Her eyes opened as he touched her. ‘Did you sleep well?’ she asked, yawning and stretching. Her shirt slid up to expose an inch of midriff and Llaw moved away to the door. Outside the men were gathering and he saw Groundsel, dressed now in hunting leather and carrying a bow. The squat outlaw leader was also wearing two short swords with curved blades.
Llaw gathered his double-headed hand-axe and joined the men. Nuada waved and approached him.
‘It should be quite a day,’ said the poet, grinning. ‘The sun is high, the sky is clear. Tonight will be a fine time of feasting.’
‘You have no idea of what today will be, poet. This is not a stag hunt. Are you coming with us?’
‘Of course. How can I tell the saga if I do not witness it?’
‘That does not seem to have affected your talents thus far,’ observed Llaw.
The group split into three sections and scouts were sent out to search for spoor. Llaw went with Groundsel, Arian, Nuada and three others, and led them back along the trail to where he had seen the beast feeding. They found traces of blood, and a few split bones and several enormous tracks, but of the creature there was no sign. They stopped at midday by a stream and sat in a circle around a small fire.
‘It has gone to ground,’ said Arian. ‘I think it must be sleeping in a cave somewhere. But the ground to the north is rocky, and we’ll not be able to track it.’
‘Then we must bring it to us,’ stated Groundsel. ‘Last night it slew one of my men, so we know it has a taste for human meat.’
‘You keep saying it,’ Llaw remarked. ‘But there are more of them.’
‘So you say,’ snapped the outlaw leader. ‘This is my plan: We will journey back to the point of its last feeding and wait. It has probably buried some meat there and will return after dark.’
‘You will fight this creature at night?’ Arian whispered. ‘What if the clouds gather? Without a hunter’s moon the archers will be useless.’
Groundsel grinned. ‘We will sit by a fire — your friends here, and I. And we will talk, swap stories. You and the other archers will be hidden nearby in the trees, out of harm’s way. I think the beast will come to us.’
‘That is madness,’ said Arian. ‘And what will it prove?’
Groundsel’s eyes flickered towards Nuada, then he shrugged. ‘Can you think of a better plan, Llaw Gyifes?’
‘As you wish,’ Llaw muttered. ‘But I think you should gather in all the hunters. This creature will withstand many arrows.’
After the meal Groundsel ordered one of his men to sound the horn and the hunting parties converged to meet at a pre-selected spot, on a high hillside overlooking the stockade. Here a change was made to the original plan, for the first hunting group had found the remains of Daric’s family half-buried in a tree-shrouded hollow.
‘It will return,’ said Groundsel. ‘Did you leave the bodies where they were?’
‘We did,’ replied a tall lean hunter named Dubarin, his face still grey with the shock of the find. ‘Believe me, Groundsel, the beast is large. Its stride length is over seven feet; it is no bear.’
‘As the poet said, we will nail its carcass to the hall doors tonight.’
Some of the men were sent back to the stockade but Groundsel, Llaw, Nuada and Arian journeyed into the hills with twenty bowmen, arriving at Daric’s cabin an hour before dusk. They were led to the bodies by Dubarin, who stopped short of the grisly grave and waved them on.
‘I have no need to see it again,’ he said, turning aside.
‘I don’t want to see it at all,’ declared Nuada, backing away, but Llaw Gyffes grabbed his arm and hauled him forward.
‘Come now, poet, you can’t sing of it if you haven’t seen it!’
Nuada struggled, but Llaw’s grip was like iron and he was dragged to the shallow grave. An arm jutted from beneath the earth and the half-eaten corpse of a young woman lay exposed, her entrails covered in dirt. Part of a child’s body lay close by. Nuada gagged and twisted away to vomit on the ground. Llaw knelt beside him. ‘Now you see,’ he said. ‘This is not some song. There are no Elven princes, no flame-breathing dragons. I shall listen to your tale with interest — if we survive this hunt.’
‘Leave him be,’ said Arian. ‘It is hardly his fault that he has never seen death.’
Llaw stood and wandered to where Groundsel was issuing orders to the men. There were trees all around the hollow and he ordered the archers to climb them and prepare for a long wait. Arian took Nuada by the arm and led him to a thick-boled oak, helping him to climb to the lower branches. Groundsel moved some twenty paces from the bodies and built a fire; Llaw gathered wood and joined him.
‘You know, of course,’ said Llaw, ‘that there is no need for us to sit out here in the open like this? The beast will return anyway.’
‘It will smell people. I want it to see there are only two of us.’
‘There is no one to hear us, Groundsel. What you want is to impress the girl. I am not a fool; I see the way you look at her.’
‘And I you,’ snapped the outlaw. ‘How is it you haven’t bedded her?’
Llaw sat down and removed his tinder-box from the pouch at his belt. Swiftly he lit the fire. ‘Maybe I will — when the time is right.’
Groundsel chuckled. ‘You think you’ll survive the night?’
‘If I don’t, I will not be alone. You may have ordered one — or more — of your archers to cut me down, but I won’t die until my axe is buried in what passes for your brain.’
‘I have ordered nothing of the kind,’ retorted Groundsel. ‘I need no help to kill a man. I was thinking of the beast.’ He strung his bow and removed three shafts from his quiver; having checked them for warp, he stuck them in the earth beside him. ‘Have you ever heard of a beast of ihis size?’
Llaw shrugged. ‘No. A merchant once told me of great cats in the east that could kill a bull and leap a fence carrying its carcass. But this is no cat.’
The sun sank slowly behind the mountains and the two men sat quietly, Llaw feeding the fire. Neither man stared directly into the flames, for the brightness would cause the pupils to contract and leave them virtually blind if they needed to scan the undergrowth. After a while, Groundsel spoke.
‘If you deem it unnecessary to sit here, why do you do it?’
‘Perhaps for the same reason as you?’
‘To impress the lovely Arian? I don’t think so. You worry me, Llaw. Could it be that you want to die?’
‘You think, perhaps, that if we sit quietly in a safe place we will live for ever?’ responded Llaw, removing his axe from his belt and laying it in his lap.
‘Did you really kill your wife?’
Llaw swung on Groundsel, his hand curling around the black haft of the axe. For some seconds he could not speak.
‘My wife was… strangled by the Duke’s nephew. He raped her and killed her. I killed him. Do not — ever — repeat that calumny. You won’t understand what I am to say to you, but I’ll say it anyway: I loved Lydia. More than life. Much, much more than life.’
‘So, you are looking to die here? Not a good end. You think to join your Lydia? Believe me, Llaw, there is no one to join. Look in that pit over there. That’s death, and that’s all there is. Darkness and corruption.’
‘When did you become a philosopher?’ hissed Llaw.
An owl screeched in the night and the two men froze, listening to the wind sighing in the leaves. Groundsel glanced up; the clouds were gathering.
‘It will be a dark night,’ he observed.