Forbidden Forest by Michael Cadnum Page A

strides across the bridge, the stature of his opponent, and felt his mouth go dry. This far from the humblest cottage, no rule of fair combat could be enforced, no witness would protest. A flick of the skinning knife, a quick bend of the longbow the stranger was setting down so carefully on the bank of the brook, and John’s life would be lost.
    â€œAnd tough,” added the woodsman, giving his staff a swing. It hummed through the air, a blow that would have killed, thought John, if it had connected with a skull. “Although too green.”
    John felt all speech evaporate. Why couldn’t he have remained with haymakers and learned a simple trade, like carting or herding sheep? He took a stand, midway on the bridge.
    â€œNow,” said the stranger with a smile, “we can play.”
    John knew what was going to happen, but something in him locked his limbs into place as the man in green crossed the bridge at a leisurely pace. He struck John’s staff so hard that the bones of John’s arms rang.
    John feinted, and followed with another false lunge. The man smiled at this, and made an exaggerated feint of his own. John warded off another sharp blow. And then he forced the stranger back, all the way across the bridge, with the cross-body flourish his father had taught him, explaining that even a tanner had to know how to drive away robbers. Bish-bash-bosh , it was called, this heavy attack, and John ended the maneuver with a blow to his opponent’s head.
    The stranger was down, but sprang up again at once, blood starting from under his cap. He drove the butt of his freshly cut staff into John’s belly, and the counterattack that followed locked the two, face to face, staff against staff, in the middle of the bridge. John was off-balance as the woodsman stepped back only to strike John again, from above, from below, the wood ringing sharply, echoing from the surrounding oaks.
    One blow caught John on the knuckles, weakening his grip. Another drove the air from his body. The stranger’s staff dodged and parried. John felt the strength leave his shoulders just as the color left his vision, and all memory of being in any other place fled his soul.
    John nearly toppled, but kept his balance. And at that moment, sure that the power of his arms was spent, he struck the woodsman a blow that rang loudly over the chuckling of the water, resounding from the shadows of the woods. The man wheeled, spun his arms, danced for a moment on one leg.
    And fell hard, into the brook.
    John leaned on his quarterstaff. He felt that he would never, as long as he lived, catch his breath again.
    The stranger was laughing. John gaped in disbelief as the vanquished man in green smiled up at him.
    â€œWhere are you now?” asked John rhetorically, hoping to gauge his opponent’s determination. If there was going to be more fighting on this day, John would have to consider his tactics.
    â€œI am in the flood,” said the stranger, “floating along with the tide.”
    He drifted on his back, beaming up at John. This was not self-mockery, not an ironic, bitter jeer at his own defeat. It was not a laugh that threatened worse violence to come. It was lively, careless pleasure in what had just passed, as though the brook, and the bush he seized to pull himself onto the bank, were all, indeed, part of a game.
    John kept his staff before him, ready to parry or to strike.
    Dripping water on the ground, the man in green unfastened the horn from his belt. He made a point of letting water drain from it. Then he put the horn to his lips and it gave one airy sparrow chirp. He laughed. The second note was fine, a long, sky-reaching sound that echoed from across the brook and from the vaults of the woods.
    And then the echoes were not echoes at all, but the actual far-off notes of other horns, answering calls.
    John sighed, and in his sweaty weariness knew that when the other outlaws closed in on this bridge they