There are three fountains
In the mountain of roses,
Each, I pledge to you.
One of love, to drink deeply together,
The second of desire, to trail our hands in its heated flow,
The third of fidelity, that quenches our thirst
When all other waters fail.
And before I set my eyes on the end of existence,
And before the broken foam shall come upon my lips,
And before I become connected to wooden boards,
May there be festivals to my soul,
With you beside me.
We are young; we are old.
In heaven, in earth, at the end,
In straits, in expanse, in form,
In body, in soul, in habit,
In the valleys and mountains, under the stars.
Thou art always, wife.
Rhiann responded. “Thou art always, husband.”
His heart lighter than it had ever been, Cade slipped the ring on Rhiann’s finger and leaned down to kiss her. The room exploded with applause and laughter. Cade laughed himself and wrapped his arms around Rhiann. He looked over her shoulder at his friends, and then past them just in time to see two demons slither into the room from the same side passage Rhiann had used.
Heedless of the revelry, they snapped out their arms as if laying a tablecloth, and with a flash, cast the room into frozen silence.
Chapter Eight
Rhiann
Cade’s grip on Rhiann tightened.
“What’s happening?” Rhiann’s voice came out a whisper, muffled by Cade’s cloak.
“Hold still,” Cade said. “I’m going to need your help, and I don’t want them to know you aren’t unconscious.”
That didn’t sound good.
Carefully, as if she was a large doll, Cade carried Rhiann off the dais where they’d said their vows. She caught a glimpse of their friends, each frozen in a grotesquery of their usual selves, so she kept her legs stiff to keep up the façade that she was affected too. Cade forced her to bend at the waist and sat her on a bench near the dais, with her back against a table, conveniently located next to Hywel’s bow and quiver, which he’d taken off for the ceremony.
Since Llanllugan, she, Hywel, and Dafydd never went anywhere without their bows. Today, however, for the first time in a month, Rhiann herself wore no weapons at all, not even a knife strapped to her calf or at her waist. When she’d gone to buckle on her old belt and sheath over her gown, Alcfrith had laughed, pried it from her fingers, and taken it away. Her friends still had their swords, but everyone except she and Cade was frozen solid, and the only reason that she could think of that she wasn’t was because she’d been holding onto Cade.
Once Cade settled Rhiann, he straightened and stepped closer to the demons, half-blocking Rhiann from their view. Rhiann was sure he was standing in that position on purpose, but she scootched incrementally to the left so that she could see around him to the demon’s faces, even if she didn’t dare give the game away by looking at them head on and glaring like she wanted to.
They wore black cloaks and had tucked their hands inside their sleeves. Their faces were the only part of their bodies that weren’t completely covered, though they wore deep hoods. Each was a mirror image of the other, with pinched mouths, black and narrowed eyes, and deep lines carved into what passed for skin. Rough leather was more like. These demons weren’t projecting a glamour like Mabon did—perhaps that wasn’t part of their powers—and didn’t appear to be warriors, but they frightened Rhiann all the more because of it. They didn’t need to threaten with weapons. Their appearance was enough.
“What do you want?” Cade said.
“Such hostility.” Oil and the ice dripped from the demon’s voice and Rhiann shivered. Fortunately, the owner of the voice didn’t notice the movement. It probably hadn’t occurred to them that their spell hadn’t been universally effective.
“We are here because you have something our lord wants,” the second demon said.
Cade was focused entirely on the two demons, and Rhiann didn’t want to disturb him, even though she longed to leap to her feet and scream They’re dangerous! Don’t get any closer! She didn’t dare move at all, either to ask if Cade knew who they were or to scoop up Hywel’s bow and an arrow to fire it off in their direction. In truth, she didn’t really want to know their purpose. She just wanted them gone.
Despite her fear of being caught, tiny movement by tiny movement, she shifted to bring herself closer to Hywel’s weapons.
“How many of my people have you killed?” Cade said.
Like the other men, he’d come to the wedding armed—not because he feared that anything might go wrong, but because knights wore swords as a matter of course and as a symbol of their station. Now, Cade pulled Caledfwlch from its sheath and held it out, pointing it at the two demons. It shone as brightly as ever, reflecting the light of the torches, spitting it back out as when oil is thrown on a fire, and casting diamonds across the ceiling. Both demons blinked at the light, and one of them lifted a hand to shield his eyes.
“That was not our charge,” the first demon said.
His face took on a look as sinister as Rhiann could imagine, the features sharp and unnatural. A scream choked her throat, but she swallowed it down, refusing to give in to the fear. She needed to stay calm if she was to help Cade and her friends.
“However, Lord Mabon didn’t restrict us to mere conversation if the opportunity for amusement presented itself, and you were accommodating,” the demon continued. “I’m sure you, of all humankind, understand our needs.”
“Mabon,” Cade said.
“We’d appreciate the gift of one or two women, who won’t be missed,” the second demon said. He pulled his hood down further to leave his face in shadow.
Rhiann catalogued the women in the fort. Whether wife, companion, or servant, she knew them all. Alcfrith and Bronwen had stood up with her as she married Cade so were safe for now, if anyone was. Her chest tightened and a cold settled in her belly at what havoc these demons might have wreaked before they’d entered the hall. But not so much so that she couldn’t think. She began to unroll the bowstring that Hywel had wound around the tip of his bow.
“You have something our master requires,” the first demon said. “Where is it?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Cade said. “You’ll have to explain.”
Rhiann flicked her gaze to Cade and back down to the bow. His clipped intonation and the tension in his shoulders indicated an extreme anger he was struggling to control.
If it made sense that a demon could scoff, this one did. “We want the sword. Give it to us.”
“Do you mean this sword?” Cade raised Caledfwlch higher.
The demon took an involuntary step backwards.
“Never,” Cade said.
“Although you stole Caledfwlch from Caer Ddu, my master has said you can keep it.” The demon said these words as if Mabon had truly bestowed on Cade a favor. “It’s Dyrnwyn we want, the sword of the white hilt. You took it from Caer Dathyl when Arawn fell. Our lord has had word that you house it here, at Deganwy.”
“No,” Cade said.
All three paused. Cade stood with his sword still pointed at the demons while the two demons appeared to be struggling to find the right words to counter him. Rhiann was still trying encompass the demons’ request. Dyrnwyn? Here? Why would Mabon think Cade has it?
Rhiann clenched her teeth as she tried to affix the string to the bow without calling attention to herself. She shot a quick glance at her husband. The power within him was growing, although the demons appeared completely unaware of it.
Then Cade released his power.
Rhiann would tell herself in those between times that she was used to it—or as used to it as it was possible to become—but the truth was, she hadn’t ever gotten used to what happened to him.
It took less than a heartbeat for Cade to fil
l the room. This power was the same as he’d displayed on the battlefield. He became light. Rhiann swallowed hard and looked away. Cade took a step forward. He had himself in hand.
Now it was her turn.
The demon quailed before Cade, holding one hand out to keep him at bay. “It is as the prophecies foretold.”
That had Rhiann swallowing hard again.
Then the demon pointed at someone in the audience who Rhiann couldn’t see from where she sat. “Another step and that man loses his life.”
Cade froze. He glanced at Rhiann, just one flash of those iridescent eyes, before turning back to the demons. “Harm one of my people, and I will send you to a place from which you could never return.”
Rhiann couldn’t tell if the demon believed him. Then again, Rhiann didn’t know if she did either. If it were possible, however, she had no doubt Cade would do it.
“Let’s try this again,” the demon said. “No, I do not possess Dyrnwyn or no I don’t know where it is.”
“Just no,” Cade said. “Your threats are meaningless. Tell your master that he will get nothing from me.”
“Mabon predicted you’d say that but thought it worth the effort to ask.” The demon hesitated, his eyes flicking from Cade to the man he’d threatened.
“Don’t do it,” Cade said. “The consequences will be more severe than you can imagine.”
“I act only by my lord’s will,” the demon said. “Lord Mabon can kill any one of your people merely with the thought that it should happen. Only his hope that you would join forces with him has stayed his hand up until now.”
The demon’s words hung in the air. Neither they nor Cade moved and Rhiann tried to still her own breathing so it didn’t seem so much like it was echoing in the hall.
“You tell Mabon that the next time he wants to talk to me, he comes himself. I don’t negotiate with intermediaries, whether you or one of his allies in the world of the sidhe. I am tired of his games.”
“You dare threaten Mabon, son of Arawn?”
“I do not threaten,” Cade said.
Another pause. “So be it.” The demon surprised Rhiann by bowing stiffly. Then, with a jerk of his head to his companion, he swept his cloak around himself.
The other followed and said, “You would have done better to aid my master.”
Then with a snarl, both demons threw off their cloaks, revealing bared teeth and gleaming swords. The first demon released a high cackle. The sound raised the hair on the back of Rhiann’s neck as it filled the hall. “Perhaps we can make you reconsider our master’s offer!”
“Now, Rhiann,” Cade said.
Rhiann had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but since it had, she was ready. As she rose to her feet, she pulled two arrows from Hywel’s quiver and almost in the same motion ripped the fletching down one side of each arrow with her teeth. Then she pressed the arrows into the bow, one on each side of the bowstring.
Cade moved out of the way to give her a clear shot. “I am a sword, a staff, the tear of an arrow through the air.”
Rhiann loosed the missiles. They flashed across the hall, catching both demons unaware. One arrow hit the first demon straight in the chest, punching through his cloak with a sickening thud. The second arrow failed to penetrate as fully and hit the other demon in the right shoulder, injuring him, but not enough to kill him. The demon shrieked—whether in anger or pain, Rhiann didn’t know, since she still didn’t know if demons felt pain.
Cade had started moving the moment she released the arrows. He raised Caledfwlch high. By the time Cade had crossed half the distance to him in the blink of an eye, the second demon spun around to face him, his sword out and ready.
“Cade!”
Rhiann called her husband’s name, as if that single word might save him from an unexpected thrust. As it was, Cade severed the demon’s hand at the wrist in one blinding slash and then drove back the other way at the demon’s neck. The creature fell to the floor, headless.
With equal suddenness, the lights in the hall came up. The torches ceased to sputter in their sconces and the fire in the central hearth flamed yellow. A man groaned. Cade leaned down to clean Caledfwlch with the edge of one demon’s cloak and then slid the sword back into the sheath at his waist. He strode back towards Rhiann. The set of his shoulders and the narrowing of his eyes told her that his earlier anger was a small thing compared to what he was feeling now.
Cade spoke through clenched teeth, his jaw bulging with the effort of containing his emotions. “He seeks to strike at me in my own home? At our wedding? The one day that should have been sacred …” He reached Rhiann, wrapped his arms around her shoulders, and pulled her to him. “You should not have had to do what you did. You should not have had to face them.”
Rhiann had begun to shake as the tension of the last half-hour left her, but his words settled her a bit. “We’ve agreed I’m not a delicate flower, Cade. You can count on me, just as much as you count on Rhun or Goronwy.”
“I know that,” he said. “And I did count on you. I just don’t want to have to.”
Chapter Nine
Cade
Hywel moaned and staggered to the nearby table at which Rhiann had sat earlier, nearly falling twice before he reached it. He rested both hands on the flat surface, his head hanging. Then he scrubbed at his hair with one hand, still supporting his weight with the other. “I don’t feel so good.”
“That wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.” Cade rested a hand on Hywel’s shoulder and squeezed once, before moving around him to catch his mother as she fell into a faint in his arms. He cradled Alcfrith like an infant and carried her to where Rhiann waited beside Hywel.
“It’s all right.” Rhiann smoothed the hair back from Alcfrith’s face.
“What happened?” Alcfrith opened her eyes and gazed blearily at Rhiann.
“Nothing Cade couldn’t handle,” Rhiann said.
She sat with one arm around Alcfrith and the other massaging the back of Hywel’s neck. Hywel held his head in his hands, having seated himself beside her, since his legs were too wobbly to support him. Still on the dais, Rhun stirred and swung his arm in a reflexive movement, knocking over a half-full goblet of wine which Siawn had used as part of the ceremony to bless the fruitfulness of their marriage. Cade pushed away the fruitlessness of that hope. Rhiann had promised not to dwell on it. It wouldn’t do for him to, either.
Even Taliesin, only now blinking his eyes, had not been immune to Mabon’s spell. To Cade’s mind, that was perhaps the most disturbing thing of all.
“I feel as if I’ve eaten something unclean.” Hywel managed to straighten his back, and then fell forward again, retching, his fingers clenching his hair as if pressing hard could contain his pain.
“You’re not far off,” Cade said. “We’ve been visited by Mabon—or least his emissaries. They wanted Dyrnwyn and thought to ask us for it.”
“Mabon thinks we have Dyrnwyn?” Rhun had collapsed on the edge of the dais with Bronwen in his arms, fortunately awake and blinking if not yet articulate. Cade and he shared a look, more of speculation than concern.
“I wonder why he would think we have it?” Taliesin said.
“I would have preferred it if you already knew,” Cade said.
“My gifts have deserted me.” Taliesin looked down at his feet, hiding his face from Cade’s scrutiny. It was a pose so unlike Taliesin that Cade stepped closer, thinking to speak. Taliesin glanced up again, and Cade read that same something in his face—something that looked to him like real fear—but then his expression smoothed and his eyes hid the thoughts behind them.
Cade nodded to show his acceptance—for now—of Taliesin’s privacy. He turned back to his mother, who’d recovered enough to sip at a glass of wine. Rhiann still held Alcfrith’s hand, but Cade’s exchange with Taliesin had caught her attention.
Rhiann’s gaze tracked from one to the other. “I thought—” she stopped.
“Leave it, cariad,” Cade sa
id. “We’ll talk later.”
“You!”
Cade turned at the shout to see King Morgan of Powys and his son, Rhys, push their way towards the dais through the crowd of people, all of whom were in various stages of semi-consciousness. Morgan and Rhys had been the most outspoken opponents of Welsh unity at the council meeting Cade had attempted to hold before the wedding, even as they ardently promoted their own personal authority. This they maintained despite the fact that it was Morgan who’d asked for Cade’s help when the combined Saxon and demon force had swept through his lands earlier in the year. He was in favor of combining forces to fight off his enemies, just as long as he didn’t have to be responsible for the defense of other men’s lands.
Cade closed his eyes in a brief prayer for strength and then opened them to study Morgan as he approached the front of the hall. It was just like him to point an accusing finger at Cade, no matter what the situation or the fault. Cade found his anger dissipating instead of increasing as Morgan got closer, even turning to amusement. He had to swallow hard to contain it. If he could deal with two demons, he could speak to a recalcitrant lord.
And then he did laugh when Morgan and Rhys stumbled over the prone figure of one of Cade’s men-at-arms as they scampered to get away from the two demons on the floor.
Christianity had made its greatest inroads among the nobility of Wales, more than among the common folk, and Morgan and Rhys were no exception. They ascribed to the new religion, viewed themselves as superior for holding with it, and believed the ancient traditions of the Welsh were a thing of the past. To them, the sidhe had lost themselves in their misty world and no longer had any influence over the world of men. More than that, they were sure—or had been right up to that moment—of their place in that world and their knowledge of it. Cade damped down his amusement and chose, again, to follow the high road in his dealings with them.
The Pendragon's Quest (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 4) Page 7
