Merlin's Blade (5 page)

The wolves clawed at the heavy doors and pushed them open a crack.

Merlin slammed his body into the oak timbers, sending pain shooting through the wounds on his back. Grimacing, he lifted the bar from the floor and banged it into place. He slumped down and sucked in a mouthful of air.

Beyond the bellows, the wolf at the window grunted as it scrambled through.

Merlin's heart pounded as he found his footing and ran toward the wolf. But he tumbled over a stool and sent his knife skittering into the darkness.

Weaponless, he jumped at the workbench, hoping to find his father's latest sword, but instead his panicked hands found hammers … rasps … chisels … and scrap iron.
Where's the sword?
If only his eyes could show him. His mind sped over the previous day. Maybe his father had left it on the forge.

He turned. The wolf's dark shadow tracked nearer, now blocking his path. Its eyes lit up in the rush light: bright blurs of hunger, malice, and death.

Oh, God, please
, he prayed. It was going to happen a second time. He hefted a hammer and threw it at the wolf, which yelped in anger. Merlin's escape lay over the workbench. He planted both hands and vaulted up, but — still stiff from his flogging — his foot caught one of his father's smaller anvils. He flipped to the ground, falling on his side. His wounds screamed, and pain ripped across his back.

Sucking air through his teeth, he reached to the top of the forge and groped for the sword.

The stink of rotting flesh sickened the air as the wolf rounded the corner. It snapped its teeth and lunged at him.

In one swift motion, Merlin found the sword's makeshift wooden handle and leveled the blade's point at the wolf. With a force that knocked the breath from Merlin's lungs, the creature impaled itself on the blade, yet it still tore at Merlin's forearm, snarling and thrashing as it died.

A moment later someone pounded on the double doors. “Open up!”

Merlin heaved the dead wolf away, slid the blade from its body, and limped over to the doors. Shaking, his back in agony, he unbarred the entrance.

His father burst into the room, the bright smear of a torch in his left hand and a spear in his right. “Wolves outside. Scared them off, and the goats are fine. What's —” His father stopped speaking and surveyed the smithy. “By the High King's justice, what happened?”

“A wolf … the window,” Merlin said. The bloody sword trembled in his hand.

Small footsteps interrupted his father's stunned silence as Merlin's nine-year-old half sister, Ganieda, padded into the smithy with a dark shawl over her head. She flew around the workbench and knelt before the great wolf's body.

She stroked its head. “Poor wolf.”

Merlin touched the deep scars that emanated from his eyes and flinched as he remembered the wolves of seven years ago. “Get away from there, Ganieda!”

“She's my friend, and you murdered her.” She began to sob.

Her wolf? Merlin knew the girl had an imagination, but this?

His father examined the wolf's body and whistled. “You killed it with one blow, and with my new blade, I see.”

“I lost my dirk.”

“You almost lost your life. Look at its teeth.”

“She was just defending herself,” Ganieda said between sobs.

These words stung Merlin worse than his wounds. Had his sister ever shed a tear over his scars, or the loss of his eyesight? Never. Had she expressed her thanks to him for saving her? Not that he could remember. And with each of her sniffles and cries for the wolf, the bile rose higher in his throat. Angry words were on the tip of his tongue when his father interrupted.

“You're a foolish girl. Now get up and wash your brother's arm while I put some planks in the window.”

Merlin sat down on his bed, his head a little dizzy, and the slashes on his back beginning to burn.

Ganieda brought a wet rag from the washbucket and quietly began washing the blood from Merlin's forearm. “I'm sorry,” she finally said. “I didn't know she bit you.”

The rag dabbed lightly across his wounds, and he winced as the cold water stung.

“I forgive you,” he said, but his heart wasn't in it. Did she really care for him? He didn't know.

“You didn't have to kill her.”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

Across the smithy, his father finished sawing a plank and began pounding it in place using an iron peg.

Ganieda wrung out the rag, the water dripping and splashing into the bowl, and then ran over to their father. “Can I help?” she asked, and he directed her to hold the planks in place.

When the window was boarded up, he asked Ganieda to hold a torch while he dragged the wolf's body outside.

“Are you going to build a cairn over her?”

“It's a dead animal, Ganieda.”

“I know what you're going to do,” she said, her voice rising in timbre. “You're going to throw her in the ditch!”

“Merlin, I know you're not feeling well, but I need you to hold the torch.”

Ganieda ran shrieking from the smithy.

Merlin rose, ignoring the pain, and held the torch while his
father dragged the wolf's body out past their stacked stone wall, through their iron gate, and to a ditch at the edge of their land.

“I know I've blocked up the window, but I wouldn't blame you for joining us in the house tonight.”

“I'm fine.”

“Have it your way.”

Despite the attack, the smithy was Merlin's place, and he wouldn't leave it. From the fresh smell of his straw bed tucked against the eastern wall to the well-worn handles of the bellows near the forge — this was his home, his life. Here he could find comfort in the feel of his father's tools. The shape and coolness of the great anvil. The spinning sound of the grinding wheel. Even the acrid reek of the quench barrel.

His father left to go back to bed, and for the rest of the night, Merlin had terrible dreams about wolves. They surrounded his bed, and their claws ripped at his bloodied back. They scratched at his face, destroying the remnant of his sight. And no matter how many wolves he killed, they kept climbing through the window, each with sharper teeth and more evil eyes than the last.

Even the dawn and the rhythmic clanging of Merlin's father at the anvil didn't remove the specter. Each blur and shadow resembled a wolf.

Near midmorning, Owain completed the installation of iron bars in the window and went back to the house, leaving the smithy quiet.

Merlin hoped to get some proper sleep and was just dozing off when a knock came at the front door, which his father had left propped open.

“Excuse me … young man?” The deep, lilting voice had a slight Eirish accent.

Merlin lifted his head. “I'm here. May I help you?”

“I assume this is the smithy?”

“The shop's here. I'll get my tas to assist you. Do you need something forged?”

“No, no … thank you, but no. I am not here for the services of the notorious blacksmith.” His voice was like cream, but there was something sour hiding in it. “We are here to receive, shall we say, a visit with our kin.”

The man's voice was strangely familiar to Merlin, but he couldn't remember from where. As far back as he remembered, not a single relative had ever visited them. Certainly none from Erin, though surely he must be a relation of his stepmother, Mônda.

Yet why did Merlin recognize the voice?

The man stepped inside the smithy and walked over to him. Behind, another man followed. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Mórganthu mab Mórfryn, and this is my son, Anviv. You must be … Merlin?” He bent down and waved his fingers in front of Merlin's eyes.

Suppressing a spark of annoyance, Merlin ignored the fingers, sat up painfully, and placed the back of his hand to his forehead in a show of respect. “My father and I live here. Are you related to Mônda and my sister?”

“I am Môndargana's father. I have been away for a long time, but now I have been called here once more … I should say … to
this
somnolent village, specifically.”

Again, the voice was familiar to Merlin.

The man waved his fingers for a second time in front of Merlin, and they smelled moldy, as if he'd been digging at the rotten innards of some tree. Merlin wanted to swat them away. He turned instead to greet the son by reaching out both hands. “Anviv … Then you're sort of an uncle.”

Anviv let his hands be shaken for a moment, and they were like two marsh eels after their heads had been hit on a stone.

Merlin wiped his palms on his tunic. Still needing to greet the agitating old man, Merlin reached out toward the dark form. “Welcome, Mórganthu. Our home is yours.”

Mórganthu grasped Merlin's hands but quickly tried to pull away. Merlin decided to test the man's character and held on. Mórganthu's
fingers were thick and strong, but why didn't they have calluses? Even the monks had coarse hands from labor.
Who is this man?

Mórganthu grunted, but still Merlin wouldn't let go.

Finally, Mórganthu twisted a jagged fingernail into each of Merlin's palms.

Merlin jerked his hands away.

“Enough impudence,” Mórganthu said darkly. “Enough. We will take our —”

“Excuse me if I continue resting.” Merlin lay down again. Somehow his bed felt colder than before. “I'm sure Mônda will be happy to greet you after so long. The house is that way.” He pointed and hoped they'd go away.

Their feet crept toward the back door, which Merlin's father had also left open. Merlin lay quietly, hoping to catch the conversation.

Mórganthu rapped on the door to their house, just a few yards away.

Merlin heard footsteps and metal clicking and scraping. Then the door creaked open. “May I help you?” Mônda said. “Do you need something smithed?”

A short moment later, she screeched in joy.

“Yes, yes, it is I. And here is your brother grown into a man. Do not hold me thus, my daughter. I am not a mound spirit that will disappear with the mist.”

Merlin had never heard Mônda so giddy. “Come in … please! We'll have food ready soon, and you must join us.” The three entered, and the heavy oak door shut.

The sounds muffled, and Merlin wished he'd followed to learn more about these strange relatives.

But in a moment it didn't matter, for the voices changed to shouting. The door opened again, and someone ran from the house, presumably Anviv, since his strange father's low voice yelled as he came, cursing and struggling. “Owain! Owain, let go, you insolent son of a devil …”

Ignoring the pain as best he could, Merlin stood and hobbled outside, where he could hear better and maybe see a little.

“Eat dirt for your meal,” Merlin's father yelled.

Mórganthu crashed to the ground and shouted as Owain kicked him.

Merlin was in awe. Nearly every day his father's simmering anger boiled over, but this kind of rage was unusual. To get away from the quarrel, Merlin backed up until his feet hit one of the cabbages at the edge of the garden.

Merlin's father pushed a sobbing Mônda back into the house, where her weeping was muffled.

“Get up, druid.”

Mórganthu unbent himself and stood.

“Never enter my house again,” Owain said. “Never step on my land. You lost your welcome ten years ago, so stay out!”

Mórganthu's hand struck quickly toward the low thatch of the roof and seized what appeared to be an unwary red squirrel. It chattered frantically but could not escape. With a deliberate motion, Mórganthu drew a knife that flashed golden in the sunlight. “Heed. Take heed, Owain An Gof. If you ever lay hands on me or my kin in the future … I promise to slit you like a rodent!”

He held up the squirrel, which squealed as he plunged in the knife. Mórganthu flung the carcass away. With a sickening sound, it landed next to Merlin, and its red blood spilled and seeped into the garden.

And that was when Merlin remembered where he had heard the man's voice. It had been in the woods with Garth. These two were the men who had been carrying that strange, dark object that burned with a blue fire.

D
ybris arrived after the noon meal and brought a healing ointment of thyme for Merlin's back.

Merlin's father harrumphed. “Will it push the bellows for me too? I've lost my helper, yet I'm expected to fix Tregeagle's wagon along with all my other work.”

Dybris considered this. “I could seek permission from Prontwon to take his place. Merlin's healing shouldn't take much more than a week.”

Owain banged his hammer on the anvil, loudly. “Nah. I don't want any jabberin' monk slowing me down. Best for me to handle the bellows —”

“Blowing hot air seems to be your specialty of late.”

Merlin hoped his father wouldn't throw the monk out before the ointment was applied. Thankfully he merely banged the iron more loudly on the anvil. Merlin slid off his tunic so Dybris could rub the
healing salve into the wounds. It stung badly, and he had to stop Dybris three times because of the pain.

After the monk left, Merlin's father pulled up a stool, leaned close, and said in a low voice, “I've been thinking …”

Merlin wanted to sit up, but the burning ointment kept him in place.

His father groaned. “How do I say this? … The truth is that I don't want you to go to chapel anymore.”

“What?” Surely Merlin had misheard.

“No more chapel. These monks are causing too much trouble.”

“Look, Dybris didn't mean to get you angry —”

“That's not it.”

“Then what? Did Mônda tell you to say that?” Merlin hit the wall with his fist, but agony from the welt on his shoulder made him regret it. “She never wants me to go to chapel. Just last week she tried to kick me —”

“Leave your mother out of this.”

Merlin wanted to roll his eyes. “She's not my mother. Why don't you ever talk about my real mother?”

“Why do you keep asking, eh?” His father slid his shining armband farther up.

Merlin scowled. Mônda gave the armband to his father when they were wed, shortly after Merlin's mother drowned.

“Mônda's your mother now. It's time to accept it.”

“My mother died. You can't make me forget her.”

His father stood and paced the floor, raking a hand through his thinning black hair. “I failed her too, you know. I've made a mess of my life.”

“I didn't say that.”

“Say it, then. ‘Owain An Gof couldn't save his first wife from the water, couldn't save his ungrateful, foolish son from wolves or whips … has a difficult second wife and an unloving daughter … and he spends his time bending worthless iron.”

He clasped his hammer and struck it sideways upon the anvil.
“I should've done something different. Maybe earned a chieftain's torc. Mônda says —”

Merlin stopped listening because his father was speaking nonsense again. “Tas, you're one of the most respected men on the moor. Everyone depends on you —”

“Fie! You know the old saying:

“So? You're a master swordsmith. All the warriors —”

“Hah! You think that loafer who ordered your wolf-killing sword will even pay for it? My work is nothing but a bucket of ashes, and you make it twice as hard. Stay away from that chapel. Do you hear?”

He strode out of the smithy and slammed the back door.

The day stretched on interminably, but Merlin's father didn't return to the forge. Though a cool breeze would slip in through the open front doors now and then, it brought Merlin little relief. By late afternoon, sweat slicked his hair, and it felt as if fire seared his back. He tried to rest, but he grew more and more agitated. His head felt heavy, and at one point the room flipped upside down. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, a shadow stood over him with a whip. Merlin held out his hands and wanted to yell, but the man disappeared.

Soon the shadows convulsed again until the shape of a wolf formed between the workbenches. The light of its eyes filled the room, and it snapped and licked its teeth.

Merlin sat up in a panic. He had to get to his father. Get out of
the smithy. Get away from the wolf. His blanket turned into cobwebs as he shoved it aside and stood. The room spun, and he waited for it to right itself. He tried to walk to the door but veered left and banged his knee into the forge, which he clutched to steady himself.

His hand rested upon the edge of the new sword — the one he'd killed the wolf with. He clutched the temporary handle, lifted the blade, and turned upon the shadows.

“Leave me alone!” he called. “I've got the blade. I'll kill you again.”

The wolf's maw blazed out dizzying flames.

Merlin brought the blade up and sliced it through the air. The beast backed up. Its teeth glowed, and noxious vapors hissed from its nostrils.

Merlin's face burned. Why was he so hot? Sweat dripped down his forehead and across his scars, stinging his eyes. Once again, he raised his weapon at the creature, just as the jaws parted and it lunged at him with a howling cry.

Merlin jumped back as sparks burst from its mouth, burning his skin. He thrust the sword straight into the fiery throat. The creature's body turned into smoke and disappeared.

It was finally dead.

The weight of the blade pulled Merlin forward, and the room tilted. He fell with a black crash, and he could no longer breathe. He was floating. Sinking.

Merlin's heart and lungs threatened to burst before he felt himself begin to rise. Liquid flowed oddly against his skin. He struggled upward through the water, frantic for air, his lungs searing. He broke the surface, coughed, and sucked in the life-giving sweetness again and again.

Dark-green water surrounded him, and thunderclouds rolled above as rain poured from the sky. He wiped his face while kicking to keep afloat. He didn't know where he swam, but as in his previous vision, he could see clearly.

The world darkened again, and a burst of light jabbed into his
eyes like nails. Thunder split the heavens, and voices floated to him. Faint at first but growing stronger.

“I've nothing to bail with …” said a woman's voice.

“Keep trying,” said a man. “I'm rowing, but we've sprung a leak. The shore's not far.”

Merlin kicked his legs to spin toward the sound. A small dinghy rocked toward him. He called to it as the boat rowed nigh, but no one answered. When he reached up to grab hold of its railing, his hand touched nothing. Just air above and water below. He sank headlong, off-balance and confused.

Thrashing back up to the surface, Merlin sputtered. He glimpsed the occupants, and his heart leaped into his throat. The man was his father, though he looked younger. Was the woman Mônda?

No.

Drenched red hair lay upon her shoulders. Not his stepmother but his
mother
. Gwevian, dead now fourteen years.

Merlin called again, but the occupants didn't hear him, and the phantom boat swirled by through the swelling waves. By some miracle, some curse, he was witnessing the past.

Water lashed his face as he swam after them.

A bolt of lightning arced from the depths of the water and shot up to the sky. The entire lake lit up deathly white. Another of the fiery tongues shot up from the center of the lake and hit the boat, scorching and rending it in half. The two occupants fell into the water, stunned.

Darkness. Thunder. Merlin yelled again and swam toward the wreckage. “Father! Mother!” Water rushed into his open mouth.

Bubbles rose. His father's hand grasped a board, and he pulled himself up. Merlin tried to help, but his hand passed through his father's shoulder.

“Gwev — Gwevian!” His father hunted frantically among the flotsam, not finding her. “Gwevian!” He dove. Thrice he sought her below, each time surfacing more exhausted. Finally, his strength nearly gone, he kicked to shore, only ten yards away.

Merlin swam after him, tears streaming into the lake that had become his mother's grave.

His father collapsed on the shore, wailing in great gasps. His whole body shivered, and his mud-stained feet lay in the water.

Merlin pulled himself next to his father, tired and his limbs aching.

The moans of his father faded, and Merlin knew no more.

Garth slipped away from the planting easily enough. That lazy monk Herrik, who was supposed to be working beside him, always snuck a nap during the hottest part of the day.
What a dodger!
When he sent Garth and his wooden hoe off to the eastern slope so he himself could “get some hard work done without interruption,” Garth took his chance.

His stomach growled as he crossed the expanse of barren field between him and the Fowaven River. Abbot Prontwon had cut his tucker down to oatmeal and water for the week as punishment for crashing the magister's wagon — but they were fussing over nothing. He'd just borrowed it and planned on returning it after dropping off the charcoal.

As for the crashing, well, if that was anyone's fault, it was Merlin's. Sure, Garth had driven the horses a mite fast, but if he-who-wanted-to-slow-down-now hadn't grabbed the reins, Garth would have handled those beautiful, white, high-stepping horses just fine.

He felt a twinge of guilt over the flogging, but Merlin should never have asked to take his punishment. What a useless thing! Didn't Merlin know that he'd never have let himself be flogged? He was getting ready to bolt out the magister's front door — and he would have, too. He had run away from his father many a time to avoid a chastisement, and he wasn't about to take one from sour face.

And those monks! How could they side with the magister? He'd never forgive them for planning to sell his bagpipe. They couldn't
do it, and Garth wouldn't let them. They'd have to rip it from his bloody fingers. If they found it, of course. And to make sure they didn't, he had hidden it in the bottom of Dybris's barrel of belongings. They'd never think of looking there, the big brutes.

Oh, the thrill of freedom as Garth hitched up his robe to wade across the fast-moving Fowaven. After reaching the opposite shore, he climbed the hillside into the trees and marched as quietly as he could through the dense forest. When he made it to the road, he slunk along, on the lookout for any strangers, until a distinctive fragrance halted him in his tracks.
Mmm
. Someone was roasting meat nearby.

He turned in a slow circle, trying to determine which direction the smell came from. His stomach hurt something awful, and he craved some of that meat. But
this
time he wouldn't get scared away before completing the job.

He shook his head at the memory. There had been nothing to fear. Just two tall men dragging a stone through the woods. And he had just been on the verge of finding the meat and gigging a large, juicy hunk …
Better not think about food till I get some
.

What was it about that stone? He sure wanted to peek at it again. No men around, mind. Even through the bush where he and Merlin had hidden, he'd seen its dark surface glimmer as if silver was embedded in the rock. That was, of course, before those blue flames shot up from its surface. Now
that
was strange.

Another breath of the succulent aroma drove thoughts of the stone from his mind. Ah, the best smellin' tuck in the world. Great hunks of tasty meat roasting and dripping with fat!

He sucked in four more big whiffs and then hid himself behind a tree. Practicing stealth, Garth crept through the forest glade toward the delectable smell. Whenever a twig cracked, he crouched and froze for a bit. Finally arriving at the source of the aroma, he spied the spitted meat roasting over three fires. Sneaking behind a humungous twisted oak, he peeked around the trunk until he saw a woman in a green shawl and brown bonnet plucking a chicken.

She turned her head with a wary eye toward the tree.

Garth yanked his head back just in time.

Oh, if she'd just go away. One hunk of meat — just one! He sniffed the air and could hardly stop himself from running out to grab what he could. He closed his eyes and breathed in large whiffs of meat, his mouth watering.
Come on, woman, leave!

Beyond the fires, a girl called loudly.

The woman tending the meat set her chicken down and shouted back, “She has, has she? Give me a bit o' time! Can't run in me old age.” She walked off in the other direction.

Garth snuck over to the nearest fire and tried to pull off a chunk of beef, but he found the meat too hot to touch with his bare hands. He should have brought a knife. Lacking one, he went to one of the poor, lonely chickens, and the largest leg practically fell off in his hand.
There's a beauty
. Neither the chicken nor Garth would be lonely now. Oh, it felt as if he were floating in heaven!

Sneaking back to the twisted tree, he stopped at a large root and turned around just in time to see the woman striding back.

In his panic, Garth tripped and dropped the chicken leg as he fled to the other side of the tree. He froze a moment before hazarding a look.

The green-shawled woman stepped up to the fires, and seeing the roasted leg missing, she screwed up her face and looked around.

Garth hit his knuckles together until they hurt.
Oh, why did I drop it?
Just like when he let that big sea bass slip out of the net and his father yelled at him.

His mouth watered again, yet all he could do was take nibbles of the unsatisfying smoke.
Oh, please, woman, go away again! Jus' for a while, please?