Dennis McKiernan: Once Upon a Winter's Night

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!”

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.