SIXTEEN
They moved at a steady pace, driven by a sense of urgency but wary of tiring themselves out too quickly. Tendrils of mist rose from the ground as if the land itself were sending guardians to walk with them. Gerwyn led, with constant glances over his shoulder towards Dodinal to make sure he was heading north. The knight either nodded or subtly gestured left or right if they had drifted off course. If Gerwyn possessed any tracking skills at all he would only have had to look up to see what direction they needed to travel.
The creatures could move at will through the trees and so must know which branches would take their weight. But their instincts were not infallible; branches that looked strong may have been weakened by disease or age. Some of them had been left hanging loose or had snapped off and fallen to the ground.
Of course, Gerwyn saw nothing of this. He was a hunter, but his prey was only ever to be found on the ground, not above it.
Soon after they left the village, the trail of damaged branches petered out and vanished. Dodinal was not unduly concerned. He kept his eyes on the forest floor. Sure enough, it was not long before he found a single set of tracks; the burned creature’s spoor.
He said nothing. The others only had to know which path to follow. When he looked around, his companions were oblivious to the trail. All save Hywel. He nodded briefly to show he had not missed it. Dodinal smiled; he would have expected nothing less of such an accomplished woodsman.
Time passed. Shadows fled the forest as dawn gave way to early morning sunlight. The travellers spoke little, aware of the need to conserve their strength, and breath, for the long journey ahead. Along the way, however, Dodinal learned that Gerwyn’s two friends were named Tomos and Rhydian. They were brothers, as he’d assumed; indeed, so similar were they in looks that he found it difficult to tell them apart. Not that it mattered. They were so jittery around him that they walked a good distance away, speaking only between themselves and to Gerwyn, and even then in lowered tones.
As the sun climbed the sky, the day became pleasantly warm. The air carried more than a promise of spring. Dodinal walked with his cloak carried over his shoulder. He wondered if Rhiannon was awake, and whether she had forgiven him for leaving while she slept.
He wondered, too, what she would make of Gerwyn’s absence, and what words might be said at the
Around them were the first true signs of the new season: green buds speckled the branches, and daffodils, snowdrops and bluebells pushed up through the ground, filling the air with their scent.
Memories of the hard winter just past were already fading. All that was missing was the birdsong that usually greeted the season. Its absence was jarring and wrong, as if Dodinal had looked down to find he had no shadow.
“I expect you’re in a bad mood with us.” It was Hywel. He had fallen in beside Dodinal, as had Emlyn. The knight had been too lost in his reverie to notice their approach.
“What? Why?”
“For not letting you travel alone.”
Dodinal shrugged. “Say nothing of this to Gerwyn or his friends, but I’m glad to have company, even though it is not the company I might have expected. I suspected you might impose your presence upon me, whether it was wanted or not.”
Hywell and Elwyn grinned at him.
“But I did not expect you to conspire behind my back, not with Gerwyn, of all people.”
Hywel pulled a face. “I did not conspire with him. I overheard him tell his friends he was going with you, and they said they were going too. I wasn’t going to let them go without me, and I said as much to Emlyn here. Of course he then insisted on coming along.”
“Aye,” Emlyn confirmed. “So we confronted Gerwyn and, well, that was that.”
“Sounds more complicated than any conspiracy,” Dodinal said, with a low chuckle.
They continued in companionable silence.
After a while they heard sounds in the distance, and Dodinal realised they were close to Madoc’s village. He said as much to Gerwyn, who was keen to call on the chieftain, to tell him what had happened. “He knew my father. He would want to know of his death.”
Dodinal would rather have continued uninterrupted, so they could cover as much ground as possible before having to make camp for the night. They had no idea how far north the creatures had travelled but it was reasonable to assume they were many miles ahead of them. Any delay could mean the difference between finding Owain alive and finding him dead.
At the same time, he understood why Gerwyn would want to talk to one chieftain about the passing of another. So he agreed with good grace. There would be no need for them to stay long. Let Gerwyn tell his story. Then they would be away.
Sawing and hammering and the thump of axes on wood rang out through the forest well before Madoc’s village came into sight. Dodinal nodded his approval. His warning about strengthening their meagre defences had obviously been heeded.
The cropped-haired chieftain seemed surprised but pleased to see them. The work continued around him when he walked out to greet them at the edge of the forest, calling out to announce their presence. A trench was being dug around the village perimeter. Stakes had been piled on the ground nearby, ready to form a palisade, while two men were nailing lengths of timber together to fashion a gate. Dodinal could not bring himself to tell them their efforts would have all been for nothing should the creatures come in search of fresh prey.
Madoc summoned his men and they put down their tools and gathered around, while Gerwyn told the tale as it had been recounted to him. Their faces darkened when he spoke of the creatures that had attacked the village. Several men made quick gestures to ward off evil. Then Gerwyn described how his father had died, and several of them cried out in dismay. He told the tale so well, for one who had not been there, that Dodinal was impressed despite himself.
“I am sorry,” Madoc said, reaching out to clasp Gerwyn’s shoulder. “Your father was a good man. We shared many a drink and plenty of laughter at the gatherings over the years. For him to meet his end in such a manner is an insult. He deserved better.”
“That is not the end of it.” Gerwyn explained how Owain had been taken, and the girl Annwen too. When he was done, there was a heavy silence. Men bowed their heads, or stared with renewed anxiety into the forest, as though fearful the creatures were lurking just out of sight within the trees, waiting to pounce.
“So you are hunting them down?” Madoc asked eventually, looking not at Gerwyn but at Dodinal.
Dodinal nodded.
“Then I will hunt them with you.”
Dodinal inwardly groaned, having heard the same too often already. Before he had the chance to respond and decline the chieftain’s offer with as much grace as he could muster, another voice called out, “As will I.”
It was the man he had last seen trying to comfort his wife as she prayed over her son’s dead body, laid out on the table in Madoc’s hut. The father of the boy Wyn. His eyes had been red with grief then; now, they were bright with anger.
“Gwythyr, no,” Madoc said. “I forbid it. This is no time to forsake your woman. She needs you at her side.”
The man Gwythyr barked a short, bitter laugh. “She does not know I am here, does not even know who I am. She just sits at the grave we dug for our boy, whispering her prayers over and over. You cannot leave and expect me to stay, Madoc. It was my child those inhuman bastards took, not yours.”
Gerwyn followed this exchange silently. Then he spoke. “Any man who wishes to join us is welcome.”
Dodinal’s shoulders slumped. The way this was going. their small group would soon grow into a small army. More people meant more noise, for no man could travel as stealthily as he. They would have to move quietly if they were to avoid alerting the creatures to their presence, when they eventually tracked them down.
Yet, for all his reluctance, he did not object. Gwythyr’s point had been well made. Who was Dodinal to refuse him when it was not his child who had been taken; nor any of his kin, come to that?
