‘You have worked hard here,’ Meical said, looking about. ‘Accomplished much.’
‘I should hope so.’ Tukul snorted. ‘We have had long enough.’ He stared at Meical, realizing that the man looked no different from the last time he had seen him – his hair still jet black, only the faintest of lines around his eyes. He still looked as if he had been through a war, though, and was marked by his battles. Wounded inside as much as out. Silver scars raked one side of Meical’s face.
‘Why are you here?’ Tukul asked.
‘I have grim tidings. Aquilus is dead.’
‘What? No.’ Aquilus was important, had a part to play. ‘What of the child?’ Tukul gasped.
‘He is a child no longer,’ Meical said, his scars creasing as he smiled. ‘He is well. Very well, the last I saw him.’
‘You have seen him? How long ago?’
‘Almost a year, now. I left him and came in search of you. This place is not the easiest to find.’
‘Hah,’ Tukul barked a laugh. ‘That I know. And . . . my son? You have seen my son?’
‘Yes. He has grown into a fine man. He has served you well, brought you honour.’
Tukul grinned and blinked away tears.
‘There is more that I have come to tell,’ Meical said. He drew in a deep breath, blew it out slowly. ‘Things are changing, moving quicker, in different ways from how I ever imagined. There is war to the south, rumours of war in the west. Asroth is moving. I think there should be a change of plan.’
Tukul felt a fist clench in his gut, a sharp bolt of excitement after so many years of waiting, preparing.
‘Tell me, how many men would be enough to keep the spear safe?’
Tukul smiled.
‘Ten.’
Meical nodded to himself, as if coming to a silent decision. ‘Leave ten men here, then, but the rest of you – you should not stay. Instead of waiting for the Seren Disglair to come to you, you should go to him. He is in danger. He needs you.’
‘Go to him,’ Tukul repeated, feeling his blood surge in his veins. A grin spread across his face. ‘Hah, did you hear?’ he cried, turning a full circle to take in all those about him.
‘What think you, old friend?’ Meical said. ‘Do you agree?’
‘Agree? Yes, we agree,’ he shouted, as all around him his people drew their swords and brandished their curved blades at the sky with ululations. ‘Make ready,’ he cried, ‘for on the morrow we march to the Seren Disglair.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CYWEN
Cywen took aim, the tip of her knife blade tickling her back, then threw. With a satisfying thud the knife sank into her target, a battered post in the garden. Without taking her eyes from it, she drew another blade from the belt at her waist, aimed and threw. Then she did it again. And again.
When her belt was empty she strode to the post and started pulling the knives free, sliding them back into the pockets in her belt. Twenty in total. After the night Dun Carreg had fallen she’d vowed to never run out of knives again. These she had found in a barrel by the kitchen door, rusted and notched, part of her da’s to-do pile. All the best knives, usually kept in a drawer in her mam’s room, were gone. Taken by her mam, she supposed.
Her mam. She still could not even think of her mam without feeling her guts twist. She was not dead, of that she was certain, she’d searched the fortress from one end to another, made herself look at the face of every corpse piled within the walls. Her mam, Corban, Gar – they were not there. Rumours swept the fortress about Edana: she was in hiding, had fled west, south, north. One thing was certain. She had not died in the battle, and people had whispered of Corban being seen with her during the conflict.