Dennis McKiernan - Once upon a Summer Day

On they went into the fading day, the sky seeming even more dismal in this 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 clawlike branches seemed to reach out to grasp, as if clutching at these insolent travellers who dared to journey within. Yet neither Borel nor the Wolves paid heed as misshapen boughs reached forth with their fingers of twisted twigs as the day drew down toward eve.

And a candlemark or so ere sunset, Slate in the lead trotted free of the tangle, followed by Dark; and then Borel and the flankers-Render and Trot, Shank and Loll-broke out of the snarl, followed at last by Blue-eye.

And just beyond the border awaiting them in an icicle dangling from the limb of an evergreen was an Ice-Sprite. And when Borel had emerged from the gnarl, relief flooded the Sprite’s face. It was the Sprite who had accompanied the prince to the opposite side of the blight, and even though terrified, it had waited for them to safely emerge. All the other Sprites had long ago abandoned them, though somewhere farther on, somewhere beyond the reach of the cursed section, they would take up the run again.

Borel signed his thanks to the Sprite, and then-looking first left and then right-he turned leftward and trotted parallel to the tangle.

A horrified look on its face, once more the Sprite flashed ahead, this time to a frozen mere. And it signalled to the prince that menace lay to the fore, for in the near distance sat a small cottage of rough fieldstone, its roof tattered thatch.

Borel paused, and at a growled word, the pack paused as well. As he strung his bow, Borel studied the meager cote, one room at the most. There was no smoke coming from the chimney, and the air was silent.

Still the Sprite frantically gestured. Borel then signalled he knew of the peril and knew what he was doing, and, nocking an arrow, he started toward the dwelling-Hradian’s abode-the Wolves yet arrayed to the fore and flank and aft.

The Sprite accompanied them no farther, so strong was its dread, yet Borel and the Wolves went on.

The sun sank lower in the sky.

And then they came to the cote and quietly circled ’round.

There was a single door facing the blighted wood, with a window to either side, and one in the rear as well. Yet the windows were covered with scraped and oiled hide and did not permit Borel to see within.

He looked to Slate and growled a word. A rumble came in response.

No fresh scent; all was old.

Borel stepped to the door. It was latched, yet a simple pull of the string snicked it open. Borel drew his bow to the full, then kicked the door wide on its leather hinges and stood ready.

No one was in the dimness beyond.

Borel stepped inside.

Perhaps the place is abandoned.

He scanned about. A fireplace stood in one corner; a tripod holding a lidded iron kettle dangled over cold ashes. In front of the fireplace sat a three-legged stool. To one side was a table, and hanging from the beams above were pots and pans and utensils. Several rude shelves on a wall at hand held a small number of wooden bowls and dishes and spoons. In the shadows overhead, strings of beans and roots and turnips and onions and leeks and other such fare depended from the joists. Along one wall stood a cot, and along another wall sat a worktable with several drawers. Just above were more shelves, these with jars of herbs and simples and things that looked like parts of fur-bearing animals and insects and amphibians and reptiles preserved in a pale yellow liquid. On these shelves as well were scrolls and loose sheets of parchment. A half-full drinking bucket, the water frozen, sat on the hard-pack floor nearby, a hollowed-out gourd for a dipper hanging down from the bail.

Relaxing his draw, Borel stepped to the table and set his bow thereon, the arrow beside it. Then he took down a scroll and unrolled it. Whatever it said, he did not know, for it was written in runes unfamiliar.

Another scroll yielded the same result, though the symbols were stranger still. Another scroll and then another he opened, none of which he could read.

Perhaps I will burn these.-No, better yet, take them to Vadun. He is a seer of sorts and mayhap well versed in many tongues.

He unslung his rucksack and set it on the table, and placed all scrolls and parchments within. Then he began opening the drawers, and in the first he found odd instruments of bronze; what they were for he could not say. In the next were powders and what seemed to be lumps of ores, and a mortar and pestle for grinding. The next drawer yielded pressed flowers. Brushing most aside, Borel uncovered a book.

A grimoire?

The sun began lipping the horizon, casting long shadows across the Winterwood.

In the fading light Borel opened the book. It was written in a small, crabbed hand.

No, not a grimoire. Instead it seems to be… — Yes, a journal of sorts. Written in the Old Tongue.

Though the writing was difficult to read, still Borel quickly leafed from page to page, skimming.

Of a sudden his eye caught the words Foret d’Hiver. He flipped back a page to the beginning of the entry. Though Borel could read the Old Tongue, still his progress was slow, for the hand was difficult. “Aujourd’hui, j’ai complete ma malediction sur la Foret d’Hiver pour produire sa ruine totale…”

Today, I completed the curse upon the Forest of Winter to produce its total ruin, but the forest is too strong and resisted total destruction. Even so, I managed to blight a wide swath between the Springwood and the Summerwood along the shortest route to the common world, hence I deny them an easy journey. On this same day in an linked act, my elder sister cast a great spell upon Roulan and his entire estate through his daughter Chelle, on this the day of her majority. This vengeance is so very sweet, for Roulan was the accomplice of Valeray the Thief. And now all are ensorcelled and well warded; and since none can find Roulan’s daughter-or even if they do, all attempts to rescue her from the turret will fail-then when the rising full moon sits on the horizon eleven years and eleven moons from now Startled, Borel looked up from the journal. Trapped? Turret? Full moon? This has to somehow be From the corner of his eye, Borel noted movement in the bucket near his feet. And there, under the surface of the ice, the Sprite, sheer terror on its face, signalled frantically of oncoming peril. And then the Sprite disappeared.

Borel jammed the journal into his rucksack on the table and snatched up his bow and an arrow. Nocking the shaft as he went, he stepped through the doorway and out into the long shadows cast by the nearly set sun. Alighting in the snow some fifty paces away, Hradian dismounted from her besom, the crone dressed in black, with black lace frills and trim and danglers streaming from her like tattered gloom.

Borel’s Wolves stood with fangs bared and hackles raised and growls deep in their chests.

And even as Hradian turned and looked at the cote, Borel took quick aim and loosed his shaft, the arrow to fly straight and true.

Yet even as it flashed through the air, with her index and little fingers of her right hand hooked like horns and pointing at the arrow, and her middle fingers pointed down and her thumb pointed leftwards, “Avert!” cried Hradian at the last instant, and the arrow veered to her left and ripped through her ear as it flew past. Hradian screamed in agony, even as Borel nocked another shaft.

Slate howled, and the Wolves charged.

But Hradian snatched up a talisman on a thong ’round her neck and cried a word and broke the amulet in two, and in a roaring black wind Borel was hurled up and away, his last sight that of the Wolves hurtling at the witch, yet she had mounted the haft of her twiggy besom, and then Borel lost consciousness and saw no more as the black wind bore him away.