Merlin's Nightmare (The Merlin Spiral) (4 page)

The beasts snarled from behind as a massive branch loomed toward him from the front. Merlin hung low to the right, but it still banged him hard in the shoulder. The saddle began to slip. He grabbed the horse’s sweat-dampened mane and pulled himself back up. The horse snorted as it jumped through the brush — and then screamed.

Merlin whipped his gaze around.

A wolf had torn into her left hindquarter. Blood poured from the wound, slick and red in the morning light.

The wolf lunged again, and Merlin kicked its black snout, yelling while he pulled the horse to the right. She quickened her pace, jumped a bush, and Merlin found himself on the path again.

Three wolves leapt just behind.

Faster now, Merlin kicked the horse’s side. Having hardly seen a wolf in the sixteen years since leaving Bosventor, he’d become careless, and now he’d interrupted an entire pack at their meal. Panic sank into his stomach like rotten meat, churning his innards. He had to get away; he had to!

But the wolves were faster, and his horse began to wheeze from the effort. Merlin had been anxious to get back to Dinas Crag with the news he carried and had ridden the horse hard for hours. Its strength was almost gone.

Another wolf snapped at the horse’s right side, ripping her leg open. The horse kicked, screaming in terror, and then staggered forward again.

Merlin panicked. He wouldn’t get away. His horse was going to die. He was going to die. He could kill one wolf, maybe two, but never a whole pack. An image of his body, mangled and gutted like the buck, flashed before his eyes.

A wolf latched onto his boot, its teeth slicing into his foot like small daggers. He tried to draw his sword, but the horse reared up, forcing the wolf to drop off. The hackles of the wolf’s neck twitched, and its yellow eyes lusted for Merlin’s blood as it prepared to leap.

A wolf on his left gashed the horse’s belly.

Merlin turned to face the beast, but a large branch blocked his view. He reached, clamped his hands onto the smooth bark, pulled free from his horse, and wrapped his legs around the branch. He didn’t want to abandon his horse, whom he’d raised from a filly, but he also knew the only chance she had of getting away was without his weight.

The horse shot forward into the brush, with all three wolves slashing it with their bloody jaws. Unfortunately, the end came quickly, with the wolves pulling it down about fifty paces away.

Merlin climbed up and listened painfully to her last screams.

When the poor creature’s silence came, and only the wolves’ gory feast could be heard, he took in some deep breaths and tried to discern his position on the path. He’d been traveling south from Luguvalium, the capital of Rheged, and was on his way back home to Dinas Crag. There awaited his wife, Natalenya, and their two children: Tingada, their little daughter, and Taliesin, their growing boy. And their adopted Arthur, now eighteen winters old.

Surely Merlin had passed the long lake already . . . or had he?

Ahead of him he could hear a stream burbling in the dark, so the path must have swung closer to it again. But was this
the
stream — the Derwent — as he had thought? If so, then he was close to home with the crossroad just beyond.

A faint splash. Maybe a fish. Then another. Full splashing, now. Then clopping. A rider, coming his way, heading toward the wolves.

Merlin had to warn him. “Who’s there?” he called. “Take care! Wolves just killed my horse, and more are just beyond.”

The rider cantered forward, slowing just below Merlin. A man with a broad face and a gray beard looked up at him.

“And what am I to do about such a dilemma? I must get through.”

“They’ll scatter if you give them enough time — ”

“No. I’ve an urgent and vital message that must get through.”

Howling sounded far down the path, and soon the three who had just killed the horse answered. “Maybe it would be best to turn back for now. Is there a village nearby?”

“Dinas Crag. I’ll take you there.”

“Not on my horse. You’ll walk, you will.”

A wolf howled. The man wheeled his horse around.

Merlin swung down and dropped onto its back, just behind the man.

“Get off!”

“Go!” Merlin drove his heels into the horse’s flanks, sending it flying down the path and splashing through the stream thinned by the long spring drought.

When they were a good distance away and no pursuit could be heard, the man pulled his horse to a stop. He turned and growled. “Get off.”

“I saved your life.”

The man shoved Merlin off the back of the horse.

But Merlin landed on his feet, dashed to the left, lifted the man’s boot, and threw him from the horse.

The man scrambled to his feet, spitting dry grass, and glared at Merlin from the other side of the saddle. His face was red. “Take off your mask!”

“No.”

“Who are you?”

“Ambrosius.”

The man stared at Merlin, as if expecting more. “What is your parentage, dishonorable knucklebone, and your purpose in these woods?”

Merlin grabbed the reins of the horse, lest the man get away. “What’s
your
name,
your
parentage, and
your
mission?”

The man wrinkled up his nose and scowled back.

A distant howl split the air, and Merlin jerked.

Both men leapt onto the horse, and Merlin clutched the back of the ornate saddle as they raced away.

“Which way?” the man asked.

There was only one place that promised safety, though it was clear this stranger would not consent to being blindfolded to reach it. “Can I trust you?”

“On my honor.”

“Before who?”

“Before God, you fool. What, do I look like a druid?”

The wolves howled once more, cementing the decision. Merlin pointed. “Go straight when you come to the crossroads and follow the path along the stream.”

“Hardly wide enough for a one-legged deer.”

“Trust me.”

They raced along the path until they encountered the northern shore of a large lake, from which the overflow of the stream ran. The path curved to follow its western shore for half a league, where the lake ended and the stream, which now fed the lake, began again.

Mountains rose on each side, and their tops could be seen through the trees. The sky brightened with the rising sun, and the thick woods changed from oak to pine as the path climbed slowly. The mountains squeezed closer and closer, their sides ever steeper.

When the valley finally tightened to the jaws of a narrow gorge, the stream drew closer to the path, which strangely ended before a twelve-foot-tall, vertical pile of rocks, with dry grasses covering the center of the pile. The stream itself poured from a spring on the left side.

The man pulled his horse to a stop. “What’s this? If you intend to rob — ”

Merlin cupped his hands. “Porter! Open the door, Ambrosius has come.”

Nothing stirred except a rustle of brush behind them. The horse trembled.

Merlin called again. “Porter! Open — ”

A jaw clamped on his arm. The front gate spun away and something hard hit his shoulder. Merlin’s legs slammed downward. Neighing. Cursing. Where was his sword? Growling in his ear. Pungent, bloody fur against his face. Ragged claws on his chest. It was going for his throat.

W
ith one hand shoving the wolf away, Merlin unsheathed his dirk. He tried to get the blade between his neck and its snapping teeth, but only jabbed it in the shoulder.

The wolf pulled back as Merlin struggled up. It lunged again, and he stabbed it in the chest. The beast dripped saliva and blood from its jaws onto Merlin’s nose before rolling to the side, yelping.

Merlin rose, drew his sword, and chopped at its neck.

When the beast was dead, Merlin wiped his face on his sleeve and looked to see how his fellow traveler had fared. The horseman stood over his own slain wolf, his hat pushed back and sweat on his brow.

What had gotten into the wolves? There was something strange going on . . .

With a banging of wooden bars, two massive doors opened in what had appeared to be a wall of rocks and brush blocking the entrance to the valley. Merlin smirked as he saw the amazement on
the face of the horseman. The doors were made of timber, with rocks piled near the sides and dead brush nailed on.

Three warriors rushed out, swords drawn. Two archers appeared at the top of the wall.

“A little late you are,” the horseman yelled, “and I shall be sure to take up this ineptness with your chieftain.”

The porter on duty, old Brice, shuffled out and helped Merlin up, dusting him off. “We was all sleepin’, an’ did’na expect nobody so early, certainly not one as esteemed so you, Ambrosius. Please forgive us not helpin’ kill them wolves.”

The horseman cinched his saddle to retighten it. “Who is the chieftain here, anyway?”

“Lord Ector,” Brice answered, bowing to the man. “And who may you be?”

“You’ll not ask, you won’t. My ancestry is my own and my business is with Lord Ector.”

Merlin nodded to give Brice his approval, and the porter led them through the gate. Just inside, to the right of the steepening path, stood a large crennig for the guards, and on the left the stream rushed down the gorge in a glorious waterfall. All ahead was shaded in darkness, the sun having not yet risen high enough over the mountains. Part way up the path they came to a stair climbing to a stone-walled fortress on a steep hill, high above the gorge.

The horseman pointed up to the fortress. “That way? Mighty difficult for an honored guest to bring his horse up and stable it, I’d say.”

Merlin just laughed and kept walking through the gorge, ignoring the stairs. “You’ve guessed correctly where the fortress of Dinas Crag is located, but we only go there in times of danger.
This
is where we live . . .” He stepped forward and pointed. “Welcome to the Nancedefed of Dinas Crag.”

The man followed, leading his horse, and when he passed over a stony ridge he opened his mouth and did not shut it until he had feasted his eyes on everything.

The golden light of morning was just rising over the eastern foothills, illuminating a secret valley high in the mountains: flat, broad, and divided in two by the stream. More than a thousand horses, many of them foals, grazed within the enclosed valley in rock-walled pastures dotted with stables, crennigs, and tilled gardens ready for spring planting. The scene would have been idyllic except for the lingering drought, which had made the new grass begin to brown and had reduced the stream to half its regular flow.

“Valley of sheep?” the horseman said with a hint of confusion. “I see a few sheep . . . but you’re raising horses like I’ve never seen.”

“The name is intentionally misleading. If the Picti knew what we were doing, then . . .”

The horseman nodded, still looking on the beautiful valley with amazement.

Merlin sighed. Home and safety. Every fiber of him wanted to see Natalenya immediately, but duty called him to his uncle Ector first.

Because in addition to transporting this mysterious guest, Merlin recalled the true reason he needed to appear before the chieftain: spies had discovered a mass of Picti north of Hadrian’s wall. An invasion was imminent. Every horse that could be spared would be needed for the battle.