The High King

Coll reached it as the first Cauldron warrior had begun to force himself over the stones. The old man was upon him in an instant and, dropping his spear, seized the warrior in his burly arms and flung him downward. While other Cauldron-Born swarmed to the breach, Coll snatched out his sword and laid about him right and left, heedless of the attackers' hacking and stabbing blades. Shouting in wrath as the a weapon shattered in his hands, the stout farmer cast it away and struck out with his heavy fists. The death­less warriors clung to him, striving to pull him into their midst, but he shook them off, ripped a sword from the grasp of a tottering Cauldron-Born, and swung it as if he meant to fell an oak with a single blow.

Taran was at Coll's side in a moment. The horns of the Huntsmen screamed the signal to retreat. Now Taran realized the attack had truly ended with this last convulsion. The Cauldron-Born had begun to scale the heights. The Red Fallows were barred to them.

Coll was bleeding heavily from the head; his fleece-lined coat, bloodsoaked, was slashed and tat­tered by the blades of the Cauldron-Born. Quickly, Taran and Fflewddur carried him between them to the bottom of the wall. Gurgi, whimpering in distress, hurried to aid them. Eilonwy had torn off her cloak to cushion the old farmer against the harsh stones.

"After them, my boy," Coll gasped. "Give them no rest. The twigs have turned the flood, but it must be turned again, and many times, if you would block the way to Annuvin."

"One stout oak tree has turned it,'' Taran replied. "Once again, I have leaned on it." He took Coll's work-hardened hands and gently tried to lift him.

Coll's broad face grinned and he shook his head. "I am a farmer," he murmured, "but warrior enough to know my own death wound. Go along, my boy. Carry with you no more burdens than you must."

"What then," answered Taran, "will you have me break the promise I made? That we will dig and weed together?" But the words came painfully as a dagger wound.

Eilonwy, her face drawn, looked anxiously at Taran.

"I had hoped one day to sleep in my own garden," Coll said. "The drone of bees would have pleased me more than the horn of Gwyn the Hunter. But I see the choice was not to be mine."

"The horn of Gwyn does not blow for you," said Taran. "You hear the Cauldron-Born summoned to retreat." Yet even as he spoke, the faint notes of a horn rose above the hills and its dying echoes trembled like shadows over the wasteland. Eilonwy covered her face with her hands.

"See to our plantings, my boy," said Coll.

"We shall both do so," answered Taran. "The weeds will no more stand against you than did Arawn's warriors."

The stout old farmer did not answer. It was a long moment before Taran realized that Coll was dead.

WHILE THE GRIEVING COMPANIONS gathered stones from the ruined wall, with his own hands Taran hollowed out a grave in the harsh earth, allowing none other to aid him in this task. Even when the humble mound had risen above Coll Son of Collfrewr, he did not move from it, but ordered Fflewddur and the companions to press on into the Hills of Bran-Galedd, where he would join them before nightfall.

For long he stood silently. As the sky darkened, at last he turned away and climbed heavily astride Melynlas. He halted another moment by the mound of red earth and rough stones.

"Sleep well, grower of turnips and gatherer of apples," Taran murmured. "You are far from where you longed to be. So, too, am I."

Alone he rode across the darkening Fallows to the waiting hills.

Chapter 13 Darkness

IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, the companions strove to overtake the Cauldron-Born and again fling themselves across the path of the retreating warriors, but their progress was agonizingly slow. Taran knew Coll had spoken truly when he had called the Hills of Bran-Galedd both friend and foe: the rocky troughs and narrow defiles, the sudden drops where the ground fell away sharply into frozen gorges offered the companions their only hope of delaying the deathless host moving onward like a river of iron. But at the same time, from the high crags of the west, gusts of snow-laden wind battered the struggling band with icy hammers. The winding trails were slippery and treacherous. The ravines held deep pits filled with snow, where horse and rider might founder beyond rescue.

In the hills, Taran's most trusted guide was Llassar. Surefooted, long used to mountain ways, the Commot youth was now shepherd to a different, grimmer flock. More than once, Llassar's keen senses kept the companions from the icy traps of snow-hidden crevices, and he discovered pathways no other eye could see. But the progress of the ragged band was nonetheless slow, and all suffered cruelly from the cold, men and animals alike. Only the great cat, Llyan, showed no concern for the bitter blasts that drove frosty needles against the faces of the companions.