by TR Rook
“You lied to me!” Kamoor snarled. “You are supposed to be my friend and you lied!”
Sakoptari looked completely bewildered, and Brand frowned even more. What was going on? Sarab looked completely out of it, too, keeping himself at a distance from the two friends.
“About Khatlah!” Kamoor yelled. “You told me—“ He had to stop and swallow, obviously not getting the words out. “You lied!”
Sakoptari’s confusion cleared. “You’re bringing that up? That happened ages ago!”
“That does not matter because you still lied!” Kamoor swung again, but that time Sakoptari was more prepared and blocked it. They scuffled for several minutes, neither gaining the upper hand, until Kamoor stepped back with a snarl. “I trusted you,” he got out through clenched teeth. “I trusted you and you went and ruined everything!”
He turned and stalked back to the camp, going past Brand without so much as a look and over to his sleeping pallet. Brand looked at his back for a moment, then turned to see what Sakoptari would do... and found Sakoptari’s eyes burning with hate as they stared at Brand. Brand felt a tingling sensation going down his spine, but he did not back down from that stare.
So Sakoptari was the one who had ruined everything between Khatlah and Kamoor. But for what? The hate in his eyes could not possibly be for Brand—not to that extent. But then who did he hate? Khatlah? Or Kamoor himself?
When Sakoptari broke the gaze to go over to his own bed pallet, Brand breathed out. His eyes flickered to Sarab, who had crouched down on the other side of the fire. Sarab was not looking at him, or at the other two. Sighing, Brand lay down on his bed pallet, which he had moved next to the fire. Fire was his element and he wanted to be close to it.
Brand woke to a hand covering his mouth and a dagger pressed against his throat. He did not protest as he was being dragged to his feet and pushed towards the forest. He blinked the sleep from his eyes, letting his brain clear. It was still night, but dawn was near, and someone was holding him at knife point, and they did not want him to be able to call for help. Meaning that at least one man had to be back at the camp asleep, without knowing what was going on.
They reached the forest and Brand was forced further in, before he was roughly shoved to the ground in the middle of a small clearing. Rolling over, Brand stared up at the one who had got the better of him. “Sakoptari.” He glared, but stayed very still, not sure what to expect. Those dark eyes still burned with hate and rage.
“Who do you think you are?” Sakoptari snarled. “Coming here and turning Kamoor against me? I did not mind you going after Khatlah. All the better, I say, because that would for sure get him out of my face at every turn. But no, you come after Kamoor as well, and then tell him I am a liar!”
Brand was starting to see where the conversation was going. “You lied to Kamoor,” he snapped. “You lied to him, thinking he would come to you in his grief, did you not?” The flickering of Sakoptari’s eyes told him he was right. “You lied to him about your own brother!”
“Kamoor is mine!” Sakoptari yelled. “That little good-for-nothing is not worth the attention of Kamoor!”
“So you made sure he would never get it again,” Brand commented, feeling his disgust with Sakoptari rise. Brand might’ve caused Garrick pain with his behaviour in the past, but he had never gone that far: he had never tried to take another chance at love away from him. He would never do such a thing. Garrick was happy with his witch, and Brand had had to move on. He would never sink so deep. “But Kamoor never came to you, did he?” He couldn’t help but mock, because if Kamoor had ever gone to Sakoptari’s bed, then Sakoptari would not react so violently.
Sakoptari pursed his lips angrily. “You came here a prisoner. I beat you up so badly that my weak brother took pity on you. You are nothing here. Nothing! So do not come here and ruin everything I am working on. Because I will kill you.”
“If Kamoor hasn’t come to your bed before, he will not now!” Brand told him angrily. “You cannot force someone to feel that way with lies and deceit. It does not work that way!”
“And how would you know?” Sakoptari stepped closer. “It got them apart and it has kept them apart for so long. Until you arrived. You have been a thorn in my side since we captured you. I should’ve just lodged my arrow in your chest from the beginning and I would not have to deal with this.” He lunged, and Brand barely managed to roll over in time to avoid the sharp dagger.
He pushed to his feet and backed away, not knowing what to do. Should he just run? No, he could not do that, because then Sakoptari would go back to camp saying he had never been on their side after all, that when he had had the chance he had turned tail and run, and no one would know what Sakoptari had done. So Brand couldn’t. He had to stay and try to keep himself alive.
“Why aren’t you fighting back?” Sakoptari snarled.
“Because I cannot kill you,” Brand replied, dodging another lash out. “You are the crown prince and no one will believe it was in self-defence if I were to kill you.”
“Like you could kill me,” Sakoptari yelled. “I am a warrior and you’re just a lowly prisoner I beat up for the fun of it!”
Sakoptari was not sane, Brand realized. Not sane and certainly not fit to sit on any throne. Twisting away from another lash-out, Brand let his eyes roam the forest, looking for something to gain an advantage without having to kill Sakoptari. But in that moment Sakoptari saw his chance, and he was on Brand immediately, and they both fell to the ground in a flurry of arms and legs.
Brand called out in pain as the knife cut into his side, and when Sakoptari sat up he instantly moved his hands to try to stop the bleeding. Looking up at Sakoptari, who was straddling his waist, he saw that mad gleam in his eyes again as he held the dagger high above his head. Brand realized with horror that that dagger was going to be lodged right into his heart.
Sakoptari started to lower his hands and Brand saw it as if it happened much slower than it really did. He wanted to shift, but he would still be stuck. He wanted to use his powers but that would kill Sakoptari... and so he was destined to die by the hand of a madman.
Sakoptari jerked to a stop, the knife hovering inches above Brand’s heart. He jerked again, and his eyes widened, then a sword was thrust through his abdomen, blood gushing out over Brand to mix with his own. Sakoptari was pushed off of him, and then Brand saw what had made him jerk—two arrows lodged in his back.
“Brand!”
Brand looked up at Kamoor, dazed by his own pain and the fact that his attacker had just been killed. Kamoor stood above him, frowning down at him for a moment before he crouched down. “Where?” he demanded, but Brand’s clutching grip on his side gave him the answer. He pried Brand’s hands away and ripped more of the tunic open so that he could get to the wound. “Why did he do this?” Kamoor asked, the pain of killing his best friend clear to Brand, even through his own physical pain.
“Because of you,” he whispered. “Because he wanted you so badly... that he would get rid of everyone standing in his way.”
A twig breaking had his head moving, but it was only Sarab joining them in the clearing, still holding his bow and arrow at the ready. But something still did not feel right and Brand pushed himself up in a sitting position.
“Stop that! You’re disrupting the wound,” Kamoor snapped, but Brand did not listen to him, instead letting his eyes roam the woods—listening, smelling, seeing—
“Get down!” He shoved Kamoor to the ground, and lay down atop him, hoping to keep him down as the arrows whistled above them. “They’re here,” he whispered, “the men we are hunting... They’re hunting us.” Brand stared into Kamoor’s eyes as he spoke, noticing that they were such a deep brown that they almost appeared to be black. “But this I can deal with.”
He pushed to his feet and let his power run through his body. He knew his eyes had already changed colour and held his hands slightly up and in front of himself, palms up, and let a ball of flame light up above each
of them. An arrow came flying and Brand dodged it at the same time as he threw both balls of flame towards the place it had come from.
A person screamed, and at the same time the high bushes hiding him from sight caught fire. Brand used his senses to find another, and when he could both hear him move restlessly and smell him, he let another ball of flame go. That man screamed too, and again the ground consisting of leaves and grass and twigs caught fire.
A loud battle cry came from behind him, and Brand turned in time to watch as one of the dragon killers came charging into the clearing. Kamoor was on him before Brand could do anything, steel clashing against steel, the fight not even lasting a minute before Kamoor sliced him with his sword. The rest of the men, at least seven of them, came charging after. Two going towards Kamoor, two towards Sarab, and the remaining three towards Brand.
Brand backed up, leading his three opponents a safe distance away from Kamoor and Sarab, then used his powers to carve a burning circle in the ground around them, effectively shutting them away from the rest of the fight. Brand was confident that both Kamoor and Sarab could handle the men they were fighting.
One of the men inside the flames with him seemed to be panicking as he watched the wall of flames that kept him prisoner. Brand had never used his powers to kill before, nor had he used them to such an extent, but he wanted to see how far he could push them, and he concentrated hard, gathering all his power, then he released it on the three men in front of him before they could charge him. He watched as the flames consumed them.
When they fell to the ground, dead, he used his powers to withdraw the fire. The circle of flame dimmed, then disappeared completely, leaving only the burned, charred evidence of it in the ground. Brand saw that Kamoor had killed both his opponents, and Sarab killed the last one as he turned his gaze towards him. Brand turned his attention to the fire he had created in the woods, but a sound caught his attention.
Someone was running away.
Chapter Four
Fire
Brand shifted immediately and sprinted after the man, jumping through the burning bush he had first set on fire. One dead man lay on the ground, his body badly burned, but the ground showed the footsteps of another, and he was loud in the woods as he ran away. Brand pursued, running after the sound of the man’s boots crunching on dried leaves and breaking fallen twigs, and as he came closer he also heard the man’s laboured breathing.
Brand was not letting one of them get away. His side ached, even in wolf-form, but he ran on, his focus solely on the pursuit.
The man came into sight, and Brand quickened his pace even more, pushing himself as far as he could go. When he got close enough he jumped, his paws digging into the man’s back, making him loose his balance and fall face first to the ground.
He groaned in pain but his hand searched for the sword at his side. Brand snarled and locked his jaw around the man’s lower arm, tearing the fabric and the flesh. He screamed.
“Brand!” Kamoor came running, his sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. He strode towards them, jaw set and eyes focused, and Brand stepped away, letting Kamoor do the job of killing the man.
Brand stumbled, and as he shifted back he found himself on his knees. He touched his side gently and his hand came away covered in blood. Looking down, he saw the blood oozing from his wound, and back in human form, the pain came rushing back, making him dizzy and nauseous.
“You should’ve left those men to me,” Kamoor snapped, as he was suddenly at Brand’s side. “Sarab and I would’ve handled them just fine. Now you have gone and made your wound a hundred times worse.”
Brand could only laugh bitterly. “I have been hurt all my life,” he revealed, “this is no different than being beaten daily, or being whipped or attacked by a lindworm. Do not worry, Commander, I am perfectly used to this.” It was sad really, if he thought too much about it.
But it was true. His injuries were nothing compared to his father’s sadistic ways to break him. His father had not succeeded though, because Brand had picked himself up and gone after Garrick and that witch, and he had got to his old friend just in time to divert a lindworm from landing a fatal blow.
So being taken prisoner and beaten up was nothing unusual for him, though it always hurt, and being stabbed... he had never actually been stabbed before, and it was something else entirely than being whipped, but he could not make up his mind on what hurt the most, because both hurt greatly in their own ways.
Brand could take pain. He could take being beaten. But the pain of a knife cutting open his flesh... he was not good with that kind of pain.
“You should apologize to Khatlah,” he mumbled, slumping against Kamoor’s bigger, more muscular body. He knew he was going to pass out: he had lost too much blood. Whether he would wake again was another matter, so he had to have his say. “You should just apologize to him... and be happy together.”
Then everything went black.
Brand woke to the crackling of a fire and he blinked his eyes open. It was dark, with the stars clear in the sky. The events of the day came back to him, and he closed his eyes again. He had been stabbed, Kamoor had been forced to kill Sakoptari and Brand himself had killed over half of the dragon slayers. He had never killed anyone before.
Breathing next to him brought his eyes back open, and he turned his head a fraction. Kamoor was asleep on a pallet at his side, his chest rising and falling slowly.
“You really frightened him,” a quiet voice spoke up, and Brand turned his head to the other side to see Sarab crouching by the fire. “He has been by your bedside all day, watching, cleaning and wrapping your wound.”
“What have you been doing?” Brand asked, watching the tired lines on Sarab’s face.
“I’ve buried all those dead men in the woods,” Sarab replied, stoking the fire with a stick. “They deserve a proper burial, no matter what they have done, and the people of your country are buried in the soil, are they not?”
“Yeah. We bury our dead.” Brand bit his lip, both wanting to and not wanting to ask the question of Sakoptari. He needed to know the answer and at the same time he did not.
“Sakoptari will be transported back to the palace,” Sarab answered his unvoiced question. “We are just waiting on a transport. We cannot take him on a dragon. Not you either, with that wound. So someone will come with a transport to bring you both back home.”
“And what will happen once we get there?” Brand questioned, voice so low it was almost a whisper.
“Not anything good, I assure you. Kamoor killed the crown prince. There will be a hearing, at the least.” Sarab’s voice was neutral, but Brand caught the hint of uncertainty underneath it.
“He was not sane,” Brand commented. “He wanted me dead because I told Kamoor of his lies. Lies that had ruined everything between Kamoor and Khatlah. Who knows what else he has been up to?”
Sarab bowed his head. “He has been up to a lot. But it does not change the fact that the crown prince is dead, and that the Commander of the dragon riders delivered the killing blow. I shot the arrows—so I will most likely be taken upon my return as well.”
Sarab looked like he had direct knowledge of what else Sakoptari had been up too, but Brand did not want to pry into his personal business. “Taken where?” he asked instead.
Sarab smiled slightly. “To the dungeons.”
“I have probably earned myself another stay there as well,” Brand sighed, turning his head back to look at the stars.
“I would believe so, yeah.” Sarab subsided into silence, and he stared into the fire for several moments longer before he finally stood up and went over to his own bed pallet.
Brand looked at Kamoor again. Sarab had said he had been frightened... and that he had stayed by Brand the whole day. Why? Why would he do that? Brand was the only one standing between Kamoor and Khatlah. So why should Kamoor care about what happened to him?
“Brand?”
Brand stayed put, but turned his head t
o look towards where Kamoor’s voice came from. “Now you can talk to me?”
“Excuse me?” Kamoor sounded genuinely puzzled.
“All the way back here you could not be bothered to talk to me,” Brand commented angrily. They had been seized immediately upon returning to the palace and placed in the dungeon. It had been a few hours, half a day at most. All three of them were in different cells, but Kamoor was in the one right next to Brand’s.
“Get over here.” Kamoor’s voice was sharp and brooked no argument.
Brand got up, with a little difficulty due to his injury. Unable to see in the pitch-black darkness inside the dungeon, he let a small flame flicker to life in front of him. Kamoor stood at the bars and Brand walked up to stand in front of him, a small grunt of surprise escaping him as Kamoor grabbed a hold of his tunic and hauled him close.
“You have a very low opinion of yourself,” he said, his voice low and intense. “But if you are used to being in pain, I understand why. You are an individual and each individual is special. I see what Khatlah sees in you. So you should raise that opinion you have, because you are special. No one here can shift to the form of the wolf-creature—and no one has the ability you have with fire.”
“I am not particularly special, more peculiar,” Brand told him snappishly, refusing to show how much Kamoor’s manhandling hurt his wound. “A shifter is supposed to bond to a witch, not become one! I am not really complaining, because I think I would make a very poor bonded, but I am strange all the same.”
“Stop it!” Kamoor hauled him in even closer, if that were possible. The cold iron bars dividing them cut into Brand’s torso. “You should not speak of yourself like that.”
“Why do you care?” Brand yelled, trying to fight Kamoor’s hold on him, but Kamoor was too strong; he did not stand a chance.