Dennis McKiernan - Once upon a dreadful time

What do they call a queen of all the world? Never mind, my love, we can call ourselves whatever it is we wish.” Even as she mused over what title she would bestow upon herself, a great croaking din arose in the swamp. “Ah, my Crapaud has sent forth the call. It is much easier than making a fetch of ourselves, isn’t it, my sweet?” Hradian felt her excitement rising, and, thinking of what was to come, she stepped to the cot and lay down and made herself ready.

A splop sounded on the flet, and Hradian drew in her breath, but it was only Crapaud returning to his station.

A time passed, and the racket without fell silent.

“Oh, oh, love, he is almost here.”

And with a heaving splash, by the firelight Hradian saw in the doorway a Bogle standing, swamp bottom dripping from his dark form, his male member tumescent in anticipation.

. .

It was as Hradian was riding on top, she could see in the Bogle’s eyes the peak coming, and it was at his climax that she ripped the keen knife through his stomach and up into his heart, and she shuddered and screamed in orgasmic pleasure in that same moment.

Dark blood spurted over her chest to gush down her loins and spill onto the bed, where it streamed to the floor, pooling below.

Reveling in the flood, Hradian waited until the surge ebbed to a trickle, then freed herself and stepped away and called,

“Crapaud, Crapaud, I need you now.”

The huge toad waddled in.

“Taste the blood, Crapaud.”

Crapaud’s long tongue lashed out and splatted into the puddle under the cot, then disappeared back into his mouth.

Heaving and grunting, Hradian rolled the slain Bogle off onto the floor, and after a struggle she managed to get the corpse onto its back.

Hradian reached out and touched the toad between the eyes.

“Now, Crapaud, lend us your power.”

The toad seemed to fall dormant, and, clutching the amulet in one hand, and pawing with the other, Hradian began sifting through the Bogle’s blood-warm entrails, seeking an omen, seeking a clue as to just how to use the talisman. After but a moment she said, “Huah, there is no mystery to the talisman at all. Had we known it was this easy, Love, we wouldn’t have had to kill the Bogle. Oh well, no loss that.” Once more she touched the toad. “Awaken, Crapaud, I am finished.”

Crapaud opened his eyes, and emitted a croak.

“Yes, yes, you can clean up the mess.”

Another croak sounded.

“Very well, that, too. After all, you will need sustenance while I am gone.”

And Hradian took up an axe and, grunting with effort, she hacked the corpse to pieces for her familiar to consume in the days to come.

Even as Crapaud’s long tongue flicked forth to snatch one end of the entrails, the viscera uncoiling as the toad gulped away, Hradian, now sweating and blood-smeared and spattered with grume and bits of dark flesh, stepped out to the flet, where, using a pail, she dipped up a bucketful of swamp water.

She muttered a spell over the sludgy liquid and watched as it cleared, and then sluiced herself down.

Several more times she dipped and sluiced, and finally clean of all sign of her gruesome handiwork she strode back into the hut and threw on her long black gown, the one with the danglers and streamers and lace.

After she buttoned up her high-top shoes, she turned to Crapaud, the toad yet swallowing length after length of intestine, rather like trying to gulp down a very long rope all of one piece a foot at a time, the rope stretching from stomach through gullet and throat and out the mouth to the blood-drenched remains of the corpse. “Ward the cote, Crapaud. I go to fetch our master from the imprisonment foisted upon him by those who should grovel at his feet, or rather, by those who will grovel at our feet, and soon we’ll be living in a castle fitting to our station, a magnificent dwelling past all compare.” Crapaud tried to reply past the gore-slick viscera, some of it ingested, most of it yet to slither out from the lower half of the hacked-apart torso, yet all that he managed to utter was a choking belch.

Hradian snatched up her besom and stepped to the flet and, with a high-pitched shriek of joy, she took to the air. And soon she was nought but a dark form streaming tendrils of shadow, a silhouette growing smaller and smaller to finally vanish against the stars.

And in the cottage behind, Crapaud continued to swallow and swallow and swallow the seemingly endless gut.

Morning dawned at the Castle of the Seasons and, as the sun cleared the horizon, buglers stood on the battlements and sounded a special call. Faire-goers looked up to see what was afoot, but only a few of them knew that it was a signal requesting Sprites to attend King Valeray.

Even as the clarions sounded, from dawnwise a Sprite and a bumblebee came winging. And waiting on the ramparts for them stood Flic, and he heaved a great sigh of relief as Fleurette and Buzzer sped toward the merlons.

As they alighted, Flic embraced Fleurette, while Buzzer, somewhat agitated, hummed her wings and paced ’round the two. “She missed you,” said Fleurette, “as did I.”

“What of the crows?” asked Flic.

“They did not cross through the border.”

“Ah,” said Flic, relieved.

Fleurette glanced down into the courtyard, where nine men prepared for travel, with several others at hand. “What is going on, and does it have ought to do with what we saw?”

“Indeed, and I’ll tell you along the way, for we are going to the Fairy King Under the Hill.”

“Right now?”

“Oui.”

“But Buzzer needs nectar, and I could use a sip or two.”

“Worry not, my love, for honey awaits.”

Fleurette frowned. “The Fairy King? But did you not tell me he was capricious and might give us an onerous duty to perform?”

“Oui. But dire events are afoot, and all must answer the call.

— Now come, for Prince Regar and Sieur Blaise await.”

“Blaise I know, but who is this Regar?”

Flic leapt into the air. “I’ll introduce you.” He sped downward, Buzzer winging after, and, with a sigh, Fleurette followed.

. .

In the courtyard, four knights and a bastard prince, along with four guides-one from each of the Forests of the Seasons-all of them buckled in armor and strapped with weaponry, waited for attendants to bring horses and remounts from the stables.

Standing at hand were King Valeray and Queen Saissa, Princesses Celeste and Liaze, Prince Borel and Michelle, Prince Alain and Camille, Sieur Emile and Lady Simone and Vicomtesse Avelaine. Nearby a pack of Wolves lolled upon the cool granite of the courtyard.

“Ride with care,” said Valeray, “for we know not what traps Hradian might have set.”

“Sire,” said Alain, “they go in haste.”

“Oui,” said Valeray, “I know, I know: safety and haste oft are strangers to one another. Even so, even agallop, it pays to keep an eye toward what might be dangers ahead.”

“Damn!” blurted Borel, “but I would go, too, were it not for these closing ceremonies four days hence.” Slate and the pack lifted their heads and looked expectantly at Borel, the Wolves eager to be away from this great stone den.

“Ah, my brother,” said Alain, “what could you do in the Winterwood and I in the Summerwood that Sieurs Laurent and Blaise will not already have under way by the time we reach our respective manors?”

Borel merely growled and turned up his hands in a sign of exasperation.

“Right,” said Alain.

Saissa said, “My son, e’en though the alert will be sounded in this realm on this day, still we must put on a show of normality here at the faire, for morale purposes if nought else.”