Die for the Flame

by William Gehler

  “If you hadn’t disbanded the army, Holy One, we wouldn’t be in this crisis.”

  “How dare you speak to me in this manner!”

  “It’s true, and you know it. You believed the Maggan promise. ‘Disband both armies and there will be peace forever.’ Remember that? Well, where is the peace now?”

  “The Maggan Flamekeeper promised in blood that there would no more war. And so did Ferman, their leader.”

  “They lied. I told you at the time that the peace would not be upheld, and so did Clarian’s father and so did others. You wouldn’t listen. Now we face the end of our people and the theft of the Flame. You have yourself to blame, Holy One!”

  “Get out!” shouted the Flamekeeper, tears filling his eyes as he waved his thin arms at Rokkman.

  Clarian called a war conference with all his officers in a large hall a few days before the full moon. It was filled with chairs and benches that faced a great map fixed to the stone wall. Many officers had to stand in the back. “Our scouts tell us they are massing in the forest. The time is near when they will attack. They have brought up horses and supply wagons. I think they will come down this road, as we anticipated.” He pointed to the map. “And I think that their plan will be to march down the main road through the rocky ridge country and drive down the plain straight to the Citadel. They plan to lay siege to the Citadel. They are overly confident and arrogant. I am sure their scouts have told them we are not ready. So they expect light resistance, and they plan to march leisurely down the main road and overwhelm us at the Citadel.”

  The room was silent except for the shuffling of boots and some heavy sighs. Clarian faced them, standing in front of the room. “Our plan is not to let them get that far. It will take them at least two or three nights of marching to reach this area of the rocky ridges. On the morning of the day they pass into it, we will meet them with full force. We will strike them in the ridge country where they can’t maneuver about. Daylight is our friend and their enemy. They will be tired and want to camp during the daylight and get out of the sun and into their tents to sleep. We won’t let them sleep.”

  Clarian looked intently into the eyes of his officers. Rokkman stood off to one side. Lillan stood to his right, while Martan and the new commanders, Amran and Tobran, were seated near the front to his left.

  “The land is very dry, and the grasses are parched. We will set fire to the grasses and their tents and wagons and see how they like hot weather.”

  The tension was relieved for a moment, and the officers laughed.

  “From the top of the ridges, our archers will be shooting down into their ranks at close range,” Clarian added. “The enemy will be bunched up coming through the ridges and won’t be able to maneuver. They will have their supply wagons following at the rear of the column. Our mounted soldiers will attack their wagons in the rear and burn them.”

  “Ha!” barked some of the officers, pleased with this tactic.

  Clarian moved up to the map and pointed out the vast, dark area that represented the Forest of Darkness. “We are told that the main city of the Maggan, Minteegan, is a two or three days’ ride deep into the forest. As we have all heard, their city is built within an underground cavern. The Maggan have burrowed down to live in the dark like rodents.”

  The room reverberated with laughter, and Clarian smiled.

  “Martan!” said Clarian.

  “Yes, Clarian.”

  “You and I will take a thousand mounted soldiers and archers and on the morning we stop the Maggan advance and burn their supply train, we will ride in behind them and enter the Forest of Darkness. We will make a dash for Minteegan. We are to attack Minteegan. Go down into the cavern city. I am told their homes are built from wood. It makes sense. They live in a forest. We will burn everything that can be burned. Drive the inhabitants out of their underground lair up into the light.”

  Rokkman sputtered, “You can’t be serious! Attack the Maggan in the forest! We never have gone into that evil forest. Besides, we need every soldier here! They outnumber us.” There was a note of anxiety in his voice as murmurs buzzed through the room, and Clarian could feel the cold creep of fear enter the room.

  “The only thing that will turn them away from us is their own city burning.”

  “You surprise us, Clarian,” Lillan said, an amazed expression on her face.

  “You will never get out alive!” protested Rokkman. “As soon as Ferman hears we’re attacking his city, he’ll send soldiers in, and you and Martan will be trapped.”

  A burly bearded officer spoke. “We can’t go into the forest! We’ve never gone into the forest! We don’t go into the forest! Even in the Great War, we didn’t go into the Forest of Darkness.”

  “You will now,” said Clarian.

  “What if our soldiers refuse?” asked the burly officer.

  No one spoke for a moment. All eyes were on Clarian. All were thinking about their own fear of the Maggan and the forest and its dark recesses of unknown terror. Clarian knew he couldn’t show any hesitation or doubt. “No one has to go into the forest who doesn’t want to. But when the Maggan are eating your children, I don’t want any complaints.”

  Someone snickered, and then chuckles broke out.

  Clarian raised his hand. “When Ferman hears of our attack, he will at once send all his mounted soldiers back to deal with it. I am counting on it. It would take too long for his foot soldiers to march back there in time to help Minteegan, but he will stop his march on us. I believe he will turn his whole army around and head for the forest. By the time they hear about us, Martan and I will be scrambling back. We will lay an ambush for their mounted soldiers in the forest and destroy them. At that point, Ferman will no longer have mounted soldiers. He and his army will be on foot in our land, out in the open and exposed to the hot sunlight, moving very slowly, trying to go home. We won’t let them sleep or rest or eat,” stated Clarian. “We will, however, let them die.”

  That drew some muffled laughter from the room.

  “Can this really work? There are so many things that can go wrong!” exclaimed Rokkman.

  Clarian nodded. “When I rode with my father against the Kobani, the tribesmen would often circle around us and attack our homes or villages in the rear, and then we would stop our advance and hurry back to protect our families and farms. On our way back, they would ambush us. The Kobani are horse people. We will fight this war as a horse people, too. Luck follows the swift.” He paused and looked into the eyes of his officers. “The Flamekeeper ordered me to lead, and I will do so with all my strength and cunning. I fight to honor my father, who fought in the Great War.”

  The next day, in a small copse of trees at the edge of a training field north of the castle and seated on their horses, Lillan and Clarian talked quietly about the day’s work. Clarian confided that the coming confrontation with the Maggan had him deeply worried.

  “The army is for the most part untested, and many are terribly young, and many are partially trained girls and women,” he said.

  “The training is going well. They all get better every day.”

  “They might break and run. They have never seen an enemy. Not to mention these night creatures who live in the ground.”

  “You have to worry, I know, but the army knows what’s at stake.”

  “If they run, it will turn into a panic, and then the people of the Citadel will panic, and there will be a massive number of Karran fleeing to the outer borders of our land to be hunted down one by one.”

  “No Karran soldier in our history has ever panicked, Clarian. They will stand and fight. I’m sure of it.”

  “You have never seen the blood and the dying or had someone step up close to you and try to drive a lance through you, all while you are looking into his eyes, his face pulled into a scream of rage.”

  “Thank you for that image. No, I haven�
��t.”

  “You will be very vulnerable out there in the midst of the fighting.”

  “I know.”

  “I…I will worry, Lillan.”

  “You had better worry.” She reached out and touched his arm.

  He laughed and urged his horse back toward the Citadel.

  The full moon jutted up into a star-filled sky. Across the fields, white tents shone in the cold light and lanterns blinked out as the army rested. Horses nearby cropped grass, stood hip-shot, or lay down to await the night. One dog’s bark answered another.

  Off by themselves in the gloom of the Forest of Darkness, Ferman and his old Flamekeeper, Nooradan, sat on a log.

  Ferman spoke first. “What you’ve asked is highly dangerous—to break the peace with the Karran. I have prepared and gathered our army, yet I have doubts as to the wisdom of this venture.”

  “I am your Flamekeeper and have been for all your life. I will tell you now as I have said before, that I have recurring visions of standing before the Sacred Crystal. The crystal releases a great white flame that enfolds me. It holds me like a mother holds a child. It calls to me. We must take it back from the Karran. That is what the vision means.”

  “You’re sure about this vision? Many will die, Holy One!”

  “The Flame guides us, my son. Have no doubt. And when we have the Flame again, I will take you before it, and I will anoint you in its holy, sacred fire.”

  Ferman bent forward to grasp and kiss the Flamekeeper’s hand.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The night was humid under the large tent, made more so by the press of officers crowding in to hear the orders. Campfires burned outside, throwing up shadows on the walls. The speaker was a tall, heavy man, with long, black hair streaked with silver down past his shoulders, braided at the temples, and a full, gray beard against ghost-white skin. His eyes were close set, yellow and gleaming with passion as he surveyed his officers. His thin lips were drawn back against his small teeth. A sword was belted about his waist over his black soldier’s tunic.

  “Tomorrow night we march on Karran!” he roared.

  The assembled officers shouted back and cheered, pounding one another on the back. Officers at the tent openings whispered the news to waiting junior officers who rushed away to tell comrades and subordinates. Outside, as the word was passed among the soldiers, the enthusiasm spread, and yells and laughter rang out across the clearing.

  Ferman, war leader of the Maggan, held his hands up to regain quiet and then projected his voice out over the heads of the assembled officers. “We have waited for years for this day, the day we take back the Flame from the thieving Karran!”

  The officers beat their chests with their fists and shouted, “Die, Karran, die!”

  “They forced us to sign an ignoble peace treaty when the Great War ended, a peace with terms that cast dishonor on the Maggan people. We should never have signed such a disgraceful paper. The deceitful Karran tricked us. Now we will right that wrong. And we will regain the Flame. The Flame shall forever burn in our temple in Minteegan! The light of the Flame shall be with us always. And we will avenge ourselves of the wrongs heaped upon us by the Karran dogs!”

  He paused and wiped the sweat from his face with a handkerchief, as the officers cheered with fervor, their faces bright with anticipation. Fondly, he beamed down at them, his loyal soldiers, dressed smartly in their black military dress, their long, black hair flowing from under their helmets, a few gray heads among them, some with their breastplate armor on. He knew they were ready, and he was proud of them. He had worked hard to train his soldiers and bolster morale, to hone them like the edge of a razor-sharp sword. Wield it he would!

  Neevan stood off to the right of Ferman near the front. She was thrilled. The horse-head patch on her sleeve signified that she was an officer of the mounted soldiers. She would be leading a company of soldiers against the Karran, and she knew she would be seeing battle in the next few days. The daughter of a fallen commander of the Great War, she had trained for years for this day. Her mother had not wanted her to become a soldier, but Neevan could not be dissuaded. She wanted to avenge the death of her father at the hands of the Karran. And the time was nearing.

  Her brush with Clarian was not far from her mind. In fact, it kept going around and around. On the night she and Clarian bumped into each other, after she had regained her senses, she had sounded the alarm in the camp that she had seen an intruder. She omitted the part about having had a conversation with Clarian. She kept saying his name, Clarian. Then she became angry with herself for being disloyal and even thinking about a Karran in that way. What way was that? How could she? His hair had been brown and his round eyes blue, not slanted like hers with the slit-like pupils glowing green in the dark.

  What business did she have to be thinking thoughts about a hateful Karran? She had never heard of any Maggan, male or female, having romantic thoughts about a Karran. It just wasn’t done. But still, she could see his earnest, handsome face before her.

  Neevan knew she was attractive. Many Maggan men had tried to get her attention since she was a teenager, but she had rebuffed them all. Her mother had encouraged her on several occasions to be more open to the overtures of several men, one an officer and another a teacher, but she had remained steadfast to her goal of one day fighting the Karran. The Maggan army was made up mostly of men, but there were some women. She was proud that she was an officer, leading a force of hundreds of soldiers. She tried to refocus her attention on Ferman, the commander of the Maggan army.

  He began to speak again. “We will march directly at the Citadel. I do not expect strong resistance. The Karran have no army, only a modest number of Citadel soldiers. They do know how to fight, make no mistake about that. But we have the greater numbers and the element of surprise. It will be difficult to be out in the open plain away from the forest. We will use tents and the occasional clump of trees to get out of the sunlight and get some sleep during the day. We will push long and hard during the nighttime, covering as much distance as possible. I expect us to reach the Citadel in five to seven days. The city should fall easily, but the Citadel itself is a high-walled stone castle and is well fortified. It may take some time to breach the walls or break through the gate. Now return to your units and prepare them to march. And may the Flame be with you!”

  “The Flame!” shouted the officers in response.

  As Neevan filed out of the tent, a fellow officer and admirer of hers, Kebran, approached her. “Neevan? What’s your assignment?”

  “Hello, Kebran. My company will be out in front, as will most of the other mounted units. Our job is to scout the enemy and attack the flanks as well as protect the foot soldiers and get them in close enough to launch the attack against the city. How about you?” she asked.

  “I’ll be bringing up the supply wagons in the rear. I always wanted to be a mounted soldier. Instead, I’m stuck with supplies.”

  Neevan laughed. “Somebody has to keep us fed and watered. I can’t think of anyone better to do the job than you.”

  “If you get hungry, you’ll know where to find me,” Kebran said with a grin as he turned off in another direction.

  A lone messenger galloped hard through the night, pushing his horse ever faster as he sped past the last of the summer fields and down the road to the Citadel. The horse labored up the incline to the great wooden gates leading into the Citadel fortress.

  “I come for Clarian!” the messenger shouted to the guards at the entrance. He slid off his horse, handing off the reins to a waiting soldier.

  An officer appeared, and the messenger waved his dispatch pouch. “Follow me,” the officer said, and they set off at a run up the stone steps into the castle.

  Moments later, the officer entered the officers’ sleeping quarters with the messenger at his side. Moonlight through the small casement windows faintly illuminated the room. H
urrying past several cots, the officer with the messenger in tow found Clarian’s bed and forcefully shook Clarian from his exhausted sleep.

  “Clarian! Clarian! Wake up!”

  Clarian sat up, rubbing his eyes and face, trying to focus on the two men beside his bed.

  “Tell me.”

  The messenger leaned forward and in a low voice, said, “The Maggan are on the march in great numbers.”

  “Have you seen them with your own eyes?”

  “Yes. They left the cover of the Forest of Darkness at sundown yesterday.”

  “How fast are they marching?”

  “They are coming slowly.”

  The other officers in the room were now roused and sitting up.

  Clarian ordered the officer, “Sound the alarm.”

  The giant bell atop the Citadel tower slammed out a frantic tone that reverberated through the castle, over the city below the Citadel and across the training fields to the tents of soldiers sleeping there. Soldiers spilled out of their cots in the dark, groping for their clothing. Out among the tents, trumpeters blew their horns, signaling a hurried turnout in the face of danger. In the city, townspeople stepped out of their doorways wrapped in blankets, looks of fear twisting their sleep-laden faces. They didn’t have to be told what it meant. The enemy was coming.

  High in the castle the Flamekeeper, jarred out of his sleep by the clanging bell, reached for his robe. The door of the chamber opened, and Dellan, his personal secretary, scooted in holding a lit candle. “Holy One?”

  “Yes! Yes! What is it? Why is the bell ringing?”

  “Word has come. The dark ones march on us. Clarian has called out the army.”

  The night sky with its full moon gave way to the creeping dawn. With pink light spreading in the east, one could hear the Karran officers quietly giving orders. Behind the ridges that lined the dusty road out of the Forest of Darkness, columns of mounted soldiers and wagons of archers assembled in their appointed positions. Nervous horses snorted and stamped their hooves, jingling their harnesses.