SWNOVELS Chapter 7: Nulara
Nulara saw the fiery dragon blaze upward with fire in the distance. Having fun, the creature! Suddenly a portal opened in front of her and four people emerged from it, an isters man, a freckled northerner young woman with a severed arm, a blue-eyed northerner young woman, and an azdairik young woman. Nulara had only one long sword with her now, not two short ones. She instinctively drew it. Isters did the same, and so did the azdairik woman, and the other two had no weapons with them.
“Who are you?” isters asked sharply! “What have you done to me, where am I, who am I!”
“What is going on, who are you?” trying to keep her cool, Nulara asked.
“Who am I? Who are all of you?” the azdairik suddenly asked.
“Yes, and where are we? Which one of you did this to me? I don’t remember anything!” the woman with the severed part of her arm suddenly asked.
“I don’t remember anything either!” the azdairik woman shouted. “I don’t even remember my name! I don’t know who I am!”
“Well, well, let’s calm down,” Nulara said, “I’ll sheathe my sword, here,” and she put the sword away.
“I’m not going to calm down!” the isters said. “Where are we?”
“We’re not far from the capital of Norvinoria, Frostgarstrad,” Nulara said calmly.
“Norvinoria? And where is that?” the blue eyed girl put in her question.
“Are you by any chance related to the Firsts?” Nulara asked suddenly and drew her sword again.
“What Firsts?” isters asked. “This is madness! I don’t know who I am!”
“Well, let’s calm down and figure it out. I was on my way to the capital, and suddenly you appeared, you came out of some kind of portal, which means you entered it somewhere. It’s unlikely that you entered a portal without knowing who you were and why you were going there. Plus, you know the union language, and you speak and understand me perfectly. At least that’s something,” Nulara tried to smile innocently.
“Why don’t I have an arm when I’ve lost one?” the snunorf woman asked.
“None of you know your own name, right?” Nulara asked.
Each of the travelers shook their heads.
“Well, do country names like Norvinoria, Eileenelia, Farderland, Kaushmanashtoon mean anything to you?” Nulara continued to ask.
“No,” the azdairik woman said, and the other three shook their heads again.
“So, um, well, standing here isn’t very comfortable, as you can see, it’s winter, but you knew that when you came here, since you’re wearing fur clothes. You have two choices, you go wherever you want, or you come with me to the capital. But I’ll tell you right now, it’s dangerous everywhere. There are two main dangers, one is smoke-shadows, such streams of smoke that instantly devour flesh, and the other danger is dragons, fire-breathing monsters that can incinerate anyone. One of them is fire incarnate, and he’s in the capital now. Over there, you see he is flying,” she pointed, and the four travelers looked up.
“Wow,” the blue-eyed snunorf woman exclaimed.
“And over there, far away,” she pointed to the forest, “the Warm Forest, there may be smokes, or they may already be in the capital.”
They looked over there.
“I’ll go with you,” the one-armed northerner said.
“Me, too,” the azdairik woman said suddenly.
“So do I,” the other woman agreed.
“I hope this dragon doesn’t roast us,” isters said and put away his sword.
And the group of travelers moved toward the city gates. As they passed by a wooded area, Nulara noticed something, she stopped and approached a small snowy mound. Suddenly a snunorf man and a snunorf woman jumped out of it. Isters instantly drew his sword.
“Queen Nulara? Your Majesty!” asked a snunorf with green eyes, dark hair, and little stubble.
“A familiar face, who are you?” Nulara asked.
“Queen?” azdairik woman surprised.
“I am Norenbjord Hargorskerson, and this,” he pointed to the northerner female, “is Ingarna Hargorskerson, my sister. Your Majesty, it’s very dangerous in the capital, there’s a ghost and a dragon. Also, we saw the horror, some smoke-shape creature left of Ulthermer nothing but bones! It’s dangerous there, Your Majesty!”
“Well there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that you’re afraid of everyone and I’m not, another bad news is that dragons can kill me. But I don’t care about that at all! And the good news is that the smokes can’t kill me.”
“How is that possible, Your Majesty?” Ingarna asked.
“I have no idea, Ingarna,” Nulara replied.
“And who are your companions, Your Majesty?” Norenbjord asked.
“It’s...um...” Nulara didn’t know what to say. Her mouth fell open, and she couldn’t find the words. It reminded her of the moment when Carlfrig declared her queen... “Tell Norenbjord what names for northern women you can think of for me now? Just don’t use your sister’s name.”
“Lindhelda and Annigelda, Your Majesty!” Norenbjord blurted out.
“Pfft, ha-ha,” his sister laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Nulara asked.
“It’s just the names of two girls he’s been in love with since childhood, Your Majesty.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Nulara said, wrapping herself in her fur collar. She turned to the woman who was missing a hand,” you’ll be Annigelda,” and then she turned to the other snunorf woman, “and you’ll be Lindhelda, do you agree?”
The women looked at each other.
“Yes,” the blonde said, and the one with freckles and no arm nodded.
“We have Annie and Linda, am I abbreviating their names correctly?” Nulara asked.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Ingarna confirmed.
“Then, Ingarna, if you’d be so kind as to give me the names of the isters and azdairik,” the queen asked.
“Neyshar and Zasha,” Ingarna said.
“Are the names satisfactory to you?” the queen asked.
“Yes,” the isters replied, and the azdairik woman hesitated.
“Zasha? That sounds strange to me,” she said.
“Maybe your real name sounds even stranger, have you thought about that?” Nulara asked. “Let’s leave it like this for now. Let’s go.”
And they all moved toward the city gates. The fire dragon took off.
“Nulara!” the queen heard a familiar voice. Ishkmet rushed to her that he even dropped his axe.
He ran up and grabbed her by the waist, lifting her slightly and twisting her around.
“How inappropriate!” Ingarna blurted out, glaring at the wallitarf with dislike.
“He’s my friend... Oh,” Nulara saw Arngalda walking toward her, “and Arngalda’s here!”
Next to Arngalda walked a young snunorf.
“Arngalda, who did the dragon burn?” she asked suddenly.
“Helgelka, when there was a ghost in her. That dragon, Gaal, he killed a ghost, Your Majesty.”
“It was Dombard?!” Nulara burst out.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Arngalda replied.
“How good to see you, Nulara, I mean queen Nulara, Your Majesty,” Ishkmet inserted, his eyes glowing. And he began to examine the travelers and looked at the isters and asked, “Yashkirran Vindrick, the king?”
“What?!” the Isters was surprised. “Do you know me?”
“You are the king of Kaushmanashtoon, Yashkirran Vindrick, Your Majesty.”
“Oh, and you are the king!” Zasha exclaimed.
Nulara’s eyes widened when she heard this. Suddenly she grabbed her sword, pulled it out, and lunged at Yashkirran in anger. Yashkirran didn’t have time to draw his own, but Zasha jumped out in front of him and parried Nulara’s blow.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the azdairik woman burst out.
“He is responsible for the death of my kin! Who else but the king ordered the azdairiks to attack the tonnebeard fishing village, when my farther sailed there?! Perhaps you were with them!”
“But I don’t remember anything,” Yashkirran said suddenly with wildly running eyes. “Am I a king? Kaush... what is it?”
Ishkmet jumped in front of Nulara with his fists, and Norenbjord and Ingarna beside him, drawing their swords. Arngalda stepped back. Annie and Linda stood behind Yashkirran and Zasha.
“You must die, Yashkirran Vindrick,” Nulara said, “Zasha, your guilt has yet to be proven, so stand back, or you’ll die today too!”
“Nasty name,” Zasha said, “hey, dwarf,” she turned to Ishkmet, “do you know me?” she looked at Nulara, and Nulara hesitated to lunge, her fur clothing restricting her movement. Yashkirran stood to the side and pointed his sword toward Norenbjord.
“No, but it doesn’t matter anymore, you attacked the queen!” Ishkmet said.
Nulara made a lunge, and Zasha repulsed it, Ishkmet at that moment jumped on Zasha and knocked her down, she dropped her sword, but she was able to push Ishkmet away with her foot.
“Enough!” thundered the voice of a dragon, who had flown high, and now decided to come down. And landed not far from them. He had probably landed here before because there was little snow and some of it was slippery because the water had frozen over... “Stop fighting. What is your problem, young ermirians?”
Everyone ran away in horror except Nulara. She stayed close to the dragon, and she felt sweat start to run down her body.
“Don’t interfere, dragon. You have no right here! This is my kingdom!” Nulara shouted at him.
“And in your kingdom it is customary to fight with the ermirians at the city gates? In your kingdom there are no laws and rules by which your subjects live? In your kingdom you can just kill anyone you want, because you have the power and the strength, right, Your Majesty?” Gaal asked.
“It’s not for you to speak of killing, dragon! You fly over Ermir and see what you and your kind have done! Take a good look, there are tens of thousands... Tens of thousands of deaths!” Tears came to Nulara’s eyes. “Maybe more. Cities, villages, forests, all wiped out, if not completely, then partially! The survivors will die this winter, for the hunting grounds have also been destroyed. The animals have nothing to eat! You and your bastard-miserable kind of creatures have doomed the whole continent to death! I want you to die, Gaal the beast!” she wiped away her tears.
The dragon spewed a mighty stream of fire into the sky.
“You are right, Nulara Tossed, Your Majesty!” the dragon said. “So give me a chance to fix something, let me at least kill the greyskuggies. I also want to see if there are any sleeping brothers on the wall and if they are following the path of false prophecy. I must kill the tukhtaash outlanders who attacked the group of ermirians I was with, and I am sure the invaders will come here too, and I told you they can control me, and that is very dangerous! Well, and of course, we have to destroy the Firsts by figuring out exactly who is a friend and who is an enemy. Let me do all that, Your Majesty, and I swear by Sirridwyn herself that I will leave the planet and fly away, and never come back!
“And the dragons that you are going to wake up or convince, will you take them with you and you’ll fly away from Ermir forever?” Nulara asked.
“Your Majesty, you can’t get rid of all the dragons on the planet. The tukhtaash outlanders can transform into dragons, and there may be thousands or more of them,” Gaal said.
“Thousands...” Nulara’s eyes went glassy for a moment, then tears welled up again.
“You’ll need all my brothers for a possible battle. And I must awaken and find everyone who is left. And I will ask you, queen, to leave on the planet those dragons who agree to live by your rules. But those who have burned villages and cities, I agree that we must all leave the planet, whether we did so knowingly or not. But those sleeping in the mountains, I ask you to give them a choice, for they’ve done no harm yet! Queen Nulara, I sincerely want to help! But if you, Your Majesty, are driven by hatred and anger, and want to exterminate my kind, then I will destroy you!”
“I think I’m giving birth,” Arngalda suddenly shouted.
Nulara reacted to this.
“Norenbjord, help Arngalda. Ingarna and Ishkmet take these four into custody–”
Before they could react, Arngalda screamed and she unbuttoned her wide fur pants.
“Take them off, call for Estenken!” she shouted.
“All right,” “Nulara said, ’Norenbjord, bring this Estenken.”
Arngalda, leaning on Ingarna, stepped closer to Nulara.
“Early, it seems,” Arngalda said, ’but I’ve lost count of the days.”
Nulara threw off her fur cloak, Arngalda lay down on it and began to push... and instantly the baby came out, no one even had time to take it in, as the newborn rose about half a yard in the air, holding onto the umbilical cord... And suddenly another baby and another one appeared nearby, but they were at a distance, as if mirrored and their umbilical cords were coming out of the air. And so eleven babies appeared, and then suddenly they all disappeared. And a strange young man appeared right in front of Arngalda.
“Skarkeshuh,” he shouted, and disappeared.
“What kind of magic is that?” Gaal roared. The others looked on in surprise and shock.
Suddenly another young man appeared, similar to the previous one, but this one was wounded. He fell straight into the arms of the dazed Arngalda.
“Mother, you must...” and he died. Then he, too, instantly disappeared.
And another appeared, also similar to the previous ones.
“Oh, Queen Nulara,” he said, right up against Nulara, and she wanted to lunge with her sword, but he managed to grab her arm and disappeared with her.