Once upon a dreadful time

final day.” Laurent growled. “Why do we depend upon the words of a soothsayer?”

“My boy,” said Sieur Emile, “she is not a mere soothsayer.

Lady Lot, Lady Verdandi, she is one of the Fates.” A silence fell among them as on toward the gap they fared, but then Michelle said, “It is the last quatrain that seems to provide some clue, yet what it might mean escapes my grasp.”

“Refresh my memory,” said Emile.

Michelle nodded and intoned:

“Summon them not ere the final day

For his limit to be found.

Great is his power all order to slay, Yet even his might has a bound.”

As Michelle fell silent, Luc said, “‘All order to slay,’ might that not refer to the corruption of the River of Time, mayhap throwing all things into chaos?”

“I think you have it,” said Blaise.

They rode a bit farther, and Blaise added, “It seems to me that when the Firsts come to the battle at last, then the limit of Orbane’s power will be reached.”

“And. .?” asked Laurent.

Blaise looked at his older brother. “ ‘And,’ you ask? Laurent, I do not know what will take place when he reaches the limit of his power. Yet this I do know: whatever it is that might happen, Lady Lot says we need it to occur.”

They rode onward, for long moments, and finally Sieur Emile said, “Since none has come up with a better plan, tell all your warriors this: if the gap is suitable for making a stand, we shall do so. And if the pollution comes upon us, then will we make our retreat.”

“What of our deployment?” asked Bailen.

Emile said, “Orbane is a day behind us. Hence, let us first look at the ground in the gap ere we make our plans.”

. .

The following day the skies grew black, lightning and thunder raging overhead. Even so, no rain fell, nor did the darkness bring cooling air with it.

“They will not be far behind,” said Blaise, sitting on a rock and sharpening his blade.

“Non, they will not,” said Luc, adjusting the tack on Deadly Nightshade, his well-trained horse of war.

A candlemark passed, and a horn sounded to the fore.

“They are sighted,” said Laurent.

“Indeed,” said Roel, buckling on Coeur d’Acier.

They mounted up, did these four knights, did these four horsemen-deadly in their power-on mounts white and roan and black and grey. And they rode up a small slope toward the opening of the gap, for with Leon’s chevaliers following, they would be the first to meet the foe after the archers were done.

Up to the crest of the rise they went, and there they stopped.

And they watched as across the plain below came Orbane’s throng, the putrescence following after.

“Oh, Mithras,” said Blaise, “there must be sixty, seventy thousand of them.”

“More like ninety,” said Leon, riding up alongside.

“They’ll funnel down when they get to this gap,” said Luc,

“and we can deal with-what? — two or three thousand at a time?”

Emile, who had joined them, looked at the width of the pass.

“I think even less; mayhap half that.”

“Even so,” said Luc, “with their numbers, they can afford for ten to fall for every one of us.”

“Then mayhap you can use some help,” sounded a familiar voice amid a jingle of silver bells.

Luc turned to see Prince Regar stop alongside, and downslope behind him came the Fairy army, Auberon in the lead.

Straits

Under roiling black skies streaked with lightning and reverberating with thunder, Auberon looked down at the oncoming throng and then beyond to the bilious cloud that followed, and he sucked air in between clenched teeth. “He has raised the Sickness.”

Both Flic and Fleurette, sitting upon Regar’s tricorn, gasped in alarm. Buzzer was quite asleep between them, under the dark skies.

“Oui, my lord,” said Emile.

“Sickness? What is this so-called ‘sickness’?” asked Regar.

“Is it that low-lying yellow-green cloud I see?”

“Oui,” said Blaise at the prince’s side. “Note how it moves: it follows Orbane’s horde.”

“To what purpose?”

“With it, somehow, Orbane intends to pollute the River of Time.”

Auberon sighed and looked at Regar. “It comes from the under-bottom of swamps, where it lies entrapped unless someone or something sets it free. It can cause great illnesses among living things, and will slay all that remains within its embrace too long.”

“Even the Fey, grand-pere?”

“Especially the Fey, mon petit-fils.”

“Can you do nothing to stop it?” asked Luc. “Use Fairy magic or such?”

“Non. Gloriana’s geas has seen to that.”

“Gloriana?” asked Blaise.

“Orbane’s mere,” said Regar.

Blaise cocked an eyebrow, an unspoken question in his gaze.

“Auberon’s consort,” said Regar, quietly. “Orbane is their only child.”

“Oh, my,” said Blaise, but then fell silent.

As they watched the throng and the Sickness move across the plains and toward the gap where the allies stood, Auberon sank into thought. Finally he said, “But there is something I can do, and that is to cast a protection spell over all of us.”

“All of us?” asked Emile.

“All of the allies,” replied Auberon.

“Horses too?”

“Oui. Horses too.”

“But what of the geas?” asked Regar.

“This spell is to give us temporary protection from some of the ills of the Sickness,” replied Auberon, “hence is a healer’s charm, and one, I think, that I will be able to cast, for it is not in direct opposition to Orbane.”

“Will it negate the putrescence?” asked Emile, hope playing across his face.

“Not completely,” replied Auberon. “It will protect us on the fringes of the contagion, but the deeper one goes into the miasma, the less effect it will have.”

“Will it allow one of us to reach Orbane?” asked Regar.

Blaise swiftly glanced from Regar to Auberon to see the look of sad dismay that flickered across Auberon’s face. But then Auberon’s mien shifted to one of determination, and he said,

“I don’t know. Certainly it will not protect one of the Fey long enough to reach him, and you, my grandson, are one of the Fey.

But as to a human doing so, that I cannot say.”

“I will go,” said Laurent.

And I, said Blaise and Roel together.

“But first,” said Luc, pointing to the masses of Goblins and Bogles and Trolls and Serpentines, “we will have