Shadowland (19 page)

Uther’s voice came as a whisper through the gloom.
‘You had another dream, didn’t you?’

Cal
turned his head. He
couldn’t actually see Uther’s face, but he heard the concern in his voice, and
could imagine the worried frown on his friend’s face.

‘It’s so real. As real as… as anything else is
that’s happened to us lately, Usher… sorry… Uther.’ There was silence for a
moment before he continued. ‘That’s another thing I can’t get used to either.’
He gave a great sigh. ‘When did our lives suddenly become so complicated? You’re
Usher from the village, not… ’ He left the sentence unfinished as tears began
to sting his eyes.

Around them, Ambrosius and the six others continued
to sleep, the sounds of snoring and coughing coming from more than one of them.
Chill, rainy weather had brought its share of coughs and colds, and any warrior
without a runny nose or touch of fever was the rare exception.

‘When I dream, it’s
real
,’ continued Cal,
lowering his voice. ‘It’s not like a normal dream; I’m actually there. The
wolves are in the woods, near where we were riding today. They were watching us
as we rode past, I know they were.’

‘What are they waiting for?’ Uther asked. Then
throwing back his furs, he scuttled across to the embers of the fire, dropped
on a few sticks, and bent down to blow life into them, coaxing the damp wood
into producing a flame. It flared, lighting up his face and sending shadows
dancing about the cold roundhouse. After feeding it some larger pieces, he
crept back to his bed, still waiting for Cal
to respond.

‘I’ve tried to keep them out of my dreams, but it’s
getting harder and harder,’ said Cal.
He sat up, leaning upon one elbow, and stared into Uther’s eyes, seeking some
sign that his friend either understood him, or was about to dismiss the whole
notion as another nightmare. ‘I can run with them in my dreams, Uther. They’re
waiting for me to lead them, to take them on the hunt.’

‘Then lead them, Cal.’ Uther reached over and placed a hand
upon his friend’s arm. ‘This whole experience is beyond anything we could ever
call normal. I think we have to follow wherever fate and the spirits lead us.
We have little choice at the moment.’ The fire suddenly crackled and spat as
someone dropped a log onto it. The man, still half-asleep, didn’t look over at
them, but Cal
lay back down and tried to find a more peace-filled sleep, his mind still
unsure where the divide really lay between dreams and reality.

****

Meryn
had been in the camp of the Britons for five days, living alongside Samel and
his men and spending much of his time brooding over the misfortunes that had
befallen him since leaving the druid’s well.

When they first arrived, there had been rumours
around camp that the younger brother of Ambrosius had recently ridden in.
However, it hadn’t once dawned upon Meryn that this young prince, the boy, who,
so the rumours claimed, had escaped capture as several hundred Saxon and Pict
warriors scoured the country trying to find him, was one of the two boys he had
also been searching for. With nearly three thousand men, women and children in
the camp, and the number growing daily, there was little wonder the two hadn’t
crossed paths yet, but of course, it was only a matter of time.

The day began the same as the others since arriving.
Meryn was training alongside Samel, the pair passing on their skills to some of
the younger warriors who had arrived with ample bluster, yet little in the way
of experience or training.

‘Go on, hit him!’ shouted Meryn. ‘He’s only a little
runt of a fellow. Surely, a great hulking brute of a lad like you can beat a little
red-haired mouse like him?’

Each time Meryn goaded the boy on, Samel glared
across at him. Meryn knew that Samel hated any attention drawn to his size, and
that he was dangerously close to being the target of the Iceni warrior’s axe.
However, the taunts were pushing the loud-mouthed youth into making several
mistakes, which of course was good for Samel, and, he reasoned
,
for the lad’s training. Better to
learn here than the battlefield. He wasn’t much more than a boy, and had twice
suffered the consequences of a botched attack. With the first, he had received
a kick to his stomach, and now the flat of Samel’s axe to his backside had just
sent him sprawling in the mud. The young warrior rose on this second occasion,
humiliated, angry, and caked in mud. Meryn watched as the boy began circling,
sweeping his sword from left to right, cutting the air with a blur of cold
steel, biding his time rather than rushing in for once.

‘Don’t listen to him, boy;’ growled Samel, ‘all he
can ever do is pluck that bow and flap his lips about facing an enemy. Archers
are a cowardly bunch, hiding behind the real fighting warriors like you and me
as we face our enemies blade to blade.’ The boy was learning, but, between them,
the training bout had progressed to something far more serious, and the lad
looked to have murder on his mind.

‘Remember, boy, we’re only training. Don’t do
anything foolish. Nobody wants to get seriously hurt here, let’s save that for
the Saxons and stand down, eh?’ But the young warrior wasn’t listening. With
shouts, and cheers of encouragement from his watching friends, he leapt forward
and delivered a hefty strike toward Samel that would have taken the head from a
lesser man. As he ducked beneath the whistling blade, Samel decided enough was
enough, leapt forward, and drove his axe in a sweeping arc that sliced into the
boy’s leg, dropping him to the mud with a howl of agony.

When Samel stepped back, ready to defend himself
lest the boy’s friends jumped him, Meryn dashed forward, reaching the fallen
fighter before anyone else. A quick examination proved Samel’s aim to be true,
it was merely a flesh wound, just enough to stop the boy and, hopefully, to
bring him to his senses.

‘’
Tis
a tiny scratch and
nothing more,’ commented Samel, as he pushed past the circle of onlookers. He
held out his hand and the young warrior hesitated, just for a moment before
taking it, and they clasped forearms as warrior brothers.

‘You’re a fine fighting man, my young friend,’
growled Samel, as the youth struggled to his feet. ‘We’ll knock a few more of
those rough edges from you, and then I’ll be happy to have you at my side when
we meet the Saxons.’ With that, he strode away, a giant of a man, even if he
was only chest height to most.

Meryn bid the injured boy sit again and then,
selecting several herbs from his pouch, prepared a mixture with a little water
and rubbed the paste into the wound, his patient stifling a cry as he did so.
That done, he pinched the two sides together and placed a large green leaf around
it then bound it tightly with a strip of twisted bark.

Once
he had finished, he helped the fallen warrior back to his feet as the cry of;
‘Ambrosius!’ was taken up
by several around him. Men, women and several groups of children all surged
forward pushing him along with them. Meryn tried to see where they were heading
and glimpsed the tall figure of their king making his way through the ranks of
training warriors, a huge grey battle-hound not far from his side.

This was the first time Meryn had seen Ambrosius so
close and he was impressed. The young king was a striking figure; a strong,
tanned face framed by long, unkempt hair, he was wearing armour that shone
above the gloom of the day. He was talking to a band of warriors dressed in the
clan colours of the southern
Dumnonii
, greeting them
as old friends. After a few moments, he walked on, stopping to talk to others,
before encouraging them to continue in their practice and offering advice.

It was then that Meryn noticed that two of the group
following in the trail of Ambrosius appeared somewhat familiar. He began
pushing his way closer through the crowd of warriors; his stride lengthening as
he realised it really was them.

‘Usher… Cal?’
There was a lot of noise from the crowding warriors around them and it took
Meryn several attempts before Cal
heard his name being called and glanced over his way. He saw Cal’s face light up in a big grin and then
tug on Usher’s arm, pulling him round until he too saw Meryn. They hurried
across, shouting greetings as they came, and hugged him, clearly delighted to
see him after being parted for so many days. Unfortunately, the first question
from Cal’s
lips immediately sobered Meryn, bringing him back to the truth of his
inadequacy as a guide and protector.

‘Meryn, thank the spirits you’re safe. Where’s
Clarise?’

Meryn stared into Cal’s eyes then glanced across at Usher. He
saw the smiles slide from their faces, and felt his heart drop with them.

‘Meryn? Where is she? Where’s Clarise? She was with
you, wasn’t she?’ Cal
reached out and grabbed the old archer’s arm, desperately searching his face
for answers.

‘She’s with the druids, boy,’ said Meryn, his voice
little more than a whisper. ‘She helped me escape from the Picts, I don’t quite
know how she got free, but she did, and then cut my bonds, but then she was
gone.’

‘Gone? What do you mean gone? She’s eight years old,
she’s not allowed to just go!’

‘Steady, Cal. Let’s give Meryn a chance to tell us
what happened, shall we?’ Uther drew the trembling Cal away and Meryn followed as they strode
in silence along the muddy walkways of the camp to the roundhouse, ignoring
everything else around them.

Pushing through the door-flap, Cal dropped down in the darkness by the
central fire, and stared up at Meryn, waiting for some kind of explanation.
Uther sat down next to him and began feeding wood into the flames while Meryn
gathered himself, ready to try and explain what he had gone through. When he
did start speaking, it all came out in a rush as he confessed everything that
had happened and all the mistakes he had made since they parted. He told how
the Picts had captured them as they fled through the fog, and of how Clarise
had managed to cut the rope binding his hands, only to have completely
disappeared when he finally freed his legs moments later.

‘Last thing she said was that she was all right, and
I was to tell you she’d see you soon. Then, after I’d gotten my feet free, I
glanced up, and she was gone... vanished. I spent days combing through the
forest, searching for some sign of her, but found nothing more than a single
footprint, and that might not have been hers.’ He went on to tell them of the
birthing and as Ambrosius stepped into the roundhouse, he had just finished
telling of his meeting with Samel and the others.
Meryn fell to his knees before his king, only to be
drawn to his feet a moment later by a smiling Ambrosius.

‘I
thank you for your support,’ said Ambrosius, ‘and if you are the archer my
brother has told me so much about, then you are most welcome at my hearth.’
Meryn nodded and told how he had met Uther and Cal, and then of his recent
journey in the Weald. Once he had done, he lapsed into a sullen silence as
Uther took his turn to tell Meryn of their escape from the Saxons and of their
fortuitous meeting with Ambrosius.

Ambrosius
had arrived with four others, and as they became comfortable about the fire, Uther
soon had them all captivated with his description of the Roman Villa and their
narrow escape from Horsa. As the tale unfolded, Meryn felt his grim expression,
turn
to one of
surprise when he heard how Usher had discovered he was actually
named Uther, was the brother to Ambrosius, and how
they had been parted as children to secure the line.
 

The talk continued long after daylight had faded into
night. They cooked a meal of venison and barley porridge and the conversation
turned to war, plans for the future and the parts each would play in the coming
days.

Ambrosius spoke of the tribes that were still
sending in their warriors and how they continued to be frustrated by the lack
of any real information about Vortigern and the Saxons.

‘I have some of my most trusted people visiting the
tribes, spreading the news that we’re building a united fighting force to meet
the Saxon threat, and as you know, our ranks continue to grow. Others are out
trying to find something of what Vortigern and the Saxons are planning.
However, so far anyway, none have returned with any real information beyond
that Saxon boats continue to land. We suspect that our enemies are gathered at
Dinas
Emrys
. It’s Vortigern’s
stronghold in the mountains of
Cymru
, about ten days’
march from here. Until we know more, we can only stay here and continue to
gather strength.’

‘Well, my path is clear at least,’ said Meryn. ‘I
spent many days on Clarise’s trail and I aim to continue until I find her.’ He
placed a hand on Cal’s
shoulder. ‘You two are in good company here. You found the man the druid sent
us searching for, and now you have to stay and support him. I believe that
Clarise is with the druids, so I mean to find her and try to discover what
interest they have in her. I shall go to Glastenning, to the druid council,
they must know where she is, but then of course, whether they’ll talk to me
when I get there is another thing, and even if they do, there’s little chance
it will make any sense, but I have to try, and so I’ll start there.’ He glanced
over to Ambrosius.