Once Upon a Summer Day Read Online Free PDF

demoiselle of my dream, I cannot say. Perhaps she is nought but a manifestation of my desire, though why I might think of her as being in peril, I know not.”
    The reaper frowned and said, “Perhaps in your sleep you wish to do a bold deed to win a demoiselle of your dreams.”
    Borel sighed and turned up his hands.
    The reaper shook his head and said, “You have a dilemma, Lord Borel. If it is a sending, then she is real and you know not how to find her. If it is but a dream, then she is not real, and you worry needlessly.”
    They both sat in silence for a moment, and as the Wolves came trotting back, a brace of rabbits their catch, the huge man sighed and said, “I, too, would like a loving mate.”
    “Well, I can’t give you an adoring bride, Reaper,” said Borel, as Shank and Blue-eye each proudly deposited a coney at Borel’s feet, “but, as is my custom, I can dress out these rabbits and set them to cook. Would that I could bide awhile and take a share as I normally do, Moissonneur, yet I have far to go and little time.”
    Borel quickly dressed out the rabbits, and, as the reaper buried the skins and viscera, Borel started a fire and set the game on a spit above.
    As the big man took his place to turn the spit, “Adieu, Reaper,” said Borel, standing.
    The man smiled and said, “Thank you once again, Winterwood Prince, and thanks to your hunters as well. I always look forward to your passing through.”
    Moments later, Borel and the pack were on their way across the meadow, skirting the edge of the field in which grew oats and rye. And as they trotted onward, scampering alongside but hidden by the teeming stalks, wee giggling elfin gleaners paced them.
    Soon the man and Wolves were out of the vale and running among the vibrant trees of the Autumnwood again, and, as before, in seemingly random places did they come upon groves of fruits and nuts and fields of flax and barley and millet and other grains, or they passed through orchards of red apples and golden peaches and purple sloe and fruit of other kind. Too, now and again they veered around plots of loam, the soil bearing beans and peas, leeks and onions, pumpkins and squash, and carrots and parsnips, as well as vines of hops and grapes, or stands of various berries. And none of this largesse seemed to be growing wild. In fact, unlike in the oat-and-rye field where the reaper dwelled, there seemed to be no farmers, no crofters, no sowers, planters, growers, cultivators, harvesters, pickers, or attendants of any kind in the scattered fields and orchards and gardens and other stands. Even so, this was the Autumnwood, where bounty for the dwellers of the Forests of the Seasons was ever present, and anything gathered somehow mystically reappeared when no one was looking.
    Yet although these fields and gardens and arbors were scattered throughout this treeland, Borel and his Wolves mainly passed through virgin forest on their run. And as they trotted across the woodland, occasionally others loped or flew alongside—tattooed lynx riders and darting winged folk and other such denizens of Faery—but for the most part, Borel and his Wolves coursed alone.
    As the sun crossed the zenith, they came unto a small glade surrounded by great oaks with leaves all vermilion and saffron. Here Borel called a halt, and set the Wolves to forage for their noonday meal, and as they sought mice and voles, or mayhap a coney or two, Borel took his own fare, supplementing his cheese with apples picked in the morning.
    Shortly, they were on the trail again, and they passed along deep river gorges and high chalk bluffs and through thickets and mossy glens, the land rising and falling as they went. And whenever they topped crests or went along cliffs, though bright day was upon the land, in every direction afar the vivid woodland faded into distant twilight, just as the remote forest had shaded into silver-grey gloam in the green Summerwood the day before. In fact, in nearly all of