“What are you doing?” Heden asked, leaning against the archway of the priory.

Aderyn ignored him. Again. She was driving large stakes into the ground with the maul. Spread out around her were huge, brightly colored sheets, pinions, ropes and flags with many crests, all taken from the chest. There was a riot of color in the scattered sheets, but the dominant color was green.

They were the makings of a pavilion.

Heden looked around the beautiful glen surrounding the Priory. The fresh air on his face helped him forget that he hadn’t slept. Another horse stood next to his, drinking from one of the troughs on either side of the entrance to the priory. The horse was smaller than Heden’s and lightly armored. It had not been there when Heden arrived and so must be Aderyn’s.

“What is all this?” Heden asked, looking at the colored fabrics on the grass.

“Canst thou not see?” Aderyn asked, mildly.

“We’re back to that?” Heden said with a sigh.

“Hast thou not eyes?” She grunted as she swung again. Though she was half Heden’s weight, she was strong. It took only two attempts to drive a stake into the ground.

Heden sighed and walked around the woman as she worked. It would take her all day at this rate, but she seemed resigned to the task. Heden smiled. He recognized the attitude.

“No, I can see it’s a pavilion, I’m asking why you’re bothering to set it up.”

“The stakes mark the center of the jousting field. Then,” she said nodding to a large circle where no grass grew, “I stake off the melee. Then the tent where there will be food and drink. Whenever the knights gather together,” she said, grunting as she drove another stake into the turf, “there is a tournament.”

“Really?” Heden asked, a little surprised.

Aderyn didn’t answer.

“Every time?” he asked.

“Every time,” she said, and stopped to wipe sweat from her brow. She drew her copper and flax hair back in an impromptu pony tail to keep it out of her face.

“You’re going to erect a whole tournament pavilion in your armor?” Heden asked.

“Never remove your armor in the forest, except to bathe,” she said. Heden got the sense she was quoting someone. “We are never safe, even here.”

Heden took in the idyllic scenery in and tried to imagine an army of urq swarming out of the forest. Even with his experience, it was hard to imagine. The green trees and yellow grass, the blue sky and beautiful white clouds. There were birds and butterflies and bees all around. Occasionally, a grasshopper would leap from Heden’s footfall. This was how the world must have looked, he thought, when it was just the Elves.

“How often do you all get together?” he asked.

“Once a year,” she said, with a shrug. “Sometimes more.”

Heden watched and thought.

“You’re saying the Order only gathers together once a year?”

She ignored him. She’d already answered him and he was just trying to catch up.

“But they must…they must see each other between tournaments.”

She hammered another stake into the ground. It was going to be a large pavilion with several tents.

“Each knight,” she said, “has a demesne covering perhaps a dozen leagues.”

“A what?” Heden asked.

“A dozen leagues,” she replied dryly.

“No, you said something else before that.”

She stopped hammering and thought.

“Demesne?” It sounded to Heden like ‘deh-main.’

“That’s it.”

“It is the knight’s territory. All the forest knows the demesne is under the protection of the knight, and more: knows which knight any part of the forest belongs to.”

Heden tilted his head. “I’ve never heard that word before,” he admitted.

“It is a life of solitude and quiet contemplation,” Aderyn said, going back to work. “A knight may go months without meeting another soul to speak to.”

“Quiet contemplation,” Heden said, watching her work. Watching the strength of her body. She could have used that hammer to crush a man’s skull in one blow.

“It is a noble calling,” she said.

“Quiet contemplation until an elgenwight attacks.”

She smiled without looking at him. “Then it is a test of mettle.”

“Or an army of urq,” he said, ignoring her for once.

She stopped smiling and stopped hammering.

“That rarely happens,” she intoned. Then went back to work.

“Let me help you,” Heden offered.

“Leave,” Aderyn said immediately, hammering another stake into the ground.

“What?”

She turned to look at him and leaned on her maul. “If you wish to be a help, then leave us. Leave now, leave the forest, return to your world and leave us be.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You could,” Aderyn said. “I have taken the full measure of you and I surmise you have quit the field before.”

“You’re wrong,” Heden said, defending himself. He knew it was uncharacteristic of him, but he was offended that she thought she knew him already.

“Besides,” he continued. “I was sent here to fix whatever’s wrong.”

Aderyn just shook her head. “There is no way to fix what is wrong,” she said. “You can only make it worse.” She had dropped the cant. And for some reason, Heden believed her.

“Do you know what happened to Kavalen?” Heden asked.

“All the forest knows,” she said, taunting him a little.

“But you won’t tell me,” he said.

“You must speak with Sir Taethan.”

“If I ask,” Heden said, trying a trick, “Sir Taethan what happened to Kavalen, what will he tell me?”

She laughed at him. “You are so crude, you stumble about so comically. Do you expect that to work?”

Heden shrugged one shoulder sheepishly.

“Worth a try,” he said.

“Well, Sir Taethan will be here soon, you can ask him your…”

She stopped talking abruptly, and her whole body tensed, though she didn’t take her eyes off Heden. Heden straightened up. It looked like she was about to attack him.

He looked behind him to see if maybe she saw something past him, but as he did so he heard her maul hit the ground.

He turned back and saw her sprinting in two layers of armor to her horse. Her running footsteps the only sound in the suddenly silent forest.

Heden realized he’d left his backpack in the priory. His heart was racing and he wasn’t yet sure what…

The ground shook, like a distant tower toppling. Heden’s legs went a little weak. He became disoriented, and imagined the threat could be behind any of the trees surrounding him. Not now! He thought, and fought to master himself.

Aderyn had gained her horse and from it quickly donned her helm, a shield, and pulled a sword from a scabbard.

The ground shook again. And again. And then several times in rapid succession, the dull roar of impact getting impossibly loud in Heden’s ear. The ground shook violently, the water in the troughs spilled out, but the granite priory didn’t budge.

Bursting from the trees into the clearing was something shaped like a man. A huge man with skin tanned dark brown, wearing animal skins and improvised armor pulled, it seemed, from all manner of man and urq. It wielded a small tree trunk and its teeth were rotting. It had a thicket of chestnut brown hair on top of its head, and its huge eyes burned with hatred. It was a thyrs. Men for whom they were mythical called them giants, and why not? But any folk of the north, the folk of Durham Keep, would call them thyrs, or thyrwights. Which was their own name for themselves.

“I’VE COME TO KILL A MAN!” the thyrs bellowed. It seemed massive, but Heden’s instincts took over and he compared the giant to the trees. The trees were much taller. This was a minor giant of the hills. Not one of the really big ones you got in the mountains. It had been years since Heden had dealt with anything like this, and even then he had a whole company with him. But he wasn’t a Prelate then. His heart stilled. He was unarmed, but 13 years of this sort of thing came back to him.

Aderyn stood in the center of the clearing, the stakes of the future pavilion surrounding her. Heden noted it gave her a small advantage, the stakes acting like pikes set to receive a charge. Her horse stood proud next to her, neighed a challenge and stamped its front hooves.

“I will have to do!” Aderyn called out a challenge. “I will settle your feud with Sir Nudd and end your life ‘ere you take another step if you do not leave this place and return to your home!”

Black Gods, Heden thought. Would I have done that at twenty-eight? I’d have probably shit my pants.

The thyrs looked around, seeming to ignore Heden. He peered down at Aderyn.

“LITTLE KNIGHT,” he pronounced, drawing the words out. Heden thought Aderyn grew in stature. “I’LL CRUSH YOUR BONES AND SUCK OUT YOUR BRAINS!”

Aderyn didn’t wait for the thyrs to finish his sentence. As soon as it was obvious the thyrwight wasn’t going to turn around and leave, she ran forward, closing the distance between them. With several paces left to go, she launched herself high into the air, her speed and strength supernatural, her sword poised to stab downward into the naked right thigh of the huge man-like creature.

Heden weighed several options carefully, all in an instant. Calling upon powers beyond the need could have dire consequences for him. Summoning a Dominion or assuming the mantle of Cavall could result in Heden being a slave to his god for years and questing through who knows what foreign lands or underground worlds.

Watching Aderyn summoning strength beyond mortal ken and leaping something like 20 feet into the air, he knew she wasn’t going to make it. The thyrs was as fast as he was big. Heden remembered their speed.

He said a quick prayer, pointing at Aderyn. Warding her. Three words. There was no visible sign of the prayer’s effectiveness. Heden had no doubt the prayer worked.

The thyrwight took advantage of Aderyn’s advancing leap, and swung his club like one might swat at a fly. Aderyn’s attack seemed fast, but not compared to the giant’s reaction.

His tree-trunk club hit Aderyn square in the chest, at the apex of her leap. There was a crunching sound, as of metal on wood, and a loud grunt. Aderyn was hurled up and over the clearing, into the forest beyond. Heden’s head craned up and over and back, watching her sail through the air until the forest behind him swallowed her. The sound of breaking tree limbs continued for several moments, getting quieter and settling down over time.

Aderyn’s horse turned and rode off into the forest after her.

The giant grunted to himself and smiled. He took two steps forward, crushing some of the pavilion’s stakes under his thick-soled feet. He looked around the clearing as though he’d just conquered it and was now seeking other challengers. Then he looked down at Heden apparently noticing him for the first time.

“WHO ARE YOU?” The huge figure asked, sniffing. The words came out like ‘oooeruuu?’ He was aware of Heden, but didn’t seem to care about him one way or the other.

Heden realized something was expected of him.

“Uh,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Hello,” he said loudly. He kept looking over his shoulder, wondering if he should go help Aderyn. But he felt as though standing his ground was safer.

The thyrs sneered at him. “LITTLE MAN,” he said. “NOT EVEN A KNIGHT!”

It seemed as though the giant figure was considering crushing Heden outright. Heden sighed and pulled the talisman of Lynwen from under his breastplate and leather.

Heden didn’t know the situation with the thyrs, and this meant he had no idea what kind of prayer would be effective. He didn’t think it was evil. It might be safe to blind the thing, or turn its legs to stone, but these were minor orisons and might not work on so strong a creature as a hill wight.

Before he could finish praying, and therefore technically before his request was complete, something behind Heden caught the giant’s attention.

“WHUT?!” the giant grunted, confused. “ALIVE?!”

Heden had to turn to see what the thing was talking about, even though he sensed it. He had to see it.

Aderyn was winded, bruised, bleeding, and she’d lost her helmet, but she was grinning like a madwoman bracing herself against a tree at the edge of the clearing, her horse behind her. Heden’s wards had protected her, but more, she had a vitality, a courage beyond anything Heden had seen in many years. He was in awe.

She stepped into the clearing, pushed her hair away from her face, and nodded. “Aye Burran,” she said. “Your father couldn’t kill me. What makes you think you can!?”

She’s taunting him, Heden thought. If he gets mad enough he might really hurt her.

Burran roared, tendons standing out on its neck, and Heden’s ears rung. In response, Aderyn barked a sound like “hai!” and her horse started to gallop forward. She grabbed the pommel of the saddle as the horse rode past, and swung herself up.

The horse lowered its head and seemed determined to bear down on the thyrwight.

Aderyn pulled a javelin from a quiver on the horse’s saddlebags. Heden realized that having stopped his prayer, he’d missed an opportunity to fell the thyrs, and thereby end this conflict. There was something about watching this squire fight the giant that mesmerized him.

Burran obviously expected another leaping attack and crouched down, bracing himself, a gap-toothed smile on his face. But Aderyn, commanding the horse with her knees, spun her mount around halfway across the clearing and hurled the javelin.

Heden watched as the thin piece of wood with a sharp metal tip sunk into the giant’s right shin, burying itself in the bone, causing Burran to cry out and grab his leg. Before the javelin had found its mark, the horse had spun around and Aderyn had readied another.

Seeing the result of her first throw, she hurled another. Putting her whole body into it, bracing against the horse. She grunted with effort and this time the javelin pierced the giant’s hand and stuck in his thigh. The horse never stopped moving, always ready to leap away should the thyrs lunge forward.

“NO FAIR!” Burran keened, and fell to one knee. Aderyn stopped the attack and, eyes wide, breast heaving with effort, she readied another javelin and watched to see what the giant would do.

What it did next, was die.

Without warning, Burran arched his chest up as though struck from behind. The tip of a lance jutted out from his chest, pushing his hide armor out and poking through it a few inches. He howled and fell forward, bracing himself on the floor of the clearing.

“OOOAAA, NOOOOO,” he cried piteously. “NOOO,” he said, “NOT DIE.”

As he slowly lost the strength to hold himself up, Heden saw the butt of the lance poking out from its back. The entire lance had buried itself in the giant’s chest. As Burran fell, he revealed the creature that killed him.

At first, Heden was certain he was seeing an elgenwight in plate armor. One of the elk-men of the wode. They were huge, the bucks as tall as fifteen feet. They had the head, arms and torso of a man, and the body of a horse, with huge antlers sprouting from their foreheads. Like most of the wise creatures of the wode, they were created by the Celestials, and they were among the deadliest foes in the wood. Morso than the brocc, the urq, most of the thyrs.

Heden blinked and looked again. It was a man. A man on a horse, both in heavy armor. But the man’s helmet had two massive antlers sprouting from it, projecting forward like a dozen spears. They were deadly, and half covered in what Heden assumed was dried blood. The warhorse was one of the biggest Heden had ever seen. The man had to be eight feet tall. He had several weapons on his person and strapped to the horse, one a massive two-handed sword. With his eyes shrouded in his helm, the huge blood-covered antlers projecting forward, and his heavy plate covered in moss and vines, he looked like a demon of the wode. Menace boiled off him like steam.

The horse bore a white caparison over its armor with a green circle in the center of it.

“People react badly to seeing them,” Gwiddon had said.

The Green Knight had killed the giant.

Chapter 24