by Greg Keyes
“Hounds,” Aspar White told him, in his irritatingly brief manner. “Told you y'd hear them.”
Stephen had heard hounds before. He didn't remember them sounding like that. “Whose hounds? This is the King's Forest! No one lives here! Or are they wild?”
“They aren't wild, not the way you mean.”
“They sound vicious. And eerie.” Stephen turned in his saddle, frowning. “What do you mean, ‘not the way I mean’? Are they wild, or aren't they?”
The holter shrugged. At that moment, a particularly bloodcurdling note entered the baying, much nearer than before. Stephen's belly tightened. “Will they stop at dark? Should we climb a tree, or—”
“Pissing saints!” Aiken, the redheaded bandit, gasped. “It's Grim, id'n it? It's Grim and his hunt!”
“Quiet,” Aspar said. “You'll scare the boy.”
“What do you mean, Aiken?” Stephen asked.
The bandit's face had bleached itself so white even his freckles had disappeared. “One-eyed Grim! He hunts for the lost souls wandering the forest. Oh, saints, keep him off me! I never meant no harm to no one!”
Stephen wasn't sure who Grim was, but his grandfather had told stories of a host of nocturnal ghosts and demons led by a beast-man named Saint Horn the Damned. Stephen had never got around to checking whether or not Saint Horn was recognized by the church or was just a folk legend. He now sincerely wished he had.
“What's he talking about? Is he right?” Stephen asked the holter.
Aspar shrugged, looking almost nervous. “Could be,” he replied.
“Pissing saints!” Aiken howled. “Cut me loose!”
“Do you want a gag, too?” the holter snapped.
“You don't believe in any such creature,” Stephen accused, wagging his finger at Aspar. “I know you well enough by now.”
“Werlic. Right. I don't. Ride faster.”
For an instant, the holter almost looked frightened, and that put a chill deep in Stephen's bones. He had never met anyone so prosaic as Aspar White. If he thought there was something to fear …
Aspar was quiet for a moment, then said, in a low voice, “I've heard those dogs raging, but never seen 'em. Once, they came straight at me, and I thought to spy them at last. I nocked an arrow and waited. That's when I heard 'em—high above me, in the night air. I swear, it's the only place they could have been.
“Here, listen—they're coming at us. We'll see, yah? Be still.”
“This is perfect nonsense,” Stephen hissed. “I don't—”
“For pity, let me down!” Aiken moaned. “If it's the Raver, we have to lie flat in the road or be taken!”
“If it is him, I've a mind to make his work lighter,” Aspar grunted, fingering the bone handle of his dirk. “It's the damned souls he likes best, after all, and those not all weighted down with skin and bone. Cover that cesshole with your teeth, or I'll cut you loose of your corpse!”
Aiken quieted to whimpering then, and they waited, and the hounds came closer and closer.
Stephen's fingers began to tremble on the reins. He willed them to stop, for his fear to blow away with the cool wind. Through the trees, the sky was dark lead, and the woods were so murky he could scarcely see ten yards.
Something huge and black exploded onto the road, and Stephen shrieked. His horse danced sideways and Stephen had a nightmare impression of gleaming eyes and twisted antlers. He screamed again, yanked at his reins, and his horse went widdershins like a puppy chasing its tail.
Then the hounds burst onto the road, huge mastiffs with glistening teeth, their howling so loud it actually hurt his ears. Most tore on, following their terrible quarry, but three or more began racing around the horses and men, yelping and slavering.
“Saints, keep us!” Stephen hollered, before losing his grip and thumping painfully onto the leaf-littered forest floor.
As he looked up, another horse and rider loped out from the trees. The rider was human in form, but with a face that was all beast, bright beady eyes and matted hair.
“Saints!” Stephen repeated, remembering Saint Horn the Damned.
“Grim!” Aiken screamed.
“Hello, Aspar,” the beast-man said, in perfectly good king's tongue. “I hope you're happy. You probably cost me that stag.”
“Well, you nearly cost the world a priest. Look at this boy; you nearly frightened him to death.”
“Looks like. Who did you think I was, boy, Haergrim the Raver?”
“Gah?” Stephen choked. Now he knew what it meant to have his heart pounding in his throat, something he had always considered a fanciful literary expression. The rider was closer now, and Stephen realized that he had a human face after all, covered by a bushy, unkempt beard and long, ragged hair.
“Well, he's an educated fellow,” Aspar went on. “His thousand-year-old maps say no one lives in the King's Forest, so who else could you be but the Raver, yah?”
The bearded figure bowed slightly, in the saddle.
“Symen Rookswald, at your service,” he said.
“Sir Symen,” Aspar amended.
“Once upon a time,” Sir Symen said dolefully. “Once upon a time.”
Tor Scath wasn't on Stephen's maps either, but it was as real as any black shadow in the night could be.
“It was built by King Gaut, more than five hundred years ago,” Sir Symen explained in melancholy tones, as they wound up the path to the hilltop fortress. “They say Gaut was mad, fortifying his stronghold not against mortal enemies, but against the alvs and other dead things. Now it's a royal hunting lodge.”
Stephen could make out only the outlines in the moonlight, but from what he could see, it certainly looked as if it had been built by a madman. It wasn't large, but weird spires and turrets jutted up with little rhyme or reason.
“I'm beginning to wonder if Gaut was sane after all,” Rookswald added, his voice smaller.
“What do you mean?” Aspar White demanded.
“What needs to be done with these two?” Sir Symen asked, ignoring the question.
“A cell for them,” the holter grunted, “to wait for the king's justice when he comes—what, next month?”
“We're innocent men!” Aiken asserted weakly.
Sir Symen snorted. “I have to feed them until then?”
“I don't much care. I might have left them to the wolves, but I suspect they might be persuaded to answer questions about a few other matters.”
“Other matters?” Symen said. “Yes. I'm glad you came, Aspar. I'm glad my summons reached you.”
“Your what?”
“Brian. I sent Brian to fetch you.”
“Brian? I haven't seen him. How long ago did you send him?”
“Ten days ago. I sent him to Colbaely.”
“Huh. He should have found me, then, or at least left word behind him.”
They entered through a narrow tower, crossed a small, smelly courtyard, where Symen remanded the two prisoners and the horses to a hulking brute named Isarn. They proceeded into a dark hall, furnished in rustic fashion. Stephen noticed that only every fourth or fifth torch socket was plenished. A graying man in white and green livery greeted them.
“How was the hunting, sir?” he asked.
“Interrupted,” Sir Symen said. “But by an old friend. Can Anfalthy find something to decorate this old board with?”
“I'm sure she can. Master White, it's good to see you again. And you, young sir, welcome to Tor Scath.”
“The same, Wilhilm,” Aspar replied.
“Thank you,” Stephen managed.
“I'll fetch you some cheese, meantime.”
“Thank you, Wil,” Sir Symen said, and the old fellow left. He turned back to Stephen. “Welcome to King William's hunting lodge, and the most impoverished, thankless barony in the entire kingdom.”
“Our host is somewhat out of favor at court,” Aspar explained.
“And the sky is somewhat blue,” the disheveled knight replied. In the light, he w
asn't frightening at all; he looked gaunt, and sad, and old. “Aspar, I have things to tell you. The Sefry have left the forest.”
“I saw Mother Cilth's bunch in Colbaely. They told me as much.”
“No. Not just the caravaners. All of them. All of them.”
“Even the Halafolk?”
“All.”
“Well. I've been trying to get the Halafolk out of the forest for twenty years, and now they just up and leave? I don't believe it. How can you be sure?”
“They told me. They warned me to leave, too.”
“Warned you about what?”
Suspicion flitted across Sir Symen's face. “If Brian didn't reach you, why did you come?”
“A boy came to Colbaely claiming his folk were killed by men in the king's colors, down by Taff Creek. I ran into the priestling and his captors on my way to investigate. I couldn't very well keep hauling them about, so I brought them here.”
“Taff Creek. I didn't know about that one.”
“What do you mean, ‘that one’?”
“There was a woodcutting camp, two leagues south, killed to a man. We found them twenty days ago. Some tinkers on their way to Virgenya, likewise slaughtered. A half score of hunters.”
“Did any of these hold patents from the king?” Aspar asked.
“Not a one. All were in the wood illegally.”
“Then someone's doing my work for me.”
Stephen couldn't stand it anymore. “So that's your work? Murdering woodcutters?”
“It's not my law, boy, but the king's. If the forest was open to anyone, how long do you think it would stand? Between trappers, charburners, woodcutters, and homesteaders, before long the royals wouldn't have any place to hunt.”
“But murder?”
“I don't kill woodcutters, boy, not unless they try to kill me, and sometimes not even then. I arrest them. I lock them up someplace to await the king's justice. I scare them off, most of the time. What I meant just now was that whoever is behind this is killing those who ought not to be here in the first place. It doesn't gladden me; it makes me angry. This forest is my charge, my territory.”
“But Brian is missing,” Rookswald said. “And he was my man. Though I may be the least favorite of the king's knights, I still hold a patent to be here, and my household with me.”
At that moment, Wilhilm reappeared, with a stoneware platter of cheese, a pitcher of mead, and mazers for each of them. It suddenly occurred to Stephen that he was hungry, and when he bit into the pungent, almost buttery cheese, he amended that to ravenous. The mead was sweet and tasted of cloves.
Aspar White ate, too. Only the bearded knight seemed not to notice the food.
“I don't think they were killed by men,” Rookswald said softly.
“What then?” the holter asked, around a mouthful. “Bears? Wolves?”
“I think the Briar King killed them.”
The holter stared at him for a moment, then snorted. “You've been listening to the Sefry, sure enough.”
“Who is the Briar King?” Stephen asked.
“Another one of your folk stories,” the holter scoffed.
“So I thought, once upon a time,” Sir Symen said. “Now, I don't know. The dead we found—” He paused for an instant, then looked up. “They were of two sorts, the dead, the woodcutters. In the flat, where they were camped, they simply fell, no marks on them. No sword cut, no claw gashes, no arrow holes. Nor had they been gnawed or pecked at since death. There wasn't anything alive at the camp. Chickens, dogs, squirrels, the fish in the stream, all dead.
“But did you know that there's a seoth near there, a hill with an old fane? That's where we found the rest of them, or what was left of them. They had been most foully killed, by torture, and slowly.”
Stephen noticed something cross the holter's face, something quickly hidden. “Tracks?” the woodsman asked. “Were there tracks?”
“There were tracks. Like those of a cat, but larger. And tracks of men, as well.”
“Did you touch any of them? The tracks?”
A peculiar question, Stephen thought, but the old knight nodded. “I touched one of the bodies.” He held out his hand. It was missing two fingers, and freshly bandaged. “I had to cut them off, before the rot spread to my arm.” He scowled. “Aspar White, I know your look. You know something of this. What?”
“I came upon such a track,” Aspar said. “That's all I know.”
“The Sefry are old, Aspar, especially the Halafolk. They know a great deal. They say the greffyns have returned. And the lord of the greffyns, of all unholy things that slink in this wood, is the Briar King. If they are awake, he is awake, or soon to be. They do his bidding, the greffyns.”
“Greffyns,” Aspar White repeated. His tone somehow made the word mean ludicrous.
“Can't you tell me more of this?” Stephen asked. “I might be able to help.”
“I don't need your help,” the holter said bluntly. “Tomorrow, you continue to d'Ef. Play your games of maps and stories there, if you wish.”
Stephen flushed, his tongue temporarily stilled by helpless anger. How could anyone be so arrogant?
“The Briar King has always been here,” Sir Symen whispered. “Before the Hegemony, before the Warlock Wars, even before the mighty Scaosen themselves, he was here. Ages turn, and he sleeps. When his sleep is troubled enough, he wakes.”
He turned rheumy eyes upon Stephen. “That's the real reason the King's Wood exists, though most have forgotten. Not to furnish a vast hunting park for whatever family rules in Eslen. No. It is so that when the Briar King rouses, he is not displeased.” He grasped Aspar by the arm. “Don't you remember? The old tale? It was a bargain struck between the Briar King and Vlatimon the Handless, when the Scaosen were slaughtered and the kingdom of Crotheny established. The forest would be kept for him, from the Ef River to the sea, from the Mountains of the Hare to the Gray Warlock. The bargain was that if that were left untouched, Vlatimon and his descendants could have the rest.
“But if the bargain is broken, then every living thing shall perish, as it did before, and the Briar King will raise a new forest from our bones and ashes. When we say it's the King's Forest, you see, we don't mean the king of Crotheny. We mean the true lord of it, the undying one, the master of the greffyns.”
“Symen—” Aspar began.
“We've broken Vlatimon's ancient vow. Everywhere, the borders are compromised. Everywhere, trees are cut. He wakes, and he is not pleased.”
“Symen, the Sefry have muddled your brains. Those are old tales, no better than the stories about talking bears and magic ships that sail on land. Something strange is about, yes. Something dangerous. But I will find it, and I'll kill it, and that will be an end to it.”
Symen didn't answer but just shook his head.
Anything further was interrupted by the arrival of the food, escorted out by a plain, cheerful woman of middle years and two young girls. They settled two steaming pies, a platter of roast pigeons, and black-bread trenchers on the table. The girls hurried off without speaking, but the woman put her hands to her hips and regarded the three of them.
“Well, hello there, Aspar, and hello, young sir, whoever you might be. My name's Anfalthy. We were ill prepared for guests, but I hope this will please you. If there's anything missing y'would like—anything at all—I'll see what I can do. I make no promise but that I'll try.”
“Lady, anything you bring will please us, I'm sure,” Stephen said, remembering his manners.
“Game has been scarce,” Symen muttered.
“He hasn't been droning on about the end of days again, has he?” Anfalthy asked. “Look, Sir Symen, you've not even touched your wine. Drink it! I've mixed in herbs to cheer your mood.”
“No doubt.”
“Don't mind his dark mutterings, you two. He's been at that for months, now. A trip abroad is what he needs, but I can't convince him.”
“I'm needed here,” Symen insisted.
> “Only to gloom up the place. Eat, you fellows, and call for more if you need it.”
The pie, compounded of venison and boar and elderberries, was a little gamey to Stephen's taste, but the pigeon, stuffed with rosemary and marjoram and pork liver, was delicious.
“I'll go tomorrow to Taff Creek,” Aspar promised. “Now do as Anfalthy said. Drink your wine.”
“You'll see, when you go,” the old knight said, but he did sip his wine, indifferently at first, but in ever larger gulps. As the evening wore on, the rest of the household joined them; it seemed there were about twenty people resident in the tower. Within a bell, the board was crowded, and pies, roast boar, partridge, and duck covered it from end to end, so that Stephen wondered how they ate when game wasn't scarce. The conversation grew boisterous, with children and dogs playing about their feet, and the force of the old knight's doomsaying faded.
Still, it nagged at Stephen, and more so, the holter's gruff dismissal of anything Stephen might have to add. So when the mead courage finally came on him, he leaned near Aspar White.
“You want to know what I think?” he asked.
The holter frowned, and for a moment Stephen thought that the older man would tell him, once again, to be silent. He decided not to give him the chance. “Listen,” he rushed on. “I know you don't think much of me. I know you think I'm useless. But I'm not. I can help.”
“Oh? Your thousand-year-old maps can help me with this?”
Stephen's lips tightened. “I understand. You're afraid I know more than you. That I might know some damned thing that might be of use.”
Even as the words tumbled out of his mouth, Stephen knew the mead had brought him to a bad end. But the holter was just so damned smug, and Stephen was too drunk to feel fear as more than the distant whisper of a saint.
Then to his vast surprise, the older man laughed bitterly. “Plenty I don't know,” he admitted. “Go ahead. Tell me what you make of all this.”
Stephen blinked. “What?”
“I said, go on. What do you think of Sir Symen's story?”
“Oh.” For a brief instant there were two Aspars, then one again. “I don't believe it,” Stephen said, pronouncing each word very deliberately.
