He had no mind to allow that idleness should lessen their cheer, but instead marched straightaway forth from that fame-heavy theater and set his steps whither the eager animals guided them, which was east of south. Neither did he forbid any to follow him, and so a crowd did, young men with little to do that day, Zacariah the playwright who yet doubted whether his play was not the model, and all the knights save one.
For Sir Poemen saw this that made him tarry, which was that the raving captain who once made those knights his prisoners and slew the king by his sorcery had not ceased his groans and his stirring when the play was done, but rather writhed about all the more in his seat. Sweat spread over his wrinkled forehead and over his limbs that were scarred all along them and showed much of age, though still there was strength in them. His fingers curled around some hilt not there and his knees bent for the fight. But for all that, his eyes opened no width whatsoever.
Sir Poemen looked on that and wondered much that the man had such liveliness though nothing of food or drink had he taken during all the days since Cuculna fell along with its lord. “Do you strive against your foe, unaware of his doom? He is dead. Rejoice in that, as all else do. Do you search for some foe other? Leave off, for you have no vigor for it.”
So spoke that well-meaning knight, but the man did not hear him. He instead struggled all the more though nothing caused him distress that could be seen, not unlike when a musician who wins prizes in every city for his skill has a new song upon him, not yet formed. He lacks care for where he is or whether any hear his mutterings or understand them, but rather bends his mind toward finishing his latest work, and no man, even he, knows what will be the outcome of it. Even so did the eerie man seem.
Seeing that, Sir Poemen doubted the worth of staying there. “This journey will be the worse should you struggle overmuch,” he told that sorcerer before he lifted the man over his shoulder used to weight since his squiredom and left the theater in pursuit of Sir Reiner.
Nor was it hard to overtake him then, though men had failed at that often enough in the race. For the chickens, snakes, and lizards moved not at the speed of men, but slower overall, and faster at times when logs barred the straightest path to the tall and two-footed. Neither was the goal of that travel nearer the city than guards were able to see from the walls or any farmer from the fields about, else the Ambiripalians had found long ago whatever treasure there was, were it of any sort that men esteem and covet. The coursing of the sun along the road of breezes and gales warned many from the city they must go back if they were wise, to sleep before the next day's tasks. But the knights had no such duties, nor did Zacariah nor a few men more who owed their labor to no master but themselves.
The path the animals used was no path at all, but some way known only to them. It crossed lands unloved by men with a will to grow what is good. Narrow stretches of ground rose slowly between drops and rises steeper by far, and there were uneven fields where a height and a pit were three steps each from the other. Streams that changed their courses since had laid up rocks and pebbles that remained there to trouble unwary feet. Logs and great stones half-hidden in the mild earth as well bothered travelers that lacked wings to fly over them or four legs and a steady tail.
The sun was so near the end of its path that the knights had begun to speak on this matter, whether a camp was wanted and how their uncommon guides would take it should they make one. Sir Reiner then saw that which sent his mind another way, a boulder, chest-high, more even in its roundness than is seen without the hand of some craftsmen with tools for it, though the outside of it was rough enough otherwise. Around the thing the ground was bare of such grass, shrubs, and moss as there were elsewhere with no seeming cause for it unless by the effort of some people or beasts who desired to set apart from the rest that one rock, a sign of honor.
The chickens, snakes, and lizards made a ring about the boulder, and Sir Reiner needed nothing more than that. He put his hand on the stone near the top where it was narrower and shoved. The result of that was less than he judged it would be, for the mass was unmoved by his might. He bent down instead and heaved from the bottom where he found space for his hands, but for all his striving failed to lift it.
The knights and the few men from the city and town surrounded the rock, willing to allow Sir Reiner to try first whatever he judged likely of result. No less willing was he to try everything, since that a single stone should withstand his siege when no castle had was not something he was able to bear. With his knife he opened space under the boulder enough to slide a spear beneath, angled, so that by pulling it lever-like he raised the boulder by a hand.
He then worked the rock to the left and to the right, away from its seat, till he had view of a hole dug deeper beneath the dip caused by the boulder's passing great weight. Sir Reiner reached in and pulled out these things, which were mail, a helm and a cap, a sword-guarding scabbard and the blade within, greaves as well, boots, gloves, and much else of what a warlike man likes to have when there is need of daring. As for how well they had been crafted and made, none there had ever seen better, not even in Boncot or forge-thick Reedchester. Moreover the sword when Sir Reiner drew it seemed passing wondrous to him in its lightness and the balance of it, as though his hand had been formed by nature to hold that hilt.
“What honor it will be for me when I give these arms to King Percy in shore-crowning Boncot! But there must be some purpose for them here before that,” the mindful knight said, and he looked to the animals that guided him there to learn if they knew more that ought to be done.
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But another man spoke who had much to say. “The arms of Sir Ensio! Ah, this must be his grave that never we found, though we looked. Yes, we looked, but were no longer worthy of finding it.” It was the charge of Sir Poemen, that master of the strange galley that had brought them thither uncannily swift across the waving sea. He stepped amid them with no care that the knights gripped their weapons when they saw him standing unaided. They did no more than that though, for his bearing looked to be that of a man who has speech as his desire rather than war.
“I am revived again as to my vigor which had almost left me, all with the youth those arms recall to me. With this I may tell you more of my enemy and the country here as I wished to do earlier, deeming that the sole payment I am able to make you myself. Though if you hope ever to make yourselves lords with revenues, this is the kingdom for it. It is a shame to me and to Sir Viljami that it is so, but it is more of a shame to overlook the outcome of one's own deeds, like a servant who slinks from the room, leaving another to sweep up the shards of his master's bowl that he broke while he goes on in his tasks as though he had not showed his lack of deftness in them already.
“First, to name myself, I am Kauko of Calnen, a town far north in a land where there is no knight who has not the blood of some witch in him and knows something of strange arts. Warlike men, aside from that, are as elsewhere, wanting nothing more than renown and chances to show their daring, which cannot always be had where they are. I went on a journey. Travelers meet travelers, that is the way of things now, and not otherwise was it then. Sir Ensio of Ridas and Sir Viljami of Carlna were the men that I met, both bold and willing to do any deed so long as some beast or man of might was against it.
“We three searched, yes, we looked about for feats we might do. A few of them we found, but not enough for our greedy youth. We rode and we sailed, and we heard a story that was of the sort we long hoped to hear. Far to the south, not far however from here, a beast deadlier than any and viler too was seen, or the results of its passing, which were sorrowful enough to look upon. A common knight with common arms was no enemy to go against it, but we trusted in our uncommon skills and in what you have, which is the brand of Sir Ensio and all he wore. Those were forged, it is said, by means known not elsewhere or to any else than the sagely smith who wrought them. If I told you his name that you might seek him out and beg him the least work of his forge, I would be doing more for you than any open-handed host, or any giver of rings and crowns, but I never learned it.
“We tracked the beast and had battle against it. The fiend was full of poison and its mail-rending claws were long, as was the fight. We did it hurt regardless, Sir Ensio most of all, whose scale-splitting blade was wielded by a practiced hand. But the foe was not the sort that stands its ground, not a brave lord of the fields and forests, but rather had a mind for fleeing when that seemed wise and making attacks when the chance was there. We were not unhurt ourselves!” There Kauko pulled back his sleeves to show the scars his bravery had earned for his limbs.
“Who among us was first to succumb to the beast's awful might? Sir Ensio, who stumbled and fell into the Semos River, and never did I see him again, nor will I, for our dooms are doubtless not shared. Sir Viljami and I carried on the struggle, less boldly and worse armed, but ably enough. We tested the vigor of the unclean beast and found it greater than what we judged any living thing might have, but for all that we wore it down and weakened it.
“Even then, though we brought the beast to ground and chained its limbs that lacked the strength to resist us, we had no means to end its life. Or I did not, and Sir Viljami said he had none as well. Was it the fatigue of that long and fierce fight that undid my wit so that I trusted the word of a man not worthy of it, or did he then speak and think what was just, only later turning to the wrong? Let the answer be the first for my pride, all that is left to me! It is little enough. Sir Viljami claimed the skill to keep the thing bound, and we both agreed he ought to practice it. I, for my part, searched for Sir Ensio, in vain.
“Sir Viljami studied the poison-filled beast to learn a way to kill the thing, he said, but when next we talked, after I denied my failure no longer, his aim had changed. The beast he now esteemed something of use in his sorcery, an aid to gaining such sway as never a man might win with a spear and shield alone. I judged his plan unwise and went against him, first in the argument, second in the contest where two men dare to give commands to each other and learn for the first time who is the stronger in his will and which will balk, and third in the manner of warlike men. We struck with our weapons and worked unearthly arts, and to my woe it was no boast but only the truth what he said, that the beast's humors strengthened his sorcery. He bested me, gave wounds that still ache, and sent me away from what already he called his kingdom, laughing at how it had gone and my weakness. He thought me feeble both in my might and the height of my daring, wishing only to slay a beast or knight and not to rule.
“It was to repay him that loss and rob the beast of its life, that fiend which slew men and animals alike before it did worse, unwilling, in making Viljami stronger, that I traveled far and learned all such arts as might be of avail against him, whether they were right or wrong for men to know. I fashioned a galley with my art and what followed from that you know. It was the ruin of Cuculna, which he built not over the beast, for there was too much of risk to have it within his walls should it rouse itself, but near it. I think his hold on it waned, and for that he stayed more in Cuculna, no longer able to enjoy his kingdom for fear of losing it. But now that vile beast, freed from Sir Viljami and his sorcery, doubtless regains its vigor, a curse on all this country, an unbearable thing.”
Sir Reiner, that dutiful knight, said, “I had aided you of my own will, had I known all that. But never had I believed your words to be true without seeing what I have. And so I will pass over it. Today I will call you a friend if you tell me more of this beast, where it is most of all, that I may wield this sword as it ought to be wielded. I owe that duty to these animals who entrusted me it, and furthermore, we began this by going against Viljami the king here so that to leave the beast for local men were unjust of me. As to that fearsome killer of men and animals, I know that three knights overcame it who had no reason for what they did but their love of fame. I see knights about me who do not hate fame, but moreover hope to add to the honor of their lords and cities as well. I foresee no trouble for a band such as ours, unless it is that we die in the trying, which is the debt of knightliness.”