The Book Of Lost Things

So the Crooked Man watched as David and Roland passed by, Scylla pausing for a second before the fallen tree, just as the scout had guessed that she would, and then jumping it with a single leap before taking the rider and the boy toward the road beyond. Then the Crooked Man descended into the briars and thorns, and was gone.

XX Of the Village, andRoland’s Second Tale

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.