by Billy Wong
"Too late for them to do anything about it," Rose replied, and the two of them lugged the boat out into the sea.
"Do you think this boat will last long enough to take us back to Kayland?"
"It probably wouldn't. But I'm sure Julian and his buddy didn't come all the way here in this. There's got to be a ship waiting around nearby."
And naturally, she wanted to take that ship. He hugged her. "You're great, Rose."
She grinned. "Thanks."
Climbing into the boat, Finn remembered, "I never did ask Evan that question."
"Did you decide what you were going to ask?"
"No, not yet. I guess the answer probably wouldn't be much help anyway, considering none of his other stuff was. But I still wanted to get a chance like you did."
"Maybe I could try answering," she said jokingly.
"You're no prophet."
"No, but I can still try. Perhaps I'll surprise you."
Finn considered it. "Maybe when I pick my one best question."
Watching Evan's little island shrink in the distance as they rowed away, Rose replied, "Sure. Hey, there's the Fanteian ship." A beautifully polished warship with abundant banners floated before them, no doubt the emperor's personal transport. "Hope Julian's lackeys back home don't send another to pick him up too soon from his forced vacation!"
"How are we going to get the crew to take us where we want?" he asked half rhetorically.
"You can intimidate them into doing it and threaten to break their bones if they don't."
Enjoying the way things were falling together, he said, "I guess fortune is smiling on you for once, eh Rose?"
"We still have to win the ship first."
"So what's the plan?" Men scrambled to grab weapons with which to fight them as they came within the crew's view, and Finn hoped enough would survive to take them home. Otherwise they'd have to hack the ship apart and make a raft...
She raised her bow and shot down the first crossbowman to aim at her. "Kill whoever really wants to fight. But try to scare them into surrendering before we don't have enough left."
"Easier said than done," he grumbled as he dropped two men with bolts from his repeating crossbow. "Hope not all of them are devoted soldiers." Shafts began flying down at them. Finn protected himself with his shield between shots, while Rose dodged and deflected the bolts as she continued to wield her bow.
For a short time they were able to kill the archers who appeared quickly enough to keep the rain of missiles manageable, though Finn wished he could still use magic without risking his humanity to make things go faster. Then, a crossbow bolt sprouted in Rose's shoulder.
She ripped it out angrily and snarled, "Keep them occupied. I'm going up." She dove into the water, and coming up next to the ship began to climb up its side. Finn watched with admiration while he held the enemy off from shooting too much at her, and when she made it on deck, the crew immediately fell into panicked chaos as her sword swept all resistance aside. The projectiles stopped coming at Finn, and he rowed the boat closer. Hoping nobody would interrupt him, he climbed to join his wife.
A body almost hit him on its way into the sea, and he yelled, "Can you be a little more careful where you throw your victims?"
"You could've told me you were coming up," Rose replied exasperatedly.
Making it on deck, Finn saw she fought a heated battle against five Fanteians, including one of most massively muscled men he'd ever seen. The warrior was almost as thick as himself despite having considerably less fat. "Need help?"
"What do you think? Get the little guys, and leave the big one for me."
The statuelike giant protested in a booming voice, "I am Craig the Cliff, fifth—er, now third—most famed fighter in Fanteia, and I demand a real opponent! This woman is unworthy to face me, and wastes my strength!"
Finn exchanged incredulous looks with Rose before caving in the chest of one of her smaller opponents. Even if Craig somehow didn't know her, her appearance should be a clue as to whether she was a pushover... "So you're another idiot like Humphrey the Hill, huh?" she said. She cleaved an arm off another foe, and jetting blood the man stumbled into one of his comrades to send them both overboard. Finn's mace smashed a spine, and only Craig stood against him and his love now. He put up an impressive fight against Rose, standing toe to toe with her with his enormous axe, but Finn doubted he could win.
Still, he offered, "Mind if I take him, Rose?"
"He did insult me. I'd like to pay him back personally."
"But I want to avenge my wife's honor, too."
"I'll take both of you on!" Craig roared. "A man who needs his wife to protect him is no better than a woman who thinks she can fight like a man, and neither of you is worthy to face me alone!" He picked up the dropped glaive of a fallen comrade, raised it and his axe one in each hand, and charged. No fear showed in his eyes as he grinned in anticipation of a glorious battle.
He didn't last long.
#
After Craig's death, the rest of the crew surrendered and the couple ordered them to take them home. Rose inspected the hole in her shoulder while Finn threw the giant's corpse overboard. "You okay there, love?" he asked.
She winced, but nodded. "Of course, this is nothing really. I just don't understand how that guy could possibly have thought he could take both of us at once when I was already stalemating him. Supposedly he, Humphrey the Hill, and that tall Trevor the Tree were the three great champions of Fanteia. I guess they were brave enough at least, if dumb and sexist."
A few days later, they sailed into the port of Nacin twenty miles from Gustrone on their procured vessel. "We're home!" Rose gushed. "Well, almost. It's been quite the trip, huh?"
"Yeah, and you've got plenty of new scars to show Derrick."
Curiously, she asked, "I wonder how the hell Evan answered Julian's question about how to defeat Deathend? There's nothing to defeat!"
"Maybe he told him how to cure his insanity—or just that he's insane."
"That wouldn't be too good for Terlon. Maybe not for Evan, either. I hope he didn't answer quite so honestly, in this case."
"Hope Julian gets sent on another wild goose chase, right?" She responded with an enthusiastic nod, and he asked, "So what are we going to do with our new ship, sell it?"
"We should probably let the crew take it back to Fanteia. That way Julian might not punish them as harshly, in comparison to if they took us home and lost the ship."
He looked back at the beautiful vessel and sighed. "But it's so pretty and valuable looking. Fine, whatever. You're such a goody."
She smiled, then said, "I hope everything's okay back home."
"I'm sure it's just fine. You worry too much, Rose."
"Don't you?"
Finn kissed her several times, on the lips and all over her well-scarred face. "Only about you."
Laughing, Rose put him in a playful headlock, and they began their short trip home.
#
"Arms of flame wreak war's doom, frozen inferno dispels thickest gloom, divinity's power fuels his bane, his own making brings his pain." Those had been the words with which the seer answered Julian's question, and he could only think they meant that a fiery weapon made by Deathend himself would prove his downfall. But where was he to find it? Though he'd considered leaving and coming back to ask, he doubted the prophet's answer would do him much good with specifics, and had wanted to hurry home to research the matter. But then he'd found his ride gone, no doubt stolen by the woman that'd killed his brother and her brutish husband.
First, they'd found their rowboat missing, and after he had Trevor make a raft out of trees, they'd paddled it out to where the Heavenly Steed should have awaited only to see his personal ship was gone as well! When they saw the corpse of Craig, Trevor's friend and rival along with the late Humphrey, float by, Trevor had gone into a screaming rage which unnerved Julian himself. Even Rose and Finn might not want to meet him again. But for now they waited aggravatingly on the beach, watching f
or any sign of ships that approached. Damn that Rose! For all her "heroic" intentions, he thought ironically, if she delayed him too long she might well doom the very kingdom she'd tried to save.
Chapter 8
Rose and Finn arrived in Gustrone at night, and enjoyed a romantic dinner in their favorite tavern before heading for home. Upon returning to the tower where they worked and lived, they found that nothing too bad had happened during their leave, though Derrick was understandably overwhelmed by the work of running their recently expanded center without their help. Their friend had thus been even more overjoyed to see them home than usual, and when Rose showed him the scars of her newest mortal (but not for her) wounds, he marveled as always at her awesome resilience.
Even Rose herself was impressed by her own survival, knowing the tremendous damage Julian's serrated sword must have done to her vitals, but she hadn't survived unscathed. Upon trying to feed her children, she found that her left breast, heavily damaged many times including when it'd been split in half and sewn back together last year and more recently during the battles in Terlon, apparently began to fail.
Though it still made milk, it came in less abundance than she'd gotten used to, which upset and scared her. She wanted to feed her kids the natural way, at least when she was home to do it. Fortunately she was a huge woman, and despite her left breast's decreased lactation, managed to fill her babes' bellies with what she had. But she still hoped her breast would eventually recover as well as her mangled parts usually did, for the thought of permanent damage that would truly impair quite frightened her.
It wasn't that she didn't already bear countless scars she understood would never ever go away, and feel terrible pain all the time stemming from wounds she'd survived when they should have killed her dozens of times over. No, she knew she was scarred hideously inside and out, and had grown used to dealing with those old hurts. But though she suffered, she had thus far remained fully functional.
Her piercing headaches didn't harm her ability to think, her rending stomachaches let her eat, she breathed despite her constrictive chest pains... but now, not only did her breast hurt, it wasn't working like it should. Dying in battle was one danger she could accept, but to become a cripple after all she'd done? It was too awful to imagine, and though a failing breast wouldn't hinder her too much in life, it hinted frighteningly at worse possibilities to come and as such was one thing she could hardly take in stride.
She'd long known that no matter how strong she was, a human body wasn't designed to rebound from the kind of damage she often suffered, and she could hardly continue the way she did without someday facing the inevitable consequences. But not so soon! She was only twenty-three, her children newly two after the birthday she had just avoided missing. If her breast was fading now, how long would it be before other, more important things did as well?
Finn heaped upon her medicines to try and help the healing process along and she readily accepted them, hoping to drive the specter of her deteriorating body from her mind. But she quickly grew frustrated with the lack of immediate results. Soon her treatments became no more than dreary routines, bringing her little hope despite Finn's words of encouragement but carried on nonetheless on the off chance they might work.
Still, such matters only upset Rose when she had time to dwell on them, and normally she was as cheerful as she'd always been, ever prepared to crack a joke over anything or sooth someone else's hurts with kind words and playful deeds. In spite of her breast anxiety, the next months passed happily all in all. Though she heard of increased raider attacks in southern Kayland from the barbarian land of Volston, she resisted the temptation to go there to help out. Her family and the center needed her too, and she knew that the aid of one woman, no matter how strong, would not be nearly as effective in warding off attacks with unpredictable timing and against varied locations as against a single force.
She was surprised one day by a visit from Crown Prince Lawrence, the current regent of Kayland. Though he'd given the center much financial support since his brother King Benedict's death and granted high honorary titles to her and Finn, she couldn't help still feeling intimidated in his presence. For all her ability in battle, he had control over the country, and the disparity in poise and dress made her feel small before him.
The bearded middle-aged regent greeted her before she could him. "Well, Rose, you're finally back."
"And glad to be. How are you doing?"
"I am well, though perhaps our nation would fare better if it warranted more attention from the one it calls champion."
Hearing the thinly concealed aggravation in his voice, she asked, "What's wrong? If it's about the raiders..."
"It's not. Though our soldiers probably would have appreciated your help while you were fighting a war in another country, I can understand why defending the border against raiders might not seem like the best use of your time. But trying to give another kingdom access to the magic I and my brother gave you the resources to develop isn't terribly considerate, don't you think?" She might not have managed to open a branch of the center in Terlon, but naturally the rumor had gotten out that she'd tried.
Even if the royal family gave them much of their funding, Rose and her friends had rediscovered spellcasting itself on their own. She felt they had every right to accept the help of other nations in promoting the revival of magic. But she hesitated to stand up to Lawrence, and instead just said, "But Terlon's tiny compared to us, not even a third of our size. Magic or not, it'll never be a threat to us in our lifetimes."
"Maybe not in ours, but what of after? Do you have no consideration for the future?"
She sighed. "I hope for a good future after we die, for our kids and everyone else in the world then. But that's really pretty much out of our control, isn't it? We can do things to try and influence it for the better, but we don't know what effect they'll have, if any. Maybe Terlon will turn on us with magic we've given them someday. Or maybe they'll be more inclined to be our allies thanks to us sharing with them in the past.
"Or, Kayland and Terlon might not even exist long enough for that question to be answered."
"I see your point, and your argument has some merits. We never know what tomorrow may bring, even if those of us who consider ourselves planners would like to think we can. But you say Terlon is so small, it will never be a threat to us in the foreseeable future. Yet if such a small, weak nation were to say be conquered by Fanteia after gaining magic... what then?"
"I... I hadn't thought about that." Guilt weighed down her features in a frown as she realized she should have. "B-but King Gregor did say the war was well in hand." It really hadn't been, though, if Regis' reappearance on the battlefield had so readily changed that. She, the simple warrior, had made a definite oversight. She was wrong, and he was right. "All right. I'll be more careful from now on, and think before being so eager to share our knowledge with anyone willing to take it."
Lawrence patted her shoulder, the anger gone from his eyes. Her massive frame made his hand, average sized for a man, look small, and she felt momentarily self-conscious of the great brute she was. "I know you mean well. As much as I would do anything to protect this nation, I'm certain you would too, no?"
Well, her family came first. But she couldn't imagine turning her back on the people of her homeland. Too, looking into his eyes she sensed an insecurity in Lawrence, like he didn't want to let anyone down while he reigned in his brother's stead. She nodded and said, "I'm glad to have a ruler who cares as much as you. I don't doubt the country will prosper until King Benedict's son comes of age, and under him with your guidance."
"Thank you, Rose. Take care."
"You too," she replied, and after he left wondered what she would do about Sean. She did trust him, but considering the points brought up in the conversation with Lawrence, should she reject an opportunity to open a branch in his realm?
#
After three months at home, Rose received a letter from Sean which made he
r consider another journey abroad. Apparently Danica had returned from her long absence, and now Terlon's crown became the subject of a bitter dispute. Though crowned king, Sean had never garnered much respect among his people, and when Danica reappeared, many rushed to support her in her bid for the throne. Not only had she long been Gregor's accepted heir, but the army that had been her family for much of her life backed her, as did others who wanted to see Terlon ruled by a great warrior and daring leader. As well, without proof of Sean's parentage, many were unwilling to put total faith in his royal blood. For the most part only strict adherents to the rules of ascension argued on Sean's behalf, demanding acknowledgment of the fact he'd personally been handed the crown by the previous monarch. The dubious manner in which Rose had gained that position hardly helped their case in the eyes of their critics.
Rose herself felt unsure of her stance on the matter. Though Sean was her friend and she liked him personally more than Danica, she had to admit his rival had more of a right to the throne, having been raised from birth to eventually become queen. Though she believed in Sean's royal blood, he could hardly be as qualified for rulership. Really, he'd only gotten to be king because Danica had been thought almost certainly dead. Why didn't he just give up the crown? She hoped he had a good reason for it, but feared he might have grown addicted to power as many in authority did. He'd seemed such a good person, but also not prepared, and that would make him more vulnerable. Whatever the case, she needed to do something before the situation got tragically worse.
Finn didn't agree with her. When she told him about the letter, he said, "You shouldn't get involved in this. It's just a family feud, and such is for the participants to settle among themselves. Your presence will only divide the sides further, whichever one you choose."
He might have been right, but she said, "I think my words could get through to Sean. We connected pretty well."
"Maybe, if he isn't a different person by now."
"It's only been three months."
"Three months as king."
