Song of the Pendragon (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 3)

by Sarah Woodbury

  A blazing torch sat in a sconce inside the tunnel, three feet from the entrance. It lit the space well and Goronwy peered past it, trying to see what lay beyond.

  “How far into this did you go?” Cade asked Dafydd.

  “Only a few feet further,” he said. “Just along the passage lies a cavern, about thirty feet square, with an exit at the far end. We didn’t dare venture any further than that.”

  “That was wise,” Cade said, leading them down the tunnel and into the cave, which was as Dafydd had described. “We have no idea what’s in here.” The ceiling sat at least twenty-five feet above their heads. Growths and protrusions came down from it and were met by similar formations rising from the floor.

  “Perhaps we should have kept Taliesin with us.” Goronwy pointed to a symbol on the wall near the entrance to the cavern, almost at ground level. Cade crouched to look at it.

  “It’s a hound,” he said, “carved into the stone.”

  “And here’s a stag,” Hywel said from his position on the other side of the opening.

  “Well it looks like we’re in the right place,” Goronwy said. “Now all we have to do is find Arawn.”

  “Find Arawn?” a voice said. “I would have thought that was the last thing you wanted to do.”

  Very slowly Cade stood and turned around to face the speaker. In the center of the cavern stood a man, dressed all in gray: gray breeches, jersey, and deep gray cloak. He was slightly taller than Cade, with black hair and eyes, and nearly white skin. He wore a golden crown on his head and carried a bow, as well as a sword sheathed at his waist.

  “My lord, Arawn.” Cade held his arms at his sides, his fingers itching to hold Caledfwlch, but not wanting to make a move that might encourage Arawn to send one of his arrows through his heart. “I didn’t think you’d want to face me so soon.”

  The man didn’t respond, his face remaining frozen in a sneering mask. Then he wavered—his being actually flickered in and out, like a candle about to go out—and looked away from Cade. Cade glanced in the direction Arawn was looking. He saw nothing. It was as if Arawn was gazing at something against one of the walls that was hidden from mortal eyes. An expression of exasperation crossed Arawn’s face before he focused again on Cade.

  “I will deal with you, soon enough,” he said, and vanished, replaced in that instant by an enormous demon, huge and gray-skinned. The troll-like creature carried a massive club instead of a sword. He didn’t even seem to have enough thought in his head to glower at the companions, merely took his club off his shoulder and swung it.

  “Whoa!” Dafydd exclaimed as the end of the club whistled past him, two inches from his nose. In unison, the men pulled out their swords, although what they were going to do with them Cade didn’t know. A sword wasn’t an effective weapon against a club—especially not such an enormous one as the troll carried. What Cade really wanted was a spear.

  “Spread out!” Goronwy said. “He can’t attack us all at once!”

  “Can’t he?” Dafydd threw himself sideways. “It looks like he’s doing a pretty good job of it to me!”

  The troll hadn’t yet landed a blow, but he had lashed out with his club at each companion in turn, not giving any of them time to recover before he was at them again.

  “I’ll distract him,” Cade said. “When I do, run for the exit on the other side!”

  Cade didn’t wait for agreement from his friends, but darted in under the troll’s club while he was attempting to decapitate Hywel with it. As much as Cade hated to sully Caledfwlch with troll blood, he stabbed him in the toe. The troll arched his back, turning his face to the ceiling, and howled with pain. The others ran for the door and made it, but the troll recovered before Cade could get past him to follow.

  With his next swing, the troll’s club caught Cade on his right side, two steps from the door, and flung him backwards. With a painful thud, Cade hit the wall by the tunnel through which they’d entered the cavern. He fell to the ground.

  “Cade!” Goronwy said from the far doorway.

  Cade held up a hand to stop Goronwy from attempting a rescue, but all the same, was relieved to find that Goronwy’s call had distracted the troll. The troll turned to the tunnel in which the three companions stood and swung his club into it. He knocked pieces of stone onto the ground, but didn’t hit anyone. The troll then crouched and began probing into the doorway. As it was only six feet high, it was far too small for him to enter. Goronwy backpedaled, pushing the others further into the tunnel to avoid the troll’s attack.

  Cade got to his feet. He might heal easily, but his ribs were still bruised, maybe even cracked, and he leaned against the wall, trying to get his bearings. The troll’s rear still blocked the path to his friends. Cade stared at it, and then the solution dawned on him.

  He pulled a knife from where he kept it at his waist and limped forward, moving into a staggering run. Goronwy held off the troll with his sword, which was still of little use against the club, keeping Dafydd and Hywel back. The troll bent forward further to push his head inside the tunnel, although his shoulders wouldn’t fit. He was straining to reach Goronwy when Cade rammed his knife to the hilt, straight up the troll’s anus.

  The troll screamed. Because his head was inside the tunnel, however, when he jerked upwards, he jarred the back of his head on the stony ceiling. Still screaming, he pulled his head back into the cavern, with Cade leaping to the right to get out of his way. The troll spun around, dropped his club, and clutched at his backside searching for the knife, while the other hand went to the back of his head.

  Cade danced out from behind the troll and slid into the tunnel. “Go!” He pushed on Goronwy. “Into the next cave!”

  Nobody needed any further urging and the companions popped out of the tunnel into a second cavern, much larger than the first. The ceiling extended at least forty feet upwards. The protrusions and rock formations that adorned it sparkled with crystals, reflecting the light of the two torches that were all that lit the vast expanse of the cavern.

  On the far right wall near where Cade stood sat a ledge with a doorway opening onto it. As it was at least fifteen feet off the ground, Cade didn’t see that anyone but he would be able to explore in that direction. He peered through the gloom, trying to make sense of the shifting colors and shapes between them and the opposite wall.

  “There’s another door.” Cade pointed to a spot fifty yards away.

  Goronwy came to stand beside him. “I’m sorry to correct you, my lord. But the door is over there.” He indicated a section of the wall that from Cade’s perspective was clearly made of solid stone.

  “I don’t see a doorway there,” Cade said. He and Goronwy exchanged a look.

  “I see one!” Dafydd took off in a jog towards a third spot, entirely different from either of the ones that Goronwy or Cade saw.

  “Don’t!” Goronwy said. Dafydd turned back, his eyes questioning. “We don’t see a door there, Dafydd.”

  “But it’s right here.” He turned back to what was without a doubt a solid wall, and proved exactly that by bouncing off it, fortunately not having hit his head but only his right shoulder. He recovered and put out a hand, experimentally. “It’s funny, but I don’t see it now.” He turned back to Cade.

  “We never saw it at all,” Goronwy said. “If you had listened to us, you wouldn’t have wasted the effort.”

  “There it is! Over there!” Dafydd now pointed to a spot closer to the ledge with its inaccessible doorway.

  “We need to be smart about this,” Cade said. “Goronwy, you and Hywel go to where you see a door and find out if it’s a true one.”

  They obeyed, each walking to a spot that looked impenetrable to Cade. They touched the hard stone that he already knew was there. Once they reached that spot, they turned, and in unison pointed in an entirely different direction, towards a new door somewhere else.

  “Nobody sees my door, then,” Cade said.

  “No, my lord,” Goronwy said. The othe
rs shook their heads.

  Cade began to walk toward the one that remained clear to him. As he did so, he adjusted the path he was taking to it so that as he got closer, he could see down the tunnel it led to. It looked very real. “When you look at the doors,” Cade said, “do you see anything through the doorway or just the empty opening itself?”

  “The empty opening,” Goronwy said, sure. “It’s full dark behind it.”

  “The shape is of a door, though,” Hywel said, walking with Dafydd and Goronwy back towards Cade. “It still looks real to me.”

  “Well, I see the passage that my door leads to,” Cade said. “There’s a light behind it and I think the tunnel turns to the right about ten yards in.”

  As Cade spoke these words, a yelp sounded that was unlike a noise any of his friends would have made. He spun around. Out of each of the six doorways his companions had seen, two demons appeared, each armed with a weapon: axes, maces, and in one case, a giant hammer, which the demon rested on his shoulder.

  “To me!” Cade pulled Caledfwlch from its sheath and instantly stilled his panic. Never before had Cade been so glad Rhiann wasn’t with him. Even if she had withstood the Saxons and demons at Llanllugan, he would not have wanted her to have to fight what faced them now.

  His friends had frozen at the sight of the demons, but now raced towards him. Against so many, they stood a better chance and were a far more powerful fighting force standing together, than spread across the floor where the demons could pick them off one by one. Dafydd reached Cade first, gasping for breath, and took up position on his left. Goronwy skidded to a halt on his right. Hywel, unfortunately, didn’t quite make it to Cade and had to stop and turn. He caught the mace of a squat, burly, green fellow who was attempting to bring the weapon down on his head.

  “Forward!” Goronwy said. The companions raced across the fifteen feet that separated them from Hywel. As they reached him, the other demons fell upon them, and it was all any of them could do to stay on their feet under the relentless attack.

  With Caledfwlch blazing in his hand, it was as if Cade could foresee every movement the demons who opposed him made. At the same time, for reasons he couldn’t explain, he didn’t allow the sidhe power to rise within him. He held himself in complete control. His sword still shone as it always did, humming in his hand with an irrepressible energy, but whether through it—or more likely, because of it—he didn’t let the power flood through him, as he had at the ford of Llanllugan. Perhaps it was a desire to remain more human in the face of the inhuman beings that attacked them. Regardless, he felt that he should contain it as long as he could. Instead, Cade gathered whatever human strength he naturally commanded, and began hacking away at his opponents.

  Chapter Nine

  Rhiann

  Rhiann hesitated on the threshold of the doorway to the darkened stairs. She’d overheard what Cade had said to Rhun: that if they found the way to where Arawn kept the cauldron, they shouldn’t wait for the others. But she didn’t think that meant they shouldn’t stick with the companions they’d come in with, and she didn’t want to leave her friends imprisoned in Caer Dathyl if she could help them at all. Admittedly, Rhun and Siawn had Taliesin with them, and Rhiann didn’t know that any cell could hold him, but there was magic here that might be beyond even him.

  Perhaps Taliesin would be able to tell her what happened to Teregad. What did he see that frightened him so badly? Rhiann hoped it was Taliesin’s doing, whatever it was, since no man had ever reacted in quite that fashion to her looks before.

  Rhiann stuffed the blanket more securely into the stone doorway and then returned to the entrance to the room. Teregad had dropped his candle in his fear and she picked it up, glad it hadn’t either gone out or burned the floorboards, but merely left a dripping of wax where it had fallen. Rhiann ventured into the hallway. As before, it was empty and Rhiann ran to the stairs. When she reached them, she stopped again, wondering if she should go up or down to find where her friends were being kept.

  Down.

  Back in the great hall, she surveyed the sleeping men. They slept deeply, causing her to wonder if they weren’t poisoned in some fashion. Perhaps these were men whom Teregad hadn’t wanted to banish from the castle, but didn’t entirely trust? She didn’t know and supposed it didn’t matter, right at the moment. Their sleep gave her an opportunity she wasn’t going to waste.

  Similar to the layout at Caer Ddu, other doorways led from the hall. In addition to the opening that led to the kitchen, and another to the upstairs, both of which Rhiann had used, there were two more doorways set in the walls near the front doors to the keep. She skirted the men at the tables until she reached the doorway to the right. She went through it, immediately encountering yet another set of stairs. These went down, and like the one in Teregad’s bedroom, disappeared into the dark.

  She held her candle high and took a step, the first with trepidation and then more confidently as she didn’t encounter opposition. The air became steadily colder as she descended, counting the steps as she went. There were far more here than from the kitchen to the great hall, and Rhiann guessed that wherever she was going was substantially deeper into the earth. After at least forty steps, a landing appeared. She stepped onto it and turned, to find herself in the dungeons of Caer Dathyl.

  Rhun, Taliesin, and Siawn looked up as she entered, each locked in a separate cell. Unfortunately, three soldiers guarded them. One slept, but the other two were dicing at a table. Rhiann caught their attention the moment she appeared. In unison, their jaws dropped. One stood and stumbled backwards, knocking over his chair. Like Teregad, he pointed at her silently, mouth working but with no sound coming out.

  “M-m-my lady,” he tried.

  Rhiann tipped her chin at the cell doors. “Release the prisoners.”

  “B-b-but my lady,” the same man protested. “Y-y-your son ordered that they remain locked up until he could speak with them.”

  “I have dealt with my son,” Rhiann said, going with whatever strange illusion they were seeing instead of her. Perhaps they were poisoned; perhaps all the men in the fort were incapacitated in some way. Rhiann didn’t care. She needed her friends free.

  The second man swung his head from side to side, rhythmically. “No, no, no, no.” He looked at Rhiann and she met his eyes. “I killed you!” His breath came in gasps. “I buried you myself!”

  “I know,” Rhiann said. “And there is a special place in Annwn waiting for you when you die.”

  Meanwhile, the first guard had obeyed Rhiann and unlocked each of the cells, freeing Rhiann’s friends. Rhiann spoke again in case their presence would break the spell sooner than she wanted. “We are leaving now,” she said to the guards. “Do not follow us.”

  At that instant, the sleeping guard woke up. Rhiann just happened to be standing less than three feet from him, and when he saw her, he squawked and fell over backwards. “The Queen!”

  At the guard’s exclamation, Taliesin seemed to grow taller and definitely more menacing. “Perhaps you’d be safer in one of the cells.”

  The men took it as an order, which was as Taliesin had intended. With yet another anxious look at Rhiann, they filed into the cell that Rhun had just left. Siawn pushed the door closed and locked it.

  “What is going on?” Rhun said.

  “I am very clever,” Taliesin said, releasing an understated, but very pleased-with-himself chuckle.

  “That’s the illusion, isn’t it?” Rhiann said, finally able to put into words what the soldiers must have thought. “They see me as King Iaen’s dead wife? Siawn’s mother?” Rhiann turned with alarm to Siawn. “I don’t look like your mother to you, though, do I?”

  “No,” he said. He’d gone dead white. “But it seems Teregad had her killed too. How many more deaths must we lay at his feet?”

  “Not ours at least.” Rhun had been looking around the guardroom and gave a grunt of satisfaction as he found what he was looking for. He strode to a cabinet set against
one wall and opened it. “As I hoped.” He reached in and pulled out his own sword, which the guards had taken from him when they put him in the cell, and buckled it on.

  Taliesin moved up beside him and sighed happily. His staff was there too. He hefted it and it glowed in his hand briefly before dimming. Then Rhun pulled out a bow and quiver and handed them to Rhiann. By some miracle, the bow wasn’t enormous. Rhiann hefted it, sizing it up.

  “Are there bowstrings?” she said.

  Rhun rummaged at the bottom of the cupboard and pulled out a coiled length. Then he tossed a sheathed sword to Siawn, who drew it out and studied it.

  “It’s been a while,” he said, “and I was never very good at sword play, which is why my father chose me for the Church.”

  “Time to get good, quickly,” said Rhun.

  Siawn gave him a wry smile. “That sounds likely,” he said, under his breath.

  Rhiann buckled the quiver onto her back somewhat awkwardly, since the cloak wasn’t designed to be worn with it, and opted to carry the bow in her hand, rather than sliding it into place on her back.

  “Let’s go.” Rhun headed towards the stairs with the rest following closely. He took the steps two at a time and Rhiann lifted her skirts to copy him, Siawn and Taliesin dogging her heels.

  “We need to move fast,” Taliesin said from behind Rhiann. “We need to find the passage to Arawn’s lair. I feel as if Cadwaladr is in need of help.”

  “I already found it.” Rhiann reached the top step and put out a hand to grab the back of Rhun’s jersey to stop him from charging off across the great hall.

  Rhun swung around. “You did?”

  “You did?” Taliesin appeared out of the stairwell. His bright eyes revealed that he was in high good humor, reminding Rhiann of when she’d first met him at Dinas Emrys. He looked like he was about to break into song and she dearly hoped he was going to be able to restrain himself.