And so, with both his hunger and thirst under control, the coldness stood as his only rival. The snowstorms were merciless and many times he found himself incapable of moving due to the numbness caused by the icy winds. But, in that respect, his luck had not failed him either. As he moved forward, he noticed the terrain growing asperous and rough. The trees stood as powerful as they had always been, but Sinod’s surroundings were now pullulated with rock overhangs: Stone formations under which he could easily take shelter. He had even run into natural caves that were large enough to let him build bonfires and cook the meat he had at hand. And, when there was no shelter at sight, he still had the thick fur to protect him from the inclemency of the winter, a fur that as well had escaped from the spells of the forest, a fur that now furnished him with a heat that made even the snow recoil in fear and panic.

  Every morning after he woke up realizing the fur had prevented him from freezing to death, he would think of Sir Gerhard. Not solely had the blue knight given him the coat that allowed him to keep himself warm during the winter of the forest, but he had also taught him many things during their journey across the Golden Road. He had shown him how to build bonfires with only a couple of dry sticks, how to cook the meat the necessary time for it not to burn, and how to collect rain water using only leaves tied up with plant roots.

  Every day he wondered what had happened to the blue knight. In the few days he spent with him, he had learned more than in twenty years of living in the same town as Sir Larson. He really hoped he had managed to escape the forest. And if he had not, at least he expected his death had been swift and his soul had found peace in the Land of the Dead.

  The days kept passing by, and the snowstorms and the icy winds continued being as strong and merciless as they had ever been. However, after one night in which he had slept inside a very narrow cave, Sinod noticed something different in the environment. He had been inside that forest long enough to perceive even the slightest change in the weather. And that day, for the very first time, he felt the cold starting to dwindle. The winter, which had seemed eternal to him, was beginning to show signs of weakness.

  His hope was further renewed when, a couple of days later, he saw a bright red dot shining among the clouds. It was smaller than the sun, but larger than any star he had seen in his life. Rasktur, he thought with a smile on the face. The sailors who visited Litten from time to time had spoken of the star that would appear in the middle of the winter, as bright as blazing fire. A symbol of hope, they had called it, and the proof of the inevitable arrival of spring.

  Very soon, the days became clearer and the snow less thick. The puddles of water started melting and the snowstorms turned into gentle winds that he could barely sense grazing his cheeks. And it was during this auspicious situation that Sinod saw it again. When he heard the familiar sound, he could hardly believe it. Many tears were shed as he ran toward it, his mind realizing it was his best hope for escaping the forest once and for all.

  Its waters were not as mighty and powerful as the last time he had seen them but they endured insurmountable. Over its surface, floated immense platforms of ice that precipitated in haste, even anxiety toward the east. And its borders were bristled with sheer sparkles of sapphires, water and ice dancing under the lights. It was the river Kogelven—the same river he had crossed over the golden bridge with Sir Gerhard, the same river that had acted as their guide during their advance under Sir Ragnar’s leadership, and, much more importantly, the river that would indicate him the road back home.

  He started walking alongside the riverbank, only wandering away from it to see if he could chance upon a rabbit or a squirrel that could serve him as food. And meanwhile, everything around him began to go through dramatic changes. The snowstorms ceased and fell dead and the winds thrived warmer and softer. The ply of snow beneath his feet vanished from sight while the trees filled their crowns with fruits and the shrubs their stems with berries. Flowers of all colors started springing everywhere, blossoming from both dry soil and branches, and sometimes even thriving through rock and stone. And his feet began to step over a green tender grass, a carpet of infinite emeralds that seemed to glitter under the reborn sun.

  The winter was finally over… and spring had fallen upon the world.

  Hunting suddenly turned into a harmless and easy task, as most animals had started leaving their hideouts in search of food. This situation, though, forthwith turned into a double-edge sword, as not only the rabbits and the squirrels turned more plentiful, but also the predators. Sinod had started hearing ferocious roars and howls that seemed to come from his immediate surroundings, an event that made him decide that sleeping in the riverbank was no longer safe. Thus, every night, he would go into the forest and walk until he would find a suitable thick-branched tree. He would then climb it and sleep soundly over its rough boughs, not even a single dark nightmare disturbing his slumber.

  The winter had taken away most of Sinod’s problems with its departure—the coldness, the shortage of food and water, and even those voices the wind seemed to drag along with it. And while spring had its own set of menaces, Sinod could not help feeling as optimistic as ever. As a matter of fact, he had not felt so good in a long time. He sensed that the cowardice that had plagued him for most of his life was finally behind him, letting him embrace a newfound and unmatched courage. After all, it was not a small feat having survived everything he had.

  He constantly wondered what would happen the moment he finally escaped from the Forest of the Spirits. Would anyone be waiting for him? Some guard of Myrr, perhaps, waiting for some knight to return from the ill-fated hunt? And what would they think when they saw him? A squire had survived, no more, no less. A squire had faced both the forest and the beast… and had survived.

  Sinod had started picturing the expressions of the Littians once they saw him returning to the town with no one by his side when he noticed the river seemed to disappear in front of his very eyes. Sinod hurried up and discovered a thirty-foot cliff hindering his path, wherefrom the river precipitated in the form of a mighty waterfall. Way beneath his feet stood a peaceful-looking lake, its serene waters barely disturbed by the foam coming from the cascade, a natural mirror that perfectly reflected the sky. Sinod looked into the waters and took a decision almost instantly. Taking off the fur coat and the rest of his clothing, he wrapped the silver knife with them and threw the package over the high cliff. It fell into the riverbank, closer to the shore than Sinod would have wanted. Looking down only once, he hurled himself over the cliff and dived into the lake.

  It was colder than he would have wanted, but that did not prevent him from feeling an enormous pleasure as his skin touched the water. Sinod had not taken a bath in many months, and having his body submerged in the blueness of the lake felt strange and gratifying at the same time. He stayed there for many hours, just floating—letting the dirt abandon his body and the few dark thoughts that still lingered deep inside him forsake his mind. And when he finally decided to leave the water, he let himself fall into the ground while the sun slowly dried his body. He had not felt that good in a long time.

  By the time Sinod put on his clothes again, the light of the sun had already diminished. He had started feeling hungry, which prompted him to approach a bush and pick as many berries as his hands could hold. A terrible sourness filled his mouth as soon as he put one in his tongue, though. After tossing the rest into the ground, he considered the idea of venturing into the forest, his intentions to look for a rabbit. Grabbing the silver knife firmly, he prepared to leave the place. But then, a sound in the other side of the lake caught his attention.

  The animal was magnificent—its fur brown and gray, its antlers as graceful as the highest boughs of the willow tree in the Forest of the Boar, and its round eyes dark and bright. It had approached the lake to ease its thirst, blind and unaware of Sinod’s presence. He looked at it with marvel for several minutes, the colors of sunset slowly taking over the scene, the melodies of the forest steadily fading away with the sunlight. But then something else seized his attention—the cold touch of metal against his bare skin. Dropping his eyes, Sinod realized that he still had the silver knife in his hand. A wild deer must taste better than a rabbit, he thought, and it will definitely last longer.

  Sinod clasped the silver knife with resolution and advanced toward the deer, using the tip of his feet to move over the ground as silently as possible, and then wading carefully through the water. Seeking not to soak his ragged outfit, Sinod chose to walk across the section where the lake turned one more time into a river, a small area thronged with large pebbles constantly splashed with the water of a current steadily gaining vigor in its road toward the east. He leaped over the gray and slippery rocks, wishing not to trip with all his might, and managed to cross the river Kogelven—the very same river Sir Ragnar had called insurmountable.

  The animal had moved into the shallow waters surrounding the lake. Sinod considered blocking its way through the shore and attacking it from the back, but some words in his head halted him. Attacking from the back is not knightly, he said to himself with firmness.

  Sinod approached it from the side, wading through the shallow water, trying to make the least sound possible. But he was not skilled in the fine art of stealth, and when he was solely a couple of feet away, the animal noticed his presence, raising its head and fixing its black eyes on him. Sinod distinguished neither fear nor disdain in them—only a faint, though perhaps imaginary sign of respect.

  He considered backing down: Going back to the other side of the lake, where he could look for a rabbit or a squirrel, something that was easier to hunt. But it was then when a seductive voice stopped him. You’ve gone so far, the voice said enthusiastically. Sinod felt a vigorous rush of verve streaming through his body, gorging him with mighty strength. No longer was he the boy who had left Litten convinced he would never come back, convinced he was nothing more than a coward. Now, he was the man who had taken part of the Hunt of the King, the man who had vanquished the beast and the forest, the man who had survived everything that had been put in front of him. A deer was no rival for him.

  Sinod raised the knife way over his head, not a single drop of sweat or shiver running through his body. Eyes of man and beast stood fixed for many seconds, each one waiting for the other to make its move. Splish, splash, sounded the water as the deer moved its legs. Wish, whoosh, sounded the wind against Sinod’s knife. And then it all fell hushed, nothing but the visions of dusk and the fragrances of spring to remind them they were still alive, that they remained upon the world… nothing but colors for their eyes, songs for their ears… nothing, nothing… until at last it happened: Until at last it began.

  Taking several steps backward, the majestic deer charged at him, an attack that Sinod could only avoid by throwing himself into the water. Both his clothes and skin got soaked, and into his nostrils went a current of keen thorns, and his eyes and ears fell dead under a world of azure. From this world, fortunately, he managed to escape quickly, standing on his feet again in just a matter of seconds.

  Sinod noticed then that the animal had turned around and was preparing to charge back at him. This time, however, Sinod knew what he would do. When the animal threw itself over him, he took a slight step to the side and attempted to stab it in the back. He missed, though, only scratching the deer’s fur, inflicting a tiny and insignificant wound. Worst of all, Sinod had not ended up unscathed, as one of the deer’s antlers had scraped his cheek, causing him a deep bleeding wound that, should it had been an inch higher, could have ripped his eye out.

  He did not have much time to examine his wound, though, as the deer had started charging at him for a third time. He tried to step aside but, unfortunately, this time his luck chose to abandon him. One of his feet got stuck between some rocks, causing him to fall to his knees with direful pain. Looking up, he saw the animal almost on top of him, its figure suddenly forbidding and menacing. Time abruptly stopped, his whole body overwhelmed by a trepidation he could barely conceal within him. And, in that brief moment of fear and desperation, a moment that lasted both a second and an eternity, all he could do was instinctively raise both his arms to protect his face, hoping for the best.

  The pain was hardly bearable. Sinod could feel his hands being torn apart as blood started running through his arms as carried by an untamed bull. The deer struggled savagely to free itself, but Sinod was keeping it from moving, one hand holding the antler with impetuosity, the other pierced by its tines. With the pain growing mightier by the instant, though, Sinod needed to do something. Hurling himself into the lake, he tugged the deer’s head as close to him as possible, after which he gave it a fierce kick. The strike acted as a bolt of lightning, as the animal raised its head with renewed vigor, letting go of Sinod’s grip, and inundating his ears with a cracking sound that travelled through the water as if it were wind.

  For a second, he thought he had broken his hand. But such suspicion proved mistaken when he pulled his head out of the cold lake and saw the deer running away for dear life, part of its antler having broken, that very same part now resting embedded into his left hand. He stood up and abandoned the lake as fast as he could, surprised at how simple this act proved to be, yet aghast before the image crafted by it, before the water that had lost its shade of azure to fall drowned under a disgusting tone of crimson. A sudden and incommensurable fear invaded every inch of his body as he stared at what had now turned into a limb torn in half, antlers and blood more prominent than flesh and fingers. Every part of him was now shaking, and every thought of his descended into fear, and every ounce of his skin boiled in agony, and he… he simply did not know what to do.

  Blinded by despair and pain, Sinod thought his best choice was removing the broken antler from his left hand. Taking a long deep breath, and closing eyes that were already welled up, he grasped the antler and pulled it as hard as he could. The scream of pain was so blaring that he thought the whole forest might have heard it. But, to his immense panic, the gush of red did not halt. Furthermore, the hand began bleeding even more viciously than before. Consumed by an utmost panic, he grabbed some leaves and tied them to his hand using some feeble roots. He then pushed his whole arm into the water and started pressing with energy, just like he had pressed Rasktur’s wound when he found it in the fields of Litten. But it was hopeless. The lake thrived in red, his body in pain, his mind in dread. And as everything reached its final climax—as no more blue glittered in the lake, as pain overtook his body, and as fear clouded every single thought in his head, there was only one little thing he could wonder: Why had he been so stupid?

  Sinod stood in the same place for many hours, way after the sun disappeared behind the Pink Mountains in the west. Blood was still pouring out, but with less intensity than before. Taking his hand out of the water, his mind a little calmer, he leaned against a nearby tree. Weariness had seized his body, the pain inside him strong enough to make the sole act of thinking unbearable. And yet he knew he could not stay there for long. He went into the woods and climbed up the first thick-branched tree he found, succumbing to a deep slumber shortly thereafter.

  By the time he woke up, the light of the sun had not yet loomed, but the pain within his body was as strong as its rays, burning his skin and boiling his blood. Barely capable of moving, yet knowing he could not stay still, Sinod attempted to climb down the tree. Unfortunately, it seemed one hand was not enough to do it. Sinod tripped and fell down when he was only seven feet above the ground, his body crashing loudly against the jutting roots of the old tree. A cracking sound reached his ears again, but it seemed he had only bruised his arm. He managed to get on his feet quickly, his body begging him to keep on resting, but his mind reminding him that he had to go back to the riverbank and resume his advance toward the east. With his left arm hanging as absent of life and his hand burning as if set ablaze, Sinod chose to obey his mind, his lonely hope that both his legs remained strong enough for the rest of the road. Nevertheless, and as days and nights flew by without his slightest awareness, he came to the doleful insight that this would prove to be a titanic, almost impossible task.

  One second, Sinod was seized with a dizziness and nausea that forced him to stop and shut his eyes, to forsake sights that were thriving blurrier, that were becoming ever more unbearable. The next, his heart started pounding as if trying to escape from his chest, so harshly, so savagely, that his very shirt shuddered, that his very skin was turning purple from the impact. And the last one, his body was bathed in a sea of cold sweat, the drops poisoning his mouth, his trail now not of footsteps but of mud and blood. And yet none of these, nothing compared to the smell: That foul stench coming off his hand, revolting and abhorring, worse than every single reek that had gone into his nostrils across his entire life. A smell of putrescence and rottenness it was: A stench of death.

  When he finally gave himself courage to uncover his hand, Sinod glimpsed a direful sight, an image taken out of his nightmares. A black shade was spreading over the skin, from the palm to the fingernails, sometimes as dark as the flesh of the beast, some others slightly tinged green and red. No longer could he move it, and when he ventured into grazing it with his other hand, he sensed as if he had put his finger over raw flesh. Why had he been so stupid? Sinod kept wondering that as he started praying he was close to Myrr, and that in the city lived a healer capable of fixing such a horrible wound.

  But as the days kept passing by, his hope turned ephemeral, giving way for a monumental desperation. Neither the trees of the forest turned less dense nor the river less wild, neither the heaviness of the woods dwindled nor the darkness of the nights diminished. And no matter where Sinod looked, there were no signs of the Golden City being any closer than before.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27