‘I understand.”
‘I hope that you do, cousin.’ Their eyes met and Agwaine held out his hand. Gaelen took it.
‘Now this is good to see,’ said Lennox, leaning forward to lay his hand upon theirs. Layne and Gwalchmai followed suit.
‘We are all Farlain,’ said Layne solemnly. ‘Brothers of the spirit. Let it long remain so.’
‘The Five Beast Slayers,’ said Agwaine, grinning. ‘It is fitting we should be friends.’
Deva opened her eyes and saw the five young men sitting silently together. The sun cleared the mountains, bathing them in golden light. She blinked and sat up. Just for a moment she seemed to see a sixth figure standing beyond them – tall, she was, and beautiful, silver-haired and strong. By her side hung a mighty sword and upon her head was a crown of gold. Deva shivered and blinked again. The Queen was gone.
7
GAELEN STOOD ON the lip of a precipice looking down on Vallon from the north, listening to the faint sounds of the falls echoing up through the mountains. Spring had finally arrived after yet another bitter winter, and Gaelen had been anxious to leave the valley to stretch his legs and open his heart to the music of the mountains. He had grown during the winter, and constant work with axe and saw had added weight to his arms and shoulders. His hair was long, hanging to his shoulders, and held back from his eyes by a black leather circle around his brow. Kareen – before her marriage to the west valley crofter, Durk – had made it for him, as well as a tunic of softest leather, polished to a sheen, and calf-length moccasin boots from the same hide. His winter cape was a gift from Caswallon, a heavy sheepskin that doubled as a blanket. During the cold winter months he had allowed his beard to grow, shutting his ears to jibes about goose-down from Maeg and Kareen. It had taken long enough but now, as he stood on the mountainside in the early morning sunshine, it gave him that which he desired above all else -the look of manhood.
Gone was the frightened, wounded boy brought home by Caswallon two years before. In his place stood a man, tall and strong, hardened by toil, strengthened by experience. The only reminders left of the hunted boy were the blood-filled left eye, and the white streak in his hair above the jagged scar on his forehead and cheek.
The black and grey war hound by his side growled and rubbed against him. Gaelen dropped his hand to pat its massive head. ‘You don’t like these high places, do you, boy?’ said Gaelen, squatting beside the animal. It lifted its head, licking his face until he pushed it away laughing.
“We’ve changed, you and I,’ he said, holding the dog at bay. It had the wide jaws of its dam and the heavy shoulders of its breed, but added to this it also had the rangy power of the wolf that had sired it.
The wolf in it had caused problems with training, and both Caswallon and Gaelen had despaired at times. But slowly it had come round to their patient handling, until at last Gaelen had walked it unleashed among a flock of sheep. He told it to sit, and it obeyed him. But its eyes lingered over the fat, slow ewes and its jaws salivated. After a while it had hunkered down on its haunches and closed its eyes, unable to bear such mouth-watering sights any longer.
Under Caswallon’s guidance, Gaelen taught the hound to obey increasingly complex instructions, beginning with simple commands such as ‘sit’, ‘heel’ and ‘stay’. After that it was taught to wait in silence if Gaelen lifted his hand palm outward. Finally Caswallon built a dummy of wood and straw, dressed it in old clothes, and the hound was taught to attack it on Gaelen’s command of ‘kill’. This training was further refined with the call, ‘hold,’ at which command the dog would lunge for the dummy’s arm.
Painstakingly they honed the dog’s skills. Once it attacked, only one call would stop it: Home. Any other call, even from Gaelen, would be ignored.