Remo closed his eyes as he landed, grateful that Chiun wasn't around to see him fighting like a barroom brawler with a half-blind lunatic. And losing.
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"This is it," Remo said, stumbling to his feet. "I'm beginning to lose patience with you."
"Arggh," Emrys gurgled, staggering forward, his fists weaving in front of him. Remo stepped out of the way. Emrys tripped on a rock and fell face down with a thud.
"You're the one who wanted to fight," Remo said, trying to focus.
"So I do." The Welshman charged.
Remo charged.
And they both fell down.
"What was that?" Remo said, cranking himself upward into a sitting position.
Emrys brushed some dust off his bare chest. "I na ken it. Summat struck me fierce upon the head. And just when I was about to finish you off, too."
"Finish me off?" Remo objected. "That's a-wait a second." He crawled a few feet and retrieved a long slender pole tipped by an iron arrow wound around the stick by a strip of leather. "It's a spear. I think."
Emrys searched himself for wounds. "Am I hit?"
"No. Neither am I. But it knocked both of us off our feet."
"Oh, na," Emrys moaned, his voice quavering. "We done something wrong."
"Like what?" Remo said irritably. "What are you talking about?"
Emrys pointed. "A great white form yonder. 'Tis the gods, come to seek vengeance."
Remo looked in the direction where Emrys was pointing. Through the foliage of the forest, he could make out the shape of a white horse.
"I should have listened to Griffith," Emrys said, his voice filled with doom and wonder. "He talks to the wood spirits. I never believed they was for true, but the boy knew. Now it's too late."
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"It's only a horse, for crying out loud: Get yourself a pair of glasses."
"A horse that throws spears?"
Remo fingered the iron-tipped pole uncertainly "Somebody's standing behind the horse."
"You great Chinee lummox. You're blinder'n I am."
The horse galloped into the clearing, then slowed to a halt some fifty yards from the two men. The rider was a woman. She dismounted, the flowing robes she wore billowing gracefully. When she was on her feet, she gave the animal a sharp slap on the rump and sent him galloping into the wood. Then she walked forward purposefully toward the two men.
Remo looked, shook his head, looked again. "It can't be," he said slowly.
"Oh, gar," Emrys lamented.
She was the same woman Remo had spent the night with in London, but radically different. She was dressed in a loose gown of sea green, fastened at her shoulders by two large gold medallions. In her belt were a small ax and a knife. Her golden hair hung to below her waist and moved like water with each step she took. As she drew nearer, the sun caught the thin gold circlet around her forehead, making her look like a barbarian princess. Her eyes, green and gray and blue, regarded him somberly. She did not speak.
"It's you," Remo said.
She picked up the spear. Without a word, she hurled it into the forest and followed it.
"Is she real?" Emrys whispered, afraid to turn his head.
"Yeah," Remo said, then thought better of it. "Maybe."
She returned with the still warm carcass of a rabbit, a red wound where its eye had been. Silently she offered it to Emrys.
The Welshman accepted it, swallowing hard. "Well, I
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suppose we could all do with a little dinner," he same lamely. He cleared his throat.
She turned to Remo, her head held high.
"Sam." He said it so softly it was almost a sigh.
"I am Jilda of Lakluun," the woman said. "Here for the Master's Trial." Then, slowly, the strange eyes twinkling, she inclined her head to Remo in a formal bow.
Chapter Sixteen
"I prayed," Griffith said, staring into the hearth. The cottage was filled with the warm, smoky aroma of the rabbit cooking over the open fire.
Roasting meat was not one of Remo's favorite smells, but he'd learned through the years to hold his tongue in a world full of carnivores. He stayed neaf the window and tried to breathe shallowly.
"I asked Mryddin and all the ancient gods and the spirits to bring you both back safe, and they did. The Lady of the Lake herself brought you home. And a good fat hare, too."
"Uh," Remo said, feeling nauseated. He leaned out the window. Outside, Jilda was stalking the forest, spear in hand. "The High Executioner of the animal kingdom, you mean."
Griffith gasped. "Remo, take it back, quick. What you said was a sacrilege."
"Don't be bossing our guest, boy," Emrys said. To Remo's dismay, he was nailing the rabbit skin up to dry on the cottage wall. "Jilda's no spirit. She's a friend of Remo's."
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"But she is! 'Tis the Lady of the Lake."
"Griffith!"