Dennis McKiernan - Once upon a Spring morn

“I wondered if you were the thrall of a witch,” said Celeste.

“Thrall? Me?” sneered the Ogre. “I, Lokar, am no one’s thrall.”

“Then why have you taken me prisoner?” Celeste demanded. “If it is for ransom, then-” The Ogre roared in laughter. “Ransom? Pah! I want no ransom.”

“Then why?”

“To be my servant, my slave.” But then Lokar’s eyes filled with puzzlement. “Wait. Your voice is high-pitched.” He leaned down for a clearer look. “Ah, in spite of your clothes, you are no man, but a woman instead.” Again he roared in laughter and said, “You will be my wife!”

“Your wife?”

The Ogre nodded. “To cook and sew and keep the cavern clean, and to sing to me. . and pleasure me in other ways as well.”

Disgust filled Celeste’s face. “Pleasure you in other ways?”

Lokar reached under his hides and grabbed at his crotch and joggled his hand. “Here.” Celeste turned away in revulsion. But then her eyes widened in horror. Mithras! His manhood will split me in twain. I’ve got to find a way to escape.

“Cook for me while I rest,” Lokar harshly commanded. “After I eat, you can then pleasure me.” I must find a way out. And to do that I need to delay.

— Wait! The fire. Smoke. Perhaps Roel will see. Then she looked at the wood and despaired. Oh, no. Hardwoods.

Clean-burning hardwoods.

In spite of her desolation, “I will need pots and pans and the makings for whatever you wish to eat,” said Celeste, bidding for time.

“Bah, there is already stew in the cauldron. All you need to do is stir it.”

“Then set it on the fire and give me the ladle,” said Celeste.

Among the crags Roel wound in an ever-widening spiral, or as close to a spiral as he could manage, for ridges and bluffs barred the way. ’Twas midafternoon and still he had found no sign of tracks, but for those he and his horses made. Roel looked up and about. The Ogre could have stepped straight over some of these ridges and gone another way. Think, Roel, think! Which way would he have gone? Which way? — Wait! Go back to the last known trace of him and cross over yourself.

Roel returned to a place where a slope of sand had been disturbed, the trickle of its slide now long spent.

He looked up at the ridges on each side of the rocky slot and decided that one of them was low enough for the monstrous being to step across. Leaving the horses, Roel climbed up the fold and down the other side.

Sweeping back and forth across the stony floor beyond, at last he came to a recently overturned rock.

Quickly he climbed back over the slope and down, and he took his mount by the reins, and he led the animals back to a low dip in the fold.

“The last wife I had knew how to give me joy. She would cover herself and my stiff pole with oil, and she would embrace it and. .”

Celeste tried to shut out Lokar’s voice as he sickeningly regaled her with how she was to “pleasure” him.

Her thoughts were desperate: I’ve got to find a way to escape. But how? Oh, Roel, where are you?

She dragged two logs from the pile and cast them on the coals. As the fire blazed up she took the ladle in hand and began stirring the stew within the cauldron.

Lokar watched for a moment and then moved to the table and sat idling with dark tiles of some sort, and he continued to tell her just what she was to do: “And then you can use your tongue and. .”

Celeste refused to listen, and even as she stirred, the ladle struck something hard, and then it surfaced.

What’s this? A row of teeth glinted in the lantern light, and then rolled in the stew, and bone was revealed. Is that someone’s jaw? Oh, Mithras, it is! It is a jaw! Celeste cast a glance at the litter of splintered bones beyond the woodpile. Human! They are all human bones. Or if not human, then humanlike.

“. . but in my pleasure I made the mistake of grabbing her, and. .” Celeste looked at the Ogre and gritted her teeth. I’ve got to find a way to stop this monster.

As Lokar continued to idle with the tiles, he went on talking of being pleasured.

“Are those pips?” asked Celeste.

Lokar looked up from the tiles. “Do you know the game?”

“My brothers and I play at times.”

“As I eat,” said Lokar, “you will be my opponent and learn that I am a master at pips. Then afterward you will delight me.”

As Celeste stirred the cauldron, using the ladle much the same as if she were plying an oar, her mind raced: Mithras, but how will I avoid “pleasuring” him?

Then she remembered an ancient fable, and she struck on a plan. “Have you any wine?” she asked in all innocence. “I would flavor the stew.” Once again Roel climbed a ridge, up the near side and down the far. And in the stony vale beyond he moved along the slot, first one way and then the other, and he swept back and forth; this time he found nought.

He crossed back over the ridge and climbed the fold opposite. And there an impression of a gigantic toe in a low swale pointed the way. He followed as soon as he had retrieved the horses, for he and Celeste might have to flee upon the mounts, once he had rescued her. . or so was his intention.

“Aha!” roared Lokar. “Again I win.”

“You are a master indeed,” said Celeste, “but I think I will win the next one.”

“Pah, woman! Do. . do you. . do you not by now understand I am far and away your s-superior?” Celeste pointed at the great, foot-long tiles and said,

“We shall see, Lokar. We shall see. Shuffle the tiles while I pour more wine and refresh your bowl.” Lokar had eaten nearly the entire cauldron of stew, including crunching through long bones for the marrow, and through spines for the matter within, and he had drunk almost an entire cowhide full of wine. Groggily, he pushed the facedown tiles around on the table, while Celeste used one of the huge cups rather like a bucket to fill Lokar’s wine goblet to the brim and then hefted more meat-and-bone stew into his great bowl.

Roel despaired, for the sun had set, and in spite of the light of the nearly full moon and that of the lantern he bore, he could not find the subtle signs of spoor. He sighed and finally made camp at the last trace of track that he had found. He unladed the steeds and curried and watered and fed them and took a meal of his own, though he had no appetite. Even so, he knew he needed to eat, for that was one of the lessons of war: eat when you can, and rest when you can, for you never know when the opportunity will come again.

Lokar pushed back his chair and wobbled to his bed.

“Now you will pleasure me,” he slurred as he shed the animal hides clothing him and stood naked and filthy and blearily looked down at Celeste. And then he fell backwards onto the mattress and immediately began to snore, his feet yet on the rough cavern floor.

Though his manhood hung limp, Celeste gasped at the monstrous thing. Mithras, had he tried to bed me, I would be lying dead.

She stepped to the woodpile and took up a sturdy billet, and then walked back to the bed and set it down.

Then back to the fire pit she went, and drew her long knife and shoved the blade into the red coals. Then she dragged one of the empty cauldrons over to the bed and upended it to use as a step to reach the mattress. Next, she upended a cook pot to use as a stool to climb onto the cauldron. With her stair built, she picked up the billet of wood and clambered up onto the cot. Across a blanket crawling with vermin she went, and she laid the wood down near Lokar’s head.

Back off the mattress she climbed and went to the fire, and there she withdrew her long-knife from the coals, the two-foot-long blade radiant with heat.