The brute loosed a mind-freezing scream and began clawing at itself, as if to tear the ears from its own hideous head. It sank to its knees, wailing, keening, gnashing its teeth. Dauntless Gereint bore down upon it, calling upon Christ to drive the thing away.
The wicked thing shrieked and shrieked again to drown out all sound but that of its own torment. Then, even as we watched, the thing began to change again: its body stretched, growing thinner and taller, until its narrow head almost touched the rooftrees of the chapel—whereupon it could no longer support its height and fell, doubling over itself, to writhe and thrash, beating itself upon the floor.
Gereint, unyielding, his face hard as flint, clutched his improvised cross and stood implacable. Wailing pitifully, the creature continued its hideous transformation, its thin body becoming small and scaly and its terrible voice waning away to a high, hissing scream. It rolled in its writhing coils and then slithered for the chapel door, where, with the speed of a fleeing serpent, it slipped over the threshold and disappeared into the night beyond.
The young warrior, still clutching the sword-cross, hastened to where I knelt with Bors. “It has gone,” he said, his voice hollow, his face drained.
“Well done, Gereint,” I told him, and noticed the blood dripping from his hands. He had gripped the sword blade so tightly, he had cut his palms and fingers. I reached for the hilt. “You can let go now, son. The fight is over.”
Gereint released the sword, which I returned to its place at his side, then helped him cut strips from his cloak to bind his hands. I tied the strips in place, and we turned our attention to Bors. Between us, we rolled the big man onto his back, bunched up his cloak, and put it beneath his head to make him as comfortable as possible. Then Gereint and I sat down together; leaning against the stout wall, we rested and talked about what had happened.
“What do you think it was?” Gereint wondered. “A shape-shifter?”
“A demon maybe,” I replied. “I have heard Bishop Elfodd tell about such things.”
“Is that why you thought to bring it into the church?”
“Truly, I do not know what I thought,” I confessed. “I only knew that Peredur was a devout man and it would be no hardship for him to take an oath before the altar.”
“But how did you know it was not Peredur?”
“Something about his manner made me suspicious. I cannot say what it was. But then”—I shrugged—“it seemed silly to hold such a small thing against him. I doubted myself and almost let him go.”
“But how did you know?” Gereint asked, then added ruefully, “I was taken in completely.”
“There is no shame in it,” I assured him. “As to what warned me, I can but say I did not like his manner. When I spoke of the Grail, he behaved as if it were a thing of no importance.”
“Yes!” agreed Gereint. “The true Peredur would have wanted to see it.”
“So I thought to test him at the altar. It seemed to me no one given to evil could abide the presence of the Grail.”
Gereint nodded with sage admiration. “You are a very Druid yourself, Lord Gwalchavad. I would never have thought of that.”
“I only wish it had been Peredur,” I replied, and thought again how very close we had come to believing the lie. It could easily have gone the other way, and now we would certainly be dead and the chapel undefended.
As if to draw me out of my unhappy reverie, Bors awoke just then with a groan and sat up holding his head. “Be easy, brother,” I said, bending over him quickly. “All is well. The wicked thing is gone. Rest a little.”
“Mmm,” he said, craning his neck around. “It feels like a wall has fallen on my head. Here, help me stand.” I took him by the arm and he made to get up, but fell back again at once, his eyes squeezed shut against the pain. “Ahh! No, no—on second thought, I think I will sit here a little longer.”
“There is no hurry,” I told him. “Let us fetch you a drink. Here, Gereint, take the bowl and bring Bors some water.”
The young warrior retrieved the bowl from beside the altar and started for the door. “You should go with him,” Bors said, rubbing his neck.
“It is only outside,” Gereint protested.
“Go,” Bors insisted. “I am well enough to sit here by myself. Go.”
“I could do with a drink, too,” I said, and told Gereint, “Come, then, show me the well.”
Gereint led me out and around to the rear of the chapel. The ground was lumpy with mossy stones, and rose to a small, tidy outcropping a short distance away.
“Here!” called Gereint, springing up the rocks. “The well is just here.”
The well, as Gereint called it, was actually a small pool; sometime in the past it had been edged with unshaped stones to form a low wall around its oval perimeter. From a metal peg driven into one of the stones dangled the bronze chain which had secured the bowl Gereint had used to fetch water to help clean the desecration from the altar.
We dipped water and, as we drank, began speculating about how the chapel and the well had come to be here. “This must have been a joyous place once,” Gereint mused, gazing over the clearing.
“I would like to have seen it in happier times.”
“Was there ever such a time?” he wondered.
“The Grail was offered here,” I replied. “Whoever built this church must have known it as a holy place.”
Oh, yes, I thought, but this is Llyonesse, the blighted land, desolate, barren, and beset with strange airs and weird creatures. Perhaps it was not always so. This little chapel still survives to tell a different tale, after all. Perhaps there is yet some better hope for Llyonesse.
“We should go back before Bors wonders what has happened to us,” I said and, leaning low over the water, refilled the bowl, and we hurried back to the chapel.
Bors had moved himself to the near wall and sat against it. Accepting the bowl, he drank his fill, set the vessel aside, and professed himself refreshed and ready to resume his duty as Grail Guardian.
As if in answer to this declaration, Gereint cocked his head to one side, half turned toward the door, and said, “Did you hear that?”
“I heard nothing,” I confessed.
“Nor I,” said Bors.
“Listen!” Gereint whispered. Drawing his sword, he stepped lightly to the door and out. I followed close behind, and we scanned the chapel yard. I saw nothing, and was about to say as much when Gereint raised the point of his sword and said, “There they are.”
Until he spoke, I had seen nothing but the dark shapes of the trees rising above the thick gloom of the encircling thorn wall. But even as he raised his sword I saw the heads and shoulders of three warriors emerge from the darkness of the hedge and step into the clearing. I saw the long spears rising above the large round yellow shields they carried, and knew we were in for a fight.
Chapter Thirty-seven
“Bring Bors,” I commanded. “Tell him to prepare for battle.”
“Bors is ready,” the big warrior said, taking his place beside me as three more enemy warriors joined the first three already advancing towards us across the clearing. More were coming from the thorn hedge.
Within the space of six heartbeats, we were surrounded. There must have been twenty or more foemen, each armed with a spear and a shield; some wore pointed helms and others the metal shirts of Saecsen men, but most were naked to the waist, and I could see the pallor of their flesh as they advanced into the half-light of the clearing.
If it was not bad enough that we were woefully outnumbered, we had but two swords between us—Bors’ and Gereint’s—and I had only a knife. “Two blades and a dagger are not much against twenty,” I observed, wishing I had not lost my spear.
“This blade is yours, lord,” replied Gereint, delivering it into my hand.
“Keep it, lad,” I told him, but he would not hear that.
Darting forth, he ran a few paces into the clearing, stooped, snatched something from the ground, and returne
d, bearing the sword we had taken from the false Peredur. “It is a good weapon,” said Gereint, swinging the blade to get the feel of its heft and balance. “It will serve.”
“Good man,” commended Bors approvingly. Turning his attention to the advancing warband, he said, “Shoulder to shoulder, brothers. Keep your backs to the chapel, and do not allow any of them to get behind us.”
Silently, silently, they advanced, shield to shield, forming a bristling wall around us. Then, without so much as a whispered command, the spears swung level and they prepared to attack.
“Now!” I cried, and we three sprang forward as one, slashing with our swords and shouting. I was able to cut the spearheads off two shafts with as many chops; Bors and Gereint fared just as well. When we broke off our foray, six of the enemy had lost the use of their weapons.
If I expected the loss of their spears would daunt them, however, I was sadly mistaken, for they came on regardless, holding their headless spear shafts as if the lack of a killing blade were of no account.
We waded into them, three Cymbrogi, undaunted, united in heart and mind. Shoulder to shoulder we stood to our work, and the bodies toppled like corded wood beneath the woodcutter’s axe. Time and time again we struck, the steel in our hands pealing like the ringing of bells. The enemy now clambered over the corpses of their kinsmen to reach us, and still we cut them down…and still they came.
“It is no use,” complained Bors as the enemy regrouped for another assault. “They will not break ranks.”
“Perhaps we can change their minds,” I suggested. Scanning the enemy ranged before us, I saw where several advancing foemen carried the shafts of spears from which the blades had been lopped. “There!” I shouted, pointing with my sword. “Follow me!”
With that we all three ran for the spot I had marked. The foemen stood their ground, apparently unconcerned that their spears had no heads. They held their ground, but since their weapons were blunt, it was an easy matter to cut them down. Three fell without so much as a murmur, and we were rewarded with a momentary confusion as the enemy jostled one another to repair the gap in their shield wall.
Hacking hard to my right, I was able to kill another enemy warrior, and Gereint yet another. We then turned to help Bors, who was struggling to fend off two more. These went down under a frenzied attack by Gereint, who rolled beneath their shields and stabbed them as they tried to loft their spears to strike.
Thus we suddenly found ourselves standing alone as the enemy fell back to re-form the wall once more.
“This is the calmest battle I have ever fought,” Bors observed. “I have never been in a fight where I was not deaf from the clatter.”
It was true; even in a small skirmish the sound is a very din, and in most battles it is a deafening roar. The shouting of combatants, the clash of weapons, the screams of the wounded and dying—it all melds together to produce a distinctive clamor which can be heard from far away, and which, once heard, is never forgotten.
But these foemen stood to their grim work in utter silence—no shouted commands, not even a curse or cry of pain when a blow landed. Whether they were attacking or dying, the only sounds to be heard were the swishing rustle of their feet through the long grass and the dull clanking of their shields where our swords struck.
Moreover, the enemy was curiously lethargic. Their actions were the lumpen, clumsy gestures of bodies with no force behind their movements. Their faces—when I glimpsed them from behind their shields—were grim and gray, but expressionless, betraying neither rage nor hate. Tight-lipped and dull-eyed, they seemed to be performing a laborious and tiresome chore, and nothing so dangerous or desperate as battle. Indeed, they lurched and lumbered like men asleep, heavy on their feet and slow to react.
Even as I turned to offer this observation to my companions, Bors muttered, “I do not believe it.”
He was looking at the place where the first combatants had fallen. I turned, too, and saw the slain warriors rising from the ground. Like men throwing off sleep, they simply arose with a start, climbed to their feet, and joined their mute companions.
The weird, silent foe shuffled forth once more. Despair, black and bleak, yawned before me like an open grave as the realization broke over me: we could cut them down, but we could not kill them.
“God help us,” was Bors’ terse reply. He had no time to say more, for the foemen renewed the attack, and we were quickly engaged in trying to regain the small space we had carved for ourselves.
In the confusion of the next attack, Gereint succeeded in getting hold of one of the enemy shields. This he used to guard his left, affording both of us better protection on that side, for he made it a virtue to stay close to me. We fought side by side, and it put me in mind of the times my brother, Gwalcmai, and I had labored together in all those battles against the Saecsen host.
The attack—as poorly conceived as the others—soon foundered and the battle settled into a sluggish, lumpen rhythm. Thrust and chop, thrust, thrust and chop…I found it absurdly easy to strike them down, for the slowness of the foe and their dull reactions quickly told against them. They fell as they fought, without a sound, readily collapsing and expiring without a murmur—only to rise again after a small space, and join in the fight as if nothing had happened.
This made Bors frustrated and angry. He railed at the enemy, filling the dull, dreadful silence with taunts and challenges which went unanswered. He hewed at them mightily, slashing with powerful strokes. Once, he lopped the arm off one hapless foeman—the limb spun from the wretch’s shoulder in a bloodless arc, still gripping the spear shaft in its dead hand.
The enemy fell and Bors let out a whoop of triumph. But the unfeeling creature merely picked itself off the ground and came on again—even though it could not longer wield a weapon.
This provoked the big warrior so much that he beheaded the creature next. “Shake that off, hellspawn!” shouted Bors, thinking he had at last succeeded in removing at least one combatant from the fight.
Alas, he was wrong. The headless torso lay still for a time, only to rise and resume the attack, a gaping wound on its shoulders where its head had been. As before, no blood spewed from the wound, and it brought no diminution of persistence; the corpse stumbled forth, reaching with empty, clutching hands.
Unfortunately, we had not the stamina of the undead, for though they could fall and rise and fall, only to rise again—though we hacked the weapons from their hands, or severed the hands themselves, or heads!—we could not. Our hands and arms were growing weary, and our wounds bled.
“They do not mind dying,” Bors observed, deftly striking the fingers from a hand stretching too close, “because they are dead already. But when I lie down, I will not get up again so easily, I think. What are we to do, brother?”
There was no stopping them. Despite the practiced efficiency with which we dispatched the foe, we received only the smallest respite before they awakened and rose to fight again.
I could feel the strain in my shoulder and arm. My fingers were cramped from gripping the hilt, and the blade seemed to have doubled its weight. Bors, too, was laboring; I could hear his breath coming in grunting gasps as he lunged and thrust time after time after time. Gereint’s blade struck again and again from under the near edge of the shield, but even his youthful strength could not last forever. No doubt that was their sole tactic: to wear us down until we could no longer lift a blade to defend ourselves, whereupon they would simply overwhelm us and tear us limb from limb.
We had no other choice, however, but to stand our ground and fight. Thus, I raised the sword again, and again, and again, slashing and slashing while the undead warriors stumbled ever and again into our blades. Sweat ran freely down my neck and chest and back, mingling with the tears of exhaustion welling from my eyes and spilling down my face. Jesu, help us! I prayed as I cut the arm from the wretch before me. The warrior shambled ahead, pushing his shield into my face. Sidestepping the clumsy lunge, I brought the sword blade
down sharply on the back of his neck and he sank like an anvil, falling against my legs and throwing me off-balance. I tried to kick the body aside, but could not shift the dead weight and fell.
Two enemy warriors bore down upon me. Squirming on my back, I kept my sword in their faces and tried to regain my feet as they woodenly jabbed at me with their spears. I shouted to Bors for help, but could not see him. I shouted again, and dodged a spear thrust; the stroke missed my chest, but I got a nasty gash in the side. Seizing the spear shaft with my free hand, I flailed with my sword and succeeded in getting to my knees.
Clutching the hilt in both hands, I whipped the blade back and forth, desperate to gain a space in which I might climb to my feet. But the blade struck the iron rim of a foeman’s shield. My fingers, long since numb from the relentless toil, could no longer hold the hilt and the sword spun from my grasp.
The long spears drove down upon me. I threw myself to one side, rolling in a desperate effort to escape. One spear jabbed at my head and grazed my cheek. Seizing the spear shaft, I tried to wrest the weapon from my foe, but his grasp was like stone. As I struggled, another spear thrust at my side, and I felt my siarc rip as the blade sliced through the fabric, narrowly missing my ribs.
Lashing out with both feet, I kicked the nearest in the leg and he staggered back. I jumped up quickly, and was just as quickly surrounded once more. Three more warriors had joined the first two, and all pressed in on me, spears level, aiming to take me in the chest and stomach.
Just as they prepared to make their final lunge, I glimpsed what I thought to be a flash of light out of the corner of my eye, and heard Gereint cry out in a loud voice. Taking the shield by the rim, he spun around and flung it into the foremost of my attackers. The iron rim caught the luckless wretch as he turned; his face crumpled and he collapsed, taking two others down with him.
Before I could struggle to my feet, Gereint was over me, half lifting, half dragging me from danger. Bors cleaved the skull of another in two, and the enemy, beaten back for the moment, retreated to regroup and attack again.
Grail: Book Five of the Pendragon Cycle Page 35
