Once upon a dreadful time ou-4

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Down they went and down, the Wolves raising their muzzles and taking in the air, taking in scent, and by the stutter of lightning they could see the way ahead.

  They came to the edge of the flat, and there Michelle paused, and under the violent coruscations of the churning skies they could see the dark beginnings of the vast swamp to the fore.

  “Oh, my,” said Trit in dismay, in between thunderous booms. “What a dreadful place that is.”

  “Dreadful? Why so?”

  “Princess, at the bottom of every swamp lies great sickness, a sickness whose very vapors can cause the ague and boils and other such horrible manifestations of its terrible strength, and even a short exposure to this ghastly effluence is deadly to Sprites and lethal to humans if either remain too long in its grasp.”

  “What of its effects upon Goblins and Bogles and Trolls and other such beings?”

  “Oh, my lady, it harms them not, for Goblins and Trolls are akin to Bogles, who themselves live in swamps.”

  “And the Serpentines?”

  “The Serpentines and their mounts are more snake than people and steeds, and such corruption harms them not.”

  “Well then, Trit, if we can choose our battleground, let it be on this plain and not in the midst of the mire.”

  “But only if the soil is firm,” said Trit, “or so Sieur Emile said.”

  “Let us test it,” said Michelle, and she gave a soft growl, and Slate led the Wolves onto the plain, Michelle following after and probing with a slender, sharp staff.

  . .

  Among the roars of thunder, “Bolok, you are the cham of my armies,” said Orbane, looking down at the great Troll standing waist-deep in the water at the edge of the flet. “I would have you lead them against these humans. By no means let the humans enter the swamp until my spell casting is done. Then it won’t matter.”

  “Humans?”

  “Oui. There is an army of them on the dawnwise marge of the swamp. Ten thousand or so.”

  Bolok laughed. “Ten thousand? Why, my Trolls alone could slaughter them all.”

  “Non, Bolok, for I need make certain that you protect me on my way to the goal. Hence you will use all under my command to do this ragtag army in.”

  “All, my lord? All forty thousand?”

  “Oui, all forty thousand. And heed me, more are on the way; if they arrive in time, then throw them into the battle as well, for you must keep the ragtags from disturbing me as I maintain the darkness above and cast the second great spell.”

  “As you will, my lord,” said Bolok.

  “Then go, and go now, and destroy them all or, at a minimum, keep them at bay.” Bolok laughed and turned and waded through the scum-laden waters to round up the throngs and give them their orders.

  . .

  In the hollow hills, Regar and Auberon waited as the Fey army came together, Fairies riding from all directions upon their splendid mounts. They wore silver-chased bronze armor polished to a high sheen, and their weapons were bows and arrows as well as long spears, pointed at both ends, one tip for lancing, the other for stabbing down upon a foe. Girted at their waists were finely honed sabers, and strapped to their thighs were keen long-knives.

  “My lord,” said Regar, “are we not ready to ride?”

  “Nearly,” said Auberon.

  Regar stopped his pacing. “Do you know where we should go?”

  “When we looked through the queen’s silver mirror, I recognized a witch named Hradian, and behind her and my son I could see what appeared to be a swamp, and that’s where the witch has an abode. Too, I believe I know the goal of my son, and there is a pass he must fare through to get from the swamp to his target. It is in that pass where we’ll make our stand.”

  “Well and good,” said Regar. “I will be glad when this day is come to an end and the army is ready to hie, for I am in haste to ride.”

  “As am I,” said the Fairy King, “and this day is nearly done.”

  “Hai!” exclaimed Regar, eager to be off, for somewhere Blaise and the others were waiting, yet what Regar had temporarily forgotten was that time steps at a different pace in the Halls of the Fairy King.

  . .

  Michelle looked across the assembly of leaders, and raised her voice to be heard. And in a lull in the thunderous skies she said,

  “Until you are nigh upon the swamp itself, the plain is firm, Sieur Emile.”

  “Good. Did you”-Emile waited as the heavens roared-“or the Wolves see or sense any foe?”

  “Non. All was quiet but for the storm above, though there yet falls no rain.”

  “I have not seen skies like this ere now,” said Roel.

  The others chimed their agreement.

  All commanders and armsmasters and warband leaders were gathered to plan the morrow, assuming they could draw Orbane’s forces out onto the plain.

  After giving her report, Michelle withdrew, for with no scouting to be done, or at least no scouting that she and the Wolves might accomplish, she felt her role would be that of one of the archers. Laurent would tell her where to be in the fight to come.

  And even as the planners sat in council, Chelle and the Wolves went back to the crest of the slope, and they watched as lightning flared to illuminate the land below. Finally, Michelle turned to go back into the encampment, yet a flow of movement caught the corner of her eye. At the next lightning flare she saw a great blot of darkness moving down the starwise slopes toward the swamp. Again lightning stuttered across the sky, and this time she could see that it was a great throng of Goblins, perhaps as many as ten or twelve thousand. And then the leading edge of the swarm reached the swamp and slowly the mire engulfed them.

  She and another of the warders standing atop the ridge took this news to Sieur Emile and his commanders. Emile sighed and said, “It’s just more we have to face.”

  “Pah!” snorted Laurent. “Goblins? We’ll make short shrift of them.”

  Luc looked at the eldest of Emile’s get and slowly shook his head.

  And the planning went on, and they argued on how best to draw Orbane’s forces out.

  Little did they know that even then Bolok and an army forty thousand strong, soon to be fifty thousand, force-marched for the edge of the swamp to do battle with them.

  Clash

  During the flashes in the night the allied warders discerned movement against the black wall of swamp lying some two leagues away, yet what this stirring might portend, they could not clearly see. They notified Sieur Emile, and he in turn sounded the alert and called the brigade commanders to him. And as the army stood armed and armored and ready, they met to consider what to do. And none did note when Michelle and the Wolves slipped away from the encampment, not even the sentries on duty, so stealthy were she and the pack. Nor did they note when Michelle and the Wolves returned, slipping unseen through the line. They made their way to the war council and reported what they had seen, and the commanders, after a moment of disconcertment that she had done such a foolhardy thing, then did pay close heed.

  “I drew nigh enough to see by the lightning that Goblins and Bogles and Trolls and Serpentines are gathering on the edge of the mire. Thousands upon thousands of them; I did not get an accurate count.”

  “Did it seem they were preparing to mount an attack in the dark?” asked Bailen.

  “I think not,” said Michelle, “for many lay down to rest or to sleep.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Emile, “we must make ready should they come.”

  “I and my Wolves will take a forward station,” said Michelle,

  “and should the foe-”

  An uproar drowned out her words.

  “Non, I forbid it!” snapped Emile. “Going as you did was foolish enough, but I’ll not-”

  “My lord, who else?” asked Michelle. “Who else has the skills to slip unheard and unseen through the darkness but me?

  And who other than the members of my pack can scent danger as it comes?”

  Laurent sho
ok his head and spat a low oath, but Luc said,

  “Send the Wolves, Princess, but you stay nigh the top of the ridge, and should the foe begin movement this way have the pack bring word, and we will meet them on the downside of the slope and attack from the high ground.” Michelle’s eyes narrowed, but she then gave thought, and finally she said, “Well and good.”

  . .

  After a sleepless night, dawn came late under the dark roiling sky with its lightning and thunder and churn. But when the glimmer of dim day finally made its overdue appearance, arrayed in a long arc out on the plain before the way into the swamp stood Orbane’s throng.

  “My lord,” said Armsmaster Vardon, “it appears we are outnumbered five or six to one.”

  “Oui,” replied Emile, though at the moment the count of the enemy did not overly concern him. Instead, he surveyed their deployment, noting the disposition of the foe, and strategy and tactics tumbled through his mind.

  Finally, he said, “I need an accurate estimate of the numbers and kinds of the foe. And call for the brigade commanders to join me, for I would confer with them.”

  . .

  Orbane swallowed a vial of the potion Hradian had made at his instructions. It was an elixir of protection she had concocted once long ago for her and her sisters and Orbane. It was the time they had, as a test, denuded a small realm of all plant and animal life, much to the dismay of an impervious rocklike creature high on a mountainside.

  Hradian, too, drank a vial of the elixir, for this was the day when Orbane would raise the putrescence.

  Under the dark and raging skies they stood on the flet of Hradian’s cote, and Orbane peered into the turgid murk below.

  “Lend me your power, Acolyte,” he demanded.

  “Oui, my lord,” said Hradian, even as she in turn added Crapaud’s power to her own.

  And Orbane began to whisper and gesture down at the slime-laden waters, and a thin tendril of bilious vapor rose up through the ooze and the water and began to blossom, spreading outward, gaining in volume, the tendril becoming a cord and then a rope and then more, and the swamp water whirled and gurgled, turbulent eddies spinning away. Faster and faster spewed the yellow-green gaseous upsurge, vomiting forth from the swamp under-bottom. And it began spreading wide as it bellowed out.

  And the leaves on nearby trees drooped, and hummocky grasses sagged. And Orbane continued his sibilant whispering, as from a churning vortex the putrescence erupted.

  . .

  “Why do they not attack?” asked Laurent.

  “I deem they wait for us to make the first move,” replied Luc. “Likely they plan a trap.”

  Standing beside Luc, Emile nodded and said, “Note how they are arrayed: Goblins with Goblins, Bogles with Bogles, Trolls with Trolls, and mounted Serpentines on the right flank.”

  “ ’Tis their cavalry, Sieur Emile, these Serpentines,” said Leon.

  “Mithras,” said Blaise, “but there must be two hundred Trolls there in the center of the line.”

  The commanders stood on the ridge and surveyed the enemy standing two leagues away. They were joined this day by Michelle, for as Emile had said, “I will not have you running off willy-nilly without my express command.” And so, disgruntled, she sat to one side listening, with Slate and the others flopped down nearby.

  “How many heavy crossbows have we altogether?” asked Bailen, adding, “I have in my brigade twenty.” Emile frowned and said, “I have a total of twenty-five.” Petain glanced at Georges and said, “Between us, we have ten.”

  “That adds up to fifty-five heavy crossbows,” said Roel, “not enough to slay two hundred Trolls in one volley. Of course, can they get off four shots apiece, and if each is a kill then it is more than enough. Yet that is an unlikely scenario, given the time it takes to cock and reload and loose, and the Trolls will not be standing still.”

  Leon glanced at Luc and said, “Then, after the first barrage, I think it’s up to my knights to deal with the Trolls, even as the heavy crossbows are made ready for a second volley.”

  “Whoa, now,” said Blaise, “that means your fifty knights will be outnumbered by the Trolls at a minimum some three to one, at least until more are brought down by the crossbows.”

  “I realize that,” said Leon grimly.

  “But what of the Serpentines?” asked Georges. “Aren’t the knights more useful in bringing them down?”

  “Oui,” said Sieur Emile, “they would be, yet I think our own cavalry can deal with the Serpentines.”

  “You have a plan?” asked Georges.

  Emile gestured at the plain. “The reason the Serpentines are on their right flank is because the starwise land on their left is steep and not given to a charge. Hence, they are stationed where they are to attack from the flat.”

  Georges nodded.

  “Too,” continued Emile, now squatting in the dirt and draw shy;ing with his dagger, “I ween the Serpentines think to round our left flank and come at us from the rear, trapping us between themselves the Trolls and Goblins and the Bogles, much like catching us between their hammer and the army’s anvil.” Emile looked up and smiled. “But two can play at that game.”

  “How so?” asked Bailen.

  “Heed,” said Emile, “they are arrayed in a cupping arc, like so”-he drew a long curve-“in the hope of surrounding us when we attack the center, for well do they know we will try to deal with the Trolls first. But if we march out in a long, diagonal line, a phalanx, like so”-Emile drew a slanting line in the soil-“and if we more or less conceal our cavalry behind the end farthest away from them”-now he drew a slash at the near end of the line-“then the Serpentines will have to ride down the phalanx to round our flank, thusly, and then-”

  “And then we hit the Serpentines in their own flank with our concealed cavalry,” blurted Blaise.

  “Brilliant,” murmured Luc.

  “Indeed,” said Leon. “For by taking their cavalry in the flank with ours head on, they cannot easily bring their lances to bear upon our charge.”

  “Ah, but how do we manage to conceal our own cavalry?” asked Petain. “I mean, we are coming downslope in full view.

  Will they not see this ruse?”

  “Three things,” said Emile, raising a hand, three fingers upraised. “Un”-he ticked down one finger-“it is dark under these dismal skies, and vision is hampered not only by the murk but also by bright flashes of lightning.” Emile ticked down a second finger. “Deux: our knights and heavy crossbowmen will be on the lead, the phalanx to follow, and while the attention is on them.” Emile ticked down the last finger. “Trois: our cavalry will have ridden on this side of the ridge to the gap on the left, where they will dismount and walk their horses through and conceal themselves behind yon nearby hill”-all eyes swung to the left of the plain, where stood the hilly land-“and when the final phalanx marches past, again they will walk the horses, and, by this ruse, to seem to be but more foot soldiers as they slip in behind.”

  “Ah,” said Bailen. “And who will lead the cavalry?” Emile looked at Laurent, and then said, “Luc.” Laurent started to protest, but it died on his lips ere spoken, for Bailen then asked, “And who will lead the chevaliers ’gainst the Trolls?”

  “Laurent.”

  Even as Laurent clenched a fist and grinned, “But aren’t Luc and Laurent needed to lead their own battalions?” asked Leon.

  “Non. Luc’s battalion will be led by Armsmaster Devereau, and Laurent’s by Armsmaster Jules.”

  “And what of me and Roel?” asked Blaise.

  “You both will join Laurent and the knights against the Trolls, and Armsmasters Bertran and Anton respectively will lead your battalions.” Emile looked down at the battle plan scratched in the dirt. “You see, except for delegating our champion of champions to lead the cavalry and eliminate the Serpentines, our knights are more valuable in dealing with the Trolls than in any other role, and all of the armsmasters are well suited to command.”

  Emile tur
ned to Luc. “And you, my boy, when the Serpentines are done in, we will turn the tables on them, for you will bring the cavalry about and trap the enemy between your hammer and our anvil.” Luc smiled and inclined his head in assent.

  “Now to the archers,” said Emile, and Michelle stood and watched Emile draw, “this is how we will proceed. . ”

  . .

  Thus went the planning through the early morn, in the midst of which Emile paused and looked again at the enemy. “Hmm. .

  I wonder. We are outnumbered some six to one. Mayhap this is the time to rally the Firsts to our side.”

  “Non, Papa,” said Blaise, his eyes lighting up with sudden understanding, “I think this is not the time.”

  “Your meaning?”

  “Lady Lot’s rede,” said Blaise, “the one she gave me, I think I understand it.”

  “Lady Lot?” asked Bailen. “Verdandi? She gave you a rede?”

  “Oui,” said Blaise.

  “Grim are the dark days looming ahead Now that the die is cast.

  Fight for the living, weep for the dead; Those who are first must come last.

  Summon them not ere the final day

  For his limit to be found.

  Great is his power all order to slay, Yet even his might has a bound.”

  Blaise looked down at the waiting enemy. “I just now realized that the key is in the line ‘Those who are first must come last.’ And who else could that mean but the Firsts? Too, I think this is not the ‘final day’ spoken of in Verdandi’s conundrum, and so we should not summon them except a extremite.”

  “We don’t know how to summon them anyway,” said Laurent.

  “But we do,” came a tiny voice.

  Emile and the others skewed about. It was the Sprite Peti, now sitting on Michelle’s shoulder.

  “Demoiselle?” said Emile.

  Peti took to wing and flew in among the men, where she alighted on Sieur Emile’s arm. “The other Sprites tell me that 324 / DENNIS L. MCKIERNAN

  the Firsts are nearly assembled, and they but await the word as to where to go. Yet they also heed Lady Verdandi’s rede, and will not come ere what they judge to be the so-called ‘final day.’