Once upon a Spring morn

10

Gone

Princess! cried the searchers. Princess Celeste!

“Did no one see where she went?” called Anton.

Men looked at one another in concern, yet none had followed her flight, for they had been caught up in the battle.

“Here is her horse,” shouted Deverel, scrambling upslope toward the downed mare. Quickly he reached it and called, “Its skull is crushed.”

Anton made his way among slain Goblins and Bogles and past a massive and gutted Troll. As he reached the dead horse, nearby a weak voice called out,

“C–Captain.”

Some yards away young Marlon lay wounded, and Anton stepped to him and shouted for Gilles.

“Captain,” whispered Marlon, “she leapt free of her grey, and Sieur Roel fought his way to her, and she swung up behind. They went on toward the bound.” The youth pointed.

Bearing his kit, Gilles arrived, his hands bloodied from treating others. He knelt beside Marlon. “Deverel, help Gilles,” snapped Anton.

As Deverel moved to aid the healer, Anton strode in the direction Marlon had pointed. Within yards he came upon Roel’s caparisoned steed lying dead. He swept his gaze wide, but he saw nought immediate to indicate where Celeste and Roel had gone. Then Anton knelt and closely examined the ground. Ah, tracks, and many.

“Verill, to me,” he cried.

When Verill arrived, Anton pointed and said,

“Spoor.”

“Goblins, Bogles, Trolls,” said Verill after but a glance, “and they are running. Mayhap to escape; mayhap in pursuit.”

“See you any sign of the princess among them? Or Sieur Roel?”

Now Verill studied the tracks closely, and he followed them upslope, moving slowly. “Ah! Here’s a man’s step.

Possibly Sieur Roel’s.” After a moment he said, “And here the princess’s. Captain Anton, they are running, and I ween the Goblins and Bogles and Trolls are in pursuit.”

“Merde!”

On went Verill, Anton following, and into the twilight bound they went. “Lantern. I’ll need a lantern,” said Verill.

Anton stepped out from the boundary and called to Merlion, and quickly he brought a lantern to the two.

But, as with all light, its glow dimmed in the mystical dusk of the marge. Even so, Verill managed to follow the wide swath of the pursuers within the shadowy bound. Long did he track, covering a considerable distance. He found where Roel and Celeste had jinked to throw off the pursuit, and yet those chasing had eventually followed. And then through the ebon central part they all had sped-princess, chevalier, and pursuers.

“Get me a rope,” said Verill, and I’ll see what is on the far side.”

“I’ll call a Sprite,” said Anton.

“That might take a while,” said Verill, “and I can cross now.”

Merlion ran back to the battleground, now nearly a half mile away, eventually to return with a line and two more men. They tied the rope about Verill and all took hold, and he stepped through the ebon wall.

The line snapped taut.

“Haul back!” cried Anton, and, straining, they pulled Verill back through.

“ ’Tis a drop, but I think I hear waves,” reported Verill. “We will need a Sprite.”

Out from the bound strode Anton, and he took his clarion in hand and sounded a call. Then again he called, and eyed the forest surround, and waited.

After a long while, a tiny diaphanous-winged being came flying among the trees. No more than two inches tall and naked she was, and she made straight for Anton, who held his horn on high. She landed on the bell of Anton’s clarion; he lowered the trump and she looked up at him.

“Mademoiselle Sprite,” said Anton, “we need your aid.”

“I am Tika,” she replied, brushing back a wisp of her brown hair. “And you are. .?”

“Anton, armsmaster and warband leader of Springwood Manor.”

In that moment, more Sprites came winging, all in answer to the horn call. And some were greatly disturbed, for they had flown above the slaughter ground.

Anton waited until all the newcomer Sprites had settled on nearby branches. Then he said, “Tika, Princess Celeste is missing”-the wee Sprites gasped in alarm-

“and we need you, all of you, to see what lies beyond the marge, so that we might go to her aid.”

“Where did she cross?” asked Tika, the Sprite familiar with aiding humans at the boundaries.

“We think ’tis there where stands my man Verill,” said Anton, pointing.

Verill raised his hand.

Tika turned to the waiting Sprites and spoke rap shy;idly, and she and they darted in a widespread line toward the twilight wall.

“Nought but ocean where the tracks cross?” cried Anton in dismay.

“Oui,” replied Tika, her voice choking in pent grief, the gathered Sprites nodding in agreement, even as tears glittered against their tiny cheeks.

“Empty,” said another of the Sprites, a russet-haired male.

“We found no one at all,” said a third, a dark-haired female, tears flowing. “Just waves rolling o’er the deeps.”

“There was a floating cudgel,” said Tika, her voice breaking.

“Cudgel?”

“Like those borne by Redcaps,” said Tika, gesturing in the direction of the slaughter ground.

“No one swimming? No one calling for help?” asked Verill.

“Non,” said Tika, bursting into sobs, her folk all weeping. “I’m afraid. . the princess. . and her knight have drowned.”

“Captain,” said Verill, choking on his own tears,

“mayhap they were swept through the bound elsewhere and are safe.”

“Non,” said Tika, gaining control. “From the place of the tracks, we flew through the bound repeatedly both dextral and sinister, and always we came back into the Springwood; and we searched, and they are not herein.

And back nigh that horrid battleground whence you said the Trolls and Bogles and Redcaps had first come, beyond the bound there is nought but wide, empty desert, and farther along the marge lies the realm of King Avelar, and the princess is not in either.” Tika burst into tears again, yet after a moment she managed to say, “Captain Anton, the princess and the chevalier, they most assuredly drowned.”

Anton turned away, and peered at the shadowlight, and then he sighed and said, “Tika, I need you and the Sprites to bear word to Steward Vidal at Springwood Manor.”

Her voice choking, Tika managed to ask, “And your message, Armsmaster?”

Anton sighed and said, “Tell him that during an attack by Redcaps and Bogles and Trolls at the sunwise twilight bound, Celeste and Roel crossed over and fell into an ocean and were drowned.”

Yet sobbing, Tika nodded, and then she and the Sprites darted away.

His own cheeks wet with tears, Anton gathered the men and told them what the Sprites had found. And then, with men weeping, and with the most severely wounded riding on travois, back toward Springwood Manor they all turned. And they bore with them the trappings from Celeste’s grey and from Roel’s black, as well as a slain crow pierced through by a crossbow quarrel.