Merlin, who was resting on a rock, stood to join them.
Myrgwen addressed them both. “Your enemy was revealed to me last night in a dream. I knew something was deeply wrong in the land, but I did not know what until I saw them. Until I saw him.”
“Gorlas?” Merlin asked.
“Yes. Once the sun dies and the moon rises . . . they will come. They have already secured boats from the surrounding area and are even now making rafts. They will cross the water, and you must be ready for them.”
Arthur shook his head. “But our weapons are few . . . How can we fight?”
“You must make bows.”
Merlin looked at her, confused. “But we have neither string nor arrows. You’re asking the impossible.”
“You’ll find the answer at the king’s hearth.”
“I don’t have one,” Arthur said. “Certainly not on this island.”
“Come and see.”
She led back north toward where the warriors slept. As they approached, Arthur saw a trail of smoke in the sky and smelled roasting meat. One of the warriors must have woken and caught some game.
But when they stepped out of the woods and into the clearing of their makeshift camp, Arthur stopped. On the edge of the clearing of men — before a roaring campfire — sat Gogirfan Gawr. And next to him sat Melwas, Gwenivach . . . and Gwenivere herself!
Dwin sat between the girls, smiling and roasting two ducks.
Myrgwen walked directly to Gogi, placed a hand on his big shoulder, and, turning to Arthur and Merlin, announced, “This is the man who will save you.”
A thrill shot through Arthur.
Merlin’s mouth fell open. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to the island o’ the tinsmiths on holy pilgrimage, ya know.” He wiped his greasy hand on a little napkin he pulled from his waistcoat.
“But — ”
“This is the very place I’ve told ya about since the day we met in Kembry, don’t ya recall it, ya daft-wit? Old Joseph built the fort and tower and introduced the craft tah us poor folk. All this moorland used to be ours . . . Long, long ago it was, and we had been pushed here from the coasts even then. Yet ya Britons took this land away too, ya did — so ya could feed the Roman greed for tin — and now we are Walkers, with no land o’ our own.”
Gogi turned to Myrgwen with a strange expression. “And what’d ya say, lass?”
“I said that you are the man that will save all of Britain. You will help them make bows and arrows.”
“Me?” he said, spitting out a duck bone. “But I’m good fer nothin’ but bein’ stripped and thrown off a cliff.” Here he glared at Merlin. “An’ besides . . . I doesn’t make weapons for mah enemies, the Brythons.” Here he slurred the word on purpose as if it were a foul thing.
Arthur stepped up and nodded to the smiling Gwenivere, catching her eye. “Gogi . . . could you make them for your friends?”
Gogi stiffened his lips and pulled at the long plaits of his beard. He looked to his daughters, then, and Arthur saw something in the girls’ eyes.
Gogi sighed. “Yah . . . I suppose I could do that, ya know. What do ya need?”
Myrgwen pulled her cloak tighter and spoke to Arthur. “The giant can pour arrowheads from pewter, and his sinews can be fashioned into strings for the bows. The men can cut down branches for bows and the shafts of arrows, and the pitch — ”
“Now just how do ya know so much about me?” Gogi asked, scratching his beard and puffing out his chest.
“I have seen it,” she said.
Gogi stood, his brow creased and his head cocked to the side.
Arthur looked up at how tall the man was, and a genuine fear entered his heart. This was not a man to fight hand to hand.
“And how much are ya goin’ to pay me for all o’ this?” Gogi said, shaking his fists. “I swear by me own guts that I’m not stuffed with coins, and ya know it better than anyone!”
“I’ve got gold that I can pay you,” Arthur said. “But . . . I don’t have it with me.”
“Ahh! That’s what everyone says.” And then Gogi wiggled his fingers through the air and made his voice high-pitched. “I’ll pay ya next week for a pigeon pie today! Oh my! How about that horse for payment tomorrow? Oh, no! I doesn’t have my money with me! Hah-hah!”
“Honestly, I do,” Arthur said — but how could he convince the giant?
Gwenivach stepped forward and took her father’s arm. “Papa . . . if we don’t, then we might all be killed.”
Gwenivere stood and looked on her father with a serious expression. “I know Ambrosius has been cruel to you, but none of the others have. In fact, they’ve been more than kind considering. Please, I think we can help them.”
“Ohh!” he said, looking from one to the other. “Do I haff-tah?”
Melwas stood up, and he squinted at his father and stamped his foot. “Are you really goin’ to help ’em? They beat me and tried to kill me, and took our hard-won horse away, an’ we’re already that much poorer for knowin’ em!”
Gogi looked from Gwenivere to Gwenivach, and then back to his son. “Melwas . . . I know yer thoughts, but ya know I’ve got a big heart in this here boot” — he thumped his chest — “so I’m goin’ to help ’em. An’ if he fails to pay me two gold coins, then I’ll let ya steal as many o’ his horses as ya can get.”
“I’ll pay you three!” Arthur said.
Gogi pursed his lips. “Even better. Ya will agree to this, yes? Both of ya nod, then.”
Melwas nodded, and Arthur did too . . . but there was something in Melwas’s eyes that Arthur couldn’t read. Pride? Anger? Or was it hatred?
“But now we’s gots another problem,” Gogi said. “You can’t make the arrows fly right without feathers. We’ve got these ducks here that I caught, but the feathers are mostly burnt.”
Myrgwen stepped forward and bowed to Arthur. She removed her feather cloak, revealing a thin, white cloak underneath. She held out the feathered one. “At my God’s direction I have stitched a cloak for this very day — the day your kingship has come to Kernow, and for the end of our sundering. I had thought it was to be for your glory, but now I see that it is instead for your protection. Take every feather for the arrows, and may God strike each one into the eyes of your enemies.”
Arthur took the cloak, amazed at its beauty and the care with which his sister had stitched it. How many birds must she have caught in order to make it? How many hours of work went into it? It seemed almost irreverent to destroy it and pluck the feathers from this thing of majesty — but there was no choice.
Arthur raised his horn and blew it to wake the late risers.
All that day the men worked to find suitable wood for both bows and arrow shafts, and though nothing ideal existed on the island, they found enough that was acceptable to fashion a bow and set of arrows for every man.
Gwenivere and Gwenivach worked tirelessly to soak and braid their father’s stash of sinews into bowstrings, with loops on each end. And Gogi, along with a grudging Melwas, melted pewter in an iron pot and cast hundreds after hundreds of small arrowheads using simple molds that the men had carved from wood.
Myrgwen herself fletched many of the arrows using sinew, helped by a small group of deft-handed men. Another group tied on the arrowheads. They were crude creations at best, but each one was capable of killing a wolf-head, and for that Arthur was thankful.
When everything was ready, the men gathered for a meager evening meal, and afterward Merlin stood to speak. His thoughts returned to the dying man he’d held after the battle at the river, and he cleared his throat. Things needed to be said that had gone unsaid for far too long.
“Men of Britain!” he shouted in his clear, strong voice. “Are you warriors?”
The men called out and stamped their feet in a sudden cacophony that startled a host of sparrows from a nearby tree.
“Are you Arthur’s men?”
They whistled and raised their fists.
The men cheered and lofted their bows and bundles of arrows.
Merlin quieted his voice. “But how many of you are ready to die?”
The men looked at each other. Some nodded. Others looked down or away.
“And of those ready to die . . . how many of you are ready to stand in judgment before a holy God?”
Everyone became quiet. Sober.
“You are warriors . . . and heroes!” Merlin called. “But God isn’t counting your victories. So, if you are a warrior, then be Arthur’s man. And if you are Arthur’s man, then be prepared to die, for we fight a powerful foe this night. And if you are prepared to die, then do so with your conscience clear and with the blood of Christ covering your life . . . cleansing you of all sin. In the sixteenth Psalm it says something like this . . .”
Because I know that thou hast been faithful to thine own Holy Son; yea I know it full well that even in death I need not fear, for never shalt thou disinherit me, nor shalt thou throw me to the dogs.
For in time long past thou shewest unto me the safe highland path — even now I tread upon it to thy mountain court.
There will I see thine happy countenance and thou shalt sit me down as thy champion, and I will joyous be, and feast, and merrymake forevermore!
“So then I say to you, call upon Jesu, and he will take you on the safe, narrow mountain path to his kingdom, and there you will eat at the wedding feast of the Lamb of God. Do you want this, men of Arthur?”
The warriors nodded, grunting in agreement, and Merlin prayed out loud for them that God might give strength for the coming battle and prepare their hearts to walk in newness of life in His presence.
And when he was done, he bade Gogirfan to stand next to him.
“Warriors and fearless men, you know the enemy that we are up against. But now we’re armed, and I want to both apologize to Gogirfan, and thank him, for he’s given us a chance — ”
But Gogi interrupted him, placing a hand on Merlin’s shoulder and raising his voice. “But ya know . . . if ya want to increase that chance, then I have a way to improve yar arrows a bit. This is what I’ve got.”
He walked over to Melwas, who sat tending a large iron pot at a nearby fire. Gogi picked up the pot and took off the lid. Tearing a strip of cloth from a rag, he tied it just behind the tip of the arrow and then dabbed it in the pot, which was filled with melted pine pitch.
“Hold this to a torch, and ya’ve got a flamin’ arrow, ya knows! And most helpful against wooden boats, given ya a chance to sink ’em, or at least make the warriors swim.”
“Hear, hear!” Merlin said, and all the men cheered.
But the evening had gotten on, and the light was beginning to fade. Merlin looked westward and saw that the thin form of the moon had appeared.
And from the woods, across the water, the werewolf howled.
Merlin followed Gogirfan’s instruction and quickly prepared his arrows by tying cloth behind each tip . . . but he had to rip off both sleeves of his tunic to get enough material. Sixty men. Twenty arrows each. Was it enough to fight off the wolf-heads? Most of them weren’t bowmen, and the thirteen that were had been organized by Tethion into an elite group that Arthur would use to make the deepest strikes at the enemy.
The other men set to, ripping up their tunics when they had no other choice. Each man brought his bundle to Gogi and Melwas, who applied the softened pitch to the arrows.
Gogi also prepared a number of torches specifically for lighting the arrows — one for every pair of men.
And yet they were barely ready by the time the wolf-heads appeared, howling upon the far shore and dragging boats and rafts down to the opposite bank.
“Tethion . . . take the best bowmen to the front!” Arthur called. “Everyone else, do not shoot until the wolf-heads are halfway across.”
“Wolf-heads?” Gogi asked. “I didn’t know ya were fightin’ wolf-heads! I thought ’twas the same warriors ya fought at Dinas Hen Felder!”
Arthur coughed and then nodded. “They are the very same.”
“Ahh,” Gogi said with a nervous laugh. “That’s a bite more serious. And, I suppose, it makes me even prouder ta have helped. And ’tis a good thing our horses and wagon are on the western shore of the marsh! We always hides ’em over there when we come on pilgrimage . . . No need fer a Brit to steal us out o’ home and horse, ya know.”
Arthur gave the word. Tethion and his men lit their arrows, nocked them, and let them fly across the marsh toward the wolf-heads on the far eastern shore. It was hard to see across the water, yet the moon gave Merlin just enough light, and he saw one of the wolf-heads get hit directly in the chest and go down.
The wolf-head shrieked and thrashed about as the burning pitch caught his tunic on fire.
Tethion and the archers lit new arrows and launched them, but this time none of them found their mark, and two fell short and plunked hissing into the water.
Merlin had hoped the arrows would light fires on the far shore, but the land exposed by the receding marsh didn’t have quite enough vegetation amidst its mud and gravel.
By now the first wave of wolf-heads had launched a set of boats, with more preparing just behind them. Eight boats were coming, with four or five wolf-heads in each, and they all paddled with flat boards chopped from the trunks of trees so that they didn’t need to touch the water.
The archers shot again, and one arrow struck a boat directly in the prow. There were four wolf-heads onboard, and the foremost leapt backward, knocking another into the water, and he screamed and thrashed in terror.
As the boats rowed closer, the archers fired again, but the only arrow that hit did so in the cloak of a wolf-head, and he flung it into the water before it could catch fire.
All the while Merlin could see the beast — the red-furred werewolf with glowing, yellow eyes striding up and down the far shore, now hunched and clawing the earth, and next standing to roar out guttural, barking commands to his cohort of wolf-heads.
Onward the wolf-heads paddled through the flaming missiles. Only a few hit, setting two boats on fire. This sent the wolf-heads into a furious roaring as they fought each other to get away from the flames. Some fell into the water.
Merlin lit an arrow of his own now. How easily the creatures could put the flames out if only they weren’t afraid of touching the water!
The other six boats drew closer, and behind them a new set had launched. Tethion and his archers shot at the far boats, while the other men aimed closer in.
Merlin set his sight on a boat, and then adjusted his bow upward to account for the distance. He let his arrow fly, and though it flew fast and straight with roaring flames, his shot landed in the marsh just beyond the boat.
Another, and another arrow he shot — both missing. The last came so close, however, that it would have struck a wolf-head in the shoulder if the creature hadn’t ducked.
The others nearby were more successful, and six wolf-heads jumped screaming into the water after being struck and having their clothing catch fire. Another boat was also set aflame, but the wolf-heads on board used their paddles to splash water up to wet the wood and keep it contained.
Faster they paddled, and soon they were only moments from shore. Sweat dripped down Merlin’s forehead, and he felt the blood pulse in his neck. They can’t come ashore! They cannot!
He lit three arrows simultaneously and shot them off in quick succession, one striking a wolf-head in the neck, and another in the forearm.
Ten wolf-heads leapt onto shore . . . and Merlin had only time to let one more arrow fly, missing.
He handed his arrows to the man beside him, dropped his bow and pulled out his dirk. Grabbing a torch with his free hand, he ran at the wolf-heads, yelling. Others did the same, including Arthur, while many held back, readying arrows.
Please, let the archers be quick!
Three men died instantly, the wolf-heads lunging past their weapons and ripping out their thro
ats.
A wolf-head with dark brown fur across its face attacked Merlin. The creature ran forward, flipped through the air, and landed next to him with its teeth snapping.
Anger surged through Merlin, and he slammed the flaming torch at its maw. “No!” he yelled, jabbing the dirk toward its chest.
The wolf-head yowled, bit the torch lower down, and yanked it out of Merlin’s hand.
Merlin backed up and swung his dirk to keep the beast back.
A flaming arrow punctured the creature’s ribs just below its armpit. The wolf-head screamed and fell to its knees, grabbing at the shaft and trying to pull it out.
Merlin turned to find another wolf-head to fight, but . . . every one on the island was either dead or was thrashing on the ground with arrows piercing its flesh.
A small cheer went up along the shore, but it was short lived. More wolf-heads were paddling across, this time with ten larger boats, holding at least six wolf-heads each.
Arthur ordered every man to either collect fallen arrows or to move forward with their bows. Soon they formed a great line along the shore, and Arthur instructed them to only shoot when the creatures were closer. Too many arrows had already been lost, and they couldn’t afford to waste them. Gogi, Gwenivere, and Gwenivach ran behind them and replaced the fading torches with fresh ones for lighting the arrows.
This time, not a single wolf-head made it to the shore in any shape to fight.
On the opposite side, the remaining wolf-heads hesitated in launching a new flotilla of rafts. Were they afraid? Why did they wait?
Merlin dropped to his knees on the gravel and gave a short prayer of thanks, caught his breath, and steeled his soul, if that were possible, for whatever might come next.
Mórgana rolled her eyes when she heard Mórganthu and Loth curse. Yes, the wolf-heads who had attacked the island had failed and died. Didn’t her grandfather know anything? Didn’t Loth trust her?
But Mórdred was silent beside her, and his face showed sternness without despair. A boy after her mother’s heart — did he understand what was at stake? What the true plan was? The four of them stood behind a thick stand of pines watching the proceedings, and oh how she wished she were close enough to see Merlin’s face when he learned what she had planned next.
Merlin's Nightmare (The Merlin Spiral) Page 32
