Leaves of Flame

by Joshua Palmatier

  Then suddenly remembered where they were, what awaited them.

  He scrambled to his feet, began gathering his scepter, his satchel, tucking his pipe bag inside. He’d slept in his clothes. “Why didn’t you wake me earlier?” he demanded harshly, searching for the smaller totems tucked into pockets and braided into his beard.

  “You worked late into the night, preparing,” Azuka snapped back. “I thought to give you as much rest as possible.”

  Quotl growled,surprised he’d been able to sleep at all.“I don’t need sleep. I need to be prepared! And now—”

  The hollow cadence of drums interrupted him. He listened intently, then swore and shoved past Azuka and out of the tent.

  Three other shamans stood outside, all looking east, toward the backs of the dwarren army and the sound of the drums. All of the dwarren within sight were looking in that direction.

  “I brought you your mount,” Azuka said as he emerged from the tent behind him.

  Quotl spun and saw fi ve gaezels waiting to one side. Without a word, he sprinted toward his mount, paused a moment to pat the beast’s fl ank, then swung himself up onto its back, careful of the horns. The animal danced beneath his weight, then pawed the ground, neck straining forward.

  Not waiting for the others, Quotl allowed it the lead.

  It dug in and leaped, Quotl hunching down as far as its horns would allow. Shouts rang out from behind. To either side, he saw others scrambling to mount, some already sprinting toward the two gathered clans, but most of the dwarren were already on the battlefield.

  Quotl cursed himself. He must have slept through the initial call of the drums.

  He slowed as he reached the back of the army, the Riders parting for him and the four shamans behind him. Within moments, they were at the front of the line.

  Quotl brought his mount up short.

  Across a stretch of dry scrub, tufts of stubborn grass, and the hastily constructed defenses they’d dug into the red rock debris of the eastern edge of the plains, the Wraith army waited, a black line of nearly indistinguishable figures against the hazy, yellow dawn. Winged birds wheeled overhead, nearly three dozen of them, too large to be any bird that Quotl knew of. His eyes narrowed, dropping to the group at the front of the army, picking out riders on horseback and bulkier forms, more massive than the mounts. Others moved across the desert rock, but they were too small in shape to see clearly.

  He scanned the nearer dwarren line, found Tarramic a hundred stretches distant, standing out in front of the line with a smaller group beside him. Quotl pulled his gaezel’s attention right and nudged the animal forward, arriving at a brisk trot.

  “Where have you been?” Tarramic demanded. Panic edged his tone.

  “Preparing,” Quotl growled back. “The shamans of Thousand Springs are ready.”

  Tarramic looked as if he’d argue, then shot Corranu, the clan chief of Painted Sands, and his head shaman a quick glance. He glowered at Quotl. “What of those on the heights?”

  “They know what to do. What of Silver Grass?”

  “They were in position and waiting at last report.”

  “Then we are as ready as we will ever be.”

  Tarramic nodded. “And Ilacqua? The gods of the Four Winds?”

  “The ground has been blessed by the Archon, the appeals made to the gods last night after the Wraith army arrived.”

  Tarramic turned to face the silhouette of the army in the distance.The sun had begun to rise over the horizon,a heat shimmer making the army indistinct.“May Ilacqua guard us all,” he murmured.

  Quotl looked toward Azuka, reaching into his satchel to pull out a small knife. Peyo, the head shaman of Painted Sands, did the same, kneeing his own mount closer to Quotl’s.

  “I see the hulking forms of the terren from this distance, and I assume there will be kell. The two usually come as a group. We can handle the stone-skinned and the diggers. But what of the dreun?” He jerked his head toward the creatures flying overhead.

  Quotl kept his eyes on the ground. “We will have to rely on our archers for those.” When Peyo shifted uncomfortably,he added,“They have the arrows from the forest.They know what to do.”

  “And if there are urannen among the army?”

  “Pray we have enough arrows.”

  A sudden horn call split the air from the direction of the Wraith army.Tarramic instantly motioned toward the Rider beside him, who pulled a drum into his lap and pounded out a short rhythm. Behind, a much larger drum passed the message along to the rest of the army, and Quotl felt the tension on the air triple. The apprehension pushed against his skin, shimmering in his perceptions like heat waves, fraught with fear and smelling of sweat and dust and leather.

  He suddenly, desperately, wanted the reassuring feel of his pipe in his hand, the tang of willow bark burning his throat and lungs.

  Then, abruptly, the Wraith army began to move.

  Tarramic barked an order, the drum carrying the cadence to the army behind, and then Tarramic and Corranu— the two clan chiefs—suddenly broke away, Tarramic riding south, Quotl and the rest of the Thousand Springs entourage following an instant later, Corranu and Painted Sands heading north.As they charged across the rocky soil,Quotl heard a battle roar from the clan behind him, rising higher and higher, pushing him and the others at the forefront forward. His heart hammered in his chest and air still chill from the night seared his lungs.At his side,Azuka suddenly raised his scepter and cried out to Ilacqua, to the Four Winds, his words lost in the thundering of the gaezels as the main portion of the army caught up with its clan chief.

  They swept across the desert, dust rising behind them, swinging out and around the ditches and ridges and onto the flat beyond. The Wraith army rushed forward to meet them. To the north, Quotl could see Painted Sands mirroring their maneuver, their plume of dust rising to obscure the single colonnade of natural rock that had survived the landslide and stood up like a finger from the desert floor, the cliffs of the Break behind.

  As they drew nearer, the riders on horseback became visible and Quotl’s heart shuddered, his eyes widening in shock.

  “Alvritshai!” Tarramic roared from the front of the line. “Alvritshai ride with the Wraiths! We have been betrayed!”

  The resultant roar drowned out the sound of the drums, even as Quotl noted that among the Alvritshai riders were the terren and the kell, and outdistancing them all were the gruen, the sleek feline creatures racing for the dwarren front lines.

  It didn’t make sense.The Alvritshai with the creatures of the Turning? They’d fought the urannen and the Wraiths after the Accord had been signed, had suffered as much or more than the dwarren when the power of the Wells had been released.The dwarren had been able to retreat to their warrens to escape; the Alvritshai had not. And why would the Alvritshai attack from the east, from the wastelands?

  But there was no time. No time to think, no time to plan, no time to pray.

  The gruen hit the front dwarren, leaping up from the ground and attaching themselves to the Riders, and before the first screams could cut through the thundering hooves of the gaezels and the charging horses, the Alvritshai behind slammed into the dwarren line.

  Quotl found himself in a crush of bodies, gaezels attempting to leap forward through the press. Within ten feet of his position, dwarren were roaring and hacking at the Alvritshai and the gruen.The taint of blood flooded the air, but Quotl was too distant to use his knife. Dwarren blades rose and fell and the eerie, high-pitched screams of dying gaezels shivered through Quotl’s skin. Steel clashed, the Alvritshai mounts in the front rearing and kicking. Close by, one of the dwarren ducked beneath the flailing hooves and gutted one of the steeds, then was crushed with his gaezel under the falling horse.

  Quotl began chanting, raising his scepter, and felt the dwarren around him respond, surging forward as those shamans nearby took up the chant.

  Then, two Riders away, a pack of the gruen appeared, their black, hairless bodies swarming over
a Rider and his mount in the space of a breath.The dwarren roared,hacked at the gruen bodies as they raked him with their claws and latched onto his arms and armor. The Rider’s gaezel shrieked and panicked, eyes rolling white. It tried to leap away, but there was no room.

  With a startlingly quick move, one of the gruen seized the dwarren by the throat with its teeth and ripped it away.

  Before the body had begun to sag, one of the gruen emitted a harsh chittering sound—

  And then they all launched themselves deeper into the dwarren lines.

  One leaped straight for Quotl.

  He cut off his chant in mid-verse and swung the scepter, catching the gruen in the side. It barked in pain, slamming into the back of the Rider beside him, but twisted and jumped to Quotl’s mount, going for Quotl’s face.

  Quotl brought his knife up.The impact with the creature jarred his hand, but he felt the blade sink deep into its chest. It hissed and reached with its claws, already dying, but Quotl thrust it to the side with disdain.

  A sense of calm enveloped him, one that he experienced with his meditations and spirit journeys. Except here there was no smoke to help disassociate himself from his body so he could join the spirit world. He drew in the energy of that calm anyway, began to slash at the gruen with a cold, methodical detachment. The creatures’ black blood flew, coating the blade, his fingers, making his hand slick, but he didn’t stop. He tightened his grip and brought his scepter to bear, the gaezel beneath him reacting to his movements, shifting left and right as if it sensed his needs, leaping forward into gaps or rearing back and turning. It snorted and pawed the ground, ducked its head and used its horns, impaling gruen and scoring jagged cuts along the Alvritshai horses if they pressed too close. Quotl focused on the gruen, left the Alvritshai to the Riders’ blades, and found himself muttering chants from the histories as he struck, lines from the oldest records, from the time of the previous Turning, the words taking on the distinct accent of the Ancients, punctuated by a slice of his knife or the impact of his scepter. And the gruen appeared to be reacting, fl inching away from the words with hisses or sharp cries.

  As he fought, continuing the chant, something new intruded on the calm that enveloped him. It seeped up from the ground, enfolding him in a warmth that radiated from within, that suffused him, tingling in his fingers and pulsing with his heart,tasting of silt and heat-baked rock.All of the aches and pains of the ride and of age were absorbed by the warmth. He felt alive, one with the Lands. He could hear the rock beneath him, taste the wind against his skin, smell the sun, and feel the grasses growing around him, even as he fought the gruen. The power of Ilacqua and the Four Winds flowed through him. He thought at first the sensation came from the Archon, but he could feel the head shaman’s power radiating from the south, where he and the Cochen waited for their signal. This power didn’t come from the Archon, it came from the Lands.

  And the Wraith army was a malignancy on the Lands, a repulsive growth that needed to be excised. He could sense the individual creatures of the Turning—the gruen, scrambling across the earth around him and swarming the dwarren on all sides; the dreun, circling and diving at the army beneath, leather wings raking the air; the terren, massive rocklike bodies cracking the stone beneath their feet as they trundled forward—and rage ran hot and fluid through his blood. He began to spit the words of the Ancients, his blows more vicious, more ferocious. He urged his gaezel toward the creatures nearby, seeking them out, crushing them beneath his scepter, severing them from the Lands with his knife. He could not sense the Alvritshai as he did the others, so he blocked them out, focused on the malignancy, on the disease, destroying it before it could infect the Lands.

  Then, abruptly, his gaezel stepped back and he found himself in a pocket of calm, his breath heaving, his heart thundering through his body, throbbing with power. The front line lay ahead, at least thirty dwarren between him and the nearest part of the Wraith army.All of the gruen on his part of the line were dead, their lithe bodies trampled underfoot as the line surged back and forth. A few fellow dwarren and their gaezels riddled the ground on all sides as well, blood seeping into the red soil. He glanced up at the sky,was shocked to see that hours had passed.The dwarren line had been pushed back nearly to the makeshift defenses. They’d held out longer than he’d thought.

  But when Quotl faced east, he saw that a significant portion of the Wraith army hadn’t joined the battle. At least a third still waited, watching from a distance. These were not mounted like the Alvritshai, and something about their stance was odd. Like the Alvritshai, though, they did not reek of wrongness. He could not sense them through the earth or the air.

  “Quotl!”

  He turned as Azuka rode toward him at the back of the fighting. The young shaman was covered in blood, a gash along his forehead bleeding down into his beard. His scepter was slick with the black blood of the gruen.

  When Azuka came close enough to see him clearly, shock registered on his face and he drew back in uncertainty. “Quotl?”

  “What is it?” Quotl asked. His own voice thrummed on the air, vibrated through his body and caused his gaezel to shift in place.

  Azuka swallowed, as if to steady himself. “Peyo doesn’t think Corranu and Painted Sands can hold much longer.”

  Quotl glanced toward the northern line. It had given more ground than Thousand Springs, the Riders nearly to the ditches and mounds of earth. “Tell them to order the retreat. I’ll inform Tarramic.”

  Azuka spun his mount and sprinted toward the northern line. Quotl watched a moment, feeling the gaezel’s hooves trembling through the soil, then turned to find Tarramic.

  The dwarren clan chief was engaged in the midst of a roiling battle with the Alvritshai. Even as he watched, Tarramic—mouth twisted in an animalistic snarl—stabbed his sword into a mounted Alvritshai’s side, his other hand grabbing the pale-skinned rider’s armor and pulling him down from his horse. Blood splattered Tarramic’s face, but as the horse the Alvritshai had ridden was cut down, more Alvritshai slid forward to take their fallen comrade’s place.

  He would never reach the clan chief in time. Not through the chaos of the fight.

  He spun and found one of the younger Riders who carried a drum. Kneeing his mount forward, he ground to a halt in the rocky soil at the Rider’s side and pointed with his blood-soaked staff at the edge of the fighting. “Call the retreat!” When the Rider fl inched, eyes going wide at the sight of the head shaman, he barked, “Now!”

  The Rider fumbled with the drum, brought it around and pounded out an unsteady rhythm. Quotl didn’t wait, racing down the length of the army’s back, roaring, “Retreat! Fall behind the defenses!” his voice throbbing with power, reverberating on the air.Those at the rear of the army turned startled glances back at him, hesitating as the drumbeat steadied and began reiterating the command. All along the line, the shamans took up their head shaman’s call, scepters raised, and slowly Thousand Springs began to pull back. To the north, Quotl heard the drums of Painted Sands echoing the call, saw the Riders breaking away and fleeing northward around the ditches, others heading directly toward them, leaping their depths with their fl eet gaezels. Quotl found himself surrounded, his own gaezel snorting and stamping the ground as the dwarren retreated, but he did not allow his mount its head. The Wraith army had begun hounding the retreat, the Alvritshai leaping forward to seize the advantage, cutting down dwarren as they turned, the front of the line fighting hard to hold them back while seeking an opportunity to flee.To the north,the mixed creatures of the Turning roared in triumph, the terren and gruen breaking formation as Painted Sands gave up completely and ran, a few dwarren stout of heart overwhelmed in instants. In the south, the last line of dwarren in Thousand Springs held more firmly, intent on giving their fellow dwarren the greatest chance possible of reaching the defenses before the Wraith army.

  Including Clan Chief Tarramic.

  Cursing, Quotl kicked his mount forward, passing through the last stragglers
racing for the ditches.As he drew up behind Tarramic’s position,he bellowed,“Tarramic! Retreat! Pull back now!”

  He saw Tarramic’s attention waver, knew that he had heard. But the clan chief roared and dove forward, attacking with a vengeance.

  Growling in frustration, Quotl reached for the power that suffused him, sank into the earth beneath on instinct, seized the patterns he found there, and without thought twisted.

  The earth beneath the Alvritshai forces shattered, flinty stone shards flying upward into the Wraith forces like daggers. Horses screamed and reared, throwing their riders to the ground as they kicked the air with their hooves. The dwarren who had engaged them a moment before shied back, a few caught in the edge of the destruction, the gaezels milling in confusion.

  Quotl himself felt a moment of utter shock, slicing down through the power that pulsed through his body, followed by a wave of weariness, but there was no time to evaluate it, no time to think. He raised his scepter and pointed toward the defenses behind them. “Retreat, you gods-damned fools! Now, before they have time to recover!”

  A few of the Alvritshai already were, rallying around those who had been at the back of the Alvritshai forces and had not been caught in the blast. Riderless horses bolted across the plains behind them, but there weren’t enough dead to shift the tide of battle.

  And there were still the reinforcements waiting beyond.

  As soon as Tarramic broke and tore toward the ditches, his entourage covering his withdrawal, Quotl jerked his gaezel about and sprinted toward the dwarren regrouping behind.The ditches and mounds of dirt stretched across the earth in an arch over a thousand strides long, a swath of flat land before the landslide began sloping toward the plains above. He could see the archers of Claw Lake lining the cliffs to the north, Shadow Moon to the south. Any of the Wraith army that passed the ditches would be in range of the archers. The confrontation on the plains had only been a delaying tactic; it had never been meant to hold for long. The real defense would now begin.