Llenlleawg stared at me. 'This,' I told him, raising the harp, 'is the Heart of Oak. In the hands of a True Bard it burns with life-giving song, but is not consumed. This is the way I must go.'
So saying, I struck the harp with the palm of my hand and the strings gave forth a sound like a chorused shout. Sweet the sound! My heart thrilled to hear it.
May the Gifting Giver be good to you, Taliesin! May you enjoy peace and plenty in the Great King's heavenly hall, and may you sing heartfelt praise to the Lord of Life for ever!
'Come!' I shouted. 'We must hurry. Arthur is waiting and I have been away far too long.'
'But it is only a day since we left,' Llenlleawg reminded me.
'No, my friend,' I replied. 'I have been away far, far longer than that. But I have returned now. Pray, Llenlleawg! Pray I am not too late!'
Impatient to be away, I mounted my horse as soon as it came ashore. 'Await the other ships and follow us when all the warbands are assembled,' I instructed Aedd. 'We ride before you to the British camp to tell Arthur to ready your welcome.'
We three – Llenlleawg, Gwenhwyvar, and I – rode as fast as we could, through the day and night, pausing only for water – only to find the camp all but deserted. A scant handful of warriors remained behind to guard the servants, women, and wounded. 'They left before dawn,' one of them told us. 'The Vandali have gathered in Glen Arwe. Five warbands – almost the entire war host.' He raised a hand to point the direction; the effort brought a wince of pain, and I noticed the arm was swollen and discoloured.
'Glen Arwe?' Llenlleawg asked.
'Aye – a half day's ride to the north,' the wounded warrior confirmed. 'Just follow the sound – you cannot go wrong.'
'Aedd and the Irish lords ride behind us,' Llenlleawg told the warrior. 'Send them on as soon as they arrive.'
With a snap of the reins we were off again. Tired as we were we made what speed we could, encountering no one on the way. But, as the warrior had promised, we heard the battleclash long before we came upon the conflict itself. The sound echoed along the river course – raw voices shouting, the crash and clatter of weapons, the rumbling thunder of horses' hooves and Vandali drums – as if the massed war hosts of all the world lay just before us. Llenlleawg halted as we entered the glen. A haze of smoke and dust obscured the way ahead.
'I want to see how the battle stands,' Gwenhwyvar stated.
'We may get a better view from there.' Llenlleawg indicated a place high on the ridge overlooking the glen.
We turned aside, forded the river – now just a scant trickle along the damp earth – and climbed the hillside to the ridgetop. When we stopped again the glen lay far below us in a pall of dust. Then, as we strained to see, the dry breeze gusted and the clouds parted. The battleground was revealed: a vicious swirling tangled mass of men and horses.
The British lords had joined combat with the Black Boar's forces, and had succeeded in dividing the enemy host into three enclaves. The usual tactic would have been to continue harassing each division, cutting into smaller and smaller sections. The Vandali, however, were standing their ground and refused to be further divided.
Llenlleawg took one look. 'It is not good,' he said, shaking his head slowly. 'Unless the enemy can be moved, and soon, Arthur might as well call off the attack; he can do nothing.'
It did appear that the assault had foundered and was, if not yet in danger of collapsing, then very close to it.
'I do not see him,' Gwenhwyvar said, scanning the churning mass below. 'Do you?'
Llenlleawg looked, too, his lower lip between his teeth. 'Strange,' he replied at last. 'Where is Arthur?'
I gazed into the chaos, searching where the battle raged hottest, looking for the familiar sight: the whirling blur of Caledvwlch and the reckless, headlong lunging that marked Britain's impetuous War Leader. But I could not find him.
Fear stole over me. I imagined Arthur's body lying broken on the blood-soaked earth, life seeping from a dozen wounds as the battle surged around him. I imagined his head struck from his shoulders to adorn a Vandal spear. I imagined him hacked to pieces…
'There!'
'Arthur? Where?'
'No – not Arthur. Someone else.' Llenlleawg's gaze narrowed as he leaned forward in the saddle. He stabbed a finger at the maelstrom below. 'Cai, I think. Yes – and he is in trouble!' The Irish champion drew his spear from its place behind his saddle and prepared to join the fight. To Gwenhwyvar, he said, 'Stay here – if Arthur is down there, I will find him.'
His mount leapt forward and Llenlleawg disappeared over the edge of the ridge. When I saw him again, he had reached the glen and was hurtling across the valley floor towards a place where a knot of Cymbrogi had become surrounded and separated by the main body and were in imminent danger of being overwhelmed.
I watched Llenlleawg flying into battle, scattering the foe before him, driving headlong into the fight. Some there are, no doubt, who would question the ability of a single warrior to redeem such a desperate plight. But there is no one I would rather have fly to my defence, whatever the odds. And any inclined to doubt that one sword more or less could make much difference can never have seen the Irish champion with the battle frenzy on him. I tell you the truth, no foe confronting the spectacle of Llenlleawg gripped in the awen of battle remained unpersuaded for long.
But where was Arthur?
I dismounted and crept to the edge of the bluff to better search the heaving mass below. The battlesound rose up like the roar of an ocean gale, the men rushing, hurling themselves into the clash like seawaves breaking against one another. Most of the Britons were mounted, but the superior numbers of Vandali and the closeness of the glen had lessened any advantage the horses provided. This, perhaps, was why the attack had been repulsed and was now in danger of disintegrating altogether.
Gazing down into the melee, I picked out Cai, at the forefront of his warband, sword whirling, trying to hack a way through the mass before him. He was attempting to reunite his force with the one nearest to him, but the enemy so securely choked the gap that far from cutting a path through, it was all he could do to keep from being swept farther away.
Bedwyr, I think, led those nearest Cai, but he was hard-pressed to prevent his warband from becoming surrounded. Cador – or Cadwallo, perhaps, I could not be certain – was being forced, step by grudging step, farther from the other two. In this way, the Vandal, moving fluid-like in and around the mounted Cymbrogi, surging into the empty places, filling them, surrounding, inundating, flowing on, were slowly reversing the tide of battle. Where was Arthur?
'Look!' shouted Gwenhwyvar behind me. 'Cador is in trouble!' Following Llenlleawg's lead, she spurred her horse forward, plunging down the hillside to join the battle. There was no stopping her; I did not even try.
The Vandali made best use of their numbers and the pinched confines of the glen to blunt the attack of the Britons, halt it, and turn it back. It now appeared Britain's battlechiefs had a rout on their hands. Something would have to be done, and soon, if the Britons were to escape a cruel beating. Where was Arthur?
I gazed from one end of the plain to the other, but could see no sign of him. Where could he be? What if he had fallen in battle? I dismissed the idea at once – if he had been cut down I would have seen some sign of it by now. Indeed, the British attack doubtless would have collapsed around him. No, I consoled myself, I did not see him because he was not there.
Llenlleawg had reached the beleaguered Cai and took his place in the forerank of the fight. His sudden, almost miraculous, appearance greatly encouraged the flagging Cymbrogi and they fought with renewed vigour to extricate themselves from their dire predicament.
Following Llenlleawg's lead they succeeded in cutting through the enemy wall between them and Bedwyr's warband, and wasted no time in reuniting the two forces. This tactic proved of only limited value, however, for as the two warbands merged, the barbarians swarmed into the gap, surrounding them both. Now, instead of two half-enclosed warbands, there was one fully encircled.