The Knight

“I will not order my daughter out into the night.” Beel turned to me. “If we go a short distance from the camp, will that be sufficient?”

We walked a hundred yards up the valley. Beel stopped there, and turned to face me. “You might begin by explaining why you would not speak in the presence of my daughter and my trusted retainer.”

“Because I needed to advise you,” I explained. “As a mere knight—”

“I understand. What is it?”

“You called me a wizard. I’m not, but I’ve got a friend who knows a little about magic.”

“And he—or she—has taught you a few simple things, I suppose. Your modesty becomes you.”

“Thank you, My Lord. Thank you very much.” I looked around for Mani, but Mani was nowhere in sight.

“I’ve a question, Sir Able. In the past, you have not been entirely disingenuous in answering my questions.”

“Maybe not. I apologize.”

“If I listen to your advice—this friend’s advice, though I supposed that you came to me alone when you first sought the loan of a horse—will you answer one question fully and forthrightly? Upon your honor? Because I will not hear your advice otherwise.”

I shook my head. “This is very important to me, My Lord.”

“All the more reason for you to pledge yourself.”

“All right, I’ll promise. But only if you take my advice as well as listen to it.”

“You would command me?”

“Never, My Lord. But ... Well, I’ve got to find Pouk. Won’t you do as I advise? I’m begging.”

“The choice is mine? Save that you will not pledge yourself unless I do as you wish?”

“Yes, Your Lordship.”

“Then let me hear you.”

When we returned to Beel’s pavilion, he ordered horses brought for all of us. Another horse carried the carpet, the wineskin, and other things; and a sixth, his servingman.

“We are going back up to the pass,” Beel told Garvaon.

“You should ride before us, I think. Sir Able can bring up the rear, which may be the more dangerous post.”

What it really was, I thought as I rode rear guard, was the loneliest. If that were not bad enough, I had to rein in my stallion every minute to keep him behind the sumpter that carried the baggage.

The rocks, and the occasional tree and bush to either side of the War Way, concealed no enemies that I could see; and although I listened hard, I could hear only the cold, lonely song of the wind, and the clop-clop of hooves. The moon shone bright, and the cold stars kept their secrets.

When I rode out on a rocky spur far up the mountainside and looked down on the camp, its dark pavilions and dying fires seemed every bit as far away as those stars ....

Chapter 59. In Jotunland

Beel ordered the carpet spread between the ashes and asked everyone why there had been two fires. I shook my head; but Id

“They built their first fire here.” Garvaon pointed. “That was because it offered the best shelter from the wind, which is generally in the west. The next night, or it could have been the night after that, one of them saw it could be seen from the north.”

“And it was seen,” Beel muttered. “Now we will see what I will see myself, if I see anything. I must caution all of you again that this may not prove effectual.”

He glanced down at the bowl his servingman held. “Why that’s silver! Where’s my gold bowl, Swert?”

“I told him to bring this one, Father,” Id

Beel smiled. “Have you become a witch?”

“No, Father. I know no magic, but I had the advice of a friend who does.”

“Sir Able?”

She shook her head. “I had to promise I wouldn’t tell you who it is.”

“One of your maids, I suppose.”

Id

“Not that it matters.” Beel knelt upon the carpet. The servingman handed him a silver goblet and a skin of wine, and he filled both bowl and goblet.

Mani had crept up to, watch; to get a better view, he sprang onto my shoulder.

“I ask all of you to keep silent,” Beel said. Reaching into his coat, he produced a small leather bag from which he took a thick pinch of dried herbs. Half he dropped into the bowl, the rest into the goblet. Closing his eyes, he recited an invocation.

In the hush that followed, it seemed to me that the song of the wind had altered, humming with words in a tongue I did not know.

“Mongan!” Beel exclaimed. “Dirmaid! Sirona!” He drained the silver goblet at a single draught and bent to look into the silver bowl.

So did I, crouching beside him. After a moment I was joined by Id

As through the mouth of a dark cave, I beheld a forest of unearthly beauty. Disiri the Moss Queen stood in a glade where strange flowers blossomed, naked, more graceful than mortal women and more fair; her green hair rose twice the height of her head, nodding and flowing in the breeze that stirred the flowers. The younger Toug cowered before her, and I waited on my knees. With a slender silver sword, she touched both my shoulders.

“This is of the past,” I murmured to Beel. “Drop ashes into the wine.”

Beel regarded me with empty eyes; but Id

It became the gray coat of a thickset man who walked a long and muddy road across a plain veiled by cloud. Towers, squat and huge, rose in the distance. With his staff, this man struck down a woman no larger than a child. A ragged figure who had been driving before them horses no bigger than dogs threw himself over her, offering his back for hers. The man in the gray coat struck him contemptuously, then nudged both with the toe of his boot.

The toe of the black boot nudging Ulfa grew until it filled the bowl, which held only ashes floating on wine.

“Listen!” Garvaon rose.

I rose, too, and listened; but I heard nothing except the moaning of the wind—an empty moan, as if the thing that had come into it was gone.

Id

“Our camp is being attacked,” I told Id

She shouted something as I rode away, but whether she had pleaded for me to stay, or wished me good luck, or begged me to keep Garvaon safe, I had no idea. I wondered about it, and other things, as I spurred the stallion down the steep mountain road.

For a minute it seemed trees were walking where the camp had been. No fires remained, and no pavilions. My stallion shied as something large and loud hit the ground beside it.

I got my bow and quiver from behind the saddle and slid off the stallion’s back. Somewhere in the darkness, another bow sang.

A second stone flew, hitting the white stallion. He screamed with pain and galloped away. Bracing the foot of my bow against my own, I leaned my weight on the supple wood and fitted the looped bowstring into the notches at the bowhead.

I pulled an arrow to my ear and let fly. A hundred paces off, the giant who had been stoning the white stallion bellowed, a noise like thunder.

I sent a second arrow after the first, and a third after the second, guessing at eyes I could not see.

The giant crumpled.

Dawn found two weary knights making their way back up to the pass. My white stallion was lame, and I walked more than I rode, giving my saddle (a big armored one that weighed as much as some men) to Uns to carry.

Garvaon could have outdistanced us easily, but he seemed too tired even to urge his horse forward. The scabbard that had held Battle Witch hung empty. Then Id