Chapter 23

"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?"