Once upon a Spring morn ou-2 Read online

  “Will a small sloop be enough, Captain?”

  “I should think so,” said Chevell. “It, along with part of the crew in the dinghies, should provide the distraction we need.” 138 / DENNIS L. MCKIERNAN

  Celeste nodded and onward they sailed, the far side of Brados their immediate goal.

  In midafternoon they dropped anchor in a small, narrow inlet, the isle itself a large and rocky upjut of land roughly circular and some five miles across, its craggy interior filled with scrub and twisted trees, though here and there groves of tall pines stood. The shoreline was nought more than a rocky shingle, sand absent for the most part, but for the root of the cove, there where a hull of a sloop lay on its side. Massive blocks of stone reared up along this part of the perimeter, and off to the right the brim of the cove was a long cliff of sheer rock rising up from the sea and curving away beyond sight.

  Men lowered dinghies, and, leaving Armond and a small crew behind, the rest put to shore, Celeste and Roel among them. As they beached the boats, Chevell said, “Ensign Laval, take your part of the men and begin cutting brush and making the preparations we discussed. Lieutenant Florien, you and the rest will deal with the sloop. Princess, Chevalier, we’ve a long stroll ahead, but I know a path that will somewhat ease the way.”

  Chevell and Celeste and Roel marked their faces and wrists-all exposed flesh-with streaks of burnt cork, and Celeste bound her pale golden hair and slipped on a dark hat to cover all, and then they donned cloaks as well. Finally, armed and armored, the trio shouldered rope and grapnels and climbing gear and set forth, the captain in the lead. And up into the craggy land they fared, the day warm and humid, the way rough in stretches, while at other places they passed through with surprising ease. Celeste found it strange to now be walking on a surface that did not pitch and roll, and it took her a while to lose her sea legs. Birds with bright plumage fluttered among the occasional grove, and lizards skittered across the way. Now and again a snake would slither off into the rocks, and once a boar stood as if to challenge them, but then fled through the crags.

  “Pigs gone wild from those escaped from Brados Town,” said Chevell.

  Perspiring, they stopped in the shade of a grove, the air redolent with the scent of the surrounding pines. As they sat on a log and took water, “How long were you a freebooter, Captain?” asked Celeste.

  “In mortal terms, twelve years, Princess. About the same length of time I was a thief.”

  “Did you capture many a ship?”

  A frown of regret crossed Chevell’s features.

  “Princess, I’d rather not think on those times, but yes, a goodly number fell to my crew.”

  “I’m sorry, Captain. I did not mean to dredge up old memories.”

  Chevell shrugged and turned up a hand. “There are things I’d rather forget.”

  “As would I,” said Roel. “Deeds done in time of war.” A somber silence fell among them, and finally Chevell said, “Let’s go.” Once again they took up the trek, passing among the tall trees to come to a rocky way, and there they aided one another across the difficult stretch, clambering up and across and down, only to clamber up and across and down again.

  Finally, as the sun touched the rim of the world, they reached an upland on the far side of the isle, the highland nought but a jumbled plateau of scrub and rock and trees. In the long shadows Chevell led them to a low ridge, and just ere reaching the crest, onto his belly he flopped, and then eased his way to the crown.

  Following his example, Celeste and Roel did the same.

  No more than a furlong downslope loomed a fortress of gray stone blocks, sitting atop a low rise jutting out from the fall of the land. On beyond and farther down, another half mile or so, stood a town, curving about a modest bay. Rover ships were moored in the dark waters, the cove enshadowed from the setting sun by the arc of the island shouldering up all ’round. As eve drew on in the dimness below, the trio could make out folk hurrying through the streets, and lights winked into being, and the music of a squeeze-box drifted on the air. It seemed to be quite a normal town and not a rover den.

  As to the bastion itself, roughly square it was, an outer wall running ’round o’er the rough ground, some ten feet high and three hundred feet to a side and five feet thick at the top, wider at the base. “That wall is merely to slow invaders; it’s not a primary defense,” said Chevell, reminding them. “And though you can’t see it from here, there’s a gate along the starwise side. A road runs through and down a series of switchbacks to the town below.”

  Between the outer bulwark ringing ’round and the main fortress itself, lay nought but open space, the land completely barren of growth. “A killing ground for any who win their way up the hill and breach the outer wall,” said Roel.

  Centered within this outer wall and killing ground, the dark bastion itself stood: some fifty feet high to the banquette it was and also built in a square, two hundred feet to a side, with a great courtyard in the center, towers and turrets and a massive wall hemming the quadrangle in. “The main gate lies on the starwise side,” said Chevell, “but you can see a postern here on the sunwise bound. We, of course, will use neither.”

  And in the very center of the courtyard stood a tall slender structure, mayhap some seventy feet high, window slits up its length, arrow slits up its length as well.

  “There it is,” said Chevell, “Caralos’s aerie. From there he surveys his kingdom. ’Tis at the top where he keeps his charts and plots his raids.”

  “Then that’s where we are bound,” said Celeste.

  “Oui,” said Roel. “But first we need get over the outer wall and then the inner one and into the courtyard.”

  “ ’Tis a good plan you have laid out, Chevalier,” said Chevell.

  “Let us hope it all goes well,” replied Roel, “but like any plan of combat, it all falls apart the instant it begins.” They lay for long moments, watching the town come alive in the oncoming dusk, lantern glow or mayhap candlelight shining in nearly every house and building, songs drifting upslope. Finally, Roel slid a bit backwards and said, “One of the first rules of combat: take rest when you may.”

  “I’ll keep first watch,” said Chevell. “I’ll wake you in four candlemarks.”

  “What of me?” asked Celeste. “Which watch is mine?”

  “Third,” grunted Roel.

  Four days past new and on its way to setting, a crescent moon hung low above the sundown horizon when Chevell awakened Roel, and by the time he awakened Celeste the moon had long disappeared, and all was dark but for the stars, though a few windows in town as well as the bastion yet glowed yellow, including a lantern-lit window at the top of Caralos’s tower.

  Celeste yawned and asked, “What is the count?”

  “Two candlemarks after mid of night,” said Roel, now stepping back to the ridge and peering starwise.

  Celeste slowly shook her head. “Ah, you trickster, you’ve cheated me out of my watch, for Armond and the crew are to-”

  “My love, waken Chevell,” said Roel. “I see the shadow of Armond’s arrival.”

  And even as Chevell and Celeste came to the ridge,

  ’round the shoulder of the cove in the glimmering starlight came the dark shape of the sloop under full sail, dark blots in tow-dinghies, the trio knew.

  “Quick,” snapped Roel, “our gear.”

  Down the back of the ridge they darted, to snatch up rope and grapnels and weaponry and other such. And by the time they reached the crest again, the sloop was blazing in flames as amid the pirate fleet it sailed.

  From somewhere below there came the clanging of an alarm gong, and on the fortress walls, horns blew.

  “Fire ship! Fire ship!” came the repeated cry. And in the light of the burning sloop, dinghies rowed for the outlying craft, and men from the Eagle threw torches aboard other dhows, with wads of oil-soaked brush following.

  The entire bay now came alight with blazing flame, the center of the fleet afire as the raging unmanne
d sloop crashed in among the corsairs.

  Pirates ran down to the docks, cursing, raving, weapons in hand. They were met by volleys of arrows from the archers aboard the dinghies.

  And as alarms rang and horns sounded- chnk! — the tines of a padded grapnel hooked onto the ten-foot-high outer wall at the rear of the fortress.

  Up onto this beringing bulwark clambered a trio of dark shadows, their faces smudged with black streaks.

  Down the other side they scrambled, leaving a rope in place in case of need, for none patrolled this wall, and discovery of the line unlikely. Across the killing ground they slipped, nought but wraiths in the dark. They sped to one corner of the fortress, for there free-climbing would be easiest. And up they clambered, Roel in the lead, Celeste coming last.

  Up the rough stonework they scaled, passing by arrow slits in the wall, darkness and silence within. Up they clambered and up, now and again slowed by a bit of smooth work. Finally, they neared the top, where Roel in the lead motioned the others to stillness, and they all clung to the stone without moving, for running footsteps clattered nigh. Cursing voices grew louder, along with the thud of boot. Lantern light shone brighter and brighter, and with their hearts hammering ONCE UPON A SPRING MORN / 143

  in their throats, the trio pressed themselves against the stone, as all ’round the darkness faded. Directly above on the wall the glow passed, and then sped beyond, voices and light fading as the pirates loped onward.

  Celeste exhaled, noting for the first time that she had been holding her breath. When the patrol was but a distant scuffle, upward Roel climbed, to slip over the parapet and onto the walkway above. Looking left and right as he slid Coeur d’Acier from its sheath across his back, he turned about to motion the others up, to find Chevell hoisting Celeste onto the banquette. They cast their cloak hoods far over their heads, for they would not have any see just who they were, strangers within the hold. Chevell drew a cutlass, and Celeste whipped the bow from her back and nocked an arrow.

  Chevell took the lead, and down a spiral stair within the fortress wall he led them: one storey, two storeys, three storeys, and more. Five in all he descended, and out into the courtyard they passed, the place a turmoil of men and horses, some shouting commands as massive gates were opened.

  Ignoring the pirates, across the courtyard they dashed, merely three more rovers amid others running.

  To the central tower they sped, and Chevell led them in through doors flung wide.

  Now up a spiral stair they scrambled, the flight turning deasil, ever rightward, the stair giving advantage to right-handed defenders against right-handed foe. Past doors and chambers and arrow slits they wound, seven flights in all, passing through trapdoors flung back as to each storey they came.

  Finally they reached the top, and Chevell led them into the chamber therein. A large, swarthy man stood at an open casement, peering out at the flaming chaos in his harbor below. Behind him a cloth map lay open on a table.

  To one side in the shadows of the chamber stood someone else, dark and nearly invisible.

  The large, swarthy man turned when the trio entered the room. Momentarily he frowned, his pitted face twisted in puzzlement.

  “Caralos,” said Chevell, casting back his hood.

  The man’s dark eyes widened in recognition and then he spat, “Chevell.”

  “The day has come,” said Chevell, raising his cutlass.

  As Caralos sprang to take a like cutlass from the wall, Celeste drew her arrow to the full.

  “Nay,” barked Chevell. “He is mine.” Even as Caralos took the weapon in hand, the person in the shadows started toward the table, where lay the map.

  “Non,” gritted Roel, raising Coeur d’Acier and moving between the chart and the shadowed being. And then Roel gasped, “You!” And as Roel sprang forward, the man in the black cloak whirled ’round and ’round, red limning flashing in his gyres. “Yah!” shouted Roel, Coeur d’Acier slicing through the air, to meet nothing whatsoever, for the being had vanished, even as Celeste’s arrow shattered against the stone chamber wall beyond where the man had been but an instant before.

  Cursing, Roel slashed at the shadows, but his blade clove only darkness.

  Chang! Bronze clanging on bronze, back and forth lunged Chevell and Caralos, swords stroking and counterstroking, parrying and riposting and drawing apart.

  They closed and hammered at one another, and Chevell jumped inward and smashed Caralos with the bronze basket hilt of his cutlass. Caralos staggered back, but then lunged forward again. And in that moment, Chevell spitted him through. Caralos stood an instant, his eyes wide in wonder as he gaped down at the blade.

  And then he fell dead, even as Chevell jerked his weapon free.

  “You’re bleeding,” said Celeste.

  “He got me across the forehead,” said Chevell, blood running down.

  Celeste quickly examined the cut. “A slight flesh wound; it looks worse than it is.”

  Chevell nodded and turned to Roel. “Who were you fighting?”

  “ ’Twas the Lord of the Changelings,” raged Roel.

  “He was here and then not, and once again I failed.”

  “The Changeling Lord? Are you certain?”

  “I know my enemy,” gritted Roel.

  “And now so does he,” said Chevell.

  “Mayhap he knows me as well,” said Celeste, “for I loosed an arrow at him, but he vanished e’en as the shaft flashed through the place where he had been.” Chevell sighed and shook his head. “Oh, Princess.” Stricken with the realization that both he and Celeste were now known to the Changeling Lord, Roel stepped to the princess and put an arm about her. Celeste looked at him and then at Chevell and said, “Roel is right, it was the Lord of the Changelings. I saw the red limning on his cloak. And who else can vanish simply by whirling about?”

  “ ’Tis an ill thing he was here,” said Chevell.

  Roel gestured at the table. “He was after that map.” Chevell moved to the board and peered at the chart.

  “Voila!” he cried. “It is what we came after.”

  “Then let us take it and flee,” said Celeste.

  They rolled up the map and then sped down the stairs, meeting no one. When they reached the courtyard, it was nearly empty, but the fortress gates yet yawned wide.

  “As I surmised,” said Chevell, and out and through the beringing wall and down the switchbacked road they fled.

  “This way,” cried Chevell, and he led them through the streets of the town and ’round the arc of the bay as ships burned, and men doused flames with water, and crowds milled about along the piers in the radiant heat.

  Dark smoke rose into the air and blotted out stars, acrid tendrils drifting onshore, the smell of it rank. Finally, the trio reached the end of the town, and at a small wharf sat a dinghy, a five-man crew waiting, three with swords in hand, two with arrow-nocked bows.

  “Florien!” cried Chevell as he and Celeste and Roel came running. Swords were sheathed and bows slung and oars taken up even as the trio leapt aboard, and Florien barked, “Away!” and the rowers put their backs to the flight, all unnoticed in the pandemonium centered in the bay.

  ’Round the larboard shoulder of the cove the dinghy hauled, to come to the waiting Sea Eagle. In but moments the free-luffing sails were haled about, and away she flew on the wind, a victorious bird of prey.

  17

  Parting

  “It will make a nice scar, my lord,” said Chirurgeon Burcet, standing behind the captain and tying off the bandage. “One that’ll mark you as a warrior for all to see.”

  “I think instead it’ll mark me as a fool for having made a mistake in a duel,” replied the captain, a lock of his red hair spilling over the binding and down his forehead.

  Roel smiled. “With that cloth band about your head, I think it makes you look more the freebooter than a king’s man, my lord. What think you, Celeste?”

  “What?” Celeste looked up from the vellum on which she c
opied the map. “What did you ask?”

  “Given the bandage, does the captain more resemble a king’s man or a freebooter?”

  Celeste studied Chevell for a moment. “I believe it marks him as the duelist he is.”

  “Merci, Princess,” said Chevell, bowing from the waist, though seated.

  Celeste turned her attention back to the chart.

  Burcet put away his needle and gut and said, “We’ll make certain to put a clean bandage on it each day. I think tomorrow a red one will do; it’ll give the men heart.”

  “I believe ’twould be better to give the men a double ration of rum, for a splendid task they did this night.”

  “Indeed, my lord,” said Florien.

  They were gathered in the captain’s cabin, the rescued map on the table, Celeste and Lieutenant Florien at the board, Celeste making a copy under Florien’s direction, the lieutenant a seasoned navigator.

  “Ah,” said Celeste, “here is the realm of the Changelings.”

  “Oui,” agreed Florien, stabbing a finger down as Roel stepped to the table to see.

  “And where are we?” asked Roel.

  “Somewhere over here,” said Florien, pointing to a place out in midair beyond the table’s edge.

  “Does it show a port?” asked Chevell.

  “Oui, my lord,” replied Florien, “Port Cient.”

  “Ah, bon! That means we can drop anchor there in three days or so.”

  Celeste looked up from her drawing. “Merci, Captain.”

  “We are not going to Mizon, my lord?”

  “Non, Lieutenant, not directly. First we will lay over in Cient for the men to have shore leave for two or three days, and to set the princess and chevalier on the road to their destination, for Roel would rescue his sister and brothers and perhaps have another crack at the Changeling Lord.”

  “Oui,” said Roel. “I would indeed like another try at that vile being.” Then Roel frowned and said, “I wonder why he was at the pirate stronghold.” Celeste shrugged and dipped her pen in ink and traced another line. But Chevell said, “Clearly, Caralos sent the corsairs to fetch the map for the Lord of the Changelings.”