Prologue

'No,' Martyn said. 'It is a man. The antlers are part of a headdress.'

Ehawk, trying to control his growing terror, saw that Martyn was right. But that didn't mean anything. Etthoroam was a sorcerer. He could take any form.

'You're certain?' Sir Oneu asked Martyn, perhaps sharing Ehawk's doubts.

'He has the smell of a man,' Martyn said.

'They're everywhere,' Gavrel muttered, jerking his head from side to side, peering at the forest. The other three monks, Ehawk noticed, had strung their bows and formed a loose perimeter around the group.

Martyn brought his mount alongside Ehawk's. 'Keep near me,' he said, voice very low.

'Ehawk, m' lad,' Sir Oneu said. 'Could those be the villagers?'

Ehawk studied the faces of those who stood with the antlered man. Their eyes were very strange, unfocused, as if they were drunk or entranced. Their hair was matted and tangled.

'I reckon they might be,' he answered. 'It's hard to say, them lookin' like that.'

Sir Oneu nodded and drew to a halt ten yards from the strangers. It was suddenly so still, Ehawk could hear the breeze in the highest branches.

'I am Sir Oneu de Loingvele,' the knight called in a clear, carrying voice, 'a peer of the church on a holy mission. Whom do I have the honor of addressing?'

The stag-horned figure grinned and raised his fists so they could see the snakes he held writhing in them.

'Look at their eyes,' Gavrel said, drawing his sword. He sounded grim. 'They are mad.'

'Hold your hand,' Sir Oneu said. He rested his palm on his pommel and leaned forward. 'That's a clever reply,' the knight said loudly. 'Most would give a name or speak some vapid greeting. You, with your deer-horn cap, you're too clever for that. Instead, you shake snakes at me. Very cunning, I must say. A most excellent reply. I await your next witticism with utmost eagerness.'

io

The antlered man merely blinked, as if Sir Oneu's words were so many raindrops.

'You're quite senseless, aren't you?' Sir Oneu asked. This time the horned man crooked his head back, so his mouth opened to the sky, and he howled.

Three bows hummed together. Ehawk jerked around at the sound and saw that three of the monks were firing into the forest. The naked and half-naked figures that had been drifting through the trees were suddenly charging. Ehawk watched as one of them fell, an arrow in her neck. She was pretty, or had been. Now she spasmed on the ground like a wounded deer.

'Flank me, Brother Gavrel,' Sir Oneu said. He dropped his lance level to the party on the trail. Like their brethren in the woods, they were unarmed, and the sight of a fully armored knight ought to have shaken them, but instead, one of the women sprang forward and ran upon the spear. It hit her with such force that the spearhead broke through her back, but she clawed at the shaft as if she might drag herself up its length to the knight who had killed her.

Sir Oneu cursed and drew his broadsword. He hacked down the first man leaping for him, and the next, but more and more of the madmen came pouring from the woods. The three monks kept firing at a rate Ehawk deemed impossible, yet already most of their shafts were hitting almost point-blank, and the sides of the trail were quickly

heaped with dead.

Martyn, Gavrel, and Sir Oneu drew swords, now trading places with the archers, forming a circle around them to give them space to fire. Ehawk was crowded into the center of the ring. Belatedly, he took out his own bow and put an arrow to it, but with all the jostling chaos, it was hard to find a shot.

They had more attackers than Ehawk could count, but those were all unarmed.

Then that changed, suddenly, as someone seemed to remember how to throw a stone.

The first rock belled from Sir Oneu's helm and did no damage, but soon there came a hail of them. Meanwhile, the enemy had begun a kind of wordless chant or keening. It rose and fell like the call of the whippoorwill.