Beside him galloped Coll, uncomplaining and ever cheerful. His broad face, reddened and roughened by cold and wind, was nearly hidden by the collar of a great fleece-lined, jacket. A sword belt of heavy iron links bound his girth, and at his back hung a round shield of ox hide. He had found a helmet of beaten metal, but deemed it did not sit as comfortably on his bald crown as had his old leather cap.
Taran was grateful for Coll's wisdom and gladly sought his counsel. It was Coll who gave him the thought, as the marshaling camps grew crowded, to send smaller, swifter bands directly to Caer Dathyl rather than march from one Commot to the next with a force becoming ever more cumbersome. Llassar, Hevydd, and Llonio would not leave Taran's vanguard and stayed ever close at hand; but when Taran wrapped himself in a cloak and stretched on the frozen ground for rare moments of sleep, it was Coll who stood watch over him.
'You are the oaken staff I lean on,' Taran said. 'More than that.' He laughed. 'You are the whole sturdy tree, and a true warrior.'
Coll, instead of beaming, looked wryly at him. 'Do you mean to honor me?' he asked. 'Then say, rather, I am a true grower of turnips and a gatherer of apples. No warrior whatever, save that I am needed thus for a while. My garden longs for me as much as I long for it,' Coll added. 'I left it unready for winter, and for that I will pay a sorry reckoning at spring planting.'
Taran nodded. 'We shall dig and weed together, true grower of turnips? and true friend.'
The watch fires flickered in the night. The horses stirred in their lines. About them, a mass of deep shadows, dark against darkness, lay sleeping warriors. The chill wind cut at Taran's face. He was suddenly weary to the marrow of his bones. He turned to Coll.
'My heart, too, will be easier,' he said, 'when I am once more an Assistant Pig-Keeper.'
Word reached Taran that King Smoit had raised a strong host among the cantrev lords and was now turning northward. The companions learned, too, that certain of Arawn's liegemen had sent war parties across Ystrad to harass the columns marching to Caer Dathyl. Taran's task thus grew more urgent, but he could do no more than press onward with all haste.
The companions made their way to Commot Merin. For Taran, it had been among the fairest he had known in all his wanderings. Even now, amid the tumult of warriors arming, of neighing horses and shouting riders, the white, thatched cottages of the little village seemed to stand peaceful and apart. Taran galloped past the common fields ringed by hemlocks and tall firs. His heart laden with memories, he reined up at a familiar hut, whose smoking chimney betokened a warm fire within. The door opened and out stepped a stocky, hale old man garbed in a coarse, brown robe. His iron-gray hair and beard were cropped short; his eyes were blue and undimmed.
'Well met,' he called to Taran, and raised a huge hand crusted with dried clay. 'You left us a wanderer, and return to us a war leader. As for your skill in the latter, I have heard much. But I ask: Have you forgotten your skill at my potter's wheel? Or have I wasted my own to teach you?'
'Well met, Annlaw Clay-Shaper,' Taran answered, swinging down from Melynlas and fondly clasping the old potter's hand. 'Wasted, in truth,' Taran laughed, following him into the hut, 'for the master had a clumsy apprentice. My skill lacks, but not my memory. What little I could learn, I have not forgotten.'
'Show me then,' challenged the potter, scooping a handful of wet clay from a wooden trough.
Taran smiled sadly and shook his head. 'I halted only to give you greeting,' he replied. 'Now I labor with swords, not earthen bowls.' Nevertheless, he paused. The hearth light glowed on shelves and rows of pottery, of graceful wine jars, of ewers handsomely and lovingly crafted. Quickly he took the cool clay and cast it upon the wheel which Annlaw had begun to spin. Time pressed him too closely, Taran knew; yet, as the work took form under his hands, for a moment he put down the burden of his other task. The days turned back and there was only the whirring of the wheel and the shape of the vessel born from the shapeless clay.
'Well done,' said Annlaw in a quiet voice, then added, 'I have heard how smiths and weavers throughout the Commots labor to give you arms and raiment. But my wheel cannot forge a blade nor weave a warrior's cloak, and my clay is shaped only for peaceful tasks. Alas, I can offer nothing that will serve you now.'
'You have given me more than all the others,' Taran answered, 'and I treasure it the most. My way is not the warrior's way; yet, if I do not bear my sword now, there will be no place in Prydain for the usefulness and beauty of any craftsman's handiwork. And if I fail, I will have lost all I gained from you.'
His hand faltered, for Coll's booming voice was shouting his name. Taran sprang from the wheel and, while Annlaw watched in alarm, strode out of the hut, calling a hurried farewell to the potter. Coll had already drawn his sword. In another moment, Llassar joined them. They galloped toward the camp a little way from Merin, as Coll hastily told Taran that the guard posts had sighted a band of marauders.
'They shall soon be upon us,' Coll warned. 'We should meet them before they attack our trains As a grower of turnips, I advise you to rouse a company of bowmen and a troop of good riders. Llassar and I shall try to lure them with a smaller band of warriors.'
Quickly they set their plans. Taran rode ahead, calling to the horsemen and foot soldiers, who hastily caught up their weapons and followed after him. He ordered Eilonwy and Gurgi to safety among the carts; without waiting to hear their protests, He galloped toward the fir forest covering the outlying hills.
The marauders were armed more heavily than Taran had expected. Swiftly they sped down from the snow- covered ridge. At a sign from Taran, the bowmen raced and flung themselves into a shallow gully, and the mounted warriors of the Commots wheeled to the charge. The riders met in a turmoil of hoofs and clash of blades. Then Taran raised his horn to his lips. At the piercing, echoing signal, the bowmen rose from cover.
It was, Taran knew, little more than a skirmish, but sharply and hotly fought; only at the last, when Coll and Llassar's band drew off many of the foe, did the marauders break and flee. Yet it was the first battle Taran had commanded as a war leader for the Prince of Don. The Commot folk had carried the day, with none of their number slain and only a few wounded. Though weary and drained of his strength, Taran's heart pounded with the joy of victory as he led the exulting warriors from the forest and back toward Merin.
As he reached the hill crest he saw flames and black billows of smoke.
At first he thought the camp had taken fire. He spurred Melynlas at top speed down the slope. As he drew closer, as the crimson tongues wavered against the sky in a bloodstained sunset and the smoke rose and spread over the valley, he saw it was the Commot burning.
Outdistancing the troop, he galloped into Merin. Among the warriors from the camp, Taran glimpsed Eilonwy and Gurgi struggling vainly to quench the flames. Coll had reached the village before him. Taran leaped from Melynlas and ran to his side.
'Too late!' Coll cried. 'The raiders circled and stormed the Commot from the rear. Merin has been put to the torch, and its folk to the sword.'
With a terrible cry of grief and rage Taran ran past the blazing cottages. The thatch had burned from the roofs, and many of the walls had split and crumbled. So it was with the hut of Annlaw, which still smouldered, its ruins open to the sky. The body of the potter lay amid the rubble. Of the work of his hands, all had been shattered. The wheel was overturned, the bowl flung into pieces.
Taran dropped to his knees. Coll's hand was on his shoulder, but he drew himself away and stared up at the old warrior. 'Did I shout for victory today?' he whispered hoarsely. 'Small comfort to folk who once befriended me. Have I served them well? The blood of Merin is on my hands.'
Later, Llassar spoke apart with Coll. 'The Wanderer has not stirred from the potter's hut,' the shepherd murmured. 'It is harsh enough for each man to bear his own wound. But he who leads bears the wounds of all who follow him.'
Coll nodded. 'Leave him where he chooses to be. In the morning he will be well,' he added, 'though likely never healed.'
BY MIDWINTER, the last of the war bands had been gathered and the Commot warriors dispatched to Caer Dathyl. In addition to a troop of horsemen, Llassar, Hevydd, and Llonio still remained with Taran, who now led the companions northwestward through the Llawgadarn Mountains. The force was strong enough to safeguard their progress without slowing their journey.
Twice, marauders attacked them, and twice Taran's followers beat them off, inflicting heavy losses. The raiders, having learned a bitter lesson from the war leader who rode under the ensign of the White Pig, slunk away and dared harass the columns no further. The companions passed swiftly and unhindered through the foothills of the Eagle Mountains. Gurgi still proudly carried the banner which snapped and fluttered in the sharp winds lashing
