I ran with him and suddenly I was released from fear as the mad, God-given joy of battle came to me for the very first time. Later, much later, I learned that the joy and the fear are the exact same things, the one merely transformed into the other by action, but on that summer afternoon I was suddenly elated. May God and His angels forgive me, but that day I discovered the joy that lies in battle and for a long time afterwards I craved it like a thirsty man seeking water. I ran forward, screaming like Gwlyddyn, but I was not so crazed as to follow him blindly. I moved over to the right side of the narrow path so that I could run past him when he struck the closer Silurian.
That man tried to parry Gwlyddyn's spear, but the carpenter expected the low sweep of the ash staff, and raised his own weapon above it as he thrust his weapon home. It all happened so fast. One moment the Silurian was a threatening figure in war gear, then he was gasping and twitching as Gwlyddyn rammed the heavy spearhead through the leather armour and deep into his chest. And I was already past him, yelling as I swung Hywel's sword. At that moment I felt no fear, perhaps because the soul of dead Hywel came back from the Otherworld to fill me, for suddenly I knew exactly what I had to do and my war scream was a cry of triumph.
The second man had a heartbeat's more warning than his dying companion and so he had dropped into a spearman's crouch from which he could spring forward with killing force. I leaped at him, and as the spear came at me in a bright, sun-touched lunge of steel I twisted aside and parried with my blade, not so hard as to lose control of the steel, but just enough to slide the man's weapon past my right side as I whirled the sword around. “It's all in the wrists, boy, all in the wrists,” I heard Hywel say and I shouted his name as I brought the sword hard down on to the side of the Silurian's neck. It was all so quick, so very quick. The wrist manoeuvres the sword, but the arm gives it force, and my arm held Hywel's great strength that afternoon. My steel buried itself in the Silurian's neck like an axe biting into rotten wood. At first, so green was I, I thought he had not died and I wrenched the sword free to strike at him again. I struck that second time and was aware of blood brightening the day and the man falling sideways and I could hear his choking breath and see his dying effort to pull the spear back for a second thrust, but then his life rattled in his throat and another great wash of blood ran down his leather-covered chest as he slumped on to the leaf mould.
And I stood there shaking. I suddenly wanted to cry. I had no idea what I had done. I had no sense of victory, only of guilt, and I stood shocked and motionless with my sword still embedded in the dead man's throat on which the first flies were already settling. I could not move. A bird screamed in the high leaves, then Gwlyddyn's strong arm was around my shoulders and tears were streaming down my face. “You're a good man, Derfel,” Gwlyddyn said and I turned to him and held him like a child clinging to a father. “Well done,” he said again and again, 'well done." He patted me clumsily until at last I sniffed back my tears.
“I'm sorry,” I heard myself saying.
“Sorry?” he laughed. “For what? Hywel always said you were the best he ever trained and I should have believed him. You're fast. Now come, we have to see what we've won.” I took my victim's sword scabbard that was made of willow-stiffened leather and found it fitted Hywel's sword tolerably well, then we searched the two bodies for what little plunder we could find: an unripe apple, an old coin worn smooth, two cloaks, the weapons, some leather thongs and a bone-handled knife. Gwlyddyn debated whether we should go back and fetch the two horses, then decided we did not have the time. I did not care. My vision might be blurred by tears, but I was alive and I had killed a man and I had defended my King and suddenly I was deliriously happy as Gwlyddyn led me back to the frightened fugitives and raised my arm as a sign that I had fought well.
“You made enough noise, the two of you,” Morgan snarled. “We'll have half Siluria on our heels soon. Now come! Move!”
Nimue did not seem interested in my victory, but Lunete wanted to hear all about it and in the telling I exaggerated both the enemy and the fight, and Lunete's admiration engendered even more exaggeration. She had her arm in mine again and I glanced at her dark-eyed face and wondered why I had never really noticed just how beautiful she was. Like Nimue she had a wedge-shaped face, but where Nimue's was full of a wary knowledge Lunete's was soft with a teasing warmth, and her closeness gave me new confidence as we walked on through the long afternoon until at last we turned east towards the hills of which Caer Cadarn stood like an outrider.
One hour later we stood at the edge of the woods that faced Caer Cadarn. It was late in the day, but we were in midsummer and the sun was still high in the sky and its lovely gentle light was flooding the western ramparts of Caer Cadarn with a green glow. We were a mile away from the fortress, but still close enough to see the yellow palisades atop the ramparts, close enough to see that no guards stood on those walls and no smoke rose from the small settlement inside.
But nor was there any enemy in sight, and that decided Morgan to cross the open land and climb the western path to the King's fortress. Gwlyddyn argued that we should stay in the forest till nightfall, or else go to the nearby settlement of Lindinis, but Gwlyddyn was a carpenter and Morgan a high-born lady, so he surrendered to her wishes.
We moved out into the pastureland and our shadows stretched long in front of us. The grass had been cropped short by deer or cattle, yet it was soft and lush underfoot. Nimue, who still seemed to be in a pain-haunted trance, slipped off her borrowed shoes and paced barefoot. A hawk sailed overhead and then a hare, startled by our sudden appearance, sprang out of a grassy hollow and raced nimbly away. We followed a path edged with cornflowers, ox-eyes, ragweed and dogwood. Behind us, shadowed by the sun's western slant, the woods looked dark. We were tired and ragged, but journey's end was in sight and some among us even appeared cheerful. We were bringing Mordred back to his birthplace, back to Dumnonia's royal hill, but before we were even halfway to that glorious green refuge, the enemy appeared behind us.
Gundleus's war-band appeared. Not just the horsemen who had ridden to Ynys Wydryn in the morning, but his spearmen too. Gundleus must have known all along where we would go and so he had brought his surviving cavalrymen and over a hundred spearmen to this sacred place of Dumnonia's kings. And even if he had not been forced to pursue the baby King, then Gundleus would still have come to Caer Cadarn, for he wanted nothing less than the crown of Dumnonia, and Caer Cadarn was where that crown was bestowed upon the ruler's head. Who held Caer Cadarn held Dumnonia, the old saying went, and who held Dumnonia held Britain.
The Silurian horsemen spurred ahead of their spearmen. It would take them only a few minutes to reach us and I knew that none of us, not even the swiftest runners, could reach the long slopes of the fortress before those horsemen swept around us with slashing steel and stabbing spears. I went to Nimue's side and saw that her thin face was drawn and tired, and her remaining eye bruised and tearful. “Nimue?” I said.
“It's all right, Derfel.” She seemed annoyed that I wanted to take care of her. She was mad, I decided. Of all the living who had survived this terrible day, she had survived the worst experience of all and it had driven her to a place I could neither follow nor understand. “I do love you,” I said, trying to touch her soul with tenderness.
“Me? Not Lunete?” Nimue said angrily. She was not looking at me, but towards the fortress, while I turned and stared at the approaching horsemen who had spread into a long line like men intent on flushing game. Their cloaks lay on their horses' rumps, their scabbards hung down beside their dangling boots, and the sun glinted on spear-points and lit the banner of the fox. Gundleus rode beneath the banner, the iron helmet with its fox-tail crest on his head. Ladwys was beside him, a sword in her hand, while Tanaburs, his long robe flapping, rode a grey horse close beside his King. I was going to die, I thought, on the day that I had become a man. That realization seemed very cruel.