Fractured Families (The Pearl of Wisdom Saga Book 2)

by Jason Paul Rice

  BACK TO YEAR 414 IN DONEGAL

  THE STORY PICKS UP IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE END OF TWO HEADS TWO SPIKES

  THE CHAPTERS ARE IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER BUT DUE TO THE EPIC SCOPE OF CHARACTERS, SOME CHAPTERS OVERLAP SLIGHTLY

  TO VIEW THE MAPS, GO TO: http://jasonpaulricebooks.com

  LEIMUR

  The tigers guided the weary crew to the edge of the jungle-like Animal Kingdom. Leimur walked onto the yellow grass covering an open field. The Goldenfield kingdom was so named because of the gold tinted grass of the plains. She turned around to see ten tigers and went back to pet the two that stood closest to her. She said a silent thank you, kissed both on the head and rejoined her men for the journey home. They walked away and the tigers followed. Twenty more tigers came into view and escorted the battered soldiers on their trip.

  “They seem to like their Tiger Queen,” Captain Tetine smiled. He stood a bit shorter than Leimur; however, the man was much stouter. His thick black hair had frosted to take on an ashy look since she had joined him in the army. The bright blue eye she remembered from the day they met, had now dulled to pale gray. The sight of his missing left eye and smashed teeth had scared Leimur the first time she saw him, but she had gotten used to it by now.

  “Do you believe I can be a successful Queen and General after this blunder?” she quietly asked once the two had separated themselves from the other men.

  “My Queen and General, you made one terrible decision. Don’t let it haunt you. No one can fault you for this. I only fault you for ignoring General Rigby’s counsel. He knows more of battle and strategy than I could ever dream of and that includes how to get there. I am not saying to blindly agree with all advice but you must use your counsel wisely. I understand that King Marius had performed this battle strategy, but that was over one hundred years ago. Times were different and the conditions were different. Don’t try to conquer because someone did it a long time ago. That doesn’t mean it‘s always to be done. Assess the situation for its possible downfall, not anticipated success. We are lucky to only have lost about four hundred men. I doubt any of the other soldiers will make it out alive. I dare say you let arrogance blind you from listening to sound advice and for that you paid dearly. I honestly believe anything is possible with you after what I just witnessed in that jungle. If you have learned from this, then you can still be a great Queen and General,” he encouraged Leimur.

  “Tell me, Captain. Why did you join our army in the first place?” she wanted to know.

  “When I was just a boy of about five or six, I saw the troops come through our little town on the march to Donegal. It looked so majestic. They all moved in unison with gleaming armor and every soldier radiated honor as the troops went to defend our kingdom. The music played alongside and officers on horseback saluted the citizens. The people looked at them like they were heroes. As a man of low birth it looked like my only way to be a hero.”

  “You are a hero, Captain. You just saved your Queen’s life and have always served your realm with dignity and honor,” she smiled.

  They continued moving northeast through the sweltering heat which paled in comparison to the inner jungle. Sweat ran down Leimur’s body as the overhead sun gleamed, hitting her golden armor. She looked over at Captain Tetine who chose to wear boiled leather and chain mail. She saw the rest of the men just ahead but the tigers weren’t to be seen. They must have gone back to their home. Leimur hadn’t seen them in quite a while now that she thought about it.

  After another hour of travel the tired posse arrived at a small town. The disheveled group received odd looks until someone recognized the Queen.

  “My Queen, is it...is it truly you? They said you died in the jungle,” the kneeling woman exclaimed in disbelief.

  “I am alive and well. Who told you that I died?” Leimur smiled to expose her sharpened teeth that helped to fully identify her.

  “Men, your men, your soldiers came through only but a few hours ago. They said many boats were wrecked and everyone died ‘cept them. The men said they tried to save your life but couldn’t. They said they was sure you was dead, my Queen,” the woman revealed.

  “Do you know where they were headed?” Leimur asked.

  “Nor’ east. They said they gotta get to Sevring an’ tell the whole kingdom.”

  “Horses. My men and I need horses. Give us horses and you will be handsomely rewarded,” Leimur frantically said.

  “Down this road on the left about a hundred feet, you’ll see a stable. Come, my Queen.” The woman led the Queen and her men to the stables. The stable owner dropped to his knees in front of Leimur, “My Queen, these eyes were there the day you freed our kingdom from your parents. To what do I owe the honor?”

  “I need seven horses. I’m sorry, but we are rushed. If you give your information to Phelip here, you will be well compensated, my good man,” she told him.

  The smile had never left the man’s face since seeing the Queen, “Certainly, here are the fastest horses, my Queen.”

  The man ran around to get the horses and brought them over one by one to the soldiers. He handed the last one to Leimur and breathed heavily from the work.

  “They call her Lightning. She’s the fastest four legger we got in these parts. This mare will get ya there fast,” he bragged.

  “Thank you for you service. The Kingdom of Goldenfield owes you a debt of gratitude,” she told the gleeful man.

  “It’s my honor, my Queen,” he dropped to his knees again.

  Leimur turned to the men, “Now let’s round up those traitors.”

  The taxed crew departed. Even with an exhausted body and mind Leimur upheld the duty to enforce her kingdom. Her tired muscles begged her to leisurely trot home, but her heart and mind forced them to persist. The stable owner’s horses were indeed fast, and they caught up to the traitors at a campsite. Dusk had set in and a fire just off the trail looked like men setting up for the night.

  The Queen decided to let the men sleep and approach them in the morning. She set up a fireless sleeping ground just out of the other party’s vision. She stayed awake all night to make sure they wouldn’t leave. When day broke, Queen Leimur had already been pacing for a half hour. She saw the deserters move out of the woods and back onto a trail along the open golden plains.

  The Queen’s men, already on horseback, sped up to confront the twenty traitors.

  “My Queen, you are alive?” several men questioned with a look of shock and horror on their faces.

  “Captain Tetine, what is the penalty for desertion?” Leimur demanded.

  “It is death, my Queen,” he responded. “Then I sentence these men to die. Follow me to the Capitol and die with honor,” she instructed.

  “Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. My Queen, we took you for dead. Had we thought there was any chance you still lived we would have stayed. You were in the thick jungle for many hours and we couldn’t wait any longer,” Roree Kanite contested.

  “Captain, it appeared to me that there was plenty of food to at least make it through the night. What say you?” “At least, if not longer, for only twenty people,” Captain Tetine replied.

  “You better take my head right here cuz there aint no chance in the burning hell that I will march to my death,” an angered Sir Peter yelled at the Queen. The big man pulled his sword. The Queen had only three armed men with her. They couldn’t defeat these deserters who all had swords.

  Who gave them the swords? I shall have their heads, as well.

  “I am your Queen, I demand you throw down your weapons,” she ordered.

  “My Queen, I am not as smart as royalty but even I know that twenty can defeat four. Your brother isn’t ready to be king yet. You should save your life here and just move on,” Sir Peter warned tauntingly.

  “How dare you threaten me? I will kill all of you myself if that is what it takes. Desertion is treason and I am no Queen if I don’t punish you. I would rather die than let it go unpunished,” Leimur announced as she pulled Ph
elip’s sword from the sheath.

  This prompted ten of the traitors to draw. The rest of her opponents unsheathed their weapons as Leimur stared them down. She rolled the sword around in her hand, trying to get used to the weight and feel. She didn’t like it but she couldn’t wait to have one specially crafted. The sweltering day couldn’t touch Leimur as icy blood rushed through her veins.

  Queen Leimur Leluc marched directly toward twenty armed offenders. Death is part of life. Only Captain Tetine followed her as all her other sworn men backed away. She engaged one opponent and another rushed in from the side but the man stopped suddenly and a look of terror came over all of the traitor’s faces.

  The vibrations of a tiger’s roar from behind danced up and down her spine as she felt the strength of the beasts. Two tigers moved to either side of the Queen while she smiled at the frightened traitors. The men threw down their swords and dropped to their knees.

  “Where is Sir Peter?” She located the loud mouth. “I am royalty, and I can tell you that thirty tigers will defeat twenty cowards.”

  One man took off at a run. The double deserter only made it ten feet before a tiger caught up with him and threw him to the ground with a quick swipe of the paw. Three other tigers closed in and ripped the body apart. The cringe worthy sounds signaled the other men to stay put. One tiger brought half of an arm back and ate it right in front of the deserters to reinforce the point.

  The tigers escorted the group all the way back to Sevring. She put the tigers in the unused fighting arena and returned to her prisoners. She went to the palace bailey on the roof. All of her military council and a few high lords were called over.

  They all stared in disbelief as the rumors of her death had apparently reached the Capitol. Leimur spoke loud and clear, “My lords, ladies and dignitaries, I have called you here to witness what happens when you desert your fellow soldiers in battle. These men took all our supplies and snatched the only operable boat left for escape. They made no effort to find the party who searched for food for the entire group. On their return to Sevring, they used their Queen’s name to obtain swords they would later use in aggression toward their Queen.”

  The men were lined up in a straight row about four feet apart. They were on their knees and blindfolded. The Queen grabbed her double-bladed battle axe and said, “You have been judged guilty of treason by form of desertion and you are sentenced to die. I will provide honorable deaths and perform the punishment myself.”

  She walked straight down the row and nineteen heads spilled oceans of blood that flowed toward the nobles. Leimur put them on the lower ground to see the amount of blood involved in killing a man. Her soaked axe simultaneously dripped with warm life and cold death as she came to the last man.

  “Sir Peter, have you any clever words? Choose wisely, they will be your last.”

  “I weep for the Kingdom of Goldenfield. You are no Queen of mine,” he spat a large wad onto the ground.

  His head hit the ground with a thud as the unbendable Queen kept the promise she had made back near the campsite and killed every man herself. The deserters had been rightfully punished in her mind and she kept her duty to her kingdom and family. Death is part of life.

  “Put the heads on spikes in front of the palace as a reminder that I will stop at nothing to uphold the oath I took at my coronation. The laws of Goldenfield will be followed under any circumstance. Take the bodies over to the old fighting pits. You will understand why when you get there,” Leimur ordered.

  “General,” she yelled. “Well hello, my living Queen. You were dead as far as I had heard. It must have been quite the harrowing adventure?”

  “More than you could even imagine. We will have more than enough time to talk about that later. Where are my brothers?”

  “Out in the practice yard, my Queen,” he reported.

  “Escort me there, please. We can talk along the way.” As the two moved along, General Rigby spoke, “The King of Donegal is dead.” “What happened?” Leimur asked.

  “Stab wounds, and lots of them, but no one seems sure who is responsible. He wasn’t well liked and one theory has a member of his own King’s Guard as a suspect, another is his own wife and nephew. They also say others disappeared after the killing. But no one has been charged at the moment.”

  “That is quite the news. So is the half-wit to take over?” she wondered.

  “It looks that way. Now would be the best time to attack but…” he lingered on the word.

  “But what, General?”

  “It appears that the realm is nearly out of money, my Queen,” he informed. “What happened to Ali-Steven Wamhoff and Anders Ahitni? Maybe it’s time to strike a deal with one of them,” she responded. “Anders Ahitni is dead. His army of Prograggers is soon to be auctioned away. It would be a great purchase if only we had the coin. As for Ali-Steven Wamhoff, we haven’t received any return word from our last six letters,” the General informed her.

  Her two brothers spotted her and ran over, wrapping their arms around Leimur’s lower body. The little boys looked cute in their play armor with small wooden swords. Leimur reminisced back to when she was a young girl being told to go to needlepoint lessons with Lady Hamuir instead of practicing in the yard with the boys.

  “I missed you boys,” she told them while leaning down to kiss each of them. “My princes.”

  “I missed you too, you said you’d be gone longer,” Huber said. “Some problems came up and we had to come home. I brought some new friends with me that you boys might like,” she smiled at her brothers with her tiger-like teeth.

  EMILIA

  The former Queen of Donegal saw the scar-faced older man again. She stood aboard the ship, still unaware of its destination. A light rain fell from the black clouds prancing around the burnt orange sky and onto her exposed head. The waves started to rhythmically push the boat higher above the aqua valley but Ali-Samuel and Emilia remained steady on deck.

  Through the misty conditions, she caught the older man staring at Ali-Samuel. She remembered him from the port. The older man had a nasty scar running along his face. The ship moved along and Emilia rubbed her stubby hair. She had gone to sleep in the canoe on the night of her husband’s murder and woken up to find that Ali-Samuel had cut her hair with a knife; a dull knife, she had thought. She had scattered bald patches and uneven clumps of spiky hair. She looked quite freakish with her missing sandy brown hair and what amounted to boy’s clothes. Ali-Samuel had her looking like an odd, feminine young boy with big breasts. In essence, Ali-Samuel had achieved his goal. Despite all the leery looks that landed on Emilia, no one would recognize her when she appeared like this.

  “When will you tell me where we’re going?” Emilia knew the ship would stop in Androsi but she didn’t know if they were staying on the island.

  She smelled the sea water through the rain and tried to embrace the adventure. These were the biggest waves she had ever seen and her stomach churned. The former Queen became nervous about the quality of the ship. She looked around the boat carefully to see if she could find any compromised areas, although she didn’t really know what to look for other than huge leaks. She had never been on an adventure like this and wasn’t sure what to do. She had seen Ali-Samuel looking around and copied him most of the time.

  Ali-Samuel calmly answered after several moments, “When we get there. Truth be out, I’m not entirely sure where the safest place is for you.”

  He had become distant on the way down the Royal River to the ship. They never left each other’s sight but he had been acting strange. Emilia had convinced herself he was focused solely on her safety and worried about her protection. He was the one and only honorable member of the Wamhoff family, she kept telling herself.

  “How can you be certain my son set us up?” she asked.

  “Was he at the harbor? He specifically told me this was the ship we were taking, the Wooden Eagle. Ali-Ster told me that he and Elisa would be waiting for us. This is the Wooden Eagle. H
e is probably resizing the crowns right now to fit his enlarged head as we speak. We were used, it should seem, again,” Ali-Samuel said as cold as an iced waterfall and his blue eyes reiterated the point to Emilia.

  “I still cannot believe in my heart that my son would betray his mother and cousin,” Emilia stated, still thoroughly confused on the matter.

  He immediately responded, “Power unfortunately breeds treachery. Mayhaps he thought he wouldn’t truly have power with you and me in Falconhurst? Part of me still wants to believe that he and Elisa will be awaiting us in Androsi and not paid assassins. We will be fine, just you and I. I won’t let anything happen to you,” Ali-Samuel winked.

  She smiled at the small but worldly warrior. Her love burned strong for Ali-Samuel and she always quickly forgave him for anything and everything. She hoped this trip would seal their love as he was the only man she wanted to be with. She still felt sympathy for her late husband but the travels hadn’t allowed much time for reflection. Her head swam with the unraveling of the conspiracy and thoughts of what would happen next. Visions of the former king were few and far between.

  “There is just one other detail I haven’t told you. No, never mind,” Ali-Samuel said temptingly before looking away.

  “What? Tell me,” Emilia demanded, pulling his face back to her. “He is your only son, you don’t need to hear it,” he warned.

  “Yes, I do,” the small woman said in a firm tone. “Did you notice any of the guards in the woods when we picked up the canoe from Ulee?” he asked.

  “What guards? No.” she quickly stated. “There were three guards sneaking out of the woods when our honorable friend Ulee tried to stall us. That is why I killed him. The guards couldn’t react fast enough before we got the boat on the water. I didn’t want to tell you and scare you any further after what we had seen. We escaped arrow range and I thought it best not to worry you,” Ali-Samuel softly said.