“Are you a man or a baby? Come on. Sit up. You need to listen. Too much time has passed. If I don’t leave soon, I may not get to the valley before sunset. And you heard what the old man said.”
Gerwyn eased himself into a sitting position, shrugging off the hand Dodinal offered to help him. “I’m fine. Get going. I’ll wait here. You can collect me on your way back. Then you can carry me down.”
“It’s not safe for you to stay here. You need to get back to the old man’s village. It still gets cold at night and you have no cloak.”
“You’ll have returned for me by then.”
“We both know that may not happen. There’s no point pretending it will. I’ll get you down as far as the plateau and then you’ll have to manage on your own.”
Dodinal bent to slip an arm beneath his shoulder and hoisted him from the ground. Gerwyn, sweating and swearing, stood on his good leg, bending the other at the hip to keep it elevated. It was ungainly, and without Dodinal to lean on, he would have fallen.
“And how do you suggest I get down the path?”
“Sit and slide down on your arse,” Dodinal told him as he half-carried him down the uneven surface of the ravine, talking all the way to distract Gerwyn, who was clearly in discomfort. “It’s not that steep. You should manage it in a couple of hours. Once you get down, start calling for help. The valley is narrow. Your voice will carry far. Even if the old man doesn’t hear you, Hywel will.”
They reached the plateau and Dodinal helped Gerwyn to the ground. Then he straightened. “This is where I leave you.”
He dropped the pack. “There’s a steel and flint in there, some kindling too. If you cannot reach the village by sunset you should at least have reached the lake. There’ll be enough fallen wood in the forest to start a fire. You may not have a comfortable night but you at least you’ll be warm.”
Gerwyn reached out and pushed the pack towards Dodinal. “You take it. You have more need of it than I do.”
“I have my sword and my shield. I need nothing else.”
For a moment, Gerwyn was silent. Then he looked up at Dodinal, squinting against the sun, and held out his hand. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but it does. I hope you return, Dodinal, for it will save me the trouble of having to tell your story to my sister-in-law and the rest of my people. I never was much of a storyteller.”
Dodinal clasped his hand. “I’ll do what I can. Not for your sake, but to spare Rhiannon your ceaseless prattle.” He released Gerwyn. “I think your father would be pleased with you. Go home. Your people need their
“Yes,” Gerwyn said. “Until the next time.”
Dodinal said nothing more. He nodded once, then turned and set off. The sunlight faded to shadow as the cleft in the rock swallowed him and the cliffs loomed over him again. His boots crunched and skittered on stone as he hurried along, anxious to make up for lost time. Even so, when he reached the rock fall, he paused to kneel and bowed his head with his eyes closed.
“Goodbye, Emlyn. You were a man of great courage and spirit. I know I will see you again. Goodbye, Madoc. You were a true leader of men. I will see you again too. And farewell, Gwythyr. You never got to avenge your son’s death. At least now he is safe with you. I will avenge you both.”
He got up and, with one last baleful look at the creature’s blood-drenched, headless body, he continued on his way. The ravine grew steadily steeper and narrower until his shoulders almost brushed against the cliff walls. He kept his eyes on the ground, wary of any uneven stones that could cause him to lose his balance or twist an ankle. He was Owain’s last hope. If anything happened to him, the child was lost; the girl Annwen, too. He refused to entertain the idea that they may be lost already, or else he might as well turn back and be done with it.
Time ceased to have any meaning well before he emerged from the ravine onto a wide rock shelf. His relief at seeing the light and feeling the warmth on his face when he finally left the shadows behind lasted only until he realised what awaited him.
Directly across from where he stood, the mountain face sloped up towards the empty sky. While imposing, it was hardly sheer, and its broken surface looked relatively easy to climb. The one drawback was that to reach it he would first have to cross the long, narrow ridge, which fell away vertiginously on both sides.
Dodinal leaned forward and looked down, wiped his palms on his shirt and stepped back. He did not like heights.
There was no point delaying the inevitable. He did not even consider attempting to walk across. The ridge was wide enough to stand on, but the surface was a mess of knobbly protrusions and wind-worn hollows; one wrong step, or a sudden gust of wind, would send him plunging to the ground far below. Instead he knelt at the edge of the ridge and began to crawl across it, keeping his eyes firmly ahead, feeling around with trembling fingers for handholds and pushing forward with his boots. It was undignified, but there was no one around to see him. Even if there had been, he would not have given a damn.
The sword banged against his leg each time he moved, and the shield strap dug into his shoulder, but he would not let go with either hand to deal with them. He was near the halfway point when he disturbed a loose rock, which shifted beneath his fingers, rolled to the edge and tumbled off into space. Seized by an irrational terror that the entire structure was about to collapse beneath him, Dodinal flattened his body against the rough surface and lay, eyes squeezed shut, pounding heart in mouth, for nearly a minute.
He set off again, but his hands were so slick with sweat that he began to worry they would simply slide off the ridge. The gentle breeze that ruffled his hair suddenly felt as powerful as a gale, threatening to tip him into the void. Chiding himself that the villagers had made this same dangerous crossing, burdened with an old woman, a simpleton and eight bawling children, did nothing to repel the panic. It was only when he thought of Owain, stolen from his mother and no doubt terrified beyond comprehension as he was carried across this same ridge, that he became ashamed of his fear and summoned the strength to push on.
Finally he was across, reaching a rock wide enough for him to stand on, well away from the edge. Reluctant to give his muscles time to stiffen, he began to climb as soon as he had regained his composure. The going was easier than he could have hoped; the surface was broken, providing no shortage of handholds and footholds, and Dodinal climbed rapidly. Only once did he forget himself and look down. The sight of the ridge far below him, and the ground much further down than that, brought him out in a cold sweat. He reminded himself not to make the same mistake again.
It was steep at first, and his fingers became scraped and bloodied from gripping the sharp edges. When they started cramping he had to stop, balancing on his toes with his body pressed against the rock, flexing each hand in turn until the circulation flowed freely again.
After a while he found he was leaning forward as he climbed. The slope gradually levelled off until he reached a plateau; he was not yet at the summit but he sensed he was close. To the left of where he stood, taking deep breaths, was a narrow path, a goat track or some ancient trading route, winding up into the last stretch of mountain above him. He made his way across to it, relieved to feel firm ground beneath his feet again.
As he walked he looked up; the sun was approaching the horizon. The old man had said the route down into the valley was easier. Dodinal could but hope that was true. Time was slipping away.
He reached the summit without knowing it. Seen from the lake, the distant peak had seemed narrow, almost like an arrowhead, but in reality it was wide and round and flat. It was only when Dodinal became aware he was walking forward rather than up that realisation dawned. He stopped and stared, astounded by the view. Mountains stretched away in all directions, like pillars holding up the sky. The air was so clear he felt he could reach out and touch them. He smiled, thinking of his mother’s story about giants. Up here on the roof of the world, he could almost believe that was how it had happened.
He walked the broad circle of the summit until he could see the valley, an elongated bowl carved out of the earth, surrounded on all sides by almost vertical hills, granite grey and patched with green. An ancient forest covered the valley floor. Even from a distance he could see the trees were dark and twisted with age.
From the rock wall at the head of the valley, a great waterfall tumbled into a narrow lake below, snaring a rainbow in its spray. Dodinal caught the glitter of water through the leafless branches; the lake extended the length of the valley.
This side of the mountain was nowhere near as steep or rugged as that which had brought him here. He sought out the way into the valley: another track, worn into the rock over the centuries by men or the beasts that dwelled in the high country, carving a serpentine trail across and down the face of the mountain.
