Once Upon a Summer Day (9 page)

Great double doors stood just beyond where the Redcaps bickered.

Of a sudden as two Goblins cursed, the third jumped up and danced about and shouted in glee. “I gets th’ boots, th’ boots. They’re mine, they’re mi—” His words chopped shut, for he was looking directly at Borel, and for just a moment none moved, but then the prince charged, club raised.

“Waugh!”
shrieked the Redcap and turned to flee even as the others looked up and ’round and screamed and leapt to their feet, the one with the long-knife scrabbling at the haft to draw it. But before he could even get a grip, Borel, roaring, smashed the cudgel into that Goblin’s skull. Blood and bone and gray matter sprayed wide as the Redcap flew sideways to crash down dead. In spite of being armed, the other two took to their heels, but Borel did not follow. Instead he retrieved his long-knife and scabbard from the dead Goblin.

Quickly he strapped on the weapon, and, long-knife in hand, stepped to the great double doors. He opened the rightmost one, only to see three monstrous Trolls striding up the steps to the building from a walled courtyard beyond.

He slammed the door to, and looked about for a bar. A huge one for these main doors lay nearby, entirely too heavy for him to handle in the time given.

Back across the entry chamber he sped and up the two steps to the hallway he knew, and just as the front doors opened, he ducked into a stairway leading up.

Goblins shrilled—
The Redcaps! The ones who fled
—and the massive, ten-foot-tall Trolls grunted in response.

Without hearing more, Borel turned and ran up the steps.

One flight and ’round a sharp turn, then two flights, three flights—he lost count.

But he came to a large door at the top. He pressed his ear to the panel to hear—
Nothing
. Cautiously he turned the handle. The door was unlocked. Quietly, he opened it. Beyond lay a cluttered chamber. On the far wall was another door like the one he had just entered. Quickly he stepped inside and eased the door shut behind. Yet there was neither a bar to barricade it nor a way to lock it. He turned and looked about. The chamber seemed to be a storeroom of sorts, where the Trolls and Goblins stashed plunder taken from victims.

Sheathing his long-knife, quickly Borel took up the bow, and nearby lay his quiver and arrows, and he looped the baldric over his head and one shoulder, and slung his bow by its carrying thong.

If I escape—No,
when
I escape, I’ll need gear.

He grabbed up one of the packs, and as he stuffed various goods within—tinderbox, flint, steel, bedroll, rope, a cloak—he saw a massive, bronze, three-pronged grappling hook lying on the floor, or perhaps it was an anchor; he could not tell which, it was so large. He glanced at the far door, the one he had not yet opened.

He grabbed a pair of gloves and slipped them on, then took up several ropes and the rucksack and hefted the hook.

Quickly he glanced ’round.

Nothing else to take?
Borel smiled, for he espied a three-cornered hat. He tried it on. It seemed a good fit.

Borel stepped to the far door and set his goods down and drew his long-knife. He then removed the tricorn and pressed his ear to the panel and listened. All seemed quiet, but for the faint sound of a buzzing insect. Slowly he opened the door and peered within.

Beyond was a chamber with tall windows open to the outside air. The room itself was completely empty but for a table on which sat a golden cage—rather like a birdcage—and inside with his back to Borel sat a tiny, diaphanous-winged Field Sprite, its face in its hands, its sparrow-brown hair falling about its shoulders as it wept silently, while an agitated dark bumblebee darted about the aureate bars.

Borel sheathed his weapon and replaced his hat and took up his goods and moved them within. Inside, there were wall brackets and a heavy beam to bar the door.

Quickly he set the beam into place, then started across the chamber.

As the prince moved inward, the Sprite sprang to its feet and backed away. Pulling itself up to its full, just-under-two-inch height—“Have you come to torture me?” cried the wee being. “I warn you, I am armed!” Yet from its complete lack of clothing it was clear the Sprite bore no weapons at all.

Borel replied, “No, tiny one, I have come to set you free.” With a great smile on his face, he stepped toward the small prison.

But the bumblebee darted at Borel, and as the prince took a swipe at it, the Sprite yelled, “No! Don’t hurt her! She is my friend and my guardian.”

Borel backed away, and the bee returned to the cage, and the Sprite seemed to talk to it, though whatever sound, if any, the wee one made was beyond Borel’s hearing. In moments the bee lighted atop the small jail, and it turned to face Borel, its faceted eyes sharply gleaming.

“It’s all right now,” said the Sprite, beckoning Borel forward.

Borel stepped to the table, and now, close up, he could see that the Sprite was male. Moving slowly and with the bee watching, Borel drew his long-knife and easily pried open the tiny door.

On his glittering dragonfly wings and laughing in glee the Sprite flew free and up and around the chamber, the bee following.

Yet in that same moment, from beyond the barred door Borel heard muffled voices and heavy footsteps coming inward.

“We must flee!” cried the Sprite.

His heart pounding, quickly Borel stepped to a window and looked out . . . and down . . . and groaned. He was back at the rock face with its sheer drop down to a river, only now he was five storeys higher.

The door behind rattled, and then there came booming shouts.

With the Sprite and the bee buzzing about in distress, Borel knotted ropes together in haste, and, even as the door thudded under massive blows, he tied on the large, heavy hook and lugged it to the window. He set two prongs of the huge grapnel against the edge of the sill and gathered up the great armload of rope and tossed it over. Down it plunged and down, yet whether or not it reached the ground at the base of the bluff, the prince could not see.

The door juddered beneath hammering jolts.

Grabbing the pack and tossing it out the window as well, “Time to go,” he said to the Sprite, taking up the line.

Borel passed the rope between his legs and rightward ’round and up across his chest and over his left shoulder and down his back. Then he stepped to the sill and, making certain that the hook was well set, he turned about and backed over the edge. His last sight of the door was that of stone dust sifting down from one of the brackets. And then he began a swift rappel.

With his right hand at the base of his spine and gripping the rope and controlling his descent, and his left above, loosely holding the lead for balance, down he went, the line slipping through his gloved hands. Down he slid and down, pausing only to work his way past the knots.

“Oh, hurry, hurry,” cried the Sprite, darting about alongside, the bee trailing, “else something dreadful will hap, I just know it.”

From above there came a sharp crack and the banging of a door slammed wide.

“Faster!” cried the Sprite.

Still Borel slid downward, the rope slipping through his upper hand and ’round his leg and up across his chest and over the shoulder and down his back to his other hand, friction burning, so swift was his descent.

ONCE UPON A SUMMER DAY / 55

As Borel neared the bottom, far above a huge face peered over the sill. Then the rope gave a jerk, and suddenly went entirely slack. And with the Sprite screaming, Borel fell, the massive, three-pronged grappling hook plummeting down behind, its now-deadly tines aglitter as it plunged toward its victim below.

A
t the base of the bluff, Borel crashed down on a steep, precarious slope of scree; and pebbles and sand and gravel and shale and rocks and boulders and slabs roared down in a great rock slide, Borel tumbling amid all.
Blang!
Behind, the huge grapnel struck a boulder and bounded into the air, spinning, tines flashing like great whirling talons as it lunged after, the tied-on rope whipping violently in great spiralling arcs. “Look out! Look out!” shrieked the Sprite, darting this way and that, the bumblebee following, yet there was nought Borel could do as down he pitched amid a great spill of rock, the massive hook now overtaking in its wild and deadly swirl. And as the slide and Borel slowed—
Blang!
—again the huge grapnel struck another boulder and caromed wildly and passed over the prince, its great spinning talons slashing nought but empty air as it hurtled onward. And then Borel slid to a stop, a few pebbles rattling on past, a large slab sliding by.

And even as Borel staggered upright and the Sprite cried out, “My lord, you are safe,” the tumbling, whirling juggernaut of a grapnel hurled on, snapping the rope taut to violently jerk Borel from his feet and wrench him plowing down through scree the remainder of the slope ere both hook and prince came to a stop.

With the Sprite anxiously hovering nearby and the bee orbiting ’round, Borel lay for long moments, trying to collect his thoroughly addled wits and wondering if ought was broken.

“My lord, are you dead?” asked the Sprite.

“Ungh,” replied Borel, cautiously moving, feeling of his limbs and fingers and ribs, grimacing now and then as he probed.

“Oh, good, you are fine,” said the Sprite, settling on a nearby rock, the bee alighting as well. “For an instant I thought you killed.”

“I feel as if I have been slain,” replied Borel, bloody and bruised and wincing as he removed the three-cornered hat, which incredibly had somehow managed to stay on, and he touched a great knot even then swelling on the back of his head.

“My lord, we must away,” said the Sprite. “The Trolls are like to pursue.”

Borel eased the tricorn back on his head and, groaning, slowly got to his feet. Moving with care, he untangled the rope from ’round his torso. “See you the rucksack I tossed over the sill?”

“I will look,” said the Sprite, taking to wing, “though we must away soon.” Off he darted, the bee following.

Borel examined his bow, finding it fit—neither horn nor ironwood nor silken string were any worse for the wear—though most of his arrows were broken or missing; only three survived intact, yet he retained all six of the ruined ones for their heads and fletching. His long-knife as well had come through unscathed, though the scabbard was now freshly scarred. As for Borel himself, he was thoroughly battered, and blood seeped from a handful of scrapes, but his leathers had protected him from the worst of his tumble among the rocks, and, but for one knot, the cocked hat had saved his head. Even so, amid all the other hurts, he knew he would have a great long bruise running from his crotch up across his chest and over his shoulder and down his back where the entangled line had been jerked taut by the runaway grapnel.

Borel made his way down the last few feet of the slope, dragging the rope after. And then coiling it as he went, he made his way to the hook, where he untied the last of the line. A few yards ahead lay reeds, growing in the muddy shallows of the river, its far bank perhaps a quarter mile away.

The Sprite came flying back. “I did not find your rucksack, my lord; I’m afraid it’s buried under the slide, though there is a rock-laden cloth of some sort lying nigh.”

“Where?”

“I’ll show you, my lord.”

Following the Sprite, Borel painfully made his way up the slope of rubble, where he found the cloak he had packed in the rucksack, but no sign of ought else. He unslung his bow and quiver and took up the garment and slipped it on, and found a brooch hidden in the collar to fasten it with. The Sprite flying well above called out, “Boats, my lord. I see some boats. Perhaps you can use one to escape the oncoming Trolls.”

“Whence the Trolls?” asked Borel.

The Sprite pointed, and Borel saw two Trolls tramping along a sloping way wending across the nearly plumb face of the cliff, a handful of Goblins trailing.

“No doubt they want their meal,” growled Borel, slinging his bow and the quiver. “Which way the boats?”

“Yonder, my lord,” said the Sprite, again pointing.

Borel groaned. “Toward the place where the Trolls are heading.”

“Yes, my lord,” said the Sprite.

“Then let us go,” said Borel, and he haltingly made his way to the bottom of the scree and took up the coil of line and began hobbling in the direction indicated, following the flow of the river.