Pendragon

EIGHT

The next days were given to preparation for the autumn hunt. Horses were reshod, spears sharpened, dogs groomed. Everyone in the stronghold was busy. From early morning to far into the night Caer Edyn resounded with shouts, songs, and laughter. It was a celebration of sorts – though a most serious celebration with a starkly earnest purpose: we hunted for the smokehouse and the winter table. We needed the meat to see us through the cold days and nights ahead.

Every detail was seen to with most exacting care, for a spoiled hunt made a lean winter. Above the Wall, a lean winter is a killing winter.

The morning of the hunt, Arthur rose before daylight and made certain that Pelleas and I were awake, too. We washed and dressed, and hurried to the hall, where some of Ectorius' guests and men were already gathered, waiting for the food to be served. This morning we would break fast on hot pork stew, black barley bread, and beer, for we would be in the saddle all day.

Arthur scarcely touched a bite. He kept leaping up from his place beside me on the bench, wanting to dash off to see to his horse, or his tack, or his spears.

'Eat, lad,' Pelleas told him once and again. 'There will be nothing more for you until supper.'

'I cannot eat, Pelleas,' Arthur complained. 'I must see to my horse.'

'Your horse can wait. Now, eat what is before you."

'Look! There is Cai! I must speak to him!' He was up and away before either of us could stop him.

'Let him go, Pelleas,' I advised. 'You are trying to hold back the tide with a broom.'

After eating, we assembled in the foreyard, where the horses were ready and waiting. The day had dawned grey and chill, the mist thick and damp – a raw foretaste of the long bleak winter ahead. The hound handlers – six men, each with four dogs straining to the leash – strove to calm their animals and keep them from getting tangled with the others. The yard stank of wet dog and horse. Everything boiled in a fine, convivial confusion, excitement heightened by keen anticipation.

The horses stamped and snorted impatiently as the hunters lashed their spears into place. The younger boys darted here and there, teasing the dogs and setting them barking. And the women, who had come to see husbands and sweethearts away, challenged their menfolk with good-natured taunts to bring home the biggest boar or stag, or failing that, a hare for the pot.

Pelleas and I were to ride with Ectorius, and we found him near the gate, conferring with his master huntsman – a bald crag of a man called Ruddlyn, who, it was said, could scent a stag before the stag could scent him-no mean feat, surely, for even I could smell him quite plainly. The huntsman wore a coarse leather tunic through which two great bare hairy arms were thrust; his legs were stout as stumps in tall, hair-covered boots. Ruddlyn and Ectorius were talking about the weather.

'Na, na,' Ruddlyn was saying, 'this liath will clear before long. This be just a piddling; pay it no mind. The valley runs will be clearing by the time we reach them. The mist will not last, I tell ye.'

'Then sound the horn, man,' Ectorius told him, making up his mind at once. 'It is a sin to keep the hounds back any longer.'

'Aye,' agreed Ruddlyn, who lumbered off, unslinging the horn from around his neck.

Our horses were before us, so up we mounted. Ectorius, grinning, his face wet from the misting rain, saluted the eager hunters. 'My friends! We are assured of a fine day. We have had a good summer, so the runs are full of game. The day is before you. I give you a good hunt.'

Just then the master huntsman sounded his horn – a long, low, braying note that set the hounds bawling in reply. The gate swung open and we all surged out onto the track.

Lord Ectorius' hunting runs lay hard by Caer Edyn to the northwest, for there the forest crowded close. Beginning in the glen of the Carun River, the runs followed the stream into the forest for a goodly way before dividing.

On the right hand, the trails continued a slow easy ascent into the hills and bluffs above the Fiorthe and Muir Guidan to the east; the left-hand trails bent westward, rising sharply to meet a steep and treacherous rock ridge that marked the beginning of the harsh and lonely region known as Manau Gododdin.

The deep-folded land was dense with oak and ash, the undergrowth thorny briar; the uplands and hilltops were gorse and heather clinging to bare stone: a rough land. But the hunting was unmatched.

We rode to the glen, allowing the more eager parties to speed on ahead. At the entrance to the run the first pack was loosed, and the baying hounds dashed away, slavering, the scent already burning in their nostrils; the first group of hunters raced after them.

'Let them fly! Let them fly,' shouted Ectorius. 'Myrddin, Pelleas! Stay close to Ruddlyn and he will find us a rare prize. You have my word on it.'

We continued on, the glen ringing with the sound of hounds and hunters. Cai and Arthur passed us, whooping like the bhean sidhe as they plunged headlong through the Carun and gallopped into the forest.

'I used to ride like that,' remarked Ectorius, shaking his head and laughing, 'but stare at an empty board once or twice and you soon learn to rein in your high spirits. Oh,' he chuckled again, 'but it was great fun.'

Ruddlyn arrived just then, dismounted, and, taking the leashes of the five dogs he had with him – big, black, square-muzzled brutes all – he wrapped all five leather straps around his hand, saying, 'I have seen a fair-sized stag further on. It would be worth saving the hounds for him.'

With that he was off, running with the dogs, his stout legs carrying him with surprising speed through the brush-choked trails. Curiously, the dogs did not yelp, but trotted stiffly, heads down, tails straight.

Ectorius saw my wondering glance, and explained, 'He has them trained to silence. They never give voice until the animal is sighted. We get much closer that way.' He lashed his horse and started after the huntsman and his hounds.

Pelleas followed and I came after, leaning close to our mounts' necks and shoulders to avoid low-hanging branches. The trail was dark and damp; mist seeped along the still air. Gradually, the sound of the other hunting parties receded, muffled and muted by the dense forest growth.

Ruddlyn, moving with the quickness of his dogs, soon disappeared into the murk of the dim, tunnel-like trail ahead. We rode after him, slashing through the pungent bracken that clung to us as if to hold us back. In no time, our horses were streaming water from the withers down and our clothing was soaked through.

The trail veered always to the left, and I soon understood that we were following one of the western runs into the craggy hills of Manau Gododdin. On we chased, the sound of our passing muted by the heavy, damp air.

We caught Ruddlyn in a clearing where he had halted to wait for us. Hardly winded, he stood with his dogs around him, face to the low, leaden clouds above. 'It will clear,' he announced.

'What have you found?' asked Ectorius. 'Is it the stag?'

'Aye.'

'Will we see it soon?'

'Right soon, lord.'

With that, he turned and strode away once more. The ground, I noticed, began to rise and in a little while the forest began to thin somewhat. We were beginning the climb to higher ground; the trail became more uneven.

The pace was not fast, but I kept my eyes on the trail, alert to any obstacle there. In the chase, even small dangers – a jagged stone, a fallen branch, a hole in the ground – can mean disaster if unheeded.

I had been lulled by the running rhythm of Ruddlyn's ground-eating pace when I was jolted by the sudden sharp sounding of the hounds. I jerked my head up and, just ahead, saw Ruddlyn pointing into the brush, the dogs straining at the leather, snouts raised to heaven.

I looked where he pointed and saw the reddish blur of a disappearing deer. An instant later, the dogs were loosed and flying to the chase, Ruddlyn with them.

'Hie!' cried Ectorius. 'God bless us, we have a fight on our hands! Did you see him?'

'A very lord of his kind,' shouted Pelleas, snapping the reins. His horse leaped after the dogs.

I followed, exulting in the chase, the wet wind on my face, the spirited baying of the hounds in my ears. The forest thinned. Trees flashed by. The horse and I moved as one, leaping felled logs and rocks, surging through the brake.

Once and again I glimpsed one or another ahead – now Pelleas, now Ectorius – as the forest sped by in a grey, mottled haze. The trail rose more steeply now. There were stones and turf-covered hillocks all around. We fairly flew over these, rising all the while.

All at once we broke cover; the forest fell away behind us. Ahead rose the steep, many-shadowed slopes of the rock ridge. In the selfsame moment, the clouds shifted and, standing in the centre of a single shaft of shimmering light, head high, regarding us casually… a magnificent stag – enormous, perhaps the largest I have ever seen. A dozen or more points on his antlers, his mane thick and dark across heavy shoulders, his sides solid and his hindquarters well muscled – a true Forest Lord.

Ectorius gave a shout. Pelleas hailed the creature with an exclamation of delight. The hounds, seeing their quarry near, howled with renewed vigour. Ruddlyn raised the horn to his lips and sounded a long rising note.

The stag swung his head around, lifted his legs, and leaped away, floating up the slope as lightly as the shadow of a cloud. The hounds, ears flat to their heads, dashed after the wonderful beast, their master right behind.

We gallopped straight up the slope. Upon gaining the crest, I discovered it to be but a shoulder of a higher hill, the upper portions of which were still mist-wrapped and obscure. The stag turned and began running easily along this wide, grassy shoulder, which itself rose as it climbed to meet the ridge to the west.

As I wheeled my mount to follow the others, I saw a movement at the forest's edge below. I glanced back to the lowlands we had just quitted. Two figures on horseback and a dog had cleared the trees and were driving up the slope for all they were worth. I had no need to look a second time; I knew them for Arthur and Cai, a single hound between them. I paused to allow them to join us.

'He is ours!' cried Arthur when he caught me up.

'We saw him first!' Cai informed me. 'We have been on the scent since fording the river.'

Both boys glared at me as if I had conspired to steal their manhood. The dog circled us, yapping, impatient, the scent of the stag rich and heavy in his nostrils.

'Peace, brothers,' I told them. 'No doubt you crossed his scent some way back. But it appears we have sighted him before you.'

'Unfair!' hollered Cai. 'He is ours!'

'As to that,' I told him, 'the prize belongs to the man who makes the kill. And that prize is making good his escape while we stand here flapping our tongues at one another.'

'Truly!' cried Arthur, whirling in the saddle to view the track ahead. His eyes followed the shoulder of the slope, then travelled up the scree-strewn rise on the right. 'This way!' he shouted, lashing his horse to speed once more.

Cai threw a menacing glance at me and bounded after Arthur. 'Wrong way!' I called after them, but they were already beyond hearing. I watched them for a moment and then set about catching Pelleas and Ectorius.

I found them a short while later in a sheltered upland cove filled with gorse and briar. I could not see Ruddlyn, although I could hear the dogs baying close by. 'The beast has vanished,' declared Ectorius as I reined in. 'Took my eyes from him for a blink and he is gone.'

'The hounds will raise the scent again,' Pelleas offered. 'He cannot have gone far.'

'Na, we cannot have lost him,' Ectorius said. 'We will have the kill.'

'Not if Arthur and Cai have their way,' I replied.

'How so?' Ectorius wondered in surprise.

'I met them on the trail back there. They have been tracking the stag as well. They claim they saw him first.'

Ectorius laughed and shook his head. 'God love them, the whole forest to hunt and they strike upon our beast. Well, they will have to kill it if they hope to claim it.'

'That is what I told them,' I replied.

'Where have they gone?' asked Pelleas, looking behind me.

'Arthur led them up the slope to higher ground.'

'It is all rocks and brambles,' Ectorius pointed out. 'There is no cover at all up there. The rascals should know better.'

Ruddlyn returned to us on the run, his broad face sweaty. He had leashed the dogs once more and they pulled at the close-held traces. 'Stag was not in there,' he puffed, indicating the gorse-filled hollow behind, 'though he has been. There is scent everywhere, we could get no clear mark.'

'He must have jumped off the track at the bend,' said Ectorius.

'Oh, aye, could be that,' agreed the huntsman. 'A canny creature, he is. We must backtrack as we can go no farther from here.'

We rode back along the trail, keeping the dogs on a short leash until they could raise a fresh scent. And at the place Ectorius suggested, we crossed the stag's path once more. The dogs began howling and strained to the trail; it was all Ruddlyn could do to keep them from scrambling up the sheer sides of the hill.

'Is this the way Arthur and Cai went?' asked Ectorius.

'Yes,' I told him, 'but I met them back there a little, where it is not so steep.'

'That makes three canny creatures,' observed Pelleas.

'It seems we will have to follow the lads,' replied Ectorius. 'God knows we cannot climb this. We will but break our bones in trying.'

'Show us the place,' Ruddlyn called, already retreating down the shoulder trail. I wheeled my horse and rode to the spot where I had last seen Arthur and Cai.

'They started the climb here!' I called and, turning my mount off the trail, began the ascent. It was hard riding to gain the top, and once up the way did not become easier. It was, as Ectorius had said, all rock and briar thickets. The sheer stone cliffs of the ridge loomed above, and loose scree lay all around, making riding difficult. I dismounted and waited for the others.

'We will have to go on foot from here,' Ectorius observed, swinging down from the saddle. 'We dare not risk the horses.'

'Which way did they go?' wondered Pelleas. He scanned the high crags above us, all black and shining slick with the mist that seeped and spread around them. There was no sign of the boys.

Just then, one of the dogs gave voice and started jerking on its lead, haunches straining, head low over the track. 'This way!' shouted Ruddlyn. With a sharp whistle, he gathered the hounds before him and they trotted away once more.

We each snatched two spears from behind our saddles and hurried away. The ground was indeed rough with rock, the rubble made slippery by the mist and rain. I tucked the spears under my arm and jogged along as quickly as possible over the treacherous terrain.

The hounds led us into a narrow defile leading between two humps of stone like misshapen pillars. This passage opened onto a narrow gorge that rose at its end to meet the ridge above. I glanced towards the far end of the gorge and saw, galloping up the scree-covered slope, Cai and Arthur-the stag in full flight just ahead. Even as I watched, the stag cleared the crest and disappeared from view over the top.

Ectorius and Ruddlyn saw them in the same instant. Ectorius shouted for the boys to wait for us, but they were too far away and could not hear him. 'The young fools will kill themselves!' shouted Ectorius. 'And the horses, too!'

There was nothing to be done but press on as quickly as possible, and that we did.

The slope at the end of the gorge was much steeper than it appeared from a distance. Climbing it on foot was difficult enough. I do not know how Arthur and Cai managed it on horseback.

The ridge formed a natural causeway between the steep rock slopes falling away on either hand, running east to west. In the lowlands behind us, the forest appeared a dark, rumpled pelt with Caer Edyn rising a little above it some distance away.

The mist was heavier here, the clouds more dense. Water formed on my brow and ran down the sides of my neck. Despite the chill air of the heights, I was sweating and my clothes were wet; only my feet were dry.

The hounds led us east along the ridgeway, and we followed – our pace slower now as fatigue began to gnaw at us. Even Ruddlyn's ground-eating strides became slower, though he pushed on relentlessly.

The ridgeway snaked along – as uneven and perilous a killing field as I have seen. We ran. The track lifted slightly beneath our feet and ahead loomed a bare granite mound, lifting like a shattered head, blocking the ridgeway. To the right rose a cracked and fissured curtain of stone; to the left, a sheer plunge to a broken ledge below. Directly ahead were Arthur and Cai and the stag.

This is what I saw:

Arthur sits tense in the saddle, head down, shoulders square, spine rigid. The spear is gripped in his right hand. Well I know the strength of that grip! Cai is beside him a few paces away, spear levelled. Both are staring at the stag, breathing hard.

The stag – what a champion! He is even larger than I first thought – fully as large as a horse. Cornered, he has turned at last to meet his pursuers, and stands facing them, head erect, his sleek sides heaving. Blood-flecked foam streams from his muzzle. The rack of his antlers spreads like the branches of a weathered oak – eighteen points if one.

Oh, he is a prize!

Cai's black hound is circling, barking savagely. The dog seizes an opening and attacks. The stag wheels and lowers its head. The dog yelps and tries to jump away, but is caught and speared by the antlers, and is tossed lightly aside to die on the rocks.

At this we begin running forward. We approach, but Ruddlyn halts us. 'Stop!' he calls. 'Let the hounds do their work!'

He is thinking that it is too dangerous. If we rush in the stag may charge one or the other of the boys and they could be killed. Instead, he will loose the hounds and they will surround the stag, harry it, and wear down its strength.

Then, when they have wearied the beast and taken some of the fight out of him, we will close in with our spears to make the kill. It is brutal, yes. But this is how it is done with a cornered beast. Any other way is deadly dangerous.

Loosed, the dogs raise a rattling yelp as they fly.

But the stag is an old warrior. The wily creature does not wait to be set upon by hounds. He lowers his head and charges!

I see the head tilt down… the feet planted… shoulders bunching… flanks tightening… hindquarters lowering as the back legs begin churning, driving the animal forward.

The lethal rack slices the air as it sweeps towards Arthur.

Cai shouts.

And Arthur…

Arthur cradles the spear. He holds it like a fragile reed now.

His eyes are hard and level. He is as unflinching as the death hurtling towards him.

But his mount is not. The animal shies, wheeling at the last instant. Arthur jerks the reins hard to bring the animal round, but it is too late.

The stag throws his head low, the points of the antlers rake the ground… then up!… Up like a Saecsen blade thrust deep into the horse's belly.

The wounded animal screams in agony and terror. The stag is shaking his head. His antlers are caught. The horse is scrambling to keep its legs. Arthur's knee is pinned against the side of his mount. He cannot leap free of the saddle.

Blood is everywhere.

The dogs race to the kill, but they are too far away. They will not come in time.

The horse falls. It is rolling over, its eyes wide and nostrils flared, its legs churning, hoofs lashing wildly at the air. Oh, Arthur! Arthur is stuck there. Help him!

The stag pulls free. He rears back, forehoofs raking in the air. The head angles down to plunge those deadly tines into the enemy struggling on the ground.

Arthur's spear is wedged beneath the horse's flank.

I am running to him. I gasp for breath. I cry out because I cannot run fast enough to save him.

The stag towers over Arthur… seems to hang there poised.

The stag lunges.

The sky cracks wide open and sunlight suddenly spills onto the causeway in a brilliant flood. The light is dazzling. I blink.

I look again to see Arthur's body pierced by the stag's antlers…

But no. His arm flashes up. He has a knife. The sunlight strikes the blade and it flares like a firebrand in his hand. The stag veers, plunging its rack into the hindquarters of the helpless horse.

Arthur swings his arm, aiming for the stag's throat. He cannot reach it. The blow goes wide and strikes the beast's shoulder as it worries the wound deeper into the feebly thrashing horse.

The stag pulls back to strike the killing blow. Cai heaves his spear, but it falls short and glances off the deer's rump.

Arthur twists on the ground and kicks free of his helpless mount. We are screaming now to distract the stag. We are shouting to burst our lungs. The first of the dogs reaches the stag.

The stag turns on the hounds, scattering them. Arthur struggles to his knees, Cai's spear in his hand. The stag turns on Arthur.

I see them: stag and boy, regarding one another across the distance of a few paces; a short spear throw separates them, no more. The dogs nip at the stag's flanks. He turns and catches one of the hounds and flings it aside, then gathers himself for the last attack.

Arthur braces himself. His spear does not waver.

Desperate, Ectorius launches a spear. It falls heartbreakingly short, iron tip striking sparks as it skids away across the rocks. He readies another. We are almost within range.

The dogs surround the stag, but the Forest Lord has fixed his eye on Arthur.

'Run!' Pelleas cries. 'Arthur! Run!'

The stag gathers his legs beneath him and charges, the powerful hind legs churning, driving towards Arthur.

'Run!' we shout. But it is too late. The stag is already hurtling straight at Arthur once again. The boy cannot turn to run or he will be impaled upon the antlers.

Arthur stands his ground, crouching, fearless, spear ready.

The stag closes swiftly – he is so fast!

Now! I throw my spear with all my strength and watch it slide uselessly under the legs of the onrushing deer. Ectorius lofts his one remaining spear.

In the same moment the stag simply lifts his hoofs and sails lightly over the crouching Arthur, and runs to the edge of the cliff. Arthur is already racing after the beast.

The Forest Lord pauses on the edge of the precipice, gathers its legs and leaps. What a wonder! It leaps over the cliff and we all dart to the place, thinking to see the proud animal battered as it plunges to its death on the rocks below.

Arthur turns wide eyes towards us as we run to him. He thrusts out a finger and I look where he is pointing.

I see the stag – sliding, leaping, running, flying down the cliff face to the ledge below. The beast tumbles sprawling onto the ledge, rolls to his feet and then, head held high, trots away to safety without so much as a backward glance. He is free.

It comes to us slowly what has happened.

'Arthur, are you hurt?' I demand, taking the boy by the shoulders and gazing at him intently.

Arthur shakes his head. He is disappointed rather than frightened. 'I could have taken him,' he says. 'I was ready.'

'Son, he would have killed you,' Ectorius says in a small, awed voice. 'It is a true miracle that you are alive.' He shakes his head in amazement at Arthur's still-unshaken courage.

Cai frowns. He is angry that the stag has escaped. 'The dogs ruined it. We had him.'

Ruddlyn has gathered the dogs and is hurrying to us. 'He had ye, young buck!' the huntsman snorts, showing his contempt for Cai's assessment. 'Never think otherwise. That King o' the Glen was your master from the start. It is a wonder the both of you still tread the land of the living.'

At this, Arthur bows his head. Is he crying?

No. When he raises his eyes once more they are clear and dry. 'I am sorry, Lord Ectorius. I have lost the horse you gave me.'

'Fret not the loss of the horse, lad. It is only a horse, God love you.' Ectorius shakes his head again.

'I will do better next time,' vows Arthur. The steel in his voice could shear hard leather.

'You will,' I promise him, 'but not this day. The hunt is over for you.'

Arthur opens his mouth to protest, but I will not hear it. 'Return to the caer and contemplate the gift you have been given this day. Go now – you and Cai together.'

They do not like it, but they do as they are told. They mount Cai's horse and ride off. While Ruddlyn buries the two dead dogs, we unsaddle Arthur's dead mount and, lugging the extra tack, return to our horses. No one says a word; even the dogs are quiet.

None of us, not even Ruddlyn, is certain what to make of what we have witnessed. It seems best not to speak, so we hold our tongues. But there is wonder in our souls. There is no doubt that we have seen a marvel – more perhaps, a sign.

Its fulfilling would follow in due season. I did not know what it meant at the time, but I know now. It was God's saining witness to Arthur's sovereignty, and a portent of the trial to come. For one day I would see that same young man make the same desperate stand against a great and terrible adversary wielding swift and certain death. And on that day Arthur would become immortal.