The High King

Desperate now, Taran made ready to search through the farther hills. But Fflewddur, his face grave and filled with concern, took Taran's arm and drew him back.

"Alone, you can't hope to find them," warned the bard. "Neither can you spare time nor men for a search party. If we're to stop those foul brutes before they reach the Fallows, we shall have to move with all speed. Your Commot friends are ready to march."

"You and Llassar must lead them," Taran re­plied. "Once Eilonwy and Gurgi are found, we'll join you somehow. Go quickly. We shall meet soon again."

The bard shook his head. "If that's your com­mand, so be it. But, as I have heard it, Taran Wanderer it was who called the Commot folk to his banner, and for the sake of Taran Wanderer they answered. They followed where you led. For none other would they have done as much."

"What, then," Taran cried, "would you have me leave Eilonwy and Gurgi in danger?"

"It is a heavy choice," Fflewddur said. "Alas, none can lighten it for you."

Taran did not reply. Fflewddur's words grieved him all the more because of their truth. Hevydd and Llassar had asked no more than to fight at his side. Llonio had given his life at Caer Dathyl. There was no Commot warrior who had not lost kinsman or comrade. If he left them to seek Eilonwy, would she herself deem his choice good? The horsemen awaited his orders. Melynlas impatiently pawed the ground.

"If Eilonwy and Gurgi are slain," Taran said in an anguished voice, "they are beyond my help. If they live, I must hope and trust they will find their way to us." He swung heavily into the saddle. "If they live," he murmured.

Without daring a backward glance at the silent, empty hills, he rode toward the war band.

By the time the Commot men were on the march again, the Cauldron-Born had well outdistanced them and were moving without delay to the foothills of Bran-Galedd. Even at their fastest pace, halting only for moments of fitful rest, the Commot riders regained little of the precious time that had been lost.

Each day Taran strained his eyes for a sign of Eilonwy and Gurgi, hoping against hope that the Princess would find some means of reaching the war band again. But the two companions had vanished, and Fflewddur's desperate cheerfulness and assurance that both would appear from one moment to the next rang false and hollow.

At midmorning on the third day of their march an outrider galloped in with tidings of strange movements in the pine forest at the column's flank. Taran halted his warriors, hastily ordering them to stand ready for combat, then rode with Fflewddur to see for himself. Through the trees a little below him he could make out no more than a vague stirring, as if shadows of branches flickered across the drifts. But in another instant the bard shouted excitedly and Taran quickly sounded his horn.

From the woods tramped a long procession of short, stocky figures. Garbed in white cloaks and hoods, they were all but invisible against the snow, and not until they had begun to move across a bare stretch of rocky ground could Taran distinguish one marcher from the next. Their stout leather boots, laced and bound with thongs, barely showed below their cloaks, and looked like nothing so much as rapidly moving tree stumps. The shapes that bulked on their shoulders or at their waists were, Taran guessed, weapons or sacks of provisions.

"Great Belin!" cried Fflewddur. "If that's who I think it is…"

Taran had already dismounted and was racing down the slope, waving at the bard to follow him. At the head of the band, which seemed to number well over a hundred, trudged a familiar, stumpy figure. Though he, too, was heavily muffled in white, his crimson hair flamed out beyond the fringe of his hood. In one hand he carried a short, heavy-bladed axe, and in the other, a thick staff. He had caught sight of Taran and Fflewddur and strode to meet them.

In another instant the bard and Taran were clasping his hands, pummeling his burly shoulders, and shouting so many greetings and questions that the new arrival clapped his hands to his head.

"Doli!" Taran cried. "Good old Doli!"

"I heard you clearly the first few times," the dwarf snorted. "If I ever doubted you recognized me, you've fully convinced me that you do." He put his hands on his hips and looked up sharply, trying, as always, to appear as gruff as he could. Despite himself his bright red eyes flashed with pleasure and his features broke into a grin, which he tried, without suc­cess, to change to his usual scowl.

"You've led us a chase," Doli declared, motioning the warriors to follow Taran up the slope. "We had word you'd gone into the hills, but saw nothing of you until today."

"Doli!" Taran exclaimed, still amazed at the unexpected sight of this long-absent companion. "What good luck brings you to us?"