The Silver Hand (13 page)

“Do you hear it, Tegid?”

“Yes! I hear it!” It was the sound of waves beating and breaking over rocks. The storm was driving us toward the shore. “Can you see anything?”

“No,” he replied. “Wait! I see something. I see the rocks. I can see where the waves are breaking.”

“Can you see land?”

“It is too dark.”

He grasped my arm with his good hand. “Keep singing, Tegid! Sing us to land!”

I sang, and the sound of crashing waves grew to fill the tempest-tossed night. Closer, I could almost feel the jagged teeth of the rocks gnashing in the storm, looming ever closer, clashing out of the darkness to tear and crush and destroy. Water gushed in torrents over us as the sea rent itself in the rocks all around. My voice was drowned in the wave roar, yet I sang, claiming a small circle of safety for our little boat amidst the sea wrack.

I felt the sea gather beneath us like a beast, bucking and heaving. We were thrown high, spun around, and flicked as lightly as a leaf in the swirl. Sea thunder sounded from every side, shattering ear and mind, shaking the soul.

Down into the trough, and up, up again. I heard water sucking rock and felt the boat lurch sideways as the wave pulled away. For the space of a heartbeat, the boat hung between sea and sky. The sea surged, lifting the boat free and hurling it high. We plunged and struck another rock, and I heard a sharp crack as wooden ribs gave way.

“Hold tight!” wailed Llew.

I flung my hands out to grip the sides of the boat and felt cold rock instead. I tried to push away, but the boat was already slipping down. In another instant we would be spilled into the seething sea. I gulped air and, with a last shout, cried deliverance from the watery grave yawning beneath us.

The waves retreated and I felt myself falling. The boat fell sideways and rocked over, and over again. Water gushed into my mouth and lungs. The sea twisted my arms and legs, pulling me down into the churning depths. I was tumbled and turned, dragged deeper and deeper.

I struck something hard with my knee, and my right shoulder collided with what seemed to me a hard wall. The weight of water flattened me against this wall, crushing me like a giant hand, forcing the air from my lungs. I fought with my hands to push free of the rock wall.

And then—

Air streaming over me! I gasped, choking on sea foam. Then the water fell away, and I found myself pushing against, not a wall, but a stony shingle. A wave crashed over me, first pinning me beneath its weight, then lifting me and hurling me further up the beach. Gasping, I scrambled like a crab over sea-slick rocks through the back-rushing water.

The sea dragged at my legs. Seaweed tangled my arms and ankles. The wave surge swelled, rising to my hips, waist, chest. I was lifted again and propelled forward. When the water fell away once more I was on my knees, small rocks hard under my hands.

I rose and stumbled forward, struck my foot against a stone and sprawled headlong. I heard the roar of the waves crashing in once more. I kicked with my feet for a foothold, but I was pulled back, my hands torn from the rocks, and the sea reclaimed me.

All at once, I felt myself caught and held securely. And then Llew's voice straining against the wind and wave roar, “Tegid! I have you,” he shouted. “Stand!”

He clutched me by the arm and lifted me to my feet. Leaning on one another, we struggled further up the rock-bound shore and collapsed on a spit of sand.

“You have done it, Tegid. You sang us to land!” Llew said, and then gasped. I felt him squirm beside me and realized he was writhing with pain.

“Llew!” I threw my hands toward him. He clutched at my arm with his good hand and moaned—a hopeless, heart-tearing sound. I held him until the pain eased again.

“You sang us to land,” he said, when he could speak again. His voice was ragged as frayed rope. “You saved us, Tegid. We were lost.”

“The Goodly-Wise heard our song and reached down with his Swift Sure Hand and plucked us out of the sea—and out of the grave Meldron intended.”

We lay on the beach, shivering with cold and weak with the pain of our wounds. Llew whimpered from time to time, when the agony was too great to bear; but he did not cry out. Through the night we lay on the sand, as the storm slowly dwindled around us. Then, as dawn seeped into the fleeting rags of storm wrack to the east I felt the first flush of sunlight warm my face. I sang the song I had been given.

I sang the steep-sided glen in forest deep; the fortress in the lake, and the antler throne high on its grass-covered mound, with the white oxhide upon it. I sang the bright-burnished shield and the black raven perched on its rim, wings outspread, filling the glen with its severe song; and the beacon fire flaming the night sky, its signal answered from hilltop to hilltop. I sang the shadowy rider on his pale yellow horse, and the mist which bound them, and the sparks struck from the rocks. I sang the great war band bathing in the mountain lake, and the water blushing red from their wounds. I sang the golden-haired woman in her sunlit bower, and I sang the hidden Hero Mound.

When I finished, Llew had fallen asleep beside me. I lay back on the sand and, with the sound of the waves sighing on the rocks, I slept.

10
T
HE
N
EMETON

I
could still hear the sea moaning, restless in its stony bed, but the sound abated as we moved further inland. In my left hand I held a length of sea-scoured oak which I used as a staff; my right hand rested on Llew's shoulder as he guided me. From the way my steps seemed always to descend, I surmised that the land dropped away from the sheer-cragged headland directly behind.

After a wretched, pain-wracked night on the beach, day had awoken our resolve to rise and toil inland, which meant scaling the sea cliffs of the headland. Neither of us could have done it alone. Even now, I do not know how we survived. It took most of the day, but once the headland was behind us we rested in a grassy cleft between two rocks and shivered when the sun went down. It was morning once more when we began our slow trek inland.

As we walked, Llew described what he saw before us. “There are hills ahead,” he told me, “rising to peaks in the distance. I can see snow on some of the higher peaks.”

“What is the direction?”

He paused to take direction from the sun. “South and east, I think,” he replied. “The nearer hills are rounded and wooded—mostly oak and beech, and some pine. There is a stream just ahead, but we will have to climb down to it. The wood begins on the other side. We can rest at the stream before entering the wood, and—”

He gasped. His shoulder tensed and he doubled over.

It was another of the fiery pains that afflicted him—sharp, burning arrows of agony that suddenly flared without warning. When this happened, we halted until the attack passed and he could move again. I could but imagine the distress of his wound—perhaps it matched the hot spears piercing my eyes, searing through my head.

“Where are we, do you think?” he asked in a moment, speaking through clenched teeth.

“Are the peaks wooded?”

“I think so,” Llew said; he gulped air and straightened somewhat.

“They are far away. I cannot be sure, but it looks as if the slopes are dark with trees.”

We began walking again. “It may be we have landed somewhere on the coast of northern Caledon. If this is so, the peaks you see before us are the
Monadh Dubh.”

“Clan Galanae, Cynan's people—they are in the south of Caledon,” Llew offered.

“Very far to the south. There are few people this far north,” I explained. “The land is wild and unsettled. These highlands are prey to violent winds and storms, as we have endured. It is no kindly place you see before us; we will not find any king to receive us.”

Carefully we picked our way down the hillside to the stream where we knelt and drank, and then rested. Lying back on the grassy bank of the stream, my thoughts turned to the massacre on the mound. The gorge rose in my throat and a moan escaped my lips. How could I have anticipated such atrocity? Even now I could not comprehend it. How could I fathom such an attack? I could scarcely believe it had happened.

When the Light of the Derwyddi is cut off, and the blood of bards demands justice, then let the Ravens spread their wings over the sacred wood and holy mound . . .

So the Banfáith had said. The words, with dire certainty, were coming to pass. The learned brotherhood had been slaughtered, the light of their wisdom cut off; the blood of bards cried out from the earth, demanding justice. So be it!

Resting on the bank of the stream, I let my mind sift these thoughts. In a little while, Llew stirred beside me. “What now?”

“We need rest,” I answered. “And time to allow our wounds to heal.”

“Are you in pain?” he asked, voice tight and breath measured.

“I do not know which hurts me more, the loss of my sight or the loss of my brothers. It feels as if my soul has been torn from me.”

Llew was silent for a time. “We cannot stay here,” he said at last. “There is water, but no food or shelter. We will have to move on.”

“We will find shelter in the wood.”

Neither of us moved for a long time. Finally, Llew stood up slowly. I felt his hand on my arm, as he pulled me to my feet. “I say we follow the stream and see where it leads.”

The brush grew thick along the streambed, making progress wickedly difficult. But the stream soon joined a river. Taller trees grew beside the river, and wide water meads spread on either side, allowing us easier travel.

We moved slowly, resting long and often. By nightfall we were no great distance from the place where we had begun. But the river valley afforded many hollows and rocky swells wherein we could find good shelter. I had nothing with which to make a fire, but I instructed Llew where to find a number of edible roots, which he dug with a stick and washed in the river. We might freeze in the cold night air, but at least we would not starve.

That night I was awakened by Llew's screams. He was in pain and trembling with cold. I roused him and, with much staggering and stumbling, we made our way to the river where I compelled him to suspend his stumped arm in the icy water until the flesh grew numb. This gave him some relief, but upon returning to our cold camp we were overcome with chills and could get no more sleep that night.

Next day, I made certain that Llew found a flint striker and gathered dry moss aplenty to use as kindling, so that we would be certain of a fire from then on.

“What good is flint alone?” asked Llew.

“There are other stones which bring the spark from a flint. I will show you. Indeed,” I told him, “I will make a bard of you before we are finished. We will rescue Ollathir's awen yet.”

“Lead on, O Head of Knowledge,” Llew said. “To hear is to obey.”

In this way, we journeyed into Caledon's heart: halting, slow, pain-racked steps, with much pausing to bathe inflamed wounds in the clear, cold flowing river. During one such pause, I bade Llew unwind the bandage from his wrist. “Describe the wound to me,” I said.

“It is mending.”

“Describe it. I must know if it is healing properly.”

He took a deep breath and loosed the strips of cloth with which I had bound his wound. He groaned—partly with pain and partly with grief—as the cloth came away from his gory stub. “It is black,” he said. “There are white flecks of bone in it.”

“Wash it in the water and then tell me what you see,” I instructed.

He lowered the arm gently and I heard him swish the limb forth and back in the water.
“Clanna na cù,”
he muttered through clenched teeth.

“How does it look now?” I asked when he finished.

“More red than black. Some of the bone chips have washed away.

It is bleeding again.”

“The blood—is it thick and red? Or is it thin and watery?”

“Thick and red, I suppose.”

“And the flesh around the wound—is it inflamed and hot to the touch? Or is it cool? What is its color?”

“Well,” he answered after a moment, “it is warm to the touch, but not hot. The skin is red and swollen, but not inflamed. Here, you feel,” he said, and I felt his hand take my right hand to his arm. He pressed my fingertips to his wrist. “There.”

I gently probed the flesh around the wound. It was warm to the touch, yes, but not feverish hot, as it would be if it were inflamed. When I touched the wound itself, he winced and jerked his arm away. “I am sorry.”

“Well? What do you think?”

“I think healing has begun. It should be wrapped again, but with clean cloth.”

“Where will we get that?”

I drew my siarc over my head and began tearing it between my hands. Llew protested. “Not your siarc, Tegid. You need what is left of it to keep warm.”

“I have my cloak,” I replied and proceeded to rip the cloth into strips. “Now help me wash them in the water.”

Together we knelt at the river's edge and rinsed the strips of cloth. When we had finished, I gave them to Llew, saying, “Spread these on a bush and let them dry in the sun.”

Llew did as I instructed him, and we slept in the warm sun. When the cloth strips were dry, I helped Llew to bandage his arm, whereupon he said, “Now it is your turn.”

I reached a hand to the binding of my eyes. “It is well.”

“No,” he informed me flatly, “it is not well, Tegid. It is filthy with blood and dirt. You have to change it.”

I unknotted the ends and unwound the binding; the cloth stuck to the wound, and we had to pull it free, which started the blood flowing again. I bit my lip to keep from crying out. “You have to wash it now,” Llew insisted.

With Llew's help, and with difficulty, I lowered my face to the water and gently splashed water onto my face and the raw wound that had been my eyes. The sting of the cold water countered the fire of the pain somewhat, and I felt better for it.