The Fall of Arnon

Chapter 23

Televtale felt the constant jolting begin to tell on his weakened body. The minutes had begun to seem like hours and the expansive mountain ranges loomed no closer than they had the moment they had started this torturous journey.

The horse that had been carefully chosen for him was a tall, sturdily built stallion. His tangled mop of hair flew freely in the wind as he loped along behind the sleek, black stallion of the old knight. Somehow, beyond all reasonable coincidence, the horse had found every single hole, gully, or small indentation in the landscape and tripped, faltered, or otherwise rocked the boy to and fro against his wide back.

However, the boy that had been found only two days before was not that same boy that now rode swiftly across the southern plains of Arnon. This boy had the fire of life once again burning behind his light blue eyes. He may have looked like a small rag doll flopping along, dwarfed by the enormous horse cantering beneath him, but the breath of life had once again been breathed into him.

Sir Ryan glanced back and seeing Televtale's pale face staring grimly down at his white knuckles he reigned in his horse. "Woah, Legend," he whispered, and the horse flicked back his shiny black ears at the sound of his master's voice.

He knew that the young man had been nothing less than courageous in his fight for life. Any lesser man would have given up long ago, but this one had yet to even utter a single word of complaint. "We can stop," he said softly, pulling his horse to a halt. A look of relief washed over the boy's face and he let his lean body fall forward against the horse's neck.

"You look exhausted," Sir Ryan said. "Here, sit." He helped the boy out of the well-worn saddle and set him down upon the soft bed of grass.

"Thank you," Televtale looked up at him gratefully.

"You're quite welcome, young sir," he said and sat himself down beside him. He realized only then that he himself had grown quite sore from the long ride they had already taken that morning, but he knew that it would be a long ride yet.

"Where are we going, sir, if it's not too forward of me to ask?" The boy had a meek, gentle, almost lulling voice. He tucked his arms over his bent knees and stared out into the distance.

"I suppose you must know," Sir Ryan began. "We're going to a place I have not been to since I was just a wee boy. I have long suspected that the king has some card up his sleeve that none of us may even have a guess at. I fear it has been a long time since I have seen the truth in his highness's eyes." He sighed heavily and began clipping off the tops of the long green stems with his dirt-encrusted fingertips. "When I was a young boy, I always wondered if the stories were true. You know the ones, the giant ogres or the dragons that could make your blood turn to ice at the mere sight of them, but one of the few that really stirred my imagination was the stories of the old forest. A forest so marred by evil, time itself had not served to annul the fear that men felt whenever they came near to the cursed place.

"So, I did what only a naive boy could have done. I went on my first quest to either verify or deny the old stories. And, that was when I met him."

"Met who?" Televtale's eyes had shifted from the outlying scenery and now stayed riveted to his face.

Sir Ryan closed his eyes and let the past envelope his mind, as he floated back to a time seemingly so long ago.

"It was in the early spring. I had just turned ten years old. As part of our training in knighthood, we were all sent out to find and kill a large animal, preferably a dangerous one. I had had it in my mind that today would be the day I go on my own adventure, and I set off with a good week's provisions. I traveled a long distance that day and found myself that night very close to the edge of the forest. Even though I'll admit I felt a tiny bit of apprehension, I decided to stay that night at the edge of the place where nightmares are made.

"To this day, I can't tell you if what happened next was reality or just a figment of my imagination, but I can relate the events as well as I can remember.

"There was a crescent moon that night. I can recall thinking what a strange sight it was. There was a fog so thick I could barely see my own hand, but through the mist, it still pierced through like a needle through cloth. The stars were all hidden, but that moon, that moon. It seemed almost like an ill omen above me.

"I suppose you can tell where this story is going, but I can't say I did in that moment. All I knew was that I could feel it. something indescribable. It wasn't as if somebody was watching me, but as if a hundred people were watching. I could see nothing around me, but I felt bare to the eyes I could feel in the prickling at the back of my neck.

"It was at that moment that I saw something. It wasn't something that would've or even should've drawn my attention, but it did. Thinking back on it, I think it was pulling me toward it, whatever it was. So, I followed, and as I'm sure you have already guessed, it led me straight into the woods.

"It was then that the mist disappeared. I would say it rose, but it didn't. It simply disappeared, and I was left in the middle of a small clearing with the moon shining down directly on a small cabin just feet away from where I stood.

"I couldn't go back, I didn't know where I was, so I did the only thing I could. I slowly approached the small cabin, and I can still remember how welcoming it looked. With small puffs of smoke billowing out of the chimney, a miniature garden gracing the front, and a smell so sweet I could've simply lain down on the grass and fallen asleep, never waking again.

"At that moment, the door to the cabin opened and out came the man. He wasn't anything special, fairly thin and sickly looking, but mostly normal. Then, he smiled at me. Not a welcoming, kind smile. More of a sickly, knowing kind of a smile. I saw that smile, and everything around just began to spin. The beautiful cottage melted into darkness. The grass turned black beneath my feet, and that man, that face, I'll be haunted by it for the rest of my days.

"And, then I woke up outside the city walls. I wondered if it was all just a dream, I still wonder sometimes, but the horse I had had since I was six years old, the one I had ridden, was gone. I never saw him again." He stopped, clouds were beginning to slide over the clear blue sky, like a curtain over a window. "We need to get going," he grunted, picking himself up from the ground. The boy followed his example and awkwardly climbed back into the saddle.

"But, where are we going?" He questioned again.

"We're going," Sir Ryan heaved himself up onto the awaiting horse. "To find that cabin."