The Pendragon's Challenge (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 7) (9 page)

Catrin felt herself grasped around the waist as Goronwy pulled her to his side with his right arm and gripped her upper left arm with his left hand.

“All together now.” Taliesin stuck out his left foot and held it in front of him.

It took a moment for Catrin to realize that he wanted everyone to step across the threshold at exactly the same moment. She put out her foot too and, after a brief sigh, so did Goronwy. Mabon, eyes alight, had no such trepidation and stuck out his foot as if he was a posed child’s doll.

Then Taliesin said, “We’ll step down on three … one—two—”

They each dropped a left foot over the threshold at the same instant, squeezing through the doorway as they did so. Catrin didn’t have to be warned by Taliesin that she didn’t want the purple light coming anywhere near her right shoulder.

And then they were through as if the journey had been of no more consequence than entering the gatehouse of Dinas Bran. They all continued walking, still hanging on to each other and bunched together, which was all Catrin wanted to do anyway because she couldn’t see anything at all. Immediately upon their entrance, the door disappeared, along with the purple light, to be replaced by a blackness so complete that Taliesin’s little light showed her nothing at all.

She didn’t know what she expected the Otherworld to look like—beautiful, certainly. She’d heard tales of Avalon where King Arthur, Cade’s heroic ancestor, resided. She’d always imagined a land of silver and gold, like the sun shining through a very thin layer of mist, which might be swept to away to reveal the greens and blues of Wales in mid-summer.

“Where are we, Taliesin?” she whispered.

“We are between worlds,” Mabon answered for him. His tone implied that this was exactly what he’d been expecting. Likely, it was, and even though it was Mabon who’d spoken, his serenity helped her to relax.

“Do you experience something like this each time you move between worlds?”

“Yes.”

Catrin couldn’t believe she was really having a conversation with Mabon, but it was he who’d answered, and he who had the answers. She still didn’t trust him at all, but in this, she believed that he knew what he was doing, maybe more than Taliesin did.

Goronwy continued to keep her pressed close against his side and, for once, his sense of humor had deserted him. He gave her waist a quick squeeze—in moral support she thought—and they continued walking. And walking. Finally, he asked. “Are you sure this is right, Taliesin? We’ve come at least a mile.”

“It only seems so.” Like Mabon’s, Taliesin’s tone was perfectly calm, and again Catrin took comfort in another’s certainty. “Almost there.”

“Almost where?” Goronwy muttered in Catrin’s ear, which drew a smile, as he meant it to.

And then the blackness was wiped away, like a blindfold suddenly pulled from a captive’s eyes. Catrin stopped, shocked by the sudden brightness that assaulted her senses. She blinked and then blinked again, trying to master the stars that popped and sparkled across her vision.

Goronwy had stopped with her, and he put a hand to his eyes and bent his head. “Give it a moment.”

Taliesin let go of Goronwy and Mabon and strode a few paces forward. When Catrin looked up, finally able to see, the bard was grinning from ear to ear. As Catrin’s vision cleared, she saw why: the Otherworld
was
beautiful. And oddly familiar. She spun on one heel; the countryside was one she recognized. They had come out to the west of Valle Crucis Abbey.

Except the abbey was gone. They were standing on a grass-covered hill, but one without the sheep droppings that would normally have marred it. There were no stone walls, no fences—no human constructions of any kind except Dinas Bran, whose mountain she would have recognized in her sleep. She shielded her eyes against the sun in order to see it better, and was about to tell Goronwy to look with her, when she realized that it wasn’t as they’d left it. At home, it was a bastion of Cade’s power, but in this world, it was a ruin. Pieces of wall and tower stuck up here and there, but the majority of the castle had come down.

Beside her, Goronwy growled his dismay. He’d let go of her upper arm, but he hadn’t taken his right arm from her waist, and now Catrin’s hand went to where his hand rested. She gripped it for a moment and, though he hesitated initially, after a heartbeat he interlaced his fingers with hers.

They both turned at the same time to speak of their concerns to Taliesin, but he was looking the other way and face-to-face with Mabon.

“What have you done? Why are we
here?
” Mabon was apoplectic.

“What’s wrong with here?” Taliesin said in that sunny way of his.

“It’s—it’s—” Mabon couldn’t get the words out, rendered speechless by whatever atrocity Taliesin had subjected them to.

“It’s where we needed to be. I’m sorry if you thought we were going to the High Court,” Taliesin said. “Surely you must realize that I could not take these two on such a road?”

“Gah!” Sounding as human as any of them, Mabon spun around and stomped away. Unfortunately for him, the grass was wet—from dew or recent rain, though the day was bright and the sky cloud-free—and on his third stomp his foot slipped out from under him. With a squish, he fell on his rear, leaving a long, muddy skid in the grass.

Catrin looked away, deciding that laughter would be inappropriate.

Goronwy showed self-restraint too, though his desire to mock the child-god must have been nearly overwhelming. But then he frowned, and there was no humor in his voice at all. “Taliesin, tell us truly. Where are we?”

Leaving Mabon to get to his feet on his own, Taliesin turned to look at them. “Where do you think
here
is, Goronwy? The Otherworld is what you make it, didn’t you know?”

Goronwy shook his head, hesitant for perhaps the first time in his life. “This is … what the Otherworld looks like to you?”

“Not to me. This must be one of you, since that castle on the hill wasn’t there the last time I was here. A reference point, I think.”

Catrin looked past him to Mabon. “What about him?”

Taliesin turned, eyebrows raised. “He is very disappointed. He was expecting something different.” He looked directly at Goronwy. “For Arthur, the Otherworld was a healing isle of peace and tranquility; for others, it is an endless Feast with bottomless pitchers of mead; for some, it is a fiery pit where they suffer for crimes that went unpunished in their mortal lives. The Otherworld becomes what those who pass into it need it—or imagine it—to be.”

“A place of power,” Goronwy said.

Taliesin snorted. “This is a place of power, as Mabon will soon discover.” He cocked his head. “We won’t tell him. Come.” Then he set off at a brisk pace down the hill, heading west away from Dinas Bran.

Goronwy and Catrin hustled after him, and Catrin didn’t even need to ask again where they were going, because they’d gone only a hundred yards before a castle—one of silver and gold like she’d imagined—appeared in the next valley where a moment before there’d been nothing but pastureland. The castle contained many doors and windows, but there was only one way into the keep from their current position, and that was through the front gate.

Behind them, Mabon laughed harshly. “You’d better know what you’re doing, Taliesin, to venture in there.”

Catrin had already started unthinkingly towards the castle, but at Mabon’s laugh, she stopped. The castle was calling to her, like a bard playing a lyre, drawing her towards it. She shuddered and found herself agreeing yet again with Mabon.

A smile was playing around Taliesin’s lips. “How quickly you forget that I didn’t invite any of you to come.”

Chapter Ten

Hywel

E
ver since Caer Fawr, Hywel and Bedwyr had taken it upon themselves to act as scouts for Cade, even if to some men’s eyes such duties were beneath knights. They didn’t care what others thought—and, even more, they didn’t trust anyone else to do as good a job.

“Cade and Dafydd should have sent Angharad and Rhiann away like I did Aderyn,” Bedwyr said in an undertone, though his eyes never left the front line of the Northumbrian force that had appeared out of the pre-dawn gloom, advancing south upon Chester. He and Hywel were crouched behind a stone wall that marked the border of a field. Their intent had been to stay well away from the Northumbrian army, but Hywel was thinking now that they had to get closer.

He didn’t mention that to Bedwyr yet, however, instead scoffing openly at Bedwyr’s comment. Numerous marriages had occurred in the aftermath of Caer Fawr—out of a general sense of jubilation or because it had been impressed upon everyone that the time for such things was now or it could be never. Aderyn had been one of the healers who’d tended the men after the battle. “Your wife rode to help Bronwen at the birth of her child. It had nothing to do with your command.”

Bedwyr grumbled under his breath, something about women knowing their own mind when they should be thinking of their husband’s wishes, but he didn’t mean it—any more than Cade might mean it if he’d been speaking of Rhiann. For Hywel’s part, while he was pleased with the happiness in Bedwyr’s face since he’d married, Caer Fawr had taught him quite the opposite lesson from everyone else: the last thing he wanted was to involve a woman in this life he was leading or bring a child into such a chaotic world.

“We need to warn the city,” Hywel said.

Bedwyr shook his head. “Believe me. They already know. What Penda will need from us is their numbers and disposition.”

“I don’t relish the idea of entering a city about to be under siege.”

“Nor I.” Bedwyr shrugged. “Our orders are clear: to scout the situation, but to leave the fighting to Penda. His is a lost cause, and Cade wants us at Caer Fawr. I want to be at Caer Fawr.”

For a moment the two men looked at each other, and then they nodded in unison, knowing that whatever they did, hurrying should be the first order of business. As one, they ran towards the woods to their right and then headed north, towards the Northumbrian army. The sun still hadn’t risen, but it was coming. When they reached the next rise, they crouched at the top, and the light was enough to begin to make out the Northumbrians’ numbers.

Bedwyr cursed under his breath. “This is only the leading edge.”

Hywel pointed with his chin to a line of men carrying a ladder. “They know that Chester isn’t defensible and don’t intend a siege. They’re going to go right over the walls.”

“We need to get back before the sun rises, and we’re caught,” Bedwyr said.

They skirted the army to the east and ran to where they’d left their horses. They’d approached the Northumbrian lines from the southeast and now followed a parallel track to the path the Northumbrians were forging across the fields and pastures to the northeast of Chester. Once the track intersected the main road, they urged their horses into a gallop, heading for the eastern entrance to the city.

But as they turned onto the Roman road, before they crossed the last few hundred yards to the city, Bedwyr pointed southwest. “That’s a sight that brings some cheer. Cade has come!”

Hywel shook his head in disbelief, even as he turned towards Gwynedd’s banners. Cade’s party was just crossing the bridge to the south of the city. “Cheering to us, but he said he wasn’t coming. I fear what has caused him to change his mind.”

“How is it that you’re so gloomy all of a sudden? We’ve faced worse odds than this and won.” Bedwyr directed his horse past the coliseum, along a minor road that would intersect with the south gate road. “After Cade’s crowning, I’ll be seeing about finding you a girl to bring a smile to your face.”

Hywel growled back at his friend, but even so, he felt his spirits lift. How could they not at the sight of the dragon standard streaming in the wind ahead of them? When they reached the crossroads, they pulled up to wait for Cade’s company, and the moment Cade was in earshot, Hywel said, “Northumbria comes.”

“We knew they would.” Cade reined in. “How many?”

“Two thousand,” Bedwyr said flatly.

“Too many to feed for long.” Cade’s jaw clenched as he gazed northeast, though from this position, even if the sun had risen, the Northumbrian soldiers wouldn’t yet be visible. The area around Chester as a whole was flat—far flatter than almost any region in Wales. That could be attributed in part to the winding of the River Dee. In fact, Chester’s west gate was a water landing for boats with trade goods traveling south from the sea on the Dee.

Hywel nodded his assent. “Oswin isn’t planning a siege.”

Rhiann’s attention had been drawn to the southern gatehouse where a dozen soldiers had gathered to look down upon them. “Taliesin is sure that Penda will die?”

“He is sure,” Cade said, “though he was clear that it wouldn’t be by Oswin’s hand today.”

Rhiann lifted her chin to indicate the city. “Will they have shelter for you?”

“I’m tempted to wear the mantle, just to confound my uncle and make him think I sent you without me, but that would be petty.” Cade looked beyond the city to the eastern sky, which was lightening in advance of the dawn. Then he looked the other way and canted his head. “It won’t matter soon if Penda does have shelter for me. Rain is coming.”

Because of Cade’s sensitivity to the sun, he was unusually attuned to the weather, though the storm clouds boiling on the western horizon would have been noticeable to everyone in another few moments.

 “Perhaps Rhiann is right, my lord. We have no idea what we’re getting into by riding in there.” Dafydd took his station as one of Cade’s captains very seriously.

“We don’t,” Cade agreed, “and I have no intention of staying. But my uncle and cousin are in there, along with all of their men, and even if they already know the size of the Northumbrian force, I might be the only one whose voice has the necessary weight to convince them to retreat.”

“Retreat?” Hywel said.

“You’re surprised?” Cade said. “You think I never saw a battle I didn’t love?”

“I didn’t say that,” Hywel said.

“The survival of Wales isn’t about pitched battles anymore. We’re holding back the Saxon tide, but it will roll right over us if we don’t choose our ground carefully, and this isn’t the ground on which to make a stand.” Cade looked around at his men. “We survived worse odds not long ago, I realize, but I think we need Penda to learn a Welsh lesson today.”