A Daemon-Horn Blade Ch. 23

*********** CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

"I don't care what you say, courage or not, that was still a damned stupid thing to do! What were you thinking? You weren't!" Boyle sadly muttered from Ayleth's deathbed, later that evening inside the small keep of Lacestone.

"I sent the reserves to hold the left flank and they did!" She whispered, her face sheet white and pale with pain from her crippling and mortal injuries and extreme loss of blood. "The counter-attack swept their right flank and we merged with both the light and heavy cavalry to box up their rear. I needed the center to hold... and they did. They fought and died until the boats with the heavy infantry from Everdun finally arrived, and they crushed through the center like a hammer beating soft metal on an anvil, as Rowan would say. I did my job and then some! Then I felt myself entitled to avenge you. How was I to know that you had been only knocked silly by the dragons' tail? There was smoke, steam and fire all over that battlefield, and with that pouring rain if that damned Draca hadn't been bigger than a house I'd never have found it, let alone killed it... and with your own spear, so you should be happy!"

"I fail to find any happiness in my consort-to-be lying in her death bed, with her spine shattered and her internal organs in worse shape than a gléaman's drink ravaged liver! I would still kiss you my love, if your face wasn't fixed into that shit-eating smile."

"The battle was won, my love, and my Duchy, with or without me, will survive. There are a great many losses that will be mourned. A full third or more of the men who sailed and marched here will never return home to their families. Over half of our old Brigade died holding those trenches in front of that hill, and around many campfires tonight many other deaths will be mourned other than mine. Don't make me do like Cedany, and make you swear oaths to live onwards, after I am gone! For I see that you are being quite unreasonable about this, and you are going to be quite impossible to deal with after I'm gone, which I can hear the healers whispering much too loudly, shall not be long from now!"

"Indeed the great Eorfleode horde, over thirty thousand of them, if the counting of their dead was accurate, has been completely destroyed, save for the remaining war-bands still trapped by our cavalry to the west." Boyle replied. "Those we shall slay next and narry a one shall return to their hidden mountain homes, and hopefully with little cost to us. Already this war has cost us much too dearly! It will be many generations again before that foul race ever again bother any of our people!"

"I'm not at all discontent." She muttered a little while later, as Boyle kissed and held her hand in silence, except for the sniffs as he tried to keep the tears from flowing down his face in great rivers. "I killed the only known dragon in the Southern Duchies, and that ought to be a lesson to the rest of their survivors not to mess with us ever again! But how did Rowan handle that Eorfleode wizard? Their battle was lost in a great cloud flame and smoke, and I heard he was most sorely tested."

"It was the death cry of the Draca, that fatally distracted their commander, for he became suddenly quite unnerved and in his hesitation, Rowan ran him through, consigning the dreadful creature to flames, except for the magic purple stone that he wore." Boyle said.

"Which I have now and shall keep, for it is a precious item of the Goddess Gældra, sister to my divine master, that once greatly served the causes of good, and it shall indeed again someday." Oddtus, the Lore-Master said. Its coming into my hands speaks of other omens for the future, but none that concern you young heroes, for now your tasks are done!"

"Not so!" Boyle exclaimed! "You sent us on a quest to restore the Lady Ayleth, and to Corælyn we went at great cost and suffering, to obtain the Tear of Árfæsliss, which you have now have had for some time! With Ayleth mortally struck down and on her deathbed, what then was the point? You swore that there was a quest to save her! Were these just soothing words to guide us on the path you wished to guide us, to fulfill other prophecies of which we know nothing? That we might dance as marionettes, from your subtle gléaman strings? How, in this circus that you have forced upon us, was this to her benefit?"

"Why, in a great many ways!" The wise Foole cheerfully replied, as he began to dig into his seemingly endless beltpouch. "We have, and in accordance with the prophecy of the galdorfǽmne, turned a spoiled and rather selfish young Lady into a dutiful Duchess, willing and able to command an army and rally it to do the near impossible, staving off near certain disaster! She has found her soul, her honor and her heart... all very necessary things indeed if the Moon-Woman's prophecy was to be fulfilled! With no thought of herself, she made herself the sacrifice to help save her land; a bolder and braver thing than a great many Dukes or Duchesses would have done!"

"But now it was all for nothing!" Boyle wept.

"On the contrary, her sacrifice was indeed for everything! She has saved her land, her people and lastly now even herself. It is love alone now that sustains her will to hold to life, and it is this love, that she had never before known or felt, that is but the final ingredient for her cure, for indeed the end of your quest is now finally at hand!"

"How is this so Foole?" Ayleth asked, as her eyes began to slowly shut in weakness, as Gwenda bathed her forehead with cool water to soothe her.

"Simple, for here indeed is the Tear of Árfæsliss, mixed already with a drop of dragons-blood... a very rare item now indeed, you must admit, that I did not have until this very day! Boyle, do you truly love this woman, and would consort with her?"

"Aye, Foole... more the fool me, for indeed I do love her. I have loved her for all of my life, from afar, since we were once young children playing together in her father's keep on the island. She was my favorite playmate, even though her games were sometimes cruel and she often did not play nicely with the other boys and girls. After that first summer together we but rarely ever saw each other, but I knew then in my heart even as a young boy that I would always love her!"

"Give me then," the Histrio said, "a tear from your eyes; a tear shed in love for a woman that has never before loved or cared for anyone else, for that is the final needed ingredient, and with those three drops together poured onto her tongue, her wounds, all of them fresh and old scarred alike, shall be restored! She shall be, exactly as she would wish to be, healthy, hearty and hale... and suitable for a long and quite happy consortship!"

Boyle offered his tears and a full drop landed into the clear glass vial, and the liquid within turned to silver and then to gold. These three golden drops were dripped onto Ayleth's tongue and for the longest time no one believed that anything at all had occurred until her toes began to wiggle under the sheet, and with a burst of joy she flung herself nude out of the bed and into Boyle's waiting arms.

The cure had been complete, with even the old terrible daemon fang and more recent brutal whipping scars all now gone, without a trace... except for the hot iron brand bearing the mark of her lover, the Viscount Boyle d'Bournyss, Chamberlin of Tellismere, and in private submission, her beloved lord and master unto the very end of her days.

It would be less than a year before the old crippled former Duke, severely struck down by a series of strokes, was able to hold his first grandchild and even indeed saw the sight of Ayleth's belly swell for the coming of his second, before a final stroke took him away to the Shadowlands. Except by family, he was little missed.

Already from the start of her reign as Duchess, she ruled with a firm but wise and benevolent hand, and she and Boyle strove every day to see their subjects safely resettled and their lands restored to prosperity, but everyone knew this was going to be the task of lifetime, or longer to fulfill. The work of hundreds of years had been undone in but a few seasons, but never again would the Eorfleode unite to ravish the Southern Duchies, or even again pose much of threat to the northern lands above the Emerald River. Dead Tree Island would be resettled yet once again, but this time to remain in the hands of men.

As for Rowan and Gwenda, they now had honors and lands beyond counting, but most importantly, they had each other... and that was really all that either of them really wanted.