Page 85 of The Quest for Excalibur
This time I didn’t want him to share. Didn’t want to see if he found Arthur… dead. Didn’t want to even think about it. Yet did. The gnawing at my insides brought bile into my mouth. I spat and spat again.
Merlin licked lips which were probably as dry as mine, indecision in his dark eyes.
“Please,” I whispered, my voice dry with fear and tears streaking my cheeks. “Please, Merlin.”
He nodded. “All right. For you. But I warn you– it probably won’t work a second time.”
Should I watch? Or look away? My fear of what he’d find made me lower my eyes to the horns of my saddle, where my icy fingers clutched the reins.
Something told me he’d closed his eyes. I took a sideways peek. He had. His thin face had a tension about it for a moment, before it relaxed, and his shoulders shuddered and sank.
Silence pressed in. The wind that had been harrying us all day died, and the branches hung motionless above us as though we’d stepped out of the real world. The very air pressed in thick around me. Alezan’s ears flicked back and forth. She snorted. Dead leaves rustled, suddenly loud.
“He lives,” Merlin said, his voice barely above a whisper. “He is wounded, as you saw, but he lives.”
Thank God. I choked back a sob of relief. “And Cei?”
Silence.
Breath held, I waited.
“He lives.”
I heaved a sigh. One more. “Llacheu?”
An even longer silence. My heart knocked against my ribs and my mouth went sawdust-dry.
“He lives.”
Another sob escaped me, bitten back. I dug my nails into my hands, staring down at them and willing the tears not to fall. “And…Cadwy?”
Silence. “Do you care?”
Did I? No. But his death might mean change for the better. “Does he live?”
He shrugged. “I see him lying broken on the battlefield.”
How strange. I’d expected to be glad. I wasn’t. I’d hated Cadwy for so long, and now he might be gone. Why did I feel sad? Because he was not just a feared enemy, a man not to be trusted. He was a human being with a wife and son, with feelings, who I’d seen distraught over the accidental death of a servant. No one is just bad with no good in him. We’re all a mix of both.
Merlin grunted, as though in pain himself. “We have the victory.” His breathing came harsh and loud. “The Saxons have ceded defeat. The battle ends.” He sounded as though he’d been running. “The Saxon army has retreated.”
I waited for him to go on, eyes still firmly on my hands, the relief that had flooded through me on hearing Arthur lived ebbing. Even if he had survived, others, who would never return to their wives and families, had not.
“Many lie dead.” Merlin’s voice broke. He choked on his words. “Blood soaks the ground. Men, horses. Crows settle. Tearing at flesh.” He fought to get the words out from between teeth that must have been clenched. “Heads, arms, legs. Truly a battle to be proud of.” Was that bitterness in his voice?
Did he see the futility of all this, as I did? He wasn’t the Merlin of legend, no old wizard in a long gown, but a man with the Sight who happened to be a warrior too. And yet, there was about him something else. A knowing. A compassion. A sense that he saw further than the rest. Did he, perhaps, see that one day it would be the Saxons who would take over this island? Did he know I came from a world shaped by them?
Out of the corner of my eye I caught his movement as he shook himself. I turned my head and began to breathe more regularly. “Can we go? I need to be with him.”
He frowned, his head tilted to one side, listening again, like a dog. “I think so. But if I tell you to ride away, you must do so without question. At a gallop.” He straightened. “However, I’m fairly sure it’s safe to go. And Arthur will want to know you’re safe as much as you wanted to know he was.” He shortened his reins. “I’ll lead. Keep close, and we’ll take it in a walk. Give them even more time.” He beckoned to the guards who fell in on either side of us, eyeing him askance. Rarely did he give any evidence of his well-hidden powers. This would make a tale to tell around the hearth to their families.
We rode up the gentle slope to the road, through the sudden quiet of the afternoon. Only it wasn’t really quiet, any more than it had been while we’d lain in wait for the Saxons.
The storm had passed, leaving the land rainwashed but not clean. Never clean. The dead dotted the slope where they’d crawled or rolled, and already the carrion birds had settled. Crows carked raucously as they competed for the choicest morsels, pecking at the soft flesh of faces. The buzzards I’d seen circling descended for the feast, bold enough to ignore us as we rode past.
A few of the still-living moaned for help, weak-voiced and piteous. I averted my gaze, guilt for not stopping to help them almost overwhelming. Some could have been our own men, but the blood and dirt of battle hid that from me. That was my feeble excuse.
Determination to see for myself that Arthur still lived overrode everything. These men would have to wait.
