Grail Quest - The Shadow Companion Part 3

"Why would the Grail be hidden anywhere?" Newt asked, feeling the urge to be difficult. He wanted to show Gerard and Ailis that they weren't the only ones with brains. "Why not just leave it in a house of wors.h.i.+p on an altar, have something built for it to show it off for the true believers. . . ."

"Because it's too powerful to be left in plain sight." In the morning sun, Gerard looked as exhausted as Newt felt-Sir Matthias had had him running all night after the monk's revelation, ensuring that everyone would be ready to leave first thing in the morning.

"And it is especially too powerful to put in a house of wors.h.i.+p, with access given to men of faith-men to whom the power of the Grail might be an eternal temptation." Callum was green, but not stupid.

"So it makes sense to hide it," Newt said, his agreement clearly confusing to Callum and Gerard. Ailis, he noted, was shooting him a look that said she knew what he was doing, and while she was amused, she didn't quite approve. Their bickering felt familiar.

It felt like comfort. It felt like family.

"And to hide it somewhere with a reputation, so n.o.body will come looking, poking around . . ." he continued, despite her look.

"Somewhere with a reputation that would explain anything strange that might happen around such a powerful object!" Gerard finished the thought triumphantly.

"I hate it when you two make sense." Ailis managed a faint imitation of her old, cheerful smile. "Fortunately it doesn't happen often."

In the daylight, with the mud, confusion, and lack of direction left behind them in the old encampment, the three friends plus Callum, who seemed to have attached himself to Newt, were able to pick up some of the antic.i.p.ation, if not the high spirits, of the rest of their caravan. It was enough, at least, to bring back some of their old banter, the back and forth that had gotten them through difficult times before.

There was an edge to it now though, one that Newt was slowly becoming aware of, mostly from Ailis: She was sharper, more brittle with Gerard, as though trying to defend herself against attacks that never actually came. He wished he could feel more regret for that, but instead found himself taking advantage of it, agreeing with Ailis more obviously, just to rile his friend and see the flash of grat.i.tude on her face. He knew it was small and petty, but he didn't stop doing it.

"Did you see that?" Ailis asked suddenly.

"See what?"

If Callum were any more fidgety, Newt thought, he was going to twitch himself right out of his saddle.

"Behind Sir Matthias," she said, indicating the direction with her chin, so as to not be too obvious about it. Newt looked but couldn't see anything in the forest.

The knight in question reined in his horse-a great muscled beast-from the front of the line letting his knights continue on past him. Then he walked the ma.s.sive charger back to where the four of them were riding.

"Gerard." He acknowledged the others with a nod of his head, but his attention was solely on the older squire. "We will be coming to the place the monk spoke of, perhaps by midday. I will want to camp there, at least until we have some sense of where the Grail might be. I want you to take the northwest quadrant of camp, make sure it is set up properly, and let me know if there are any problems."

It was an important job for a squire. Gerard sat up proudly in his saddle despite the weight of this responsibility.

"Sir, I-" Ailis began, then stopped when Sir Matthias turned a gentle eye on her.

"My dear, I want you to promise me you'll stay close to one of the squires at all times. This is a rough place, and I would not wish to regret allowing you to come with us." He patted her kindly on the cheek then, with another nod to Gerard, turned his horse and rode back to the front of the line.

The good mood among the four of them had been broken. Ailis was fuming once again, the paternal warning another reminder that she was only a girl and therefore of no use to the Quest.

Meanwhile, Callum felt slighted not only by Sir Matthias's focus on Gerard, but by the dismissal of his new hero, Newt. Gerard, basking in the trust given him by the brave knight, was aware of their dissatisfaction but, not knowing how to deal with it, chose to ignore it instead.

"You saw something?" he said to Ailis.

"Never mind," she said. "It's gone now. It was probably just a haunt, nothing that would bother a mighty warrior like him, who doesn't have to worry about things not of the mortal, ordinary world."

"Ailis . . ."

She just looked at him, daring him to push the matter. He sighed, letting it drop.

"Hoy!"

Two of the other squires rode up alongside them, waving to Callum. With a sideways glance at Newt, the younger squire peeled away from their group, clearly pleased to be leaving the sudden tension to rejoin his old companions.

"Horse-boy!" one of them called. "You, too!"

Newt didn't hesitate turning his horse off the path to join the three waiting for him. He didn't particularly want to spend time with the rougher-edged squires, whose idea of fun was uncomfortably close to that of the dogs he used to tend. But anything was better than sitting between Gerard and Ailis when they were upset with each other, as seemed to be the case too often these days.

"Ailis . . ." Gerard tried again. "I'm sorry. Sir Matthias is so . . ." he floundered, looking for a word. "Old-fas.h.i.+oned," he said, finally. "He doesn't believe . . ."

"No, he doesn't," she said shortly. "And neither do you, apparently." She would have ridden off, but unlike Newt and Callum she had nowhere else to go. Instead, she settled for watching the tall, dark-columned trees that lined the narrow road, noting with great intensity the colors of the leaves, the texture of the bark, and where it had been eaten away by deer and other grazers. And all the while the sense of something just out of sight, something following them, persisted. That and the eerie feeling she'd had during the monk's prophecy . . .

"Don't bring attention to yourself," Merlin had said. "Stay quiet and out of sight." If she brought her suspicions to Sir Matthias's attention, she would have to explain why and how she knew what she knew- and that would involve mentioning Morgain. And Ailis wasn't certain, after all . . . so she said nothing.

Newt was dizzy. The whirlwind of the past several days swam through his mind. His feet were slightly uncertain as he walked under the trees back to his bedroll.

There was no room to erect the pavilions of the previous camp, but tarps had been raised, and some semblance of comfort established. Many of the squires had decided to sleep under their masters' roofs while they were in the Shadows, but Newt preferred the fresh air, even if he couldn't see the sky through the thick branches overhead. The trees between him and the main camp gave him the illusion of privacy, something he had missed since leaving his horse-charges back at Camelot.

"Chhhhheeereeeee."

So far tonight, he had heard three different calls, none of which he had encountered before. Some might claim the howls and whoops were the voices of unrestful souls, but Newt knew they were merely night-birds, flitting and hunting low overhead.

He came to the open s.p.a.ce in the center of four great tree trunks where his bedroll had been placed. Callum had left a small fire burning in the fire pit, and Newt held back a sigh of exasperation. The boy should have known enough to bank the flames before he fell asleep, especially in such a densely wooded area.

Newt stepped over Callum's blanket-covered form and went to rearrange the wood so that the flames would die down again, leaving only smoldering coals that could be restarted come morning.

As he bent over the flames, he heard another noise, this one more of a yelping sound-the sort a fox kit might make when excited or alarmed. Only it was too narrow and thready to be a fox's call. Newt looked over his shoulder into the night-dark surroundings, but saw no telltale glow of eyes, and heard no rustle of leaves that might indicate the pa.s.sing of such a creature. Callum slept through it all, not even s.h.i.+fting at the disturbance.

Foxes, no matter how odd-sounding, were neither interesting enough nor worrisome enough to keep Newt from his bed any longer-not after a long day of riding. So without further hesitation, he slid off his boots and jerkin, put them within reach, and went to sleep.

Sir Thomas wiped a cloth across the toe of his boot and admired the s.h.i.+ne, then looked up as Gerard walked by. "Ho, Gerard! You weren't at the fire last night."

Gerard paused when the young knight called his name, and said, "No." After dinner the knights and squires had gathered to share stories. Sir Matthias encouraged it, to a certain level.

Gerard had wanted to join in, but he was still smarting a little from the comments made during the day's ride, and the thought of dealing with Newt and Callum, both of whom were part of the gathering, had seemed too much to bear. Instead he had taken a turn around the campsite, so spread out as to barely deserve the name, and then gone to bed.

"Pity. Sir Ruden was telling us stories of the Northern Campaign, when Merlin tamed that so-called monster and banished it to the lake."

"It was a monster, nothing so-called about it!" Sir Ruden had a thick northern accent, but his indignation was clear. "Ah, that was an adventure, it was. Not like this." He spat once, indicating his opinion of the Quest.

"We're about to do some training with swords before Sir Matthias decides to move us out again," Sir Thomas went on. "Care to join us?"

"Us" was Sir Thomas, Sir Ruden, who was from the Highlands, Sir Brand, and Sir Daffyd, both of whom were from Camelot proper.

Sir Brand and Sir Daffyd were also two of the least-experienced knights on the Quest and, in Gerard's opinion, not the sharpest men in the group. But they were knights.

Thomas had been made a knight only just before the Quest rode out. Gerard had, in fact, worked with him years ago, when both their masters were at Camelot at the same time. Thomas had not been in Camelot when the sleep-spell was cast. If he had been, perhaps Gerard would not have been the oldest squire left awake in the castle, and perhaps none of what had followed would have happened at all.

Thomas didn't seem to hold this against Gerard. He was secure in the status of his newly granted spurs, polished and gleaming against his boots. Not that there had been very much glory: Merlin and Arthur had specifically asked Gerard not to speak to the other knights about his adventures, for fear of raising the very doubts and questions about Arthur's kings.h.i.+p that Morgain had intended to create by her spells.

"All right, let's get started," Sir Brand said, getting into his saddle. He reached down for the long, blunted lance Daffyd handed him. "Thomas, you and Gerard-"

"Oh, please!"

At the sound of a woman's voice, Gerard spun around, even as his ears told him that it wasn't Ailis. The voice was too high, too breathy, too delicate.

"Please, good sirs, help me."

She was tiny, barely as tall as Gerard's shoulder, with a round, flushed face and a ma.s.s of dark curly hair that had twigs and leaves in it, as though she had just come cras.h.i.+ng through the undergrowth.

"Milady?" Thomas said, gallant as though he were the eldest of King Arthur's knights, and not the latest and most recent. She was no lady-her drab homespun kirtle and scuffed boots made that clear- but her distress was real, and the knights responded to that exactly as they had been trained.

"Milady, how may we help you?"

"My village. Back that way," and she waved a vague hand northward. "Terrible-terrible!" Her nut-brown eyes were bloodshot and showed tremendous fear, lending force to her jumbled, breathless words. Her hands, scratched and bleeding, rose to clutch at Sir Ruden's sleeve, as he leaned down from the back of his horse to hear her words better.

"Save us," she pleaded. "Only you, with your swords, can save us."

No sweeter balm ever landed on their ears, the perfect antidote to their failure to discover the Grail.

"Milady, we will," Brand vowed, offering his hand to draw the girl up onto his horse.

She pulled back, clearly afraid of the beast. Instead she turned and, lifting her skirt a little to move more easily, said "I beg you, follow me." And with that, she ran off toward the villages.

Gerard and Thomas hauled themselves up and into their saddles, their horses already moving to keep up with the others, and rode off after her.

"We shouldn't just leave," Gerard said, the thought coming belatedly that maybe this wasn't something Sir Matthias would be pleased about. "We should tell someone where we're going, get more men . . ."

"You're right-you go tell Sir Matthias-you're his boy, after all," Daffyd said unkindly. "Leave the glory to the men."

Laughter trailed back as the others heard that. Gerard's mouth tightened as common sense warred with his pride. It took only a moment before common sense was bashed over the head and left in the bushes. Gerard rode after the knights.

The girl clearly knew where she was leading them, a path seeming to open up where Gerard had seen none before. In no time at all, they were riding out of the trees' embrace and saw before them a small, neatly tended village, surrounded on two sides by fields.

In the early morning mist, the timber-cut houses and sheds seemed to glisten, the green patches of garden looked ready to burst with late-harvest produce, and even the occasional dog looked placid and well-fed enough not to bark at the sudden arrival of strangers on horseback.

It was, Gerard thought, a lovely picture. But it was too quiet to be the scene of such danger-unless they were too late.

"What sort of threat do we face?" he asked the girl, who had stopped to stare at the village with a sort of pained fascination.

"Go, quickly, swiftly," she said, not quite in response to his question. "Swiftly, you may yet save us."

The knights needed no further urging. They spurred their horses into a trot, loosened their swords from their scabbards, and readied smaller blades. Sir Thomas pulled a long dagger from a sheath strapped between his shoulder blades-placed there for easy access while riding-and grinned with antic.i.p.ation of what could prove to be his first true test as a knight.

In earlier years, Gerard might have charged in, front and center, thrilled to be with these young knights, excited to face battle, determined to rescue innocents. But his travels had changed him in ways he hadn't realized until now, and second thoughts tugged at him.

Newt had shown him that appearances weren't always truth. Ailis reminded him over and over that even familiar, ordinary things can change suddenly. Arthur's need to be in so many places at once taught him the importance of evaluating threats. Morgain- and her magics-had shown him that danger comes in all forms, shapes, and sizes, and from any direction at all.

"Wait!" he called, reining in his horse, but the others had already gone on ahead, riding now at a full gallop into the village itself.

And still none of the dogs barked.

Gerard turned on the girl, now beside him. "What have you led us to? What are you-" His voice dried up and stuck in his throat.

Her hair had sprouted leaves, her skin turned from b.u.t.termilk to bark-brown, and her hands-the fingers were too long, had too many joints; they looked like twigs, not flesh.

"Wood-witch!" he cried, dismayed. Of all the dangers of a haunted forest, this was one he had never thought to beware: a poppet made from an ensorcelled tree or brush, animated and given life by evil magics, controlled by the creator and used to cause mischief . . . or lead men to disaster.

He looked up again, just in time to see the sleepy dogs begin to move. Not getting to their feet, or acting in familiar ways, but . . . they moved. They shook and quivered, until their bodies broke apart and things ran out of them. Gerard pushed his horse forward, fighting to keep control of the now skittish beast, who was clearly unnerved by a smell, something sharp and bitter and unnatural, that the changing breeze brought from the village.

The wood-witch had disappeared back into the forest, but Gerard couldn't spare any attention for her, not with what was unfolding in front of him.

The creatures seemed harmless at first. About the size of Gerard's palm, they moved like spiders, skittish on multiple legs. A grown man-or a horse- could stomp them into splinters, taken individually or even a dozen at a time. But there were so many of them pouring out of the dogs' bodies that the ground looked like a black stream from dogs to knights.

"Beware!" The words came from Gerard's mouth without conscious thought. "Look out behind you!"

Part of Gerard wanted nothing more than to flee, to lash his horse into the fastest run it could manage, scooping Ailis up behind him, yelling for Newt, and having Ailis open a gateway back to Camelot- ideally directly into Merlin's chambers.

Even as he was wis.h.i.+ng that he could do all that, a cold, practical part of him was moving closer. He was still far enough away to avoid triggering an attack on himself, but near enough that he could see what was happening. He had to know, had to be able to make a full report . . . And if they catch me? Who will make a report then? The coward's voice asked, trying to justify its fear. Let's go, let's get out of here!

Gerard forced that thought into oblivion, even as he felt the cold sweat dripping down his back and along the tops of his arms.

It's all right to be frightened. The trick is not to let the fear rule you. A faint memory spoke, a lingering trace, perhaps, of the blood-spell Merlin had worked on them, giving them access to his wisdom and Arthur's experience. Or maybe by now it was his own voice. Either way, the knowledge steadied him into doing what had to be done.

Sir Brand and Sir Daffyd had already dismounted, swords in their hands, when the spider-things appeared. Sir Ruden and Thomas were mounted, and their horses reared and s.h.i.+ed away first, alerting them that something was wrong even as Gerard shouted his warning.

And then the creatures were swarming the four knights, covering them, their armor, swords, even daggers were useless. Brand disappeared under a wave of black, then Daffyd fell to the ground as though stunned. Thomas tried to spur his horse out of the way, but the things were moving up the horse's legs now, and the horse shrieked, a huge, painful sound. It fell onto its side, lather poured from its mouth, and Thomas was likewise covered. Ruden sprang from the saddle and tried to run on foot. He looked up and saw Gerard, at least temporarily out of harm's way.

"Run! Flee!" he shouted, and then he, too, was taken down by the creatures.

Poison, Gerard thought. They had to give off a poison, by bite or sting that stunned their victims. He had no idea what sort of creature could do that to a full-grown man or horse . . . other than something magical.

And that was perhaps the most foolish thought he'd ever had in his entire life. Of course it was something magical.

The tiny black things abandoned Brand, leaving behind a figure crisscrossed by s.h.i.+mmering white threads, like some kind of spiderweb spun of moonlight. But from the way Brand struggled uselessly against it, Gerard had to a.s.sume it was stronger than spider silk or moons.h.i.+ne. Thomas was next, then Ruden. The more they struggled, the more tightly they were bound. Ruden saw that and seemed to submit to his fate, allowing them to bind him.

"Lad!" Ruden called out to him, his voice weak behind the net but no less commanding. "Come, help us! Set us free!"

Against his better judgment, Gerard dismounted, patting the horse on its crest, soothing it as best he could. He studied a nearby tree cautiously, wondering if it, too, was enchanted in some way, then took the chance and tied his horse's reins to a low-hanging branch. The slipknot was secure enough so that he wouldn't have to worry about chasing after the foolish beast if it bolted, but not so firmly the beast couldn't flee if the spiderlike things came after it.

Gerard really didn't want to think about that. If the creatures went after his horse, it would mean that he had already been . . . consumed.

As he inched closer, ready with every step to flee back to safety, it looked as though the creatures were in no hurry to eat their captives or the horses, which had fallen motionless on the earth. Instead, the things were turning on their smaller brothers, binding and consuming them in messy gulps.

Better they eat each other. Fewer to fight, when it comes to that.