For a full month Gawain rode slowly and deliberately, occasionally stopping at a hamlet or farmhouse, seeing far more cows than people on the Jurian plains. Only when the boiling green forest began to bubble up on the horizon, marking the southern tip of Elvendere, did people and homes begin to proliferate.
When he came upon what was clearly a well-used track, Gawain followed it, and was surprised to find it led to a fortified town. A great palisade wall, formed from whole trunks of trees, surrounded the town, and even from a distance it was an impressive sight.
But on drawing closer, Gawain's military eye spotted the flaws in the security, noted the lack of guards on the walls and gates, the dilapidated air about the place, and wondered why it had been built in the first place.
They were still a day or two's ride from Elvendere, and though elves might protect their land as vigorously as the Raheen or any other kingdom, they were generally considered a peace-loving and noble people, not given to war and certainly unlikely to attack a Jurian outpost.
When Gawain rode through the wide open gates of the town wall, he still found no obvious answer for the fortifications. The town was much like any other, although the buildings were all of wood and none of stone. There was a market square, inns and shops and dwellings, people going about their business just as they did in any of the downland kingdoms.
He spotted a guard lounging on a bench close to what looked like an official building, and so he dismounted and wandered over to the lacklustre figure.
"Good day, Serre," Gawain called.
The guard looked up, and shrugged, clearly bored. "Good day."
"What town is this? I am a traveller, recently out of Callodon, and know not this place."
The guard snorted. "This is Ferdan. You're in Ferdan, fortress town, barracks to the Royal Jurian Foresters of his majesty's army."
"Royal Jurian Foresters?"
"Aye. Hard to believe isn't it, friend traveller recently out of Callodon? Seeing as how most of Juria is flat open plains. But west lies the border with the Gorian empire, which is marked by forestland. And we, the Royal Jurian Foresters, are charged with keeping that part of the border safe. Our glorious mounted cavalry take care of the rest of the border, where there are no trees. Answer your question?"
"After a fashion, Serre, yes it does. I thought the forest in the distance was Elvendere."
"Bits of it is."
"Bits of it?"
"Follow the track that runs past the gates you just came in. It'll take you to the forest. The road then swings due west, straight towards the empire. All the bits of forest south of the road are Jurian territory. All the bits to the north are Elvendere territory."
"I've heard the elves guard their lands jealously."
The guard slouched, and yawned, and shrugged. "Wouldn't know about that. Never seen one."
"You're a Royal Jurian Forester, and never seen an elf?"
"No, I'm a Royal Jurian Forester who's spent the last two years guarding these offices and answering every simpleton's question that comes through that gate. Anything else I can do for you, traveller recently out of Callodon, or may I return to my duty?"
Gawain stared at the indolent man, thought twice about saying anything further, and simply turned away. In the market, he bought some dried beef and bread, and then headed out through the gates without wasting a moment more in the lacklustre town of Ferdan.
Instead he turned north along the track, and deciding that Gwyn needed to stretch her legs after weeks of slow wandering, he settled into the stirrups and allowed her to gallop away from the apathetic town.
By nightfall, he'd reached the point in the track where it swung sharply west, and still hadn't seen anyone. No sign of Jurian Foresters, no patrols, no travellers. He paused a moment, and as moonlight began bathing the forest in a shimmering silver light, he dismounted and set up camp some three hundred paces from the tree line. Elven bowmen were good, but three hundred paces would test even their famed bows.
Gawain made no fire though. He simply removed the saddle from Gwyn's back, spent the best part of an hour tending her after her hard run, and then settled onto his blankets, cloak drawn around his shoulders, to eat his frugal evening meal.
It would be a chilly night, he knew. The moon was full and bright, the stars sparkling and twinkling, not a cloud in the sky. Autumnal leaves were already blowing in the breezes and it wouldn't be long before winter's breath left its silver traces on the leaves and grasses before morning sunshine melted it away.
Gwyn seemed more alert than usual, though she gave no alarm of imminent danger or approach. Gawain watched her, moonlight sparkling in her blue eyes and shimmering off her blonde mane and tail. Something in the air, perhaps, reminding her of home? There were forests in Raheen too, and many a night spent under the stars like this.
Too many. Gawain remembered how he'd wasted the two weeks after his birthday, camping out in the forests, galloping around during the day, testing his hunting and tracking skills. The guard at Ferdan had irritated him. In Raheen, foresters were proud and noble warriors, intimately in tune with life in the woodlands, able to move through the trees without sound.
They could track anything, hunt any prey, animal or human. If a detachment of Raheen Foresters were assigned to guard this border, all Juria could sleep safe in their beds knowing that no-one, not even a Gorian praetorian, could slip through unseen and unchallenged.
Gawain sighed, and drew a small brown bottle from his pack. One thing the Jurians could do, apart from farm and raise beef, was make brandy. He popped off the cork, and took a small swallow from the bottle, holding the burning liquid in his mouth while he put the stopper back in and packed it away again. Then he swallowed, revelling in the warmth that flooded through him as the brandy, like liquid gold, coursed its way to his stomach.
One swallow would keep the chill of winter at bay for a day. Two would keep you warm for a week. Three, and you wouldn't care what season it was until the next one came around, assuming you actually came around yourself. So he'd been told by a jovial and red-faced merchant in Juria's castletown, weeks ago. Gawain believed him, as he settled down to sleep, sword close at hand.
He woke suddenly, shot a glance at Gwyn, and then looked for the moon. Dawn was still hours away. Gwyn was staring at the Elvendere side of the forest, ears pricked forward and alert, and she bobbed her head once in that direction.
Soundlessly, Gawain rose. After so much practice it took minutes to pack his belongings and saddle the horse, and then he was mounted, an arrow in hand and string tight around the shaft ready for throwing, as Gwyn padded slowly and cautiously towards the tree-line.
Gawain frowned. He knew that if Gwyn had sensed the slightest threat, she would be far more restless, charged with aggressive energy. Instead, she was moving slowly and deliberately, cautiously perhaps, but not stealthily, towards the trees. With every step, Gawain expected to hear the sighing whizz of an elf arrow, but none came.
Ten paces from the tree-line, Gwyn stopped, and stared into the darkness beyond. Gawain listened, cocking his head this way and that, as the horse's ears did likewise.
Then he heard it. A small sound, feeble and sibilant, like a gasp or a sudden intake of breath…
Gawain dismounted, unstrung his arrow and replaced it in its quiver, and with a deft flip of his arm wrapped the string back around his wrist. Then he stepped forward, listening.