“A man was struggling with a horse near a stone monument – an old, Gothic-style cross carved out of thick, white stone but too large for a grave-marker. The horse – a big, black stallion with a white star in the centre of its forehead – refused to stay still while the man tried and failed repeatedly to buckle a saddle around its middle.
“Ihesu damn you,” the man cursed, his back to Warren. He was short and thin for a grown man and Warren had expected his voice to sound lighter and boyish. In fact, the man had a deep, mid-brown sort of voice, with a lilt to it that suggested Gaelic origin. He moved in a wiry, sprightly way, his scraggly, dark hair bobbing in the faint breeze.
“Excuse me?” Warren said. “You know Ihesu?”
“Who’s that now?” the man said to the horse and turned. His face was high-cheekboned with a forehead like polished marble. His mouth had a wry, perhaps sarcastic, set to it. Hairs too sparse to be called a beard surrounded his lips. He looked at Warren as if he wasn’t sure he was real.
“I’m Warren,” said Warren. “Do you need help? My dad works with horses, sometimes.”
“You hold his head,” the man instructed. “Keep him occupied. I’ll be the one at the dangerous end. I always am.”
Warren wasn’t sure if that remark was meant to be literal or a dry joke. He smiled out of politeness and took hold of the reins under the stallion’s chin. It snorted at him, its ears bending forward.
“He likes you! Well, he just would,” the man said moodily after he tightened the saddle-strap. “I give him a break, let him roll around for a bit, and what thanks do I get? None. Ungrateful beast.”
They regarded each other in awkward silence for a minute.
“What are you doing here?” the man said finally. “You’re alive.”
“So are you. Aren’t you?”
“Well, yes. I’m on my way out, as a matter of fact. Do you need a lift?” The man jerked his head at the horse.
“No, thanks. I’m trying to find my dog.”
“If your dog’s ended up here, he’s dead. My condolences.”
“He is not.”
“Then… what are you doing here?”
“I dunno. Exploring?”
The man came forward and stuck out his hand. “I’m Kay. This beast is Arthur.”
“Arthur’s brother!”
“That’s King Arthur, to you. And he’s my foster-brother. There’s a world of difference. I often wanted to sit on him, when we were children, so naming this animal after him was the closest I could get to fulfilling that wish.”
“You don’t like him either, then?”
“Nobody around here likes him.””
A Bit About Susan Cooper and “The Dark Is Rising”
Another book (well, series of books) that influenced “The Dark Rider” was Susan Cooper’s “The Dark Is Rising” which comprised 5 books in total featuring the adventures of Will and his numerous brothers and sisters in Wales (as well as other settings) which involved time travel, Arthurian legend, Celtic and Norse mythology, and old English folklore.
On his eleventh birthday, a sequence of bizarre events leads Will Stanton to find out he is the last of the Great Old Ones, a group of magical beings who exist throughout Time, including Merlin. The Old Ones are responsible for defending the Light from the evil Dark in the overall balance of the universe, but this time both forces are in need of special Signs or amulets to increase their power, and Will is required to find these Signs for the Light before the Dark gathers them.
The main character of “The Dark Rider” – Warren – is loosely based on Will, and the book began as a Susan Cooper fan-fiction set in an old farmhouse in Wales before spiralling off into something else. Warren doesn’t have much family, only a superior teenage-rebel brother (George), a sheepdog, an elderly grandmother with dementia, and an authoritarian father recently widowed. Instead of taking place during the Twelve Days of Christmas as in The Dark is Rising, “The Dark Rider” begins on Midsummer’s Eve during a supermoon. There is time-travel back and forth into Arthurian legend throughout, and Warren’s grandmother turns out to be the alter-ego of Egrayne, Arthur’s mother.
The Dark Rider, a semi-human force of evil also known as the Knight of a Hundred Soldiers, follows Warren into the present-day from the past and becomes trapped there by magic. He is forced to become Warren’s sinister school guidance counsellor to fit in.
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