by Holly Taylor
“We cannot do this any longer,” Gried said.
“No,” Siwan replied quietly. “We cannot.”
“Almost a year we have been doing what we know to be wrong,” Llyenog said.
“We have been waiting,” Efrei put in. “For rescue.”
“But it has not come,” Siwan said.
“It is not coming at all,” Greid whispered. “Not at all.”
“You know what they will do to us when we refuse,” Efrei said.
“Why, nothing,” Greid said bitterly. “Not to us.”
“But to our families,” Llyenog said, his eyes sweeping over the sleeping forms of his children and grandchildren.
Slowly Greid replied. “The Coranians cannot hurt them if they are already dead.”
There. At last it was said. And he had underestimated his fellow Master Smiths, for not one of them was shocked. Not one of them had even flinched.
“Rescue is not coming,” Greid said again. “We must rescue ourselves.”
“By dying,” Siwan whispered, her hand gently stroking the head of her sleeping husband.
“By dying,” Llyenog agreed, his hand hovering over the still form of his eldest son.
“By dying,” Efrei said, his dark gaze resting on the tiny shape of his youngest grandson.
“By dying,” Greid said thickly through his tear-filled throat as he picked up his sleeping granddaughter. The little girl’s golden hair gleamed in the dancing firelight.
“But how?” Efrei whispered in despair. “How?”
“With this,” Greid said as he pulled a tiny dagger from beneath his bedroll.
Siwan sucked in her breath. “Where did you get that?”
“I made it,” Greid said quietly. “I worked on it a little bit at a time for the last few months. I made it as sharp as it could be made. I made it with love.”
“With love,” Llyenog said with wonder in his gravelly tone. “Then let us do what we must do.”
“With love,” Greid whispered as he brought the tiny blade to his sleeping granddaughter’s throat.
And it was then that the crows began to scream.
ARTHUR STOOD IN the dark forest, eyeing the dying campfire in the center of the clearing. One large hut stood still and silent surrounded by four smaller huts. The four smaller huts, Arthur knew, each contained four sleeping Coranian guards. Four more guards currently patrolled the perimeter of the clearing, criss-crossing in a pattern that did not vary. Now that was foolish, he thought. It should never have been a pattern so easily read. He did not know so much of war, but he knew that much.
No sound came from the larger hut where the Master Smiths and their families had been bedded down for the night. Nonetheless, there was something about the mute building that he did not like at all, something that hummed at his nerves in its silence, in its dark stillness, something that gibbered at him to hurry.
At his side two Dewin, Rhiannon and Llywelyn, stirred, their awareness returning from their Wind-Ride to the compound. Rhiannon looked up at him, her wide, green eyes filled with urgency.
“We must hurry, High King,” she said urgently.
Llywelyn grasped Arthur’s arm. “The Master Smiths have reached an end. They have determined to kill themselves and their families rather than continue.”
“Greid fashioned a dagger,” Rhiannon put in. “And he prepares to use it.”
“Then we must, indeed, hurry. But all is in readiness,” Arthur said smoothly. “So let it begin.”
He nodded to Gwydion and the Dreamer, along with Cariadas and Cynfar, closed his eyes and reached out to the night crows that had waited here at Arthur’s bidding. The crows rose from the branches of the surrounding trees and began to caw. Their sharp screams ripped through the silent night. Dark feathers parted the air with a hollow rush. The pacing guards halted and drew their swords. The sleeping guards in the huts began to stir.
Arthur nodded to his Druids. Aergol, Menw, Aldwr, Sinend, and Sabrina linked hands with him. He closed his eyes and bowed his head. He took their Druid’s Fire deep within him. It grew and grew inside, straining to leap from him like a deadly shoot from fallow ground.
Inside him a flame-colored sun rose, dripping hungry fire. He harnessed it, bending it to his will, aiming the power like a lighting bolt, shaping and honing it on the forge of his desire until it gleamed in his mind like a shining blade. And then he struck.
The walls of the small huts burst into flame. Angry tongues of fire shot up into the dark sky, cutting through the air like a scythe bent on gathering a deadly harvest.
The guards burst out of the huts, some men already on fire and attempting to beat out the flames. It was then that Rhoram’s warriors burst through the trees and into the clearing. Arthur saw King Rhoram fall on a disoriented guard, almost cutting the man in half with his blade. Achren gleefully ran another guard through with her short spear. As the man fell she plucked a dagger from her boot and threw it in an underhand cast that caught the next running guard in the belly.
Lluched, the Gwarda of Crueddyn, used her bowstring to strangle a hapless guard. Her hair was set in hundreds of tiny braids, fastened at the ends with pieces of brass, and it glowed amber in the fiery light. With a violent wrench she broke the guard’s neck and let him fall to the now-blood-soaked earth.
Arrows flew through the clearing to embed themselves in the throats of the guards. Those who were not killed in the first volley were killed with the short spears and daggers of Rhoram’s Cerddorian as they leapt into the clearing, shouting out Arthur’s name as their battle cry.
Within moments all but one of the guards were dead. The Cerddorian halted at Arthur’s signal, standing over the bodies of those they had killed, wiping the blood from their weapons. Achren held her dagger at the throat of the remaining guard. Her dark eyes glittered as she waiting for Arthur’s next command. Arthur stepped into the clearing and the fires died down at his glance. The Druids followed him, their faces wet with sweat from the heat of the fires they had given their High King.
Rhiannon and Gwydion stepped into the clearing, followed by Llywelyn, Cynfar, and Cariadas. Rhoram went to the door of the large, still-silent hut. He looked at Arthur, his brows raised. At Arthur’s nod, Rhoram opened the door and stepped back.
Gwydion stepped forward then and called out. “Greid ap Gorwys of Gwynedd, Siwan ur Trephin of Prydyn, Llyenog ap Glwys of Rheged, Efrei ap Gwifan of Ederynion. Step forth, at the command of your High King.”
Four figures stepped out of the shadowy hut and came to kneel in front of Arthur. The families of the Master Smiths followed, young children whose eyes were still dilated in terror, men and women who held their children tightly with tears in their eyes.
“High King,” Gried said slowly. “You have called us and we are here.”
“I have called you,” Arthur agreed. “For you are mine.”
“We offer you our lives as payment.”
“As payment?” Arthur asked quietly.
“For what we have done. We beg you to spare our families. That is all we ask, we who have no right to ask anything at all.”
“Indeed?” Arthur asked, his brows raised. “Then if you have no right to ask, why do you?”
“But we do have a right,” Siwan said flatly. “You owe us a boon, High King of Kymru.”
“Do I?”
“You do. For we waited for you,” Siwan accused. “We waited. And you did not come.”
Greid, Llyenog, and Efrei gasped in horror at Siwan’s words. “High King,” Gried began, swallowing hard.
“Ah, the Kymri,” Arthur interrupted, shaking his head. “Stubborn. Willful. With no respect for their Rulers.”
“High King—” Greid began again.
“And always right,” Arthur continued. “For I am sorry that I took so long. She is right. I do owe you a boon. But first I must take care of another matter.”
Arthur turned to the last guard. Achren’s knife glittered at his throat as Arthur spoke to the trembl
ing Coranian.
“Your name?”
“Edwald,” the guard whispered, swallowing hard.
“Edwald, I want you to take a message back to Havgan.”
“I will.”
“Tell him exactly what happened here tonight. Tell him that High King Arthur, as promised, took the Master Smiths away from him. Tell him that I warn him yet again—leave Kymru, and live. Or stay and die. That is the message.”
“I will deliver it as you say,” Edwald rasped.
Arthur nodded at Achren. “Take him with you when you go. Let him loose after you return to Prydyn. Give him a horse and food and see him on his way to Eiodel.”
“As you command, High King,” Achren said.
Arthur turned back to the Master Smiths. “You spoke of me owing you a boon. How then if I offer you this? You return to Gwytheryn with me. In Cadair Idris is a forge the likes of which I have never seen, a forge that surely was made for the fashioning of weapons of war. Which is what Kymru needs now, as she prepares to be free.”
“High King,” Greid said with tears in his eyes. “You would spare us?”
“I do not spare you. I command of you that you put your talents to my use.”
Siwan smiled. “It shall be as you say, High King. We will serve you until the end of our days.”
“And may that be long from now.”
“As you command, High King,” Greid said with the beginnings of a smile on his grizzled face. “As you command.”
HAVGAN SAT up in his bed in Eiodel with a cry. His sweat-slicked skin glimmered in the light of the dying hearth fire. The flickering flames illuminated the shifting shadows, lighting a precious jewel here, a tapestry there, a gleaming goblet, the ruby-red bedspread stitched with golden thread.
A soft hand touched Havgan’s shoulder and silken hair of honey-blond whispered across his back.
“My love?” Arianrod murmured. “What is wrong?”
He turned to face her and her amber eyes, so like his own, gleamed with an inner fire as they shimmered in the shifting light.
“A dream,” he said past the tightness in his throat. “It was just a dream.”
She sat up straight and grasped his shoulders with an urgency he did not understand. “What kind of dream?” she asked.
“What does it matter?”
“What kind of dream?” she asked again, more urgently this time.
He sat back, settling himself against the carved headboard, never taking his eyes from her. “A dream of Caer Siddi. Arthur ap Uthyr and the Dreamer came to the island with his Y Dawnus. Aergol was there, as was Rhiannon and King Rhoram. Others.”
“What happened?”
“Arthur harnessed the power of the Druids. He set fire to the huts. He freed the Master Smiths.”
“The Master Smiths are free,” Arianrod repeated, stunned.
“In my dream only,” Havgan said sharply.
“Fool,” she said. “You know it was more than a dream.”
“I do not know that and neither do you.”
Arianrod said in a voice so soft it held a dreamy quality, “You know more than you say. More than you have ever said.”
“You dare—”
“Which is why you try to hide the truth. But I can name it.”
“Arianrod—”
“I name you Dreamer.”
He sat upright, stung. “I have killed others for saying even less than that, Arianrod,” he hissed. “Do not forget that.”
“I do not forget that,” she said, the light in her eyes burning brighter. “And you should not forget that I am not a fool.”
He laid his hand on her swollen belly, laid his hand on the child that grew there. A boy, she had said. His son. “You know what I am,” he whispered to her. “For that I will kill you one day.”
She smiled slowly. “You have tried. Try again, if you dare.”
He grabbed her shoulders and forced her down on her back. He mounted her, and wrapped his hands around her throat. Her silky hair tangled in his fingers. The firelight crawled greedily over her lush, naked body. She reached up her hands and pulled his head down to hers, her full lips opening in a passionate kiss. But instead of kissing him, her mouth darted to his shoulder and she bit him, hard enough to draw salty blood.
He hissed, then covered her mouth with his, tasting the coppery tang of his own blood. He entered her, his sweat-soaked body arching in pleasure. She cried out in ecstasy as he thrust into her again and again. Again she cried out and this time his cry mingled with hers as he spent himself inside her. He fell forward, pinning her underneath him as he struggled to quiet his breathing.
She was his Woman on the Rocks, the Woman of his Dreams, and he would never let her go.
Chapter
* * *
Five
Cil, Kingdom of Prydyn &
Cadair Idris, Gwytheryn, Kymru
Bedwen Mis, 500
Gwyntdydd, Disglair Wythnos—midmorning
Llwyd Cilcoed made his way cautiously through the rough countryside surrounding the town of Cil. The morning was bright and clear but still cold, for it was late winter. Although snow no longer fell there was frost late into the mornings, and the wind had a cold edge to it as though it still carried the memory of fierce blizzards and icy nights.
He scrambled through copses and thickets and oddly bent trees, staying away from Sarn Iken, the main road, but keeping it in his mind’s eye with his clairvoyant gift, never losing sight of it. It would never do to be seen by the Y Dawnus that watched, no doubt, the main road. He knew from the talk around the campfires in Coed Ddu that Elidyr and his wife, Elstar, had finally repaired the damage done to the network of Dewin and Bards when the Coranians had taken Allt Llwyd and caught so many of the Y Dawnus in their net.
Yet there were many places the Y Dawnus could not keep under surveillance, for there were not enough of them—not any more. But he knew that they kept a good watch on the main thoroughfares. And he knew he was a hunted man. Prince Lludd of Ederynion would have sent out the word as quickly a possible. The Prince would be unforgiving should he ever find Llwyd Cilcoed in his path again. For the Prince had always hated him. And Llywd had killed a man that last night in Coed Ddu.
Llywd grimaced at that thought. For though he had not cared in the least about the Cerddorian warrior he had killed he also had not enjoyed it. Llywd had not been trained as a warrior. No, he had, from the moment of his birth, been meant for better things. He had been born Dewin, and was above the dirt and blood and muck that filled the lives of ordinary men. And the feel of the knife as it had slid through the guard’s body still had the power to make Llywd feel a trifle ill.
But he did not doubt that he had done what he had to do. He did not doubt that the course he was taking was right and good. For at the end of this path he was taking was a better life for himself. A life he deserved. A life he had always deserved and had while he was the beloved of Queen Olwen. Then he had slept in a comfortable bed. He had eaten well. He had been treated with deference.
He had truly been someone.
But that had changed when the Coranians came. To them he was only a witch, someone to be hunted and killed. So he had hidden for two years as best he could. And when he understood how he could find his way back to a life worthy of him, he had come to Coed Ddu and surrendered himself to the Prince. And he had done what he was told to do for many, many months and waited for his chance. And when the time had come, when he was ready, he left the forest and contacted the one who promised him the life he wanted.
He sensed her long before he saw her with his eyes. She was waiting for him as she said she would be—in a copse just a league east of Cil. She sat on a blanket of fine, white wool. Her honey-blond hair shone like precious gold as it cascaded smoothly down her white, fur-lined cloak. Her cat-shaped amber eyes glowed in the morning sun, which filtered through the trees and fell hungrily on her. Precious stones of amber and topaz dripped from her ears and throat and slender fingers.
/> The Golden Man treated her well it seemed. And planted a seed in her belly that he sensed before he even saw it with his eyes. There was something about the child that lay within her body. Something he could not put a name to. Something that caused him to shudder momentarily. But something he knew better than to speak of.
He stepped into the clearing and stood quietly as her two Coranian guards roughly searched him. But, knowing better, he had carried no weapons and so there was nothing for them to find. One guard stood behind him, his spear at the ready. The other went to the woman and helped her to her feet, his face expressionless.
“Arianrod ur Brychan,” Llywd Cilcoed said with a bow. “You are looking well.” He stared pointedly at her belly, then grinned.
Arianrod leisurely looked him up and down from head to toe. “Llwyd Cilcoed,” she said neutrally. “You, on the other hand, do not look well at all. I trust your journey was difficult?”
“I was not followed, and not seen,” he said sharply, “if that is what you mean.”
“That is not what I mean,” she said with a malicious smile. “But no matter. You are here and that is what is important.”
“Let us be sure we understand each other, Arianrod,” he said, “before we get much further. I have agreed to perform a service for the Golden Man. One that he will surely be grateful for.”
“Yes. So he will.”
“And in return—”
“In return, Llywd Cilcoed, you will be named the Lord of Arystli.”
“A title now held by my brother.”
“Your brother could call himself King of Ederynion for all that would matter,” Arianrod said. “As a Cerddorian he is declared outlaw by the Coranians. At Havgan’s orders you will be installed as Lord in Arystli. It is you who shall rule in Ymris. It is your word that shall be as law.”
“I will require that I not be surrounded by Coranian watchdogs in Ymris.”
“Of course. You will be free to do as you will to whom you will when you will. You will be answerable only to Havgan in matters of defense. Are we in agreement?”
“We are, Arianrod. With one more requirement.”
