Keepers of the Western Forest

  Chapter 13

   

  Everything was changing. The fog was thinning and there was a sense of movement again. After an eternity spent motionless, in darkness and silence, Crevan could hear a voice calling out to him, a woman’s voice, rising and falling in swelling cadences. The chant he heard was in some strange, rhythmical tongue, a tongue unknown to him; but something deep in his nature understood and obeyed. For the first time since the darkness had closed around him long ago, he was aware of huge, wraith-like forms—forest trees—drifting past him as that imperious voice drew him on towards some unholy tryst.

  Seeing a living world slowly becoming real around him brought back a sudden, vivid memory of that fatal day on the bleak moor side. Along with Brian of Mount Savage and four other northern knights, he had been riding in pursuit of Sir Karman of the Western Forest.

  After a long chase, Brian had called a halt. “The day is lost!” he told Crevan. “We are going home. I, for one, will send word to Arthur that I am ready to swear allegiance to him. Fergus is dead. Whatever reward he may have promised you for your treachery, you will get nothing now. If you want this knight we have been following, you are welcome to him, although I dare say he has a very different idea of what your reward should be!”

  One of the knights in Brian’s company laughed grimly at this and then the five horsemen rode away, leaving Crevan alone on the bare hillside.

  The jingle of harness receded; a lone curlew repeatedly called out its own wild name across the barren moor. Crevan looked around and saw Karman riding towards him with drawn sword, sunlight dancing on his steel helmet, on the silver shield with its oak-tree crest. All his old hatred and jealousy rose up within him; Karman had always been Arthur’s favourite. He had taken Etaine, whose family had all but promised her to Crevan, and had gone from triumph to triumph, seemingly unaware of his rival’s existence.

  Angrily, he drew his sword; but when his enemy was close enough for him to see the fury in his eyes, fear clutched at his heart and he turned his horse to flee.

  It was too late. Karman was upon him.

  “Turning your back on me will not save you, Crevan! You shall die a traitor’s death!”

  In mortal terror, Crevan looked over his shoulder in time to see the flash of bright steel. Then he knew no more, until he found himself walking slowly back down the hillside. A profound hush had fallen over everything. Behind him, a grotesquely crumpled form lay on the cold ground. He recognised it as a man’s body and one that was strangely familiar, but he did not yet realize what had happened to him.

  Not a living soul was in sight as he reached the foot of the hill and entered the forest. It was there that the mist began to gather around him. An unbearable sense of loss and regret invaded his soul; he felt mortally cold. He was moving without volition, without even having to walk, floating helplessly through the trees, a few feet above the ground. Now he understood—the man he had envied and hated most in life had slain him, had killed him with one blow of his sword.

  The bitterness that flooded his soul was a welcome relief. It filled the crippling emptiness he felt within and gave him a reason to cling on to his own wretched being. Now he was justified in hating and despising Karman throughout eternity. The Keeper of the Western Forest had cut him down from behind, had acted like a coward and sacrificed his honour forever.

  Slow months and years passed by. The mist grew thicker until he could no longer see anything of his surroundings and all sense of movement ceased. Sometimes, forgetting his hatred for a moment, he was overcome by sorrow and repentance. Then it seemed as though he were being drawn upwards, towards the faint glow in the mist above him. He yearned to dissolve into the light and be forgotten; but then he would grip down hard on the hot coals of his anger and sink back into the ever-increasing darkness to brood and exult again in his rage and despair.

  And then, suddenly, the change had come. The woman’s voice was calling him, the fog was lifting and he was moving again. The great incantatory rhythm now possessed him utterly. He recognised in it the cry of a kindred soul, one united with his own in a shared bitterness, a common desire.

  The last of the mist was gone; the trees around him were clear and distinct. With a rush of exaltation, he felt the ground under his feet, felt the weight and resistance of a body around him once again. He raised a hand before his eyes and made a fist, then strode out of the forest into a rocky ravine.

  The cliff face that ran along the side of the narrow valley in front of him was pitted with caves. From the deepest of these, a great, gloomy cavern, emanated the voice that had summoned him.

  Wrapped in his new flesh, the dead knight marched on to meet his commander.