Once Upon a Winter's Night

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Camille looked at the way before them and gasped, for ahead stood a tangled and twisted wood, with barren, stark trees clawing at a drab, overcast sky. All was black and white and gray, no color whatsoever in the land. And there at the verge of this drear and lifeless place, the Bear paused as if reluctant to pass into the grim fastness beyond. But he roared in challenge, and clawed the frozen earth, and then pressed forward and into the wood.

  And as they entered this desolate snarl, Camille took a deep breath and straightened her spine, though her heart was racing in dread.

  5

  Winterwood

  Among the twisted trees they went, the Bear and his rider Camille, and all about was gloom and desolation and chill, a drear and silent wood. And now and again the Bear would pause and raise his head and sniff the air, but what he was seeking—water, food, habitation, friend, or foe—Camille knew not, though she suspected that what he sought was the scent of peril in the surround. After each pause, he would growl low over his shoulder at Camille, and she construed he warned her to silence, and for her part she did stay mum, as the Bear pressed on into what surely must be the Winterwood, or so Camille did think.

  Forward they went into the fading day, the Bear following a narrow track through the dreadful demesne. Embedded in ice and snow and looming all ’round were harsh gray rock and jagged crags and stripped, barren trees—nought but cracked and splintered and tangled wood—and Camille shrank away whenever a clawlike branch seemed to clutch at her. Yet even though this was Faery, where strange and grim things were said to occur, Camille reasoned it was the Bear passing under or near the deadwood that made the limbs seem to reach out to grasp, rather than it actually being so . . . or so she did think. Still, she continued to flinch away when misshapen boughs reached forth with their fingers of twisted twigs as the day drew down toward night.

  And just as the last of the dismal light was fading, a distant and terrible skriegh sounded, seemingly from far above, and Camille looked up through gnarled limbs to see high in the gloom a great and terrible creature of leathery wings and a sinuous body with legs ending in claws. “Oh,” she gasped, breaking her silence. “A Dragon. A Dragon dire.”

  Yet the creature flew on to disappear beyond ice-laden peaks afar. But even after it was gone, Camille’s heart continued to race, and a goodly while passed ere it came to steady rhythm again, if a beating heart within this tangle could ever be said to be steady.

  Even after darkness fell, the Bear continued apace, and in spite of the dreadful realm they trod, Camille began to nod in weariness, and now and then she would jerk awake in startlement to peer about, only to nod again. It was when she nearly fell from his back that the Bear came to a stop at last, and neither camp nor fire nor cooking food awaited them this night in this ghastly place. It was as if their unseen attendants had abandoned them.

  Stumbling about, Camille managed to loosen the bundles the Bear did indicate, and in one was food—jerky and cold biscuits . . . it would have to do.

  “I am thirsty, O Bear,” whispered Camille, her lips quite dry, for she had had nothing to drink since they had left the stream where they had eaten shallots and rootstock.

  The Bear gave a soft whuff, and he sniffed the air and then led her to a frozen pool. With his great weight he broke through the ice and then backed away. Camille knelt and sipped at the frigid water, her face twisting in revulsion, for it tasted of brimstone, sulphurous and disgusting, but she drank of it nevertheless. When she raised up and moved away, the Bear, too, drank his fill, though he snuffled in loathing.

  Back in the camp Camille fell asleep while wrapped in a blanket and eating, the partially consumed biscuit falling from her lax hand. Gently the Bear took up the remainder and finished it for her.

  The next drab day, after a cold breakfast and another foul tasting drink, and after Camille had relieved herself, again they went through the drear land, Camille weary of travel, weary of fear, weary of this dismal realm. And this day seemed even darker than the one before, the woods more tangled, the shadows deeper, the ice and snow more chill; it was as if they were now travelling within the malignant heart of the dreadful domain, with its shattered gray rock and dark, looming crags looking on with sinister purpose. Even so, she once again straightened her spine to sit up tall, for she would not be defeated by the grim Winterwood, no matter how baleful its frigid clutch.

  On padded the Bear through the unremitting gloom and rocks and crags and gnarl, and still the sky darkened above, and somewhere off in the remote fastness a distant Wolf howled, answered by an echoing howl even farther away. Though Camille gasped in alarm, the Bear gave no heed to these callings, as onward they went.

  They stopped nigh what Camille thought might be the noontide, though with the blackening skies above, she could not say of a certain just what time it might be. The Bear directed her to loosen the food bundle, and again they dined on jerky and cold biscuits. And once more the Bear found water to drink, water again tinged with a sulphurous tang.

  Forward they pressed after hardly any rest, and as the dark day began to wane, Camille thought she could see ebon shapes scrambling through the tangle afar. But the sightings were too brief for her to be certain, and the crags and rocks and shadows and snarl alone had fooled her more than once. Even so, “Oh, Bear,” she whispered, “does someone or something run alongside our course?”

  The Bear paused and raised his head on high and sniffed. Long he stood, snuffling, but then without comment continued on. Camille wetted a finger and raised it to measure the flow of air, and yet all she discovered was the forward motion of the Bear. Mayhap the air drifts the wrong way for the Bear to scent th—What’s that? Camille’s heart hammered in her chest. I thought I saw something large and looming in the dark by that tall crag, something staring, leering. But the Bear had moved onward, and whatever it might have been had vanished behind a dead thorny tangle, and though she peered intently, she saw it not again. Slowly her heart calmed. Mayhap it was nought but shadows in the murk, or a standing stone or twisted tree or other such. Still she kept a sharp eye out, and now and again did she think she saw what might be dark forms running among the ice-laden twists and angular wrenchings of the tangled wood and the outlying crags and jumbles of shattered rock, but still she could not be certain.

  Long did they travel as the day wore on, and toward night a wind began to blow down from the mountains above, and the pall o’erhead was riven into ragged, gray, wraithlike tendrils streaming across jagged peaks. In an effort to stay warm at the end of a day become blustery and chill, Camille wrapped her cloak about and huddled down within, abandoning her vow to remain unbowed within the Winterwood.

  Night fell, and once again did the Bear pad onward as if trying to be quit of this terrible place. And once again did weary Camille nod and jerk and nearly fall from her perch. And in the windy cold, once again did the Bear finally stop for Camille to make camp and drink distasteful water and fall asleep while eating.

  Wha-what? What was tha—?

  Camille was wrenched from sleep by screams of dying and yawls of terror and howls of combat, and a great snarling and roaring. And just as she jerked awake in fear, a dark being crashed to the frozen ground beside her, his face torn off, his abdomen gutted. Shrieking, she scuttled back and away from this hideous dead thing, and looked up in the slanting light of a low gibbous moon to see a great battle raging, her Bear standing on his hind legs, ringed ’round by creatures with spears stabbing. And then she knew from her papa’s stories—Oh, sweet Mithras, they’re Goblins! And the Bear laid about with massive blows, his great claws ripping and rending, and blood flew wide and bones crunched, and Goblins fell ’round him slain. Yet the Bear was bleeding as well, his white fur stained with a scarlet gone black in the night.

  Scrambling up, Camille looked for something to—

  She was jerked from her feet and hauled into the air and clasped against a huge body, and a large hand slapped down on the top of her head, huge fingers grasping,
curved talons clamping against her face. And a voice bellowed out above the Bear’s own roars, “Stop now, or I’ll snap the girl’s neck like a twig!”

  6

  Deliverance

  At the shout from the huge being clasping Camille, the Bear swung his great head ’round, his ashen eyes mad with rage, and for a moment it seemed he would charge. But instead he took one last swipe at the beringing Goblins, scattering them, and then he dropped down to all fours and stood, his fighting done. At another command, the Goblins again surrounded the Bear, their spears ready to stab.

  And when the Bear was encircled, the creature grasping Camille shifted his clutch to her shoulders and turned her about and held her out at arm’s length, and she gasped in dread and clenched her teeth to keep from screaming, for ’twas a huge, ugly Troll had her in his claw-fingered grip.

  Hideous, he was, and massive, some nine foot tall or so. And in spite of the blustering wind, all about him was a terrible miasma, a stench like that of a rotting animal burst open after lying dead afield for a full sevenday in the glare of the hot summer sun. He was dressed in greasy animal hides. He gazed at her with yellow eyes, his green-scummed tusks revealed as he leered. “Ah, but what a beauty you are,” he declared, and the foulness of his foetid breath caused Camille to gag and retch. “I am Olot, King of the Goblins and Trolls, and I have come for you, my girl, for I have been watching you, and although I have a queen, I will keep you as my mistress and—”

  At this last the Bear roared in rage and reared upward, his great claws brandished. Goblins shrieked, and scuttled back, yet their spears were held at the ready. And Olot the Troll snatched Camille again to his breast, pressing her into his foul reek. But the Bear remained standing upright, fully as tall as the Troll. And in spite of all, Camille could feel the Troll tremble in fright.

  And the light of the moon fled away, as riven clouds scudded across the sky, a pall of darkness falling. Yet within but a moment through a gap above, the argent light returned.

  Still standing, the Bear roared and growled and swept his claws and bared his teeth and irately postured, but he did not attack. And it seemed the Troll knew what the Bear was saying, though it was no ordinary tongue. The Troll nodded and looked at Camille, and his yellow eyes narrowed in cunning and he turned Camille to face the Bear. “Hear me, then, Bear: you spurned my daughter, and you refuse to yield this tasty morsel to me.” Olot clutched a dull amulet at his neck. “I have you in my power, just as did my child, and as did she, so will I do.” The Troll grinned a tusky grin, and added, “If for nothing else than in retribution for the ten of my best you murdered.”

  In spite of her fear, Camille cried out, “But the Goblins were attacking the Bear. He was merely defending himself.”

  “Shut your clack, woman!” bellowed the Troll, shaking Camille like a rag poppet, momentarily dazing her.

  The Bear roared at this handling of Camille, and took a stride toward the Troll.

  Olot backed hindward a step and cried out, “Stay away, Bear, or else . . .”

  The Bear stopped.

  “What I plan for you, Bear”—here the Troll glanced at Camille and laughed—“is not for her to know. Go. I will follow. But hear me, my remaining Goblins will watch over her, and should aught happen to me, she will suffer a dreadful fate.”

  At a gesture from the Troll, the Bear dropped down to all fours and moved into the tangle nigh, and so, too, did Olot the Troll King go, leaving Camille surrounded by a dozen or so bandy-legged, yellow-eyed, snaggletoothed, spear-bearing Goblins.

  And when the Troll and Bear were gone from sight, one of the Goblins leered and stepped toward Camille, and he reached out a skinny arm to paw at her with his talon-fingered hand, while the other Goblins sneered and laughed, though some glanced nervously in the direction the Troll and Bear had gone, as if to make certain that they themselves would suffer no interruption.

  In the fluctuating light of the cloud-obscured moon, Camille gasped and shrank away as other Goblins crowded ’round, reeking and foul and filthy. Dressed in coarse-woven cloth and partly cured hides and standing some five feet tall, hideous they were up close, with their viperlike eyes and bat-wing ears and their overlarge noses with long gelid strings of snot dripping down. And they all wore black caps, and—

  No, wait! Not black. For just as the night had turned the Bear’s blood black, so, too, must these hats be crimson! Oh, Mithras, these are the Redcaps.

  Flinching, Camille backed away, to come up against the jagged bole of a gnarled, dead tree, where she could go no farther. And the Goblin at the fore became bold, and with one hand began to pluck at her clothes as if to undress her, while with the other he fumbled at the cord of his breeks.

  Lashing out, she shoved him into the ones behind, and then turned and scrambled up the twisted branches, seeking escape, while Redcaps japed and hooted and danced about the dead tree and made crude, suggestive gestures.

  Reaching a high branch and clinging to the trunk, her breath coming in fear-driven huffs, Camille looked down at the cavorting Goblins below, as once again the moon broke through the clouds. And she peered across the twisted ’scape, desperately seeking the Bear.

  Oh, my guardian, where are you when I do need you so?

  And then, on a stony ridge and momentarily silhouetted against the gibbous moon, Camille saw what looked to be the great, hulking Troll shaking a fist at a man. But what would a man be doing out here in this dreadful place? And whence had he come? The moon fled behind another cloud, and she saw no more. In that short glimpse, she had not espied the Bear, though a large dark shape off to the left might have been him, yet it could just as well have been a boulder instead. Too, he could have been just this side or that of the ridge where Olot stood and hence would not have been seen.

  And midst the jeers coming from the darkness below, and in the blustery wind, now and again from the direction of the ridge Camille could hear snatches of voices arguing:

  “. . . slew ten of my . . .”

  “. . . attacking ...”

  “. . . daughter ...”

  “. . . never will I . . .”

  “. . . She will fail, and then the geas . . .”

  The tree trembled as if—

  Camille looked down in the dimness, and just then the moon broke clear.

  Jeered on by his mates, the Redcap who had pawed at her came clambering up the bole. Camille gritted her teeth and turned so that she could kick at him. In counter, he scuttled around the twisted trunk so as to avoid her strikes. Camille then moved to another gnarled branch to meet his maneuver, but again he scuttled counter and scrambled higher and, leering around the trunk, reached for her. And just as his long-fingered hand grasped her wrist—thuck!—a feathered shaft sprang full-blown from his left eye, the arrow point punching up and out through the crown of his skull.

  Even as he fell away from Camille and crashed down through crooked branches, fury exploded below, wild Wolves slamming into and through and over shrieking Redcaps, tearing out throats, snapping necks, hauling down running Goblins from behind.

  In a trice it was over, all Redcaps slaughtered and silence fallen within the wood, but for the bluster of the wind and a growl or two from Wolves making certain that every Goblin was slain.

  “Ho, Lad,” came a cry, “are you all right?”

  In the moonlight a man with a bow strode under the tree and stood amid the Wolves.

  Camille, her voice shaking with the residue of fright as well as in relief, called down, “I am well, O Sir. And I thank you for coming to my aid.”

  “Well, then, climb on down, Lad, and let’s have a look at you.”

  Glancing again at the ridge, Camille saw neither Troll, nor man, nor Bear; they were gone from the light of the gibbous moon.

  “Come, come, Lad,” said the man, gesturing to the Wolves. “My companions are quite civilized.”

  As Camille turned about to clamber down the tree, her golden hair swung ’round as well, and the man below huffed
in revelation and said, “I see I should have called you mademoiselle instead, my lady.”

  Descending, Camille said, “You may call me my lady if you wish, but only if I must call you my lord.” As the man laughed, Camille climbed down the last few feet, then paused and looked at him. Tall and slender, he was, with pale, pale eyes—ice-blue perhaps, though Camille could not be certain in the glancing light of the moon. He was dressed in varied greys—cloak, leathers, boots, vest, jerkin—their colors much like those of the Wolves at hand. Around his head and across his brow, a silver-runed, grey leather headband held his silver-grey, shoulder-length hair in place.

  Yet smiling, the man reached out a hand to aid her to step to the ground. As she took it, he said, “I am Borel. And you are . . . ?”

  “Camille, Good Sir. Yet names can wait, for urgency presses, and I ask you and yours to aid my Bear.” She looked at the grinning Wolves, with their lanky frames and long, lean legs, the pack standing and waiting as if for a command, a few facing outward on guard.

  Once more clouds slid across the moon, and in the dimness Borel said, “Bear?”

  “The one who is taking me to Lord Alain, Prince of the Summerwood.”

  “Ah. That Bear. And just why is he taking you to the Summerwood?”

  The light brightened and Camille said, “I am to be Alain’s wife.”

  “Ah, then, you are the one,” Borel said, and he frankly eyed her face and form, appraising. And at last he said, “Now I can see why he was so smitten.”

  “How know you this?”

  “He is my brother,” replied Borel, “for I am the Prince of the Winterwood.”

  “Brother and prince you may be, Good Sir, yet again I ask, will you give aid to my Bear?”

  Borel looked about. “Where—?”

  “He is with a monstrous Troll—”