Stephen Lawhead - Taliesin

Elphin took the tore and carefully spread the ends, raised it to his neck and slipped it on, then pushed the two ends together. The cool weight of the tore felt good on his shoulders.

“Here is the third treasure that Elphin has found,” said Hafgan, speaking to all gathered there. “He has found a son of virtue, a noble wife, and now the tore of a king. Who among you will call him unlucky?”

No one stirred; who could speak against such evidence?

“From this day, let no one disparage the name of Elphin, for to do so will bring dishonor-not upon Elphin, but on the speaker. You have all seen that Elphin’s luck has changed and his fortune is now as great as his previous misfortune.” He raised his staff over them. “Here is the evidence that all I have foretold is coming to pass. Hear and remember.”

They all dispersed, and Elphin climbed from the hole to show Rhonwyn his incredible find. Rhonwyn, unlike the others, expressed no surprise but merely raised her hand to finger the tore and said, ‘ ‘When I first saw you, I saw a tore of gold about your neck. Now here it is. This is but the first of my husband’s many glorious achievements.”

That same night Elphin lay in bed, Rhonwyn beside him with the infant at her breast. It was late and the hearthfire burned low, and although it had been a busy day he tossed this way and that, unable to sleep. After a few minutes of his thrashing, Rhonwyn said, “What is the matter, Elphin? Are you troubled?”

“No,” he said, “yet sleep eludes me. I cannot rest.”

“It might help to walk a little.”

“Perhaps you are right.” He rose quietly, pulled a calfskin around his shoulders, and stepped outside to a night alive with stars. He stood contemplating the sky bowl for some moments, the crisp air making his breath a silver mist in the starlight.

“This is a night for enchantment,” he thought. “On such a night as this, great deeds are done for good or ill.”

The thought was still in his mind when he heard a sound- a shrill keen in the night like a nightbird’s call. And though he listened for the sound to come again, all he heard were the nightsounds of the caer. Curious, he walked down through the center of the caer, passing the great oak and the dark houses of his kinsmen, moving toward the palisade. At the gate he climbed the inner rampart and looked out over the palisade to the cattle pens beyond. It was dark and quiet beyond the enormous timber circle of the fortress. As he turned to retrace his steps back down the rampart, he caught a glimmer out of the corner of his eye-like the gleam of starlight on a naked blade.

He looked again and it was gone. But now he was alert. Standing there, staring into the darkness, he made out dark shapes moving in the main pen. He felt a tingle in his flesh and without thinking threw off the calfskin and raced back through the caer to his father’s house. He dashed inside and shouted, “Gwyddno! Get up! Our cattle are being stolen!”

Snatching a burning brand from the firepit, he ran back outside to the gate, lifted the crosspiece from its pegs, and threw the massive gate open. Then he flew down the track to the cattle pens with the firebrand in his hand. Behind him came the alarm sounded on Gwyddno’s hunting horn, and then the clanging of the iron bar hanging from the oak.

Elphin reached the pen and was met by the swords of four raiders. A blood-freezing shriek tore from his throat and he threw himself at the raiders, swinging his firebrand in a flaming arc around him. The thieves fell back in confusion and he saw the fear on their faces in the wild light of the torch, so pressed was his attack, shoving the burning branch at them time and time again.

Other raiders sped to the fray. He swung to meet them, raising his voice in a fierce battle scream, flailing with the firebrand. He struck one man who went down with a grunt, and the others scattered. Elphin chased them, shrieking and swinging and lunging. The flaming brand ripped and flared in the night, making him seem like an incendiary being.

His clansmen from the caer reached the pen and saw a strange sight: Elphin, unarmed except for his firebrand, chasing ten raiders armed with swords and spears, fleeing before him as if before a battlelord in a hurtling chariot.

They ran to his aid, hot battle cries piercing the cool night air. One of the raiders slipped behind Elphin and aimed his spear. “Look out!” cried Gwyddno.

Elphin heard the shout and spun as the spear sliced the air beside him. He put out a hand and his fist closed on the clumsily-thrown shaft, plucking it out of the air. He whipped around to face the raiders who, backed against the low stone wall, had turned to attack him once more. They yelled and ran forward, bunched together in a mass. Elphin hefted the spear and with a mighty heave let it fly.

The spear flew true, passing through the foremost raider’s flimsy leather shield and his body and into the one pressing close behind him as well. The two, pinioned by the same spear, fell as one.

Seeing this remarkable feat, the remaining thieves halted, turned and fled, scrambling over the walls and disappearing into the night. The caer dwellers gave chase but did not catch them, and soon returned to the scene of the fight.

There they found Elphin, naked and shaking, standing over the bodies of the men he had slain, the smoldering firebrand still in his hand. Gwyddno approached him and said, “Never have I seen a man behave in battle the way you did.”

“Who were they?” asked Elphin.

Cuall, one of the first to reach the fight, stooped over the dead men and pushed a torch into their faces. He straightened and said, “I have never seen such men. Their dress is as strange as their faces.”

“Irish?” asked Gwyddno.

Cuall shook his head. “I do not think so.”

“Who they are does not matter,” said one of the men. “Our cattle are safe.”

“There should have been an alarm,” offered Gwyddno. “Where are our herdsmen?”

“Dead.” They all turned to the speaker, who gestured to a far wall. “If not for Elphin, we would never have discovered the theft until morning and then the thieves would have been away clean.”

The men looked at Elphin wonderingly. “How did you leam of the raid?” asked his father.

“I do not know,” he answered, shaking his head as if were as great a mystery to himself as to the others. “I could not sleep and came outside. I heard something and saw the glimmer of a sword in the cattle pen. When I looked there were men here. I ran to the lord’s house, wakened him, and took a firebrand from his hearth. I came down here…”

Cuall retrieved one of the raider’s weapons. “These swords are blackened with pitch and mud-as are the faces of the wretches before us,” he said, turning the blade over for all to see. “How could you see it shine?”

Elphin only shook his head. “That I cannot say. I only know I saw it and came running.”

“But why did you not wait for us, son?” asked Gwyddno. “It was foolhardy to go against them alone.”

“Foolhardy perhaps,” replied one of the men, “but I saw Elphin’s face in the firelight. Why, it burned as bright as the torch in his hand!”

“Brighter,” said another. “He had the battle frenzy on him and the warrior’s glow-as the heroes of old.”

“Did you see?” said a third. “He snatched the spear out of the air and threw it back!”

“Two with one throw!” shouted another.

The men began shouting victory cries, and Cuall leapt upon the dead raiders with a sword and hewed the heads from their shoulders. He handed the dripping trophies to Elphin, saying, “With nothing but a torch you routed the enemy. Hail Elphin, son of Gwyddno Garanhir, champion of the fight!”