“Such madness! Such folly! Such… I do not know what else to call it!” Colwyn hollered as they pulled the boat onto the shore, the damaged craft hardly by this time staying afloat. Abandoning the sea along with its bottomless depths behind them, with a cough and curse, in the direction of the Caled, who was himself gratified to do so also. None were more relieved than Bérénice and Wiglaf to abandon the waters between the island of Reykrlande and Antillia.

  Spitting and coughing, they did not pull themselves hither out from the sea with all the grace of a mermaid, or a goddess made of sea-foam likely might have. But rather, they did so clumsily, with a great deal of sloshing, and recrimination between them.

  Only Bérénice did not curse, only she did not complain though she did shiver and weep a little at the condition of her torn dress as it clung to her, along with her long, long blonde locks.

  Choking himself still upon water, his lungs burning and arms weighing as though they were weighted down with iron chains, Indulf collapsed a short distance away from the sea. Falling to the ground, rolling over onto his back gasps knocked from his lips and nostrils as though he had been deprived of air for years.

  They all lay there gasping as Indulf and Wiglaf did, or sat shivering as the royals did. All gasped and panted hardly paying one another the slightest mind or attention. In time, the latter of the two Cymrans moved nearer to him, to hold up his staff over him his other hand held up in prayer to the heavens.

  The old sorcerer soon gasped in pain, while Indulf merely closed his eyes grateful for the warmth that permeated him, and to have his left-side’s wound and the injury that ran along the side of his face closed. With the wounds temporarily transferred to the old man, only for them to close rapidly when he received them Indulf began to close his eyes while his companion re-seated himself with a groan of pain.

  “By the gods, how in heaven’s name did you endure such things and swim that fool girl to safety?” Wiglaf gasped as he pressed his left hand to his face and his right-hand to his side. His robes darkened with a great deal more crimson than the youth initially realized distracted as he was by his own fatigue. The crimson of the robes did not dry itself, quite as rapidly as might other wounds healed by miracle, by the old man or Wulfnoth.

  Nary a thought crossed Indulf’s mind then, save for him to marvel at the heavens above him, at the blue skies that appeared as profound as the oceans had to be. The white clouds all appeared fairly fluffy and in a variety of shapes. One of them reminded him of a dog his family once had, Fidélon was his name he recalled. The canine was named by his sister Tiobaid, after she had heard about a noble dog who had once given his life to save a young Gallian squire from a bear, the story one of her favourites, recounted doubtlessly by Corin. Though she had named him, the pup had taken more to her older brother, who was seven years old at the time.

  The tragic thing for the dog was that he had gotten sick five years after Murchadh’s disappearance, and Freygil had had to put him down. Indulf still remembered that day, he and his sister had wept terribly along with their mother, with Freygil returning home, sorrowful and grey-faced.

  There was another cloud, he thought looked rather akin to some fish his brother had caught, some trout that had swam upstream from farther south. There was another that bore the same appearance as the fields he had grown up playing in.

  Indulf’s muscles and lungs seemed to burn with more heat than the worst of volcanic infernos. Tired from the long swim, and rescue of Bérénice, he could hardly keep his eyes open at that moment.

  “Merci! Merci!” Bérénice said so suddenly, her face appearing just above his own, her golden-locks falling upon the sand next to his face, tears of gratitude in her eyes.

  It took him a moment to discern what it was she was saying, so badly did her voice tremble with the force of her emotions. He had never known anyone to cry quite so fiercely out of gratitude, nor did he expect her to plant a kiss so suddenly upon his cheek.

  “You ought to be cursing him, rather than thanking him for what he did!” Colwyn complained all of a sudden, gesturing out to the sea, his finger whipping up sharply as he pointed out thither away from them, to where the Sea-Drake had fled.

  But Indulf was not listening. Time had stopped for him then, as Bérénice’s face pulled away her smile warm and eyes shiny, with emotions. Chief amongst all of her emotions was gratitude, this he could see along with a sense of warmth that Indulf felt transfixed by. He had never seen such affection directed at him, at least not by someone other than Inga.

  It made his heart beat fast and his pulse race. It also left him feeling ashamed of himself, for he was moved by her demonstration of gratitude and joy. It felt as though he had just betrayed Inga, in some manner.

  Pulling himself away from the startled princess, he regained his feet forcibly, determined not to pay her any attention, he took no notice to the hurt look the princess sent his way.

  “We must be away, if we have any hope of finding the rest of our companions,” Indulf told the other two men gruffly.

  “If they still live,” Colwyn complained, his arms tossed up in the air in what was a rare show of frustration, mayhaps the first ever observed by the youth.

  “They live, and we will find them.” Indulf insisted resolutely.

  Staring him in the eye, Wiglaf smiled a little despite his shivering from the cold induced by the icy sea. “Aye, where do you think we ought to go whither to now, Indulf?”

  Indulf thought at some length about this question, ere long he glanced up to the heavens waiting for some sort of answer. It was then that his eyes were drawn by the cry of a falcon. It was large and white, and the single most beautiful thing he had ever seen in all his life, he thought. He waited. To his amazement while it flew westwards, it soon curved away northwards, so that he answered with a small smile on his lips, “North.”

  *****

  North happened to be easily said, though not easily advanced towards. The boat was damaged, from where the Sea-Drake had bitten into it, when it had attempted to blindly kill Wiglaf. It had missed of course, tearing a chunk of wood, after he had sought to strike at it with fire. This had failed, as he had predicted all such attempts that escaped his staff would. North was thus difficult to travel whither to, because of their having to ford the river, in a boat that had some difficulties staying afloat.

  This served to amuse Colwyn and Wiglaf both. The latter for the first time in weeks, in a pleasant mood which helped to further uplift Indulf’s own humours. Gone were the days when all he could accomplish for himself, Wiglaf’s disappointment.

  Full of joy, save when they had to ford the river, which he admitted to not knowing the name of and which they later learnt was the Elfwine-River. A river that had a long, tragic history that stretched back two millennia and that had they known then what they were to later learn, they would have stopped to pay their respects to it. Fording it, in the small boat later that very day, with only Bérénice unenthusiastic, as she took to ignoring Indulf for reacting the way he had after she had kissed him.

  Her pride was likely wounded, he thought guessing at the source of her anger towards him. It hurt him to think that he had wounded her so. He owed better to Inga he thought, than to have his head turned by the first princess he met on this quest. These thoughts in mind, his mood soon turned dour.

  After they forded the river they were to find farther downstream from the river, a small forest that could nary be called that. It was there that they picked up branches as they walked, with which they began a small fire. Seated in a small circle, they were reduced to fishing for their meal, with Wiglaf tasking Colwyn who reluctantly did as bidden. The sorcerer’s staff which now had a string and small worm he dug up with his bare hands from the ground, Colwyn went off to do as he was told.

  Yet he did not do so without endless complaints, “Why must I do this? It ought to be Indulf, who fishes for us, considering it was he who cost us our boat.”

  “Because, he has done quite enough for one day, and has yet to properly recover from his injuries while you have yet to do aught else but complain endlessly.” Those words along with the frustrated contempt that accompanied them were as music to Indulf’s ears. Never before had he heard the old man scold Colwyn, in so fierce a manner. Typically, the Cymrans were of one mind, yet now they appeared to have little to unite them.

  Pleased in spite of how his sides and face, which he had hardly paid any mind to ached, as though still burnt from where he had torn the former against the scales of the drake. The latter aches from where he had cut the side of his face upon one of the fangs of the beast just before, it had shaken him from its head.

  His tunic torn, he was fortunate to have been healed shortly after his having reached the shore. Seated to his right-hand side as he was intent upon ignoring Bérénice, just as she was him, he could not help but notice the hiss of pain Wiglaf let slip ere he seated himself.

  “Are you injured Wiglaf?” He asked worried for the old man, who shook his head ruefully in response.

  “Aye, though it is the injury you sustained after your battle with the Sea-Drake,” Wiglaf admitted reluctantly, his face torn in a grimace of anguished pain.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  His hand lifting to reveal the redness of his robes, with the left-hand side having long-since been stained red. The stain was too large for his hand to have covered the whole of it, though neither of the two youths had hitherto noticed this injury, for which they both took it up as a stain upon their honour.

  Contrary to the expectations of the Caled, Bérénice did not shrink from the injury, but rather after having demanded how it had happened, shouted at Indulf. “Eau! Eau, vas-y, et vite!”

  Understanding that she wished for him to fetch water at once, thanks to it being one of the few Gallian words he had recalled from Cormac’s attempts to teach him, he did as bidden. Moving as fast as he could, to the river whereupon he refilled his tankard, which had been emptied over the course of their journey by boat. Hurrying back as swiftly as his legs would carry him, the longest of his generation in all of Glasvhail.

  Grabbing the tankard from him, Bérénice had the sorcerer remove the upper part of his robe so that she could pour the contents of the tankard upon his wound. A wound that ought to have been closed some time ago, given the nature of the miracle that had transferred it from Indulf and onto Wiglaf, yet had not healed. Alarmed at the sight of it, and the hiss of pain that resulted from their pouring water, upon his injury, Indulf could only gape at it.

  “It is aright, it merely re-opened while I walked it should close once more,” the sorcerer said to them in a helpless voice.

  “How has it not closed?” the Caled asked worriedly, with the old man simply shrugging his shoulders as weakly as he could.

  Pulling a needle and thread from a small satchel girded to her dress’ belt, Bérénice moved with trembling fingers to assist the old man in the closing, of his wounds. Seeing her struggle and how she held the needle and thread, Indulf sought to take it from her which only awoke her anger against him. Hissing at him, she soon took to cursing at him in Gallian.

  It was then that she sought to swat his hands away from the injury, with a huff Indulf shoved her aside in a fit of pique himself, ere he took the needle and thread into his own hands.

  “Careful lad, do not push her so,” Wiglaf scolded though he hardly moved from where he lay now, upon the grass.

  “Tush, let me concentrate,” Indulf snapped his eyes intent upon the injury that really ought to have been his own.

  Rising to her feet, it appeared as though Bérénice may in fact leap upon him, in a fit of rage. She was however halted by the sight of his actions along with the glare that the sorcerer threw in her direction. Knitting together the sides of the wound with fingers that unlike those of the princess did not shake, his dark-blonde brows furrowed together.

  *****

  Once knitted together, with the long gash that began to the left side of his gut and went up to just below his armpit, the old man closed his eyes and fell into a deep slumber. This after the loud hisses and complaints of pain that the old man had let slip, each time the needle cut into his flesh or touched the wound.

  Pulling back from where he knelt above the old man, to begin a fire with the materials Colwyn had gathered together, from the pile they had gathered as they walked. The Cymran had returned to their hurried camp quietly, when he had not been paying attention, so that Indulf jumped a little at the sight of him.

  “How long have you been standing there?” He asked in a breathless voice, wiping his bloodied hands on his tunic.

  “Since some time ago,” Colwyn admitted with rare earnestness, his eyes troubled and his expression unusually serious. Indulf appreciated his silence and lack of blathering, grateful for the chance to sit before the small fire begun some time ago by the prince. Accepting with a loud word of thanks some cooked fish that the older man had caught. “You did well.”

  “Pardon?” Indulf muttered with his mouth half-filled with fish, keen to hear the Cymran speak with some small measure of honesty rather than, with his typical acerbic wit.

  He did not disappoint him, saying with a small smile, “Indulf I must confess I did not think much of you, at the start of this quest. You frightened me, with the intensity of your rage so that I mistrusted you, yet now I think you one of the bravest and finest men I have ever met.”

  Embarrassed at his words, Indulf felt his cheeks turn crimson. What could he say, at such high-praise from a man who had in under twenty-years become a living legend? A man who was the Odysseus of Cymru, who had in that time transformed the lands of Gwyneira from a wasteland to the greenest and greatest of all Cymran territories.

  “Thank you,” He murmured full of gratitude for those kindly words. Seeing the small smile on the lips of the older man, and the manner in which Bérénice ignored them both, he asked after swallowing the last of the fish in his mouth. “But surely you have done similar feats? You are the most famous man of Cymru currently living.”

  “Nay, for it was the stupidest thing I have ever observed, just as it was the bravest,” Colwyn replied to him with a small chuckle. “What do you think of me, lad? That I am some sort of legend who has faced every beast imaginable, and tricked them all?” At the nod of the lad he said with some small amount of preening on his part. “I must admit that aye I have tricked a laird out of a castle. I have outwitted all of my neighbours, tricked a vampire into the day-light and convinced the worst of Cymru’s abbots into departing for foreign lands. But I have always acted, in a measured manner if I do say so myself, and rarely in as foolish an act as what you demonstrated.”

  “But still, what of your defiance of the Knightwraith?” Indulf asked of him, full of humility and the desire to deflect some of the other man’s admiration for him.

  “My son Gwallter defied him, along with my beautiful wife not I,” Colwyn replied with a small laugh.

  Asked what it was that they spoke of by the princess, as she worried over Wiglaf, he clarified it in the language of the Gallians. Uncomfortable, as he always was when the Cymrans spoke in Gallian, as he knew very little of that tongue, Indulf took up another fish from where it cooked over the fire and chewed into it thoroughly. At that moment he would have done anything to cover up just how discomfited and exhausted he truly was, from his perceptive companions.

  “What is it you speak of?” He asked once there was a pause between the two, by this time they had spoken between themselves for a long period of time.

  “Bérénice merely wished, to hear me sing of my wife whom she has heard much of, even in distant Gallia,” Colwyn said quickly only to wink at him. “She also asked after you my friend, asking how you know how to sew so well?”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her it was none of her concern. But that appeared to him, a little too rude, and though still annoyed at her he could not bring himself to behave so.

  With a small sigh of melancholic wistfulness, at the memory of how he had loved to sew, loved his apprenticeship under Kenna, he admitted. “I can sew, because I was apprenticed to Cormac’s mother Kenna, who is seamstress of Glasgow, and the finest cloth-merchant in all of Caledonia.”

  “Quite the commendable lady-merchant,” Colwyn complimented politely, translating in the next heartbeat for the princess what it was that he had said.

  The princess appeared impressed and asked another question, as she spoke Indulf spoke also though it was more to himself. “She is.” The admiration he still felt for the fierce woman who had been more than an aunt to him, had been almost a second-mother remained unvarnished.

  Speaking of Kenna filled Indulf to the brim, with longing to see her again also, mostly to sit by her side and to sew in silence with nary a thought to the dangers of the outer world.

  “I shan’t listen to you both at the same time,” Colwyn muttered in exasperation, only to after a moment of listening to the princess prompt the Caled to repeat himself, which he did. Then the prince of Gwyneira went on to interpret, for him the words of the princess. “She says that you must have also had considerable training as a warrior, considering your bravery and feat over yonder in the sea, ‘twixt the two islands.”

  “Nay, no training, and what matter is it to her?” Indulf queried impatiently, wishing this conversation was at an end, as it along with the intent look in the princess’ eyes made him uncomfortable. Quite why, was a mystery to him, all he knew was that he had no wish to discuss what he had done to save her.

  Colwyn glanced first at him then towards the princess, whom he spoke to for but a moment ere he informed him. “I will not translate such hostility to such an august princess. She is wondering if mayhaps you have some trace of nobility to you.”

  This won the two royals an earnest laugh from the Caled. It was the first in some time, and it was certainly the first time in weeks he had rolled about so great was his laughter. To one side sat the chortling Colwyn, who questioned just how na?ve a lass had to be, to ask such a foolish question, or how in love. Bérénice for her part was affronted, and huffed at his comportment while Wiglaf slept on.

  *****

  “The wound is magical in nature,” Wiglaf informed them morosely, when next he awoke and they began to set off for the north once more, “I shall not heal, at least not completely.”

  The previous night had been spent in merry humour; the dawn however saw that jovial camaderie die out to be replaced by uncertainty. This being mostly due to the old sorcerer, who had to have his wounds’ re-stitched and a new bandage pressed against them.

  Worried for him, Indulf it was who had re-stitched his injury, ignoring as he did so the burning pain that made the side of his face ache, where his newfound scar was. He was not alone in his concern for the old man, as Bérénice rubbed at the man’s hand as he worked, and Colwyn gathered his effects. They then set out for the north; quite where they were due for was a mystery to each of them, with only the princess having some clue to the local geography.

  “I thought that miracles were supposed to always heal the wounds or illnesses of the sick, and that after the first moments the injury disappeared.” Colwyn had said evidently as ignorant of why the sorcerer had not yet fully recovered, from his having healed the wounds of Indulf.

  “It is because of the nature of dragons, they are closest to creation in age and being.” Wiglaf explained discomfited, seeing the confusion upon their faces he went on to elaborate. “You see when all that presently exists came into being; the first creatures in Miegarer were mightier than they now. The farther away from the gods we go, the less majestic, the less pure we become in essence. There are of course exceptions, but dragons and drakes regardless of their denomination are closer to that moment when the gods sang our ancestors into being. Forged by the Drago-Father, the first dragons not of the stock of Nidhogg were truly majestic beings, and though the trickster, Loki was to darken some of them. Their descendants have retained the immortality and purity, of the moment of the Drago-Father’s second great melody.”

  “Second melody?” Indulf asked of the old man, bewildered by this remark.

  At his question, Wiglaf became all the more uncomfortable, visibly shaken at the question. “It is heresy, Indulf and I dislike speaking of it! But it is believed by some of my order, those who have spoken with dragons that the first song of the Drago-Father was sung at the dawn of time, alongside his elder brothers; the All-Father and the Light-Father.”

  It sounded remarkably, to Indulf’s mind of various tales his grandmother had taught him, of his grandfather’s beliefs ere his conversion to the Quirinian faith. The mention of All-Father was what made him think of the northern god Oein, so that he swiftly guessed that the latter two were Vili and Ve respectively. Quite what role they played in the tale of the dragons, was a mystery to him, he assumed that one of them, had sung a song he ought not to have chanted.

  “I have heard tell of such tales by some travelers,” Colwyn murmured softly as they walked along the great fields, distant mountains to the east of them, while the Great Plains stretched on to the north and west. “Many of those of northron extraction, or of ériu where their faith has remained alive, whisper of such things.”

  “I do not put much stock in it,” Wiglaf insisted stubbornly.

  He may not have noticed it, but Indulf certainly did. He felt certain that Colwyn also took note, of the way that the old man’s voice trembled uncertainly.

  Quite what this meant for his own faith, in the gods Indulf was not sure. The first threads of doubt had begun to be woven, into his being so that in this manner he came to be unaware of what he ought to truly believe in.

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