Fallen Queen (Mariposa Book 1)

by Y. R. Shin

  When she recalled the frustration, fatigue, and the following fury when she’d been abandoned in the middle of a field with even Den confiscated, she became overcome with a desire to grab and twist the neck of that young Chesa right this instant. But instead of slandering Jacalrin along with Evinbur, she asked something she had been wondering about for a while. “You said that the mission will commence tonight, so I wonder if I could hear about the plan a little, sir. It seems like the reason we are headed to Olzore is…not to take the fort. Is that true, sir?”

  Evinbur pulled the ends of his tightly shut lips under the white mustache. “Why do you not think so?”

  “If the purpose was to take Olzore, I believe an army of less than ten thousand would not suffice at all, sir.”

  “We cannot take Fort Olzore because we have less than ten thousand men?”

  “Thirty thousand soldiers of Dalgdaton could not pass it, and neither could Tetan during Orope’s rein with fifty thousand soldiers. To be honest, I do believe that a war is inherently a match of numbers, but there are exceptions. Olzore is one of them. The headcount of soldiers is a number irrelevant before Fort Olzore, so I would think the same even if we had a hundred thousand.”

  Evinbur had been studying Reuyen’s face with his rather sharp eyes that clearly bore the marks of time. “Indeed. This is not something I enjoy talking about, but not only did Dalgdaton and Tetan fall before it, but also the last queen of Rarkalia, who once swept the battlefields, so one could most definitely say that the fort is impregnable. But it is something Sir Calandok knows as well as you, Dame. Taking Fort Olzore is not a part of our strategy in these urgent times, so do not worry, if you were.”

  Rarkalia.

  Looking down at the floor, her face pale, Reuyen pressed on her trembling eyelids. It had been a while since she had heard those syllables. Her stomach churned. She quietly chewed over his words. Yes, not Olzore. Her throat tingled, as though a piece of bone had slowly made its way up and was pressing down on her uvula.

  The devil’s fort that no one could dare to covet still stood strong.

  Suddenly, the snicker of Guitella, the king of Olzore, who’d ridiculed the queen, echoed in her ear. He had declared to the queen, with derision: Rarke will never pass Olzore.

  He had kept that damned promise even after his death. That was somewhat impressive. She broke into laughter. Then she suddenly froze.

  Lowering your guard.

  She sank into self-disgust.

  The old knight, full of energy, very much unlike his age, crossed his arms like the upright man he was and snuck a look at Reuyen’s face, which was growing pale. He couldn’t read what was going on underneath that odd reaction. After gazing at her for a while, he turned his head to watch the soldiers running around the camp. His stoic, dark-brown eyes overflowed with deep affection.

  At last, this good-natured old knight clicked his tongue, murmuring, “Oh, dear,” upon seeing a young soldier stumbling on a rock and falling. It was like his own kin had fallen.

  “By the way, how old are you?” Evinbur asked Reuyen.

  “I just reached twenty-two, sir.”

  “Twenty-two. Best time in one’s life, and yet this young lady is spending her days here for a reason only the heavens know.”

  At a loss of what to say, Reuyen faintly smiled. Evinbur gazed at Reuyen’s light mahogany-colored eyes, now dull like they had lost their light, then smiled good-heartedly when their eyes met. He walked away with his hands clasped behind his back.

  Using the stars as a compass, the covert movement began. An unprecedented tension overlaid the soldiers as even their lungs filled with resolution.

  “Come out,” ordered Sir Seisen Verohan, barging into Reuyen’s tent without an explanation.

  Already dressed in the light armor and brassard she’d received, as though she had been waiting for this, Reuyen quietly followed Seisen outside. Then she mounted Den, who had been tied to the fence, and walked past the silent tents. All around her the camp was quiet and still in the deep night.

  “Do you not need to see your brother?”

  The distrustful question shook the night air. Reuyen was not unaware of why he was trying to disguise himself in kindness.

  “I’m fine, sir,” Reuyen calmly answered.

  Even if she wasn’t fine, nothing good would come out of seeing the fuming Sidan in the near future. She was fairly anxious about not being able to stay back to watch over him, but she was content with him no longer being at the front. She neither had the right nor the intent to complain anymore.

  A booming shout pierced the camp. “To formation!”

  Reuyen arrived at the point of departure and swallowed a moan as her heart pounded at the sight of the myriad soldiers lined up.

  She could feel the bare heat of the night’s tension against her skin. There were more soldiers in their formation than she could count. Estimating through the dark, it seemed like a little short of ten thousand. In front of them stood Evinbur, Jacalrin, Paseid, and hundreds of other fierce knights she did not know the names of.

  Seeing Seisen take his place in the rear, Reuyen steered Den to the group of knights-in-training, then joined the group of knights in the front at Evinbur’s call.

  “Forward!”

  By the time the moon came from behind the clouds and started to reveal its yellow right cheek, the flag held reverently in both the bannerman’s hands stirred the air, slicing through the wind. Thousands of feet aligned in rows and columns hit the ground.

  Reuyen slowly spurred Den’s steps, matching their speed. In the faraway front of the long parade, a man on a graceful black horse exuded a quiet but pronounced presence and overwhelmed those following him.

  A man in pitch black, just like someone in her deep memories.

  Brionake’s black color blended into the darkness like a shadow on ebony. The only colors visible on the man’s reliable back were the red wolf mantle worn over his uniform and…a sword so white it seemed it still kept the day’s sunlight the night had held back.

  The soldiers lined up long like a snake noiselessly walked, following the white shade.

  Booooooo—

  Hearing the short but intense cry of the ivory horn encouraging the march, Reuyen moved her unwilling feet into step with the others.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The march continued for days.

  The first five days of the mission to circumvent Olzore-Tolf were assigned to crossing the flat forests and fields on the edge of Galabua at a facile speed. But when they reached uneven ground on the fourth day, the speed of the nearly ten thousand soldiers started to slowly decrease.

  Nevertheless, Reuyen patiently followed Evinbur without a single complaint. The warmhearted Evinbur, much like an old neighbor of a great stature, thought highly of her doing so. Even so, that was not her intention.

  But there was a time for everything. Except for the times when he had an occasional meeting with Paseid, meal times, and when she went to the toilet, Evinbur did not allow Reuyen to leave his sight. Though it was quite an inconvenience, Reuyen accepted her lack of freedom without another word.

  After two more days, a steep and rocky mountain range revealed itself in the far, far distance. Jacalrin yawned. He was bored after tirelessly running back and forth along the cavalcade and assisting Paseid’s command. He stretched uncomfortably in his armor, found Reuyen standing next to Evinbur, and sneakily steered his horse to walk alongside them.

  “You’re doing pretty well.”

  Reuyen remembered Evinbur’s presence right next to her and tried to answer as politely as possible. “How hard could being on a horse be for the daughter of a horse dealer, sir?”

  “You should be on your guard now. Sir Haldroff, has this girl said anything weird yet?”

  “Address her as Dame Detua, Sir Chesa.”

  “Please, she doesn’t even know the code of chivalry. Simply putting on a brassard doesn’t make someone a knight.”

  “Ahem.�
�

  “It’s all right, sir. Sir Chesa is right.”

  Reuyen returned all of Jacalrin’s dispassionate answers with feigned, formal chuckles.

  In truth, she was not in a relaxed enough state to react to all of the young Chesa’s benign teasing. So, she ignored the other senior knights who were staring their eyes off at her as well.

  She was already doing her very best trying not to let the others know of her stomach churning more and more with each step she took toward Olzore.

  Jacalrin leaned his head toward her to stare at her face, which was slowly becoming more dismal, then spurred his horse.

  “Sir Haldroff, we’ll soon arrive at the rough lands,” he said. “There will be another order once the scouts return, so I’ll return to my post as well.”

  “Goodbye, then, sir,” said Reuyen.

  Jacalrin looked one last time at her oddly scrunched up face, then galloped to the front.

  “Do you have a stomachache?” Evinbur asked. “You don’t look so well.”

  Reuyen barely managed to answer. “I’m all right, sir.”

  As the distance to Olzore shortened, her facial muscles stiffened on their own and her trembling tension intensified. Thousands of thoughts she could not pronounce out loud passed through her mind. She could barely hold herself, to the point that Evinbur noticed it and looked at her with questioning eyes.

  A woman who was the daughter of a horse dealer and who performed all kinds of tricks on horseback getting sick while riding a horse must have been an odd sight indeed. But Reuyen didn’t even have the energy to explain. She felt a dull pain somewhere inside her lungs, like she was breathing in water. Her heart grew heavier with each step she took, as though she were gathering the memories she had strenuously cast aside and storing them back in her heart.

  All the while, the black horse with his rider on his back was standing aloof. Looking so proud, like they had nothing to fear on their way to Olzore.

  Myriad sensations that stemmed from the pointless memories tightened their constraints on her wrists, ankles, and the entirety of her back. That strange feeling that slowly fogged her senses as she marched for the past week without resting reached its peak when the clouds started to reveal the shadows of Olzore Valley on the other side.

  The valley of the devil showed itself in the distance, stretching its vertical jaws. Its dark eeriness, which had swallowed thousands of Rarkian corpses along with the queen’s grudge, revealed itself.

  “We’ll enter the valley by tomorrow.”

  Reuyen tightened her hands into a fist at Evinbur’s murmur.

  Was she frightened, or had her hatred spread its roots and pinned her here? She kept whipping the blameless Den, who kept stopping like he could read his master’s mind.

  Thankfully, Paseid gave an order not long after.

  “We will spend the night here, and tomorrow afternoon, we will pass through the area of Olzore’s influence at our maximum speed. Make sure to get enough rest and prepare yourselves.”

  Reuyen looked at the back of Paseid, who was restlessly looking at the soldiers. Finding her somewhat sharp eyes staring at him, Jacalrin twisted to look at her.

  The valley.

  Reuyen then saw the image of the steep and rough valley that protected Olzore before her eyes. She pulled down her eyelids.

  Still, with the crystal-clear image lingering on the back of her eyelids, she remembered the archenemy she could not defeat.

  The tents of the army of nearly fifty thousand standing below the steep hill leading into Olzore Valley were filled with the smell of death and despair.

  It had been a year and a half since the queen’s army set up a camp there. It had been just about as long since the beacon of the immense fort towering over them started to disrupt their sleep. The valley reeked of blood all the time, and the smell of ashes covered the stench.

  The blue butterfly flag hung limp, having lost the help of the wind, over the tent made of hundreds of marten skins in the center of the camp. The knights and soldiers who could not retire to their beds even this late at night lined up in front of the tent and listened to the furious voice coming from inside, not knowing what to do.

  “Say that again, Peijak.”

  “He’s dead, Your Highness.”

  “Dead?”

  “Dead.”

  “Sir Cananso is dead?”

  The slim pen the queen was holding broke into pieces.

  “We retrieved the body, Your Highness.”

  “Bring that damned Baganteo this instant.”

  Her blue eyes flashed with rage, deterring the others from even daring to look into them. His sister, who remained composed at most news, was responding more aggressively than usual. But as the times were what they were, Peijak understood her wrath without being taken aback. A small part of him pitied Sir Baganteo, who most likely would die before the night ended.

  Sir Baganteo had lost his men in a shameful way that could not be redeemed at this time, so he would not be able to save himself from the queen’s wrath in any shape or form. But Peijak did not like his beloved sister being in a bad mood. He decided to appease the queen’s rage for a personal reason.

  “But three of our brigades avoided total defeat thanks to him, so soothe your anger a little bit, Your Highness.”

  “Avoided total defeat? Nothing compares to the degree of shame he has brought by running away and leaving his men to die! He dared to come back alive after letting every single one of the men assigned to him be massacred! If that damn bastard hadn’t fled, we wouldn’t have had to deal with such preposterous indignity! How those bastards will laugh at me!”

  The queen’s furious voice shook the tent.

  Only for two and a half days. She’d entrusted the strategies to them for merely two days because she was experiencing extreme fatigue during her monthly bleeding. She had been taking care of the camp not too far away from the valley, leaving them be for only two and a half days, and a commander had panicked when the enemy used that opportunity to ambush. He had haphazardly retreated, leaving his army behind.

  The result were mounds of bodies of her men. Her beloved knight of House Cananso had died at the blow of an enemy’s iron mace. Naturally, she was irate.

  Peijak’s sunken blue eyes looked down at a forty-five-degree angle. The life of a knight hung by a thread at the tips of her trembling fingers.

  “As you know, Your Highness, great fury does not aid in uplifting the spirits of the men. Sir Baganteo has taken his armor off and is asking to atone for his wrong, so what do you say to deciding his punishment at daybreak?”

  The queen knew that her aggravation was more than necessary. She also knew that the knights were lined up outside her tent, frightened by her fury.

  She scrunched her lips as she banged the table with her fist.

  “I am stripping away Sir Baganteo’s titles. He will be demoted to a laborer come morning.”

  Baganteo was a knight from a noble house. Becoming a mere laborer in one night without even a proper trial was an absolute absurdity, but no one dared to disobey her on this battlefield.

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “Clear all those nauseating things away from my tent.”

  Though her order was still stern, it was far calmer than before. So Peijak sent the knights outside back to their posts and came back to her. Then, he spoke in a comfortable manner, without any trace of formality.

  “You still don’t look quite well. Seems like it’s getting worse, dear sister.”

  She remembered the ache below her waist and walked over to her bed covered in blue satin, spitting out foul words. When she lay down on the bed on her back, Peijak sat down next to her.

  The queen looked askance at the man, whose strapping figure could not be hidden even under an armor. She did not stop Peijak’s impudence of putting his hand on her. He caressed her stomach covered under a thin layer of clothing.

  “It hurts a lot this month, huh…”

 
“You’ll know the feeling if someone ever stabs your guts over and over.”

  “Oh no, should we call a doctor, then?”

  “Don’t even think about wasting our already short workforce on a trivial matter like this.”

  “I’m just worried.”

  “Shut it.”

  Still lying down, the queen covered her eyes with her arm at Peijak’s quiet laughter.

  “I already have two sons, damn it. Isn’t that enough now? What does this body want more to make it keep inviting the monthly guest back?” she spat out.

  Peijak lowered his upper body and kissed her upper abdomen at her ruthless words of self-disgust.

  “Now those damned bastards in that fort know my times of bleeding. How shameful it would be to show myself again on the battlefield.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “I’m fine. Leave.”

  “I’m too scared you might actually tear up your own belly with a knife to leave.”

  “If I wanted to do so, I would have done so as soon as I had Tejis. I know enough to value my body. Oh, actually, now that I think of the way things are going right now, that does sound quite intriguing.”

  “I’ll take care of the rest, so take it easy, dear sister,” Peijak softly and quietly cajoled her.

  “Damn Olzore!”

  The frustration piled on top of the hatred pent up for a year and a half came pouring out.

  Though she was never deterred by it, a woman’s body still was not as free as a man’s. Months without pain were fine, but ever since she’d given birth to two children, her premenstrual pain had tortured her more and more frequently. It was solely her responsibility, for it was apparently the price of running out to war without even proper postpartum care, but she could not bear having it be a hindrance at an important time like this.

  The only obstacle she, on whom the knights had nothing when it came to sword, spear, bow, or horse, could not overcome with her will was enough of a reason for the enemies to sneer at her.

  Even now.

  In the short time she was attending to her belly, a shameful defeat knocked at her door again. The skirmishes were supposed to deceive them anyway. She did not care too much about small defeats. But Baganteo forgoing the control of the soldiers and acting pigheadedly, then fleeing the second his life was in danger was a shame on the Rarkian army, aside from the defeat itself.