The Broken Kings: Book Three of The Merlin Codex by Robert Holdstock Read Free Book Online Page B

its name, the hostel was a grim place, fashioned of oak, a great heavy lintel above the low door. The pillars that stood to each side of the entrance were carved into the grimacing features of goats, standing on their hind legs, heads locked together at the horns, seemingly impaling the image of a woman’s scowling face. A rickety walkway reached from the nearer bank to the muddy island on which the eerie building had risen. Broken swords hung from the eaves, clattering in the brisk breeze. The roof was high, made of poles, unthatched. Smoke drifted from the gaps between these crudely fashioned struts.
    A deep howling noise came from the open door. It set the horses to a nervous disposition and managed even to raise the hairs on the back of my own neck.
    Niiv huddled in the saddle, hood drawn low over her face, keeping close to me.
    On the bridge watching us was a tall man in a dark red cloak, fair hair hanging to his shoulders. His face was clean-shaven. He was young, bright-eyed, carried no weapon, but held the reins of a powerful black horse.
    I recognised the ghostly form of Pendragon. He was a ghost who haunted my dreams. He was a man, as yet unborn, who had visited my life on several occasions, though only fleetingly.
    He beckoned to me and I dismounted, entrusting the reins to Niiv. As I stepped across the narrow bridge, keeping my balance carefully, Pendragon turned, tethered his own steed, and ducked to enter the moaning inn.
    I followed him.
    The moment I stooped through the door into the hostel, I felt the disorientating effect of Ghostland. The narrow corridor seemed to widen and stretch away from me a vast distance. The moaning resolved into the low din of voices, the unearthly sound of laughter. The inn seemed to rock below my feet. The air was heavy with woodsmoke and the smells of roasting meats. The resonating sounds of metal on metal, like the beating of the vast bronze bells I had heard in the east, became recognisable as the striking of iron blades. There was feasting and competition at work in this hostel.
    Rooms opened on both sides of the corridor. Pendragon had disappeared into the belly of the inn.
    I searched the rooms.
    In the first room I saw seven men in plaid cloaks, seated moodily and watching me. Each had balanced a broad-bladed axe across his knees. A copper cauldron was settled over a smouldering fire between them, and I could see the wood and bone hafts of weapons rising above the lip. They scowled at me as I peered into their chamber.
    In another room I saw four much-scarred-faced men, naked to the waist, their chests marked in green dye with the features of wolves. Each had a silver torque around his neck and a circlet of boar’s tusks around his head, tying back fair hair. They seemed afraid and confused, watching me with a curious expression, but making no move to beckon me to join them. They were seated around a large chequered board, across which were scattered small figures carved from bone and dark wood. Each in turn moved a figure with the point of his sword. There seemed to be no reason, no rule to the game, but at each move the others cried out in despair, angrily watching for the next prod of the blade.
    In a third room there was a great open fire, and the carcass of a small ox being slowly turned on a spit by an old man, who turned his toothless face towards me, revealing that his eyes were as empty as his mouth. He grinned and nodded as he sensed me standing there. Two young men, wearing plaid kilts and bone breastplates, were leaping across the roasting animal from opposite directions, and clashing short swords as they somersaulted in midair. The action was not a fight, merely a game, and their bare arms were spotted red from the spitting fat. There is something disturbingly familiar about this, I remember thinking.
    In a fourth room, more of a hall than a room, I found Pendragon again, and his small retinue, and here I ceased my exploration of the hostel.
    This was a wide