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Cade
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THE SLIVER OF MOON shone down on Cade, white against a pale blue sky. The wind had blown the clouds directly above him away, although more hovered on the horizon. The sun had already descended into the mist to the west and as his strength returned, Cade sensed it would soon set altogether. Better for me; not so for the rest.
Cade licked his lips, tasting the salt from the sea. It reminded him again of Arianrhod’s kiss. The salt lingered on his face as well. The water had soaked him, of course, but as he’d labored over the last hour, it had dried and left him with the familiar, sticky feeling any routine dip in the ocean might have given him, even if they’d been fighting for their lives. Except, he, alone of his companions, would have survived. Eventually, the sea would have given him up, no matter what happened to his friends.
The surf had calmed considerably, no longer crashing against the beach, but creeping in and out as if there’d never been a storm. Around Cade, refuse littered the beach, thrown up by the surf. It was mostly driftwood and seaweed but here and there lay a wine cask or some pottery shards. Cade lifted Rhiann in his arms, feeling a moment of satisfaction as the power within him remained dormant and controlled, thanks to the comforting weight of Caledfwlch which he’d returned to his waist. He carried her to where he’d built a fire in a sheltered spot in the dry sands near the bottom of a cliff. She still slept deeply, her hair covered with sand and her wet clothes destroyed by the salt.
“I’m not in love with Dafydd, Cade.”
In truth, Cade had heard her. His hearing was excellent. But he’d been so surprised that she’d said it, he’d wanted to hear it again. When they defeated Arawn, he’d corner her and make her say it over. Perhaps many times.
By whatever god or miracle had aided them, all of Cade’s companions had reached the shore. Once he settled Rhiann, Cade gathered the rest of them together one by one around the fire. He’d known when the surf had thrown them onto the beach that he had only a little time to get all of them warm and dry, or none of them might wake again. They’d all been conscious initially, but exhaustion had won out. Now, with the heat from the fire creating a bubble of warmth, they fell under its spell and slept.
Another hour passed and then Siawn was the first to wake. He sat up abruptly, more energized than Cade would have expected, and actually smiled when he saw Cade observing him. “My lord.”
“Cousin,” Cade said.
Siawn got to his feet and stretched. Cade had urged Siawn to remove his robes when they were in the dinghy and now he was dressed as Cade was, in breeches and shirt, though without a sword. “I see that I have arrived home in one piece, thanks to you,” Siawn said. “I will find out where we are before the others wake.”
Pleased at Siawn’s initiative, Cade nodded. Siawn sketched a bow and turned south, making for a gap in the cliffs, and Cade returned to watching his friends sleep. The fire crackled and Cade threw another armful of logs on to it before sitting again. Taliesin’s hair was ragged and stiff, spread out in a tangle around him, but sleep had smoothed the lines on his face, revealing yet again that he wasn’t much older than Cade himself. So often, Taliesin affected the air of the old man of prophecy that Cade forgot that he truly wasn’t. As Cade watched him, Taliesin stirred and then opened his eyes. His body tensed, in expectation of pain or fear Cade didn’t know, but then Taliesin relaxed and turned his head.
“So,” he said, with that particular tone with which Cade had become familiar. “We are alive.”
“It appears so,” Cade said.
“Your doing, I imagine.” Taliesin lifted his head to look at the fire and their sleeping companions. He dropped his head back to the sand. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” Cade said.
“Are we forgiven, then?” Rhiann rolled onto her side and made to push onto her knees, but moaned instead and collapsed onto her stomach.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Taliesin said. “Perhaps Arawn’s attention is now elsewhere.”
“Or perhaps my prayers were answered,” Siawn said. “Perhaps Crawdawg looked down on us and asked God to have mercy.”
Cade looked away from Rhiann to see the priest walking towards them from the cliffs that lined the beach. Taliesin had the grace not to snort at Siawn’s words, and Cade shot him a grateful look. He was torn between the two of them. While he’d prayed for deliverance with Siawn, he’d understood Taliesin’s entreaties as well. Perhaps their survival was a tacit blessing from both religions. He liked to think so, anyway.
Cade squatted next to Rhiann and touched her hair. “Are you all right?”
“Every single one of my muscles hurts.” She lifted her chin to look at him. “Look at you! It isn’t fair.”
“What about me?” Cade said.
“Not a bruise on you,” she said, “though your hair certainly needs some help.”
Cade ran a hand through his hair, feeling its rough ends standing straight up on end. “All the better for our disguise. If we look as ragged as this when we reach Caer Dathyl, nobody will look at us twice.”
“The cliff turns inland further down the beach, my lord.” Siawn came to a halt beside Cade. “There is a passage that can lead us to Caer Dathyl.”
“This isn’t quite where I intended to land.” Cade straightened and examined the landscape. “But it could be worse.” The cliffs were nearly vertical here, not the lower mounds and hillocks of a few miles further north.
By now Rhiann was on her feet. She made a movement as if to check her back and then let her hand fall and her shoulders sag. She gave Cade a rueful smile. “The wood would be horribly warped from seawater anyway,” she said. “The bow strings are useless as it is.” She pulled the sodden thread from an inner pocket at her waist.
“If we ever make it inside the castle,” Cade said, “we’ll see about getting you a new bow.”
“It won’t be the same,” she said. “I fought well with that one.”
“Perhaps Siawn can help you find one that will suit,” Cade said.
Rhiann gave an involuntary shiver. “I’m not sure how I feel about using anything from Caer Dathyl.”
“If we get inside safely,” Siawn said, “I can lead us to the armory.”
“Perhaps that isn’t where it used to be,” Rhiann said. “Bedwyr says the castle is different.”
“I don’t believe it,” Siawn said. “I know the walls are made of stone now, but it can’t be extraordinarily changed or people would talk. Time has sped up for us because we feel the urgency of our task. For everyone else, barely a month has passed since my father’s death. The sun still shines; the farmers are preparing for spring plowing; the sheep move further up the mountain as the snows recede.”
“And then Arawn releases more and more demons from his cauldron.” Goronwy got to his feet near Dafydd and Hywel, who had also woken and stood. They brushed the sand from their stiffened and dried clothing and then buckled on the swords that Cade had kept safe.
“There is that,” Siawn said. “Not something any of us should forget, even for a moment.”
“You know what is bothering me about all this?” Dafydd had pulled his sword from its sheath and was rubbing at it with the tail of his shirt, polishing it until it shone. Cade found, suddenly, that he liked him now, far more than yesterday.
“I have no idea, brother,” Goronwy said, “but I suspect you’re going to tell us.”
Dafydd made a face at him, like he must have when he was a child, but then sobered. “I can’t imagine these demons are leaving Caer Dathyl by the main gate in broad daylight. That just doesn’t make sense, unless Teregad has evicted all of the peasants and craft workers.”
“We would have heard,” Cade said. “Bedwyr would have seen that.”
“If Arawn’s lair is under Caer Dathyl,” Siawn said, “there are catacombs a-plenty beneath it that could house him and allow passage through to the outside without necessarily going through the fort itself.”
Cade turned and shared a look with Taliesin. Just as at Dinas Emrys.
“I suspect, however,” Siawn continued, “that there is a way down to the catacombs from inside Caer Dathyl, particularly from Teregad’s quarters.”
“So why do we delay?” Goronwy said. “The sun sets; Arawn awaits.”
Taliesin had finally risen and come to join them. “I used my staff to assist my arrival on shore. But now I’ve lost it. Perhaps we could find it if we looked.” Now that he was upright, he did look strange without his black cloak and staff. Cade hoped it wasn’t on the bottom of the sea with Rhiann’s bow.
Hywel and Dafydd immediately went to look for it, and it was just moments later that Dafydd came sprinting back, the staff upright in his hand.
“I found it!” Dafydd handed it to Taliesin, who patted him on the arm. The contrast between them was almost comical: Taliesin, so tall and thin, and Dafydd, his twin in height but easily twice Taliesin in weight.
Hywel trotted in behind him, holding a sealed water skin. He reached Cade and handed it to him. “We can share for now, and then refill it when we get to a stream. Given the rains, I’m sure Siawn can find us one nearby.”
“Good thinking,” Cade said. Because he didn’t need to drink water himself, he unsealed the lid and passed it to Rhiann, who took a short sip, and then another long one before passing it to Taliesin. She wiped her lips on the back of her hand.
“Are you ready?” Cade asked her.
She smiled. “Are any of us? But yes, I’m ready if you are.”
“Lead on, Siawn,” Cade said. “We’ll follow you.”
Goronwy and Rhun kicked sand over the fire and then everyone followed the trail Siawn had found. It wended up from the beach, circling around grassy hummocks and boulder outcroppings until it reached the flat farmland below the massive escarpment upon which Caer Dathyl perched.
The fort covered the whole expanse of the mountain above them, its stone walls encircling an area large enough to hold over one hundred huts, as well as craft halls, stables, and a keep. The fort had its own water source—a well springing from deep within the mountain—and since the road up to it was precipitous, it would be impossible to besiege, which is why they weren’t going to try.
Cade walked with Taliesin. “Math ap Mathonwy knew what he was about when he built his fort, didn’t he?”
Taliesin glanced at him. “I’m sure the fact that Arawn rules from his seat is causing turmoil in his heart in the Otherworld,” Taliesin said. “But I feel his will supporting us, for he also was a King of Gwynedd.”
When the companions came around the next corner, everyone hesitated in mid-stride, looking up at the looming fort with the same consternation Cade felt. Siawn led them off the track and under the trees beside it just as full darkness descended. The moon shone feebly, but no stars appeared. Nobody but Cade could see more than the faint outline of the others, and Rhiann clutched at his sleeve to make sure she even knew where he was.
Taliesin indicated the moon with his chin. “We are in Arawn’s domain now. He will know we are here. He veils the stars and will do everything in his power to stop us.”
“Arawn can do what he likes.” Goronwy rolled his shoulders, loosening his muscles. “He always does. We do what have to.”
“And what exactly do we have to do now?” Dafydd said.
“If I may make a suggestion, my lord?” Siawn said.
“Please,” Cade said.
“You can see in the dark, and some of us are without swords. If you, along with Goronwy, Dafydd, Hywel, and Bedwyr, search around the outside of the mountain for a way into the catacombs, then the other four—Rhun, Lady Rhiann, Taliesin, and I—can enter Caer Dathyl through the front gate, or even the postern entrance if I can convince someone to let us in that way.”
“You think that your familiar face puts you at an advantage?” Cade said. “That you have friends who will aid you; who don’t know of your imprisonment in Caer Ddu?”
“Yes,” Siawn said. “Or even if they did know that Teregad distrusts me, our people have never loved Teregad as they did our father. It may be, as well, that Teregad has told everyone that I’m dead, in which case, I will have some friends who will be happy to see me.”
“Unlike me,” Dafydd said, “who would be destined for the dungeon the moment the first guard saw my face.”
“Will they let you into the fort at this hour?” Rhun said.
“Travelers come and go into the evening,” Siawn said. “If we reach the summit within the hour, many of the fort’s villagers will still be out and about.”
“We’ll be disguised anyway,” Taliesin said.
Cade rocked back at the assurance in Taliesin’s voice. Taliesin ignored the impact of his words, instead lighting the end of his staff with a whisper, already accepting the plan as the best one available. He held the tip near the ground, illumining a small circle in the path. Even that little light was enough to bring some measure of comfort.
As they prepared to separate, Cade pulled Rhun away from Rhiann and Siawn. “Don’t wait for us,” Cade said, “and we won’t wait for you. Whichever group finds the entrance to the catacombs first needs to follow the path to its conclusion.”
“Agreed,” Rhun said. “What is your plan?”
“If such an entrance exists,” Cade said, “demons should be issuing from it. I suspect that nighttime will be the hours that they’ll do it.”
“Can you enter the catacombs without an invitation?”
“Demons are not human,” Cade said. “Nor are gods. Human rules don’t apply. I’ve discovered that in my wanderings.”
“I assume this is why you have acquiesced so easily to leaving Rhiann,” Rhun said. “You are worried about being left outside the fort were you to seek entrance, because it is Teregad himself who must admit you?”
“Leaving Rhiann?” Cade said.
“I’m neither an idiot nor blind,” Rhun said. “What’s more, I’m a married man. I understand that you are waiting until after this fight to declare yourself. I will care for her for you.”
Cade wasn’t going to argue with that. Taliesin, Alcfrith, and Rhun had all spoken to him of Rhiann, and he was beginning to hope that if they saw no difficulties in the relationship, provided he could actually touch her, perhaps he didn’t need to either. Even Rhiann might agree.
“What kind of demons are we talking about?” Hywel said from behind Rhun. “Horned devils? Hounds? Another sidhe?”
Cade looked past Rhun to answer him. “Not the last. I’m not worried about Arianrhod or one like her catching you unawares.”
“Be most alert for hounds accompanied by a great huntsman, clothed in gray, riding a gray horse,” Taliesin said. “The huntsman will be Arawn himself.”
“We’ll remember that.” Dafydd nodded his head up and down emphatically.
Rhiann had been gazing into the distance, but now she turned to Cade. He met her eyes and his heart warmed to see only concern in them. She no longer felt disgust at the sight of him, if she ever had. She clasped her hands in front of her lips as if in prayer and spoke over them. “I’m afraid.”
Cade hesitated, and then reached for her arm and pulled her to him. She clutched him around the waist. She felt so right, he couldn’t help but wrap his arms around her, like he’d wanted to do so many times before. She spoke again, her words muffled by his shirt.
“It feels like a great weight is bearing down on us and it is only because all of us are carrying it together that it doesn’t crush us. If even one of us falters, I fear for the rest.”
“You’re here because you’ve earned the right,” Cade said. “Teregad is unlikely to suspect a woman is a danger to him. I don’t like the peril into which this puts us, but you have been strong and steady up until now—and smart. See that you continue to be so, and stay close to Taliesin.”
“Yes, Cade,” she said.
“Now go.” Cade released her.
She stepped back, nodded once, and with Taliesin and his little light leading the way, she walked up the trail and out of sight.
