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Authors: Danbert Nobacon

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BOOK: 3 Dead Princes: An Anarchist Fairy Tale
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In the next moments, Jakerbald and Geraldo attended the Bird, and Gwynmerelda pulled Stormy to her chest.
 
“One of those warships rests easy on the riverbed. A museum for when all this is over,” said the Bird.
 
“They got off the ship before it sank,” Jakerbald said. “We saw them in the boats.”
 
Stormy recoiled: “But I we We killed a man! … in the prow of the boat.”
 
“Hush,” said Gwynmerelda. “Hush.”
 
The Queen thought it best not to tell Stormy what she had seen, standing at the top of the Falls watching the battle through the wonderlook. She had seen Prince Toromos, of course, standing in the prow of the ship, fondling his gold cannon. Right before the boulder hit.
 
Two dead Princes, Gwynmerelda thought. Best not to tell Stormy that. Not yet. Even if the Princess was becoming an adult. As a mother, the Queen judged her stepdaughter to have had enough excitement for one day.
 
Chapter 19
 
THE BATTLE OF BALD RIVER FALLS
 
D
awn broke over Morainia, as inevitably as the Bald River cascaded down to the Lumbiana below. So the sun peeked its flaring red brim over the eastern horizon, and with it the Oosarian forces, in full battle dress, began marching up the switchbacks of the Falls Road.
 
Their force was immense, and the loss of one ship with one leader was only a temporary setback.
 
A Morainian squad of lateens, ensconced in the near impenetrable forest bordering the Falls Road, followed the invaders’ progress. The lead eyes nearest to the Oosarians had sent her companion scout back with word, up to the next scout, and so on, so that the news would travel as fast as was humanly possible up the climb.
 
Stormy and Gwynmerelda had only just emerged from Eagle Cave when the first daylight news runner came back. It was Fred. He was panting and gasping for breath, trying to get his words out.
 
“What is it?” urged Geraldo.
 
“The King lives, sir!”
 
Stormy and Fred’s eyes met momentarily, and then she looked away. The immediate sense of joy that spread in waves around the massing Morainian front lines was like a pebble hitting water … But then as the ripples radiated outwards, it was as if a heavier stone of dread was tossed into the mix.
 
“The slave army?”
 
“They march free of chains and fully armed,” said Fred.
 
“It is as we feared then,” spat Jakerbald. “We are more in number, for we are all Morainia, but they have more fully-trained soldiers.”
 
“It will not be long,” said Geraldo, and then, even though he felt sick to his stomach, he managed to address those within earshot in a clear and steady voice: “The King lives. The enemy marches. We shall attempt to engage in negotiation with the Oosarians before any fighting. If there is no resolution, and if they insist upon marching towards the Gorge with the clear intention of traveling beyond it … then we will have no choice but to repel them en route, by any means.”
 
It will be soon, thought Stormy. She thought of her father. She thought of Emmeur tending his wounds in Eagle Cave. And she thought of how she wanted this all to be over.
 
Remember that Morainians had no regular means of measuring small increments of time, so what was indeed a short time, felt to many gathered in the Bald River Valley like the yawning chasm of eternity.
 
And then time arrived. Time for hope, aspiration, and fear to fuse with the fabric of reality, as the noise of marching boots on a gravel rock road could be heard above the noise of the Falls.
 
The barricade at the top of the Falls Road had been opened in anticipation of the Oosarians’ arrival. And as the invaders marched through it now, the Morainians in forward positions got their first glimpses of the enemy.
 
A phalanx of about a hundred of the tallest men among the Oosarian Guard came first, brandishing unsheathed swords. While this was clearly meant to strike fear into the defending forces, Jakerbald could not help think that those soldiers with their heavy Oosarian metal swords would have mightily tired arms before any fighting even began.
 
Behind this front group came another tightly packed group, made up of row upon row of the slave-men and some women it could now be seen that the Morainians had been so dreading. Those who were close enough could see the slaves’ hairier arms, exaggerated brows, and flaring nostrils. The slave-men seemed more hunched up in the way they marched, more awkward looking. It was these differences, coupled with the lack of knowledge of what they actually meant in terms of fighting skill, which made the sort-of-men appear the more fearsome.
 
More Oosarians came behind these, and then the command core. The command was protected by a row of guards at the front and sides.
 
Behind the Oosarian Prince’s Guard, in a space of his own to emphasize his humiliation, was paraded the chained and bruised King of Morainia. And immediately behind Walterbald were Prince Braggardio and Queen Nukeander, with their personal guards. One of the guards occasionally made a jab at Walterbald with a long spear.
 
Rogerley Bishop and his clique came next, and on and on the body of troops seemed to stretch back down the road, alternating banks of Oosarian Guards with those of the southern fighters.
 
It was all clearly well planned for maximum impact.
 
As the front forces came into the valley bottom proper, they began fanning out to the sides and edging slowly forward, to allow more men to come in behind them.
 
Under Geraldo’s instruction a similarly arranged, though much smaller, Morainian Guard and command core advanced slowly to meet them.
 
It was all very tentative. Few of those present had actually known serious warfare first hand. It was almost as if no one knew quite what to do, now that whole divisions of the respective armies were facing each other. The fact that there was a hostage involved clearly complicated matters.
 
“We request circle, and to see our King,” said a lone voice in clear crisp tones. It was Jakerbald.
 
There were a few moments of ominous silence, before Braggardio replied, “Very well.”
 
Most Morainians had never seen the Princes of Oosaria, but Gwynmerelda and The Fool exchanged uncomfortable looks as they scanned the ranks for the missing Toromos. Their suspicions about that Prince’s unfortunate end were confirmed.
 
Then, as if by magic, or because they had all learned how to do it in sort-of kindergarten, the main negotiating parties of each command core formed a circle. There was some confusion on the Oosarian side, as two or three of the sort-of-men inserted themselves in among their masters.
 
Walterbald was motioned to stand to the right of Braggardio, with a guard to his other side. Nukeander, seething in black battle dress, stood to their right, with her own guards. Rogerley Bishop stood on Braggardio’s left, edging out the Oosarian probber Elijareen.
 
On the Morainian side, Geraldo was sandwiched by Arahab and Athiane to his left, and Jakerbald to his right. Gwynmerelda stood to the kingfather’s left, and Stormy was at the Queen’s side.
 
“Any who wish to speak shall enter the circle, and none shall harm him,” Geraldo announced.
 
“It shall be so,” said Prince Braggardio, looking to his mother for approval, and then he walked across the few yards towards Stormy.
 
Gwynmerelda felt her hand tighten on her hatchet hilt. The Prince came forward another step and looked the Princess in the eye. “The famous Prince Killer strikes again. My brother Toromos lies crushed to death by the rock you and your pet raven dropped upon the great Oosarian fleet. It is my duty to slay you now.” But he made no move to go for his sword.
 
Stormy felt as if the rock they had dropped the previous night had fallen on her, too. She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone! Yet here she was. “Prince Killer,” this crazy looking Prince had called her.
 
There was a muted
aagghhing
and
ohhnnooing
from the assembled Morainians, a communal sinking feeling as the fact of Toromos’ death sunk in, and then silence.
 
Gwynmerelda looked at The Fool. She could tell he was thinking the same thing: With two brothers dead, Braggardio was the undisputed head of The Oosarian forces. They both knew that Braggardio was the most pyskotic and unpredictable of the bunch.
 
Geraldo took a step forward. “According to the customs of the western peoples we shall offer the necessary recompense for your loss.”
 
“You would give me all of your precious metals?” laughed Braggardio, but his mirth was cut short by Queen Nukeander.
 
“We will take whatever recompense we desire, but we shall also re-write the laws of the west here and now, and exact a mother’s revenge.”
 
Braggardio, trying to step outside of his mother’s shadow, turned theatrically and drew his sword. In brandishing the blade he deliberately flaunted the previous rules regarding this negotiating process. He walked around the inner space of the circle as if he already owned Morainia, clearly enjoying his moment. And then he strutted back over to his side of the circle and held the tip of his blade to Walterbald’s bruised face. Still no Morainian made a move to reciprocate, even though their collective insides were straining and gurgling.
 
Turning to Stormy again the Prince laughed. “You will die here today, girl, but first you will see those you love perish.”
 
“Yes,” muttered Gwynmerelda. “Hysterical the little boy, becrazed the full grown man.”
 
Stormy looked at Walterbald who remained impassive in the midst of his captors. Seeing her father a hostage, and looking into the hate-wells of Braggardio’s eyes, did much to evaporate the remorse she had been feeling. Looking at Queen Nukeander extinguished every last drop. Finally she could stand it no more. Hardly knowing what she was doing, Stormy took a step forward.
 
“The Prince Killer wishes to speak,” sang Braggardio, baiting and teasing.
 
And like something came to her from a dream, she announced, “I have tools.”
 
Braggardio’s perplexion was cut short by a rasping laugh.
 
“
Argghh! Arrgghh! Arrgghh!
Hear that brethsisteren?” a new and robust voice called out. “She has tools. She has the tools.”
 
All turned in amazement to look at the source of this interjection. It came from the strange man who was stood closest to Prince Braggardio and Probber Bishop. The man, for he certainly was a kind of man, had shaken the look of deference that he and his kind had previously expressed towards the Oosarians. Quite suddenly this new sort-of-man seemed to stand taller and more imposingly than before.
 
“My brothers lie dead,” Prince Braggardio said, outraged, “and we are supposed to listen to this gibbering half-man?” Bishop and the Oosarian coterie murmured assent, but were cut short by a deep guttural laugh. Even the Black Queen looked unnerved.
 
A deep guttural gigglanth laugh.“
Gha gha gah ha ha!
”
 
And now the creature’s comrades freed from the shackles that had held them as they had rowed the Oosarian ships north, were also freed from the pretence they had been keeping with the Oosarians. They stretched tall and began to laugh too. The Oosarian Guards now appeared not quite so formidable amidst their suddenly not-so-sort-of-slaves.
 
The laughing, the incessant laughing which had driven Braggardio half crazy on the voyage from Oosaria, was like no Morainian save King Walterbald had heard before. It now rang around the lip of the Bald River Valley. Then it ended abruptly, almost as soon as it had begun.
BOOK: 3 Dead Princes: An Anarchist Fairy Tale
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