He teetered on the edge of a precipice. Stones rattled into the fathomless deep below him. Here the path ended and the only way forward was an arch of stone, no more than a foot in breadth, which leapt across the chasm to a facing cliff.

On the far side, the Unicorn turned and waited for him. Quickly! it cried.

John squeezed his eyes shut—opened them—fixed his eyes on the Unicorn—and put a trembling foot on the narrow span. Quickly, quickly. He slid both feet onto the bridge and began to cross.

A hound scrabbled to a stop at the bridge-head. John’s heart jolted into his mouth and nearly toppled him. He flinched, waiting for the dog to leap—he had seen what these dogs had done to the Unicorn in his dream—but before it had recovered its footing, another hound hurtled around the corner and collided with the first.

It flew past him, into the chasm. He heard it howling the long way down.

The second dog saved itself, but it did not follow him onto the bridge. Instead, it coursed to and fro, snuffling, with baffled whines and yips.

John spread his arms for balance and shuffled desperately for the Unicorn. Nearby, a horn called and the hound at the bridge-head wheeled and trotted back the way it had come.

The sound of its going faded into human footsteps.

Only inches from the Unicorn and safety, John glanced over his shoulder, teetering in the wind. The white huntress stood at the bridgehead, and this time she was near enough to recognise.

Gloriana.

She lifted her short bow, the string drawn back to her ear. For a long moment she and John stared into each other’s eyes, while the arrow pointed at his heart.

He scarcely dared to breathe.

The wind rustled faintly in the grass on the ledge behind him. The Queen jerked her arrow-point an inch to the left and loosed it; the shaft stuck quivering in a dry tuft. She lowered the bow, frowning, her eyes roaming unseeingly across the facing cliff.

Then she turned on her heel and marched away. Plucking up his courange, John staggered the last few steps to safety and the Unicorn.

Even with the hunt baffled, it gave him no rest. Onward! it trumpeted, and set off again.

He followed at a hard jog-trot through the crackling leaves of an autumnal forest until the beast stopped in front of him, and John came panting to the edge of another precipice. This time, he looked over a lovely dale in the hills, lit up by the silver moon. Under the cliff at their feet, a thin line of houses slumbered peacefully, while further down in the meadow near the river, a flock of sheep formed a woollen huddle, a refuge from the sharp November air.

John blinked at the place, the moonlight mazing his vision, his eyes hot and tired from lack of sleep.

“Middleton Dale?” He turned to the Unicorn in astonishment. “The Rose is in Middleton Dale?”

Aye, in Middleton Dale. The beast turned and shoved at his shoulder with the bridge of its nose, urging him toward the familiar cliff-path. Go! I come no further here.

John stumbled forward a step and then turned to face the beast. “But where? All my life—”

You have been in Faerie now, Sir John-a-Dale. It touched him lightly, playfully, on each shoulder with its horn as if dubbing him. Use your eyes, man. And remember, you yourself are a knight of the Rose. En avaunt!