Lost in Mirkwood
by David Barber
No one, not even a warrior princess, should find themselves alone in Mirkwood at night.
Things glimpsed in this ancient forest were not always real, and for those who could not tell the difference there were other roads, but it was the unseen that mattered now, because it was stalking her.
There was a moon, but its light only transformed shadows into apparitions. She ran silently and fast amongst the trees and, if she tripped over roots or trusted her step when there was nothing beneath her foot, she rolled and ran on. Still her pursuer gained.
Yes, now she could hear panting behind her, and the scratch of nails. There were old things in these woods, hungry things, and the last of its kind is the hardest to kill.
She plunged out onto a trackway that separated one dark mass of forest from another, where a band of stars glittered overhead. A wagon stood not far off, lit by the glad protection of a fire, and she dodged towards it, calling a warning from the darkness.
* * *
Martin was fiddling with the carburettor when a woman called out, and he banged his head on the raised bonnet of the camper van. His flashlight dropped into the engine and went out.
She stepped from the dark, and the firelight revealed a very short leather kilt, a skimpy top of silvery mail, and knee-high boots. And slung behind her, was that a sword?
What on earth are you doing out here in the middle of the night, dressed like that? Martin wanted to ask, but he was shy around women.
“Are you lost?” he ventured instead.
“A mistake to be here after dark, yes.” Why she happened in these woods, and how it had all come to naught, was no concern of his.
Well, it was easy to get lost. He’d turned off after Monkton and somehow ended up here.
“This track isn’t even marked on the map,” he added.
What could be said? The warrior princess knew all too well what trouble maps could lead to.
There was canned soup steaming over the fire and Martin offered to share it. Soon they were burning their mouths in silence.
“I am called Swifan,” she said. Sometimes it was best not to mention being royalty. “It means ‘fleet of foot’.”
“Martin,” he said. “As far as I know, it doesn’t mean anything.”
Swifan considered his caravan and its curious lack of horses. “Have you travelled far?”
“Well, from the Lake District.”
He described how he’d broken down going over Hardknott Pass. “The road’s very steep, all hairpin bends and, right at the top there’s the ruins of a Roman fort. These old VW vans have an air-cooled engine you see, so...”
His smile faded. Somehow he wasn’t quite conveying the adventure of that afternoon. “That’s a sword isn’t it?”
She drew the blade and let firelight reflect along it.
He’d heard about cosplay, though that sword looked real enough. Perhaps she fallen out with her group. She’d been running, so perhaps it had been more serious than that.
“I suppose a woman on her own in the woods can’t be too careful. Look, you’re safe now—”
“It is called Isenmund,” she said.
“Ah, like Excalibur and... that one in Lord of the Rings. I can see why they had names. The iron in a sword comes from exploding stars. Imagine that. So there is a kind of wonder in it.”
Perhaps he was a sorcerer. A minor sorcerer, with his odd talk and curious caravan. How could one tell these days?
Later came the awkward part. “Well, obviously you can’t go anywhere tonight. You can sleep in the van,” he said. “And I’ll...”
“I will sleep outside,” she declared. “To tend the fire. To keep us safe.”
He seemed to think she might want to cover up, and fetched a tartan rug. She settled by the fire in the handsome woollen cloak.
Martin lay awake for a long time. He tried the radio, but there was still nothing, not even the BBC.
* * *
Next morning as they drove along, she did not trouble asking for explanations. After all, the workings of his caravan were just magic. Mirkwood bounced past on either side. Beneath the fir trees it was dark and bare, and trunks crowded into the distance.
“Hear that?” He stopped the van and poked his head out the window.
Swifan reached for her sword.
“Wood linnet,” he decided. “Rare in this part of the world.”
“I thought you meant wolves. I heard them howling last night.”
His grin faded. “Could hardly be wolves,” he objected.
“This scar was made by a wolf.” She pointed out a white line on her tanned thigh. “You doubt it is real?”
When the van wouldn’t start again, he wasted an hour tinkering.
He looked up from an engine that kept its secrets and saw Swifan practising with her sword, gliding from one sequence of thrusts and parries to another. She was lithe and long-limbed, and toned like a runner used to distances. She had wonderful red hair.
He slammed the bonnet shut. “I don’t know what’s wrong with this thing!”
Swifan had hoped his powers might offer some protection, but they were no match for the Mirkwood. Many had found it so.
They started walking, carrying what was needed between them.
He thought Monkton was this way. She knew of no such place, but it made little difference to her plan. The track seemed endless and, when it grew dark, Swifan proved really good at lighting campfires. They sat in the firelight, the woman whittling a thick branch.
“In a close contest, sword versus wolves,” she was saying, “a spear helps. Any sharpened stake will do, with the point fire-hardened like this.”
She jabbed with her stake. “Keep the wolf at bay, then strike with the sword.”
“Well, yes, I’ll remember that. If I ever meet a wolf.”
“But what is following us is no wolf.”
“Following us?” The tide of these conversations kept carrying him out of his depth.
“I confess I led it to you.”
Martin tossed and turned on the hard ground, dozing fitfully. What a strange dream, a dream of ivy strangling an abandoned house...
Saliva dripped on his face as dark shape bent over him. There were fingers on his throat.
With a shout, Swifan thrust with her wooden stake and struck with Isenmund again and again. The shape shrieked and vanished into the trees.
* * *
“The last of a kind are always hardest to kill.”
Martin didn’t answer. He doubled his pace, but Swifan had no trouble keeping up and was not out of breath. He hoped his face showed what he felt.
“You used me as bait!” He wiped at his cheek again. He was still trembling. Though he was the one who had been wronged, he knew he sounded petulant.
“You would be boasting had I killed it.”
“That... that makes no sense.”
“Because you would have helped slay the last of the Nameless.”
“The Nameless? What is that? A bear escaped from a safari park?” But fingers had seized his throat. “An ape?”
“Not any creature like that. And it grows hungry.”
Here was the van at last, where he had foolishly deserted it.
“Your caravan will not save you, Martin whose name means nothing.”
“It’s a camper van, and we’ll be safe in there.”
“In the open there is room to fight.”
“You almost got me killed!”
Martin sat in the van. He had tried the engine twice, and hurt his hands banging on the steering wheel. When Swifan came back with firewood, he avoided her gaze.
“I might have said things...”
He had said things about illegal weapons. He had hinted this role-playing had gone far enough. And though an escaped animal wasn’t her fault, he’d sort of blamed her for that as well.
“Light offends it.” Swifan was aloof as a princess. “But to kill one, prey was staked out in pits, and when the Nameless attacked, they were set ablaze.”
What could he say? For all he knew that was how people trapped dangerous beasts before firearms. But they didn’t have a pit or a goat. Or a gun. What they did have was the safety of his van.
“They did not use goats. The Nameless hunt people.”
“I’m waiting for a lift,” Martin insisted stubbornly. “Somebody will come along.”
“You are more lost than you know.”
This was something Martin was beginning to suspect.
“So,” he said to himself after a while. Somewhere between huddling inside the van and this woman’s foolhardiness, a notion came to him. He was the man who’d saved the day on Hardknott Pass, and weren’t all creatures afraid of light and fire?
He went to find Swifan.
* * *
He checked the doors were locked, then settled behind the wheel, watching Swifan as she tended her fire. Eventually she ran short of wood, and the flames dwindled. She kept blowing at the embers, lofting sparks into the night.
Of a sudden, a shadow snatched at her spear, and Martin caught the glint of her blade sent spinning away into the darkness. He reached for the switch, and the Nameless crouched, frozen in the headlights. Swifan seized the bucket of petrol, just as he’d shown her, and drenched the thing. He was almost out the van with his lighter when she scattered glowing embers with a kick.
They stood and watched it writhe in the flames.
“It... it looked a bit like a person,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
Even afterwards, the air reeked of petrol and burnt flesh and he went off to be sick.
“I’m lost,” confessed Martin. “Really lost. I don’t know what’s going on.”
She clapped him on the shoulder. “It was a good plan, Martin whose name means nothing. You saved your magic until it was needed. Perhaps you would make someone a useful companion in an adventure.”
“This night,” she decided. “We will both sleep in the caravan.”
The sun was shining when he woke, but she had vanished like a dream, also gone were the remains of the Nameless. Perhaps it had been eaten by her wolves. Of course it was foolish to think he would ever see her again, even if he came back here one day. Though it wasn’t all a dream, because she had taken the tartan cloak.
The van started first time with a healthy roar. It was a surprisingly short drive to a crossroads he remembered, where a leaning signpost pointed the way to Monkton.
Copyright © 2021 by David Barber
