A rough jostling woke her up, so abruptly that the jostler was gone before she could get her bearings. She sat up slowly, and realized that Taran was making rounds of them all, urging them awake with repetitive sputterings of, "He's gone! Get up, wake up! He's gone!"
"Who's gone?" Fflewddur mumbled, his long face cracking in a tremendous yawn.
"Ellidyr!" the boy cried. The word came distantly, as he was already running away from them, into the surrounding trees. Eilonwy looked around in alarm at the faces of her companions, as everyone scrambled clumsily to their feet and looked about in confusion. Taran, after crashing through the woods, came running back, flushed and agitated. "He's done it," he gasped. "Gone after the cauldron alone. He said he would and now he's done it!"
Doli slung his bow across his shoulders with a grunt. "Hmph. Stolen a march on us, has he? Well, we'll catch up to him. And if we don't, that's his concern. He doesn't know where he's going and for that matter, neither do we."
"And good riddance to him," Fflewddur added, reaching up to tussle the dead leaves from his hair. "If we have any kind of luck at all, we may not see him again."
Eilonwy sniffed in silent agreement. Let the arrogant creature go off! He had never wanted to be part of their company in the first place. At least without him there would be no one to bait Taran.
But Adaon was already moving, swift and alert. "We must overtake him quickly," he declared, his clear brow furrowed. "Ellidyr's pride and ambition swallow him up. I fear to think what might happen should the cauldron come into his hands. Come, make haste and ready the horses."
They all scrambled to follow, not without some quiet grumbling on Fflewddur's part. Eilonwy sympathized. Ellidyr had caused enough trouble already, and now here they were, thrown into confusion, forced off their mission to look after someone who manifestly didn't want to be looked after. If it was the cauldron Adaon was worried over, it made more sense to look for it than Ellidyr, to keep it from him. Of course, if they'd all just followed the original plan and gone to Gwydion, none of this would be happening. But it would do no good to harp over that now; there was nothing more obnoxious than saying "I told you so" and Taran was in bad enough humor already. Eilonwy thought, for her own comfort, of his confession and apology in the night, and made no comment as he pulled her up behind him onto Melynlas.
Adaon led them, slowly, on foot, leading his own horse as he searched the ground. Presently he crouched, examining the turf gravely. "Here is his trail, moving south. It is as I feared."
"Well, blast," Fflewddur muttered. "I was hoping he might have got disgusted with the whole business and gone home. But there's no doubt of it. He's heading to Morva."
"We shall do the same." Adaon swung himself onto Lluagor. "There is no need to slow ourselves tracking one whose destination we know. Fan out as much as you can, but keep one another in sight. If he has fallen along the way we may find him thus, but I do not hope for it."
He waved an arm and they were off, following his lead. Taran led Melynlas to a space where the trees were thin, spurring the stallion to a jog and then a canter. Eilonwy grit her teeth, fighting back a wave of exhaustion, and tightened her knees as the horse's back jolted beneath her. Llyr, if she'd only not lost her own mount!
The terrain was too rugged, the horses too fatigued, to maintain much speed for long. From canter to trot, to walk, to trot again, they rode for an hour before convening together and halting for a rest, shivering against the chilling wind, wrapping their cloaks about themselves. Adaon sat wearily on a boulder. "I do not know if we can overtake him," he admitted. "He rides as swiftly as we, and is nearly a quarter-day's journey ahead of us."
Taran slid from the saddle with a groan and fell to his knees, pushing his palms into his eyes. At the same moment there came a twitter of high birdsong. Eilonwy, distracted by Taran's distress, registered it only vaguely, with an unsettling sense of incongruence. It seemed strange, somehow, but she couldn't quite…
Adaon sprang up. "That is not the true speech of a bird! The Huntsmen have found us!"
In a heartbeat, before anyone else could even speak, Doli was scrambling in the direction of the sound, vanishing mid-leap over a fallen log. Adaon drew his sword. "They are close. We must stand against them; we can run from them no longer."
Taran had scrambled to his feet, holding out his hand for Eilonwy and pulling her up. Her heart pounded, flooded with that strange mix of excitement and dread she remembered from the battle at Caer Dathyl. There was something powerful about the decision to turn and fight at last, something that, despite the danger, made her blood quicken and her mind reject fear. She clutched Taran's sleeve, his presence an emboldening security. Adaon looked them all over. All his peaceful, placid demeanor was gone; his eyes were bright and calculating, his movements swift and self-assured. "Taran, Gurgi, Princess: ready your bows. Fflewddur, to your mount. We move on my command."
They hastened to obey. Eilonwy was still stringing her bow when in a violent scuffle of dry leaves, Doli reappeared, panting. "Five of them!" he shouted. "Go on, the rest of you. I'll play them the same trick."
"No," Adaon said. "I do not trust it to work again. Hurry, follow me." He swung upon the back of Lluagor, a grim and determined set to his face, and spurred the horse forward. They ran after him through a clearing, halting on its far side. "Take cover in the brush, you on foot," he commanded. "Here we make our stand. As soon as they come in sight, Fflewddur, Doli and I will charge them from the flank. When they turn to give battle, loose your arrows."
No sooner had he turned to face the open space than there was a flurry of movement and noise, and the shaggy dread shapes burst through the trees. As one, the men on horseback galloped into their midst. Battle cries rang through the air. Blades flashed in deadly arcs, ringing as they clashed. Doli lay about him with his axe. Eilonwy drew her bow, tried to remember and bring up any magic that might help, but excitement blanked her mind; nothing came, of course, nothing, now when they could actually use it! She hissed out an oath as their arrows flew wild, none finding their mark, and quickly drew another.
But the melee was already in confusion, and there was no safe mark to shoot without risking the lives of her companions. Taran threw his bow to the ground with a shout. "We are fighting uselessly!"
Before Eilonwy could react he had leapt from their cover, drawn his sword and raced toward Adaon, who had been cut off from the bard and dwarf. Terror gripped her, froze her limbs in a wave of fear that was almost palpable, a fall through thin ice into a frigid lake. She cried out once, but could not move — not when she saw Taran drive one Huntsmen to his knees, not when the snarling creature snatched a dagger from his belt and raise his arm to throw…not even when, in a sudden whirl of sweat-streaked horsehide and the flash of a sword in a downstroke, Lluagor and Adaon cut off her view.
Melynlas, wild with battle-rage, was screaming in fury at being left behind. Gurgi yelped, leaping around him and snatching at his bridle. The scuffle broke her spell; she dove sideways, dodging the stallion's plunging legs and the angry toss of his head; a flying rein cracked her shoulder and across her cheek like a whip. For a few terrible moments the whole world was nothing but pain and crashing brush and snorting, struggling horse, the loud and awful cries of fighting men and the bright, crackling surge of do not die singing through every limb as her body reacted upon instinct, quick and desperate and strong beyond belief. She caught the reins, shouting, flooded with the communion of the horse's madness; he sensed her; allowed her to force him back, trembling with energy barely constrained by will.
Dimly she heard Taran and Fflewddur shouting, and more crashing of broken limbs and trampling hooves. Whirling, she saw a confusion of color and movement — horses and shaggy shapes disappearing into the trees, all but Lluagor, who moved confusedly. Taran had her by the bridle…Taran! Eilonwy almost cried out in relief at the sight of him, but the sound died in her throat. His face was white with fear, and his right arm was raised high in awkward support of the figure slumped over the horse's neck, where a streak of dark red was spreading downward, a banner of dreadful revelation.
Her heart dove into her knees, taking all thought with it, mind blanked of all but the single word no. No…no…no. It repeated itself like her own heartbeat, pulsing through a sense of time suddenly slow, sending ripples over the surface of her consciousness, breaking upon its edges. It played like a chant, an ocean of thoughts that could funnel itself into one stream of will; if only it did not stop flowing, perhaps she could force reality to follow it. Caught in the current, her mind was useless, but her body reacted automatically; she tore from the brush and raced toward them, choking over every breath.
Taran met her halfway, his stricken eyes telling her the truth before he could. "Adaon?" she gasped out, a world in one word.
"He's been wounded." Saying it seemed to tear his throat, heave up from his lungs like a sickness. "We've got to get him away from here; help me hold him up, please!"
The plea seemed directed at more than her. Eilonwy wasted no time with questions, scrambling to Lluagor's other side and reaching up with both arms to steady the man in the saddle. Adaon's face was turned away, buried within the mare's dark mane, where his hand clutched, white-knuckled. He said nothing, but his breath was shallow, and filled with a horrible rasping, a sound that made her stomach churn in sick fear.
Taran plunged into the trees and she followed, Gurgi tearing behind them with Melynlas. Brambles tore at them and dead vines clung like nets, and she pressed as near to Lluagor as she could, letting the horse act as shield and trailblazer. Still she stumbled and fell, heard Adaon grunt as her supporting hands fell away. Landing among the dead leaves, she scrambled up quickly, trying not to let the smell and sight of the blood that streaked them reach her mind. Nothing, it was nothing…she pushed them back, just like the sob that wanted to burst from her chest, and hastened to regain her position, reaching out to prop up their suffering friend.
But even on horseback, Adaon felt heavy, as heavy and unwieldy as an inanimate sack of meal thrown over the saddle, nothing left of the easy grace and strength that had carried him there. From the mare's other side she could hear Taran's hoarse and irregular panting interrupted by involuntary groans of desperate exhaustion, and knew he was running blindly, with no goal except away, away, in an irrational attempt to outrun the truth.
The wind raked them with icy claws as they scaled a hill where the trees were thin. On the downward slope there was a sudden dip into a glade of alders, the steep shoulder of the land sheltering it from the gale. Adaon stirred as they descended, raising his head and looking about; when he turned his face toward her Eilonwy sucked in her breath in horror; his skin was gray and clammy as mist, lips pale, eyes dull. He made a weak gesture with one hand, signaling them to halt, and Taran obeyed, scudding to a stop. Adaon leaned over the horse's neck again. "Put me down," he murmured, his voice hoarse and hollow. "Leave me. I can go no farther." He took a quick breath, painful to hear. "How do the bard and Doli fare?"
"They have led the Huntsmen away from us," Taran assured him, with the stammering speed of one trying to convince himself as much as anyone else. "We are safe here for a while. I know Doli can throw them off our trail, and Fflewddur will help him. They'll join us again somehow, I'm sure."
Adaon slid sideways with obvious intent, and Eilonwy ran to join Taran in assisting him. His descent was more fall than dismount, and he groaned when his feet touched the ground, knees buckling. Taran took the brunt of his landing, but she staggered beneath the additional weight and shouted for Gurgi, who came running. Between them they carried their companion to a hillock where the turf was thick and laid him down. "There now," Taran said, "you can rest here. I'll fetch your medicines from the saddlebags."
Adaon nodded, his eyes closed. "Water," he whispered; Eilonwy rose, and ran back to the horses, tried not to look at the red-stained hide of Lluagor while she retrieved his flask. Taran and Gurgi brought the saddle to prop up his head. Adaon drank and coughed weakly, turning his face aside, and she wanted to look away, but it seemed cowardly; she would not fail while Taran crouched there, sponging the blood from his friend's mouth with a handful of his own shirt. Gurgi whimpered, and curled against his side.
Above them, the branches tossed in the wind, but in this hollow the stillness was like a blanket. Sunlight broke through the clouds in golden shafts, bathing them in light and warmth. Adaon's gray eyes opened and looked wearily about him, at the golden glow upon the trees. A faint smile touched the corners of his mouth. "This is a fair place," he murmured. "Yes. I shall rest here."
"We shall heal your wound." Taran's voice shook, and Eilonwy looked up at him in alarm. His hands were trembling as he tore open a paper packet. "You'll soon be comfortable, and if we must move, we can make a litter from branches and sling it between the horses." He met her gaze then, panic plain in his eyes. "These herbs must be steeped. Can you find something for…?"
She nodded mutely, her heart wrung by his expression, by the earnest desperation, by her own inability to answer it. How could he not know? He had, perhaps, not seen this sort of thing to the same extent that she had, but he must know. There was nothing to be done.
But it didn't matter. She would do it anyway; she could not refuse him the attempt, not when he looked so. Hurrying to the saddlebags and rummaging among them, she tried not to hear their low voices, tried to block out the sound of Adaon insisting that he was comfortable, that the little glade was as warm as spring. She shivered.
"Adaon!" Taran's voice, alarmed. "This is what you dreamed." A murmur of affirmation, and then the boy's voice rose, almost accusatory. "You knew! You knew there would be peril for you, and yet you let me choose! Why did you not speak of it before? I would never have sought the Marshes. We could have turned back."
Eilonwy froze, hands halting in their search. "It is true," Adaon answered softly. "Indeed, that is why I dared not speak. I have yearned to be again at the side of my beloved Arianllyn, and my thoughts are with her now."
Arianllyn, poor girl, who would tell her—? A sob burst from her throat and she laid her head upon the open pack, breathing in leather, listening. "But had I chosen to return," Adaon went on, "I would ever wonder whether my choice was made through wisdom or following the wishes of my own heart. I see this is as it must be, and the destiny laid upon me. I am content to die here."
Taran's anguish beat upon her ears. "You saved my life. You will not lose your own life for me. We shall find our way to Caer Cadarn and Gwydion."
More murmurings, too low to hear; she gasped, and her hands frantically swept the contents of the pack, found a wooden bowl and snatched it up, ran with it back to them as she sloshed the water flask over it. Taran turned to take it without looking at her; his eyes were only for the man on the ground, whose eyes had shut, his face serene. Were it not for his pallor, or the dark stain that seeped from his side into the turf, Adaon might have been anyone going to sleep.
But sleep didn't breathe that way, shallow and quick and fading into a terrible silence, into nothing, and though no death she had ever witnessed had been so accepted and peaceful, she knew it just the same, felt it in her very being: the winking out of a light, a flame burnt to its end and snuffed, there one moment and gone, irrevocably, the next. Where did it go? —and how, and…why?
Why?
Taran was leaning over Adaon anxiously, the bowl of water still clutched, forgotten, in his hands. He said Adaon's name, a questioning plea, and then again, in dawning realization, and the bowl shook, splashing water over the still chest. Eilonwy reached out, holding her breath, and took it from him gently.
A small object tumbled from his right hand, landing in the folds of Adaon's cloak; it was the iron brooch he had worn at his collar. She picked it up and cradled it in her palm, and Taran stared at it, with the confused, lost air of one who could not comprehend what had happened. "It was her gift to him," he stammered. "His…Arianllyn's. He made me take it." He gasped suddenly, and the words came out in an anguished cry, a sound that sounded more like anger or disbelief than grief. "He made me take it!"
His fingers scrabbled in her grasp, clutching at the brooch and then her hand, gripping it as if he feared she would also disappear if he let go. She wrapped her free arm around him and he broke against her shoulder, wracked in an agony of sorrow that shook them both like an earthquake. She held him fast, washed over with his pain until it was hers, and wept — for his grief, for Adaon, for all the deaths she had ever seen, for those she had not seen but had torn pieces from her, somehow, all the same. Gone, all, where none could follow, none could find them, leaving behind empty spaces where they ought to have been.
Gurgi came to them and pressed his warm bulk against their huddled figures, whining and whimpering, and Taran reached out for him, too, sinking his cold hand into the matted fur. "My fault," he groaned. "He was wounded saving me. I should have stayed where he ordered us. It's always my…" He broke off, and she remembered, after the fall of Spiral Castle, how he had mourned Gwydion, blamed himself for being the indirect cause of his death. There would be no joyful surprise this time, no waking up to find it all a nightmare, though her mind could not quite grasp this, and half-expected Adaon to open his eyes and smile at them any moment.
"He did for you just as you did for him," she said fiercely against Taran's shoulder, "and as any of us would have for the other. It's no more your fault than it's the chicks' fault when a fox steals a hen. He knew, and he didn't try to stop us." An ambivalent flicker of anger tingled through her. Adaon had allowed them to be led to this end, knowing the risk, and then left them to their pain and loss. His troubles were over, but what would they do now, who would lead them? How could he—
But no. She shoved the guilty thought away as unworthy; it was an unjust thing to think ill of the dead, particularly he who had died saving another. "We all knew this quest would be dangerous," she said, muffled into Taran's cloak. "It could have been any one of us."
"It shouldn't have been him." He was shuddering, his voice cracking like dry twigs. "You don't…don't understand; you barely knew him. He didn't want to fight. He didn't come for…for honor, or glory, or adventure. He only came because there was need, and all he wanted was to be done and go home in peace." He choked on a sob. "Not like me, running off like a fool, thinking battles would be…exciting. It should have been me."
"No, no!" Gurgi broke in, nuzzling Taran beneath the chin. "Wise master must not speak such hurtful sayings! He is kind and brave and good, and as much worth saving as all others!" He looked at Adaon's face, and his odd, black-nailed hands stroked the pale brow gently. "This great lord had a heart full of boldness and love. He has given master the greatest of gifts. Master must not waste it with tears and fears of being unworthy."
Eilonwy tightened her arm. "There," she whispered, "you see? I may not have known him as you did. But I know you, Taran of Caer Dallben. And I say Gurgi speaks the truth." She felt him shudder again, but his breath was slowing, the jerking spasms in his ribs easing away. "Anyway, Adaon thought you were worth saving," she added, "so even if you don't believe it yourself, don't insult him by saying he was wrong."
He sighed, a long and wavering exhale, and sat still, the three of them huddled close together for long moments, breathing in each others' warmth, tears still spilling hot, spotting jackets and cloaks and streaking faces. Finally Taran stirred, and she let her arms fall loose as he sat up; she searched his face, saw the weariness and exhaustion of sorrow that drained his eyes and cheeks and lips, but his jaw set firm. "We must honor him as best we can," he said. "We cannot leave him to the elements and beasts."
He rose and drew his sword, used the blade to cut into the thick turf, cubing it and pulling up chunks of loosened sod. Eilonwy assisted him as best she could with her dagger. Gurgi piled the sod chunks nearby, and collected flat stones to lay upon the bare earth. It was grueling work to dig anything as large as they needed, and they sweated in spite of the cold as they stood at last around the finished grave.
No one spoke. Eilonwy felt hollow, staring at the depression in the ground, a terrible symbol of finality. Coll had told her, once, that he felt no fear of returning to the earth, and she had been comforted by it, there in the verdant harvest fields of Caer Dallben. But this…this was a hole, cold, and alone, and far off in the wilderness. Who would visit this barrow, would know the story of who lay beneath it? How many such graves were scattered through the woods and fields of Prydain, unknown and unsung? Perhaps her own father and mother slept beneath such. Who had buried them? Had anyone? Where would her own body lie, and how long would she be remembered? She turned away from the sight, the hollow in her belly growing to a sick and heavy weight, as though she had swallowed a boulder.
Behind her she heard Taran scuffling, and he called her name. "I can't move him alone."
She turned, and crouched, and helped him wrap Adaon in his cloak, wincing at the heaviness of lifeless limbs, the drag of his body as they lifted and moved him to the shallow hole, a sensation she felt she would never forget. Taran stood motionless for several minutes before reaching for a clump of sod.
Lluagor, with a low whicker, had come ambling toward them. She snuffled at the turf where her master had lain, laying her ears back at the scent of blood, and pawed nervously at the broken ground. Gurgi stood at her head and crooned to her gently, stroking her nose, while the others covered her master and piled boulders in a mound over the turf.
In one corner, sheltered from the winds, late summer harebell blooms still clung to life. She gathered them by the handful, and scattered them upon the grave, where they glowed against the rocks, as though they had grown from cracks in the stone.
"That was in his dream, too," Taran murmured.
They huddled in their cloaks as the sun sank, silent, eating provisions from Gurgi's wallet, though no one had much appetite. For most of the day, preoccupied with their sorrowful tasks, Eilonwy had given only cursory thought to Fflewddur and Doli. But now, with nothing more to do but wait, the absence pressed upon all their spirits, and fear for their safety kept her restless, looking up at every snap of twig. But there was no sign of them, and when night fell about them she lay down with Gurgi at her back, and gave up all hope of seeing them soon. Taran lay at her other side, too exhausted to set a guard or stand watch. "We'll stay until dawn," he said wearily, "and hope they find us. But after that we dare not remain. I fear we have lost more than one gallant friend today."
She turned toward him, but he had rolled to his side, facing away from her, huddled into his cloak. "Adaon warned that I would grieve," she heard him murmur, to no one but himself. "And so I do, thrice over."
His shoulders jerked and she knew he wept again. She longed to comfort him, but he was just out of arm's reach, and she could not make herself close the space, somehow, despite how easy, how natural the impulse had been that afternoon. Now the gap was wide, crossing it a boldness that took more energy than she had, and she felt rebuffed, and hurt, and a little angry. If he wanted to separate himself so, as though his mourning was somehow unique and unable to be consoled…if he thought so little of her comfort….well, then. He could have what he wanted.
She turned back toward the night sky, a hot lump in her throat, and watched the stars waver through the fluid sheen of tears until blessed darkness blotted them out.
