Drachenara

by T. G. Neal

  As the night waxed on, Vaelen stayed close to the sovereign family. He only stepped away for a moment to relieve himself, and in those moments, two guards replaced him, only to return shortly thereafter.

  The party had grown loud and boisterous, but everyone was having a good time. Vaelen was sure to watch every motion.

  Brenness Pardis stood up with Jorvig and raised her hands. “Everyone, everyone! Listen!”

  Saitig chimed in with a booming voice, “Silence!”

  The Brenness nodded to Saitig with a smile, still holding onto Jorvig's arm. “As you all know, my husband went missing five years ago, and left me before I could ever bear child. Before I could ever...” she trailed “Feel his touch.” She regained her composure. “Now it seems that the Maker has smiled upon me, and sent me Jorvig...” she looked at him with adoration, and let him pick up where she left off.

  Jorvig nodded “And the Maker sent her to me. The night before I defeated the Giant of Theros, I had a dream. In this dream, the Brenness came to me and gave me a rose, for good luck, then she placed a hand on me. In her eyes, I saw something like I had never seen before. It just so happened that the dream came true the very next day, the very same. Later I fought an opponent who surely should have defeated me.” He looked into her eyes. “Now I have decided to wed her.”

  The cheer that roared through the crowds of the highborn at this party were so loud that even the lesser people against the walls could hear the cheers.

  The Brenness raised her hand. “I have accepted his proposal. And as a gift from my people to yours, I have brought our legendary wine.” She waved to the door, and her guards opened the main hall and rolled in a massive barrel, pulled by a dozen large men, likely Vintners and Winemakers. “Drinks for all!”

  Bren Drache stepped over to both of them and embraced them. “It will be a wonderful thing for our families to be joined, Brenness. I am truly gladdened by your choice to marry my son.” He paused and looked to Wraith and Saitig who stood to the side. “Wraith, Captain Saitig, on such an occasion, you too should drink!”

  Wraith shook his head, “My Lord, I shouldn't. My responsibility is to this keep. To the people within. It would be of poor taste.”

  “Consider it a command, Wraith.” Drache said with a smile.

  “Aye, sir.” Wraith said with reluctance, yet he motioned the same Sergeant who had covered him before, to do the same again.

  As the chalices of wine were passed around and so many of the party fell under the influence of alcohol, Wraith sniffed his glass and looked around. He couldn't shuck his responsibility. As he stood careful watch, Saitig walked up behind him and clopped him on the shoulder. “Come, step outside for a moment. It's... It's very important, old friend.”

  Saitig led him out beyond the doors and far enough away from the doors so that the sound inside would not drown out the two's conversation, a good fifty feet away. Wraith looked him in the eyes and smirked. “What is it, Saitig? Planning on retiring?”

  “This isn't a time for laughs, Wraith.” Saitig said, deathly serious and solemn.

  Wraith lost all humor and stiffened. “What do you mean?”

  “There is a dark plan at work here, Wraith. I need you to understand that I had no part in this. I only just learned that the Brenness is planning to kill your Lord, Bren Drache.” He clenched his jaws and looked concerned.

  “What? When? Now?” Wraith tossed the chalice aside and turned on his heel and moved with a purpose back toward the main hall.

  “Right now.” Saitig said at his friends back as he turned. He turned back to follow him, but instead of help, he only offered betrayal. With a calculated stab, he pierced the break in Wraith's back armor and drove a nine-inch dagger into Wraith's chest cavity.

  Wraith turned, coughing blood onto the chest of his betrayer and gasped. “No.”

  Vaelen watched the crowd grow more and more deliriously inebriated, almost with every downed glass, some already passing into an unconscious stupor. Stormvale wine was as potent as it was legendary. As his eyes wandered, he now saw Denevim talking to Aurelia. She looked uncomfortable, and he wasn't okay with that, but she hadn't asked him to leave. He would pay it no mind. He took a long pause, though, when his scanning eyes reached the other sovereigns. At the head of the table all the sovereigns were drunk except for Jorvig and the Brenness, whose chalices had never been returned. Then he turned his attention to the Vintners and Winemakers who were still standing about, as if waiting on praise for their delightful wine. Now, something told Vaelen that something was wrong. Something was off. He stepped even closer to Denevim and Aurelia.

  A sudden exploding thud slammed against the main hall doors, and like thunder, rolled into the room, silencing the voices. Coming through the doors was Wraith atop Saiting. In Wraiths back was a dagger, driven to the hilt. As Saitig fell, Wraith drove his own blade to the hilt under Saitigs ribcage. Wraith looked up to Vaelen, smiled, mouthed “run” and fell over dead.

  As if on cue, a crashing came from the massive wine barrel, whose contents splashed all around the floor. The brawny vintners and winemakers shed their cloth coverings to reveal armor beneath and pulled weapons from the pooled wine on the floor. They began slaughtering innocents with indiscretion. All the highborn in the room that weren't unconscious or dead, ran out of the room and into the streets screaming.

  Vaelen couldn't act fast enough. Denevim unsheathed his blade, grabbed Aurelia by the arms and pulled her across the table, putting the blade to her throat. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Brenness Pardis run a shortsword into the abdomen of Brenness Drache until it came out of her back. Beside her, he saw Jorvig unsheath and swing his blade with such ferocity that it beheaded his father, Bren Drache, as would a hot knife through butter.

  Time seemed to slow around him as his fellow guardsmen were being cut down by both Stormvale guards and by these Winemakers that he ascertained were mercenaries. In the door from behind his now-dead father, came more Drache guards – no – imposters. Dressed as Drache guards were the people from the camp that Vaelen encountered a fortnight ago. Treachery.

  The air seemed to leave his lungs, as what was happening registered. He unsheathed his long sword, and nearly cleaved a Stormvale guard in half at the waist. He kicked the breathing corpse free of his blade and moved toward Aurelia. As he stepped closer he could hear Denevim shouting “She is mine! She is mine! Don't be a fool, Vaelen!”

  Aurelia, thinking like a trained combatant, reached down and grabbed between his legs. She twisted as hard as she could and pushed herself away from him, toward Vaelen in a stumble. Vaelen reacted in two ways, first by stopping her stumble, and second by slashing toward a quick-recovering Denevim. Though he was just out of Denevims range, he reached and swung. The tip of Vaelen's long sword came upward across Denevims face, across his nose and his left eye, opening his flesh in a filet.

  Aurelia screamed back at her brother, Jorvig, who was assisting in cutting down the Drache guards. “You bastard! You wretch bastard! You--” but was cut off by Vaelen, who grabbed her to run.

  Vaelen yelled at her, pulling her by the hand. “Milady! Aurelia! Aurelia, we must go. We have to leave!” As they passed through the main hall doors, she looked down at Wraith, who lay dead at her feet. “It's too late! We. Have. To. Go!” Though an emotionally strong man he was, he had to choke back his tears. As he pushed past the doors, he cut down a mercenary, and sprinted toward the Keep walls. In his mind he knew what would happen. His father was dead, and if he were on the run, they would kill his mother. He could only hope she would kill them first.

  Duty first.

  Aurelia was streaming tears, both of anger and of sadness as she ran after Vaelen. She was right on his heels. As she ran, she kicked off the shoes her parents made her wear for the party, so she could keep up with Vaelen, whose watchful eyes would look back at her frequently. As they turned to leave the Keep walls on the city side, they ran into a group of mercenaries.

  Vaelen seem
ed to dart at them with such speed and rage that his body didn't feel the blows he was taking. Some glanced off his armor, but one caught him in the side, and Aurelia noticed it. As one mercenary fell, she picked up his blade and helped fight them off, only to have the pursuit resume with archers.

  How so many of them had gotten in the city unnoticed was a mystery to Vaelen, he thought of this as he ran.

  Now turned away from the city, Vaelen and Aurelia were running alongside the man-made channel filled with the waters of the Highvein River, whose speeds pushed faster and faster the closer they got to the edge of the Grand Balcony. Vaelen's heart pounded in his chest, and each pound caused his side to hurt, and each time he felt pain, he felt the warmth of his blood sticking the cloth he wore to his skin. Aurelia now moved in front of him, Vaelen, armored, did his best to prevent Aurelia from getting hit from a hail of arrows. Many of their piercing tips glanced off of his armor, but one found a hold in his shoulder. He hissed at the pain, but kept moving, sheathing his sword as he ran.

  Aurelia skidded to halt twenty feet in front of him at the edge of the Grand Balcony. She turned to him and yelled, fear in her eyes “We have nowhere to go!”

  Behind Vaelen archers were stopping to fire their last volley of arrows that would leave both Vaelen and Aurelia irrefutably dead. Vaelen wasn't about to have it. Dying wasn't an option, and this was their only hope. “Trust me,” he said as he grabbed her around her waist and lifted her in one motion. Then he planted his feet on the stone beneath him and jumped clear of the balcony and direct into the path of the Drachenara Falls. Time again slowed as he fell. He looked above him at a wave of fire that seemed to explode from nowhere, throwing burning mercenaries off the balcony and into the air like meteors. Their screams echoed in the night. Vaelen turned, so that his back was to the water, and he looked at Aurelia only a moment before pulling her close to his chest. In that instant, he hit the water like a boulder. The last sight he saw was the Grand Balcony in flames, hundreds of feet above him and water rushing over his face.

  Aurelia felt the rush of water around her and the sound of her heart beating in her ears. When they first hit the water, she thought she blacked out, losing all sight and sense. She caught herself again, spinning under the tumult of the water, glimpsing the dying light of the flames far above their heads. As she spun beneath the current, she could see burning hulks of something crashing down into the water around her and... Where is Vaelen? She suddenly realized she was no longer holding onto him. She kicked her feet around and flailed her arms in a vain attempt to swim. The bulky dinner gown she wore was hindering her, pulling her down into the depths beneath the Drachenara Falls.

  As the current pulled at the fabric, so did she, clawing at the seams. Finally, they gave way, and she could wriggle out of the fanciful gown. Beneath, she wore an under-gown that kept her covered, but offered a much better range of motion and wouldn't draw attention.

  After the gown drifted away, she could surface. What had only been seconds, felt like minutes, and the lung full of fresh air was invigorating. The air was cold here on the surface of the glacier-fed lake and it felt like a new spring morning. As she surfaced, she realized that the burning hulks that hit around her in the water were the mercenaries, lit aflame. Her eyes darted around her, searching for Vaelen, looking for him in desperation.

  Aurelia wasn't sure how long they had been in the water now, and the shore was still quite a distance away. She whimpered and spoke low, “Vaelen?” Surely, she had lost him too. Resolved that she was alone again, she swam for shore. The trip would not be easy, but she would do what she must.

  As she swam, she made note of her general direction. The falls faced south as they fell from the Grand Balcony and into lake Drachenara. The river would then pick back up on the eastern shore and flow off to the east, through several small villages and dissolving into the delta marshlands of Greyvale and near the capital of Greyever. The Bren of Greyever was a friend to her father, but even on horseback, such a trip would take time, and time was not on Aurelia's side. Aurelia's defeat was overwhelming.

  While she was lost in her thoughts, a small boat rowed up to her “Madam! Madam!” A young voice called out; he sounded eight or nine years old, and male. She stopped swimming and bile rose in her throat. An adult was with the young boy, and he looked up. The man spoke this time, up from his oars. “Ho! Ma'am, here, let us help you.” The man stuck his hand over the edge of the boat, as did the young boy, and the two of them pulled her in.

  Once aboard, Aurelia backed away from them, unsure of their motives. She remembered the dagger in her corset, the one her murderous bastard of a brother gave her. Just as she moved her hand toward it, a familiar face sat up in the back of the boat, though he was completely unarmored. She shouted “Vaelen!” and covered her mouth in shock, forgetting about the dagger, whose pommel could barely be seen.

  Vaelen grunted as he sat up. The small fishing boat had been near where they had landed in the water, but Vaelen had not seen them. In fact, that fishing boat was the least of Vaelen’s worries. When he hit the water, he released Aurelia, knowing full well that she would be okay. He, on the other hand, was being pulled to the bottom by his heavy plate armor. As he was sinking to the depths of the blue-hole beneath Drachenara falls, Vaelen was having to cut away the leather straps that held his armor against his form and shuck the pieces one by one to sink to the bottom. Once he was free of all of his armor, Vaelen held only his sword, and swam to the surface. The water washed most of the blood away from the wound in his side, and the impact in the water snapped the arrow shaft off at the base.

  He smiled a pained smile at Aurelia and held his side. “I told you she was out here.” He grunted and adjusted so he was sitting upright. “We appreciate your help, Fishmaster. Your late eve upon this lake was fortuitous.” Vaelen took a deep breath, adjusted himself again, and reached to his waistband. Just so, as he did, he realized his coin purse went to the depths with his armor. “I--”

  The fisherman looked to his son as he moved back to his oars. “The Maker puts people in our lives for many reasons. You were placed in my life for a reason. Why? Who knows. But it is not my place to question the maker. We are going back to Giltshore after a long day fishing. It is not norm that we stay out for such hours; it would seem you are the reason.”

  Vaelen reached out and placed a hand on the shoulder of the fisherman. “What can I do to repay you, sir?”

  “First, you may call me Robert, and you must do nothing. As you can see behind you, Sir, our day upon the water was already quite paying. A day at the Giltshore markets tomorrow, and we will be doing well.” The fisherman, Robert, gestured to the pile of fish that lay behind Vaelen.

  Vaelen smiled. “And so, the Maker smiled upon us both.”

  The young boy doused the flame of their lantern, and sat back down, looking at Aurelia keenly. Then as if a thought came to him he pointed his finger at her, then looked at his dad, then back at her. “You're the Bren's daughter, ain't ya? Missus Aurelia.”

  Aurelia began to speak, but was cut off “I--”

  Robert reached and patted his son on the shoulder. “That is not our place to ask, young Davet.”

  “But Da. Missus Aurelia, what happened in the castle tonight? We heard the screams all the way down on the water. We saw fire and people... is it a war?” The boy’s questions were pure innocence. “Did we get the bad guys?”

  Robert shushed his son and frowned as he looked to Aurelia. “We need not know, Miss. I don't want to pretend to know. As far as I'm concerned, you can be someone else. We don't pay too much attention to the Bren's family in Giltshore, so you won't be noticed. You and the sir can remain anonymous. I have a small boat house that has a loft that you can stay in. Secrets can remain secret there.”

  “But Da!” Davet protested.

  “Nay. Hush it up, Davet. These are our visitors from...?”

  Aurelia smiled weakly, “Rootsborne, M'Sir. Rootsborne.”

  Vaelen
closed his eyes and leaned back against the side of the boat. He needed to tend to his wounds and rest.

  Denevim yelled as as he could. It wasn't pain, it was rage. He was seething that he had been bested, if even for a moment. Blood streaked down his face, and he was blind in his left eye. He snarled.

  “Denevim,” a soft voice came from behind him.

  “What?!” he bellowed viciously, spittle flying from his mouth. “Sister!” He bowed his head and backed away. “I apologize. My apologies.”

  “Silence.” She said and stepped toward him. She lifted her head to examine his wounds and placed a hand beneath his chin. “You are wounded. Disfigured. This will not heal properly.”

  Denevim reeled with a contained fury.

  “Be still, my brother. Jorvig is certain they perished from the fall. No one that has jumped has ever lived. The blue hole beneath has claimed the lives of every soul that has ever plummeted. Ifris, our god of fire, has seen that they were punished for their failure to die as planned. And all those mercenaries have been dealt with...” she trailed and lifted her hand to his face, placing her fingers into the wound on his face.

  He hissed in pain and reached to grab her hand. She halted him, grabbing his wrist with her free hand and overpowering him with ease. “Shh...” she trailed.

  Miliria's fingertips glowed like red hot coals. As they did, the light around them refracted and the wound on Denevims face knitted itself back together. The magic woven by her hand illuminated the seam of the cut and sealed it from end to end, knitting together the cells of his eye and whitening the cornea. When healed, she removed her hand. “There. A scar to remember your mistake.”

  Denevim turned and strode away with an angry vigor in his step.

  The Brenness, Miliria, turned toward Jorvig who was wiping the still-fresh blood from his hands. “Jorvig, have your heralds prepare the announcement of the tragedy caused by the Crimson Hood Mercenaries. Announce first, the tragedy, that your parents were murdered at the hands of these crooks who sneaked into the party. Then announce our marriage and the joining of our Brendoms.” She walked toward him, stepping over a body that lay upon the stone, blood pooled around it. She strode up the small stairs and placed a hand on the side of his face. “No one will know what happened here. My guards will take up patrols inside the keep walls. Any risk of rumor will be met with swift execution. Ifris is with us in our plight.”