The Silver Hand Page 23

  This is what we had been waiting for. At a silent signal from Bran, Niall crept from the cover of the barley stalks and flitted across the narrow distance from the field to the nearest building, which was a granary. He paused briefly, and then disappeared around the corner of the storehouse. A moment later, he reappeared and motioned us forward.

  In groups of three or four we crossed the open ground between the field and the storehouse. The yard was empty, the horses gone; there were no warriors to be seen.

  Bran signaled again, and a heartbeat later we were bolting across the empty yard to the hall. A swift scramble around the wall brought us to the doorway of the hall. Bran and Niall were first, Llew and I among the last. We ducked around the near corner of the hall and collided with those who had gone ahead.

  They were standing flat-footed, staring at something.

  “What is it?” Llew said, pushing his way to the front of the throng. “Why have you stopped?”

  I followed at Llew’s back; he stepped beside Bran and, like all the others, froze in his tracks. I put out my hand and grasped his shoulder. He half-turned to me, his features twisted in revulsion.

  “Llew?”

  My inward sight shifted to the source of his distress: row upon row of spears driven half-down into the ground; and on the standing point of each spear the head of a young boy. Meldron had murdered the warrior-Mabinogi of Scatha’s school and spiked their heads before the hall in a hideous mockery of a warriors’ assembly. Crows had been at the heads, and hollow eye pits regarded us accusingly.

  Llew turned from the atrocity and moved toward the doorway. But Bran caught him by the arm and stayed him. He motioned for the Ravens to join him and darted into the hall, sword gripped tight in his hard hand, shield held high and ready.

  The Ravens followed on Bran’s heels, and others pressed through, storming into the hall as quickly as possible to confront those within.

  But Meldron was not there, and the two warriors he had left behind were quickly subdued—two swift spear thrusts silenced them. We then turned our attention to their prisoner.

  Lowering his spear, Llew knelt beside the naked body lying on the bloodstained hearth. “Boru?”

  To my surprise the apparent corpse opened its eyes; its lips framed a faint smile. “Llew . . .” The voice was in a husky rasp. “You came . . .”

  “He is still alive. Bring water,” I ordered, and Niall huried away.

  I knelt beside Llew as Bran began to cut the leather straps binding the man’s hands and feet. He had been bound and tortured. Long strips of flesh had been sliced from his stomach, thighs, and back. His hair was singed off where his head had been held in the flames. One side of his body was charred where it had been roasted at the hearth.

  “Boru—listen, if you can,” Llew said. “We do not have much time before Meldron returns. Where is Scatha?”

  The man struggled to speak but could not make the words heard. Niall returned with a cup of water. “Take the men outside and await us there,” Llew told him and turned his attention to Boru. Bran gently lifted Boru’s head and Llew tilted the cup. The unfortunate Boru swallowed some water, gagged, and choked. When the spasm passed, Bran lowered the head to the hearth once more.

  “Scatha . . . she—” He coughed and the cough became a gasp for breath.

  “Yes, Scatha,” Llew whispered. “Where is she, Boru?”

  “. . . I knew you would come back . . . ahh,” Boru smiled again, a rictus of agony. A black tongue poked out between the cracked lips. Llew wet his fingers and dripped water onto Boru’s tongue.

  “Where is Scatha? And her daughters? Boru, do you know where they are?”

  Boru fluttered leathery eyelids, and his tortured body convulsed. The paroxysm released him, and he sighed so deeply I thought his spirit had flown. But Llew held him yet a little longer. Placing his hand and wrist stump on either side of Boru’s face, he leaned close and said, “You are the only one who can help us now. Tell me, Boru: is Scatha alive?”

  The eyelids struggled open, the eyes fiercely bright. “Llew . . . you are here . . .”

  “Where is Scatha—and her daughters, Boru? Are they here? Are they alive?”

  Boru stiffened, tongue straining at the words. “The caves . . . the sea caves . . .” he rasped, and I think that voice came from beyond death, for even as Boru uttered the words his eyes clouded and his muscles slackened; he released his hold on life and it sped from him.

  “Go to your rest, brother,” Llew told him softly and lowered Boru’s burned and battered head gently to the hearthstone.

  “The sea caves,” Bran said. “Do you know them?”

  “Yes. There are caves on the west side of the island. We rode there sometimes.”

  “Is it far?”

  “No,” Llew said, “but we need horses if we are to reach the place before Meldron.”

  Bran made a quick inspection of the hall, returning ashen-faced.

  Llew looked at him. “What have you found?”

  By way of reply, the battle chief indicated that we were to follow him. He led us to Scatha’s chamber at the far end of that hall. Govan lay on the sheepskins of the bedplace, her mantle pushed to her hips. She had been raped; and, when her attackers tired of that sport, they had cut her throat. Her skin was white as the fleece beneath her, save her blood that had pooled and thickened. Her head was skewed sideways, glassy eyes staring upward.

  Llew groaned and sagged against me.

  “The body is cold,” Bran said softly. “She was dead before we came here.”

  Llew started forward. I gripped his arm and restrained him. “There is no time. Let us save the living if we can.”

  He shook his arm from my grasp, stepping to the bedplace. With a trembling hand he straightened Govan’s legs, first the right and then the left, and then pulled her mantle down to cover them. He folded her arms across her breast, gently straightened her head, and brushed his fingertips over her eyes to close them. He paused for a moment, looking down on her, and when he stepped away again, she appeared as if she might have been sleeping—but for the blood and the vicious slash below her chin.

  Without another word, he strode from the chamber and started toward the door of the hall. Bran caught him at the threshold. “One man would stand a better chance,” he pointed out. “I will go.”

  “You do not know where the caves are,” Llew said. “We will go together.” He turned to Niall, who stood waiting just outside. “Take the men back to the beach and wait for the ships. We will join you there.”

  “How will you join us?” I asked. Our ships, spears bristling from the decks, had sailed into the bay to draw Meldron’s warriors away from the hall. When the enemy arrived at the bay to challenge the spurious invasion, our ships were to continue on around the island; again, as if seeking a suitable landing place for warriors. Meldron, we hoped, would give chase, allowing us time to rescue the captives. Cynan’s force was to wait in hiding until the enemy withdrew and then they were to destroy Meldron’s ships. Their tasks accomplished, both forces were to return to the place where we had come ashore; there we would meet our ships which had completed the circuit of the island.

  It appeared now that Meldron would be drawn away from the bay, as we had planned—but in the same direction Llew must go to find Scatha and her daughters. We could not rescue them without being seen, and we could not risk being seen.

  “You cannot cross the island in daylight—it is too dangerous and the distance is too great.”

  “We have no other choice,” snapped Llew, moving out into the yard. He glanced to the bay and the smoke rising from the beach where Cynan had put Meldron’s fleet to the torch. “Unless Cynan can be stopped.”

  We ran to the cliffs above the bay. Six ships rode low the water, their sails aflame and their hulls stove in. Cynan and his men were gone; they had performed their duty and departed.

  “Too late,” Llew said. “We might have used one of those ships.”

  “Go t
o the caves and stay there. We will send a ship to you at dusk.”

  Bran and Llew left the bay at a run. I turned to the Ravens. “Niall, you will lead the men back to the cove to await the ships,” I told them. “And you—Garanaw, Emyr, Alun, and Drustwn—come with me.”

  Niall and the warriors departed, and the remaining Ravens accompanied me back to the hall. Garanaw and Drustwn lifted Boru’s battered corpse and I removed my cloak; I spread it on the floor and Emyr and Alun wrapped the body in it. While Garanaw and Drustwn carried Boru’s corpse from the hall, I led Emyr and Alun to Scatha’s chamber. We wrapped Govan in a fleece from the bedplace and followed Garanaw and Drustwn from the hall and back through the barley field. On the hill above the caer, the Ravens hacked a shallow grave in the earth with their swords. We laid the bodies side by side in the grave and quickly replaced the turf.

  I glanced toward the bay but could not see it from where we stood. Neither could I see anything of Meldron’s war host. I turned to the hills, dappled gray and green with cloud-shadow sliding over them; the movement would mask our own. With that last glimpse, blindness descended upon me once again and darkness quenched the image.

  We made our way back across the hills and down the cliffs to the rocky little cove where we had come ashore at dawn. We joined the rest of the war band and gathered on the shingle to wait. Drustwn found a dry rock on which to perch and we sat down together.

  “Cynan should have come by now,” Drustwn said, after a while. He rose to pace the strand impatiently.

  The wind held steady off the sea, and the waves surged and sighed on the rocks. We waited.

  Drustwn returned to stand over me. “Something has gone wrong,” he said. “They should have been here long ago.”

  At these words, an image came into my mind: a ship, passing slowly along the rock-bound coast. In the same instant a shout came from the strand: “A ship! A ship is coming!”

  Drustwn darted away. He ran a few steps up the shingle, returning at once. “It is one of Meldron’s,” he said.

  I tried to hold the image of the ship, but it faded before I could see more. The warriors on the beach raised a defiant clamor as the ship entered the cove, and readied themselves to fight. Taking up my staff, I rose and called Drustwn to me. “Tell me what you see,” I said.

  Even as I spoke, the furor from the strand turned from defiance to shouts of welcome. “It is Cynan!” someone called.

  “Yes! Yes, it is Cynan,” Drustwn confirmed. “He has taken one of Meldron’s ships.” There came another shout from the water’s edge as a second ship came into view. “Another ship! He has taken two!”

  “Board the men,” I told him. “Quickly! We may yet make good this rescue.”

  Drustwn ordered the men aboard, then took my arm and led me as we waded out to the nearest ship; he helped me climb over the side and called for the ship to head out to sea once more. Even as he swung himself over the side, the ships were being turned and poled into deeper water.

  Cynan met us. “Where is Llew?”

  “He has gone to find Scatha,” I answered and told him what we had found at the hall. There were boys of his own clan among the slaughtered of Scatha’s school.

  “I will kill Meldron,” Cynan vowed when I finished. “I will tear out his black heart with my hands.”

  “How did you fare at the bay?”

  “It could not have been better,” Cynan replied. “The ships were close in—eight of them; these were the best. We had but to wait until our own ships left the bay and Meldron had gone in pursuit. We broke open the hulls and set fire to the sails.” He slapped the rail with his hand. “All except these two. They are larger and faster than any of ours. I could not resist taking them.”

  “It is well,” I said, and told him where Llew and Bran had gone.

  At this, Cynan whirled and shouted orders to the helmsman to make for the western side of the island. “The Great Hound has swallowed the bait,” he said, turning back to me. “It may be that in his haste to catch the ships he will not look behind him.”

  “And if he does?”

  “Well,” Cynan allowed slyly, “he will see but two of his own ships giving chase to the invaders. By the time he realizes that he ordered no pursuit, we will be out of his reach.”

  If the short voyage along the coast to the bay below Scatha’s caer seemed long, the journey from the bay to the west side of Ynys Sci seemed everlasting. With every passing moment, my anxiety mounted. The closer we came, the more disturbed I grew. I sent my thoughts ranging far and wide that I might discover what disturbed me so. But nothing came to me, and I lapsed more deeply into a brooding apprehension.

  Drustwn’s shout brought me sharply to myself once more. “There! I see them! Here!” he shouted from the rail. “Llew! Bran! Here!”

  At the Raven’s call, the darkness faded and my inward sight returned. Clutching one of the mast ropes, Drustwn stood upon the rail, frantically waving his free hand. I turned sightless eyes toward the land and scanned the shoreline.

  The sea crags were ragged with tumbled, jagged rock, and puckered with treacherous coves. Several of these were little more than holes in the rock, others held caves large enough to hide a boat. Floundering toward us through waist-deep water came Llew with Goewyn in his arms. Bran followed in his wake with Scatha close behind.

  A cheer rose from the throats of those gathered at the rail. But the cheers died in the air, for on the cliff above the struggling figures there appeared a line of enemy warriors. Instantly, fifty or more began descending the rocks while those on the sea cliff above hurled spears at the figures fleeing through the surf.

  “Closer!” cried Cynan. The helmsman made some reply that I did not catch. Cynan disregarded him. “Closer!” he shouted, pounding the rail with his fists.

  Spears flashed down from the clifftops, plunging into the sea. Cynan leaned over the rail as far as he could and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Swim!” he shouted, his voice booming across the water. “Swim for it!”

  Spears fell from on high, arcing through the air, striking the surface of the water, falling all around. And now the first of the enemy had reached the strand and plunged into the water in headlong pursuit.

  The warriors aboard ship began shouting encouragement to Llew and Bran. Llew, with Goewyn clasped to him, stumbled and went down, drenching them both. He rose again at once, renewed his hold on Goewyn, and lunged on.

  “They will never make it!” shouted Cynan, his face red, big hands smacking the rail.

  The words were hardly spoken when the ship lurched to one side with a hollow thump. The keel had struck a rock. Men leapt to the rail with long pikes and began pushing, fighting to hold the ship away from the rock. At the first hint of this trouble, shouts rang from the clifftops. Some of the more impulsive foemen loosed their spears on us. The missiles fell short, but not by much.

  Cynan threw a leg over the rail and leapt into the water. The Ravens dived into the waves behind him, and others of his war band followed. The first met Llew and helped him to carry Goewyn to the ship. The rest followed Cynan to meet the foemen splashing toward them. Bran saw his men coming to him, turned, and sent Scatha on to the ship.

  Llew and Niall reached the ship and lifted Goewyn to the rail; she was quickly hauled aboard. Llew followed. I hurried to the place where Llew knelt beside her.

  Goewyn was only half-conscious. She lay in a sodden heap against the hull, her breath coming in quick, shallow gasps. One side of her face was swollen and discolored; there were red welts on her throat, and her arms and the palms of her hands were raked with scratches, as if she had fought her way through gorse.

  Scatha reached the ship, raised her arms to the men waiting to receive her, and was lifted aboard. Her hands and arms were scratched as well, but I could discern no other damage. She knelt beside Llew. Someone offered a cloak which she unfolded and put over Goewyn. “Go now. I will tend her,” she told Llew.

  He stood and turned to me. Before he cou
ld speak there came a loud, angry blare of the carynx from the cliffs above. “It is Meldron!” someone shouted. He had seen the ships and had broken off his pursuit of the invaders to return here. One quick look told him everything. The battle horn sounded again and hundreds of warriors joined their swordbrothers swarming down the rocks.

  “Get this ship turned!” Llew shouted.

  The men strained against the poles and the prow swung slowly away from the cove.

  Cynan and the Ravens engaged the foemen. Swords slashed, spears thrust, and the weapon clash sounded sharp among the rocks. Images wheeled before my inner eye: sunlight flashing on shield boss and sword blade; red blood staining the sea-green water; bodies floating, the swell tugging at lifeless limbs, white-frothed waves surging around the legs of the combatants . . .

  The foemen raged on the clifftops. White gulls shrieked as they whirled in the blue air. Niall called the warriors to break off the attack. At once Emyr sounded the carynx, and Cynan raised his sword and turned back to the ship. A few moments later, the men aboard were leaning over the rails and pulling their kinsmen from the sea.

  My inward vision flared with the image of a man on horseback, seething with black rage: Meldron—furious at seeing his ships stolen, grinding his teeth in frustration at having been tricked and seeing his enemies make good their escape.

  And I saw something else—Siawn Hy, sitting easily in the saddle. He, like Meldron, was watching our ships withdrawing beyond their reach. But unlike Meldron, he was not angry; he was smiling. And the smile he wore was cruelly cold and brutal beyond belief. I saw him lean forward and speak a word to Meldron, who turned to regard Siawn closely.

  The serpent Siawn spoke again, and Meldron’s countenance lightened. He swiveled in the saddle and called something to his war band. When he turned back, Meldron’s scowl of anger was gone and his features were calm once more; a cunning light gleamed in his narrow eyes.

  And from out of the war band emerged a rider: broad-shouldered and tall on the saddle. On his head he wore a bronze war cap; his shield was long, his sword naked against his thigh. Even before I saw his face I knew the man—I would have known him by the way he sat his horse.