"Where is Laurent?" asked the knight. "He was with you; what happened to him?"

"I thought he came back here," replied the soldier, glancing around quickly. "Did he not?"

"He did not," retorted the knight angrily. "As you can well see, he did not!"

"But he was just behind me," insisted the man-at-arms. Looking back along the bank, he said, "He must have turned aside to relieve himself."

Assuming this to be the case, they waited for a time to see if their missing comrade would reappear. When he failed to show up, the knight and his men walked back along the downstream bank. They shouted and called his name and listened for sounds of the absent soldier thrashing through the brush. The surrounding wood remained deathly still and quiet.

The five guardsmen were still shouting when the rider sent with the message for the wagons appeared. The knight turned on him. "Have you seen him?"

"Who, my lord?"

"Laurent-he's disappeared. Did you see anything amiss on the road?"

Catching the wild cast of the knight's eyes and frantic tone, he replied with studied caution. "Nothing amiss, my lord. All is well. The wagons will be here soon."

"All is not well, by heaven!" roared the knight. "Our horses have vanished, too."

"Vanished?"

"Spirited away!"

The rider's bald brow furrowed, and tiny creases formed at the corners of his eyes. "But I-are you certain, sire?"

"We watered the horses and knelt down to get a mouthful ourselves," explained one of the men-at-arms, pushing forward. "When we looked up"-he glanced around to gather the assent of his com- panions-"the horses had disappeared."

"One moment there, and the next gone?" wondered the rider. "And you saw nothing?"

"If we had, would we waste breath talking to you?" the knight charged angrily. Still gripping the hilt of his sword, he scanned the forest round about, a great, green, all-embracing wall. "Mark me, there is some witchery hereabouts. I can feel it."

They waited at the ford, armed and ready for whatever might happen next, however uncanny, but nothing more sinister than clouds of flies gathering about their heads had befallen them by the time the first of the ox-drawn wagons reached them. The driver stopped to allow his team to rest before continuing the descent into the Vale of Elfael. While they waited, the knight questioned the lead wagoner closely, and then all the rest in turn as they drew up to water their animals, but none of the drivers had seen or heard anything strange or disturbing on the road.

When the oxen had rested, the wagon van of supplies resumed its journey to the monastery at Llanelli. While they were still some little way off, the wagons were seen by the guards at the count's fortress. Hoping for a way to ingratiate himself with the baron-and to distance himself from any whiff of thievery or misuse of this second shipment-Count Falkes sent his own contingent of soldiers down to help convey the much-needed food supplies the short remaining distance to the monastery.

The baron's guards grudgingly tolerated the count's men-at-arms, and the party continued on to Llanelli to supervise the unloading of the wagons at what remained of the monastery. While they watched the cargo being carried into the chapel, the soldiers began to talk and were soon relating the unchancy events that had just befallen them in the forest. Thus, word of the visiting soldiers' strange experience quickly reached Count de Braose, who summoned the baron's knight to his fortress.

"What do you mean the horses vanished?" inquired the count when he had heard what the knight had to say.

"Count de Braose," conceded the knight reluctantly, "we also lost a man.

"Men and horses do not simply dissolve into the air."

"As you say, sire," replied the knight, growing petulant. "Even so, I know what I saw."

"But you said you saw nothing," insisted Count Falkes.

"And I stand by it," the knight maintained stolidly. "I am no liar,"

"Nor do I so accuse you," replied the count, his voice rising. "I am merely attempting to learn what it was that you saw-if anything."

"I saw," began the knight cautiously, "a shadow. As I knelt to drink, a shadow fell over me, and when I looked up, I saw…" He hesitated.

"Yes? Yes?" urged the count, impatience making him sharp.

Drawing a bracing breath, the knight replied, "I saw a great dark shape-very like that of a bird,"

"A dark shape, you say. Like a bird," repeated Falkes.

"But larger-far larger than any bird ever seen before. Black as the devil himself, and a wingspread wide as your arms."

"Are you suggesting to me that this bird carried off your man and all the horses?" scoffed the count. "By heaven, it must have been a very Colossus amongst birds!"

The knight shut his mouth and stared at the count, his face growing hot with humiliation.

"Well? Go on; I would hear the rest of this fantastic yarn."

"We gave chase, sire," the knight said in a low, disgruntled voice. "We pursued the thing into the brushwood and found a deer track which we followed, but we neither saw nor heard anything again. When we returned to the stream, our horses were gone." He nodded for emphasis. "Vanished."

"You looked for them, I presume?" inquired the count.

"We searched both ways along the stream, and that is when Laurent disappeared."

"And again, I suppose no one saw or heard anything?"

"Nothing at all. The forest was uncannily quiet. If there had been so much as a mayfly to see or hear, that we would have. One moment Laurent was there, and the next he was gone."

Growing tired of the murky vagueness of the report, the count cut the interview short. "If there is nothing else, you may go. But do not for a single moment think to lay any of this at my feet. By the Holy Name, I swear I had nothing to do with it."

"I accuse no one," muttered the knight.

"Then you are dismissed. Take some refreshment for yourself and your men, and then you may return to the baron. God knows what he will make of the tale." When the knight made no move to leave, Count Falkes added, "I said, your service is completed. The supplies have been delivered, I believe? You may go."

"We have no horses, sire."

"And what do you imagine I should do about that?"

"I am certain Baron Neufmarche would deem it a boon of honour if you lent us some worthy mounts," the knight suggested.

The count glared at the man before him. "You want me to lend you horses?" He made it sound as if it was the most outlandish thing he had heard so far. "And what? Watch you make my animals disappear along with the others? I'll have none of it. You can ride back in the empty wagons. It would serve you right."

The knight stiffened under the count's sarcasm but held his ground. "The baron would be indebted to you, I daresay."

"Yes, I daresay he would," agreed the count. He regarded the knight; there was something in what he suggested. To have the baron beholden to him might prove a useful thing in future dealings. "Oh, very well, take some refreshment, and I will arrange it. You can leave tomorrow morning.

"Thank you, sire," said the knight. "We are most grateful."

When the knight had gone, Count Falkes put the matter out of his mind. Soldiers were a superstitious lot, all told, forever seeing signs and wonders where there were none. Even the most solidseeming needed little prompting-a shadow in the woods, was that it?-to embark on a flight of delirious fancy and set tongues wagging everywhere. Probably the slack-witted guards, having ranged far ahead of the wagons, had emptied a skinful of wine between them and, in their drunken stupor, allowed their untethered horses to wander off.

Later that evening, however, as twilight deepened across the valley, the count was given opportunity to reappraise his hasty opinion when the missing soldier, Laurent, stumbled out of the forest and appeared at the gate of his stronghold. Half out of his head with fear, the fellow was gibbering about demons and ghosts and a weird phantom bird, and insisting that the ancient wood was haunted.