Rest Be Yours
Lakia could not speak for a long while.
Dawn light was settling fully across the northern plain. Earth and grass that had been steeped in darkness only moments before, the shattered stakes and blood-soaked mud, now lay exposed with nowhere left to hide. Morning was merciless. Night conceals so much. A fallen man looks like a shadow, blood mingles with the mire, and even death becomes, for a little while, part of the dark. But morning laid everything bare.
Bec Chereson knelt and still breathed. He had no arms. The Lightless Sword stood driven into the mud a short distance away. The hands that had gripped the sword, the hands that had pointed across the battlefield, the hands that had turned the pages of orders—none of them remained attached to his body.
None of the kingdom’s soldiers could bring themselves to approach. The Empire’s greatest swordsman had fallen. Swordless, armless, yet the air around him remained sharp. They feared him. At the same time, they could not dare to touch him lightly.
Lakia stood before him. The hem of her black robe brushed the bloodied earth. A few strands of silver hair stirred in the wind, and her red eyes never left Bec’s face. Mother of Dragons. The one who had brought dragons to the field. The one who had halted the Imperial army’s advance.
Bec was still alive. He did not scream. He did not beg for life. He did not search for his missing arms, nor try to gauge how much blood he had lost. He simply breathed, very slowly, and looked at Lakia.
“The Empire…”
Bec forced the words out with difficulty. Lakia shook her head at once.
“Don’t speak.”
Her voice trembled. She tried to keep it steady, but she could not.
“If you speak now, it will hurt more.”
The corner of Bec’s mouth moved, faintly. Too weak to be called a smile. Still, he seemed to be trying.
“The pain…”
He swallowed a breath.
“Is already enough.”
Lakia closed her eyes. She hated those words. She did not want to grow used to such things.
In that moment, Kanefisara’s voice from long ago rose in her mind. Not in the dragons’ gorge, but a small clearing in the forest. A dawn lesson. That day Kanefisara had not worn the shape of an orc warrior. He sat in the form of an aged elf on a weathered chair, a long staff resting across his knees. His face, as always, wore a polite kind of madness.
“Lady Lakia,” Kanefisara said. “Life must be respected.”
The words were unexpectedly ordinary. That made Lakia more uneasy. When Kanefisara began with ordinary words, the ending was rarely ordinary.
“Yet sometimes people confuse the word ‘respect’ with neglect.”
Kanefisara narrowed his eyes and looked at her.
“There are those who cling to what cannot be saved, and decorate its suffering with their own goodness.”
Lakia had frowned.
“That’s too cold.”
“It is cold,” Kanefisara admitted at once. “That is why it must be learned.”
He drew a line on the ground with the tip of his staff. Short and straight.
“Anyone can learn how to kill.”
Then he pressed the end of the line, very slowly.
“But the way of ending without pain is different.”
Lakia could not answer then. Kanefisara continued.
“The cruelest person is the one who cannot admit that finished pain is finished.”
Lakia had disliked the words. She had never been able to forget them. Kanefisara spoke one last time.
“One day, Lady Lakia, you will have to choose.”
His voice was strangely gentle.
“The day will come when you must distinguish between a life that can be saved and a life that must be allowed to rest.”
“I hope that day never comes.”
When Lakia said so, Kanefisara smiled faintly.
“I hope so as well.”
Then he bowed his head with perfect courtesy.
“But the world does not ask Lady Lakia’s permission before it becomes cruel.”
Lakia opened her eyes. The northern plain. Kanefisara was not here. No weathered chair, no forest clearing, no quiet lesson. Before her knelt the Empire’s total commander, armless. Only blood and mud and dawn light.
Lakia drew a slow breath and looked at Bec.
“Can he not be saved?”
It was unclear whom the question was for. Herself, Masor, or the unseen Kanefisara.
The air beside her shadow stirred, ever so slightly.
Rustle.
Masor’s small sound reached her. Like an answer. From that sound alone, Lakia knew. Masor knew as well. This man would not last long. Even if mages came running, even if the kingdom’s healers laid hands upon him, too much blood had already spilled. A body that had lost both arms had lost too much.
Bec looked at Lakia.
“It is all right.”
“What do you mean, all right?”
Lakia answered at once.
“Don’t use that word just anywhere.”
The corner of Bec’s mouth moved faintly again.
“Then…”
His breath shook as if it might break.
“It is hard to choose a better word.”
Lakia clenched her teeth. Even before death, a man who first ordered the situation and chose the words he would leave behind rather than his own pain.
Lakia slowly raised her hand.
“Masor.”
The air trembled. At first nothing could be seen. Only the dawn light bent slightly beside Lakia’s shadow. Then scales began to turn themselves inside out, revealing themselves from within.
Shrrrk.
Steel-bright scales appeared one by one. Sharp wings. Quiet eyes. A presence like an unseen blade. Masor appeared at Lakia’s side.
Alduin’s violence was mountain-sized. Masor’s presence was thin and cold. He did not roar. He did not threaten. Yet people understood. This dragon cut before it touched. It passed before it was seen.
Lakia brought her hand to her waist. The scabbard was thin. Almost no ornament. What rested inside was a strange thing even to call a sword. A blade forged by melting Masor’s scale in Alduin’s breath. An invisible sword.
The moment it left the scabbard, the dawn light could not catch the edge.
Shing.
Almost no sound. Lakia’s hand looked empty. Yet the air around that empty hand was split, paper-thin. A blade that light could not touch. Masor’s scale-sword.
It cut steel as if it were soft, severed the grain of spellwork, and passed between the seen and the unseen. Lakia had not used this sword often. There had been no need. She was neither swordsman nor warrior, nor someone who had lived to cut people down. But Kanefisara’s lessons had been mercilessly practical. How to grip a sword. How to set the wrist. Not the angle that tears flesh, but the angle that ends pain short. Those things she had learned.
Her hand trembled. Masor made a low sound.
Rustle.
It sounded like reassurance. Or perhaps an offer to do it in her place.
Lakia shook her head.
“No.”
Her voice was small. But clear.
“I’ll do it.”
Masor did not move. Alduin too had grown quiet. The excitement that had lingered inside his golden eyes only moments before subsided, almost imperceptibly. He had understood Lakia’s voice. That this was no time for play, he seemed to realize, if late.
Krrr…
Alduin rumbled low. Lakia did not turn. Bec too tried to look at the invisible sword she held. Unseen, so the eyes could not find it. But he was a swordsman. Even if the blade itself was invisible, the shoulder and elbow and wrist of the one who held it were not. He understood what Lakia meant to do.
“The posture of rest, is it?”
Bec said. Lakia’s breath caught. The words were so exact that they hurt more.
“Don’t call it that.”
“Then what would you have me call it?”
Lakia could not answer. Bec looked at her with fading eyes.
“If you do not stop…”
Bec swallowed a breath.
“Those dragons will not stop either.”
Lakia’s red eyes wavered.
“That’s why I hate war.”
“Even if you hate it…”
Bec’s voice grew lower and lower.
“There are things that must be done.”
Lakia lowered her head. Her fingertips had gone cold. Yet the hilt of the scale-sword was strangely warm. Made from Masor’s scale, yet because it had been melted in Alduin’s breath, a faint heat remained. Something of the dragons. Something of her children. The fact that she would grant a person rest with it made Lakia feel more complicated still.
“I’m sorry.”
Lakia said. Bec closed his eyes slowly, then opened them.
“Too generous a word to hear from an enemy commander.”
“Shut up.”
Lakia’s voice cracked.
“Don’t sneer at a time like this.”
Bec smiled, very small. This time it was almost indistinguishable from the sound of his breath.
“Then…”
he said.
“One request.”
Lakia looked at him.
“Speak.”
“Send my head to the Empire.”
A low murmur ran through the kingdom soldiers. Lakia’s eyes widened. Bec continued.
“They will need proof that I have fallen.”
He looked toward Alduin.
“A report alone will not be enough.”
The words were true. The Empire might refuse to believe a report. But if the head of the Empire’s greatest sword arrived in the Imperial Capital, the story would change. A total commander whose sword-arms were gone. Defeat confirmed with their own eyes. No dispatch could be more certain.
Even after death, Bec was trying to end the war. Lakia hated that, too. Why did he keep thinking such thoughts until the very end? Why could a person, even on the brink of death, not let go of war’s calculations? Why was this man counting the lives of the remaining troops before his own pain?
Lakia let out a long breath.
“All right.”
The words were heavy. Bec closed his eyes.
“I thank you.”
“Don’t say that either.”
Lakia clenched her teeth.
“Don’t thank me.”
Bec said nothing more. Lakia raised the scale-sword. The invisible edge settled near Bec’s neck. The kingdom soldiers could not breathe. Alduin kept his head lowered and stayed silent. Masor did not move from Lakia’s side.
Lakia looked at Bec one last time. His eyes were closed. Pain still remained on his face, yet strangely he looked a little at peace. Perhaps because he had reached a conclusion. That this war was over. That his defeat could save the Imperial army. That because he could not reach it, the Empire could not reach it either.
Lakia repeated inwardly the words Kanefisara had taught her. Hesitation may be long. The blade must be short.
She moved her wrist.
Rustle.
The sound was small. Too small. Far too hollow to be the sound of a war ending.
Bec Chereson’s breath stopped. The last expression of the Empire’s greatest sword did not contort. Lakia closed her eyes. The sword in her hand remained invisible. Yet its weight was clear.
She spoke, very softly.
“Rest.”
Wind passed. The grasses of the northern plain swayed low. Only then did an emotion no one could arrange spread among the kingdom soldiers. The enemy commander was dead. The war might end. Yet that ending was hard to cheer.
Lakia rose slowly. She returned the scale-sword, which seemed to hold no blood, to its scabbard. When the invisible blade vanished, the thin crack in the air closed as well. She turned her head.
“Magkin.”
Wind tore above the sky. At first only sound arrived.
Whiiiiiiish.
Not an arrow, but a sound like lightning parting the air. Before the kingdom soldiers could lift their heads, a long seam opened in the clouds. From that gap a single long shadow fell. A dragon. Sleeker than the others. Body long and slender, scales a mix of dark bronze and grey. Wings sharper in angle than size, tail straight as a spear that split the air.
Magkin. The fastest of Lakia’s children. Unlike Alduin, who rose like an explosion of flame, Magkin was a line. A straight line drawn across the sky. A dragon that passed before the eye could follow, that vanished before sound could arrive.
When he landed, the gale came late. The kingdom soldiers’ cloaks all flared backward at once. Magkin lowered his head.
Krk.
Unlike Alduin’s low, heavy cry, Magkin’s was short and sharp. Lakia looked at Bec’s head. She closed her eyes briefly. Then she spoke.
“Go to the Empire.”
Magkin’s eyes narrowed.
“To the Capital.”
Krk.
“Deliver this.”
Lakia steadied her voice.
“Imperial Total Commander Bec Chereson has fallen on the northern front.”
The wind seemed to still.
“Not to Haireden.”
Lakia’s red eyes settled colder still.
“He fell to a dragon.”
The kingdom soldiers heard the words. Alduin heard them. Masor heard them.
“The Empire will withdraw.”
Lakia continued.
“If you send another legion next, it will not be only the legion that burns.”
The words were a threat. Lakia hated threats. Yet now she knew. There were times when hated words must still be spoken. That was why Bec had asked her to send his head. If words fail, send proof. If proof is not enough, send fear. To stop the war. So that more people would not die.
Lakia looked straight at Magkin.
“Go quickly.”
Krk.
“Don’t drop it.”
Magkin nodded. Even that brief motion made wind. Masor moved quietly.
Rustle.
An invisible, blade-like presence carefully wrapped Bec’s head. There was a carefulness in the motion different from battle. Masor was a dragon that cut people. Yet now, as Lakia had said, he handled it with care.
Magkin lowered his body. He received what Masor offered. The kingdom soldiers said nothing. They knew they stood in a moment that would be called history. The head of the Empire’s greatest sword, carried in a dragon’s claws to the Empire. Faster than a surrender document. Heavier than a messenger. More certain than an official decree.
Lakia spoke one last time.
“Deliver it and come straight back.”
Magkin cried low.
Krk.
Lakia’s eyes softened a little.
“No playing around on the way.”
Krk…
Magkin’s cry grew faintly aggrieved. From behind, Alduin rumbled low.
Krrr.
At that sound Lakia slowly turned her head.
“You be quiet.”
Krrr…
Alduin closed his mouth at once. A few kingdom soldiers wore strange expressions even in this situation. The black calamity that had just severed a man’s arms was reading the room at a single word from Lakia. The fact was too unreal.
Magkin spread his wings. The tips of them cut the dawn light. The next moment he was gone.
Thoom!
Only the sound of the ground being kicked remained; the body was already high in the sky. The gale arrived late. Dust rose in a circle, and soldiers covered their faces with their arms. In the sky only a long tear in the clouds and a thin remaining trail. Magkin banked not north but east. Toward the Empire’s heart. The direction of the Capital. At that speed, a road that would take a horse several days would be crossed in little time.
Lakia watched the sky for a long while. Her fingertips still trembled. Bec’s last breath lingered at her ear. Lakia bit her lip.
“I hate this.”
A small word. Perhaps no one heard. But Masor did.
Rustle.
A small sound beside her. Lakia did not turn her head.
“I know.”
She said quietly.
“I know it’s something that had to be done.”
Alduin rumbled low.
Krrr…
This time there was no playfulness in it. Only then did Lakia look at Alduin. The massive black dragon had lowered his head. Inside the golden eyes, the earlier excitement had almost vanished. Lakia looked at him for a long time. She was angry. She was afraid. And even so, the fact that this child was her child was the most complicated thing of all.
“I got angry when it wasn’t your fault. I’m sorry, Al.”
Lakia said. Alduin did not answer. He only lowered his head further.
On the northern plain, Bec Chereson’s blood remained. The Lightless Sword still stood driven into the mud. The severed end of a war and a responsibility not yet finished lay in the same place. Lakia looked at that sword. A blade that returned no light. Symbol of the Empire’s greatest sword. The sword humans had refused to release until the end, so they might reach the dragons.
Lakia slowly let out a breath.
“Take that, too.”
It was unclear whom she addressed. Masor moved.
Rustle.
The Lightless Sword was carefully drawn from the mud. The blood and earth on the blade remained hard to see even under the dawn light. That sword still reflected nothing.
Lakia gazed at the sword Bec had left behind, then closed her eyes. The war might be over. But even a finished war leaves people behind. The dead. The living. And the one who made the decision between the two.
Lakia knew she stood among the last. That fact was heavy. Being called Mother of Dragons did not end with stroking her children’s heads and calling their names. Sometimes she had to stand before the deaths her children made. Sometimes she had to grant rest to an enemy. Sometimes she had to cut off a head and send it as the dispatch that ended a war.
Lakia looked at the sky. Magkin was already gone from sight. Only a long, faint line remained in the eastern sky. A line stretching toward the Empire. Until that line vanished, Lakia did not lower her head.