With that, the chief grabbed a tomahawk off his back. Turning toward Blaze, he grinned.
“Oh, Goddess.” Blaze ducked just in time as the chief’s tomahawk barreled right past where she’d had her head. The weapon buried itself in the rafters behind her, quivering with a high-pitched noise.
“Get her!” the chief yelled, clapping his hands together. “She is just one puny human!”
Roaring with excitement, the orcs charged toward Blaze, leaping over tables and brandishing their weapons. Blaze shot a few fireballs, forcing several back, but the oncoming horde was too much for her to handle.
“All right then,” Blaze said, slitting her eyes. Leaping from the rope, she grabbed the rafter above her and clambered up on top. Closing her eyes, she drew from the candlelight in the room, her fingers making wafting motions. The flames leapt off their candlesticks and swarmed through the air like bees, dashing in and splashing against the orcs before jumping to new targets. Confused howls filled the air as their shadows danced against the walls.
Several of the orcs were undeterred by the flame’s attacks. The chief himself shrugged off the fire and leapt onto the table beneath Blaze. Leaping up, he ripped his tomahawk out of the rafter and grabbed onto Blaze’s rafter. Gritting her teeth, Blaze maintained her firestorm and stomped on the orc’s hand, hoping that would force him to release his grasp. The orc laughed and swung up onto the rafter to face Blaze, swinging his tomahawk with a savage grin on his face.
Blaze released the firestorm, and the entire tavern fell into darkness. Lighting her hands, Blaze shot fireball after fireball at the chief, stepping back along the top of the rafter. The orc chief batted several fireballs away, his jagged features appearing more monstrous in the brief flashes of firelight. Blaze felt her back press against a support beam, and she quailed before the orc chief’s slow, steady approach. Come on. You got this.
Dropping her hands, Blaze crouched on top of the rafter, summoning every bit of the fire within that she had. Her entire body glowed as she held onto the power, feeding it, strengthening it.
Blaze looked across the rafter where the orc chief had stood in the darkness. “Gotcha,” she said.
With that, she released the flame.
Fire exploded from within her, a blast wave of heat and flame shooting through the rafters in a circular swath. The rafters and support beams sparked, the loose bits of wood charring and smoldering beneath her attack.
But as the blast wave passed over the spot where the orc chief should have been, he was gone.
Blaze panicked. Something was wrong, but as she frantically reached for the fire within, it barely flickered, spent from the awesome attack she had just unleashed. Where did he go?
A gnarled orange hand reached out from below and grabbed Blaze’s ankle. She didn’t have time to react before she was ripped from her perch and thrown bodily onto the table, her body bouncing twice before sliding all the way down to the end closest to the front door. Groaning, Blaze sat up and looked toward the Freyr. The chieftain stepped around from behind the suspended dwarf. As Blaze’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, the chief grinned.
He jumped off the rafter, she realized. Dodged my blast.
Orc hands grabbed Blaze, pinning her arms and legs with her back against the table. Laughter filled the tavern as the orcs surrounded her, their darkened expressions mocking and jeering. Blaze struggled to free herself, to roast the orcs, to do something, anything, but she was too weak, and her flame was still dim.
The orc chieftain stood over her, tossing his tomahawk in his hands. “Puny human,” he said. “You thought yourself a Hero? Look at you now, lying there, weak as a kitten.” He laughed, and the other orcs joined in. “It is over, Ember Mage.”
Blaze cast her eyes everywhere, looking for a way out. Please, Goddess! I don’t want to die!
“You challenge Rimefrost Orcs,” the chief said, gripping his tomahawk in one hand. His crown-shaped amulet dangled against his bare chest. “You choose death.”
She was pinned. There was nothing she could do to direct what little flame she had remaining to take out one of the orcs, let alone all of them.
The chief raised his tomahawk over his head to bring it down upon Blaze. “Cernonos will be pleased.”
In her last moments, Blaze thought of King Jasper. I’m sorry I didn’t find Princess Sapphire, Your Majesty. She closed her eyes. I failed.
A great crash sounded.
Bits of broken glass from the nearest window peppered the orcs. As her captors reflexively raised their arms to shield their eyes from the hail of shards, Blaze was momentarily free.
She rolled off the table and scrambled toward the window that had crashed. As a gust of winter wind whipped through the broken window, a huge hand reached down for her.
I recognize those hands.
“This one is mine,” said the orc that had shattered the window.
“It’s a Crook-Eye!” bellowed the orc chief. “Stop him!”
“Get the Goddess-loving traitor!”
Blaze barely had time to scream before Dreck had tucked her under his arm and leapt out of the window.
Blaze was airborne as Dreck tossed her ahead. Then the orc teen raised a massive, oversized barrel, his muscles and veins bulging as he hurled it at a pair of pursuers. A great cloud of white powder filled the alley.
Blaze almost laughed. Too easy. She drew a spark and let it fly.
Dreck was just passing her as the sparks lit the powder. The clouds of dry-milled flour went up in a burst of flame like gnomish musket powder.
The detonation blasted Blaze back off her feet.
All went silent. Her eyes filled with a great white spot. Suddenly, she felt Dreck’s shoulders under her hands. She gripped the knobby bones protruding where his neck met his shoulders and rested her weight onto his back.
Why was he back now? What did he want? Suspicion gnawed at her mind.
Dreck was not the biggest orc, but there was no question the Wandering Monk was the fastest orc she had ever seen.
Dreck blitzed through the darkness as barely visible tree branches whipped past. He slowed only to pick something up off the ground.
Was that her rucksack? He’d saved it.
But what was he doing here now? He was supposed to have been warning the jotnar. Or was that just another thing he’d said that she shouldn’t have trusted?
And she had fallen for it. In the heat—or the cold—of the moment, she had trusted him. She had left the warning of the jotnar to him—the very person who had delivered the Iron Collar to the Rimefrost warriors preparing to ambush the unsuspecting jotnar.
Blaze had little time to worry about that. With the fire of battle quenched, she fell into the aching cold of ember exhaustion.
Even atop the back of the charging orc, whose hot breath came in heaving gasps, cold seeped through her clothing. She shivered so powerfully she could barely hold on.
“Dreck,” she said, realizing that her voice sounded even weaker. “I’m freezing.”
“Not much farther,” he said.
“I can’t hold on.”
“Open locket—find strength.”
“How do you—” King Jasper had told her it would open only when she was twice her normal strength. That certainly wasn’t now.
“No time,” Dreck said.
Squeezing Dreck’s waist with her legs, Blaze reached for the locket under her shirt. He had saved her—again. Was it possible that she really could trust him? She wanted to hate him for everything he’d done. But right now, she just couldn’t muster the strength.
The locket opened a crack, and a tiny sliver of light shone through. A thrill of warmth and energy rushed into her body. She recalled holding her Ember Staff, conjuring flames in a circle around her in an underground lava cavern near the molten core of the volcano. The memory enveloped her.
She stared into the locket, willing it open further. Twice my strength. But s
econds later it snapped shut again. The warmth faded.
Dreck plunged through snow drift after snow drift at incredible speeds. He leapt from tall boulders and across the icy waters of a narrow ravine. As the miles of snowy forest passed, and the night raced on, Blaze grew steadily colder. The strength of the locket passed as quickly as it had come. The ache of chill and uncontrollable shivers returned.
“Please,” Blaze said, her voice cracking as though at the verge of tears. “I can’t . . .”
“Not long now.”
It was almost dawn—the coldest part of the day—when suddenly Blaze felt a pocket of warm air. As light kissed the horizon, Blaze spied vapors drifting through a small rocky clearing.
Not a spawning point. Not now. She didn’t have the strength. “Is this a spawning point?” she whispered.
Dreck shook his head. “No.”
The air was damp and warm. Water trickled between the rocks. A strange quiet hung in the air.
“Secret place,” Dreck said. “Sacred Spring of the Goddess—heal you.”
A blazing sunburst lit the heavens, stretching from one horizon to the next, streaks of yellow light knifing their way across the sky.
Dreck crouched and Blaze fell to the ground. The damp rock was not cold to her touch like she’d expected.
Dreck fell to his knees, his hiking staff clattering as it rolled a pace away. He pushed the pack toward Blaze as she shivered.
The morning light cracked between the trees and lit a crystal, steaming pool. Blaze shuddered with a sudden thrill.
Of all the glorious flame and fire . . .
“Hot springs!” she said.
Chapter 11: Snow Goblins
Cascading pools of turquoise water tinged with orange and green around its edges flowed through a breathtaking oasis of life. Ferns curled over smooth granite stones, and moss softened the ground.
Blaze reached out and dipped her hand into the nearest pool. It was just shy of scalding—but so hot, the mere touch of the water ran into her like liquid energy.
Blaze opened her rucksack and dug through her personal gear at the bottom. She pulled out her standard-issue, red Ember Mage bathing suit and stepped behind a broad fern to change.
Blaze returned to see Dreck seated cross-legged, leaning his back against a pine tree, staring into the pools of water.
She’d never noticed before how different his dark green tattoos were from the Rimefrost Orcs’ white, ice-themed tattoos. Most of Dreck’s were shaped like trees, leaves, or other plant life. Blaze could trace a distinctive vine trailing around the orc’s eyes and around his neck. For whatever reason, the design made Dreck look softer. Far softer than any of the other orcs she’d encountered.
Was he really so different from them? He seemed to want to be.
Not wanting to damage Princess Ruby’s locket, Blaze removed it and tucked it into the outer pocket of her pack. Then she tiptoed into the pool and sank into the luxurious, bubbling spring water.
“A. Maze. Zing.” She sighed.
“Sacred pool give life,” Dreck said.
“You aren’t . . . getting in?”
“Dreck waiting.”
“For . . .”
He closed his eyes and his breathing became deep and slow.
He’s asleep.
Blaze had the sudden impulse to grab her things and run. Sure, he had saved her again. But why? It seemed that their goals here in the Frostbyte Reach were entirely opposite. Dreck had delivered to the enemy this strange Iron Collar that they said they needed to enslave the jotnar. Did he want a dark jotnar unleashed on all of Crystalia? What would he do if he found Princess Sapphire? Blaze would need to protect her from Dreck at all costs.
Besides, how was she going to hide from an orc tracker with a nose like a bloodhound and legs just as fast?
She needed to confront him about the Iron Collar. She would when he woke up.
For the moment, she needed to let the hot water soak into her bones. It was almost as if she could feel the energy radiate from deep within the core of Crystalia.
After more than an hour, she hoisted herself up to the edge of the pool and dangled her legs in the water. She pulled out some supplies from her pack: a few dried figs and what tasted like moose jerky.
From across the pool, a small, green face with an enormous nose and set of tiny eyes peered out from behind a tree.
“A goblin!” said Blaze.
The green, helmeted creature darted behind the rock nearest Blaze and stuck its face out, its eyes focused on the food in her hand. “You want some?” Blaze held out a small piece of fig.
The goblin made a soft grunt of interest and climbed onto a branch, then leapt across the pool to a branch near Blaze. It dangled from one arm and reached for the snack.
“You’re so cute.”
Blaze offered the fig to the goblin, only to catch a flash of red cape as another goblin pulled her food pouch off her lap and hauled it away into the trees, shrieking with laughter.
Blaze jumped to her feet. “Give that back! That’s my food.”
Two more goblins dropped from the trees. One landed on the ground, scooped up a stone, and flung it at her. It sailed dangerously close to her head.
“Knock it off!” she cried.
She spun to see another goblin hauling away a pair of her underclothes.
“Hey! Those are mine.”
She managed to snatch her clothes, only to have another stone hit her in the rear. She spun around to catch the culprit, just as the first goblin leapt down, reached into the outer pocket and pulled out Ruby’s locket.
No!
With a snicker of delight, the goblin bounded back up a tree. It waved the shining locket and then jumped to a higher branch.
“Give that back—Dreck, help!”
She turned.
He was gone.
Was this one of his tricks? To lure her here and abandon her to these creatures?
Blaze conjured a fireball from pure rage and cast it at the nearest goblin with both hands. The creature dodged it easily and fled deeper into the snowy woods with the rest of its troop.
Blaze looked at the mess around her. Her clothing was strewn through the mud. Her food all but gone. Her socks dangled from a branch she couldn’t reach.
And Dreck was gone.
Blaze collapsed onto the ground. Her perfect moment was ruined. Everything was ruined. Dreck had gone again—maybe for the better. Maybe he’d led her into this trap.
Was the locket really that important?
Was he working for the Dark Consul—a spy?
And he knew about Princess Sapphire.
Blaze started to pick up her things but couldn’t find the heart to finish. She broke into tears.
Why was all this happening? She had to pull herself together. She was Blaze.
She wiped her tears away and looked up to see the orc monk standing several yards away.
“You!” she cried. She charged him, beating uselessly at his rock-like abs. She swung several punches at his ribs. It hurt her knuckles far worse than it probably hurt Dreck.
“Where were you! Where is my locket?”
“Big go behind tree.”
“Big go?—You gave them the Iron Collar!” she shouted. “You’re working for them!”
Dreck’s brow wrinkled down over his eyes. He looked angry. “What you know about Iron Collar?”
“That they’re going to use it to enslave the jotnar—and it’s your fault,” she said. She was going to let it all out now.
Dreck blew a blast of hot air out of his nostrils. He threw off his monk robe. “No. You puny mage. You no understand plans for Frostbyte Reach.” He cracked his knuckles.
What, was he going to fight her? Blaze didn’t care. He had this coming. “And then the goblins you lured here just stole my locket!”
Dreck’s expression shifted. “Goblin steal your locket?”
“Ye
s, you big buffoon.”
His big hand reached across and pointed at the mud on her chest. “You take mud bath like orcs?”
“Get away from me!” Blaze retreated back toward the pool. “Just get away!”
Dreck turned and stalked away. For a moment, it was silent.
Choked by emotion, Blaze dove back into the pool, hiding the tears that flowed freely in the warm water of the sacred spring. In minutes, her body was clean, but she didn’t feel clean. Something clung to her insides, a feeling she couldn’t wash away so easily.
“Come on, Blaze. Princess Sapphire is counting on you.” The Ember Mage changed back into winter clothes, lit a small fire to ward off the cold—and so she could watch for goblins—and lay down.
She woke hours later with the sun high overhead. There was still no sign of Dreck. Probably better that way.
Her stomach rumbled, but she had nothing to help with that. She needed to find another settlement, somewhere the orcs hadn’t already taken over—somewhere bigger than Hetsa.
She spread her map on the ground—luckily the goblins hadn’t taken any interest in it—and drew a line from Hetsa to the nearest city.
“Foruk’s Falls.” It was a day and half’s journey. “I can do this.”
She would have to go fast to keep the orc monk from following her steps.
Blaze took her bearings from the sun, shouldered her pack, leaving behind the extra socks she couldn’t reach, and tromped into the snowy woods.
“If I see a goblin . . .
“Eating my food . . .
“Wearing my underwear . . .”
But she was too tired to draw a spark. All she could do was fume.
A large raven landed on a branch not far away, watching her with dubious eyes.
“And what do you want?” she said.
“Cah!”
“Same to you!” Blaze said. A raven . . . something about a raven was important. There was something she should have remembered. But what?
The bird took to wing, heading in the direction from which she had come.
“And good luck with the goblins. They’ll rob every feather off your body!” she shouted after it.
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