The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle

by H. O. Charles

  THUD

  Before he knew what was happening, he’d been pushed into a face full of dirt. He managed to twist a little in time to see his attacker, but was more than a little surprised to see that it was Lady D’Avrohan. Her eyes were narrowed, angry; her lips were thinned. She reached for one of her daggers with a left arm and, quite by instinct, Morghiad grabbed her by the wrist. He acted with as much rapidity as he could, and stole control of her power before she could so much as whimper. But her eyes flicked upwards to the

  ceiling, and he followed the line of her sight. Behind her was one of the guards, quite clearly awake, and he was pointing his crossbow directly at them.

  Morghiad used the weapon he had ready; he threw a heavy fireball at the gaunt grunt, which sent their foe flying into the wall beyond. He landed in a blackened, crumpled heap on the floor.

  The former queen did not look pleased with his actions in the slightest. In truth, she looked furious. Morghiad released her wrist then, along with his hold on the raging tumult of her fires. But something was different: his hand

  felt wet. It was covered in blood. A crossbow bolt had gone right through her wrist, he realised, and it was firmly lodged within the flesh. “You idiot!” she hissed, pushing herself to her feet. “Have you never heard of mine explosions? Fire is the last thing we want in here! You could have killed everyone! And I do not appreciate being used like that! I gave you no leave to use my power. None at all!” “You threw me on the floor.” She was pulling at the pinhcoated bolt with some obvious difficulty. “To save you from this bloody thing! Some gratitude I receive

  for it. Should have left you to-”

  A rumble sounded from the rocks around them, and a crash from the cavern beyond.

  “Right. You – MOVE NOW!” she bellowed, her accent slipping into something distinctly un-Calidellian. Wielding forms sprang out of her body left and right, and dissolved into the rocks around them. She was attempting to shore the whole place up.

  Morghiad needed no more encouragement. He all but threw himself towards the escape hole. But just as his nose met the darkness of the tunnel, a hot rush of air came toward

  “STOP!” he heard his mistress shout behind him. Then there was dust, a great deal of dust. It filled the entire chamber with its thick, acrid tang. He could not see anything at all, not even the oil lamps or the floor or walls. A flame-filled hand touched his, and pulled him away. “Come with me,” she said, and Morghiad followed like a tamed dog.

  “Did the kids get out of there?” he asked.

  “Yes!” Thunder ran through the stone around them, cracks and grinding squeals of rock moving against rock,

  beneath thousands of tons of ore.

  The former queen hauled him back into the vast cavern with her, and his sight returned once more. Everything around them seemed to be... wavering. “My lady, you’re the strongest wielder in the world, and yet you appear to be having problems holding this tiny mine together.”

  Anger flared in her eyes once more and something... a shadow he had seen before moved across them “Listen, idiot – because that is what I’m thinking of calling you from now on – there is a fistful of pinh racing round my body, my right arm is shot

  and handling this much Blaze tends to take the zest out of one’s body. Do not rely on me holding this place together, idiot.” She released his hand almost in disgust. A thin sheen of sweat covered her face and neck. Perhaps she did not look well.

  Morghiad gazed around the wobbling chamber. Several of the lights had already been snuffed, and a worrying trickle of water had appeared on the lower sections of the floor. “Is there a way out?”

  “Not from here. We’ll have to make our own way to the tunnels above. From there is another exit.” She drew breath sharply and looked at her arm. “This is not good.”

  The heavy walls of stone seemed to vacillate with her words, and he was sure he could hear water rushing from somewhere. A look back to the stream proved his ears correct. The rivulet had swelled.

  “I don’t feel...” Her eyelids were fluttering.

  “Stay awake.” Morghiad grabbed her at the waist and dragged her towards a set of steps carved into the wall. She was stumbling as she walked. Water was coming in faster, now pouring out of a fissure in the

  cavern’s natural face. “May I use your power?”

  She mumbled something that sounded very much like acquiescence. Good. He thrust himself headlong into her fires: fierce, wild things that seemed to want to incinerate him as much as sate his desires. But Morghiad sought some sort of control and found it almost as quickly as he had stolen it from her. He could sense the entirety of the mines now, the surface beyond and the ground below. Blaze forms laced the warren from the wielder’s attempts to hold it together. But there was a great deal of water pressing

  keenly against one side, a vast lake of it.

  He turned his attention to the roof above them, and started to burn his way through it. Molten rock soon glooped onto the floor below in large, yellow-hot lumps. Drilling complete, Morghiad built a bridge of air to the tunnels overhead, and dragged his flagging mistress up it. She stumbled in his arms, and he felt one of the forms she held fall apart. The resultant thunder of water from below was deafening. Damn the woman! She’d sacrificed their protection, put his life at risk for the sake of some scrawny rat

  children! He needed to move, and quickly. Hot air moved past his ears and urged him into a run, half carrying the lady with him.

  Ahead of them, another shaft wound its way slowly to the surface in a gently curved spiral. It was longwinded, but it was their only chance. “Come on!” he shouted. Thick mud burbled up the bore hole behind them. “Move!”

  Lady D’Avrohan fell instead to her knees, barely even conscious. How could she be so incapacitated from such a small wound? And how tempting to leave her here - an

  accidental death? But that was not what she deserved; not his mission. Morghiad crouched, threw her over a shoulder and rose to run. He sprinted with every bit of strength he could muster, up and around the curving ramp of yellow stone. The sound of rushing water chased him closely, and the air blew from behind them with growing intensity. Then the oil lamps started to extinguish themselves, at first those behind him, but soon those ahead became dark too. The entire tunnel was thrown into pitch blackness, and all he could hear was the roar of water at his heels.

  Morghiad tried to reach for some bare skin on the now-insensible wielder’s ankles, but they were layered with boots and trouser and all manner of indecipherable clothing. He would have to sacrifice running for use of her power, and that would almost certainly result in a swim through the tide of mud. He sped onward.

  A man came running out of one of the digging tunnels to the left, screaming and yelling about the impending doom of his mines. He struggled to keep level with Morghiad, and attempted to secure his escape by hanging onto one of the former queen’s dangling arms. Morghiad twisted momentarily, and knocked the babbling guard to the floor without a second thought. The air was becoming cooler again now, fresher even. They were nearing the surface, but the ground beneath his feet was thickening with mud. Ankle deep – calf-deep – kneedeep... it was becoming harder to move. And the darkness... so black. He had no options remaining.

  The dense surge of mud swelled around them as he hefted his mistress from his shoulder. He took the good wrist firmly. “Get us out of here,” he whispered. Her fires had grown more

  distant with her failing strength, but they still burned with more ferocity than any other wielder he had known. He reached for them, and pulled their heat into himself. The sensation of those flames inside his skin was calming against the cold, black terror that threatened to kill them. He focused his thoughts on constructing their escape, and built a sort of rope of fire. A splutter drew his mind back to the tangible world around him. The mud was at neck height now, and Lady D’Avrohan was sinking beneath it. Morghiad gripped her by the neck to keep her head above the sludge, and

>   began to tug at the rope of Blaze he had woven. It worked just as he’d intended. Slowly, steadily, they were hauled through the swirling mire, though the level continued to push towards the tunnel’s roof. He inhaled a mouthful of the filth-laden water by accident. It tasted of bitter metal and salt.

  Morghiad could feel the environment around him again, and he could foresee that the air they had would not last long: less than a second. He took a deep breath and sank beneath the waterline, keeping a tight grip on his mistress. The freezing,

  airless dark seemed to stretch for hours, days even. He continued to pull on the rope of Blaze he had formed, and kicked his legs in a forlorn attempt to speed their progress. And then, at last, the surface came. He found himself thrust forward on a surge of bubbling, seething mud, landing on a shoreline of cold stone. But they had made it. The rest of the way would hold firm, and he could see light ahead. He dragged Lady D’Avrohan out from the water behind, and heaved her onto his shoulder once more. Somewhere in the mists of the great Blaze whole her vast stream of ability

  flowed, meaning she was still alive. He’d known it all his life, of course, together with its near-twin, her daughter’s. They had seemed to him impossibly powerful women, looming towers of control within his own landscape. Perhaps, after all this was done, he would find a way to keep one of them for his own uses. Against his better judgement, he thought he would prefer to leash the woman he currently held.

  The sound of softened, running footsteps echoed from the end of the tunnel. From the weight of them, the wielder Demeta and Koviere owned

  those feet. He was proven right when a giant shadow lurched around the corner.

  “What happened?” Koviere immediately took the unconscious woman from him. “Are you injured?”

  “I’m fine,” Morghiad said, though Demeta placed a fiery hand against his forehead to check anyway. “She’s taken a poison bolt to the wrist. My fault.” When they made it back to the open air and daylight he very nearly fell to his knees in gratitude. Blazes, how he hated caves!

  A gaggle of muddied children had gathered in a clearing, and several

  of the mine’s guards were tied up nearby. A rather rotund man, dressed in finery, was also bound up with them. No doubt he was the master of these premises. Morghiad moved his eyes back to the motionless form of his mistress. Demeta had already extracted the crossbow bolt, and was busily wielding a complicated, sieve-sort of form over the other woman. The Hunter came running toward them, and hopped up and down in a furious sort of excitement as Morghiad explained the reasons for the mine’s collapse. “The idea of a bodyguard,” the Calbeni said through a twisted mouth,

  “is to guard her body! Not for her to protect you!” He followed his pronouncement with a series of murmurs, only some of which Morghiad could hear. “Stupid, prettyboy face and his fool temper...”

  Morghiad had gotten her out, hadn’t he? Did that not count? She had run into the situation half crazed and with half a plan of what to do. Such accidents were bound to happen with someone so... errant in charge. He planted himself on the ground next to her now-stirring body, and watched as the other soldiers rounded up the rescued children.

  “Everyone make it?” she croaked at him.

  “Seems so.” Morghiad attempted to wipe some of the grime from his face, but only succeeded in smearing the stuff around it.

  “Well, that is good.” She tested her wounded arm, but her movements were slow, deliberated.

  The Hunter gave her a nudge. “As good as your muddy, shiny tits, Tem.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Stop it.”

  “Well,” he said, adjusting his Dedicated swords, “I’ll see to returning these children to the village and the

  villains to their prison. You concentrate on lying about like a rescued kahriss. Shall I meet you back at last night’s campsite?”

  She nodded.

  The Hunter made his leave takings and gathered several of the soldiers, before herding their haul away through the windy forest. The last hours of daylight soon passed, and several miles of travelling back the way they had come were endured. Morghiad found himself wrapping unnecessary blankets around the Lady D’Avrohan, and then he fell asleep by the door to her tent.

  Strange dreams visited him that night: dreams of walking miles above the ground upon invisible walkways, dreams of icy caves and dreams of a white city becoming consumed by a flash of blue light. It looked a little like Gialdin, only it was not. It was a place more archaic and ordered. He was glad for the morning when it came, though he felt far from rested. He shoved his face into a cold bowl of water in an effort to gain some alertness, but it only made his eyes ache more. He sighed with exhaustion.

  “Tired, Private Zennar?” the former queen cooed at him. “Tell you

  what. You can have a holiday from your duties.” She stepped out of her tent, her arms bare and hair bound in a braid. “It begins now.”

  Morghiad was about to offer her some sort of thanks, but she interrupted him before he had a chance.

  “...And ends... now. Did you enjoy it?” A smile edged across her face.

  “Yes, it was wonderful. Thank you,” he said with a somewhat unrestrained scowl.

  Lady D’Avrohan came to sit next to him. She smelled of wisp root

  and spear flowers. “You may have dragged me out of that mine, but do not think I will forgive you easily for stealing my power as you did. Being kanaala does not give you the right to treat me as if I were a woman of the streets. Understand?”

  It was not his fault such an abandoned woman had been born with those abilities. Power was rarely in the hands of those who deserved it. “Of course I understand, my lady. My apologies.”

  Her dark eyes bore their way into his head momentarily, and then she looked to her squad. “We’ll

  practise while we wait for the others to return.” And so practise they did. Muscles for sword fighting and running and releasing arrows were worked and exercised; sweat filled their clothing and chilled their skin until the group sat about on the disturbed earth, halfbreathless and exhausted. Only his mistress appeared keen to work further. She invited Lady di Certa to learn a little weaponless wrestling, and Morghiad found himself a place amongst the most alert of the men. “Nothing quite like the fine art of wrestling,” Beetan whispered. Morghiad grunted, the noise

  happening to coincide with an “oof” from Korali di Certa. She’d been laid out flat in the dirt, and her challenger had a foot at her neck.

  “Good, but you need to learn how to keep calm. And do not let me know that you are tired, even if you’re desperate for sleep.” She released di Certa. “Anyone else want to try their luck?”

  “Our former queen never seems to tire herself - unless she’s been shot,” Morghiad whispered to the orangehaired man beside him.

  “Not former,” Beetan said back to him. “The queen. That’ll not change. Not amongst these men.”

  “You don’t think much of her son?”

  Beetan arched an eyebrow. “Tallyn’s a good lad. I like him, but she is the queen. She doesn’t get to give it up that easily.” He spoke directly to his queen. “Your bodyguard’ll do it!”

  Morghiad almost allowed himself to wince visibly. There would be no getting out of this.

  “Step up, Zennar!” A grin spread over her pale features. “Show us what a big man like you can do to a little girl like me!”

  A few titters and chuckles

  echoed between the men.

  Wonderful. Now he’d either be embarrassed, humiliated or end up touching her inappropriately. Perhaps he would manage to achieve all three at once. He rose to stand on weary legs and placed himself before her eager expression. She was irritatingly small, corseted and slightly muddy-faced. Her eyes flashed before she leapt at him, braid glinting in the low light. Morghiad was immediately cast to the floor, and soon found himself writhing in amongst the mud with her whip-like strength very nearly squeezing all the breath from his lungs.

  On
ce she was satisfied he had suffered enough, she leapt away and stood ready for his next attack. He attempted to stay clear of pulling her hair this time; that area was definitely off-limits. And anywhere in her chest area, that would not do, nor her thighs, and definitely not her backside. She had to have known this would not end in his favour! He found himself knocked to the floor yet again. What was the point of all the training he had undergone if he could not use any of it in public?

  Morghiad grabbed both of her wrists as she paused, and used his

  knees to throw her onto the ground beyond his shoulder. Moving as quickly as he could, he landed on top of her, and pinned her to the soft earth. The fires of her skin rushed in and out of his body like angry tornadoes, filled with nothing but white-hot fury. Blazes! It was not supposed to feel like this! He held her there for a moment, not really knowing if she would be the one to announce her own defeat. He had been lucky; they both would have been very aware of that. Morghiad tried to read the expression in her eyes, but failed.

  “Are you going to stare at me