Noble Beginnings

by D. W. Jackson

  There had, indeed, been at least one struggle inside the castle. Dorran followed a trail of bodies and bloodstains down several halls and into several passageways, eventually abandoning his comrades as they fanned out and rising higher and higher towards what had been the Queen's vantage point. When he arrived there, though, he saw only an empty platform, with no indication of which way she had gone.

  He took a moment to survey the battle. From what he could see, the King's forces appeared to be dwindling; there were a few fast-moving blobs that he recognized as horses harrying a band to the east, and a fairly entrenched fight between foot soldiers near the main gate.

  It was as he leaned forward, trying to ascertain more clearly who was gaining and losing ground in that skirmish, that he heard the horn once more shaky, petering off quickly, and coming from somewhere below him.

  Dorran cursed inwardly and took off down the stairs. The signal wasn't much to go on, but it had vaguely suggested that the Queen was trapped somewhere near the underground passages that led to the capital outside the castle. It made a certain amount of sense from the perspective of defensibility, but by the same token, if things went wrong, Thea would be stuck in the tunnels, as trapped as a fox being chased by terriers.

  On his way down, Dorran's toe caught on a step, but he used his other foot to launch himself blindly upwards and forwards and landed on his feet with only a twinge of his ankle to remind him to be more careful.

  On the way down he met more of his own...and then more of the enemy, which he and his comrades, who had appeared following the same noise he was, quickly cut down.

  Then they were at a crossroads near the ground floor of the castle, between two paths, and he wasn't sure whether Thea would have tried to escape from the ground level or through the underground passageway that he thought emerged somewhere in the middle of the capital.

  Then he heard the dim echoes a cry and the clash of metal against metal, and tore down the left-hand passage on instinct.

  And there was his mother, at last. Garbed in armor that had been intended mostly for show, with a plain circlet on her head in place of a crown, she was being protected by three faltering guards from at least five assailants on a small flight of steps down from a side door. There wasn't even time to shake his head at his luck Dorran dove in, stabbing one of the men through a gap in the side of his armor, then barely yanking his sword free while maintaining his grip on it before turning his attention to the second of the five men.

  After striking down the second and rounding on the third, however, he faltered; he was never sure what it was in hindsight, but suspected that a misplaced drop of sweat in his eye mixed the wrong way with the uneven cobblestone footing beside the castle. But in any case, instead of neatly sidestepping the man's blow, it caught him hard in the ribs, crashing noisily and painfully against his mail. He thought he heard a hoarse cry from Thea, but had no time to concentrate; sweeping up his sword, he managed to disarm the man with a single blow, then lifted the tip of his sword to the man's neck. He danced carefully away, and Dorran took a wild swing at him, taking a chunk out of his arm and then lunging once more for good measure. When the man was sprawled and bleeding on the ground, Dorran forgot him and rounded on the last two of his mother's assailants.

  These, however, were already being taken care of by his mother's two guards, so instead he hurried over to Thea, taking her arm.

  "Are you all right?" he asked harshly, and in that moment, it didn't matter that she was the Queen and a woman he had always lived in fear and respect of; she was his mother, standing several inches shorter than he, with her hair tied back from her face in a no nonsense braid and looking slightly ridiculous in armor she was wholly unaccustomed to and could barely move around in. Dorran shook his head at himself, held his mother up by the elbows, and checked all he could see of her.

  "You're unhurt?" he added, his voice gentler this time.

  "Yes. Yes, Dorran, I'm fine," she said, and she couldn't seem to decide whether to sound offended or relieved. "We were attacked…oh, the first wave must have been an hour ago, and they just kept coming."

  He shook his head, taking her arm and indicating the direction they would move in. "You'll probably be safest at the main camp for now," he said. "You had dozens of guards with you, didn't you?"

  "Yes," Thea admitted, "but there were too many men. We ended up splitting up to provide decoys, and then the rest of my guards started getting killed." She frowned, and he felt her try to suppress a shudder. "The man with the horn when they figured out he was the one that had it, they targeted him. One of my younger boys tried to get it back, and succeeded, but shortly after that…"

  "Don't worry about it now," Dorran said automatically. "The most important thing is to get you back to safety. I got a good glimpse of the goings-on on from the balcony while I was looking for you from what I saw, the battles actually almost over, so far as I can tell."

  "It is?" Thea asked breathlessly. "Who's winning?"

  "I'm fairly certain we are," Dorran said. "But then, who wins and who loses is more often decided by Queens and Kings after the fact, isn't it?"

  Thea gave him a halfhearted smile. "Perhaps."

  They were quiet after that, continuing at a steady pace in the direction of the tents in the square. They almost ran across a few more skirmishes on the way there, but Dorran quietly guided Thea around these, and soon enough they arrived back in the camp.

  It was still deserted except for the healers, the injured, and those dragging the latter to the former. Seeing this, Dorran escorted Thea to the safest place he could think of the center of the healers' tent and made sure she was comfortable.

  "You're going to be safe here, Your Majesty," he said. "I'm going to go see if I can help finish up with the fighting, with your leave."

  "Of course," Thea said quickly, but as he turned to go, she placed a quick hand on his shoulder. "Dorran."

  He paused and turned around, but was shocked when she suddenly put her arms around him.

  "My brave, brave boy," she whispered, voice low and quick. "My son, I am so very proud of you, and it would do your father proud to see you fighting for Farlan and for me."

  After a moment, Dorran returned her embrace, quick and tight, and then knelt before her. "I'll be back when the fighting is over. Stay safe, Your Majesty."

  He clasped his mother's hands one last time, then turned around and departed.

  As much as the battle had seemed close to ending from the high vantage point of the castle, from the ground the fighting seemed endless. Dorran quickly lost track of the hours as he hacked and stabbed and parried. Three days of this had worn him down farther than he would have believed possible. He couldn't imagine how his father and grandfather had survived this for years.

  Soon enough, the haze of exhaustion, lifted temporarily by his encounter with Thea, came back with a vengeance, and Dorran imagined himself as nothing more than a puppet moving his arms and legs in a preconceived dance, leaving death and injury behind him wherever he went. Evening began to creep over the capital, but Dorran simply corrected for the drop in visibility and continued on.

  When the first man lowered his sword to the ground and knelt with his hands atop his head, Dorran was only dimly confused, but instinct kept him from attacking anyone who didn't appear to be an immediate threat. Soon, though, all the enemy soldiers were kneeling in this nonthreatening position. Even then, it took Dorran several more seconds of staring blankly at his fellow soldiers to realize what it meant.

  "Bind their wrists!" he heard someone yelling. "The Queen orders that no man who surrenders be killed or injured! Bind their wrists and add them to a line!"

  Indeed, Dorran could see, such lines were already forming strings of haggard-looking men with everything from bandages to bootlaces binding their wrists shuffling off toward the dungeons. Dorran was certain they had not seen so much use in generations.

  He miraculously found a clean spot on his under tunic and cleaned and sh
eathed his blade for the first time in hours. Then he looked down disbelievingly at his own grimy, scraped, bloody hands.

  They had won. The King's men had just surrendered. They had won!

  Something deep inside Dorran felt like jumping up and down and yelling in exultation, but his body had no energy left for such an exercise. Indeed, he could barely bring himself to meet the eyes of his comrades as he began the long walk back to the main camp at the front of the town. As he walked, part of him kept a sharp eye out for any signs of yet to be captured prisoners or still armed enemies, but he found no evidence of any. Instead, as he made his slow way along, he found that something inside him he had not even realized was wound tight began to loosen. He became consciously aware of aches and pains for the first time, those of multiple days stacked atop each other, and most annoyingly of all, the world took on a slow, unbalancing spin as he continued. The second time he barely avoided colliding with a wall that seemed to loom up out of nowhere, he stopped and examined his body with his eyes and hands as best he could. Aside from a few bruises and a cut or two that were too deep for comfort, he found nothing alarming, so he eventually put the dizziness down to exhaustion and continued stumbling slowly back to camp.

  However, he was waylaid on his way back. First Marcus, then Iain, found him and insisted on supporting him and lending him their water skins for the rest of the short trek. He found their help mildly irritating at first, but as the water took effect and the world began to clear slightly, he became slightly amused by the awe on their faces. He found that their joy at their victory helped to awaken his own.

  And the closer he came to the healers' tent, the more familiar faces he saw. There was Kell, looking for the most part unharmed and wandering like a caged animal from person to person, looking for something to do; there was Tam, with a bandage wrapped around one ear and engaged in an animated argument with one of the Queen's old unmarked guards about what was to be done with the prisoners, judging by their gesticulations; there was Lord Goldwood with his arm in a sling, clapping a hand on the shoulder of his young nephew in greeting while Lady Aiken, apparently visiting in celebration of their victory, fawned over them both. He caught a glimpse of Den, the boy who had been injured during the initial assassination attempt on Thea, swinging around the tent with a pair of crutches, running errands for Berta. There were many faces missing, too, ones that he felt as a roiling hollow in his gut more than he consciously considered he noticed, dimly, a group of soldiers, young and old alike, standing around the unmoving body of Vernis with stern faces but every living face he saw, filled with sorrow or joy alike, helped to rekindle something in his soul that the siege, without his knowledge, had begun to put out.

  There, he saw was Thea herself, holding a pile of bandages and following Berta around, somehow looking both perfectly regal and utterly out of her element at the same time. And then...

  "Brother!" He heard two nearly identical squeals and disentangled himself from Marcus and Iain with a smile of thanks; two seconds later, he was being embraced by one sister on either side, their arms tight with joy and relief.

  "Addie, Nora," he whispered, holding them close.

  It's over, he thought, stunned. The words felt almost impossible, even in his head, but he also knew somehow that they were undeniably true.

  “We're free.”

  CHAPTER XXII

  Dorran was among the soldiers who spent the evening dozing close to the healer's tent, which was so overrun that patients and well wishers alike slept mixed together outside, looking out for each other. He spent much of the next day patrolling the capital's borders with a small group of the Guard, while most of the rest of the capital's defenders worked on dismantling the outside bases and fortifications. Runners sped back and forth for the duration of the day, communicating the terms of Thea's victory to the tiny remnant of enemy soldiers that were angling to be released to the border without more violence.

  Dorran was kept very busy in the few days after the battle. There was word to be sent everywhere as the residual chaos of battle was swept away families to reconnect to fighters, dead to be honored, injured to be considered, food stores to be rationed, and other miscellaneous news flitting about everywhere. Dorran himself had received dozens of letters of admiration from both noble and common families, and had no idea what to do with them all he figured he'd ask Myriel for her guidance when some of the furor died down.

  In all the chaos, though, he'd almost forgotten about the prisoners still held below the castle. It wasn't until Thea summoned him and asked him for his opinion that he remembered they were below his feet. He asked Thea to give him a day to consider the issue, and after spending a few hours considering it from his room, walked down to the dungeons to see the problem for himself.

  It turned out that the question of what to do with the prisoners was a bit more multifaceted than he'd anticipated. While most of the guards were stoic about their work watching the enemy soldiers, many were bitter towards their wards for the time and resources they now sapped from the country they'd tried to destroy. Aside from their injuries to be treated and the threat of further damage to the castle they posed should escape attempts be made, they were also eating food that Farlan could barely afford to spare them. Dorran could see why Thea had asked him for his opinion, and settled in to gather as much information as he could.

  The men in the cells watched him warily as he walked down the halls of the dungeon with a few of the guards, talking over the problems of the prisoners in low but confident voices. Their eyes were drawn to the brand on his forehead, but few of them seemed willing to meet his eye.

  Apparently, a few attempts had been made to question the men, but there was nothing for them to reveal, save what they already suspected: that they were the only force the King had been able to spare. More importantly, the soldiers were a mixed group, some of them were young and full of spirit and loyalty, and others old and locked in their loyalty to the King, but many had joined his army under the demands of poverty, unwanted duty, or force. Most of them were despairing, knowing that they were trapped in enemy territory with little hope of escape and not much to gain even beyond it.

  Dorran tried talking to some of the men himself, but they were inclined not to listen to him because of his youth and then, after one of the more irritable guards took to shouting, because he was the son of the Queen. Dorran admitted to himself that he would have to tell Her Majesty that solving the problem of the prisoners would take time and promise to work towards a solution.

  He was on his way out when a finger tapped at his sleeve. Startled, he quickly turned to face the owner of the reaching hand, a young man with a long face, sandy brown hair, and a slightly devilish expression.

  "What?" he asked flatly, still trying to recover his dignity.

  "Sorry, sir," the man said pleasantly, though Dorran couldn't shake the feeling he was amused and just being polite. "I wanted to ask you something'. My name is Lem, by the way. I was one of His Majesty's soldiers, which I am sure you guessed already."

  Dorran stared at him, surprised, but the display of civility was a welcome change and he found himself saying, "All right, Lem, I can take a minute. What was it you wanted to ask me?"

  "Well, maybe more than one question," Lem admitted with a sheepish but knowing grin. "I've heard some good things indeed about your queen, however short her reign, and I'm curious. You're the captain of the guard, aren't you?"

  "How do you know that?" Dorran asked.

  "Well, I'm actually from one of the more distant Kingdoms," Lem replied. "We don't see much of the places like Farlan over there, so I've read about more of you lot than I've seen. Still, I know about the tradition of branding the forehead of servants, and I saw the flag of Farlane. It wasn't hard to put the two together.

  "As for 'Captain of the Guard,' well..." He grinned shiftily. "I wasn't sure, but call it a lucky guess."

  Dorran found himself grinning back, surprised. There was more than one thing odd about th
is fellow, but he found himself taking a genuine shine to the fellow remarkably quickly.

  "So, why are you in the King's army, then?" he asked, trying for stern but falling, he suspected, slightly short.

  "Well..." Lem chewed on his lip. "My family was coming close to starvin', and where I'm from, givin' up a boy can mean quite a bit of gold. Actually," he added, leaning forward and speaking in a lower voice, "I'd not be surprised if most of these lads were the same way. You know?"

  Dorran nodded. "Yes, I do. I'm trying to figure out what to do with you all."

  "I was wondering, actually," the man said in an offhand way. "This Guard's pretty newly formed, right? What does it take to be a member?"

  Dorran blinked, then gave the man a long look up and down, being sure to take in the prison bars and his ragged Kingdoms uniform.

  Lem laughed a little at that. "Fair enough, sir. I don't suppose you could take a fellow on a trial see how loyal he can prove to be?"

  Dorran raised an eyebrow at the man. "I'll think about it," he said, then swept away before he could show any more accidental good humor to the man.

  It was a thought, though, Dorran mused as he walked back down the hall and saw men brooding in corners, men singing to themselves, and men talking about everything and nothing and wondering what supper would be. He wouldn't be able to trust them right away, of course, but he could still give them the option, just as Thea had for her would be assassins. Only this time, with his mother's permission, he could offer them a new opportunity, if they were loyal and willing: a chance to wear the two moons on their foreheads, and serve Farlan and her Queen.

  EPILOGUE

  "Queen's Guard Captain! Open the gates!"

  The cry echoed over Dorran's head as he sat astride his mount, looking up at the newly repaired gates to the capital of Farlan. He watched the newly forged metal portcullis lift ponderously into the chill winter sky, then nudged his horse forward and past the city's outer walls.