The Paradise War (40 page)

“What? Are you afraid to die?”

He gave a mirthless laugh. “Why speak of fear? We are dead already.”

“Then let us go to our graves like men.”

He observed me for a moment, trying to determine whether I meant what I said.

“Well?”

“What do you suggest?” he asked finally.

“Let us build a beacon fire,” I said, speaking out the first notion that sprang into my mind.

Tegid did not laugh in my face. Neither did he embrace the project. Instead, he grunted and returned to his dismal survey of the sodden ashes.

I pursued him, strengthening my resolve. “A beacon fire. Think of it, Tegid. If any are alive in the land, they will see it and come to us. If not, we will summon Foul Nudd and defy him to his wicked face. Let him come! He can but kill us. We are no worse off either way. What do you say?”

“I say you are a fool,” he grunted. Nevertheless, he slowly unfolded himself and stood. “But it is true, we cannot live like this.”

“Then you will help me?”

“I will help you,” he agreed. “And we will build the biggest beacon fire ever seen in Albion. Let come what may.”

With that, Tegid Tathal became as active as he had been lethargic. He threw the bridles and skins on the horses and pulled up the tether stakes while I wrapped some fish in a bit of cloth and kicked dirt over the fire. I called Twrch to me and mounted my horse, and, with the hound pup before me in a fold of my cloak, we started off.

“Where shall we build the fire?” I asked as we turned our horses onto the track.

“In Sycharth,” Tegid called back over his shoulder. “It is a high fortress. We will defy the enemy at the place of his most fierce destruction. The beacon will be seen from Llogres to Caledon! Any who see it will know that we did not go to our graves without a fight.”

The change in my gloomy companion was swift and complete. He had resigned himself to dying, and now raced to embrace death lest that, too, elude him.

I, for my part, was less eager to die. But I followed Tegid willingly, because I feared death less than empty, wasted life.

Upon reaching the ruin of Meldryn Mawr’s fortress—a more forlorn and desolate place I never want to see—we set about our task. Through the stench of rotting corpses, Tegid and I steeled ourselves to our work, gathering together whatever we could find and dragging it into a heap. Our hearts were as stone and our hands were unflinching.

“We will make of this once-splendid stronghold a pyre without equal,” Tegid said, through clenched teeth. “Our ashes will mingle with those of our people.”

Still, in the end, there was not enough dry fuel to kindle a decent pyre, let alone to make one. Almost everything that would burn had already been consumed by the flames that had destroyed the caer, and the rest was wet from the rain and snow. Tegid surveyed the sorry pile of wooden objects we had heaped together in the place where the Great King’s hall once stood. “There is not enough,” he said flatly. “We will have to go to the shipyard.”

We worked until well after dark, dragging the unburnt ends of timbers from the shipyard up to the caer. “There is still not enough,” Tegid declared, surveying the heap in the dying light.

“We will have to find more,” I agreed. “But that must wait for tomorrow.”

We did not sleep in the fortress. Having plundered their tomb and disturbed their rest, we did not care to intrude further on the unburied dead. So we camped by the river near the shipyards.

The next day we cut long birch poles for our horses and rode to the wooded hills across the marshes to gather dead wood and timber to add to our beacon. We worked quickly, despite the treacherous trackways through the marshes, a sullen rain, and the ceaseless wind that whipped at us in icy gusts. By day’s end we had amassed a sizable addition to our beacon pyre, but Tegid said it still was not enough. Exhausted, we curled up in our damp cloaks, slept, and rose to repeat the labors of the previous day.

Beneath a looming, leaden sky, we heaped brush, branches, and logs upon the slender birch poles and hauled them from the woods, across the watermarsh, and up the trackway to the caer. All day long, without food or rest. When I suggested stopping to water and rest the horses, Tegid only laughed and replied that soon we would obtain our fill of rest. He was certain that the beacon fire would do its work and the Lord Nudd would see us settled in our graves before the night was through.

But I became more determined than ever to fashion some plan of escape. My mind whirled; my thoughts ranged far and wide. As I lashed the last clumsy bundle of brushwood to the birch poles, I tried desperately to think of a way to forestall the lighting of the beacon. The last days, spent in the company of corpses, had brought a change in me. As I smelled, shifted, and stepped over the rotting dead, I came to understand something fundamental: I was alive, and I wanted to go on living. I did not want to be killed by Lord Nudd. I did not want to become yet another hideous, grinning, bloated lump of putrid flesh. I was not ready to die; I wanted to live.

As we splashed back across the marshland and floundered up the muddy track to the ruined caer, my mind raced, seizing one pretense after another to stay Tegid’s determined hand. Even as the last fitful light of day faded and Tegid held the wad of pitch-soaked cloth to the embers he had carefully conserved to start the fire, I still believed I would think of some way to prevent him lighting it.

I did not. Nothing came to me. Instead, I stood mutely by and watched as he blew gently on the blackened rag, touching an edge to the bright-glowing coals. As the first white wisps of smoke curled into the mean, dusky sky, I swallowed hard, believing that I saw my life spiraling upward in that slender thread of smoke. One gust of wind and the smoke scattered and dispersed. Thus would my life end when Lord Nudd appeared with his fell host of demon Coranyid.

Tegid’s cheeks puffed as he coaxed the tiny flame to sprout. An instant later it caught, and the rag blossomed into orange flame. Tegid raised the pitch-soaked cloth on the end of the stick and offered it to me. “Here, brother,” he said. “Will you light our pyre, or shall I?”

“You light it, Tegid,” I said, still trying to discover how I might prevent the beacon from catching fire and announcing our presence to the enemy.

And, even as the first bright flames began licking along the lower edges of the huge jumble of timber and brushwood, I still imagined that somehow I would think of something to rescue us . . . even as the flames passed from branch to branch, climbing through the tangled latticework of wood, I thought I would prevail . . . even as the larger logs sizzled, throwing off steam from the rain that had soaked them, I believed I would discover a way of salvation for us . . .

Even with the night full around us, and the flames leaping high into the black vault of heaven, I thought I would yet catch hold of that which had all day escaped my grasp.

And when I stood on the ruined rampart and gazed out on the night-dark plain below Sycharth and saw the kindled torches of mounted warriors racing toward the caer and knew that I saw death flying toward us and heard the dull thunder of their horses’ hooves drumming on the ground, even then, I still believed we would not die.

“See how swiftly our beacon summons them!” exulted Tegid. “Come, Lord Nudd! We defy you!”

Tegid’s voice was harsh and his face rigid with a strange excitement. He lofted the torch in his hand, waved it in a wild arc above his head, and jeered at the onrushing enemy. Picking up Twrch, I turned from the rampart and ran to retrieve my weapons. I tied the pup with the loose end of the horse’s tether. I unlaced the oiled skin and withdrew my sword, and then I pulled the covering from the honed head of my spear. I took up my shield and ran back to the place where Tegid stood.

“Take this,” I said, putting the spear into his hand. “Come, we will meet them at the gate.”

The gates were battered to splinters and burned, but the narrow passage of the trackway offered some protection. I did not know if demons fought like other warriors—or if they might pass through walls of stone to wound a mortal with a single deadly glance—still, I resolved that if strong metal could strike a blow against such a foe, any who raised hand against us would feel the bite of my blade. We took our places side by side, Tegid and I, and we watched the glimmering torches drawing near.

The flames hot on our backs, the blazing beacon casting our shadows long upon the track before us, the roar of the great fire loud in our ears, we watched and waited. I gripped the sword hilt easily, feeling its familiar weight fill my hand. Tegid stuck the burning brand into the bank and held the spear across his body, his face livid in the guttering firelight.

My thoughts were not on the death that awaited us, nor even with the burned and battered bodies of our kinsmen that littered the caer. My thoughts were on the length of sharp metal at the end of my arm and the practiced movements of the fight. This was my first real battle since becoming a warrior, and, though it would likely be my last, I welcomed it, eager to try my hard-won skills.

“Whatever happens,” Tegid cried above the beacon fire’s roar, “I count it an honor to die beside you.”

“There is no honor in death,” I said, repeating what Scatha told her students. “Rather let us count it an honor to send a few of the Coranyid back to the darkness of the hell they so richly deserve.”

“Well said, brother!” replied Tegid. “So be it!”

The first horses had reached the trackway at the base of the caer. I knew the enemy could see us silhouetted against the beacon fire at our backs. They hesitated. Circled.

I heard a sharp cry. Then the first of the warriors entered the narrow trackway and flew up the long ramp toward us. I lifted the blade and crouched behind my shield. I could not see my attacker, but followed the surging path of the torch in his hand. Even as the first demon warrior entered the trackway, another sprang up behind him, and another. The three came at us, one at a time, and the rest stayed behind—as if unwilling to chance the ruined walls which bounded the path leading up to the gates.

The first rider reached the crest of the hill. I dashed forward to the place where his horse would strain to gain the hilltop. There he would be momentarily unbalanced as he shifted his weight forward to keep us from sliding back over the rump of his mount. And there I would meet him with my blade.

Tegid saw what I intended and moved into position to take the second warrior before he could aid the first.

The blood rushed in my veins and my heart leapt, but my thoughts were cold and precise as my movements.

I was ready for the face of my foe, for the grotesque manifestation of my most loathsome imaginings. I was ready for the face of death in any of its most hideous revelations. But I was not ready for the sight that met my eyes as the enemy advanced into the glare of the beacon fire. One moment the demon was a shadow in motion; an instant later, he took flesh in the light.

Seeing the form of my attacker, I dropped my arm.

For I was prepared for any sight but that which met my eyes: Meldryn Mawr’s champion, Paladyr, the chief of battle I had met at the Great King’s court.

My hesitation almost cost me my life. For, as my swordpoint wavered, the warrior thrust at me with his spear. With a shout I jumped back. Paladyr’s spearpoint flashed. In the shattering firelight I saw his lips draw back in a snarl of rage. His mount, guided by the pressure of his master’s knees, turned and drove toward me, eyes wild, nostrils flaring, sharp hooves biting the earth.

I raised my shield to meet the blow. My blade came up under the shield, ready to flick out the instant the shield lifted clear. Even as I readied to strike, my mind was struggling to find the meaning of this strange turn of events: Paladyr. Here. Attacking me!

Was it Paladyr indeed? Or had a cunning demon taken the great warrior’s form to confound and defeat me?

Though the enemy before me might not be human, the rage in his eyes was real enough. Human or not, he meant to kill me. His spear shaft crashed against the iron rim of my shield. The shock shivered the bones in my arm, and my knees buckled. But I raised the sword and cleanly deflected the thrust which followed. The spear swung wide, and I saw the great man’s chest exposed.

In his rage, he had left himself vulnerable. I might easily have pierced his heart with the point of my sword. But I stayed my hand. This was no demon.

“Paladyr!” I shouted. “Hold!”

The fierce snarl of rage that curled his lips relaxed. In the fire glare I saw bewilderment softening those stony features. He glanced to either side and saw that Tegid and I fought alone. His eyes noted the ruin around him, exposed in the light of the beacon flare. His confusion deepened.

I called to Tegid. “Hold, Tegid! These are our kinsmen!”

Tegid left his attack on the second horseman and raced to my side. “Paladyr!” he cried. “Do you not know us, man?”

Recognition dawned in the huge warrior’s eyes. He raised a hand in salute, but the spearpoint remained leveled at our chests. “Tegid?” he said. “How come you to be here, brother?”

Tegid thrust his spear into the ground at his feet. The king’s champion threw down his spear in turn and called for the other warriors to put up their weapons. He dismounted and came to stand before us.

He glanced at the beacon fire and then at the ruined stronghold. He looked long upon it and was shaken by the sight. When at last he found his voice, he spoke. “What has happened here?”