Sword of Fire

by J. A. Culican

  As Bells watched her father's expression go from embarrassed to frustrated to desperate, she felt the heat fading from the angry coal in her chest. Yes, he should have told the family about this, but she could hardly fault him for not having a mace ready when the despicable Pures didn't even bring the supplies needed for their orders.

  At last, she let out a deep, frustrated breath, feeling sadness wash over her. "I don't know what we should do, either. We can't even borrow it from a neighbor.” The fae helped each other because it was the only way to survive under the horrible elves and their cronies, but all their neighbors had been taxed almost to starvation, just like them. There was no way anyone in their village could keep up with the dues the Pures demanded.

  Her father said, "I would dearly love to just pick up the whole family and move up into the Alps, but—"

  "—but they'd hunt us down and kill us if we tried," Bells finished for him.

  He nodded and looked away, unable to meet her gaze.

  "Think about what we have to do,” she said. “The troll said he'd come back with the elves when they come for our taxes next week. If I thought it would help, I'd just offer myself up for the troll's dinner, like your sister did, but I don't think that's going to do it. He said he'd eat our whole family unless we finish his mace."

  Before he could respond, she spun on her heels and walked away, trying to keep her eyes from welling over in front of Father. She was just so overwhelmed. What could they do? She loved her family, but there was nothing any of them could do. The fae were considered second-rate Pures, at best.

  She walked beyond the house, beyond the blacksmithing shed out back, and kept going. She looked down at her feet as she took one step after another, walking slowly to nowhere as her mind raced.

  Then, a single thought struck her. Jaekob, that impressive dragon warrior she had met when the dragons rose back into the world of humans. They were practically invincible. Only they could help her and her family. Yet, they seemed content to keep the fae as their slaves. She had heard rumors of protests for equality, but they were just that—rumors.

  Unfortunately, she knew the dragons weren't going to step in to help. Jaekob had said as much during their brief encounter.

  Her thoughts raced in circles, going nowhere fast as she struggled to come up with another idea—something that would actually work—to save her family. She couldn’t rely on anyone else, especially not the dragons.

  Bells adjusted her backpack as she trudged along the cracked and broken road. It was her family's only real backpack, one of the strong ones made by the local human army long ago, back when the Earth was theirs. The humans made a lot of great backpacks for hiking and camping, but the hard part was finding one with no synthetic fibers. Those would, over the course of a few hours, give a fae cracked and bleeding skin.

  The one she wore was made of canvas and coated with wax for waterproofing rather than the artificial garbage. Her father hadn't wanted her to take it, as it was one of their prized possessions, but the trip to the city was a long one. Simply carrying a sack over her shoulder would have rubbed her raw by the time she arrived. When he said no, she had smiled and nodded and then simply took it with her when she left late that night, along with what few trade goods she knew her family could spare.

  The many thousands of the humans’ horseless wagons—each weighing tons because they were made from metal that had been ripped from the Earth itself—had long ago been pushed off the road. The Pures had made the trolls do that work because the cars were just too heavy for their fae servants. The memory of trolls actually doing work brought a smile to her face.

  She wiped the sweat from her forehead as she came to the crest of a low rise and peered down the other side at the outskirts of what had once been Philadelphia, a big human city. The Pures had spared it from total destruction, but only because the dragons had Risen before the other Pures got around to crushing it like they had so many other cities.

  A man's voice behind her made her jump. "You aren't going down into that city, are you, sister?"

  The words immediately calmed her racing heart. She turned slowly, a smile on her face, and saw another fae, a young man no more than two hundred years old, standing at the road's edge. His clothes were tattered but he was no worse off than most fae. He had no backpack or sack. A fae outside of his or her assigned territory had to be traveling on business, which meant he’d need a backpack, but since he had none, he had to have a camp nearby. She found herself looking for it.

  The man chuckled. "Yes, sister, my family is camped just down the embankment behind that large rock. This close to the city, the roads can be dangerous."

  Bells and the man stepped up to one another at the same time, both of them reaching up with their right hands to embrace the other fae's cheek, and touched foreheads. With the traditional Embrace of Unknown Family completed, she took a step back and smiled.

  "Are you in need, brother?" she asked. Normally, she would have called him uncle because he looked a few years older, at least, but he had first greeted her with the friendlier title of “sister,” establishing a relationship of equals. It was generous of him, and it meant he didn't intend to take anything of hers out of need.

  She was happy, then, to offer from what little she had, but the man shook his head, eyes sparkling as he smiled at her generosity. "No, but thank you so much. I only came up to warn my sister about the dangers ahead. I wondered whether you had ever been into the city before and if you knew how to get around safely, down in that rat-hole of a city."

  Bells felt her heart fall. How could a city with dragons be dangerous? Still, another fae had warned her, and in a friendly way. With her own inexperience, she'd just have to trust him. "But don’t dragons rule city?"

  The other fae laughed but his tone was good-natured. It didn't sound like he was mocking her, so she smiled back at him.

  He said, "The dragons aren't here to save anyone, sister. Who on Earth would try to harm or steal from a dragon? No, their homes are safe. They turn a blind eye to the suffering around them since they don't have to worry about it personally. Remember, they only rose due to the humans. If they had known the Pures were behind the war above, they would have stayed below in their peaceful sanctuary."

  Her heart fell even further. But then she thought about the time she had met Jaekob, a dragon. True, Jaekob said they weren't there to help anyone, but he didn't seem like the type to turn his back on his neighbors. After all, he had flown down to check on her and had been kind to her even though dragons ruled the Pures Council while fae like her served it.

  Bells said, "What sort of dangers do dragons still allow to live in their city? I don't doubt you, but I find it confusing." She touched two fingers to her forehead, politely indicating that the confusion was due to her own stupidity rather than to the other fae being wrong or misleading.

  He first pursed his lips, pausing a moment, then said, "For one, the city belongs to the Pures. Away from the city's center, many elves make their home in the rich houses of the humans who used to live there. Elves and dragons alike use trolls as guardians and werewolves as spies, assassins, and messengers. Trolls and werewolves are both just as prone to eat a lone, wandering fae as they are to leave her alone. But, you know, the Veil is torn now. Worse creatures than just cruel-hearted Pures have come into the world since then."

  "Thanks," she said and frowned at the thought of having to face the city for the first time, but if she couldn't trade her goods for at least ten pounds of iron and then get it home, her family wouldn't outlast the week. "For my family, I have to go in there and trade for metal. Philadelphia has more iron and steel in one place than nature ever created, and the humans who hoarded it are dead. I'll have to take my chances."

  The man shook his head, touching his chin with two fingers—he needed to speak a warning but hated the words he would have to say. She braced herself for whatever shock was coming.

  "Sister, I respect you and your ancestors. Still, words
must be spoken that don't sit well in my heart." He paused long enough for her to nod at him to continue. "There are still humans in Philadelphia. Now, they live scattered around the outskirts of the city or in tunnels beneath it. Abandoned buildings. Unused sewers. These kinds of places are now their homes. At least for the ones who survived this long."

  "It doesn't sound like much of a way to live. Is there anything we can do to help them?" Jaekob had, shockingly, told her that humans were Pures, too, but that they had lost their connection to Creation. That had cost them whatever powers they must once have had. She didn't bother to tell the man because it was unbelievable. She wouldn't have believed it, either, if she hadn't heard it from a dragon's lips.

  "No," the fae said, shaking his head, "it's not much of a life. But remember, in the best of times in all of human history, they nearly destroyed the whole planet with their greed, murdered each other by the millions, hoarded what they could, and cared nothing for their fellow humans, who starved. Since they've been slaughtered and forced to live in shadows, robbed of everything they considered their property, well... let's just say they haven't gotten much kinder since then. If you see a human, you can bet there's half a dozen more circling around behind you. Spot one, run. Your life will depend on that. And you know what they say about how humans view fae."

  Bells shuddered. Humans had an unnatural attraction to fae. People said humans often took what they wanted, whether it was something or someone they desired. She definitely didn't want to meet any of them, as surprising as it was to hear that some still survived there. Philadelphia was the central Pures settlement in the entire region. Still, part of her was glad to hear there were living humans in the occupied areas. She never liked the idea that they were just rats that needed to be exterminated. Even rats served a purpose in this interconnected world.

  "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind." She said farewell, then turned back to begin her descent into the city.

  As Bells moved through the city’s outskirts, she tried to sprint from shadow to shadow, staying in the dark as much as possible. Fortunately, it was late in the day and the shadows were long and getting longer. She was able to keep up her shadow-walk with hardly any effort. Although she didn't see any people, she could hear the sounds of activity all around. The buildings had crumbled for the most part. Most of the open areas were now in early succession forest, with saplings and bushes growing wild and rampant. Windows were broken. Streetlights were dark, most of them bent. Trash blew through the streets.

  All in all, so much neglect and damage made it hard to imagine that anyone still lived there, even humans. Part of her hoped to see one, but mostly, well, she remembered what the fae on the road told her. She wasn't about to let her curiosity get her into the kind of trouble she couldn't get out of.

  Although she was moving quickly and building up a sweat, her need to stay hidden meant she wasn't making good progress through the burned zone, or outskirts of the city. She desperately needed to be out of there by the time the sun went down. Even back at home, she had heard rumors of small packs of werewolves prowling the burned zones and the semi-rural areas outside the city for prey. Her parents had taught her that weres weren't bad—not even werewolves—but their hunting instinct was strong. They could only suppress it for so long and then their instincts took over. That's when they went fully wolf, and it was also when they were the most dangerous. No wonder the humans lived in the tunnels. Weres would never follow them down there. It had something to do with their sense of direction requiring the sun, the moon, or the stars. Underground, not used to relying on their other senses for direction, they feared getting lost. For the same reason, they hated entering buildings, too, unless they had cornered prey there and the building was small.

  Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a grinding sound up ahead. She slid into the closest shadow and hid with her shadow-walk fae ability. The noise grew louder and then the source came around the corner about a block away. Bells' jaw dropped at the sight.

  It was a huge, horse-drawn wagon with three trolls marching in line on both sides and a fae sitting on the front bench to drive it. Most interestingly, though, she saw four humans sitting in the wagon. An elvish sign on the wagon's side proclaimed the humans had stolen food. It seemed odd the Pures would need so many trolls just to guard four humans, especially ones they'd bound at the wrists with ropes. The humans' clothes were mere rags, their hair long, and faces unshaven.

  Seeing where they were headed, Bells' jaw dropped again. A few blocks down the road stood rows of gallows on both sides of the street. A few had skeletons hanging from rotting ropes. It was hard to believe those four people were going to be executed just for stealing food. No, actually, it wasn't so hard to believe. The elves were, after all, intent on exterminating humankind, and she knew from first-hand experience how the elves treated the fae, who were actual Pures. Humans were merely animals to the elves.

  She shook her head and stayed hidden in shadows until the wagon passed, then slid around the corner into another shadow, and was gone.

  Fortunately, she knew the First Councilor lived in the city and that Jaekob was his son, but the houses had numbers and the streets had signs, all written in human English. Frustrated at the sudden realization that she'd need the numbers and street name for Jaekob's house if she was to have any hope of finding him, she considered just going to the market, even though she knew Jaekob could help her family and the other fae in her village. She hadn't realized how large the city was since her only frame of reference was her little village and the small human town the elves burned to the ground during the first weeks of fighting. Philadelphia was vast. It probably stretched miles, unbelievably.

  Well, she was a fae. Her kind couldn't just wander the city without their master's approval, so she decided just to go to the market where fae were allowed on their own. Surely someone there would know the information she needed and could tell her how to find the First Councilor's house.

  Bells wove her hands in front of her face in an intricate pattern. Red and blue sparks and trails followed her hands, coalescing until they formed a simple glyph in the air. It began to drift, heading northeast. Bells smiled and with one flick of her hand, the glyph vanished. It was a simple spell to find the nearest large group of fae, useful for finding the nearest fae village if she were lost, but it worked just as well in Philadelphia—the market surely had the most fae in the city, after all.

  A full hour later, she trudged into the market. It wasn't much to look at, really, just a few city blocks now burned to the ground. There were stone slabs—cement, she thought the humans called it—in neat rows throughout the market, dirt and grass sprouting between them.

  Bells had a cousin, of sorts, named Hawking, one of the few fae allowed to live in the city. He was a merchant and had a stall in the Philadelphia market. She shared a common grandfather with him. Though they had a different grandmother, family was family, blood was blood. All she had to do was find him. That turned out to be fairly easy when the third fae she asked gave her directions to his stall at the far end of the market.

  When she found it, her eyes riveted onto the sign outside proclaiming its name, "Hawking General Wares." The play on words would have been amusing if she hadn't been so stunned by the shop itself—it was huge, previously a human house of considerable size. It sat right on the market's edge, the front porch part of the market's visible boundary. It was freshly painted—incredible!—in natural tones, with two men outside trying to wave people in. The store had a constant stream of fae, elves, and even trolls, all coming and going.

  Even by elven standards, Hawking was doing quite well for himself. Maybe he could even help her with some useful supplies...

  She made a beeline for the door, a double-door with glass panes amazingly still intact, and cautiously stepped inside. With one glance, she stopped in the doorway, stunned. The entire bottom floor had been hollowed out and now held rows of shelves stuffed with all sorts of goods, and the walls we
re lined with even more. Everywhere, every kind of Pure browsed the shelves.

  A troll stood by the door wearing a crude uniform in the same colors as the building. He grunted at her, "In or out, fae. Yer blockin' the door."

  How did her cousin afford a troll guard for his shop? It was incredible. Still stunned, she nodded and stepped aside to gawk some more. Just beyond the troll stood a low counter with two clerks who were haggling with customers. Along the wall behind them, where the troll could easily see, a stairwell led upstairs, but it was cordoned off by a velvet rope. That must be where Hawking lived, but Bells didn't see any way to get up undetected. Electric ceiling lights all over meant there were no shadows anywhere, so there was nowhere for her to shadow-walk.

  Surely a merchant this large would have metal, but it wouldn't be on the shelves. She got into the line at the counter. When it was her turn for the first available clerk, she stepped up to face a young fae man wearing the same style of uniform as the troll guard.

  "Welcome to Hawking General Wares, how may we serve you today?" His tone was flat and his eyes just slid over her, obviously a tedious greeting he gave a thousand times each day.

  Bells smiled and said, "Yes, thanks, um... I need to buy iron, as much as I can carry, or as much as this will buy." She took off her backpack and set it on the counter. When she unzipped it, she showed the clerk her trade goods.

  He nodded. "I'll have to weigh it to be sure, but it looks worth about twenty pounds of high-grade, or forty of the cheap stuff. It's melted down into small bars for ease of transport, our courtesy to our beloved clients. Is that acceptable?" The clerk picked up a quill and a pad of paper. He began tapping the quill tip on the paper, his lips pursed.

  Bells had to think about it for a moment, so the impatient clerk would just have to wait. He'd offered more than she had figured her goods would buy. Melted down to bars, though, it would easily fit in her pack. But whatever she had told Father, buying metal was only part of her objective, and apparently, she could keep some of her trade goods to get around the city, if necessary.