Sir Osrik drew his horse up at the edge of the clearing. His armor rattled, and the long steel-tipped lance wobbled above him. He studied the lonely hut, finding no movement but a thin trail of smoke from the chimney. 

The hut’s thick door swung open on iron hinges and a woman stepped out. She was fair to look upon, with bronze-colored hair and noble features at odds with the work-worn hands resting upon her hips. She regarded him without surprise. 

Osrik spurred his mount forward. The beast hesitated and whinnied. The old knight kicked again, and the animal reluctantly trotted into the clearing. He pulled up before the woman. 

“Have I come to the Woodcutter’s Hut?” he asked.  His voice cracked with age, but retained the authority of rank.

“You have, sir.”  The woman offered a small curtsey.  “Yet this is an inauspicious hour, for the sun is well past midday.  You must ride on quickly to reach the river.  These woods are perilous after nightfall.”

Osrik straightened in his saddle.  “It is for what abides in these woods at night that I have come. I am Sir Osrik of Oakholm. If you are Lady Elowen, the Maiden of Brookhaven, then it is you I have come to set free.” 

The woman closed her eyes.

“I implore you, brave and noble knight, do not confront this evil on my behalf.  Ride west, and lie your head in kinder lands.”

He indicated the well.  “My horse needs watering.  And I, too, must eat and drink.”  He unlashed the two rabbits he had killed earlier, tossing them at her feet.  “Skin and dress those hares, that we may dine.  I have spent much of the day surveying these woods, and I wish for genteel  conversation while I sup.”

Elowen sighed and picked up the dead animals. “Daylight may escape these woods before you, if you choose to stay.”

Osrik dismounted and stood on unsteady legs.  The clank of his armor rang hollowly in the small clearing.

“I so choose.”

Elowen butchered and washed the rabbits with a short-bladed knife, then laid the joints across the metal grate to sizzle and smoke. A small cauldron of vegetable stew bubbled in the coals.

Osrik removed his helmet and gauntlets and loosened the laces of his breastplate. The sparse hut held a rough-hewn table, a narrow bed, and a makeshift altar layered with totems and wards. He sank into the hut’s only chair and watched Elowen work with practiced efficiency. 

“Your hands have long known labor.”

Elowen poked at the roasting flesh, turning it.  “I have no ladies-in-waiting or maids.”

“None attend you by day?  No one comes from the hamlets?”

She wiped her hands on her apron and shook her head. “There are parcels left on the riverbank every fortnight, as the king has ordered.” She paused, watching embers rise from the fire. “Flour and salt and tallow and mead. A meager sustenance. To eat, I cook. To drink, I draw water. For my pantry, I forage and trap and garden.”

“It does not distort you, my Lady.”

Her laugh was short—sour as unripe fruit.

“The noble men who come here seek a high-born mistress, not a peasant in homespun wool with soil beneath her fingernails.” 

“I am no suitor.” Osrik watched her movements in the greying light. 

Elowen glanced over her shoulder at the old knight, his armor dull in the fading light. She rose and picked up a wick. 

“I must light the lamps. The forest brings gloom before the sun sets.”

Osrik stood and extended his hand. “Allow me, my Lady. The meal needs tending.” He took the wick and moved about the tiny hut, touching its flame to each tallow lamp. Oily smoke curled upward as warm light filled the room. Having completed his circuit, Osrik laid the wick beside the hearth and returned to his chair.

Elowen ladled stew into wooden bowls and laid rabbit atop each. She gave one to Osrik with a knife and spoon, then settled on the edge of her bed with the other, a silken pillow propped behind her.  She bowed her head and murmured a prayer. Osrik bowed in kind. Steel clinked and leather creaked as he raised the spoon. The stew smelled of earth and forest, the rabbit of rosemary, and both warmed his belly. 

Elowen stripped meat from a bone with her teeth.  “Your armor is old, yet scarcely mended. And you carry little besides your sword and lance.” 

“You know of armor and weapons?”

“Many men of combat have come here over the years.”

Osrik nodded.  “The quest.”

“Some came in groups.   With squires, or alone.  Men of virtue and courage, scarred in battles and fearless to danger.  Devout men, boastful men, all seeking glory and the prize.” She motioned to herself with her spoon.  “None won either.”

Solemn, looking into the greasy stew, she spoke quietly.  “None have come in a while.” She trailed off.  “I feared…”  She studied him.

“Have you commanded companies against His Majesty’s enemies?  Have you stormed fortresses and put villains to the sword?”

Sir Osrik speared a piece of meat without looking up.  “I did our king’s service by drawing taxes, bringing in harvests, and ensuring roads were safe to travel.  His Majesty believed my duty was more paper and quill, less shield and sword.  I have never tasted battle nor tested my courage.  I have no trophies or triumphs of which to boast.”

“His Majesty has sent an administrator to rescue me.”

Smoothing his beard, the old man looked at the woman.  “The king has rescinded the quest.  Many seats at his table sit empty from the effort.”

Elowen’s eyes brimmed with tears.  “Then the king has abandoned me.”

“Faith, my Lady,” Osrik spoke softly.

“Faith?  Months and years have slid through my fingers like running water.  I am doomed to abide in these cursed woods with no hope of salvation.”  

Tears spilled down her cheeks, though she wept not from surprise, but from hearing aloud what her heart already knew. 

Osrik did not shift in discomfort at her tears.  He regarded her bowed head, her straight-backed posture, the calloused hands folded over her threadbare kirtle. Years of hardship had worn away the refinements of court, yet something of their shape remained—like a fine gown let out at every seam, altered beyond its pattern, but silk and velvet still.

“You never leave these woods.”  His gaze settled on the door.  Heavily built, but with no latch.

“Never.  For that is my punishment.”  She wiped her tears with the back of her hand.

“What was your crime?”  

“You must know.  Why torment me with a confession?”

“This punishment seems… disproportionate… to any injustice I know of.”

“I loved when the ancient law forbade it. We sought to flee, and my beloved drowned in the river.  I was cursed to remain in these woods until that which stalks them by night is slain.” 

Osrik leaned forward.  “And what prowls these woods?”

“You must know.” Elowen’s voice trembled.

“I have heard.  A monster of despicable form and violent, murderous nature.  An unholy thing of hate and rage.”

Elowen’s head hung heavy over her empty bowl.  “Fair truth, I have never seen the evil creature.  Only the wreckage it has wrought when daylight drives it back into the deepest parts of the woods.”

Osrik sat back, smoothing his beard.  “So it prowls only by night.  And no man who seeks it survives.”

“No man, no steed, no living creature can escape it.”  Elowen’s face contorted suddenly.  “I have come after dawn and found bodies… and pieces of bodies.” She raised her hard hands to her face.  “They all came to slay a monster and carry home a bride as proof of it. None considered what it cost me to live bereft of all companionship save those fated to perish—to see even the faintest hope torn apart with them.”

She drew a deep breath.  “Your sword will have no effect.  Your nag and your lance will not serve you.  There is no open land across which to charge.”

“I do not plan to charge,” Osrik let his gaze travel once more around the hut.

Elowen lowered her eyes.  “And you will be the last to come.  The king shall send no others.”

“This crime has no atonement?”

“None, save the death of the monster.”

“As I have heard.”  

Elowen sat bent upon the bed’s edge, burdened by an exhaustion deeper than the body. Osrik struggled from his chair and gathered both bowls over her protests. He poured water into the basin and rinsed them. 

“You have mead.” He took two clay cups from the sideboard. 

The small window framed the orange glow of sunset. Elowen stiffened. “Night falls quickly in these woods. I beg you, observe the hour and make your departure in haste.” 

“Pray, spare a draught for an old man about to go into battle.”

She rose unsteadily, patted her kerchief into place, and squared her shoulders. From the shelf she took a crock and poured mead into both cups. She raised hers. Osrik raised his, and the clay touched softly.

“Lady Elowen,” he said.  

She flinched.

“I have forgotten the sound of my own name from another’s mouth,” she said. “I have lived so long in this nightmare that I no longer know what remains of the woman I was, and what the curse has overgrown.” 

“On my oath, after tonight you shall abide under this curse no longer.” 

Elowen regarded him with the weary disbelief of one who had heard the promise too many times.

“Sir Osrik…”

“Fair truth, my Lady, time has cast its long shadow o’er me.” Osrik set down his cup beside an ivory-inlaid jewelry box.  “I have never mastered combat or slaughter.” He rested a hand on the makeshift altar, his fingers brushing a carved totem. “Yet in service to the king, I have succeeded where others failed. Those brave knights—those unfortunate souls—lost their battles before they ever entered these woods. My campaigns were never against ramparts or battlements. My weapons were foresight, knowledge, and preparation.”

He lowered his hand. “Every failure has something in common. I believe I have found it here.”

Elowen set down her cup. “You are not the first to divine a way through this dilemma. The forest holds the bones of every knight who believed his plan would bring victory.” 

Osrik nodded.  “The plan was the problem. They sought a solution before understanding the question.”

“What question?”

“Are you to be rescued, or freed?”

Elowen’s hands curled into fists against her thighs.

“You suggest a distinction without a difference, sir.”

“You subsist on roots and berries, though the hamlet would give you lamb and pheasant if you asked. You dress in common cloth while the gifts of past champions lie untouched about this hut. You urge every adventurer to abandon the quest and ride across the river to safety—a safety you can never reach. They come to take you from these woods, yet you cannot leave them. Not while the monster lives.” 

“I cannot bear the guilt of those gifts, brought on promises of rescue, nor cast them away and diminish the honor of the men who died bringing them. Yes, I have pleaded with every knight who rode to my door.”  

Her voice rose. “Ride out before the sun touches the horizon and escape certain doom!” 

She stepped toward him, hands trembling. “I beseech you now! Ride as fast as your steed will bear you, and you may yet cross the river!” 

“We shall both leave these woods tonight, my Lady, or both abide forever.”

“You weigh your winter years too lightly. You have not seen what my eyes have beheld in the cold light of dawn!” 

With honor I shall free you from this curse.”

“With a stick and a nag!  You will die under the moon, old man!  Ripped apart by a horror no mind can comprehend!  There will be no songs, no glory.  Only shattered armor and rent flesh.”

“I came here to learn whether I was only a paper knight. To set you free would have been my legacy. For years I believed glory made a knight. This evening I have learned otherwise. A knight is measured by faithfulness to his duty, even when no songs remember it. There need be no glory tonight. Mercy is reason enough.” 

Her composure broke at last. “I cannot watch hope walk out that door again, only to weep over blood-soaked pieces come morning. Spare me that, sir. Spare me the guilt of another soul made tribute to the monster I cannot escape.”  

“I have not supped this evening with a monster.”

Elowen froze. Her lips parted and quivered. Every sinew drew taut, locking her into place.

“You understand…” she whispered. 

“My eyes see a woman who, for love’s sake, is condemned to suffer unjustly. Her love turned to rage and murder with every setting sun. Bound to these haunted woods beyond mortal life. Freed only when the monster is slain.”

“And how will you defeat what has never been defeated?”

Osrik pulled on his gauntlets, stiff fingers working the straps as the steel plates clicked together. He hefted his heavy helmet beneath one arm. Outside, the woods lay beneath the blue hush of dusk. 

“I may not.  Yet have faith, my Lady.  I did not come here recklessly.  I have chosen the flat, open ground on the riverbank.  Where your heartbreak first began.  There you shall find me waiting.”  

He turned and pushed open the door.

Elowen closed the door, extinguished the lamps, and doused the fire.  Shadows flooded the hut as the last rays of sunlight filtered through the great trees.   She set the hut in order, pausing to touch each token in turn.   She regarded her hands as they undid her apron and kirtle, which she laid on the bed. Slipping off her chemise, she removed her shoes and kerchief. 

Naked, she knelt before the altar and clasped her hands against her brow.  Her prayers began as ritual, for forgiveness, for mercy, for release.  But tonight they turned toward the honorable knight upon the road. She prayed that the man who had never found greatness in war might succeed where so many warriors had failed. 

Her prayers faltered as foam flowed over her lips.  She watched thick hair sprout across her calloused hands and her fingers curl into raking claws. Her eyes blazed with golden fury.  One last feeling flickered before her body was wracked by stretching flesh and cracking bone.

Hope.