Authors Note: This story is long and will take a bit of time to read. It's closer to short novelette than short story. Enjoy!
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The morning dawned misty and quiet, the birds hushed and the wind stilled in the presence of magic itself. She walked deliberately and slowly from her thicket in the depths of the wood, moving down the time traveled path toward the mirror like surface of the deep black lake at the center of the wood. Her passage made barely a sound and her tracks were non existent with the light deftness of her steps. She paused at the edge of the dark water and waited, the silence was deafening as the time drew near.
She slid to her knees at the waters edge and bowed her head as the first rays of the sun streaked across the black water. The twisted spire of her horn dipped into the water and began to send ripples across the flat surface. Light spread from the tip of her horn and flashed outward beyond the lake's surface and into the forest to usher in a new season of growth and prosperity. The unicorn got back to her feet and looked out over the forest and surrounding mountains, another year past.
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Sir Gavin de Mocrief never believed the stories that these woods were overrun with demons and spirits but he still felt uneasy when riding through them. His men at arms flanked his desterier following in a column two deep, enough men to fight off a sizable force but the unease remained. Gavin was tired; the long ride back from spending months in service to the king had left him achy and disgruntled. Before long they would need to stop and rest for awhile, trap some game to eat and rest the horses. They wouldn't reach the castle before dark fall.
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The squall of crows alerted the animals of the forest to the intrusion of men in their sanctuary. The unicorn lifted her elegant head and turned her ears to the south pass where the procession of men passed through her forest. She snorted and lashed her long lion-like tail against her flank; men were never a good thing.
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Gavin called a halt in a small meadow that broke the expanse of forest for a few hundred yards. The horses were hobbled and unbridled to allow them to eat; saddles were left on in case a rapid exit was needed. The men set about making a small make shift camp, spreading out to eat and rest for a few hours before they would begin the last leg of their journey.
"My Lord Gavin." A young squire approached quickly. "Shall we set out to seek game for the fire?"
"No Lucas, I believe I could use a bit of a diversion for awhile, I will see what game I can bring down." Gavin smiled and picked up his crossbow and quiver of bolts.
Gavin walked slowly into the quiet forest, listening for the sound of birds and the chatter of squirrels and other small animals. Nothing. The entire forest was as silent as a tomb aside from the soft crunching of his footsteps. Gavin felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and a slow creeping chill run through his body as he stalked deeper into the woods.
He had walked for several miles and seen neither hide nor hair of a single animal. Not one fox, rabbit, squirrel, songbird, or deer had crossed his path. He had seen many tracks and spore from different animals, but not one live animal had crossed his vision. Gavin's feeling of unease was growing rapidly as he stalked through the scrub bushes. He paused along a game trail and settled down into a stand of thick bushes, rubbing mossy mud over his skin to help mask his scent he settled down to wait.
Time could be very subjective of a thing but Gavin knew it had been at least two hours and not a single animal had crossed his field of vision. He looked down over the game trail and down the slope of the hill to the creek running below. Not even fish seemed to be in the bubbling stream, it was as though every animal within miles had taken to ground at the sight of them. Gavin was puzzling over this when he heard the snap of a branch and the sound of hoof beats. He knocked a bolt into the crossbow and waited silently.
The young deer was nervously moving down the game trail. Its hide was still sprinkled with the fading white spots that had helped him hide as a fawn in the dappling light of the forest. The young stag had the beginnings of velveteen covered antlers atop his head and the big brown eyes of innocence all deer retained. Gavin waited for the deer to move into a shot, following his progression with the crossbow. The deer was just steps away from being in the perfect firing position.
A high pitched scream broke the silence and the stag bolted back into the woods, double timing it as he flew over the hill and out of sight. Gavin cursed violently and jerked his head toward the source of the sound. The crossbow fell to the ground forgotten.
Grace personified the unicorn was a vision out of a fairy tale. Long legged and gracefully built the mare stood watching him, her long gold horn lowered and her ears pinned in a purely equine show of anger. The long lion-like tail cut through the air behind her like a whip as she watched him. Her hide was an ethereal dappled gray, reminiscent yet more beautiful than any horse he had ever seen. The unicorn snorted and pawed the turf with a cloven hoof; her eyes never left Gavin's. Gavin stepped back from the forgotten crossbow. The unicorn snorted a final time and pirouetted and vaulted into the forest, disappearing down the game trail.
Gavin picked up his crossbow and returned to camp. He ordered his men to saddle up and move on, they would not spend any longer in her forest.
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Castle Ravens' Keep was an ancient pile. Gavin grimaced at the sight of it, even set against the darkening sky with the fires burning low the disrepair and crumbling of the castle was easy to see. Gavin loved and hated his ancestral home, his father had never bothered to care for the home that would be passed down to Gavin, but then again his father had never cared for anything but himself. Lord Russell de Moncrief was long since departed from this world and sometimes Gavin only wished it had been sooner. His mother still lived in the castle, if one could call her existence living at this point, she was so far into her own dementia that she rarely recognized or remembered Gavin. Russell had broken her spirit and finally her mind, Lady Guinevere de Moncrief was only a shadow of the proud woman she had once been. Gavin rode through the crumbling gates of his home and dismounted to see to his horse.
There was no real greeting at the lord's return, Gavin had no expected there to be. The great hall was dark and cold, the rushes that covered the floor of the hall were several weeks old and very dirty if the smell was any indication. Gavin sighed and turned left heading up the crumbling staircase into the east wing of the castle. His footsteps rang hollow on the dirty stone floor and he turned and entered his chamber, the last one at the end of the hall. Gavin stripped off his leather over tunic and dropped it as he entered the threadbare chamber.
Gavin looked over the chamber. It had been over five years since he had last been home and everything was still exactly where he had left it the night he answered the king's summons. The bed covers had not been changed since that night, the coverlet still tossed back across the bed as he had leapt up from sleep to answer the call to arms. He would see to having the linens cleaned and the chamber aired tomorrow. Tonight just being home made the bed the most appealing in the world.
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The unicorn stood on the edge of an outcropping of rocks high atop her mountain home. The breeze was cool and scented with growing things as she gazed down across the forests. In the distance the castle sat in darkness, a decaying monument to the men who had intruded into the quiet valley that had long since been a wilderness refuge. The castle's inhabitants rarely ventured into her forest, they hunted and gathered in the forest on the other side of the river instead. That forest had long ago lost its guardian and was no longer protected by the magic that had kept the men at bay.
The unicorn remembered her sister. Golden in the sun, her sister had been a beautiful creature and a powerful adversary. Her sister's death at the hands of the first lord of the castle had been a blow. After her sister's death the men pillaged the forest for wood, killed the biggest and best trees, hunted the animals of the forest, and gathered food that the surviving animals needed to make it through the winter. The forest across the river was a shadow of its former self, struggling by the day to remain standing.
The unicorn looked to the full moon high in the sky. It was not long before the gathering of the unicorns would begin and the breeding season would be initiated. Each year fewer unicorns arrived in the meadow, fewer still successfully brought forth new unicorns into the world. The unicorn sighed softly. She was the last of her family left alive, Alorna of the Graymoon. She hoped that this year she would be able to breed and bring forth a new generation to protect the forest.
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Gavin got up early after a long night of troubled dreams. His mind kept circulating back to the animal in the woods. He strolled down the east wing and turned to walk down the west wing to the quarters his parents had once kept together. To the left of their room was a painting his great grandfather had had commissioned, and it was this painting Gavin sought out this morning. He paused before the painting and studied it in silence, it had always fascinated him as a boy and now it was even more intriguing.
The painting displayed a golden palomino unicorn piked against a huge oak tree with hunting hounds around her feet. The unicorn was impaled by the lance his great grandfather had used to end her life and was displayed in a macabre pose. Her flesh was torn by the dogs and blood was freely flowing from her body while his great grandfather was depicted as the conquering lord atop his war horse in shining glory.
Gavin had long wondered about this painting as it had supposedly depicted a real event that had occurred when the castle was being built, the wood from the great oak tree made up the front doors of the castle and were the only thing in the castle that never seemed to age or decay. The place where the unicorn had died was a short gallop down the riverbank at the edge of the mighty river. The ground there was barren and supported not even scrub grass to this day. It was said that all of his great grandfathers dogs had fallen ill and died within months of the great hunt and his great grandfather had even been struck with a horrible fever he never quite recovered from.
Gavin looked at the golden unicorn in the painting and pictured the ethereal dappled gray unicorn he had seen the day before. He never thought they really existed and he wondered if it was a sign of bad things to come.
