Fire Heart

by Dan Avera

  She used the excess momentum to bring her sword back, and then up over her head before cleaving diagonally downward. Her blade bit into the next yaru, and tore through its shoulder and almost completely through its body before thudding to a halt against its bottom rib. The creature's mouth gaped like a fish as it tumbled to the ground, a thick pool of blood spreading rapidly around its body.

  Clare looked up and saw Will staring at her. He looked...terrified. She blinked, and the rage cleared, leaving her strangely light-headed.

  “Are you alright?” Will asked cautiously.

  “Are you?”

  He nodded. “Thanks to you. But how did you...?” He indicated the first yaru's head, which lay a good distance away.

  “No idea. Come on. Stay close to me and I'll keep you safe.”

  ~

  The expression Clare had been wearing frightened Will—much more so than the prospect of dying at the hands of the yaru. The face he found so enchantingly beautiful had been twisted and contorted into a hideous mask of bloodthirsty rage. And then she had torn off the yaru's head as easily as if she had been picking a flower. And she had moved so fast. For a moment he had been unable to move himself, frozen by the image before him.

  But then she had turned back into the Clare he knew...he hoped. Still, the memory was troubling. And he was beginning to understand how she had been able to fend for herself against the horde for the past eight months. He shook his head, pushing the thought to the back of his mind; he couldn't be distracted now, not with so many enemies around him.

  As if to prove his point, a yaru leaped on top of a man in front of him, punching one clawed hand through the man's skin and into his gut as though he were made of wet parchment. The soldier's eyes widened from pain so intense that he could not make a sound, and then the yaru ripped its hand away, dragging with it a long rope of entrails that the man feebly attempted to stuff back inside of himself. He collapsed a moment later.

  Will made no sound as he charged; he simply swung his sword in an upward arc. He caught the yaru in its ribs, just beneath the arm, and then cleaved through its torso to the opposite shoulder. The beast's bloodstained mouth snapped at him as the severed portion of its body slid away and hit the ground with a sticky thud.

  The sounds of battle reverberated all around him, the metallic ring of swords mixing chaotically with the screams and yowls of dying men and yaru and the deafening crack of thunder. The cannons had gone silent, but Serah had easily picked up where they left off.

  He saw two yaru tear a group of five men apart, only to be cut down by a second set of soldiers. The archers had drawn their swords by now, and their battlecries mixed with their comrades' as they joined the melee atop the city wall.

  And overhead Serah continued to hover, lightning flashing from her body to smite the yaru where they stood. The wind itself seemed to form into flurries of invisible blades that tore the yaru apart with grisly efficiency, and every now and again Will thought he could see a shimmer in the air where the ethereal blades flashed through the night.

  It seemed once again that the defenders had the upper hand. But suddenly, off in the distance, something caught Will's eye. He looked down off the wall, to the very edge of the ring of torchlight, and saw none other than the boy yaru—the alpha. An unstoppable tide of its fellows swarmed around it like a mass of putrid water, and the boy simply stood and stared—straight at Will. It had that same dead, emotionless expression that he remembered from the forest, and when it turned its gaze on Serah's hovering form Will felt his stomach plummet. The boy's eyes flared bright red, shining like bloody suns.

  “Serah!” Will screamed. “Look out!”

  But he was too late; a roiling, twisting cloud of black energy, darker even than the night itself, leaped from the boy's body and collided with her. So great was the noise that his ears simply stopped working, and the force of the blast knocked Will away so that he landed painfully on his back. His vision swam as the back of his head smacked into the ground, and he groaned. Clare was thrown on top of him, and he clumsily flung his sword away at the last moment to avoid cutting her. He caught her with his bad arm. He winced and grunted in pain but did not let go.

  “Thanks,” Clare said, though he could only watch her lips move; all he could hear was a shrill ringing in his ears. It faded slowly back into the sounds of battle, though they were tinnier now—those fighting nearest Serah had simply stopped to stare, awestruck.

  “Will,” Clare said, “Will, I'm fine.” He nodded and released his hold on her, and then moved dazedly to retrieve his sword—but looked up in surprise when he realized that the blade was still reflecting Serah's bluish-white glow. The dark bolt of power from the boy had not, as Will had suspected, thrown her out of the air. Instead she continued to hover over the battlefield, all of her energy directed into one massive, roping beam of lightning. It was meeting the boy's own dark cloud head-on, and they seemed to be involved in some titanic battle of sheer will. The boy-yaru's face was twisted into a mask of grim concentration.

  But Serah was losing.

  Little by little the dark cloud was pushing her lightning farther and farther back, until it was only a scant few paces from Serah herself. But just as the black energy seemed about to reach her body, she let loose an inhuman scream of rage. With a blinding flare of light her beam of energy suddenly surged forward, smashing aside the boy's power. For an instant surprise etched itself across the boy's face, but then the lightning engulfed him. The explosion sent Will stumbling to his knees once more, and when he looked again over the side of the wall all that remained of the boy was a crater that belched thick, lazy clouds of smoke into the night air. That's it? Will thought, blinking in surprise. We won?

  Serah, once again her normal self, descended down next to Will and fell to her knees, breathing heavily. Jhai and Zizo were instantly at her side, seemingly materializing from thin air with their bloodied swords drawn and at the ready.

  “Will,” Serah gasped, and he ran over and slid down next to her. “We have to leave now,” she panted.

  “But why?” Will asked, dumbfounded. “You just obliterated their leader.”

  She shook her head. “Not—ah!” She grimaced in pain and held her hand to her side, which Will noticed for the first time was marred by a gaping hole that went all the way through her body. Blood continued to trickle from the ragged wound. “Not dead,” she breathed through clenched teeth. “One of the traitors. Too strong for me.” She groaned. “Have to...heal. Then we are leaving.”

  But Will shook his head. “No,” he said through clenched teeth. “You stay there and do what you have to do. We'll hold them off until you're ready, and then we'll all attack the...well, whatever that thing is at the same time.”

  “Will, no!” she gasped, reaching for him, but he had already turned away.

  “What do you want to do?” Clare asked beside him.

  He thought for a moment, and then turned to her, his face set with grim resolve. “We need to find Castor and call a retreat. Maybe if we can draw that thing into the city, we can corner it and kill it.”

  Nine

  “Look at what you have done,” said the Dark One. “Look at the wondrous gift you have given the world.”

  Keth's creations ran amok throughout Pallamar, pillaging and burning and destroying everything they found, fueled by their master's insanity. But Keth himself was horrified to see what his madness had wrought. This gift was even worse than the first one.

  “This is wrong,” he whispered to his dark companion. “I should not have done this.”

  “Immortality was dull,” the Dark One hissed in his ear. “You wished to relieve mankind of that curse, and you did. And now—now look at how exciting their short lives have become!”

  And slowly, calmed by the evil presence's words, Keth drifted back into the comforting darkness of oblivion and allowed the Dark One to take control again.

  But his actions had not gone unnoticed; the other Titans saw what the
ir sibling had created, and they despaired—none, though, so much as Koutoum, who alone had never stopped loving his brother. And when the Titans wept, only Koutoum wept for Keth.

  ~

  “Castor!” Clare shouted, searching frantically through the seething mass of humans and yaru. “Castor, where are you!” Behind her, Will echoed her cries.

  She had gone but a short distance when a grisly specter loomed before her, sword at the ready and covered in blood. “What is it?” he asked. What little she could see of Castor's golden hair from beneath the edges of his helm was now a sticky mass of blood that curled against his face and matted against his skin. His armor was similarly covered, and one of his bracers sported a large furrow dug by a yaru claw. His infamous lion helm, though, was still intact, and the gore that had spattered across its face made it look all the fiercer.

  “We need to retreat,” Will said, coming up next to Clare. There was a tightness in his voice that, while well-disguised, Clare could hear all too well. His injuries had to be paining him very badly. “Serah thinks that thing isn't dead, and we're losing too many men as it is. We need to draw it back into the city. There's no way we can reach it now without letting the yaru in through the front gate.”

  “What about the desert woman?” Castor asked, looking around quickly. “Where is she?”

  “No idea.”

  “I think her bodyguards took her someplace to recover,” Clare answered. “She was hurt very badly when she hit that house the first time. I can't imagine it didn't take its toll on her.”

  “Alright,” Castor said with a nod. “There's a second line of archers on the rooftops around the city center. We'll pull back behind them.” He pulled a horn from a loop on his belt and blew it twice in quick succession—the signal for a retreat. “You two get to the center. I'll stay here until everyone else has fallen back. Meet me by that statue of Gefan.”

  “Don't be ridiculous,” Will scoffed. “We're staying here with you.”

  Castor shrugged and blew the horn twice more. “Suit yourself.”

  The rest of the Ravens and the city guard began to retreat, fending off the relentless yaru assault as they went. Soon the wall was clear of people and they were able to move back into the buildings.

  “Archers! Hold them off!” Castor shouted.

  What few archers remained stopped to fire a quick volley of arrows. A dozen of the pursuing yaru fell writhing to the ground, and were quickly swallowed up by the seething horde behind them. The archers and crossbowmen fire twice more and then, when continued resistance was obviously futile, turned tail and ran.

  Fighting on the wall had been chaotic; fighting among the buildings was a nightmare. The yaru were faster and stronger than humans, and could scale the stone walls or leap from rooftop to rooftop with ease. They pounced from the shadows and on high, dragging their victims kicking and screaming back to the darkness where their cries ended abruptly, replaced with the sounds of crunching bone and ripping gristle.

  Clare saw an archer stop to fire, only to have a yaru leap at him from behind. The soldier twisted from the force of the blow and lost his hold on the arrow, releasing it straight into the throat of another fleeing man who crumpled to the ground with a choked scream. The archer stumbled away from the yaru and drew his sword, only to have his arm torn from his shoulder in a spray of gore.

  Clare did not get the chance to see the end, however, as another yaru leaped directly at her from above. She raised her sword far too slowly, her mind screaming at her body to move faster, but she never had the chance to strike. Grim hurtled toward the beast and tackled it to the ground with a savage snarl, and Clare felt the shock from his landing through the soles of her boots. The yaru thrashed and screamed, but its howl was cut short as Grim bit down on its neck. There was a squish of flesh and a snap of breaking bone, and then several distinct pops of separating vertebrae as Grim shook the thing bodily and tossed it to the side in a bloody heap, its head nearly separated from its neck.

  Clare must have slowed to watch the spectacle, because suddenly she felt a hand grasp hers and tug on her arm, and she turned to see Will pulling her along. “Hurry!” he cried, and she ran with him. They sprinted as quickly as they could, but the unfamiliar winding streets seemed a labyrinth from which they would never escape. And all the while their retreat was punctuated by screams of agony and howls of rage, and by the whiz and clack of missed arrows and the snap of breaking bone.

  Two yaru leaped in front of them from the rooftops, but they barreled through the beasts without hesitation. One raised its talons toward Castor, who with uncanny speed easily lopped off its hand and, in the same swing, its head. Will stabbed the other beast in the chest, lifting it off its feet and carrying it a short way before withdrawing his sword and letting the creature fall to the ground, where it writhed and jerked spasmodically until Grim bit down on its skull.

  Soon all Clare could hear were the cries of hunting yaru coming from all around; the soldiers behind them had perished, swallowed by the horde of gnashing teeth and rending claws that was now gaining on them with frightening speed. She pushed herself harder, forcing her legs to pump faster than they ever had before, and her lungs burned as she fought to draw breath. Will's grip on her hand tightened, and it gave her strength.

  “We're almost there!” Castor cried, and then a storm of arrows whizzed a mere hand's breadth above their heads. A chorus of bestial screams followed the volley, and the sound made Clare's heart soar. They had finally, against all odds, made it to the inner ring of defenses. “Fall back!” Castor cried to the archers above and around them. “Fall back to the city square!”

  Another volley flew through the air, and then Clare saw the archers materialize from the darkness all around them. “Go, Commander!” one cried, and he loosed another arrow. “We'll watch your back!”

  They arrived in the city center moments later. Carts, tables, stalls, and great metal fire cages had been set up in a massive ring with yet more archers waiting behind them. Swordsmen and halberdiers stood among them, weapons at the ready and expressions of both terror and fortitude upon their faces. Katryna and some of the more seasoned veterans from the Raven Knights were shouting commands, and as Clare, Will, and Castor passed the ring of defenses she heard one man cry, “Light arrows!” The archers dipped their arrows into the fire cages before once again returning to a ready position.

  The last of the scant few soldiers who had survived the melee atop the wall were just passing the edge of the defensive perimeter, and Clare could see the foremost yaru bounding right behind them. Their bodies seemed to blend in with the shadows, but the sea of glowing red eyes belied their positions; the scene was nightmarish, and Clare felt a chill run through her body.

  Right as the last man crossed the barricade Katryna screamed, “Fire!”

  The twang of bowstrings filled the air, and countless streaks of fire eclipsed the night sky, arcing majestically over the defenders before raining down on top of the pursuing yaru. Clare had not seen the ring of oil around the outer edge of the city center, so she jumped in surprise when a great, roaring line of flame erupted a good stone's throw from where she stood. The writhing barrier engulfed the first of the yaru, and the beasts reappeared on the other side as thrashing balls of heat that rolled and flopped comically along the ground, sending clouds of oily smoke billowing into the night air and leaving long streaks of black soot in their wake. The defenders raised a ragged cheer, and it was punctuated by cries for arrows at the ready.

  Clare realized that she was still holding Will's hand and reluctantly released her grip, raising her sword before her. “Well, guardian spirit,” Will said, looking at her with only the barest trace of humor, “I guess this is it.”

  She flashed him a smile, though it was a strained one, and said, “Don't worry—I'll protect you.” She looked around suddenly. “Where's Serah?” she asked, a feeling of dread washing over her. “I thought she'd be here.”

  “I am,” said a voice behind
them, and Clare turned to see Serah limping toward them, one arm around one of her bodyguards' shoulders to steady herself.

  “Are you going to be alright?” Clare asked.

  “I do not think so,” Serah breathed, the pain audible in her voice. “This injury will not kill me...but the traitor might.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Serah pointed over Clare's shoulder, and they followed her gesture. “One of the seven Fallen is here. Were you awakened to your full potential, Will, you could easily dispatch him on your own. But for me, it will be a far more challenging fight. Perhaps if Borbos were here, or Leyra, it would be different, but I do not think I will survive this battle. If I die, you must run, yes? Promise me this one thing, Will, I beg you.”

  Will took a deep breath to steady himself, and his eyes flicked briefly to Clare.

  “I can't,” he said quietly. “I'm sorry.”

  Nobody said anything; they simply stared at the roaring shield of flame and waited. Serah hung her head in defeat. Clare glanced between Will and the desert woman before looking away. If that is his choice, she thought, so be it. I'll fight until the end. I suppose my time has finally come. She barely heard the commands being shouted all around her; all of her attention was focused solely on anything that might come through the fire. Yaru might not be the most intelligent of creatures, but they were tenacious and nefariously cunning. The fire would not stop them for long, and she had given her promise to Serah: anything that came for Will would have to fight through her first.