by Simon Lister
*
Arthur and the others made good time once free of the slow pace of the column and its supply carts. He decided they could make the Causeway with the one stop for rest so they pushed on for the hill overlooking the Winter Wood. They travelled east under a heavy, grey sky that sagged above them and threatened more rain. He had ridden with Ethain for a few hours and they had talked about how the other warriors were feeling about the journey ahead.
Arthur had gradually turned the conversation around to the attack on Eald and how Ethain felt about it now that it was in the past. Ethain had guardedly admitted that he had had trouble sleeping since the Adren attack and Arthur had reassured him that many warriors felt the same way after their first battle. He had told him that every warrior, at one time or another, needed to draw strength from their companions and that it was important to know when to lend that strength and when to draw upon it; that no one in the war band had to face anything alone. If he felt out of his depth then he only had to look for help – someone would be standing on firm ground and next time the positions would be reversed, but if no one reached out then each would drown individually. He told him that a war band was bound together and that each needed and relied upon the other’s strength. That it was all right to be scared but it must be controlled, to put his faith in the people who stood by him and to remember that they had put their faith in him.
Arthur told him he was proud that he and the others had managed to bring out some of the Eald villagers safe against those odds and that other, older warriors in the war band envied him his feats. He told him that all he needed to do was believe in himself, trust his companions, use his training and draw on his newly acquired experience.
By the time Arthur rode ahead to catch up with Ceinwen, Ethain did believe in himself and was prepared to face the journey east with more confidence. It would not be until they were crossing the Causeway a few days later that the doubts would steal back, working on him with the inevitability of rust, flaking away the brittle layers of his newfound confidence.
*
They eventually approached the temporary camp at Dunraven where they planned to rest. Their horses were tired and fractious from the long ride so they decided to walk them up the hill rather than give them the final burden of carrying them up the steep slope. Ceinwen jumped down lightly and chided the others as they dismounted stiffly.
The cold wind had been strengthening all day and they had seen squalls and showers tracking across the country throughout their journey. It gusted from the northwest, whipping their cloaks out behind them as they stood by their horses.
They struggled up the hill, tugging at the reins of their reluctant beasts as dead leaves, scythed from the trees above them, were snatched from the long grasses and sent flying through the gloom. Low, dark clouds scudded overhead and the first spattering of rain, borne on by the wind, began to sting their faces. Halfway up the hill Arthur’s horse refused to go any further. Arthur cursed it and hauled with all his might but not even his strength could budge it as the horse straightened and dug in its front legs. Morgund handed his reins to Ceinwen and went back to help. He stumbled forward onto his knees as the wind forced his tired legs to move too quickly down the steep slope. The rain fell harder as Morgund picked himself up and joined Arthur. Together they tried to force the stubborn horse forward. Lightning tore through the clouds and down into the Winter Wood to their north. Seconds later the thunder shook the ground beneath them as Arthur roared at his horse, the veins standing out on his neck and his long hair plastered across his face. The horse’s resistance broke with the thunder and they laboured up the hill after the other two who had already reached the darkness under the trees.
They tied their horses’ reins around a fallen tree trunk and began unloading their gear in the crashing rain with the wind now splintering through the trees around them. Without trying to talk they doggedly fixed the oiled capes around their unloaded supplies in an effort to keep them dry, keeping two free to try to fashion a makeshift shelter from the storm. Lightning seared through the muggy twilight on three sides of the hill, momentarily lighting their rain-swept faces. All four of them involuntarily flinched as the following thunder whiplashed around them. Arthur secured one cape and stepped back just as Morgund fixed the other in place. The other two dived into the relative cover. Arthur grinned at them and raised both arms outstretched to the turbulent skies. The rain swept in opaque curtains through the copse and ran down his upturned face and beard as he shouted out his defiance to the elements. Fractured lightning screamed down and shattered into the trees only a hundred yards away as thunder detonated all around them. Ethain cowered further back in to the shelter and Morgund covered his ears with his hands. Ceinwen dashed from the shelter towards Arthur, who had both fists raised to the heavens, and tried to drag him back towards the cover of the shelter.
‘Why do you defy the gods?’ she screamed at him.
Over her shoulder Arthur suddenly saw Ethain pointing and Morgund half-draw his sword. He quickly spun round, freeing himself from Ceinwen’s hands and putting her behind him. As the lightning rent the gloom once more he saw dozens of cloaked and hooded figures standing amongst the trees.
*
The same storm hit the war band two hours later. Llud was trying to make up for their slow pace and had not yet made camp. As the slow journey had worn on, the mounted warriors had inevitably drawn away from the trundling carts and they had become strung-out in a line along the Westway covering almost a mile from the riders at the front to the loaded wains at the rear. Llud had sent ten warriors back down the Westway to find Mar’h soon after Arthur had left them. They found him several miles behind the column leading another four wains of supplies that Merdynn had promptly requisitioned at Caer Sulis. Mar’h had left the ten warriors with the wain drivers and ridden ahead to the war band with a message for Arthur only to find him already gone ahead.
He joined Llud and the dark skinned Talan and his sister Tamsyn at the rear of the column with Morveren cantering around them. She was teasing Talan about being stuck on a wain while his horse plodded behind on a long rein. Her long, dark hair was blowing about in the wind as the heavy grey clouds stretched over the sky from the northwest. As the rain began to spot the canvas tied across the wain in front, Mar’h suggested to Llud that they close up the company. It had become gloomy between the trees that ran along either side of this stretch of the roadway and as the rain came down harder, the visibility dropped further.
The Uathach raiding party had chosen its time and place well. They had been hoping to find the odd straggler making their way to Caer Sulis, laden with their summer harvest. Although well armed there were only twenty-eight of them and when they saw the war band they had thought to turn away and leave them well alone but the temptation of the supplies loaded on the wains persuaded them to follow the column from the cover of the trees on the North side of the broad track. They bided their time as the column stretched out. They waited as the visibility diminished under the greying skies. When the rain started to fall in sheets they rode ahead to set their ambush at a point where the roadway dipped and began a broad swerve to go around a small lake. Their plan was simply to take as many of the wains as they could and ride back down the Westway to the wide path that ran north through the forest. If the war band was in close pursuit and they became quickly outnumbered then they would abandon the wains but if they could get a good head start then perhaps they could get away. They hoped to attack the isolated wains and get away with the supplies without the main body of the war band realising until it was too late to stop them. It was more opportunistic than planned but with winter about to fall on the land they felt it was worth the risk.
Mar’h was riding alongside Llud’s wain cursing the weather when the Uathach arrows flew from the trees edging the roadway to their left. The last two wain drivers were killed outright as the arrows found their marks. Llud was sent flying into Mar’h’s horse, lifted clear off the wain by the for
ce of the two arrows that slammed into his upper arm and the side of his head. An arrow flashed inches past Mar’h’s face as another smashed through his left forearm, splintering the bone. He screamed in pain as he dug his heels into the horse’s flanks to spur it forward. As he did so a second hail of arrows sped from the trees. His horse collapsed under him and he leapt for the shelter behind the wain. Llud lay dead before him, the rain washing the blood from the side of his face as his horse thrashed nearby in the churned mud, three arrows buried deep its flank. He looked behind him and saw Talan and Tamsyn already sheltering behind their cart, shields held out and their swords drawn. Someone was screaming nearby but he could not see who it was. Morveren was galloping madly down the Westway, slung low in her saddle as arrows flashed past her.
Riders were coming from the trees in two groups, one heading for the rearmost wains and one speeding after Morveren, trying to overhaul her before she could get word to the warriors up ahead. Mar’h reached for the iron pin on the crossbar that released the harnessed ponies from the cart. He pulled it free and flung it away into the mud so that the raiders could not draw the cart away. Tamsyn saw what he had done and did likewise. Two of the wains were already being hauled away by the raiders. Those chasing Morveren gave up and raced back to the driverless wains. Mar’h and Talan sprinted towards the nearest carts, slipping and sliding in the mud. Mar’h held his injured arm close to his body to protect it as he ran. At some level he knew that the shock was still blocking most of the pain and he worked frantically to pull another pin free. The ponies shied away taking the crossbar with them and he tugged his sword free as the returning horsemen swept through the wains. One of the Uathach raiders swung his sword down on him. He ducked and the sword struck the wooden side of the wain. Mar’h pivoted on one foot, hooking his sword round in an arc that sliced through the raider’s sword hand and he was gone, leaving the sword still stuck in the wain with his detached hand still gripping it. Mar’h regained his balance and looked round wildly but it was over. The raiders were gone just as suddenly as they had attacked. Five of the wain drivers from Caer Sulis lay dead. Four of the wains were gone. Llud, who for so long had seemed beyond mortal injury, lay dead in the mud. Mar’h turned to Talan and Tamsyn and groaned in despair. Tamsyn knelt in the rain silently rocking back and forth over the body of her dead brother.
Mar’h sheathed his sword and slowly walked towards her, cursing as he held his dangling left arm, the arrow still embedded through his forearm. Great pulsing waves of pain washed over him and threatened his consciousness. Behind him he could hear Morveren and the rest of the warriors fast approaching. Mar’h had seen death and slaughter before but he watched with a heavy heart as Tamsyn stroked the rain from her brother’s face.
*
Arthur gazed round at the ring of figures surrounding them. One of the intruders crossed to the horses and gathered the reins. Morgund stood to intervene but Arthur stilled him with a hand gesture. Another approached Arthur and he stepped forward to meet him. A double flash of lightning jagged above the grove and the hooded figures all turned away as one from the brilliant light. The cloaked figure stopped in front of Arthur.
‘You are Arthur of Wessex?’
Arthur tried to see the man’s face but it was shadowed by the hood he wore.
‘I am,’ Arthur replied.
‘Lord Venning offers you shelter below,’ he said, gesturing towards the Winter Wood.
Arthur looked around at his companions. Ceinwen was faintly shaking her head as the rain lashed down, pooling the ground around her. Morgund was nervously watching the figure by their horses. Ethain stared at the proceedings wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
‘We would be glad to accept Lord Venning’s offer,’ Arthur replied at last.
The figure before him nodded and led the way from the copse. Others picked up their bundled gear and dismantled their brief and ineffective shelter. As the four of them moved off the others fell in to either side and behind them. Ceinwen had told the other two about Lord Venning’s appearance at the council but the recent revelations of living legends did nothing to calm the fear they felt in their company.
‘I don’t like this, Arthur,’ Morgund said.
‘Nor I,’ Ceinwen added.
‘They’re the Cithol aren’t they?’ Morgund asked.
Arthur looked around at the cloaked figures surrounding them and nodded his reply.
Overhead the thunder rumbled back and forth in echoes as they left the trees and started the steep walk down into the Winter Wood. By the time they entered the wood the storm had started to move away to the West leaving in its wake a persistent rain and the distant rolling of thunder.
The wood was thick with undergrowth, ferns and briars tangled between the mix of close-packed firs that ringed this edge of the expansive woodland. As they continued on the firs gave way to wider spaced oak, birch and elm trees. Each branch, stem and twig was jewelled with droplets of water. The wooded canopy collected the rain and, with every gust of wind, spilled it down upon them in heavy, sudden showers. The shadows of the woodland seemed alive with the splashing water that bounced and glistened off every surface as the rain sought the deep roots of the forest.
The Cithol had split into two groups, one leading Arthur and his companions, the other bracketing them and bringing up the rear. They followed a narrow track that wound a circuitous route deeper into the dark woodland. The path was veined by the wet, moss-wrapped roots of the trees that overhung them, making the passage difficult in the half-light under the dull, storm-bruised skies. Their Cithol guides walked surefooted and swiftly along the path in contrast to their guests, who frequently slipped and stumbled on the dimly seen, wet path. Arthur’s efforts to move the stubborn horse had aggravated his injured thigh and he was limping once again.
Ethain tugged at Morgund’s cloak and said quietly, ‘Do you see them?’
Ceinwen heard him and turned around quickly, ‘See who?’
‘Not who but what. There are ruins all around us, large cut stones and walls, all in ruins.’ Ethain gestured to their left and the others could make out a tall stone façade wreathed in vines and split by the roots and trunks of towering trees. Spilling around its base lay the tumbled wreckage of cut blocks of granite, their cut edges and flat sides almost indistinguishable under the deep, velvet covering of emerald moss and verdant lichen. Saplings had tentatively edged their way through the narrow gaps in the debris and, as the years had passed and their strength had grown, they had gradually heaved the fashioned boulders to one side. As the centuries had passed, the soaring giants of the Winter Wood had returned once more to the forest floor for the cycle to start over anew and the remains of the ancient city had been patiently crushed, broken and buried by time. Over the next hour of their journey they glimpsed more and more of these vine-wrapped ruins edging the pathway.
Suddenly there was a high stone archway in front of them. Arthur and the others stopped, staring at the stonework of the arch and the high granite walls that stretched to either side of it. The wild and tangled woodland butted straight up to the walls and branches over-reached the top in several places. The Cithol leader indicated that they should come through. As she walked through, Ceinwen ran her hand over the side of the arch as if to make sure it was real.
Once through the archway they were struck by the open space. The high walls encompassed the first open ground they had seen since entering the Winter Wood. Arthur could see that the walls, each several hundred yards long, formed a square. It was difficult to tell in the half-light but it seemed that the archway behind them was the only entrance. Three magnificent, tall cedars grew in the square but there were no other trees. It was as if the high walls around them were designed to keep the woodland out. The ground was laid to lawn and three small streams, admitted through low grilled gaps at the base of the walls, fed ornate, cascading stone fountains. Late autumn flowers lined the banks of the rills and their scent in the rain seemed to refresh them after the closeness
of the woods beyond the walls. They breathed the sweet air deeply. Paths of stone trailed across the lawns and all seemed to emanate from the centre where a domed half-sphere rose twenty-feet from the ground.
Their Cithol guide approached Arthur, ‘I am Terrill, Captain of the Cithol.’ He cast back his hood. Although his skin was black it had the same translucent quality as Lord Venning’s and he had the same entirely black eyes. Morgund took an involuntary step backward. He had not expected any of the Cithol to have the same skin tone as his own and Ceinwen’s description of their eyes had not prepared him for the reality.
‘You and your companions may rest here, Arthur of Wessex. Lord Venning and the Traveller will meet you here after you have rested.’
Arthur nodded in reply.
‘Is this the Veiled City?’ Ethain asked forgetting himself as he looked around with wonder.
Terrill turned his eyes to him slowly and spoke patiently, ‘This is the Winter Garden. Some of us come here when the darkness is complete and gaze upon the stars as they slowly wheel before us. The Veiled City lies below. I shall send some food to the bower for you.’
Terrill indicated the nearest corner of the square where a marble pavilion stood, carved in the shape of interlocking tree boughs.
‘You may tether your horses to the side,’ Terrill said with a wary glance at the horses they led. The other Cithol had made their way to the central dome and were going inside. Terrill inclined his head and left them to make their own way to the bower.
They found that feed for their horses was already provided. Soft mattresses were laid out under the shelter and cushions were arranged around a low trestle. A shallow dip in the floor served as a hearth and dry wood was stacked to one side. Two vents opened at either end of the bower and warm air gently rose from them.
