Once upon a dreadful time ou-4

by Dennis L McKiernan

  “Is that the way toward the River of Time?”

  “Oui, Sieur, it is.”

  Emile jumped to his feet and summoned his bugler. “Sound the alert, for we march.”

  . .

  As planned, they left their wounded behind, along with a chirurgeon and three healers, with instructions for the lesser of the hurt to aid with the greater. Too, one of the Sprites remained with them to guide the mule-drawn wains through the shadowlight bounds on their way to a goodly sized distant town.

  All in the force that went sunwise were mounted on horses, with mules and asses in the train. And in haste they travelled the first day, and soon they were beyond the marching throng and the Sickness, and then the allies turned on the course pointed out by the Sprites.

  That evening they came to the twilight border, and when they passed through, they emerged under clear skies, where the blackness and lightning and thunder had been left behind.

  And here did they gain another six hundred men who were on their way to the mire, for that was where the rendezvous had been called. Yet they turned their march toward the goal set by Emile: the headwaters of the River of Time.

  . .

  As Orbane moved across the land, once the Sickness had cleared the morass, where it flowed it destroyed all plants as well as the animals-those that did not flee-leaving nought but wither and sere behind.

  The following day, Orbane and his throng reached the sunwise border, and here it was that once again the wizard commanded the witch to lend him her power. And he cast a great spell, and then ordered the march to continue, and when they went through the twilight bound, so, too, did the thundering skies above as well as the pollution below.

  Hradian had known that shadowlight borders are tricky, and usually a storm or blowing air and rivers and other such oft did not flow across as would a traveler go but appear somewhere else altogether. And although birds in the air passed through twilight marges much the same as did people, the air itself did not; instead it blew elsewhere. In contrast, fish and other aquatic creatures seemed to remain within the stream and flow through wherever the water went-though that was not the case with boats. And so, when Orbane had cast his spell and had caused the Sickness and the black skies to pass through as he had wished-first starting the darkness across, then his throng, followed by himself and Hradian and the corruption, with the remainder of the darkness following after-it had taken great magic indeed, and Hradian could but marvel at his power.

  Just on the opposite side, a battalion of Goblins joined them-Dunters all, it seems.

  . .

  And so the army marched, as did the throng, and each took on new recruits as across the realms they went. But as to Orbane, nought but barren soil was left along the wide, wide track of the dreadful pall.

  . .

  Under the hollow hills, at last Auberon pronounced all was ready, and Regar was given a fine horse and glittering armor, as well as a new bronze sword and a long-knife and a long lance pointed on both ends. But he kept his own bow and quiver, though the Fey Lord filled it with arrows he said would not miss.

  And the Fairy army-three thousand strong-rode up and out from the mounds, with arms and armor flashing in the sunlight of early morn and small silver bells ringing ajingle upon the caparisons of magnificent, prancing steeds.

  And then did Flic and Fleurette and Buzzer join Regar, and Flic said, “Oh, my prince, we thought you trapped, thought that you had eaten food or taken drink and would be caught for a millennia or more.”

  Regar looked at them in puzzlement. “Thought me trapped?

  I was under the hill for but a mere day.”

  “No, my lord,” said Fleurette, “you have been under the mound for nearly two moons altogether.”

  “Two moons?”

  “Just two days shy.”

  Alarmed, Regar turned to Auberon. “We must ride, my lord, else we will be too late.”

  Auberon lifted his silver horn and sounded a long cry. And the Fairy horses leapt forward, Auberon leading the way.

  Gap

  Some seven thousand strong the allies now marched, for they had collected additional warbands along the way. And as they tramped toward a distant goal, “Look ahead, my lord,” said Leon to Luc.

  “I see it,” said the prince, “and surely so has Sieur Emile.” To the fore stood a craggy mountain range, and the Sprites led the army toward a gap in the chain.

  “It seems quite narrow,” said Leon.

  “We are yet at a distance, Leon, and no doubt it will be wider when we get there.”

  Leon barked a laugh, even as he nodded in agreement.

  They rode onward, and shortly there came a page to summon them to Emile’s side. Forward they spurred, and soon they reached the vanguard, and within a quarter candlemark all the commanders had arrived.

  “Should it be a suitable lieu, I deem we can make a stand in yon slot,” said Emile, raising his voice so that all could hear.

  “If we do so, my lord,” said Captain Valodet, a newcomer and commander of four hundred horse, “we might not be able to flank them.”

  “Oui, Captain, we might not. Yet on the other hand, they might not be able to flank us either.”

  “My lord,” said Petain, “the Sprites report that Orbane’s forces gain enormous strength as they march. Their numbers increase seemingly without bound.”

  Roel said, “Then mayhap that’s all the more reason for us to make a stand in a narrow lieu where they cannot bring those numbers to bear.”

  Luc nodded in agreement with Roel. “ ’Tis the best way for dealing with great numbers, yet what of the Sickness? How will we contend with that?”

  Emile sighed and said, “The Sprites tell us that the throng marches out before the contamination, and so I deem we can do battle until the corruption comes upon us.” He looked about and said, “It is not the way I would want it, yet it is the best we can do.”

  “Mayhap the Firsts can deal with it, as well as with Orbane,” said Laurent.

  Blaise shook his head. “If I understand what went before in the war with Orbane, the Firsts could not do more than delay him. And, given Lady Lot’s rede, I think that making a stand in the slot is not the last gasp, not the final day.” Laurent growled. “Why do we depend upon the words of a soothsayer?”

  “My boy,” said Sieur Emile, “she is not a mere soothsayer.

  Lady Lot, Lady Verdandi, she is one of the Fates.” A silence fell among them as on toward the gap they fared, but then Michelle said, “It is the last quatrain that seems to provide some clue, yet what it might mean escapes my grasp.”

  “Refresh my memory,” said Emile.

  Michelle nodded and intoned:

  “Summon them not ere the final day

  For his limit to be found.

  Great is his power all order to slay, Yet even his might has a bound.”

  As Michelle fell silent, Luc said, “‘All order to slay,’ might that not refer to the corruption of the River of Time, mayhap throwing all things into chaos?”

  “I think you have it,” said Blaise.

  They rode a bit farther, and Blaise added, “It seems to me that when the Firsts come to the battle at last, then the limit of Orbane’s power will be reached.”

  “And. .?” asked Laurent.

  Blaise looked at his older brother. “ ‘And,’ you ask? Laurent, I do not know what will take place when he reaches the limit of his power. Yet this I do know: whatever it is that might happen, Lady Lot says we need it to occur.”

  They rode onward, for long moments, and finally Sieur Emile said, “Since none has come up with a better plan, tell all your warriors this: if the gap is suitable for making a stand, we shall do so. And if the pollution comes upon us, then will we make our retreat.”

  “What of our deployment?” asked Bailen.

  Emile said, “Orbane is a day behind us. Hence, let us first look at the ground in the gap ere we make our plans.”

  . .

  The follow
ing day the skies grew black, lightning and thunder raging overhead. Even so, no rain fell, nor did the darkness bring cooling air with it.

  “They will not be far behind,” said Blaise, sitting on a rock and sharpening his blade.

  “Non, they will not,” said Luc, adjusting the tack on Deadly Nightshade, his well-trained horse of war.

  A candlemark passed, and a horn sounded to the fore.

  “They are sighted,” said Laurent.

  “Indeed,” said Roel, buckling on Coeur d’Acier.

  They mounted up, did these four knights, did these four horsemen-deadly in their power-on mounts white and roan and black and grey. And they rode up a small slope toward the opening of the gap, for with Leon’s chevaliers following, they would be the first to meet the foe after the archers were done.

  Up to the crest of the rise they went, and there they stopped.

  And they watched as across the plain below came Orbane’s throng, the putrescence following after.

  “Oh, Mithras,” said Blaise, “there must be sixty, seventy thousand of them.”

  “More like ninety,” said Leon, riding up alongside.

  “They’ll funnel down when they get to this gap,” said Luc,

  “and we can deal with-what? — two or three thousand at a time?”

  Emile, who had joined them, looked at the width of the pass.

  “I think even less; mayhap half that.”

  “Even so,” said Luc, “with their numbers, they can afford for ten to fall for every one of us.”

  “Then mayhap you can use some help,” sounded a familiar voice amid a jingle of silver bells.

  Luc turned to see Prince Regar stop alongside, and downslope behind him came the Fairy army, Auberon in the lead.

  Straits

  Under roiling black skies streaked with lightning and reverberating with thunder, Auberon looked down at the oncoming throng and then beyond to the bilious cloud that followed, and he sucked air in between clenched teeth. “He has raised the Sickness.”

  Both Flic and Fleurette, sitting upon Regar’s tricorn, gasped in alarm. Buzzer was quite asleep between them, under the dark skies.

  “Oui, my lord,” said Emile.

  “Sickness? What is this so-called ‘sickness’?” asked Regar.

  “Is it that low-lying yellow-green cloud I see?”

  “Oui,” said Blaise at the prince’s side. “Note how it moves: it follows Orbane’s horde.”

  “To what purpose?”

  “With it, somehow, Orbane intends to pollute the River of Time.”

  Auberon sighed and looked at Regar. “It comes from the under-bottom of swamps, where it lies entrapped unless someone or something sets it free. It can cause great illnesses among living things, and will slay all that remains within its embrace too long.”

  “Even the Fey, grand-pere?”

  “Especially the Fey, mon petit-fils.”

  “Can you do nothing to stop it?” asked Luc. “Use Fairy magic or such?”

  “Non. Gloriana’s geas has seen to that.”

  “Gloriana?” asked Blaise.

  “Orbane’s mere,” said Regar.

  Blaise cocked an eyebrow, an unspoken question in his gaze.

  “Auberon’s consort,” said Regar, quietly. “Orbane is their only child.”

  “Oh, my,” said Blaise, but then fell silent.

  As they watched the throng and the Sickness move across the plains and toward the gap where the allies stood, Auberon sank into thought. Finally he said, “But there is something I can do, and that is to cast a protection spell over all of us.”

  “All of us?” asked Emile.

  “All of the allies,” replied Auberon.

  “Horses too?”

  “Oui. Horses too.”

  “But what of the geas?” asked Regar.

  “This spell is to give us temporary protection from some of the ills of the Sickness,” replied Auberon, “hence is a healer’s charm, and one, I think, that I will be able to cast, for it is not in direct opposition to Orbane.”

  “Will it negate the putrescence?” asked Emile, hope playing across his face.

  “Not completely,” replied Auberon. “It will protect us on the fringes of the contagion, but the deeper one goes into the miasma, the less effect it will have.”

  “Will it allow one of us to reach Orbane?” asked Regar.

  Blaise swiftly glanced from Regar to Auberon to see the look of sad dismay that flickered across Auberon’s face. But then Auberon’s mien shifted to one of determination, and he said,

  “I don’t know. Certainly it will not protect one of the Fey long enough to reach him, and you, my grandson, are one of the Fey.

  But as to a human doing so, that I cannot say.”

  “I will go,” said Laurent.

  And I, said Blaise and Roel together.

  “But first,” said Luc, pointing to the masses of Goblins and Bogles and Trolls and Serpentines, “we will have to win our way through that.”

  “You four?” asked Regar. “You four will go after Orbane?” A rakish grin crossed Luc’s face as he glanced at the three others. “We four.”

  We four! they responded.

  “But as you say, Prince Luc,” said Auberon, “first you have to win your way through an entire throng.” The Fey Lord turned to Emile. “My archers will stand to the fore, for with each arrowcast, we will bring one of them down. . until we run out of shafts, that is, for there are more of the foe than we bargained for.”

  “And I will stand with your archers,” said Michelle, sitting ahorse to one side, with her Wolves gathered ’round.

  “It will be perilous, my lady,” said Auberon.

  “Nevertheless,” replied the princess.

  Auberon looked to Emile for a countering word, but he merely shook his head and said, “I lost that argument long past, my lord. Besides, she will have seven Wolves and a warrior named Galion to protect her.”

  “Trained Wolves?”

  “Oh no, my lord,” replied Chelle. “It is Borel’s pack. We work as a team.”

  Auberon smiled and said, “And where is your prince, my lady?”

  “Trapped with the others in the Castle of Shadows,” said Chelle, “or so it is we think.”

  Regar took in a sharp breath at this news, and both Flic and Fleurette burst into tears. “What others?” asked Regar.

  “The entire royal family,” said Chelle. “Valeray, Saissa, Borel, Liaze, Alain, Celeste, Camille, and Duran-all trapped, borne away on a black wind. Mayhap Raseri and Rondalo, too, for a black wind bore them away as well.” Auberon gestured at the roiling sky. “He was always master of the winds; the rage above declares it, if nought else.”

  “You’ve got to get them out,” said Fleurette, choking back her tears.

  Luc jerked a nod and said, “As soon as I retrieve the key to the castle and we find someone to fly it through the Great Darkness to set the prisoners free. Hradian has the amulet, and we deem she is marching at Orbane’s side.”

  “This is ill news, and mayhap there is more,” said Auberon,

  “but it will have to wait. I must needs cast a great spell, and then deploy my archers.”

  . .

  As they rode back down to the midst of the army, Regar glanced across at Luc and Roel, Blaise and Laurent. “My mother once told me of an old legend about four deadly horsemen: the fable tells that the rider on the white horse was Plague himself, while the one on red was War; the one on black-or was it grey? Ah, never mind-was Famine, while the one on grey was Death.” Blaise laughed and said, “Well, then, I must be War, for I ride a red horse. Whereas, Laurent on white is Plague. That leaves Luc on black to be Famine or Death and Roel to be vice versa, whichever it is the legend says. But as for me, I would pick Roel to be Death.”

  “And why is that, other than simple family pride.”

  “Because he has a special sword-Coeur d’Acier.”

  “Heart of Steel?” Regar frowned and declared, “But
iron and steel are forbidden in Faery.”

  Blaise smiled. “Oui, I know, though I’ve been told there are a few exceptions-the arms and armor of the Dwarves of the ship Nordavind being one, and the weapons of King Arle and his riders being another, now that they’ve broken their curse, though they’ll not take iron or steel into the Halls of the Fairy Lord ever again. Yet did I not say Roel’s sword is special? The steel, you see, is bound by arcane runes flashed in silver, hence I am told it does not twist the aethyr, whatever that might be.

  It was given to Roel by Sage Geron, who got it from a source he will not or perhaps cannot name. Regardless, with the sword Roel cut through the Changeling Lord’s magical protection and took off his head, and thereby set Laurent and me free from an enchantment.”

  “It overcame a spell of protection?”

  “Oui,” said Blaise. “I think it’s the steel that did it, or perhaps the runes.”

  “Mayhap both together,” said Regar. “ ’Tis a powerful weapon indeed.”

  “Then can we name Roel ‘Death’?”

  Regar laughed and said, “As you will, Blaise, as you will.

  But regardless of what you call one another, I hope that when you four go after Orbane, you are just as deadly as are your namesakes.”

  “So do I,” replied Blaise, as Roel and Luc merely shook their heads and Laurent snorted and spurred forward to come alongside Auberon.

  “A splendid high-stepper of a mount you have, my lord,” said Laurent. “Are all Fairy horses such as he?”

  “To a lesser degree,” replied Auberon. He patted the white animal’s neck. “Asphodel is quite special.”

  “Asphodel? Ah, then that’s where Duran gets the name for his toy hor-” Of a sudden, Laurent’s words jerked to a halt, and he frowned in puzzlement and then his face lit up in revelation.

  “My lord, I do not know what all of this means, but Lady Wyrd gave me a rede.”

  “Skuld?”

  “Oui, my lord, and I think it has to do with Asphodel.”

  “Asphodel? Say on, Laurent. Say on.”

  “The rede goes like this.” Laurent paused in recollection and then intoned: