The Pendragon's Quest (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 4) Read online

  Demons came in all shapes and sizes, often with horns or fur: the manifestation of a child’s nightmare, only worse. Much worse, because they weren’t created in a dream, but were real, sent through the black cauldron by Arawn, Lord of the Underworld, to haunt the fields and forests of Wales. Few were able to pass as human, as Cade could, and he’d met no other demon who possessed his particular gifts, if one could call them that, nor his degree of power. It seemed that Arianrhod had bestowed his affliction only on him.

  “Where are we?” Rhun said. “That remains our most pressing question, although some information as to how we got here wouldn’t go amiss.”

  Cade checked the moon again. It still hadn’t moved from its initial position. Come to think on it, the moon was nearly in the same place in the sky as when they’d entered the caverns underneath Caer Dathyl.

  “As to how, we can certainly make a good guess,” Taliesin said. “Arianrhod took us from the cavern, set us to rights, and has put us on a path of her choosing. As to where—”

  “I know where we are.” Dafydd turned slowly on one heel, studying the trees and the sky above them. “We’re still in Arfon, not far from Caer Dathyl. I came through here when I fled the fortress after Teregad gave me leave to go, back before I fell in with you.”

  “He gave you leave to go, only to hunt you down afterwards,” Goronwy corrected his younger brother, “but that’s past and done. Are we near the road?”

  “It lies a hundred yards to the west, no more.” Dafydd peered at the skyline. “I believe Arianrhod has placed us just to the north of where Geraint and Tudur were supposed to set up camp.”

  “What—so now we can fly?” Rhun said.

  Gone was the jesting tone of before. His words came out bitter, and Cade catalogued the list of crazed events that had happened to them in the last twelve hours, wondering which of them most troubled Rhun and caused his anger.

  “How helpful of Arianrhod not to put us in the path of the oncoming demons,” Goronwy said. “Just think if she’d put us between them and Geraint’s camp.”

  Cade eyed both Goronwy and Rhun, and then took charge before the others caught their discontent. “Lead on, Dafydd. It’s likely we have very little time, if we have any time at all, before the demons reach Geraint’s position.”

  Dafydd set off at once through the trees, Taliesin close behind, the little light on the end of his staff lighting the way. Rhiann, who’d found her quiver and bow and slung them on her back, followed with Hywel. Cade, Goronwy, and Rhun brought up the rear.

  “What’s gotten into you two?” Cade said, once the others had moved a bit ahead and the three of them could speak more privately.

  He pushed through a blackberry bramble: the rich, sweet scent of sun-warmed berries saturated the air. In another life, Cade would have eaten them but now they would taste like nothing more than sawdust in his mouth. The bramble had found a niche at the edge of the trees, cascading over the edge of a rock as it sought sunlight, rather than thriving in the darker, shadier places, like raspberry or blackcurrant. Or me.

  “This is wrong,” Rhun said. “I may not be sidhe, but even I can feel it.”

  “Which part?” Cade said.

  “Which part isn’t?” Goronwy said.

  Rhun made a dismissive gesture. “Not so much the goddess, though I’m none too fond of the way she’s manipulated you—and through you all of us—these last weeks. But this is too easy, too pat.”

  “We defeated Arawn—”

  “Begging your pardon, my lord,” Goronwy said, “but we didn’t, not really. You may be sidhe and by that power able to silence him for a while, but his actions against us—against Wales—and our reactions, with the help of Arianrhod, are the start of what looks to me like open warfare between the gods—and maybe between the gods and men.”

  “That’s exactly it.” Rhun nodded and punctuated his words with a finger to the sky. “The gods haven’t interfered in our world since the Romans came. They didn’t even step in to save Vortigern as he lay dying and the Saxons overran all of Britain but our small corner. Why do they arise now? And what role do we have to play in it? Do we have to be on Arianrhod’s side just because she made you? Are there other sides besides Arawn’s or Mabon’s?”

  It had been Cade’s ancestor, Vortigern, who’d invited the Saxons into Britain after the Romans left, hoping they would stand as a buffer against the even more barbaric Picts who raided Briton’s shores at every turn. As he’d been fighting the Picts in the northeast, the Scots in the northwest, and the Irish along the coast of Wales all at the same time, one could hardly blame Vortigern for latching onto a convenient solution. He’d given up too much land to the Saxons, however, and was betrayed in the end by the very people he’d sought to befriend. Cade’s people had been fighting these interlopers ever since, backing farther into their mountains with every year that passed.

  The Saxon lords had divided the Welsh into small pockets, with the western lands the last untouched bastion of Britain. As recently as two years ago, Cade’s uncle Arthur, the great king of Gwent, had sent a lone rider from his seat at Caerleon to Bryn y Castell to warn of the events to the south. Like his northern compatriots, Arthur had fought many battles against the Saxons and feared the Welsh would be reduced to ever shrinking circles of land, fighting back to back as the invaders attacked from all sides.

  Cade’s birth father, Cadwallon, had formed an alliance with the Saxon King Penda of Mercia, in an attempt to forestall the attacks and regain land for the Welsh. Upon Cadwallon’s death, the usurper, Cadfael, had pledged his forces to the same treaty. But the Welsh had gained nothing from either alliance but time.

  Cade swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I can’t answer any of that. And Taliesin …” His voice trailed off.

  “Doesn’t see anymore. Yes, we know,” Rhun said, “even if he tries to make light of it.”

  Cade didn’t know how to respond to that either, and they continued in silence, eventually gaining on their companions. Cade was both disgruntled by his friends’ observations—since he’d been thinking things were going pretty well for once—and dismayed that he’d heard truth in their words.

  Behind Cade, back in his more cynical, jaded, and ultimately humorous shell, Goronwy grumbled yet again about knights not walking.

  Rhiann overheard, glanced back at him, and shot him a wicked smile. “You know, Goronwy. You say that knights don’t walk, but since I’ve known you, you’ve done quite a bit of walking. Either knights do walk, or perhaps you’re not a real knight?”

  Goronwy growled back at her, and Rhiann’s eyes lit with amusement. She knew not to take him seriously, and Cade’s heart warmed to have her with him. That part of the world was going right at least. He was just happy to have all his friends in the same place and in one piece. Although Arianrhod hadn’t realized it, that was reward enough.

  As the companions trotted on, Cade kept checking the sky, expecting the sun to rise at any moment, but it stubbornly refused to show itself. Normally, that would have pleased him, but the oddness of not being able to locate himself in the dark, or in time, only disturbed him instead.

  He tried to pass off his disorientation as a result of the heavy cloud cover that had blown in since they’d left the clearing. And when it released its rain a few moments later, it only seemed inevitable, given the way the day and night had gone so far. In Wales, cloud cover in March was more normal than not. Cade told himself he was imagining trouble where there wasn’t any, or at least not in the weather. Nobody else gave the rain any notice, other than to pull up the hoods on their wool cloaks.

  “I can’t believe we’re heading back to Caer Dathyl,” Hywel said.

  They turned onto the road and picked up the pace, able to move more quickly even though the road had become a slough and their boots were coated with mud.

  “Hopefully, Siawn’s in charge now.” Rhiann skirted an enormous puddle by moving to the edge of the road where it met the grassy rim of the forest and Ca
de followed her example. “He left the cavern just before Arawn fell, and I’d like to know for sure what’s become of him.”

  “And Teregad,” Hywel said.

  “And Mabon,” said Rhun. “He has my knife.”

  Goronwy snorted laughter. “As you left it in his throat, you can hardly blame him for not giving it back.”

  “It was his knife initially,” Cade said. “Do you really want to keep something of his?”

  “I suppose not,” Rhun said.

  “Unless a weapon from the world of the sidhe is the only way to harm him, just as with Arawn,” Goronwy said.

  Taliesin grunted assent and everyone turned to look at him. “I suspect that is true.” And then he elaborated further, “I find it likely.”

  “How about a good punch to the nose?” Dafydd said. “He certainly deserves one.”

  Even Taliesin laughed at that. “That I could not say. You’ll have to try it next time you see him.”

  “Be that as it may,” Cade said, “Arianrhod told me that Mabon has been returned to her.”

  “What?” Taliesin halted in the middle of the road, down which he’d continued to move boldly, ignoring the puddles, even though his cloak was now six inches deep in mud. “What did you say?” The rain dripped off the end of his pointy nose, which he directed at Cade.

  Cade shrugged. “That’s all I know. The conversation was rather one-sided, and I didn’t dare ask what she meant by it.”

  “My lord!” Ahead of them, Dafydd broke into a run. “Men call to one another ahead of us!”

  Taliesin shot Cade another look—a despairing one—which was an expression Cade had never before seen on Taliesin’s face. The other companions ran after Dafydd, but Cade caught Taliesin’s arm before he could follow. “You fear the demons?”

  “The demons?” Taliesin said. “Why would I fear them?”

  “But—”

  “It’s Mabon,” Taliesin said. “Arianrhod may have given you gifts, for which we can’t help but be grateful—and which I hope we won’t come to regret—but that Mabon is with his mother instead of banished to the Underworld with his father is the worst news possible.”

  Another shout came from ahead of them as their friends disappeared into the woods to the west of the road.

  “We must hurry.” Cade wished he could question Taliesin more, but they had no time. “We’ll talk later.”

  “We have dragons everywhere we look, my friend.” Taliesin jogged beside Cade. “And I suspect that I’m not the only one who is having trouble with his sight.”

  “You can’t mean Arianrhod?” Cade said. “Her plan worked out just as she intended, don’t you think?”

  “I think she left a great deal to chance. I suspect that she would have found several possible outcomes acceptable,” Taliesin said.

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “The gods are taking sides in our world. That can’t be good for any of us.” Taliesin reached out a hand to Cade and caught his arm. “I cannot see, and because the gift has deserted me, I cannot help you. I have lost my bearings.”

  And though Cade had never understood Taliesin’s reliance on his sight, he could see the dread in his friend’s face. And share it.

  Chapter Two

  Rhiann

  Dafydd’s long strides outpaced Rhiann’s smaller, quicker ones, but after his initial head start, she hadn’t fallen further behind. She wasn’t sure she was ready for another battle, but at least this time, she and Dafydd wouldn’t be defending helpless women and children on a lonely path all by themselves. They’d fight among the other men, in the thick of things with everyone else. On second thought, maybe that wasn’t better after all.

  They’d run no more than a quarter-mile before shapes of men showed through the trees. Rhiann had feared that it might be hard to tell in the dark which side was theirs, but it took only an instant to make that determination: these men had Cade’s dragon banner waving above their heads and that was the only side she wanted to be on. Dozens of torches lit up the forest and the hillside ahead of them, even as the rain continued to pour down. Cade’s men had established their position to take advantage of their strengths. Unlike the demons, they had archers and a significant number of men on horseback.

  Just in front of her, Dafydd skidded to a halt. “Wait!” He held out a hand to stop her headlong rush. “We have time. The demons aren’t upon them yet.”

  Now that she’d stopped running, she saw that Dafydd was right. No arrows had yet been loosed. The shouts Dafydd had heard must have been the warning calls that the demons were coming, rather than cries of men in the midst of battle. They’d come upon the scene from the north, with Geraint’s forces taking up the hill to the east of their position and the demons marching through the valley to the west, their own torches sputtering and guttering in the falling rain, but still lighting up the night and showing their progress for all to see.

  “Better for them to march in the dark so we couldn’t guess their numbers,” Dafydd said. “Did they think we would quake before them?”

  “Mabon probably thought it, he’s that arrogant.” Rain plunked on Rhiann’s hood, and she brushed her wet hair from her face with her fingers. The humidity in the air pressed on her, heavy with the scent of moist earth and foliage. “I’m not sure these demons do any thinking on their own.”

  “Geraint couldn’t have set this up better if he’d planned it.” Goronwy came to stand beside the other two. “He owns the high ground. The demons march along a narrow valley and will be within arrow range for two hundred yards before they reach Geraint’s position on the heights.”

  “What I don’t understand is why the demons didn’t get here earlier,” Rhiann said. “It was after midnight when we entered Caer Dathyl and ages before we reached Arawn’s cavern.”

  “We’re some ten miles from Caer Dathyl, give or take,” Dafydd said. “It’s far, but not so far that I wouldn’t have to agree with Rhiann.”

  “They could have ransacked a village or two on the way,” Goronwy said. “That would have slowed them some and isn’t outside their capacity.”

  “Remember what I said about time,” Taliesin said, as he and Cade caught up with the others. “It passes differently in the world of the sidhe than in this one.”

  “Of course,” Cade said. “Why didn’t I think of that before?”

  Rhiann moved closer to Cade, comforted by his presence. “You mean just like when we went into Caer Ddu, time passed differently when we were inside Caer Dathyl?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” said Taliesin.

  “No wonder the moon never moved in the sky,” Cade said. “If you hadn’t woken me so forcefully, I would have thought myself dreaming still.”

  Rhiann flashed back to the horrible feeling of Cade’s lifeless body beneath her hands. If that was what sleep was to him, she much preferred having him out and about in the middle of the night, even if it sometimes got him into trouble. Because he had no breath or heartbeat, it was as if he had been truly dead.

  Two years before, Arianrhod, the goddess of time and fate, had appeared to Cade in the form of a beautiful woman. With no warning, no query or discussion on her part, she had changed him into a sidhe of a sort. He’d become a god among men, except that in exchange for power, she’d taken his breath and heartbeat, and maybe even his soul. Arianrhod was a triple goddess—manifesting at different times and circumstances as mother, maiden, or crone.

  Cade had lamented to Rhiann more than once that her coming had made him only one thing: a demon. Rhiann had consoled him with the notion that every man feared the beast inside himself, but Cade had countered that in him it became tangible, and each time he released the power of the sidhe, it became harder for him to hide.

  And it was only when he took a man’s life that he felt truly alive.

  That was the part of him Rhiann didn’t know—didn’t ever want to know, though she’d seen it more than once. Yet if they were truly to be together, she wo
uld have to come to terms with it. Somehow.

  “And then once we left the clearing and the clouds moved in, it was impossible to tell the time at all,” Hywel said.

  “But surely it hasn’t been three days since we entered Caer Dathyl?” Dafydd said.

  “No,” Taliesin said. “I believe the magic has worked in the opposite fashion this time. By my estimation, it’s been only three hours. We’ve many hours still until dawn.”

  “Look!” Hywel pointed towards the southern ridge across from the one on which they were standing. “A rider comes!”

  “That’s Bedwyr,” Rhiann said. “I can tell from his bulky shape.”

  “Let’s go.” Cade grasped Rhiann’s hand and tugged her forward.

  “He’s going to be surprised,” Rhun said.

  To the companions’ amusement, they arrived at Geraint’s command post simultaneously with Bedwyr, who dismounted from his horse in front of the pickets.

  “What took you so long?” Cade said.

  “How—” Bedwyr’s mouth opened in astonishment, but then snapped shut. “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”

  “It’s a long story and worth the hearing.” Goronwy clapped Bedwyr on the back in greeting. “Glad to see you made it too and in one piece.”

  “I take it by the fact that you stand in front of me that all went well inside Caer Dathyl?” Bedwyr said. “Did you find Arawn?”

  “We did,” Dafydd said.

  “Suffice to say, Teregad has been deposed, Arawn banished to the Underworld where he belongs, and the black cauldron closed,” Cade said. “For now.”

  “There’s more, but first, we’ve some demons to kill,” Rhun said.

  “Right.” Bedwyr blinked. “Glad that’s straightened out.”

  Geraint and Tudur hurried over.

  “My lords! You’ve come just in time.” Geraint’s eyes scanned the companions, and Rhiann could see him counting them to make sure none were missing. His brows furrowed as he got to eight and realized they were one short, but he didn’t ask about Siawn. “I trust everyone is well?”