The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle

by H. O. Charles

  Love making was not unlike his rose, really. It was sweet, and perfect upon first impressions, but the pain of the thorns soon became apparent. Whichever creator had thought to design lovers so that they would be punished on separation had a cruel sense of humour. Then again, it was highly probable that there was no creator, and that all the people who had been able to love freely, without fear of penalty, had died off before they were together long enough to breed.

  He rubbed at the stubble on his top lip. It was beginning to itch.

  The door swept open soundlessly to admit Lady Allain to the room. She had changed to pale green silks since the morning, and they complemented her dark skin admirably. She did not appear to be surprised at his presence in her chambers, but that was because he had developed a habit of turning up uninvited.

  “My Lady Allain, you look very fine this evening.” And she did. Her features were perhaps a touch bold to be feminine, but she held them well. Her chin was high and her eyes piercing enough to quicken a sensible man’s heart.

  Lady Allain permitted a smile to blossom upon her face. “It’s good that you have come to visit me. I have some important business to discuss with you.” She lowered herself delicately to the rug at his feet.

  “Oh?” Silar drew the rose along her jaw. He hoped to blazes she wasn’t going to talk to him about marriage.

  “I wanted to speak to you about marriage.”

  Follocks. This was not good. He struggled to hide his discomfort. “I see.”

  “You don’t want this. I know. I didn’t walk into this arrangement ignorant of your intentions.”

  “Then why-?”

  “I need your help. I’ll be a hundred next year and my parents are becoming anxious over my future. If they see me married to a good name like yours, they will be happy. Otherwise they’ll... find someone. I have no desire to own you; you would be free to take any lover you wished. Of course, I’d expect you to extend the same courtesy to me.” Her dark features had taken a downward path from their usual positions, and they appeared to lament the loss of the strength that had held them.

  Silar hated seeing a woman like her upset, and he always felt as if it were somehow his fault. Usually it was. “And what if one of us wanted to marry elsewhere? Do you think such a pretence would be easy to keep from your parents? The gossip here is unmatched.”

  “You? Marry for love? Hah! I’d like to meet a woman who could tame you. But you are right about gossip. Not all gossip is true though. Not all of it should be heeded. Will you at least consider it?”

  Silar was perfectly capable of marrying for love! But to marry now - well, this had muddied his plans considerably. “I will think on it, my lady. However, there is something else. I cannot visit you again after this evening. I have made a promise to my captain and I intend to honour it.”

  She hesitated, the lines in her face deepening. “Your captain? You will not lie with me because that child told you not to? Why?” Her voice had risen considerably in pitch.

  “I need to devote more time to my duties. It’s the right course.”

  Lady Allain shot to her feet, hair snapping across her shoulders and eyes flashing. “Is that the best you can come up with to get out of a marriage?! Or do you have such a callous disregard for my welfare, thinking you can drop me whenever it pleases you? You shall have your wish. LEAVE!”

  Silar stood slowly. “But tonigh -”

  “GO!” Lady Allain gesticulated wildly with a hand. Her eyes appeared to be quite ready to leave her head.

  Silar slunk from the room, still holding his perfect, white rose. He had expected her to be angry about an enforced nalka, anyone would be angry about that, but he had not expected quite such an explosion from her. Surely she couldn’t have thought it a lie?

  There was nothing more he could do

  now, and he had to accept that she was lost to him. He let out a long sigh, tucked the rose into his belt and tried to think of things that would remove the issue from his conscience. The grey hallways became his mood once more, and their darknesses sucked all warmth from him.

  A flash of pale blue caught the corner of his eye. A servant? Perhaps one had proceeded down that corridor before him, though, now he thought on it, he had not seen anybody cross the path in front of him. That was odd.

  His forehead creased as he turned at the junction. The tail of a blue skirt vanished behind another corner ahead of him, and he followed it with a hastening of his pace. At the next corner he could hear hurried steps; this woman was certainly running from him, and that was suspicious behaviour indeed. He withdrew his sword and loped into a run.

  It took another four turns before he caught up with the girl, who had managed to trap herselfat the end of a narrow passage. She was breathing hard and her eyes were wide enough to form circles. Silar put away his sword as soon as he recognised the pale face and red hair that framed it. Ah, pretty girl... his mind began to think at him, but Silar put his best effort into stuffing his excitements into obscurity. He had to be on his best behaviour now.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Artemi, in spite of your attitude. But why did you run from me? Afraid I’ll make you do my washing?” He permitted himselfa small smile.

  She glanced to the left and right, and

  was evidently still searching for an exit. “I... Please... Leave me alone. I’m just here to do my work. Please.” The last word came more as a demand than a plea.

  Was she shivering? Silar moved a foot closer to her, and tried not to think about her prettiness too much. “Are you alright? You’re quite a fast runner, you know. Have you considered entering The Spring Games?” Silar’s chatter did not seem to raise much of a smile in her. He stepped a touch closer, which allowed him to better see the detail in her hair. Fiery red strands wound around deep-gold ones, threatening to burn one’s fingers and caress them simultaneously. “Has someone hurt you?”

  She clutched her washing tightly to her chest. “No, I just – stay back!”

  Silar took a backwards step to stand a full yard away from her, and said, “You have nothing to fear from me, girl. Is something amiss?”

  Her pose only seemed to stiffen more, if such a thing were possible.

  Silar was beginning to wonder if he smelled particularly bad. Women were reacting to himvery oddly today.

  Artemi kept her silence.

  “Clearly I am not helping your situation, so I will leave. If you need me then you must call on me. In the meantime-” He reached to his belt. “-will you take this?” He held out the rose with hopeful fingers. “Its odour is more pleasant than mine, at least. It is not much use to me anymore, and a pretty girl ought to have it.”

  Artemi’s shoulders relaxed slowly.

  “That’s it?”

  “Well, I’m sorry it’s not a full bouquet, but I didn’t have much time to prepare.”

  Her face broke into a dazzling smile, and her cheeks dimpled with it. She took the rose from his hand. “Thank you. Lord Forllan, isn’t it?” Her voice sounded steadier.

  He nodded.

  Her brow appeared to darken suddenly. “Lord Forllan, the rose is lovely but kindly do not approach me again. I am a very busy woman.” With that, she moved past him, the blue of her dress and gold of her hair fading into the grey murk of the halls.

  Silar clasped his hands at his back and began to walk back the way he had come. Women made no sense at all. They did not think him some sort of predator, surely? No,

  they could not think that of him, he decided. But he definitely needed to bathe; a short bath, a shave and then a venture to the bar was required. Baydie’s secret stock of wine would sort him right out.

  In his rooms, two men hauled a great cauldron, filled with hot water, to the bath and began pouring its steaming contents out. One of them added the soap – the same, bloody soap used by every person in the entire castle. The scent of it made his rooms smell just like the blasted laundries!

  One of the men then went to the grate that lined th
e side of one wall, and poured a smaller pot of water onto the glowing coals within it. The entire room was filled with yet more steam.

  “Thank you.” Silar nodded to the men

  in blue as they departed, before unbuckling his black coat and pulling off his boots. The day had been an exhausting one, and it had made his shirt smell very unsavoury. He tore it off as fast as he could, and then placed his sword against the bath edge. His trousers dropped to the floor with a satisfying clink of metal buckles, and he stepped into the water. It felt gloriously hot as it drifted over his thighs with its calescent embrace.

  He lifted both of his feet so that they rested at the end of the bath, and sank the rest of his body beneath the rippling surface. Whilst under there, he emptied his mind of everything – every conversation, every image and every smell that had passed before him that day.

  It was during these moments that his most pressing concerns would come to the

  fore. All he had to do was clear his mind, and be disciplined with the matters that were allowed in there. He relaxed his muscles, thought only of nothing and conjured the rose in the midst of the darkness. It floated in the space, and the petals fell from it slowly. Beyond, Lady Allain emerged from the haze. She appeared tough, resolute, and that surely meant Silar would not have to be concerned about her.

  Her image drifted past him, and the mists reformed into many disparate shapes. They twisted and resolved into a thousand men in black and green coats. Some fell to their knees in pain, while others ran forward as if to attack. No surprises there. A third or so had fallen, and that meant he could expect a similar proportion to be out of action within ten days.

  He swept aside their figures, turning them into a ripple of mist.

  A new character emerged, and it was Morghiad. He stood firmly upon feet made of rock; a tempest of the most violent sea storms could not have dislodged those feet. But something... something was not right. There as a weakness there that Silar could detect.

  Morghiad’s apparition began the basic training moves that all swordsmen learned for duelling. Each sweep of the sword was precise and efficient, and each of his steps were perfectly timed. His movements were steady and correct, but there was visible uncertainty in his features. Then, the ground beneath him began to open into great fissures that were filled with horrible, piercing white light.

  Morghiad continued to move smoothly

  between the traps, but sweat now showed on his brow. He was afraid. In an instant, he ceased the moves and looked about. He dropped his sword to the floor and then, almost as suddenly, he evaporated. Hot fire burst across the vacuum, filling every corner of Silar’s mind. From amidst the flames a striking young woman materialised, and her hair formed part of the blazes themselves.

  “Blazes!” Silar erupted from the bath water, spilling it over the sides and sending droplets onto the blade of his sword. He needed to get women out of his head, not into its deepest recesses! The meditation had not helped at all! He grabbed a rough sponge and commenced scrubbing at his body in haste. “Bloody blazes,” he muttered again.

  The ceiling curved in a beige hemisphere above Artemi’s head, and it often gave her the impression that she was locked inside a giant eggshell. She eyed the tiny grooves in it, and wondered which craftsman had left each mark, or how many centuries ago they had done so. The candles burned in the wall hollows about her, which provided barely enough illumination to read.

  Achellon was a favourite book of hers, describing the mythical lands that had given rise to their world – lands that were a physical

  embodiment of Blaze Energy. Achellon was a place supposedly bathed in bright light, where no one knew pain or suffering, and where no one was another’s servant. The people there had the power to manipulate the environment of this world, and could decide when to make it rain or have the earth quake. It seemed a trivial set of powers, really, since wielders were able to instigate such phenomena without much more than a sneeze.

  The book was a welcome escape from the horrors of the cellars, and Artemi could happily remain trapped within its pages for hours. She felt at the roughness of those pages. It was hardly a high-quality copy - some of the letters had been printed at odd angles, and there were a few typographical errors here and there, but none detracted from the overall

  effect. The illustrations were beautiful, simple engravings that had been coloured by hand, and they more than made up for the book’s other failings.

  She marked her page and closed it, running her fingers over the embossed parts of the card cover. She longed for more books to add to her collection; as wonderful as this one was, she had read it a great many times. She placed it atop her other text: Ebb and Flow of Noble Warfare. That one argued some battles were more legitimate than others, and that armies would enter fights at the whim of their commanders, whose decisions were frequently made upon the basis of hysteria and public perception. Was Calidell’s army so committed and blind? Cadra’s two newspapers would report the number of casualties sustained

  following a battle, but it was doubtful any of those included deserters.

  The servants’ cellars were unusually quiet this evening. Some event, unknown to her, or a chance effect had quelled a large proportion of the cries. That, and a large number of them had visitors in their chambers. Artemi wondered at this new tranquillity - well, relative tranquillity.

  The white rose that Lord Forllan had given her lay not far from her books. What would it be like to have a lover, be married and have children? She supposed these things would happen to her some day, though not with a blond-haired, gurning soldier. Either way, she certainly did not intend to wash linen for the next thousand years.

  The idea of sex did bring horror-ful

  thoughts of its own, since she was too young to endure nalka, and that would not be improved by any feelings she had for the man. Still, she considered herself educated, and she understood the workings of it. By rote, she knew of the six levels of pleasure and the mating bond it produced. She knew that sensations were shared, and she knew that this bond had to be maintained for nine years before a child could be produced.

  It seemed to her something of a surprise that the population managed to maintain itselfin the face of any conflict at all. However was a woman to put up with the same man clambering into her bed every fortnight for nine years? Her mother had managed it, once.

  A noise from the next chamber broke

  her flow of thought. Galabril evidently had a guest with her, and that usually meant Artemi would be forced to listen to them both all night. Wonderful. She pulled her red blanket over her head and wedged an arm over each hear, but the sound still seemed to work its way through. Soldiers of legend could supposedly fight after a month of going without sleep, but Artemi did not think she could bear a second night of it. She cursed, and squeezed her eyes shut in the hope that doing so would affect the noise. It did not.

  Instead, she sat up and attempted to embrace the noises they were making. She was starting to feel unwell. The candles about her seemed to wave in amusement at her predicament, so she grabbed one and tried to distract herselfwith the melted wax by dripping it onto the floor. Another breathy gasp wafted in from the proximate chamber.

  Artemi set the candle down in its slowly hardening puddle, and knelt before it. A strange sense of curiosity swept over her. She had seen lovers writhing atop one another plenty of times in the cellars, but she had never really studied them. She ought not to, really, since it was their business, after all. Then again, the sound was in her chamber, and it was not perverse to investigate sounds that invaded her space, surely?

  She blew out all of her candles, leaned forward, and placed her hands on the hard mud floor to crawl toward the edge of the ragged curtain. Once there, she lowered her chin to the ground and peered underneath. A black bed roll was immediately visible, its surface pitted

  with age. The toes of a female foot flexed away on top of it, curling like the tendrils of red ivy.

  Ar
temi’s eyes followed the top of the foot along its parent leg, until she reached the knee, which was too high behind the curtain to be visible. Below where it should have been, she could see the lower thighs of a man, and his knees dug into the mat beneath as he moved.

  She swallowed. She really should not be doing this.

  Artemi laid her head on one side and adjusted her angle to gain a better view. She could see his hips now, insisting upon Galabril’s own. They moved against one another with a slight asynchronicity. Galabril’s arms were gently wrapped about her partner, and the weight of his upper body rested upon her breasts, forcing them to swell outwards. The

  woman’s face, and the expression it held, was hidden behind her lover’s. All Artemi could make of his features was a mass of twisted, brown hair.

  She watched them for what felt like a few more minutes, but was probably another hour. They progressed through two levels as she watched, stopping to breathe through each moment of ecstasy. Finally, their movements were reduced to almost imperceptible displacements, and they appeared afraid to stir too far from the position they held. At the last moment, Galabril stifled a scream, sending Artemi reeling to the wall of her chamber at the suddenness of it.

  But she took a deep breath, and resumed her spying posture. The pair were still lying with legs intertwined, breathing hard. They would not part until their bond was complete.