“She will not know of this ritual but will be compelled to travel with you,” the Old Man said. He sighed: “the last scrying showed that she was close to Ruthin, on the south side heading here. Your horse is saddled,” he added dismissing him with a wave of his hand.
The knight glared at the Old Man, “And who is this young waif?” he sneered, “that you would send a champion out to play nursemaid for a faster journey. Who is she that is so important to you Old Man?”
The Old Man’s eyes flared. “She is the Beginning, the Future and perhaps also the ‘One’. She is to fight all present and future evils and needs our help to get there. She has been given talent by the Gods to help the balance of good, but she has no way of knowing how to use these talents yet. This is our mission. You are part of the equation to help her learn to be even better than a knight, to think on her feet and to always strive for the greater good.”
Kajn relaxed his gaze and realised now that the Old Man would not humiliate him in front of his friends unless it was for a great cause. His anger subsided and was lost in the dark corner of the room. His mission would bear great consequences. “Did you saddle the black?” he asked, strapping on his shoulder armour. The breastplate with dragon insignia flashed silver in the candlelight. Kajn wondered why being a champion did not let him relax as the weight of the armour made his muscles ripple in the firelight.
The Old Man furrowed his brow and then held his head and looking distressed answered, “Of course, you will find him in the courtyard. I feel something is happening, please hurry,” and the Old Man was gone, with only a mote of light sinking slowly to the floor to show he had even been there.
On cold nights like this, the innkeeper seldom left his old wooden rocking chair by the fire as he sipped his mulled wine. His inn was successful enough that he could let everyone else do the work on slow nights like tonight. The two local farmers chatted away quietly in one of the booths; a drunkard had fallen asleep and was snoring softly in the corner but he seemed to be comfortable.
As the innkeeper was just nodding off in his chair, the door opened, letting in cold wind and snow flurries, revealing the dark knight. “Innkeeper, have you seen a young girl traveller come through here tonight?” The knight looked distressed and his snow-covered armour and cloaks were leaving icy trails in his wake. The innkeeper frowned at the muddy boot prints left on his just cleaned floor.
“A girl? No, only my girls are here tonight. Dorothy is over there by the bar and Marion is upstairs asleep.”
The knight sighed and looking temptingly at the fire and ale, turned around and headed out the door again, leaving only the now melting snow and mud on the floor. All could hear the warhorse gallop off into the distance. The innkeeper was bewildered that a knight would travel so fast and furious in this kind of weather and he sipped his warm mug of wine, pondering the insanity of one such knight.
The galloping horse made no sound as it dashed into the snow-covered track of the North Road. They had made good time to Ruthin but Kajn had been disappointed that the girl was not at the inn. Kajn pushed the black to jump a snowdrift over the road and was surprised into nearly losing his grip on the saddle by the black shying sideways. Kajn regained control and wondered what was beneath the snowdrift that would scare the horse. As it snorted and pranced, Kajn watched the snowdrift turn from a clean white to a patch of red and he realised that it was not a snowdrift at all.
He leapt out of the saddle, drew his sword, but as he got closer he saw a slender black boot that was surely not a male’s. He quickly uncovered the body of a girl who was covered in deep gashes and wounds. One very deep wound was bleeding profusely from her leg. There were tears in the chain mail and something white and triangular fell onto the snow. “Why would this girl be wearing chain mail?” he thought. He picked up the triangle of white and from the light of the full moon he growled, “Wolves, I might have known.”
Kajn placed his bandanna onto the deep wound and then placing both hands under the girl’s back, gently cradling her in his arms, he lifted her onto the black. “Damn, I hope this won’t take long,” he murmured to himself as he cantered back to the inn. The sword lay glowing blue in the snow and quietly winked out without anyone noticing.
The innkeeper fell out of his chair and spilled his wine when the knight booted the door in. “Innkeeper, help me with this please.” The innkeeper rushed to the door and noticed the knight carried a bundle of blankets. The girl murmured something and the innkeeper jumped again.
“It’s just a girl, but she’s badly injured and needs help. I have to return to my quest. Look after her and I’ll return soon.” The knight dropped a bag of coins on the bench and as he did so the girl opened her eyes.
“Who, where?” Vanor murmured. Kajn looked at her and was instantly mesmerised by how blue her eyes were. They seemed to have flecks of light that danced in his soul.
“I ... I’m going out for a moment,” he said, “but I’ll be back.” He turned and dashed out the door, leapt into the saddle and headed out of town.
The innkeeper grumbled and yelled out to Marion to clean up the mess that the knight had again left on his floor. With the help of Dorothy they carried Vanor upstairs to a spare room. Marion noticed the blood trail that Vanor was leaving and mopped that off the stairs before someone slipped and hurt themselves.
Meanwhile Kajn was again on the North Road. “What a stupid thing to say,” he confided to his horse but he had other things on his mind and he was now late. When he passed a farm further along the road, he could smell the wood smoke from the chimney and wished that he could be in front of a nice comfortable fire somewhere. His hands were freezing as the cold wind whipped around him and froze his face.
Kajn galloped the black for as long as the North Road took him, passing rivers, farms and trees at a blurring speed. When the road came to an end and the black was lathered in sweat, he was exhausted and turned the horse to head for home. He walked the black for some time, listening to the night creatures in the forest and feeling the heat from the black’s body as he steamed in the chill air. He remounted after a while and continued his journey. Kajn was nearly nodding off in the saddle some time later, when the black snorted and pranced. They were back at the place they had found the girl.
The black pranced around the snowdrift but continued on. Kajn soon saw where the girl had stumbled through the snow on the side of the road and on impulse he turned the black to follow her path. It was not far when he came across the carnage. One lone wolf could be seen slinking away from the carcass, mauled and injured, but its belly satisfied. The snow was red with blood. “How could one girl do this much damage?” he thought aloud.
The sun had just risen above the east forest when he walked around and inspected the assortment of bodies. Twelve wolves, two naked headless bodies and one horse lay dead in the glittering snow. He came closer to the mound that was obviously a horse and started to unstrap the saddle to give to the girl. When the saddle slipped from its back, he stood stunned, as beneath the snow, the horse’s colour was dapple-grey.
Vanor awoke from the nightmare of the previous fight, crying for Freckles, until she realised she was not in the snow but rather in a warm bed with a girl cleaning her wounds. It was a small room and the only light was a flickering candle next to the bed. The pre-dawn light could be seen through the window but it had not reached the room yet and she watched a bird land on the window, trilling an early morning call. The girl washed the cloth in a basin again and turned back to Vanor.
The girl’s hair was a soft dark brown and fell over her face as she moved. She made a small intake of breath as she realised that Vanor was awake. Gathering her composure, she said, “Don’t worry, I’m helping you. My father the innkeeper sent me to clean your wounds, although with the amount of blood you’ve lost, you’d think that it was a lot worse than it is.” The peasant outfit that Dorothy wore rustled