EIGHTEEN
They did not know what to say. Men like Hywel were set apart from the rest by their skills. Sharp eyes had defined him, made him a great tracker. Now he had lost his life’s calling along with his sight. It was as cruel a fate as losing his sword arm would be for Dodinal.
“Don’t despair. I have seen this before. The loss may not be lasting.” He hoped he sounded more convincing to Hywel’s ears than to his own. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Either way, you’ll go on without me.”
“I carried you from the forest. I’m not leaving you now.”
Hywel blinked slowly. “You carried me here?”
“What did you think? You flew?” Emlyn jabbed a finger into his friend’s shoulder. He was trying hard to sound cheerful.
“Then you have my thanks, Dodinal. Even so, surely you can see there is nothing to be gained by taking me with you.” He raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I will only slow you down. And what if those things attack again? I couldn’t see them coming, let alone fight them off. I’d rather take my chances. Just turn me towards the west. If I can walk in a straight line I’ll find the river eventually.”
“And then what?” Emlyn demanded bitterly. “You’ll jump in?”
“I’ll have a spear to fish with. What was it you said last night, Madoc? You just shove the spear in and hope for the best? Doesn’t sound that difficult to me.” His sightless eyes creased as he grinned. “I can light a fire by touch and I’ll have plenty of water. I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll be fine until you get too close to the edge or some hungry beast comes looking for food,” Emlyn snapped back.
Dodinal looked around at the men, his expression clear. They nodded without a flicker of hesitation and began to gather up their belongings as, saying nothing, the knight stooped and lifted Hywel to his feet, ignoring his protests.
“You’ll walk in a straight line, my friend. Except you’ll be heading north, not west, and you will not be walking alone.”
“But this is insane. Leave me. Find me on your way home.”
“Shut up,” Dodinal said pleasantly. “And start walking before you feel the point of my sword in your arse.”
Muttering curses, Hywel did as he was told, but he had no sooner taken a few steps than he stumbled and almost fell over some hidden tummock. Before Dodinal had a chance to react, Emlyn brushed past him and took hold of Hywel by the elbow. Dodinal was glad to see the tracker made no effort to push his friend away. He might not like it, but he must have come around to the fact that they were not going to leave him behind. Instead, the two continued on their way together, heads close, talking quietly as they walked.
They followed the trail of broken grass, cloaks tossed over their shoulders, weapons stowed. There was no danger of being caught in an ambush, not with open land all around them. As they walked, the mountains, stern grey and featureless with distance, seemed to grow steadily higher. Their peaks would have been lost in the clouds, had there been any.
Dodinal felt rested after his long sleep, but his empty stomach gurgled and rumbled. He wished they were close to the river. He would willingly break off the pursuit for a while if that meant they could find something to fill their bellies with.
The afternoon wore on, and the sun began its slow descent. They began to feel the strain as the ground rose, the gradient so gentle at first that they had scarcely noticed it. They had left the lush grassland behind and now followed an ancient path leading up towards the hills. The earth was firm and rocky, with hardly a tree to break the monotony of the landscape; with the dying of the light, it had become hard to make out the creatures’ trail.
Even with Hywel to slow them down, they moved at a brisk pace that would take them well into the foothills before dusk, where they would have to find a place to pitch camp. Somewhere defendable. Dodinal’s fingers stole to his sword hilt. By now he had come to expect trouble. It was more a question of
They pressed on until the sun dipped low enough to ignite the horizon and suffuse the air with a soft golden light, and Dodinal called a halt. It would be dark in less than an hour. Turning back, they could see the great forest spread out like a slumbering serpent below them. Ahead, the land rose steadily upwards, the great mountains already lost to shadows, harbingers of the encroaching night.
Dodinal gathered the men around. “I don’t like the idea of sleeping out in the open, but there’s no shelter that I can see. I say we continue on uphill for as long as the light lasts. If we’re lucky, we’ll find a cave. If not, we’ll have to get to higher ground. We’ll have a better chance if they come after us.”
“I don’t think we need worry too much about that,” Madoc said. He was gazing uphill, towards the shadow- clad mountains, and sounded distracted.
“Why not?” Dodinal said, a little irritably. He was tired and hungry, in no mood for games.
Madoc stretched out an arm and pointed. “Look.”
Dodinal saw a flickering glow, carrying a pillar of smoke out of a hidden fold in the hills.
They were not alone. Someone had started a fire.
“That’s settled, then,” Emlyn said. “Those creatures seem to be afraid of fire. If there are people up there, we’ll be safer with them than making camp out in the open. You never know, they might even have food going spare.”
“There’s no guarantee they’ll be friendly,” Madoc observed.
Dodinal nodded. “Quite so. We know the creatures passed this way. There’s every chance these people, whoever they are, will have been attacked. They may not welcome strangers in their midst.”
“I wasn’t suggesting we should just go charging in.” Emlyn looked offended. “I’m not an idiot. But we should at least go and check out the lie of the land.”
Dodinal considered this. They would have to skirt the fire in any event. It would do them no harm to find out who had started it, and they would be foolish to turn their backs on what could prove to be a safe haven for the night. Tiredness and hunger had left them snapping tetchily at each other. The chance of a decent night’s sleep was too good to pass up.
“Sound thinking,” he said, speaking directly to Emlyn. “We’ll get as close as we can without being seen. If it looks dangerous, we keep going and find someplace else to make camp. And listen out. It’s nearly dark. Those things could have killed us all, last night. They might try to do so again.”
The gradient became steeper, and he slowed the pace for Hywel’s sake. Before long, they were all puffing like a smithy’s bellows.
They halted briefly to catch their breath and to rest their aching legs, then continued upwards. The air turned chilly as the sun dropped out of sight and dusk turned to full dark, but their exertions screened them from the cold. Each man walked with his cloak draped over one shoulder. The fire, though still unseen, drew them in like moths. Dodinal sniffed at the air. Wood smoke. Encouraging. A lot more encouraging than the acrid stench of burning flesh.
Then he felt the ground levelling off, and sensed they were close to cresting the hill. He drew his sword; he did not need to turn around to know that each man save Hywel would have his own sword and spear at the ready. His stomach knotted, as it did in the final moments before battle. A warrior who felt no fear did not last long. The skill was not in disregarding the fear but in learning how to control it.
He pushed on until he reached the summit, where he waited while the men fell in beside him. They stood in silence and stared down at the village nestled in the narrow coomb below them, lit up by the fires that had been set around its perimeter. The fires aside, the place appeared deserted. Nothing moved. Even from a distance they could see most of the buildings were in disrepair, gaping holes in their roofs, walls half collapsed, fallen timber scattered haphazardly across the ground.
“What can you see?” Hywel hissed.
“A village,” Dodinal answered with quiet urgency. “Looks abandoned, but obviously someone’s about.”
“You think they’ve been attacked?”
“Hard to say. Stay here. I’m going down to find out.”
“You’re not going alone,” Madoc said. “Too dangerous.”
