Phoenix Unbound

by Grace Draven

  Saruke leapt back, eyes wide. Gilene wrestled to contain her crow of joy. Her power was returning! More a trickle than a rushing river, but still there. Were she alone, she’d close her eyes, turn inward, and hunt for the fiery red thread she could always see in her mind’s eye, one that wound through her in both flesh and spirit. Most often she resented its presence. Now, though . . . now she welcomed it.

  She stirred the coals again, adopting a bored expression and ignoring Saruke’s questioning look.

  “Was that your magic?” she asked.

  Gilene shook her head. “I think I just hit the right bundle of coals.”

  Doubt warred with excitement in Saruke’s eyes. “Are you certain? Because if you can summon fire now, then we need to send a message to the agacins, and Azarion can challenge Karsas.”

  The last part of her statement made Gilene’s heart stutter a little. Blood tanistry. The attainment of leadership through murder or war was no longer common in the Empire, but the steppe clans still practiced it. Karsas had avoided using it against Azarion and taken the coward’s way, depending on others to rid him of the ataman’s son and clear the path for his own rise to the role of clan chieftain.

  She took the chunks of wild turnips Saruke handed her and dumped them into the pot of boiling water. “Aren’t you frightened he might lose in such a combat?”

  Saruke’s shoulders hunched as she tossed a handful of salt from a goatskin into the pot. “I just got him back after ten years. What do you think?”

  They spoke no more of Azarion’s plans as the foragers trickled back, their baskets loaded with wild berries. Women and children sported stained fingers and lips from eating the fruit as they picked. Gilene and Saruke passed out the barley cakes, bowls of curd, and cups of the still-warm milk tea. Another woman took over the task of boiling the turnips, and Gilene helped herself to the cache of berries.

  They all flocked together in a rough circle, passing around the prepared food and drink. Lively chatter swirled around Gilene, who could understand only bits and pieces of the many conversations and relied on Saruke’s translations to get an idea of what was said. In this, the Savatar—at least the women—were much like the women of Beroe in those topics that concerned them: difficult or kindly spouses, recalcitrant children, marriages and birth, death and war, the health of the livestock, the effects of the weather.

  She would miss this once Azarion realized his ambitions and she left the Sky Below. These were not her people, not her ways, not even her language, yet here she could shed the burden of her duty as a Flower of Spring and simply be Gilene. An outlander, yes, and one whose blessing from Agna was still under a cloud of doubt, but no one here pitied her or lay the burden of their survival on her shoulders. Here, on the windy steppes, under a vault of blue sky, she could forget who she was and what waited for her to the west.

  Conversation slowed to a trickle, then halted altogether at the rumble of fast hoofbeats. All six scouts who had accompanied their group to keep watch while they foraged bore down on them at full gallop, their horses’ necks stretched long as they trampled a path through the grasses. The expressions on the scouts’ faces as they rode closer made everyone stand.

  Tamura reached them first, slowing her horse only enough to canter a circle around them.

  “On your horses,” she shouted. “Hurry! Clan Saiga raiders headed this way.”

  Had they been winged, the throng of women and children would have resembled a startled flock of birds taking flight. No one lingered to ask questions or demand details. Mothers gathered the youngest children while the older children retrieved the horses ground-tied nearby in a grazing herd.

  Gilene helped Saruke douse the fire with the water used to boil the turnips. “What about our supplies?”

  “Leave them,” Saruke snapped. “If those Saiga catch any of us, it will cost the Kestrels a lot more in ransom to get them back than what a basket of berries or a couple of pots are worth.”

  They hurried to join the others and capture their horses. Only half their number had mounted when a high, triumphant cry sang on the wind. The low swale in which the group had foraged was surrounded on three sides by ridges. Neither high nor difficult to scale on horse or on foot, they nonetheless created a blind spot for those in the swale.

  A line of horsemen slowly fanned across the top of one ridge, at least thirty, maybe forty—far more than the pitiful few who rode to put themselves between the Saiga raiders and the Kestrel women and children.

  Tamura shouted over her shoulder, and Saruke hurriedly translated. “Hurry it up. We can’t fight them all, but those on fast mares can outrun them while she and the others hold some of them off.”

  Gilene leapt to follow Tamura’s order, then stopped. She was no warrior, no strategist or leader of soldiers, but even she could see their bid to escape the surrounding Saiga was futile. The six brave men and women trying to protect their clanswomen would die in the effort. She glanced at Saruke, who hesitated as well, her face white with fear. Not for herself but for her daughter whose straight back, fierce expression, and steady hands on the bow showed a warrior eager for a fight.

  The Saiga warriors advanced down the slopes at a casual pace, their posture in the saddles revealing their surety of a successful capture of horses and hostages. Gilene grabbed Saruke’s hand. “We can’t outrun them. They’re too many and too close.”

  Saruke shook her head. “What else can we do?” She tugged on Gilene’s arm, pulling her toward the horses stamping and snorting as they sensed the tension in the air.

  A plan took shape in her mind. A crazed one with about as much chance of success as outrunning the Saiga. However, if it worked, they’d all make it back to the encampment, with no one captured and no one dead. If it didn’t, then the families of the fallen and the taken would have a ready source to blame in her. She would never see Beroe again if it did fail, and the thought made her pause for the space of a breath. So be it.

  She wrested her arm free of Saruke’s grip and grabbed the other woman by the shoulders. “Tell them not to run. Tell them to stay here. Together. To get off their horses and blindfold them with whatever they have.”

  Saruke gasped. “Are you mad?”

  “Just do it. Tell them the agacin demands it.”

  She didn’t wait to hear whether Saruke followed her instructions, but raced back to where she had doused the cooking fire. Voices argued behind her. She ignored them. All her attention centered on the pile of ash, and the tiny red spark that still glowed at its perimeter. No bigger than a bead, it had escaped the drowning from turnip water and gleamed bright and hot amid a bed of wet ash.

  She crouched, her hand outstretched, palm down. The steppe, the women protesting her command, the steady drum of hoofbeats drawing closer—all faded as she stared at the jewel of hot coal and turned inward to listen to her magic.

  The red thread was a stream now, still thin but unbroken. It spilled from the once empty well inside her, flowing through her veins in a steady current. Eager, waiting.

  Fire magic was a harsh and unpredictable mistress, quick to turn on its wielder if not held in check by a firm hand. Gilene’s life had been defined by controlling her birthright and suffering the consequences when she didn’t. And now she’d be tested again, not by Savatar fire witches who demanded she prove her magic, but by Savatar warriors bent on raiding.

  The tiny coal glowed hotter, brighter, bigger, until it surged up in a slender column of flame no bigger than a young willow branch. Unlike the god-fire of the Veil, it owed no allegiance to the Savatar and would readily burn any of them except the immune agacins. While the priestesses refused to recognize Gilene as one of theirs, this small flame obeyed its mistress. It shot through the space between her fingers, crackling in a merry dance that should have blistered her skin. Instead, more flames cascaded over her hand with a lover’s touch, licking along her wrist and forearm,
leaving flesh and clothing unharmed.

  Gilene swept her arm in a graceful arc and whipped the fire across the ground, where it devoured the damp grasses in a shower of sparks and smoke that formed a circle around the now silent women and children. They watched her, eyes wide as she bent the fire to her will, feeding its hunger with the long grass, controlling its ravenous appetite with the magic she spun out in carefully measured strands.

  The flames crackled low and close to the ground, the only hint of their presence to the approaching horsemen the telltale veils of smoke rising into the air. Gilene took her eyes off the fire long enough to find Saruke. “Tell them if they haven’t yet blindfolded their horses to do so now or they’ll lose them.”

  Saruke’s rapid Savat broke the frozen tension, and more shuffling and horse snorts filled the air as the last of the horses had their eyes covered by torn bits of blankets, shawls, and the hems of tunics.

  A trickle of sweat tickled the length of Gilene’s back as the Saiga riders closed the distance, their casual pace speeding up until they hit full gallop. The whistling twang of an arrow loosed pierced the air, fired from the bow of one of the Kestrel scouts standing guard outside the fire circle. All six archers raised their shields as a thin volley of return fire spilled around them, arrows embedding in the ground around them and in the shields they held.

  “A little closer,” Gilene muttered. “Just a little closer.” Patience, she reminded herself. Patience ruled fire. Not strength, not speed, and definitely not impulse.

  The Saiga horsemen were almost on top of the defending archers when Gilene drew hardest on her magic. Were her power fully returned, the flames shooting up from the circle would have towered over them nearly as high as the Veil. Instead they created a wall only knee-high. Undeterred, Gilene incanted an illusion spell, and the flames exploded upward with the deep roar of an ancient draga’s bellow.

  On both sides, people cried out and horses whinnied as she shaped the flame into a colossal monstrosity of claws and teeth and glowing yellow eyes straight out of a Kraelian Book of Nightmares. The thing arched back before cannoning forward, its monstrous jaws snapping on a fiery bellow that sent the terrified horses of the equally terrified Saiga screaming and bucking as they fought their riders’ control and lunged away from the horror threatening to either devour or burn them.

  Gilene pitied the Kestrel archers, who cried out their terror and struggled to control their own maddened mounts, but there was nothing she could do for them. Outside the circle, all had to believe that an agacin of immense power had just raised a fire demon or some monster of equal horror and hurled it at them.

  She fanned both flame and illusion with her magic until the last Saiga rider disappeared over the ridges, some now riding pillion with a compatriot, while their riderless horses bolted in the same direction, reins snapping behind them like angry vipers.

  Once the Saiga were gone and the Kestrel archers paced their panicked mounts a farther distance back, calling out the names of those inside the circle, Gilene snuffed both the fire with a snap of her hand and the illusion with a softly spoken incantation. All that remained was a ring of blackened grass and the acrid smell of smoke.

  Except for the occasional whicker from the horses and the ceaseless song of the wind, a heavy silence settled around her. Tamura, still shield-clad on her nervously pacing mount, wore an expression of wary shock. The same look was reflected on the faces of the other archers. Gilene’s back prickled, and she pivoted to face the crowd inside the charred ring of grass.

  Women clutched crying children or held the reins of blind horses with hands gone white at the knuckles. Their eyes were huge in their faces, some tear-stained, others pale with either terror or wonder.

  A shudder racked Gilene, followed by a warning twinge along the underside of her arm. This magic she wrought was only a shadow of what she unleashed in the Pit each year, and the price she’d pay for it temporary. Painful blistering would ease over a couple of days with a soothing poultice. The red thread inside her still streamed and tumbled, undiminished by her careful use of its power combined with that of illusion. She might have cheered the triumph of her plan were she not being suffocated by dozens of Savatar stares.

  She concentrated on Saruke. “Did that work? Will it give us enough time to reach camp before they come back?”

  Saruke’s smile slowly stretched across her face. “I think it worked fine, Agacin.” She bowed low, and as one, the crowd followed her lead. Gilene gasped, reaching out her hands in a futile bid to stop them.

  When they straightened, many wore smiles similar to Azarion’s mother. Saruke turned to them, hands on her hips. “You saw it,” she said in trader’s tongue. “We all saw it. She summoned fire.”

  Several nodded and one Savatar woman spoke up, also speaking in trader’s tongue for Gilene’s benefit. “We have to tell the Fire Council.”

  Gilene shook her head. She wasn’t ready to face the agacins a second time. “It was only a small fire.”

  Saruke bent a doubtful scowl on her. “That was not a small fire.”

  “Trust me, it was,” she argued. “If I’m to be tested again by the council, they’ll know my power hasn’t returned fully.”

  “But it’s there.” Saruke wouldn’t be swayed. “Look how many of us saw you summon it!” Her smile returned. “You saved us, Agacin.”

  A chorus of “Yes” and “Well done!” rose from the crowd, along with applause and cheering. Gilene squirmed inside, mortified at the unwanted attention. A blast of horse breath heated the back of her head. She spun and came face to muzzle with Tamura’s horse.

  Azarion’s sister stared down at her, her imperious gaze challenging. She said nothing for long moments before swinging off the saddle to land lightly on her feet. She was of equal height to Gilene, leaner, harder, far more dangerous. Gilene fancied that if the Savatar allowed women to become atamans, this woman would rule a clan of her own.

  Tamura bowed low like the others. Her features didn’t lighten or smile, but her gaze was a little less suspicious, a little more admiring. “My brother will be pleased, Agacin.”

  A bubble of hysterical laughter filled Gilene’s throat. The danger had passed for now, leaving the aftershock of relief to shatter her nerves. “Well, there is that.”

  Satisfied, Tamura barked orders that sent the crowd leaping to do her bidding. Blindfolds were removed from the horses, and children were placed in saddles. Those foodstuffs and supplies they originally planned to abandon were gathered up and loaded onto their mounts.

  They traveled back to camp at a fast clip, cutting the ride time by half, unwilling to stop until they were within sight distance of the Kestrel encampment, where a wedge of warriors rode out to meet them.

  Excited whoops and hollers filled the air. Gilene, riding in the middle of their group, next to Saruke, had never been happier to see the familiar sight of the Kestrel banner flags fluttering from the peaks of the subchiefs’ and ataman’s qaras or the proud, handsome ex-slave riding toward them.

  Tamura rode ahead, guiding her mount to cut across Azarion’s path. He slowed, puzzlement flickering across his face. Gilene couldn’t make out what his sister told him, but she could guess. Azarion sat even straighter in the saddle as Tamura punctuated whatever she said with flamboyant hand gestures. His gaze landed on Gilene riding toward him and stayed. Tamura turned to follow his stare until they were both watching Gilene like two hawks deciding who was going to eat the mouse. Azarion said something to his sister, who nodded, and then tapped his horse into motion.

  The clan swarmed the returning riders, the roar of excited voices swirling around them as those who had been with Gilene recounted the tale of their escape to those who remained in camp. Reverent hands lightly touched Gilene’s tunic and legs, the strappings of her low boots, as if by doing so, they could somehow touch her magic itself.

  She was blessed multiple
times by grateful husbands and fathers who didn’t have to ransom their wives and children back. Some of the women removed brooches from their tunics and earrings from their ears to press them into her hands in gratitude. Gilene sought out Azarion as he slowly pushed his horse forward through the crowd. Help me, she mouthed to him.

  He managed to extricate her and Saruke from the crowd with a few whistles and shouts before leading them to their qara. The people followed, and Azarion hustled them into the quiet interior. “They’ll linger for a little while,” he said. “Then go about their business.”

  “As they should,” Saruke said as she crouched to start a fire in the qara’s main brazier. “Most of the day is gone, and there are people to feed as always.” She gave Gilene another of her crinkly smiles. “Tonight, I cook something special.”

  She shooed them off with the admonishment that she couldn’t work with people hanging over her, and Gilene dropped down to her sleeping pallet to remove her borrowed coat and hat. Azarion followed and crouched down in front of her.

  Those bright green eyes, with their long lashes, searched her face. “Well done, Agacin.” The pride and approval in his voice sent a warm glow spreading through her cold limbs.

  She took up one of the felt slippers she’d been working on for Tamura. As Azarion said, there was business to tend to, and with Saruke working on their supper, she could see to this task. “It wasn’t much, truly. It was your sister and the other archers who deserve the praise. They held their ground trying to protect us, even though they were easily outnumbered seven to one.” Gilene recalled the six archers facing off against the Saiga warriors. Of the six, four had been women. “Savatar women are fierce warriors.”