Bursts of Fire

by Susan Forest

  “Nevertheless,” Dwyn said. “The king’s men will be watching for three young girls. Just as Sulwyn described.”

  Janat’s grip on Rennika’s hand tightened. “You can’t separate us.”

  The king looked at Janat. “You may not wish to live, but as magiels of a great house, your place in this war is of far greater importance than your personal desires.”

  “But there are lots of displaced magiels, lots—”

  “What about Spruce Falls, Janat?” Meg asked in a low voice. “And Grassy Bluff? It took no time for people to start suspecting who we were. And that farmer’s house when we first found our way out the wilds? Women—children—” She looked at Rennika. “—don’t travel. Especially not alone.”

  “We’re refugees,” Janat countered. “Things have changed!”

  “But as the countryside settles. As King Artem imposes law. As people begin to live their lives again,” Dwyn said, “it becomes more and more dangerous for the three of you to be seen together.”

  Janat’s grip on Rennika’s hand was hard. She wouldn’t let the men split them. Meg wouldn’t—

  Dwyn took a deep breath. “Perhaps the two. Meg and Janat can go together. For now, until we can come up with a plan.”

  Janat released Rennika’s hand and threw her arm protectively around her shoulder. “You won’t take Rennika from us!”

  “A servant of mine—a good man,” the king said. “He’s taken a small yak holding above Highglen.” He nodded at Rennika. “He could take the young one. Make a story about a niece whose parents were caught in the fighting.” He peered thoughtfully at Rennika. “You look worldling enough.”

  “I’m not a worldling!” Rennika’s heart began to pound. She shrank into Janat’s protection.

  “I’ll provide a small stipend for her keep, and she can learn to help out with the holding,” the king offered kindly. “It won’t be easy, but she’ll be out of harm’s way.”

  “No!” Rennika cried.

  “Send Janat with her,” Meg said reasonably. “I don’t mind traveling with Sulwyn alone.”

  Janat shot her a sudden dark look.

  Sulwyn drank from his mug. “I won’t be going to Wildbrook. I head west. I would only give you a letter of introduction.”

  “The young one has a convincing accent. My man can explain her.” Dwyn nodded at Janat. “You, girl, lovely as you are, must keep the role of a refugee for now.”

  Sulwyn set his mug down and hobbled to Janat. “He’s right. And it’s a generous offer.” He took Janat’s free hand and looked into her eyes. “Rennika will be sheltered and cared for. Fearghus can take Rennika to Gramarye before he goes to Arcan. She’ll be all right.”

  Sulwyn couldn’t do this. Rennika had helped him. When he was ill. And now—

  Janat’s arm on her shoulder loosened as she looked into Sulwyn’s face.

  A hardness gripped Rennika’s throat and tears sprang to her eyes.

  “And in Gramarye—and I think in Orumon—children do as they are told,” the king said.

  Rennika looked to Meg, but Meg was biting her lip, looking down. “Meg,” she whispered.

  Meg looked away for a moment, as though she couldn’t meet Rennika’s plea. “It’s safer for all of us,” she said at last. “And it’ll only be for a little while. Until Sulwyn and Dwyn can restore Shangril.”

  “Until the day comes,” Sulwyn said to her, “when we need a magiel again.”

  Kandenton was a pretty little village clinging to the side of a ravine above the rushing Kandon River—more of a creek, really—surrounded by thick, dark forest. Dwyn Gramaret had suggested, and Janat and Meg had agreed, that they leave Silvermeadow early and keep up a steady pace that they might reach the hamlet by nightfall. Rennika had been hard pressed to keep up, but she’d walked all day without complaining, and Janat had come to realize that her younger sister, now just turned twelve years old, was getting taller. A hint of curve promised to sprout beneath her lean figure.

  Janat was tired when they trudged beneath the eaves of the cantilevered buildings lining the King’s Road. The village had a shrine, smithy, tavern, mill, and a scatter of houses, everything to supply the community for miles around. There were no soldiers, and children in the streets seemed friendly enough, as though war had not yet touched this corner of...she thought they might now be in the country of Gramarye. Meg, of course, had dropped her sack and gone first to pray at the shrine in thanks for their uneventful day, and to ask for continued good weather and safe travels on their way to Zellora.

  Zellora was where Fearghus would turn south to take Rennika to Highglen, and Janat and Meg would go north with Beorn. Then later, if they could find the way alone, to a small village in Elsen, called Wildbrook.

  Beorn stepped out of the tavern to where they waited in the warmth of the summer evening. “The taverner welcomes magiels. He has a stable out back, and his mare is about to give birth. Her nipples began waxing three days ago. For a spell to ensure the foal’s safe birth, he’ll put us all up for the night, with supper and breakfast. He says there’s an apothecary down the street who owes him a favor, if you need herbs or animal parts.”

  Janat flicked a glance at the narrow strip of sky above the street. The day had been warm and clear, and the evening promised to be cloudless. Tonight, Kyaju’s arrow would high and bright, near the One God’s star, an auspicious time to cast a birthing charm.

  “Oh, Meg! A baby foal!” Rennika perked up, the day’s despondency sloughing from her shoulders. “Can I do it? Can I cast the spell? Remember, I helped Sieura Barcley ease that woman’s birth on the road from Fairdell when she was going to give breech? I remember the spell.”

  Janat couldn’t suppress her grin at her sister’s eagerness. “Yes, let her.”

  Meg smiled her assent, and Rennika ran to the apothecary.

  The tavern was crowded with locals and ringing with choruses held together by tin whistles and spoons and a lute. Rennika rejoined them just as the wench brought small bowls of steaming rice and yak dumplings to their table. Beorn and Fearghus stayed in the lively room after the girls left, drinking rice beer and listening to bawdy songs and talk of the political situation in the south.

  But Janat knew the stable was where Rennika had been itching to go all through the generous meal. Once they could eat no more, they followed the taverner out to the quiet, rich-smelling stall where his fine mare paced and pawed. The taverner brought them an armload of towels and fixed three candles to niches in the stable walls, then left them to their work. Janat soothed the sweet creature, offering bits of apple, as Meg cut a single hair from the mare’s tail and Rennika laid out her ingredients.

  The charm was a simple one: a worldling spell. Janat knew how to cast it, as did Meg, and it was usually cast without magiel magic. The herbs it required, and the binding words and the celestial arrangements that maximized its effectiveness were sufficient. But Rennika wanted to practice her magiel magic. She would get no teaching in Highglen.

  “You’ll have time rebounds,” Meg warned. “And we have a long way to walk tomorrow. And the next day, and the next.”

  “I’ll just do a little,” Rennika begged. “The apothecary had a kitten’s heart, but it was harvested two days ago. It’ll work so much better, fresh. And we can use less poppy if I age and concentrate it.”

  “A mare doesn’t need poppy.”

  “If she visits her future, we might learn something,” Janat pointed out. “This is a safe place to use magic. We have beds for the night.” She worked her way along the mare’s side and felt the beast’s swollen belly. “She’s pretty heavy. The foal may come sooner than the taverner thought.”

  Meg knelt in the straw and pulled a bowl from her sack. “All right.” She smiled.

  Rennika squealed with pleasure and set about combining her herbs and other ingredients, bringing each to its most fecund time, chanting the spell words under Sashcarnala’s solitary star, and painting the final paste on the mare’s belly.
Then she tied the single plucked hair from the mare’s tail into a long loop and embedded it in the potion on the horse’s skin.

  The mare calmed, once the potion was applied, and it became clear to Janat that the spell was strong. The foal would be born this night.

  At midnight, after endless pacing and nipping at her belly, and a handful of grunts, the mare dropped the colt with ease in a gush of birthing fluid onto the straw of the stall.

  Janat squeezed Rennika’s hand. Then the three of them helped the little thing struggle from its sack. It blinked and shook its head, surrounded by a scatter of legs, as the sticky waters dripped away. The mother turned and sniffed her newborn, nudging it with her nose and licking it clean.

  “Oh,” Rennika murmured, tears streaking her face. “It’s so delicate.”

  “No,” Meg said. “See?” She put a blessing on the colt’s naval and checked the afterbirth.

  Within minutes, the spindly horse gathered its legs beneath it, and came to a wobbly stand. Janat held back her giggles, but she couldn’t hold back her smiles. She led the colt to its mother’s teats, and it began to suckle.

  She almost missed Rennika’s stillness and the age and worldliness that crept into her eyes. Meg touched her arm.

  “Rennika?” Janat whispered.

  Rennika gave her a single knowing nod.

  “When are you from?” Janat asked quietly.

  A tiny frown creased the child’s brow, as if she weighed her words. “You’re strong,” she said at last in satisfaction. “Remember. You’re sisters. Hold on to that.”

  That wasn’t much help.

  “What do we need to know?” Janat persisted.

  The girl took a long look around the stable: the foal nuzzling its mother, the candlelight, the mellow smell of straw and horse. “Remember tonight.” Her words were passionate, and Janat wondered if she might cry. “Remember Kandenton.” She nodded and took a deep breath, and smiled. “Remember this gift.”

  “But Rennika!” Meg rose to her knees.

  And then Rennika blinked and the eloquence left her eyes. She gasped a little to see them both staring at her.

  “When were you?” Meg asked again.

  Rennika stared at them for a moment, reassembling her memories. “In a shrine, high on a hill. An ancient one—its walls had mostly collapsed. But it was a holy place. I could feel it.”

  Janat sat back. “Was there anything? Any clue?”

  Again, her sister thought. “It was night, and I was alone. All my ingredients were laid out.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t a time in my past.”

  Meg sighed. “Nothing.”

  A sorrow descended on them, then; each, separately.

  But Kandenton was a jewel. As Rennika had said: it was a glittering moment of happiness.

  Janat touched Rennika’s fingers and reached out a palm to take Meg’s. It was impossible to know if they would ever be united again.

  Carn Highglen, for all it had at one time been a seat of great power, was a small, almost deserted city tucked high in the mountains of Gramarye. It perched on the edge of a hanging valley behind an impressive outer wall very much like Archwood. It took Rennika and Fearghus three days of steady trudging to reach it.

  Within its walls, destitution was evident. Though the city had fallen to King Artem less than a year earlier, many had abandoned it. Seeing the destruction of their prayer stone, they fled to neighboring countries—Midell, Teshe, even Arcan—seeking a land where they could pray to their Gods. Disillusioned, some had returned, but not enough for the city to thrive. Shops stood empty, and doorways and alcoves sheltered rag-wrapped vagrants. Of magiels, they found none. Under the regent King Artem had put in place to rule until Princess Hada came of age, magic wielders were not welcome.

  The sun was brilliant and the morning air crisp when Fearghus took her through the city to the meadows beyond, where drovers kept their yak herds. Beyond the city walls, trees grew only in stunted clusters around meadows of tall grass. The wind blew cold from high glaciers, numbing Rennika’s fingers and face, so like Orumon that she could have cried. High above the city, they found a moss-chinked stone hut with a shed for the milk yak, and a barn with chickens and a pig.

  Colin Cutter, Carn Highglen’s one-time master of livestock, was an old man whose two sons had left for the promises of rebel uprisings, and whose wife had died in the spring. He had little to spare, but for a girl to cook and mend and heal while he watched his herds, he would share his yak milk and fire.

  He sat at the table, silent, as Rennika stood by the door the next day, forsaken, watching as her rebel protector bundled himself up in his threadbare cloak and trudged into the rain.

  CHAPTER 20

  The smithy stood below the road on the edge of the village of Farfalls, between a willow-banked stream and a farmer’s field. Beyond the water, autumn’s frost had gilded the poplars, and thickets of them blazed in the last of the season’s heat between stands of stately dark spruce and fir. Sulwyn limped down the gravel path from tavern, the only place in the village where a traveler could spend the night.

  Weeks, he’d been gone from Silvermeadow, but the thought of Janat never ceased to make him smile. Janat, laughing too hard to run from his playful chase. Janat, singing as she scrubbed her chemises by the river. Janat, lying abed, sleepy after lovemaking.

  The clang of hammer blows rang out from the smithy, and smoke rose from its chimney. One last stop, and then...he would go to Wildbrook. He prayed to Ranuat that the sisters had found their way there without incident.

  Bleating sheep scattered before him as Sulwyn made his way around a post and wattle house with a thatched roof to the smithy. Below, a field of heavy oats stretched all the way to the rustling trees by the river.

  He peered into the dark interior of the smithy. A fire burned fiercely, and an apprentice pumped the bellows. A rotund man Sulwyn didn’t know examined a cast iron cylinder in the sunlight at the far end, near the horse stalls. Working over a chipped slab of granite, Finn Kichman held a horseshoe with long tongs in one hand and an impressive hammer in the other.

  Sulwyn smiled. The country’s upheaval hadn’t touched Finn. He was the same strapping young man he’d met in Spruce Falls almost a year ago.

  Finn caught his eye, struck the horseshoe twice more, and then plunged it into a bucket of water. He dropped his tools and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Can I help you?” He slurped a dipperful of clean water.

  “Finn. It’s me, Sulwyn. Cordal.”

  Surprise gave way to joy on Finn’s face. “Sulwyn!” The smith tossed his dipper into a bucket and grabbed both his shoulders, pushing him out to arms’ length. “I didn’t recognize you.”

  Sulwyn grinned. “This is what the better part of a year on the road can do to a man.”

  “You need a barber, a tailor, and a cook. And a bath.”

  “This?” Sulwyn teased. “From a man with no shirt and sweating like a pig?”

  Finn guffawed and perched on the edge of a crate, pulling on a grimy shirt. “Here, sit down.” He pushed his hammer and tongs from the granite slab to make a place for Sulwyn. “You,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Donnell. Leave off those bellows.” He tossed the apprentice a chetram. “Run to the baker’s and come back with a loaf.”

  The boy nodded and strode away. “And ale from the brewer’s!” Finn called in afterthought.

  Sulwyn surveyed the smithy. “When Dwyn told me a man named Finn Kichman was working with us, I knew I had to come. I’d no idea you’d left Orumon.”

  Finn shrugged, muscles rolling under his skin. “There’s nothing in Orumon but a chewed-up road and soldiers. Besides, I wanted to see foreign parts. When Colm left, I came with him as far as Coldridge. Then I came here, to Farfalls.”

  “Colm’s a good man.”

  “I’m glad you’re here.” Finn stood. “I’ve made over forty blades. Swords and dirks, mostly.” He put a hand on the ladder to the loft.

  Sulwyn straightened in su
rprise. “Weapons?” He cast a glance at the stranger by the horse stalls.

  Finn followed his gaze. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about Orville. He knows.” He climbed the ladder and, reaching into the loft, pulled out a sleek broadsword.

  “We’re planning a negotiated settlement. Not war.” Sulwyn spoke in a low voice, still eyeing the stranger. Dwyn wanted to use peaceful means to regain their lost lands and freedoms.

  “We pray to Ranuat weapons won’t be needed.” Finn descended with the blade. “But Artem may have some say in the matter.”

  It was a complaint many—particularly the younger, or the disfavored—had made. Some of those Sulwyn approached accused Dwyn of naiveté or cowardice, or worse, complicity with Artem, even called for a different leader—usually a local petty lord. More and more asked for weapons. More and more had initiated bloodshed. And received it, in return.

  “Has anyone even spoken to Artem?” Finn gave him the sword to inspect.

  “We’re still trying to unite the voices of those who would oppose him.” Distractedly, Sulwyn admired the craftsmanship.

  “I’ve heard the high king’s returned to the siege of Archwood, and his younger brother in Holderford has no authority to seal an agreement.” Finn took the weapon and held it up in both hands in the sunshine.

  “It’s impressive, Finn. I know nothing of weapons, but you appear to know your craft.” Sulwyn had no stomach for war. “But forty blades—and no training or armor—is enough to get forty men killed.”

  “This is just one smithy,” Finn responded. He nodded to the crates. “And, we’ve pilfered more.” He laid the blade carefully on the marble. “Armor will come. So will training. That’s up to Dwyn to organize.”

  Sulwyn noticed with a start that the stranger was watching their conversation.

  “Here.” Finn waved the other man over. “I want you to meet Orville Haye.”

  Sulwyn pushed himself to his feet and the pudgy man ambled over and shook his hand. “Sieur,” Sulwyn said. Orville was a name he’d never heard before.