The Book Of Lost Things

“I don’t think I’ve heard that name before,” said the horseman. “I can only suppose that it is far from here. Everywhere is far from here,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

He shifted slightly on his horse and glanced around him, scanning the trees, the hills beyond them, and the road ahead and behind.

“This is no place for a boy to be walking alone,” he said.

“I came across the chasm two days ago,” said David. “There were wolves, and the man who was helping me, the Woodsman, was-”

David broke off. He didn’t want to say aloud what had become of the Woodsman. He saw again his friend falling beneath the weight of the wolf pack, and the trail of blood that led into the forest.

“You crossed the chasm?” said the horseman. “Tell me, was it you who cut the ropes?”

David tried to read the expression on the horseman’s face. He didn’t want to get into trouble, and he supposed he must have caused no end of harm by destroying the bridge. Still, he did not want to lie, and something told him that the horseman would call him on it if he did.

“I had to,” he said. “The wolves were coming. I had no choice.”

The horseman smiled. “The trolls were most unhappy,” he said. “They will have to rebuild the bridge now if they are to continue their game, and the harpies will harass them at every turn.”

David shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t feel sorry for the trolls. Forcing travelers to gamble their lives on the solution to a silly riddle wasn’t a decent way to behave. He rather hoped that the harpies decided to eat some of the trolls for dinner, although he didn’t imagine trolls would taste very nice.

“I came from the north, so your antics did not interfere with my plans,” said the horseman. “But it seems to me that a young man who manages to irritate trolls and escape from both harpies and wolves might be worth having around. I’ll make a bargain with you: I will take you to the king if you will accompany me for a time. I have a task to complete, and have need of a squire to help me along the way. It should not require more than a few days of service, and in return I will make sure that you have safe passage to the royal court.”

It didn’t seem to David as if he had very much choice in the matter. He didn’t believe that the wolves would forgive him for the deaths he had caused at the bridge, and by now they must have found another way to cross the canyon. They were probably already on his trail. He had been lucky at the bridge. He might not be so fortunate a second time. Traveling alone on this road, he was always at the mercy of those, like the huntress, who might wish to do him harm.

“I’ll go with you, then,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Good,” said the horseman. “My name is Roland.”

“And I am David. Are you a knight?”

“No, I am a soldier, nothing more.”

Roland reached down and offered David his hand. When David took it, he was instantly lifted off the ground and hoisted onto the back of Roland’s horse.

“You look tired,” said Roland, “and I can afford to spare a little dignity by sharing my horse with you.”

He tapped the horse’s flanks with his heels, and they took off at a trot.

David was not used to sitting on a horse. He found it hard to adjust to her movements, so his bottom bounced against the saddle with painful regularity. It was only when Scylla-for that was the horse’s name-broke into a gallop that he began to enjoy the experience. It was almost like floating along the road, and even with the added burden of David on her back, Scylla’s hooves ate up the ground beneath her feet. For the first time, David began to fear the wolves a little less.

They had been riding for some time when the landscape around them began to change. The grass was charred, the ground broken and churned up as though by great explosions. Trees had been cut down, the trunks sharpened to points and driven into the ground in what looked like an effort to create defenses against some enemy. There were pieces of armor scattered upon the earth, and battered shields and shattered swords. It seemed they were staring at the aftermath of a great battle, but there were no bodies that David could see, although there was blood on the ground, and the muddy pools that pitted the battlefield were more red than brown.

And in the midst of it all was something that did not belong there, something so strange that it caused Scylla to halt in her tracks and worry at the ground with one of her hooves. Even Roland stared at it with undisguised fear. Only David knew what it was.

It was a Mark V tank, a relic of the Great War. Its squat six-pounder gun still protruded from the turret on its left, but it bore no markings of any kind. In fact, it was so clean, so pristine, that it looked to David as if it had just rolled out of a factory somewhere.

“What is it?” asked Roland. “Do you know?”

“It’s a tank,” said David.