Night Bird's Reign (2 page)

He had cried out and urged his horse to a dead run. He had Wind-Ridden, casting his spirit ahead for a glimpse of Cadair Idris, trying to see what had happened. And he had seen Bloudewedd, Lleu’s wife, waiting at the top of the steps of what was a strangely emptied hall. Then he had seen King Gorwys of Prydyn, consort of Bloudewedd’s sister, ride up in the company of his warriors. Their clothes were stained and torn, but they were laughing and shouting in victory. Gorwys had thrown the reins of his horse to his Captain and mounted the white, shining steps of the High King’s mountain hall. He had taken Bloudewedd in his arms and bent his head to kiss her savagely. He had torn the sleeve of her gown and bent to kiss her white shoulder. He had picked her up and she had smiled up at him, locking her slender, white arms around his neck. They had entered the hall and the Doors had closed behind them.

Bran had cried out again when he saw this on the Wind-Ride, knowing now what they had done and why they had done it. He searched the rest of Cadair Idris, seeking his fellow Great Ones, knowing that they must be in prison or dead, or else they would have found a way to tell him what had happened.

He found them in a dark cell in the bowels of the mountain. Dull lead collars, the dreaded
enaid-dals,
hung around their necks. Arywen’s dark hair was tangled and dirty; Taliesin’s face was pale and bloodied; Mannawyddan’s arm hung at an odd angle. He wanted to Wind-Speak to them, to tell them that he was coming, but they would not have been able to hear him, not with the cursed soul-catchers around their throats.

Then he had cast his awareness to the sky once more, seeking to find Lleu. Instead he had found the aftermath of a battle on the shores of Llyn Mwyngil, just a few leagues west of Cadair Idris. So he had made for that spot as quickly as he could.

The glint of golden hair in the light of the fire that danced in his palm stopped him in his tracks. He stood stock-still, looking at the form that lay at his feet. The man was lying on his side, facing away from Bran, cradling something beneath him.

Bran knelt beside the body. He reached out a trembling hand to turn the corpse so he could see its face. But he knew. Oh, yes, he knew who it was. His heart had already told him. He turned the body over.

Bran’s breath rattled in his throat as the fire illuminated Lleu’s upturned face. Lleu’s tunic was slashed and stained with blood, so much blood that Bran could scarce believe a man could bleed so much. Lleu’s hands—both his normal hand and the hand of silver—were still wrapped around the hilt of Caladfwlch, the object Lleu had been cradling. The golden, eagle-shaped hilt glittered coldly in the light of Druid’s Fire. The eagle’s bloodstone eyes shifted in the flickering light as though unwilling to look upon what had happened here, to acknowledge the truth about its master.

Tears streaming down his checks, he reached out to take Lleu in his arms.

And then Lleu opened his sapphire blue eyes.

Bran’s heart stopped, then consented to beat on. “Lleu,” he whispered. “You’re alive.”

“Waited for you,” Lleu breathed.

“I—I am sorry I am late.”

“Aren’t late,” Lleu whispered. “In time.” Feebly he tried to raise his sword, to hand it to Bran. But Lleu was far too weak. He succeeded only in pushing it toward his friend.

“Take it,” the High King whispered.

“Lleu—”

“Take it, Dreamer.”

Bran took the sword, holding it with one hand while he cradled Lleu’s dying body in the other. “I have it,” he rasped.

“You know where.”

“Yes, I know where to take it.”

“Came from the water,” Lleu said laboriously. “Must go back.”

“Yes, I know. I was there when you first found it.”

Lleu smiled the warm smile that had first won Bran over so long ago. “Knew you’d come.”

Bran could not answer through his tears so he held his dying friend tighter.

“Bloudewedd—”

“I saw,” Bran said shortly. “Bloudewedd and Gorwys. Her own sister’s husband.”

“Don’t kill her,” Lleu insisted weakly. “I won’t let her get away with—”

“I know. But don’t kill her.”

Knowing now what Lleu meant, Bran merely nodded. “And Gorwys.” Lleu hesitated, searching for the strength to talk. “You know what to do.”

“Yes,” Bran said. “I know.”

“The others?”

“Are alive,” Bran said steadily. “And in the dungeon of Cadair Idris.”

“Get them out.”

“I will.”

“And tell them—”

“Tell them what, Lleu?” Bran prompted quietly when Lleu fell silent, searching for the strength to continue.

With a great effort, Lleu whispered. “Tell them I wait for them in the Land of Summer. That never had a High King such faithful Great Ones as they.”

“I will tell them. Be at peace, my friend. And wait for us. We will join you in Gwlad Yr Haf when our lives are done. And there we will sit with you. We will sing the songs of Taliesin together. You know how much he likes that.”

Lleu smiled weakly, and nodded.

“And Arywen will teach us how to dance, as she always threatened to do. And Mannawyddan will make us laugh, for he always knew how.”

Lleu’s smile began to fade as the light in his blue eyes started to dim.

“And one day the Wheel will turn, and you will be returned to Kymru in her hour of need, as you always have been,” Bran promised, his voice soothing.

Lleu gave a single sigh, then his chest hitched once, and his breath stopped.

Bran stayed by Lleu’s dead body for some time, cradling Caladfwlch in one arm and Lleu’s steadily cooling corpse in the other.

The sword must be returned to the Lady of the Waters. He must ensure that it would be found again, when the time was ripe. He had a feeling that many years would pass before Caladfwlch was returned to the light of day.

Bloudewedd and Gorwys must be dealt with. They would pay for today’s work, but not with their deaths. That would be too easy.

Cadair Idris must be closed to begin its long wait for the next High King. The Four Treasures, those implements needed to make a High King, must be hidden away for now, to be found when they were again required.

Yes, he had much to do. He had promises to keep, and a future to safeguard.

He rose, holding Caladfwlch in his hands. He looked down at Lleu’s body. Overhead the stars were beginning to dim as the sky began to lighten. It seemed to him that the sound of a hunting horn was borne to him on the wings of the wind. The Wild Hunt, perhaps, saying farewell to the High King of Kymru.

Preparing, already, for the day when he would return.

Chapter One

Caer Dathyl Kingdom of Gwynedd, Kymru Gwernan Mis, 482

Suldydd, Lleihau Wythnos—night

G
wydion slept on the Dreamer’s pallet in Caer Dathyl, twisting restlessly under the light of the waning moon that streamed through the glass ceiling. His dark brows were drawn together in concentration, and the lids of his closed eyes twitched rapidly.

For the Dreamer’s heir was dreaming.

And the Shining Ones smiled, satisfied.

H
E WAS STARING
at Cadair Idris, the deserted hall of the High Kings of Kymru. The mountain stood tall and silent, closed and dark, as it had been since the murder of Lleu Silver-Hand, over two hundred years before.

The waning moon was rising over the mountain, bathing the still plain in faded, silvery beams. In Calan Llachar, the forest west of Cadair Idris, even the leaves on the trees did not move. But from Galor Carreg, the standing stones that guarded the burial mounds of the High Kings, he saw movement.

Three figures made their way from the shadowy stones to stand at the base of the dark mountain. Silently they mounted the broken and time-stained steps that led to Drwys Idris, the bejeweled Doors that guarded the entrance to the hollow mountain.

The golden Doors glittered palely at first, then began to glow as the ghosts of the High Kings approached. Verdant emeralds and azure sapphires vied with milky pearls and fiery opals. Rubies shone like drops of fresh blood while clear diamonds, orange topaz, and purple amethyst glowed warmly as though in sweet welcome.

When the three ghostly figures reached the top of the stairs they turned their backs to the Doors, facing outward toward the plain, toward Gwydion who now faced them from the bottom of the steps.

He knew them, for he had seen them before in his dreams, the dead High Kings of Kymru.

Idris, the first High King, had silvery eyes in a face lined with years of bright laughter and unspeakable sorrow. Macsen, Kymru’s second High King, was tall and broad-shouldered, his honey-blond hair held back from his good-natured face by a band of gold. Lleu Lawrient, the last High King of Kymru, stood in the center. Moonlight spilled across his silver hand and his golden hair.

Each of them wore an identical, massive torque formed of twisted strands of silver and gold. At the center of each necklace was a figure eight studded with onyx, the sign of Annwyn, Lord of Chaos. A luminous pearl and a sparkling emerald hung to the left of the onyx, while a glittering sapphire and a fiery opal flashed from the right.

As one the High Kings pulled the ghost of a sword from the scabbards hung around their waists. Each shining sword was a duplicate of the other two, for all three of them had once carried Caladfwlch, although where the real sword was now, no one knew.

The gold and silver sword flashed in the moonlight. The hilt was fashioned like an eagle with outspread wings. The eagle had eyes of bloodstone and wings of onyx, and the remainder of the hilt was scattered with emeralds and pearls, sapphires and opals.

The three High Kings stood silently, ghostly swords raised, scanning the sky above the shadowy plain.

At last Gwydion found his voice, sure that the question in his dreaming mind was the right one. “What do you here, High Kings of Kymru?”

Idris answered his voice like the rushing of a storm through the trees, “We are waiting.”

“What do you wait for?”

“For the next High King,” Macsen replied, his voice hollow, echoing with dead power.

“It is time?” Gwydion asked, his heart beating faster. For Kymru only had need of a High King when the land was in danger.

“The time is coming,” Lleu answered, his voice resonating across the moonlit plain.

“Betrayal endangers the life of the one we wait for,” Idris said.

“Betrayal, Dreamer,” Lleu said, “is what killed us all.”

Before Gwydion could reply he heard the faint strains of a hunting horn, borne on a suddenly quickening breeze. The moon seemed to shine even brighter and the stars glittered sharply. A fierce cry sounded out over the plain. Gwydion could hear the beat of wings overhead and turned sharply to see.

The largest eagle Gwydion had ever seen soared effortlessly over the dark mountain. Silhouetted against the bright moon, its wings outstretched, the eagle cried out again as it folded its wings and dropped down, coming to rest before the three kings at the top of the stairs.

The eagle was brown, with tail feathers of shimmering blue. Around its breast it wore a massive torque of gold exactly like the torque’s that glittered from the necks of the High Kings. The eagle cried out again, its call fierce and commanding.

As one the High Kings laid their ghost-swords on the stones before the eagle’s talons. But as the eagle stooped to take the swords in its beak, the weapons shimmered and disappeared.

At that moment the shadows on the plain began to twist and moan, melting together, forming a pool of darkness that coalesced at the bottom of the steps. Gwydion retreated, stepping backward up the stairs, his heart caught in his throat.

The shadowy darkness reared up, looming formless and menacing over Gwydion and the eagle, crying in a voice like the rushing of the wind across a dark sky, calling for the eagle’s blood.

The High Kings vanished, blown away on the winds that had risen. The shadow stretched out dark arms, reaching for the eagle, death in its cry.

“No!” Gwydion cried, as he sprang in front of the eagle.

The things dark arms plunged through Gwydion’s chest, parting his flesh like water. Icy cold terror gripped his heart and his back arched in pain.

“No!” he cried again as he fell to his knees, all strength drained from him. “No!”

“No!”

The echoes of his scream still ringing hideously in his ears, Gwydion sat up, his heart pounding, his lean body bathed in sweat although he felt cold inside. His dark, sweat-stained hair hung lank around his face, tangling in his short beard. His gray eyes, dilated with horror, were almost black. His chest heaving as though he had run many leagues, he did not hear the footsteps of the others as they pounded up the stairs and burst into the Dreamer’s chamber.

They rushed to his pallet, Aunt Dinaswyn reaching him first. Her long black and silver hair in disarray, she grabbed his face between her cool hands, steadying him. “Look at me,” she commanded, her voice level. “Look at me, Gwydion. Tell me.”

When he did not answer immediately, she turned her head slightly to the young man behind her. “Amatheon, bring wine,” she snapped. Without a word, her youngest nephew turned to the small table by the door, grabbed up a goblet and pitcher, and poured. He brought the cup to Gwydion and placed it in his brother’s shaking hands.

As Gwydion drank, still trembling from the terror of his dream, Dinaswyn sat back on her heels next to his pallet. “Arianrod,” she said to the young woman who had halted by the door, “bring the Book of Dreams.”

Arianrod hesitated, her face pale and washed out by the moonlight. “Will he be all right?”

“Of course he’ll be all right,” Dinaswyn said, impatiently. “Go.” Without answering, Arianrod left the room.

Amatheon crouched down next to Dinaswyn as Gwydion remained on the pallet, trying to force his shaking body into some semblance of calm. They glanced at each other over Gwydion’s bowed head.

“You ever have a dream as bad as this?” Amatheon asked quietly.

Dinaswyn shook her head.

Arianrod returned clutching a leather book with an inkwell and quill balanced on top. She set them on the low table, picked up a taper and, touching it to the glowing brazier, lit the candles. Amatheon went to the table, opened the book and dipped the quill in the ink, sitting cross-legged on the bare floor. “Ready,” he said, his voice steady.