Dennis McKiernan - Once upon a dreadful time

That which a child does bear;

Ask the one who rides the one

To send seven children there.

At the wall there is a need

For seven to stand and wait,

Yet when they are asked to run,

They must fly at swiftest gait.

The whole must face the one reviled

Where all events begin:

Parent and child and child of child

Else shall dark evil win.”

Laurent paused and Auberon frowned and said, “I do not understand.”

“My lord, Prince Duran, the child of Alain and Camille, has a toy horse named Asphodel. And so the first two lines of the rede refer to that: Swift are the get of his namesake, that which a child does bear. Thus the get of Asphodel are swift, or so I would surmise. Does he have any offspring?”

“Oui, he has sired seven colts.”

Laurent clenched a fist and grinned in triumph. “Then list, the next lines say: Ask the one who rides the one to send seven children there. Hence, my lord, I ask, can you send the seven colts somewhere?”

“Oui, I only need to give the command. But where?”

“To the Black Wall of the World, my lord, for the next lines say: At the wall there is a need for the seven to stand and wait.

Hence they are to go to the Black Wall of the World, for what other wall could it be? And when they get there they are to wait.”

“Ah,” said Auberon, then frowned. “But wait for what?”

“I don’t know, my lord, but Lady Wyrd’s words must mean something, else she would not have said them. She also said that if I did not give this message to the one for whom it is intended, then all will be lost forever. And you, my lord, are surely the one for whom it is intended.”

Auberon slowly nodded. “Sieur, I do not know what is intended, yet if Skuld said those words, then indeed I must heed them.”

Auberon raised his silver horn to his lips and blew a call, silent to the human ears, though Asphodel nickered and all the Fey glanced toward their lord.

And even as Laurent looked on, out from among the Fairy horses, seven trotted forth. White they were, each and every one, as was their sire, and they were caparisoned with gilt bridles and saddles, and silver bells sounded as they came, and each was laded with accoutrements to equip a warrior.

“Where are their riders?” asked Laurent.

“They haven’t any,” said Auberon. “Asphodel, by snorting and nickering, insisted they come unridden and bearing gear, and now, it seems by this rede, we know why.”

“Perhaps he, too, speaks with Lady Wyrd,” said Laurent.

Auberon laughed and said, “Mayhap.”

Then the Fey lord dismounted and stepped to the colts, and they all looked at him intently, as if expecting a command. And Auberon uttered words in an arcane tongue, but what he said, Laurent could not tell, yet the seven colts whickered in return, and then galloped away, straight for the end of the pass toward which the throng marched.

Laurent wheeled his horse, Imperial, and galloped after, yet the colts were all the way down on the plains ere Laurent reached the crest of the outlet slope where he could see. He marveled at their fleetness as they hurtled ahead, passing wide of the oncoming horde and racing onward.

. .

“Loose!” cried Auberon, and arrows flew into the ranks of the throng, each one bringing sissing death with it. And Goblins shrilled and fell slain, as did Bogles and Serpentines. Trolls, though, were felled by heavy crossbow bolts, manned by Sieur Emile’s men.

Yet onward came the horde, stepping over their fallen and boiling into the narrow pass, and again and again the archers loosed their sleet of arrows, thousands of the enemy dying with each volley.

Goblin shafts flew in return, most to be caught on the pavises born by the shield men.

Michelle stood in the ranks of the archers, her own shafts nearly as deadly as those flown by the Fey, but the Fairy arrows were quite lethal, in spite of the fact that their magic had been negated by Gloriana’s unbreakable spell, a spell cast long past.

And yet the throng came onward, into the teeth of death, and soon on both sides the shafts of the archers had been spent, and now the phalanx of spearmen stood in the way of the horde.

Thousands of Goblins, gibbering in fear, were pushed forward by those behind, and, shrieking in terror, they tried to turn and flee back into the ranks. But the press would not let them, and on they came, only to be spitted by lances, or slaughtered by the blades of the men and the Fey. And the ones behind stumbled through entrails and blood and severed limbs and over the corpses of their dead, only to be slaughtered in turn.

Yet not all were killed ere they got in strikes of their own, and allies fell before the wildly swung clubs and bludgeons and scimitars and tulwars, of which there were so very many.

And the throng battered the allies back and back, deeper into the gut of the pass.

Time and again the knights hammered into the horde, reaping death as their harvest. And leading these charges were four lethal horsemen on white and red and black and grey mounts.

They were not Plague and War and Famine and Death, yet they were nigh as fatal.

But then the Sickness came, the fringes of the bilious cloud to envelop Fey and man and horse.

Yet on they battled, the Fairy Lord’s spell protecting them.

And deeper into the deadly miasma they fought, but first the Fey and then the men began to retch and the horses to groan.

Emile called for a retreat, and, leaving their dead behind and aiding their wounded, hindward the allies reeled as night came on.

And the throng stopped to rest.

And a league farther along the slot, so did the allies.

. .

And the next day and the next, the battle went on, the throng driving into the allies again and again, each time driving them hindward. Yet at last the horde broke free of the pass, and the allies fell back to make one final stand on the banks of the River of Time.

For two moons and two days-as near as they could gauge by their waking and sleeping patterns-Valeray and his family as well as Raseri and Rondalo tried all they could to escape the confines of the Castle of Shadows. After they had discovered the castle would mold itself to accommodate its prisoners, they had attempted to push it beyond its limits by imagining that they needed long hallways and huge chambers and pools and forests and gardens and flowerbeds and stables and riding paths and a place for a Dragon to romp. Yet it seemed the castle itself was the only judge of what they actually needed, and so, some things it molded for their use, while other things it did not.

Still, the prisoners tried breaking through the walls, or scratching their way out, there where they suspected it was weakened or thin, all to no avail. And Valeray continued to try combinations of exits through the shadowlight doorways and windows, but always the moment he passed through one portal he immediately entered through another, not having achieved any exit from the castle whatsoever. Scruff, too, flew into the twilight arches, yet he, too, simply hurtled in through another.

And though it seemed hopeless, neither Camille nor Celeste nor Liaze would allow the others to fall into ennui, for the sake of Duran if nought else. And so they played games-echecs being one of these, and none could best Raseri-and they told tales and made up rhymes and puzzles and tried to resolve the redes of the Fates. And Camille and Rondalo and Alain sang all the songs they could remember-sometimes as solos, other times as duets, and even as trios, though occasionally all joined in, even Raseri, the Dragon now and then voicing in a register so low it was only felt and not heard.