along his spine. The knight rose to his feet, replaced his leather cap, drew his sword, and prepared to fight. “To arms, men!” he cried. “To arms!”
Instantly, the soldiers unsheathed swords and levelled lances. They drew together to form a protective line and waited for the anticipated onslaught. The moment stretched and passed. The attack did not come.
The knight advanced cautiously to the place in the brush where the dark shape had disappeared. Gesturing for his men to maintain silence, he summoned them to him, indicating that the enemy was hiding in the underbrush. They paused at the ready, and then, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, they started into the brushwood, where they discovered a narrow trail used by animals when passing to and from the stream.
Stopping every few steps to listen, the five soldiers advanced cautiously along the trackway.
A hundred paces farther along, the trail divided. One way led into a deep-shaded game run; arched over by intertwining limbs, it was straight and narrow and dark as any underground tunnel. The other was more open and meandered amongst the trees, below which stunted saplings formed a scrubby underbrush where an enemy might hide.
It could have been his overwrought imagination, but the knight felt dank and chill air seeping along the darker path. It came spilling out from the entrance of the game run like a vapour, invisible to the eye; nevertheless, he could feel it curling and coiling around his feet and ankles, climbing his legs. He stopped in his tracks and motioned the others behind him to halt as well.
Loath to take the darker path, the knight was considering their position when he heard a far-off whinny. It seemed to come from behind them in the direction of the stream. “The horses!”
Turning as one, the warriors ran back the way they had come, stumbling in their haste as they emerged once again on the low banks of the stream to find that their horses had vanished.
“God in heaven!” cried the knight. “We have been tricked!
Get up there,” he shouted, pushing two men along the upstream bank. “Find them!”
He sent his other two men-at-arms to search downstream and then ran to the road and hurried back to the ridgetop to see the ox-drawn wagons still some way off, creeping slowly up the last rise.
He returned to the fording place and sat down on a rock with his sword across his knees. Eventually, the two who had gone upstream returned to say they had found not so much as a hoofprint on the muddy bank. One of the guards who had been searching downstream returned with the same report—neither hide nor hair of any horse did he see.
“Where is Laurent?” asked the knight. “He was with you; what happened to him?”
“I thought he came back here,” replied the soldier, glancing around quickly. “Did he not?”
“He did not,” retorted the knight angrily. “As you can well see, he did not!”
“But he was just behind me,” insisted the man-at-arms.
Looking back along the bank, he said, “He must have turned aside to relieve himself.”
Assuming this to be the case, they waited for a time to see if their missing comrade would reappear. When he failed to show up, the knight and his men walked back along the downstream bank. They shouted and called his name and listened for sounds of the absent soldier thrashing through the brush. The surrounding wood remained deathly still and quiet.
The five guardsmen were still shouting when the rider sent with the message for the wagons appeared. The knight turned on him. “Have you seen him?”
“Who, my lord?”
“Laurent—he’s disappeared. Did you see anything amiss on the road?”
Catching the wild cast of the knight’s eyes and frantic tone, he replied with studied caution. “Nothing amiss, my lord. All is well. The wagons will be here soon.”
“All is not well, by heaven!” roared the knight. “Our horses have vanished, too.”
“Vanished?”
“Spirited away!”
The rider’s bald brow furrowed, and tiny creases formed at the corners of his eyes. “But I—are you certain, sire?”
“We watered the horses and knelt down to get a mouthful ourselves,” explained one of the men-at-arms, pushing forward. “When we looked up”—he glanced around to gather the assent of his companions—“the horses had disappeared.”
“One moment there, and the next gone?” wondered the rider. “And you saw nothing?”
“If we had, would we waste breath talking to you?” the knight charged angrily. Still gripping the hilt of his sword, he scanned the forest round about, a great, green, all-embracing wall. “Mark me, there is