Reports of heavy border raids were already coming in. I had put one of my skills to good use. I had enlisted many birds to carry messages up and down our border with Scania to warn our people to be prepared for war. As a result, the Scanians met with heavy, armed resistance, and didn't achieve the surprise that they had intended.
It was only after the first wave of attacks had been launched, that an envoy arrived from Scania carrying a formal declaration of war.
I was impressed by the preparations that King Kenneth had already made. Every major town and city had a defence plan and a militia that had to train together on a weekly basis. That meant that Axon started out with a core of trained troops. This was a major advantage.
Another thing that the King had made sure had been attended to, was the state of repair of each town and city's physical defences. Walls, ditches, moats and trenches had all been well maintained and they worked exactly as they had been intended to.
One handicap we had was that there were few 'intelligent' creatures inside Scania. Most of what they bred for food and used to save on labor, were 'offerings'. That meant I couldn't use them to gather intelligence. The unnatural and unwholesome 'feel' of Scania had led to the intelligent creatures leaving that kingdom and also made it difficult to persuade any animals to go there to 'spy' on Axon's behalf.
The eagles were the exception. They flew constantly up and down the border, making sallies into Scania to try to give us forewarning of any attacks that were being planned. From that, we knew that Malcolm was building up his forces at three specific points. The King pointed out that there was nothing wrong with Malcolm's intelligence, as each of the three points was opposite a weak spot in Axon's border defences.
The warnings from the eagles allowed King Kenneth to rush additional reserves to bolster the troops already opposing the larger Scanian armies and all in all there was little to fault in what my father was ordering.
A major worry for King Kenneth was the lack of a wizard. King Malcolm had his own wife - Ingrid - and two remaining daughters - Eva and Frieda - all of them were wizards, so the concern was that Axon was particularly exposed to magical attacks.
"Don't forget that I have extremely strong magical abilities," I reminded the King.
"Oh, I'm not forgetting that. But using you that way, would be a last resort. I need you for other things," was his reply.
The King took the time to take me more into his confidence as well.
"As my son and heir, Sean, you should be party to some of the secrets that help me to rule this kingdom. One such secret you have already shown you don't need for yourself, but you might have need of it for others if I fall in the coming battles."
He certainly had my attention now.
"Which secret might that be, Highness?"
"The secret of travelling to the 'other-world'," he replied. "If the worst comes to the worst, you might wish to try to get some people to safety so you should know how to call for the winged horses."
"Won't Malcolm and his men simply follow into the 'other-world'?" I asked.
"They might, but you would have a big advantage over him because he would be out of his element there. Anyway here are the summoning words."
He proceeded to share the secret summoning words with me (they are secret, so I won't reproduce them here!).
"So, do all the royal families know these words?" I asked him.
The King looked at me as if I was a simpleton and he shook his head slowly.
"Each of the families has their own 'portal'. The winged horses belong to our family, they are ours alone to command. Just as I have no idea how the other families can travel to the 'other-world', so they have no idea about how I do it."
The King's words bothered me for some reason, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. He changed the subject to the defence of the northern city of Randall, one of those that Malcolm seemed to be targeting.
This was also as good a time as any to try to get to the bottom of Brenda's status as a wizard. It was perhaps a faint hope, but if Axon was short on magical defences, maybe Brenda could do something to help. I didn't forget that my mother also had to be a wizard. I had been born a royal, so she couldn't be anything else but a wizard. It was possible her magical abilities weren't very strong, but every little bit might help.
I arranged to meet with Mom and Brenda in the deserted banqueting hall so that we could discuss matters of wizards and magic. I enlisted enough guards to ensure that we weren't disturbed and made sure that they didn't know what we were about. I knew the guards would be unsettled by talk of magic, so it was best, just to keep it quiet.
The first task was to find out what, if anything, Mom remembered of her younger years on Gael, and any magical ability that she might have. It quickly became clear that she was aware of the power of the road, but had no idea how to use it to help her conjure up anything magical.
Brenda was similar.
"I can feel something around me that wasn't there before, but I have no idea what to do with it," she said.
"What exactly do you mean when you say you can 'feel something'? And why wasn't it there before?" I asked.
"Well, ever since the night you did your 'thing', I've felt different somehow. I don't know, kind of like the air is thicker or something. I don't know if you remember, but you started giving off this really intense white light. Then there was almost like a reaction - a huge wave of reddish-purple 'stuff' completely covered me. I could feel it in my lungs, in my mouth, everywhere. It was almost as if I was absorbing it. That's when I felt different. Changed maybe."
There was a clue in there somewhere I thought and I focused on that night in an effort to learn more.
"What changed exactly?" I asked her.
"I'm not sure. It wasn't like how I felt on my birthday, but it was certainly different."
Her answer had opened up another question (not unusual on Gael, as I'd discovered to my cost) and I shifted my focus.
"Why did you mention your birthday? What happened then?"
"On my eighteenth birthday I had already been on Gael for a month and a half. Hassan was still looking after me and I was feeling very down because I thought you were dead.
"Anyway, on my birthday that year I was lying on my bed when everything around turned the same funny reddish-purple color and I got a really bad headache. It was weird, like I was seeing everything with double vision, only the blurred part of the images was that funny color."
Mom gasped and we both looked at her to see what was wrong. She saw we were looking and knew that some kind of explanation for her gasp was required.
"That's what happens when a wizard emerges. I can vaguely recall it happening to me. It wasn't long after Kenneth had brought me back to Gael, but it was before we were married.
"It's not as dramatic as it is for a royal, but it happens at the same time as it does for them, on our eighteenth birthday."
"I can't think of Hassan without wondering once more how she..."
My words trailed off as something absolutely absurd occurred to me.
"Brenda, think back to when King Kenneth told me he had arranged my marriage to Hassan. What did he say was the Scanian royal family's name?"
Mom answered before Brenda even had a chance to think.
"It's Barns. I don't need to try hard to remember that, because it was the name of the only other crossover who was banished from Gael, the first one, before my own mother and I.
"In fact, I think you've both met her in dreamtime. Charles' wife, Gwendolin was a member of the Barn family and it was her that they banished first. Poor Charles, he never re-married and his brother took the kingdom when he died.
"I'm sorry, I thought you knew this. The fact that the Taggart's and the Barns' are joined in marriage is the reason Axon would fall to Scania if Kenneth was to die without an heir," she said.
My pulse quickened. Mom's answer gave me more certainty that what I had guessed was true.
"But Charles claimed she was weak in magic?" I tested.
"That might well have been the case. My mother was weak in both magic and in 'the power'. She put it down to the effects of being a cross-over."
It sounded plausible to me and my excitement was growing.
"Brenda, what's your Grandma's second name?"
"Barnes," she replied. "Oh! You're not suggesting ... No! That's simply not possible."
"Why not? The King told me the other day that each of the royal families has their own way of getting into the 'other-world'. It's always bothered me how Hassan managed to get to your cabin to capture me and take you to Malcolm's palace.
"For that matter, it's always bothered me how the initials I carved on Gwendolin's cabin managed to turn up on your family's cabin. But if the cabin actually belongs to the Barns family then perhaps it's their portal into the 'other-world'! Perhaps it is the same cabin!"
Brenda could see the logic in what I was saying, but it was such a massive leap that she was struggling to accept it.
"But Grandma Barnes? A wizard?"
"Perhaps the generations of interbreeding with people from the 'other-world' have weakened the bloodline and the old ways have been forgotten?" I suggested.
Something else had occurred to me during this conversation, something that Hassan had said when she had described watching me 'emerge'. I tied that in with what Brenda had just described had happened to her on that night. Again, what I was thinking was on the face of it ridiculous, but ... what if... ?
The next few weeks saw a reduction in the number of raids across the border. King Malcolm must have realised that his smaller squads were having no effect on the well-prepared Axonites and he began to conserve his troop numbers for something altogether bigger by way of an offensive.
King Kenneth used this time to train up even more men. I found myself pitching in as someone who could help with the training. One startling thing that came out of those weeks was that I discovered that my assumption (sorry Mom, I did it again!) that the Axon people were poor and downtrodden was completely wrong. Neither were they ignorant about the technology that existed in the 'other-world'!
When I looked at the common people they appeared tired, worn-out, and weary - and they were. But it was the reason for this that I had got wrong. The people of Axon were weary of the constant attrition from the enmity with Scania. The raids, the taxes that were levied to pay for the defences, the time that had to be devoted to training as militiamen. All of these things combined to make the people heartsick.
In fact, the declaration of war was actually seen as a positive thing, as most saw it that the situation was at last coming to a head. There would perhaps be a final reckoning that would put an end to the constant friction.
When I tried to suggest that their King was arrogant, that he was only interested in maintaining his privileged position, the people I was training disagreed strongly. There was unanimous backing for the King.
"Who else would have had us so well prepared? Who else would have stood against Scania so resolutely for so long?"
And they made it clear to me that they would always choose their magical world over a world full of technology. They might not trust wizards, but they definitely preferred magic to science - go figure!
I tried to argue for hospitals, for modern farm machinery for motorcars, but they would have none of it.
"Who do you believe when it comes to all the technology in the 'other-world'?" asked one very well informed commoner. "I've heard tales about how they meddle with how plants grow and they add chemicals to food - even use strange rays to see inside their bodies. Now, you can't tell me that that's healthy!"
I guessed he was talking about GM crops, food additives and x-rays or microwaves. Now that I thought about it, I remembered scares such as BSE and reactions to manufactured drugs like thalidomide, even the way the big tobacco companies seemed to keep quiet about links to cancer.
The man had a point. Most people in the 'other-world' had to rely on so-called scientific experts to tell them whether the ingredients of their TV dinner were safe to eat or not and no two opinions seemed the same!
"Look, when all is said and done, the advantages of technology outweigh the disadvantages," I eventually replied.
"Like what?" he asked me.
"Well, inoculations for tuberculosis or small pox and other diseases. Or, like motor cars and engines," I said thinking about my girl.
"I've never heard of small pox and from what I've been told, the use of 'engines' and the stuff needed to run them is slowly killing the 'other-world'. We don't want that here."
I tried another tack.
"What about fridges, washing machines, dishwashers, vacuums? Think of all the time that could be saved!"
"Doesn't that just make people in the 'other-world' lazy and overweight? Doesn't that add to their health problems?"
"What about planes? People can travel all round the 'other-world' and see beautiful things, learn about new cultures."
"Why? Don't they just tear down the beautiful things or drill into them to get at the stuff that keeps these 'planes' flying?"
I gave up. I had perhaps found the first Axonite hippy, tree-hugger! There was no way I could convince these people that science and technology was better.
Despite the fact that all-out war was looming, the people of Axon actually seemed happier, I found that hard to understand. Still, I enjoyed working with them, drilling them, and doing my bit to help prepare to defend the kingdom.
Squads were made up of sixteen men with pikes or spears and we drilled on how to form up, how to move together and how best to protect each other. It was no different to the kind of camaraderie that I had watched on TV or in movies. There was singing and there were practical jokes, as the men bonded and let off steam together.
Squads of archers also practised, using painted targets. They would send volley after volley of arrows and as I watched them day after day, their accuracy improved until it was deadly.
Cavalry training was the most difficult because of the need to be able to move as a group at much faster speeds while controlling a heavy beast. Mòr Dubh was excited about the prospect of carrying me in battle, which didn't surprise me. It seems it appealed to his spirit. He was naturally combative.
Eventually the militiamen knew their place and their role. They were as well trained as they could be without actually having experience of being in a battle.
I took Brenda and Mom for training sessions virtually every day, trying to do something about our lack of magic. It was slow, frustrating work.
Mom and I were also spending some time together in secret, plotting something of our own. Eventually we had to bring the King in on it, but he proved to be very supportive.
Baby John was a favorite with everybody. He took to following me around and one of the men fashioned a toddler-sized spear so he could join in some of the drills as best he could. Mom and Brenda were not impressed by this - even the idea that the baby would somehow be involved in the war was upsetting.
When John first demonstrated his healing abilities, I was amazed that the men accepted it without batting an eyelid. There was an accident in one squad that resulted in a man being stabbed through the thigh. I ran for my bag, but by the time I reached the man, John was already holding his hand over the wound to staunch the flow of blood.
People gathered round, surprised that John hadn't run from the gore and interested to see what he was doing. When he took his hand away and the men saw that the cut had miraculously healed ... they cheered! John was hoisted up and tossed in the air repeatedly. He of course loved it and squealed his delight, which in turn encouraged the men to throw him even more.
The training, the bolstering of defences and the gathering and consideration of intelligence all combined to keep us occupied, so there was little time to dwell on the real danger we faced. That was definitely a blessing, but it didn't last much longer.
Fortunately, Mom and I did manage to spring our surprise before Scania launched an offensive. The King was in on it too. In a complete about face, he thoroughly approved.
My first task was to break the news to Brenda. That was achieved by finding her in the palace gardens and telling her that Mom needed her inside.
"What's up?" she asked, but I shrugged to suggest I had no idea and grinned evilly when she turned to make her way to Mom's quarters.
Once she was out of sight, I dashed off to my own quarters to find the King and to prepare. My clothing was laid out and it didn't take me long to change. Within half an hour, the King and I were ready and in place.
A fanfare of trumpets quietened the large audience and I glanced over my shoulder at the doors to the reception hall. Mom and Brenda entered, my girl bedecked all in white and looking more beautiful than I thought was possible. She took my breath away and the King actually had to elbow me in the ribs before I remembered that I was supposed to breathe.
The crowd of witnesses to the marriage (yes!) clearly thought she was beautiful too, and there were numerous gasps. I knew there was still one very important thing I had to do or Brenda would never speak to me again.
I did an about turn and marched towards the doors. When I was in front of her, I sank to one knew and did my duty.
"Brenda Thomas, in front of all of these witnesses, I have something to ask."
"I wonder what it could be?" she teased.
The fact that she was wearing the wedding dress Mom had secretly had prepared was proof that Brenda knew what was going on, but she was clearly willing to make me work hard for my prize!
"Brenda Thomas, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife? Will you share my days, light up my life, be the brightest star in my world? Will you..."
"Yes!" she said, interrupting me. "Come on, let's hurry before I change my mind."
Her giggles told me that she was still teasing, so I got to my feet and hastened back to stand beside the King. I knew that she would have reminded me for the rest of our lives together, if I hadn't actually proposed. With the nervous part over, I relaxed a little and let myself drink in how cute she was.
Brenda was escorted to the dais end of the hall by my Mom, and baby John followed on behind to hold the train of her dress. A priestess presided over the ceremony, a shortened one. Brenda had already been married once after all, and we were on the brink of war. None of that mattered to me, I was the happiest, proudest man on Gael at that moment and so far as I was concerned, everything was perfect.
Despite being on a war footing (or maybe because of it?) the wedding banquet was a riotous affair. Vina flowed and the fact that we had invited all of the training militiamen to join us made sure things were pretty wild. The King had contributed the food and the entertainment. As mentioned earlier, he was now happy with my choice of bride.
That night was our first night as husband and wife and we re-discovered the joy of our first time together three years before. The sight of my girl naked left me awe-struck as always and I paid homage to her in a way that let her know how I felt.
The almost holiday atmosphere surrounding our union was short-lived, however. Only three days later Buteoni the eagle brought news that King Malcolm was on the move with one of his armies.
We had prepared to meet this force at the city of Randall, but Malcolm now seemed to be stealing a march on us. According to the eagle, the army had made a forced march through the night, and was even now approaching the smaller town of Dempster.
I listened to King Kenneth cursing the fact that our intelligence had failed this time. There wasn't enough time to move additional troops to Dempster before Malcolm would be in a position to attack.
"There are only eight squads of infantry - a mere 108 men - against two thousand! Malcolm will punch a hole in our line and his soldiers will pour into out rear! Our supply lines will be cut and communications will fail. This is a disaster!" he bemoaned.
"We have a troop of cavalrymen here who could probably make it to Dempster to lend their help," I suggested.
"Not enough! Malcolm will attack at first light and he'll commit everything he's got to one massive assault. My men won't be able to hold their positions. Will your eagle take a message to my officers there? I need to authorise them to make an orderly withdrawal, I can't afford to lose men cheaply like that."
I communicated with Buteoni to try to find out how many eagles were close at hand. He advised that there were around ten of Aquilaire's squadron and eight of baby John's eagles within an hour's flying distance. I proposed an idea to the King.
"We have forty archers here that we could spare, and another fifty infantry. Why not try to have the eagles airlift these 'reserves' to Dempster during the night? If we are really lucky, Malcolm will have had his spies out, and he will prepare his attack based on the small garrison in the town. A troop of cavalry, two squads of archers and an additional three squads of infantry could be enough to spring a major surprise!"
"I need to go with them," said Kenneth. If Malcolm is indeed leading this army, then I want to be the one standing between him and my kingdom!"
Everything was frantic after that. I was in two minds about whether I should join in the airlift, but eventually decided that one more 'flier' wasn't going to make much of a difference. I was still trying to keep my ability to do magic a secret, as it could yet prove to be an advantage when I most needed it.
The King already knew that I was a crossover, so I decided to compromise by flying him to Dempster when no one would see us. Mom and Brenda were completely unimpressed when we told them of our plans and my girl in particular insisted on travelling with us.
"I forbid it and that is a royal command!" said Kenneth. "That young man is second in line to the kingdom of Axon if anything happens to Sean and I. John needs his mother."
It looked to me as if Brenda was going to insist, royal command be damned, but then she turned away, with a black look on her face.
"Come, Sean. We have little time to get to Dempster and organise things as best we can.
Edited by TeNderLoin