Once Upon a Winter's Night by Dennis L. McKiernan Read Free Book Online

lip of the linn high above, only to dive into the falls and plunge merrily past, their shrieks of gaiety growing and then fading as they hurtled nigh and at hand and down.
    “Oh, Bear, oh, Bear, did you see and hear? Waterfolk. Waterfolk dear.”
    The Bear merely grunted, and, bearing Camille, followed the narrow way.
    On down they went and down, down to the valley floor, and the sun sailed downward as well. When they reached the bottom of the gorge, shadows from the mountains ahead o’erspread the land. But to the fore and alongside the river a small campfire burned, and upon arriving at the stone-encircled blaze, they found pheasants roasting above.

    That night Camille awoke to find the valley filled with wee dancing lights flitting among the trees, as of a tiny folk bearing lanterns and riding upon dragonflies. While the Bear had been nigh when she had gone to sleep, of him there was now no sign, though the back of her neck did tingle, as if an unseen observer stood somewhere in the darkness watching her. And even though she saw the Bear not, still she did feel safe, and she fell asleep again, while in the forest all ’round, dancing lights did weave.
     
    After fording the river next day, up a long slope toward the far end of the valley they fared, making for the mountains ahead, Camille again riding astride. And as they went, the noontime came, and this day they dined on wild spring éschalots and the pale tubers of a sedgelike plant, all harvested by the Bear from the earthy banks of a stream, the gentle piquancy of the shallot bulbs complementing the mildly sweet and starchy taste of the nodules of sedgelike rootstock.
    After their meal, up the long remainder of the slope they went and out from the valley, and as they reached the beginning of the mountains, they came to the end of the Springwood. In contrast to the land behind, that before them was snow-covered and ice-laden and bleak. It was marked by a border of twilight, a dusky wall rearing up unto the sky, only this seemed a darker, more sinister marge than the one they had crossed when they had first entered Faery, and the moment the Bear stepped into that bound his ebony color vanished, and once again he became an immaculate white. Within the ambit of that frigid realm a harsh coldness bore down upon them, and Camille donned her cloak and wrapped it tight about her and pulled her hood up and ’round, for they had come once more into the brutal clutch of cruel winter.
    Camille looked at the way before them and gasped, for ahead stood a tangled and twisted wood, with barren, stark trees clawing at a drab, overcast sky. All was black and white and gray, no color whatsoever in the land. And there at the verge of this drear and lifeless place, the Bear paused as if reluctant to pass into the grim fastness beyond. But he roared in challenge, and clawed the frozen earth, and then pressed forward and into the wood.
    And as they entered this desolate snarl, Camille took a deep breath and straightened her spine, though her heart was racing in dread.

5
    Winterwood
    A mong the twisted trees they went, the Bear and his rider Camille, and all about was gloom and desolation and chill, a drear and silent wood. And now and again the Bear would pause and raise his head and sniff the air, but what he was seeking—water, food, habitation, friend, or foe—Camille knew not, though she suspected that what he sought was the scent of peril in the surround. After each pause, he would growl low over his shoulder at Camille, and she construed he warned her to silence, and for her part she did stay mum, as the Bear pressed on into what surely must be the Winterwood, or so Camille did think.
    Forward they went into the fading day, the Bear following a narrow track through the dreadful demesne. Embedded in ice and snow and looming all ’round were harsh gray rock and jagged crags and stripped, barren trees—nought but cracked and splintered and tangled wood—and Camille shrank away