Freedom Fighters of Trelandar
A Tale of Adventure in the Second Dark Age
Book Nine of the Warlady Series
By Jerome B. Bigge
Forward
"You should go to bed, get some rest for the funeral tomor- row..," my son Eric said, placing his hand gently on my shoulder. His beautiful golden haired foster sister Gayle Dai, now Queen of Trelandar at his side as I sat there going through Lorraine's own things, her diaries, all the things that she'd ever written down. For fifty six years we'd been married, Lorraine and I, and now it was all gone, only "memories" like this world would soon be here!
"She died with a sword in her hand," I said, weeping now as I looked up at them both. "She would have wanted it that way..." Their faces blurred before me as my eyes filled again with tears. She had been legend, her name honored on two worlds, the greatest swordswoman of all time, this "Warlady" whose name so many knew.
"I have given execution orders for the outlaws," Gayle spoke to me, her eyes, as blue as the sky, glowing down into mine here. As Queen of Trelandar it was her duty to give such orders, just as it had once been Lorraine's before she retired here last year. Saying that she was getting "old" and that it was time to retire! But when the outlaws had come, she'd grabbed her weapons and be- fore any of us could stop her had gone running to the forest, the dogs swarming around her, to take the arrow in her heart that had took her life. Those who had survived the battle we'd sent on to Trella to face swift justice there in the courts of law. A lynch mob had fought her Warrioresses, but I was proud of the people of Trella, who had for the most part "understood" Gayle's pleadings. That Lorraine's memory would be dishonored if such happened here!
"Do whatever you want," I said, knowing that nothing we did now would ever bring Lorraine back to life. I thought of taking poison, of death, of being with HER again in that land beyond the mists of knowledge, standing with her again as I have so often...
"Lady Sanda is here," my son Eric said to me, perhaps aware that I needed "company", someone to talk to, just to listen here. Sanda waving away the others, Eric and Gayle nodding, leaving us. The former Prime Minister of Trelandar herself now old, as old as I was, both of us having seen a century passing by. Watched our friends die, both of age and of things like this, these outlaws. I thought of Ta-she-ra, a young woman who had never been happy as a Princess of Trelandar. She'd transported herself back in time, "back" to an era two thousand years before, when Rome was falling to barbarians and it would be a thousand years before the white man would come to the New World to take it from its own peoples. Of Eric's own wife, Sequoia, truly a Princess, waiting outside. A woman of the Sierras, of the mountains, a "half breed" to some. Of others whose names were recorded, who had fought beside "her".
"There's not too many of us left any more," I said to Sanda. Her husband had died years ago of an assassin's dagger, serving the Crown as only he could as head of Lorraine's secret service. Lady Tirana had died two decades before of old age, and Darlanis' last resting place no one knew, save that she had no doubt died a "Warrioress' Death" as she would have wished it to have been now.
"But we have made legends," Sanda spoke, her dark eyes wet.
"Lorraine more than any of us," I said, seeing her nod back.
"She was like no other that ever was, or will be," Sanda an- swered in a soft voice. Earth had but a couple of decades left. Then the neutron star would come, and end everything for us here. There were the colonies on Mars, suitable I supposed for some, a world far different than the Earth, an arid cold harsh world, not like our warm life giving Earth, a world that belonged to others. To the Women, to the Lorr, a truly "alien" race if any ever was.
"Here are her `diaries'," I said, seeing Sanda nod back now.
"We should translate them, publish them so people can know," Sanda answered, her dark eyes holding mine as I nodded back. "It will be a final `tribute' to a woman who was a example to all..."
"There is also this manuscript..." I said, giving it to her.
"She kept `this'!" Sanda breathed in awe, holding it there.
"I think it was `important' to her," I said, seeing her nod.
"I never was a writer," Sanda said, giving me a rueful grin.
"It is a part of the history of Trelandar," I answered her.
"It is but a tale of what I did before we met," Sanda said.
"I think she would have wanted it published," I said to her.
"You have my permission to do so," Sanda answered me softly.
Jon Richards
Prince Consort of Trelandar