At Dawn We Fight

Sibillah smiled to herself as her creaky knees slowly lowered her into her seat.
The flames of the fireplace danced in her eyes like new blossom in the April wind.
She held the cup with both hands. It had been so long since she tasted her husband’s sherry. It was as sweet and smooth as she remembered, and its kick hadn’t changed either: she still felt it the strongest just after it reached her gut, warming up everything in its way.
Things were different back then, more than forty years ago.
She walked her fingers softly over the left arm of her chair, feeling the cold touch of the fine white oak. Her husband felled that tree just for her and made the chair himself. Two of their children had been nursed in it, the third one would often fall asleep in it, dreaming of her mother’s tales of beasts and monsters and valiant heroes.

‘Tell me the story again, mama!’ little Moira asked, tucking at her mother’s robe.
‘She will become a librarian, this one, I’m telling you.’ Her husband laughed his full, hearty laugh which could conquer entire halls just as well as his speaking voice. He handed Sibillah a cup of sherry and kissed her cheek. They were all in the bedroom.
‘Enough of the dragon stories, Moira. It is now time for you to go to sleep.’ Sibillah said, watching her daughter’s small legs dangle over the lip of the chair. She was playing with a wavy strand in her otherwise straight, amber coloured hair.
‘But mama! Please! Tell me again about Dlaug the Telible!’ Moira pleaded, a sparkle of excitement behind the beautiful azurine blue eyes she shared with her father.
She really meant to say Draug the Terrible, but she was at the same stage as a lot of children her age: where pronouncing ‘r’ was still quite a difficult foe to vanquish. On occasion, just before he met with his council, her father would hold her on his knees and exercise her articulation.
‘Strrrride, contorrrrtionist, drrrrragon.’
Sibillah stifled a laugh and handed her cup back to her husband. She took Moira in her arms and walked with her around the room. The child smelled like almonds, and she felt warm like freshly baked dough.
Little did Sibillah know then that there will come a day when Moira’s smell would be amongst her only pleasant memories of her.

Sibillah sighed with heavy heart. She remembered it all; like leaves in her tree of life, all her days were hanging now above her, and she carried them. Of some she was proud, with others she had made her peace, and some she wished she could undo.

‘The battle had been dragging on, and the Mountain of Sarrahun was angry. It wanted all those who did not belong there gone. The rain had started, and it was furious too, the forest we were walking through knew that we were there for Draug. Its muddy paths were gripping onto our feet and stopping us from moving. We started to think we should turn back, when finally, through the dense bushes and even denser rain, we spotted the entrance to the cave. We had to smother in our joyous shouting, for we knew we were about to face our first real challenge.
As we approached the opening in the mountain’s wall, black lightnings hit my troops. Two of my soldiers fell dead on the spot. Sarrahun had given us our final warning, but we kept on. We went in through a thick blanket of darkness. Two men with torches led our convoy, and we trusted them with our lives. We did not want to be noticed or sensed by Draug or anything else in the cave, by bringing too much light. We’d keep a hand on the person in front of us, so as to not stray away from the path. You could almost hear our hearts beat, that’s how silent we were.’
Moira’s eyes widened in suspenseful expectation. She knew how the story ended, but every time her mother told it her, it felt like the very first. There was something in her voice, something that made the images in Moira’s head come alive in her dreams, and so, the world was less ordinary.
‘Then out of nowhere, the air around us caught fire, and…’
‘That’s how Uncle Remus got his scars. All over his back.’ Moira’s father added, patiently listening to Sibillah’s story, watching them from the edge of the bed.
Moira’s little peach-like mouth opened in a hushed ‘Wow’. Sibillah gave him a disapproving look. She did not want to put terrible images of maimed bodies in Moira’s head from such a young age. She strived for Moira's upbringing to be different than hers. If she had it her way, Moira would never see the awfulness of the battlefield.  
‘Before I knew it, the dreadful, foul-breathed head of Draug was reaching out for us, whoever was left alive after his fire spitting. His teeth were long and shiny, sharper than my blade. He was not a villain I could take on.
We managed to crawl back towards the exit, while Draug kept sending blaze after blaze to find us. He could not reach us, you see, for the corridor was too low and too narrow for his fat body to fit. We were lucky enough to find our way out, and…’
‘No, mama. You slayed the dlagon! Papa always speaks of this with his flends!’ Moira objected, pointing her finger at her father.
Sibillah’s gaze intensified in hostility and fixated on her husband for a brief moment, before turning into a puzzled frown.
‘Oh, did I? I really don’t remember, sweetie. It was soooo long ago…’
‘But mama. Papa said…’
‘It’s time for you to sleep. Now, Moira.’ Sibillah’s voice tensed, and Moira knew the negotiations were over.
 
A knock on the door disturbed her reverie.
‘My Queen. The time has come.’ The Captain of her guards declared.
Sibillah nodded. The lines between her eyebrows came together in a frown of determination. She got up, her sword knocking against her armour-clad thigh. One more battle to be fought, and perhaps the hardest.
‘Call it.’ She told the Captain, who silently bowed his head and walked back down the corridor. Soon after, the cry of the war horn sounded, and so did the voices of the army.

‘Mother, your kingdom is waning. This is the ebb of your rule. Do you not see what I can do? Do you not know how powerful my magic is? Give up whilst I am still allowing it. You cannot stop me.’
Sibillah had not realised that tears were rolling down her cheeks, while her memories wrestled out in her mind.
She let the tears sink into the creases in her skin and tumble over the softness of her jaw, once famous for its strong contours. She was not going to wear her helmet today. If she was going to die, she wanted her men and women to see her face, to know she had been there until the end, in her old age, without fear, shame or regrets.
She wanted her daughter to know, when she struck her final blow into her mother’s chest, that what was done, could not be undone, and when the time was right, she wanted her to remember: they fought at dawn.

The sky was tinted by the first rays of sunlight.
As she stood out in the open, the Queen could feel between her own heartbeats the vibration of the thousand of steps taken in unison.
‘They must be close to the frontline now.’
General Korvus was next to her, his shoulder by her shoulder, like he’d been all her life. Ever since she was a little girl, he had been with her, protected her at times, fought for her always. In her long-gone youth she believed she would grow to marry Korvus. For many years she thought she was in love with him, until she met her king. Although she married, her woman heart told her Korvus never really stopped loving her.
The armoured thunder travelling from across the field had finally settled. As the mists of the freezing night lifted, the Queen could see the steel-clad blanket that her daughter’s army was. They were fearsome, but inexperienced.
Sibillah wet her lips and looked Korvus in the eyes. His own mouth was a straight line, decided, adamant.

‘You are going to be a fantastic mother, my Queen.’
Korvus kissed his monarch hand, and not her ring. He addressed her by her title, but he met with her as her friend. She smiled gently, then looked down at her not-yet-grown belly.
‘I don’t know, friend. I can’t even keep the garden plants alive…’
He laughed and then looked at her, his green eyes glistening with love and resignation. Did she know that his heart was breaking because the life growing inside of her was adding bricks to the foundation of her marriage with a man that was not him? Maybe she guessed, but if she did, she made no sign to show it.
‘Nonsense. You have gardeners for that. Besides, what does that matter, when your kingdom is flourishing? Taking care of a kingdom is not far from the nurturing of a mother.’
‘Are you telling me that I should treat my child like it’s another affair of the state?’
They both started laughing and walked through the palace corridors, arm in arm.
 
It would have normally been Korvus’ duty to speak to the men before a battle. But Sibillah wished to do it herself, like in the days of old, when she was but the King’s daughter, General of his guards.
Her horse, Anduin, counted as many scars as her, and just like Korvus, he had been with her through many battles. It carried her now in front of her army with a steady gallop.
‘Becoming Queen had never been what I desired. Becoming Queen had not been what I was always told the gods wished for me. My father’s brother was meant to take the throne and do great things for this kingdom. Do kingly things!’, she spoke, her voice resounding with composure. ‘But when my father died, his brother abdicated, for despite he was expected to do kingly things, he was too scared of being king. And so, in the absence of a regent and too scared to allow signs of struggle to travel to our neighbouring kingdoms, I took the throne.’
Anduin neighed, his breath rolling out of his nose and mouth into the frosty morning light. A sudden wind gust almost whistled as it blew, bringing newly-flustered blood into the younger soldiers’ cheeks.
‘I was terrified many times as your Queen, and it is no shame to say that I am terrified now. But I grew stronger, I grew proud of you and humbled by you. And I learned that, in the end, it’s not prophecies or titles and bloodlines that make a Queen. It is always the people. Know that I am humbled and honoured once more to fight alongside you. And if it is my fate to die today, I’ll die with peaceful heart, for I have fought alongside such valiant soldiers!’
Her last words were spoken to all, but her eyes looked at Korvus. It was the least she could do to thank him. And when she drew out her sword, it glinted in the sunlight of the brand new day, like a new-born star. All called out her name, inebriated by the taste of bravery, wishful for another day, hopeful.
Korvus looked at her still-blonde locks and the roundness of her lips and saw the young maiden that he fell in love with many decades ago. He put his sword up and chanted her name with the others.
When her battle yell broke through the silence of the front, it sounded raw, stripped of any womanly softness. The archers knew their arrows were being summoned and they let them drape the sky and rain upon their enemies.

‘Mother, there is a lot more your people could achieve if you allowed the use of magic. Let me train children in the skill, let me erect a school for it, here, in the heart of the realm. Let your kingdom be the precipice of power!’
Moira’s hair had gotten shorter the older she grew, and now it barely reached her shoulders. Its red gloss turned darker as the years went by and looked now more auburn than when she was a little girl. Her eyes stayed the same cyan blue. Her eyebrows thinned and her cheekbones narrowed, her expression looking more stern and deliberate.
Sibillah sucked on her lower lip, pensively looking at the map of the kingdom. She stayed her words.
‘I am already advising the Kingdom of Tardissa and the tribes at the outskirts of our kingdom.’ Moira continued with certainty of self, her eyes hawkingly following her mother’s moves.
‘Magic always comes with a price, Moira.’
Moira’s chin trembled for a second.
‘It’s a small one to pay if it means you can be of help. If it means you can save someone’s crops, shelter them from the floods. Keep them from succumbing to illness’, Moira added in a low tone.
Sibillah turned around, her crown unshaken on her forehead, looking her daughter in the eye.
‘No.’
Moira was dangerous. When the king fell ill, she blamed Sibillah for his death, for not using magic to save him, for not allowing her to cast a spell to bring him back. For allowing his illness to take him and leaving her without a father.
‘You don’t understand…’,Moira bargained.
‘Your father went out of this world the best way he saw fit. He never wished for magic to aide him; let alone resurrect him. You may have lost a father, but I have lost my husband!’ Sibillah’s words shattered against the confines of the room.
Moira looked down, pained, angry. Sibillah’s eyes filled with tears as she watched her daughter light up the flame of disdain inside her.
She was bitter, resentful and ever so ambitious. Out of all her children, Sibillah knew that Moira had inherited her drive and spirit; the ability for vengeance and the lust for power, however, were her own. Neither of her brothers could hold a grudge like her, and neither had any desire to take the crown. Whereas Sibillah knew that Moira coveted it with all her heart.
 
The falling men and horses shook the earth around her. Sibillah swung her sword in the air with such force that the head of the soldier who met its blade flew several meters away from his body and hit another man in the face, knocking him off his horse.
Anduin crushed anything and everything that stood in his way, giving no opponent any chance to survive once on the ground.
‘To me!’, she ordered the Captain of her guards, who had fought to her right.
They moved through a group of enemy soldiers, Sibillah’s sword kneeling bodies to the left, the Captain’s axe felling them to the right. Their arms performed an eerily synchronous dance of death, imparting it to any of Moira’s soldiers.
Sibillah did not take in looks, ranks or age of her victims. All stood equal in front of her iron. Being kind was a luxury she could not afford herself, and Moira had taken the gift of mercy away from all her fighters when she employed them to wage her war of vanity.
The Queen and her Captain met General Korvus in an open circle, just before Moira’s troops sounded their retreat. In the near-by distance, the wailing of the dead could be heard, permeated by excruciating pain.
‘They have started falling back.’ Korvus said.
His armour was stained with mud; and guts, and blood.
The Queen nodded, then dismounted. She laid her eyes over the landscape around her. She now permitted herself to acknowledge the many lives lost.
‘Send an emissary. Let them know that we will allow them to collect their dead before nightfall.’