I gazed into the valley. The road showed as a narrow scar winding down the mountainside to lose itself in the pall of smoke and dust. My whole body leaned toward the sign in anticipation: direct evidence of human habitation. The end of our journey was near. I felt no fear.
“Why do you say fear?” Cynan asked Tegid.
“See it rising on clouds of smoke and dust,” the bard replied, extending his hands and spreading his fingers. “See it casting a shadow over this unhappy land. Great distress lies before us, and great fear.” Tegid lowered his hand and voice. “Our search has ended.”
“Goewyn is there?”
“And Tángwen?” Cynan asked with eager impatience. “Mo anam, brothers! Why do we delay? Let us hasten to free them at once.” He looked quickly from one to the other of us. “Is there anything to prevent us?”
Had it been left to Cynan, we would have raised the battle call of the carynx then and there, and stormed the valley by force. But Bran’s cooler head prevailed. “Paladyr is surely awaiting us,” he said, harking back to the beacons we had seen. “It is likely he knows our strength, but we do not know his. It would be well to discover our enemy’s might before beginning battle.”
“Then come,” I told him. “You and I will spy out the land.”
“I will go with you,” Cynan offered quickly, starting away at once.
I placed my silver hand in the middle of his chest. “Stay, brother. Bran and I will go. Ready the war band and await our return.”
“My wife is taken also,” he growled. “Or have you forgotten?”
“I have not forgotten. But I need you to prepare the men,” I replied, adding, “and to lead them if anything should happen and we do not return.” Cynan scowled, but I could see him weakening. “We will not be gone long, and we will hasten back as soon as we have learned what we need to know.”
Cynan, still glowering, relented. “Go, then. You will find us ready when you return.”
Bran quickly readied two horses and as we mounted, Tegid took hold of the reins and stopped me. “You asked me what could rouse the ancient evil of the Foul Land,” he said.
“Do you know the answer now?”
“No,” he confessed, “but this I know: the answer will be found down there.” The bard indicated the smoke-dark valley.
“Then I will go and put an end to this mystery,” I told him.
Bran and I started down into the broad valley. The road was lined with enormous boulders all the way. We thought to ride to the level of the smoke haze, then leave the horses where we could reach them at need. We would continue on foot to get as near as we could.
We made our way silently, every sense alert. Bran carried his spear, and I my sword blade naked against my thigh. But we heard nothing save the hollow clop of our horses’ hooves on the road and saw only the smoke gently undulating like a filthy sea swell. Down and down we went, following the sharp switchback of the road as it uncoiled into the valley. I watched the smoke sea surge as we descended to meet it.
In a little while we dismounted and led the horses off the road to tether them behind a rock. A little grass growing at the base of the boulder would keep the animals occupied until we returned. We then proceeded on foot, all but blind in the haze. The acrid smoke burned our eyes, but we remained watchful and proceeded with all caution, pausing every few paces to listen. Having come this far, we could not allow a moment’s carelessness to ruin our cause.
We flitted from rock to rock, scanning the road below before moving on. After a while, I began to hear a drumming sound, deep and low, like an earth heart beating underground. The rhythmic rumble vibrated in the pit of my stomach and up through the soles of my feet.
Bran heard it too. “What is that?” he asked when we stopped again.
“It is coming from the valley.” The smoke pall was thinning as we descended, and I saw that we would soon drop below it. “Down there.” I pointed to a large, angular boulder jutting up beside the road. “We should be able to see better from there.”
We made for the boulder, pursuing the sinuous path as it slid down and down. The humming, drumming sound grew louder. In a little while we reached the rock and paused to rest and survey the land below.
The smoke cloud formed a ceiling above us, thick and dark. And, spreading below us, a vista of devastation: the entire bowl of the wide valley was a vast, denuded pit; rust-red mounds of crushed rock formed precarious mountains teetering over tier upon tier of ragged trenches and holes gouged into a rutile land, deep, angry red, like violent gashes in bruised flesh.
Plumes of foul smoke rose from scores of vents and holes, and from open fires burning on the slopes of slag heaps. And rising with the smoke, the stink of human excrement mingled with that of rotting meat and putrid water. The smell made our throats ache.
Crawling over this hellish landscape, swarming the slag heaps and plying the trenches, were thousands of men and women—thronging like termites, delving like ants, toiling away like tireless worker bees— more insect than human. Half-naked and covered in dust and mud and smoke, the wretches struggled under the enormous burdens upon their backs; scaling rickety ladders and clinging to ropes, they toiled with dull but single-minded purpose, hoisting leather bags and wicker baskets filled with earth, and then bearing them away. Squalid beyond belief, the valley squirmed with this teeming, palpitating tumult.
Gazing out over the desolate valley, straining to comprehend the methodical, meticulous thoroughness of its devastation, we could only gawk in dismay. I felt sick, disgusted by the horrific extent of the destruction.
“Maggots,” muttered Bran under his breath, “feeding on a rotten corpse.”
A fresh-running stream had once passed through the center of the vale. But the stream had been dammed at the further end of the valley, and the waters backed to make a narrow lake, now choked with scum and rust-hued mud. Beyond the dam a column of orange-brown smoke issued from an enormous chimney in puffing gusts to the rhythm of the deep pounding earthbeat. The smoke rolled slowly, relentlessly from the stack to add to the heavy canopy of filth hanging over the whole vale.
It took me some moments to work out that I was looking at a crude strip mine. The earthmovers and loaders working this mine were human: bemired, befouled, and bedraggled men, women, and children.
“It is a mine,” I lamented.
Bran nodded woodenly. “They are digging for iron, do you think?”
“Probably. But I want a closer look.”
We crept from our hiding place and continued picking our way down. The road curved away from the valley, rimming an inner bend in the mountains. At one place the rock wall climbed steeply on the left- hand side of the road and fell sharply on the right. Water from above seeped down the cliff, gathered in a yellow pool and flowed across the road to splash away below. This small stream had washed loose silt and mud from the cliff above to form a bed. As we crossed this stream, I caught sight of something in the mud that stopped me in midstep.
I halted, putting out my hand to Bran. He froze, spear at the ready, looking quickly around for danger. Seeing nothing, he turned to me. I pointed to the muddy track at my feet. The Raven Chief looked long at it, then bent for a closer inspection.
“Do you know what made this?” he asked.
“I do,” I told him. Blood throbbed in my temples, I felt dizzy and sick. “It is a wheel track,” I said at last.
Kneeling, Bran pressed his fingertips into the intricate lacework in the mud. “It is no wheel track that I have ever seen.”
“It was made by a—” Before I could say another word, I heard an oddly familiar rumble. “Hurry! We must get off the road.”
Bran heard the sound but made no move. He frowned, cocking his head to one side as he listened, unaware of the danger. Snatching the Raven Chief by the arm, I yanked him to his feet. “Hurry! We must not be seen!”
We sprinted across the road and flung ourselves down the slope. An instant later, I saw a streak of yellow and the dull glint of dark glass as the vehicle passed directly over our heads with a rush. It slowed as it came to the stream; there came the sound of gears grinding as it downshifted, the engine roared—a gut-clenching, alien sound—and the vehicle cruised on.
We pressed our faces flat to the dirt and held ourselves deathly still. The vehicle drove on. When it had gone, Bran raised his head, a stricken expression on his face.
“It was a kind of wagon,” I explained. “It comes from my world. That is what made the tracks.”
“An evil thing, certainly,” he said.
“It has no place here,” I replied, rising. “Come on. We must hurry before it returns.”
We climbed back onto the road and hurried on. Bran kept looking back to see if any more of these strange wagons were coming at him. But the road remained empty, and I could see nothing moving on it down below.
The appearance of the vehicle shocked and disturbed me more than I could say. But I had no time to consider the implications. It was more crucial than ever now to learn the enemy’s strength and position. I ran headlong down the road, dodging behind rocks, pausing to catch my breath and lurching on. Bran ran behind me and we entered the valley, staying well out of sight behind the slag heaps and rock piles.
A tainted rain began to fall. It left black-rimmed spots where it splashed onto my skin. The laborers took no notice. The red dust slowly turned to red mud, transforming the valley into a vast oozy quagmire. Yet the workers toiled on.
Bran and I crept under an overhanging boulder and settled down to watch. The first thing that struck me, after the shock of the desolation and the presence of Dyn Dythri, the outworld strangers, was the relentless labor of the miners. They worked as driven slaves, yet I could not see anyone compelling them. There were, as far as I could see, no overseers, no taskmasters. There was no one directing the frenzied toil. Slaves under an invisible lash, then, the mudmen struggled and strove, sinking under their burdens, floundering in a thick stew of ordure and sludge and soot.
The poor, ignorant brutes, I thought, and wondered who, or what, had so enslaved them.
There was a track made of cut logs thrown across the mire on the far side of the valley. I watched as men fought their way up from the pits and trenches to stumble along this track toward the dam. The track crossed the dam and descended out of sight behind it in the direction of the smokestack. This seemed to be the workers’ destination.
I considered whether the impetus for the wretches’ toil might derive from the object of that labor, rather than any external force or threat. Perhaps they were enslaved by some deep passion within themselves. Maybe they wanted to work like beasts of burden. Lacking any other explanation, I decided they must be prisoners of their own rapacity.
“I want to see what is behind the dam,” I told Bran. Slowly, carefully, we began making our way around the slag heap. We had not crept more than a dozen paces when we came face-to-face with two mudmen digging into the mire with crude wooden shovels. They looked at us with dull eyes, and I thought they would raise a cry at seeing intruders. But they merely bent their backs and proceeded with their work without so much as a backward glance as we pushed past and continued on our way.
This was the way of it elsewhere too. There were so many slaves about that it was impossible not to be seen by some of them, but when we were seen, our presence went unremarked. On the whole they took no notice of us, or if they did, they appeared not to care. If they showed no fear, neither did they show any interest. Their labor was, apparently, all-absorbing; they gave themselves to it completely.
“Strange,” concluded Bran, shaking his head slowly. “If they were beasts, I would not work them so.”
Upon reaching the dam, we skirted the track and kept to an upper path so that we could observe the ground below from a distance. The chimney we had seen was part of an untidy complex of structures. Attached to the largest of these buildings was the spewing smokestack, and from this came the ceaseless dull rumble of heavy machinery. Into this main building trudged an endless succession of miners lugging their burdens in one portal and emerging with empty bags and baskets from another.
My spirits, already low, sank even further. For, if there had been any uncertainty before, every last particle of doubt crumbled away before the belching smoke and rumble of heavy machinery. There was no sign of Paladyr or any warriors; nor of any place large or secure enough to hold hostages—except the factory, and I doubted we would find them there.
“Goewyn and Tángwen are not here,” I told Bran. “Let us return to camp.” I saw the question on his face, so before he could ask, I added, “The Dyn Dythri have come in force to plunder Tir Aflan. We will tell the others what we have seen and make our battle plan. There’s no time to lose.”
Bran and I turned away to begin making our long way back to where the war band waited. We had almost gained the cover of the smoke layer when I heard the hateful rumble of the vehicle returning.
My mind raced ahead. “That rock!”Whirling, I pointed to a place in the road behind us. A large rock marked the bend: there Bran and I could hide. Upon reaching the place, we flattened ourselves behind the rock and waited for the thing to pass.
I heard the motor race as the driver downshifted into the bend. The vehicle’s tires squelched on the wet stone a few short paces from where we hid. The sound ground away, dropping rapidly as it receded into the valley. We waited until we could no longer hear it, and then crept back onto the road. We retrieved the horses and stopped to catch our breath. The valley spread far behind and below us, dull red in the sullen rain like a wound oozing blood.
Bran got to his feet and mounted his horse. “Let us leave this, this cwm gwaed,” the Raven Chief said bleakly. “It sickens me.”
“Cwm Gwaed,” I muttered, Vale of Blood. “The name is fitting. So be it.” Bran made no reply but turned his horse onto the road and his back to the valley.
Upon reaching our encampment, we were met by two anxious warriors, Owyn and Rhodri, who ran to greet us with the news, “Strangers are coming!”
Rhodri added, “Cynan and Garanaw have gone down to meet them.”
I slid from the saddle, scanning the camp. “Where is Tegid?”
“The Penderwydd is watching from the road,” Owyn said. “He said to bring you when you returned. I will show you.”
Rhodri took the horses, and Owyn led us a short distance away from camp to a lookout where we could gaze down upon the road rising to meet the pass where we had made our own camp. Tegid was there, and Scatha with him, watching, as the warriors had said, a group of horsemen approaching in the distance.
The bard turned his head as we took our places beside him. “Who is it?” I asked. “Do you know?”
“Watch,” was all he said.
In a moment, I was able to pick out individual riders, two of whom were smaller and slighter than the others. One of these wore a white hat or headpiece. Closer, the white hat proved to be hair. The man raised his face toward the place where we stood, and the sun flared as it caught the lenses at his eyes.
“Nettles!” I shouted. My feet were already running to meet him.