Chapter Thirty-Five
Halia dreamed.
They were vague dreams that flitted through her childhood. She was a little girl watching her father don his adventuring gear. He would polish his sword with a cloth, making sure the enchanted blade gleamed.
"It's been handed down through our family for generations," Anguin, her father, said. "It was looted from Dashilith the Depraved's dungeon before he was killed. No dungeon builder has been as powerful as him."
"Wow," Halia said, staring at the blade in awe. "He was killed a thousand years ago."
Her father nodded. "A thousand years it has served us. It can never be lost. It's bound to our blood."
"Anguin," said her mother, "she's too young for this."
"She's of my blood," Father said, his voice stern. Anguin stared down at little Halia, her black hair in twin pigtails, each tied off with white daisies. "When one member of our family dies, the sword will appear before the next. It knows our blood and will seek out the next to wield him. You hear that buzz?"
She nodded. The sword always hummed when activated. The magic blazing through it.
"That's the bond between us. The sword knows us and sings for us. He will be a stalwart ally."
"Anguin," Mother said, her voice sounding anguished. "You speak like..." She trailed off.
"Fuegin is a great threat. The Black Flame of Nyias must be extinguished." Anguin rose. "I will be gone a month or two, Halia. Watch after your mother. You have my blood in you. You're strong."
"Yes, Father!" Halia had said, putting her hands on her hips, the short skirt of her child's smock swirling about her legs, her knees covered in scabs from her play. "I will protect Mother until you return."
Her father's hand rubbed at the top of her head. She felt the callouses. The strength. "Of course you will."
He rose and then he embraced mother.
Her dream shifted to a few weeks later. She was playing by the river that ran by Astovin village. She giggled as she made a mud ball to throw at the boys. The girls all liked to play with dolls. It was all so boring. She romped with the boys.
Light flashed before her. She gasped, the mud falling from her fingers. Her father's sword coalesced out of the light and impaled into the river bank. She gasped at the sight of the familiar blade. She grabbed it and yanked it out.
"Look what Halia has!" one boy called.
"Wow, Halia!"
"A real sword!"
"Neat!"
She held the blade up. It hummed. Happy. She gasped and then turned and bolted for her home. She ran up the bank and into the village itself. She passed people who cried out in alarm at seeing a child with such a large weapon. She ran all the way home and burst inside.
"Mother! Mother! Father lost his sword!" she cried.
Her mother, turning, said, "What is this, Hali..." Her words trailed off. Her face paled. "Noooo!"
She collapsed, crying.
It was some time before Halia understood what it meant for her father's sword to appear in her hands, and then she wept with her mother.
The dream shifted. She trained hard, practicing with her father's sword. Her blood was the blood of heroes. A slayer of dungeon builders. When she turned eighteen, she was ready. She gathered her first party, a priest named Milies and a rogue named Norso. Several dungeons had appeared around her home of Astovin. After being ignored for a decade or more, the foul force that unleashed builders had sprinkled them here.
She had gone into her second dungeon, having failed at Mthunzi's, and found it strangely easy. They had to clear the traps, but the monster girls didn't fight them. The trio moved through to the end of it and burst in on the dungeon builder.
A man in gray robes, a breastplate, and holding a lightning spear. She had been so ready to kill him and...
"Flesh cursed to stone, let the petrification of Lord Abzu end!"
The powerful voice penetrated her dreams. She felt herself coming awake. She opened her eyes, her body held rigid. The dungeon builder, her enemy, stood before her. Only he wasn't her enemy. He stared at her with these relieved eyes, a big smile on his lips.
Gray melted from her flesh. Stone vanished. She remembered... Astovin. The village had been under attack. A gorgon and a half-dozen basilisks. She had been consumed by petrifaction. Engulfed in it. She shuddered, her head shaking. She was in a room. The dungeon.
"Leo?" she gasped. Her father's sword hummed in her hand. She had fallen in love with her enemy. Only Leo wasn't her enemy. He might be a dungeon builder, but he wasn't evil. She looked at him and saw the joy in his eyes. He looked older. Not in his features, though. It was in his soul. Then she noticed he had two more glyphs on his chest. "How long?"
"A few weeks," he said, pulling her to him. "It's been a long, long day." He held her tight, her breastplate pressing into his chest. She gripped her father's sword in her hand as he pressed his face into her neck.
He cried.
His arms tightened about her. "I thought... I thought I lost you, Halia."
Her heart tightened. Emotion caught in her throat. Her left arm hugged him tight, her right clutching to her father's sword. She couldn't sheath it, not with Leo clinging to her, and she could not dishonor it by dropping it. Tears stung her eyes.
"I'm here," she whispered. "You haven't. I'm here."
"I killed him," he whispered. "The bastard who sent the attack. I baited a trap and killed him, Halia. My women... They suffered so much so I could rescue you and... and... What sort of man does that?"
"They are your soldiers, Leo," she whispered. "Not just your lovers. Nor am I just your woman. I'm your sword. Your shield. We're your army. Sometimes, your soldiers have to die. They have to suffer. But if your motives are pure, if your goal is honorable, if your cause is just, then it is a sacrifice that they--we--will make. What is it you want to do?"
"Find out why dungeon builders are sent to this world and end the violence. Bring peace."
"That is something worth dying for," she whispered. "I am a hero, a paladin, and that is my destiny, too. My family has waged this war for a thousand years. One day, it'll be over. We'll have peace."
"And what will be left?" he asked. "My monster girls can be restored to life, but you... The other humans. The dwarves."
Dwarves?
He pulled away from her. "I didn't kill Ziamili to save the world. I didn't go to war with him to bring peace. I did it to get the power to save you. I was selfish. I wanted you to live. I wanted there to be justice for what he did to you and the villagers."
"Don't you think saving someone you love is a just cause?" she asked. "Ziamili was no innocent, was he? He attacked my village. That is not the act of a good man. He brought this war to you, didn't he?"
