Ceallach had come up on his other side. He dropped to his haunches and shook at Rhys hard. Rhys' body was loose, like some thing broken.
"Is he dying?" Ceallach asked. "Meadhbh, can people die like this?"
She did not know. Rhys' breath still came. There was no other sign. He was a capable man, was Rhys ap Dryw. He lay there with his weapons and his armor, more defenseless than they were. Of a sudden she felt a creeping sickness of her own, a deep malaise which lay at the pit of her throat, where the leaf rested. Ceallach lifted his hand in the same moment to his own throat. His eyes were fright ened and wide.
"Caolaidhe," he breathed.
But it was quite, quite another thing which stood there beside the water, in the shadow of the tree where they had sat. That was deep shadow to them, who were in brilliant sunlight; it was hard to see because of that, but it had no proper shape, and when it moved gave out a rustling like grass. It shuffled forward into the light and squat ted there, small and brown and shaggy.
"Rhys," Meadhbh cried, shaking at him, and Ceallach snatched Rhys' dagger.
"Brave," the shaggy creature said. "But iron bites, bites you."
"Stay away," said Ceallach.
It came no closer. It sat with its arms about its knees and regarded them with old and shadowed eyes from under its fringe of hair. "Bites."
Ceallach's hand was shaking. He braced it with his other clenched about his wrist, and sweat stood on his face. The dagger tumbled. Meadhbh caught it up and the cold of it burned her fingers. Neither could she hold it. The pain ran through her bones. Run, she thought; and thought of Rhys helpless with this creature; thought also of the elf who had stepped through thickets effortlessly to pursue them.
"Thistle," she called to the empty air. "Thistle—"
"No, no," the brown man said holding up his hands. "She would not be pleased. She sent me. You must not call. I came to see the children, the children I would like."
She had stopped, falling half under the spell of the small piping voice. She heard the hum of bees, the sighing of the rushes, and struggled to disbelieve.
"Rhys," said Ceallach. "What have you done to Rhys?"
"Sleep," the brown man said. "No harm, never harm from the Gruagach. See, I give my name."
"We will not give ours," said Meadhbh.
"Ah. But I know a name that you own: children of the Cearbhallain. I feel it in your hearts." The brown man hopped up very quickly and somehow (it deceived the eye) hopped to the rump of Floinn, who lifted her head from her grazing.
"She's my pony," Meadhbh said with all the fierceness she could muster. "Let her be."
"Nice pony." The Gruagach scampered into the saddle, crouching like some ungainly bird, and leaned close to whisper something in Floinn's back-turned ear. Meadhbh sprang up and snatched a stone from the bank. She held it in threat, and Ceallach took another.
"Let my pony be. And wake Rhys up."
"Rhys. Rhys." It hugged itself, savoring the name they had given it. "Be more careful where you give names. You might give away his heart, but the Gruagach has no need of it."
Shame flooded her cheeks for the mistake they had made. "Then let us all go," Meadhbh said. "Let him wake up again."
"I have seen you," it said. It hopped down again. "Fine sensible ponies, brave and good. They like you, but mostly they like their comforts, which is what ponies love best. And they are clever. Many ponies are. But your way is darker than theirs, o darker. I know now why she sent me."
"Thistle?"
"You have bright eyes. They see—o, they do see. The Gruagach knows you. He sees why. Be wise, o be wise, good children. Trust no iron. Be kind but be not foolish. The Gruagach sees, o yes, the green shadow on you. You are old, old as stones and your roots are deep: new growth on a hewn tree."
"You make no sense," said Ceallach. "Let him wake up. Let Rhys be. He never did you harm."
The Gruagach hugged itself and spun on one foot. "Go home, he must go home; the south must come to aid. Go home, go home, walk wisely through the shade. The four-footed friends will serve you while they can. The wind is coming and on it something rides—o I see, the Gruagach sees. Go away! Go away! The Gruagach has these children and the Man you cannot have!"
It was gone, it was straightforwardly gone, with only the sunlight in its place, and the ponies and Rhys' tall horse never starting from it. The bees kept up their humming, undaunted. The wind was gentle in the rushes.
And Rhys stirred in his sleep and waked with Ceallach and Meadhbh beside him. His eyes were peaceful at the first and then took alarm and shame at once.
"We were worried," Meadhbh explained as Rhys sat up on his hands. "You would not wake up."
Rhys had a desperate look, and ran a hand through his black hair. He looked at them, at the sky, at the streamside and the hills, seem ing profoundly embarrassed.
"I have never done such a thing," Rhys said. He started to his feet, missed his dagger and found it on the ground. Again he looked about him and at them. "Did you sleep too?"
"No," said Meadhbh, sure that it had not been a dream, and that it was not for telling, though she wished to. She felt sorry for the man, who was almost a lord of sorts and very proud, and truly never one to be so careless in a charge. He would confess it to their father, she was sure. And their father would see through it all and worry for what had happened.
"You frightened us," Ceallach said.
Rhys said nothing to that, but walked to where the horse and ponies grazed, and they followed, not without looks at each other— not conspirators' glances, but troubled ones. They joined hands as they walked after Rhys. Meadhbh understood nothing of what the brown man had said; she doubted it made more sense to Ceallach— except that it was to them the brown man had come, and to them he had spoken, and said he came from Thistle, whatever her real name was.
Dark on their path: that he had promised. And something on the wind. But the sky was clear and blue and there was no hint of it. She did not take comfort of that: blue skies were quickly changed, and this one seemed very fragile, and the sunlight hike reflection, even at noon. There had been something about roots and leaves; she made no sense of that, either. But it spoke of some kind of change in them, of iron—and neither she nor Ceallach could hold the dagger. Her hand still ached from trying.
Things of Eald and iron would not agree together. That was why their father had ridden out armorless and weaponless; and even now the pain went shivering through her mind, the iron pain, when the stone their father carried had such force or such danger in it he shielded it from her fingers, when he had fallen on the stairs after taking it and she had seen him in pain.
She had felt something like. She knew. And he went on carrying that stone, which was far more than any slender silver leaf. Her mother made him possets to drink so that he could rest. And at times there was still pain. Now she knew where it came from.