The Silver Hand Read online

  “It is Calbha!” I told him, pointing at the approaching rider with my staff. “His horse! Look at his horse! You have attacked a friend!”

  He swiveled in the saddle and looked where I pointed. “Clanna na cù!” he cried. “What is he doing here?”

  “Stop, Cynan!”

  Llew jerked the reins so hard his horse reared and nearly fell backward as it wheeled. Llew slapped the beast across the withers and sped to head off Cynan’s charge. Bran rode to meet him as he passed. Llew paused in his flight long enough to shout a word to the battle chief and then urged his mount to speed again. Bran shouted to Emyrm who began blowing the battle horn for all he was worth.

  I looked to where Cynan’s war band was charging after the fleeing enemy. I glimpsed a flash of red hair and my inner vision dissolved into darkness. I was abruptly blind once more, “Rhoedd!” I shouted. “Where are you?”

  “Here, lord,” came the reply close behind me.

  “Rhoedd, I cannot see! Look and tell me what is happening.”

  “But, I thought—”

  “Tell me, man! What is happening?” He hesitated. “Is Cynan still advancing?”

  “Yes, lord, still advancing. No—wait! They are stopping!”

  “Describe it, Rhoedd. Tell me everything as you did before.”

  “Cynan has raised himself in the saddle; he turns this way and that. He is shouting something; I see his mouth move. He seems to be ordering the war band. They are listening to him . . . and now . . . Lord Cynan is moving forward alone. He is riding to meet Llew, I think—yes.”

  “What of the enemy rider? The one on the piebald stallion—what is he doing?”

  “He has stopped. He sits his horse, waiting.”

  “What does he look like? Can you see?”

  “No, lord, he is too far away.”

  “What else?”

  “Now Llew and Cynan are coming together. Llew is making a sign of peace with his hand—he is signaling to his war band. The Galanae are halting, and Cynan is riding to meet Llew.”

  “What of Bran?”

  “The Ravens are turning aside,” Rhoedd answered after a moment. “They are riding to the fallen on the battleground.” He turned back to Llew and Cynan. “The lords have reached the place where the stranger waits.”

  “Take me to them,” I commanded, clutching his sleeve. “Hurry!”

  Rhoedd strode ahead, and I held tight to his siarc. “They are riding to meet the stranger. Cynan carries his spear upright. The stranger waits for them.”

  The ground sloped upward, climbing to the ridge. Rhoedd paused. “An enemy warrior, fallen.” He stopped to the body. “He is dead, lord.”

  We hurried on. I urged my guide to continue his description. “They are met. It seems that they are speaking to one another . . .”

  “Yes? . . . Rhoedd?” He stopped in his tracks. “What is happening? Tell me—”

  “I do not believe it, lord bard,” he replied, his voice sharp with disbelief.

  “Speak, man! What has happened?”

  “The two of them—they are . . . they—” he spluttered.

  “Yes? Yes?”

  “They extended their arms—they are embracing!”

  Relief unclenched my heart. “Come, Rhoedd. Hurry.”

  Llew and the stranger had dismounted and were talking together when we reached the place. “Here, Tegid,” Llew called, guiding me to him. I stepped toward the sound of his voice and felt his stump brush my arm at the elbow.

  “Hail, Calbha,” I said. “If we had but known it was you, we would have spared you a fight—and the lives of good men.”

  “Your words are bitter to me, Tegid Tathal—not the less because they are true. I own the blame; the blood debt is mine alone.” His remorse was genuine; he stood before us a stricken man. “I am sorry. Although I am a king without a realm or riches, on my honor, I will make redress by whatever means you deem acceptable.”

  “Calbha,” Llew said, “do not speak of redress. We have suffered no lasting hurt today.”

  Cynan spoke up. “We lost not a single man—none injured, even.”

  “Look to the solace of your people,” Llew told him. “You have borne the loss, and we are sorry for our part in it.”

  “Lord Calbha,” I said, “you are a very long way from home.”

  “I have no home,” he muttered darkly. “I have no lands, no realm, no kingdom. My lands are stolen; my realm is forfeit, my people driven out.” He paused, his voice cracking like a riven oak. “My queen . . . my wife is dead.”

  “Meldron attacked him,” Llew explained, although I had already guessed what must have happened.

  “Yes, Meldron attacked me—as he has attacked everyone else in Llogres,” the Cruin king explained. “We held out as long as we could, but his forces are better armed and their numbers greater. Many have joined him. Those he has not put to the sword have alliances forced upon them. We resisted for a time, but it was useless.”

  “How did you know to come here?” I asked.

  “We heard there was safe haven in the north, in Caledon.”

  “Then why did you come with the sword, man?” Cynan bawled in exasperation. “Mo anam!”

  Calbha’s answer was a groan. “Ahh . . . I was afraid . . . I acted rashly.”

  “Stupidly!” Rhoedd whispered. He had taken his place beside me.

  Bran joined us then, and Llew acknowledged him. “Eight dead,” the battle chief reported. “Six wounded—they are receiving aid now.”

  “The blood debt is mine alone,” Calbha muttered. “I am ashamed.”

  “How many are with you?” Llew asked.

  “Three hundred—not counting children.”

  “Three hundred!” Rhoedd repeated, astonished.

  “Are they with you now?” asked Llew.

  “Yes,” Calbha answered. “They are waiting in the forest.”

  “Gather them and bring them to the lake. We will receive them there.”

  “What are we going to do with so many?” Rhoedd wondered aloud. “Three hundred—”

  “Not Cruin only,” Calbha hastened to add. “We met others on the way: Addani and Mereridi. They were without a lord and had no protection. There are also Mawrthoni, Catrini, and Neifioni wandering in the hills . . . we have seen them.” He fell silent as the enormity of the calamity engulfed him. “All of Llogres is in upheaval—no man’s hearth remains secure.”

  The Banfáith’s prophecy came to mind: Llogres shall be without a lord, I mused to myself.

  “Mark me well.” Calbha spoke in somber tone. “When Meldron has finished with Llogres, he will turn to Caledon. There is no end to his battle lust. He means to rule all Albion.”

  So saying, the Cruin king remounted his horse and returned to the forest to summon his people. And the invasion of Dinas Dwr began.

  20

  GREAT HOUND OF HAVOC

  Calbha disappeared into the forest, and we returned to the lake to await the people’s arrival. Soon they were streaming from among the trees. They came by scores; tribes and clans and families, survivors of Meldron’s wanton depredations. Weary, travel-worn, exhausted, they came, dragging themselves miserably from hiding. But the setting sun lit their haggard faces and filled their eyes with light.

  “Rhoedd is right,” Bran remarked, watching the streams of refugees mingle to become a flood. “There are too many. How will we feed them?”

  “The forest is full of game,” Llew observed, “and the lake is full of fish. We will survive.”

  Cynan was not so certain. “They cannot stay here,” he complained. “No—let me speak. I have been thinking, and it is clear that we do not have the means to support them.”

  “I have already told Calbha that he can stay.” Llew replied.

  “Clanna na cù,” grumbled Cynan. “A day—two at most. Then they must move on. I do not like to say this, brother, but I will, because someone must: laudable your generosity may be, but it is also foolhardy.”

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p; “Finished?”

  “Man, I am telling you, if they stay we will starve. It is as simple as that.”

  “And if we starve,” Llew said firmly, “we will all starve together. Yes?”

  Cynan drew breath to speak. I could not see him, but I imagined him shaking his head, or running his big hands through his wild red hair in irritation.

  “It will be well, brother,” Llew told him. I heard the light clap of a hand on a shoulder. “This is why we have established this place. Three hundred! Think of all the work we can do with so many pairs of hands. Why, Dinas Dwr will rise overnight!”

  “If it does not sink under its own weight first,” Cynan muttered.

  Later, when we had settled the newcomers for the night—they were ranged in a score of camps along the lakeshore—we sat with a grimly silent Calbha and his bleak battle chiefs around the hearth on the crannog. We had retreated there to confer in peace without fear of being overheard. We ate bread and meat and passed the cups from hand to hand while we waited for Calbha to tell us the thing we most wanted to hear—that which pierced him to the marrow to say.

  The cup worked its quiet way, and at last Calbha’s tongue was loosened. He began to speak more easily, and we to edge him closer to the matter at hand.

  “Meldron has slaughtered the bards of Caledon and Llogres,” I said. “In this he has surpassed even Lord Nudd, who slew only those of Prydain.”

  “He meant to kill us as well,” Llew added. “As it is, I lost a hand to him, and Tegid lost his eyes.”

  “Meldron is mad,” groaned Calbha. “He seizes the land and steals the cattle; what he cannot carry off, he burns. He cuts a wide swathe of destruction, leaving only ashes in his wake. I have seen the heads of warriors piled high as my chin, and hands heaped high as my belt. I have seen children with their tongues cut out . . .” He grew angry and demanded: “What was their offense that they should be treated so?”

  There was no answer to be made, and we offered none, but sipped our beer and listened to the soft flutter of the flames before us. “Tell us what happened,” Llew said gently.

  Calbha took a last swallow from the cup, wiped his moustache on the sleeve of his siarc, and began. “They came at us without warning. I had men riding the circuit of the land, but they were killed, I think; none of them ever returned. I had posted sentries. On the day you left, I established a perpetual watch, or they would have overwhelmed us. As it is, I wish I had listened to you—if we had ridden against Meldron, as you suggested, we might have put an end to him before he grew so strong.”

  “How many warriors rode in his war band?” asked Bran.

  “There were two hundred on horses and three hundred on foot.” Calbha paused and, in a voice spiked with rancor, added, “Most of the horsemen were Rhewtani. They and their lord rode under Meldron’s command. I am sorry, but you asked.”

  “Where injustice is great,” Bran replied, “all men must shoulder a portion of dishonor. I know well the burden I bear.”

  One of Calbha’s lords said, “But do you know what it is to see your son battered to death beneath the hooves of charging Rhewtani warriors?” The man’s voice was a wound, ragged and bloody.

  “I am sorry,” Bran Bresal said gently.

  “We are all sorry,” Calbha grumbled. He drank again and then continued.

  “We defended the gate and walls through the day—I was not fool enough to meet them on the battleground. They had the strength of numbers, and I knew we had no hope against them on the field. But I thought we might hold them off. Our losses were light, we were well supplied, and they could not breach the walls no matter how many horses they had.

  “We resisted this way for three days, and could have held out far longer. But Meldron attacked some of the smaller holdings and made the people prisoners. He brought these hostages to Blár Cadlys and began killing them before the gates. Even so, he was not content to murder them outright.”

  His voice became a croak. “He caused iron axle rods to be heated to glowing heat in a great fire. He took the fiery rods and extinguished them in the flesh of the captives. Some he pierced through the throat; some through the belly. The screams . . . the screams . . . Do you know what it is to die this way? Have you any idea what it sounds like?”

  “What did you do then?” Llew asked gently.

  “What could I do?” the Cruin king asked. “I could not allow my people to suffer so. I ordered the attack. We might all be killed—I knew and rued it well—but would go down fighting.”

  Cynan commended the decision. “Better to die with honor like men, rather than allow yourselves to be slaughtered like beasts.”

  “No beast was ever slaughtered so shamefully,” Calbha declared. “And do not think he was content to torture men alone. Women and children suffered too.”

  “What did you do?” Llew asked.

  “We attacked,” spat one of Calbha’s battle chiefs. Mór Cù cut us down like saplings.”

  “Môr Cù?” Llew mused. “Why do you call him Great Hound?”

  “This Meldron is like a mad dog,” the man replied, “running over the land, devouring all in his path—a great hound of havoc.”

  “Our losses were heavy,” Calbha told us. “We could not stand against them—there were too many, and they meant to destroy us.”

  “How did you escape?”

  “Dusk came upon us; it grew too dark to fight. That was a mercy. So I gathered all who could walk or ride and, under cover of darkness, we fled.” Calbha paused; he was straining to keep his voice steady. “The Great Hound would not even allow us the dishonor of our escape. He pursued us through the night, hunting us by torchlight. They rode us down like animals and killed any who fell: the fortunate ones they stabbed with spears; the unfortunate were torn apart by dogs.”

  Calbha’s voice had shrunk to a dry whisper. “My wife, my best beloved . . . she was not one of the fortunate.”

  The wind stirred on the lake. I heard the wavelets lapping at the timbers of the crannog. My heart was heavy with grief for Calbha’s woe; it felt like a stone in my chest.

  It was long before the Cruin king spoke again. “I do not know how anyone endured the night,” he said, recovering some of his composure. “But by daybreak we straggled together and found that the Great Hound no longer pursued us. If he had not broken off pursuit, none of us would have survived.” He swallowed hard.

  “You came north,” Llew said, to keep him talking.

  “We came north. There was no safe place in Llogres anymore. But I thought if we could lose ourselves in the empty hills of Caledon, we might escape. We traveled by night to avoid Meldron’s scouts; we did this for many nights until we were well into Caledon. And by then we had found others—clans and tribes who had either escaped or had taken to the hills and glens rather than wait to be attacked and driven out.”

  When Calbha paused again, Llew asked, “How did you know to come here?”

  “The Catrini and some of the others had heard of a place in the north of Caledon where we might find refuge. We planned to search for it.”

  “Man, then why did you attack us?” Cynan demanded. There was some resentment in the question, but more curiosity. “If it was refuge you sought, you have a strange way of seeking it.”

  Calbha’s battle chiefs growled their disapproval of the question, considering it an affront to their king’s dignity and respect. But Calbha silenced them with a word. “It was my mistake, and I rue it,” he said. “I have dishonored myself and my people. Long will I bear the shame.” He straightened; his voice became grave. “I claim naud of you.”

  The claim of naud was the most serious appeal for pardon and absolution that could be made, and only a king could grant it. Llew answered him with appropriate delicacy. “I hear your claim and would freely grant it, but I am not a king that you should seek naud of me. It was a mistake, brother. No one here condemns you.”

  “Men of my clan—my kinsmen!—lie cold beneath the turf tonight!” Calbha snapped.
“The blood of those good men condemns me.”

  “Lord Calbha,” I said, “we promised peace to you and offered war instead. It is no less our mistake, and no less our failing.”

  The Cruin king took his time answering. “Thank you, Tegid Tathal,” he said at last, “but I know what I did. I saw the settlement here and I saw the horses, and I grew fearful of our reception. I was afraid and I attacked in fear. Nothing you say can change that.” He paused, and added, “I lost hope.”

  “You are here now,” Llew said. “It is over.”

  “It is over,” Calbha agreed mournfully. “I am no longer worthy to be king.”

  “Say not so, lord!” wailed one of the Cruin chieftains. “Who else could have led us to safety?”

  “Any coward would have served you there, Teirtu,” Calbha answered.

  “You are no coward, lord,” the man declared.

  “We are all cowards, Teirtu,” Calbha answered softly, “else Meldron could never have grown so strong. We gave him through fear what we should have protected through courage.”

  We slept under the stars that night—and for a good many nights thereafter. We were a long time building enough shelter for our growing clan. And we would grow. As Calbha had warned, there were homeless tribes wandering the hills. Albion was in ferment; men were moving on the land, seeking safety and solace. The clans of southern Caledon and Llogres were as sheep driven before the ravening Hound. I little doubted they would find their way to Dinas Dwr, the safe haven of the north.

  All that long Maffar, Season of Sun, they came. The Mawrthoni, Catrini, and Neifioni that Calbha had seen were first. Others followed: Dencani, Saranae, and Vynii from the southeast; Ffotlae and Marcanti from the fertile midlands; Iuchari from the eastern coast; and Goibnui, Taolentani, and Oirixeni from the high hills of northern Llogres.

  We questioned every tribe and clan that came to us, and listened to their mournful tales. Each tale was the same: Meldron, Great Hound of Havoc, raged through the land with murderous intent. Death and destruction rode with him, and desolation followed in his wake.