Yseult: A Tale of Love in the Age of King Arthur (81 page)

Drystan breathed shallowly, trying not to allow the stench of the rotting bodies to distract him while he watched his men take their positions on the wooden structure above and send arrow after arrow in the direction of the fortress. The screams told him that a number hit their mark.

"They're going to use fire!" Kurvenal called. Drystan looked to where he indicated. The upper half of a catapult towered above a nearby wall of the fortress, and whatever was in the throwing arm had just been lit on fire.

"Down, now!" Drystan called up to his archers. Running forward to free the horses from their reins, he caught a whiff of wasting death that made him gag. He stuffed a fist in his mouth and forced the reflex back.

The fire darted across the night sky and landed in the dry grass between them and their tower. It had missed its mark, but it set the field ablaze, lighting up the night. Was Myrddin's power of changing great enough to cover their retreat to the stand of trees and their hidden mounts?

He slapped the cart horses on the rumps. "Ya!" Freed, they fled the fire, and Drystan and his men followed, leaving the tower where it stood.

As they ran across the field, back to where Myrddin and the horses were concealed, another fiery missile was sent in the direction of their siege engine.

"Quickly," Myrddin urged. "They still see you there on the tower, but I do not know how long I can maintain the illusion, especially not with a brush fire raging."

Drystan pulled himself into the saddle of his waiting mare and led his men out of the stand of trees, riding hard for the eastern wall of the fortress.

By the time they arrived, Arthur's attack was well underway, and the guards on the walls were calling for reinforcements. From what Drystan could see in the torchlight, there was already fighting on the wall; some of their warriors must have been able to scale the sides unnoticed, according to plan.

Drystan and his men swung around to the main entrance to Din Eidyn. Under the protection of a long, portable roof of boiled leather, about fifty men were applying the battering ram to the thick wooden gates. As they galloped past, dodging arrows, he could hear the crunch and splinter of wood. On the north side of the fortress, ladders were going up and grappling hooks being thrown high to catch in the cracks between the stones. Although no bird yet sung, the night was growing lighter, and the smell of smoke was in the air. Greek fire prepared by Myrddin must have found its mark within Din Eidyn —the sky above the walls was turning orange. Ahead of them, another tower such as the one they had left on the south side of the fortress burned brightly.

Drystan pulled up next to the ladders and was about to dismount when he thought he saw a movement past the burning siege engine.

"Is there a gate on the north side of the fortress?" he called out to Gawain, who was leading the attack on this section of the wall.

"There wasn't when I was last here," Gawain yelled back.

Drystan reined his mare. "I thought I saw something there. I'll take my men to investigate and join you after."

In the eerie orange light from the fires, he saw Gawain nod.

"Follow me!" he shouted to his men. They galloped around and past the burning siege tower, some of the horses neighing nervously, but all well-trained enough that none of them shied or bolted. In places, the ledge between wall and cliff was barely wide enough for two horses, and the only light they had to go by was the burning siege tower behind them and the fire within the walls above them.

But Drystan's eyes had not deceived him: on a wider space on the ledge ahead, warriors from Din Eidyn stood shoulder to shoulder. During the siege, they must have constructed a passageway through the wall.

"Forward, men! Britannia patria!" Drystan cried out and spurred his mount towards the shadowy enemy.

The makeshift gate did not allow escape for more than one man at a time; the defenders of Din Eidyn must have been counting on the element of surprise, which was no longer theirs. Kurvenal beside him, Drystan charged the enemy, spear raised high. When they hit the rebel forces, there was nowhere for them to run. Even with the eerie glow from the fires lighting up the night, Drystan was nearly fighting blind. He plunged his spear into what he hoped was the neck of the man in front of him and heard a scream above the clash of steel and wood and hooves and the excited chuffing of their mounts. Neck or not, he had hit his mark, and he yanked the spear out of his victim.

The defenders were attacking their mounts now, and Drystan instantly saw that in this light, a horse was a much more vulnerable target — it was a bigger shadow in a world of half-light.

"Dismount!" he called to the men behind him, pulling his mare back from the swords and spears aimed at her. He leaned forward, blocking a dangerous thrust to her knees while his men streamed past him to take up the battle on foot.

Only about a dozen men from Din Eidyn had made it through the narrow passageway, and Drystan and his troops made short work of them, slaughtering another as he emerged.

"Take the next alive!" Drystan ordered.

One more man came through and was jumped and secured. Drystan dismounted and came forward, while his men continued to guard the passageway, but it appeared that by this time the defenders had realized that their surprise exit was closed off. He glanced up at the wall, expecting an attack from above, but the guards appeared to be too occupied with the siege engines and ladders and grappling hooks being coordinated by Gawain.

And then he recognized the prisoner. Marcus Cunomorus.

Drystan's chest tightened painfully. He faced the man who had given him life and then wanted to take it back again. "Can you get us back through the passage you used to get out?" he rapped out.

Marcus didn't answer.

Drystan slapped him across the face, and his father's head jerked around. "It's your life if you don't lead us into the fortress safely," he said. "You will go first, and if there are others waiting to slaughter us on the other side, it is you their weapons will cut down."

He grabbed his father's arm and yanked it around, pushing him ahead through the irregular break in the thick stone wall. Someone had bound Marcus's wrists behind him, and Drystan held the ropes tightly. If there was one thing he knew, it was that his father was not to be trusted.

And he was sure Marcus Cunomorus would say the same thing about him.

"There is no one at the other side, is there?" he whispered into his father's ear. He wondered where Kurvenal was, if anyone else had recognized the king of Dumnonia. "You wanted to escape the conflict and not face the consequences of your decision. I would place a brace of Erainn hounds on it that Lot knows nothing of this breach in the wall."

At that, Marcus snorted. "He is not clever enough by far. It was a mistake to tie my fortunes to his."

Drystan knew that was the closest his father would ever come to an admittance of wrong-doing — he had made the wrong decision, he had not taken every detail into consideration, he had not acted in his own best interests.

They came out of the stone walkway into a house built against the wall. No troops, no enemy waiting for them. "It's safe," Drystan said to those behind him and shoved his father forward. "Your residence here in Din Eidyn, I take it?" he murmured.

Marcus Cunomorus didn't deign to answer.

"I think you are now going to take us to the gates of this fortress and help us open them for Arthur." His father's lips grew thin, but he didn't protest.

Drystan looked around at his men and caught Kurvenal's disbelieving gaze fixed on the king of Dumnonia.

"Kurvenal, I want you to take a small party back to Gawain's troops, tell him about this entrance and bring however many soldiers he thinks it is safe to spare here."

Kurvenal nodded and headed back to the entrance, motioning the warriors nearest him to follow.

Drystan turned back to his father. "And now you will get us to the gate safely."

"You will have to untie my hands," Marcus said. "No one will believe you are my men if I am bound."

It was true, but Drystan didn't trust his father as far as he could spit. "Good, we'll make your bonds looser so you can move your arms freely. For your sake, you had better hope that no one notices you're a captive."

He thought he saw something resembling respect flicker in his father's eyes, and he was reminded of that other time when he had earned the respect of Marcus Cunomorus — when he had come up with the plot to marry off his cousin Labiane after his father had impregnated her.

Drystan turned away, trying not to show his disgust.

When their captive had been retied, they exited the house publicly, swords drawn, hurrying through the streets behind the king of Dumnonia. Drystan didn't think any of his men other than Kurvenal had recognized who they were following — Marcus was not a frequent guest among Arthur's troops, after all.

With the soldiers in Din Eidyn, it was a different matter entirely. Even in the flickering light of torches lifted as they neared, Marcus Cunomorus was deferred to and allowed to pass. Drystan kept a firm hand on the rope binding his father's wrists beneath his cape, but no one remarked the strange intimacy — or the strangers in the king of Dumnonia's train. They were unimportant vassals of one of the rebel kings.

The noises of battle and the tension in the air grew as they approached the gates at a purposeful jog. Drystan took in the situation in a quick glance: the warriors trying to hold the heavy wooden doors against the battering ram, the archers on the ramparts picking off Arthur's men the best they could in the dark, the buckets of pitch being carried up the stairs. They were outnumbered, but they would have the advantage of surprise if they made the right moves.

"Cunomorus!" a heavy-set man near the gate called when he saw them. "Good that you bring reinforcements!"

Drystan yanked lightly on his father's bonds and ran his short sword along his thigh. It was all the reminder Marcus Cunomorus needed not to betray them — if that much.

"Take half the men up to the ramparts to take out as many of the archers and pitch-pourers as you can," Drystan said to Erim beside him. Then he raised his free arm in the air, giving a call new to him and new to Britain.

"
Artorius Rex!
"

His troops took up the call with a joy and enthusiasm that surprised even Drystan and stormed the gate and the ramparts. For a moment, Drystan held the rope between his father's wrists in his fist, not knowing what he should do with it. Their eyes met, eyes too similar to be so completely foreign to each other. Drystan felt a fist cramp around his heart; what a fool he had been to think he was beyond the inner turmoil he knew Gawain was suffering in waging war against his own father.

He dropped Marcus Cunomorus's bonds and flung himself into the fray with his men. Distracted from holding the door against the enemy, the warriors of Din Eidyn turned to fight off this new threat. The pounding of the battering ram and the sound of splintering wood grew louder as the heavy iron braces began to give way.

"Artorius Rex!" Drystan called out again to make sure the forces on the other side of the gate realized there were friends on the inside as well as foes. He spitted a rebel warrior as the head of the battering ram came through the wood with a splintering crunch. The bolts and bars groaned and gave, falling in towards them, followed by the roar of Arthur's warriors on the other side. The battering ram came at them again, clearing away the most stubborn wooden planks of the doors, followed by a stream of Arthur's men, the Dux Bellorum himself at the fore.

"Who dares name me king?" he bellowed, looking around. Drystan felt more than saw his cousin's gaze light on him — he was too busy with a Gododdin warrior who would have gladly taken his head off. Then Arthur was beside him, and together they fought back those who were still attempting to defend the fortress. With the gate breached, a number of rebel warriors had thrown down their arms and cried mercy.

As they fought their way towards the center of the fortress, the sky began to lighten with more than just the fires of battle. Somewhere beyond the clash of steel and wood and bone, Drystan could hear the first birds singing, totally indifferent to the conflicts of men. The incongruity of it gave him hope and made him smile.

No matter what the outcome of this battle, the birds would still be there.

* * * *

Kurvenal beside him, Drystan wandered through the fortress, inspecting the bodies of the dead and injured. The numb, empty feeling that always overcame him after a battle was compounded this time by what he feared to find.