Dennis McKiernan - Once upon a Spring morn

“Whore, am I?” came a call from the enshadowed doorway.

Nefasi turned to see Celeste standing in the opening, her bow in hand, an arrow nocked. Behind her stood someone else in the darkness.

The witch hissed, but then she laughed. “Have you come to save your love, Celeste? This is even better than I expected.”

Celeste drew her bow to the full and aimed.

Again Nefasi laughed, and she raised her right hand toward Celeste, her index and little fingers hooked like horns and pointing at the arrow, and her middle fingers pointed down and her thumb pointed leftward. “You fool! Set aside your pinprick, for neither you nor it can harm me.”

“Oh, no?” said Celeste, and she loosed the shaft to hurtle through the air toward the witch.

“Avert!” cried Nefasi, and then her eyes widened in fear, and she shrieked as the arrow sped true and pierced her through the heart. Momentarily she looked down at the gray shaft, and then at Celeste.

“Not even the gods could turn that one aside,” said Celeste coldly.

And Nefasi fell to the floor, dead before striking the stone.

Suddenly Roel could move, and he stepped toward the Changeling Lord.

But Morgrif leapt into the circle and spoke an arcane word. And he laughed and looked at Celeste even as Roel approached.

As the princess nocked another arrow, the Changeling Lord called out, “Though somehow you have managed to defeat your deadly enemy, I have now called out to my minions to come to my aid, and by their very numbers, they will o’erwhelm you both.” Celeste aimed and loosed her shaft, the arrow to hiss through the air, only to shatter as if against an invisible barrier at the perimeter of the circle.

Once more the Changeling Lord laughed and called out to Celeste, “I am in a ring of protection, a place where your weapons of bronze cannot harm me.” His gaze then fell upon Roel, and Morgrif stepped to the very brim of the design toward the knight and added,

“Not even that silver-chased bronze sword of yours, fool.”

Roel, now reaching the circle’s edge himself, gritted and said, “Coeur d’Acier is no weapon of bronze.” And with a backhanded sweep, he took off the Changeling Lord’s head.

Flight

Lightning flared and thunder roared throughout the chamber as the Lord of the Changelings collapsed and became a great pool of dark slime, which then degenerated into viscous liquid. A gagging stench rose up, and Roel backed away and turned to find Celeste right behind. He took her in his arms and kissed her, and then said, “Avelaine, my sister, is she-?” Celeste smiled and, disengaging, gestured toward the enshadowed doorway and beckoned. Out stepped a lovely, raven-haired young woman, her sapphire-blue eyes clear and sparkling. “Sieur Roel, may I present Dame Avelaine du Manoir d’Emile. My Lady Avelaine, this is your brother Roel.”

Avelaine gaped and said, “Rollie, is it truly you?”

“Oui, Avi, it truly is.”

She rushed forward, and with tears in his eyes, Roel embraced her and kissed her on the forehead and whispered, “Oh, Avi, we searched so very long: Laurent, Blaise, Celeste, and I.”

Avelaine drew back and looked about. “Laurent and Blaise are here?”

Roel sighed. “I have some ill news, Avi. You see-”

“Hsst. .!” silenced Celeste, and in the quietness following they heard distant oncoming yells and the drumming of running footsteps.

Roel looked about, but there seemed to be no other exits, or if there were, they were well hidden.

Celeste nocked an arrow, and Roel raised Coeur d’Acier. “Avi, get behind us.”

“I can fight,” said Avelaine.

Roel glanced at Celeste, and she looked at the door and then to Avelaine and said, “Do not leave her unarmed.” Roel loosed the keeper on his long-knife and handed it to his sister, and then he ran for the archway, shouting,

“Kill any who get past me.” He came to a halt beside the opening, his back to the inside wall.

A howl sounded, and Roel risked a quick glance down the passage and then ducked back. Some kind of great black doglike beast loped on all fours toward the chamber. Behind it came more creatures, some on two legs, others on four, some flapping on great awkward wings.

As the black dog hurtled through the doorway-

shkk! — Coeur d’Acier took off its head. A gangling man ran through, and, shouting a war cry, Roel swung again, striking off another head. A flapping creature shot past above, and an arrow pierced it through a yellow eye, and scrawking, down it tumbled.

A vast roar echoed down the corridor, and Roel chanced another quick glance, and a great Troll lumbered toward the opening.

Roel took a deep breath and then stepped into the entry, and on came the monstrous being, other of the shapeshifters giving way before it.

“Vive la Foret de Printemps et le Manoir d’Emile!” shouted Roel, raising his sword to the ready.

And from the far end of the hall, there came an echo-or was it a cry? — Vive le Manoir d’Emile!

But then the Troll was upon him, and even as it reached for the knight, Roel swung Coeur d’Acier in a wide swath and opened up the thing’s gut.

The monster roared and entrails spilled forth as of a horrid flower coming abloom, and still the Troll reached out with its great hands and clutched at Roel and grasped an arm and lifted him on high.

Thakk! — an arrow pierced the thing’s eye, and howling, it dropped Roel and crashed down, even as more of the shapechangers rushed into the chamber, and they slipped and slid in the putrid pools of reeking slime and dark liquid.

Roel gained his feet and began laying about, hacking, slashing, taking off heads. Yet there were too many, and soon he was mobbed.

But in that moment two sword-swinging knights crashed through the Changelings at the archway and joined Roel in the melee.

“Laurent! Blaise!” Roel shouted, but they did not respond, so fierce was the battle.

In a back-to-back triangle they stood, and the good bronze of two of the swords and the sharp rune-bound steel of Coeur d’Acier and the arrows from a bow soon prevailed over tooth and claw and fang, and the Changelings fled, those who had managed to survive, though many were maimed.

Panting, the brothers looked upon one another, and Blaise clasped Roel and said, “Roel, whence came you?”

Laurent looked at Roel and said, “This is Rollie?”

“Oui, Laurent. I have grown some since last you saw me.”

But in that moment, Avelaine came running, and Laurent swung up his sword and shouted, “’Ware, Gorgon!” But Roel stepped in front of his brothers and said,

“Non! It is Avelaine. We rescued her.”

“We?” asked Blaise.

“Celeste and I,” said Roel, and even as he spoke, the princess came in among them, wiping dry the arrows she had used in the battle as well as the gray arrow she had retrieved from the corpse of Nefasi, though its shaft was now cracked and its soft plomb point now blunted.

As Laurent and Blaise embraced Avelaine and she them, Roel made quick introductions all ’round. Then he said, “We must leave, and swiftly, for the Lord of the Changelings has summoned his minions.”

“We’ll not go before we kill him,” gritted Laurent.

“Already done,” said Celeste, grinning and gesturing at the dark liquid in the pentagon within the circle.

“Roel took off his head.”

Laurent gazed at his little brother, now no longer a lad, and Blaise said, “There is a tale here for the telling, yet if the minions have been summoned, it can wait.” Out through the archway and down the hall they hurried, Roel and Laurent in the lead, then Avelaine and Celeste, and Blaise coming last.