1

⁠—⁠—⁠— I ⁠—⁠—⁠—

“Rinda?” a shrill voice called out. “Rinda!”

The boy had meant to whisper but his voice rang out clear and loud, echoing through the vast grim silence of the forest.

“Shh! Be quiet!” came a young girl’s sharp reply from the foliage nearby. Remus stuck out his lower lip in a pout, but the unseen Rinda was far from finished with him.

“Really! Is that cotton you’ve got between your ears? Have you forgotten where we are?”

“But—” her brother began.

“The Roodwood!” her voice came again, cutting him off.“In the lands of the tyrant king of Gohra!”

“But Rinda,” he continued, slowly craning his neck out of the bushes to look around,“I thought you’d gone and left me.”

“It’s all right anyway. I think those riders have left.” Rinda’s head slowly emerged from the bushes a short distance away. She checked to make sure the horsemen really had gone past them without her brother’s unfortunate display catching their attention. Finding that all was quiet around them, she slowly began the difficult and painful process of extricating herself from the shrubbery.

The bushes were those of the vasya, known for its delectable fruit and for the uninviting thorns that bristled from its leaves and even from its fruit. Rinda took the utmost care in pushing them aside, stretching out her slender white arms to hold down the thorny stalks as she wormed her way out of her hiding place. First her shining platinum blonde hair, then her slender, bare shoulders, then her delicate undeveloped torso, and finally, her legs, long and slim like a boy’s in tall leather boots, emerged from the thorny hiding place where they had spent most of a day and a night.

“Ah! There isn’t a bit of me that isn’t positively prickling with pain.” She shook herself and began to stretch her cramped limbs, but a little cry from her brother interrupted her long-awaited exercise.

She ran over to find that he was having considerably more difficulty than she had in extracting himself from his uncomfortable nest. He was fighting a losing battle against the thorn-covered leaves and stalks that caught on the soft skin of his hands and legs, leaving cruel trails wherever they touched.

“Can you do nothing right? The way you’re thrashing about, you’d think you wanted to cover yourself with scratches.” Rinda showed no restraint in her criticism as she helped him to his feet and deftly plucked out the vasya twigs tangled in the boy’s platinum blond hair.

Standing there, their hands joined, the two looked amazingly alike—which was not surprising, since they were twins. There in the shadowy undergrowth of the forest, they shone like two perfect pearls, with their matched leather jerkins and leather boots, and their silver short swords hanging from their belts. They had the same braided platinum blond hair, the same beautiful face—Rinda’s intent and spirited, her brother’s innocent and carefree—and the same mischievous violet eyes. They were like two sylvan spirits; so beautiful, it was a shame no one was there to see them.

The twins themselves, however, could not care less about appearances at the moment. Indeed, they were perfectly happy not to be seen.

Remus rubbed his hands and legs where the thorns had left him with more scratches than skin. As soon as he was on his feet, he began whining.

“Rinda, what do we do now? I’m starving!”

Rinda turned her attention to the gear at her waist. Next to the short sword, a soft leather satchel hung on her thick leather belt. But even after a careful scrutiny of its contents, she could find nothing that seemed useful in their current situation.

“Well, I didn’t think of bringing any traveling food. With everything that was going on, it’s a miracle I brought anything at all.”

‘So let’s hunt—perhaps we can catch something to eat.”

“I think not,” said Rinda. “We haven’t come to the Roodwood for a summer picnic, Remus. How many times must I tell you? We can’t be running about chasing after animals. You know what would happen should someone from Stafolos Keep discover us? Even if we did catch something, we wouldn’t be able to light a fire to cook it. You’re welcome to eat raw taulos innards if you wish, but I’ll pass, thank you very much.”

“But… I’m so hungry I could faint.”

“You’re not the only one, you—” Rinda seemed on the verge of another scathing critique, but she suddenly broke off and looked around. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Hoofbeats! The riders are coming back!” Rinda shushed her brother before he could protest and dived back into the vasya thicket, heedless now of the clinging thorns. Though any who beheld her would have seen the promise of a dazzlingly beautiful woman—a few years were all that she lacked—she was not yet of an age to worry about her beauty or about preserving the rare softness of her skin.

“Remus! Quick!” Rinda hissed at her brother, who was still standing, quizzically cupping a hand to one ear. He turned and made to crawl into the thicket—but too late. The overgrown track that passed through the forest hard by the thicket where the twins had been hiding was suddenly filled with the pounding hooves of a squad of black-garbed riders. Their leader, the black plume atop his black helm fluttering in the wind, barked a sharp order through his faceplate, and the riders drew up and leapt from their horses in unison. All wore the same black helms and black cloaks, with faceplates down and great broadswords slung across their backs.

“Remus, run!” Rinda screamed. Remus had given up trying to force his way back into the thicket and instead turned and dashed for the woods—but one of the riders, moving swiftly, grabbed his slender arm in a grip like a vise.

“Let me go!” Remus screamed and struggled. His small face shone with the kind of prideful rage that only the most noble of blood and heart can muster.

The rider with the black plume gave another sharp order. “Get them”—he said “Get them,” thought Rinda. The language he spoke was not foreign to the twins, but the accent was so thick that it took her a considerable amount of effort to decipher the meaning. Remus screamed even louder as the other riders approached the vasya thicket. Heedless of the thorny bower into which Rinda had wormed her way, a hand sheathed in a gauntlet of cold iron reached in to snatch her as she clawed and twisted like an angry kitten.

Her captor seemed oblivious to Rinda’s screams at the thorns that caught on her skin and in her hair. He dragged her roughly from the thicket and she tumbled out onto the grass where she caught her breath in ragged gasps, tears welling in her eyes from the scratches covering her body and face.

“Barbarians! Beasts! Swine of Gohra!” Rinda’s deep violet eyes blazed with anger. “Why are you doing this? You Gohran dogs have taken everything from us! May Janos’ bolts strike you and turn you to ash!”

The black-cloaked riders looked down coldly at the girl whose slender body shook now as her tears of pain turned to tears of rage. The captain laughed harshly, then suddenly, stepped forward. With his iron-gloved hand he grabbed her chin and looked at her face. His intent was clear.

“Let her go!” Remus shouted and strained against his captors, but their hands held him fast. Recoiling, Rinda spat at the mask covering the leader’s face, and then in one swift motion leapt deftly out of his grasp and drew the short sword from the sheath at her waist.

She crouched like a mountain cat, fierce and proud. But her sword—a finely ornamented thing wrought of silver—was too slender to seem a threat. The men guffawed and cheered her on as their captain gave a guttural laugh and strode boldly toward her.

Rinda raised her sword and drew back; the black rider closed in. She stepped back again, but this time her foot caught on a tangle of weeds. She yelped and fell backwards, and the black rider leapt atop her.

“Rinda!”

The girl heard her brother scream as strong hands pinned her down to the ground. She fought wildly, with all her heart, struggling to get free. But her strength and her will were nearly exhausted.

“Rinda!” Remus screamed again and squirmed, trying to wrench out of the rider’s steel grip, and then—

And then everything stopped. There was a sudden silence so complete that Remus could hear the breath catch in his captor’s throat. The captain rolled off of Rinda and froze. Beneath his faceplate his eyes were wide with disbelief and terror. Rinda cried out weakly, but that sound too vanished into the overwhelming silence that had swooped upon the glade.

Slowly, slowly, something had stepped from the shade of the trees and begun walking toward them. The way it walked, with both arms stretched out before it like a mindless zombie feeling its way along, spoke somehow of things more horrible than death. Its steps were unsteady; yet, as it approached, its gait became increasingly stable and determined.

“W-What may’t be?!” spoke a rider unconsciously, his voice trembling.

’”Tis a Rood demon!”

“A walking corpse!”

“A monster!”

A wave of fear rippled through the men. It was as if a nightmare had crept out of the darkest corner of their superstitious minds and was now stalking quietly through the gloom of the trees. It was coming for them.

“Janos! Mercy!” One of the weak of heart shouted a prayer and bolted toward his horse. The sudden movement broke the spell holding the riders. They tossed Remus aside and made a mad dash for their steeds.

“Hold! Who gave orders to mount? Who!” the captain shouted in wild frustration. He was nearly dumb with fear, and his hands shook, but he was their leader, and he had not forgotten his duty.

Rinda moved swiftly. As soon as the grip on her arm relaxed she pulled away and dashed toward her brother.

“Wait!” the captain called out. He took a step to follow her, momentarily forgetting the freakish horror in his chagrin at letting the girl go.

“You! Get them! The twins of Parros must not—”

His voice broke off in mid-order. The fiend’s outstretched hand had yanked him backward by the black plume atop his helmet. Its two giant hands then closed upon his throat. He yelped and twisted to draw the sword at his waist—but it was barely halfway out of its scabbard when the man’s neck broke with a wet popping sound. The leader’s head was now hanging backward at an unnatural angle in the powerful hands of the thing.

“Captain!” The riders stopped in their tracks. Though fear had nearly robbed them of their wits, these were trained soldiers, not a band of cowering children. Seeing their leader fall broke the spell of fear. They turned from their horses, drew their swords, and moved to surround the creature.

A strange, menacing sound, like the howl of an animal, came from the creature’s mouth. One of the riders leapt forward, his sword-blade slashing down. The creature lifted the captain’s body and blocked the swinging blade—and battle was joined. At once the wood was filled with cries and shouts and the clanging of blades and armor.

The twins of Parros had been completely forgotten. Indeed, the twins themselves had forgotten to escape and instead stood frozen with fear, watching the strange struggle unfold before them. Side by side, they held hands, their bodies trembling uncontrollably. Just days before, they had witnessed a battle on a much greater scale—the hellish pandemonium that had led to their exile in this backwater province. Then, too, they had stood watching, holding hands as they did now; but even the defense of Parros, bitterly fought against the Gohran invaders, could not compare to the bizarre conflict going on here, deep in the Roodwood.

“Rinda!” Remus whispered, bewitched by the scene before him, his entire body shaking, making jumbles of his words. “What is… What could it be, that thing?”

“H-How should I know?!” Rinda’s teeth chattered, and only with a great deal of effort was she able to croak out an answer at all. “I… I think it’s the Evil One, Doal, himself!”

“O gods, help us!” The words spilled unbidden from the boy’s lips. Before his eyes, the man-thing was dancing between the blades of ten seasoned swordsmen; it—he—moved with steps that seemed far too light for his great mass. And slowly, but surely, he was killing the men. The strange being’s only weapons were his preternatural strength and the captain’s body, which he swung in deadly arcs like a great armored bludgeon. Already, three of the riders had fallen, heads smashed by their own leader’s corpse. Two more had broken arms.

“It is Doal! He is—he has the strength of a god!” said Rinda. Remus looked at his sister in surprise. She was entranced, almost in rapture, watching the macabre dance.

“Why doesn’t he pick up one of their swords and use that instead of the captain? Why, Remus?” she exclaimed. Indeed, she seemed almost on the verge of running in to council him on his choice of weapons, when the creature spun the body around and threw it like a missile, knocking two of the riders flat. The remaining three looked around, and despaired.

One of the men, his ears ringing with the screams of his fellows and his feet sliding on the battle-slick ground, flew into a blind rage and hurled himself forward as best he could, sword raised toward his foe. The creature slipped past the blade and grabbed him, hugging him around the torso with arms as big as an average man’s thighs. The rider screamed like one caught in the embrace of a great snake. His screams did not stop until his spine broke, armor and all. Then almost casually the man-thing relaxed his grip.

“Two left!” breathed Rinda.

“Get behind him!” yelled one of the two remaining soldiers, motioning for the other to circle around through the trees. But the creature, choosing his steps carefully, turned around while fending off the swordsman before him, and quickly moved to put a large tree at his back. Cursing, the first swordsman swung his sword back and then, using a tactic favored in Gohra, abruptly threw it like a spear. At just the moment when it seemed that the wide blade would pierce through the creature’s bare arm, the man-thing spun aside and, in one smooth motion, knocked the sword from the air with the side of his hand, snatched it up from the ground, and charged.

It soon became obvious that the monster’s seeming reluctance to pick up one of the fallen swords earlier was not due to any lack of skill with such weapons. He wielded the heavy blade easily, as if he had been raised with a sword in his hand. The Gohran rider before him had just turned to flee when his head flew from his neck, trailing a red arc through the air. Spinning around, the creature caught the last soldier fleeing for the deeper woods and split him from the back of the head to his shoulders.

“He did it!” shouted Rinda.

Remus tugged on her hand. “It… he… he’s coming this way!”

Surely enough, the creature had turned where he stood among the trees. Still holding the blood-stained broadsword, he raised his unsettling gaze toward the twins. Aside from him, they were the only ones still standing and whole. Rinda had forgotten her fear and stood entranced, returning his gaze. Remus tugged again on her hand, but seeing the creature come closer yet, he bravely stepped forward and picked up a sword off the ground, and yelling brandished it.

“Rinda! Run!” But her brother’s voice hardly reached Rinda’s ears. Drawn by the creature’s incredible form, her eyes were fixed upon it; she could not tear them away. Her mind was under a siege of queries: What was this creature? Was he human, or something more? What was this man-thing that had ripped apart a squad of fierce Gohran riders, a full eleven men, in the blink of an eye—and with his bare hands!

Human or no, Rinda had no words to describe him. Surely, from his neck down he was human—though his physique was extraordinary. His was a body that would plunge even a champion of the great ring into embarrassment at his own inadequacy. Not only was it huge, but it was also perfectly trained, with muscles that held untold strength, suppleness, and agility. They were the creature’s only armor, covering chest, shoulders, and arms. His wide shoulders and mighty torso, tapering down to a rippling abdomen, were a sight to behold; but Rinda noticed deeper, older scars from untreated wounds beneath the light scratches and the blood (most of it not the monster’s own) from the fight just moments before, that marred an otherwise perfect form. Surely, he had fought countless times before, and against even greater numbers.

All this she could see because the creature wore nothing other than the hide wrapping that only just fit around his waist; even his feet were bare. Yet if she saw nothing else, she would have had to agree that this was a man.

It was what she saw from his neck up that forbade her.

Rinda’s eyes opened wide, and she absentmindedly chewed at her knuckles, transfixed by the figure that had wandered out of some nightmare and that now stood before her. For atop this man’s body was the head of a giant leopard. His mouth was turned up in a vicious snarl, revealing two enormous fangs, and his eyes were two fearsome blazes of burning yellow. And this leopard-headed man-beast, broadsword still hanging from his hand, was slowly walking toward the spot where Remus and Rinda stood motionless.

Just then, movement in the underbrush caught Rinda’s eye. Behind the leopard-man, one of the riders that had been flattened underneath the captain’s corpse had come to; gritting his teeth against the pain, he was now quietly cocking his arm behind him to throw his sword at the creature’s broad back.

“Look out! Behind you!“shouted Rinda. Why she would aid this creature that was very likely—no, almost certainly— coming toward them with the darkest designs of delivering them to the fate of the black riders that lay scattered on the ground, she could not have said.

But before she knew it, she had shouted a warning—and the leopard-man’s reaction was swift.

He spun around and knocked the blade from the air with a lightning-like parry, then closed the distance between himself and the rider with two great strides and drove his sword through his attacker’s neck. His movements were precise and merciless, as though the spilling of blood was something to which he had become accustomed long ago.

Ah, Remus and I are surely next. Janos protect us! Rinda covered her mouth with her hands. Remus shook, still gripping the sword— yet just holding the heavy blade seemed to have taxed the strength of his slender arms to their limit.

Almost leisurely, the creature turned back around to face them. His two eyes shone with a ghoulish light, marking the two children where they stood. Then, to the twins’ startlement, the broadsword dropped weakly from his hand. It seemed as though, all of a sudden, strength had left the leopard-man’s entire body. All that force, all that vitality—and now he rocked side to side, and finally fell to his knees on the forest floor.

“What… What’s wrong with him?” Remus’s voice quaked. Rinda noticed the bestial face, and the hand, reaching out toward them as though he were asking something of them. The mouth moved as though he were going to speak, but all that leaked out was an unearthly, flattened sort of growl.

“He… he’s asking for something. He wants us to do something,” said Rinda.

“Rinda, let’s go, now! The rider’s horses! We can—”

“Remus!” Rinda’s voice was half surprise, half outrage. “He’s just saved our lives! Can’t you see?”

“He? You mean to tell me that thing’s human? Rinda—”

“Look!” said Rinda. The leopard-man’s huge hands had gone to his throat. With his left hand, he grabbed his throat as though in pain, and he repeatedly scratched at his head with the right.

Rinda clapped her hands and shouted, “I understand!” as she rushed forward. Her brother dropped the heavy sword and tried to stop his sister, but she wouldn’t so much as look back. “He’s human, he’s just had a leopard mask put on him! Look, he wants us to help him take it off!”

“Rinda! I don’t think we should bother him—“said Remus, but his sister cut him off again.

“Well now! Have you lost your nerve as well as your sense of obligation?” Clearly, Rinda had made up her mind about what was going on. She strode forward without a bit of hesitation. “How can I help? What do you want me to do?”

She reached out a delicate hand to the leopard-man’s blood-covered head, trying to see underneath the mask. The young girl with her slender, boyish figure, worrying over the great hulk of the leopard-man, looked like a rabbit or a frail little bird poised before a lion.

Then the leopard-man spoke. Or rather, the low whine he had been making slowly took the shape of words. “Guin… Guin.”

Again and again, he spoke that word.

“What’s that? Is that something you want? How can I help you?” Rinda repeated patiently. But just then, the great leopard-man’s body lurched, and at last he fell on his side on the thick undergrowth of the forest. Rinda sprang aside as the great body slammed to the ground, but then, emboldened, came back and laid her hand on the man’s shoulder, which was still sticky with blood.

Then she gave a start of surprise.

“Dear me, Remus! This man is sick! He seems very weakened. Why, to see him a few moments ago, who would have known? Remus…? Remus! Go to the spring and find something to bring some water in, quickly! If we don’t do something now, I fear this man will die!”

“Um, Rinda, are you quite—” Remus began.

“If you stand there like a fool much longer, it’ll be nightfall!” With all the air of one who is accustomed to being obeyed, Rinda pointed her unwilling brother into the woods toward the spring. Reluctantly, the boy stood up. His sister was completely taken with the man-creature—that was clear. She shook the last few brambles out of her glimmering hair, and, with a determined expression on her face, she sat down once again by the side of this man with the head of a leopard.