The Giants' Dance (18 page)

‘Back!' shouted a terrified voice. ‘There's a whole pack of them! They're like mad dogs! Run!'

‘Yaaaah!' Will roared, and sent them scuttling back in a panic. As he stood foursquare in the passageway with his staff quartered across his chest, half a dozen faces peered into the darkness from the safety of the end of the passage.

‘Better give it up,' a shaky voice said. ‘We got you surrounded!'

‘If you want us, come and get us!' Will boomed. ‘Or maybe we'll come out and get you!'

He ran forward and whacked his pole at the nearest face. The wood thwacked against stone, and the other faces disappeared in a blink.

‘Fetch lanterns!' another voice said. ‘They can't get out 'cept through here. We'll trap them. Take word to Aston. Call out their lads!'

‘Hold hard, my boys!' the first voice said. ‘It'll be light soon! And the master's on his way home.'

Will knew his opponents were scared. By the feel of it at least one of them was very scared. But he could not say how long he would be able to hold a dozen or more men at bay. It would take only one lucky move on their part to bring him down. Soon the dawn would come, and his opponents' night fears would vanish. They would take heart once they discovered that he alone guarded the door.

He crept back towards the Great Hall and hid himself in the shadows, wondering what Gwydion proposed to do. Surely he isn't still imagining that the stone can be brought away, he thought. He was wrong about the manor being almost empty, and wrong about the servants being unwilling to come out. What a mess!

He waited in silence for the next attack, not daring to move. There could be no easy escape now. What if Lord Clifton's men bring archers? he thought suddenly. Or they might fetch dogs to flush me out! The best we can hope for is that Gwydion reads that inscription and gets us out of here before sunrise. Maybe he's in there covering the thing up again. I hope so!

As that thought flitted from his mind the hairs on the back of his neck gave a fresh warning. He knew he was no longer alone in the passageway. But before he could move there was a grunt and sparks leapt from the stone door pillar above his head. He pulled quickly back and felt the swish of a blade brush his cheek. Before he could lift his staff a kick to the side of his head sent him reeling from his corner. A great black shape loomed over him and he only just parried a tremendous slashing blow. The feint saved his life, but grunts came from the shadows and Will knew that the fearsome weapon was being swung again at his head. He twisted away. The
steel of a broadsword rang off the stonework, then bit into his staff.

Will's head burst with pain as he felt the blade being wrestled from where it had lodged in the wood. The ash pole was old and dry and had little spring to it, not like the fresh-cut green oak he was used to. He hung on to the splintered wood, but there had been insane strength behind the blade. He felt himself kicked further into the narrow passage, so he had no chance to shield himself against the next blow. Down it came, biting deeply into his right arm above the elbow, shattering the bone and sending his forearm out at an impossible angle.

‘Auuuugh!'

He felt the air leave his chest. His hand was useless now. He cried out as he felt the blood gush onto his chest and soak his shirt. His cry was not one of pain, but dismay – dismay that this was how his life would end, squalidly, painfully defeated, and in a dark place like this.

He knew that the next blow must dash his brains across the floor.

‘Come out, my pretty cowards!' a thundering voice shouted. ‘Cast a light in here!'

Will huddled on the floor, clutching his arm. He felt his eyes bulging from his head. Blood was spurting through his fingers. He saw now that his arm was almost severed. It dangled uselessly. His quarterstaff was hacked in two at his side and all the world was spinning and toppling into blackness. Oh, no! No! It can't be! his mind was saying, trying to deny what his eyes told him. A great wave of roaring noise was rising in his ears. He stared drunkenly into the lantern light, saw the lordly robes of red and gold and the badge of the wyvern. Blood patterned the blade that danced before his eyes, was smeared on wall and floor. There were footprints of blood – his blood – all over the
passageway. A froth of it still gouted from his arm, despite his squeezing fingers.

‘That's why I am your lord and you are my servants!' the great voice shouted, and Will felt the baron's foot crunch down further on his neck before releasing. ‘Fetch him in here!'

Will gritted his teeth, gasping for breath as they crowded round with horror in their faces. As they lifted him up the helplessness of his situation assailed him. His arm lolled free on parted flesh, the opening bleeding in spurts now as he tried to nurse it hard to his side. They rushed him into the hall and dumped him down on the floor. He was sharply aware of the rattle of his own breathing and the lord's servants gathering in awe at the sight of a mound of earth and a strange, marked stone standing upright in a hole where the master's beautiful floor had been.

Some of the servants muttered oaths, others put their hands over their eyes in a gesture taught by the Sightless Ones.

At least Gwydion has got away, Will thought. He knew he was about to faint. He knew he was about to die, but he was unable to do anything to hasten or prevent either. He just waited for the pain to begin, but it would not begin and he started to tremble violently.

‘Treasure hunting is it?' the baron said in a rage-filled yet distant voice. ‘And in my house? That was a bad idea.'

Will's eyes rolled as he tried to follow the baron's walk around the stone. The blood that filled his hand was dark as wine and sticky as honey. He could feel the stone laughing at him, and he felt suddenly very cold.

‘Well, you'll pay the full price for your thievery! We have a short way with the likes of you! Ready the victual cart!' He turned on Will again. ‘What's this…a stone?'

Will tried to reply. He felt a big hand slap his face, squeeze his jaw so that his mouth was forced open.

‘I asked you a question, thief!'

Despite everything Will felt a strange kind of peace settling over him. It was as if he had already begun to move beyond the warmth of the world. Yet something inside him fought against the snowflakes of peace that fell all around him. Master Gwydion! a part of his mind cried out suddenly in terror and desperation. Don't leave me! Don't leave me here to die!

His pale lips must have moved.

‘What's that, thief?' the angry voice began again. ‘What did you say?'

There was no answer to Will's silent plea, and as the world closed around him he was only just aware of the baron's rough voice issuing orders, of the stone being taken out and loaded onto a cart, and himself being lifted on top of it and bound to it with ropes that pinched off the flow of blood.

He sensed the starkness of the servants' terror, but they did as they were told. The stone seemed oddly warm under his back. He lay drawing his last shallow breaths as a halter was put around his neck and drawn tight. Blood caked his fingers as he flexed them. The cart shook and creaked as the baron got up to drive it forward.

‘My lord, where are you going?' an anxious voice cried.

Through drooping eyelids Will saw the bald man who had first warned them away from the manor, who had given them stale bread and hard cheese.

‘Where to, my lord?'

‘To the lake, Gryth! To do as you should have done, craven, witless scum! I'm going to tip this thief and his booty both into deep water.'

‘My lord, he's not dead!'

The baron's laugh brayed out. ‘He'll not live long!'

‘My lord, you must not kill him!'

The baron threw off his servant's hand and roared at
him, ‘Must not?
Must
not? What words are these from a man to his master?'

‘But that would be
murder
!'

‘And who is to witness this murder? The churl came here of his own free will. He has made a thief of himself. He will get only what is coming to him.'

With that he whipped the horse's quarters and made her pull. Will's body shook as four iron-shod wheels ground over the uneven stones of the yard. Still the bald man came after them.

‘Have a care, my lord! Old Aeborn says the thief had an accomplice!'

‘Let him interfere with me if he dares! Hyah!'

The cart clattered and shook as the baron goaded the horse to greater speed. Will stared groggily up at the broad back of the baron. His surcoat was redder than blood and the rings embroidered upon it in fine gold thread sparkled even in the pale dawn light. As Will lay bound and huddled on the stone, the warmth of it seemed to suffuse him still deeper, lulling him towards final sleep. The strength was fast leaving him now, and he began to see strange phantasms floating before his eyes as if he was close to death.

So this is what it's like, he thought, letting the dark close over his sight. How wrong Gwydion was all along about me being a reborn king. How strange that when I kissed Willow I did not know it would be for the last time. How can something as important as that happen without a person knowing? How I wish she were here with me now. At least there is Bethe to show that I didn't live my life in vain…

He forced open his eyes to take one last look at the beauty of the world, but all he saw was the baron's broad back. The phantasms swam all around and he doubted his sight, for what he was seeing now was a strange vision
indeed. The mail collar around the baron's neck was unknitting itself one ring at a time, and the rings were falling away like apple blossom. And when the baron looked back, he was smiling and a beard was sprouting from his youthful face, which itself was slowly lengthening and turning older and kinder. And now the baron's hair was going from black to brown and from brown to grey, and his surcoat of velvet was fading and coarsening into a plain wayfarer's cloak of mouse-brown. And when Will looked down he saw that his half-severed arm was whole once more. There was no blood soaking his shirt and there never had been.

‘Aagh!' Will said, looking at his arm and flexing his hand in astonishment. ‘I'm alive! I'm – aaaagh!'

‘Take that halter off your neck before you turn blue.'

‘What have you done to me?' Will cried, tearing off the ropes and springing to his feet.

‘The power of seeing,' Gwydion said pleasantly. ‘It must be a disorientating discovery to find yourself in rude good health. I do not doubt that it is a most welcome one.'

‘Aagh!'

‘A simple spell of seeming. That is all.'

Will blinked and gasped, his heart bursting. He sat down astride the stone, careless of it now. All around him the world was bursting with birdsong and vivid colour. After a long time he asked, ‘Gwydion, how could you have
done
that to me?'

The wizard looked over his shoulder, his face calm. ‘You had to play your part. And that you did admirably.'

‘But I…I thought I was dying…' There was a hint of reproach in Will's voice now. ‘I…I thought…'

‘And so did everyone else.'

‘Gwydion, you betrayed my trust.'

‘Oh? And would you rather I had left you behind?'

He turned away.

‘I must say, your skill with a curtain pole is impressive, my young friend. But I fear your action was hasty for it only brought the whole household down upon us.'

‘They were coming anyway. It was your fault if it was anyone's.'

‘Absurd. In future you must use your wits a little longer before you resort to kicking and screaming. That is generally a good rule to bear in mind.'

Will stared around him. Still his lungs wanted to drink in the dew-moist air. His eyes wanted to feast themselves on the sight of great oak trees dark against the morning mists and the great violet dome of the sky as the last stars winked out.

‘I thought I was dying.'

Gwydion chuckled. ‘What were you thinking of, carrying off the old man like that?'

‘I was trying to save your neck!'

‘Were you, indeed?'

He climbed up beside the wizard, relief bubbling uppermost in the stew of emotions that churned inside him. ‘I thought you told me you should never do magic so close to a battlestone.'

‘
Unnecessarily
, is what I said. Seeming magic is not high magic, indeed it is little higher than conjuring or the art of subtle oratory. If you tell scared minds what must be believed, then fear will often work the trick. What you want to be believed will be believed without question. One man alone saw through the sham, but he dared say nothing, for all the rest were behaving as if things were otherwise. It is an important rede of magic that most men can easily be made to doubt their own judgment, and judgment is not far from sanity.'

Will looked behind him, into the bed of the cart where the battlestone brooded. It was still covered with dirt, but the dirt had dried in pale patches. ‘It's warm,' he said.
‘Warm and getting warmer. I don't know what holding spells you've put on it, but it seems to be fighting back wildly now.'

‘Then it is to be hoped that we took it out of its grave in good time.'

‘Where are we taking it? Ludford can't be far from here.'

‘Ludford is ten leagues to the west.' Gwydion turned, sensing some new resolve in Will. ‘Do you think I should make a gift of it to Richard of Ebor?'

‘Perhaps not.'

‘Hmmm. Nor do I.'

Will recalled the murderous and suicidal feelings that had overwhelmed his mind when he had been at Ludford before. ‘Now I think back on it, another battlestone certainly seemed to me to be buried close by. Its power was very strong, though its music was confused.'

‘We should not risk bringing this one towards it, in case both their powers are strengthened.'

Will rubbed at his arm, still unable fully to believe he had been saved. ‘So where
shall
we take it?'