Eagerly, the man came forward, reached a bony hand for the food — but instead he grabbed her outstretched arm at the wrist with a surprisingly strong grip and, with a swift yank, tried to pull her from the horse. He cackled with delight, a nasty sound; as he struggled with her, his hood fell back, and she saw that he was younger than she had thought. Now, three other men ran forward from the shadows on both sides of the path, and she realized that they were godins, the peasant bandits. Kate was still in the saddle, but clearly not for long. She kicked the horse, but it was tired and unresponsive. The older man continued tugging at her arm, all the while muttering, “Foolish boy! You silly boy!”
Not knowing what else to do, she screamed for help, screaming at the top of her lungs, and this seemed to startle the men, so that they paused for a moment before resuming their attack. But then they heard the sound of a galloping horse coming toward them, and the roar of a warrior’s battle cry, and the godins looked at one another and scattered. All except the wizened man, who refused to release Kate and now threatened her with his ax, which he raised in his other hand.
But in that moment an apparition, a bloodred knight on horseback, came crashing down the trail, his horse snorting, flinging clops of mud, the knight himself so fierce and bloody that the last man ran for his life, plunging into the darkness of the forest.
Chris reined up and circled around her. She felt a huge wave of relief flood through her; she had been badly frightened. Chris was smiling, clearly pleased with himself.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” he said.
“Are you?” Kate asked, amazed. Chris was literally drenched in blood; it had dried all over his face and body, and when he smiled, it cracked at the sides of his mouth, revealing the pink skin beneath. He looked as if he had fallen in a vat of red.
“I’m fine,” Chris said. “Somebody hacked the horse next to me, cut an artery or something. I was soaked in a second. Blood is hot, did you know that?”
Kate was still staring at him, amazed to see anyone who looked like that making jokes, and then he took her horse’s reins and led her quickly away. “I think,” Chris said, “we won’t wait for them to regroup. Didn’t your mother tell you not to talk to strangers, Kate? Especially when you meet them in the woods?”
“Actually, I thought you were supposed to give them food and they helped you.”
“Only in fairy tales,” he said. “In the real world, if you stop to help the poor man in the woods, he and his friends steal your horse and kill you. That’s why nobody does it.”
Chris was still grinning, and he seemed so confident and amused, and she had the feeling that she had never noticed, never been aware, that he was quite an attractive man, that he had a certain genuine appeal. But of course, she thought, he had saved her life. She was just grateful.
“What were you doing, anyway?” she said.
He laughed. “Trying to catch up to you. I thought you were way ahead of me.”
:
The path divided. The main path appeared to go off to the right, beginning a slow descent. A much narrower track went to the left, on flat ground. But it seemed much less used.
“What do you think?” Kate said.
“Take the main road,” Chris said. He led the way forward, and Kate was quite happy to follow him. The forest around them grew more lush, the ground ferns six feet high, like huge elephant ears, obscuring her view ahead. She heard a distant roar of water. The land began to slope downward more sharply, and she couldn’t see her footing because of the ferns. They both dismounted and tied their horses loosely to a tree. They proceeded on foot.
The land sloped steeply downward now, and the path turned into a muddy track. Chris slipped, grasping at branches and shrubs to break his slide. She watched as he slipped and slid, and then with a yell, he was gone.
She waited. “Chris?”
No answer.
She tapped her earpiece. “Chris?”
Nothing.
She was not sure what to do, whether to go forward or retrace her steps backward. She decided to follow him, but cautiously, now that she knew how slippery the path was, and what had happened to him. Yet after only a few careful steps, her feet shot out from beneath her, and she was sliding helplessly in the mud, banging against tree trunks, getting the wind knocked out of her.
The terrain grew steeper. Kate fell backward in the mud and slid down on her backside, trying to use her feet to push off tree trunks as they rushed up. Branches scratched her face, tore at her hands as she reached for them. She didn’t seem able to stop her headlong rush down.
And all the time, the terrain grew steeper. Now the trees ahead were thinning, she could see light between the trunks, and she heard the rush of water. She was sliding down a path that ran parallel to a small stream. The trees thinned more, and she saw that the forest ended abruptly about twenty yards ahead. The rushing sound of water grew louder.
And then she realized why the forest ended.
It was the edge of a cliff.
And beyond was a waterfall. Directly ahead.
Terrified, Kate rolled over on her stomach, dug her fingers like claws into the mud, but to no avail. She still continued to slide. She couldn’t stop. She rolled onto her back, still sliding down a chute of mud, helpless to do anything but watch the end coming, and then she shot out of the forest and was flying in the air, hardly daring to look down.
:
Almost immediately, she smashed down into foliage, clutched at it, and held. She swung up and down. She was in the branches of a large tree, hanging out over the cliff. The waterfall was directly below her. It wasn’t as large as she had thought. Maybe ten, fifteen feet high. There was a pool at the base. She couldn’t tell how deep it was.
She tried to climb back along the branches of the tree, but her hands were slippery from the mud. She kept slipping, twisting on the branch. Eventually, she was hanging beneath, clutching it with hands and legs like a sloth as she tried to work her way backward. She went another five feet, then realized she would never make it.
She fell.
She struck another branch, four feet lower. She hung there a moment, gripping the branch with slippery, muddy hands. Then she fell again, struck a lower branch.
Now she was just a few feet above the waterfall as it curved, roaring, over the lip of the cliff. The branches of the tree were wet from mist. She looked at the churning pool of water at the base. She couldn’t see the bottom; she couldn’t be sure how deep it was.
Hanging precariously from the branch, she thought: Where the hell is Chris? But in the next moment, she lost her grip and fell the rest of the way.
:
The water was an icy shock, bubbling, opaque, roiling furiously around her. She tumbled, disoriented, kicked to the surface, banged against rocks on the bottom. Finally, she came up beneath the waterfall, which pounded on her head with incredible force. She couldn’t breathe. She ducked down again, swam ahead, and came out a few yards downstream. The water in the pool was calmer, though still chillingly cold.
She climbed out and sat on a rock. She saw that the churning water had washed all the mud from her clothes, from her body. She felt somehow new — and very glad to be alive.
Catching her breath, she looked around.
She was in a narrow little vale, the afternoon light misty from the waterfall. The valley was lush and wet, the grass was wet, the trees and rocks covered in moss. Directly ahead, a stone path led to a small chapel.
The chapel was wet, too, its surfaces covered with a kind of slimy mold, which streaked the walls and dripped from the edge of the roof. The mold was bright green.
The green chapel.
She also saw broken suits of armor heaped untidily beside the chapel door, old breastplates rusting in the pale sun and dented helmets lying on their sides; also swords and axes casually thrown all around.
Kate looked for Chris but didn’t see him. Evidently, he hadn’t fallen all the way, as she had. Probably he was now making his way down by another path. She thought she would wait for him; she had been happy to see him earlier, and missed him now. But she didn’t see Chris anywhere. And aside from the waterfall, she heard no sound at all in the little valley, not even birds. It was ominously silent.