Dutchess of the End

Explaining the situation to the guards as we raced back up the stone steps had been the easy part. By the time we got up to the top of the staircase, out into the cold night of the edge of the Hinterwastes, they knew everything that had been happening. I spared no detail. I told them about how the stone tablets spoke to me, how I had fabricated this lie about needing to tour the Hinterwastes for the Alihjn tribes. I told them about my meeting with Alana, Prinna, and Renai, and about the voice. How it led me down into the cavern, about how I fulfilled the Prophecy’s passage about being a killer of many as well as a mother of many. And about how I had led the Voice to direct the Myn to Castle Telbud.

 

“What choice do we have?” Yemis asked, stirring a horse from its slumber before mounting it. The rest of us did the same, leaving the camping gear behind. We wouldn’t need it. We’d ride all night if we had to, kill the horses from the effort we made them expend. King Mona needed to be warned, the army to be assembled, defences made. Like it or not, Telbud was at war for the first time in centuries.

 

“None. Now we fight.” I said. The resolve sat in my belly, brown and heavy, as though I’d just drunk a pitcher of mead without any of the pleasant side-effects. “And we ride!”

 

And so we rode. Two of the guardswomen splintered off from us to ride to Tilajn, to warn the caravan and to find a proper hiding place for Stephanie. Two more went eastward, to inform the Slajo and Froja tribes of what darkness was coming to them. Yemis and I- the two last of the party of six- rode south to Castle Telbud.

 

It was two weeks of gruelling journey. We ate at half-ration until our food expired. Yemis hunted for the rest, using her spear and her knives to capture and cook what wild game could be found. Some days we went hungry, sustaining ourselves only on what pools of water could be found. At night, we let our bodies and the horses rest.

 

After the first week, we caught up with the Myn, who were still marching, still trudging along in that same lumbering stance and speed. It hadn’t looked like they were tired, and I knew not if they had ever slept. They had those same killer expressions they had in the chamber, the same blue glow in their eyes that spoke of some magic driving them on. Riding astride my horse, I waved a hand in front of one’s eyes. It didn’t blink, didn’t so much as notice me. But a flash of blue light did put a glowing sword in its hand, armour running up its arm to end at a pauldron on his shoulder. I was still getting used to the word the voice used to describe them. I had told the guards about that, but for them it would be easier to still think of these monstrosities as women, even if I knew they weren’t.

 

We passed the army after an hour’s hard ride, and continued on. Each day, our hunger grew, and my fear mounted. Stephanie would be safe, tucked away at a far corner of the country, but for Castle Telbud, for the women living there, they would be anything but safe. Words of war were the last any King wanted to hear, but hear them, Mona must. The castle approached after just eleven days of travelling. Our effort left us starving, weak, and frail, but it had shaved three days off the journey.

 

The drawbridge of the castle fell, and we rode in, the horses collapsing on the ground near their stables, needing to be dragged in. I suspected they wouldn’t make it. Their sacrifice would not be forgotten.

 

“Carla.” Me and Yemis sat alone in the Dining Hall, gorging ourselves on cooked meats, steamed and seasoned vegetables, and plates of wild rice as Mona waited for us to speak. “You’ve returned very early, where is my daughter?”

 

“She’s safe.” I said quickly, in between bites. I had stuffed enough turkey and carrots down my throat to be able to think clearly, and to talk. I looked at Mona, keeping my plate near me, shovelling more and more food into my belly while the King talked and thought. “We aren’t, though. We’re in danger. An army approaches us from the north.”

 

“The Alihjn?” Mona asked. I shook my head.

 

“No. Myn, they’re called. Ancient, strong, uncaring and cruel. Ten thousand strong, and they march straight here. We need to be ready.” I said. After I spoke, Yemis paused, her short blonde hair had been frazzled after so long of wearing her helmet as we rode and slept.

 

“My King, our army is small. Too small to effectively repel the threat.”

 

“What would you have me do, then?”

 

“Arm the citizens, train as many volunteers as we can. Doom draws near. If we are to win, we must fight to the last woman.”

 

“Our army is thirty thousand strong.” Mona said, putting her wrinkled hands down on the table, pushing hard on it to stand. “The strongest on the continent. Surely Castle Telbud will hold.”

 

“It will not. These women are ancient titans, forces long forgotten. Our army cannot defeat them.”

 

“How do we survive?”

 

“We fight. All of us. Put a spear and a shield in the hand of each grown woman. And then we pray to the Moon and Stars that we survive.” Yemis said. I shook my head up and down to agree, unable to talk for the peas and corn lodged in my cheeks.

 

“Very well. I shall trust you. I will make arrangements to hide the twins away, and then we go to war.”

 

--

 

Mona was true to her word. In all her years of ruling, there hadn’t been so much of a border skirmish in Telbud. No battles, no hostile neighbors, and certainly no wars. She knew little of the army, allowing her generals to train the troops as they saw fit. What fighting experience she had had been decades ago, before her coronation. In the days that followed, I watched her train with a sword with her most wizened generals. 

 

The citizens, too, had been warned of the existential threat to life at Castle Telbud and its surrounding metropolis. Most had been willing to fight. Some of those unwilling had been conscripted. As many as could be spared would be tucked away underground in the Archives. I knew many of the treasures held down there would not survive antsy, scared children, nor would they survive the heated conditions of a crowd of bodies pressed against them. There was no choice in the matter. Such sacrifices to history would save lives of the present. One I made without a second thought.

 

I myself trained with a bow. Mona insisted upon it, that I fight from a distance.

 

“My daughter will need he Queen, if I am to fall. Do not leave her alone on this world.” She had told me, swords in both our hands. I dropped mine and picked up a bow, training with Yemis and other soldiers on how to shoot effectively. My shots missed the targets entirely at first, but after hours and hours of hard training, my aching, sore right arm let loose a shot, connecting with the outer ring of a target five metres away. To experienced archers, the accomplishment was nothing. To myself, who had gained a skill that could save the life of my unborn child, it was a resounding success.

 

That day, many other citizens trained to fight. Penelope Knass, even, volunteered her services to the army. She had been placed in the infantry, shooting a bow alongside me. For the moment, we put aside our differences, coming together in a common goal. I helped her in what I had learned, and in turn, she taught me things I had overlooked.

 

The day after, I hit the target’s bullseye for the first time. And then again, five minutes later. My confidence soared that day. Quiver after quiver I let loose into the target. Twenty-six bullseyes by the end of the afternoon. As the Sun faded and the Moon began to rise, many retired to eat and sleep. I did no such thing. The light of the Moon was more than enough to train. It was nearly full by now, a pale orb illuminating my efforts. By midnight, I was sore, aching, and exhausted- I finally turned in for the night. A quick meal of bread and butter filled my stomach.

 

Six hours of sleep later, I was back to training.

 

I trained harder than before, hitting the red section of targets at further and further distances. I practised shooting over the ramparts atop the castle. I practised shooting atop a horse. That had been the hardest of them all, but even in that, I had at least some success. It came less naturally to me than reading, studying, and tests had, but I had a motivation more powerful than what had driven me before.

 

Before, I was interested in knowledge first and foremost, but also money, power, fame and glory. I wanted things for myself because I thought they would bring me joy. I needed them because of the happiness they ought to have given me. All those things- my entire life’s work up until now- was useless, water spilled over a plate, ruining both the dish and the drink. I had something to fight for now. For Stephanie, for love, for life and parenthood within it. I had found true happiness, and I wouldn’t let it slip from my grasp so easily.

 

Mona’s generals met with me that day. They sat me down in a large room on the first floor of the castle. One I’d never been to. There was dust on the ceiling and walls, and even the table at the centre of the simple, stone room had signs of age and misuse. At the center of it was a large map of Telbud, the Castle at the northern end, and the rest of the country extending towards a side of the table that was uninhabited. I sat at the head of it, two elderly women dressed in tight-fitting clothes stood on either side of me.

 

“Grand Archivist, thank you for meeting with us.” One of them said. “I am General Martha Greenwarden, and this is General Susan Plonnis.

 

“A pleasure, though I wish under better conditions.”

 

“As do we all.” The other woman- General Plonnis- said. She had white hair much like the other, short and curly about her head. She sat down and turned her chair to face me, crossing one leg over the other. “Tell us all you can about our attackers.”

 

They wanted to know everything. How many of them there were, the makeup of their armour, what weapons they used, if I thought they were going to siege us or attack us outright. I answered as best I could, wanting to give them all the grim situation we found ourselves in. I tried to push the thoughts of blame to the back of my head. I’d done some to stop the situation, but it wasn’t enough. Alana had been right. In my efforts to prevent this apocalypse, I had started it. This whole journey had been a waste of time and lives. But I couldn’t let it haunt me. Not now. Now, we needed to fight.

 

I spared no details to the generals. What they wanted to know, I told them. I told them exactly what they looked like sleeping in that chamber, of how I slit their throats to kill the three I had, and of the fifteen more the Royal Guardswomen had slain. If they wanted to know the name of my first crush and the moment I had such thoughts, I would have told them. I left nothing back, I told them everything. 

 

Hours later, they thanked me for their time and shooed me away. As I left the room to return to my training, several other women poured into the room. Strategies were being made and argued even before I was clear of earshot.

 

The next day, on what would have been the fifth day of my training, the Myn arrived. The battle had begun.