The Paradise War (36 page)

My hand on the tiller was not expert, but I could spell Tegid long enough for him to rest and sleep. Nearly frozen by the constant lash of the wind and froth-churned waves, and almost out of food, we made for the western coast of Ynys Oer. I was not sorry to leave the boat and put steady land beneath my feet once more.

Our horses were put up in a dingle, where Tegid had left them to fend for themselves. They might have stayed there without harm through the season, for the steep sides of the dingle kept all but the foulest wind and rain away, and the grass grew thick on the valley floor. We stayed the night in the stone hut on the western shore—in sight of Ynys Bàinail and its sacred pillar-stone which now marked the place where Ollathir lay buried in his grave.

“I could not carry both of you down from the White Rock,” Tegid explained. “As you had slightly more life left in you than Ollathir, I heaped the stones over his body and brought you to Ynys Sci.”

“For that I am grateful, Tegid. You took a great risk. It could have been no easy journey.”

“Far less risk than you took in facing the Cythrawl,” he replied frankly. “I could in nowise leave you there, brother.”

At dawn the next morning, we fetched the horses from their hidden glen. I say “dawn,” although we did not see the sun that day, nor for many dark days to follow. Rain and wind whipped the coast; icy mist sheathed the high hills and filled the glens. We rode across the island in a misery of drizzle; wretched, cold, wet to the skin. We reached the eastern shore and paused to look at the expanse of gray, choppy water separating Ynys Oer from the mainland.

“What now?” I asked, gauging the narrow distance between the two shores.

“The farmers on the mainland swim their cattle to summer pastures on the island. And those on the island swim them to market on the other side.”

“It sounds a wet undertaking.”

“We cannot become more wet than we are,” Tegid pointed out. Water dripped from us with every movement; our clothing lay heavy and sodden on our backs; our limbs were stiff from holding them close to our bodies.

“Then let us be done with it,” I said, watching a sharp wind whip the wavetops. “The sooner we are on the other side, the sooner we will have a fire.”

I knew the water would be cold, I just did not imagine it could be
that
cold. The distance was not far, and our horses swam well—but we nearly froze to death just the same.

We dragged ourselves out of the surf and across the beach, the wind slashing viciously through our sopping clothes. Behind the dunes we escaped the worst of the wind. Tegid knew where to find kindling and brush among the sandy hollows; much of it was wet, but it burned readily at Tegid’s practiced touch. The Derwyddi know many secrets of earth and air and fire and water. I believe he willed the fire to catch by sheer enchantment. I know I could not have coaxed those few scant, soggy branches to burn.

“Take off your clothes,” Tegid said, as the fire began to burn brightly. We had found a deep pocket between two dunes. It seemed utter madness to shed our clothing in that cold, but it was the only way to get warm.

We spread our clothing on surrounding sedge clumps and sea willow, and sat as close to the fire as prudence allowed. Even the horses edged as near as their fear would allow, drawn by the warmth.

Tegid fed the fire with twisted bundles of dry grass and blackthorn brush, keeping the flames alive. “When our cloaks have dried,” he said, as I held a pair of thick woolen leggings before the flames, turning them to dry them more quickly, “we will ride inland.”

I did not reply; there was more coming, and I could wait. In a little while he continued. “There will be game in the forest. We can hunt along the way. In a few days we will reach the Tyn Water and follow it south as far as Aber Llydan. From there it is only three or four days to Llwyddi land, and only a few more before we come to Nant Modornn. We will follow the river to Sycharth.”

He made it sound as if we would be home and dry in no time at all. In fact, we were to spend many and many a frigid Sollen night on the trail and untold Sollen days along the cold empty trackways of Caledon. Snow had settled heavy and deep on the high hilltops before ever we came within sight of the Modornn valley.

Besides the cold, there was hunger. Hunting was poor, and we could not devote much time to it. Still, even when we could get nothing for ourselves, we made certain to find our mounts a mouthful or two to keep going. The cold made us lean and hard as stormblasted birches. I learned to sleep in the saddle and to find modest shelter in the most unpromising places. I learned to read a trail beneath a covering of snow. And I learned to find direction by the scent of the wind.

One day we passed Caer Modornn. The sight of the timber palisade on the hilltop above the river brought back a swift floodtide of memories. But, strange to tell, though I could remember those first glowing days of my arrival, I could not without intense effort recall much of my life before that—save in the most indefinite terms. Indeed, when compared to the intensely vivid life I knew in Albion, my life before coming to the Otherworld seemed almost unutterably remote and insignificant, little more than a vague pantomime acted out in a dim, colorless, half-light. That I could not remember did not concern me in the least, however. I thought it curious, yet felt no sense of loss. Clearly, I had the best of the bargain. I was content.

We went up to Caer Modornn for the food cached there: grain and fodder for the horses, dried meat and ale in sealed jars for Tegid and myself. Firewood had been stored in the caer as well, so we stayed one night in the fortress, more for the warmth than the rest—though both were equally welcome.

Next day we proceeded on our way. Still weary, still stiff with cold, and whipped by every wind that bawled down the soggy vale, we journeyed on in better heart, for we were in known lands and the end—though still far off—could be seen.

We followed the wide Vale of Modornn, keeping close to the ice-edged river until we came to the marshland. There we turned from the river way in favor of firmer footing on the wooded trail. Two damp, drizzly days later, a little before sunset, we reached Sycharth.

“There is no smoke,” Tegid observed. Weary from our long sojourn, we had paused to rest before continuing to the caer.

I scanned the sky above the caer. The clouds had cleared at the last of day, leaving the sky a frail blue—against which it would have been easy to see the white smoke smudge from the king’s great hearthfire and from those of the kitchens and lesser hearths as well. But there was no smoke, and therefore no warming fire.

What can it mean?
I wondered. I could think of no good reason that we should have come all this way to face a cold hearth and a cheerless welcome.

“Something is wrong.” Tegid urged his horse to speed and hastened down the hillside into the glen separating us from the hill on which stood the caer.

I admit my own heart pricked with apprehension as the hooves of our horses pounded across the valley floor, drumming on the frozen earth, hastening toward the silent caer. But even before we passed along the narrow palisade and entered the wide-flung gates, I knew that Sycharth was abandoned. One glimpse of the charred remains of the Great King’s hall confirmed our worst fears: Meldryn Mawr’s fine fortress was a burned-out ruin.

The Day of Strife had dawned.

24
T
WRCH

D
eserted by the living, peopled only by the dead who lay unmourned and unburied amidst the destruction, once-proud Sycharth stood as a pillaged tomb—cold and desolate, broken. The mighty stronghold appeared itself a corpse, forsaken and forbidding.

The eye met atrocity at every glance: women bludgeoned to death still clutching their frozen babes to their breasts; children with hands and feet cut off and left to bleed; dogs and warriors decapitated and their heads switched; cattle roasted alive in their pens; sheep slaughtered and their entrails pulled out to bind and then strangle their herdsmen . . . Everywhere the marks of fire, filth, blood, and outrage.

The stink of death permeated the misty air, just as the thickened blood stained the rain-sodden ground. Tegid and I lurched from one abomination to the next in dazed disbelief. Bile bitter in our mouths, sick and numb, we muttered ever and again the same two questions: How could this have happened? Who could have done such a thing?

Still more mysterious to us was the absence of any sign of battle. For we did not find the king or his war band, although we made a thorough search of all that remained of the hall and the royal quarters. Aside from those few warriors struck down outside the hall, we discovered none of the battle host. By this we presumed that the king had fled the fight with his war band virtually intact, or else that he was away when destruction overtook his stronghold, and perhaps even now did not know it.

Any suggestion that the king had fled the fight, Tegid considered repugnant. “He would sooner cut out his own heart,” Tegid murmured darkly. “He would sooner be food for ravens than see his people slaughtered like pigs and his fortress laid waste. Nor would he allow himself to be captured while he drew breath.”

We stared dismally at the devastation. There was no telling when it had happened. The cold and snow preserved the bodies as they had fallen. If the king and his war band had been there, we would have seen them.

“He must have departed before the destruction took place,” I said. This seemed equally unlikely. Yet there seemed no other explanation.

“Meldryn Mawr is not here.”

Surely the Great King must have been absent when disaster fell upon Sycharth. But in the season of ice, when all the worlds retreat inward, what would induce him to leave? “Where would he go?” I wondered aloud.

“I do not know, brother,” Tegid answered ruefully. “We will not find the answer here, I think.”

“Where else, then?”

“We will go to the settlements and holdings round about. We will ride the circuit of the land and see what may be found.”

We left the caer. Stupid with grief and sick with dread, eyes staring, hands shaking, we mounted our horses and rode directly to the king’s harborage on the nearby Muir Glain estuary. We rode fast to outrace the fading light and reached the shipyard in the dim twilight, as dark clouds closed overhead.

We did not even bother to dismount but sat in our saddles and scanned the wreckage: ships burned to the waterline, every sail and mast destroyed, every hull stove in.

The sheds and houses had been torched, and with them the stacked timber. Even the earthen banks of the sea mouth were burnt and blackened. Nothing escaped. The destruction was utter and complete. All was charcoal and ashes. “It must have burned for days,” Tegid muttered. “The blaze would have been visible halfway to Ynys Sci.”

Our horses jittered nervously, blowing and stamping, as we searched here and there with our eyes for any sign of survival. I touched my weapons—carefully wrapped against the weather, but close to hand—grimly grateful for their cold consolation.

“There is nothing here,” Tegid said at last. “We will go on.”

Night overwhelmed us as we struck off across the wooded hills—a longer way to go, but we could not traverse the marshlands in the dark. So we took the hill track, riding the ridgeways and hunting runs which joined Sycharth with neighboring settlements. As we approached the first stronghold, the cloud cover thinned somewhat and the moon shone briefly; not long, but enough to see the settlement: black against the blacker hills beyond the river.

Caer Dyffryn was built on a flattened river knoll, home to perhaps two hundred Llwyddi clansmen. All two hundred had fled, or were murdered. We did not stop to count them. There was no need—no living thing remained within the circle of charred stumps that had been the timber ringfort. This we could see before we even dismounted. Yet, out of respect for kinsmen, we did dismount and walked among the blasted ruins of their homes.

“We cannot stay here,” I said, when we had concluded our futile survey. I spoke softly, but my voice sounded loud in the unnatural silence. Tegid made no move or sound. I touched him on the arm— his flesh was rigid and cold beneath my fingers. “Come, brother, let us go from this place. We can camp by the river and return here in the morning if you wish.”

Tegid made no reply but turned and mounted his horse once more. We left Caer Dyffryn but did not stop. We did not rest that night at all and paused only once, long enough to water the horses before moving on. Gray dawn found us standing, red-eyed and weary, in the ruins of Cnoc Hydd. Once a pleasant settlement nestled in a fair fold of the vale, it was now, like Sycharth and Dyffryn, a scorched husk. Here, most of the inhabitants had been burned, but whether before or after death could not be told.

While Tegid sifted among the soggy ashes of the hall, I inspected the blackened, fallen beams of the Warriors’ House. Using the butt of a broken spear, I poked here and there amidst the debris, searching for I know not what. The acrid stench of smoke and charred corpses brought the tears to my eyes, but I persisted. And in a corner of the collapsed hearth, my efforts bore fruit.

I had been stirring the rubble to no purpose and made to move on. A furtive movement caught my eyes as I turned away. I thought I heard a dry rustle. I spun on my heel and stared into the shadows of the firepit. At first I saw nothing . . . but then, hidden in a crevice beneath the tumbled stone, I saw a small huddled shape.