spells. Taran was both frightened and excited. Dallben, he knew, would consult Hen Wen only on a matter of greatest urgency. Within Taran's memory, it had never happened before. He hurried to the pen.
Hen Wen usually slept until noon. Then, trotting daintily, despite her size, she would move to a shady comer of her enclosure and settle comfortably for the rest of the day. The white pig was continually grunting and chuckling to herself, and whenever she saw Taran, she would raise her wide, cheeky face so that he could scratch under her chin. But this time, she paid no attention to him. Wheezing and whistling, Hen Wen was digging furiously in the soft earth at the far side of the pen, burrowing so rapidly she would soon be out.
Taran shouted at her, but the clods continued flying at a great rate. He swung himself over the fence. The oracular pig stopped and glanced around. As Taran approached the hole, already sizable, Hen Wen hurried to the opposite side of the pen and started a new excavation.
Taran was strong and long-legged, but, to his dismay, he saw that Hen Wen moved faster than he. As soon as he chased her from the second hole, she turned quickly on her short legs and made for the first. Both, by now, were big enough for her head and shoulders.
Taran frantically began scraping earth back into the burrow. Hen Wen dug faster than a badger, her hind legs planted firmly, her front legs plowing ahead. Taran despaired of stopping her. He scrambled back over the rails and jumped to the spot where Hen Wen was about to emerge, planning to seize her and hang on until Dallben and Coll arrived. He underestimated Hen Wen's speed and strength.
In an explosion of dirt and pebbles, the pig burst from under the fence, heaving Taran into the air. He landed with the wind knocked out of him. Hen Wen raced across the field and into the woods.
Taran followed. Ahead, the forest rose up dark and threatening. He took a breath and plunged after her.
Chapter 2
The Mask of the King
HEN WEN HAD had vanished. Ahead, Taran heard a thrashing among the leaves. The pig, he was sure, was keeping out of sight in the bushes. Following the sound, he ran forward. After a time the ground rose sharply, forcing him to clamber on hands and knees up a wooded slope. At the crest the forest broke off before a meadow. Taran caught a glimpse of Hen Wen dashing into the waving grass. Once across the meadow, she disappeared beyond a stand of trees.
Taran hurried after her. This was farther than he had ever dared venture, but he struggled on through the heavy undergrowth. Soon, a fairly wide trail opened, allowing him to quicken his pace. Hen Wen had either stopped running or had outdistanced him. He heard nothing but his own footsteps.
He followed the trail for some while, intending to use it as a landmark on the way back, although it twisted and branched off so frequently he was not at all certain in which direction Caer Dallben lay.
In the meadow Taran had been flushed and perspiring. Now he shivered in the silence of oaks and elms. The woods here were not thick, but shadows drenched the high tree trunks and the sun broke through only in jagged streaks. A damp green scent filled the air. No bird called; no squirrel chattered. The forest seemed to be holding its breath.
Yet there was, beneath the silence, a groaning restlessness and a trembling among the leaves. The branches twisted and grated against each other like broken teeth. The path wavered under Taran's feet, and he felt desperately cold. He flung his arms around himself and moved more quickly to shake off the chill. He was, he realized, running aimlessly; he could not keep his mind on the forks and turns of the path.
He halted suddenly. Hoofbeats thudded in front of him. The forest shook as they grew louder. In another moment a black horse burst into view.
Taran fell back, terrified. Astride the foam-spattered animal rode a monstrous figure. A crimson cloak flamed from his naked shoulders. Crimson stained his gigantic arms. Horror stricken, Taran saw not the head of a man but the antlered head of a stag.
The Horned King! Taran flung himself against an oak to escape the flying hoofs and the heaving, glistening flanks. Horse and rider swept by. The mask was a human skull; from it, the great antlers rose in cruel curves. The Horned King's eyes blazed behind the gaping sockets of whitened bone.
Many horsemen galloped in his train. The Horned King uttered the long cry of a wild beast, and his riders took it up as they streamed after him. One of them, an ugly, grinning warrior, caught sight of Taran. He turned his mount and drew a sword. Taran sprang from the tree and plunged into the underbrush. The blade followed, hissing like an adder. Taran felt it sting across his back.
He ran blindly, while saplings whipped his face and hidden rocks jutted out to pitch him forward and stab at his knees. Where the woods thinned, Taran clattered along a dry stream bed until, exhausted, he stumbled and held out his hands against the whirling ground.
THE SUN HAD already dipped westward when Taran opened his eyes. He was lying on a stretch of turf with a cloak thrown over him. One shoulder smarted painfully. A man knelt beside him. Nearby, a white horse cropped the grass. Still dazed, fearful the riders had overtaken him, Taran started up. The man held out a flask.
'Drink,' he said. 'Your strength will return in a moment.'
The stranger had the shaggy, gray-streaked hair of a wolf. His eyes were deep-set, flecked with green. Sun and wind had leathered his broad face, burnt it dark and grained it with fine lines. His cloak was coarse and travel- stained. A wide belt with an intricately wrought buckle circled his waist.
'Drink,' the stranger said again, while Taran took the flask dubiously. 'You look as though I were trying to poison you.' He smiled. 'It is not thus that Gwydion Son of Don deals with a wounded…'
'Gwydion!' Taran choked on the liquid and stumbled to his feet. 'You are not Gwydion!' he cried. 'I know of him. He is a great war leader, a hero! He is not…' His eyes fell on the long sword at the stranger's belt. The golden pommel was smooth and rounded, its color deliberately muted; ash leaves of pale gold entwined at the hilt, and a pattern of leaves covered the scabbard. It was truly the weapon of a prince.
Taran dropped to one knee and bowed his head. 'Lord Gwydion,' he said, 'I did not intend insolence.'' As Gwydion helped him rise, Taran still stared in disbelief at the simple attire and the worn, lined face. From all Dallben had told him of this glorious hero, from all he had pictured to himself? Taran bit his lips.
Gwydion caught Taran's look of disappointment. 'It is not the trappings that make the prince,' he said gently, 'nor, indeed, the sword that makes the warrior. Come,' he ordered, 'tell me your name and what happened to you. And do not ask me to believe you got a sword wound picking gooseberries or poaching hares.'
'I saw the Horned King!' Taran burst out. 'His men ride the forest; one of them tried to kill me. I saw the Horned King himself! It was horrible, worse than Dallben told me!'
Gwydion's eyes narrowed. 'Who are you?' he demanded. 'Who are you to speak of Dallben?'
'I am Taran of Caer Dallben,' Taran answered, trying to appear bold but succeeding only in turning paler than a mushroom.
'Of Caer Dallben?' Gwydion paused an instant and gave Taran a strange glance. 'What are you doing so far from there? Does Dallben know you are in the forest? Is Coll with you?'
Taran's jaw dropped and he looked so thunderstruck that Gwydion threw back his head and burst into laughter.
'You need not be so surprised,' Gwydion said. 'I know Coll and Dallben well. And they are too wise to let you wander here alone. Have you run off, then? I warn you; Dallben is not one to be disobeyed.'
'It was Hen Wen,' Taran protested. 'I should have known I couldn't hold on to her. Now she's gone, and it's my fault. I'm Assistant Pig-Keeper…'
'Gone?' Gwydion's face tightened. 'Where? What has happened to her?'
'I don't know,' Taran cried. 'She's somewhere in the forest.' As he poured out an account of the morning's events, Gwydion listened intently.
'I had not foreseen this,' Gwydion murmured, when Taran had finished. 'My mission fails if she is not found
