by J. M. Hofer
“Oh, she hasn’t left yet. She’s just as eager as you are to find your daughter.”
Lucia hid her excitement at the prospect of an opportunity to confront Viviaine. “How encouraging,” she said as calmly as she could. “Might I see her, please?”
“Of course. She spends a lot of time outdoors, but I imagine she’s in her chambers on a day like today.”
“If someone would show me the way, I’ll go and call on her, then.”
Urien called the serving maiden over. “Take Lady Lucia to visit the Lady Viviaine.”
Now, there could be no mistake. He had named her. Lucia avoided making eye contact with her husband and followed the girl from the hall, fists clenched and unspoken curses burning her throat.
***
Bran was left alone in the hall with Urien, wondering what his wife was not telling him. He felt an urge to go after her and take her aside for some words, but that would have to wait. He had been eager to speak with Urien since learning the disturbing news of Octa’s brewing army, and he was not about to miss the opportunity to speak to him in private. “Tell me, now that my wife’s gone, what do you know of these rumors about Hengist’s son, Octa?”
Urien sighed. “I suspect you’ve heard what I’ve heard—that he’s alive and well over in Jutland, stirring up an army of thousands. The unfortunate thing is that, whether the bastard’s still alive or not, the idea that Hengist’s son yet lives and is amassing an army has fired up every Saxon forge in Brython. I think our peaceful days are numbered. If that’s what you call this, anyway.” He motioned out the window. “Saxon border skirmishes and village raids are more than common. And now, if they’ve got a warlord with Hengist’s blood in his veins to rally around, I assure you it’s only going to get worse. They’re a greedy, bloodthirsty lot, never content with what is granted to them. Emrys was a fool to trust them. They won’t stop until they take everything we have.”
Woden’s ominous prophecy leapt into Bran’s mind. “Tell your master that his lands will soon belong to my people, who will rule them from mountain to shore. He is destined for the shadows.” He felt a shiver of dread run down his spine, along with a feeling of helplessness. Since leaving Uthyr’s army, he had lost touch with what was going on in the country. For better or worse, Mynyth Aur was a small village. Unless his people traveled to the larger cities and brought news back, it did not reach them. “What does Uthyr plan to do? We’ve not heard news from the south in some time.”
“Just so happens I was in Caer Leon not so very long ago. Uthyr knows of Octa’s plans. He has allies in Armorica who send scouts into Jutland to keep abreast of what is happening there.”
Bran grew more anxious. “He’s not the only one with spies. If Octa truly escaped, he had to have had help, which means there are traitors within Uthyr’s ranks—traitors that are likely still there, watching his every move, and reporting back to Octa.”
“It’d be foolish to assume otherwise,” Urien agreed. He poured the last of the ale from the pitcher into Bran’s cup. “More ale!” he bellowed. A servant boy seemed to emerge from the walls with a fresh pitcher and rushed over to fill their cups. Urien gave him a satisfied nod and resumed their conversation. “If you ask me, Uthyr would be wise to send an assassin to kill the wretch before he strikes.”
Bran pictured Brython as a small garden, slowly being choked out by weeds encroaching from all sides. “He could. But how long until another adder slithers out of the ground in his place? We need a better plan.”
Urien tick-tocked his head. “Perhaps. But it’s at least a solution for now that will thwart our enemies’ plans. What would you do in Uthyr’s place?”
Bran had been thinking of nothing else for hours. “The Saxons are better warriors. There’s no argument about that. But Uthyr understands battle tactics and strategy—Roman battle tactics and strategy—that brought the world to heel for hundreds of years. That is how we triumph over brute strength, but every man must do his part. The only way we can win is if every king, chieftain and warlord unites under Uthyr’s banner—and not just in word, but also in deed—paying tribute with both men and goods.”
Urien nodded. “You’re right. But it’s a hard thing to convince dozens of small clans to fight if their homes aren’t being threatened. Someone must convince them to abandon their blood feuds because there is a bigger fight at hand.” He paused. “Emrys was such a man, though too trusting, if you ask me. Uthyr is clearly the better warlord, but let’s pray he also has some of his brother’s talent to inspire. Only that way will men continue to rally by his side.”
Bran looked out at the sky, now turning purple in the twilight. “Yes, we can pray—but it would be better to campaign.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Giant’s Ladder
“She must have camped here,” Taliesin observed, holding up an auburn hair he had found on the ground. His breath billowed in front of him in the chill air, clouding around the crimson strand between his fingers. He tucked the hair in his crane bag and surveyed the area, hoping for another sign of Arhianna. His eyes trailed along the river and the tree line, up to the sheer cliff face, and then fixed themselves on the daunting mountain fortress overhead. Its talons clutched the peak with imposing malice, leaning out over a sheer cliff. Its narrow windows stared down at him like prey, sending a shiver down his spine.
Gawyr noticed where he was looking and grunted. “There’s no trail up the side of the mountain, if that’s what you’re looking for. Most fools end up trying to scale the cliffs. By the time they make it to the bridge, if they make it to the bridge, their fingers are so raw, and muscles so spent, they’re easily defeated by Uathach.”
“Uathach?” Taliesin asked, wrinkling his nose. “Who’s that?”
“Scáthach’s daughter. Gatekeeper. Guards the bridge. Cu Chulainn’s widow, as well, which is something worth noting.” Gawyr opened his pack, pulled out a length of thick rope and tied a grappling hook on to the end of it. “If you can get past her, you can look forward to seven years of hell on earth—if you last that long, of course. If not, you get the privilege meeting Arawn at the bottom of the chasm, and get the real thing. Creepy bastard’s probably built a summer home down there by now.”
Taliesin studied the fortress mount. “So how do you get up?”
Gawyr raised his brows. “Men like you? The smart ones make their way up from the inside. There’s an entrance down by the sea, through a grotto, and a path that winds up through the belly and around the other side, where the cliffs drop into the sea.”
“Then we go in through there.”
Gawyr grimaced and shook his head. “Who said anything about we? You’re not going anywhere. You made a promise to Urien, and I swore to make sure you returned with all your fingers to fulfill it. You stay here in case she comes back to camp. I’ll go.” He stood up and hitched the rope over his shoulder. Before Taliesin could protest, Gawyr had crossed the stream and was pushing into the brush, headed straight for the cliffs.
“Wait! I thought you said only fools try to scale the walls to the top!”
“Fools your size, bard,” Gawyr yelled back. “My people built this place.”
Gawyr’s head floated above the bare branches of the sparse trees like a dark ship on a wild sea. “Wait!” Taliesin scrambled after him, the hounds at his heels.
Gawyr reached the wall and paced back and forth a bit, until he found what he was looking for. As if he had found an invisible ladder set against the cliff, he reached his tremendous hand up and found what seemed to be an invisible hold. He made encouraging progress for a while, steadily finding hand and foot holds wholly imperceptible to Taliesin. Then, some three hundred feet in the air, miraculously clinging to a cliff so sheer it took Taliesin’s breath away, Gawyr stopped.
What’s wrong? Taliesin craned his neck, looking up at his companion. He realized in that moment how fond of the giant he had become, for the thought of him falling to his death filled him with a surge of numbing f
ear.
Then came a sound that nearly launched his heart from his chest—terrible and fierce, it sounded as if someone with inhuman strength had cleaved a boulder in half with a broadsword. His head jolted toward the sound and found its source—Gawyr’s grapple had fallen and bored itself into the ground, followed swiftly by the rope that had held it, which was falling in impotent coils around it. A wail of curses sailed down from above, filling the air like a shower of arrows.
Taliesin looked up at his companion, fearing he would soon follow, but, like a sail tethered to a great ship, he remained fast upon the wall. I’ve got to get the rope back up to him. I can at least climb that high. He reached out and ran his hand along the rock, dismayed at how smooth it was. He attempted to launch himself upon its surface, but managed no more than a few feet before he fell to the ground below.
“Don’t be a fool, Bard! Get away, before I fall and crush you!” Gawyr yelled from overhead.
Taliesin ran his palms along the icy smooth wall in dismay. This won’t work.
He looked up into the trees and saw a flock of ravens roosting in the latticework of bare branches overhead. Most birds flew south for the winter, but not the ravens. Taliesin smiled. You know how to survive the long night, don’t you, my dark friends? It did not take him long to make his choice. As if the bird he had chosen could feel his intentions, it cocked its head and stared down at him with a defiant, unblinking eye.
Taliesin found a place where his body would be sheltered from falling debris, and, gods forbid, a falling giant, and sat down on the ground. Braith and Griffin came to sit on either side of him. “Watch over me.” He gave them both a rub of the ears and settled in, resting his head against the tree behind him. He looked up and fixed his mind on the giant raven he had chosen. It was strong, reluctant to give itself over, but he held fast, digging in with his mental talons. If I can handle a dragon, my brother, I can handle you. Let me in.
Taliesin felt his body slip away as his spirit left it behind. There was always the temptation to let go of everything in that moment and sail into the ether—but he resisted, instead feeling his way into the raven, much the way a man first mounts a wild stallion he has broken.
At first, their minds tangled with one another, like awkward partners struggling to learn a complex dance, producing nothing but a confusing flurry of flapping wings and loud caws. Yet, with a bit more time and patience, Taliesin managed to adjust himself to the raven. Soon, they were moving and thinking in unison.
Taliesin took charge and sailed down from the tree toward the end of the rope, picked it up in his beak and flapped skyward with all his strength. But before he could reach Gawyr’s height, the rope jerked back in protest. Taliesin looked down and saw he had reached the end of the rope. He could fly no higher—the grapple was far too heavy.
Taliesin knew Gawyr must have been shocked from the sudden assistance from a wild bird, but the giant’s face did not betray his awe. He began descending the rock to close the gap between them. Soon they were eye to eye. The giant’s muscles shook from effort. Sweat ran down his face and neck, pooling in the pockets of his clavicle bones and then spilling down his chest and dripping like rain on the forest below. Likewise, it took all of Taliesin’s effort to keep the rope in the air. Gawyr did not waste his opportunity and reached out, grabbing the end of the rope. Relieved of his burden, Taliesin felt as light as dandelion fluff, and soared in a joyful, liberated arc through the shifting grey clouds.
Gawyr had to hold the rope in his teeth while he coiled it about his shoulder again, patiently pulling the grapple up from the forest floor. By the time he accomplished that, he looked as if he had not only climbed a mountain but swum a sea and crossed a desert as well.
If Taliesin could speak, he would have told him to go back down, rest, and try again tomorrow. But Gawyr seemed to have lost his common sense. He continued climbing the wall, only to get stuck in the same place he had faltered before. Taliesin stayed nearby, perched on an old root sticking out of the mountain a few feet above him.
Gawyr squinted at him. “And who’re you, my friend?” he demanded. “A god of some kind?”
Taliesin could do nothing but squawk. Ravens, though intelligent, had a terrible voice. It felt strangely appropriate—a lesson in humility. Taliesin the Honey-tongued, singing with the ugliest call of the aviary kingdom.
“Goddammit, Raven—if you’re here to help, show me where the bloody hold is!” Gawyr’s long arms were stretched as long as they could be, his hands feeling in vain along the wall above his head for a handhold—one Taliesin could see was no longer there. On the way up, he had seen the cuts in the rock that had been invisible to him from below—a series of hand and footholds that only a giant would be able to use. The one Gawyr sought was simply not there anymore, the rock perhaps worn away and the lip fallen off long ago.
He flew to the next possible place Gawyr could put his hand.
Caw!
Gawyr looked up at him.
Caw, Caw!
Gawyr let out a fresh string of curses, found new placements for his feet, and launched himself to the hold. His new position was precarious, but he quickly traded it in favor of a better one, getting himself back on track.
“Let’s hope the rest of the holds are still there, eh, Raven?”
Caw!
Gawyr nodded and, as if moving faster might prevent a similar situation, climbed twice as fast as he had been climbing before. Taliesin flew up ahead, surveying the giant’s ladder. Though there were other holds that had been damaged, none of them were completely missing. Confident Gawyr would make the climb, he perched at the top of the cliff and waited for him.
The fortress was tremendous, built not for normal men, but men Gawyr’s size, as he had said. His people did build this place.
He noticed the bridge Gawyr had mentioned, but not the woman he had spoken of. He flew out over the bridge, expecting to see her in the trees, or perhaps some evidence of a guard’s hut, but saw nothing but the bridge, swaying back and forth in the icy wind over a vast chasm. If the mountain he hovered above had been a log turned on end, the chasm below looked like an axe cut, cleaved halfway into it. Its walls were formed of sheer black rock, wet with salty mist and plastered with the droppings of a thousand seagulls. Down below, seawater churned and crashed into its ever-narrowing gap, rising up twenty feet or so, and then draining away.
He circled back. Only then did he spy the cave within the cliff wall beneath the bridge. It would not be visible to Gawyr when he got there. Taliesin flew beneath the bridge and into the cave for a closer look.
Firelight danced on the walls. He ventured closer and saw someone sitting beside a small fire, sharpening a blade. It appeared to be a young man, perhaps fifteen or sixteen. Even seated, he was taller than any man at Mynyth Aur. Without warning, the young man stood up and turned toward him.
Gods, it’s a woman! She stood at least eight feet tall and had shaved her head, like Bran’s sister, Seren. Several scars marred her otherwise perfect skin, the most gruesome spanning the left side of her head and cheekbone. Her garments, what few she wore, were made of dark leather, with sprigs of the plants that grew in the crevices of the mountain stuck between her laces. She reached into a leather pouch, pulled out a handful of coal dust, and proceeded to smear it on her face and limbs. Uathach.
Taliesin hopped out of the cave and flew to the first plank of the bridge to wait for Gawyr, intending to warn him, but Gawyr was already there, kneeling in silence, peering over the lip of the cliff overhead.
Taliesin could not help him anymore. He could only watch and ask the Great Mother to protect him.
Uathach moved to the entrance of the cave as silent as a cat, a long, whip-like weapon gripped in her hand. Likewise prepared, Gawyr waited above. Only Taliesin could see them both, mere feet apart, yet invisible to one another—Gawyr above, Uathach below. Neither moved. All that could be heard was the surf crashing with fury down below and the ceaseless wind, howling its lone
ly omens.
Uathach raised her nose in the air, breathing in what the wind told her, and smiled a gruesome grin, her teeth flashing out of her blackened face.
Taliesin launched himself from the plank, bestowing a parting gift upon Gawyr as he departed.
CAW! CAW! CAW!
Gawyr exploded into action, leaping away from the lip of the cliff just as Uathach’s whip slithered out from beneath the bridge. It cracked in the air like a clap of thunder where he had been kneeling but a moment ago. “Go on, then, big man—cross,” her voice taunted from the cave beneath the bridge. “And if your damn raven shows himself again, it’ll rain blood and feathers.”
Gawyr did not respond to her taunts. Instead, he moved out of range, quietly uncoiled the rope from his shoulders, and tied the end through his belt and around his waist.
Is he going to try and toss that across? Taliesin thought in dismay. The fortress walls were full of good grapple holds, but the chasm was easily two hundred feet wide, and the walls another fifty feet tall. To accomplish such a throw would be impossible, even for a giant. And there will certainly be no retrieving it this time. Taliesin peered down at the blue-green turmoil of the sea below with dismay.
Yet, it appeared that was exactly what Gawyr intended to do.
Taliesin dared not speak out, for fear of alerting Uathach, but he may as well have. Seconds later, she swung up from beneath the bridge to the planks above and threw her spear at Gawyr. He moved out of the way just in time. Then, like a spear herself, she launched herself in his direction. He attempted to toss the grapple before she reached him, but it missed its mark, clanging against the stone and sailing to the ground. The impact of her body knocked him off his feet. Her dagger was out and nearly buried in his throat before his hand shot up and grabbed her wrist. She elbowed him in the face, surely breaking his nose, freed herself from his grasp and leapt to her feet. The struggle had ripped some of the laces on her bodice, freeing one of her breasts, but she did not seem to notice or care. She recovered her spear and held it poised to strike, this time from a short and lethal distance.
