The Charnel Prince

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“I hear a noise,” Martyn murmured, reining in his dappled gray stallion. “It is an unnatural sound.” The monk’s predatory blue eyes strained, as if trying to burn through the huge-girthed ironoaks and rocky slopes of the King’s Forest. Ehawk could see by the set of the man’s shoulders beneath his blood-red robe that every muscle in his body was tensed.

“No doubt,” Sir Oneu replied jovially. “This forest chatters like a woman who is half-mad with love.”

But despite his tone, Sir Oneu’s black eyes were serious when he turned to speak to Ehawk. As always, Ehawk was surprised by the older man’s face—soft and tapered it was, the corners of his eyes crinkled by fifty years of laughter. The knight hardly seemed to fit his reputation as a fierce warrior.

“What do you say, m’ lad?” Oneu asked.

“From what I’ve seen,” Ehawk began, “Brother Martyn can hear a snake breathe over the next hill. I haven’t such ears, and at this moment hear little. But sir, that’s strange of itself. There ought to be more birds singing.”

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