Disclaimer: I don't own King Arthur or any of its characters. The King Arthur movie is the property of Touchstone Pictures. There is no copyright infringement intended!
I do own the story itself and the characters of Lirianna and Non-King Arthurian types
It is based on the 2004 movie and my own imagination! I do not intend to rip off any other writer; therefore if this premise has been done before, I'm sorry this is unintentional
WARNING: BAD LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE, ETC., SO READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL.
All reviews, and constructive criticism, gratefully received – but no flaming please!
Chapter 3: Dreams Unbounded
Smoke. Thick, black billows of the stuff. Choking her, burning her nose, her mouth, her lungs. Mama dead, her body strewn like left-over rubbish across the High King's bed; her copper hair floating against the thick furs, her bright violet eyes blank and void.
"Papa", she screamed. "Papa." A girl child, no more than ten, with raven's wing curls and forget-me-not eyes. Her bony fingers clutched tight around a ornamental dagger, its short hilt decorated with bright rubies.
"Lirianna", a big bear of a man, with equally dark hair and beard came running in, a long, bloodied sword in his right hand, a short, blunt axe in his other.
"My child", the man said, as he knelt quickly in front of the girl. "You must leave. Go by the servants' quarters, down through the tunnel. At the end you will find my man bearing my signet ring waiting for you with Kale."
The girl let out a stifled whimper. "But Papa", she pleaded. "What of you, and of my brothers, Eorn and Tragon."
The man encircled massively muscled arms around the shivering figure. "Be brave, Daughter. Do not worry about your brothers and I. And do not let these pigs see you cower in fear. You are a great princess. The blood of many warriors flows through even you, a girl child. Here, take this sword Liri", he handed her the gleaming katana. "Let her become as much a part of you as your very own soul, do you hear me. That my dear child, is the key. To bond with this powerful weapon, and to know and understand its spirit. Only then will you outlive your enemies."
A crash. The roof falling in. Men in chain mail and harsh furs storming in.
"Now Lirianna. Now, you must go now!"
By the next morning, the girl was on her way to Britain. And the great Veneti High King Leon, was rotting on a stake outside of the ruins of his once grand and beloved castle.
She woke with a start. The flames had long since died around her, leaving her body cold and chilled. But that was not what caused Lirianna to awaken. It was the presence of another that made her do so.
"You", she said quietly in the stillness of the night that surrounded her on either side.
The figure was crouched near the almost dead embers, trying to coax a fire to once more roar its warmth upon the small enclosure.
"Yes", was the whisper of a reply she received. The man's stooped body stood slowly from the now blazing log, and even in his old age, he struck an impressive figure.
"Merlin", she breathed, kicking back the furs that swathed her. Her bare feet padded lightly, and somewhere in the back of her mind Lirianna was aware of the cold that nipped at her bare legs. "I have missed you", she said, as she wrapped her arms around his lean torso.
The words were true, sincere in their nature. It had been so long since she had last seen him…, too long thanks to that Roman bastard Marius.
"Ah, and I you, my dear child."
She stepped back, and looked up into his bright eyes. "How did you come here, Father", she whispered, suddenly afraid for the safety of the high priest before her. "Sarmatian knights are everywhere. If they even suspect that you are here, they will not hesitate to kill you. You must leave. You must go now, before it is too…"
He held up a commanding hand, stopping her flow of words with the simple gesture.
"There is peace this night between Arthur Castus and the Woads", Merlin said with a simple carefree wave of his fingers, as if there had never been any bad blood between the two for this many years.
Lirianna blinked, "Just like that? He let you come in here, just like that Merlin".
The man let out a short laugh, "You were always the one to know exactly how things were done. It drove your mother crazy, it did. Not like Guinevere at all, except for your loyalty to your people that is."
She blushed slightly at his words. Her mother; Merlin's wife, Bidelia . But yet not her mother. She mentally shook her mind from her thoughts; of course Bidelia, the High One, had been her mother, just as Merlin was her father. Blood no longer mattered, it went deeper than that for her, as it had for the past decade now.
"Child", he continued to speak, forcing her out of her reveries. "There is a force that moves against us. Against the Woads. Against all of Britain."
Lirianna drew in a deep breath. There was always a force moving against the Woads, usually in the form of Sarmatian knights who rode under the banner of Rome.
"Who is it now?", she said with a sudden hesitancy to her voice. She wasn't sure she wanted to know what terrible evil was going to swoop down on her people this time.
"Saxons. A massive incursion to the north", Merlin said quietly, his voice deathly quiet, his eyes pensive.
A tremor started through her whole body, shaking her violently with it. Saxons. The last time she had seen a Saxon incursion, the golden-haired devils were burning her home and all her childhood memories with it.
"What can we do", she murmured. "Against such forces, how can we survive? What of Rome? Will they send an army? Will they fight for the lands they so freely stole?"
The Romans, her enemy just as much as the Saxons. But they were her only hope. The Woads were in need of a leader; they were not ready, not trained enough, to take out an entire Saxon army. How could they possibly fight a battle against them, and even consider a victory from it?
She searched the lined and weather-worn face before her; trying in vain to find some small glimpse of hope, anything… She found nothing. Even before he shook his head in rejection, she knew that help would not come from the cowards called Romans.
Her mind raced, back and forth, over and over. Then it hit her. Why Merlin was here, why he had called for peace between Arthur and his men. That was the hope he searched for, the hope that she sought so desperately to use to save her people.
"The Knights", she finally said. "You want their help."
Merlin nodded. "Yes. So it seems that the enemy of our most feared enemy is our friend. We cannot face the Saxons without Arthur Castus and his great knights. We need them Lirianna, And so it must be that we now accept them."
She paced, like a caged animal that wants to be free. That was how she felt, trapped. Trapped by her hatred for the Saxons. Trapped by her fierce loyalty to her people, even unto her death. Trapped by Arthur and the Knights. Trapped by dark, brooding eyes that even now as she considered death by Saxon hands, fought their way into her mind, to scorch her very heart with their blistering heat.
She had dined with the men tonight. Had somehow, felt like she bonded with them. Now, she needed to trust them.
With a quick nod of her head, Lirianna looked back up at Merlin.
"I hope the Sarmatians do not fail us."
A sad look came into his eyes, clouding them over, "They cannot fail us, child. Or we shall all die from it". With those final words, he made a small bow to her, before clutching his walking stick tightly and walking regally out of the tent.
Lirianna sighed to herself, running a weary hand through her curls and over her pale face.
Her mind was as drained as her body it seemed, and yet she knew that sleep would not come easy again this night. Lying back against the warmth of her make-shift bed, the woman concentrated hard on trying to sleep. But alas, dreams evaded her. It wasn't even dawn yet, of that she had seen from the sky when Merlin had exited. Thick blackness hung about still, dark and inky. No tinge of light's soothing touch had even crept against the grain of the sky yet.
"Damn it", she said savagely, her voice echoing eerily in the emptiness of the tent.
A head popped suddenly in through the flap of the door, causing Lirianna to raise a readied sword.
"Easy now", Dagonet said quietly. "Just making sure you were alright."
She dropped the sword as quickly as she had drawn it. "What in the name of the Goddess are you doing up Knight", she asked as she lay back against her soft pallet once more. The sight of a beautiful woman lying half-clothed on a pile of sumptuous furs would have been enough to send any of the other men into a lust filled frenzy. Any man that is except Dagonet. He was not a man who thought with lusts. No, he was more a man who thought with a clear, and level head.
"I should ask you the same question Lirianna", he challenged back, as he stalked softly to take a seat by her feet near the warmth of the fire.
She let out a harsh sigh, one that was filled with many emotions. Hate, fear, anger, sadness, grief, longing…
She raised up on one bare arm, her palm cradling her head as her violet eyes bore into him. "I need your help, Dag. I need their help."
The words floated between them, and hung on the frosty air. Her voice was deep and hoarse sounding, and Dagonet wondered how much sorrow this plea for help had been giving her.
"You have my help, my lady. Any daughter of the great Veneti's will always have my axe as her protector."
Lirianna's eyebrows shot up, before knitting together. "How long", she asked, "How long have you known?".
He chuckled, a warm rumbling sound, that belied his harsh looking demeanor. "Since the very first, my lady. Since I saw that sword at you side. Since I saw the inscriptions on your horse's bridle. And now, since I have seen those tattoos on your upper leg."
She glanced down at her bare leg, and the dark tattoos that wove an intricate pattern on it. The Woad tattooist she had asked to do them had refused her at first. Telling her that a tattoo on the inners of a woman's leg would displease the gods and goddesses alike. But, the tip of her sword had finally convinced the man to do her bidding. Shifting slightly, Lirianna pulled at the hem of her garment, letting the red fabric cover her indecency.
"I must beg you not to tell anyone", she said hurriedly, her eyes pleading with his for his silence.
"I will do as you ask. It is none of my affairs. But I must ask, why? Why have you not told anyone? Why do you pretend to be a Woad? They were once the enemies of your own people."
She rose then, to cross the space and stand nearer to the flames of the fire. "My father had many enemies. And therefore so do I. I do not trust easily, for it can easily get you killed. The Woads took me in, when my father's supposedly loyal man meant to rape and then sell me to the Saxons these many years ago. If it had not been for them, I would be dead by now." She turned around from the fire to face him, "They are all I have left in this world now. When you owe your life to a people, when you have lived with them for so long, nothing else matters. Not blood, not past feuds, nothing. The Woads are my family now, just as these knights are yours. Would you not do everything in your power to save them from a certain fate worse than death?"
Dagonet looked hard at the woman before him. She was a sight to behold. The flames shone around her body like a holy light. Her dark curls floated as wild and free as the wind. And her eyes, those almond shaped strange colored eyes of hers bespoke of her royalty. She was strong, and brave, and true. And never had he met a woman quite like her.
"I would", he finally said. "But I would first want to know, what exactly it is I am up against."
"The Saxons", she growled, her eyes becoming hard, cold amethyst stones in her pale face with the mention of the name. Striding back to him, she sat down, closer this time and told him all that Merlin had spoken to her of.
Dagonet stared into the fire. "The Saxons are closing in on us already. I can feel it. We may not have to wait until we reach the Wall to fight them."
"I know. And if that is the case, then so be it. But it does not stop the fear in my heart from coming."
He looked down into her suddenly vulnerable, and very young face. She was a scout, a warrior, a princess, and a full-blown stunning woman. But right there, it that moment, she was nothing more than a child. A very frightened, very alone child, who had no idea of what move to make next. A sudden urge came upon him. Bending close to her, he kissed her forehead lightly, fatherly.
"Do not worry tonight, Liri. You must get some rest. And so must I. Lucan will be wondering where I have gotten to", he said the last part with a fond smile. He was definitely getting attached to the boy.
Lirianna gave him a jaded, half-hearted smile herself, before snuggling down into the furs as was his command. The last thing she was aware of before surrendering finally to sleep once more, was the protective figure that loomed at the doorway, waiting on her to return to dreams.