Merlin's Nightmare (The Merlin Spiral) (50 page)

Arthur followed.

Merlin, who was resting on a rock, stood to join them.

Myrgwen addressed them both. “Your enemy was revealed to me last night in a dream. I knew something was deeply wrong in the land, but I did not know what until I saw them. Until I saw
him
.”

“Gorlas?” Merlin asked.

“Yes. Once the sun dies and the moon rises . . . they will come. They have already secured boats from the surrounding area and are even now making rafts. They will cross the water, and you must be ready for them.”

Arthur shook his head. “But our weapons are few . . . How can we fight?”

“You must make bows.”

Merlin looked at her, confused. “But we have neither string nor arrows. You’re asking the impossible.”

“You’ll find the answer at the king’s hearth.”

“I don’t have one,” Arthur said. “Certainly not on this island.”

“Come and see.”

She led back north toward where the warriors slept. As they approached, Arthur saw a trail of smoke in the sky and smelled roasting meat. One of the warriors must have woken and caught some game.

But when they stepped out of the woods and into the clearing of their makeshift camp, Arthur stopped. On the edge of the clearing of men — before a roaring campfire — sat Gogirfan Gawr. And next to him sat Melwas, Gwenivach . . . and Gwenivere herself!

Dwin sat between the girls, smiling and roasting two ducks.

Myrgwen walked directly to Gogi, placed a hand on his big shoulder, and, turning to Arthur and Merlin, announced, “This is the man who will save you.”

A thrill shot through Arthur.

Merlin’s mouth fell open. “What are
you
doing here?”

“I’ve come to the island o’ the tinsmiths on holy pilgrimage, ya know.” He wiped his greasy hand on a little napkin he pulled from his waistcoat.

“But — ”

“This is the very place I’ve told ya about since the day we met in Kembry, don’t ya recall it, ya daft-wit? Old Joseph built the fort and tower and introduced the craft tah us poor folk. All this moorland used to be ours . . . Long, long ago it was, and we had been pushed here from the coasts even then. Yet ya Britons took this land away too, ya did — so ya could feed the Roman greed for tin — and now we are Walkers, with no land o’ our own.”

Gogi turned to Myrgwen with a strange expression. “And what’d ya say, lass?”

“I said that you are the man that will save all of Britain. You will help them make bows and arrows.”

“Me?” he said, spitting out a duck bone. “But I’m good fer nothin’ but bein’ stripped and thrown off a cliff.” Here he glared at Merlin. “An’ besides . . . I doesn’t make weapons for mah enemies, the
Brythons
.” Here he slurred the word on purpose as if it were a foul thing.

Arthur stepped up and nodded to the smiling Gwenivere, catching her eye. “Gogi . . . could you make them for your
friends
?”

Gogi stiffened his lips and pulled at the long plaits of his beard. He looked to his daughters, then, and Arthur saw something in the girls’ eyes.

Gogi sighed. “Yah . . . I suppose I could do that, ya know. What do ya need?”

Myrgwen pulled her cloak tighter and spoke to Arthur. “The giant can pour arrowheads from pewter, and his sinews can be fashioned into strings for the bows. The men can cut down branches for bows and the shafts of arrows, and the pitch — ”

“Now just how do ya know so much about me?” Gogi asked, scratching his beard and puffing out his chest.

“I have seen it,” she said.

Gogi stood, his brow creased and his head cocked to the side.

Arthur looked up at how tall the man was, and a genuine fear entered his heart. This was
not
a man to fight hand to hand.

“And how much are ya goin’ to pay me for all o’ this?” Gogi said, shaking his fists. “I swear by me own guts that I’m not stuffed with coins, and ya know it better than anyone!”

“I’ve got gold that I can pay you,” Arthur said. “But . . . I don’t have it with me.”

“Ahh! That’s what everyone says.” And then Gogi wiggled his fingers through the air and made his voice high-pitched. “I’ll pay ya next week for a pigeon pie today! Oh my! How about that horse for payment tomorrow? Oh, no! I doesn’t have my money with me! Hah-hah!”

“Honestly, I do,” Arthur said — but how could he convince the giant?

Gwenivach stepped forward and took her father’s arm. “Papa . . . if we don’t, then we might all be killed.”

Gwenivere stood and looked on her father with a serious expression. “I know Ambrosius has been cruel to you, but none of the others have. In fact, they’ve been more than kind considering. Please, I think we can help them.”

“Ohh!” he said, looking from one to the other. “Do I haff-tah?”

Melwas stood up, and he squinted at his father and stamped his foot. “Are you really goin’ to help ’em? They beat me and tried to kill me, and took our hard-won horse away, an’ we’re already that much poorer for knowin’ em!”

Gogi looked from Gwenivere to Gwenivach, and then back to his son. “Melwas . . . I know yer thoughts, but ya know I’ve got a big heart in this here boot” — he thumped his chest — “so I’m goin’ to help ’em. An’ if he fails to pay me
two
gold coins, then I’ll let ya steal as many o’ his horses as ya can get.”

“I’ll pay you three!” Arthur said.

Gogi pursed his lips. “Even better. Ya will agree to this, yes? Both of ya nod, then.”

Melwas nodded, and Arthur did too . . . but there was something in Melwas’s eyes that Arthur couldn’t read. Pride? Anger? Or was it hatred?

“But now we’s gots another problem,” Gogi said. “You can’t make the arrows fly right without feathers. We’ve got these ducks here that I caught, but the feathers are mostly burnt.”

Myrgwen stepped forward and bowed to Arthur. She removed her feather cloak, revealing a thin, white cloak underneath. She held out the feathered one. “At my God’s direction I have stitched a cloak for this very day — the day your kingship has come to Kernow, and for the end of our sundering. I had thought it was to be for your glory, but now I see that it is instead for your protection. Take every feather for the arrows, and may God strike each one into the eyes of your enemies.”

Arthur took the cloak, amazed at its beauty and the care with which his sister had stitched it. How many birds must she have caught in order to make it? How many hours of work went into it? It seemed almost irreverent to destroy it and pluck the feathers from this thing of majesty — but there was no choice.

Arthur raised his horn and blew it to wake the late risers.

All that day the men worked to find suitable wood for both bows and arrow shafts, and though nothing ideal existed on the island, they found enough that was acceptable to fashion a bow and set of arrows for every man.

Gwenivere and Gwenivach worked tirelessly to soak and braid their father’s stash of sinews into bowstrings, with loops on each end. And Gogi, along with a grudging Melwas, melted pewter in an iron pot and cast hundreds after hundreds of small arrowheads using simple molds that the men had carved from wood.

Myrgwen herself fletched many of the arrows using sinew, helped by a small group of deft-handed men. Another group tied on the arrowheads. They were crude creations at best, but each one was capable of killing a wolf-head, and for that Arthur was thankful.

When everything was ready, the men gathered for a meager evening meal, and afterward Merlin stood to speak. His thoughts returned to
the dying man he’d held after the battle at the river, and he cleared his throat. Things needed to be said that had gone unsaid for far too long.

“Men of Britain!” he shouted in his clear, strong voice. “Are you warriors?”

The men called out and stamped their feet in a sudden cacophony that startled a host of sparrows from a nearby tree.

“Are you Arthur’s men?”

They whistled and raised their fists.

“Are you armed?”

The men cheered and lofted their bows and bundles of arrows.

Merlin quieted his voice. “But how many of you are ready to die?”

The men looked at each other. Some nodded. Others looked down or away.

“And of those ready to die . . . how many of you are ready to stand in judgment before a holy God?”

Everyone became quiet. Sober.

“You are warriors . . . and heroes!” Merlin called. “But God isn’t counting your victories. So, if you are a warrior, then be Arthur’s man. And if you are Arthur’s man, then be prepared to die, for we fight a powerful foe this night. And if you are prepared to die, then do so with your conscience clear and with the blood of Christ covering your life . . . cleansing you of all sin. In the sixteenth Psalm it says something like this . . .”

Because I know that thou hast been faithful to thine own Holy Son; yea I know it full well that even in death I need not fear, for never shalt thou disinherit me, nor shalt thou throw me to the dogs.

For in time long past thou shewest unto me the safe highland path — even now I tread upon it to thy mountain court.

There will I see thine happy countenance and thou shalt sit me down as thy champion, and I will joyous be, and feast, and merrymake forevermore!

“So then I say to you, call upon Jesu, and he will take you on the safe, narrow mountain path to his kingdom, and there you will eat
at the wedding feast of the Lamb of God.
Do you want this
,
men of Arthur?
”

The warriors nodded, grunting in agreement, and Merlin prayed out loud for them that God might give strength for the coming battle and prepare their hearts to walk in newness of life in His presence.

And when he was done, he bade Gogirfan to stand next to him.

“Warriors and fearless men, you know the enemy that we are up against. But now we’re armed, and I want to both apologize to Gogirfan, and thank him, for he’s given us a chance — ”

But Gogi interrupted him, placing a hand on Merlin’s shoulder and raising his voice. “But ya know . . . if ya want to increase that chance, then I have a way to improve yar arrows a bit. This is what I’ve got.”

He walked over to Melwas, who sat tending a large iron pot at a nearby fire. Gogi picked up the pot and took off the lid. Tearing a strip of cloth from a rag, he tied it just behind the tip of the arrow and then dabbed it in the pot, which was filled with melted pine pitch.

“Hold this to a torch, and ya’ve got a flamin’ arrow, ya knows! And most helpful against wooden boats, given ya a chance to sink ’em, or at least make the warriors swim.”

“Hear, hear!” Merlin said, and all the men cheered.

But the evening had gotten on, and the light was beginning to fade. Merlin looked westward and saw that the thin form of the moon had appeared.

And from the woods, across the water, the werewolf howled.

M
erlin followed Gogirfan’s instruction and quickly prepared his arrows by tying cloth behind each tip . . . but he had to rip off both sleeves of his tunic to get enough material. Sixty men. Twenty arrows each. Was it enough to fight off the wolf-heads? Most of them weren’t bowmen, and the thirteen that were had been organized by Tethion into an elite group that Arthur would use to make the deepest strikes at the enemy.