The Endless Knot

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  Scatha had other ideas. She called the war bands together and formed them into a narrow-pointed wedge. Unable to climb the steep mountainside and strike at us from the flank, the horsemen had no choice but to meet the point of the wedge head-on.

  They rode at us yelling and screaming, trying their best to frighten and scatter us. But we stood firm and hewed them from their saddles as quickly as they came within striking distance. Eight enemy riders went down before they could even wheel their horses to retreat. And Paladyr was forced to break off the attack once more.

  As the enemy turned tail and fled back across the stream, I summoned the battle chiefs to me. “It seems they lack the will to press the attack.”

  “Clamna na cù, what a poor foray,” Cynan sneered, thrusting out his chin. “I would be shamed to lead such ill-suited warriors.”

  “Yes, and Paladyr is a better war leader than this—or once was. I do not understand it.”

  “Their inexperience is against them,” I observed. “They dare not challenge us, so they seek to harry us and wear us down.”

  “Then they will be disappointed,” Scatha said, quickly scanning the hillside. “If they offer no better assault than we have seen, we can stand against them all day.”

  “We would not have to stand here at all if we had our horses,” Cynan said.

  “Then let us take theirs,” Scatha suggested. “We would make better use of them than they do.”

  Swiftly we devised a plan to liberate as many of the foemen’s horses as possible in the next clash. And it might have worked. But, just as Paladyr’s war band crossed the stream and started to the hillside to engage us once more, the Ravens arrived. One fleeting glimpse of the Raven Flight swooping in full cry down the mountainside, and the cowardly enemy scattered. They splashed across the stream to disappear around the far side of the slope. Bran would have offered pursuit, but I called him back.

  “I would rather you stayed with us,” I told him. “What did you find ahead?”

  A strange expression flitted across the Chief Raven’s face. “There is a settlement, lord,” he said. “But unlike any I have seen before.”

  “Is it safe?” wondered Cynan. “It could be another trap.”

  “Perhaps,” the Raven Chief allowed. “But I think not.”

  “Why do you say that?” asked Scatha.

  By way of reply Bran said, “I will show you. It is not far.”

  Calling to Drustwn and Garanaw, I commanded, “Tegid and the horses should have been here by now. Ride to meet them, and bring the horses to us at the settlement. We will await you there.” To Bran, I said, “Show us this place you have found.”

  “It is this way,” Bran said, wheeling his horse, and began to lead us up the mountainside and along a ridgeway. The remaining Ravens took up a position well behind, guarding the rear, lest Paladyr and his band return and try to take us unawares. But the enemy did not return.

  A short distance along the ridge, the trail turned and began descending toward a steep-sided valley. A muddy river wound its slow way along the floor of the valley, and at the nearer end, hard against the ridge, a crude holding had been erected. The few larger, more substantial structures were made from rough timber: the rest appeared cobbled together, a patchwork of bits and pieces. A small distance beyond the settlement, a narrow lake gleamed dully in the foul light.

  We descended into the valley and entered the town on the single street of hard-packed earth, passing between the patched-together, tumbledown shanties jammed one on top of the other and leaning at all angles. At a wide place before one of the larger dwellings, we halted. A row of rickety stalls had been thrown up along the side of the street facing the building, and a mud-caked stone well stood between them. We stopped here to wait for Tegid and the horses.

  We had seen no one since our arrival and, but for the garbage and dung scattered around, I would have thought the place long abandoned. But as soon as it became clear that we meant to stay, the hid- den population began to creep forth. Like vermin crawling from the cracks and crevices they emerged, hesitantly at first, but with increasing boldness. Hobbling, scuttling, dragging battered and deformed limbs, they scrambled into the square. In no time at all we were besieged by a tattered rabble of beggars.

  They swarmed us with outstretched hands and open mouths, mewing like sick animals for food and cast-offs—though we had none to give. Like the mudmen working the mines, they were dull-looking with dead eyes and slack expressions. More brute than human, they stood splay-legged and slump-shouldered, abject in their misery. Beggars are unknown in Albion, so the warriors did not understand at first what the grasping mob wanted of them. They shrank from the outstretched hands, or pushed them away, which only increased the clamor.

  Cynan and Bran watched the press warily and with increasing unease, but said nothing. “We should move on,” Scatha said, “or there may be trouble.”

  “When they see we have nothing to give them,” I replied, “they will leave us alone.”

  But I was wrong. The beggars became more insistent and demanding. They grew belligerent. Some of the women swaggered up to the warriors and rubbed themselves against the men. The warriors reacted with predictable revulsion and chagrin. But the whores were as persistent as they were blatant. They wheedled in shrill voices and clutched the warriors.

  “Llew,” Scatha pleaded, “let us leave this . . . this Tref-gan-Haint at once.”

  “You are right,” I relented. “We will go on to the lake and await the horses there.”

  The beggars began wailing at our departure, shrieking terribly. The women, spurned and roundly rejected, followed, shouting abuse and scorn. One of them, little more than a girl, saw my silver hand and ran to me. She fell on her knees before me, seized my hand, and began caressing it.

  I gently tried to disengage my hand from her grasp, but she clung to me, pulling on my arm, dragging me down. She moaned and pouted and rubbed her lips over my metal hand.

  “I have nothing for you,” I told her firmly. “Please, stand up. Do not shame yourself this way.”

  But she made no move to release me. Taking her by the wrist, I peeled her hand from mine and made to step over her. When she saw I meant to leave her, she leapt at me with a raking swipe of her fingernails. I jerked my head away, and she fell in the dirt where she lay writhing and pleading. I stepped over her and moved on. She kicked and cursed me, her sharp voice gradually dissolving into the general uproar around us.

  I moved through the crowd, leading the war band away. Hands clutched at my arms and legs. Voices whined and cried. I pushed ahead, eyes level, looking neither right nor left. What could I give them? What did they want from me?

  We entered the cramped, stinking street once more and continued to the end where the refuse heaps of the shanty town smoldered and burned with a noisome smoke. There were beggars here, too, pawing through the garbage and filth for any overlooked morsels.

  Scrawny, long-legged dogs nosed in the filth. One man, naked, his skin black from the smoke, lay half-covered in garbage; he struggled onto an elbow and hailed us obscenely as we passed. His legs were a mangled mess of open sores. The odious dogs hovered around him, dashing in now and then to lick at the man’s oozing wounds. Turning away from this ghastly sight, I was met by another. I saw two dogs fighting over a carcass—little more than a shred of putrid flesh clinging to a rotting skeleton. With a sudden sick shock, I realized the remains were human. The gorge rose in my throat, and I turned my face away.

  Tref-gan-Haint, Scatha had called it, city of pestilence, place of defilement. Diseased and dying, it was a cankerous sight and filled the air with the stench of a rotting wound. This, I reflected, was the fate awaiting the slaves when their usefulness was over. They ended their days as beggars fighting over scraps of garbage. The thought grieved me, but what could I do? Swallowing hard, I walked on.

  Beyond the settlement a small distance, we came to the shallow lake from which the stream issued and found it slightly more
tolerable. Although the strand was sharp shards of flint, the water was clean enough. No one followed us from the town so we had the lake to ourselves and hunkered down on the hard shore to wait.

  I dozed and fell into a light sleep in which I dreamed that Goewyn had found us and now stood over me. I awoke to find Bran sitting beside me and no sign yet of the horses. I rose, and Bran and I walked back along the flinty shore together. A dirty yellow sun was lowering in the western peaks and stretched our shadows long on the rocky strand.

  “Where is Tegid?” I wondered aloud, gazing toward the blighted town and the ridge beyond. “Do you think he ran into Paladyr?”

  “It is possible. But Drustwn and Garanaw know where to find us,” Bran pointed out. “If there was any trouble, they would have summoned us.”

  “Still, I do not like this,” I told him. “They should have reached us by now.”

  “I will go and find out what has happened,” Bran offered.

  “Take Emyr and Niall with you. Send one of them back with word as soon as you find out anything.”

  Bran hastened to his horse, mounted, summoned the remaining Ravens, and the three rode away at once. I watched them out of sight, and then called Scatha and Cynan to me. “I have sent Bran to see what has become of Tegid and the others.”

  “It is growing late,” Scatha said. “Perhaps we should try to find better shelter elsewhere.”

  “Darkness will be our only shelter tonight, I fear.” Looking to the ridge, I scanned the heights, but saw no sign of anyone returning. What could have happened to Tegid and Nettles?

  The sun sank in an ugly brown haze, and a turgid twilight gathered. As the sun departed, the thin warmth vanished; I felt the mountain chill seeping out of the air and creeping up out of the ground. Mist rose from the lake, and night vapors began treading down the mountainsides in snaking rivulets.

  The men had foraged for wood on the stony slopes around the lake, and the little they found was kindled and set alight as night fell, making small campfires that sputtered fitfully and gave little light. We were hungry, having had nothing to eat since early morning; we eased the pangs with lake water. It tasted flat and metallic, but it was cold, and it quenched our thirst.

  Dusk deepened in the valley. The sky held a faint glimmer of dying light, and the mist off the lake and slopes thickened to a fog. I walked restlessly along the flinty strand, alert to any sound of our returning horses. Apart from the liquid lap and lick of the water and the occasional bark of a dog in the distance, I heard nothing.

  I stood for a long time, waiting, listening. A red moon floated low over the mountains, peering like an eye down through the fog and mist, casting a dismal pall of ruddy light over the lake and slopes.

  At length, I turned and walked back to the campfires glowing soft in the fog-haze. I passed the first fire and heard the men talking quietly, their voices a gentle mumble in the mist. But I heard something else as well. I stopped and held my breath . . .

  A thumping sound, low and rhythmic as a heartbeat, sounded in the darkness—thump . . . thump . . . thump. Because of the fog and mist, the sound seemed to come from everywhere at once. Cynan heard it as well and joined me. “What can it be?” he asked softly.

  “Shhh!”

  We stood motionless. The sound grew gradually louder, gaining definition. Thump-lump . . . thump-lump . . . thump-lump . . . To resolve itself into the slow, loping gallop of a horse, coursing along the flinty strand.

  “We have a visitor,” I told Cynan.

  The pace quickened as the horse drew near, approaching from the far end of the glen away from Tref-gan-Haint. My pulse quickened with the speed of the horse, and my silver hand sent an icy tingle up my arm.

  “I will bring a torch,” Cynan said, darting away at once.

  I walked a few paces further along the shore toward the sound. My metal hand burned with an icy cold. The rider was nearer than I knew. All at once, I saw him: a rider on a horse pale as the fog itself, charging out of the swirling mist, the horse’s iron-shod hooves striking sparks from the flint as they came.

  The rider was armored head to heel in bronze; it gleamed dully in the ruddy moonlight. His helmet was plumed and high-crested; a strange battle mask covered his face. He carried a long bronze spear; a small round bronze shield lay on his thigh. His feet were shod in bronze war shoes, and on his hands were gauntlets covered with bronze fish scales. The high-cantled saddle was ornamented with round bronze bosses. The horse was armored too; a bronze war cap with long, curving horns was on its head. Bronze breastplates and greaves graced both horse and rider.

  Although I had never seen the rider before, I would have recognized him. The Banfáith had warned me long ago, and even in the dead of a foggy night I knew him: it was the Brazen Man.

  36

  CLASH BY NIGHT

  The Brazen Man drove straight at me. I dodged to the side at the last instant, and he pulled back hard on the reins. The horse reared, its legs fighting the air. The man raised his hand and I made ready to deflect a blow. Instead of a sword, however, I saw he held a knotted sack. He turned his bronze-clad face toward me, blank and staring; and though I could not see his eyes behind the burnished mask, I felt the force of his hatred as a heatblast on my flesh. My silver hand burned with frozen fire.

  The mysterious rider swung the sack once more around his head and loosed it. The bag struck the ground and rolled to my feet. Then with a wild, triumphant cry, the rider wheeled his horse and galloped back the way he came.

  Cynan ran to me with a burning brand he had pulled from the fire. “Was it Paladyr?”

  I shook my head slowly. “No,” I told him. “I do not think it was Paladyr . . .”

  “Who then?”

  I looked at the knotted sack lying on the strand. Cynan stooped and picked it up. I took it from him. There was something round and bulky but not too heavy in the bottom. I loosened the knot, opened the sack, and peered in, but could not see the contents clearly.

  “Here,” I said, lowering the bag to the ground and spreading the opening wide. Cynan held his torch closer. I looked again and instantly wished I had not.

  Professor Nettleton’s pale, bloodless face stared up at me. His glasses were gone and his white hair was matted with clotted blood. I closed my eyes and shoved the sack away. Cynan took it from me.

  Scatha, holding a sword in one hand and a firebrand in the other, hastened to us. “Is it . . . ?” Her question faltered.

  “It is the white-haired one,” Cynan told her. “Llew’s friend.”

  “I am sorry, Llew,” she said after a moment. Her voice was grave, but I could tell she was relieved that it was not her daughter.

  “What do you wish me to do with it?” asked Cynan.

  “Put it with Alun’s ashes for now,” I told him, sick at heart. “I will not bury it in this place.”

  “Alun’s . . . the ashes are with Tegid,” Scatha reminded me.

  I heard her, but made no reply. My mind boiled with questions. Why had this been done? A challenge? A warning? Who would do such a thing? How had he been taken? What did it mean? I stared into the swirling fog willing the answers, like the bronze-clad rider, to appear.

  The Brazen Man! The words whizzed like arrows straight to my heart. I heard again the Banfáith’s voice speaking out the dire prophecy.

  All this by the Brazen Man is come to pass, who likewise mounted on his steed of brass works woe both great and dire. Rise up, Men of Gwir! Fill your hands with weapons and oppose the false men in your midst! The sound of the battleclash will be heard among the stars of heaven and the Great Year will proceed to its final consummation.

  “Llew?” Cynan said, touching me gently on the arm. “What is it, brother?”

  I turned to him. “Rouse the men. Hurry!”

  Scatha stood looking at me, her forehead creased with concern. In the fluttering firelight she looked just like Goewyn. “Arm yourself, Scatha,” I told her. “Tonight we fight for our lives.”

 
Cynan alerted the men with a shout, and Emyr blew a long, withering blast on the carynx. Within two heartbeats the camp was a chaos of men running and shouting, arming themselves to meet the foe already swarming onto the strand. Like phantoms they appeared out of the fog—rank on rank, scores of them, an enemy war host arrayed in bronze battle gear.

  A spear was thrust into my hand. I could not find a shield, so grabbed a brand from the fire and ran to take my place in the front rank of warriors, Scatha on my right hand, Cynan on my left. We stood with our backs to the lake and leaned into the battle.

  They fell upon us in a rush, as if they would drive us into the lake with one great push. But our warriors were battle-hardened men, skilled in close fighting; all had faced the Great Hound Meldron. After the shock of surprise had passed, they fell to with a fierce delight. To a man, they were sick of Tir Aflan, sick of the deprivation and hardship, and eager to lash out at the enemy who had caused them so much misery.

  As before, the enemy, though well-armored, were ill-matched to fight real warriors. But there were more of them now than we had faced earlier in the day, a good many more.

  Absorbing the initial onslaught, the warriors of Albion leapt like a quick-kindled flame, striking swift and hot, searing into the onrushing foe. The resulting clash threw the attacking enemy back on their heels. Heartened by this early success, Emyr loosed a shattering blast on the battle horn, and the warriors of Albion answered the call with arousing shouts. The battlecry of Albion’s warriors echoed along the flint shore, driving the enemy like a fist.

  Scatha, hair streaming, cloak flying, whirled into the enemy line; sword in one hand, firebrand in the other—a Morrigan of battle!— she struck, throwing off sparks and killing with every stroke. The enemy fled before her as before a flaming whirlwind.

  Cynan called the cream of Caledon’s warriors to him and began hewing a swathe wide enough to drive a chariot through from the water’s edge to the top of the strand.

  I threw myself into the confused mass between the two battle chiefs, striking with my spear, slashing, stabbing. The spear head blushed red in the torchlight, and I scanned the churning flood tide of the enemy for the brazen rider. But my silver hand had lost its uncanny chill, and by this I knew he was not near.