The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection

“Don’t speak to it,” Gwydion said to Owain. They rode past, at Blaze’s plodding pace, and did not look back.

But the raven flitted ahead of them and waited for them on the stone fence. “If you die,” the raven said, “then your father will no longer believe in his luck. Then it will leave him. It happened to all the others.”

“There’s always a first,” said Gwydion.

Owain said, reaching for his bow: “Shall I shoot it?”

But Gwydion said: “Kill the messenger for the message? No. It’s a foolish creature. Let it be.”

It left them then. Gwydion saw it sometimes in the sky ahead of them. He said nothing to Owain, who had lost his cheerfulness, and Mili stayed close by them, sore of foot and suspicious of every breeze.

There were more skulls. They saw gibbets and stakes in the middle of a burned orchard. There was scorched grass, recent and powdery under the horses’ hooves. Blaze, who loved to snatch a bite now and again as he went, moved uneasily, snorting with dislike of the smell, and Swallow started at shadows.

Then the turning of the road showed them a familiar brook, and around another hill and beyond, the walled holding that had been King Ban’s, in what had once been a green valley. Now it was burned, black bare hillsides and the ruin of hedges and orchards.

So the trial they had come to find must be here, Gwydion thought, and uneasily took up his bow and picked several of his best arrows, which he held against his knee as he rode. Owain did the same.

But they reached the gate of the low-walled keep unchallenged, until they came on the raven sitting, whetting its beak on the stone. It looked at them solemnly, saying, “Welcome, Prince Gwydion. You’ve won your bride. Now how will you fare, I wonder.”

Men were coming from the keep, running toward them, others, under arms, in slower advance.

“What now?” Owain asked, with his bow across his knee; and Gwydion lifted his bow and bent it, aiming at the foremost.

The crowd stopped, but a black-haired man in gray robes and a king’s gold chain came alone, holding up his arms in a gesture of welcome and of peace. Madog himself? Gwydion wondered, while Gwydion s arm shook and the string trembled in his grip. “Is it Gwydion ap Ogan?” that man asked—surely no one else but Madog would wear that much gold. “My son-in-law to be! Welcome!”

Gwydion, with great misgivings, slacked the string and let down the bow, while fat Blaze, better trained than seemed, finally shifted feet. Owain lowered his bow too, as King Madog’s men opened up the gate. Some of the crowd cheered as they rode in, and more took it up, as if they had only then gained the courage or understood it was expected. Blaze and Swallow snorted and threw their heads at the racket, as Gwydion and Owain put away their arrows, unstrung their bows and hung them on their saddles.

But Mili stayed close by Owain’s legs as they dismounted, growling low in her throat, and barked one sharp warning when Madog came close. “Hush,” Owain bade her, and knelt down more than for respect, keeping one hand on Mili’s muzzle and the other in her collar, whispering to her, “Hush, hush, there’s a good dog.”

Gwydion made the bow a prince owed to a king and prospective father-in-law, all the while thinking that there had to be a trap in this place. He was entirely sorry to see grooms lead Blaze and Swallow away, and kept Owain and Mili constantly in the tail of his eye as Madog took him by the arms and hugged him. Then Madog said, catching all his attention, eye to eye with him for a moment, “What a well-favored young man you are. The last is always best. So youve killed the dragon.”

Gwydion thought, Somehow we’ve ridden right past the trial we should have met. If I say no, he will find cause to disallow me; and he’ll kill me and Owain and all our kin.

But lies were not the kind of dealing his father had taught him; faithfulness was the rule of the house of Ogan; so Gwydion looked the king squarely in the eyes and said, “I met no dragon.”

Madog’s eyes showed surprise, and Madog said: “Met no dragon?”

“Not a shadow of a dragon.”

Madog grinned and clapped him on the shoulder and showed him to the crowd, saying, “This is your true prince!”

Then the crowd cheered in earnest, and even Owain and Mili looked heartened. Owain rose with Mili’s collar firmly in hand.

Madog said then to Gwydion, under his breath, “If you had lied you would have met the dragon here and now. Do you know you’re the first one who’s gotten this far?”

“I saw nothing,” Gwydion said again, as if Madog had not understood him. “Only burned farms. Only skulls and bones.”

Madog turned a wide smile toward him, showing teeth. “Then it was your destiny to win. Was it not?” And Madog faced him about toward the doors of the keep. “Daughter, daughter, come out!”

Gwydion hesitated a step, expecting he knew not what—the dragon itself, perhaps: his wits went scattering toward the gate, the horses being led away, Mili barking in alarm—and a slender figure standing in the doorway, all white and gold. “My elder daughter,” Madog said. “Eri.”

Gwydion went as he was led, telling himself it must be true, after so much dread of this journey and so many friends’ lives lost—obstacles must have fallen down for him, Ogan’s Luck must still be working. . . .