Once Upon a Winter's Night (38 page)

Even as the children scrambled for the coins, Camille and Rondalo stepped onto the bridge and went out of Les Îles. Soon they came to the stables, where two riding horses and one packhorse stood waiting, and though Camille had protested she knew not how to ride, still she realized a deal more blossoms would wither away if she walked than if she rode. And so she mounted up, and off they went, away from the river and into the forest at hand, setting forth for a grim range of mountains somewhere in the far distance beyond, for deep in the foreboding fastness therein a murderous Firedrake did lair.

“Yon,” said Rondalo, breaking Camille’s thoughts.

“Wh-what?”

“Yon is the firemountain, wherein the Dragon does lair,” said Rondalo, pointing, his breath blowing white in the cold mountain air.

Camille’s gaze followed his outstretched arm to where tendrils of smoke from a truncated mountain rose into the early-morning sky.

Their horses plodded onward through the snow, rounding a great looming frown of stone, and slowly more of the firemountain came into view, the whole of it a dark ruddy color streaked with ebony runs. Finally, just above a long and sheer rise topped with a ledge, there gaped a black hole.

“Is that it?” asked Camille, her heart hammering in sudden dread.

“Aye,” replied Rondalo, his voice grim.

They had been on the way some thirty-five days, travelling toward this place, and at last the goal was in view, there where a monster laired.

Thirty-five days of pleasant company. Thirty-five days of sleeping in forest campsites and crofters’ lofts and hunters’ cabins and in wayside inns.

Back trail some two days and a dawning ago, a mountain village lay; ’twas nought more than a dozen or so stone-sided, sod-roofed dwellings scattered along a narrow mountain road, with tiers of farmland carven in the slopes below. The villagers had spoken in a guttural language Camille did not know, for it was neither speech in the Old Tongue nor in that of the new. But Rondalo understood and he did converse with them, translating for the benefit of Camille. And when the villagers had discerned whither the twain were bound, their warnings were stark and forbidding.

[Do not go into the mountains, for there a deadly Drake does abide.]

[We have no choice but to do so.]

[Many a brave and foolish warrior has gone, armed and armored, ready for battle, seeking fame, seeking glory. None have returned, and their names are not remembered.]

[We seek neither fame nor glory, but knowledge instead.]

[Knowledge of what?]

[Where lies a place east of the sun and west of the moon.]

The villagers had looked at one another, yet all had shrugged, for none had known where such a place might be. After a moment an eld and toothless woman had gazed up at the ice-clad mountains and said, [Only the north wind would know.] Then with faded blue eyes she had looked beyond a col leading deeper into the fastness and added, [Or mayhap a Dragon dire.]

[That is what we are hoping for, and that is where we go.]

[Then we will see you no more.]

The villagers had then turned their backs and walked away, for what profit was there in speaking unto the dead?

And so Camille and Rondalo, after spending the night in an abandoned, roofless ruin of a stone hut, had ridden out the next dawntide, and no one had watched them go.

And now, on the morn of the third day after, their goal was in sight.

Camille reined her horse to a halt and dismounted. “I will go on from here alone.”

Rondalo sprang down from his horse and stepped to her. “I cannot let you face Raseri single-handedly. It is entirely too dangerous.”

“I have Scruff, and what of your oath? I would not have you battle a Dragon, Firedrake that he is.”

“I shall keep my oath, and do battle with that foul murderer, but only after he has answered that which you need to know.”

“No, Rondalo. The Lady of the Mere said I must go alone”—Camille gestured at her shoulder, where Scruff perched, his feathers fluffed up against the cold—“Scruff and I, that is.”

“These past thirty-five days you have not been alone, Camille. And I have come to cherish you, mayhap more than you know.”

Camille blushed, remembering:

 

It had occurred in a wayside inn, just a fortnight past: After they had sung for the patrons, the innkeeper had sent a second bottle of wine to their table, and both Camille and Rondalo had overly imbibed. That was when Rondalo had leaned over and kissed Camille, and she, so very lonely for Alain and craving his intimacy, had fervently responded. It was only when Rondalo had paused and looked into her eyes that she caught her breath and saw deep within his gaze an ardor burning bright, and she was thrilled. But then, shocked at her own behavior, in a confusion of emotions, she had fled away from him and to her quarters, and in the next days they had ridden in uncomfortable silence, saying nought beyond the needs of the moment, or when making camp, or planning the morrow’s journey. And during this time Camille had wondered if there were room in a single heart for more than one love. As she had done so, unbidden there had come to mind the image of the Unicorn Thale, and this had made her wonder as well of virtue and purity and other such, and whether or no she had lost that which she once had.

 

But that was then and this was now, and Camille said, “I cherish you too, my friend, and no more than would you have me face Raseri, so would I not have you face him as well.”

Rondalo grasped the hilt of the sword at his waist and flashed it into the sky, calling out, “By the blade of my sire I—”

But then he fell into stunned silence, his eyes upon the gleaming bronze. And then he cried out, “Mother!” his voice slapping from vertical stone faces to echo among the peaks.

Camille stepped backward in startlement, for she knew not what was amiss, until Rondalo’s shoulders slumped and he said, “This is not my sire’s.”

“Not your—?”

“Nay, for his is silver-bright, and hammered runes of power run the length of the blade.”

And now Camille remembered Chemine’s words as she had handed the sheathed sword to Rondalo:
“Just in case, my son. Yet draw it not until the mountain comes into view, and then only if you believe you need go on, for, heed! You must not break the oath sworn upon your father’s blade.”

Camille said, “Your mère knows you well, Rondalo. Yet she also knew I would need go on alone. And so she did that which had to be done to assure that it would be so, for you must not break your sword-oath.”

Tears sprang into Rondalo’s eyes, to run down his face. “Oh, my dearest Camille, I . . .”

“I know, Rondalo. I know.”

Rondalo wiped his cheeks with the heels of his hands, then cleared his throat and said, “Remember, look not into his gaze, else he will glamour you.”

“I remember,” said Camille, untying leather thongs from behind her saddle. “You told me often enough of the powers of Drakes, and so I think I will not fall unto a Dragon’s wiles.”

“They are quite crafty, quite cunning. Treacherous, too.”

“As I said, I shall remember. But you, Rondalo, must remember too that I shall take off my cloak and whirl it ’round my head if all seems to be going well. If at night, I shall swing my small lantern back and forth.” Camille glanced up toward the dark hole. “From here, you should be able to see either.”

Camille then took down her waterskin and bedroll and rucksack, the stave affixed in loops she had thought to sew thereon. She settled the sling straps over her shoulder and pulled loose the walking staff, the two hundred and sixty-sixth blossom awither. Finally, a tremor in her voice, she looked at Rondalo and said, “I now go.”

Rondalo stepped forward and he kissed her on the cheek. “I shall wait here a sevenday, and if you return not”—his eyes turned hard as flint—“I will fetch my sire’s sword and the Drake will not survive.”

 

Leaving Rondalo and the horses behind in the fastness of snow-clad peaks, Camille crossed fields of ice and barren rock and snow, rubble and scree and schist half-buried in the winter white, Scruff shifting about to keep his balance as Camille scrambled across the boulder-laden ’scape. On she went, the trek difficult, and she paused now and again to take a drink and offer water to Scruff as well.

It was nigh the noontide when she came to the barren, dark ruddy slopes. She paused briefly to feed Scruff a scatter of millet seeds and to take a meal of her own. Then on she went up the bleak sides, her staff aiding in the climb as she angled cross-slope for the ledge above the vertical rise, the ledge the Dragon’s doorstone.

As she gained in height, she looked back into the fastness she had left behind, yet she saw no sign of Rondalo among the jumble of rock. Still, she knew that he was there somewhere, lost in the background, her gaze unable to find either him or the horses.

On upward she went, the sun sliding down the sky, and though a shoulder of the slope stood in the way she knew she must be getting close. Of a sudden Scruff grabbed a lock of her hair and leapt down into the high vest pocket, the tiny sparrow chattering frantically and tugging on the tress.

With her heart thudding in her chest, “Ah, then, I was right. Peril indeed is nigh, eh, Scruff.”

Still the bird chattered, and still did Camille climb, yet when she rounded the turn to abruptly come to the broad ledge, Scruff fell silent.

Camille stepped thereon, and midmost yawned a black hole.

And it was vast.

Timorously, Camille moved toward the gape.

“WHO COMES?” boomed a great voice, echoing hollowly.

“Oh!” Camille blenched and cried out at the thunder of sound, her heart leaping into her throat.

“IS THAT YOU I TASTE, RONDALO, FAINT THOUGH IT IS? COME TO YOUR DEATH? COME TO MEET YOUR FATE?”

Again Camille flinched, yet she managed to say, “ ’Tis I, Camille, and though I did journey with Rondalo, instead I have come for your aid, O Raseri, your help to find my Alain.”

As Camille peered into the darkness, trying to see, the voice drew closer and boomed, “ALAIN? PRINCE OF THE SUMMERWOOD?”

“Oh, yes, and I am so glad you know of him, know of my beloved. He is lost, and I—”

“Camille, my love,” came a gentle response, and stepping forth from the darkness—

“Alain, Alain, oh my love.” Sobbing, Camille rushed forward, and he took her in his arms.

“Shhh, shhh,” he said. “I would not have you cry.”

“Oh, Alain, my sweet Alain, I have found you at last and I have been searching for so very long, and—”

Camille felt an insistent yanking on a lock of her hair, and she could hear Scruff chattering madly. And she looked down at her pocket where the tiny bird jerked and pulled at her tress.

And from the corner of Camille’s eye . . .

. . . from the corner of her eye . . .

. . . from the corner she saw . . .

. . . a great scaly foot with claws like sabers resting against the stone.

With a gasp, Camille drew back, and there before her ’twas not Alain, but instead—

“RRRRAAAWWW!”

The Dragon’s roar was deafening, and he was monstrous, looming upward some twenty feet or more, his gleaming, sinuous body stretching back into the blackness of his lair. Like the stone of the mountain itself, he was a dark ruddy color, splashes of ebon blackness glittering here and there. Vast leathery wings were folded along his sides. And as he slithered forward, emerging from his den, Camille stepped backward in terror, the vertical precipice of the ledge coming near.

“YOU, RONDALO’S CAT’S-PAW, COME TO GULL ME WHILE HE PLANS SOME HEINOUS ATTACK. TREACHEROUS MAIDEN, YOU WILL NOT LIVE TO SEE ME DESTROY HIM.”

Raseri drew in a deep breath, and Camille knew she would not survive the fire to come. Futilely, in a two-handed grip she thrust out the stave, as if it would ward the flames, and she shut her eyes and turned her head aside, death even then on its way.

A great blast of fire spewed forth, but it touched not Camille. She opened one eye to see the last of it gushing into the sky.

And then Raseri looked down at her and at the staff in her hands. “Lady Sorcière sent you here?”

Of a sudden, Scruff scrambled out from the pocket and to Camille’s shoulder.

“Yes, my lord Dragon,” said Camille, her voice tight and quavering with residual tension and dread, as well as with disbelief that she was yet alive, Camille herself feeling as if she would collapse at any moment, and she abruptly sat down on the stone. She put her head between her knees and said, her voice a bit muffled, “Indeed I was sent by the Lady of the Mere.—Oh, not specifically here, yet she did start me on my way. ’Twas Chemine, the Lady of the River who sent me to you, for only—”

“Chemine?” The Firedrake’s glittering, golden serpent eyes flew wide in surprise. “That cannot be. She would not do such, for I slew her mate on her wedding night, or so it is I recall.”

“Nevertheless, she is the one who sent me, with her son Rondalo as my guide, for you are the First of the Firsts, and perhaps only you can aid.”

Raseri peered down into the valley, and his forked tongue flicked out, and he hissed, “Are you certain this is not some trick? I see Rondalo now riding in haste this way.”

“Oh, no,” cried Camille, leaping to her feet, “he will break his sword-oath.”

“Scruff,” called Camille, holding open the vest pocket; the wee sparrow hopped in. Then swiftly she cast off her rucksack and bedroll and waterskin and then removed her cloak. She stood on the lip of the ledge and whirled the garment by its collar ’round and ’round o’erhead.