A Wild Ride Through The Night

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Book: Read A Wild Ride Through The Night for Free Online
Authors: Walter Moers
are lying. Then you can put on your ironmongery and we’ll go and give a few of these evil spirits what for, agreed?’

A HERD OF graceful deer fled, startled by the intrusive sound of Pancho’s hoofs as he trotted across a verdant meadow with Gustave on his back. Gustave was in full armour once more. His accoutrements weren’t black and fearsome-looking, like those of the knight in his dream, but made of fine chased silver like the ones he had worn before.
    A flock of birds with exotic plumage took wing, twittering indignantly, and disappeared into the tangle of branches and creepers. Spiders’ webs floated through the air, forming gossamer-fine rope ladders up which the little light that remained was ascending into the evening sky. Glow-worms—or were they will-o’-the-wisps?—began to dance and fill the air with multicoloured squiggles.
    ‘This must be the enchanted forest,’ said Gustave.
    ‘Know what forests give me?’ asked Pancho. ‘The creeps! Yessir, I’m more of a prairie type. Wide-open spaces, fields, meadows, deserts—even roads, provided they’re long and straight. Forests are the bitter end. Mountains are bad enough, but forests—’
    ‘Ssh,’ said Gustave. ‘What was that?’
    Pancho gave a snort of alarm. ‘What was what?’
    ‘Oh, nothing,’ muttered Gustave. ‘I thought I heard something, that’s all.’
    Faint singing pervaded the air of the forest, mingled with crackling, rustling noises. Now and then, acorns and twigs landed on Gustave’s helmet as if someone had deliberately chucked them at him.
    ‘You’re right,’ whispered Pancho, ‘this forest is bewitched.’
    It seemed to Gustave that they had for some time been riding along the bed of a long-dried-up river. The ground was littered with big, smooth pebbles, banks of earth the height of a man towered on either side, thick with grass and bushesb, and the winding track described a series of sharp bends. The trees became steadily denser. Grotesquely stunted oaks stood cheek by jowl, intertwining their mighty branches and shutting out the evening sunlight. Before long the two travellers were overarched by an impenetrable canopy of foliage.
    They trotted along with a sense of foreboding until, as they rounded yet another bend in the river bed, an unforeseen and startling sight met their eyes. Ahead of them, seated beneath an immense oak tree, was an old woman.
    Although the roots writhing out of the ground around her looked as if they might envelop the frail old crone at any moment and drag her down into some subterranean, elfin realm, she seemed to have no fear of the enchanted forest.
    She had folded her hands on her lap and was staring grimly into space. What with her sunken cheeks, the little crown on her head, and her voluminous black robe, she looked like a deposed monarch who had been banished to the depths of the forest to await death by starvation. Above her, perched on a root and imitating her grim expression, sat an owl.
    Gustave and Pancho rode very, very slowly past the old lady so as not to startle her, but she took no notice of either of them, just looked straight through them as if gazing into another dismal dimension.
    They were just about to round the next bend and lose sight of this strange apparition when Gustave reined in.
    ‘What’s the matter?’ whispered Pancho. ‘Let’s ride on. The poor old biddy’s cracked. They’re nothing but trouble, people like that.’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Gustave whispered back. ‘She looks
familiar
to me, somehow.’
    He tugged at the bridle, wheeled Pancho round, and rode back.
    ‘Allow me to introduce myself,’ he said. ‘I’m Gustave Doré.’
    ‘Eh?’ The old woman was visibly taken aback by this courteous approach. Her vacant expression was replaced by one of dismay. She started to gesticulate, only to stop short in mid movement.
    ‘Doré,’ Gustave repeated politely in a somewhat louder voice. ‘Gustave Doré.’
    ‘Hell’s bells!’ the old woman

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