Prince Richard stood alone in the dark, his heart heaving painfully in his chest, his breathing coming fast and short as his lungs strained for air. He felt cold, so cold he wondered how he could ever feel warm again. Death wasn’t an end here; it was a process. He could feel it. He could sense the dead trees around him, dying by inches but never quite reaching their end. Rotting forever. The silence had a force to it, like a slow, overwhelming tide, smothering even the small living sounds he’d brought with him. The songs were wrong. This wasn’t where nightmares were born; this was where dreams came to die. The darkness closed in around him, sinking into him, like a slow poison of the soul.
And . . . something was out there, in the deepest part of the dark, watching him. Perhaps even creeping up on him, to kill him horribly. Richard cried out, a miserable, almost brutal sound of simple dread. He drew his sword and swept it jerkily back and forth before him. He stepped sideways to set his back against a tree trunk, and then cried out again in revulsion as he felt the solid-looking trunk collapse under his weight, so that he almost fell backwards into the seething mess of corruption within. Because all the trees here had rotten hearts. Richard turned and ran, out of the Darkwood, while he could still remember the way. It seemed to take a lot longer to get out than it had to get in.
• • •
He broke out of the dark and into the sane and comfortable light of evening, back in the Forest again. He stumbled to a halt, made a series of quick, ugly, almost animal noises of relief, and sank to his knees in the thick mulch of compacted leaves that covered the ground. He dropped his sword and hugged himself tightly, half afraid he might just fall apart if he didn’t. He could feel cold sweat dripping off his face. But he could also feel his heartbeat dropping back to normal, and at least he could breathe again.
He slowly realised his friends were there with him, talking to him, but it was just sounds. He shook his head, hard, and their words started to make sense again. He let them help him to his feet and hand him the sword he’d dropped. He sheathed the sword with an unsteady hand and then hugged both his friends fiercely. They all stood together for a long moment, holding one another close, as though they would never let go. For friendship, for understanding, and to drive the Darkwood cold out of their bodies with human warmth.
After a while, a long while, the three young men let go of each other. They looked back at the dark boundary wall, still separating the sane world from the dark world, and then they looked at one another.
“Damn,” said Peter. “That was bad. I mean, that was really bad. Nothing like what I was expecting.”
“It was awful,” Clarence said simply. “Not just night, not just darkness. More like the complete absence of . . . everything.”
“I’m sorry,” said Richard, and he had never meant it more. “I should never have done that to you.”
“You didn’t know,” said Peter. “No one could have known.”
“No!” Richard said sharply. “We all knew the stories, and the songs. We just didn’t believe them. In one of them, Prince Rupert said about the Darkwood, It’s dark enough in there to break anyone.”
“It’s hard to believe Prince Rupert and Princess Julia passed all the way through a much larger Darkwood back in the day, and more than once,” said Peter wonderingly. “Hell, they led armies in there, and fought battles with armies of demons! How did they stand it?”
“They were greater people, then,” said Clarence.
Peter produced a flask of cider brandy, popped the cork, and took a long drink. He sighed deeply, as the warmth of the rough liquor moved slowly through him, and then he passed the flask around. Clarence and Richard took long drinks too, and made appropriate noises. But it didn’t really help. They had all been touched by the dark, marked by the Darkwood. In ways they weren’t ready to understand, or admit to, just yet. They turned their backs on the Darkwood boundary, and walked to their horses, which whickered uncertainly as they approached, as though the animals could tell there was something . . . different about their riders now. The three young men swung into their saddles and set off for their original destination, the small mining village of Cooper’s Mill. They said nothing more to one another. They were all busy with their own thoughts. Not one of them was as full of derring-do as they had all been before.
• • •
By the time they arrived at Cooper’s Mill, night had fallen. None of them liked the dark now, though none of them was ready to acknowledge it. They just lit their sturdy travel lanterns and tied them firmly to their saddles. The half-moon shed a silvery light across the Forest, but it didn’t help much. The three young men steered their horses close together and rode side by side. To their credit, it didn’t occur to any of them to just turn around and go back. To return home, to the comfort of warmth and light. There was a thing they had sworn to do, so they would do it.
They didn’t stop along the way. None of them felt like resting, let alone sleeping, in the Forest at night.
Cooper’s Mill turned out to be a small gathering of single-storey rough stone houses with slate tile roofs, home to perhaps a hundred souls in all. Prince Richard led the way past the great mill on the outskirts that gave the village its name; it was still working, still grinding its flour even at this late hour, because its work would never end as long as the stream could turn the huge wheel. The small houses stood in straight rows on either side of the only main street. There wasn’t a light showing, in any window or open doorway, because the whole village population had turned out to meet them. They stood together in a silent, tightly packed crowd at the far end of the village, in a small pool of light provided by paper lanterns and flaring torches. The shadows around them still seemed very dark.
Prince Richard led the way down the empty main street, his horse’s hooves sounding loudly on the stone cobbles. Peter and Clarence stuck close behind, trying to sit bold and upright in their saddles, as heroes should. They’d come a long way to reach Cooper’s Mill, and they felt they had a right to be appreciated. This never occurred to Richard, of course. He finally brought his horse to a halt before the crowd, and then sat there, looking at them as they looked at him. Peter and Clarence moved in carefully on either side of the Prince. They both kept their hands near their swords. Neither of them trusted crowds. Finally, the village’s Mayor stepped forward, identified by the basic chain of office round his neck. Albert Mason—the man who’d first written to Prince Richard, asking for help.
He looked at Richard and his friends, and then looked past them, as though he couldn’t quite believe they were all there was. When he had finally satisfied himself that there wasn’t going to be any troop of armed and armoured guards, no army come to rescue his village from the threat it faced, he looked back at Richard and Peter and Clarence. He recognised the Prince, of course, from the official portraits that were always doing the rounds, and he bowed formally, if a bit jerkily. He was under a lot of strain, and it showed.
“Greetings, Mayor Mason,” said Richard, raising his voice so the whole crowd could hear it. “I am Prince Richard, and these are my friends. We’re here to help.”
The Mayor nodded. He was squat and muscular, from long years of hard work, and he was dressed in what he probably considered his best, the formal clothes he would wear to a wedding or a funeral.
“Prince Richard,” he said. “An honour, of course, your highness, but . . . where are the rest of your followers?”
“It’s just us,” said Richard. “Here to see what the problem is, and what needs doing to put it right. If you need more men, you shall have them. If you need public funds and resources, to repair whatever damage has been done here, I’ll see you get those too.”
And just like that, the Mayor and the villagers were his. Richard always knew the right thing to say to people. In public, he was always easy and charming and honourable, without even having to think about it. It was one of the things that made the young Prince so popular wherever he went. The crowd were nodding now, and making
general noises of approval, but there was no cheering or applause. Things were too serious for that. Richard looked past the Mayor, at the villagers.
The entire population, gathered in one place. Men and women in rough peasant clothing, hard-wearing, like the villagers themselves.
Children too, of all ages, some so young they had to be carried. All of them watching with wide, fascinated eyes. The whole village together in one place, because no one wanted to miss this. It was probably the most important thing that had ever happened to them, or ever would. They’d be talking about this night, whatever finally happened, for the rest of their lives and passing the story down through the generations for as long as the village endured. Until finally those who were there wouldn’t even recognise what the story had turned into. Peter looked across at Clarence, who nodded quickly.
“Don’t worry,” he murmured. “The song I shall make of this will outlast any other. I’ll do us proud.”
“What if we all die here?” said Peter.
“Then you won’t care, will you?” said Clarence.
The Mayor looked at Peter approvingly. He knew a professional soldier when he saw one. He looked at Clarence and his colourful clothing, and seemed less certain. He looked back at Richard.
“I see you’ve brought your jester, your highness,” said the Mayor. “Can’t see what use he’ll be, save maybe as bait, but no doubt you know your own business best.”
Clarence sat up straight in his saddle. “I am not a jester! Richard, tell him I’m not your jester!”
“He’s not my jester,” Richard said kindly. “He’s a minstrel.”
“Even worse,” said a voice from the crowd. Peter rocked silently in his saddle, holding in his laughter.
Richard felt a little embarrassed at the clear admiration and confidence in the open faces of the villagers before him. They obviously expected him to Do Something about their problem, whatever it turned out to be. And he hadn’t actually done anything yet, except say what he knew they needed him to say. He concentrated on what he remembered from the Mayor’s original letter. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have got anywhere near him. The Prince, being popular like he was, got a lot of mail on all sorts of matters, and he had several secretaries whose job it was to sift through the piles and sort out the few things that actually mattered. Which they would then deal with. He didn’t even sign his own autographs these days. But he’d been bored, looking for something to do, so he’d bounced into the office that morning and just grabbed a handful of letters for himself. And one had been the plea for help from Cooper’s Mill.
Richard swung down from his horse and nodded for his companions to join him. The Mayor gestured quickly for people to hold the horses’ reins, while Richard looked steadily at the Mayor.
“I think we need to see this for ourselves, Mayor. If you could please lead us to the actual trouble spot and fill us in on a few details . . .”
“Of course, your highness,” said the Mayor, standing just that little bit straighter at the prospect of showing off his assumed authority. And then he slumped again, as he remembered his troubles. He turned abruptly, and the whole crowd just split silently apart before him, falling back to open up a corridor for him to walk through. Because wherever the Mayor was going, they very clearly weren’t prepared to go with him. The Mayor reached out a hand, and someone stuck a flaming torch in it. He looked at the torch for a long moment, as though drawing strength from the leaping flames, and then he set off at a steady if not particularly enthusiastic pace, with Richard and Peter and Clarence following after him.
• • •
The Mayor walked out of the village and up the steep slope that led to the mine entrance, set in the side of the dark grey mountains that loomed over Cooper’s Mill. It was clear from his stiff back that he was going there only because someone had to show the way and no one else would do it. He held his flaring torch high, but the light shook and trembled around him, as his hand shook and trembled. Richard observed the man’s very real fear, and took the situation seriously for the first time. He’d been expecting something simple and obvious, like a pack of wolves, or maybe a bear that had taken up residence in the mine; but now he had to wonder just what it was that could terrorise a whole village so completely.
They came at last to the mine entrance. Nothing special, just a dark hole in the side of the grey mountain. Richard was reminded of the old story about Prince Richard and his Champion fighting a giant Worm creature in an abandoned mine. He mentioned it to the Mayor, just for something to say, and the Mayor nodded stiffly.
“Oh, aye, your highness. We all know that story. That was up in Coppertown, some ten, twelve miles from here. We all know Coppertown. Some of us had relatives there. No one goes there anymore, mind. No one lives there anymore.”
“But . . . Prince Rupert and the Champion killed the Worm!” said Clarence. “That’s the one thing all the songs and stories agree on . . .”
“Oh, they killed the Worm, all right,” said the Mayor, not looking back. “Burned it right up, with lamp oil. Very clever. But not until it had killed everyone who lived in Coppertown. Every last man, woman, and child. Afterwards the town was still there, the houses were still there . . . but no one wanted to move in. You couldn’t blame them, really.”
“Was it haunted?” said Peter.
“No, not . . . haunted, as such. Just a bad place. Wasn’t somewhere people could live anymore.” The Mayor stopped right before the entrance hole and held up his torch. The light didn’t penetrate more than a few feet into the dark of the opening. He looked back at Richard. “You have to understand, your highness—just because you kill the monster, it doesn’t mean you’ve won. What’s been done can’t be undone. We’re all hoping you’ll do better. None of us want to have to leave here; this is our home. Has been for generations, back before the Demon War, even. But we’re all packed and ready, just in case.”
“In case?” said Richard.
“In case there’s nothing you can do,” said the Mayor.
“Look, what exactly are we facing?” Richard said bluntly, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice. He wanted to sound calm and composed and professional.
“No one’s entirely sure,” said the Mayor. “The morning shift opened up a new coal face, you see, just last week. Deep, deep down, further than we normally like to go, chasing the new seam. They’d only been working there a few days before things started to go wrong. The men . . . heard things, at first. Things moving around. Then knockings, on the other side of the new coal face, as though the men had disturbed something, woken something up. And now it was trying to break through, from the other side.
“The work stopped, as the men had a bit of a talk about what they wanted to do. If they knocked off early, they’d be docked a full day’s wages, and there’s not many families round here could afford to lose that. But then . . . the men saw something. Something bad, coming right at them, out of the dark. They turned and ran. And these were hard men, your highness, experienced miners, not easily frightened. You can’t be a miner and be prone to panic. But they couldn’t face what they saw, down there, in the deep and the dark . . .”
“Can we talk to these men?” said Peter after a while, practical as ever.
“If you want,” said the Mayor. “But you won’t get much out of them. They’re not saying anything. Doesn’t seem likely they ever will. Whatever they saw, it broke something inside them. Perhaps because there are some things men just can’t stand to see.”
“Demons?” said Richard.
“There are worse things than demons,” said the Mayor.
“There are?” said Clarence.
“And you want us to go down into the mine and face them?” said Peter.
The Mayor looked at him impassively. “Isn’t that why you came here?”
Clarence looked at Richard. “Don’t you think this would be a good time to stay exactly where we are and call for reinforcements? I mean, this is a bit much fo
r just the three of us. Isn’t it?”
“Your jester is right, your highness,” said the Mayor.
“I am not a jester!”
“No, you’re not,” said Richard. “You’re a good man who doesn’t want to let people down.”
“You always did fight dirty,” said Clarence. “Oh hell, we’re here. Let’s do it.”
“Why not?” said Peter.
The three young men who’d ridden out in search of adventure stood together before the mine entrance, looking in. Just a dark hole in the side of a dark grey mountain, its outline supported by heavy wooden beams that had clearly been there a lot longer than originally intended. They didn’t look to be in the best of shape, or promise much for the state of things inside the mine itself. The dark inside the entrance seemed every bit as impenetrable as that beyond the Darkwood boundary. But at least here there was no cold wind gusting out, no stench of death and dying things. The air was still, and there wasn’t a sound to be heard anywhere.
“Those beams don’t look too solid to me,” said Clarence.
“Improvements are expensive,” said the Mayor. “The mine owners don’t like spending money. They wait till something’s gone wrong, until there’s been an accident serious enough to slow down production. And even then, they only authorise enough money to cover the bare necessities. Just enough to get everyone back to work again. We’re here to make them money, not cost them money.”
Once In a Blue Moon Page 13