Dennis McKiernan - Once Upon an Autumn Eve

Back into Liaze’s chamber he ran and to the window, and he said to Liaze, “Step away, they might fly arrows.”

He sounded his horn, and it was answered from below by the houseguard.

Luc looked out and down. “What-?”

He flung on his silks and then his leathers, saying, “I know not what that black thing is, but you need to stay back and safe.”

As he slipped into his chain shirt, ignoring the warning Liaze stepped again to the window. “Oh, Luc, it’s creeping up the side of the house.” She hauled up the sash and slammed the window shut.

“My bow, I need to get my bow.” Liaze ran through an archway to an adjoining room.

A darkness blotted out the starlight, and the house creaked and groaned, as if its timbers were shifting, as if someone or something were trying to crush it.

Luc stomped his last boot onto his foot, and grabbed up his sword and stepped to the window.

Just as Liaze came running back in, her strung bow in hand and a quiver at her side, Luc lowered “Luc, don’t!”

— the sash.

Her cry came too late, for the huge shadow rushed in and snatched Luc up and jerked him out the window, his sword spinning down toward the ground to land on the flagstones with a clang!

Even as she ran toward the gape, Liaze nocked an arrow to bowstring.

The shaft was already half drawn as Liaze reached the window. She stared into the night, and saw something small and dark shoot up from the distant trees, dragging the great shadow after, with Luc caught in its grasp. Up and across the sky they flew, and Liaze drew to the full and took aim at the blot resembling an arm and loosed her missile, the arrow to sail through the umbrous wrist and beyond to no effect whatsoever. And there came through the moonless dark a distant laughter of sinister glee as the shadow and Luc and something flying ahead of them disappeared into the night.

Liaze collapsed to the floor, sobbing. She took up the silver horn and pressed it to her cheek. She did not note the ache in her left breast nor in her left forearm, the bowstring having struck both.

“Princess! Princess!” With a lantern in hand, Zoe came running in. “I heard the trump. What-?” Zoe dropped to her knees beside Liaze.

Liaze looked at the handmaiden through tear-laden eyes. “He’s gone, Zoe, snatched away from me by a dreadful dark thing.”

“Gone? Luc? Oh, Princess, I-”

The door slammed open. Zacharie and men of the houseguard came crashing in, weapons in hand. “Princess, are you-”

As men spread out and searched the chambers, Zoe leapt to her feet and ran to the bed to grab up a blanket.

“-hurt?” asked the steward, dropping down on one knee at Liaze’s side and looking everywhere but directly at her naked form.

“He’s gone, Zacharie,” said Liaze, raising her face to him, indescribable pain in her eyes. “The shadow took him.”

Zoe rushed back and enwrapped the princess in the cover.

“But you are safe? Nothing herein?” asked Zacharie, gesturing about.

“If there were,” snapped Zoe, “don’t you think she would be fighting them? And as far as being hurt, it is her heart and soul in pain, not her body.” Exasperated, Zoe added, “Men!” She turned to Liaze and knelt down and embraced her and held her close.

Members of the houseguard came from the adjoining chambers. “Nothing, Zacharie,” said one of them. “No Goblins anywhere.”

Zacharie rose to his feet. “Two stand ward at the princess’s door. The rest of you, help with the search of the manor.”

Gaining control of her emotions, Liaze said, “I’m all right, Zoe,” and the handmaiden released her embrace. Liaze then looked up at Zacharie. “Goblins?”

“Oui, Princess,” said the steward, vaguely gesturing toward the open window. “Louis spitted with a crossbow bolt the only Goblin we saw as it climbed the wall toward your rooms.”

Liaze set the silver horn aside and wiped an eye with her fist and said, “Why would a lone Goblin climb the wall?”

Zacharie shrugged.

Liaze frowned and then took in a breath. “Did it have a cudgel or other weapon?”

“Oui, Princess, a cudgel.”

“It must have been sent to break the pane and let the shadow in, but Luc-” Liaze’s voice choked, and she took a shuddering breath. “Luc opened the window himself, and-”

“Princess,” called Remy as he came striding in, an unsheathed falchion in his grip. “It was a witch.”

“What?” asked Zacharie. “Did you say ‘witch’?”

“Oui, Zacharie. Anton saw her silhouette against the stars as she flew up from the woods.”

“ That’s what that was,” said Liaze, more to herself than the others. She got to her feet and said, “A witch… and she dragged the shadow and Luc after, as she flew away.”

“Four of you and four of them,” said Zacharie, sighing. “Did I not say?”

“Rhensibe, Hradian, Iniqui, and Nefasi,” agreed Remy, nodding. “Since Rhensibe is dead, perhaps it is one of the three who are left.”

“But why take Luc?” asked Liaze. “Why not me instead?”

Zacharie and Remy looked at one another, and neither had an answer, but Zoe said, “Through Lady Michelle, Rhensibe struck at Borel.”

“That’s right,” said Zacharie. “It was indirect revenge. Perhaps the same is at work here. Whichever witch it is, mayhap she simply wanted to reave true love from you.”

Liaze stooped and took up her bow, her blanket gaping wide. “Which way did she fly, Remy? I lost sight of her and the shadow and Luc in the darkness.”

“So, too, did Anton,” said Remy, looking away.

Liaze sighed and shook her head. But then she looked at Zacharie. “Did we take any casualties?”

“Oui,” said Zacharie. “Two members of the houseguard-Adrien and Paul-were crushed, as if by a giant hand.”

Liaze’s face fell. “The witch’s dark clutch, the shadow,” she said, now stepping toward the window. Remy tried to get between her and the opening, but she waved him away. Liaze looked out upon the starlit lawn, the faint light now augmented by the lanterns of searching men. “It tried to rupture the manor with its terrible grip.”

“I heard the timbers groan,” said Zoe, her eyes flying wide.

“I will have the carpenters and masons and roofers inspect every inch,” said Zacharie.

“My lady,” said Remy. “We can take part of the warband and go searching for Sieur Luc.”

“Which way would you ride?” asked Liaze.

“I… I don’t know,” said Remy.

“Precisely,” said Liaze, tears welling unseen, for she stood at the window looking out.

“A seer might know,” suggested Zoe. “We could ask Malgan. He lives in the Autumnwood.”

An image of the seer sprang to Liaze’s mind: a reed-thin, sallow-faced man with lank, straw-colored hair, his hands tucked across and within the sleeves of his buttoned red satin gown.

Remy snorted. “This Malgan: he’s the one who continually whispers to himself and looks about and flinches as if seeing invisible things. Princess, I think him perhaps untrustworthy, mad as he is.”

“I would not disagree with you, Remy,” said Liaze. “Alain calls him a charlatan, and Camille says Lord Kelmot-the Lynx Rider-calls him a mountebank.”

“But he’s all we have,” said Zoe.

“I would rather travel to the Summerwood and ask the Lady of the Mere, or on beyond to the Lady of the Bower,” said Liaze.

Zoe nodded and said, “They helped Camille.”

“Ere we make any rash decisions,” said Zacharie, “let us see what the daylight brings. There might be something we find that points us the right way.”

Liaze took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “You are right, Zacharie. Let us wait until daylight.”