Once upon a Spring morn ou-2

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Roel turned to Celeste and said, “Choose.” And Celeste said, “Left is right, and right a mistake.” And leading their horses, into the leftmost portal they went.

  38

  Senaudon

  Out onto a decrepit stone pave emerged Celeste and Roel, out between two ancient pillars, the fluted columns raddled with cracks, and a cold swirling wind groaned about the stone. The animals followed after, snorting and blowing in the sulfur-tinged sobbing air, and Celeste, pulling them and squinting against the acrid whorl, turned and looked behind to see not one but two black portals just then fading from view.

  Scribed in the riven stone at her feet was a faint outline of an ages-old circle, much like the one they had left.

  “Is this Tartarus?” asked Roel, as left and right and fore and aft he scanned for foes, yet there were none.

  “I know not, Roel, but if it is, then we will be trapped forever. Yet there is hope that it is not, for I did see two portals when we emerged, as well as what is perhaps an invoking circle scribed on the floor. I would think these things would not be in Tartarus.”

  Roel grunted but said nought.

  Celeste added, “If we need come back this way, once more we will have to choose.”

  Roel nodded, and still cautious-sword in hand, shield on his arm-he started forward, Celeste at his side. Across the broken pave they trod, cracked pillars standing along its perimeter, to come to the last of its extent, and they found themselves on a dark hilltop.

  Outward they gazed across the world into which they had come. The land before them was sere and dark and of ash and cinder and sloped down toward widespread stone ruins lying just past the base of the hill. Far beyond those shambles and over the horizon, crimson light stuttered across the dull gray sky and a deep rumbling rolled o’er the blackened ’scape.

  “Oh, but what a dreadful place,” said Celeste, her face twisted in revulsion against the reek of cinder and char and brimstone borne on the coiling wind. “Perhaps it is Tartarus after all.”

  “If not, then yon,” said Roel, pointing down at the ruins, “must be the City of the Dead-Senaudon.” Celeste turned her gaze toward the remains.

  The town itself had once been walled about, yet much of that barricade had fallen, and great gapes yawned through the stone. Crumbling houses and broken buildings made up the city proper, though here and there parts of such structures yet stood, some nearly whole.

  And but for rubble lying strewn, empty were the streets within.

  Roel intoned: “‘It is held in the hands of an idol in a temple on the central square of the City of the Dead.’ ” He glanced at Celeste. “That’s what the Abulhol said.

  Hence, if it is Senaudon, the arrow must lie”-Roel turned and pointed downward-“there.” Celeste’s gaze followed Roel’s outstretched arm, and arranged about a square in the heart of the shambles a large group of imposing buildings remained, though holes gaped in their roofs.

  Again the distant ruddy sky flashed bright, and the ground shuddered, and across the land a wave of thunder came rolling.

  Roel glanced at Celeste. “Come, let us ride.” They mounted, and with packhorses in tow, down they rode, down through the twisting wind, down toward the vestige of what had once been a mighty city, now nought but a city of ruin.

  And Roel yet gripped Coeur d’Acier, and his shield remained on his arm. Celeste held her bow, a keen arrow nocked to string.

  The horses’ hooves crunched through ash and cinder, and small puffs of dark dust rose with every step taken, only to be borne away on the chill wind. As Celeste and Roel neared the broken walls, they could hear a banging, a thumping-and in the coiling air at the main entry into the city a gaping char-blackened gate swung loose on its hinges and thudded against its support.

  The horses shied, but at Roel’s command and that of Celeste, forward through the opening they went and into the rubble-strewn cobblestone streets. To either side stood broken houses, doors agape, shutters banging in the groaning air.

  Celeste’s horse flinched leftward, and the princess looked rightward to see what had affrighted it, and there in deep shadows of an alley she saw- “Roel!” she hissed, and pointed. In the darkness a form lurked: manlike it was, but no living man this, for bones showed through gapes in its desiccated skin, its flesh stretched tight like wetted parchment strung on a ghastly frame and then dried taut in sunlight. And the being shambled toward them, and it snuffled, as if trying to catch an elusive scent, and the creature emitted a thin wail, but the sound was lost in the sob of the wind.

  “Keep riding,” said Roel, and they continued onward, heading for the city square.

  They passed more alleys, more wrecked buildings, of which some had been dwellings, others once establishments of one sort or another. And the air wept among the dark ruins.

  From the gloom came more of the beings, living corpses who once had been human. Some had shreds of clothes yet clinging, while most were completely exposed. Many were nought but fleshless beings, while others had tissue hanging on their frames and straggles of long hair stringing down from their pates. Some still had eyes in their skulls, the lids gone, the skin flaked off, leaving behind huge glaring orbs, somehow not shrunken away. Lips were stretched tight, drawn back from yellowed teeth in horrid, gaping, rictal grins. Most were wasted men-with long bony arms and legs and grasping taloned fingers, their ribs jutting out, their groins bare, their manhoods blackened and withered, some of which had rotted away or had dried and broken off-

  but many of the beings were gaunt women-flat dugs hanging down, tufts of hair at their groins, their woman-hoods shriveled and flapping-and Celeste shuddered in horror at the sight of all.

  “Liches,” muttered Roel. “The walking dead.”

  “How can this be?” asked Celeste. “Some are nought but skeletons, and yet they move.”

  Roel shook his head. “I know not the ways of the departed, but surely these are cursed, for did not Chiron say that for the Cymry this is the dreadful place where the souls of those who commit the most heinous deeds go when they die?”

  “All of these committed heinous deeds?” asked Celeste, looking ’round. “But there are so very many.” Roel nodded but said nought as on they rode, a crowd of corpses shambling after, and the farther they went, the more of the living dead joined them, all snuffling, as if to inhale the essence of life that this man and woman and these horses had brought into their world.

  And in the distance the leaden sky bloomed red and the ground shook, followed long after by a grumbling roar.

  Now they came unto the central square where the once-stately buildings stood.

  “Which is the temple?” asked Celeste, gazing about.

  A ghastly laugh greeted her query and echoed among the ruins, the wind twisting it about so that its source could not be found.

  As Celeste’s and Roel’s gazes searched the square, again the eldritch mirth resounded. Celeste said,

  “There,” and pointed. High up on the wall of one of the buildings, in an array of dark niches stood torchbearers, yet none of their flambeaus were lit.

  “We seek the temple of the gray arrow,” called Roel.

  The macabre beings looked down with glaring eyes and once more there came nought but a hollow jeer, and one called out in a ghoulish voice, “Death awaits.

  Death awaits.”

  Again the dull sky flared scarlet afar, and the ground shuddered, and a rumble rolled across the dark land.

  Roel turned to Celeste and said, “Mayhap that is the temple, for it is the only place so warded.” And they rode forward toward a set of wide steps leading up into the stately building where the torchbearers stood high above. Beyond the stairs and between columns and across a broad landing a doorway blackly gaped onto empty dark shadows within.

  And behind Celeste and Roel the dead shuffled close.

  And as the princess and her knight came to the foot of the steps and stopped, outstretched hands reached for the pair. And one of the living corpse
s laid a skeletal palm on a gelding, and the horse screamed. A dead being grasped at Celeste, and as its desiccated fingers clutched her leg a deathly chill swept through the princess. Shrilling, Celeste kicked at the creature, and its arm cracked off and fell to the ground, the brittle bones shattering on impact.

  “Roel, ride!” Celeste shrieked, and she spurred her mount forward. But Roel had cried out a warning at the same time, for one of the living corpses had touched his mare, and at the squeal of the horse, Roel swung Coeur d’Acier and took off the undead thing’s head.

  Straight up the steps Celeste galloped, Roel coming after, and the torchbearers in the niches high above shrieked in rage, for living beings were defiling the empty hall below. And one of those corpses put a horn to its lips and sounded a thin call, more of a wail than the cry of a clarion, and the moaning wind carried it throughout the ruins of the city, and beings shuffled forth through the dark.

  Across the landing galloped Celeste and through the gaping portal, and just inside she leapt from her mare and shouldered one of the doors to. At the other door, Roel did the same, and- Boom! Doom! — the massive panels slammed shut. On the back of Roel’s door a beam rested in a pair of brackets; with a grunt Roel slid it across to mate with a like set of brackets opposite and bolted shut the entry.

  Corpses outside mewled and hammered at the doors, and scratched the panels with their talons.

  And even as Roel and Celeste looked at one another, from above dim light came streaming down as portals at the backs of the niches opened, and the skeletal torchbearers, now holding their unlit flambeaus as cudgels, stepped onto a walkway high above.

  Roel’s gaze swept the great chamber. Across a marble floor inlaid with arcane markings, to left and right and in the shadows at the far end stood open doorways to rooms beyond. To the back of the hall on either side stairwells rose up to the walkways above. Also in the darkness at the rear of the chamber a statue of a woman stood on a pedestal, but what she signified Roel knew not, nor at the moment did he care. “Celeste,” he called,

  “the stairways afar, the liches must come down them to reach this hall. I will take my stand at the one on the right; take the left and use your bow to keep any from reaching the main floor.”

  Celeste nodded and ran toward the left-hand stairwell, and she reached it just as the first of the torchbearers started down. Celeste took aim and loosed, and the shaft flew true and struck the creature in the chest. And it looked at the arrow jutting out from its ribs and laughed, and continued on downward.

  Celeste flew another shaft, and it shot completely

  through the dead being, leaving nought but gaping holes fore and aft in the taut, yellowed, parchmentlike skin.

  Again the creature jeered, even as a second one of the beings reached the landing above and started down.

  My arrows are useless. Oh, why did not the Fates warn-?

  Of a sudden Celeste laughed, and she called out, “To kill and to not kill, that’s what Lady Lot said. I thought it only applicable to Cerberus and Achilles, yet here it is more to my liking.” And she nocked one of the blunt-tipped arrows, and taking careful aim, she let fly at the descending creature’s exposed pelvis. Whmp! The arrow struck, and brittle bone shattered into fragments, and the creature toppled over to come tumbling down the stairs, and when it reached bottom, nought was left of it but the rags of its garments and the cudgel it had borne all lying in a scatter of shards, and clattering down after came her arrow as well. A thin wail sounded, and an ephemeral gray twist in the air rose up from the splinters of the sundered being, and Celeste wasn’t certain whether it was a spirit rising or simply a whirl of motes lofted up from the fragments.

  Celeste flew a second blunt shaft at the pelvis of the next torchbearer, and that creature, too, fell and tumbled down the stairs to become nought but shattered bone. Again and again Celeste loosed, each time slaying a torchbearer, and each time a faint keen and a wisp of gray mist arose from the strewn shards. Fifteen blunt arrows she loosed, and fifteen corpses died; no more were left on her stairwell. Quickly she turned to help Roel.

  But he stood amid a pile of fragmented bones and rags and cudgels, and no torchbearers were left on his stairs either, and he looked over to see that Celeste was hale, and he grimly smiled.

  Celeste took up her spent arrows, most of which had rattled to the bottom of the steps, though she had to climb up after a few.

  As she fetched the last of the shafts, “Aha!” crowed Roel. Celeste turned to see him standing on the pedestal of the statue, and in his right hand he held an arrow. And he called out: “Celeste, this is not Tartarus but Senaudon instead, for the gray arrow: I have it!” Celeste darted down the stairs and to the plinth.

  “Here,” said Roel, and he handed her the arrow.

  Celeste examined it. The shaft was dark gray as was the fletching, and the arrowhead was of a dull gray metal. “It looks like plomb, ” said Celeste. She tested it with her thumbnail, leaving behind a faint mark. “Oui, indeed it is lead.”

  “It was in her hands,” said Roel, gesturing at the statue.

  Celeste looked up at the depiction. A woman stood, a crown on her head, her arms outstretched, palms up, as if in supplication. “She seems to be a queen,” said Celeste. “Mayhap the queen of Cymru.”

  “Or the queen of the Waste City of the Dead,” said Roel. “I wonder why she had the arrow that slew Achilles?”

  Celeste shrugged, and as she started to speak-

  Thdd! Thdd!

  The chamber doors rattled under massive blows.

  Roel turned and peered at the juddering panels.

  “They must have fetched a ram, and those simple brackets will not withstand such battering.” Celeste slipped the gray arrow into her quiver. “What will we do, my love? There are entirely too many for my blunt shafts and your sword.”

  Thdd! Thdd! Bmm!

  Roel frowned then looked ’round at the chambers.

  “Mayhap there is a back way out.”

  Quickly they searched, and the pounding went on, the doors quaking, the bolt rattling in its loosening clamps.

  And the horses skittered and whuffed with each blow.

  Dmm! Dmm!

  Neither Celeste nor Roel found any other exit.

  Bmm! Bmm! hammered the ram, and the doors began to give and thin wails and a mewling grew louder, as if the undead creatures anticipated victory.

  Celeste shuddered, remembering the touch of one of the beings, and she looked down at her leg where the creature had clutched it, and she gasped, for her leathers held what appeared to be a scorched imprint of a hand, as if the grip was of fire. Yet no scald this, but rather one of intense cold, as she could well attest.

  “Freezing!” said Celeste. “I felt a deadly numbness, a bitter chill, when one of those corpse folk grabbed me, Roel. Yet we ward cold with fire; think you flames will deal with these creatures?”

  “Perhaps,” said Roel. “In fact, it might be our only hope.” With a few quick strides he went to the foot of the stairs he had defended and took up four of the unlit torches from the pile of splintered bones lying there. “I wonder if these flambeaus yet hold enough oil to burn?”

  Bmm! Dmm!

  “If not,” said Celeste, stepping to one of the geldings and fetching a lantern, “we have lamp oil here.” Clang! One of the brackets fell to the floor, and the door gave inward. Outside, the mewling of the undead mob pitched even higher.

  As she poured oil on the torch rags, Roel said, “But where will we go once we are free of these corpse people?” Bmm! Bmm! Dmm! Clang! Another bracket fell, and the doors gaped even more, and now the crowd yowled.

  Celeste glanced over her shoulder at the yielding entrance. She struck the striker on the lantern, and it flared into flame. “The only way we know out of this place is back through the gate whence we came.” Dmm! Bmm!

  Roel lit the torches, and as Celeste extinguished the lantern and shoved it into a pack, Roel said, “Oui, yet that way out only leads back
to Erebus-either to the Hall of Heroes or to the pit of Tartarus, and neither place will set us free or get us any closer to my sister.

  And even should we get back across the Styx and the Acheron and find our way back through Thoth’s portal, that will but leave us trapped in Meketaten’s-”

  “Oh, Roel, you have hit upon it!” called Celeste above the crash of the ram and the cries of the mob. “I think I know just how to get us out of here.”

  “You do?”

  “Oui.” Celeste laughed and said, “Thoth told us the way.”

  Roel frowned in puzzlement, and Celeste said, “Trust me, my love.” And she grabbed two torches and leapt into her saddle, and cried, “ ’Tis time to flee through the gauntlet and up the hill whence we came.” And in that moment with a crash the doors flew wide, and the horde of howling corpses pushed inward.

  39

  Bridge

  Hard they rode, did the warband, long under the sun and stars. They took little rest, only that needed to spare the steeds. Even so, horses went lame, and gear was shifted, and men took to new mounts, abandoning those that could no longer run. And some four days after leaving Port Cient, the riders entered yet another forest, but this one had a windrow through it, and so the woodland did not slow the force as had the previous forest they encountered. They emerged at a run under the stars and hammered across fertile fields, though the crofts were abandoned, as were the steads thereon. In starlight they came unto a palisaded town: ’twas Le Bastion.

  Guards aimed great ballistas laded with spears at the milling band, for the citizenry was sore afraid to let such a force within; after all, they could be raiders. Mayor Breton was called, and when he appeared on the wall above, Borel explained that it was Celeste and Roel and Avelaine and Laurent and Blaise they were out to save, and Breton ordered the gates flung wide.

  They exchanged as many horses as they could with those from the town, and after but six hours respite, the warband galloped away.

  “The Wolves are edgy,” said Borel, as up the narrow pathway they went along the wall of the gorge. “Horses, too. Something dire lies ahead, I ween.” Mist swirled and twined, and as they came to a flat, a stone bridge stood before them. And a huge armored man bearing a great sword and wearing a red surcoat stepped on the far end of the span, the whorls of white alternately revealing and concealing the knight.