“I wanted you to be someone, Sinod,” continued Sir Larson. “That’s why I asked your father to bring you to the forest that day. Maybe not a knight… no… but someone… Perhaps the one who would polish and carry Thore’s armor…”

  “Thore…” Sinod repeated the name as he started laughing softly. He knew this was his opportunity. Rage had consumed him and was preventing him from thinking clearly, but he knew this would be his only chance to hurt the man who had ruined his life. “Are you talking about the crippled?” Sir Larson’s expression turned direful and his eyes became red with ire, an ire that perhaps would have made the bravest man in the world run away, an ire that however could not halt a Sinod that was drowning within his very own sea of deranged and unbridled rage. “Are you talking about that damn crippled?”

  “You’re a damn son of a —” started Sir Larson, marching toward Sinod. But this time he knew what he had to do. He felt the cold metal grazing his leg as it usually did… only this time it almost felt like a sign. Grabbing the hilt with all his strength, Sinod drew the red-hilted sword his father had made for Sir Krister, the white knight of Vittarn. Sir Larson stopped in his tracks and raised his hands, as Sinod pointed the tip of the sword toward his chest.

  “And where’s your courage now, Sir Larson?” Sinod laughed. “Where’s the courage you demonstrated in the Battle of the Old Port? You killed dozens of men there, some of them even with your bare hands, didn`t you? Where are your courage and your skills now, Sir Larson? Or is it that they never existed?”

  “You dare to insinuate —”

  “I’m nothing, Sir Larson… you said it yourself. Why don’t you try to kill me then? Surely it’ll be easier to kill a coward posing as a squire than a ferocious and well-armed Delenin.”

  “Put down the sword, boy… You don’t want to do anything you’ll regret —”

  “Why did you bring me here?” Sinod could feel his body burning. “Tell me the truth! Why did you bring me to this cursed place?”

  “I made a mistake, all right?”

  “Mistake?” Sinod laughed coldly. “The same kind of mistake you made in the Forest of the Boar, when you let Thore get strayed from your group?”

  Sir Larson dropped his sight, and across his cheeks cruised diamonds dimly sparkling to the light of the moon, his eyes unable not to shed tears as he heard the ugly truth. Sinod, however, did not stop his words. He could not stop, the ire in his heart fed as fire by kindling… He would not stop… He would not…

  “You’re a fraud. A damn fraud! You never did anything in the war, and they appointed you a knight out of pity. You’re a liar who’s been spending his life deceiving the Littians… And it was for those bloody lies that Thore ended up the way he is now —”

  “Thore is like a son to me… I love him and I will not let you —”

  “You don’t love the man he is, you love the man he could have been… the knight you thought he could become someday… Just like…”

  Sinod stopped, tears welling in his eyes. Sir Larson looked at him as a nasty smile broke across his face.

  “It’s all for the girl, right? It’s all for that bloody —”

  “Don’t you dare say her name!” Sinod had shouted so loud that he thought the whole forest might have heard him.

  “That’s why you sabotaged the weapons, right? You had the small hope that she would run into your arms after seeing her fiancé injured and broken.”

  Kill him, a cruel soulless voice started whispering to his ear. He’s unarmed. It’ll be easy. Kill him. But he did not obey the voice. A knight does not kill the unarmed, he thought. But he was no knight. He was not even a squire. He was nothing. His mind had turned into a furious battlefield, wherein logic and madness fought as fiercely as Sir Hakon and Sir Valter had done before his very eyes several weeks ago. Sinod gave Sir Larson a look of hatred and bitterness, but in the end he did not answer his question. The truth was… he did not have an answer for him.

  “It’s all right, Sinod,” said Sir Larson. “I understand you. I don’t justify your reasons, but I understand you. If it’s worth anything, I’m truly sorry. I’m sorry I dragged you away from your house, I’m sorry I took you from your parents, I’m sorry I brought you into this hell… I… I didn’t expect things to end this way.”

  He’s sorry, Sinod thought as he started weeping. Never had he expected the mighty Knight of Litten to pronounce those words. Inside his head, many voices kept arguing as he slowly lost both will and strength. He saw Sir Larson’s eyes—the eyes of the man who had turned his life into a nightmare—but then he saw himself, holding a sword against an unarmed foe. In spite of knowing he should not do it, he felt weak and small, frail and worthless. And all the while memories of his entire life started storming his mind: Everything he had done, everything he had not done, everything he could never do, and everything he had been too afraid to do. A life foundered in nothingness it had been: A past without merits, a present without honor, a future without hopes. His energy kept shriveling with every passing second, his body ravaged under the worst nightmares of his past, not a single happy moment standing out in his mind. His dark eyes dropped, his mind broken, his strength gone. Could it be that they had all been right? Could it be that Sir Larson had been right? Could it be that he was nothing more than a filthy coward? Lowering the sword, Sinod raised his eyes again.

  “Sir Larson… I —”

  But Sinod could not say another word, every bit of his body paralyzed, every bit of his mind drowned by affright. He could say nothing, for into his eyes had gone a harrowing sight: The sight of a beast now charging toward him, its eyes black and scarlet shining nastily at the moonlight, drool flowing from a mouth in desperate hunger and thirst, the fingers now claws seeking solely to tear the flesh and splinter the bones. Sinod managed to barely raise the sword as the foul creature hurled himself over his body, tightening its hands around his neck.

  “Damn you! You’re a damn bastard! You did this to him! You’re the one to blame!” Sir Larson had started choking him with mighty force, many tears falling over his chest. “He was my son… the son I always wanted. And you killed him!”

  Sir Larson was now bashing his head against the ground, the pain growing deeper with every hit. Neither his body could move nor his lungs could breathe, and neither as well there lingered any hope or will in his heart to help him fight back this animalistic thing into which the knight had become. It was over. Everything was over. The time had finally arrived to meet the sad and lonely destiny at the end of a coward’s path. Sinod shut his eyes, convinced he would not be able to forestall the cold and cruel arms of death this once, convinced he would never see those he loved and hated again, convinced…

  Get up. Sinod opened his eyes, instantly recognizing that soft voice, instantly acknowledging it as a warm and affectionate tone that had always furnished him with love, even during the harshest and most direful moments of his life. He saw her standing there, glittering despite the now-weak shine of the full moon, environed seemingly by sapphires. He saw her standing there, and then coming close to him, caressing his forehead with affection and smiling with gentleness.

  Sinod, her voice was soft and tender, there’s a long road ahead of you and you are still not ready to give it up. It’s a long and hard road that I wish you would not have to take… but it is something you have to do… I love you with all my heart and every day I await your return… Now… get up.

  Something came to Sinod. Something that as the rage before it took control of his entire body, muscles and bones, flesh and skin. Something that flooded every vein of his and replaced the blood within. And something as well that made him feel healthy again, not choking, not bleeding, not dying: Something that suffused him with enough vigor to raise one leg and give a fierce and impetuous kick toward Sir Larson’s stomach, making the knight fall backward, casting away the foul creature, forcing death to recoil in confusion.

  Life came back to him. Life had returned. And yet within tiny moments also everything that life brought within its arms came back as well: The excruciating and torturous pain of a throat that had been left raw, of a head that had been battered as a drum, of a pair of eyes that felt as if they had burst out; the weight of emotions that were all of distress, all of misery, all of dread. And yet, in spite of everything, one feeling managed to prevail in the end: The need to know if she was still there, yet willing to smile at him, yet willing to help him. Sinod looked at all sides, trying to find the place where the spectral figure had appeared. For a long time he looked, desperate and anxious. For an infinite time he looked. He looked and looked and looked. And yet those eyes of his insisted on not showing her to him. Those black eyes of his did not want him to see her. Those black eyes of his had rebelled, instead choosing to show him something else, instead choosing to show him steel whose silver hue had been drowned in the most gruesome of reds, instead choosing to show him a beast now shattered, crouched in front of him, both its hands covering a wound on its stomach, a deep and dreadful gash wherefrom blood poured as the mighty waters of the river Kogelven.

  Sinod at last managed to stand up, but he found himself incapable of taking his eyes off Sir Larson Bakken, incapable of looking away from the cruel man he had learned to hate with all his heart, incapable of not feeling panic but also revelry, fear but also joy, regret but also relief, all mixtures swiftly turning unbearable, even more when he saw the man gasping with the vehemence of somebody who knows this is the last air he is breathing, even more when he saw the disgusting and swarthy puddle of blood forming underneath him, and even more when the eyes at last met, both pairs black, both pairs bloodshot, yet one of them overtaken by crimson, a vision of madness and agony, a vision in which Sinod could see all he had done—his return to Litten, his appointment as a knight, the Forest of the Boar—a vision that fed his soul with a terror greater than all those before, a terror that at last overpowered him, forcing him to go back into the trees, to disappear forever from that small glade.

  Sinod was running as fast as his two legs allowed him, unsure of where they would take him, yet confident they would lead him away from the glade. There was no puissant darkness growing around him anymore, and there were no trees resembling columns of smoke either. There was only fear… a fear so mighty that he felt as if his entire body had been set ablaze. After some minutes, he glimpsed the light of torches and heard some laughter. Sir Ragnar was sitting in front of a bonfire with two other men. The three of them raised their eyes as soon as they saw him coming out of the trees.

  “Sinod, where —?”

  Sir Ragnar’s eyes set upon his own, and within them forthwith loomed a fear that Sinod knew all too well: A fear not of pain, and not of loss, and not of death either… but a fear of life itself.

  “Sinod… what happened? Sinod… what –?”

  His eyes now turned to the bloody sword.

  “Sinod… what did you… where… where’s Sir Larson? Where –?”

  The two other men unsheathed their swords and headed toward him, but Sir Ragnar stopped them, his mind resolute to discover the truth, his tone suddenly suffused with despair, pain, and, to Sinod’s thought, even some anger.

  “Where’s Sir Larson? Wait… wait just a second… wait just a damn second… What did you do, Sinod? Where’s Sir Larson? Where is –?”

  “What’s going on here?” The voices had awoken Sir Jertel, who twisted his face in disgust after seeing Sinod. “Hold him!”

  The two knights shoved Sir Ragnar away, promptly clutching Sinod by the arms and forcing him to kneel. The sword fell from his hands in an instant, and one of the knights disgustedly kicked it away. Sir Jertel apace came up to them, his hands holding a huge bone-made bow and several black arrows.

  “It seems we have another damn nut,” Sir Jertel said as he pointed an arrow directly to his head. “Well… let’s send him to his friends… let’s send him to the Land of the Dead.”

  Time seemed to have stopped, and everything around him seemed to have frozen. No further tenacity to strive he had, or even the slightest craving to flee. And there he could almost see it, laughing in front of him, for the second time in less than ten minutes: The horrifying figure of death. This time, however, Sinod did not close his eyes while sadly expecting its arrival. He remained impassive. It seemed as if everything had turned colder, however. Would it be death bidding him welcome? And yet not only the temperature had now decreased. Almost at the same instant, all the torches in the campsite extinguished, leaving the men in a terrible darkness, a darkness even acuter than that of the prelude, one that not even the moon was capable of abrading or mutilating.

  Sinod felt the knights releasing his arms, letting go of them as branches one does not even deem useful as kindling, and letting go of him as well, releasing a body they had treated as if already within corruption it had fallen. Raising his eyes, he noticed the darkness was increasing, swallowing everything, trees and plants that were mirages of black smoke in a world of obsidian. And yet the sights soon evanesced before the direful intensity of the sensations created by the cold, a cold eternal, a cold unfaltering, a cold that was freezing both his blood and bones, that was killing both his muscles and skin. This could not be death bidding him welcome. This was something else… something more real… something…

  “Watch out!”

  It was the last voice Sinod heard before sensing an immense earthquake, as if something had fallen from the sky. The sound of the horn tried to make itself noticeable, but soon got drowned by screams of affright and cries for help, a symphony of madness that drove everyone into sheer panic and overwhelming despair. Sinod raised his eyes again, but all he could see was a dark figure moving like a snake in front of him. A shadow, he thought, a shadow.

  Sinod was not thinking clearly anymore. Everything that had happened that night, every minuscule detail of it, felt like a foul nightmare, an irrepressible dark dream from which he was incapable of waking up. He crawled into the darkness, his fingers sinking in the glacial ground, his nails filling with mud, knowing not what he was doing, not until it happened, not until he felt the cold bloodied metal of his sword under his skin. He did not know why he did it. He could not. But in the end he took the weapon by the hilt, pushed himself up, and though consumed by fear, though knowing he would fail, but as well understanding that at that point there was nothing for him to gain or to lose anymore, he set forth toward the place he thought the shadow was lurking in. The cold grew to the point of almost stopping his very heart, and the darkness was now scorching both his eyes, and yet Sinod kept moving forward. And he kept moving forward because within the screams and the shrieks he had begun to hear something else. It was a voice. It was the voice of Sir Gerhard. And it was saying those words which first managed to bring Sinod back from the dark and deep well in which he had fallen after Sir Larson’s foul threats, those words that had managed to revive a flame he thought long-forgotten in the depths of his broken heart. Your moment will come when it has to. Among tears he smiled, and among tears he kept moving forward, and among tears, and as the words of the blue knight resounded as stentorian bells inside his mind, he raised the sword above his head and delivered a ferocious, violent, and berserk blow.

  He knew he had hit his target, for he heard the sound of metal bursting into a million pieces, for he felt himself flying backward and then crashing against the trees, holding the hilt of a now-broken sword, his head throbbing and both his legs having gone numb. Sinod knew he had hit his target, and his target as well knew it had been hit, for apace it acted in retaliation, a retaliation that manifested itself in the shape of pain, the pain of one thousand needles incrusting into his left arm, and as well in the shape of a vision, the vision of a world that was no longer crafted out of the sodden ground of the forest, or the spiny leaves of the bushes, or the green crowns of even the highest of trees; a vision of a world composed solely by a group of listless stars that within the blackest of oceans were drowning, a vision that eventually conquered him, forcing him to collapse into a deep slumber plagued with nothing more than exhaustion, pain, and suffering.

  CHAPTER 14

  The Frozen Glade

  He opened his eyes. Or at least he thought he had opened his eyes. He could feel his eyelids fluttering, as drapes grazed by the wind, yet no image entered his mind. Everything was darkness. Could he be in the Land of the Dead? Could he have finally met his fate? Could he have fallen into death?

  He tried to move his legs, but they would not respond him. Then, he tried to use one hand to get up but, the moment he touched the surface where his body was lying, he felt as if his fingers got broken. The rock was colder than anything he had ever touched before. The only thing that was not freezing was a puddle nestling by his left arm. The liquid was warm and sticky, and it smelled horribly. He knew perfectly well what it was and where it had come from, as the feeling of a thousand needles piercing his left arm came back to his head.

  More memories started storming his mind: The spectral figure in the forest, Sir Larson’s injured body, Sir Jertel’s bow pointing at his head, and then… then there was only chaos. He suddenly remembered Sir Ruben’s death, as well as the last words he had pronounced. Could the same thing have happened with him? Could his whole group have died too? Had he died too?

  He lay in the same position for many hours, unsure of whether he was dead or alive. Both hunger and thirst soon seized his body. Could the dead feel hunger and thirst? His parents had always told him that, after death, the souls would march toward the Land of the Dead, where they would meet their ancestors and enjoy the pleasures of eternal rest. But that was only reserved for those who had lived a noble life, respecting both Gods and men, and honoring their families and hometowns. Would the Gods consider him that type of man? Could Sinod even consider himself that type of man?

 

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