SWNOVELS Part III: Nordavindurrin. Chapter 1: Nulara
Nulara stood on the city wall of Grandavalnall, the capital of the forest elves. She watched as a dragon ate wilfhayers, creatures similar to Earth’s wild boars, only with even more massive lower fangs, and huge horns.
“Killer!” It was the same dragon that had incinerated her friend, who was almost like a father to Nulara. Barnis Provade - that was the name of the knight-magician who had died in a battle with dragons in front of her eyes on the wall of her castle. Frestavisdalor, a red-brown dragon with some yellow color on his scales, was responsible for his death! “Killer!”
Nulara could barely contain her anger. She stood and watched as the arqilunians brought the carcasses of the dead wilfhayers, and the dragon roasted them and, almost without chewing, swallowed them.
“Elves serve a murderer!” shouted inside Nulara. She wondered how to kill the dragon. If she tries to kill him openly, the elves would probably execute her, and then she will not be able to kill the rest of the vile creatures! All dragons are responsible for her suffering! “I need to kill them all! I need to cut out their entire family!” But she had to keep her cool and she knew it perfectly well.
“This is because of the disgusting dragon cult of the elves! Long-eared jerks for millennia believed that some kind of dragon would save them! And so the dragons burned half of their country, and then one of them came and said that he was a renegade and wanted to become an ally, and the brainless forest elves believed the lying creature!” mused Nulara, watching the dragon eats the wilfhayers with appetite. They had a hundevenska in the castle, a creature resembling an earthly lynx, with very pronounced dog habits. Hundevenska was kind until something hurt her. She became moody and weird, but she was still allowed to run around the castle. Morn Tossed, Nulara’s uncle, whose head, besides that of her own father, she saw strung on a spear in a fishing town, became a father for the second time then. He had a daughter. And one day the hundevenska made her way to the cradle, the baby, apparently, did something wrong, and the hundevenska, probably out of fear, decided to attack and bit the face and part of the baby’s neck. The baby died. Morn Tossed shot the Hundevenska and then burned it along with his daughter’s body.
The dragon doesn’t look traumatized, but what if, for some other reason, he changes his position? What if his relatives will offer him a favorable pardon for the sake of a return?
Nulara was distracted by a half-elf.
“How shall I address you, yarlantan?” the half-elf asked.
Nulara stopped thinking about the fact that she was not only the acting snonungyarl, the head of the town, Lakhtumorer, the main town of the Larmar Islands, but she was also a yarlantan! Yarlantans are lords or ladies, governors of certain lands, provinces, vassals of the king. Her father, Timnar Tossed, was the snonungyarl of Lakhtumorer and the yarlantan of the Larmar Islands.
“Just Nulara,” Nulara replied indifferently, “Did you want something?”
A young half-blood arqilunian stood before her, he had ears slightly larger than Nulara’s. His hair was long and went down just below his shoulders, the tips were dark, but at the roots the hair was light blond. The tips that came down blended perfectly with the color of his light leather armor.
“My name is Valdiramir SilLintarick, I’ve decided to greet you personally, Nulara, and my mother would like to meet and talk with you, to express her deepest regrets. Please accept my sincere condolences as well.
“Why does your mother want to meet with me?” Nulara asked unceremoniously.
“She is a larmarian,” the elf admitted. “Her name is Josefara Eichengoth.”
“I know Eichengoths, but I don’t know if any of them survived,” Nulara said with regret in her voice.
“My mother care–”
“Do you see him?” Nulara interrupted the half-elf, and pointed to the dragon with her eyes, “I think this creature burned your mother’s relatives!” Nulara decided not to continue the dialogue and began to descend the steps from the city wall.
Nulara completely stopped thinking about her original desire to ask the king of the arqilunians to provide her with a small squad of elves with argiphones in order to make a reconnaissance, flying to the Larmar Islands and to make sure that no one needs help, that no one was left behind. It was she who believed that everyone was dead and now she considered her venture pointless. Killing the dragon is another matter! The thought was so deeply ingrained in her mind that she couldn’t get rid of it, even when she wanted to.
Nulara made her way to the palace. Some of the arqilunians looked at her with sympathy, they knew what happened to her home and her kin... When she reached the royal palace, she asked the king for an audience.
The high columns of the throne room were decorative, they seemed to prop up the sky, but at the top there is some kind of translucent dome covered the building, otherwise it rained relatively often in Eileenelia, and it would be strange for the king to constantly get wet while sitting on the throne.
The king accepted her. The hall was almost empty, and Aelarnal himself ate fried wilfhayers, tossing pieces to the tanukalai. Tanukalai is a relative of the hundevenska, but while the hundevenskas were more commonly bred by snunorfs, the tanukalai was a domestic animal mainly among the forest elves, and even so not very common, due to its size. Tanukalai, also having the character of a loyal earthly dog, looked like an earthly white tiger, only the coat itself was brighter, snow-white dazzling, and the dark stripes went not across the body, but along, creating a very interesting visual combination. “I wish a tanukalai would grip his throat!” Nulara thought.
“Yarlantan, it’s nice to see you in a good health, how can I help you?” the king asked.
“Your Majesty, I’d like to know what will happen with dragons after the war?”
“Hmm,” the king thought. At this time, a tanukalai ran up to him, wagging its tail strongly and making a contented growling-chomping sound, asking for more fried wilfhayers. “I think we’ll try to live in peace. But I give my royal word that if they kill at least one ermirian, I will sentence them to death.”
“And the rest of the murderers will be forgiven?”
“Naive child,” the king familiarly addressed her that made Nulara already shuddered from the elf’s tactlessness, “we cannot win a war with dragons if we do not have dragons. And we can’t make a deceitful alliance by saying one thing and then doing another.”
“Why? Can’t you use them and then execute them?”
“What if there are more dragons than we think, and more than Frestavisdalor thinks? What happens if someone makes a mistake and thinks he can get away with deceiving the dragons?” - The king looked at the tanukalai and turned to him, “Stop it, that’s enough!”
“Deception of dragons is the only right decision; we must wipe out their kind completely!” Nulara flared up.
“Yarlantan, I understand your anger, and I sympathize with what you have gone through, but let’s be objective. If our new allies, the dragons, can’t kill their brothers, then our enemies will probably destroy us all, and no one will have any more problems with revenge. If our allies help us win, and someone decides to kill them but will fail, then the allies will turn into our enemies, and maybe they will want to completely destroy Ermir, as their brothers wanted. Tell me, Nulara,” the king has become familiar again “do you want more deaths, child? Do you want Ermir to blaze like the Larmar Islands so that we all burn in dragon flame? Is this justice? Tell me honestly, would you like the dragon race to be destroyed at the cost of millions of ermirians lives?”
“I don’t want anyone to die, but if that’s the price, I’m willing to pay it, Your Majesty.”
“But I’m not!”
Suddenly a soldier ran in.
“Your Majesty,” the arqilunian said, “the dragon brought them, they are here! There is a...” he hesitated, “strange woman with them, she flew in on a small snowy argiphone.”
“Nulara, I know you wouldn’t like to admit it, but we need them. Shall we go and see the monsters?” The king suggested and picking up his cloak and heading for the exit without waiting for the Nulara’s reply. Tanukalai ran after him.