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A Dreamed-Of Peace

Chapter 4

Sponsored by Engy

By Draconicon

The march home was as quick, regimented, and unmolested as ever, a sign of the Great Marches military discipline in the face of crisis if nothing else. The twins rode behind the Commander-General as he guided the column of soldiers back to their home at Fog Fortress, neither of them saying much during the journey across the marshes and swamps that constituted much of their family's lands. The many water-crossings were made easier by their mounts being lizards rather than horses, swimming them across rather than looking for a ford, but that only sped them towards the home of duty and fear rather than towards anywhere that they wanted to be.

Or at least, anywhere that Rothil wanted to be. His sister was far more inclined to make it work than he was, at least as far as anyone else knew. He looked up at their home, sighing slightly under his breath.

Fog Fortress was built into the pass between the Great Marches and the Land of Whispers, the only place where the monsters of the other nation could enter the Empire by land. The fortress itself stood out of the mists around them, a solid barrier of stone and metal that had been added to by every generation of the Strok family since they had begun their watch over two hundred years ago. What had once been a meager wall had joined the rising rock from east and west to form a near-impenetrable barrier for the nation to the south to cross.

Near-impenetrable, however, did not mean impenetrable, as the death of the Emperor had confirmed.

No matter the towers, no matter the men, there's always going to be something that gets through, Rothil thought as they marched towards the northern gate. No matter what we do, it's never going to stop them completely...

It was far from the first time such thoughts had occurred to him, and he knew the answer that his father or the other members of the family would give. They were not there as a mere warden, but as the chains that restrained the prisoner. They were here to hold the enemy back, and to make sure that anyone that did get through paid the price in blood and pain. They were not a cure. They were a wall.

And when you're a wall, there's always someone trying to get around you, or break you...

He didn't let out another sigh. One, perhaps, he could have justified to his father. He knew that a second would gain attention that he didn't want at that moment.

The great iron gates opened at their approach, other lions and sharks of the house pulling the many chains at the top of the wall to open them. The sides of the metal were showing signs of red rust again, and he knew that there would be some officer in the Fortress that would be lectured for that, later. There was little excuse, even in the mist, for the gates to be allowed to turn red like that.

Rothil rode just behind his father and beside his sister as the gates were opened for them, looking down at the garrison of soldiers that were there to greet them. Most were dressed in pressed leather, hardened and thickened with layer upon layer, while the officers were outfitted in thick metal plates, each piece fashioned individually out of smoke-metal for the men that commanded and protected the lower ranks.

They saluted as one, their arms up and linking with the soldiers at their sides. They did not shout, but there were enough voices taking up the chant that it might as well have been one.

"We follow the chain; the chain leads you home."

"We follow the chain; we are returned," the Commander-General said in return.

Click, clank, smack, slap. Every soldier touched their arms to the ones beside them, then returned their hands to their sides.

It was the same ritual for the departure and return of any member of the Strok family, high or low. In spirit, the men and women that gathered in the courtyard were all his siblings, though none were related to him by blood, even by bastard blood. They were together in this, forming the chain that was supposed to hold back the monsters of the Land of Whispers.

As his father dismounted from his scaly beast, several officers rushed forward to meet with the older lion. The Commander-General would be busy briefing them, and Rothil imagined that he'd finally have the chance to sort himself out. And maybe, just maybe, there'd be a few letters waiting for him in his chambers.

Unfortunately, the officers were taking their right to brief his father immediately rather than in one of the towers or in the secure rooms of Fog Fortress, and that meant that the Commander-General had not gotten around to dismissing him or anyone else. The rules stated that they must remain in formation until dismissed when they returned home, lest they show a break in the discipline that they were required to display.

He rather hated that particular rule.

Rothil shifted back and forth on the back of his mount, trying not to be as bothered by the hard saddle beneath his rump. It had been abusing him for a while, thumping against him with the unique rolling motions of the lizard beneath him. While they were in motion, it wasn't so bad, and there were ways of moving and shifting to keep from being hurt by it as much, but now that they were stopped, there was no possible way to ignore the bruises that had been left behind.

Rotha sidled up to him, shifting her mount to walk sideways a few feet until he was in reach. His sister - younger sister by two and a half minutes - reached out and patted his arm.

"Soon," she muttered.

"Soon by our standards, or his?" he muttered back.

"By whatever standards make it true."

"You talk like a Rashid."

"And you complain like a Mokri."

He stifled a snort at that, knowing that certain disciplines did have to be maintained, but that was still funny, at least to him.

Eventually, his father must have decided that the talks must take place within Fog Fortress instead of in the courtyard, and barked out a small roar. The talking stopped, and the soldiers snapped to attention.

"Rothil, Rotha. You are dismissed to free duty. Gara, come with me."

Their uncle fell in step behind their father as the Commander-General made his way to the Middle Keep, the second of three rings of fortifications in the center of Fog Fortress. It was also the one with the tallest towers.

Something must have happened on the land bridge while we were gone; father never goes there without needing a view of the land.

Rothil pushed that out of his mind. He was not here to start planning campaigns with his father. He was here because he had to be. Because he was the heir.

Pulling on the links of metal that ran down to the sides of his mount's head, he guided the lizard towards the improvised stables that were on the far side of the courtyard. They were improvised, not because they were quickly made, but because the stablemasters still weren't sure of the best environment for the lizards that they used. They lived in the muck and mud in the swamps of the Marches, yes, but they died quickly out there due to disease and worse. The mud seemed to bother them in the long-term, even though they sought it out whenever they could.

So, the stables were made with a pool of clean water as well as a shallower area of mud that they could slide through. A dry portion of land was kept in the corner, though Rothil had yet to meet the stablemaster that could keep it dry for long. Sawdust, sand, raised ground, everything was tried, but the lizards continued to muck it up, forcing them to be bathed again and again while they were in the stables rather than out on-duty.

Regardless, the armored lion led his mount into its pen. It was more than six times the size of what a horse would demand, but that was because a horse didn't need to move around in its stall. The lizards did. He dismounted, pulling the pen door open, and his mount immediately leaped for the water.

"That's going to ruin the saddle," his sister said as she got off her mount.

"He darted in before I could take it off."

"You let him in before you could take it off, you mean."

He sighed. It hadn't quite been on purpose, but he hadn't been that bothered, either. The loss of a saddle wasn't much with the surplus of leather that they had in the Great Marches. It was merely a little more work for one of the saddle-makers, and it saved him...

Admittedly little. Perhaps two minutes, perhaps a little bit more. No more than that. He'd just wanted to get out of the courtyard and back to his chambers.

"Do you have to do that?" he asked as he entered the pen.

"What?"

"Catch me out with these things. You do it all the time."

"If you lied as well as the rest of the officers, I wouldn't have to."

"I'm not here to lie."

"Then you pay the price by actually doing the work. Come on. It won't take long."

He shook his head as he dunked himself into the lizard's pool, fighting with it for a moment to get at the straps underneath. The leather didn't like getting wet, but it hadn't been dunked that severely. It seemed like most of what had happened was that the protective oils that he had applied that morning had been washed away. There was little actual damage.

Undoing the straps beneath, he dragged himself back out of the pool. His mount snapped at his tail in playful fashion, and he darted it out of the way just in time. Shaking his head, the lion grunted as he dragged his now-soaked, waterlogged self back to the edge of the pen, dripping water from the seams in his armor.

"Nnngh..."

"This is what you get for putting it off," Rotha muttered, putting her own saddle down on the pen fence. "You could have done it the right way."

"Oh, shut up."

She smiled slightly, which was more than he would have gotten from any other officer in the family. It faded quickly, though, as she turned her attention to the saddle and seemed to tune out the rest of the world.

He knew that look. It was the same look that she had during training, the same look that she had during any fight, the same look that she had when she was doing anything that might be judged later. The rest of the world didn't matter unless it was part of the task at hand. Everything must be perfect.

Rothil shook his head. He imagined that he'd hear the shivers and whimpers through the cracked wall that separated their rooms tonight.

He turned to his own saddle. He wasn't getting to his chambers until it was properly tended to and cleaned, so he might as well get started.

After dropping his armor off at the blacksmith with apologies for the water damage, Rothil climbed the eastern tower of Fog Fortress. The official living quarters of the Strok Family were in the Inner Keep, otherwise known as the Chained Spire, but the lion preferred to keep his quarters on the edge of the fortress. Not because of bravery, or because he felt that he was making a point. No, it was because of the view, and what it gave him.

The young male sat on the side of his bed, looking over the rocks that formed the walls between the east side of the fortress and the coast. The mists were coming in thick today, but he could still see the water out there, the sea that spread out around the Great Marches and down the land bridge to the Land of Whispers. It was a vast expanse, impossibly large, and it calmed him to look at it.

One day...

The chain of duty soothed his father and his uncle, he knew, and he felt that it did something for his sister, though it must have pained her as much as it soothed her from the way that she would swing from content to distraught at times. For him, however, it was only a reminder of what he had been born into, not what he wanted.

The line of the Strok was a line of guardianship, of fighting, of soldiering. There was no chance to be something else, to try anything different. The minute that he'd been born, he'd been doomed to the fate of watching the land bridge, and of keeping Fog Fortress standing.

He clenched his fist for a moment, staring at the water again, trying to imagine the waves washing forward and carrying away some of the anger and sadness that filled him whenever he had a moment to think about the inevitability of his fate. It helped. Not a lot, but even a little help was better than none.

There was another heir. His sister, Rotha, was the better sibling between the two of them. She could be the fighter, the lady of the fortress that his father wanted. There would be someone to look after the land bridge and follow the chain, after he left.

But duty bound him tight, and there was really only one way out.

Leaning forward, the lion reached beneath his mattress, fumbling about until his fingers found the edge of the letters the servants had been keeping for him. It took a great deal of bribery to break their oaths of duty and to keep this secret, but it was worth it for the faint chance of escape from this place. The lion pulled out the most recent cluster of them, and was disappointed to see no more than five letters.

The list is shrinking...

He tried not to feel too depressed about that as he laid down on his bed, shifting his tunic a bit to lay over his thighs properly as he got comfortable. There were no robes in Fog Fortress. One wore armor, a tunic, or nothing, and few were comfortable with nothing in the interminable mist that never wore away.

He extended his legs, doing his best to get comfortable. With one last perk of his ear, he made sure nobody was climbing the ladder up to his room before he used his claws to peel the seals from the letters. The first one was from a minor noble in the Imperial Plains, so he started there.

At first, it looked promising. There was definite interest in him, a number of compliments to his family and to his own exploits. They were minor, he supposed, but they certainly impressed those that were not in the thick of it on the daily. He scrolled his eyes down, trying to see what the bad news would be.

And there it was, towards the very end of the letter. The young horse-woman had declined his offer of marriage and union, stating that her father 'didn't want their house chained to one so bound to a greater duty.'

In other words, the mare's sire had decided that it would be better for them to seek a match that didn't risk having the mare pulled into the most dangerous part of the Empire.

He sighed, holding the letter to a burning candle beside his bed. Letting it burn down to the tips of his fingers before tossing it out the window, he continued through the pile, his hope dying with each passing letter that showed only feigned compliments, and no actual interest.

By the time that he reached the fifth one, which was a letter for the Al-Khan Principalities that bordered the Empire on the south-east and provided their other protection against the Land of Whispers, he was all but done. His hopes had been dashed again and again, even with the lowest-ranking of houses that should have been ecstatic at the chance of marrying into a family that had the clout that the Stroks did. Yet, every time that he made an offer, people declined.

Then again...would you accept? he wondered.

If it meant that he himself didn't have to go to the Great Marches, the answer would have been yes. He didn't know any of the families that he had sent messages to, save for reputation, nor did he know the people that he was proposing to marry. All he knew was that a marriage, done outside of his father's knowledge, would be the only thing that would get him out of the swamps and away from Fog Fortress.

Away from the Land of Whispers.

He bit his lip as he looked out the window again. Even as he looked at the sea, he could see the edges of the land bridge, and he knew that it was a far shorter trip to the deadly land to the south than one imagined. It could be crossed in scarcely more than a day, but the mists traveled up and down that stretch of earth, twisting the distance and making it feel more and less by turns.

And it hid what traveled on the bridge to begin with. One of his ancestors had the idea of creating a metal pipeline that ran between Fog Fortress and the Land of Whispers, creating a road of oil and light, but that had been impossible. There was not enough metal to split between that project and building up the fortress, and so, it had been abandoned.

What was left was a bridge of death, one that few would travel without reason. One that he wished that he hadn't.

The tremors came again as he thought of what he and his family had seen when they had been invited into the Land of Whispers, the only generations of their family to ever do so. They had met with those that lived there, and...and...

He shivered, not daring to think back to that again. The nightmares were bad enough when they took him by surprise. Inviting them in was not something that he needed to do.

What he did need to do was get out.

"Please...just once..." Rothil whispered, staring at the letter in his hands. "Just this once...a little hope..."

He flicked his claws against the edge of the parchment, removing the seal, and he twisted the letter to see what was at the bottom of the page. The lion's tail twisted in anxiety, and his ears pulled flat against the top of his head as he braced himself.

Yes.

Rothil gasped, his breath faltering. He saw the word, and how could he not? It was the only word across the entire piece of parchment. One word, writ as large as life, and giving him the response that he had been dreaming of for weeks. Months, even.

It did not matter that it came from someone in the principalities rather than the Empire. It didn't matter that it was someone that would likely be able to rip him apart limb from limb if he angered her.

It didn't even matter that there was nothing to it that guaranteed his safety getting there. All that mattered was that it gave him a way out of the Great Marches.

Rothil felt like his heart was going to explode from his chest, as if he might completely lose himself if he didn't do something to vent all the stress that he had been building up. He jumped from the bed, running to the far side of the room, and he just...

He danced. He jumped. He ran. It was as if an inner child had been brought back to life after being killed for a dozen years, and he embraced it, laughing, giggling, almost mad with happiness and relief.

It so consumed him that he didn't even notice that there was someone on their way up to him until there was a knock on the door just under his feet.

Rothil snapped back to reality as soon as he felt the vibration, staring down at the little panel of wood. He looked at the parchment, then folded it and tucked it into the bookshelf of books on military tactics that were kept in all the different living quarters. He sat on the edge of his bed once more, clearing his throat.

"Come in."

He half-feared that it would be his father, but no. It was General Gara, his uncle. The black-furred lion pulled himself up from the ladder, sitting on the edge of the hole in the floor.

"It would be easier to visit you if you leaved in the Chained Spire, like the rest of us."

"It's better for me out here. I can see the sea."

"You can from the spire, as well."

"But not as well. And you can see the land bridge easier, too."

The other lion nodded, getting to his feet and walking to the bed. He made some room for his uncle, shaking his head as he looked at the floor.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Must something have happened?"

"The officers intercepted father as soon as we arrived. Something must have."

"That's true, but that doesn't mean it concerns you just yet."

"It will, though. I might as well hear it," he said, gritting his teeth and bracing himself. "What happened?"

"It seems that an emissary of the Al-Khan was met at the southern gate."

Rothil's ears flicked up, and he slowly turned his head to face his uncle. The black-furred lion affected not to look at him, instead looking at the far wall. He spoke quietly, forcing the young man to listen more closely.

"It seems that a full force of Al-Khan fighters attempted to push their way through the Land of Whispers, cutting down anything that stood in their path."

"They...they must have been mad..."

"Heh...the Al-Khan have always been mad," his uncle said. "But the more interesting thing is that they were on a mission to see us, and a mission to see you, specifically."

No...no, no, no, they wouldn't...they wouldn't do that...she wouldn't have done that...

Who was he fooling? The Al-Khan were famous for always taking the hard way, always fighting reality itself for the right to prove their strength. If the Strok were mad for following the chain, then the Al-Khan were mad in an entirely different way. They would take the hardest road that they could find in life, and then push themselves to follow it. The minute that there was a different option that was more difficult than keeping to the current path, they would take it, instead.

They were never boring, but they seldom lived long without some guidance from outside.

If she took that as a challenge...

Suddenly, he understood why this one would have said yes. Marrying a Strok was a danger in and of itself. Moving to the Great Marches was another danger, greater and more sustained. Fighting through a deadly country, trying to survive to meet her husband...

If there was an Al-Khan in the world that could have resisted that challenge, he did not know who it could have been.

"Are...are there any survivors?" Rothil asked, his voice shaking.

"Two. A female python, and a male crocodile," his uncle said. "And the former wishes to see...allow me to see if I can get this right. She wishes to see 'My fiancé at his earliest inconvenience, and tell him to bring a fucking sword.'"

"..."

Rothil slumped forward, covering his face with a groan. He could not have been more humiliated, not merely for the fact that his plan had been uncovered, but for the way that it had been uncovered. He could not believe that the simple plan of trying to break his way out of Fog Fortress had gone so far off the rails, nor could he believe that someone had gone this far to try and claim him.

However, there was something else that clicked, too. As he looked up, Gara looked at him with a small smirk.

"I think that you will be in less trouble than you fear."

"Because she survived..."

"Yes, indeed. She survived, and kept her voice." The black-furred lion nodded. "You have a woman that has managed to push through the entirety of the Land of Whispers, and survive. She and her bodyguard will be a most welcome part of the family, if you decide that you'll still go through with marrying her."

"I have a choice?"

"Your father would prefer to bind you to her immediately, but I've talked to my brother. He'll allow you to make the choice. Whether the lady will, on the other hand..."

That was a point, and fair as one could ask, when it came right down to it. He sighed, rubbing the back of his head as he looked at the floor.

"I'm sorry, uncle. I didn't mean for this to go this way."

"Secrets will often beget pain," the General said. "When you hide something, you only make it harder for others to handle it when it eventually comes out. There are occasions for secrets, but this was not one of them."

"I suppose."

"Every Strok has their fears..." General Gara sighed. "Perhaps I should have..."

"...Should have what, uncle?"

"After the meeting, nephew. After the meeting. For now -"

THUMP!

Whereas Gara's knock on the trapdoor had been polite, this one was anything but. Rothil looked up at his uncle, who smiled and sighed.

"Go ahead."

"Come in," Rothil said.

The trapdoor slammed open, and his sister poked her head up. The lioness glared at him, slowly rising from the hole in the floor like a kitten that was indignantly rising from an unwanted bath.

"What...did...you...do?" Rotha asked.

"...It wasn't on purpose," he muttered.

"No, but it's definitely done with purpose," she said, dragging herself out of the hole. "Do you know her?"

"...No," he admitted.

"You sent a marriage proposal when you didn't even know her name."

"I was desperate."

"No. Desperate is sending one of those to an Al-Khan in the first place. What you did is having a death wish."

"The Haafal aren't having any problems," he muttered.

"That's because they're already trying the impossible. They're just as crazy as the Al-Khan, just in a different way!" Rotha groaned, rubbing her forehead. "And now, my older brother is creating a whole new situation for us to solve..."

He slumped forward slightly, but before he could respond, his uncle grabbed him by one shoulder and Rotha by the other. They were made to silence themselves as the older lion stood up, giving them a gentle shake.

"Don't rattle the chain, you two," Gara muttered. "The links are strong, but once shattered, they're nearly impossible to repair."

"I'm already at the breaking point," he muttered, shaking his head as he got to his feet. "I don't -"

"Don't say it," his sister said. "The minute you say it, you can't take it back."

"I don't want to take it back. I don't...I don't..."

And yet, for all that, he couldn't bring himself to say it. He didn't want to be here, but he had never been able to say it out loud. Not to her, not to Gara, certainly not to his father. There was no one in the family that would allow him to voice his fears, and so, he bottled them up, doing with them what he had to just to stay sane.

And who could blame him, really? He lived on the edge of reality. The Land of Whispers and the mist and fog that emanated from it tried to change that reality on a daily basis, and those that lived on the edge could not help but change to face it. Every day he spent in Fog Fortress was a reminder of the power arrayed against them, a great and powerful force that was just waiting for the slightest moment of weakness to slide in and take them all.

There was no way that he could follow in his father's footsteps. He fought, and he did his best as he did, but there was no way - no way - that he could ever fulfill that duty. He would break, and people would die.

And now, the only hope that he'd had of getting away from that had come to him instead of him going to her. Any hopes of leaving the Great Marches to live somewhere else had just diminished to near-nothing.

"Shall we go and see your fiancé?" Gara asked.

"Yes," he said mechanically.

"I'll leave you to get dressed. Rotha?"

"...I'll be with you in a second," his twin said.

Their uncle left with a nod, leaving them alone in his chambers. When the trapdoor closed, Rothil winced, turning away from his sister and reaching for the different pieces of more formal clothes that were tossed all about the room. He almost never wore them, as they were usually packed for when they were heading to the capitol and the Whitestone Palace, but this seemed to be the occasion.

Just as he was reaching for the fancier silk, however, Rotha gripped his wrist.

"This is an Al-Khan woman, Rothil. She's going to be expecting something strong. Do you have a second set of armor up here?"

"Behind the bookcase."

"Then get that; she'll expect a warrior, and you'll want to give her that."

"...Why are you helping me?"

"You're my brother," she said, chuckling. "Part of the chain."

"The chain, the chain...all the chain does is connect things, or restrain them. Why do we have to be a chain?"

"Someone has to be."

He sighed. Well, he was no longer afraid. He was angry again, and angry was something that he was used to. As he pulled the bookshelf out of the way, looking behind it to get the chain shirt and the leggings that went with it, he could hear his sister making her way to the window. He looked over his shoulder, watching her watch the water.

"Don't fall out," he muttered.

"Do you ever think about how fast that would just...fix things..."

Rothil paused in his undressing, slowly turning to face his sister. Her fingers gripped the edges of his window, and she looked happier than she should for saying something like that.

Then the moment passed, and she slowly stepped away from it. Her smile shrunk, but didn't disappear as she took several steps from it, almost like she was shaking something off as she looked back at him.

"Get dressed, brother. I'll see you downstairs."

"...Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'll see you downstairs."

He watched with residual shock as the armored lioness descended from his quarters. Soon, he was alone again, and as he turned to look at the window, he saw that she had left claw marks on the edges of the stone. He ran his fingers over them, shaking his head in wincing sympathy and slight awe.

When did she...why...

He looked back at the hole, but there was no sign of his sister. She must have climbed down faster than Gara did, and they would be waiting for him down in the courtyard.

...I've missed something...

As much as he hated this place, he didn't hate her. He didn't hate Gara. He didn't hate his family. And if his sister could think something like that, he had missed something horrible.

...Be better, he told himself as he finished dressing and put on his sword. Be better. Not for the chain. For them.

The End

Summary: The Strok return home to Fog Fortress, with Rothil the heir being more antsy and fidgety and a little angstier than ever, and a plan begins falling through.

Tags: no sex, fantasy, series, eastern fantasy, reversal, marriage options, bickering, worldbuilding, badass, lion,