Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [68]
“To greatly improve it,” the second knight interrupted. He had long and curly brown hair, but a darker beard and mustaches. His device was a purpure vine against a barry of twelve in argent and azure.
“Tell us if we’re on the right road and how far away it is,” the third knight continued.
“You’re on the right road,” the girl said, “and going in the proper direction. You’ll reach Hamelin before nightfall if you continue to ride with a purpose. But I can’t say if you’ll get there before the rain resumes.”
“I can,” the goat said, startling all but the girl. Even Max in his hiding place was surprised. “The rain will certainly catch you before you can reach your destination. You’ll arrive drenched to your new duty station.”
“Blood of the gods!” the second knight said. “I can’t abide animals that pretend to a man’s speech.” He dismounted, tossing the reins of his charger to the knight with the gryphons on his crest. “I’d thoughts of making my dinner out of this beast, but a talking one is unnatural. I won’t have it.” He drew his long sword.
“Stop!” the girl cried. “How dare you?”
But it was too late. The Knight of the Vines struck once and then twice. With the second blow the goat’s head was separated entire from its body. Both parts splashed into a brown puddle on the muddy road. There was surprisingly little blood, but a dark and grainy mist seemed to rise from the carcass for just a moment, before fading into the afternoon’s breeze.
“Nicely done, Sir Diederick,” the Gryphons Knight said. “But I venture I could’ve done as much with a single cut.”
“No,” the girl said. “This wasn’t nicely done at all. It’s a fearsome power you’ve released back into the wild world this day. It took me a dozen lifetimes to bind it safely into so gentle a form. I’ll have recompense from you three!”
“The only payment I’ll award you,” the Knight of the Vines said, “is a little bastard to round out your flat belly.”
The girl said nothing to this, but backed away from the dismounted knight, placing a hand on the hilt of one of her daggers.
“It’s not your place to demand anything from sworn officers of the Empire,” the scowling Falcon Knight said. “You should take care, girl, lest we take you to trial as an unauthorized witch. You’ve already admitted as much.”
“The trouble with witch trials,” she said, “is that once in a great while you actually capture a real one. And then the spectacle never turns out the way you anticipate. Often the one who ends up hanged, or drowned, or burned, isn’t the one in the docket.”
The girl and the Falcon Knight glared at each other for a long moment. A few small raindrops pattered against armor and mud, advance skirmishers for the vast army to come.
“Mount your horse, Sir Diederick,” the Falcon Knight said, breaking the brief contest of wills. “I told you we were wasting our time here.”
The Vines Knight slowly, and some might say insolently, cleaned his blade on the goat’s black coat. Then he sheathed it, took the reins back from his fellow knight, and mounted. He smiled one last smile at the dark girl, and blew her a kiss, before the company spurred their horses and rode off along the forest road.
Max stayed in his hiding place, determined to remain quiet as a mouse. Any thoughts he’d entertained about confronting this dark girl had fled. His new plan was to wait where he was, until, like the three imposing knights, she too had continued on her way.
The girl stood over the goat’s black carcass for a long time, as the rain gradually grew more insistent. Then once again she said, “There will be recompense,” as if making a promise to the dead animal.
After a while she resumed her way, apparently not minding the rain, which had begun falling in earnest by then. When she was directly across from Max’s hiding place in the underbrush, just inside the tree line, she paused in the middle of the road and looked in Max’s direction, as if she could see him,