The Flames of Dragons

by Josh VanBrakle

  Caly handed back the blade. After a few seconds, the girl grinned. “That will be my name: Rondel.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Serona’s Storm

  The twelve-hundred-year-old memories filled Rondel’s mind as she raced through the open understory of Ziorsecth Forest. She tried to think about those days as little as possible. Caly had told her that that part of her life was over. In the ensuing years of training to become the Storm Dragon Knight, Rondel had forgotten her birth home. Even now she could barely picture her family’s faces, and she had no memories of the days before they’d died.

  Iren Saito’s private words inside the Muryozaki came to her. What if he’d been right? Was it really possible? She’d always assumed her family’s murders were a random act. The Akushi were marauders who lived outside the bounds of Maantec society. Surely their attack had been another arbitrary slaying by a group of madmen.

  But if Saito was correct, then the murders hadn’t been random at all. Despite living outside the Maantec order, the Akushi had a fierce streak of pride for their species. They hated other races and believed them inferior.

  The mere mention of the possibility had been enough for Rondel to slap Saito in the face. Now, though, she had her doubts. Whatever else Saito might be, he was no fool. Those final moments inside the Muryozaki were his last chance to speak to her. He wouldn’t waste words on nonsense.

  Rondel stopped as she reached her destination. Ahead of her Ziorsecth’s trees thinned and shortened into scrubby brush. Dry air sucked the moisture from her body, and a great heat welled in front of her.

  The old Maantec steeled herself, then took a few final steps. As happened every time she came here, her breath caught when she laid eyes on it.

  Serona.

  The broken land shot jets of white flame hundreds of feet into the air. In the sky a great storm raged, a thousand-year tempest Rondel herself had created almost at the cost of her life. Its rain poured down, but the water evaporated before it reached the ground.

  Rondel hesitated. Why had she come all the way here? She could have tested Saito’s theory on any tree between here and Tropos. Every second mattered if they wanted to defeat Melwar.

  Yet she could go nowhere else. Serona was her fault. Two years ago she’d told Iren that such disasters needed to linger. They served as a reminder of the damage wrought by evil. At the time she’d believed that with all her heart.

  Not anymore. She had killed an innocent woman, yet that woman’s own son had found a way to move past that tragedy.

  It was all so obvious to Rondel now. Okthora’s Law was wrong, or at least, it had been misinterpreted. Evil must be annihilated. For millennia Storm Dragon Knights had taken that to mean the person who committed the evil had to die. Iren, though, had found another way. So had Saito and Divinion. Evil could also be annihilated through redemption.

  That’s why she’d needed to come here. It was time to redeem this land.

  Rondel drew her Liryometa with her left hand. At the same time, she placed her right hand on the stubby trunk of a short tree, one of the last before Serona’s blistering heat. It would have little magic on its own, but thanks to Ziorsecth’s shared root system, it had the strength of the whole forest coursing through it.

  Rondel closed her eyes. Without intending to she lapsed into a memory. It felt more like a dream, but she knew it had happened.

  She was five years old again, splashing about in the rice paddies on her parents’ farm. Yet even as she played, worry touched her heart. She’d heard her parents talking. The rice was growing poorly this year. Unless something changed soon, they wouldn’t have enough to cover the tribute due to the local lord. If that happened, their family would starve.

  Rondel wanted to help. She touched her tiny hands to the wilted rice plants and prayed for them to grow.

  When the plant she was fingering doubled in size, she fell back on her rump in shock.

  She reached out and grabbed another plant. It grew too. She tried with three more until she was convinced. She ran back to the house.

  “Mommy! Mommy!” she cried. “Come see what I can do!”

  Her mother followed her to the paddies, and Rondel touched a plant. It grew full and vibrant. Rondel spun around and smiled her biggest smile. “Now we’ll have lots of food!” she proclaimed.

  Her mother slapped her so hard Rondel’s ears rang and she saw stars in the daytime.

  “No!” her mother shouted. “You must never do that! Get inside at once!”

  Rondel didn’t understand. She’d saved her family. Why was her mother mad at her?

  That night she pretended to sleep. She knew her parents had their private conversations after the children went to bed. Her family lived in a one-room hut, so it was easy to eavesdrop.

  “What if someone saw?” her mother asked in a hushed tone.

  “It was just a few rice plants,” her father replied. “We’re all but alone out here. I doubt anyone noticed.”

  “But the Akushi—”

  “It was always a risk. You and I both knew that. We married knowing it. We had kids knowing it.”

  “What will we do?”

  “Say nothing. Forget it happened. And keep a closer eye on the kids, especially Kaede. If anyone finds out where I’m really from, the Akushi won’t stop until they hunt us down.”

  Three days later, Rondel’s family was murdered.

  * * *

  The adult Rondel went to her knees. For twelve hundred years her lack of childhood memories hadn’t bothered her. She’d dismissed the amnesia as a side effect of trauma and her intense training with Caly Thara.

  But that hadn’t been the case. She’d blocked out those memories because she’d had no other choice. She couldn’t let herself know that her parents and brother had died because of her.

  Someone had seen her use plant magic. Among the Maantecs it was all but unheard of. The few who could use it needed decades, even centuries, to control it.

  There was only one explanation for her inborn talent. She wasn’t entirely Maantec.

  Her father had been a Kodama.

  That was what Saito had suggested to her, that the Akushi had murdered her family because a Maantec and Kodama had married and had children. To the Akushi, it was an unforgivable offense.

  Rondel stared across Serona’s burning expanse. Somewhere in that lattice of devastation was her family’s farm, long since ruined. Somewhere amid the fires rested the dust of her brother and parents.

  She stood and put her hand back on the tree. Magic flowed through it into her. It was a trickle at first. Then, with the memory of the rice plants vivid in her mind, it became a flood.

  Rondel had never imagined power like this. How had Aletas managed it against Feng? It was incredible.

  Her body transformed. Her wrinkles smoothed away. The hair whipping about her face changed from gray to dark brown.

  Now came the ultimate test. Rondel raised her dagger to the sky and commanded the storm. Lightning shot from the Liryometa to the clouds.

  Heat burned inside her. It made Serona’s sweltering air seem as refreshing as the breeze off the Yuushin Sea. Ziorsecth’s power threatened to tear her apart, but Rondel held firm. If Aletas could do it, she could do it.

  The storm reacted to her addition of magic, and it intensified. The lightning that had struck the ground dozens of times a second now came at twice that pace, then triple. The rain fell harder and harder. The heat from Serona’s flames couldn’t keep up. With each second, the rain reached closer to the ground.

  At last Rondel heard the sound she’d hoped for. The first drops hit the white fires and sizzled into steam. Rondel kept up her efforts. The fires lowered.

  The storm broke through. Rain thrashed the ground, and the fires vanished. Their lattices still glowed with heat, but even that was fading before the liquid onslaught. Rondel had done it.

  Rather, she had almost done it. One task remained. She reversed the flow of magic in the storm, d
rawing its power to the Liryometa. She let the magic course through her and back into Ziorsecth. It was the forest’s energy, after all. It was only proper to return it.

  All but a little. The magic Rondel had released a thousand years ago she kept with her.

  Deprived of energy, the storm clouds dissipated. Rondel smiled as the sun pierced through to the ground of Serona. It was the first time in a millennium the two had met.

  The fires were gone, never to return. Given time, Serona would heal. Life would grow there again. Perhaps someday, some other family would plant rice where her parents, Maantec and Kodama, once had. Rondel hoped they would.

  Putting her back to her homeland, Rondel reentered Ziorsecth Forest. Half of her repentance was done.

  The other half lay back in Lodia. It was time to correct her mistake. Evil must be annihilated, and in this case she hadn’t the slightest doubt what it meant.

  It was time to kill Katashi Melwar.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Choice

  “She what?” Minawë yelled.

  Iren winced and did his best to hide behind the unkempt plants in his parents’ abandoned field. He’d expected this conversation to go poorly. So far he’d underestimated just how poorly.

  Minawë waved her hands at him. “How could she leave at the last minute like that? Did she say where she was going?”

  “No,” Iren replied, “but she said it would help us defeat Melwar.”

  He’d hoped Rondel would come back before Minawë learned the old hag had left. No chance. Rondel had only been gone a day, and despite the crowds, Minawë had figured out the undersized Maantec was missing.

  And of course it was Iren’s fault. It had taken him the better part of an hour to convince Minawë that he and Rondel hadn’t fought to the death behind her back. Now he was just getting to explain what had really happened that night at his parents’ graves. “You and I both know Rondel doesn’t do things without a purpose,” he told Minawë. “If she said it’s important, it’s important.”

  Minawë crossed both arms and said nothing.

  “Besides,” Iren continued, “we’re taking the fight to Melwar this time. Rondel said two days. She’ll be back tomorrow. Melwar can wait until then.”

  With a huff, Minawë left Iren and started back toward Tropos. Over her shoulder she said, “Moron.”

  Iren’s eyes crinkled, and he half-smiled. The taunt was a word of endearment between them, one Iren hadn’t heard Minawë say since he’d left Ziorsecth Forest more than a year ago. As frustrated as Minawë was with him, the word was a sign she was glad Iren and Rondel had put their fight behind them.

  Still, he understood why Minawë was worried. If Melwar attacked while Rondel was away, fending him off would be next to impossible.

  For his part, though, Iren wasn’t concerned. He knew Melwar better than Minawë did. The self-proclaimed shogun wasn’t a leader like Amroth, Balear, or Father. Those men knew they had to stand in the front and inspire their men. Melwar led from behind. He had never shown a tendency to take action himself, not when he could rely on others to fight for him. He was a noble, not a soldier. With Hana gone and the Maantec army in retreat, Melwar would take his time in responding. One more day wouldn’t make a difference.

  Iren walked from his parents’ field back to the ruined farmhouse. The ivy that covered it glimmered in the afternoon sun.

  Maybe, when all this was over, he would rebuild it. He would have to tear this one down and start over, but it would be worth it.

  He sat on the porch where his mother had held him long ago. The simple home really did have a beautiful view. It was too far and faced the wrong direction to see the ocean, but the open fields were like an ocean unto themselves, a waving green and gold sea that seemed to stretch forever.

  The crashing of hooves on the other side of the house pulled Iren from his thoughts. He stood, and a moment later Dirio arrived on horseback.

  “Congratulations, Dirio,” Iren said. “Rumor has it you’re the new king of Lodia.”

  Dirio blushed and grimaced at the same time. “Word travels too quickly. Anyway, I might not have a chance to lead this country. The Maantec army is on the move again.”

  Now it was Iren’s turn to grimace. So much for knowing Melwar. The shogun was done waiting.

  “Where are they headed?” Iren asked. “All the cities are undefended. Melwar could take any of them.”

  Dirio’s frown deepened. “That’s why I came looking for you. According to Horace’s scouts, they’re coming here.”

  “Here?”

  “They must have seen all the people gathered for Balear’s funeral and assumed it was a strike force. They’re coming to meet us on the open field.”

  At last Iren understood. “Melwar knows his army has the upper hand,” he said, “but he still doesn’t want to risk any more men than he has to. If we holed up in one of the cities, we would do a lot more damage before he broke us. Out in the open, though, we’re exposed. We have women and children here. It will be a slaughter.”

  “My thoughts exactly. So how do we respond?”

  Iren put his hand on his chin. “How much time do we have?”

  “The scouts reported that the Maantecs are all on foot. Apparently they didn’t bring cavalry on their ships. They also don’t have siege equipment. They move faster than humans, but with so many of them I’d guess we have six hours until they arrive.”

  What should they do? Iren paced the porch as he thought. They could stay and fight, but there were at least as many civilians as soldiers gathered here. The Maantecs would overwhelm them.

  They could withdraw to Kataile, but the Maantec army would likely catch them before they reached the city. Even if they made it, Melwar’s upper echelons included mages. The Katailan forces had described jets of flame that reduced incoming arrows to nothing. If Melwar used his mages for attack rather than defense, they could bring down a city wall more quickly than a catapult barrage.

  Iren wished Rondel were here. Considering that a few weeks ago he’d wanted to kill her, it amazed him that the desire came so readily. But they needed her now more than ever. She’d known Melwar since they were children. She understood him better than anyone else. More to the point, she was the best tactician Iren had ever met, and she had experience leading Maantec armies.

  He needed to think like her. How would Rondel counter Melwar?

  Iren looked across the fields toward the spot where his parents rested. Last night’s memories played in his head. He and Rondel had knelt there together. The words she’d spoken returned to him: “As for Melwar, you can stop him. I know you can. You don’t need my help.”

  Rondel was fond of frivolous and sarcastic comments, but when she was serious, she didn’t spare anyone. She’d said those words to give Iren permission to kill her. She’d meant them all.

  He made up his mind. “Dirio, I need to borrow your horse.”

  Dirio’s brow lowered. “You have that look that says you’re about to do something crazy.”

  “I’m going to stop Melwar myself,” Iren said. “In the meantime, take everyone and head for Kataile. If I fail, it will be your last chance.”

  “Hold on,” Dirio said. “Even if you defeat Melwar, what will you do about the nine thousand troops he has with him?”

  “I won’t have to fight them. I have an idea.”

  Dirio put a hand to his head. “I hate this plan.”

  “You asked for my suggestion. Now let me use your horse.”

  The new king sighed, but he dismounted. “Otto gave me his horse as a sign of friendship,” Dirio said. “He’ll be incredibly upset if I lose her.”

  Iren leapt up on the roan. He nodded. “I understand. I’ll bring her back alive.”

  He took a few hesitant steps; it had been more than a year since his last time on a horse. When he felt confident of the animal’s gait, Iren looked over his shoulder. “One more thing,” he said. “Tell Minawë not to follow me.”

 
; Dirio blanched. “I passed her on my way here. Tell you what. Why don’t you go talk to her, and I’ll ride out and fight Melwar? Suddenly that seems like the easier task.”

  Iren smirked. “The king always gets the hardest job. It’s part of leadership. Later!” He took off.

  It was the stupidest thing he had ever done, and he had plenty of those to rank it against. All the same, he felt not the slightest doubt. Rondel believed in him. That was enough.

  * * *

  Minawë grabbed Dirio by the lapels. “Are you insane?” she shouted. “You let him go?”

  What was wrong with everybody lately? First Iren had let Rondel disappear to the dragons knew where, and now Dirio had handed over his horse so Iren could charge alone against Melwar’s army. Since when had Minawë needed to be everyone’s voice of reason?

  She released Dirio. It wasn’t his fault. It was Iren’s. He had changed a lot in two years, but deep down, despite everything he’d gone through, Iren Saitosan was still the same headstrong, self-sacrificing boy he’d been when Minawë had first met him in Akaku.

  That was why she loved him. That was why she changed into a horse and ran after him.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Shogun and Emperor

  Iren rode across Lodia’s open fields. It took him less than an hour to spot Melwar’s army on the horizon. It filled the land, an endless expanse of armor and weapons. The force had a single purpose: to take the world for Maantecs.

  But while that was the army’s objective, it wasn’t the reason nine thousand men had come here. Melwar was their shogun. He commanded them, so they obeyed. That was how Maantec society worked. The lower classes obeyed the upper classes. There was no thought among that army of dissenting with Melwar, even if many of them—probably most of them—would rather be back on their farms.

  Iren was counting on that loyalty. It was Lodia’s only chance for survival.

  Melwar was easy to spot. Four Maantecs carried a palanquin at the head of the column. Even with the limited space his ships had allowed him, Melwar had found room for it. He wasn’t about to dirty his feet on human-trod soil any more than he had to.