The Lad of the Gad by Alan Garner Read Free Book Online

and at the end of a while he saw the speckled ship sailing from him, leaving him on the island.
    â€œDeath wrappings upon you,” said the Warrior of the Red Shield, “a tempest of blood about your eyes, the ghost of your hanging haunt you. To leave me in an island of fire, and that I should not know what is to be done this night.”
    He went forward about the island, and saw neither house nor tower in any place. But at last there was an old castle in the lowest part of the ground of the island. And he saw three young men coming, heavily, wearily, tired to the castle.
    They came in words of the olden time upon each other. And the three young men were his three true foster-brothers, and they went in pleasure of mind to the town.
    They raised up music, laid down woe,
    With soft drunken drinks
    And harsh stammering drinks
    And tranquil toasts,
    Music between fiddles
    That would set in sound lasting sleep
    Wounded men and travailing women
    Withering away for ever
    With the sweetness of the calming tunes
    That the warriors did play.
    Then they went to lie down. And in the morning the Warrior of the Red Shield took his meat.
    He heard the clashing of arms and men going into their array. It was his own true foster-brothers making the din.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” the Warrior of the Red Shield said to them.
    â€œWe have been the length of a day and a year in this island,” they said to him, “holding battle against Dark, son of Dim. And all we kill today will be alive tomorrow. Spells are on us that we may not leave this for ever until we kill them every one.”
    â€œI shall go with you today,” said the Warrior of the Red Shield, “and you will be the better for me.”
    â€œSpells are on us,” they said, “that no man may go with us unless he goes there alone.”
    â€œStay inside today,” he said, “and I shall go there alone.”
    He left his true foster-brothers, and he hit upon the people of Dark of Dim, and he did not leave a head on a trunk that they had.
    He hit upon Dark of Dim himself, and Dark of Dim said, “Are you here, Warrior of the Red Shield?”
    â€œI am,” said he.
    â€œWell, then,” said Dark of Dim, “you will not stand long for me.”
    They went into each other’s grasps, and they fought till the mouth of dusk and lateness. Then the Warrior of the Red Shield gave that cheery little lift to Dark of Dim and put him under and threw off his head.
    Now there was Dark of Dim dead with his thirteen sons, and the battle of a hundred was on the hand of each of them.
    The Warrior of the Red Shield was spoilt and torn so much that he could not leave the battlefield. He let himself down among the dead the length of the day.
    There was a great strand under him below, and he heard the sea coming as a blazing brand of fire, as a destroying serpent, as a bellowing bull. He looked from him, and he saw coming from the waves a toothy woman, whose like was never seen.
    The least tooth in her mouth would have been a staff for her hand and a stirring stick for embers. There was a turn of her nails about her elbows, a twist of her hair about her toes. She was not lovely to look on.
    The hag came up the battlefield and there were two corpses between her and the Warrior of theRed Shield. She put her finger in their mouths, and she brought them alive, and they rose up whole as best as they ever were.
    She reached the Warrior of the Red Shield and she put her finger in his mouth, and he snapped it off her from the joint. She struck him a blow with the point of her foot and kicked him over seven ridges.
    â€œYou pert little nothing,” she said. “You are the last I shall ever bring alive on this field.”
    And she came towards him.
    But the Warrior of the Red Shield took the short spear of Dark of Dim and drove the head off the hag. And that was well, for only by her son’s spear could she have been killed.
    Then the Warrior