DAVID AND ROLAND encountered no one on the road that morning. It still surprised David that so few should walk upon it. After all, the road was well-kept, and it seemed to him that others must use it to get from here to there.
“Why is it so quiet?” he asked. “Why are there no people?”
“Men and women fear to travel, for this world has grown passing strange,” said Roland. “You saw what was left of those men yesterday, and I have told you of the sleeping woman and the enchantress who binds her. There have always been dangers in these lands, and life has never been easy, but now there are new threats and no one can tell where they have come from. Even the king is uncertain, if the stories from his court are true. They say his time is almost done.”
Roland raised his right hand and pointed to the northeast. “There is a settlement beyond those hills, and there we will spend our last night before we reach the castle. Perhaps we will learn more from those who live there of the woman and of what fate befell my companion.”
After another hour had passed, they came upon a party of men emerging from the woods. The men carried dead rabbits and voles tied to sticks. They were armed with sharpened staffs and short, crude swords. When they saw the horse approaching, they raised their weapons in warning.
“Who are you?” called one. “Come no closer until you have identified yourselves.”
Roland reined Scylla in while they were still out of reach of the men’s staffs.
“I am Roland. This is my squire, David. We are heading for the village, in the hope that we may find food and rest there.”
The man who had spoken lowered his sword. “Rest you may find,” he said, “but little food.”
He raised one of the sticks of dead animals. “The fields and forests are almost bare of life. This is all we have for two days of hunting, and we lost a man for it.”
“Lost him how?” asked Roland.
“He was bringing up the rear. We heard him cry out, but when we went back his body was gone.”
“You saw no trace of what took him?” asked Roland.
“None. The earth was disturbed where he had stood, as though some creature had burst through from below, but above there was only blood and some filthy stuff that did not come from any animal we know. He was not the first to die in such a way, for we have lost others, but we have yet to see the thing responsible. Now we venture out only in numbers, and we wait, for most believe that it will soon attack us in our beds.”
Roland looked back down the road, in the direction from which he and David had come.
“We saw the remains of soldiers, about half a day’s ride from here,” said Roland. “From their insignia, it appears that they were the king’s men. They had no luck against this Beast, and they were well-trained and well-armed. Unless your fortifications are high and strong, you might be advised to leave your homes until the threat has passed.”
The man shook his head. “We have farms, livestock. We live where our fathers lived, and their fathers too. We will not abandon all that we have worked so hard to build.”
Roland said nothing more, but David could almost hear what he was thinking: Then you will die.
David and Roland rode alongside the men, talking with them and sharing what was left of the alcohol in Roland’s flask. The men were grateful for the kindness, and in return they confirmed the changes in the land and the presence of new creatures in the forests and fields, all of them hostile and hungry. They spoke too of the wolves, who had become ever more daring of late. The hunters had trapped and killed one during their time in the woods: a Loup, an interloper from far away. Its fur was a perfect white, and it wore breeches made from the skin of a seal. Before it died it told them that it had traveled from the distant north, and others were coming who would avenge its death at their hands. It was as the Woodsman had told David: the wolves wanted the kingdom for themselves, and they were assembling an army with which to take it over.
As they rounded a bend in the road, the settlement was revealed to them. It was surrounded by clear space upon which cattle and sheep grazed. A wall of tree trunks had been built around it, the tops sharpened to white points, and elevated platforms behind allowed men to watch all the approaches. Thin streams of smoke were rising from the houses within, and the spire of another church was visible above the top of the wall. Roland did not look pleased to see it.
“Here, perhaps, they still practice the new religion,” he said to David softly. “For the sake of peace, I will not trouble them with my views.”
A cry went up from within the walls as they drew closer to the village, and the gates were opened to admit them. Children gathered to greet their fathers, and women arrived to kiss sons and husbands. They stared curiously at Roland and David, but before anyone had a chance to question them, a woman began wailing and crying, unable to find the one whom she sought among the hunters. She was young and very pretty, and in between her sobs she called a name over and over again: “Ethan! Ethan!”
The leader of the hunters, whose name was Fletcher, approached David and Roland. His wife hovered nearby, grateful that her husband had returned safely.
“Ethan was the man that we lost along the way,” he said. “They were to have been married. Now, she does not even have a grave at which to mourn him.”
The other women gathered around the weeping girl, trying to console her. They brought her to one of the little houses nearby, and the door closed behind them.
“Come,” said Fletcher. “I have a stable behind my house. You may sleep there, if you wish, and I will feed you from my table for tonight. After that, I will have little enough to feed my own family, and you must ride on.”
Roland and David thanked him and followed him through the narrow streets until they came to a wooden cottage, its walls painted white. Fletcher showed them to the stable and pointed out where they could find water, and fresh straw and a few stale oats for Scylla. Roland removed Scylla’s saddle and made sure that she was comfortable before he and David washed themselves in a trough. Their clothes smelled, and although Roland had other garments that he could wear, David had none. When she heard this, Fletcher’s wife brought David some of her son’s old clothes, for he was now seventeen and had a wife and son of his own. Feeling much better than he had in a long time, David went with Roland to Fletcher’s house, where the table was laid and Fletcher and his family were waiting for them. Fletcher’s son looked a lot like his father, for he also had long red hair, although his beard was not as thick and lacked the gray that marked the older man’s. His wife was small and dark, and said little, all of her attention fixed on the baby in her arms. Fletcher had two more children, both girls. They were younger than David, although not by much, and they cast sly glances at him and giggled softly.
Once Roland and David were seated, Fletcher shut his eyes, bent his head, and gave thanks for the food—David noticed that Roland neither closed his eyes nor prayed—before inviting all at the table to eat.
The conversation drifted from village matters to the hunting trip and the disappearance of Ethan, before finally reaching Roland and David, and the purpose of their journey.
“You are not the first to have passed through here on the way to the Fortress of Thorns,” said Fletcher, once Roland had told him of his quest for it.
“Why do you call it that?” asked Roland.
“Because that is what it is: it is surrounded entirely by thorny creepers. Even to approach its walls is to risk being torn apart. You will need more than a breastplate to breach them.”
“You have seen it, then?”
“A shadow passed across the village perhaps half a month ago. When we looked up to see what it was, we saw the castle moving through the air without sound or support. Some of us followed it and saw where it had landed, but we did not dare approach. Such things are best left alone.”
“You said others have tried to find it,” said Roland. “What happened to them?”
“They did not return,” replied Fletcher.
Roland reached beneath his shirt and took out the locket. He opened it and showed the image of the young man to Fletcher. “Was he one of those who did not come back?”
Fletcher examined the picture in the locket. “Yes, I recall him,” he said. “He watered his horse here and drank ale at the inn. He left before nightfall, and that was the last we saw of him.”
Roland closed the locket and placed it near to his heart once more. He did not speak again until they had finished their meal. When the table was cleared, Fletcher invited Roland to take a seat by the fire, and they shared some tobacco.
“Tell us a story, Father,” said one of the little girls, who had seated herself at her father’s feet.
“Yes, please do, Father!” echoed the other.
Fletcher shook his head. “I have no more stories to tell. You have heard them all. But perhaps our guest might have a tale that he could share with us?”
He looked inquiringly at Roland, and the faces of the little girls turned toward the stranger. Roland thought for a moment, then he laid down his pipe and began to speak.
Once upon a time there was a knight named Alexander. He was all that a knight should be. He was brave and strong, loyal and discreet, but he was also young and anxious to prove himself by feats of daring. The land in which he lived had been at peace for a very long time, and Alexander had been given few opportunities to gain greater renown on the field of battle. So one day he informed his lord and master that he wished to travel to new and strange lands, to test himself and find out if he was truly worthy to stand alongside the greatest of his fellow knights. His lord, recognizing that Alexander would not be content until he was granted permission to leave, gave him his blessing, and so the knight prepared his horse and weapons and set out alone to seek his destiny, without even a squire to tend to his needs.
In the years that followed, Alexander found the adventures of which he had long dreamed. He joined an army of knights that journeyed to a kingdom far to the east, where they marched against a great sorcerer named Abuchnezzar, who had the power to turn men to dust with his gaze, so that their remains blew like ash across the fields of his victories. It was said that the sorcerer could not be slain by the arms of men, and all those who had attempted to kill him had died. Yet the knights believed that there might yet prove to be a way to end his tyranny, and the promise of great rewards from the true king of the land, who was in hiding from the sorcerer, spurred them on.
The sorcerer met the knights with his ranks of vicious imps on the empty plain before his castle, and there a fierce and bloody conflict commenced. As his comrades fell to the claws and teeth of demons, or were transformed into ash by the sorcerer’s gaze, Alexander battled his way through the enemy’s ranks, hiding always behind his shield and never looking in the direction of the sorcerer, until at last he was within earshot of him. He called Abuchnezzar’s name, and when the sorcerer turned his gaze toward Alexander, the knight quickly spun his shield around so that its inner surface faced his enemy. Alexander had stayed awake all through the previous night polishing the shield so that it now shone brightly in the hot midday sun. Abuchnezzar looked upon it and saw his own reflection, and in that instant he was turned to ash, and his army of imps vanished into thin air and were never seen in the kingdom again.
The king was true to his word and lavished gold and jewels upon Alexander, and offered him the hand of his daughter in marriage so that Alexander might become the heir to his kingdom. Yet Alexander turned down all these things and asked only that word might be sent back to his own lord telling him of the great deed he had performed. The king promised him that it would be done, and so Alexander left him and continued on his travels. He killed the oldest and most terrible dragon in the western lands and made a cloak from its skin. He used the cloak to guard himself against the heat of the underworld, where he journeyed to rescue the son of the Red Queen, who had been abducted by a demon. With every feat that he accomplished, word was sent back to his lord, and so Alexander’s reputation grew and grew.
Ten years passed, and Alexander became weary of wandering. He bore the scars of his many adventures, and he felt certain that his reputation as the greatest of knights was now secure. He decided to return to his own lands and so began his long journey home. But a band of thieves and brigands fell upon him on a dark road, and Alexander, worn down by battles uncountable, was barely able to fight them off, suffering grievous injuries at their hands. He rode on, but he was weak and ailing. Upon a hill before him he spied a castle, and he rode to its gates and called out for help, for it was the custom in those lands that people offered help to strangers in need, and that a knight in particular should never be turned away without being given all that was in the power of another to offer him.
But there was no reply, even though a light burned in the upper reaches of the castle. Alexander called out again, and this time a woman’s voice said: “I cannot help you. You must leave this place and seek comfort elsewhere.”
“I am wounded,” answered Alexander. “I fear that I may die if my injuries are not seen to.”
But the woman again replied: “Go. I cannot help you. Ride on. In a mile or two you will reach a village, and there they will tend to your wounds.”
With no choice but to do as she said, Alexander turned his horse away from the castle gates and prepared to follow the road to the village. As he did so, his strength failed him. He fell from his horse and lay upon the cold, hard ground, and the world grew dark around him.
When he awoke, he found himself on clean sheets in a large bed. The room in which he lay was very grand but layered with dust and cobwebs, as if it had not been used in a very long time. He rose and saw that his wounds had been cleaned and dressed. His weapons and armor were nowhere to be seen. There was food by his bedside, and a jug of wine. He ate and drank, then dressed himself in a robe that hung from a hook on the wall. He was still weak, and he ached when he walked, but he was no longer at risk of death. He tried to leave the room, but the door was locked. Then he heard the woman’s voice again. It said: “I have done more than I wished for you, but I will not allow you to roam my house. None has entered this place in many years. It is my domain. When you are strong enough to travel, then I will open the door and you must leave and never return.”
“Who are you?” asked Alexander.
“I am the Lady,” she said. “I no longer have any other name.”
“Where are you?” asked Alexander, for her voice seemed to come from somewhere beyond the walls.
“I am here,” she said.
At that moment, the mirror on the wall to his right shimmered and grew transparent, and through the glass he saw the shape of a woman. She was dressed all in black and was seated on a great throne in an otherwise empty room. Her face was veiled, and her hands were covered in velvet gloves.
“Can I not look upon the face of the one who has saved my life?” asked Alexander.
“I choose not to allow it,” the Lady replied.
Alexander bowed, for if it was the Lady’s will, then so it should be.
“Where are your servants?” asked Alexander. “I would like to be sure that my horse is being tended to.”
“I have no servants,” said the Lady. “I have looked to your horse myself. He is well.”
Alexander had so many questions to ask that he was not sure where to begin. He opened his mouth, but the Lady raised a hand to silence him. “I will leave you now,” she said. “Sleep, for I wish you to recover quickly and be gone from this place as soon as you can.”
The mirror shimmered, and the Lady’s image was replaced with Alexander’s own. With nothing else to do, Alexander returned to his bed and slept.
The next morning, he awoke to find fresh bread beside him, and a jug of warm milk. He had heard no one enter during the night. Alexander drank some of the milk, and while he ate the bread he walked to the mirror and gazed upon it. Although the image did not change, he was certain that the Lady was behind the glass, watching him.
Now Alexander, like many of the greatest knights, was not merely a warrior. He could play both the lute and the lyre. He could compose poems, and even paint a little. He had a love of books, for in books was recorded the knowledge of all those who had gone before him. And so, when next the Lady appeared in the glass that night, he asked for some of these things in order to pass the time while he recovered from his injuries. When he woke up the next morning, he was greeted by a pile of old books, a slightly dusty lute, and a canvas, paints, and some brushes. He played the lute, then began to work his way through the books. There were volumes of history and philosophy, astronomy and morals, poetry and religion. As he read them in the days that followed, the Lady began to appear more often behind the glass, questioning him about all that he had read. It was clear to him that she had read them all many times and knew their contents intimately. Alexander was surprised, for in his own land women were not allowed access to such books, yet he was grateful for the conversation. The Lady then asked him to play for her on the lute, and he did so, and it seemed to him that the sounds he made pleased her.
Thus the days turned to weeks, and the Lady spent more and more time on the other side of the glass, talking with Alexander of art and books, listening to him play, and inquiring after what it was that he was painting, for Alexander refused to show it to her and obtained a promise from her that she would not look upon it while he slept, for he did not want her to see it until it was finished. And although Alexander’s wounds had almost healed, the Lady no longer seemed to wish him to leave, and Alexander no longer wanted to leave, for he was falling in love with this strange, veiled woman behind the glass. He spoke to her of the battles he had fought, and the reputation he had gained from his conquests. He wanted her to understand that he was a great knight, a knight worthy of a great lady.
After two months had passed, the Lady came to Alexander and sat in her usual place.
“Why do you look so sad?” she asked, for it was clear to her that the knight was unhappy.
“I cannot finish my painting,” he said.
“Why? Do you not have brushes and paints? What more do you need?”
Alexander turned the canvas away from the wall, so that the Lady might see the image upon it. It was a painting of the Lady herself, yet the face was blank, for Alexander had yet to look upon it.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I am in love with you. In these months we have spent together, I have learned so much about you. I have never met a woman like you, and I fear that if I leave here I may never do so again. Can I hope that you might feel the same way about me?”
The Lady lowered her head. She seemed about to speak, but then the mirror shimmered and she disappeared from view.
Days went by, and the Lady did not reappear. Alexander was left alone to wonder if he had offended her by what he had said and done. Each night he slept soundly, and each morning food appeared, but he never caught sight of the Lady who brought it.
Then, after five days, he heard the key turning in the lock of his door, and the Lady entered. She was still veiled and still dressed all in black, but Alexander sensed something different about her.
“I have thought about what you have said,” she said. “I too have feelings for you. But tell me, and tell me truly: Do you love me? Will you always love me, no matter what may occur?”
Somewhere deep in Alexander the hastiness of youth still lived, for he answered, almost unthinkingly: “Yes, I will always love you.”
Then the Lady raised her veil, and Alexander looked upon her face for the first time. It was the face of a woman crossed with that of a beast, a wild thing of the woods, like a panther or a tigress. Alexander opened his mouth to speak, but he could not, so shocked was he by what he saw.
“My stepmother made me this way,” said the Lady. “I was beautiful, and she envied me my beauty, so she cursed me with the features of an animal and told me that I would never be loved. And I believed her, and I hid myself away in shame, until you came.”
The Lady advanced toward Alexander, her hands outstretched, and her eyes were filled with hope and love and a faint flicker of fear, for she had opened herself to him as she had never before opened herself to another human being, and now her heart lay exposed as it would before a sharp blade.
But Alexander did not come to her. He backed away, and in that moment his fate was sealed.
“Foul man!” cried the Lady. “Fickle creature! You told me that you loved me, but you love only yourself.”
She raised her head and bared her sharp teeth at him. The tips of her gloves split as long claws emerged from her fingers. She roared at the knight, then sprang upon him, biting him, scratching him, ripping him with her claws, the taste of his blood warm in her mouth, the feel of it hot upon her fur.
And she tore him apart in the bedchamber, and she wept as she devoured him.
The two little girls looked rather shocked when Roland finished his tale. He rose, thanked Fletcher and his family for the meal, then indicated to David that they should leave. At the door, Fletcher laid a hand gently on Roland’s arm.
“A word, if you please,” he said. “The elders are worried. They believe that the village has been marked by the Beast of which you spoke, for it is surely nearby.”
“Do you have weapons?” asked Roland.
“We do, but you have seen the best of them. We are farmers and hunters, not soldiers,” said Fletcher.
“Perhaps that is fortunate,” said Roland. “The soldiers did not fare so well against it. You may have better luck.”
Fletcher looked at him quizzically, unable to tell if Roland was being serious or was taunting him. Even David was not sure.
“Are you jesting with me?” asked Fletcher.
Roland laid his hand upon the older man’s shoulder. “Only a little,” he said. “The soldiers approached the Beast’s destruction as they would that of another army. They fought of necessity on unfamiliar ground, against an enemy that they did not understand. They had time to build some defenses, for we saw what was left of them, but they were not strong enough to hold them. They were forced to retreat into the forest, and there they were finished off. Whatever it is, this creature is big, and heavy, for I saw where its bulk had flattened trees and shrubs. I doubt if it can move fast, but it is strong and can withstand the injuries inflicted by spears and swords. Out in the open, the soldiers were no match for it.
“But you and your fellows are in a different position. This is your land, and you know it. You need to look upon this thing as you would a wolf or a fox that is threatening your animals. You must lure it to a place of your own choosing, and there trap it and kill it.”
“You’re suggesting a decoy? Livestock, perhaps?”
Roland nodded. “That might work. It is coming, for it likes the taste of meat, and there is little of that between the site of its last meal and this village. You may huddle here and hope that your walls can withstand it, or you can plan for its destruction, but you may have to sacrifice more than some cattle to achieve that end.”
“What do you mean?” asked Fletcher. He looked fearful.
Roland wet his finger in a flask of water, then knelt and drew a circle on the stone floor, leaving a small gap instead of completing it.
“This is your village,” said Roland. “Your walls are built to repel an attack from outside.” He drew arrows pointing away from the circle. “But what if you were to allow your enemy in, and then close the gates upon him?” Roland completed the circle, and this time he drew arrows pointing inward. “Then your walls become a trap.”
Fletcher stared at the drawing, which was already drying upon the stone, fading away to nothing.
“And what do we do once it’s inside?” he asked.
“Then you set fire to the village, and everything within,” said Roland. “You burn it alive.”
That night, as Roland and David slept, a great blizzard arose, and the village and all that surrounded it was blanketed with snow. The snow continued to fall throughout the day, so thickly that it was impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. Roland decided that they would have to stay in the village until the weather improved, but neither he nor David had food left, and the villagers had barely enough for themselves. So Roland asked to meet the elders, and he spent time with them in the church, for that was where the villagers met to discuss matters of great importance. He offered to help them kill the Beast if they would give shelter to him and to David. David sat at the rear of the church as Roland told them of his plan, and the arguments for and against it went back and forth. Some of the villagers were unwilling to sacrifice their houses to the flames, and David didn’t really blame them. They wanted to wait in the hope that the walls and defenses would save them when the Beast came.
“And if they do not hold?” asked Roland. “What then? By the time you realize they have failed you, it will be too late to do anything but die.”
In the end, a compromise was suggested. As soon as the weather cleared, the women, children, and old men would leave the village and take shelter in the caves on the nearby hills. They would bring with them everything of value, even their furniture, leaving only the shells of the houses behind. Barrels of pitch and oil would be stored in the cottages near the heart of the village. If the Beast attacked, the defenders would try to repel it or kill it from behind the walls. If it broke through, they would retreat, drawing it into the center. The fuses would be lit, and the Beast would be trapped and killed, but only as a last resort. The villagers took a vote, and all agreed that this was the best plan.
Roland stormed out of the church. David had to run to catch up with him.
“Why are you so angry?” asked David. “They agreed to most of your plan.”
“Most isn’t enough,” said Roland. “We don’t even know what we’re facing. What we do know is that trained soldiers, armed with hardened steel, couldn’t kill this thing. What hope do farmers have against it? Had they listened to me, then the Beast might have been defeated without any loss of life to them. Now men will die needlessly because of sticks and straw, because of hovels that could be rebuilt in weeks.”
“But it’s their village,” said David. “It’s their choice.”
Roland slowed down, then stopped. His hair was white with snow. It made him look much older than he was.
“Yes,” he said, “it’s their village. But our fortunes are now tied up with theirs, and if this fails, then there is a good chance that we may die alongside them for our troubles.”
The snow fell, and the fires burned in the cottages, and the wind carried the smell of the smoke into the darkest depths of the forest.
And in its lair the Beast smelled the smoke upon the air, and it began to move.