15 Secret of Mana (1/2)
Great General Darah was right, of course. I nominated myself the unit leader and so I was responsible for the defense of the hill which may have been successful but that was because of the timely arrival of Fort Darah's reinforcements. The most we did was to stall for some time.
It's why I couldn't say anything in my defense while Darah scrutinized me with a quivering look that made my feet turn to jelly.
However, despite my silence, both Aura and Luca came to my rescue. They each gave Darah an accounting of how wisely I led the unit with no prompting from her.
Now, it was one thing for Aura, who was the clan's princess, to speak out loud, but Luca, who was a slave soldier, showed incredible nerve by directly addressing one of the four leaders of the clan's military without so much as a bow. I was afraid this would get him in trouble, but Darah didn't seem to mind.
She looked from Luca to Aura, before turning back to me with an eyebrow raised. ”Loyalty can be a measurement for the competence of a leader... perhaps you have potential, Dean Dapper.”
”Y-you know who I am, general?” I asked, surprised.
”I take great interest in Aurana's wellbeing,” she laughed, and then she pinched Aura's cheeks like a doting aunt, making Aura blush. ”When she contracted for the very first time, I was very curious to know what kind of man would interest her to do so.”
I glanced at Aura who kept her eyes down. Her cheeks were tomato red though.
”And here I find a boy barely out of his... tweens,” Darah raised my chin as if to inspect my face. ”What do you think, Roger?”
Commander Thors' brown eyes gazed back at me. His face was unreadable.
”He did defeat Azuma,” Commander Thors answered.
”Pssh, that battle obsessed neanderthal isn't anything special. You beat him too, didn't you?” Darah fired back at him as she pulled her hand away from my face.
”With some difficulty,” Commander Thors admitted. Then he gave me a warm smile that softened the rugged features on his face. ”I heard you went toe-to-toe with him. How was it?”
His welcoming smile sent a surge of confidence in me enough to reply, ”Like I would die if I made one mistake...”
Commander Thor's face turned serious again. ”I think he has potential, general.”
”Pssh, you're too soft on your fellow humans,” Throughout this whole conversation, Darah's eyes never left mine. ”Besides, you fought Azuma but couldn't kill him?”
”That's because—”
Aura had started to explain but Darah raised a hand to silence her like she was saying it wasn't Aura's job to answer for me.
Inwardly, I wondered what the right answer was. Should I have just explained that Azuma was basically an unkillable zombie? But wouldn't that just sound like an excuse? I opted instead to tell Great Commander Darah how I really felt. ”I wasn't strong enough to give him a deathblow, General.”
”But, Dean—”
This time it was Luca who wanted to explain, but I shook my head to stop him.
I gazed back into Great General Darah's eyes with all the conviction I could muster despite having to lean on my brother to hold me up. ”I'll defeat him for sure next time.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, but I held her gaze without blinking because it felt like staring into the face of a hungry lioness, and if I turned away those sharp eyes would devour me.
”You have courage, Dean Dapper... and from how you led our soldiers tonight, you might even have a brain,” Darah placed a hand on my shoulder. The one Luca held onto. ”At least you didn't give me the same excuse Roger did last time he let Azuma escape his grasp.”
Darah glanced mockingly at Commander Thors whose face remained impassive.
”I'm not sure even you could kill an immortal, general,” he responded nonchalantly.
”All the true immortals are dead, Roger,” Darah's face turned contemplative. ”There's a trick to it, but I guarantee you it isn't because he can't die... the Magesong clan's not that powerful they could dole out such a fairy gift.”
”A trick... aunt Darah?” Aura asked, her curiosity mirroring mine.
”There's always a reason for something occurring, Aurana. this so-called immortality is just the trick that veils this truth,” Darah explained like she was giving a lecture to a class.
Her hand tightened on my shoulder like an iron clamp. Then she looked at Luca. ”Let go. I'll take your brother.”
Luca, unable to endure those piercing eyes, did as she asked. He let me go, and then Darah dragged me forward with a strength that would have made Edo quake in his steel boots.
”Do you know why this hill is so important, Dean?” Darah asked while she dragged me toward the other end of the tent to the opposite entryway.
My tired and injured body could barely keep up with the pressure of being pulled forward.
”This hill... is the entryway to the Magesong Clan's... territory,” I answered with difficulty.
Darah asked a followup question. ”And why do we consider this the entryway when the Magesong Clan's cities are much further away from here?”
”Because,” My feet shuffled me through the tent flap on the opposite side of where we entered. ”We're in the Calmlands which is west of the Spellweave River Valley, the center of the Magesong Clan's power.”
I glanced up at the sky. It was still dark but the storm clouds had vanished, and I thought about how the weather in the Fayne seemed as capricious as the fairies who lived here.
”And what makes these Calmlands so significant?” Darah pressed as she dragged me up to the circle of white stones.
”Exactly that. It's calm,” I answered.
There was a longer explanation for this but that would mean discussing a very important natural resource that only exists in the Fayne—something Great General Darah already knew. After all, she was walking me into one.
Darah pushed me through the space between the stone circles, and I found myself transported into a place of verdant grass and trees. A myriad of vibrant flowers grew among the healthiest shrubs I'd ever seen. The sky above was not the dark clouds I just left behind but an aurora of green and blue and purple hues. It reflected the light of the single small pool at the very center of the garden which glowed with its own inner light.
This was the secret all fairy forts held. This secret garden at the very center of the hilltop and the pool within that filled this space with magical energy.
Noticing the wide-eyed look on my face, Darah commented, ”You've never seen a mana well up close before, have you?”
I shook my head dumbly as the sight of the well held me captive.
Even with the bird's-eye-view provided by Fool's Insight, I could never see into what was inside the fairy fort's ring of white stones, although I knew what lay inside. I assumed the cause of my blindness was magic, and that multicolored sky was proof that I was right.