It was then that I heard riders. The wolves scattered and loped back into the woods. I was about to call out to the newcomers, but something stopped me. I cannot say what it was. I don’t think I was afraid, but perhaps I sensed some danger. Anyway, I crouched down on the thick branch and watched them ride into the Stone Circle. There were nine of them. All wore swords and daggers.
Their clothes were very fine, their horses tall, like those ridden by the king’s Iron Wolves. As they dismounted they led their horses out of the circle, tethering them close by.
‘You think he’ll come?’ asked one of the men. I can still see him now, tall and broad shouldered, his yellow hair braided under a helm of burnished iron.
‘He’ll come,’ said a second man. ‘He wants peace.’
They rejoined their comrades, who were sitting in a circle within the Circle. Having decided not to show myself, I lay there quietly. They were talking in low voices and I could hear only a few words clearly.
The sun was going down and I decided to risk the wolves and make my way home. That is when I saw the rider on the white stallion. I knew him instantly.
It was Demonblade the King.
I cannot tell you how excited I was. The man was close to myth even then. His beard was red gold in the dying sunlight. He was wearing a winged helm of bright silver, a breastplate embossed with the Fawn in Brambles crest of his House, and the famous patchwork cloak. At his side was the legendary Seidh sword, with its hilt of gold. He rode into the Circle and sat his stallion staring at the men. They seemed to me to be tense, almost frightened by his presence. They rose as he dismounted.
I would have gone down then, just to be close to the legend. But he drew his sword and plunged it into the earth before him. The man with the braided yellow hair was the first to speak.
‘Come and join us, Connavar. Let us talk of a new peace.’
Demonblade stood silently for a moment, his strong hands resting on the pommel of his sword, his patchwork cloak billowing in the breeze. ‘You have not asked me here to talk,’ he said, his voice deep and powerful. ‘You have asked me here to die. Come then, traitors. I am here. And I am alone.’
Slowly they drew their swords. I could feel their fear.
Then, as the sun fell in crimson fire, they attacked.
CHAPTER ONE
on THE NIGHT OF THE GREAT MAN’S BIRTH A FIERCE STORM WAS
moving in from the far north, but as yet the louring black clouds were hidden behind the craggy, snow-capped peaks of the Druagh mountains. The night air outside the birthing hut was calm and still and heavy. The bright stars of Caer Gwydion glittered in the sky, and the full moon was shining like a lantern over the tribal lands of the Rigante.
All was quiet now inside the lamplit hut as Varaconn, the soft-eyed horse hunter, knelt at his wife’s side, holding her hand. Meria, the pain subsiding for a moment, smiled up at him. ‘You must not worry,’ she whispered. ‘Vorna says the boy will be strong.’
The blond-haired young man cast his gaze across the small, round hut, to where the witch woman was crouched by an iron brazier. She was breaking the seals on three clay pots, and measuring out amounts of dark powder. Varaconn shivered.
‘It is time for his soul-name,’ said Vorna, without turning from her task.
Varaconn reluctantly released his wife’s hand. He did not like the stick-thin witch, but then no-one did. It was difficult to like that which you feared, and black-haired Vorna was a fey creature, with bright blue button eyes that never seemed to blink. How was it, Varaconn wondered, that an ageing spinster, with no personal knowledge of sex or childbirth, could be so adept at midwifery?
Vorna rose and turned, fixing him with a baleful glare. ‘This is not the time to consider questions born of stupidity,’ she said. Varaconn jerked. Had he asked the question aloud? Surely not.