At first the horse was confused. More confused than was typical in Heden’s experience. He didn’t mount up at the stables, he walked the horse out and down to the main gate.

Once outside of town Heden walked around the brown beast, inspecting it. The horse whinnied once, unsure what was expected. The little cauldron of boiling neurosis that served as a horse brain was simmering slightly. Heden brought out an apple and fed it to the beast. Once the horse seemed at ease with Heden, he mounted up.

The horse trotted and Heden guided it north from the keep to the forest, a little more than a mile. The trees loomed, so high they tricked the mind. They looked like they were toppling over.

The tree line was distinct, sharp. Once they reached it the horse became a little jittery. Heden didn’t know if it sensed something inside the forest or the forest itself, but suspected the horse just wasn’t used to going north instead of south where all the other towns lay. Probably it spent most of its time carrying people to and from the Keep, not the forest.

Remembering the stories his father told him about Sir Ollwen and his knights, Heden turned the horse so it faced due east. The forest on his left, the keep down on his right. The horse should, if it were sensible, turn right and head back home to Durham Keep. Probably after standing still for a quarter hour too stupid to realize anything was amiss.

Saying something less a prayer and more a wish, Heden patted the horse’s neck, rubbed its thick, short hairs, took a deep breath and let the reins go slack on the horse’s neck.

The horse sniffed the air and champed his teeth, pulling the bit forward. It shook its head back and forth once, testing to see that Heden wasn’t holding the reins. It murmured a horsey whinny and stamped the ground once. Heden relaxed, didn’t move. Tried to think of nothing. After a few moments, maybe half a turn, the horse gently turned left and began to head into the forest.

Heden’s trick was working. He trusted to fate, let the horse pick its own way. Into the forest, and toward whatever destiny awaited him there.

The wode closed in on all sides, completely denying any opportunity to get one’s bearings. The sun was difficult to find in the sky, there was no sense of distance. And whatever natural connection man had to the cycles of day and night became disjointed.

The trees were taller than any human structure he’d ever seen, wider around than a house. Adding to his disorientation was the fact that the huge trees of the Iron Forest were not packed closely together. Only the tips of their leaves touched. The distance between the trees, and their sheer size, created a sense of space that overwhelmed him. Each tree was like a massive pillar, holding up a green sky made of leaves above. He felt like an ant crawling across the floor of a cathedral.

The horse found a trail. Heden didn’t notice when they started on it. He was daydreaming and then he looked down and they were on a thin trail, probably a foot trail. The underbrush around them, the bracken and ferns and vines was thick, but the trail was clear. He twisted around, looked behind for the spot the trail started, but couldn’t see anything. The horse obviously knew something he didn’t. Probably knew a lot of things Heden didn’t. Probably figured being sat on all day entitled it to an opinion.

He used the meditative time to think, go over events in his mind: Gwiddon, the Carter, Vanora. The Baron. He replayed the scenes over and over again. Not for any reason, just out of habit. It was something he couldn’t turn off. Occasionally he would think of something he should have said, or upon remembering something someone else said, gain some insight into their motivation. Their real meaning. Also, sometimes, his own.

After a turn in the forest, the horse plodding along at a steady rate, he was startled by something out of the corner of his eye. Motion as though something had run off behind a nearby tree. And then the bottom began to fall out from his world.

It was possible, he reminded himself, even likely, that a rabbit or some other small game was startled by his passing and took flight. But as soon as the sensation passed, it was replaced by a growing suspicion. As he rode, every tree became a place behind which something could be hiding. The woods were silent, were they unnaturally silent? Were they silent because of hostile humanoids laying in wait? There were birds, small noises…were they normal? Heden found he couldn’t remember. He could imagine anything.

It was madness, he tried to tell himself. It didn’t work. His nightmare scenarios seemed all too plausible. He’d been in a dozen situations, exactly like this, where the trees had concealed urmen or worse. No one knew he was here. There was no way, no reason, for ambush. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. He could be trespassing on some inhuman creature’s territory. That tree there was big enough to hide a thyrs. He stared for what might have been a full minute thinking he was seeing the hilt of a spear sticking out from behind a distant tree. Then as the horse moved and he saw it was only a branch from another tree, farther in the distance.

He wished he could blame the tightening, the senseless fear, on the forest and its power to confuse, but Heden knew this was going to happen. Happened every time he left the city.

His heart was hammering in his chest and for the thousandth time he feared it would burst. He realized he was completely, utterly alone. There was no one to help him if something happened to him. If his heart burst in his chest, there was no priest to aid him, no one to go and get a priest. The fact that he lived alone and had done for years didn’t mean anything. In Celkirk, he felt safe, and so didn’t think about such things.

He was suddenly gripped with fear that he had turned around, was heading back to Durham Keep. He twisted in the saddle, staring back the way he’d come, wondering if it was the way he should be going.

He remembered Gwiddon offering to give him help and for a little while, seriously entertained the notion of going back to Celkirk, going south almost a hundred miles, a whole day’s travel, and asking for help getting the last few miles. The temptation to return to the known, to get away from this place of danger, was almost overwhelming.

He found the saddle constraining. As much as he had to get out of the forest, back to the inn, he had to get out of the saddle.

He swung his leg over, and dropped clumsily to the forest floor. He staggered, then grabbed the leather of the saddle with one hand and steadied himself on the flank of the horse with the other. He felt normal again. Felt the madness, the fear, evaporate.

He sniffed once. Breathed heavily. Straightened up and looked around, wiping sweat from his brow.

The horse seemed to have taken no notice of the episode. Heden remembered being a young man, with no sense of fear or mortality, and a wave of sadness passed over him, not for the first time, at what he’d been reduced to. What campaigning for 12 years had done to him. It was this that Gwiddon knew made this assignment so difficult. Eventually the episodes would get longer and more frequent.

He didn’t want to get back on the horse, and didn’t want to think about why. He hit the horse with the flat of his hand, signaling the beast to lead the way again.

The horse neighed and wouldn’t budge.

Heden grunted a question and walked up to look the horse in the eye.

The horse shook its head. No.

Heden grabbed the reins and tugged, but the horse had the bit between the teeth and was having none of it.

“What?” Heden asked.

The horse waggled its lips at Heden, showing its big horse teeth.

Heden felt incredibly tired. He was too far from home and too much at odds with himself and his mission to fight with the horse.

“Fine,” Heden said. He dropped the reins. “You stay here and let the brocc find you. They love horse.”

Heden turned to show the horse he was leaving, and noticed what the horse had seen.

He turned back around and looked behind the horse. Walked around the horse and look back the way they’d came. Then he strode back around the horse and checked in every direction.

The trail was gone. The trail they were following had disappeared. It had been here when he’d stopped, and he hadn’t moved, but it was gone.

“Shit,” Heden said to no one and everyone.

The horse neighed.

On to Chapter Twenty One!

Chapter 20