by Candy Rae
Robain’s brother Ansell remained as a serving officer in the Argyllian Navy. He was a Captain assiduous and famous for destroying privateers, especially slavers and ex-slavers. He became Admiral of the Navy at the age of forty-five.
* * * * *
Robain’s sister Aline lives on the family farm on the Island of Hallam with Padrig, the farm where she, with Robain, Liam and Ansell were brought up.
She is a farmer’s wife, as her mother was before her. Padrig has become a respected member of the island government, a government free of the priests who used to rule it.
Aline and Padrig have a troupe of children.
No privateer ever attacks the Island of Hallam. It is know that it is the home of the sister of the Admiral and not even the bravest Privateer Captain would dare attempt it.
Aline and Padrig never leave the island. They refuse every invitation.
They are free and safe. Their children are free and safe.
The four damaged Larg who accompanied them to Hallam live with the Padrig family. This might also have something to do with the reluctance of any privateer to attack the island. Even four not quite whole Larg are formidable opponents when their anger is up.
* * * * *
Julia
Julia and Alyei remained as Susa of the Vada until old age, accompanied by the joint-ache forced them to retire in AL 638. Julia was eighty-two and Alyei eighty-five. They were the longest serving Susas.
Their names can be seen on the honour boards in the Inner Sanctum above the names of Charles and Wlya, the Susa duo who succeeded them.
Julia and Alyei’s names are also inscribed in bright silver leaf on the small, dark board that sits above the entrance door. They are in prestigious company; the only other four names are the other two Susyc, Jim and Larya then Lynsey and Bernei.
Their names were added after their deaths, Julia especially wishing to forget her months as Susyc when she led the Armies of the North to a war that few thought they would win. She had led just under two thousand vadeln-pairs with her and Alyei to the southern continent and less than thirteen hundred returned to Vada.
It was Julia, who after the battle, decided that every vadeln who had been there should wear a bronze Honour Star, a new award and which became known as ‘Julia’s Star’. Before this the only gallantry awards within the Vada were the ‘Silver Star’, awarded on very rare occasions for acts of supreme sacrifice and courage and the ‘Black Star’, a posthumous award sent to the next of kin of all vadeln pairs who had died on active service.
The Bronze Star is smaller than either the Silver Star or the Black Star. It looks more like a stud and is very discreet.
No Silver Stars were awarded during the campaign in the southern continent. As Julia informed Field Marshall Bruce Johnson Jones, all members of the Vada were equally deserving, even the young cadets and old vadelns. Some might have fought more bravely and desperately that others but they had all fought and all had been prepared to lay down their lives for the greater good.
The graves in the war cemetery are testament to this.
The Field Marshall had wanted an exchange of medals between Garda and Vada.
Politely but with much firmness, she had said no, telling him that in her opinion medals were a glorification of war and that war was not a glorious business. She had been eyeing the strips of colour on his chest as she said this with barely concealed contempt.
And that was that, bluster the Field Marshall might, she would not be moved. The Vada agreed with her, they had fought, bled and died and that was an end to it.
Julia and Alyei died in AL 642.
Their beloved Vada continued to prosper in the years that followed, defending those they had sworn to protect and helping those in need from disasters natural and unnatural.
Some might say that there is no longer any need for the Vada but they are few and far between.
The vadeln of the Vada hope that there will never be another war but know that the universe is a big place and nothing is certain in this world or the next.
* * * * *
Danal
For as long as he lived, Danal never forgot Tala Talansdochter but in time the ache within him eased and he began to enjoy life again. It did not happen overnight. For months images of her, the feel of her haunted his dreams, and he woke, crying out her name and shivering.
Danal had always been a bit of a philanderer, flitting like a flutterby from one attractive girl to the next, then he and Tala had found each other and lifelong happiness was, he had thought, within his grasp.
He entered into a depression that even Asya could not break. He became un-talkative, morose and his friends began to avoid him.
Grainne stood by him, coped with the depressive spells and allowed him to talk, which was not often, about his loss.
When he ordered her to go away she refused, when he uttered spiteful words she ignored them, arriving back at his daga the next day as if nothing had happened.
Eventually the depression began to lift and the low times became fewer and shorter.
He was well enough the next year to join in the celebrations that marked the birth of Asya and Inalei’s first lin (litter), three fine, strong ltsctas who all resembled their dam.
Even when Asya named the little female Talaya he didn’t break down although he had thought he would. He watched her tumble around with her brothers with doting eyes, quite as if he was the father and not Inalei. The two little males Asya named Danei and Padei, the latter being her favourite name.
Shortly after the birth Danal began to take a real interest in life again and he began to see Grainne, to really see at her as a person, the young woman who had stood by him during the last terrible months when he had believed that he might lose his sanity. He realised he owed her a great debt. He also realised that he liked her and that this liking was not of a platonic nature.
But he was not ready to fall in love with someone else and he told her so. Grainne only smiled, told him that it did not matter and said that if he had no objections she would remain at the daga with him, Asya, Inalei and the ltsctas. After all, she pointed out, she had nowhere else to go and she knew that he liked to have her close by; someone who had known Tala, who had been there.
The years passed and Grainne blossomed into beautiful womanhood. Many men fancied her, asked her to walk out with them, some even proposed marriage but she refused them all until one day Danal put his grief behind him, took her in his arms and kissed her. Grainne’s wait was over.
The love that they had for each other was nevertheless very real, not the wild passion that Danal had experienced with Tala. It was one of enduring love and respect.
They had a lot of children, Grainne, born in the slave pens of Sahara had never had a family of her own. She made up for it now.
Their daga was large, noisy and full of laughter and Grainne made sure Danal was kept too busy to sink back into depression again.
Danal and Asya did not go back to serve with the Avuzdel. They accepted Susa Julia and Alyei’s offer of a training post within the Stronghold teaching weapons work and he succeeded Jilmis as Weaponsmaster of the Vada when the old man was at last persuaded to retire.
Danal died in AL 640 and was survived by Grainne and all of his children.
Grainne herself lived on for another twenty years, a loved matriarch of, by that time, an extremely large extended family.
She is buried in the Vada graveyard, in the same grave as Danal, Asya and Inalei.
* * * * *
Rilla
Rilla and Zawlei continued to serve with the Vada.
Neither of them formed permanent attachments with one of their own kind. This was often the case when a Lind and a human became vadeln-paired. The two of them felt that there was no need for anyone else in their lives. They were content with each other.
In AL 618 she and Zawlei were promoted to the rank of Vadryza with the First Ryzck and seven years later became Ryzcka of the Thirty-ninth.
The two of them served all over the northern continent and beyond - along the coasts of Argyll and Vadath defending the inhabitants from the pirates - in the mountains, patrolling the area against the gtran, the wral and the bandits - in the rtathlians of the Lind, providing escorts for travellers and members of the Holad who travelled peripatetically providing medical care.
They also led the Thirty-ninth Ryzck to one of the larger islands in the Great Eastern Sea when in AL 628 the pirates and privateers, harried by the Argyllian Navy set aside their differences and formed a fleet to begin an organised campaign of raids on the islands.
Thus was the Vada kept busy after the war.
She didn’t forget about her family.
She and Zawlei were frequent visitors to Zala and Matt’s home at Stewarton where the children and later the grandchildren loved their Auntie Rilla and regarded Zawlei as a giant furry plaything.
She also visited her parents at Dunetown but she never felt very comfortable there. There were too many ghosts and memories and although her father had forgiven his daughter for what he had once chosen to see as her desertion of the family, he seemed to blame her, in some illogical, indefinable way for the deaths of half of his children in the war. Her mother was always happy to see her.
She kept in touch with Zilla, by letter for the most part although she and Zawlei did spend an extended long leave with her and her family in one of the royal manors in the Duchy of Brentwood.
Shona and Danei, her friends from day one at Vada met as often as their duties allowed. Shona was hurt during a fight with the crew of a privateer in AL 621 and was forced to resign from active ryzck duties. The two of them joined the Express Service and spent many years delivering messages, letters and packages throughout the northern continent, travelling even as far as Talastown.
Rilla’s other friend Toinette, who was married to her old flame Charles stayed at Vada, where she was like, Danal, on the permanent staff.
Duncin and Stasya with whom she and Zawlei had fought during the Battle of Duchesne never returned to their Supply Station.
Duncin was considered a great hero by the inhabitants of Duchesne. He had been the one who had rallied their levies and who had taken over the recapture and defence of their part of the ridge when their Duke and his son had been killed.
He and Stasya became the first Vadathian Ambassadors to the Court of Murdoch.
They died there in AL 623. At his own request, he and Stasya were buried at the edge of the war cemetery in Duchesne close to their brothers and sisters.
The Vada is of course, like one very large, extended family and no one even thought of raising an objection.
Rilla outlived her sister Zilla by some years. As was usual, on their retirement, she and Zawlei left Vada for Zawlei’s home rtathlians.
There, amongst the woods that circle the domta, the two of them spent the evening of their lives amongst his rtathen.
* * * * *
The Power-Core
It took many years to excavate the hulk of the WCCS Argyll, the spaceship that had brought half of the human colonists to Rybak, thus indirectly saving the planet from the Dglai.
If, six centuries ago James Rybak had not found the planet on his star maps there would have been no way the Lai, the Lind and the Larg could have destroyed the Ammokko.
The Dglai would have won.
The resting place of the Argyll is under marshland a few miles distant from Settlement. There the engineers from the Technicians Guild worked hard for years to dig down into the cloying, seething mud to reach her, often delving only a few inches at a time, shoring up the hole with painstaking patience. The pumps worked day and night to keep the deep hole open and relatively mud-free.
Eventually the engineers had dug deep enough to reach the hull. Using plans for the ship found in the print-outs they then cut through the hull (thriftily removing the metal) and entered the mud-filled interior, the pump hoses sucking greedily at the black slime and dragging it back to the surface (it made very good fertiliser).
Slowly but surely the intrepid guildsmen and women made their slow way to the engine room and located the power-core, undamaged in its cocoon of see-through housing. With care, they removed it (and its connecting wires) and placed it in a box.
They left the Argyll. The pumps were shut down and an eerie silence filled the air where the steady thrumming and banging of the pump rotors had been working for so long.
One of the Lai, Aniku was his name, took the box containing the power-core and flew away with it to the other continent where it would be kept safe … just in case.
Without the pumps the marsh mud began to seep back into the spaces.
There the Argyll lies to this day.
* * * * *
Niaill
Niaill and Taraya had been surprised and honoured to be chosen as 2IC Vada.
After the war the Vada numbers were very much reduced and he worked with Julia helping her make sure that Vada responsibilities were upheld.
He attended King Elliot and Queen Zilla’s wedding at Fort, taking the opportunity to begin the formal peace negotiations between Vadath and Murdoch and where he met Robain again. The two became very close friends.
When he returned to Vadath he performed what he always considered his saddest duty as 2IC.
In his bold and clear script, the product of this duty can be seen to this day. He wrote down, in ‘The Book of the Fallen’, the names of all those who had been killed during the war and a resume of their lives.
Niaill filled page after page. He often cried as he wrote and had to be careful that his tears did not blot the pages. The tears flowed strongest when he came to those of the members of the First Ryzck, the men, women and Lind who he and Taraya had commanded, Deby and Alfei, Berni and Dansya, Megan and Sachdei.
It was good that Niaill had a tidy mind, as 2IC Vada he had to do a lot of paperwork.
His wife Nadala and he had four children, all four of who became vadeln-paired.
The families (Niaill and Nadala’s, Taraya and Teriyei’s) often visited the mound close to Vada where they would picnic. They were often accompanied by Danal, Grainne, their family and the ltsctas of Asya and Inalei.
There he showed them Kolyei and Tara Sullivan’s message behind the stone dedicated to Jim and Larya. He explained to them that this was where it had all started - of how as a little boy he had found her message and of how it had led him and Taraya to the domta of the Gtrathlin when he and Taraya had found the Boton.
“We owe them a great debt. If I hadn’t seen this and remembered it I would not have known that Taraya and I must go to warn the Gtrathlin. Then things might well have been very different, because of her, there was time for us to do something, time to find the means to destroy the Dglai, to muster the armies and to stop the Larg.
“What does it say?” asked Delia, daughter of Danal and Grainne. “Will you read it to me?”
“I don’t need to read it,” he answered his niece. “It is ingrained in my memory.”
‘If danger dire dost thrive.
And north and south fight to survive,
Look ye to the west,
Where at our behest,
As Mariya was solemnly bidden,
Gtrathlin evermore keep hidden,
Deep inside the ground,
Answers may be found.’
‘TS and K’
When he retired from active duty, he and Nadala, Teriyei and Taraya said their goodbyes and departed west, to the other continent where his friend, the Lai Haru now resided in an honourable retirement of his own.
There he visited the grave of Tara and Kolyei, the first ever vadeln pair and thanked them for what they had done. Her foresight and writings had saved them all. He breathed in the dalina blossoms that covered their grave.
“Thank you Tara and Kolyei.”
The wind swirled around him, carrying with it a thank you of its own.
Rybak, Planet Wolf, was at peace.
* *
* * *
REUNION
A SHORT STORY
Danal, Elliot, Julia, Niaill, Rilla, Robain, Zilla and Friends
It started out as a small idea. Niaill had decided that it would be good for his elder brother Danal to have a holiday and where better than on one of the islands on the Island Chain where a number of hotels were being built?
In fact, Niaill had planned it as a birthing-day surprise for Danal. He knew of Danal’s great friendship with Philip Ross, the Lord Marshall of Murdoch and he had written to him, inviting him to the island during the first two tendays of Lokrhed, in AL 622.
Like many good ideas, it did not remain a secret between the three of them for long and Niaill’s idea of a small, private get-together had escalated into one of grandiose proportions.
Philip told Robain who told Elliot. They thought it a wonderful idea and decided to go too. Zilla heard about it and wrote to her sister Rilla, who told others.
After much letter writing and messages sent to and fro, no less than thirty-eight individuals were planning to make up the party.
The royal ship, the Tala tacked into the new built harbour one fine summer day.
On board was the contingent from Murdoch, some royal, others not but all knew or knew of the members of the contingent from Vadath. Everyone on board was intent on enjoying their vacation and the adults were looking forward to making the re-acquaintance of friends they had not seen for fourteen years.