Trouble in the Forest Book One: A Cold Summer Night by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

the other end of the corridor, Piers was anticipating the money he would earn from this duty. He might even get enough to purchase his own war-horse so that he would not have to depend on that old hard-mouthed mount his father had left him. Then he would be able to rise in rank. He might even be able to go on Crusade, if King Richard sent for more men to fight with him. Then there would be adventure and loot as well as the opportunity for the advancement he longed for. He was dwelling on the satisfaction he would find in knighthood—for surely he would be knighted for his valor—when he saw one of the monks approaching him, a finger raised in warning.
    “Good soldier, God keep you now and in your final hour. In His Name, if you would, come with me?” the monk said, his voice hardly more than a whisper. His grey habit was so much the color of the night around him that he seemed invisible, a portion of the night that had a voice like the wind in the trees.
    “Something wrong?” asked Piers, shaken and glancing about uneasily, his pleasant reverie fled.
    “Yes,” said the monk. “If you will come?”
    For a moment, Piers could not decide what was best to do. Then he hefted his sword and followed the monk, taking care to walk softly. He didn’t speak for fear of disrupting the prayers going on around him. The monks were fussy about quiet, he knew, thought here in the forest, he would have thought they had more than enough of it.
    At the entrance to the chapel there was a small door that led to the sheepfold where the monks’ flocks were penned at night. This the monk with Piers opened, and pointed to the meadow beyond the sheepfold. “There is something out there. I saw it moving at the edge of the forest.”
    Piers was tempted to laugh but found it unexpectedly difficult, as if he had swallowed a fish-bone and it had caught in his throat. “Deer, most likely. Or a goat wandered away from the flock. The deer often graze at night. I have seen them at the edge of the fields around Nottingham.”
    “We know deer,” said the monk more severely. “And they are not the cause of the disturbance.” He peered into the moon-limned darkness. “I must be certain I have reason to wake my Brothers.”
    “Well, if you think there’s danger, and you need my aid ...” said Piers, all but swaggering. “It is fitting for me to accept any challenge.” He hefted his sword with confidence. “I will look for you, if that would please you.” These monks were all alike, he reminded himself, men without spines, cowering in the shelter of the monasteries, praying for the return of Christ so that they would finally be safe from harm. When calamity came, they ran for soldiers faster than mice from cats.
    “Yes. Do that,” said the monk gratefully. He held the door wider for Piers, then stepped aside as the young man-at-arms strode out into the shadowy night. Once he was certain that Piers had gone a short distance from the door, the monk slammed it shut and put the bolt in place. Shivering, he crossed himself and hurried to the chapel to pray for the repose of Piers’ body and soul.
    The sound of the door closing and the second, more ominous, thud of the bolt brought Piers up short. “What? Ah! No! Open this door!” he demanded of the Grey Friar who had shut him out of the monastery. He swung around, his sword up, and he took three hasty strides back toward the door, intending to pound on it with the pommel of his sword as well as shout. “Open! I am outside!” Behind him, the sheep bleated and milled in their fold.
    “Good evening, soldier,” said a voice not ten steps away from him, a deep voice, a voice that sounded a wild note, one that summoned up all manner of horrors to Piers’ racing thoughts. There was a soft, equivocal laugh that was ineffably vile; it sounded as if the voice were coming nearer.
    Piers swung his sword up to the ready, determined to hold his ground with whatever threatened him. “Stand fast!