The Broken Kings: Book Three of The Merlin Codex (3 page)

Hounds and horses, buried with kings, now seeking the ghost-trails of the wild hunt.

*   *   *

And then I saw for the first time the echo of the ancient man who lay there, the founder of the citadel himself. Durandond.

He rose, naked and unarmed, a water-spectre presenting himself in his middle years, older than when he had listened to my prophecy, so many generations ago, but still years away from the brutal moment of his death.

He looked to the East, to his homeland, then to the skies. Did his gaze catch mine as he turned back to survey the enclosure? I couldn’t say.

The expression on Durandond’s face was of sadness, then of anger, as if this sprite, this liquid ghost, was aware of what was coming to take his proud fortress once again.

The water dissolved. Durandond returned to the bone-chamber below the hill.

The moment had passed.

Chapter Two

The Sons of Llew

On the third morning the sun seemed to break at dawn towards the west, a sudden, startling flash of gold against the dark of night. The gleam faded as quickly as it had come, only to sparkle again and again, as if it moved through the forest that separated fortress from sacred river, and the unknown realm beyond.

When the true dawn came, so flocks of birds rose in outrage from the woods, and that fire-fly kept on coming, finally emerging onto the Plain of MaegCatha—the Battle Crow—in the form of a bright chariot, with two screaming youths driving a pair of red-maned horses.

One of these wild figures leaned forward at the reins; the other straddled the chariot, feet on the sides of the metal car, naked save for a short scarlet cloak and the torque of gold at his neck and the tight belt around his waist. He held a thin spear in one hand and a bronze horn in the other. As the golden chariot struck a rock and lurched, so he tumbled to the floor of the car, and a furious argument commenced, though the driver, long yellow hair streaming, laughed as he whipped the steeds.

The chariot sped across the plain; the deep horn was sounded; the gathering crowds on the fortress fled around the walls, following the wild riders below as they passed to the north, between hill and evergroves, before turning across the eastern plain to approach the spiralling road with its five massive gates. One by one, as the triumphant youths howled up the steep road, the gates were opened and closed behind them.

They came into Taurovinda, racing in a wide circle three times before the fiery arrival was calmed. They jumped from the chariot, buckled on their kilts and cloaks and unharnessed the panting horses, holding the weary animals by the muzzles and stroking them. They seemed unaware that Urtha and his retinue were standing close by, waiting to greet them.

“Well run!” said one.

“Well driven,” said the other.

The new dawn set a new and blinding fire to the golden-wheeled chariot.

These breathless arrivals were Conan and Gwyrion, sons of the great god Llew. They were stealers of chariots. I had met them before. Half god, half human, they were the world’s greatest thieves, and they were constantly being hunted by their father and their angry uncles, most particularly Nodens. Indeed, the grim-eyed, bearded face of Llew himself glared from the side of the vehicle, an image that appeared to writhe with new fury and the silent promise of retribution.

It was the gift of these boys that they were incapable of judgement or fear until harsher judgement invoked semimortal dread. And yet they always turned up again, as cheery as before.

They bowed low to Urtha; then Conan saw me and grinned. “Well, Merlin! As you see, we have escaped from that old bastard our father again. Though this time not without cost.”

He held up his right hand; brother Gwyrion did the same. Their little fingers had been cut away and replaced with wood.

“This is the tinder with which he’ll fire our bodies the next time he catches us,” said the eldest of the two. “But it’s a small price to pay for our freedom.”

“For the short while we’re free,” added Gwyrion.

“But it will take him a good while to notice the absence of this vehicle, and his two horses. He spends a lot of time sleeping these days. And we can outrun the Sun itself!”

Urtha pointed out that they had been running
into
the sun. The young men looked up into the sky, then to the east, then engaged in a brief and furious row, each blaming the other for stupidity, before pausing, then laughing out loud.

Gwyrion took the horses to the stables; the chariot was hauled into cover, and Conan approached me. He had aged several years. There were lines at the edges of his eyes, and the beard that he shaved so close was hard stubble, its fiery red now tinged with grey; he seemed drawn, yet strong. When I had last encountered this reckless pair, they had been ten years younger, even though that encounter was only two years or so in my past. Such was the capricious nature of Ghostland, where they had been trapped.

“Merlin,” he said. “We crossed at the Ford of the Overwhelming Gift. But there is a
hostel
there now. The hostel has risen again. That hasn’t been seen since the plain around Taurovinda was forested. There’s something wrong. We entered the place, of course. We waited there briefly, in the room of the Spears of Derga. It’s where we were hosted. The hostel is on an island in the middle of the river. It’s not a bad place. Plenty of food and gaming. But that’s beside the point. There is a man there who says he knows you. He wishes you to come and sit with him at the feast. He says to say ‘Pendragon,’ and that you will know him by that name. He says the hostel is safe for the moment, but there are already several hundred men in the various rooms, and many of them are keeping a silent counsel. Gwyrion and I were hastened on our way before we could investigate further. It’s all very suspicious.”

Suspicious in what way? I asked him.

Glancing round, he murmured, “They are crossing from the wrong side.” (It was not wise to talk too openly of the hostels, not even for a semimortal.) “Either that,” he added, “or they are the wrong patrons. Gwyrion and I can cross in either direction. The Shadow Heroes cannot.”

I began to see what he meant: some hostels at the river—including the one under discussion—had been constructed to admit travellers
from
the realm of the living into that of the dead. This was the ordinary way of things. Others, though, were meeting places to evict those from the realm of the dead back into the lands of the living. These were to be feared. Conan was suggesting that the Hostel of the Overwhelming Gift was being compromised.

I realised suddenly that Conan’s hand was on my shoulder, the young man’s face etched with query. I had been dream-drifting, and he was calling me back.

“Thank you for the information,” I said to him, but he shook his head, still quizzical.

“This Pendragon. A king-in-waiting if ever I saw one. He knows you. And yet he’s of the Unborn. Are you aware of that?”

“Thank you,” I repeated. “Yes. I’m aware of it.”

“He knows more about you than can yet have occurred. Are you aware of
that
?”

“I’m not surprised by it.”

The intensity in his gaze relaxed, and he was reckless and wild again, green eyes sparkling with potential mischief. He had given up the pursuit of the answer to his question. “You’re a strange man, Merlin. I don’t think I’ll ever understand who you are until the time comes for me to grow up, to become the Lord in place of my father, Llew.”

“The same could be said for me,” I replied.

“Yes! But you won’t have to fight your brother.” His features darkened. “I don’t relish the far-to-come, Merlin, when brother and brother must fight for the chariot without stealing it.”

He turned away and went to find lodgings and rest in the king’s enclosure.

Chapter Three

The Rising of the Hostels

It is the privilege of the human offspring of inhuman gods to run or ride, on horseback or in chariot, through the world of transient shadows, the world of men, with blithe indifference to their encounters with the otherworldly. To Conan, the existence of a hostel on the river Nantosuelta was just one more stop for a feast, a good sleep, and a few days of gambling, perhaps, or games, perhaps an adventure along a path that had, and would, lead him to many such locations in this world or that. To the Cornovidi, the people who farmed the lands around the fortress, those simple people who maintained the vast high-walled enclosure, the appearance of the hostel would have been terrifying.

It was more than five generations, I understood, since the Hostel at the Ford of the Overwhelming Gift had last shown itself.

I decided to keep quiet about Conan’s conversation with me, for the moment at least.

But even as I made my preparations to travel to the river, to investigate the presence of the Unborn horse-lord, Pendragon, so—later in the same day—a cry came from the watchtower on the west wall that the king’s children were coming back from their hunt, and they were riding in the wild fashion, as if running from danger!

*   *   *

As they came with hailing distance of the Bull Gate, the
uthiin
warriors who were their guardians broke away and returned to the fortress; Kymon and Munda stood up on the saddles, arms stretched, searching the high walls above for a sign of the man they wished to speak to.

That man was me.

Munda caught sight of me and made a beckoning gesture; then she and her brother rode quietly along the hidden path across the wild plain, to the evergroves, by the nearest curve of the river Nantosuelta.

I followed them and found them arguing. There was a fierce debate. Kymon was looking browbeaten and angry. The girl sparkled, her face glowing both with the heat of the dispute and the heat of the ride.

As I approached between the stones, between the low mounds that covered the dead, I took a moment to watch them from a distance. Kymon paced, a little king, in his hunting colours, short cloak, and tight bronze crown-band. He was not yet allowed to wear a torque, but about his thickening neck he wore a small symbol of Taranis, “Thunder of the Land,” on a bull-leather thread.

He was growing up fast. He could hardly have been ten years old. Ten in years, yet fifteen in posture and manner. He still wore his hair loose, and had painted small twirls of red on the ends of his lips, to signify the moustache that would soon be his to grow and wear with pride. He loved to hunt, to race, and was adept at the games, maybe not the finest player of ball or board in the fortress, but a young man to be remarked upon.

He was extremely serious. He had inherited much from his father, Urtha, but not that quiet man’s sense of humour.

The girl, too, was older than her years. She was not yet—as the High Women so charmingly put it—“in the flow of the moon.” It wouldn’t be long. She copied the clothing and hairstyle of her stepmother, the Scythian huntress Ullanna who had become Urtha’s wife after the death of his beloved Aylamunda. The hairstyle necessitated three long tails, tied at the tips, the central tail being longer than the others. She shaved her temples high and streaked them with ochre. She wore a loose shirt, tied at the waist, a colourful patchwork affair, and calf-length britches, split to the knee. When she shared a meal with her father and stepmother, she wore a pale green dress, more suitable for the girl who would become a High Woman in the family.

Munda was determined to learn everything about the lore and history of the fortress. But she was first forced to learn five of the champion’s feats before she reached a certain age. In the same way, Kymon was required to learn five of the tasks of Farsight. He was no natural scholar, but had found he could memorise tracts of poetry, and the lineage of kings. He was less successful when it came to medicinal lore; and he refused to dance; he had turned to me for assistance in understanding the deeper movements of the earth itself, the spirit tracks that lie below us and can sometimes be encountered.

Munda’s first achievement was to steer a chariot and run along its short yoke, calling to the horses to stay running in a straight line. That was a good feat. She had learned spear-play and shield-play. Lately, she had been acquiring the skill of the hunt. And it was from a boar hunt that the band—
uthiin
entourage and king’s children—had been returning in the wild way. Kymon had a small pig tied to his horse; Munda, a brace of wild fowl, presumably snared as she failed to chase down the other beast. It didn’t matter. These were just the special tasks imposed upon the children of the warlord, and when she did, eventually, manage to turn her pig at bay, and had speared it, she would probably never think of the act again, exactly as Kymon, once he had recited the lines of the epic of the Cornovidi during the time it took for a midwinter moon to move across the night sky, would probably forget every stanza and every declamation that had been forced upon him.

When Kymon spotted me, he raised a fist before him, eyes blazing. “Merlin! This is a
bad
encounter. I feel it.”

“It is not bad at all!” Munda riposted, her hands outstretched. She met my gaze. “The hostels are returning. Why should that be bad? We’ve waited more generations than my grandfather’s to feel the heat from their fires and learn from the men passing through them.”

“It’s wrong! It’s dangerous,” the youth insisted. He was almost spitting. “It’s the Hostel at the Ford of the Red Shield Riders, Merlin. Ask anyone. That hostel only lets the dead through to our world. Ask anyone. If the dead are coming … we are not yet strong enough.”

“The dead are
not
coming,” insisted Munda. She watched me, seeking acknowledgement, perhaps, and was not pleased to see how I frowned. But I didn’t know much about the hostels.

Kymon shouted, “There is a man there who does not belong in this land. He’s waiting. He calls himself
King of Killers
.…”

For the first time I was shocked. The boy saw it and seemed triumphant, a small smile on his face. His sister shook her head dismissively. “There are always ghosts when the hostels surface. We’re taught this. Anyway, it’s only
one
hostel.…”