"Aftermath - Project 7" by K. Anne Snell

Aftermath

Dannel found Lirra standing at the edge of the forest, watching the sun rise red and huge over the castle walls. Her arms were crossed and her shoulders were pulled back, tight with determination. She was readying herself for what was to come, Dannel realized.

            “Today is the day, isn’t it?” he asked. Lirra was quiet for a long time. Finally she turned to face him, hard determination carved into the once-soft features of her face. “I’ll have what’s mine,” she said. “I’ll reclaim my throne if it’s the last thing I do.”

            Even if you have to sacrifice your entire army to get it, Dannel thought, but said nothing. Lirra frowned, sensing his disapproval. “It’s mine, Dannel. It always has been. Marrik has no right to it, no right to persecute my people like he has. And I’m not giving up until he knows it.”

            Dannel took a step towards her. “He’s still your uncle, my lady. He is your family.”

            “Not anymore,” she responded icily, brushing past him and walking back towards the camp. “Prepare the troops, General. I want to be ready to march in an hour.”

            Dannel sighed and watched her retreat. The 19-year-old queen had matured much in the past two years since her uncle Marrik had usurped her throne. Though lying low she had been far from idle, and had managed to raise an army of supporters large enough to challenge her uncle’s forces and take back her title. For two years Lirra had done nothing but bring together plans to reclaim her throne. For two years she ate, slept, and breathed vengeance. It had become her life, her religion, and the castle had become her object of worship, her utopia, her divine goal.

            And now here they stood, half a mile from the gates of Lirra’s heaven, preparing to fight and risk their lives for their queen. Fearing what the day would bring, Marrik followed Lirra back to their camp.

            Forty-five minutes later the small yet devoted army was armed and marching towards the castle gates. Yet Marrik was also prepared, and his archers stood ready on the high wall, opening fire on Lirra’s army once they were within range. The attack was ineffective, however; with the support of the surrounding countryside, Lirra had kept the castle under siege for the past six months, meaning few supplies were entering the fortress, leaving Marrik’s troops worn thin.

            The wooden, iron-reinforced doors were easily broken through, and the troops poured into the fortress, Dannel and Lirra at the head. More of Marrik’s men met them there, but the usurper himself was nowhere to be seen.

            Cutting through enemy troops as they went, the loyal soldiers charged into castle’s main keep, where Marrik’s strongest forces waited for them. Dannel’s soldiers were better equipped, however, evening the score. Marrik stayed close to Lirra, watching her back and giving help when needed. The queen moved through the hall with distinct purpose, cutting down any opponent in her path as she worked her way to the staircase at the far end of the keep. Dannel found himself feeling proud of her strength and efficient technique, glad to know his years of training her had paid off.

The two continued to battle side by side, fighting their way up the winding staircase with the other soldiers. Marrik’s troops came on strong, but not strong enough; soon they had broken through and found themselves standing in the main hall on the second floor of the keep. More men rushed forward, and Lirra’s loyal soldiers spilled in around her and Dannel to meet them. Dannel gripped his sword tightly and bounded forward to join his men, but Lirra reached out and grabbed his arm, stopping him mid-stride. She pulled the general into a small niche beside the doorway.

            “What is it?” Dannel gasped, trying to catch his breath. Lirra peered around the corner and motioned towards a wide corridor opening off the opposite end of the hall. “Marrik is down there,” she said, “hiding like the coward he is.” She turned to Dannel. “He’ll have no guards; he doesn’t have any more troops. Our men can handle things in here. Come with me to find him.”

            Dannel frowned. He knew the queen was right; Marrik had surprisingly fewer supporters than they had expected, and seizing the castle had been easy work so far. Still, Dannel wanted no more to do with Lirra’s quest for vengeance than duty demanded of him. There was no way he could rightfully deny her this time, however, and finally gave a resigned nod.

            Keeping to the shadows along the walls, Dannel and Lirra crept across the hall and down the dimly lit corridor. There was only one door at the end, which Dannel forced open with his shoulder.

            Marrik wasn’t quite alone as they expected, however, and three guards leapt through the doorway to meet them. Dannel killed one and gave a second a fatal slice across the abdomen. The third lost his head to an efficient swipe of Lirra’s sword. Dannel winced at the queen’s remorselessness, but the corpse had hardly hit the ground before she disappeared through the open doorway. Nursing a shallow cut on his forearm, Dannel stumbled after her.

            Marrik stood in the far corner of the large room, waiting patiently with his sword drawn, the tip resting on the ground between his spread feet. “Welcome, dearest niece,” he said, a malicious grin pasted on his face. Lirra wasted no time on useless rhetoric, but with a ferocious yell leapt towards him, sword flashing. Marrik raised his blade to meet it, and the air rang with the scream of metal against metal. Lirra drew back to attack again, and the two were engaged in full combat, with Marrik clearly having the upper hand. Dannel moved forward to help his queen, but was stopped by a sudden blow to his head that sent him stumbling to the ground. Groggily he turned to see the hallway filled with soldiers, both Marrik’s and his own. The battle spilled into the room and Dannel struggled to regain his footing. He couldn’t locate Lirra or Marrik through the other men and his blurred vision, and was soon too distracted with preserving his own life to try to aid his queen. The blow to his head had dulled his reflexes, and he retreated against the wall, away from the centre of the battle. Things were beginning to go black when suddenly a searing pain tore into his side. He shouted in agony as the attacker withdrew his sword and stood over him. Dannel looked up into Marrik’s satisfied – yet pale – face, and he noticed the blood dripping from a gash in his chest and soaking the front of his shirt.

            Dannel couldn’t take his eyes off that wound in Marrik’s chest. Something about the way the blood glowed red bothered him. At first he thought it was an effect of his injured head, but everything else looked too blurry and dull for that to make sense. Then he noticed Lirra approaching behind her uncle, shock written across her face, the same glowing blood dripping from her sword. Dannel’s heart skipped a beat as he realized. Wizard’s blood…

            There was no time to comprehend what that meant as Marrik lifted his sword for one final blow. His movements were slow and uncontrolled, however, and Dannel knew he still had a chance. His eyes met Lirra’s, and with the last of his strength Dannel swung his sword blindly into the man standing over him, mirroring Lirra as she did the same from behind. The last thing Dannel saw before passing out was Marrik’s horrified expression as he collapsed to the floor.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

.Dannel ached. The pounding, all-over ache assaulted his senses with shrieks from every muscle and nerve in his battered frame. Blood? No, he decided, not his own but sticky on his skin and clothes just the same. “How long?” his groggy mind asked.

The floor was hard and cold beneath him and a dim light – Marrik’s? -- shone at an eerie angle, rising from the floor a few feet to his left to cast surreal shadows on the walls. Why so dark in here? His weapon lay on the floor to his right and instinctively his hand groped for it. Gaining purchase, he dragged it closer with a rasping sound that echoed in the silence. The feel of the stark, cool metal offered him some primal comfort.

He struggled to a sitting position and bone-jarring pain surged up Dannel’s spine dashing itself like a wave on the back of his skull. He winced and sardonically acknowledged to himself that the battle must have gone well if he could accomplish so much. The surrounding carnage and the fact that he seemed intact told him it could easily have been much worse. “How much worse?” he thought with a start.

There were bodies and parts of bodies everywhere. His eyes sought familiar shapes among the dead. The light – Marrik’s! The dim light escaping from beneath his crumpled body shone an ugly red. Dead. Very much so. No doubts -- torn nearly in half.

There…some ten feet away…Lirra. Slumped against the wall, bloody, a gash in her face running from her forehead down her right cheek nearly to her chin. Her weapon was still in her hand. Well, she never was one to retreat.

Dannel revised his initial assumption. The battle had not gone well at all. He crawled across the gore-strewn floor to Lirra. Maybe, just maybe…he reached out and grasped her ankle, shaking her leg to rouse her. 

            “Lirra…” The queen groaned faintly and shifted her head against the wall. With renewed hope Dannel pulled himself up against the wall next to her. Her chain mail shirt had been torn in two, and her torso was drenched with blood. Dannel gingerly lifted away Lirra’s cloak, which was draped over her body, and winced at the sight of the gaping wound down the center of her chest. After twenty years in the army he was more than used to blood and gore, but on her delicate body it was different. He’d been a general since before her birth, and after her parents’ death three years ago had practically become her surrogate father. Never able to have a family of his own, Dannel loved the young queen like a daughter.         

            Her eyes fluttered open. “Dannel,” she whispered, turning her head to look up at him. She leaned forward, trying to rise, but collapsed back against the wall, gasping for breath, eyes filled with defeat. Dannel rested his hand on her sagging shoulder.

            “Marrik is dead, my lady,” he said, trying to sound encouraging. “You are victorious.” Lirra’s eyes scanned the carcass-strewn room, and Dannel felt her droop even further.

            “Have I?” she questioned. The rankness of death thick in his nostrils, Dannel said nothing.

            They sat next to each other in silence for a while. Lirra’s gaze rested on the red aura hovering around her uncle’s torn body. Dannel knew what she was thinking.

            “A wizard,” he murmured. “No wonder he was so strong. Still, it wasn’t enough.”

            “It never is,” Lirra rasped. “Not without the support of the people for the Gift to feed off of.”

            “Did you know?”

            “I suspected it. The Gift usually doesn’t begin to manifest itself until age twenty or so, sometimes much later. It is hereditary, though; when I noticed it in myself a few months ago, I thought it was likely Marrik had the gift as well. My grandfather did, but no one on my mother’s side.” Lirra paused to catch her breath. Dannel blinked in surprise. “You have the Gift?” he said. “Why did you never tell me?” Lirra’s looked into him with wisdom well beyond her nineteen years.

            “It wasn’t the time,” she said simply. Knowing better than to question her further, Dannel nodded in acceptance.

            They were silent again, watching the glow of the late afternoon sun coming in through an open window mingling with the eerie glow of blood and death hovering over the floor. Dannel wondered vaguely if anyone was looking for them, if there were even any survivors. A tear slid down Lirra’s bloody face. “I’ve lost,” she sighed.

            “What do you mean?” Dannel asked, turning to look at her. Her face was paler, he noted. “You’ve won your crown back. The kingdom is yours.”

            “No,” she insisted. “I’ve been so blind and stubborn. You warned me before the battle but I didn’t listen, and now I’ve destroyed my entire army for the sake of my own pride. What love could my people have for me now?” The defeat in her voice frightened Dannel and he grasped her cold hand, willing her to hold on to life.

            “Lirra,” he stressed. “You are Queen. I have never doubted that. And if your people knew how courageously you fought for their freedom from Marrik today, they would never doubt it either. You’ve proven yourself to people who have always believed in you; Marrik’s weakness is evidence enough of that. You will forever be their queen.”

            Lirra’s eyelids began to flutter as the tears continued to pour down her cheeks. “And you will be their king,” she whispered, squeezing his hand and searching for his face behind her blurred vision. “Will you?”

            Dannel was dumbstruck. It was hard enough to accept the fact that she was dying – but now this? Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined himself as king. Though in truth, there really was no one else left even remotely eligible for the position, meaning no competition between possible rulers. If he didn’t take the throne, the kingdom would very likely fall apart and fade into the surrounding territories. Knowing better than to think about the consequences too hard, he squeezed Lirra’s hand in return and quickly croaked his response. “I would be honoured.”

            Lirra smiled. “At least I’ve made one good decision during my rule,” she said. She shut her eyes and rested her head against Dannel’s shoulder like a child. As he wrapped his arms around her, he noticed the red aura of her lifeblood grow brighter, overpowering Marrik’s dimming light. As her breath grew shallower the light grew stronger, engulfing her battered frame. “Thank you,” she sighed, and then she was gone - her chest still, her Gift lingering. Heart breaking, Dannel laid her down on the floor, draping her cloak over her gaping chest. He kissed her forehead, which was still warm.

            “Fare thee well, my queen,” he whispered. “Journey in peace. I will watch over your people. Thank you for caring for them. Thank you for saving my life.” A smile crept across Dannel’s face despite himself. “You were victorious.”