33. Loran
33
LORAN
Loran was alone in the officers’ exercise hall on top of the hill that the fortress was built around. She had never fought in a war. If she hadn’t met her husband and married young, maybe she would have tried to become a legion officer.
She looked around the spacious hall; the floor was of rough granite, and there were no walls. Twenty pillars erected on the edges of the square floor supported a thin roof. On one side was a weapons rack with several kinds of spears and swords. The sculpture of two falcons, once hung by two chains, had been torn off the roof without any instruction from Loran.
It was a full moon. There wasn’t a single lit torch, but the moonlight shone brightly into the hall. It was by arrangement that Loran was here alone. She had been so busy since taking over the fort that she had hardly any time to practice her sword skills. Not since that brief period before and after giving birth to her daughter had she rested her sword for so long.
She slowly drew the sword at her hip. It had a different balance from Wurmath. The tip was lighter, making it closer to the blades she would use as a swordmaster instructing her pupils.
Turning her body so her right arm and shoulder came to the fore, Loran trained the tip of the blade between the eyes of an imaginary opponent. She had always been small for her age, which meant she had almost never sparred with an opponent her size. This put her in the habit of holding her sword somewhat higher than others would do. A bad habit her grandmother and her mother had decried her for, but Loran knew from her own experience that this was her best stance given her height.
She sliced the air from upper left to lower right, took a step and thrusted, parried with a short sideways swing, and took a half step back. A basic practice form that her school taught for generations. Repeating these moves until she was sweating and warmed up was the beginning of her practice routine. She had put a small wooden sword in her daughter’s hand and made her do the same. She was to take over the swordmaster practice when she grew up. If she had no talent for it, Loran would have eventually pinned her hopes on a future son-in-law, but Loran had so wanted her daughter to take to the sword and follow in her footsteps.
The wind was cold. Her sweat evaporated almost as soon as it appeared on her skin. Wiping her forehead with her sleeve, she went to the edge of the hall and looked down at the fortress grounds. Torches were lit here and there, and strains of an old song were being sung together. Northeast of the fortress were scores of bonfires where the Ledonites were encamped. Loran had invited them into the fortress, but Griogal had demurred, citing the need to avoid unnecessary friction.
“You look like you are enjoying yourself.”
Loran knew whose low voice it was that spoke to her. Her left eye grew warm. She took off her eyepatch and opened her closed eye.
“If you could have shown yourself to me all along, why haven’t you spoken to me before now?” she said.
Her left eye caught the faint outline of the fire-dragon.
“I do not know the affairs of the human world well. Is it my place, then, to interfere with you?”
“I had hoped to see you again when I was sleepless for those many nights in Kamori after killing the prefect.”
Her words had an edge of resentment to them, but that wasn’t how she actually felt. Loran turned and walked back to stand in the center of the hall. She posed again, aiming for the middle of the imaginary eyes. The dragon was right. She was enjoying this moment.
“Those sleepless nights were what made you leave the underground palace. There are some things one must come to conclude on one’s own.”
“Did you foresee all of this?”
“I knew you would become king the moment I laid eyes on you. But not how you would.” She was reminded of Emere’s words in the underground palace. What presents a king to be chosen is not the people; it is destiny. Maybe the dragon saw her destiny, as Emere did.
“But I am not king yet. I may die before I am. Along with the six thousand here gathered with me.”
Loran swung her sword diagonally five times in the air. She advanced twice and retreated twice as she did so.
“I have sent a sorcerer to you,” Loran said. “She carries Wurmath.”
“I know all that you know,” the dragon replied. “But can such a child sever these chains?”
“I have a feeling she can.”
“You, too, like that boy Emere, have seen the hand of destiny upon another then.”
Maybe she had.
“Will you come help us if she severs the chains? There is no other way I can think of to fight the gigatherion.”
“Who am I to refuse a royal decree?”
Loran laughed. She switched stances to raise the blade in a high position.
“I am not a king yet.”
The dragon laughed its terrifying laugh. Loran stopped in midthrust as she winced.
“When you first came to me, you said you were not a princess. But you earned the title, as well as the right to my audience, the moment you threw yourself into the mouth of the volcano. And now you are a king, but claim you are not. What will it take for you to know what you are?”
“No one calls me king. I’ve never had a coronation—”
“To say that you, who have called yourself a princess without ever having been the child of a king, are not a king only because no bit of gold decorates your head, that is to laugh. Listen, Loran.”
The outline of the dragon became clearer in her left eye.
“You are king. And much more deserving of the title than that mole in the caves of the Kamori forest. You held the lives of two people more precious than gold, and killed a prefect of the Empire when you could not bear the anguish of it. You offered your own life as sacrifice when you feared the wrath of the Empire would further harm the people. It is not I who recognized you for these deeds. It is the people of Arland. In this bitter winter, they who would sit trembling in their houses, afraid the Empire would destroy their lives, rose up to fight when they heard of your presence in their midst. The people to whom you gave warmth when they shivered in the ice and snow are gathered there in the fortress on which you stand. Do you still say you are not king?”
Loran spoke gravely. “But that changes nothing. Once the legion arrives, we will likely be defeated.”
“Even if I appear in the skies?”
But you were defeated by a gigatherion, twenty years ago. Loran did not say these words, but her tact was unnecessary. The dragon knew all too well the reason for its chains.
“Even if we win this battle, the Empire has a hundred legions. If one does not defeat us they will send two, if two does not then three, if three does not then…”
Loran stopped herself before she mentioned the Star of Mersia.
“You believe,” said the dragon, “that Arland will fall in the end. That it will never escape the grip of the Empire. Then why do you persist in your fight?”
The dragon’s tone was more curious than accusatory.
“Because it is what the people of Arland desire the most. To fight for freedom is our destiny.”
“And is defeat at the hands of the Empire also your destiny?”
Loran answered slowly, thinking as she spoke, “Victory or defeat matters less than the fact that we fight. For there to be a next time, Arland must survive, but our spirit must also. If we abandon this battle, there will never be another. But if we fight, maybe one day, when…”
The dragon roared in satisfaction.
“That is right, Loran. But that is why you must know you are king. So that the title of king may befit whomever follows in your steps. That even if you are felled in battle and die, the people of Arland shall remember that there was a king who rose up. Destiny may offer men and women who would be kings, but only the people may exalt them.
“But I do not feel this battle will end so. I see this country again through this eye of you who have become king. I see a different future for Arland. I also believe that you shall not die in this coming battle.”
It still felt like empty encouragement to Loran. She corrected her grip and continued to practice. A silence flowed. After a few repetitions, the dragon spoke once more.
“Your sword… Can you fight without my fang?”
“I realized it first when I fought the Powered soldier in the woods, but Wurmath contains only a little of your power. As you first told me, the sword is merely a symbol. What you have given me is far greater than the weapon.”
She focused on her warm left eye. It shone brighter; heat circulated in her body. Scales budded on the back of her hands. Her fingernails sharpened, the sword in her hand heated too, and smoke began rising from the blade.
Closing her eyes, she calmed herself. The blade cooled quickly. The scales on the back of her hands fell to the floor. Her left eye dimmed.
“And if I am truly king, as you say, then I need the sword even less.”
“Your power is not a thing I have given you. It became your own as you became king. I only provided the spark.” There was satisfaction in the dragon’s voice. “I am accustomed to slumber through the season of ice and snow, but this winter, you have made sleep impossible. I shall rest a little now. Perhaps that will lessen the fright of the sorcerer child.”
Loran had one final question. “You said that you saw the future of Arland. When the Empire invaded this land twenty years ago, what did you see then?”
The dragon hesitated before speaking again.
“I saw the Empire’s forces trampled beneath me, never to cast so much as their shadow on Arland.”
“I see.” Loran smiled.
“I was young then.” With this final quip, the dragon vanished from Loran’s vision. Her left eye was blind once more. She fastened her eyepatch. Then, from the weapons rack, she chose a legionary’s shortsword and gripped it in her left hand.