The Fiery Aftermath

by L. R. Patton

  “How can we finish it?” Prince Virgil says.

  “We wait,” the old woman says. “We wait until the time is right.”

  “And how long might that be?” Prince Virgil says.

  “Some time,” the old woman says. “Some time yet.”

  “And how will we know it is finished?” Prince Virgil says.

  “Oh, we will know,” the old man says. “There is much more yet to come. And you will need to be brave and strong and true, my dear boy. Do you think you can be brave and strong and true?”

  Prince Virgil looks at the man, and though he does not know quite what the old man means, he agrees. “Yes,” he says. “I will.”

  “Good boy,” the man says. He takes his hand from the top of Prince Virgil’s head. “And what else is it that brought you down these stairs?” For the prophet knows what is in the heart of the boy, the two sides warring. He knows that Prince Virgil has also come here to see if he is good like his uncle and can help the starving children and the old prophets.

  Prince Virgil looks at them, at all the children whose eyes he can hardly see, even by the light of his candle. He looks at the prophets, most of them lying still on the floor. He looks at the old man and the old woman, who seem to be the leaders of those trapped in these dungeons, and he wonders if he can, in fact, choose goodness. Might he dare defy his father and bring them food and light and water? Might he risk being banished from the kingdom as his uncle was before him, simply to meet the needs of strangers? Might he do it?

  He looks at them for a very long time. They stare back at him.

  No, he decides. No, he cannot. The throne is too important. He cannot live without it, and, besides, he is not his uncle. He could not survive alone in the lands. He had never spent a night outside the castle before.

  He is not a strong man as his uncle was. He is not sixteen. He is merely twelve.

  “You could,” the old man says, as if he knows precisely what Prince Virgil is thinking. He says nothing more.

  Prince Virgil bends to retrieve his candle, turns and flees up the stairs, taking the light with him. He hears the children begin to wail behind him, and this makes him run ever faster, to get far, far away from the sound of starving children and the sight of an old man and woman who will probably die, with all the rest, inside their black prison.

  He tries his best to outrun them, but a boy can never outrun his own mind. For the shadows of what he has seen and known in his life, the tragedies he has witnessed with his own two eyes, will haunt him until he looks them straight in the face. Prince Virgil cannot run from them forever.

  Though he will try.

  “Hush, children,” Yerin says to the ones who wail. “Hush, now, my dears. All will be well. Someone is coming to help us.”

  “When?” the children say, for they think that perhaps this means they will be released from their prison and see the light of day yet again.

  “Soon,” Yerin says. “But, for now, let us sleep.”

  It is true, dear reader, that someone is coming. It is also true that he comes soon. But soon means different things to different people, and so we must wait to see what soon means to an old man like Yerin.

  Battle

  IT was not that the dragons could hear the army marching through the forest, which was only called The Wood at the time of this tale. It was that they could feel them. They could feel every step. Zorag was only a young dragon of forty-three, and he heard it long before the others.

  “Someone is coming,” he said. “A great number of them.”

  His parents looked at each other. They had not yet felt the tremors. And when they did, they repeated his words. “Someone is coming,” they said.

  “I will go straight to King Brendon,” said Zorag’s father, Erell, and he took off. Zorag and his mother waited and waited and waited, and finally they heard the wings of his father flapping overhead. The ground was still rumbling. Their dragon scout had confirmed their fears: someone was marching through the forest. And it was a great number of someones.

  Zorag’s father landed before the multitude of dragons. He let out a thundering roar that shook the land more deeply than the footsteps did. The land held still for a moment, as if all the soldiers marching through it had suddenly stopped. All the dragons turned toward Erell. “An invasion,” Erell said. “We shall help the king keep the peace. You remain here until I send instructions.” He lifted off toward the castle. The dragons stared after him.

  His mother looked at Zorag with eyes that spoke of worry, though she did not say anything but, “You must stay here, my son.” She dipped her head, her ears flickering a little, as they did when she was nervous. She lifted off into the sky. Zorag saw two others do the same.

  And of course he would not stay here. Of course he would go help. Of course.

  After all, he loved a king, too.

  His mother was watching the sky when he flew over it, but his father was staring at the king. Zorag landed behind his mother, at the precise moment his father lifted into the sky, with a girl on his back. He had seen the girl before. She was the king’s daughter.

  But Zorag did not have time to think on this, for the next moment the three dragons burst into action, taking to the sky. They breathed fire wherever they went. The forest burst into flames.

  It was all madness after that. Zorag watched dragons fall from the sky, and he drew further and further back, in line with the castle and then behind the castle, for he did not know what this helping had meant back when he resolved to, and he was, after all, still a very young dragon. He had never seen battle like this before.

  The land stilled. The people waited, and Zorag with them. And then his father dropped from the sky. He did not rise from where he landed. Zorag watched, a heat pulsing over his body that had nothing to do with the fire within. His father was dying. His father was dying. His father. He was dying.

  Zorag watched, as if he did not live in this world but was only an observer. He watched King Brendon kneel before his father. He watched the king weep. He watched the lifeblood drain from the wound in his father’s neck.

  And then someone shouted, and before them all stood the men who had done this. Too many of them remained. Zorag, even in his shock, could see that clearly. The man with an army yelled something. And then one of the village people rushed forward, and madness broke free again.

  The old king did not stand when it was all over. A new king did. He called from the castle steps.

  “You,” he said. Zorag did not turn, until the king said, again, “You, dragon,” and he realized that the king was addressing him. He must have ventured out from his hiding place, though one might argue that a dragon cannot very well hide with a body so large. Zorag saw that he was only steps from his dead father. He had intended to say a goodbye, perhaps.

  But he turned to the new king instead.

  “You will take my message to your people,” the new king said. He was young and handsome, with dark hair and eyes that did not miss anything. He strode over to Erell’s body on the ground. “You to your places and I to mine,” the new king said. He lifted Erell’s head, and Zorag roared. The new king waited until Zorag was finished. “Or you shall end up like this dragon.” The new king sliced right through the head of his father, and tossed it in Zorag’s direction.

  Zorag felt the hate burning within him. His throat began to glow.

  “I have magic like the world has never seen,” the new king said. “I will defeat you.”

  And because Zorag was a young dragon, because he did not know so much about magic, only what King Brendon had shown him when he was a prince, Zorag could not say a word in return.

  “Now go,” the new king said. “Tell your people what has happened here. Tell them that if they cross into my land, this shall be their fate.” He pointed his sword toward Erell’s body.

  Zorag roared again. He lifted into the sky.

  “Go away and never come back,” the new king shouted. And this is precisely what Zo
rag did. He took the message to the dragons, what few were left. His mother, alas, was not among them. They never found her body.

  The hatred in Zorag’s heart grew dark and cold. He would never, ever love another human being as long as he lived.

  Unexpected

  MAUDE and the children hide out in the cave that lines the boundary between Morad and the Weeping Woods. They have had no courage to do what must be done—run into the burning forest (though one might agree, this would not be the greatest plan), run for their lives, run back toward the only home they have ever known—and they are, in truth, starving. There has been no water but for the water Maude saved in a jar from the last time Arthur foraged. They have been sharing it, tiny little sips, but they are all weak and tired, and Maude knows they must move out of this place soon. They cannot die in a cave. They must at least try to live. For Arthur.

  She has searched the land from the mouth of the cave, trying to find Arthur. She knows, of course, that searching from the mouth of a cave is not really searching at all, but it is all she can do, for now. Hazel wakes up every morning crying for her father. The girl’s eyes, today, are red-rimmed and purple. Maude is too afraid to cry. She is afraid that if she does cry, it will somehow make his death all the more real. She saw the bodies, so many of them. She had wondered if one of them was Arthur, though she could tell that most of the broken ones upon the ground wore the armor of the king’s guard. Now the bodies have disappeared.

  A whole army destroyed by the fire of dragons. It is quite astounding and, I am sure you will agree, very, very sad. They will not be returning to their families after all, as they had once hoped. How very sad indeed. But where is it the bodies have gone? Could there yet be hope? It is impossible to say for sure.

  The dragons have vanished as well. In all the fire and smoke and tears, Maude and the children did not see where they went. And this is also what stays their flight, what keeps them in the dark cave rather than breaking free and running. They do not want to see the dragons again. They do not want to be consumed, as the king’s men had been. Now that the treaty has been broken, Maude does not know what to expect. The dragons might attack anywhere. The woods have stopped smoking, finally. Perhaps they can move to safety at the day’s end, though the Weeping Woods have not ever been considered safe. But, perhaps, the fire has purified them.

  Maude has not slept in all the hours since the dragon’s attack. She has watched the woods, waiting for them to cool enough so that she and children might have a hope of escaping the dangers that lie in wait at, it seems, every turn. Though one might argue that the king’s men are no longer a threat, for they lay in the dirt and did not rise, and then they vanished. Would anyone see Maude and the children emerging from this boundary cave?

  The children watch the woods with Maude.

  “The fire is out,” says a boy named Chester.

  “Yes,” says Maude. “We must move soon.”

  “But what will we find in the forest?” Hazel says. “Are there not greater dangers inside?”

  It is precisely what Maude has been thinking over these past hours, as she watched the fire dim and the smoke begin to fade. “Yes,” she says. “But it is no different than anywhere else. Danger is all around.”

  The children know she is right. They shiver.

  “Perhaps we should sleep,” Maude says. She pats her daughter’s leg. “We shall need our strength for the flight.”

  So the children stretch out as they have grown accustomed to stretching out, feet touching heads, bodies packed tightly around one another. It is cold in this cave, and they need each other for warmth. At least the woods will hold some warmth from the fire, though it will hold little else. What Maude has not let herself consider is what she and the children will do for food. The woods, you see, have been burned. There is not much life left within. Or is there? One can never really know these things when one lives in a world of magic.

  Maude misses Arthur more than ever. She was never a planner in the way of escape and hiding and staying alive in such a desperate way. It is true that when she lived in the village, she planned her family’s meals and their chores and their magic lessons, even. But she has never planned how to stay hidden from a king who searches. Arthur is the man for that. And Arthur is no longer here.

  But Maude closes her eyes and tries not to think about all the questions that wait to be answered. She tries not to think about the magic that will be needed to keep them safe, though the children are far too weak for magic now. She tries not to think about where they might stay and what they might eat and who might be waiting for them. But it is not easy. No. It is not at all easy. Still, she attempts, closing her eyes, only to watch the thousands of possible outcomes play across the strip of her mind. The children are caught. The children starve. The children are carried off by fairies.

  She has just fallen into a light sleep when Hazel says, “Mother?” Maude startles back awake. “Is it time?”

  Maude looks toward the sky. It has begun to darken. Maude rises from her spot on the ground. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, it is time.”

  The children shuffle to their feet and wait for her instructions. Ursula, the girl with raven-black hair, calls out, “But what shall we do once we get there?” Her voice is high and uncertain, and Maude is rather glad that she cannot see the girl’s face. “The woods are dead. There is nothing left inside.”

  “And our magic is gone,” says the tiny girl, Lina.

  They all look to Maude for their answer, but it has never been Maude who has had all the answers. It has always been Arthur. It has always been his job to figure out what to do next, and she has merely corrected his course a time or two, when she was fairly certain that he had it all wrong. And now it is up to her to figure out what to do, and she does not feel quite cut out for the task.

  But she must. There are too many lives at stake.

  “We shall figure something out,” Maude says, trying to reassure the children with a confidence she does not feel herself. “As we always do.” Hazel nods. She trusts her mother completely, you see. After all, her mother has always cared for her. Why would she stop now, even if her father is gone? She is terribly sad about her father being gone, but the other children have lost both their parents. She tries to think of them, but thinking of others who have lost the ones they love only widens the hole in her heart. She only hopes that she will be able to see her father again. Hazel only hopes she will be able to tell him how much she loves him, in case he did not know before. She only hopes that she will once again feel his arms around her, when they are reunited.

  She does not know that her mother is hoping, right this minute, for the very same things.

  “We shall find a place to live inside the woods,” Maude says. “For a time. And then, when we are stronger, we shall make our journey to Rosehaven, as Arthur wished.”

  “Without father?” Hazel says.

  Maude nods. Her eyes are dry, though she feels quite sad indeed. “Yes. Without your father. He knows where we are going.”

  “And Theo,” Hazel says.

  Maude’s eyes soften. “Yes,” she says, for she, too, feels the great chasm that lies before them. Half their family has been lost. But she does not have time to dwell on those losses as yet. They will keep her from moving forward, and if she and the children are to survive, they must keep moving forward.

  She beckons to the children. “Follow closely behind me,” she says. “We will return to the woods. Do not stop until I do.”

  What Maude does not say to the children is that they are far too weak to travel on a journey as far as Rosehaven. She does not tell them that it will take quite some time to gather enough strength from what they may find to eat in the charred remains of the woods. She does not tell them that they will, in fact, be hiding, once more, in the woods for, perhaps, longer than they expect, for she knows that all of these disappointments would end in only one possibility: The children would run. And in their running, they would scatter. And
in their scattering, they would die.

  And so she does what all mothers do at one time or another: she puts on a brave face and beckons them to follow her, though she knows that either way they go they might meet Death. “We will start over,” Maude says, just before she moves from the cave.

  Soon, they will have run all the way to the middle of the woods, nearly all the way to the other side. They will run until an unexpected sight will cause them to falter in their steps and stop.

  IF one were to look in between the trees that have, miraculously, even now, begun to green up again, one might see a figure limping through the forest, much ahead of the children, so he does not see them and they do not see him. He is a figure clad in dented iron, still shining where all the others were burned and blackened. He is on his way back to the castle.

  Yes, dear reader. It is as you hoped. It is our good captain, Sir Greyson.

  Our hero has survived a battle with the dragons, and now he is on his way to tell the king what has happened. Or perhaps he will stop in to see his mother first. There is no way to know which he will choose, for both possibilities battle in his head, and this part of the forest lies at the edge of the village. He must walk through it to get to his king.

  He walks right past the house of the Enchantress, but he is too torn with grief to notice, too regretful of his order to those brave men who still lie, slain—burned, really—on a battlefield, too angry at the king who was the cause of it all. If the king had not told them to find the children at all costs, Sir Greyson never would have put his men in danger. They would never have died such useless deaths. What was the point of it, after all? They did not have the children. They only had death.

  Death has not been kind. It has left no man standing. No man but he, that is, for he was so far behind his men that when his horse saw the destruction of fire, he threw the captain off his back, and Sir Greyson turned on his heel and fled.