by RA Lewis
“Good. Then let’s assemble and begin marching north. Load the dragons up with the weapons and gear. I want the soldiers as unburdened as possible.”
Kalina went back to the command tent where the others waited and gave the command to move out. Then she went through the back tent flap to her own small tent which was connected to the command tent and began packing. When she stepped outside, her bag thrown over her shoulder, she saw Leif waiting by Arikara and Maska in the morning light.
Things had changed between them since that night around the campfire after the Gunnlaug. He had softened towards her, his iron resolve to put distance between them had wavered and broken, and suddenly she felt like she’d gotten her best friend back once more. Things weren’t back to normal, but they were better and Kalina finally had hope for her future.
Two days later the vast armies of Askor came into view on the Riverlands before Winterreach castle. Kalina stopped her army, setting up camp across the vale from the enemy, and within eyesight. She set up sentries and patrols, and the air was constantly filled with wing beats as various airborne patrols flew through the skies.
The council tent was crowded, the gathered people tense as they prepared to attack. Kalina sat fiddling with a cup of wine, watching the Vanir chief’s, including Sunniva, argue over the best course of action. Sunniva wanted to send in an aerial attack, going on the offensive. Greyson surprisingly agreed with her, but the leader of the Blue Dragons didn’t want to put their dragons at such risk. She suggested that Kalina send in her foot soldiers before the dragons, to help thin and distract the Askorian troops. Others had different ideas about how best to attack. Kalina was a queen but she hadn’t been raised to be a tactician. She usually left those things to people like Leif and Rangvald who had been raised during war. Both were sitting to her right, suspiciously quiet. She gently kicked Leif under the table and he looked over at her. Kalina gestured to the arguing chiefs as if to say,
“This is where you come in. Do your job!”
Leif raised one eyebrow with a look that said, “Aren’t you the Queen? Isn’t this your job too?”
Kalina let out a long sigh and sat up straighter.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” she said. But no one listened. Sunniva was now arguing rather loudly with Greyson, the chief of the Black Wolves. He was a particularly fearsome and stubborn chief and he and Sunniva had continued to butt heads since the Gunnlaug.
“Excuse me!” Kalina yelled, startling many of the gathered people into an awkward silence. Kalina stood up straighter, tugging on her leathers and looking around the large table. “I am no tactician. But I am Queen of The Valdir and Ethea, and you will listen.” She looked to Greyson and Sunniva, the latter smirking up at her, while the former scowled into his own cup of wine. “Tomorrow, we are attacking the greatest army on this continent, and for all we know, in the world. We are outnumbered, and out armed, but what we lack in numbers we make up for in spirit and passion. King Blackbourne’s army is made up of cowards and those only there as a matter of duty. But we are so much more. The Vanir and the Valdir are cousins, we share the same ancestors. We are family, the ice dragons and our dragons as well. And we have fought with Askor for too long. We have been under the boot of Askor’s tyranny for too long. I will leave the specifics to Leif, but for my part, I will be out there fighting to protect my homeland. Fighting to end a war that has stretched on for centuries and decimated my people. Fighting to give the next generation safety. Fighting to finally have peace.” She paused to look around the room and gestured to them all. “Why do you argue with one another? What are you fighting for?”
Silence followed her words, and she stood for a few moments, watching the shifting and uncomfortable faces of all those gathered. Finally, she tipped her goblet back and finished her wine, and then slammed the cup on the table, making everyone jump.
“I’m going to bed to rest up for tomorrow. I suggest you all do the same once Leif and Rangvald have outlined the battle plan.” Then she turned on her heels and left a stunned room in her wake.
But she didn’t rest. Not really. Instead she lay on her bedroll and stared up at the shadowy ceiling of her tent until the talking and fires outside had died down. A single voice rose and fell above the soft sounds of a camp falling asleep. A woman’s voice singing a song in a long-forgotten language that Kalina didn’t know. She focused on that voice and allowed it to lull her into an uneasy sleep.
A hand shook her awake and she looked up into Kari’s concerned face.
“What is it?”
“Intruders in camp. I think you should hurry.”
Kari left her and Kalina rushed to get dressed, pulling on her Valdir leathers and her battle crown, leaving the Vanir whites behind. She strapped her twin axes to her back and left the tent. It was still dark outside, the air freezing and she tied her fur-trimmed cloak around her neck as she followed Kari and a torch-wielding Ethean to a tent. Kari held the flap aside for her and Kalina ducked inside, the warm glow of lamplight illuminating the tent walls and lighting the faces of the two prisoners who knelt before her.
Prince Simen and his older brother Prince Ivan both knelt in the center of the tent, their hands tied behind their backs and their faces covered in bruises. Kalina looked to the two men standing guard over them. Leif and Rangvald had their arms crossed over their chests. Leif was giving Prince Simen a particularly deathly stare which almost made Kalina laugh but she held it in and addressed their prisoners instead.
“Prince Simen, Prince Ivan. What brings you to our camp?”
Prince Simen looked up and through swollen eyes gave her a big smile. His brother’s face, however, was stoic, his eyes hard as he surveyed Kalina from head to toe.
“Queen Kalina! I was hoping I’d get to speak to you before they killed me!” he said rather cheerfully. Kalina did let out a small bark of laughter then. She had begun to miss Simen’s eagerness, his boyish charm, his honesty.
“I’m glad they brought you to me instead of one of the Vanir. They might have killed you on the spot.” She watched as Simen’s eyes lit up with excitement at the other dragon riders’ name.
“The Vanir? Is that what they are called? Are you related to them? How did you find them?” Prince Ivan gave his brother a shove and Simen fell silent, his mouth snapping shut. He looked to Kalina and gave her a small shrug. She smiled even broader but then pressed her lips together. This was no time for fun. She had to be serious. For all she knew they were spies.
“Why are you here?” she repeated.
“Well, we came to fight on your side.”
Kalina looked to Prince Ivan and somehow doubted that was true for him.
“And you came to make sure your little brother didn’t get himself killed, is that it?” She said to the older prince. Ivan nodded.
“I couldn’t let him go alone.”
“Admirable, Prince Ivan.” Kalina turned back to Prince Simen. “And why, pray tell, would we let you fight for us?”
“Because my father is crazy, absolutely mad. He kept me locked up in my rooms and locked my fiancée, Evelyn, in the dungeons. Her father pleaded that she be released but my father refused. He said that I would marry no one if I wasn’t going to further the alliance.”
“How did you escape then?” Kalina pulled up a nearby stool and sat at eye level with their prisoners.
“Ivan here convinced Father that fighting would be good for me. That it would get the silly notion of running away with my love out of my head. But Ivan has always supported me. Even now.” Simen looked sideways at his older brother who rolled his eyes back. “I refuse to fight for Askor. And I believe that you will win. That perhaps you have a chance to help me free Evelyn and to live my life the way I choose instead of as just some pawn in my father’s plan for domination.”
Kalina felt for him. She really did. Just a few weeks ago she’d felt the very same, just some pawn in the King of Askor’s sick game to take over Ethea. But here she was, fighting an all-out war that
she wasn’t sure she could win. But she wasn’t about to tell Prince Simen that, especially not with Prince Ivan watching.
“I hope you can understand our predicament here, Simen. I cannot let either of you fight on our side. Not on the battlefield. I might believe you, but do you truly think that the Vanir will believe you? After years of oppression and violence against their people? They would as soon kill you as look at you.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but you will both remain locked up and away from the fighting.” She nodded to Leif and Rangvald. “But I want you to know, Simen, your loyalty and trust has not gone unnoticed. When we win this war, you will leave with your Evelyn wherever you wish to go in peace.” She imbued her words with as much confidence as she could muster and then stood and left the tent. Kari followed her outside and Kalina put her hands on her hips.
The night was fading around them, the inky blackness of the sky fading to a deep blue and purple as light slowly returned to the world. Today was the day that would determine their fate. Whether they lived or died. She turned in a circle, taking in the lightening sky and the sleepy army camp just beginning to stir around her as it woke up. And that’s when she saw the dark cloud on the horizon to the south.
Chapter 37
“What is that?” Kalina asked, pointing over the tops of the tents and out over the Riverlands to the south, still covered in a layer of snow and ice. The dark cloud was getting closer and she was beginning to panic. What new threat would they have to contend with?
Beside her, Kari squinted into the distance.
“It looks like some huge flock of birds.”
But that didn’t make any sense. Kalina launched herself into a run, darting between tents and sleeping bodies of men, women, and dragons, making her way back to her own tent behind the command tent. Just outside she found Maska, still dozing. She shouted his name as she got close and he came awake in an instant, his night-dark eyes sparkling with their inner stars. She vaulted onto his back and pointed at the oncoming cloud.
“Take me up there.” Within moments they were airborne and he was winging his way swiftly towards the thing, or rather things, in the sky. They began to take individual shape the closer they drew. Kari was right, they did look like birds, but birds of every hue imaginable. And as Kalina drew closer, she began to smile. She knew what they were even before Maska was forced to dive below the huge flock of wyverns that flew straight towards them.
Kalina let out a whoop as the wyverns flew overhead, their own soaring voices joining her own as they began to circle and slowly make their way towards the ground at the southern end of her camp. Kalina and Maska followed them down and were soon met by Kari and her purple Yurok in the air. Kari’s eyes were wide as she took in the fleet of wyverns. But Kalina was triumphant as they landed beside a small green wyvern that had been leading the pack.
Kalina dismounted and ran to the wyvern, throwing her arms around its neck and hugging it tightly.
“Savath! Oh, how I’ve missed you!” Tears came unbidden to her eyes as she held her old friend. When she pulled away, she saw joy and gratitude on the wyvern’s snake-like face.
“It is good to see you, Littling.” Savath’s voice brought back such sweet memories of her first flight for Kalina. It had been such a pure moment, before everything had gotten so complicated, back when she was just an orphaned girl in an abbey looking for adventure.
“What are you doing here?” Kalina looked around at all the wyverns who surrounded her now. “And why are there so many?”
“They have all come for you, Littling. You fight to keep them free. You fight against a King who would capture and enslave us.”
Kalina remembered the captive wyverns who had dragged the war machines that killed Leif’s Father into the Wastes. She remembered how grateful they’d been when she’d ordered their release. Tears continued to flow freely down her cheeks.
“Thank you, Savath. You may have just turned the tide of this war.”
With the added wyvern aerial support, they now numbered hundreds more. And a wyvern could carry a man, or supplies if need be. They were smaller and more agile than dragons and Kalina could think of a dozen ways in which they would be useful on a battlefield. She turned to Maska who stood patiently by.
“Savath, this is Maska, my partner.”
Maska bowed his head deeply to the smaller wyvern, their colors complementary in the morning light: Maska emerald and Savath grass green.
“He will be your battle commander, along with Arikara and Yurok. Any questions you have, you can ask them and they will direct you and your forces.”
Savath lowered her head in acceptance to both Kalina and Maska before turning to her troops of wyverns, giving them instructions. Kalina turned back to Maska, pressing her forehead against his huge scaled one.
“I have to go prepare.”
“Go, Littling.” Kalina smiled. Both Savath and Maska had always called her Littling, and it had become somehow precious to her. “I will see you before the battle commences.”
Kalina joined Kari and together they flew on Yurok back to the command tent to tell the others the good news.
In her tent, she began strapping on the golden dragon scale armor that Leif had made her from Arikara’s shed scales when the tent flap opened without preamble. Kalina drew her knife and turned to see Leif standing in the doorway, his handsome face twisted in an emotion she couldn’t quite name. She sheathed her blade and returned to buckling on her armor.
“I almost knifed you,” she said matter-of-factly. Leif nodded and stepped forward, helping her fasten the long dragon scale shirt under her arm. She left off struggling and let him help her.
“But you didn’t.” His voice was soft, making Kalina look up into his eyes. “Kalina, I-” he trailed off as he finished fastening her shirt and she slowly lowered her arm. His fingertips brushed over the exposed skin of her wrist for a moment before he reached for the leather bracers and began putting them on for her.
“What is it, Leif?” She was gentle, not wanting to scare him off, to ruin what small peace they’d found between them. Finally, he let out a long sigh.
“I want to ask you to stay here, to not fight. To flee, to run home and hole up in Ravenhelm and never come back out.”
Kalina opened her mouth to reply, to say she’d never do that when he looked into her eyes, his grey ones full of some unnamed feeling.
“But that wouldn’t be the woman I fell in love with.”
Kalina snapped her mouth shut at his words, all protestations dying on her lips. Love? Did he just say he loved her?
“The woman I fell in love with never gives up, never runs from a fight, would never sit on the sidelines while her people suffered.”
“Well, I did run that one time-,” she began but he swiftly put a finger to her lips to shush her.
“You ran because you wanted freedom. You ran because you thought it was the right thing to do. But you never gave up. And you came back fighting. And now, you fight for your people’s freedom.” He put a finger beneath her chin and gently tilted her face to his, their height difference suddenly apparent. “And I love the woman before me.”
Kalina’s knees felt weak at those words. She opened her mouth to speak but before she could say anything, his mouth was on hers, drowning out any protestation or declaration. He kissed her sweetly at first, but soon there was an urgency to it, a need that only the looming tide of battle and death could instill. She met his urgency with her own desperation, devouring his kisses with a fervor that surprised even herself. She had never wanted anyone as much as she wanted him now. And yet, the only thing that passed through her mind was a vision of him lying dead on the battlefield. She broke away suddenly, panting with the pent-up need and fear.
“We must go,” he croaked, his voice hoarse from their sudden passion. “I will see you on the field, my Queen.” He gently kissed her hand, his eyes locking with her tear-filled ones before quickly exiting her tent.
Kalina stood the
re, alone for a few moments, gathering her breath and her fear. The panic and fear she’d learned to master so many months before were always lurking, waiting to catch her off guard, and now they were clawing at her, constant reminders. She swallowed hard, stuffing them down deep, covering them up with fierce determination and hope. For now, she had hope.
Chapter 38
The Ethean foot soldiers were arrayed across the vale before Winterreach castle, the Askorian army taking up their position across from them. Kalina sat astride Maska on a small rise, looking down into the vale. Leif and Arikara were by her side, her the army stretched before them, and beyond, across a great swath of field, they could see King Blackbourne and his forces arranged on the far hill, watching the fighters assemble. She had changed her mind just an hour before and allowed Prince Simen to fight with them because he was her friend, but she kept him close by her side. He stood by Maska’s front left foot, his hand on his long sword, his face set as he watched his father’s army across the empty field.
Kalina wasn’t going to wait until King Blackbourne attacked, she was bringing the fight to him. She signaled her flying battalion led by Rangvald high in the air. A second aerial battalion led by Sunniva and consisting entirely of Vanir fighters flew in formation behind the Valdir and they swept out over the soon to be battlefield. Dragons in a rainbow of colors swooped overhead, casting great shadows on the ground before them, speeding towards Askor’s army, their legs each clutching giant rocks, trees, and even hunks of ice from the glacier to the north.
Kalina’s gut clenched in anticipation as she watched them fly in close enough to release their cargo on the waiting army and then turn quickly back to the safety of her lines. Askor’s army retaliated as the rocks fell, launching volleys of arrows skyward and great flaming projectiles upward into the afternoon sky. But the dragons had been ready. They easily dodged each projectile and kept flying, as their dropped load thudded into the enemy lines, decimating whole squadrons of Askorian soldiers.
