'But that is getting away from the story. These Brothers sought to convert the whole world in their arrogance. Their numbers grew and grew, and men began to flock to their service. Soon it was that villages which hesitated to convert, or who desired to cling to their Myrcan warders, were overcome by force, and the soldiers of the Brothers of the Wood were named the Knights Militant.
'Even the Forest-Folk, who loathe and despise the Brothers for their holy poisoning of the wood, even we have known good men amongst them, men who preached harmony and who wished to live in peace with everyone, the Forest-Folk included. There were more of these in the beginning. But as time has gone on tolerance has declined on both sides. First it was the Wyrim who were decried from the pulpits, and now it is the tribes. There is a war of sorts in the Wildwood.
'Again, I draw away from my story. Forgive me. The Wyrim are ever a prolix folk when they get going. A tale to them is as good as drink, worthy of savouring. It is a thing to be embroidered and delved into. It is a thing to be mined and smelted and reforged with every telling.
'Well such, as I have said, was the arrogance of these Brothers and their armoured henchmen that they decided they would spread their good news to every glade in the forest, and this, they thought, should include the forbidden places to the south where the beasts roamed undisturbed. This part of the wood was less perilous in those days, and humans hunted and farmed within it in communities so small as to be hardly worth noticing. Some even ventured as far south as the Wolfweald itself—and never returned. It was not known what manner of place the wood was in those days. There were only the tales to go by, the myths of the Wyrim and the stories of those men who had become of the tribes. And yet the people preserved stories of their passage through it on their way north from the mountains. It was a terrible place, they said. No man survived there. Why, they could not say.
'The Brothers did not come across the mountains, Farsider.
They came from your world, or one like it; they came from a door in the north and so never knew the terror and the hardship of the passage of the southern woods. Their crosses would keep any beast at bay, they said, and they would rid the villagers of this superstition of theirs concerning the Wolfweald. They would bring it under the wing of their church.
'And so an expedition was arranged and a Brother called Bishop, who was very high in their authority, led a company south into the forbidden forests there.
'Five and twenty Brothers went, and with them half a hundred of the Knights and more than twice as many followers. They had mules and horses to carry their baggage and they drove flocks of sheep and a herd of cattle with them, for they had a mind to build a holy settlement of sorts, part church, part fortress. It is rumoured they also carried with them a piece of their God's flesh as a talisman, but I doubt if even the Brothers could be so barbarous.
'So off they started one morning in the spring, singing as they went, and into the woods they disappeared, two hundred souls. They were never seen again.
'Over the years the rumours came to the people in the villages. They had built themselves a fortress and were beleaguered there. They had turned back to savagery the same as the tribes had. They had died at the hands of the Wyrim, or the goblins. The Brothers' magic had failed them in the deep woods. They had gone on south and had crossed the mountains to the land beyond. The Horseman had taken them to his castle.
'Another expedition was rigged out two years after the first. Only three Brothers went with it, three young men, one of whom had once been a Myrcan: Phelim, Finn and Dermott. Forty Knights accompanied the trio. The forest swallowed them also.'
The fire cracked and spat before them, a bright blaze against the encroaching dark. Dwarmo stood immobile, but his head was cocked as he, too, listened to Mirkady's tale.
'That was the end of the expeditions to the south. From then on it was a land for no man to venture into. Gradually men left the woods bordering on the Wolfweald—these woods around us. There were tales of black shapes in the trees, vampires that stole children and drained cattle of blood. Ghouls that preyed on human flesh.'
'Goblins,' Michael said.
'Grymyrch. Yes. They were more furtive in those days. They have grown in confidence since, and in numbers. It is the Horseman has seen to that. It is said that the ghosts of the lost expeditions still wander the trees, their souls kept in the Horseman's castle.'
'What happened to them?' Michel asked, sure that the Wyran knew.
Mirkady smiled unpleasantly. 'Why do you think I have that knowledge about me?'
'You people seem to know everything:
'Oh, we do,' the other replied airily. 'It is just that we do not choose to disclose it to everyone.'
'What happened?' Michael repeated.