The Pendragon's Challenge (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 7) (8 page)

Goronwy had one hand on the hilt of his sword and held Catrin’s hand in the other. “That may be, but we’re coming anyway.”

Taliesin put out a hand, blocking the descent of the others and said, “I will go first.”

With a blink of his eye, he lit the end of his staff again, and the little light illumined a few feet of space in front of him. He started down the steps, followed by Mabon, and then Goronwy and Catrin. The door into the crypt was easily pushed open, and a long tunnel stretched before them.

“Does it—does it have an ending?” Catrin said.

Taliesin didn’t bother answering, because she wouldn’t like his reply:
It does, and it doesn’t.

Goronwy pulled his sword from its sheath. “I don’t like this at all.”

“You aren’t meant to,” Taliesin said.

Chapter Eight

Rhiann

R
hiann arrived in the courtyard, her recent conversation with Cade ringing in her ears.

“With all that has happened, I’m still riding to Caer Fawr with you tonight? Why?”

Cade had given her a quizzical look. “Don’t you want to? Are you tired of my company already?”

Rhiann made a face. “Don’t be silly. Of course I want to come with you. I’m just surprised that you think it’s a good idea. It would be much more likely for you to want to send me somewhere else where I’ll be safe.”

 “I would be more of a fool than I actually am to think that any of us are safe anywhere else,” Cade said. “Even with the
sidhe
cutting themselves off from our world, we have plenty of mortal enemies—and who’s to say that Mabon is the only
sidhe
who walks among us?”

“Do you believe Mabon when he says he means us no ill?”

“I believe that—up to a point and only as far as it gives him rope to hang himself.”

Peada had already departed with his men, having eaten the evening meal in double time. Rhiann had climbed to the battlement to watch them pound down the road, ultimately turning northeast towards Chester, which was where he said he was going. Rhiann had never been to Chester. Before leaving Anglesey with Cade, she’d barely ever left Aberffraw, much less visited England. If she’d married Peada as her father had wanted, she might have ended up there anyway, even if she would have been a different person inside.

At Rhiann’s entrance, Angharad lifted her bag to show Rhiann that she’d brought it. “We’ve been settled for two months, but I’ve been ready for days to leave at a moment’s notice.” She lifted her chin to point to the crowded courtyard. It was the same organized chaos that always accompanied a departure from the castle. “Where are the others?”

“Goronwy and Catrin went off with Taliesin, and Hywel and Bedwyr are following Peada to Chester. If all goes well, they will ride afterwards to Caer Fawr. But Taliesin wanted us to leave, so we’ll head south tonight. The other lords will be gathering too.” Rhiann shivered slightly. “It feels all of a sudden as if we’ve sat on this mountaintop too long.”

Dafydd appeared in the doorway behind Rhiann. “It’s time.”

Angharad looked up at her husband. “How far is it to Chester?” She had never been to England either.

“Some twenty miles, a little more,” Dafydd said. “Hywel and Bedwyr will have no trouble.”

“We’ve ridden less far in more peril.” Rhiann shook her head. “Taliesin’s fears have spilled over to me. I can’t help feeling as if the danger we face is worse than anything we’ve seen so far.”

“Worse!” Angharad’s emerald eyes flashed. “I hope not. At least Penda is human.”

“Humans can be more inventive in their cruelty than the
sidhe
,” Rhiann pointed out.

Dafydd held out his hand to Angharad, and she took it. The pair had married within a few weeks of their victory at Caer Fawr. Some might have said they’d married in haste, but their friends agreed with them that life was too short to dawdle.

 Cade was riding with nearly the full complement of men he kept at Dinas Bran. He’d sent home most of the men who’d fought at Caer Fawr, knowing they needed to see to the spring planting and newborn lambs, but he kept a contingent of forty knights with him at all times and would leave only ten to garrison Dinas Bran.

Rhiann walked up to her husband and put a hand on his arm. “What’s wrong?”

Cade had been gazing pensively towards the keep. At her question, he blinked and looked down at her. “I’m trying to see the future.”

Despite the tension in the air, or maybe because of it, she laughed. “Taliesin couldn’t tell us exactly what is to come. Why do you think you should be able to?”

“It is a king’s duty to head off trouble before it starts.” He frowned. “I sent all of my seers off with Taliesin, and perhaps I shouldn’t have done that.”

Rhiann looked at him quizzically. “All your seers? You mean Catrin?”

“Goronwy is one too.” He gave a quick shake of his head. “I’m sorry I never told you, but he avoided speaking of it to anyone.”

Rhiann let out a breath of surprise. “I never even guessed.”

“I fear the trouble they might find on this path Taliesin has chosen.”

“The trouble started long before you were born. We may keep it at bay for a time, but we can only do the best we can with what we have been given.”

He smiled at her. “Accept what is before me and what I cannot change, is that it?” He gently boosted Rhiann onto her horse. She was still early enough into her pregnancy that it hardly showed, but they were both always conscious of the other heart beating inside her and their need to protect it.

“You said it, not me. I only meant that you didn’t create the problems before us. You inherited them.” Then Rhiann felt a gust of air on her cheek and turned into it. The weather rarely came from the north, especially at this time of year and at this hour of the night. Cade noted her concern and asked about it.

“I was just thinking that it’s an odd time for the wind to change direction.”

“Nothing about tonight feels as it should. Taliesin was right. We should get moving.” His hand on the hilt of his sword, as if the weapon would help against the storm that was coming, Cade ran to his own horse and mounted.

Dafydd was acting as Cade’s captain tonight, and all Cade’s men required was a jerk of Dafydd’s head to know that it was time to go. As they rode under the gatehouse, Cade tucked his horse in close to Rhiann’s, the pair of them third in the line of horses.

As they left the castle behind them, Rhiann gripped the reins tightly with both hands. “Something is wrong, Cade. Even I can feel it.” They were moving at a canter, which was a little fast for the terrain, but their speed brought them a third of the way down the mountain in a matter of a quarter-hour.

Cade reached out a hand and briefly squeezed her shoulder. “I know how you feel, but I don’t know what’s wrong—and believe me, I don’t like that I don’t know.”

Boom!

Every horse in the company staggered, and then the lead horse reared. The rider, Gruffydd, struggled for control even as he loosened his feet in the stirrups in preparation for jumping off. The horse didn’t give him the chance, however, and a heartbeat later, it took off down the road at a gallop.

It was only as her own horse bucked that Rhiann realized that the ground, as well as her horse, was shaking. Her elbow bumped into Cade’s as he leaned over to grasp her horse’s bridle. “Follow Gruffydd! Ride now!”

Dafydd, who’d been keeping to a position just in front of Cade, Angharad at his side, relayed the order. As one, the company charged after the spooked horse. It was actually easier to urge her horse into a gallop than it had been for Rhiann to try to control it. As it raced down the mountain, the horse spent as much time in the air as on the ground and, once in motion, Rhiann hardly noticed the shifting earth beneath its feet.

They kept going until they were almost to the village, at which point the road narrowed at the river crossing, and they were forced to slow. Normally Rhiann’s horse was as sedate as could be, but she continued to shake. The earth itself, however, had stopped. Cade ordered everyone to dismount on the near side of the bridge, and Rhiann and Angharad threw their arms around each other.

Angharad’s mane of red curls had come loose from its bindings and formed a halo around her head. “Is this Mabon’s doing?” She pressed down on her hair, trying to tame the loose strands.

Rhiann wanted to reassure her friend but couldn’t find the words. “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does.”

But Angharad’s attention had been drawn to the top of the mountain. Rhiann turned to look with her to where the castle loomed above them.

Or used to.

The familiar battlements had vanished, to be replaced by a pall of smoke that was visible against the risen moon and stars. Cade reached for Rhiann’s hand, and as he held it, she realized that her skin was as cold as his. By then, everyone was looking up, and such was the discipline of Cade’s men that nobody panicked, though a few scattered curses rebounded among them.

“We could have been inside that,” Rhiann said, putting into words what many were thinking. She glanced at her husband. “Taliesin’s prescience saved us.”

“It was actually Catrin’s,” Cade said.

One of Cade’s men, Aron, an older fellow with a thick, mostly gray beard approached. “What about those who remained behind? We should return to help them.”

“I fear for them as much as you, Aron. But I can tell you right now that I cannot return to the mountain top. Can’t you see that I, at least, am not wanted?”

“Cade—” Rhiann started to protest, but he spoke over her.

“It has become clear to me, if it wasn’t already, that my task lies elsewhere. We will roust the village—those who aren’t already awake—and send to the top of the mountain all who are able to help.” He clapped a hand on Aron’s shoulder. “Choose ten of our men to assist you.”

Aron swallowed hard. “Yes, my lord. What about you? Will you still ride to Caer Fawr as you planned?”

“Caer Fawr holds no answers for me this night.” Cade swung around to look north. Then he lifted his chin so his voice would carry to all the men. “We ride to Chester.”

Dafydd’s brows drew together, but he didn’t argue. None of the men did, so it was left to Rhiann to ask what they were all thinking, though she spoke softly so only her husband could hear her. “Is that wise, Cade? We would be escaping one danger only to embroil ourselves in another.”

Cade put his arm around her and pulled her close. “Earlier I spoke of Chester as the lion’s den. Now I’m wondering if it wasn’t Peada who walked into it instead. Perhaps I should be thanking the Mercians instead of cursing them.”

Rhiann wrapped her arms around her husband’s waist. “How could this happen? What made the mountain shake so?”

“I have spoken to you of the darkness there. I fear the
sidhe
are continuing to meddle in our affairs, regardless of what Arianrhod said to Taliesin.”

Rhiann nodded. If it was the darkness that had awakened, the message it was sending was clear: don’t come back.

Chapter Nine

Catrin

A
s the ground shook and shook, the hair on the back of Catrin’s neck stood straight up, and the chill running down her spine wasn’t just from the cold air that had pooled in the tunnel. She had hesitated so long in the doorway before starting after Taliesin that he and Mabon had gotten quite far ahead before she found the courage to put one foot in front of the other. Up ahead in the darkness, the sound of laughter came, cut off a moment later.

“That sounded like Mabon,” Goronwy said.

As the shaking abated, Catrin picked up the pace, only barely keeping the light of Taliesin’s staff in sight. She had stopped trying to pull her hand from Goronwy’s, because it only made him hold on tighter. Back at Dinas Bran, she had meant to walk away from him, only to find him asking to come on the journey too. While on one hand, she had no interest in leaving his side, on the other, it was a constant ache to be with him—a kind of torture, even, made worse by the fact that she was doing it to herself.

And then as they came around a corner, they both stopped, a gasp forming in Catrin’s throat, though the sound never reached her lips. Mabon and Taliesin stood before a doorway—or what seemed to be a doorway if doorways came four-feet wide, eight-feet tall, and ringed in purple light.

Mabon looked back at them. “What took you so long?”

Catrin stepped closer, and this time it was Goronwy who held back. By the time she realized how reluctant he was feeling, she was tugging him along. “Where does it lead to?”

“Nowhere good,” Goronwy said.

“It leads to neither good nor evil, any more than the human world is good or evil. It leads to a place that
is
.” Taliesin spoke straightforwardly, fully focused on what he was doing to create the doorway—or maybe simply to reveal it.

Mabon was practically bouncing up and down with excitement. “We’re going home!”

“Have you ever gone this way before, Taliesin?” Goronwy said.

Taliesin turned to look at the knight, and there was something in his eyes that made Catrin want to take a step back, though she didn’t since that would put her right into Goronwy. “Not recently. Not from here.” He tipped his head towards the door. “It’s ready.”

Mabon continued to gibber away, making chortling noises and rubbing his hands together in his excitement.

Catrin frowned at him. “Why are you so happy?”

“My family banished me to the human world, and here I am, going right back only a few hours later.”

“You do realize that you’re doing so as a human? That whatever you feel when you are there—whatever powers you have had in the past—you won’t have now?” Goronwy said.

The corners of Mabon’s mouth turned down, and he glared at Goronwy, though he didn’t argue with his conclusion. What Goronwy said was true. Instead he turned to Taliesin. “Does he have to come?”

“He does.” Taliesin grasped Goronwy’s left elbow in one hand and Mabon’s right with the other. Lifting his chin to point at Catrin, he said to Goronwy, “Hold on to her.”