VII

The morning sprawled above like evil haze
That hid the sun from them and hid its warmth
And hid the hope that rises with the dawn.
Through weaves of vines and tangled thorns they slipped
As silent as a stalking lion's breath;
Their eyes were mirrors waiting for a face
To give them shape and soul and purpose plain:
The face they stalked was like to find its end.
On conversation, like a raft, they'd sailed
From ivor stones of Caerleon on Usk;
The rafts had borne their minds and words above
Subconscious waters, beast of brain in man,
Yet here inside the silent forest's gloom
Their words had sunk below and drowned their thoughts,
And caught within the blood sport's dimmer tide
Some instinct swept their reasons all aside,
Along with all the easy wit they'd shown
When rounded by their kin and men-at-arms
Within the eggshell walls of Arthur's keep.

Now stripped from all the comforts of their hall
Through weary woods on foot they stalked in fear;
Their steeds they'd stowed in safety by the shore
And if these riders never left the woods
Some peasants plain would profit well that day.
Sir Gwalchmai's fingers played upon the string
Of longbow itching for an arrow's touch --
Yet from his slow-slung quiver naught was drawn,
For prey the knights glimpsed not; the forest mute.
Amidst the wilderness were they when snagged
Upon a branch Kay's cloak held fast. The thorns
Had clawed between some fabric's willful folds
And startled Kay enough to break the spell
His hunting brain had cast. "Wait!" he blurted,
Before he hushed himself and cut it loose.
Grey Gwalchmai whispered "Cease your blunders, come."
And Kay was swift behind him, trampling buds.
"I'm sorry," said the golden knight, "I wish
I'd had the foresight not to cry aloud.
These woods are strange and frightening to me,
And nothing like the peaceful woods of Usk."
"Then why do you still speak? We tread the edge
Of keen assasin's blade, and you persist
In babbling like a painted jester's son."
"If not in dire alert I'd challenge thee
For on my honor jesting. In the spring--"
But there was Kay cut off, for both their ears
Began to hear a muffled grunting, wet
And hungry in its lurid rasp. The knights
Swift swept behind some trees and hoped they'd not
Been seen. Grey Gwalchmai chanced a glance beyond,
And boar he saw, but of an average size.
The knights were stunned in silence, breathing fast,
And whispered Kay "He's large, but not by much,
An end you'll strum, I know." But boar did perk
At hearing something in the vines, and yelled --
An ugly trumpet-cry that scarred the wind.
From drooping quiver, Gwalchmai slid one shaft
And strummed it as the bow of violin
Against the poison foam that hung thereon,
And fit the seagull's feather to the string.
Yet time enough was not for him to aim
When calm destroyed by shrieking thunder's clap
From farther in the gorey wood. What cry?
What beast could pierce the heavens with a sound?
The knights against some stones did press their backs
As shredded trees despaired and fell aside
Where trampled errant mountain, hellish boar,
His back above the tree-tops, thorns and vines
Deterred his mighty frame like paper shields.
He made a clearing as he settled down,
His amber eye was full the size of boar
They'd met before. The lesser and the great
Conversed not long in shieking tongue of swine
Before Twrch Trwyth rose and showed his height
And belched aloud in human tongue "Some men?
Some shining knights? Yes… now I smell their sweat.
But what have they to sneak within these lands
That I have mounted, conquered, killed? My will
Within this smitten place is absolute."
His lips were fleshy, black and slick with drool,
His breath a foul disease that plagued the land.
Some tears of fear then from the knights did spill
But Gwalchmai grey, as per the plan, snuck off
To flank the giant boar. He stayed downwind
And cared to rustle not the smallest leaf
Nor waving sprig of fern. Twrch Trwyth called
"Some cowards then? Some belly-crawling knights?
Or are you even hunters? Lost perhaps
And trespassing in my domain unknown.
Think not on how to flee my flaming wrath
For I shall gnaw your bones and gouge your skin,
And douse your hope. So run, but you are mine."
His solar eye rolled all around to see,
But though he grunted, trampled, turned his frame
He could not spy the knights disguised in green.

Sir Kay perspired below his armor's weight
And tightly gripped the rough of moss and bark
As Trwyth's growling shivered in his bones.
His heavy lance was nestled 'neath his neck
And fingers ached as clasped around its grip.
The plan they'd tossed between them on the way
Seemed murky, dim, an algae-covered pond
Congealing think about his gasping face.
He closed his eyes and held them tight in hope
But when he looked again the shrubs still crashed
And oaken trunks still torn apart and flayed
As Trwyth wheeled and furiously sought
The spears that shifted underneath the leaves.
He crawled around the tree, Sir Kay, to peek,
And saw the massive reeling boar in rage,
But not a hint of greyest Gwalchmai showed.
He swallowed. "Why do I return to fear,
As if this battle were my first?" he thought.
"Anxiety enflames my veins as if
Of jelly I was wrought. Must pain arrive
Before my every battle? Seasoned, I,
And truthful under armor, kind, and strong.
My heart, what wounds let spill your precious sap?
Can it be done? Can we succeed in this?
No reason I can find that death should wait
And stall to visit me another day."
Some tears as angels flowed within his eyes
And all the story of his life made sense
In these the final hours he breathed in life.
A flash of youthful training in the yard
With father Ector, and a scrawny boy
Who soon became his liege -- and all the wars
In which he'd been a bloody part. This beast
Was in his vision too, for they had dueled
And Arthur's knights had nobly bested boar
To exile Trwyth under churning tides.
His sheen of sweat began to sting his eyes
And stirred him from his instant dream of death.
And this was why he turned and saw, in flight,
The poison shafts that Gwalchmai grey had loosed.
They seemed to spell some doom with purest arc
In which they flew, and when they struck the flesh
Of mountain-dwarfing boar -- upon his thigh --
The sound was almost heard of damning bell
As one that tolls for men. At once a squeal
Impaled the air and sent the birds from trees;
The caterwaul as shrill as gate to hell
That from its hinges reels with terror's flame.
The trees were churned and trampled, now he knew
Where unseen archer set his hiding spot.
Like thunder underground the earth did shake
As beast began his fearsome shrieking charge.
Between the knights Twrch Trwyth shook the woods
And with his monstrous frame he moved as swift
As summer squall upon the thirsty plains.
And he was nearly there, to Gwalchmai's cloak,
When secret foam made contact with his blood
And paralyzed the leg where arrows stuck.
He made a vicious sprawl and crushed some trees
Beneath his weight which fell like sculpted bronze.
The instant Trwyth fell, in rushed his cub
That knights had seen before, that smaller boar,
And nuzzled at the giant's fallen flank.
Yet mountain that had fallen flailed in wrath
And nearly struck the smaller son, who fled.
Twrch Trwyth roared and kicked his frantic hooves
And bellowed as he tried to right himself
Without the limb that Gwalchmai's foam made lame.
His tusks dug furrows in the ground, he drooled
And choked while screaming curses wet and raw,
And then it was that Kay percieved his chance
And leapt, with lance, from shadowed hiding place
To charge his foe. The giant's eyes were wide
And rolled within his skull, but glimpsed not Kay
While raging to regain his balance lost.
Sir Kay beneath his armor lacked in speed,
Yet in precision made his tactic count:
When he had reached the beast -- unseen from wrath -- 
He planted rooting foot upon the soil
And thrust his lance between the demon's ribs
With all the might that dwells in faithful hearts.

The lance did pierce the bristled mane of hair
And skin wrapped underneath, and muscles taut,
Yet somehow Trwyth closed his ribs like teeth
And grasped the tip of lance and held it fast,
And wrested it away from from Kay, who shrunk,
But only for the time it dook to draw
His burnished blade. He charged the writhing boar
And carved him up, his hacking wily, fierce,
And though the wounds were weeping blood, no cut
Could penetrate the the toughness of his flesh.
Unspoken boar who rose from ocean depths
Now rose upon his hooves and stood aright
Though knight was feverishly flaying him
In vain attempt to cease his curséd heart.
The buried tusk was fast and slammed Sir Kay
Upon the jagged ground. He grabbed his side,
The gauntlets bloodied on the armored knight,
Exhaustion in his limbs: the aches of age.
He knelt, but struggled to his feet, on guard
Against the thundercloud of demon boar:
Twrch Trwyth shook his tusks and roared of hell
While using three good legs to surge at Kay --
The monstrous boar was heedless of the trees
And ran them down, the prey could only flee
To save himself from being crushed to clay.
He turned his back and rushed through undergrowth
Evading trample of enragéd boar
By running random as the whims of fate.
The crash of trees was deafening, yet still
He heard a novel sound: an arrow's cry
As like the kind in use by hunting men
Who signal from afar. He turned his head
And saw that Trwyth too had heard the sound.
Another arrow screamed at them, and struck
The face of raging boar, below his eye.
He stopped his charge. He sniffed and looked around
With eyes moon-huge and yellow, mad with blood,
He spat and yelled and turned his bulk towards
The screaming taunting arrows' path behind,
Abandoning the helpless Kay who bled
And clutched his side where demon tusk defiled
The plates that formed his armor. On a trunk
He leaned and braced his back and felt his wound.

The eyes Twrch Trwyth bore could see the man
Who stood upon a broken tree and loosed
Another stinging dart that screamed and stuck
Between the bristles on his shoulders' hills.
The legs Twrch Trwyth used were mostly free
From ugly burning venom, he was sure
And building up tremendous speed and rage
Towards the tiny knight in cloak of grey.
The tusks Twrch Trwyth bore were sharply honed,
He lowered them as he approached his prey,
Prepared to smash the trees on which he stood
To driftwood, splinters, powder; all to dust.
That simple archer with his cloak of grey
Rebellious stood against Twrch Trwyth's rush
Atop a leaf-bare tree that he had climbed
By way of leaning trunk that beast had split.
Another bristle stung the foul pig's face
Provoking yet another shrieking squeal
And thunder from his hooves did crack the ground
As speed increased; damn murder spelled in drool
Upon the lips of bloody boar. He was,
They say, some god that stalked the minds of man
In young and dismal places of the world
Though all his power helped him not in duels:
His satiation in the sacrificed
Of forest cults who bled themselves for him.
As god who ruled their rage, his temper grew
Eclipsing all his thought divine while trapped
For ages in his prison 'neath the waves.
His roar was with the lungs of mindless beast,
For all his grace departed when he slew
Distraught in carnage and in love with hate.
And this is how it came to pass that he,
Twrch Trwyth, god of rage of vengeful clans
In holy bloodlust slain. He roared, he charged,
And agile knight of grey did slip aside
To hold the leaning trunk, and fall with it,
Exposing in its fulcrum nether side
Of trunk which carved had been to sharpened point.
It was momentum killed the beast, and kills
Us all. The monster's ribs like teeth again
Did close around the piercing tree, yet cracked
And could not halt enough his deadly charge.
And we who hold our broken hearts and moan
Are ants to him who feels his organ torn,
Exploding virile blood within his chest.
The shriek he wretched was toxic to the ear
And ripped the birds from nests and spoiled milk.
The blood was flowing from his mouth yet still
The fallen god pressed on, devouring lance
With wound until it broke behind his back,
Emerging coated in his sanguine slime.
As far as dying hooves could press he came,
'Til Gwalchmai, fallen, well could smell the breath
That once crushed kings beneath the founding soil.
A dying ocean poured from mouth of dying god,
This ocean too he poured: "I never thought
To meet my end upon this earth. Am I
A traveller bound for damned damnation, or
Will sweet salvation find me? All I've done,
The work that I was brought about to do.
I hope some justice, fair reward to reap,
And curse you, foul grey knight of Arthur's camp:
I hope to never see your ilk again,
I hope you meet your end upon this earth
And all you love shall come to ill and death.
As long as I am dead, you too shall be.
This knight I curse, my pain has barbed his heart,
And so I die." And so he died, the god,
Twrch Trwyth of the bloodied forest cults
Who rent the land in rage. His soul, at peace,
Ascended from the matter of his flesh,
He rose: from every pore to every cyst,
His spirit joined the endless veil of mist.