestepped Arawn’s bloody form before clamping her hands on each of the Warriors, closing her eyes and allowing her power to flow into them. Some of the Seekers turned their heads away as the Warrior’s skin began to seal together with a sickening syrupy sound, locking the blood within their crimson bodies. Once it was complete Atgas wiped her hands on her skirts with a grimace.

‘Now me.’ Arawn ordered and she immediately obliged but for a second she thought about changing the flow of energy and destroying him in one hot flash of power. ‘Be careful, Atgas,’ he said, as if reading her mind, ‘Should anything happen to me, my Warriors have been instructed to kill you immediately.’ He smiled grimly. ‘And then you and I can spend an eternity in y Gwag together.’

Atgas
’ fingers trembled as she touched Arawn’s clammy flesh. Once she had finished Arawn’s cuts were no more than thin white lines and there was a renewed flush of vitality to his skin. Atgas stumbled and nearly fell to the floor with exhaustion but Arawn grabbed her arm in a vice like grip. ‘You have done well. Go and rest.’ She nodded mutely and he released his grip, allowing Atgas to stagger away into the depths of the cavern.

Arawn lifted his chin and looked to the cavern ceiling where the Ysbrydion spun and whirled in the haze of torch-smoke that clung to the ceiling. ‘They are of no use to us. They cannot take form on this side of y Gwag.’ He motioned to the Seekers
. ‘Destroy them. Send them back to y Gwag.’ He watched as one by one they hurled globs of fire into the air, shooting the Ysbrydion and delivering them back to y Gwag in a rain of fire, shrieking as they dissipated.

Arawn scowled
. ‘Salt.’ His mind drifted back to the moment he stepped from the mirror into y Gwag: Greyness. An emptiness. A vast nothingness. No day or night, no light or dark, just a misty greyness pressing in on all sides. Yet, even in y Gwag there are moments of occurrence – flashes of movement or beacons of temporary light to dispel the dearth. Voices. He heard the voices, he remembered always listening to the voices; snatches of conversations, echoes of words or muted whispers of names resonating into the vastness.

He had spent an eternity trapped in y Gwag, floating in the eternal fog, seething and smouldering with only his burning desire for vengeance to keep him company. Back then, the flashes of light - the sudden brief appearance of a blinding bright rectangular frame had roused little interest, nor the sudden streaks of blazing energy that used to sparkle like falling stars. It was his name being called that had first given him the flicker of consciousness. No louder than the gentlest sigh, the voice had called to him, over and over again and he had followed it until it had brought him to the tiniest flicker of light, so small it was barely discernible, but he had found it.

Atgas. With her soft words and brutal strength of will she had summoned him and he had answered … and he had grown. She fed him, worshipped him and roused him from oblivion. He had begun to take notice of the beacons, learned of the comings and goings through y Gwag and he had used that knowledge. With Atgas’ help he had taken form in the spirit world, he had become more than spirit. He had fought and won and reigned in y Gwag and there he had gathered the strongest spirits as his warriors and she in turn had fed and nourished them until they were strong enough to strike.

He reigned in y Gwag but he wanted the world of the living and she had helped. The gift of blood had been euphoric, the gift of power – the alien
Human harnessed power she had given him had been painful beyond belief but it had served him as a valuable weapon when he had broken free.

He looked down at his hand – no not his hand – Afagddu’s hand. He had lost the power moments after stepping into the living world. He had gained Derwydd y
n
tân
when he had taken over Afagddu’s body, but it was pitiful compared to the raw energy he had tasted which in comparison was nothing compared to the true power of the Bwy Hir. He craved for a Bwy Hir body. He wanted – yearned – to feel whole again, but above all he never, ever wanted to see y Gwag again. Just stepping in for no more than a matter of minutes had threatened to overwhelm him.

He roused himself from his musing and spoke to the
leader. ‘They have salted the mirrors.’ he said flatly, ‘A bitter combination … salt and blood … blood and salt. Y Gwag was in turmoil. The Ysbrydion fled from the salt, the stronger feeding on the blood, the weaker, purer souls cowering in the nothingness, hiding from the bedlam. The Druids do not know what they have done … or do they?’ He strode to the lake, plunged his hand into the water and tasted it. ‘Do they know what they have done?’ He dashed his hand against the water. ‘Halfwits or Polymaths?’ He kicked at the water. ‘They have salted the mirrors which means they have salted y Gwag which means they have salted their own lakes – ours included!

‘It will take time to ebb away
– the lakes will take weeks to be flushed clean!’ He began to pace up and down the shore line, ‘They deprive us of drinking water. They block our transit through y Gwag but they will not stop
me
for my coming is foretold!’ His voice boomed through the cavern.

‘
Y Ddraig ddyry cychwyn!
The
dragon shall rise again! It is foretold!’ A fervent light burned in Arawn’s eyes. “And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him until the thousand years were ended. After that he will rise again in great glory and the earth shall quake in his coming!” Spittle flew from his lips. ‘“Y Ddraig ddyry cychwyn!
Fi am y Ddraig!”
’ He punched his chest with balled fists as he yelled at the top of his lungs, ‘Fi am y Ddraig! I am the Dragon!’

Atgas stood in the shadows and watched in horror as Arawn screamed his insanities. She was trapped in a cavern with no way out, no drinking water and Arawn, who had finally succumbed to madness. She needed a way out. She looked over her shoulder to stare off into the darkness. She could see Cadno in the distance standing on his tiptoes in his prison
, ringed in candlelight. She tapped her bottom lip with a slender finger considering her options before she withdrew back into the shadows.