Dennis McKiernan - Once upon a Summer Day

“Where?”

“I’ll show you, my lord.”

Following the Sprite, Borel painfully made his way up the slope of rubble, where he found the cloak he had packed in the rucksack, but no sign of ought else. He unslung his bow and quiver and took up the garment and slipped it on, and found a brooch hidden in the collar to fasten it with. The Sprite flying well above called out, “Boats, my lord. I see some boats. Perhaps you can use one to escape the oncoming Trolls.”

“Whence the Trolls?” asked Borel.

The Sprite pointed, and Borel saw two Trolls tramping along a sloping way wending across the nearly plumb face of the cliff, a handful of Goblins trailing.

“No doubt they want their meal,” growled Borel, slinging his bow and the quiver. “Which way the boats?”

“Yonder, my lord,” said the Sprite, again pointing.

Borel groaned. “Toward the place where the Trolls are heading.”

“Yes, my lord,” said the Sprite.

“Then let us go,” said Borel, and he haltingly made his way to the bottom of the scree and took up the coil of line and began hobbling in the direction indicated, following the flow of the river.

And the Trolls continued on downward.

And the Sprite and the bumblebee flew ahead of the prince and headed for the cache of boats.

In the distance the Goblins began yelling and pointing. They had spotted Borel making his way downstream along the riverbank.

The Trolls hastened…

“Hurry, my lord,” urged the Sprite.

Grunting against the pain, Borel limped faster.

“This way,” said the Sprite, his bee buzzing ahead.

More swiftly went the Trolls, and more swiftly went Borel.

Now prince and bee and Sprite came to a bend in the river, and the reeds grew thickly there.

“Into the water, my lord; all are hidden within.”

Borel splashed in among the reeds, and he came to a half-sunken boat, its bottom stove in.

Another boat and another he found, all broken.

“Is this as they all are?” he asked.

“Oh, my lord, I am sorry,” said the Sprite, darting from craft to craft, “but they all seem smashed.”

“Is there nought afloat?”

The Sprite flew higher, even as Borel could hear shouts and thudding footsteps nearing.

“A raft, my lord, here is a raft!” cried the Sprite, flying back to lead the way. “Oh, hurry, please hurry.”

Now flitting down among the reeds so as not to be seen, the Sprite led Borel to a large log float with steering sweeps fore and aft and rafting poles adeck, a reed-free channel to the river lying ahead. Throwing his coil of recovered rope onto the raft and untying the float’s mooring line from a post deeply driven into the bottom, Borel pushed. The craft did not move, for it was mired in the mud.

“Oh, hurry, my lord, they draw near.”

Straining, gritting his teeth, and heaving to the limit of his strength, Borel managed to break the float free of its mud-bottom anchorage, and even as he heard Trolls splashing into the water among the reeds, searching, and Redcaps ashore calling to one another, he shoved the raft out and away, pushing it along the channel. At last he won past the reeds and into the slow-moving current, and he clambered up over the end and grabbed a pole and thrust toward midstream.

“There he is,” shrilled a voice, and Borel turned to see a Goblin on the high bank and pointing.

And as the ten-foot-tall Trolls bellowed and splashed through the reeds in pursuit, Borel poled with all his might, the long, heavy shaft finding purchase against the bottom. Thrust, lift, set, thrust, lift, set, thrust… time and again, and all the while the Sprite screamed, “Oh, faster, my lord, faster, faster! Oh, my lord, my lord.”

The Trolls broke free of the reeds, and Goblins ashore shouted in glee and sprinted downstream.

And then the float reached swifter water, and yet the howling Trolls came on, now but a handful of yards away.

And still the Sprite shrieked in fear for Borel.

Realizing that unless the river got deeper, the Trolls would reach the raft, Borel dropped the pole adeck and strung his bow. And even as he nocked an arrow, one Troll grabbed the aft sweep.

Ssssthock! The shaft pierced the Troll through the eye.

The monstrous being screamed and pitched over backwards, slain, water closing over his massive body. The following Troll, waist-deep, roared in fury and pressed faster through the flow.

Borel nocked another arrow and drew the shaft to the full. Once more he loosed- Ssssthock! — and took the Troll in the throat.

Gggh! Choking, grabbing his gullet, the Troll fell sideways with a splash, to rise up and fall again and disappear into the current.

Borel nocked his last good arrow and aimed toward the Redcaps ashore pacing the raft, and they screamed in terror and turned and fled.

Exhausted, Borel slipped the arrow back into his quiver and slumped down on the logs.

“I thought you were a goner for certain,” said the Sprite, landing adeck, tears streaming down his face.

“So did I, tiny one,” said Borel, removing his quiver and setting it aside, then dragging the coil of rope over to use as a pillow. He reclined on his back and looked up at the high blue sky and sighed and said, “So did I.”

The bumblebee landed as well, alighting on Borel’s chest. Controlling his urge to slap, the prince looked at the wee dark insect and began to laugh as the flowing river bore them away downstream.

Of a sudden, “The moon!” cried Borel, and he lurched upright to a sitting position, upsetting the bee, who took to wing and buzzed away to land on the handle end of the fore steering sweep. “Where stands the moon?”

“My lord?”

“What is the phase of the moon?”

The Sprite frowned then said, “Tonight it will be two days past full, Sieur.”

“Ah, good,” said Borel, painfully groaning as he lay back down. “Then I haven’t lost a great deal of time.”

The Sprite flitted to land on Borel’s chest, there where the bee had once been. He plopped down and, elbows on knees and his face in his hands, he sat looking at the prince.

Borel smiled and said, “Have you a name, tiny one?”

“Yes, my lord. ’Tis Flic.” The Sprite stood and sketched a bow and then resumed his seat and said, “And you, Sieur?”

“I am Prince Borel of-”

“Of the Winterwood?”

“Yes, Flic. It is my demesne.”

“Oh, I’ve always wanted to see the Winterwood, but Buzzer would go dormant in the cold, and so might I.”

“Buzzer?”

“My companion,” replied Flic, pointing at the bee yet perched on the fore sweep.

“How came you to be in that cage, Flic?”

“The Goblins captured me in a fine net and took me prisoner.”

“To what end?”

“I am a Sprite of the fields, and the Trolls tried to force me into having my friends-the bees-make honey, every last drop of which the Trolls would take to baste their fare. I refused, of course, for I cannot think of a more heinous crime than making slaves of bees. Regardless, the Trolls said that when I got hungry enough, then I would obey. They tried to starve me into submission, but they hadn’t counted on Buzzer feeding me. I thought, though, that I would never get free, be a prisoner forever, yet you came along and, well…”

They drifted downriver in silence for a while, the unguided raft slowly turning in the current, and then Flic said, “And you, Prince Borel, how came you to my rescue?”

“I was escaping, Flic, for I was to be one of those whom they would baste with honey.”

A horrified look came over the Sprite’s face. “You mean they were going to eat you?”

Borel nodded. “Spitted, roasted, and consumed.”