Their camps at night became at once hugely desirable and achingly uncomfortable. They were tired enough to sleep where they fell at the end of the short daylight, but had the horses to see to, a fire to coax out of sodden wood, the worst of the sludge to sluice off. The trunks of the trees ran with moisture, bringing out the mites that infested the bark—blind, white, burrowing things with painful bites. The travellers lay with the wet soaking through the furs— furs which were themselves hard with caked dirt and reeking of mould—and focused their eyes on their guttering campfire before dropping off. Watches were kept, each of them waking and watching for several hours every night. Michael had a suspicion that Nennian slept through most of his, though he was so in need of sleep himself that he was never able to remain awake and test the theory.
They spoke little, eating their food silently in the evenings, Cat dining on toadstools which clustered at the foot of the trees in scarlet profusion. They looked deadly, but she consumed them with something near relish and drank the reeking water of the stagnant ponds without coming to any harm. It was as if she were made to exist in such a place, or it was made for her.
'Damned if I know why they call it the Wolfweald,' Michael said. 'The place has fewer wolves, fewer of anything, than anywhere else I've ever been in this place. There's nothing here. Nothing.'
'There are the trees,' Cat told him, her eyes ashine in the gloom.
They were sitting in the dark, the tinder having defeated their attempts at lighting it. The horses were shifting and blowing through their noses a few yards away and further still they could hear Brother Nennian murmuring his devotions. There was a faint rush and hiss of wind in the treetops, but no other sound in the forest.
Michael wondered if the first expedition had come so far. He doubted it. There was hardly any forage for horses here, let alone cattle. There was nothing a sane man could do in such a place, except cut down the trees to let some light in. Michael was beginning to hate the trees, but he kept that to himself because he could see the awe and reverence with which Cat regarded them.
The Wyr-fire was there, inside them both. Michael had a feeling he could live on toadstools and stagnant water as easily as Cat, if he only surrendered to the wood; but he preferred to eke out the last of Nennian's supplies and keep his mind his own.
The priest finished his prayers and rejoined them. He was shivering as he sat, though his face was impassive, calm. Not once had he seemed at a loss for the right path in their travelling, even in the thickest of the swamp or the blackest part of the wood. It was as if he had some kind of internal compass, its needle pointing infallibly at their goal. Michael was getting to the point where he did not care whether they reached it or not, as long as they returned to clean beds and decent food again.
'How much farther?' he asked Nennian, as he had been asking often these past few days. The sanctuary was almost two weeks behind them and there was no sign of the wood changing.
The Brother's expression was hard to read in the dim light, but Michael could hear the uncertainty in his voice.
'Farther than I had thought. It took me a week of travelling to come within sight of it the last time I tried. We are on the right path. I cannot be mistaken about that. I can feel the power of the place like some black sun beating on my face. But it seems to be retreating, or the forest is growing larger even as we traverse it ... I don't know.'
He sounded weary and baffled, his ready smile in ashes. Cat snorted in disgust.
'Is this some will-o'-the-wisp in a brown habit we are following, or is he just leading us on a grand tour of the Wolfweald?'
'Cat,' Michael said warningly, but he was too cast down by Nennian's uncertainty to argue. All this time he had been telling himself that it was not far, that they were nearly there. Now they could be a thousand miles away. He could have howled with frustration and despair.
'We were better on our own. We made better time, and the forest hardly minded us. Now that he is here it is watching us, our every step. Can you not feel it?'
Michael thought he could. It was a silent regard, an eyeless stare that made him hunch his shoulder blades as though expecting a blow between them. There was something in the air of the Wolfweald that made it heavy to draw into the lungs, like the opposite of high altitudes. Thick air, leaden with dislike, dripping with power.
'I feel nothing, 'Nennian said. 'I have lived in this place for a dozen years and I have never felt such a thing. The Wolfweald knows me, and I know it.'
'You are a fool,' Cat said contemptuously, and Michael thought he saw the priest's face tighten with anger.
'Stop it,' he said, angry himself at their bickering. 'How much longer will your supplies last?' This to Nennian, who was a tense crouched shape, the habit making him look like a moss-covered boulder.