by Kim Dragoner
“After luncheon. We’ll be glad for a bit of daylight while we catch our bearings on Earth.”
“Yes. You are right, but that still doesn’t give us a lot of time to prepare.”
“You will have to ensure that it is enough, Naida. I will see you at luncheon.”
“Yes, I will see you at luncheon.”
Minerva waited for the door to close shut behind her friend before she half ran, half flew back down the corridor and down the garden stairs. She streaked across the main gardens toward the tree line, ducked beneath a pine and was gone.
Earth
The glen was silent, with only the sound of the wind rustling the overhead branches of the trees and a few songbirds breaking the quiet every now and then.
The wind wandered round and round the clearing, pushing the leaves to and fro. The invariable flow of the water that kept the pool constant was mesmerizing as the water sang its song ceaselessly all day. Dragonflies were climbing the reeds to warm their translucent wings before taking off to bob along the water’s surface. In the grass, the sounds of the crickets could be heard distinctly until the vocal cicadas in the trees became insistent on drowning them out with their own violent song. Silence returned abruptly to the pool as soon as the competition was won.
Minerva settled on a rock and stared at the water, thinking about the appropriate thing to do. She knew too much about the depth of Naida’s feelings for Rhys to ignore her friend’s suffering, but she remained unsure of Rhys’ true feelings toward Naida.
As she sat, she thought and searched the recesses of her mind for every helpful piece of information she had.
“Erunanethiel!” she exclaimed. “Give me power, grant my wish, and bestow the answers!”
She slid from the rock and walked slowly toward the water, repeating the words of the spell deliberately. She didn’t stop when her feet entered the pool. She waded down to the deepest part of the water and stood motionless.
“This can work. It has been done before, but Mab herself has admitted that Nestaron has been lost to us for so long that it is hardly unlikely that he truly is on Earth now. We will never find the Silver Orchard, nor will Rinnah give over the Eternal Branch if Rhys’ heart and his arrow are not true. How can I be sure of his intentions?” she wondered to herself.
She began to turn around in slow circles as she thought deeper and harder. She chanted the incantation louder and faster. Suddenly, she stopped, her eyes wide.
“You must walk the line through the ages and the generations. Follow the blood to the answers you seek…” a soft voice said. Minerva listened intently to the sound of the disembodied voice. It was as if it was whispering into her ear. Looking down, Minerva saw an image forming on the water’s surface. It was Rhys, and there was an older man speaking to him. They seemed to be discussing an important matter as the valet tightened several pieces of armor on the boy’s body. The image shivered and dissolved.
“So, he’s been knighted, has he? Well done, Rhys,” she said as she continued to gaze at the water’s surface. “But the answer I really need is where to find the orchard. Earth is big and Naida and I do not have the first idea as to where to start looking.”
She waved her hand over the water’s surface to scatter the image. It was helpful, but it wasn’t what she was looking for.
“How will you summon her, Minerva?” the dragonflies asked her.
“What spells have you to complete the task?” the trees whispered.
“Quiet!” Minerva ordered impatiently. “Allow me to think!”
Immediately, a silence fell over the glen which was as deep as Death itself. She resumed her slow turns in the water, then suddenly stopped again. She smiled and as she descended into the depths of the pool; the vision she needed had started to form over her like storm clouds. She looked up into the thickening white mist and an image began to appear there. It was hazy at its best, but there were clear landmarks and formations in the picture from which she could take her bearings. Then she saw the tops of a thousand apple trees in full fruit. Apples of all colors, shapes and sizes, but the focus was on the smallest one. It stood in the center of everything but surrounded by the verdant color of the others, it was almost stark. The leaves were shiny and silver; so were its branches. Its fruit was plump and round, but also solid silver. There was a tinkle of laughter within its foliage. Minerva looked closer. For a moment, she saw nothing but then a pair of slender, naked legs began to descend from the bottom branches and then a savage-looking fairy girl with weapons slung across her back and a dagger between her teeth vaulted to the ground.
“Rinnah, you beast! There you are!”
Chapter Three
Lancashire, England
Kendal yet stood two days ride ahead of the bedraggled column of knights, men at arms and baggage train attendants that billowed out behind the Sons of the Round Table like a filthy, half-mile-long cloak.
The skies over the northern lands had opened wide in the night, a deluge falling that burst riverbanks and sodden the rough roads, sinking wagons and tiring horses. Rhys, not yet a knight himself and yet in a position of shared command with his compatriots, felt utterly miserable. His letters from Naida had disappeared and no fresh message from Erasmus had arrived. This was surely due, he told himself, to the ruined roads slowing everything that could not take wing in the air. Even so, there were no birds in the air. Hedge-wrens and black crows alike took roost, silently watching the drab procession. Even Broderick—Rhys’ faithful charger and usually so indomitable in spirit—merely tramped, one hoof in front of the other.
Richard of Dunmonia rode next to Rhys and—despite the torrents of water and the temperature that seemed to fall ever closer to freezing with every mile they rode north—he was in good cheer.
“Ho, Rhys! I do hope the grandeur of your position at the tip of the spear hasn’t swollen your head too much for your helmet! Keep up this incorrigible high-handedness, and some of your betters might take the birch to you like the whelp you are!” Richard’s voice carried a fair distance, despite the rain, but the knight put extra volume in it to ensure that as many as possible heard his jape. A ripple of laughter rewarded him, and the peals seemed to brighten the very air around them, made it not quite so dour. Rhys laughed too, and responded in kind.
“My fair knight of Dunmonia, kinsman, I could never dream to speak down to one of such valor, such renown as you. Many are the times we have heard of your legendary battle against the cockerel of Oswestry, and the dormouse of the Southern Downs. Let us not forget that it is you, who by the age of twenty and one has sworn to the Lord our God to not grow a beard or even a hint of one until all of Christendom is at peace!” Rhys rubbed the sprouting of his own beard which was coming in thick and wiry black. Laughter broke out again, Gawain of Sheffield and John of Leeds reeling in their saddles. All knew that Rhys had shown naught but respect to his fellows, and had given not a single order; not that there were many orders to give on the long march north. They had received word at Risley, just outside of Manchester, that Derrick of Liverpool had run away from home in an effort to meet them on the road. When he had heard from fleeing peasants that an army was forming in the north, he had turned his horse toward Kendal and gone to Henry’s aid. Rhys and his growing army had turned north as well and trudged toward Kendal as fast as they could.
The boys had all called on their liegemen to go to war with them. The forces of Dumnonia had waited for them at a camp just outside of Preston, and they had found that as they journeyed toward Kendal, men in all manner of dress and carrying anything that could be used as a weapon had attached themselves to the contingent. The low baritone voice of Owen of Nottingham rumbled up when the laughing subsided.
“The levity is appreciated, my brothers, but more so would be some leavening of this rain. Do the gods not know we have a battle to fight at the end of this ride?”
“Not so imminent is the battle, my friend,” said Gawain. “We ride to meet Derrick and Henry at Kendal and
join our force to theirs, and then north to chase Mordred into the sea. There will be feasting before the fighting!”
He slapped his belly and licked his lips in comedic fashion. There was more laughter from the knights, but Rhys soon fell into melancholia again. He had not experienced so long a time without word from Naida. Not since the first day they had met, it seemed like a lifetime ago, by the pool where summer reigned and rain came only as a refreshing shower to keep the land verdant. He had tried calling her name into puddles, but to no avail. He had collected rainwater in a bucket and tried that too, but he spoke only to himself. It seemed her premonition during their last conversation had been more correct than either had thought at the time; it was going to be a long, lonely march north for him. Rhys looked behind him for a moment and saw Thomas of Manchester struggling to stay steady in his saddle under the weight of the flagpole he held. Rhys tapped one of Manchester’s men and nodded toward the teetering boy, and the warrior rode off immediately to assist his lord.
The army made camp that night in the shelter of a range of hills. Benevolently, the hillocks kept the worst of the weather from the soldiers’ heads once they were at their foot, though the ground was still sodden and unwelcoming for pitching their tents. With hills to the east and a copse of trees to the west, the army hunkered down like cows in the field. Rhys and Richard rode the perimeter, ensuring that sentries were posted and watch fires were stoked. The rain lessened as the last ebbs of the setting sun broke through the boughs of the tallest trees and dappled the earth.
“How many shields have we here, Rhys? Perhaps five hundred?” Richard said.
“Six and twenty, all told. With another four hundred awaiting us in Kendal. What say you? The face you wear unnerves me.” Richard’s grim expression made his lightheartedness during the march seem as though it had belonged to another man entirely.
“So obvious, am I? Hum. Well, I suppose I would feel better knowing the numbers of our enemy, and his comportment. We know nothing of Mordred’s army, no outrider has returned from the far north with word, though we have sent many and more. We have only the murmuring of fleeing peasants. And, there is something else.” Richard sighed in his saddle, and looked to the sky. “It is not easy to say it, but I must, and it is no reflection on you.”
Rhys felt his heart plummet. He knew what was coming. It had been inevitable. “Speak, friend. I would happily take your counsel.”
“Good, for it is just counsel I offer. Some of the yeomanry are concerned at the inexperience we bear. Can you understand them? These are true soldiers, veterans of many campaigns. We are but boys of high birth and good training, with no experience of command. Their lives depend on the orders we make, and while they will charge when we say and hold the line when we call, I fear that if the battle goes ill for us, their morale may not hold.” Richard put his hand on Rhys’ shoulder. “I fear before they trust us completely, we shall need to blood ourselves in combat, all of us. Of we five Sons with this army, Owen alone among us has seen combat, and that was with bandits only. Yet I know not where we may find such skirmish to prove ourselves before the battle on which all depends.”
Rhys slowly nodded. He felt wounded pride; after all, had he not fought and been wounded at Kenilwurt Cross? But yet, his mind asserted his reason on him. He had been wounded in a mere raid. When the battle against Mordred came, he would be charging at the fore astride Broderick for the first time into battle, not just for the first time as a true knight, but the first time in his life. It would be no hunting party. He looked down at his saddle where the dragon helm his father had presented to him at Red Ditch hung. He would need to prove himself worthy to wear it, to show that he was a true Dragon Prince.
“No doubt there will be more than one fight ahead of us, Richard. We will get the opportunity to show our steel, I am confident of it.” Rhys said the words jovially, but doubt ensnared his heart.
“Mae'r ddraig yn gartref i aros,” said Richard, speaking the family words. The dragon is home to stay.
Dawn broke the following morning with clear skies that glowed with a burnished red as if the hills themselves bloomed with fire. The older soldiers muttered to each other about ill omens of blood and death that would follow a crimson dawn. The eyes of the fresher recruits and sons that traveled carrying the spears of their fathers showed that they believed every word. The morning breakfast—salt pork and coarse bread cooked together over campfires that hissed over the dewy grass—was interrupted by the alarum call from the sentries. Five hundred well-drilled men grasped shields and helms, but the call was only to alert of a single march rider bearing the standard of Kendal on a pennant atop his lance. The rider galloped through the camp, poising to vault from his horse where the largest tents that housed the Sons of the Round Table were pitched. He dismounted, and knelt before the six knights; Sir Owen, Sir Richard, Sir Gawain, Sir John, Sir Thomas and Rhys himself. The man seemed near complete collapse, the heavy riding jerkin he wore was sodden, either with the ending rain of the night or with his own sweat, Rhys could not tell.
“Rise, sir. Harald! Bring a skin of mead; this man needs a drink!” Owen said, ushering his squire into action. The rider raised his head, but his hands would not leave the grass beneath him and his elbows shook. His voice was similarly quavering and barely audible past the dry rasping croak in his throat. When the boy had fed him a few mouthfuls of mead, he was at last able to speak. A curious circle of men at arms and bowmen had closed in around the rider to hear the news that was so urgent, it had caused a messenger to come through the night, near to the cost of the life of both his mount and himself.
“My lords, I am Elric, son of Uter. I have come from Kendal, and I bear grave news. The city is surely lost.” Elric sounded close to tears now that his journey had ended. The gathered men gave up a cry of dismay, some rattled their spears in anger and the hubbub was so great Rhys had to shout.
“Silence! All of you, be still! Speak Elric, son of Uter. What peril has befallen fair Kendal and her sons?” Rhys said, surprised at the commanding timbre in his own voice which appeared not to be his own, but that of his grandfather in his prime. Elric’s eyes widened and he raised his head to see the raven-haired and green-eyed boy with such authority in his voice.
“My lord, these two nights past, we were beset on two sides. Word came that long ships came ashore at Backbarrow, but before we could marshal a response, we saw a great horde arriving from the north, and a foul stink came with them. Hundreds there were my lords, all misshapen creatures unlike any man of the kingdom. Aye, men there were too, wild men from Pictland, we thought, waving burning brands in the night. My lord, Sir Henry, told me to ride hard south, to bring word to you. By the end of the first night I could see the fires in the distance, though it took me no little time to find where you were camped… I… I’m sorry, my lords.” Elric wept, and Owen helped him gently to his feet.
“What of Sir Derrick and Sir Henry? Do their defenses hold? Speak, man!” Richard was full of blood, full of fury. His hand went to his sword hilt, eager for battle.
“Peace, Richard!” Gawain said, calmly; he was ever the rational one. “See that his horse is watered, and get this man some food. We ride north in one hour! For Kendal! For King Arthur!” The camp erupted in activity, men running hither and thither, packing the tents that were not yet stowed, dowsing camp fires and shouting orders.
Rhys stood, dumbfounded. Mordred had moved first; he must know that the Sons rallied their banners and rode north to Kendal. He meant to split their forces and crush them piecemeal. They should ride at full force to Kendal, but would they be in time? It was more than likely a move to draw their army out into a vulnerable position, and then destroy it as they advanced in a foolish heroic rescue. Rhys patted Broderick’s flank as he saddled his charger.
“Fools charge or no, we ride, my friend. Pray that we ride not to our deaths, but to victory in Arthur’s name.”
Chapter Four
Kendal, Cumbria, England
The palisades had been overrun, their defenders fleeing back to the sheltered walls of Kendal. Little shelter they would find there.
The beastlike, ferocious men of Pictland and the terrible black arrows that came from the skulking shadows that patrolled the gloom, beat the peasant auxiliaries and huscarls back. Sir Henry of Kendal, just twenty-two and in command of the defense of the northern walls, looked out with a grim countenance through the visor of his fine, steel helm. He stood atop the battlements of the wall, overseeing the combat below.
“Open the gate and let these men through! Prepare spears to repel pursuers! Efrick, Sam, prepare the oil. In the name of King Arthur, we hold this line against hell itself!” Henry drew his sword and swung it through the air. It was no cheap gesture, as at his stroke, a volley of arrows soared from the four lines of twenty bowmen each, who stood over the crenelations to fire their arrows and then duck back down, protecting their bodies from return fire. Henry saw a handful of Northmen stagger and fall, their fellows breaking off the chase of the retreating defenders and scurrying back, trying to get out of range before the next sharp rain fell. There was a clanking of steel on steel and Sir Derrick of Liverpool appeared on the spiral stairs leading up to Henry’s vantage point. His face was a sheen of sweat and drying blood, but the crimson fluid did not appear to flow from any wound he himself had sustained, which gladdened Henry’s heart.
“Ho, Sir Henry! The east wall is secure, for now. Some fell men, skin as dark as ash, came over the walls with grapples, but we cut them down with sword and spear. How fare you here?” Derrick was breathing hard as he spoke, and Henry noticed that he was missing a tooth.
“We resist, but we do not prevail. The palisades are lost, and the northern road is overrun, but I do not see how our enemies can breach these walls without great loss of life.” Henry pointed beyond the walls to the flames which were once peasant houses. “They come fore, loose arrows at us and then retreat. So it has been these last two bells of the church tower, by my ken. Still, we have lost few men, which is a blessing. Do you think they mean to starve us out?”
