Then, Gil saw the corpse of a man hanging head downward from an oak tree in the middle of the camp, and the marks of torture on him, and the ashes of a large fire that had been burning directly beneath him.
Gil carefully crept back into the woods and passed even more carefully than before. He found a large stand of fir trees, and, feeling only a little foolish, he asked them for their blessing, and to throw off any pursuit which might be behind him.
Whether or not that worked, he did not know, but as he made his way carefully through the rough land back toward the cliff, no one came upon him from behind.
2. The Stronghouse
A long while later, Gil came free of the last trees and saw the valley that lay before the foot of the giant stair. He saw before him a cloudy fog, filling the valley floor. Across the valley he could see, above the fog, the great steps cut into the cliff face. The stairway ascended a chimney of rock that pressed close to the steps to either side.
As he walked across the valley and started up the slope, the wind blew, and the fog parted and rolled away. He saw before him a green mound covered with what looked like mistletoe, but this plant was growing on the ground, amid the brown grass of December.
At the top of this hill was the foot of the cliff. Here was the giant stair, but the cliff walls to the left had been cut and carved and hollowed out into a squat round tower. To Gil’s eyes this stronghouse looked like a rook on a chessboard. Twenty feet of the living rock had been cut and polished into the shape of a half-cylinder. Strong doors ten feet high and bound with brass were in the door-arch, like a mouth half-open in mockery. The portcullis was like a row of iron teeth. Above were two cross-shaped archer’s slits, like the merry eyes of a clown. The crown was carved into a crenelated battlement set with corbels of bronze.
Gil walked up the mistletoe slope toward the foot of the staircase. It did indeed look like steps fit for giants, for each step was two or three feet tall and a yard or more deep.
The slope of the hill was so steep, and the weeds were so slippery, that Gil first had to clamber bent double, then sling his shield on his back and crawl. At last, without warning, there appeared a brink, and after that the slope was easy, almost level, running up to the foot of the giant stair.
Just at this brink was a holly bush. On one branch of the holly bush hung a hunting horn. Gil stared long at the horn and then stared long at the stronghouse, frowning. The archer slits were narrow and commanded only a narrow view, and no one was on the roof of the stronghouse. It would have been a simple matter to walk in a broad circle to the foot of the cliff, approach the stronghouse from one side or the other, where no windows were, get to the bottom step unseen, and climb the stair rapidly, eluding whatever guard was posted here.
Gil instead raised the horn to the Y-shaped opening in his helm and blew a loud, long blast. The horn call echoed from the cliffs.
The portcullis ground slowly open. It moved so slowly, Gil saw, that it would have been easy to run past the stronghouse and mount the stairs.
The brass-bound doors swung open. Here on a roan steed was a knight armed at all points. His shield was sable without any charge or design. Above his helm floated a plume as green as ivy. His steed was caparisoned in black silk. A black pennant streamed from the point of his deadly lance.
The steed came forth, stamping its feet. Gil saw that it was a fairy-steed, for it had a tail like a black lion, not a horse’s tail, and its hooves were cloven like a deer’s. The coat was a dark red, with white markings on the flanks and top of the tail and along the ribs in vertical stripes.
3. The Parley
The black knight called, “Who dares defy me?”
Gil called back, “I am called the Swan Knight. In King Arthur’s name, let me pass.”
The black knight said, “Arthur? He is king of the dead perhaps. One of his men long, long ago passed this way, but he never returned. You are not his equal. Turn back!”
Gil gripped the quarterstaff in the middle and readied his shield. “Dismount, and let us fight as man to man.”
The black knight said, “Who is your family and bloodline?”
Gil said, “Not that nonsense again! Erlkoenig enrolled my name on his lists as a knight!”
“Erlkoenig is damned. I care nothing for him. What does your Arthur say of you?”
Gil said, “Who are you who asks this of me?”
“A man ahorse who blocks your path.”
Gil said, “I am the highest ranked of Arthur’s court at large in the world today.”
The black knight said, “Did he knight you? Where are your spurs?”
“I have no spurs. He did not knight me.”
The black knight laughed. “Then why should I dismount and fight you as equal to equal? Withdraw! And thank me that I save your life from the Green Knight. He throws the severed heads of elfish knights bouncing down that stairway behind me. I bury them here and there about my lands so that the elfin ghosts will terrify the savages and keep them away from me.”
“Who are you?” and then, with a wild hope in his heart, Gil asked, “Are you a member of the Moth family?”
“No Moth am I. They would not dare assume the privileges of noble blood!”
Gil thought of his half-brothers. “Not openly.”
“What does that mean, so-called Man of Arthur with no spurs and no name? Do you hide mixed and mingled blood out of shame?”
Gil ignored the question. “If you are not of Erlkoenig nor Arthur, then of whose court are you? By what authority do you bar my way?”
The black knight said, “By the strength of my right arm! I save your life from the Green Knight. But I will strike you dead myself!”
And with that, the knight lowered his lance and charged.
4. The Charge
Armed only with a staff and a shield, Gil stood no chance. With his lance, the black knight could strike from over a yard beyond where Gil could counterstrike with his green stick. The full weight and strength of the horse was behind the lance point.
The only reason why it did not skewer Gil through shield and armor and all was that Gil was able to deflect the point from his shield at a shallow angle and parry the lance haft with his staff.
Gil lunged toward the speeding horse, trying to get close enough to strike at the rider, but the rider deflected the blow with the point of his shield, twisting in the saddle to do so. Then, the steed reared and kicked Gil. His shield was not in the right position. The world went black with pain, and Gil found himself flying from the brink of the slippery weed-covered slope. Down and down he plunged and slid, aching in all his limbs, and lucky not to be dead. That kick would have slain a man not in armor.
Gil climbed unsteadily to his feet, craning back his head, cursing the narrow field of vision of his helm, but glad the rider was up on the slope above him. No horse could come down that steep slope without breaking a leg.
No horse, but the fairy steed, lion tail lashing, leaped down the sheer slope as nimbly as a mountain goat and made as if to leap onto Gil and trample him as a horse might trample a snake. Gil leaped to one side and smote at the back of the black knight as he thundered by, but the oak staff betrayed him, and the staff broke in two pieces.
The black knight reeled in the saddle and dropped his lance. The steed leaped once and twice more, farther down the slope, and then turned. The black knight drew his sword, a massive straight blade enameled in black, with the cutting edges shining silvery white. It looked like the kind of thing that normally required two hands to wield, but the black knight handled it as lightly as if it were a willow wand.
5. Second Parley
“Do you yield? There is no sport in killing you; you are too small and weak.” So said the black knight, and then he roared with laughter.
Gil stepped forward, slipped a bit on the mistletoe weed, and picked up the dropped lance. This did not have the large guard of a joisting lance. It was a length of wood stained black, longer than Gil was tall, with a sharp blade
square in cross section like an awl or metal punch. He planted the butt of the weapon in the ground behind him and pointed the head at the steed. “I am tempted to yield to your steed, for it is his strength, not yours, I cannot overcome.”
The steed said, “I thank you.”
Gil said, “What is your name?”
The black knight said, “I will not tell my name.”
Gil said, “I was not talking to you.”
The steed said, “Rabicane am I called. Foal am I of Tencendur out of Llamrei. Born of hurricane and flame, I feed on wind and tread so lightly that I leave no footprint in the sand. The arrow from a Tartar’s bow I can outpace.”
“Who is this man I face?” asked Gil.
The black knight was jabbing the great red steed with his knees. “I said my name is not for you! Onward, my steed! What ails you?”
Gil said, “I told you I was not talking to you.”
Rabicane said, “I know not his name.”
Gil said, “Why do you serve an unknown master?”
The black knight said, “How– how could you know that? It is true I have never seen his face, but he is– wait. If you know who my master is, then why–? Settle down, boy! Stop neighing!”
Rabicane said, “Fetched here by words of power was I, song of elf and written rune. A faun told me that the Great God Pan required me to serve this knight.”
Gil said, “Who raised you?”
The black knight said, “I was raised in a woods on the Isle of Man. Hold on there! Are you talking to my horse? Stop that!” He kicked the steed more forcefully and used his spurs. “Charge! Trample him!”
Rabicane said, “Aroint thee! I am talking here! Wait your turn!” Then, to Gil, he said, “By the hand of Duke Astolpho of the Paladin was I fed.”
The black knight said, “It is an unknightly and unfair trick to bewitch my horse!”
Gil said, “Who is that?”
The black knight said, “My horse? Well, I don’t know his name exactly—wait! Stop asking questions! I am about to trample you and cut you to bits!”
Rabicane said, “All men know the Paladin of Charlemagne! His blade is the one who drove back the Paynim and saved all Christendom.”
Gil said, “I am in service to King Arthur, a Christian king who drove the pagans from England. Why do you serve Pan, a pagan god and a devil?”
The roan steed was startled. Nostrils and ears twitched. “From deep slumber under Mount Untersberg near Salzburg, I was called. My heart delights in battle and would not stand idle…. Should I dispute with Pan…?”
“The Great God Pan is dead, and the voices of his mourners were heard echoing from a rock in the sea. Pan cannot bind you. Do not serve this nameless knight! Should he not face me on foot, equal in weapons? Horses are said to be of all beasts the best friend of man.”
Rabicane said doubtfully, “I heard tell that dogs are man’s best friend.”
Gil said, “Did the Lone Ranger have a dog? Did he ever say, hi-yo, Spot? I have a dog I love, but without a steed, a knight is nothing.”
A voice at Gil’s feet said, “Superboy had a dog. His name was Krypto.”
6. Charadrius Vociferous
Gil moved his eyes without moving his head and saw a medium-sized plover of a breed called killdeer. The brown bird was nestled among the bright green weeds.
Gil said, “Charadrius, greetings and good afternoon to you. You can understand what that man is saying?”
The killdeer said, “What man?”
Gil was thunderstruck, and he laughed aloud. He realized why the rider’s plume was green when every other part of his gear was black, “Do me a favor, and go pluck that green plume out of his helmet.”
The black knight said, “Wait, are you talking to someone else now? How did you learn the Green Knight’s tricks?”
The brown bird flew up. Gil picked up the lance and charged toward the horse and rider, roaring like a bear.
7. Second Charge
The black knight flourished his huge sword and black shield, crying out, “Charge! Charge my bold red steed—fear no spear of his–” Gil understood the words, but the sound of them coming from beneath the helm was “–hween-neigh-hhhh! Hweeyaww!”
For the killdeer had landed lightly on his helmet, taken the green plume neatly in her beak, plucked it out, and flown off. The human voice stopped, and a horse’s whinny and neigh echoed from the black helm.
Gil cried, “Rabicane! You are deceived! That is no man on you! No son of Adam, he! Should one who bore the valiant Astolpho, Paladin of Charlemagne, carry some unbaptized creature on his back?”
Rabicane reared and bucked. The rider kept his saddle, which had both high pommel and high back, but Gil ran at him with the lance and struck him such a blow that the black knight tumbled to the ground astonished.
Gil ran to the black knight, who was moving his legs feebly and nickering. The black knight raised his boot and kicked at Gil with such force that the lance was snapped in half. Gil was half-dazed by the force of the kick—no human leg could have delivered such a blow—but he had wit enough to step on the man’s sword, pinning the black blade to the ground. The black knight tugged on the blade with fierce strength but at such an angle the blade was not meant to take. The tang broke in two with a metallic snap of noise. The black knight, neighing in triumph, raised the blade while Gil staggered back, but then, comically, the heavy blade rattled and fell to the green weeds, and the hilt and handle and pommel all came free in the black knight’s fist.
But before Gil could regain his footing on the slippery weeds, the supine black knight kicked Gil’s legs out from under him. Gil contrived to fall atop the man, driving an elbow into his neckpiece. The two rolled on the ground, grappling. When the creature raised a foot to kick, Gil took him by the back of the neck and the back of the leg and forced the two together, as if trying to shove the black knight’s knee up his black nose.
A strap broke. The black knight’s boot and greave came free of his left foot. The left boot was filled with a glittering white sand or paste Gil had seen before.
But the leg that came out and flailed in the air was a horse’s leg, and suddenly Gil’s grip was not at the weakest part of the leg, the hamstring, but the strongest, the kneecap. The horse-legged black knight broke Gil’s grip easily, but could not rise, for now the two legs were uneven. He tried to rise, but he fell, and Gil drove the point of his shield between the shield straps and the black shield, pinioning his arm.
The creature had a kick that could break a man’s spine, but Gil had practiced wrestling stronger foes many times in the past year. Another moment or two of scrambling and panting, and Gil was behind him and had the black knight in a neat half-nelson. The shoulder armor prevented the black knight’s arm from being broken in this grip, but Gil could hold his opponent motionless, despite the black knight being as strong as a horse, for Gil had leverage.
Gil undid the creature’s chin-strap with his free hand and jerked the helm from his head. The inside of the helm was also coated with the same glittering pale cream, like a white molasses made of sparks of light.
The nose and face and head that emerged from the black gorget of the black knight were a horse’s. His pointed ears stood up in surprise.
8. The Pook of Glen Meay
Rabicane trotted up. “I had a horse riding me? Another horse? Let go of him. Let me kick and nip him to death. I am the king stallion here!”
“I think it is a glashan,” Gil said to Rabicane. To the black knight, he said, “I sat next to one of your cousins at the elfin feast last year.”
The other grunted, “If I am a glashan, then your mother’s a harlot.”
Gil bit his horse ear right in the most sensitive and thin part, but the horse-creature shrieked, “I yield! I give! I surrender, Sir Knight!”
“What was that about my mother?”
“I was just checking to see if you could understand me without my talking cap.”
“Why shouldn’t I
understand you?”
“Pooks and fauns usually cannot be seen or heard by men. Not without a cap.”
“Why do you say I am a man?” said Gil.
“You speak with the authority of a Son of Adam. The steed obeys you. The bird did your work. Is she going to use my plume to feather her nest? That could turn out badly. Eggs raised in such nests hatch out magpies or parrots. Do you accept my surrender?”
“Your name?”
“Name have I none. I am the Cabyll-ushtey of Glen Meay and no glashan. Bah!”
“What is the difference?”
“Glashan are Irish! I am Manx. Horrible creatures, the Irish! Boasters and liars!”
“My dog is Irish.”
“Except for him… of course… wonderful fellow, your dog…”
“Why do you have no name?”
“No Son of Adam has given me one.”
“Your name is Mr. Ed.”
“What? No, that’s terrible. What about Thunderball Blackstrike?”
“Ed.”
“….Or Doomshadow von Stormhoof the Magniloquent…?”
“Ed! Count yourself lucky I did not name you Puddles Pickledrip.”
“I am thankful, noble and gracious lord, but I now see why the elfs want for themselves the crown Adam dropped.”
“Who posted you here?”
“I was brought over to the New World by Lord Simcoe, who fell into the practice of black magic many years ago and was fed into the fires in the place of the elf who served him as fetch and familiar. I do not know whom I serve now; I have never seen his face. He bade me used the Carabas charm to hide my legs and face and to fend off all comers summoned by the Green Knight to their doom.”
Swan Knight's Sword (Moth & Cobweb Book 3) Page 7