As it turned out, they had barely noticed Medraut and Cerdic soon enough. As their too-small army charged down the hill, it was obvious they would not have the advantageous position they'd envisioned, would not be able to pick off enemy warriors as they forded the stream. At least a score of horsemen were already on this side of the Camlann; Arthur's troops would have to battle the horsemen before they would be in a position to cut down the men behind trying to cross on foot.
He glanced at Arthur not far away, and their gazes met. As the heralds blew the horns for the charge, Arthur saluted him.
"Britannia patria!" came the war cry from hundreds of throats. The hooves of the horses thundered down the hill.
"Medraut rex!" came the answering cry — an effrontery that made Cador even angrier.
Their charge ploughed into Medraut's first line of cavalry not far from the banks, pushing them back towards the bushes and low trees that grew there. If they could gain that spot, their archers could hide behind the underbrush and pick off the enemy in the stream.
Then he heard the thunder of hoofbeats from the south, and he knew there would be no such opportunity.
* * * *
They fought well into the morning, their horses' hooves churning the grass beneath them into bloody mud. To his surprise, in the heat of battle, the shield with the additional leather straps was easier to manipulate than it had seemed when he first began to practice with it. All around him was death, but Cador had no time to see which friends had fallen and which still fought. He continued to parry and thrust automatically, as if he had never done anything else, although his sword arm ached abominably.
Then he saw a group of riders wearing Medraut's blue spears slash their way in the direction of a battle between red sea monster and gold dragon on a field of purple. Cerdic against Arthur. Was Arthur among them, and Medraut trying to attack from two sides?
He recognized Anir nearby and pointed. "We must go after Medraut!" he yelled. He doubted if the other man could hear him over the sounds of fighting, the clash of steel, the neighing and snorting of the horses, the screams of the injured men, but he seemed to understand Cador's gesture and take in the situation. He motioned his men to follow and galloped in pursuit of the blue spears.
They fought their way forward, trying to form a wedge between Medraut's warband and the men wearing the Pendragon device who were fighting Cerdic. The battle grew more desperate, and the field around them muddier. The sky was little more than a soupy gray, and Cador lost track of time, unable to judge by the sun. All that was left was deflecting attack, killing before he was killed, and riding to find another enemy.
Finally, all that was left where they fought were perhaps a dozen warriors on horseback, as well as another dozen that had lost their mounts in battle.
And then he saw Arthur and Medraut facing each other on the muddy banks of the Camlann. Cador whirled Wyllt around and tried to get through, but there were still too many enemy soldiers between him and the decisive battle.
In front of him, a warrior on foot wearing the device of Cerdic's red sea serpent swung at Wyllt's chest with a heavy broadsword. The stallion reared, lashing out with his hooves. The enemy soldier swung again and slashed Cador's warhorse in the stomach. Wyllt let out a loud whinny that seemed to end on a scream, and his hooves came down on the opponent. Cador heard the crunch of bone, but with the last of his strength, Cerdic's man thrust his sword deep into Wyllt's belly. The brave stallion twisted and fell, bellowing in pain. Cador tried to jump away, but his reactions were not fast enough, and the dying war horse brought him down, landing on his left leg. Pain burst through Cador's skull, and he knew his leg was broken. He tried to pull out from under the dead beast, but the pain grew too much too endure.
Cador passed out in the mud, surrounded by the dead and dying and still fighting, one leg crushed underneath a slaughtered stallion.
* * * *
Kustennin could hear the sounds of battle even before they came within sight of the fighting. He and Cai glanced at each other, and they spurred their horses to more speed, their men following suit. As they reached the top of the ridge, they saw the battle below them, spread along the banks of the Camlann — and not around the hill-fort of Celliwig opposite, as they'd expected.
"Look, there's Arthur!" Cai called out.
They kicked their horses' flanks and galloped down the incline. "Britannia patria!"
Out of the corner of his eye, Kustennin thought he saw a large detail of warriors turn at their rallying cry and flee the scene of the battle. He only hoped Medraut was not among them.
He tried to make sense of the tableau before him, but the ragged lines and scattered groups of fighting men made it hard to discern who was friend and who was foe. The mud covering many a cape or shield only confused the situation even more. Kustennin made out a group he was reasonably sure was part of the Pictish enemy from their beards and the cut of their clothes, when he saw a purple Pendragon banner draped around the shoulders of one of their warriors — and he was fighting back warriors sporting Medraut's device of three blue spears on their shields.
"Wherever you find them, fight Medraut's blue spears and Cerdic's sea serpent!" Kustennin shouted to his men. "Assist the warriors of the Pendragon!"
And then he galloped after Cai, to help Arthur if he could.
Cai was at least three horse-lengths ahead of him, heading for a scene of single combat on foot near the banks of the Camlann. Nearby, more warriors who looked like Picts held back a detail of blue spears set on joining the battle against Arthur.
There was something about the way Arthur's opponent moved, or the determination — and hatred? — in the single-minded attack that convinced Kustennin it was Medraut himself.
As Kustennin tried to fight his way through, he saw Medraut bring his sword down so hard that Arthur's shield splintered and cracked. The Dux Bellorum jumped back, but Medraut followed, renewing his attack on his uncle. Arthur was obviously tiring, perhaps even seriously injured.
Arthur parried another thrust by his nephew, but it had been a feint; Medraut's sword was high and about to come down on the exposed spot at the neck between chain mail and helmet.
"Arthur! Watch out!" Kustennin screamed.
Then suddenly Cai was at Arthur's side, deflecting the blow that might have decapitated their leader. Out of the corner of his eye, Kustennin saw a northern warrior fighting the blue shields fall, and two of Medraut's men broke through to come to their lord's assistance. Kustennin finally dispatched the warrior holding him back and spurred his stallion forward to engage the blue shields going to Medraut's aid. To his left, he heard a horse scream, and he spared a quick glance in that direction to see that Cai's mount was down.
The northern leader Kustennin had first presumed was an enemy rode up beside him to aid him against the blue shields. For a brief moment, Kustennin found himself gazing into eyes of the same gray-blue as Arthur's. The other man smiled beneath his helmet and nodded a greeting as they took on Medraut's men.
And then Kustennin knew: he must be Arthur's son by his first wife. Llacheu, a king of Rheged.
Kustennin managed to hit his opponent's sword out of his hand and followed up with a downward swing that took off the other man's hand. The force of the blow made Kustennin's whole arm momentarily numb, and he almost lost his own sword. Beside him he heard another scream, and he wheeled his mount around to see Llacheu with a gaping wound in his thigh, the blood pouring out and soaking the side of his mount.
Kustennin leaned over and slashed his sword across the throat of the remaining opponent's mare. As the horse squealed and fell, he followed through with a thrust to Arthur's midsection which seemed to hit its mark, to judge by the piercing cry that followed.
He turned just in time to see Cai struggling up from where he had fallen when his mount died. Lifting his sword up out of the mud, Cai deflected another thrust against Arthur. In a fury, Medraut swirled his blade down and then up, taking Cai directly in the throat.
Kustennin watched in horror as blood bubbled out of Cai's mouth and he slipped into the mud.
With a roar of rage, Kustennin spurred his stallion forward, leaping bodies of men and horses, hooves skittering on bones and blood. Before he could reach Medraut, Arthur brought his blade down on his nephew with a two-handed swing that sliced into his shoulder and far into his throat.
Medraut dropped his sword and lifted his hands to his neck. The gesture looked as if he wanted to hold his head to his shoulders with his bare hands. For a moment, Medraut staggered around in an odd, tottering dance before he crumpled into himself on the banks of the river.
Kustennin jumped down from his stallion and caught Arthur before he too landed in a pile on the bloody battlefield with so many others. The sticky wetness he felt seeping between gloves and chainmail was more than mud and sweat and rain.
He pulled Arthur's hand over his shoulders and put his own arm around his rib cage, keeping the Dux Bellorum upright. He remembered the old banner with the Pendragon device folded under his horse's saddle, and he tugged it away, handing it to Arthur. "Can you lift this?" he murmured.
Arthur nodded and raised the banner, waving it above his head.
"Medraut the traitor is dead!" Kustennin yelled out at the top of his lungs. "Long live Arthur, Dux Bellorum!"
Those nearest picked up the call and passed it along. Slowly, fighting stilled, those on the side of Medraut or Cerdic throwing down their weapons or running. As the call was passed through the survivors of the battle of Camlann, it changed, echoing back and forth between hills of the valley.
"Long live Arthur Rex!"
Kustennin felt a tear slip out of the corner of his eye.
Arthur was doing his best to remain upright, to change the course of the battle through sheer force of will. "I should have taken the damn title of king, shouldn't I?" Arthur said under his breath. "Everyone else with a handful of warriors at his service calls himself king, after all."
Kustennin shrugged. "It might just have made those who call themselves king even less inclined to lend you soldiers. In these days, a king is someone who wants to expand his territory at the expense of others who call themselves king."
"But not you, Kustennin. You are a good leader and a good man. Promise me that you will do your best to see to the defense of Britain when I'm gone."
Glancing around at the scene of slaughter, Kustennin wondered if there was really any Britain left to defend. But he was here because he, at least, had been brought up to believe, and he knew there were still a handful of kings like him. "I promise."
"Thank you."
At that, Arthur fainted in his arms, the banner he'd barely managed to hold over his head slipping from his hands and fluttering down among the mud and blood and bodies.
* * * *
Once Kustennin saw that Arthur was brought away from the battlefield and into the care of a healer, he went in search of Cador. He had not seen his foster father during the battle, and he feared the worst. All around him, other survivors wandered through the dead and injured. Whenever they found someone still breathing, the cry went up and the wounded man was carried to an empty field below Celliwig where his injuries could be cleaned and treated.
But many, too many, had to be left where they lay while the survivors tried to do their best for the living. So many dead.
Kustennin hoped that the man who was father to him in everything but blood was not among them.
And then he saw a big stallion of an unusual dark gray. Could it be Wyllt? He stumbled over bodies to the carcass, his throat closing in fear.
Cador lay unmoving, trapped beneath the stallion. Kustennin dropped to his knees in the bloody mud, tears starting in his eyes, and leaned over his foster father's body. He was breathing! He was alive!
"Cador! Cador! It's me, Kustennin!"
His only answer was a long moan of pain, but the sound filled Kustennin with relief.
"I need help here!" he shouted.
Two soldiers hurried over, and together they pushed the body of the horse off Cador's leg and pulled him free.
With another moan of pain, Cador's eyelids fluttered open. "Kustennin. Thank the gods you are well."
Kustennin gripped his hand. "Medraut is dead."
"Then we won?"
He glanced around the battlefield, at river banks strewn with hundreds of bodies, at water rusty with blood, and then back to the face of his foster father.
"Perhaps it is more appropriate to say we didn't lose."
Chapter 33
I have been where Llachau was slain,
the son of Arthur, awful in songs,
when ravens croaked over blood.
"The Black Book of Carmarthen"
The messenger arrived in Dyn Tagell at dusk. Kustennin had sent Cador's man-at-arms Sinnoch, a warrior Yseult knew and trusted.
"The traitor Medraut is dead," Sinnoch said, kneeling in front of the women, his face pale and his eyes bloodshot with fatigue and sorrow. "But Cador and Arthur are sore wounded. It was a great slaughter, Lady."
Yseult clenched her hands in her lap, grateful that Cador was among the living, but fearful of the "sore wounded." Beside her, Ginevra sat expressionless, as if she had not even heard of Medraut's death and Arthur's injury.
"Is there any news of my husband Gawain?" Ragnell asked.
Sinnoch turned to Ragnell. "None yet. When Kustennin sent me here, the battlefield was still being searched for the wounded."
"And Kurvenal?" Brangwyn said.
Sinnoch shook his head. "Also no news yet, Lady, I'm sorry."
With his remaining arm, Bedwyr pushed himself up on his sickbed in the hall. "Who was among the fallen?"
"Cai, Aircol, Llacheu, Anir, Caradoc, Owain, Lamorak, Gundleus —"
As Sinnoch rattled off the names, Yseult saw Bedwyr close his eyes. She interrupted the list of names. "We should go to Celliwig as soon as possible to assist in caring for the survivors."
"The men would be grateful, Lady."
"Yes, go," Bedwyr said. "You have already done whatever you can for me." Which meant taking off his rotting hand.
"I will remain behind to care for Bedwyr," Ginevra volunteered.
Yseult nodded. Ginevra was not much of a healer, but she could follow instructions.
"I will go with you," Judual said. No one objected.
* * * *
It was nightfall when the women arrived at Celliwig with a dozen warriors for their protection. They had taken the fastest mounts in the stables of Dyn Tagell, and rode the whole way alternating between a trot and a canter. Yseult had never made the journey so fast — but nonetheless it seemed longer than ever before. She knew Brangwyn and Ragnell felt the same.
Eerie torchlight flickered everywhere over the dark fields in the vale below the hill-fort as survivors continued to walk among the fallen, searching for those who might still have a chance to live. The air was cold and damp, and the smell of death hung over everything.
Kustennin came out to meet them and was immediately able to set Brangwyn's mind at ease. "Kurvenal is being taken to one of the tents for the injured even as we speak. I asked the news brought to me as soon as he was found."
"Thank you," Brangwyn said. "Where can I find him?"
Kustennin instructed a soldier to take Brangwyn and Judual to Kurvenal.
"What of Gawain?" Ragnell asked.
"Still nothing. But when Cador awoke he told me that he saw Gawain face down Medraut's troops on this side of the Camlann. I have sent more men to search the bodies there."
"I will join them," Ragnell said.
Finally Kustennin could lead her to Cador.
"You are uninjured?" Yseult asked her son as she followed him into the hill-fort.
He shrugged. "Nothing more than the normal cuts and bruises of battle. I walk."
As they came through the battered gate of Celliwig, Yseult was stunned at how the whole hill-fort resembled a house of healing. Torches and bonfires burned at regular inte
rvals to provide some light to those tending to the injured; the wounded themselves were everywhere both in and between the houses. Canvas stretched over poles provided minimal protection from intermittent rain. There had to be hundreds of casualties here in Celliwig alone; she knew there were more in tents outside.
Kustennin pushed open the door of one of the smaller houses. More flickering torchlight and pallets everywhere, but Yseult found Cador immediately.
She knelt next to her husband and took his hand.
"I will leave you now," Kustennin murmured over the irregular chorus of moans.
Yseult nodded and laid her free hand on Cador's forehead. He was warm but not feverish. She felt down his left thigh, where she'd heard his leg was broken in several places. There the skin was warmer, but still not dangerously hot, and the splints appeared to be setting the bones correctly.
"Yseult."
He had woken and was looking at her wearily, the pain of this nearly lost battle clear in his eyes. "Thank you for coming."
"Of course. Perhaps we can provide some relief to the injured."
"We?"
"Brangwyn and Ragnell came with me."
Cador closed his eyes at the mention of Ragnell. "Has Gawain been found yet?"
She shook her head. When she probed his mind, she discovered that he was sure Gawain was dead — and Cador was consumed by the guilt of the survivor.
"Any news of Arthur?" Cador asked.
"Kustennin said he was sore wounded but still alive. I have not yet seen him; I came straight to you."
The hopelessness that filled him scared her. From many years as a healer, she knew well enough that hopelessness could kill even when a wound itself did not; infection could set in, the wound might not heal properly, or any number of other complications could develop that were much more likely to occur if the patient did not put his mind to recovering.
Which at the moment Cador didn't care to do.
There was no privacy here, but this time Yseult could not put off what she had to say — as she had when they saw each other last in Dyn Tagell. Somehow she had to remind him that there were still things worth living for. Besides, peace was no longer a given, and she didn't know how long she would still have him, even if he survived his injuries this time.
Shadow of Stone (The Pendragon Chronicles) Page 52
