Dennis McKiernan: Once Upon a Winter's Night

Her forearm now splinted and in the sling, Blanche turned to Kolor. “Thank you, Captain, you and your crew. Thanks to you as well, Jack. Without your aid, we would have all been slain.” She looked at Renaud, tears in her eyes, and whispered, “All.” She pulled Renaud to her and kissed him.

Her own eyes tearing, Camille looked for Alain. He was kneeling and speaking to Jules, the lad with his head bandaged and but a stump for a hand. But then Renaud said, “Come, my lady. More need our aid.”

Camille turned and followed the blacksmith, and they stopped at the side of a bleeding man, moaning and rocking and holding close the corpse of a woman slain.

At last all of the wounds had been bound, broken bones splinted, and the injured were moved to suitable quarters in the seaside town and made comfortable.

Then those who had escaped unscathed began the task of removing the dead from the citadel, to be buried or set upon pyres or slipped into the sea, as was the custom of their folk, wherever they were from. Forty-six Humans had died, twenty-one of these from Summerwood Manor. No Dwarves had been slain in the battle, though three had been slightly wounded. All eighty-two Goblins and the three Trolls had been slaughtered, and these were dragged to a bluff and hurled into the sea.

And even as this was being done, a Dwarven horn sounded, and hurtling through the sky came a Dragon on the wing. Dwarves scrambled to arm themselves, though what they might do against a terrible, fire-breathing Dragon, none could say. But Camille called out, “Kolor, Kolor, stand down your crew. ’Tis Raseri come to the isle.” But Kolor was not in the courtyard, was instead casting Goblins into the sea, and the Dwarves left on guard took up axes and maces and shields.

Raseri circled ’round the towers, then settled down atop the wall castellations, his rudden scales with black running through gleaming dully in the afternoon sun.

And lo! upon Raseri’s back rode an Elf, all alabaster and gold. And Camille called out in amaze, “Rondalo, Rondalo, do my eyes deceive, is it truly you?”

Rondalo, a sword girted at his waist, leapt to the banquette and strode along the wall and down one of the ramps.

Camille grabbed Alain’s hand and crossed the courtyard, tugging the prince after.

Even as Rondalo approached, he pressed a hand to his forehead, a look of distress in his eyes.

“What is it, Rondalo?” asked Camille as she came to a stop before him.

Rondalo looked about, then he said, “Iron.”

On the wall above, “Iron!” boomed Raseri, then he bellowed at the sky: “IRON!”

At this great shout, Dwarves flinched back, and Big Jack came running out through the doors of the castle, Lady Bronze in his grasp. Then he looked up to see Raseri, and though Jack blenched, onward he came to stand ward at Camille’s side.

Yet pressing his hand to his temple, Rondalo said, “My lady, we came to help, but we saw as we circled above, these iron-bearing Dwarves had already dealt with the Goblins and Trolls.”

Raseri flexed his great claws and said, “Too bad we arrived too late to join in the battle.”

“But how did you-? No, wait. Lord Rondalo, may I present Prince Alain of the Summerwood. Prince Alain, Lord Rondalo. Without his help I would not have found you.”

Both Rondalo and Alain bowed to one another, a look of resignation in Rondalo’s gaze, a look of reservation in Alain’s.

“And on the wall above is Raseri, also without whom I would have failed.”

Alain grinned and said, “We met once, apast. Even so, Lord Raseri, I thank you for your aid.” Alain bowed, and Raseri dipped his head.

“Lord Rondalo, Lord Raseri, this is Big Jack, who aided me as well.”

Big Jack bowed to Rondalo and Raseri, and then he said to Rondalo, “You came with th’ Dragon?”

As Rondalo nodded, Camille said, “But you and he are mortal enemies; I do not understand.”

Rondalo smiled and said, “It is Raseri’s to tell.”

The Dragon lowered his long neck down and said, “I thought many long days about what you said, Camille, especially the Keltoi tale you told of me and my battle with Audane on his wedding night, and then the coming of Chemine.

“I followed the trace of Rondalo’s taste until I came upon the bard in a village where the cattle were quite stampeded, perhaps because I snacked on a couple. Then-after some back and forthing, and shoutings, and brandishings of blade, and blowings of fire-I spoke to Rondalo about what you had said, and together we agreed that perhaps you were right. We declared a truce and I flew Rondalo to Les Iles, where we put the premise before Chemine. And since neither Chemine nor I can remember aught of a battle between Rondalo’s sire and me, nor of anything ere we found ourselves in Faery, we both thought you might have had the right of it. Chemine in turn consulted seers and such, but they were of no aid. Finally, we three decided you indeed had the right of it: it was a Keltoi tale the gods made manifest. Chemine’s hatred of me then abated greatly, as did that of Rondalo, and so we declared the truce would last for a year and a day and a whole moon beyond, a time we picked because of you.”

Camille looked at Rondalo. “But what of your sworn oath of vengeance?”

Rondalo turned up a hand. “You showed me the way around it. If I never visit Raseri’s lair, I need to fight no Dragon. But even if I do go to his lair, I think the only combat we may do is a game or two of echecs.”

Raseri raised his head up and looked about and then hissed, “More iron bearers come running.”

“Kolor and the burial detail, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Big Jack.

“Oh, Jack, would you tell him, tell them, to stay away. The iron affects Rondalo… Raseri, too, it seems. It twists the aethyr, warping it, bending it, or so I was told.”

As Big Jack rushed off, Rondalo looked at Camille in surprise. “You know of iron’s effect on the aethyr?”

“Not really. It was what Captain Andolin said, when he and the West Wind left Leport because the North Wind with its crew of iron-bearing Dwarves was even then coming into the harbor. Caused an ache, he said.”

“And a disorientation,” said Rondalo, grimacing. “Still, even had we known of the iron, we would yet have come.”

“Well, I’m certainly glad you did,” said Camille, “for both of you are my friends, and my heart rejoices to see my two friends have set an old enmity aside and have become comrades. Even so, how did you find us here?”

Raseri said, “Flying well above the River of Time, I followed the faint trace of your taste to Leport; there I landed upon the headland, and Rondalo went down to speak with the inhabitants, for I believe they all hid under their beds at the sight of me.”

Rondalo smiled and said, “Harbormaster Jordain told me that you were striving to reach Troll Island beyond the Sea of Mist. I went back up to the headland, where Raseri waited, and the only island either of us knew that lay beyond those baleful waters was this one, Orbane’s stronghold of old.”

Alain’s eyes flew wide in startlement. “Orbane? This was Orbane’s isle?”

As Raseri and Rondalo both nodded, Camille said, “Olot said his former master had been cast into the Great Darkness; that was Orbane. And the carved O above the gate… I thought it was for Olot, but instead it must signify Orbane.”

She turned to Alain. “Oh, love, don’t you see, that explains how the Trolls came across the Seals of Orbane, the seals which they used to curse you. Olot must have found the seals after Orbane was gone.”

Rondalo said, “Yet it still does not explain how the Trolls came to know the way of their working, for the Trolls have no magic of their own. I think they must have had help from a mage, someone skilled in the art.”