Dennis McKiernan - Once upon a Spring morn

Chevell took the lead, and down a spiral stair within the fortress wall he led them: one storey, two storeys, three storeys, and more. Five in all he descended, and out into the courtyard they passed, the place a turmoil of men and horses, some shouting commands as massive gates were opened.

Ignoring the pirates, across the courtyard they dashed, merely three more rovers amid others running.

To the central tower they sped, and Chevell led them in through doors flung wide.

Now up a spiral stair they scrambled, the flight turning deasil, ever rightward, the stair giving advantage to right-handed defenders against right-handed foe. Past doors and chambers and arrow slits they wound, seven flights in all, passing through trapdoors flung back as to each storey they came.

Finally they reached the top, and Chevell led them into the chamber therein. A large, swarthy man stood at an open casement, peering out at the flaming chaos in his harbor below. Behind him a cloth map lay open on a table.

To one side in the shadows of the chamber stood someone else, dark and nearly invisible.

The large, swarthy man turned when the trio entered the room. Momentarily he frowned, his pitted face twisted in puzzlement.

“Caralos,” said Chevell, casting back his hood.

The man’s dark eyes widened in recognition and then he spat, “Chevell.”

“The day has come,” said Chevell, raising his cutlass.

As Caralos sprang to take a like cutlass from the wall, Celeste drew her arrow to the full.

“Nay,” barked Chevell. “He is mine.” Even as Caralos took the weapon in hand, the person in the shadows started toward the table, where lay the map.

“Non,” gritted Roel, raising Coeur d’Acier and moving between the chart and the shadowed being. And then Roel gasped, “You!” And as Roel sprang forward, the man in the black cloak whirled ’round and ’round, red limning flashing in his gyres. “Yah!” shouted Roel, Coeur d’Acier slicing through the air, to meet nothing whatsoever, for the being had vanished, even as Celeste’s arrow shattered against the stone chamber wall beyond where the man had been but an instant before.

Cursing, Roel slashed at the shadows, but his blade clove only darkness.

Chang! Bronze clanging on bronze, back and forth lunged Chevell and Caralos, swords stroking and counterstroking, parrying and riposting and drawing apart.

They closed and hammered at one another, and Chevell jumped inward and smashed Caralos with the bronze basket hilt of his cutlass. Caralos staggered back, but then lunged forward again. And in that moment, Chevell spitted him through. Caralos stood an instant, his eyes wide in wonder as he gaped down at the blade.

And then he fell dead, even as Chevell jerked his weapon free.

“You’re bleeding,” said Celeste.

“He got me across the forehead,” said Chevell, blood running down.

Celeste quickly examined the cut. “A slight flesh wound; it looks worse than it is.”

Chevell nodded and turned to Roel. “Who were you fighting?”

“ ’Twas the Lord of the Changelings,” raged Roel.

“He was here and then not, and once again I failed.”

“The Changeling Lord? Are you certain?”

“I know my enemy,” gritted Roel.

“And now so does he,” said Chevell.

“Mayhap he knows me as well,” said Celeste, “for I loosed an arrow at him, but he vanished e’en as the shaft flashed through the place where he had been.” Chevell sighed and shook his head. “Oh, Princess.” Stricken with the realization that both he and Celeste were now known to the Changeling Lord, Roel stepped to the princess and put an arm about her. Celeste looked at him and then at Chevell and said, “Roel is right, it was the Lord of the Changelings. I saw the red limning on his cloak. And who else can vanish simply by whirling about?”

“ ’Tis an ill thing he was here,” said Chevell.

Roel gestured at the table. “He was after that map.” Chevell moved to the board and peered at the chart.

“Voila!” he cried. “It is what we came after.”

“Then let us take it and flee,” said Celeste.

They rolled up the map and then sped down the stairs, meeting no one. When they reached the courtyard, it was nearly empty, but the fortress gates yet yawned wide.

“As I surmised,” said Chevell, and out and through the beringing wall and down the switchbacked road they fled.

“This way,” cried Chevell, and he led them through the streets of the town and ’round the arc of the bay as ships burned, and men doused flames with water, and crowds milled about along the piers in the radiant heat.

Dark smoke rose into the air and blotted out stars, acrid tendrils drifting onshore, the smell of it rank. Finally, the trio reached the end of the town, and at a small wharf sat a dinghy, a five-man crew waiting, three with swords in hand, two with arrow-nocked bows.

“Florien!” cried Chevell as he and Celeste and Roel came running. Swords were sheathed and bows slung and oars taken up even as the trio leapt aboard, and Florien barked, “Away!” and the rowers put their backs to the flight, all unnoticed in the pandemonium centered in the bay.

’Round the larboard shoulder of the cove the dinghy hauled, to come to the waiting Sea Eagle . In but moments the free-luffing sails were haled about, and away she flew on the wind, a victorious bird of prey.

Parting

“It will make a nice scar, my lord,” said Chirurgeon Burcet, standing behind the captain and tying off the bandage. “One that’ll mark you as a warrior for all to see.”

“I think instead it’ll mark me as a fool for having made a mistake in a duel,” replied the captain, a lock of his red hair spilling over the binding and down his forehead.

Roel smiled. “With that cloth band about your head, I think it makes you look more the freebooter than a king’s man, my lord. What think you, Celeste?”

“What?” Celeste looked up from the vellum on which she copied the map. “What did you ask?”

“Given the bandage, does the captain more resemble a king’s man or a freebooter?”

Celeste studied Chevell for a moment. “I believe it marks him as the duelist he is.”

“Merci, Princess,” said Chevell, bowing from the waist, though seated.

Celeste turned her attention back to the chart.

Burcet put away his needle and gut and said, “We’ll make certain to put a clean bandage on it each day. I think tomorrow a red one will do; it’ll give the men heart.”

“I believe ’twould be better to give the men a double ration of rum, for a splendid task they did this night.”

“Indeed, my lord,” said Florien.

They were gathered in the captain’s cabin, the rescued map on the table, Celeste and Lieutenant Florien at the board, Celeste making a copy under Florien’s direction, the lieutenant a seasoned navigator.

“Ah,” said Celeste, “here is the realm of the Changelings.”

“Oui,” agreed Florien, stabbing a finger down as Roel stepped to the table to see.

“And where are we?” asked Roel.

“Somewhere over here,” said Florien, pointing to a place out in midair beyond the table’s edge.

“Does it show a port?” asked Chevell.

“Oui, my lord,” replied Florien, “Port Cient.”

“Ah, bon! That means we can drop anchor there in three days or so.”

Celeste looked up from her drawing. “Merci, Captain.”

“We are not going to Mizon, my lord?”

“Non, Lieutenant, not directly. First we will lay over in Cient for the men to have shore leave for two or three days, and to set the princess and chevalier on the road to their destination, for Roel would rescue his sister and brothers and perhaps have another crack at the Changeling Lord.”