9 THE SOUND OF DRUMS

“Dead…” whispered Piak. Tiuri made the sign of the cross and bowed his head.

“Dead?” asked the Fool quietly. “What is wrong? What do those signs say?”

Tiuri laid one hand on his shoulder. “You have helped to reveal a terrible secret, Marius,” he said. “Sir… Sir Ristridin has written here that his friends were killed by enemies.”

“Ah,” sighed the Fool.

All three of them stood in silence.

Enemies… thought Tiuri. And Arwaut, Ilmar, and others have been killed! He realized then that they had indeed been heading into danger, but if they had not done so, he and his friends would never have found out what had happened to Ristridin’s party, and everyone would have gone on believing there was no threat in the Wild Wood and that all the paths were dead ends. Tiuri sprang into action.

“Quick! Come on!” he said. “Come with me!”

He took a few steps to the river. Then he asked the Fool, “Marius, do you know the way back to the horses?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

“Then go there! Quickly!” ordered Tiuri, also in a whisper. He studied the tree one last time and then followed the Fool, who was already running away.

“Why the hurry?” asked Piak.

“Don’t you see it could be dangerous here?” said Tiuri. “We have to get back to civilization as quickly as possible and tell them what we have found. Sir Ristridin, Sir Arwaut, Ilmar and their men were ambushed and defeated by enemies. May God grant that Ristridin escaped! These enemies are probably the same ones the Fool keeps mentioning. Who knows where they might be now? And I fear the three of us will be no match for them.”

“But we must let people know!” exclaimed Piak.

“Exactly. Luckily there are three of us, so at least one of us should get out of the wood alive.”

“Oh, Tiuri,” said Piak. “You’re being so gloomy.”

“I’m just trying to see the situation as clearly as possible,” said Tiuri. “There is something here that we are not supposed to know. Oh, Arwaut, Ilmar…”

“Who is Ilmar?” asked Piak.

“Ilmar was Ristridin’s squire. I really liked him,” replied Tiuri. “He was the same age as me,” he added under his breath.

They walked on in silence until they reached their horses.

“They’re still here,” said Piak with relief. “Even though that Man in Green saw us.”

And he could still be looking at us now, thought Tiuri, but he didn’t say that out loud. First they had to try to get as far away from this place as possible, and head back to the east. Later, in a safer place, they would be able to talk more. But there was one thing he still needed to say.

“Listen carefully,” he said. “It is our duty to tell King Dagonaut what has happened here in the Wild Wood. Do you understand, Marius? Sir Ristridin’s friends have been killed and Sir Ristridin himself has disappeared. And King Dagonaut needs to know about this. I hope we can leave the wood without encountering any difficulties, but if anything happens, at least one of us needs to reach our goal.”

“If what happens, sir knight?” asked the Fool anxiously.

“If enemies find us, each of us must try to escape – to run away, Marius – and to take the news to the king.”

“To the king,” repeated the Fool.

“And now let’s go,” ordered Tiuri. “Marius, take us to the Owl House, but don’t use the path.”

The Fool was so happy to be given this task that he forgot his fear for a moment. “No one will find us, Friend,” he said, and again he led the way.

Leading the horses by the reins, Tiuri and Piak followed him silently. It seemed like hours before they saw the Owl House ahead of them. Tiuri decided that they would pass behind the building and find a place to hide for the night some distance away in the forest.

“We mustn’t go too far from the river,” he said, “but it seems better to avoid the paths. We can’t make a fire later, either.”

“It’s already getting dark,” whispered the Fool. “I shall listen carefully and warn you if they are coming.”

“Marius, now you really do have to tell us who they are,” said Tiuri a little later, after they had taken cover in a small hollow.

“Wait,” said the Fool. “Listen!”

“It must have been your enemies who killed Sir Ristridin’s friends,” Tiuri continued. “You surely realize they have to be punished!”

“Sssh, listen!” whispered the Fool.

From far away, very vaguely, a sound came to them. Or was it just the pounding of their own hearts? Then it was gone… All they could hear was the wind in the trees.

“Wait,” said the Fool once more.

And yes, there it was again. It wasn’t their imaginations, they really could hear it – a dull and regular thud… The sound of drums!

After a while, it stopped, but then it began again. It was so threatening and ominous in the night.

“It’s them,” whispered the Fool, when all was silent again.

“Are they coming here?” asked Piak, so quietly it could barely be heard.

They huddled together in the darkness, unable to see one another. Keeping perfectly still, they listened. There it was again! No, it wasn’t coming closer – but it wasn’t moving away either.

“They’re in the trees,” said the Fool.

“Who?” whispered Tiuri.

Again they waited in silence until the drumming died away.

“The drums,” the Fool told him quietly. “The drums are in the trees and they speak to one another. But I don’t know what they say.”

“Is it the Men in Green who are drumming?” asked Tiuri.

“Maybe,” replied the Fool. “But maybe others. Many creatures live in the forest… Bad men in strange clothes, and men in coats of metal who have no faces…”

“No faces?” repeated Piak with horror in his voice.

“Helmets,” whispered the Fool. “All you can see is their eyes, wicked, angry eyes.”

“Closed visors,” murmured Tiuri.

“They came to my cabin,” the Fool told them, “and they said to my brothers, ‘Come with us.’ I had to go too, and I didn’t want to, but you know that. They took us with them, me and my brothers, far, deep into the wood… The path along the dark river is long, much longer, and that’s where they live. And there are other paths. But sometimes they tied something over my eyes so I couldn’t see. I did see some things, though. I saw the Owl House and other houses of wood and stone.”

“Is that where they lived?” whispered Piak.

“Not in the Owl House, but in other houses,” said the Fool. “And I saw the Men in Green sitting in the trees. They look at you and then they’re gone. They run beside the water with long spears in their hands, sharp spears…”

“But what are they doing in the wood?” asked Tiuri.

“I cannot say,” replied the Fool. “They told me nothing, nothing, Friend! They wanted to make more paths, and my brothers and I had to cut down trees for them. We weren’t allowed to leave, and no one is allowed to know that they are there. That’s what they said. ‘Keep your mouth shut,’ they said, ‘or we’ll beat you to death.’”

Tiuri could feel him shivering. “And then you ran away?” he asked quietly.

“Not for a while, Friend,” said the Fool. “I was scared. They were bad men. At first I was too scared, but then I had to go. I knew I’d die if I stayed…” His voice was trembling. “I ran away, one night,” he continued. “They didn’t notice at first, but then they came after me, cursing me, looking for me, but they didn’t find me.” He paused before concluding, “That’s it, my friends. That’s all I know. It’s not the first time I’ve heard the drums! I was in the woods for a long, long time, walking, hiding, waiting…”

Then Piak grabbed hold of Tiuri. “What’s that?” he whispered. “Light!”

Tiuri was startled for a moment, but then he said, “It’s just the moon rising.”

“Phew,” sighed Piak. “I’m jumping at everything.”

All three of them held their breath and listened to the mysterious sounds of the night. They could no longer hear the drums.

Then Tiuri spoke up. “The second message from Sir Ristridin was false!” he said. “The message Sir Fitil passed on to us…”

“So do you think Sir Ristridin ever went to Islan?” asked Piak.

“That is indeed the question,” whispered Tiuri, and then he stopped speaking. He was trying to imagine what part Sir Fitil had played in all of this. Had he lied? Did he know more than he’d said? Had he, a knight of King Dagonaut, been a traitor? Or was he in fact a victim of betrayal? Sir Fitil, who had wandered through the Unholy Hills without getting lost… how far had he travelled into the forest?

Then Tiuri remembered the story of Red Quibo, who claimed he had seen a ghostly tournament. “Were they actually people, not spirits, not some fantasy creatures?” he wondered aloud. “So where do they live? Where are their houses?”

The Fool, beside him, sat up straight. He could see him vaguely now by the light of the waxing moon. The whites of his eyes gleamed.

“They live there, and there,” he whispered, pointing to the west and to the south.

The Unholy Hills lay somewhere to their south. And, according to the Fool, there had been people at the old hunting lodge.

Tiuri thought about Isadoro. He had to admit to himself that she could have known more about it, too. That would go some way to explaining her behaviour. After all, she had done everything she could to convince him there was nothing in the Wild Wood, and yet at the same time she had also warned him about it. He sighed. These were only vague suspicions, puzzles to which he had no answer. But in any case, Islan was not the place they should go for help. Their goal had to be King Dagonaut himself, the man who had ordered Sir Ristridin to go to the Wild Wood.

The Fool spoke again, almost in Tiuri’s ear: “Their Master, their Lord and Master, lives at the end of the dark river,” he said. “Or is it at the beginning? Far, far, where the sun sets. There are mountains there and the sun goes down behind the mountains. He lives in a castle, the Master of the Wild Wood…”

A shock went through Tiuri. How did that song go again, the song Isadoro had sung?

I heard tell of a fortress grim

by mountains and by rivers wide.

“That once was so, but is no more…” he said out loud.

“Quiet!” whispered the Fool. “They said he lives beside the other river, too, in a cave…”

“Which river?” asked Piak.

“Who?” asked Tiuri.

“The Master of the Wild Wood,” said the Fool.

“Who…” said Tiuri and Piak at the same time.

“I don’t know, my friends,” whispered the Fool. “They spoke so quietly about him, never out loud. He was their Master and he told them what to do. But I never saw him, no, no, never.”

“The other river, could that be the Green River?” asked Piak.

“Yes, the Green River. I know that river, too,” said the Fool. “They fought there, the men who live in the wood, and other men. First I heard the drums, both far and near… Then they came – knights, riders. Other men jumped out of the bushes, out of the trees… And they fought!”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” asked Tiuri.

“I don’t always remember everything at the same time, Friend,” replied the Fool. “I’d really like to forget about it all. I’m only remembering this for your sake. They fought, but I didn’t want to watch, and so I ran. I’d already got away by then. And later, by the dark river, I saw one of those knights again… your knight, the one with the green cloak and the green and grey and silver shield.”

Ristridin, thought Tiuri. So that’s what had happened: Ristridin and his companions had first defeated the robbers who lived between the Black River and the Green River. That must have been somewhere to the north of the Dead Stone. Then they’d gone to the west, deeper into the wood, to look for the Men in Green. They’d found them, and perhaps others. In any case, they’d been attacked by enemies, and none of them had ever returned to civilization, except perhaps for Ristridin. Tiuri wondered again if he had really been to Islan. It was so unlikely, almost impossible, that Ristridin would have been there and then, without saying anything, would have ridden onwards to… Deltaland.

Deltaland… did all of this have something to do with the invasion?

He pulled his blanket more tightly around himself and shivered, and it was not just because of the cold. The Fool had fallen asleep. He was groaning and mumbling, caught up in some bad dream or other. “Stop thinking now,” Tiuri said to himself. “You’re not going to figure it out, and you need to be fresh tomorrow.”

He had his own troubled dreams, about Ristridin and Ilmar, about Arwaut and the Men in Green. He heard the sound of drums again, mingling with the soft, sweet voice of Lady Isadoro as she sang. But Isadoro was on the side of the enemy. He dreamt of fierce horsemen, and he himself rode ahead of them, sometimes as their leader, sometimes as a fugitive. But, in truth, nothing at all happened, all night long.