Keepers of the Western Forest

by Chris Kennedy

  Chapter 9

   

  It was daybreak. A cold grey light filtered down through the trees. Darin realized he must have dozed off in the saddle for at least part of the night. After he had fled from the jousting field the day before, he had given himself up to despair, dropping his reins and letting his horse roam freely along the forest paths. Dart was standing still now, quietly nibbling at some tufts of grass between the roots of a wide-spreading elm that stood proudly in the middle of an open space, looking almost as if it had pushed its smaller brothers aside to breathe more freely.

  Darin was surprised to find the lance from the tournament still in his hand, despite his sleep. In sudden anger, he threw it from him.

  “Honour?” he muttered. “What good is any honour I may ever win with spear or sword? I shall never dare show my face, I shall always be alone!”

  He bowed his head, sobbing.

  “Do not be so hasty, sir.”

  The voice was clear and sweet as a mountain stream. Darin looked up and saw a slim, blue-eyed girl standing before him. In her hands was the discarded lance. She held it up to him.

  “This spear may yet do you good service.”

  “Damsel! I did not see you there! Who are you? And what are you doing here, all alone in the forest?”

  “I am Stella,” she answered. “And I know the forest well. Why am I here? I was looking for you.”

  Darin stared at her. What could this lovely, barefoot girl want with him?

  “King Arthur is angry with you,” she said.

  Now he hung his head once more. All his shame, for a moment forgotten, came flooding back.

  “Aye, and rightly so!” he said. However, he took the spear from her and settled it into its holster.

  “Nay, do not despair,” Stella said. “I know how you can win back his favour. There is a knight, an enemy to King Arthur and his Round Table, who attacks and slays all who would pass through the valley where he makes his stand. Should you defeat this traitor and win your way to the cave where one of his best knights lies imprisoned, Arthur’s gratitude would know no bounds.”

  “Ah, Stella!” replied Darin. “I am no longer looking for honour. And I will never, never set foot in Camelot again!”

  Stella was silent for a moment, regarding him steadily with wide, blue eyes. “If you will not do it for the king, will you not do it for me? This knight, who is known as the Black Corbie, serves one who has done me great wrong.”

  Darin looked down at the golden-haired girl. What had he to lose? Nothing but a life of sorrow and loneliness. “Very well, my lady, I will face this renegade knight for you. But you must show me where I can find him.”

  She put one hand on his saddlebow, leapt lightly up onto Dart’s back and settled herself in front of him. Suddenly her laughing face was inches from his own, behind its steel visor, and a slender arm was round his neck.

  “Ride on, then!” she cried.

  Darin steered Dart into the thick forest once more and on they rode, Stella directing him whenever a fork appeared in the narrow track. The woods grew thicker and gloomier the further they ventured. Sometimes Stella would sing softly, a strange, warbling song like the sound of babbling water, that soothed Darin’s troubled heart; then a sweet yearning would surge up in his breast, such as he had never felt before. He longed to throw off his helmet with its hated visor and bury his face in her silky golden tresses; but, each time, the thought of the look of horror he would surely see on her face checked his impulse.

  By the middle of the afternoon, Darin was growing weary. As he caught himself nodding off for the second time, he remembered he had scarcely slept since the night before the tournament.

  “We must stop and rest a while,” said Stella. “We have made good progress today.”

  They dismounted. Darin sat down on the mossy root of a big old oak and leaned his back against the wide tree-trunk. He closed his eyes.

  When he opened them again, it was night. He must have slept for a few hours. He looked around him, but could see nothing except hundreds of tiny lights, sprinkled here and there on the forest floor—glow-worms. There were a few of them on the ground just in front of him, arranged in a rough circle.

  He heard movements and could just make out a figure approaching him. His hand went to his sword, but then he heard Stella’s voice.

  “There,” she said, and put down two more little lights, completing the circle. “Now you must eat.”

  In the faint glow cast by the little creatures, he could see his satchel and the wine flask. Stella must have put them there in the middle of the circle.

  “I know you don’t want anyone to see your face. All Camelot knows it. You can trust me; I shall sit with my back against the other side of the tree. Eat now and drink, for soon you will need all your strength.”

  She said this so simply that Darin felt no need to reply or explain. In the protective darkness, he raised his visor and gratefully started on his meal. The last piece of his mother’s rabbit pie had gone a little stale, but it tasted good, washed down with mouthfuls of damson wine.

  “Won’t you have some too?” he asked.

  Stella assured him she had no need of food or drink. When he was finished, he leant back with a sigh and felt much better.

  “My mother used to tell me that faerie folk use glow-worms to light up their great halls beneath the hills,” he said.

  Stella laughed her silvery laugh. “What do you know about the faerie people?”

  “Not much. They live forever and get up to a lot of mischief. It’s all just stories, I expect.”

  “No, no, they are as real as we are! Look up, and tell me what you see.”

  Darin raised his eyes to the patch of night sky that showed through the trees above their heads. “A few faint stars. Or are you going to tell me they are glow-worms too?”

  She laughed again. “Each one of those stars is like the sun,” she said. “And all around them are countless worlds, just like this one.”

  Now it was Darin’s turn to laugh. “What nonsense you talk! The sun is much bigger than any star and there’s only one world—this one, which is bigger than anything else! But tell me more, I love a good story!”

  “Ages and ages ago, the faerie folk lived in a world out there, a world very like this. After countless generations, they had learned to conquer death and to travel enormous distances. One day their world was threatened by….” Stella was silent for a moment. Then she went on. “By a huge flaming creature, rushing towards them through the heavens.”

  “You mean, like a dragon?”

  “Yes, call it that if you like. When they knew their world was coming to an end, they set off in search of new homes among the stars. Some of them came here, long before men arrived in these forests. And they are here still.”

  “A wonderful tale!” Darin said after a minute of silence. “And just how is it that you know so much about the faerie people?”

  He heard her laughter in the dark.

  “Try to sleep some more,” was all she said.

  He sat for a while looking up at the sky. The stars were no longer visible; hidden by clouds, he supposed. He thought about the fantastical story he had just heard and all the adventures he had been having, but, before long, he grew despondent again. Life seemed to offer so much, but he knew it was not for him; he would never be able to share his deepest feelings with anyone or be a part of the brave company at Camelot. He would always be in hiding.

  He closed his visor and shut his eyes.