[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
the strand for a short distance when, feeling myself followed, I turned and found this dauntless gray-beard
close behind. I clasped him close, feeling his withered body shake with cold under his drenched robes,
and the throb of his unconquerable heart, and without words we went on together.
Never before had I felt such a kinship with this old man as at this time, when, if ever, he might have been
expected to take first thought for himself. The immortal spirit hi him drove on the creaking carcass and
laughed at distress, the storm and catastrophe.
Truly, whatever the unhallowed bargain with the Dark, whatever perpetuated his being beyond that of
normal life, whatever his failings, Myrdhinn was very much a man!
We pushed on into the watery wind and had not gone far before finding a body. After some labor the
man gasped and spoke, and we knew him for Marcus, my sister s son. He was grievously pounded and
sore and complained of head pains; so searching there we found a gash and bound it up, as well as might
be in a darkness so profound that, working, I could scarce see my fingers.
I left him in Myrdhinn s care and beseeched them both, if the lad were able soon, to return along the
beach, searching, while I kept on hi the original direction. I had not far to seek. Indeed, it seemed that
everyone must have been washed ashore, so often did my questing feet stumble over bodies lying hi or
just above the surf, as I followed the shoreline just within the lap of the waves.
Whenever I came upon one, I dragged him high and worked upon him till recovery or until I was certain
that further effort was useless, and eventually, among a little company of seven rescued, I heard my
last-found survivor gasp, choke and breathe again, and looked around me to find that the darkness had
appreciably lightened.
Now I could make out faces through the murk, recognize them, and beyond, through a spurt of the
driving rain that still rushed over us hi fitful bursts as though a tank above were overturning to drench us
anew every few moments, I made out a dun mass approaching from the direction in which we had been
searching.
This mass soon resolved itself into a little crowd of twenty, and learning from them that all progress
beyond was blocked by a deep inlet, and that all living stood before us, we returned along the shore in
the direction of the wreck. We scattered widely inland on the chance that some of our people might have
been able to struggle farther away from the waves than I had searched.
No more living were found here, though we rescued two poor drowned bodies that the sea was sporting
with in the shallows, tumbling them about like cat at play with mouse. We bore them along and added
them to the growing company of the dead two new members whose loss and whose lost experience
we as yet scarcely appreciated. We were to grieve over them more bitterly in the days to come.
One was the shipman, and at his death we were akeady struck with an increasing dread. How, without
his guiding knowledge of the sea, the courses of wind and wave, might we ever return to Britain or
Rome?
It seemed ironical, as we sought among the dead, that Neptune had taken only his godchildren and
spurned us landsmen. Those gathered about me were, without exception, fighting-men, and the dead on
the beach were mostly the crew of the ship.
The other, whom we had just laid down, was the one man from all our company (save Myrdbinn) we
could least have spared, though we did not realize that just then and mourned the shipman much and
Morgo, the smith, but little.
Yet with the passing of Morgo likewise passed our knowledge of metals and their working, and though in
later years Myrdhinn was able to help from his books, we had lost the practical knowledge needed to
apply what he could tell us and suffered from this loss in many ways. Indeed, one of our most hazardous
exploits sprang from this very lack of ability and brave men were done to death, as you will see at the
proper time.
The gray skies brightened, though still overcast with scudding clouds. We left the dead for the time and
hastened on toward the wrecked Prydwen. It was a sad sight which greeted us.
The dromon had broken in half under the incessant pounding, and only the forepart remained whole, lying
in a nest of rocks, some hundred yards out from shore. The after portion was greatly crumbled away and
lost, while with it had gone most of our gear, as we akeady knew, for the strand was strewn with refuse.
Clothing was tangled with weed, as also provision chests, arrows, bows and planking; in fact, anything
that would float.
So, with despair, we came to where Myrdhinn, Marcus and other rescued stood beside very many
drowned and dead, among them Wulfgar Ironbelly, and all but one of the bards, looking disconsolate;
and here we saw this bard trying valiantly to strike out an accompaniment to his keening, from a harp as
drenched and tuneless as he.
His doleful clamor, fitting all too well the depressing state we were in, put us all in a mood to sit down,
clasp hands, weep together and die there hi the cold rain without an effort to help ourselves. I could not
stand it, and dashed the harp from his hands, turning such a furious face upon him that he raised his arm
against the expected blow and ceased complaining about white-maned sea horses who trample the
brave and daring beneath their hooves of silver!
All stood aghast, for to those of British blood the person of a bard is sacred and to interrupt a keening is
sacrilege. Whatever I did now must be done quickly or the moment of decisive action would pass and be
wasted.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]