Chapter 93

"Forge yonder!" I commanded my legion, flinging my flail and striking the skull of a floundering fool whom the great Dragoon dared to call a warrior. None were more stalwart than the True Queens' army, our fight majestic in its endeavour, but these twiddlesticks did not have the unbreakable courage in their hearts that we possessed.

My spirited seabass fought valiantly at my side, blasting shots of ice ahead to break the ranks of our enemies. Another of his baneful ice blades swished past my ear and buried itself between the eyes of a gurning ghoul of a man. He fell like a sack of peas that had been torn open at the foot, crumpling beneath me and leaving me free to leap over his loafish corpse and dive into my next skirmish.

With a swing of my flail and a flurry of wooden shards cast by my hand, I took down another cretin. To my right, Justin Masters forged on, spinning a web of fire and catching his prey in it like a hapsome fly. He fought like a truly chivalrous centipede, every death he claimed in the name of our queens shining in the sheen of his brow like a tiara of glory.

"Let them through!" a bellow went up from the enemy army and like the ocean receding, the hoofwits and cragnannies before us peeled away from us to reveal a greater danger beyond.

My heart did a jig, but I would not be shaken by the unveiling of these new and wretched devils who wore strange metal guns upon their backs.

I cried out for my Starfall Legion to reform, closing in tight while I stared at the oncoming tide of Nemean Lions, Werewolves and Repsian Tigers headed our way with a shimmer of murder in their eyes. The weapons upon their backs fizzed and buzzed with magic, promising a violence like no other.

"Shield formation!" I roared, and we all power shared, channelling our turbulent, roiling magic to my dear dolphin who cast a powerful forcefield around us.

An explosion of light and colour danced in the air as those calamitous cannons released their shots all at once. We closed ranks like nillies on a neighbour's norg and gave all the juice we had to give to our shield, but somehow, deep in my lady waters, I knew it would not be enough.

I released a chaotic cry, demanding ice and earth to join the shield above us, wielding it myself into an arching dome. It was powerful, unbreakable, infallible. Yet as those terrible blasts slammed down onto our shield and crack, crack, cracked against it, our magic fizzled out, dissolved and swallowed by whatever awful power was contained within those cannons.

All too soon, my legion was revealed, and more of those atrocious guns were fired just as the first line of beasts collided with us.

A Tiger's giant paws knocked me asunder and went charging on past me to attack my legion. Screams went up from my warriors as more of those guns were fired, the clack-de-clack and booming bangs making my ears buzz. Many were killed by those horrendous magical weapons, and woe grabbed my heart and shook it like a dog with a bone. In my tumble, I lost sight of my Maxy Boy, and I scrambled upright, my armour a little dented but I was no worse for wear from the mishap.

I snarled a savage snarl and lifted my flail, running straight for a Nemean Lion as it came charging through my battalion. I caught the Lion by the tail, and I was yanked off my feet as it continued running, gripping on for dear life as my legs kicked like I was doing the Jiminy jive. With a swing and fling, I threw myself up onto its back behind the mounted gun and the beasty roared, its head whipping around and its eyes locking on me. But it was not my target just yet, oh no, I was here for the rioting contraption strapped to its spine.

I flung my flail once then twice, the spiked ball ripping holes in the cannon and smashing it like the crag it was. But it was not enough. For as I held on tight to the fur of the Lion, one lift of my head showed me the devastation ahead. My Starfall Legion was being ripped through by blast after blast, their shields a-crumbling upon impact and the magic slapping into their bones carving great holes through their chests.

A whistling metal arrow came burning through the skull of the beast I was riding and it went plunging to the ground. I thought I might go thwacking and clacking into the earth with it, but instead, I was plucked into the air by a magical wind, deposited at the side of my salacious salmon.

"There's too many of them, Gerry," Maxy said in horror, raising his bow once more like the undeterred creature he was, releasing another arrow and taking down a savage Werewolf before using his air magic to return the arrow to his quiver.

"There are never too many enemies in this world for good to overcome," I said, thrusting my chin skyward and turning toward a row of stampeding beasts wearing those tricksome guns that were headed right for us.

I raised my flail, the earth trembling beneath me as I built a quake within it and with a snip and a snap of power, I made the ground buckle, taking down one then another and another. But I could not catch them all, and as I closed the earth above their heads and left them to the devilish dirt, I found my eyes falling upon a Wolf with eyes as black as death, the cannon upon its back charged with sizzling power, the glow of it near-blinding.

Max raced past me, arrow nocked and a roar of defiance in his eyes as the gun sent a shot our way, his arrow loosing that very same moment. I saw it then: the moment of my making. For it was he or I, not both of us could walk a merry walk from this field of death. And if it could only be one of us, then let it be him. Let it by my salmon.

I made the earth buck, knocking my Maxy boy aside as the arrow embedded in the Werewolf's head. There, in a flurry, was Justin, throwing himself in front of me. I tried to shield us both in a desperate bid for life, tucking us into a pod of earth. But that blazing ball of power crashed into it, consuming the strength of my shield and finding us beneath it.

My earth may have slowed it some, but not enough, for the almighty blast carved through the chest of my dear Justin and slammed into my own chest, shattering my breast plate and finding flesh. I wailed a final cry in death, praying I had done enough, that the True Queens would think of me upon a new dawn and know that I had fought for them with all I had to give.

"For the True Queens," I rasped, raising my flail high before my arm went limp at my side, Justin's dead weight stealing the last of my breath.

My eyes became hooded as I clung to consciousness, wishing for one more glimpse of my salamander before I stepped into the nevermore where my sweet Mama and dear Daddy awaited me. I could feel them close by, guiding me away, but oh, if only I could stay. If only, if only.

Then there he was, Maxy kneeling over me, crying my name and pushing Justin's dead body off of me. I could smell the blood, could feel the festering of my flesh as that horrid magic continued to bite and gnaw at my bones.

Alas, it was over.

"Did I make them proud?" I rasped, unsure if the words truly passed my lips. "Will my queens think of me with a touch of wonder in their voices beyond this day, Maxy?"

"Stay with me," he croaked, tears in his dark eyes as he tried to connect his magic to mine to heal me. But reality set in when he could find no connection, for something in those awful blasts stopped it from being so.

A rattling breath passed my lungs as I took in the sweet love I had found in this world.

"From mountain tops to sandy dunes, my love will live for you everywhere," I promised, trying to reach for him, but there were no more dandyhops in me now. No more kinkypunks or dangadongs. I was done for.

"I love you, Gerry, just don't say goodbye. I can fix this," he said in desperation, tears caressing his beautiful face, and oh how this man should never know such pain. If only I could take it away, and not be the source of such misery.

"Tell me I made them proud," I begged.

"You did, of course you did. They couldn't have done any of this without you," he growled, still trying to find that beating pulse in me, that well of magic to latch upon and save me. But the truth was ringing in the air now like the bells of the noongarden. And none could deny their call.

A sigh of failure left me. The Veil was thin and I could see to the other side of it, my soul half here, and half there. Hands were grasping mine and death was so welcoming that it was hard to be afraid. My fear lay with what I left behind, an unfinished war, a battle consuming my loves one by one.

My mama was close, all bright-eyed and button nosed, calling me to her, so near I could almost fall into her arms. But how could I go to my Mama when I had let down my queens?

I lifted my head and met the eyes of my Daddy, finding solace there in the dandy company of the family I had missed so deeply.

"We're so proud of you, my little bumpkin," Mama cried, her tears sliding down her cheeks, though she faded from view for a moment, swirling away in a golden mist. I saw the sky once more, but then I saw my parents again, here and there, I was both places at once.

"You gave them the good what-for and the best of the Grus name," Daddy boomed, and panic rose in me over that crushing truth. I was exiting the land of the living. I'd leave them all behind, and I shuddered, shaking off the call of that misty path, reaching for life instead, seeking my Maxy, my treasured Tory and darling Darcy, but I couldn't find a way back.

Justin was there, standing with my parents between this heavy mist that was guiding me on. A look of confusion marked his face as family members of his own ran close to hold him. He met my gaze, a nod of sadness and acceptance in his eyes as he let them guide him away, walking off into an imposing yet beautiful palace that towered there on the brink of everything.

"Thank you, my valiant friend," I called to him, for he had tried to save me, and that could not go forgotten.

He smiled back at me, content. But I was not. How could I be so?

"I…cannot go," I whispered, panic rising now. How could I leave, to walk as willingly as a whelk into the jaws of a fateful sealion? My queens needed me. They were still back there fighting for what was just and true, and I had sworn to be there ‘til the bitter end. But that was the trawling trouble, wasn't it? This was the end. Mine anyway. And there were no flails left to be flung.

"Come to us, dandybug," Daddy encouraged, offering me his hand. That hand, so close, so takeable, but then a song rose in my head unlike any other. A song of life and beauty and healing. A song that was sung in a rumbling tenor, so deep and sturdy that it tethered itself to my soul. I felt it pulling me, and my parents gazed on in wonder.

"Her soul is teetering like a tally two-whacker," Mama gasped, and then she was fading, my guiding star drawing me back to him with the lulling rhythm of his Siren song.

"Our love goes with you like the tinkling wind at your back! Keep it as close as a dingy stick in the face of the devildust!" Mama called and I tried to speak with her, but that path of death was closing to me now, one of life gushing closer instead.

Pain. That was the start of it. A burning, tearing sensation in my chest, but I would not be cowed by such a trauma. There, above me, with tears staining his cheeks, his eyes closed in concentration as he sang me back from certain death and healed my body with a song of all songs, I found my salamander.

He had removed the shattered remains of my breastplate, my heaving bosoms barely contained within the garments I wore beneath it as my flesh stitched itself together. It was unlike magical healing, my skin answering the notes of his voice, stitching itself together because he sang to it with such love that it could not resist the need to respond to its plea.

And when his song was done, his eyes cracked open, and there he found me healed and whole, returned from the brink of doom.

"Gerry," he gasped, leaning down to kiss me, his taste so sweet upon my lips.

I kissed him back, stealing but a single moment of impossible hope upon his mouth before he pulled me upright and I found myself standing in his air shield on a field of devastation. A quarter of my Starfall Legion had been torn to smithereens, but those who had survived were regrouping, reforming, crying out in glee when they saw me rise among them.

Maxy boy placed my flail in my hand and my lower lip a-quivered with emotion as I turned my gaze to the enemy army that was closing in again. Behind us, the beasts with the canons upon their backs were moving deeper into our ranks, causing countless deaths and leaving a bloody trail of murder in their wake. But my task was clear. Rip through the damned Dragoon's ranks and never stop. I could not turn back now; I could not go after those savage machines upon the backs of those beasts. We had to forge on. To keep breaking their lines.

I cast a fresh metal plate of armour over my chest, though it was not nearly as powerful as the plate I had lost. It would have to do.

Then I turned to face our plight and bellowed a single word. "Onward!"