City of Blaze (The Fireblade Array)

by H. O. Charles

  “Do you know me?” she asked, confused. Jarynd shifted his stance.

  The big man smiled. “Ah, perhaps I am mistaking you for another red-haired beauty. Forgive me.”

  Artemi sat down next to him. A thought occurred to her. “Could you help these men to find their way out of here?”

  The vast man eyed her levelly. “You want me to help the enemy?”

  “You seem nice enough.” She gave him her best smile.

  He cracked a short laugh. “Ah, you women never change. Perhaps you can enlighten me on something. I saw your little display earlier and was wondering... why would someone with your... abilities throw your lot in with an army of Calidell?”

  Artemi was happy to answer: “Because I made a promise to them, and because they are good men.”

  He frowned at her.

  “Why did you throw your lot in with this bunch of cave-dwellers?” she asked.

  He thought for a moment. “Because an army of Calidell destroyed my home, my friends and my queen. Which brings me onto another point.” He twitched his stump oddly. “How did Morghiad come to be in your army?”

  Artemi was taken aback. Was this some sort of espionage technique? Ask the obvious questions to reveal hidden relationships? Not that there was anything hidden about her and the kahr. She remained as impassive as possible with her answer. “Kahr Morghiad is our captain. His father, the king, appointed him to the role.”

  The giant’s face contorted with confusion. Then something fell into place in his mind. “He is King Acher’s son?”

  Artemi smiled. “Of course.”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “No?”

  “That lad was born to House Jade’an. Acher must have stolen him during the battle.” His square face grimaced. “It is the ultimate insult.”

  She was not sure if the aged soldier had gone completely mad through his years of battling or if he was trying to tell her the truth. She decided to play along. “What battle?”

  “Why, the battle of Gialdin! Good people fell in that battle, lass. Some of the best.” He winked at her. He was almost certainly insane.

  Artemi pressed further. “And what relationship was the House of Jade’an to Gialdin?”

  He frowned at her. “Don’t you young things read any more, these days? Queen Medea of House Jade’an ruled Gialdin. And your young kahr is her son. So you see. Acher took the city, he took the country and he took its only surviving heir.”

  That was a very strange story to come up with. Morghiad already stood to inherit the lands of Gialdin upon Acher’s death. That and more. Perhaps this man hoped to create some sort of rift by proclaiming such a thing had happened. Artemi decided to be practical. “Well then, if he is your lost heir to Gialdin, why don’t you help get his men out of this hole in the ground?”

  “Bloody blazes, Artemi, you always were a rock-in-the-grass when you wanted to be.”

  Artemi was sure he was delusional. Jarynd kicked him, and she spied Silar heading towards her.

  The blond lieutenant took a good look at the prisoner and offered him a polite nod. “We’re ready to go, Artemi.”

  She rose and said goodbye to the insane giant. He gave her an overly familiar grin. It was time to find her kahr. She followed the course of his stream, and could sense that he was in pain; a lot of pain. “He’s that way.” She pointed to the area to the left of the peculiar red castle. “We must hurry.” Artemi ran to the horses they had assembled and jumped on Glacier’s back. She took Tyshar’s reins in her other hand and kicked her horse into a trot. Silar caught up to her. “Artemi, you need to stay in sight of the group. If we lose each other that’s the end. We’ll all get picked off like ants on a plate before we can find Morghiad.”

  She nodded in quiet acquiescence. They should have let her do this alone. If only she hadn’t bloody fainted! Ten men followed behind them: including Beodrin, Orwin and Passerid. They passed the red stone structure quickly. It was a ruin: once home to some great king or queen, she thought, but now empty. Artemi followed the river-borne sensation of her lover’s pain through the twisting tunnels and as she neared him it came more sharply into focus. He was being tortured. As far as she could tell it was something metal being repeatedly stuck into his abdomen, but each time she found herself thinking of it she would kick her horse into a canter and Silar would have to rein her in. He was right that they had no idea what lay behind each corner, but she was so desperate to get to the captain. Artemi had to stop his pain, and wreak some revenge on his captors.

  They encountered a few scattered rogue soldiers on their route, but most cowered at the sight of her or ran screaming. Artemi was quite satisfied with that. The sensations of Morghiad’s agony intensified as she neared him. It was almost unbearable; forcing her to double-over as his torrent of sensations surged through her own. Silar came to fuss at her and ask if she wanted to go on, as if she would leave! They pushed on at a fast trot. His captors would know of her wrath soon enough. The caves wound deeper into the ground and narrowed until they could only go in single-file. Then they hit a dead end. They were so close. She could feel him only a few tens of yards away, now being whipped ferociously. Artemi looked around the dark chamber. Light poured in through a hole, high in the wall. “Can one of you hitch me up there?” she asked. Silar was the tallest, and probably wouldn’t have let anyone else touch her, in any case. He stood on the back of his horse and boosted her up the wall. Artemi gazed through the fissure. She could see around fifty men in a circle. They were watching a red, heaving mass in the middle. A stout man paced around the mass with some sort of stick. He slammed it down in the red lump and Artemi felt another shot of agony. It was Morghiad, covered in blood; huge amounts of blood. Surely more than anyone could have inside them. His torturer was shouting something about gold stores. She tried to reach for Blaze Energy again, but nothing came. Her head pounded. Artemi dropped down from her spy hole, unable to watch more.

  “We need to get into that room. There is an entrance somewhere to the left of us. There are about fifty men in there. Passerid and Beodrin, can you both take my power at once?”

  The two men looked dumbfounded. Passerid began: “I’ve heard of it but I’ve no idea how safe -”

  “Then we’ll do it. It’s a tight room, full of pillars and I need you both firing balls of flame at them independently.”

  They nodded in agreement and filed out of the dead end room. It wasn’t long before they found the entrance to the chamber Artemi had spied. The twelve of them charged in with swords brandished and the two kanaala took a hand each of Artemi’s. To say that the sensation of being held by them both was akin to being torn apart was an understatement. It was as if the two men fought over Blaze Energy inside her head, finding ways of ripping every little part of her in two. But the result was effective. They blasted the rogue soldiers away faster than the black-painted men knew what was happening. At the end only the torturer was left. Artemi saved him for herself. She leapt from Glacier, drew her sword and thrust it into the round man’s gut. The sword cut upwards, through his chest until its route became obstructed by bone. She lifted him from the ground, let him hang there screaming for a while and then threw him to the floor. If Morghiad had not been so ill she would have spent longer taking her revenge, but instead left him for Orwin to deal with.

  Artemi ran to where Morghiad lay, and untied the bonds that held him. His whole body was shaking; it had become drained of the energy it needed to heal and he was bleeding heavily. His entire back was shredded from the torture, completely devoid of its skin. She supported him by his arms, which were probably the least lacerated areas, and helped him onto his knees. His pain was intense, and Artemi had to work hard to compartmentalise it as he did. “Morghiad?” she said.

  His eyes were focused elsewhere.

  “We have to get you out of here now.”

  He gave no reply. Instead his breathing quickened and he squeezed his eyes shut. The kahr was fighting to stay alive wit
h everything he had.

  Artemi looked up at Silar. She hated what she saw in his eyes: resignation, pity and sadness.

  “We cannot take him out of here, Artemi,” he said softly.

  They had been too slow in getting to him. Her false father had told her to be quick. Why had she collapsed in such a pathetic way? Why hadn’t she had gone against orders? The punishment would have been worth it. Artemi let Morghiad slump into her lap, and ran her fingers through his hair as he drifted. That Aval woman would pay dearly for this, perhaps as dearly as his executioner!

  The room around was dark, low-ceilinged and filled with strange, sculpted columns of limestone. The smell of charred flesh made her want to vomit everything from her stomach. Strewn across the floor were numerous implements of torture, rubbish and items of clothing. Strange artwork covered the walls and some of it seemed to glow in the shadows. Artemi tried to decipher the patterns. They were mostly abstract, but she did recognise one motif. It was a stylised drawing of a plant she’d seen in the foothills of the mountains. The orange flower had been in one of Morghiad’s history books. She dug around for the name of it.

  “Swift flower,” Orwin said, following her line of sight.

  Something clicked in her mind. “Swiftness to save him...” she said out loud. Artemi gently lowered the now convulsing Morghiad to the floor and rose to inspect the painting. Beodrin and Silar darted to their captain to hold him still as she wandered off. The image looked old and worn up close. How could a wall mural be used to save him? Artemi put a hand out to touch it. Nothing. It was just a painting. She refused to cry. She had felt despair enough times already today! Her foot kicked something made of glass. Artemi bent down to pick it up and examined it closely. It was a small, clear bottle and written on it in old-fashioned symbols was the word “Swift.” It had some sort of clear liquid in it. Artemi rushed at their prisoner and thrust him against the wall. “What is this?”

  The man grinned wildly at her.

  She pulled out her sword and sliced it through his leg. “What is it?!” she yelled as the man fell to the floor, screaming. He whimpered for a moment as his stump healed. “Tell me,” the wielder ordered.

  The torturer looked back at her with fury in his eyes. He would reveal nothing in the time she had.

  Artemi had no choice but to trust her dream. She went back to her kahr and lifted his head. His green eyes flickered uncontrollably as he tried desperately to focus on her. She opened the bottle. A strong floral odour sprung from it. “Drink,” she demanded, and poured the entire contents into him.

  She heard their prisoner giggle in the near distance.

  Morghiad coughed and spluttered the foul-tasting liquid, but swallowed most of it.

  “Are you sure you know what you are doing?” Silar asked worriedly.

  Artemi compressed her lips and shook her head. “I had to try something.”

  Abruptly she felt something cold shudder through him. She, Silar and Beodrin struggled to grip him firmly as his muscles contorted, causing him to thrash about. Artemi had known he was strong, but the three of them were almost thrown across the room. The other soldiers rushed in to hold him down on his side. Then something incredible happened. The skin on his back began to grow into the open wounds; he began to heal. She stared open-mouthed as his back began to close and his consciousness returned, not daring to say anything lest it hinder the process. The other men looked on agog, too. It normally took days or even weeks to recover healing strength once it had been depleted. But this was happening in seconds. As fast as it had started, the skin stopped growing. He was much improved, but there were still large wields on his back and chest. The kahr stopped writhing. “Should I give him more?” she asked the men around.

  Her question was met with blank expressions as the other soldiers released him.

  Morghiad stirred and pushed himself up from the floor. His entire body stung, but he felt oddly strong. “No more,” he said, “Or you’ll have me thinking I’m invincible.”

  Silar chuckled and gave his friend a playful slap on the shoulder. Artemi did not like how it felt when he did that. She gave her captain a smile when his eyes met hers. Then his light expression darkened. “You wielded alone?”

  Artemi really was in no mood for a telling-off, not after she had saved his bloody life! She folded her arms. “You’re alive and so am I. Now let’s leave this forsaken place!”

  He frowned but pursued it no further.

  “I think we ought to take a few of those bottles with us, my queen,” Beodrin said, “Er... and lord-captain,” he added.

  Morghiad ignored the lieutenant’s mistake and nodded. “Take as much as you can carry.”

  They scraped up all the bottles they could see and climbed back onto their mounts. Morghiad, now clad in a somewhat bloodied and torn coat and shirt, sat upright on Tyshar in spite of his ailments. Artemi grabbed a burning torch to light the way back. She didn’t trust those black-swathed men to leave the lamps burning for them.

  When they reached the main cavern again the army had spread out to investigate its various nooks and crannies. Upon seeing Morghiad lucid and in one piece with his rescue team, a loud cheer rose from them. He looked over at his Artemi. She was young, it was easy to forget that given her abilities and intelligence, but she was still a girl in some ways. He had thought himself absolved of wrongdoing once he’d found he survived his night with her. But through his torture he realised the weight of his responsibility to her to stay alive. He absolutely could not leave her to go through nalka, and yet he could hardly be as good a fighter if he feared death. Of course, she’d be fine in another year, but he’d have to settle into this new mentality of fighting somehow. The kahr thought about what it meant to fight as if you had nothing to lose, and to fight as if you risked losing everything. He had believed that Artemi made him stronger, more driven, but what if his capture was an indication he had weakened? He did not want to live up to his father’s poor opinion of him. Artemi reached over to lay a comforting hand on his, and he clasped it tightly. How could anyone be weak with a famous and beautiful warrior at their side?

  Their group stopped outside the ruins of the curious red castle and dismounted. Morghiad was ready to give his torturer a beating in order to elicit some information as to a route of escape, but before he did that he wanted to find some clues for himself. Artemi stayed close by him as he climbed the steps to the enormous, crooked doors. Both structures appeared to be hanging perilously on their hinges. “Who do you suppose lived here?” she whispered.

  Morghiad had never read of an underground castle, and he was sure he would have remembered stories of a great, sinking rock. “Perhaps this is from a time older than the legends,” he guessed.

  Inside the main doors was a huge, crumbling hall. Two symmetrical sets of stairs led, in a broad oval, to a second level. Together they trotted up the broken steps; the movement caused his back to sting painfully.

  “You need to slow down!” she admonished.

  When they got to the top they were met by a sight Morghiad had not expected at all. Bodies. Thousands of bodies.

  “This is a tomb for the dead,” she murmured.

  The kahr looked closer at the corpses. They must have been there for some time, as all were skeletons, heavily covered in dust and webs. Many still had scraps of clothing and all appeared to have weapons of some description. He knelt down in front of one of them and assessed the remains of its uniform. It seemed to match all the others: purple or blue with a grey stripe. Or perhaps it had once been white. “I don’t recognise these colours, Artemi.”

  She grimaced at the bodies. “We didn’t recognise the black-painted army, either.”

  For all Morghiad knew, this was an army from a country that had existed long before Calidell or Kemen. He picked up a heavily rusted sword and turned it over in his hands. It was too heavy to be held with just one hand, a type which he’d seen few people ever use in battle. He stood and walked on through the corpses, tryin
g not to step on too many of the crumbling bones.

  Pain shot through his head, causing him to stumble and separate the ribs of one body from its spine. He looked round. Artemi was clutching her temples and had her eyes squeezed shut. Morghiad recalled the poem about her and headaches. She was nowhere near ready to remember yet. Pushing the pain to one side, he caught hold of her, threw her over his shoulder and ran back to the top of the stairs. The pain in her head winked out as quickly as it had come. He set Artemi down and assessed her carefully. She was fine, if a little shaken. “What was that?” she asked.

  “I’m not entirely sure,” Morghiad said, hoping his half-lie wasn’t detectable through their link. Artemi didn’t question him, in any case. “Stay here for now,” the kahr instructed, and went back to the position where her headache had hit. Something here had triggered it, something she had seen or sensed. What could it be? He looked about at the bodies.

  “Be careful, you royal idiot!” she called.

  Morghiad nodded to her absently and continued his search. A glint caught his eye. He knelt down and rubbed the dust from the shiny object. It was a slender sword, still very sharp to the touch. Its handle was small, perfect for the hands of a woman. Morghiad ran his fingers along the blade. It buzzed with the faint fire of Blaze. He’d heard of weapons made using Blaze Energy, but had never thought he would see one. The Kahr looked down at the skeleton of its owner. The bones were delicate, thinner than those of its neighbours. Morghiad noticed several vertical strips of metal poking out from the uniform on the body. It had belonged a woman’s item of clothing, and this skeleton had almost certainly been a female warrior. Of course, what would the effect be of a vanha-sielu walking across her own grave, or one of them? He touched the cheekbone of the skull tenderly, and it crumbled into the dust.

  The kahr rose and carried the sword back to the living Artemi. “You could use this,” he offered it to her. Hopefully it wouldn’t set off some horrid memory reaction. Things she certainly would have seen in the past: like the sun, trees, sky and even Jarynd didn’t seem to have any effect.