Brightly Burning

by Mercedes Lackey

  He opened his eyes, grateful that he could not see the place where the fires had lately raged. Calum and Fedor put their heads together for a moment, then Calum signaled to the rest of them to move forward behind Fedor. He and Wulaf headed up a trail toward the Karsite fortress to make certain that it had been cleared out.

  :Steady-on love,: Kalira said soothingly. :You did just fine.: But she didn’t say anything about the men in the fortress—and Lan added another load of guilt to the one he was already carrying. Striking without warning, without giving them a chance to surrender or flee . . . what am I becoming?

  Calum and Wulaf rejoined them some while later—it wouldn’t have been at all difficult to see their trail, even with only moonlight to guide them. They weren’t trying to hide it, after all; this would be the trail that the rest of the army would follow. And it was no odds if Karsites followed it as well; they’d either be met by fire from the scouts, or fire from the army.

  At the pace they were setting, it was unlikely that anyone would overtake them anyway.

  Lan hadn’t intended to sleep in the saddle, but evidently Kalira had already made up her mind about that.

  He wasn’t riding anymore. In fact, he couldn’t remember where he’d been or why he’d been riding. He and Kalira walked slowly and dreamily, side by side but not touching, through a landscape that was too wild to be a garden, but too well-ordered to be wilderness.

  Beside him moved a brightness—Kalira—and it seemed to him that she had always looked that way. He wasn’t thinking much; his mind was entirely taken up with simply being.

  Golden light, thick and sweet, poured down over them. There were no other people here, but this wasn’t a place that needed people. The birds, animals, and plants here acted as if they had never seen a human before. And Lan himself felt so entirely swathed in peace and loving warmth that he felt no urgency about anything; for that matter, he couldn’t remember if there had ever been any urgency about anything. Perhaps he had always been here, and always would be.

  Then he woke, with the sunrise casting long blue shadows across the white faces of the mountains, the peace fleeing from him in a rush. He could have wept like a baby at being thrust back into this world, this horrible war—

  Then, although the peace did not return, the love and warmth did, flooding from Kalira into him; and if it did not return him to peace, it did comfort him.

  This looked pretty much like every other piece of country that they had passed through, but Calum reined in his horse and looked about with satisfaction.

  “Good, we’ve beaten them here,” the scout leader said. “Most of you, rest. Lan, start a fire. Tuck, come with Wulaf, Fedor, and me. Let’s find a place to put our young friend.”

  Lan climbed down from the saddle, feeling nowhere near as tired as the rest looked. While they wearily dismounted, he cobbled together as much deadfall as he could find and set it ablaze; as they gathered around, he and Kalira brought back large branches and logs and piled them on the roaring fire. By his third trip, someone had put water on for tea and broken out the field rations.

  He was happy enough to help himself to both, and it wasn’t long until Calum returned.

  The scout squatted down beside the fire and accepted a mug from one of the others. Lan supplied Fedor and Tuck with food and drink as the scout drained his mug in a single swallow.

  “We’ve got a good spot for you, lad, and just in the nick of time,” Calum told him, passing his mug over for a refill. “As soon as you get something into you, we’ll take you up there and get you settled in. The Karsites will be here in about a candlemark, or so Fedor thinks.”

  Calum’s casual statement chilled Lan to the bone, though he did his best not to show it. He gulped down his own tea, ignoring his scalded tongue, and bolted his ration bar. “I’m ready now,” he said, putting on his bravest face.

  :That’s my Herald,: Kalira crooned as he mounted, and he felt a little glow of pleasure warming the chill of fear.

  Dutifully, they followed in Fedor’s wake; Calum remained behind to direct the scouts to a place where they, too, could guard the pass. Tuck started to follow, but Fedor waved him back. “We’ll need you here, youngster,” Fedor called over his shoulder as Lan turned to look back. “Lan’s job will be simple enough and he won’t need anyone to relay him orders.”

  Tuck nodded and dismounted, gratefully accepting a second cup of tea. Lan sighed and faced forward again. He would have liked the company.

  :Oh, now, you always have me,: Kalira replied. :Besides, Tuck always feels bad when there’s nothing for him to do.:

  :That’s true enough, love,: he replied, and Fedor motioned to him to come up beside him.

  “This is a very narrow passage,” Fedor said, as they rode side by side through a thick grove of pines. “You’ll be able to stop them from coming through the pass directly, and we think you’ll also be able to block most of the attempts to use the high passes, because you’ll be able to see them from where we’re putting you. And they shouldn’t be able to get anywhere near you; you’re going to be on a slope that had a rockslide in the last year or so, there is no kind of cover on it.”

  “Do you know much about what’s coming?” he asked, rather shyly.

  Fedor shook his head. “Only what they told me. All of the Karsite forces have consolidated for this, so I suppose this is their big push to break us. If that’s true, winning here could win the war for us.”

  “Oh, I hope so,” Lan said fervently. Fedor smiled, with understanding in his brown eyes.

  “I hate this, too,” Fedor said softly. “That’s one reason why I asked to be a scout. Blood makes me sick.”

  “It does?” Lan felt immensely better to hear a senior Herald confess the same weakness he felt. “I hate killing people,” he said in a rush. “I hate it! I don’t care if they’re our enemies!”

  “And thank the gods you feel that way, Lan,” Fedor said solemnly. “Anyone who doesn’t is perilously near to becoming a monster. Most of these people wouldn’t be fighting us if their leaders weren’t forcing them, or at least telling them such lies that they’re afraid we’ll slaughter them if they don’t get rid of us.”

  Lan wanted to talk more to him, but the trail narrowed at that point and he had to fall back to the rear. They came out of the pine trees onto the lower slope of the mountain, and began to climb it on a switchback path rising alternately through more trees and stretches of barren rock.

  Only a goat, a mountain pony, or a Companion could have taken this route safely, and Lan’s attention was entirely occupied by helping Kalira as she climbed by shifting his balance in the saddle like a tightrope walker on a rope. At times he hung over her neck, at others over to one side, or practically hanging off her tail. He kept his eyes down on the ground—and on the sheer drop-offs just beyond Kalira’s hooves. The trail didn’t always switch back under itself, and even when it did, the likelihood of catching themselves if they started down was minimal.

  It wasn’t until Fedor said, “We’re here,” that he looked up from the trail, and gasped at the vista that unfolded before him.

  This place that Fedor and Calum had chosen for him was a little scooped-out section in the middle of the goat trail. A boulder might well have once been here, and been knocked out of place by that rockfall. He had a perfect view of the passage between two snow-covered mountains, and the zigzag valley below. A mist hung over the valley, glowing with the golden light of morning, filling the vale to a point halfway up the peaks. It wasn’t a thick mist; he could see the sparkle of a river and the forms of trees perfectly well through it. The mist was nothing more than a tenuous, gilded veil that softened the edges of what lay beyond.

  A few puffy white clouds soared just above him, barely touching the mountain peaks, and somewhere in the distance, a blackbird sang. For a fleeting moment, the peace of his dream descended on him. This was so beautiful, so peaceful—his soul opened up to it.

  “Dear gods,” Fedor murmured. “How
I hate mankind, sometimes.”

  Lan knew exactly what he meant by that. This peace, this loveliness, would be shattered irrevocably in a few candlemarks, and for no more reason but that one group of men desired dominance over another.

  “Make yourself as comfortable as you can, Lavan,” Fedor said a bit louder, shaking himself out of his melancholy. “If you look up that way, you’ll see the signs that they’re coming. Then—well, do what seems best to you, and what you can to hold them back.” Fedor smiled weakly. “No one knows better than I how unreliable Gifts can be.”

  Lan was touched and terrified at the same time by the trust implied by that order. He could, if he chose, do nothing, and claim that his Gift had deserted him. Not that he would—but he could. Of course, if he didn’t, more people would die, his own people—they wouldn’t die at his hands, but they would die because of his neglect.

  “You can depend on me, sir,” he said solemnly. Fedor saluted him, and turned his Companion’s head to go back down the trail.

  Well, if he was going to be here a while, there was no point in sitting on a lump of ice until he became one. Once again he gathered wood, this time from among the tumbled rocks where the remains of smashed trees poked up out of the boulders, the remains of a grove of pines that had once stood here. In no time he had a fine pile of dry, seasoned wood; he made a fire, and warmed himself at it, while Kalira sidled up to the flames on the opposite side. From time to time he looked up to see if there was any sign of the enemy, but the fire had burned through the first feeding and halfway through the second before they appeared.

  A moving blackness, with bright glints of metal in the midst of it, crept forward imperceptibly at the farthest range of his vision. Again, a shiver of fear crept over him. Could he do this thing? He was only one person—

  :You can.: Kalira came up close to him, supporting him with her shoulder. Together they watched the enemy approach, filling the entire valley from slope to slope, announcing their presence with trumpets that frightened the blackbird into silence.

  Black anger roiled sluggishly in his gut; they were a pollution, a desecration of this peaceful place. How dare they come here with their bows and swords, their warhorns and their noise? How dare they trample this pristine place, churning up the untouched snow and leaving the landscape ruined?

  They poured through the valley in a sluggish stream, with no end in sight; not only were there glints from their weapons flashing among them, but bands of color from banners waving among them. And a safe distance from the front, something shining moved in the midst of them; something bright gold, reflecting the sun, that almost seemed to float on the surface of the throng, bobbing in the current of humanity.

  :That’s a shrine to their god,: Kalira informed him.

  “Oh, really?” he responded aloud, and a spirit of angered devilment suddenly took hold of them. “Well—I think maybe they can do without it, don’t you?”

  A whicker and a toss of her head answered his question, and he reached out with his Gift, feeling Kalira behind him, acting as a check on his power.

  The shrine couldn’t be solid gold, or no one would be able to move it. There was wood, even paper, beneath that gilding—and where there was something, anything, to burn, Lan would find it.

  These people burn living sacrifices to that shrine. These people sent a man that took Pol’s eyes. There was less grief within him now, and more anger. Much more. He turned took a breath, and loosed the dragon within him, targeting its fury on the shrine.

  For some time, the army flowed forward, and nothing outwardly happened. But Lan felt the fire catch and take hold; he held it back to let it build, and then—released it.

  An entire bouquet of fire-blossoms burst forth from every opening in the shrine.

  Below—pandemonium.

  It looked exactly as if he had dropped a burning twig into a seething mass of ants. The little black specks that were enemy fighters surged away from the burning shrine in all directions, as Lan fed the flames in glee. A few, brave believers or full of bravado, tried to extinguish the flames by tossing snow on them, but soon gave up as the heat from the shrine drove them out of throwing distance.

  Would that give them pause? Would they decide to turn back, given the defeat of their god?

  No such luck.

  When the shrine was nothing but ash and puddled gold, the army of dots milled uncertainly for a little while—but the echo of shrill voices reached Lan’s perch, and eventually the army crept forward again.

  Damn. Lan frowned, anger still controlled, but quickening. He’d hoped to finish this bloodlessly. Well, perhaps he still could. He called up all his memories of the Dark Servants at the pass, of the attack on Pol, of Ilea’s despair and Elenor’s grief, and let the anger build higher still.

  The dragon waited, not at all restless now, for it knew he was going to let it loose again, and this time it would have everything it wanted.

  Just before the first of the enemy reached the pass, a wall of flame erupted before them, three times the height of a man, stretching not only across the valley but a good way up the side of the mountains on either side. And as they recoiled from the fires, he saw something that raised the hair on the back of his neck, and made his blood boil.

  In the front of the army was another line of those detestable Priests, and just behind them, a line of captives tied together by the neck, frightened fodder for their fires.

  Oh, no, you won’t!

  With the surge in his temper, the line of fire below leapt up, rising in height and increasing in ferocity. Even the priests were forced back by the heat, and Lan had the bit in his teeth now—he’d burn the very stone of the mountains before he let them pass!

  :Hold hard, beloved.: That was Kalira, a bulwark supporting him. As he exhausted the fuel available in the line of fire, he crept it forward a pace, forcing the Karsite army back again.

  :There—look there!: Without needing to be shown where to look, he glanced up on the side of the mountain below him, and saw a party of Karsites trying to establish a way around. In a flash, he sent the dragon out to chase them down again. And it looked almost as if an invisible creature was after them; fire sprang up to bar their path, then followed them down to the floor of the valley. Lan let it spread; there was plenty of dry thatch for it to feed on, and as long as it didn’t threaten the Valdemar forces, he no longer cared what it did. The tranquility of the mountains was already gone, and they had trampled the beauty under their feet. There was very little he could do that would spoil the valley more than it had been.

  Movement below caught his eye, and he set his chin when he realized that the priests were building their horrible bonfires, set in a line in front of the wall of fire.

  Now his temper truly rose, and in a fury, he set the bonfires alight with an angry wave of his fist, then surged the fire wall forward to engulf them.

  “Bastards!” he muttered through clenched teeth. “Not here—not now! Hellfires, not ever.”

  :Gently, Lan,: Kalira warned, but he was past being gentle with people who burned innocents to call up devils. When another party tried to find a new way along the mountain opposite, he flamed the entire mountainside and grinned to see them tumbling and falling from the trail in their haste to get away.

  You won’t get past me, you bastards! he crowed, giddy with intoxication. Try, and you’ll fry!

  And he laughed, and spread his arms, daring them to make the attempt, while little flamelets filled the air around him.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  POL ached from head to toe, every muscle sore from riding, walking, and riding again, but he was well aware that every other member of the army felt the same aching exhaustion. Pushed ruthlessly until they were just about to drop, allowed a brief respite (which was never long enough) to plummet into sleep, then roused and pushed again, the army was, during most of the trek, composed of folk who only differed from walking corpses by having pulses. The Karsites had to cover roughly half the distance that
the Valdemarans did in order to reach the next pass northward, and although their path was rougher, both armies were contending with the same winter conditions of ice, snow, and bitter cold. Cold could be as exhausting as marching. Huddled together in piles to conserve heat, wrapped in cloaks and blankets, the fighters hadn’t had a great deal of rest during their rest stops. Cavalry and Heralds had it a little better, with Companions and horses to snuggle up to, but it was still so bitterly cold it was hard to sleep.

  They’d gotten a full eight candlemarks of sleep in a complete camp with tents and fires at their last pause, though it had not made them into fresh men, just less exhausted ones. Now, with four candlemarks of marching to bring them to the pass before them, their energy dared not flag. They daren’t come up exhausted, when no one knew what they’d face at the end of the march. Pol knew that the Commanders had some hope that they’d be able to get more rest at the unnamed pass itself, but the Karsites had put on an unexpected burst of speed, and now the army was marching at a desperate pace to meet them. The only creature with any hope of standing between the Karsites and Valdemar was Lavan Firestorm.

  The Karsites were expected to reach the pass about now—early morning. The Valdemaran army hoped to arrive before noon. That was a lot of time for something to go wrong; a lot of time for Lan to exhaust himself or be captured—

  :Lan will not be captured,: Satiran said firmly. :Kalira would never allow it. He is holding the pass with surprising skill. The limiting factor is the amount of fuel for his fires.:

  If Lan exhausted the fuel, could he still hold the pass?

  :Kalira learned strategy from me—Lan learned it from you. We have to assume they won’t do anything stupid.:

  Pol wished he had Satiran’s self-assurance that what he had taught wasn’t flawed.

  :How long?: he fretted. :How long until we’re there?:

  Satiran raised his head from the trail, and pointed his long nose at one mountain among many piercing the clear morning sky. :That’s the peak that Lan is on; I think we will be there in two candlemarks or thereabouts. Look! See the smoke?: