The Language of Stones. Robert Goldthwaite Carter

then Eldmar had raised his voice and led the others through the verses.

      Will felt a tear come to the corner of his eye. He sniffed, fighting the sadness away, knowing very well that it was no use pining for home now. He stood up and went to stand alone and a feeling of such strangeness came over him then that his eyes rolled up into his head and his hands went deathly cold and it was as if all the world was melting away before him. And when he opened his eyes he saw a ghostly army of ten thousand filling the space below, and he knew they were gathering here before starting their heroes’ march to Badon Hill where great deeds of war would soon be accomplished.

      He saw them clear as day, saw their burnished war gear, watched them shake the charms on their spearheads and clash their spearshafts against shields that bore the device of the hawk. He saw their faces, and heard them raise such a shout that it echoed across a forsaken land like rolling thunder. And he stared back, enthralled, standing at the edge, lifting up his arms, to shout in reply, ‘Anh farh bouaidan! An ger bouaidhane!’

      Then Gwydion’s arms were instantly around him, and the echoes were rolling around the hill as he shook himself out of the vision and when he came to himself he was cold as death and he could still hear the horns of Elfland faintly blowing.

      ‘Where am I?’ he said, falling.

      The wizard drew him back from the edge. ‘Do not sit here. Do you see how it is bare of grass? That is where dragon’s blood once was spilt. Nothing has grown here since.’

      He staggered in the wizard’s arms as vague fears flashed through him. For a moment he wondered if he had unleashed some unnamed peril upon them, but when he looked up at the sky, only the cold stars shone down, pitiless as the glint in a dragon’s eye.

      His words came all in a rush. ‘Master Gwydion, let me go home. I can’t be this Child of Destiny you’ve been looking for, really I—’

      ‘Easy, lad. The Rede of Foolishness says, “Talk not about things whereof you know nothing.” You are what you are. Stop fighting yourself.’

      For a moment Gwydion’s answer put a stone in his heart, but then he saw a shooting star flare and its beauty so moved him that he wept. The wizard laid a comforting arm across his shoulders and Will leaned against him and soon he began to drowse. It seemed he had been sleeping half the night when he woke up with a start to find that all was still and silent. Gwydion was nowhere to be seen, so he got up and began to look around. This time he was careful to respect the bare patch as if it was a gravestone. He walked around the top of the hill, telling himself not to worry, then he stumbled over something hard and sharp that was half buried in the grass.

      When he knelt down to try to discover what it was, it felt cold to his fingers, like metal, and as he scraped the hard earth from around it he saw that it was curved, a metal rim – like the edge of a goblet – sticking out of the ground.

      The more he scraped the freer the goblet became, until he was able to pull it out. Then he saw it was no goblet at all, but a horn, clogged with earth, the silverwork upon it battered and tarnished black but a horn all the same. It was not the sort that shepherds blew, but the kind warriors winded to send a warning clear across a valley. Even in the starlight he could see there were words cut in the metal.

      He knocked the dirt out of it and tucked it into his bundle. Then, with a heavy sigh, he lay down to sleep.

      

      The next day they travelled onward, following the meandering path that climbed up the ridge. They passed a great bank of bracken that was overgrown with bindweed. It parted before Gwydion’s steps, and the many pale pink flowers closed up and seemed to nod respectfully as he climbed up between them. Will saw revealed another ancient earth enclosure much like the one in which they had rested on their way to the Wychwoode. This ruin was round in form, and Gwydion said it was the remains of a burgh, a dwelling camp, built in a time when all men raised their homes in timber and thatch and did not arrogantly root out the bones of the earth for the sake of vanity.

      ‘They used only those stones which the earth itself offered up. A great gate once stood here. How wondrously worked were the timbers of that camp, how great the magic knotted into its carven beams. But great though the ancient camps were, all of them fell easily to the iron-girt invader.’ Gwydion’s eyes flashed. ‘There was no defence against Slaver steel and Slaver sorcery once the Isles were betrayed. The Slavers were the beginning of the darkness that has ever since shadowed this land. I do not say such a thing easily, but I would that Gruech had never lived!’

      ‘Gruech? Who’s he?’

      ‘A foul traitor! One whose bones lie in a dusty cave far away.’ Gwydion grunted. ‘Let me tell you how it was: King Hely reigned forty-four years, longer than any king of the line of Brea since Dunval the Great, and his first son was called Ludd. When Ludd became king, he rebuilt Trinovant, the city that Brea had founded near a thousand years before. So great were King Ludd’s works that the city was renamed Caer Ludd, in his honour, but on his death the name Trinovant was taken up again. Ludd’s body was interred in one of the great gates of the city that bears his name – Luddsgate. It was I who gave his funeral oration, and at that time I made known certain truths that disqualified Ludd’s son, Androg, from the kingship.

      ‘This was well done, for Androg was possessed of a weak spirit, and four years after Ludd’s death, during the reign of his brother Caswalan, there turned out to be much work for a strong leader. The mighty power from the East that we called “the Slavers” first invaded the Isles. They claimed they had come on the Day of Auspices, one thousand years to the day since the landing in the Isles of the hero Brea. By this boast they sought to terrify the people, for Iuliu, the captain-general of the Slaver army, was a famous seer and he had said that the line of Brean kings could stand only so long.

      ‘But our bards sang well their histories in reply. They countered that the true Day of Auspices must already have passed unmarked during the reign of King Hely, and Iuliu’s prediction was therefore false. Thus were our warriors heartened, and afterwards they scorned the claims of the enemy, even when what they said was true. Now as the first Slaver foot stepped upon shingle shore, the lorc awakened. It happened exactly as the fae had always intended it should. Soon a great battle was fought, and one of Ludd’s younger brothers, Neni, who was a master of many arts, fought bravely against the Slaver armies that day, though in the end he paid dearly for his enterprise. The Slavers were setting camp on the banks of the River Iesis when the great clash came. Neni’s men rushed upon them and he himself captured the Slaver sorcerer’s sword, but it cut him and the poison entered his body, so that he died of his wounds fifteen days later and was interred in another of the northern gates of Trinovant. The sorcerer’s gilded blade which he took as spoil, and which he named Thamebuide, or “yellow death”, was buried with him.

      ‘And that’s how the Slavers won the Realm?’ Will said, frowning.

      ‘Oh, not so! The Slavers’ ill-fated first invasion was ended by their captain-general, Iuliu the Seer. Ever since landing on the shingle shore, he had been troubled. He suffered falling fits and terrible night visions, both of which were conjured in his mind by the lorc. So affected was he that after the great battle fought against Caswalan and Neni, he chose to withdraw his dread army back across the Narrow Seas. He returned with it to his great capital of Tibor where he vowed never to trouble the Isles again. Iuliu the Seer became a despot upon his own people and was murdered by his friends.’

      Will scratched his head. ‘Then how did the Realm pass to the Slavers?’

      ‘A hundred years later we were betrayed by one of our own.’

      Will nodded. ‘And that must have been Gruech’s doing?’

      ‘Indeed it was. And all the worse for he was one of the druida, and a bard. There could have been no greater betrayal than his.’

      Gwydion strode onward in silence then, and a little while later they passed by some ancient stones and the wizard explained that this was the place where Welan son of Wada had forged the exquisite bronze sword called Balmung, the same that had shaved the scales from the dragon’s ribs.

      ‘These