Merlin's Nightmare (The Merlin Spiral) (54 page)

M
erlin jumped up in a panic, torn between following Arthur and tending to the rest of his family. He called after the young king again, but Arthur did not turn. Just then, Merlin heard muffled grunting emanating from the wagon above. He turned to find Caygek and Bedwir still tied up in the bottom. Focused on his family, he had missed them before, so now he slipped their gags off and cut their bonds, explaining to them the need to help Arthur and protect him.

The two were stiff from having been tied up, so they tried urgently to rouse the horses hitched to the wagon, but found them unresponsive. “Wake up!” Merlin said, patting one on its warm cheek. But the horse’s eyes were closed, and their heads hung down.

Bedwir set a hand on Merlin’s shoulder. “See to your wife . . . we’ll go after Arthur.”

Merlin locked eyes with him, and then with Caygek. Although these hardened warriors had already survived things that Merlin
could only imagine, he saw fear on their countenances: pinched lines at the corners of their eyes and tight lips. But there was also a determination — a steadfastness that Merlin needed right now.

“I’ll follow as quickly as I can.”

Caygek nodded, and the two found some discarded spears and ran off into the night on Arthur’s trail.

Back beside the wagon, Merlin lifted Natalenya into his arms and held her close.

Her lips were moving, and this little sign of her recovery melted his heart. But he had no time to stay until she awoke. He had to help Arthur, but couldn’t leave his family unprotected.

Gogi plodded over and dropped his bulk down so that he leaned against the front wagon wheel. He was out of breath, and there was a bloody wound on his left hand, but other than that he was unscathed.

“Go . . . after tha lad. It’ll take every man . . . to kill it, ya know? I’d go meself, but . . . ah . . . I don’t have the legs for it. So then, I’ll stay here and guard the little ones. I assume this is yar family?”

Merlin nodded, grateful beyond words.

“Taliesin . . . stay here with this man, Gogi. He’ll protect you all. The wolves are gone now, but I need you to help him keep watch.”

“Yes, Tas . . . Where are you — ?”

“I’m going after your brother.”

“I’m coming — ”

“Stay!”

Taliesin held on to Merlin’s chest and wouldn’t let go.

“I need you and Tinga to be strong. I’ll be back very soon.”

Tinga grabbed on to his neck. “Don’t leave, Tath!”

“Take my dirk, Tal.”

Taliesin looked up, his face tight and his brows wrinkled in worry. A lone tear hung at the corner of his left eye. “I won’t need it.”

“It’s yours. Just in case.”

Taliesin nodded and received the weapon.

Natalenya stirred and opened her eyes. “Merlin . . .”

“I have to go, my love. Arthur.”

“When . . .” She placed both hands on his face and looked into his eyes.

“Now. I’ll be right back.”

He hugged her, kissing her on the lips. She coughed, and so he pulled the water bag from his belt and gave her the last few drops.

Away south, the werewolf howled. He had to help Arthur. Why did he have to choose between those that he loved? He didn’t want to let any of them go. Never. He had thought he’d lost Natalenya, and now she was here, hurt, and needing him. And Arthur, loved as a son, needed him too.

He pictured Arthur fighting the fell beast in the dark. And what of Mórgana? Bedwir and Caygek didn’t know what they were dealing with . . .

Merlin closed his eyes, hugged Natalenya one last time, and then set her in Taliesin’s arms. He kissed Tinga on the head even as the little girl clung to her mother, weeping and coughing.

Gogi stood and held out his mace. “I’m ready ta guard ’em, ya know, so don’t worry.”

Merlin picked up the spear of a fallen warrior, stood, and backed away. But he couldn’t take his eyes from them.

A sweet family. Surrounded by darkness. Hiding under a wagon.

And he belonged with them.

His whole heart. His whole life. Bone and soul.

And as he backed into the gloom, he saw them sitting close, so needful, but he had to turn away to save Arthur — whom he belonged with just as deeply — from death at the hands of the werewolf. He dashed off into the night, hardly able to see through his tears, following the shore and hoping he could find Caygek, Bedwir, and Arthur.

Arthur had no trouble tracking the creature in the moonlight, for its claws had left deep impressions on the trail and its wounds had dripped black blood upon the dry scrub and dirt. But then the path
split, and the beast must have been unsure of its direction, for the trail became confused.

Following the path to the right, he found that the tracks passed a burned-down and overgrown crennig and then ended at the marsh. A set of decrepit docks stuck out into the water, and moss sucked at the rotten boards, many of which hung sadly into the murky water below.

Without finding any sign of the werewolf on the trail beyond the docks, or on either side of it, Arthur turned back to the crossroads and picked up the beast’s tracks going the opposite direction. These led uphill toward the village of Bosventor, Merlin’s childhood home. Over to the left, on a spur of the mountain, stood a fortress, and though there were a few flickering torchlights upon the ramparts, all was quiet.

Soon he passed a crennig whose walls had fallen in and whose thatch roof lay broken and torn. In fact, at least half of the crennigs he passed had been destroyed, perhaps by something more deliberate than decay. In Merlin’s stories of his growing-up years, the place had been a bustling village. This seemed nothing like that. The path was little trod. Weeds overran the gardens, where the little plots remained at all. Field walls had tumbled down.

Arthur ran faster now, and the path turned downhill toward a distant road. The blood of the beast had poured more freely here, for it left a near continuous trail, scraped and spattered as it was by its right foot, which appeared to be dragging.

The werewolf howled ahead, not far off, and Arthur heard a crennig door creak open to his right. Two men stepped out. One of them was balding, and he held an oil lamp and a jagged iron shovel. The other grasped a poker. They both looked around fearfully.

“It’s a werewolf!” Arthur called to them. “Gather help!”

“Where’s it runnin’ to?” the balding man asked.

Without stopping, Arthur answered, “Across the road!”

“It’s goin’ after the sheep an’ goats!” the younger said.

As Arthur raced away, he heard the two men raise the hue and cry among whatever villagers remained. More crennig doors opened and
men gathered on the path behind him. He crossed the road, sighted the trail of blood ending at a stone-stacked pasture wall, and vaulted over it to pick up the trail again. Eastward the creature had run, and Arthur set off after it, now nearly out of breath. Ahead of him lay a large crennig, and to its right came the frantic bleating of sheep. Heedless to the clumps of dung, he followed the trail of claw marks.

A scream, not human.

Arthur tightened his grip on his spear and dashed toward the sound.

And there was the werewolf, holding a young sheep. Before Arthur could get any closer, the beast had slain the sheep and was swallowing great hunks until the blood stained his snout, neck, and finally ran down his chest to drip on the broad slab of granite under the creature’s feet. On the slab lay a black stone about three feet wide with a long metallic object protruding from its center — a beautiful sword. The blade was long and gray, and it had a hilt and pommel of golden bronze with inlays of red glass.

Arthur drew a sharp breath. This wasn’t just
any
stone . . . This was
the
Stone, the very Stone that Merlin had told him about in all the old tales. Which meant this was the sword Merlin’s father had made for Uther. The last true sword of the High Kingship.

But the stories of Merlin’s youth would have to wait, for the werewolf saw Arthur now and threw the sheep’s body down as it swallowed its last bite. The beast’s menacing gaze never left Arthur, though, and it seemed as if there was a strange recognition in the beast’s countenance — perhaps it remembered Arthur was the one who had injured it.

Arthur stepped forward, spear ready.

The beast stepped off of the granite slab, its left leg shaking and weak. Blood still poured from its chest wound, but the injury did not stop the beast from swiping out with its deadly claws.

Arthur shifted his spear toward the beast’s hand and sliced into it. Then, while the creature was recoiling, Arthur lunged in with the tip pointed at its gut.

But the werewolf was still quick enough to evade the blow and swiped at Arthur.

Ducking, he jabbed the spear blindly upward and heard the beast howl.

Arthur jumped to the side and saw that he’d jabbed it in the upper arm.

The beast jerked away, screaming, and then it dove forward so fast that Arthur didn’t have time to react. It grabbed him by the shoulder flap of his armor and spun, lifting Arthur off the ground and throwing him through the air.

Arthur hit the ground hard and skidded onto the granite slab, his back smashing into the Druid Stone. He shook his head to focus, but it only made him dizzy.

The werewolf limped toward him.

And even as his vision blurred, he felt heat at his back. The Stone was burning him!

Before Arthur could rise, the werewolf grabbed him and lifted him into the air. Arthur tried to hold on to his spear, but it rolled off of his fingers and fell to the grass. He struggled to get away as hot, breathless panic set in, and he kicked at the creature to no avail.

The werewolf opened his jaws and Arthur saw the massive lines of sharp teeth, doused in blood and thrusting at his neck.

Arthur’s whole body surged with power as he fought uselessly against the beast, and the awful, stinking maw drew closer. Arthur found himself helpless, his heart throbbing and pulsing with terror.
Dear God!

A frantic cawing filled the air as a raven dove down and scratched at the beast’s eyes.

Arthur fell to the earth with a painful thud as the werewolf sought to catch and kill the raven. The bird nipped at the beast’s snout and poked him in one eye before flying to safety.

Arthur pulled himself up to his knees, found his spear, and stabbed out with it.

But the beast was enraged, and a claw grabbed the tip and shattered it off, flinging the metal into the darkness.

Standing, Arthur backed up until his heel hit the granite slab.

The werewolf pounced at him, roaring and snapping.

Arthur threw the useless spear shaft at its face, jumped onto the granite slab, and backed himself to the other side of the Stone. Now the embedded blade was between himself and the beast. It glinted in the darkness.
The blade!

Arthur grabbed the handle and tried to pull it from the Stone — but it didn’t budge.

The werewolf stepped closer, nostrils flared, lips curled in a snarl of hatred.

Arthur pulled harder, but the blade held fast.

Then everything around him blurred and changed.

Whirling, Arthur beheld an open glade edged with standing stones, and all around him stood ghostly people. The Stone was before him, yet upon it lay the semitransparent form of a bound man, with another on the ground to his left. The man upon the Stone cried out as flames burst from the sides and flicked up at his flesh.

The apparition of a warrior approached, and he was holding the blade that Arthur had just seen — the blade from the Stone. Except now it was free, and the warrior raised it up to plunge into the man whose chest lay on the Stone.

“No-o!” Arthur yelled, for the warrior with the sword was a younger, ghostly Vortigern. He jumped to push the man back, desperate to save the man on the Stone — his father.

But he fell right through the warrior and landed on the ground.

Vortigern plunged the blade in — and Uther cried out in pain.

Arthur had to look away, for it was too horrible to behold — yet in his father’s last breath, he called on Christ for mercy.