Michael Mathias: Kings, Queens, Heroes, and Fools

After scattering the enemy, the dragon flew to the top of the city wall and perched there. Its huge clawed feet tore loose gigantic pieces of the structure where it gripped for purchase. It calmly listened to the white clad figure sitting on its back. Then, as if it were merely toppling over an anthill, it tore a two hundred foot section of the wall to the ground. Claret leaned forward then and started clawing her way through the city. Behind her slithering belly she left a rough path that was nearly twenty paces wide and relatively free of obstruction.

Escott had to laugh. The big red wyrm was making them a road that led directly to Ra’Gren’s palace.

Mikahl somehow kept himself on the bright horse as its magical wings fought to catch air. When they were righted, he watched Claret turn the tide of the battle and was overcome with relief.

As the dragon began demolishing O’Dakahn, a white bird came fluttering down out of the sky clumsily. The High King recognized it, sort of. The bird had no color left to it at all.

“Talon?” He asked, though he knew it was. The irritated hawkling let out a long caw of sorrow then landed on Mikahl’s shoulder.

“Aye,” was all Mikahl said in response.

Just then, a few hundred feet to the west, a group of dwarves emerged from the rubble at the base of the wall. One of them was waving his arms excitedly. Mikahl winged the bright horse over to him. The dwarf was covered in grey brown dust, but Mikahl recognized him as Master Oarly.

“High King Mikahl.” Oarly jumped up and down calling out breathlessly. “High King Mikahl, we’ve breached the wall. The dwarves of Doon have cleared you a tunnel.”

Even though the hawkling latched onto his shoulder had him thinking of Hyden, and the field was littered with the corpses of thousands of honorable men, Mikahl couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

“What?” Oarly asked indignantly with his hands on his hips.

“Just as when Queen Willa blew the Horn of Doon,” Mikahl chuckled and indicated the avenue that Claret had created for them. “You dwarves arrived a bit too late.”

King Jarrek, leaning heavily on a crutch, stood next to the white marble colored form of Phen, and the wavering dwarf, Master Oarly. The three of them had stood similarly in support of each other a few days earlier during the long sad funeral held for all of the heroes who hadn’t survived. Brady Culvert, Master Amill, and a few thousand others had been honored that day, and the trio had drunk a toast to nearly every one of them.

Today wasn’t a sad sort of occasion, though. It was a celebration. High King Mikahl and Princess Rosa were being married.

Lord Gregory was standing formally beside the High King, both dressed proudly in the green and gold of Westland. Princess Rosa looked splendid in her sapphire and flame colored gown. Three little girls stood grinning in the shadow of Lady Trella on the Princess’s side of the platform.

An amphitheater had been erected by the dwarves just for the occasion. The wedding was taking place in the city of Oktin, just west of the Kahna River. Mikahl had chosen the location because it was equidistant from Lakeside in Westland and Xwarda in Highwander. A new era was about to begin, an era of hope, peace, and rebuilding. People had traveled from all across the realm to be a part it.

A new palace was already being designed. Oktin is where it would be built. By right of lineage, Princess Rosa was the true heir to Valleya, as well as Seaward. King Broderick, who was still enjoying the permanent hospitality of Queen Willa’s castle, had no heir, and wouldn’t be seeding one from the dungeon. Queen Rachel was his cousin by blood, and her daughter, Princess Rosa, would eventually assume the rule of both kingdoms. Dakahn was in limbo, but all of the overlords and lords who had sworn fealty to High King Mikahl and released their slaves were being unmolested and following the High King by choice. King Jarrek had already bent the knee for Wildermont, as had Queen Willa for Highwander. Thus the entire realm of men, save for the islands, had sworn allegiance to High King Mikahl and his bride.

On the great stage the dwarves had erected, Mikahl and Rosa were speaking their vows. Whoops of joy and happiness from thousands of women, and a few of the gathered men, swept across the crowd.

King Jarrek gave Queen Willa a leering smile, letting his half drunken eyes linger on her cleavage a little too long. She flushed and waved him away with the back of her hand, a pleased grin on her face. Her blue-skinned pixie advisor, Starkle, glared at Jarrek from her shoulder. In the past weeks she and King Jarrek had been seeing a lot of each other.

“ ‘Tis a shame Hyden Hawk’s not here for this,” Oarly whispered to Phen.

“Aye,” Phen agreed. “We’re still trying to figure it out.”

“You think the dragon was right? That he isn’t dead?” King Jarrek asked, after he peeled his eyes away from Willa.

Not far away, the High King was sealing his vows with a tender kiss.

“Aye,” Phen answered excitedly. “Before she left, Claret told me my lyna is alive too. We just don’t know where they are.”

“Why did he go into the Nethers?” Jarrek asked as cheers erupted through the crowd and people started moving about them.

“He had to.” Phen was forced to raise his voice over the growing sound of the celebration. The ceremony was over. The High King and Rosa were wed.

Phen and King Jarrek followed Oarly to a wine cask at the end of a long table that was laid out with all sorts of delicacies. Phen tried to ignore the looks the people gave him, the curious stares, wide eyes, and wrinkled noses. “Imagine how the battle would have ended if Gerar… the Dark Lord, had managed to escape the Nethers. If he had, legions of devils, and other things, might have been loosed. Not even Claret could defeat such an army.”

“Quit staring at him,” Oarly barked at a group of folk trying to get at the wine. “Haven’t you ever seen a marble boy before?”

The people hurried quickly away from the disgruntled dwarf.

Phen punched Oarly in the arm. “Quit calling me a marble boy.”

“By Doon, lad, that’s a rock hard fist you got there.” Oarly rubbed at his shoulder. Phen growled in response.

“Claret said that there is a restorative pool high up in the Giant Mountains that might make my pigments come back,” Phen told them. “As soon as things get settled I’m going there.”

“You’re lucky your mind is still your own, Phen,” Master Sholt said, as he joined the group. “A few more days, and even the dragon’s powerful magic wouldn’t have been able to turn you back from stone.”

“Looking like you’re still made of marble can’t be all that bad,” Oarly said.

“Aye,” Phen nodded. “Has anyone seen Talon? I haven’t seen the blasted bird for two or three days.”

No one had.

“How’s the new Locar Bridge coming?” Master Sholt asked King Jarrek, but Oarly answered.

“It would be going up a lot faster if that fargin breed giant would stand back and let my kin folk work,” Oarly growled then took a long swig from his cup.

“Bzorch is very concerned with his new responsibility,” King Jarrek said. “If he can keep his primal instincts in check, he’ll make a great bridge master. His people have just about run the skeeks out of Westland for the High King, and I think Mik is starting to feel at ease with them.”

“Bah,” Oarly barked, and filled his cup from the cask again. “Fargin luggers.”

“So how is it going to work now?” Phen asked. “If Mikahl is the king of the whole realm, and all the kingdoms are to be dissolved into one, where does that leave you, and Queen Willa, and Queen Rachel? What will happen to your lands?”