Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [67]
EARLY IN THE SPRING OF THE NEW YEAR, a dark and lovely young woman of the ancient craft walked down a wide forest road, in the company of a coal-black goat with high, twisty horns and eyes of red fire. She wore a dress of fine linen, dyed carnelian. Golden needlework in the pattern of leaves and twining thorn branches decorated its collar, sleeves and hem. A girdle of woven hemp enclosed her waist. From her belt dangled two daggers in bejeweled sheaths, one curved and the other straight. Also hanging from her belt was a small leather pouch of casting stones, with many an occult symbol inscribed on them. Her hair was long, black and silken. Her skin was pale and unblemished. Her lips were red. She chatted with the goat as they walked together. Her feet were bare against the road’s hard-packed dirt and embedded stones. The goat wore no leash or tether.
Max watched the girl and her goat from the concealment of the woods. He’d wandered through the forest for days, having been scared off the previous small path by the passage of a company of goblin foot soldiers. They’d come marching single file down the same narrow path he was on, no doubt on their way to expand the extent of their conquest into the smaller side roads and remote corners of the territory. Spotting them before they spotted him, Max had scrambled into the woods just in time to avoid their notice. Now, days later, he’d thrashed, cursed and stumbled his way to this much larger woodland avenue. He was about to step out onto it when he spied the girl and her companion goat walking towards him, approaching the place of his concealment.
What to do about her, he wondered? The last of his boiled eggs had run out a week ago, closely followed by the remaining cheese, carrots and potatoes, leaving him only a few overripe onions to sate his hunger. The goat might make a fine meal, he thought. And the girl? What might I do with her? Intriguing ideas began to occur to him, while he hid in the underbrush. She was indeed a pretty one, he considered, and I’m now, by any honest measure, a man grown. It’s well past time I began to do things with pretty girls.
Max was in the process of screwing up his courage, preparing to step out into the road to block the girl’s progress, when a new development interrupted his plans. The heavy sounds of approaching horses rose from behind the girl, farther down the road.
Only a moment later, three riders appeared from around the bend. They were three knights of the gentry — that much was immediately obvious. They were dressed in armor of shining plate over chain mail, and wore bright surcoats over that, decorated with complex heraldic devices on their breasts. The warhorses they rode were huge and intimidating beasts, snorting and thundering.
The dark girl turned to watch them as they rode up to her. She seemed unconcerned, only mildly curious, and made no move to flee, or even step off the road. The riders reined up next to her. Their horses’ great hooves kicked up mud in their efforts to stop, spattering the girl’s white legs and the hem of her fine dress.
“Well, here’s an unexpected prize on a dreary day,” one of the knights said. He was clean shaven and fair haired. His device was two golden gryphons, addorsed, with their wings abased. “What’s your name, girl?” he said, unsheathing his most dazzling smile.
“I have many names,” she said, “and I change them often, lest I begin to think of myself by one of them more than another. Then one of my rivals might learn of it and use it to conjure against me.”
“Many names is fine,” a second knight said, “as long as I can steal a lusty kiss from each one.” That earned a laugh from the first knight, but the girl and the third knight remained silent and unimpressed by the jape. The third knight wore a deep scowl.
“We’re wasting time here,” the third knight snarled. “I want to be under good cover before the rains come again.” He had dark hair and a dark beard that was cut into a single point that jutted from his chin like a dagger. His armor was enameled in a midnight