He sighed heavily.
Pegasus slowly planted his forelegs into the water, lowered his muzzle towards the surface, drank long, and then turned his head and looked at Dandelion. The water dripped from his muzzle and nostrils. The poet nodded, sighed once more and sniffed loudly.
‘The hero gazed on the maelstrom,’ he quietly declaimed, trying not to let his teeth chatter. ‘He gazed on it and travelled on, for his heart knew not trepidation.’
Pegasus lowered his head and ears.
‘Knew not trepidation, I said.’
Pegasus shook his head, jingling the rings on his reins and bit. Dandelion dug a heel into his side. The gelding entered the water with pompous resignation.
The Ribbon was shallow but very overgrown. Before they had reached the centre of the current, Pegasus was dragging long plaits of waterweed. The horse walked slowly and with effort, trying to shake the annoying pondweed off with every step.
The rushes and alders of the far bank were close. So close that Dandelion felt his stomach sinking low, very low, right down to the saddle itself. He knew that in the centre of the river, entangled in the waterweed, he was an excellent target; a sitting duck. In his mind’s eye he could already see bows bending, bowstrings being pulled back and sharp arrowheads being aimed at him.
He squeezed the horse’s sides with his calves, but Pegasus was having none of it. Instead of picking up speed, he stopped and lifted his tail. Balls of dung splashed into the water. Dandelion gave a long groan.
‘The hero,’ he muttered, closing his eyes, ‘was unable to cross the raging rapids. He fell in action, pierced by many missiles. He was hidden for ages long in the azure depths, rocked by jade-green algae. All traces of him vanished. Only horse shit remained, borne by the current to the distant sea . . .’
Pegasus, clearly relieved, headed jauntily towards the bank without any encouragement, and when he reached the bank, and was finally free of waterweed, even took the liberty of breaking into a canter, utterly soaking Dandelion’s trousers and boots. The poet didn’t notice it, though, since the vision of arrows aimed at his belly hadn’t left him for a moment, and dread crept down his neck and back like a huge, cold, slimy leech. For beyond the alders, less than a hundred paces away, beyond the vivid green band of riverside grass, rose up a vertical, black, menacing wall of trees.
It was Brokilon.
On the bank, a few steps downstream, lay the white skeleton of a horse. Nettles and bulrushes had grown through its ribcage. Some other – smaller – bones, which didn’t come from a horse, were also lying there. Dandelion shuddered and looked away.
Squelching and splashing, the gelding, urged on by Dandelion, hauled himself out of the riverside swamp, the mud smelling unpleasantly. The frogs stopped croaking for a moment. It all went very quiet. Dandelion closed his eyes. He stopped declaiming and improvising. His inspiration and daring had evaporated. Only cold, revolting fear remained; an intense sensation, but one utterly bereft of creative impulses.
Pegasus perked up his floppy ears and dispassionately shambled towards the Forest of the Dryads. Called by many the Forest of Death.
I’ve crossed the border, thought the poet. Now it will all be settled. While I was by the river and in the water, they could be magnanimous. But not now. Now I’m an intruder. Just like that one . . . I might end up a skeleton, too; a warning for people to heed . . . If there are dryads here at all. If they’re watching me . . .
He recalled watching shooting tournaments, competitions and archery displays at country markets. Straw targets and mannequins, studded or torn apart by arrowheads. What does a man feel when he’s hit by an arrow? The impact? Pain? Or perhaps . . . nothing?
There were either no dryads nearby, or they hadn’t made up their minds what to do with this lone rider, because the poet rode up to the forest petrified with fear but in one piece. Entry to the trees was barred by a dense tangle of scrub and fallen trunks, bristling with roots and branches, but in any case Dandelion didn’t have the slightest intention of riding up to the very edge, much less of heading deeper into the forest. He was capable of making himself take risks – but not of committing suicide.
He dismounted very slowly and fastened the reins to a protruding root. He didn’t usually do that; Pegasus wasn’t inclined to wander away from his master. Dandelion was not certain, however, how the horse would react to the whistle and whir of arrows. Up until now he had tried not to expose either Pegasus or himself to sounds of that kind.
He removed a lute from the saddle’s pommel. It was a unique, magnificent instrument with a slender neck. This was a present from a she-elf, he recalled, stroking the inlaid wood. It might end up returning to the Elder Folk . . . Unless the dryads leave it by my dead body . . .