Mabon halted, his chin up, and his eyes blazing. He glared at each of the guards in turn, and they fell back under the force of his gaze. “Where is it, Clydog!”
Clydog lifted his head and leaned back in his chair, his elbow resting on the arm and a finger to his lips. His posture was relaxed, but the tension in the room—already high due to the fight between Lilwen and Seisyll—ratcheted up another three notches. Clydog’s guards moved to ready stances. Dafydd could have told them that they shouldn’t have let Mabon in the fort in the first place.
“Who are you to violate the sanctity of my hall by storming in here uninvited?” Clydog said.
Mabon pulled himself up to his full height, which was close to Dafydd’s own. Mabon was also what Cade had called unreasonably beautiful. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lilwen stared at him, enraptured.
Unlike Mabon, however, the dozen men who’d entered the hall with him didn’t try to hide behind their looks and they began circling around the edges of the hall, eyes scanning hands and faces, their own hands on the hilts of their swords. It would take just one word from Mabon and his men could massacre Clydog’s people. Cade had wondered if Mabon worked only through the actions of humans, and if he himself had little power in the human world other than to obscure the truth and create glamour. But with two dozen human men-at-arms at his command, it didn’t really matter what power belonged to him and what he borrowed.
“Who is it?” Angharad poked at Dafydd to get his attention. When he didn’t answer right away, she burrowed under his arm so she could see into the hall.
Dafydd still held her around the waist and now leaned down to whisper into her ear. “He is Mabon, son of Arawn. He is the sidhe who caused King Cadwaladr’s troubles earlier this winter.”
“A sidhe—”
“Don’t look at him. Don’t think of him. He deceives you with a beautiful face, with the same glamour all the gods use when they walk among humans. He is not as he seems at first. He’s not even real.”
“I don’t think he’s more handsome than you are.” Angharad said this as if this wasn’t the most obvious of untruths. “What might he want with us?”
“I don’t know, but it can’t be anything good.”
“I am Mabon!” As Mabon spoke, his aura seemed to expand outward from his body in a ring of light. “You must give me what I want!”
Clydog had risen to his feet, and he now backed away from the table, giving way before Mabon’s intensity. “I don’t—I don’t—I don’t have it. I don’t have anything you’d want.”
Mabon stepped onto the dais and placed his hands flat on the surface of the high table. He leaned on them and gazed directly into Clydog’s eyes. “I know it is here. Give it to me.”
Clydog shook his head, but his denial wasn’t as forceful as it had been earlier and sweat poured from his temples. Overall, his posture was uncertain. It made Dafydd think that Clydog might truly have this thing that Mabon wanted, unlike Cade, who hadn’t. And if Dafydd realized it, Mabon might too. Still, Clydog appeared determined to deny Mabon if he could.
Mabon straightened, pulled a sword from the sheath at his waist, and pointed it straight up in the air. It lit with a white fire from hilt to tip.
Dafydd reacted without thinking. He pulled Angharad toward the stairway. He didn’t want even the slightest chance of being overheard. “Do you know what he’s talking about? Do you know what Mabon wants?”
Angharad’s eyes were too wide, and she stared past Dafydd without seeing him. “Did I really see his sword flame? What’s he going to do?” Her voice went high. She was panicking.
“Forget the sword.” Dafydd caught Angharad’s chin and forced her to look at him. “Do you know what Mabon wants?”
Angharad swallowed hard, and her eyes focused on Dafydd’s face. “Yes.” She nodded her head rapidly. “My father gave it to me to protect.”
“To you?” Dafydd’s voice was hard and urgent. “Knowing that Mabon might want it—”
“It isn’t like that,” Angharad said.
“What is it like?” Dafydd said. “Is it a sword? A weapon of some kind?”
“It’s a pillow.”
“A what?”
When Angharad simply nodded vigorously again, Dafydd barked a laugh and then shook his head. “I almost don’t want to know.” He turned to look through the open doorway to Clydog and Mabon, still in confrontation. Dafydd returned his attention to Angharad. “Get it and meet me at the postern gate. We can’t let Mabon’s men find it when they search the castle.”
“It won’t come to that, surely,” Angharad said.
Dafydd put a finger to her lips and continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “If I don’t come in time, if I don’t find you, hide it in the woods and then hide yourself.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I might be the only one here who has seen Mabon before—knows him from an earlier confrontation—and knows what he’s like. I will distract him and his men to give you time to get away.”
“What? No!” Angharad said. “He might kill you!”
Dafydd had her by the shoulders. “He won’t.”
“You don’t know tha—”
“Go!” Dafydd pushed Angharad towards the stairs. To his relief, she didn’t question his decision again. After one last glance back, she went.
Dafydd watched her disappear and then turned back to the hall. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Then throwing back his shoulders in a show of confidence, even if that was the last thing he was feeling right now, he strode into the room and pulled his sword from his sheath as he did so.
“Don’t listen to him, Clydog,” Dafydd said. “He is all glamour and no power.”
Instantly, Dafydd had Mabon’s full attention. Mabon seemed to puff up even more, his light and beauty filling the room. “Who are you?” And then Mabon’s eyes narrowed. “You are not sidhe.”
Dafydd managed not to hesitate in his walk and show his surprise. He’d expected Mabon to remember him and tried not to be offended that he hadn’t. But then Dafydd recalled the scene in Arawn’s cavern: Mabon had snuck away at the beginning of Cade’s battle with Arawn. He really didn’t know that Dafydd had grasped the hilt of Dyrnwyn and drawn it from Cade’s body.
“No, I am not,” Dafydd said.
“And yet you dare challenge me?”
“You are not welcome here, no matter what it is you want or which sword you carry.”
In response to Dafydd’s challenge, Mabon pointed his sword at Dafydd. It still sparked, but less than before. Dafydd came closer, his sword relaxed in his grip. Mabon stepped away from the table, and before Dafydd had any more time to think about the intelligence of this course, they were circling each other in a cleared space fifteen feet on a side.
“My son,” Clydog said. “You don’t have to do this”
“I do, in fact,” Dafydd said.
“He is a god!” That came from Lilwen, whose eyes were bright. She had a fixed smile on her face and seemed completely bewitched.
Mabon laughed. “You have the right of it, miss. Fight me, boy, and you throw away your life.”
“I don’t think so,” Dafydd said.
“You are that confident?” Again, Mabon swelled with light and power, though Dafydd still felt that it was a show and not real power like Cade carried within him. Dafydd had seen both now and knew the difference, or hoped he did.
“What kind of god are you to terrorize your people?” Dafydd said.
“I rule over whomever I choose, and all men must obey my commands.”
Dafydd considered that, and then a thought struck him. “Does your mother know where you are?”
Mabon’s face twisted, and the glamour wavered. Dafydd didn’t know that he could describe what was revealed at Mabon’s core, except its darkness. Then Mabon’s shape steadied and Dyrnwyn flared anew.
Dafydd’s right hand still burned from the memory of holding the magic sword back at the caverns at Caer Dathyl. To see it again
in Mabon’s hand disgusted him. He had to almost physically push away the feeling. Cade had told Dafydd that he was worthy of the sword, and that the sword had agreed, but Dafydd himself still couldn’t quite believe it. A month on, Dafydd was still a long way from forgetting what had happened there.
Lilwen rose to her feet and now the light in her face was beatific. “My lord! You bear Dyrnwyn.”
“I do.” Mabon gave her a wide smile. “You are a most perceptive woman. Believe me when I say that only one of worth and valor can wield it.”
“I would not have thought those characteristics described you,” Dafydd said.
“You doubt my ability to hold it?” Mabon was incredulous.
“There are few men who can.” Clydog’s voice had gained strength in the time Dafydd and Mabon had been sizing each other up. The shock of Mabon’s appearance was wearing off. “This lad is one of them.”
Mabon sneered. “You jest! Did you not learn in my father’s cavern that unlike King Cadwaladr, a mortal man such as you cannot harm a god?”
Dafydd was mighty sick of seeing that expression on Mabon’s face. “I can try.”
Mabon’s face remained full of amusement. “So now you challenge me to single combat? Do you dare?”
Dafydd’s eyes went reflexively to Dyrnwyn, sparking as it had once done in Arawn’s hand. And Cade’s.
Mabon noted the attention. “Fear it, child.”
“I dare to challenge you,” Dafydd said.
Mabon struck. With a grin plastered on his face and showing his teeth, he flew at Dafydd, moving so fast Dafydd barely had time to bring his own sword to bear. He wasn’t in time to deflect Mabon’s blow, and Dyrnwyn slashed at Dafydd’s upper arm, right through the leather coat.
Dafydd spun away, seeing stars, the pain in his arm unlike anything he’d ever felt before. He expected to see blood pouring from the wound—it felt as if Mabon had poured boiling oil on it—but there was only a gash in his tissue. Dyrnwyn had cauterized the wound as it had sliced him.
Mabon leaped towards Dafydd again, but this time Dafydd managed to parry the blow. His wrist was tight with the effort. His left arm hung useless, so he wielded his sword with just his right hand.
Dafydd spun away and put one of the benches between him and Mabon to give himself time to recover. He worked to control his breathing, and the blackness that had risen before his eyes dissipated, now that he knew he wasn’t going to bleed out.
Mabon attacked again, leaping onto the bench and pressing Dafydd back. Dafydd fought him off. And then again, Mabon catapulted towards him. By Mabon’s fifth attempt to dominate him, Dafydd realized that he was holding his own, and Mabon’s first blow had been a lucky one.
He’d caught Dafydd off-guard that time, but Mabon wasn’t an experienced fighter. He was quick, but as the fight progressed, Dafydd was able to absorb what Mabon had to give him. Dafydd should have known: Mabon was a bully, used to frightening his opponents rather than defeating them in close combat. And that caused a new internal debate inside Dafydd. He wasn’t a sidhe. He didn’t have the blessing of Arianrhod. Would the gods punish him if he really did defeat Mabon?
Dafydd continued to parry Mabon’s blows, praying Mabon’s attention would stray. Mabon, unfortunately, didn’t oblige. His strength wasn’t waning as quickly as Dafydd’s either. Of course, he was a god. And not injured. One couldn’t expect it. Marshalling his failing strength, Dafydd began to press Mabon back. They circled each other, Dafydd countering every move Mabon made. More time passed. If he didn’t finish this quickly, he wouldn’t be able to lift his sword. The pain in Dafydd’s arm was blinding him and he could only see Mabon through a sheen of sweat and tears.
Dafydd and Mabon exchanged one, two, three, four more blows before Dafydd finally managed to catch the guard that protected Dyrnwyn’s hilt with the tip of his own sword. With a twist of his wrist, he flicked the sword from Mabon’s hand. It flew across the room and landed with a clatter on the floor against the wall by the door through which Dafydd had pulled Angharad. None of the men standing nearby moved to pick it up. Mabon himself froze and then held out both hands, as if he was going to throw bolts of lightning at Dafydd, as his father had done at Cade.
But he didn’t.
Mabon grimaced—and Dafydd discerned a touch of uncertainty, even fear in his eyes. In two strides, Dafydd crossed the distance that separated them. He switched his sword to his left hand, forcing his lifeless fingers around the hilt and then drove his fisted and gauntleted right hand into Mabon’s face.
Mabon staggered back, his hands to his nose. He tripped on the heel of his boot, stumbled, and fell ignominiously on his rear. As in the case of Dafydd’s wound, no blood poured out, but he spat at Dafydd, who loomed over him.
“I will see you suffer for this day.” Mabon’s eyes went to Dyrnwyn, which lay thirty feet away.
Dafydd blocked the way to it. He met Mabon’s gaze and allowed Mabon to see the challenge in them. He wasn’t going to let Mabon have it again without more of a fight. Mabon pointed to his captain with a black-gloved hand. “I want that sword. Leave without it, and you die.”
And then he vanished.
Chapter Four
Dafydd
Every person in the hall gasped and stared at the place Mabon had been. Dafydd stepped back involuntarily and then glanced towards Mabon’s captain, a thickset man, older than Goronwy, with the demeanor of a fighting man. Dafydd didn’t relish taking him on. As it was, he was weaving on his feet and struggling to gain control. But Dafydd was going to let the captain remove Dyrnwyn from Castell Clydog only over Dafydd’s dead body.
Mabon’s captain stared at Dafydd through three heartbeats, his eyes hard, and then he fisted a hand high in the air. It was the signal Mabon’s soldiers had been waiting for. They sprang upon Clydog’s men—whose feet were frozen to the floor just long enough for them to lose any advantage they might have had by their greater numbers. Many barely had time to clear their swords from their sheaths before they were beset.
Mabon’s captain and Dafydd moved at the same instant, though not to fight each other, but towards Dyrnwyn. The captain was blocked by the press of men between him and the sword, however, so Dafydd reached it first. Dyrnwyn had skittered closer to the dais—someone must have kicked it—and had come to rest under a chair. The sword lay quiet, its light extinguished. A quick check showed him that Mabon’s captain still twenty paces away, set upon by two of Clydog’s men and no immediate threat.
Dafydd still didn’t understand why Mabon had just left rather than fight for what he wanted. Grimacing in advance of the pain he feared to feel, Dafydd stooped to pick up the sword.
Nothing happened.
The hilt felt cool to the touch. Dafydd couldn’t explain it, but didn’t have time to think on it further. Instead, he turned towards King Clydog, looking to protect him, but he was safe for the moment, backed into a corner of the room by Seisyll whose sword was out. None of Mabon’s men had yet approached him. Lilwen cowered under the table where Seisyll had shoved her during Dafydd’s fight with Mabon.
One of Mabon’s men approached Dafydd, who flicked the tip of the sacred sword back and forth. Strangely, the pain in his arm and the tension caused laughter to bubble in his throat. “You’re jesting, right?”
Fortunately, two of Clydog’s men-at-arms appeared in front of him to relieve him of having to fight again. Head down, Dafydd braced his right hip against the high table. The pain was such that he could barely walk. He focused on breathing in a steady pattern so he wouldn’t pass out.
“Where’s Angharad?” Clydog said.
“Safe—for now.” Dafydd gritted his teeth, stepped closer to Clydog, and lowered his voice, his words only for the king. “I told her to get it and get out—that I would meet her at the postern gate if I could.”
“Sweet Mary! Then what are you doing here? Go!” Clydog said. “I need you with her more than I need you with me. I don’t want to see you again until you can tell me that it
is safe in the hands of King Cadwaladr.”
“You want me to bring it to King Cad—”
“I should never have kept it here this long. From what you’ve told me of your lord, it is better for him to have it, and use it. He is the rightful High King and will know what to do with it.” Clydog paused. “Or Taliesin will.”
“My lord—” Dafydd tried again.
“You heard him,” Seisyll said. “We can handle this. Protect Angharad. She’s the best of us.”
“I’ll keep her safe.” Marshalling the strength he had left, Dafydd ran for the doorway, still holding a sword in each hand. He raced along a narrow passage to the kitchen. A dozen workers clustered around the doorway and gave way as Dafydd charged into their midst.
“Save yourselves.” He plunged past them, through the kitchen, to the far door that led to the rear of the fort and the postern gate. Although Clydog claimed his fort was sturdy and defensible, it was in reality no more than a manor house with a palisade surrounding it and just as vulnerable as Dafydd had thought it when he first spied it from the far side of the river.
Bright sunlight hit Dafydd’s face as he burst from the kitchen doorway into the garden. A low wall protected the garden from invading stock, and he leapt it to enter the courtyard proper. The stables had been fitted awkwardly between the buttery and the barracks, skewed at a strange angle so people could reach the hidden gate behind it.
Angharad had been watching for him and at his approach stepped out from the stable door. Her eyes took him in from head to toe and settled on his left arm. “Are you all right?”
“No, but your family is for now.” He glanced back towards the kitchen door. Mabon’s captain wasn’t coming through it, but that wasn’t to say he wouldn’t in another moment. Every fiber in Dafydd’s being told him to hurry, but he forced himself to slow down. Angharad depended on him and him alone now. He needed her cooperation and it would be counterproductive to scare her.
The Pendragon's Champions (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 5) Page 4
