Dennis McKiernan - Once upon a Spring morn

“Merci, Ma’amselle Gooseherd,” said Roel, turning back, even as the glaring child sprang, spitting and hissing, her leap carrying her shoulder high to mounted Roel, her hands like claws reaching for his throat.

Roel wrenched up his shield barely in time to fend her, and as she fell away, with a sweep of Coeur d’Acier, Roel took off the child’s head. She struck the ground, her body dropping one way, her head tumbling another.

Celeste cried out at the sight of the decapitated girl, and Roel looked on in horror at what he had done, for he had slain nought but a poppet, a wee fillette but seven or eight summers old. Roel looked at Celeste, tears in his eyes, and he started to speak, yet no words came. But then Celeste gasped, for in that moment both body and head changed into a monstrous thing with fangs and glaring eyes and a hideous bulbous brow and a twisted face and a barrel chest and long hairy arms and legs and broad hands with lengthy, grasping fingers ending in sharp talons. And even as the horses danced aside, the hideous creature dissolved into dark mucus, and a putrid stench filled the air.

The horses snorted and blew and backed and sidled as the slime liquefied and seeped into the ground, leaving barren soil behind, the grass burnt away as if by virulent acid.

“Oh, Roel,” said Celeste, “Lady Lot was right.” Still shaken, Roel merely nodded, and Celeste intoned:

“Kill all those who therein do speak; Question not; you’ll understand.

“Roel, the girl was a Changeling, a monstrous thing, even though she seemed nought but a beautiful and innocent child.” Celeste looked away from the charred soil and toward the distant mountains and chanted:

“Ask directions unto his tower

In the Changeling Lord’s domain; The answers given will be true,

Yet the givers must be slain.”

Roel nodded in agreement and said, “Oui, the Fates are right. Even so, it seemed a dreadful thing I had done.”

“But necessary,” replied Celeste, yet looking in the direction the Changeling had pointed.

Roel’s gaze followed hers, and he said, “Somewhere yon lies the tower and my sister, perhaps my brothers as well. We must ride, for time grows perilously short.” And so, once again they took up the trek.

Often changing mounts, across the land they hammered, passing o’er hill and riding down through dale and across wide fields, as toward the mountains they raced. Occasionally they stopped at streams to water the horses and feed them rations of grain to keep their strength from flagging. And Celeste and Roel took food and drink themselves to keep their own vigor from falling any further, though fall it did. Even so, after but a brief respite, they would remount and fare onward, heading ever toward the mountains.

And along the course they asked a herdsman the way to the Changeling Lord’s tower, followed a candlemark later by a tinker, and later still by an old lady. Each pointed toward the stormy mountains, and Roel beheaded them every one, and hideous and garish monsters they became and then a gelatinous mucus that dissolved into a dark, foul-smelling liquid that burned the soil as it seeped away.

As the sun set, the mountains seemed no closer, and on galloped Celeste and Roel. Twilight turned into darkness as night pulled its black cloak across the world, and stars emerged, yet there was no moon to light the way. Once more taking great risk by riding swift in the night, the pair hammered on, hooves striking the ground at a trot, a canter, and a gallop.

And candlemarks burned away as on they raced, and it began to drizzle. They pulled up the hoods of their rain gear and sped on, hooves splatting against the wet ground.

They came to the foot of the mountains, and there a road led up into the massifs and crags, up into the raging storm, and a gate stood across the way. An elderly gatekeeper bearing a lantern hobbled out in the pour to ask them their business, and Roel said, “We seek the Lord of the Changelings’ tower.” Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, both riving the air.

“Eh, eh?” The keeper put a hand behind an ear.

“What’s that?”

“The tower of the Changeling Lord, old man,” cried Roel, louder.

“Oh. Up the road.” Slowly shuffling in the wetness, the man opened the gate, and as Roel charged by, he swept the old man’s head off even as the creature began to change into a monstrous Ogreish form.

Leaving a pool of slime in the road, up the way they splashed, and now they had to slow, for the road was steep and running with water, and the horses labored.

Lightning flared and thunder roared and rain fell down in sheets. .

. . And time fled. .

Now and again at twists and turns in the road, high above silhouetted by lightning against the raging sky, they could see a tall tower standing.

And another candlemark burned.

Yet at last they came to a flat, and before them stood a stone wall, an archway leading under and into a passage where torches in sconces shed a flickering, ruddy, sorcerous light, for though the flambeaus burned, they were not consumed. Beyond the wall as lightning glared they could see the roofs of buildings all attached to one another, and looming above all in the riven air stood a tall dark tower.

And with less than a candlemark remaining ere Avelaine’s doom would fall, into the archway they rode.

Failure

The warband paused at a crossroads to feed and water the animals and to take food and drink themselves. Borel looked at the stars and sighed and said, “ ’Tis the mid of night of the dark of the moon.

We can no longer save Avelaine. In that, we have failed.”

“ ’Twas the bloody swamp,” growled Chevell. “Had it not delayed us. .”

“Avelaine is not the only sister needing aid,” said Alain. “If Celeste is a captive, we can still rescue her, as well as Roel and his brothers.”

“How far?” asked Luc.

Borel unfolded the vellum. “Two borders remain; at the second one we will enter the Changeling realm. As to where therein we need to go, I cannot say, other than we must reach wherever our sister might be. After that, we can deal with finding Roel and his brothers.”

“If she is a prisoner,” said Luc, “I would think the Changeling Lord’s palace is the most likely place he would hold her.”

“Or manor or tower or wherever it is that he lives,” said Chevell.

“We have spoken of this all along the way,” said Alain, “and I say we must ask those living therein as to where their lord dwells.”

“What makes you think that by asking Changelings they will tell the truth?” asked Chevell.

“What else would you suggest, Vicomte?” coldly asked Alain.

“Mayhap holding a sword to their throat,” shot back Chevell.

“Peace,” growled Borel. “We are weary, and there is no need to squabble among ourselves.” Luc grunted his agreement. He glanced about and saw that the horses and men were done. “Let us ride.” And so, worn down and testy and somewhat dispirited, they all mounted up and galloped onward, midnight of the dark of the moon now gone.

Perils

Into the flickering torchlight way they went, Roel in the lead, Celeste following, and behind them lightning flared and thunder crashed, and the corridor flashed bright in the strike. And revealed by the glare, at the far end stood a tall figure in black, his cloak limned in red.

“You!” cried Roel, and he spurred forward, but an axe came flying the length of the passage to bite deeply into Roel’s shield. A second axe flew out from the wavering shadows, and a third, and they struck and slashed at Roel, wielded by no hands at all. And horses snorted and blew and recoiled and jerked this way and that in the clanging din as axes met shield and Roel fended with Coeur d’Acier. Yet a fourth axe joined the fray, and a fifth, and Roel was hard-pressed as the blades flew about and slashed at him.