Two of the red-coated soldiers mounted horses.
Sol glanced at Poulsen. Sweat beaded his brow, and his cold-nipped face was red. She drew her bow and trained it on the rider exchanging words with another soldier.
“I’ve got a clear shot,” she whispered.
“Don’t,” Poulsen said. “Let them get away. We’ll wait until they let down their guard again.”
The two soldiers kicked their horses forward and disappeared behind the trees. They were letting them escape? But what if they rounded back? What if they heard the fighting and returned, or waited to ambush them farther down the path?
Rabid dogs. They couldn’t let the Flameskins survive and spread their corruption to another generation.
Sol waited a long time in anxious silence after the mounted soldiers left. Pa had taught her patience in the hunt, but she had never been forced to wait while standing over a Flameskin camp. She was jittery and teeth-chattery, but not from the cold. She kept glancing all around them, expecting Flameskin soldiers to jump out from behind the trees.
It wasn’t until the Flameskins returned to their leisurely rest, and the camp grew quiet that Poulsen gave the signal.
“Ready,” he whispered.
The twelve archers lifted their bows and fit them with arrows. She took a deep breath as she chose her target and prayed for the demon’s soul. Its death would be a mercy.
“Fire!”
Sol loosed her arrow, and the air vibrated with the thrumming of the bow strings. Her arrow embedded itself in a Flameskin’s chest, and he toppled backward into the snow. Several others landed shots, but most of the arrows missed.
She grabbed another arrow and notched it in one smooth motion. She let it fly, going more by feel than by sight. The bow was an extension of her body, and the arrows were emissaries of mercy, releasing their victims into the sweet blackness of death.
The Flameskin soldiers shouted, and the injured screamed. Bolts of fire erupted from the demons’ fists and sailed into the bank of snow, exploding with a sizzle of fire in ice. Sol ducked as flames poured from the camp at the embankment. The Tokken soldiers rushed the valley with swords flashing.
She strung another arrow and waited for a break in the flames. When fire stopped exploding over her head, she pushed to her feet, found a target, and let her arrow fly. Poulsen abandoned her to run at the advancing Flameskins with his sword.
“For Tokkedal!” he cried as he charged down the hill.
Sol loosed arrow after arrow into the clearing, until black smoke choked the air and obscured her vision. The scene below her looked like the Infernal Pit, and demons raced through it with their burning hands, hurling balls of fire at the Tokken soldiers.
An orb of flames burst over her head, and Sol dropped to the snow, covering her face with her arms. When she looked up, a red-coated soldier was sprinting toward her, a fireball in one hand and an emberstone in the other. He hurled the flames at her, and she leapt aside. Fire exploded at her feet, and she yelped as sparks struck her exposed skin. The edge of her fur coat caught fire, but the melted snow dowsed the flames before they spread.
Sol yanked her sword from its scabbard and faced the soldier. He stood atop a mound of melting snow and refreezing ice, and he held an emberstone in his left hand. This one was a mage, not a Flameskin. If she could get the emberstone away from him, he’d be helpless.
She raced toward him, and the mage let loose another blast of fire. Sol threw herself to the ground and dodged the flames as the mage drew his sword. Their blades clashed and he blocked her attack, but she swung her foot out and they both went down hard on the ice. The emberstone flew out of his hand and into the air and was lost somewhere in the snow.
The soldier growled and got onto all fours on the ice, slipping and falling a couple times before he stood. But Sol was up as well, and she crouched with sword in hand on the icy slope.
The soldier swung and Sol attempted a block. She stumbled backward as the soldier’s blade came down and cried out as the tip of his sword sliced open her calf.
Poulsen appeared and rammed into the mage. They parried back and forth until Poulsen disarmed him and ran his sword through the mage’s side.
“I told you not to die, Hunter,” Poulsen said, panting as he stood over the body.
“I haven’t yet,” Sol said. She grimaced as she limped toward him. Blood ran from her calf over her boot and into the snow.
“Stick to your bow.” He marched toward the battlefield with his bloody sword raised high.
“Poulsen.”
He turned.
“Thanks.”
Chapter 4
Kelan
Kelan yanked aside the tent flap to find chaos. Arrows shot through tents and thudded into the backs of his men. His soldiers screamed as the arrows struck them down and the fire in their hands evaporated.
He ducked, keeping low to the ground, and flames burst out of his fingertips. The adrenaline and the fire around him incited and fueled his pyra, and it pushed flames into his blood.
Now we will destroy, it growled.
“Concentrate fire on the archers!” Kelan shouted. His pyra shoved fire into Kelan’s hands, but Kelan willed it back.
Blue-coated Tokken soldiers rushed into the clearing with swords in hand and fire-proofed shields raised to protect their faces. Kelan cursed under his breath. Where were his scouts? How had they been ambushed like this?
A Flameskin soldier beside him let loose a spray of fire at the incoming Tokken soldiers and shoved them into a retreat. The fire melted the snow beneath them, and it refroze immediately, making a wet, icy slush.
Kelan drew his sword and struggled against his pyra’s flames. Fire kept seeping out of his fingers.
Let me burn the blue coats, his pyra begged.
Kelan grit his teeth. He couldn’t lose himself to it. He had sworn he never would.
A dozen men had already fallen to arrows, and an arrow whistled over Kelan’s head. “The archers!” Kelan shouted. “Kill the archers.”
But his men were a mess. None of them were wearing armor, and half of them didn’t have their swords. And the Tokken foot soldiers distracted them from the real danger: the bowmen raining death from above.
Kelan curled a ball of flame around his hand and hurled it at the archers, melting the snow that hid them. What was the point of resisting his pyra if he was going to die?
Yes, his pyra hissed. You need me.
He found a protected position behind a stand of trees and fired at the archers every time a head popped over the snowbank. Fire raced through the camp, flying from his soldiers’ hands into the ranks of Tokken soldiers, and burning the enemy’s skin and hair and blue uniforms. The flames spread to the tents, then the trees, and black, putrid smoke filled the air.
He breathed it in as he fought his way with sword and flame through the Tokken soldiers. The smoke tasted sweet to his burning lungs, and his pyra swelled within him, urging him to tear the camp apart, but Kelan still resisted its pull.
Kill, Kelan. Kill them all. They’re murderers. They hate us. They deserve to die by our flame.
Kelan roared as he swung his sword. Fire rippled up the blade and clung to his free hand, refusing to be contained. The only thing that kept his pyra at bay was the fear that crept over him. Nothing terrified him more than losing himself to his pyra.
“Retreat to the trees,” Kelan shouted. They had to get into formation. His Flameskins and mages could outfight Tokken soldiers any day, but not if they were separated and surrounded, and not if the archers picked them off.
Kelan stumbled through the smoke, slipping in the ice and slush. The smog was so thick he couldn’t see where his men were. Flashes of red and blue coats passed between the pillars of ash, but the fires surrounding Kelan cut him off from his men.
Someone coughed in the smoke to his left and Kelan whirled around, raising his sword.
A man stood behind him, wreathed in smoke and wearing a thick coat, his face
nearly concealed by his furs. He held a longbow with an arrow notched and pointed at Kelan’s chest.
“Drop your sword,” the man ordered.
Kelan stiffened, and his hand tightened on his sword’s hilt. The man’s eyes flicked toward his burning hands and he scowled.
“Flameskin.” The archer said the word like it was a curse.
Burn his bones to ash, his pyra hissed. Kelan drew fire into his hands, but another Tokken soldier appeared at the archer’s side, startling Kelan and breaking his concentration. The Tokken soldier stopped short when he saw Kelan.
“Don’t shoot, Hunter,” the Tokken soldier ordered.
“He’s a Flameskin,” Hunter said. “He’s better off dead than alive.”
The Tokken soldier lifted his sword to Kelan’s throat. “Call off your men.”
Kelan glanced around him at the chaos of their camp. Dead men littered the ground, most of them his own. Fear gripped him tight, and the flames in his hand sputtered and died.
Don’t let them take us, his pyra hissed. Let me destroy them. I could save us.
But his pyra’s voice was weakening, and the fear made Kelan shiver. As the fire died in his veins, so too did his desire to destroy and to burn.
Without a pyra manipulating and twisting Kelan’s thoughts, his true desires became clear: survive and resist the pyra.
Kelan sighed and dropped his sword.
Chapter 5
Sol
Sol peeled back the bandage and winced. Her leg throbbed and ached. She had tried her best to stitch her calf closed, but the wound was angry and messy. It was a hand’s length, and deep, running along the side of her calf. Her muscle hadn’t been severed, but it hurt infernally nonetheless. Pa would’ve given her dant leaf for the pain, but every dant plant in the mountains was covered by ten feet of snow.
Her hand lingered on the pocket of her coat and the emberstone she had sewn into the lining. Emberstones could summon fire, but they could also heal wounds and illnesses. But using an emberstone would betray everything she had ever believed about fire and would turn the Tokken soldiers against her.
Sol sighed. What had she been thinking, bringing the emberstone? She should’ve left it at home or tossed it into a river long ago so it wouldn’t be a temptation.
She bit her glove-covered hand against the pain as she rubbed snow into the wound, trying to clean it. The touch of ice on her leg felt like fire.
Poulsen crouched next to her and frowned at her leg. “Looks bad. If you’re not careful it’ll get infected.”
“There’s nothing we can do about it. I know which herbs to use, but we don’t have any.”
Poulsen sighed and swore. “I should’ve been more prepared than this. I should’ve anticipated a Flameskin attack. We’ve got too many wounded already.”
Sol looked around the camp as she rewrapped the cut. Seven badly wounded and six dead. And then there were the four mage prisoners they had taken, and the demon lieutenant.
Sol glared at the demon. She should’ve killed him when she had a chance. Why had she hesitated? Pa wouldn’t have. A demon was too dangerous to let live.
“Can you walk?” Poulsen asked.
“Of course I can,” Sol snapped. She stood and limped toward the horses. She was getting her pay for this journey, and if they didn’t give her a medal, too, she’d be outraged. She balled her fists as she walked, trying to ignore the stabbing pain in her leg.
“But those are my dresses!” Lady Isabella was saying. “You can’t leave them here.” Isabella clung to the packages the soldiers had dropped onto the ground, as though they were martyrs left to die in the snow.
Sol stomped toward her. “Lady Isabella,” she said, making her words gravelly. “We need these horses to pull stretchers with the injured men. We can return next spring and bring your dresses back.”
Two shining tears had frozen on Isabella’s cheeks. “But, what will I wear when I meet Prince Turullius?”
“People have just died to protect you, and you’re worried about what you’re going to wear?”
Isabella rose, her fur-lined face turning red. “Maybe you think it’s silly, but I’m the one who has to leave Tokkedal forever to marry that Cassian prince. I’m the one who’s making all the sacrifices.”
“You cinder-eating nobles think you know suffering? You know nothing.”
Isabella gasped, and her bright green eyes went wide. “How dare you! How dare you say such things, Hunter!” Her eyes filled with tears once more and she dashed away.
Poulsen grabbed Sol’s arm. “Leave her alone. She has a delicate constitution.”
Sol scowled at Isabella, who now wept into the arms of one of her maids. “Delicate constitutions are not inherited, they are indulged.”
She turned on Poulsen. “I told you it was a fool’s errand to come into the pass this late. I say we turn back. We don’t know if there are more Flameskins waiting to kill us on our way to Olisipo.”
“We must try. There are more lives at stake than ours. We’re doing this for the good of all Tokkedal.”
“Have the prisoners said anything?” Sol asked.
The four mages sat against a bank of snow with their hands tied in front of them, but the demon sat apart, watched over by his own guard. Now that the mages and the Flameskin had been stripped of their fire sources, they shivered in their thin red coats. The demon wore a glowing manacle on his wrist. The metal shackle was fitted with a red emberstone pressed flush to the demon’s skin. The emberstone absorbed his pyra, and while he wore it, the demon couldn’t even spark.
“They say there aren’t any more Flameskins waiting to attack us in the pass, but who knows if they’re telling the truth,” Poulsen said.
“What’re we going to do with them?” Sol asked.
“Bring them with us, I suppose.”
“But not the demon, surely.”
“He’s their commanding officer. He’ll know more than the rest, and we can interrogate him once we get to Cassia.”
“Why not interrogate him here and dump his body in the snow? I’m not bringing a demon along with us.”
“That’s not your decision. You’re our guide, nothing more, Hunter. We’re bringing him with us, and I’ll let Commander Jahr decide what to do with him when we get to Olisipo.”
Sol sighed. “Fine. When are we breaking camp?”
“I think we can get these stretchers finished within the hour.”
“Then we’ll go as soon as they’re finished. Get your men ready.”
“Lead on, Hunter.”
Chapter 6
Kelan
Kelan trudged through the snow and was, for the first time in his life, completely and utterly frozen.
“Is this what it’s like to be flameless?” Kelan asked, his teeth chattering.
The hooded hunter beside him didn’t respond. He never responded. The hunter was as silent as the woods themselves.
Kelan glanced at the mages marching at the rear of the party. They had been separated from Kelan so they couldn’t get access to the emberstone around his wrist. Kelan twisted in his rope restraints and pressed his cold fingers to his bare neck, trying to warm his hands.
Ashes and cinders. How had he let this happen? He had failed. His whole troop had been slaughtered and captured, and Lady Isabella had walked away from it all unscathed. Kelan stomped in the snow muttering curses under his breath. There was no fear of his anger taking over now; his pyra was gone.
He reached inside himself, searching for his pyra, but there was nothing. No inner warmth, no voice, no urges to destroy. It left him cold and empty and weak.
But it was also . . . freeing, in a way. He was just Kelan. He didn’t have to fight to remain in control of himself. He would’ve never touched an emberstone by choice, but it was a blessed mental reprieve not to have to fight against his pyra every time his emotions surged. But without his pyra, he was powerless against the ropes that bound him and the cold that stole his breath away.
“Hunter,” Lady Isabella called. “I need a rest.”
Hunter stopped short beside Kelan and ground his teeth before speaking in his gravelly voice. “We’re almost to the saddle. We’ll stop there.”
Kelan glanced at Lady Isabella riding behind him. He could barely make out the tip of her nose and two green eyes beneath her hood of furs. Once Isabella made it across the border to Cassia it’d all be over. She’d marry that Cassian prince, and Cassian soldiers would march into Tokkedal and destroy what little army they had left. He had to stop her, kill her if he could.
He reached for his pyra once more, but the emptiness inside him was absolute. He was alone in his own body. Kelan shivered violently. His boots leaked, and his toes were numb, as well as his hands. They had given him a fur hat, which helped, but not much. His coat was thin and was little protection against the chilly wind.
“Aren’t you going to give me a scarf or something? I’m freezing,” Kelan said.
“Good,” Hunter said.
Kelan yanked against the ropes that bound his wrists, trying to slide the shackle they had attached to his arm. If the emberstone lost contact with his skin, he’d get his pyra back, and he’d use it to burn everything and kill everyone. And his toes would finally warm up.
Hunter watched with eyes narrowed as Kelan struggled.
“Once I’m free you’re dead,” Kelan hissed.
And Hunter would be the first to burn. The hunter had claimed more lives than any other with his deadly bow. Kelan had watched, helpless and horrified, as they had stacked his soldiers’ bodies for a pyre. Ten of them had been run through with one of Hunter’s black arrows.
Hunter stepped forward and grabbed the ropes that bound Kelan’s wrists, forcing Kelan to stumble backward to maintain his balance.
“Officer Poulsen wants to keep you alive,” Hunter growled, “but I’m not so inclined. I’m waiting for you to do something stupid so I have an excuse to ram my knife through your heart and throw your body off a cliff.”
Firefrost: A Flameskin Chronicles Novel Page 2