The Silver Hand by Stephen R. Lawhead

Author:Stephen R. Lawhead
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780380716470
Publisher: Avon Books
Published: 1992-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

20

Great Hound of Havoc

Calbha disappeared into the forest, and we returned to the lake to await the people’s arrival. Soon they were streaming from among the trees. They came by scores; tribes and clans and families, survivors of Meldron’s wanton depredations. Weary, travel-worn, exhausted, they came, dragging themselves miserably from hiding. But the setting sun lit their haggard faces and filled their eyes with light.

“Rhoedd is right,” Bran remarked, watching the streams of refugees mingle to become a flood. “There are too many. How will we feed them?”

“The forest is full of game,” Llew observed, “and the lake is full of fish. We will survive.”

Cynan was not so certain. “They cannot stay here,” he complained. “No — let me speak. I have been thinking, and it is clear that we do not have the means to support them.”

“I have already told Calbha that they can stay,” Llew replied.

“Clanna na cù,” grumbled Cynan. “A day — two at most. Then they must move on. I do not like to say this, brother, but I will, because someone must: laudable your generosity may be, but it is also foolhardy.”

“Finished?”

“Man, I am telling you, if they stay we will starve. It is as simple as that.”

“And if we starve,” Llew said firmly, “we will all starve together. Yes?”

Cynan drew breath to speak. I could not see him, but I imagined him shaking his head, or running his big hands through his wild red hair in irritation.

“It will be well, brother,” Llew told him. I heard the light clap of a hand on a shoulder. “This is why we have established this place. Three hundred! Think of all the work we can do with so many pairs of hands. Why, Dinas Dwr will rise overnight!”

“If it does not sink under its own weight first,” Cynan muttered.

Later, when we had settled the newcomers for the night — they were ranged in a score of camps along the lakeshore — we sat with a grimly silent Calbha and his bleak battlechiefs around the hearth on the crannog. We had retreated there to confer in peace without fear of being overheard. We ate bread and meat, and passed the cups from hand to hand while we waited for Calbha to tell us the thing we most wanted to hear — that which pierced him to the marrow to say.

The cup worked its quiet way, and at last Calbha’s tongue was loosened. He began to speak more easily, and we to edge him closer to the matter at hand.

“Meldron has slaughtered the bards of Caledon and Llogres,” I said. “In this he has surpassed even Lord Nudd, who slew only those of Prydain.”

“He meant to kill us as well,” Llew added. “As it is, I lost a hand to him, and Tegid lost his eyes.”

“Meldron is mad,” groaned Calbha. “He seizes the land and steals the cattle; what he cannot carry off, he burns. He cuts a wide swathe of destruction, leaving only ashes in his wake. I have seen the heads of warriors piled high as my chin, and hands heaped high as my belt.

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