Hywell and Elwyn grinned at him.
“But I did not expect you to conspire behind my back, not with Gerwyn, of all people.”
Hywel pulled a face. “I did not conspire with him. I overheard him tell his friends he was going with you, and they said they were going too. I wasn’t going to let them go without me, and I said as much to Emlyn here. Of course he then insisted on coming along.”
“Aye,” Emlyn confirmed. “So we confronted Gerwyn and, well, that was that.”
“Sounds more complicated than any conspiracy,” Dodinal said, with a low chuckle.
They continued in companionable silence.
After a while they heard sounds in the distance, and Dodinal realised they were close to Madoc’s village. He said as much to Gerwyn, who was keen to call on the chieftain, to tell him what had happened. “He knew my father. He would want to know of his death.”
Dodinal would rather have continued uninterrupted, so they could cover as much ground as possible before having to make camp for the night. They had no idea how far north the creatures had travelled but it was reasonable to assume they were many miles ahead of them. Any delay could mean the difference between finding Owain alive and finding him dead.
At the same time, he understood why Gerwyn would want to talk to one chieftain about the passing of another. So he agreed with good grace. There would be no need for them to stay long. Let Gerwyn tell his story. Then they would be away.
Sawing and hammering and the thump of axes on wood rang out through the forest well before Madoc’s village came into sight. Dodinal nodded his approval. His warning about strengthening their meagre defences had obviously been heeded.
The cropped-haired chieftain seemed surprised but pleased to see them. The work continued around him when he walked out to greet them at the edge of the forest, calling out to announce their presence. A trench was being dug around the village perimeter. Stakes had been piled on the ground nearby, ready to form a palisade, while two men were nailing lengths of timber together to fashion a gate. Dodinal could not bring himself to tell them their efforts would have all been for nothing should the creatures come in search of fresh prey.
Madoc summoned his men and they put down their tools and gathered around, while Gerwyn told the tale as it had been recounted to him. Their faces darkened when he spoke of the creatures that had attacked the village. Several men made quick gestures to ward off evil. Then Gerwyn described how his father had died, and several of them cried out in dismay. He told the tale so well, for one who had not been there, that Dodinal was impressed despite himself.
“I am sorry,” Madoc said, reaching out to clasp Gerwyn’s shoulder. “Your father was a good man. We shared many a drink and plenty of laughter at the gatherings over the years. For him to meet his end in such a manner is an insult. He deserved better.”
“That is not the end of it.” Gerwyn explained how Owain had been taken, and the girl Annwen too. When he was done, there was a heavy silence. Men bowed their heads, or stared with renewed anxiety into the forest, as though fearful the creatures were lurking just out of sight within the trees, waiting to pounce.
“So you are hunting them down?” Madoc asked eventually, looking not at Gerwyn but at Dodinal.
Dodinal nodded.
“Then I will hunt them with you.”
Dodinal inwardly groaned, having heard the same too often already. Before he had the chance to respond and decline the chieftain’s offer with as much grace as he could muster, another voice called out, “As will I.”
It was the man he had last seen trying to comfort his wife as she prayed over her son’s dead body, laid out on the table in Madoc’s hut. The father of the boy Wyn. His eyes had been red with grief then; now, they were bright with anger.
“Gwythyr, no,” Madoc said. “I forbid it. This is no time to forsake your woman. She needs you at her side.”
The man Gwythyr barked a short, bitter laugh. “She does not know I am here, does not even know who I am. She just sits at the grave we dug for our boy, whispering her prayers over and over. You cannot leave and expect me to stay, Madoc. It was my child those inhuman bastards took, not yours.”
Gerwyn followed this exchange silently. Then he spoke. “Any man who wishes to join us is welcome.”
Dodinal’s shoulders slumped. The way this was going. their small group would soon grow into a small army. More people meant more noise, for no man could travel as stealthily as he. They would have to move quietly if they were to avoid alerting the creatures to their presence, when they eventually tracked them down.
Yet, for all his reluctance, he did not object. Gwythyr’s point had been well made. Who was Dodinal to refuse him when it was not his child who had been taken; nor any of his kin, come to that?
Again Madoc gazed around at his assembled men, then glanced at Dodinal. Dodinal gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. “I hear what you say,” Madoc told the grieving father. “You have the right to avenge your son, and so you will come with us. As for the rest of you, you will remain here, to work on the fortifications and defend the village if there is need of it.”
Once he had finished speaking, the men wandered off and returned to their tasks without a word of protest. None of them had volunteered to join their quest. If anything, they had looked relieved when they were told they must stay. Dodinal bore them no grudge. He could understand their fear.
Madoc and Gwythyr went briefly inside the chieftain’s hut. When they emerged, they were burdened with shields, weapons and packs. Wyn’s father made no effort to bid farewell to his wife, shaking his head firmly when Madoc suggested it. Dodinal was no stranger to the hatred that smouldered inside the man. It did not allow for sentiment. Gwythyr would want to be away without delay or hindrance.
They departed without fuss or goodbyes, Dodinal picking up the trail almost as soon as they had crossed the village boundary. The forest echoed with the sounds of labour. It would not be long before the defences were complete. He hoped they were not put to the test before Madoc returned. He suspected the village would stand or fall depending on whether the chieftain was there to help defend it.
The afternoon passed uneventfully. They stopped to rest only briefly for, by unspoken agreement, all seven men were keen to push on and take advantage of the daylight hours. Once night fell, they would have to pitch camp.
After a time they began to hear a rumbling in the distance.
“We’ll not go hungry tonight.” Madoc gestured vaguely ahead of them. “The river’s half an hour away, maybe less. Good fishing.”
Dodinal smiled sadly as a memory came to him, of Idris dismissing fish as food for babies and the very old, for the toothless. Like the effusive chieftain, he, too, preferred the taste of meat. But even fish was better than nothing, and they had to eat. Men did not fight well, or march well, on empty stomachs.
The roaring grew louder the closer they got to the river, until it was like the roar of a gale through the trees and they had to raise their voices to make themselves heard. Finally they emerged from the forest onto the wide bank of a raging torrent, the clear water swollen with snow-melt, foaming and turbulent, alive with eddies and swirls as it swept past them. The spray quickly soaked them through.
The far side of the bank was an unbroken wall of forest, mirroring their own. Dodinal sensed the land there was bereft of game too, yet even had it teemed with wildlife, it would have been cruelly out of reach. They had no way of crossing the river. They dared not even attempt it. Dodinal was consoled by the realisation that the creatures could not have crossed it either.
The constant rumble and rush was deafening, but their ears soon became accustomed to it as they proceeded upriver along the bank. The ground was rocky, the going firm underfoot, but even so, they made sure not to wander too close to the edge. After the melting snows, the water was almost level with the top of the bank, where the earth had turned to slippery mud. A man who lost his footing would be swept away to certain death.