Flametouched

by Brian K. Fuller

  Arianne used Davon’s grip to come to her feet, the initial shock of her injury fading. “Do we run?” she asked, testing her weight on her injured leg. It hurt, but she could manage.

  Davon released her hand and unlimbered his rifle. “We have an advantageous position here, and I think we can finish them. You, Elaine, and Mr. Goodwin need to move. Ki, there is a log across the stream about a half mile up. It looks like one the Aua’Catan have used before. Take this group up and wait for me.”

  “Be careful, Davon,” Arianne said, noting the weariness in his eyes. She wondered how much he had rested or if he were hurt and wouldn’t admit it. He was stubborn enough for anything.

  He kissed her forehead, and then he and Captain Gage circled the tree, and the shooting began in earnest from both sides.

  Ki grabbed Arianne’s arm and draped it over her shoulder. “Mr. Goodwin, escort Elaine and follow us. Give me the moss back. We’ll need to go without its light until the forest can hide it.”

  They pushed east as Davon had instructed, but her wounded leg and the ensnaring sticks and plants turned a half mile walk into an anemic crawl in the dark. After a few minutes, Arianne was able to limp on without assistance. Mr. Goodwin swore under his breath more than once as branches and rocks tripped him up, Elaine chastising him each time for his foul language. The gunfire behind them continued nearly unabated, but more frequently the agonized yell of a struck victim added to the cacophony.

  And then Davon let loose a roar that set grown men to screaming like children.

  Mr. Goodwin chuckled. “I’m starting to enjoy that sound.”

  Arianne liked it, but from a distance. She chanced a look back toward the clearing and paid for it by stubbing the shin of her injured leg on a granite rock in front of her. One of Mr. Goodwin’s swear words leapt to mind, and she used a sharp intake and exhale of breath to cover the sound of it.

  The farther they went, the more the gurgling of the stream veiled the sounds of the gunfight behind them, settling raw nerves but compounding the worry.

  “There it is,” Ki said.

  Arianne peered into the gloom. A pale ray of moonlight breaking through the canopy revealed where a half-blasted tree had fallen across the stream. A veritable garden of ferns spread thick along the stream bed interspersed with sizable hunks of granite. It was beautiful but haunting in the dimness, and they pressed toward it.

  “We won’t cross until Davon or danger comes,” Ki said. “I think I—”

  A thud behind Arianne startled her, but not as much as Mr. Goodwin pitching forward and falling face down into the ferns. Elaine yelped and Arianne spun, finding a man behind her sister, his pistol pressing into the hair of Elaine’s head and his other arm clenched around her shoulders. The light from Ki’s moss bloomed, casting a pale blue glow on the face of her sister’s assailant.

  Melchor Raines.

  Maybe it was a trick of the moss’s odd light, but his face seemed slack, his gaze lifeless, as if he were asleep with his eyes open.

  “Throw the spear away, north woman,” Melchor said evenly, voice as colorless as his face. “Throw it away or I kill the girl. Do it now.”

  Ki hesitated a moment, and then tossed the spear toward the tree trunk bridge where it thunked into the wood.

  Arianne raised her hands. “It’s me you want, Mr. Raines,” she said, stepping forward slowly. “Let her go.”

  Now his face twitched, the eyes that were so dead moments before spasming back and forth as if he were in a dream. Even his limbs trembled, and Arianne feared his finger might accidentally pull the trigger. She took another step forward and he clenched his teeth, eyes suddenly unblinking, wide, and firmly on hers.

  “You burned it out of me once,” he said haltingly as if fighting for every word. “Do it again now.”

  “Do not go near him,” Ki warned stepping forward with her.

  “Stay back, north woman!” Melchor hissed, Elaine flinching as he moved the gun and leveled the barrel at Ki. “Just Lady Hightower.”

  Another convulsion racked his body and he firmed himself with effort. Even in the weak light of the moss, Arianne could see a rivulet of sweat drip off of his strong jaw. “Burn it out.”

  “Let her go and I’ll do it,” Arianne countered. She could guess what he struggled against. She could sense that dark feeling in her heart as she approached him. It was that same shadow that had popped out of him in the Flame Cathedral, only now its influence upon the man seemed worse, like an infection starting to fester.

  He shoved Elaine to the side, but kept his gun pointed at her blonde head. Another gun was tucked in his belt, a rifle slung across his back. He extended his other, quivering hand. “Hurry.”

  As she had in the Flame Cathedral, Arianne raised her palms, a warm fire building upon them, its glow reflecting in Melchor’s strained eyes. She reached out and grabbed his exposed wrist and flared the fire of her hands.

  He screamed, and the shadow she had seen before leapt from his chest and fell among the ferns at their feet. She extinguished the fire and immediately his face relaxed and his tremors ceased.

  His eyes, hard but his own, held hers. “Thank you, Lady—”

  The shadow leapt upon him again, sinking into his body on the left side of his chest. He convulsed and fell to his knees. Arianne stepped back, and sensing an opportunity, signaled to Elaine to come to her. But the moment her sister put one foot forward, Melchor’s face focused and his gun snapped up, pointed at Elaine’s head.

  “Don’t,” he growled. “Again, Lady Hightower. Burn it out.” With his free hand he ripped open his shirt, buttons popping away, revealing the mark of the Primal Water on his chest along with something else, something like a blotch, a stain. The mark of the Shadow. The Primal Shadow was real, no matter what the Aua’Catan thought.

  “Burn it. Now.” He pointed to the blotch on his chest.

  She approached cautiously and knelt in front of him. Now she was trembling along with him. What covenant had he made with this dark power? She understood what he wanted her to do, what he hoped would happen, but would it work? She placed her right hand on the odd blotch and pushed fire into her palm. Grimacing, he placed his hand on top of hers, pushing it onto his chest. The smell of burning flesh and his cry of agony filled the clearing, and it felt to Arianne almost as if her hand was sinking inside his flesh.

  The Shadow burst forth from his body again, silently sinking into the ferns beside them. Melchor’s body relaxed. Arianne removed her hand from his seared flesh, the burned brand of her palm completely obscuring the blotch that had been there before. Melchor seemed almost insensate, eyes closed and head slumping to his chest. She ripped the pistol out of his hand and stood, grabbing Elaine’s arm and pulling her away from the Creetisian spy. A low chuckle struggled from his lips, building into a laugh of joy tinged with madness.

  “Arianne,” Ki said.

  Arianne turned toward her, finding Ki pointing toward the fallen tree across the water. There, next to Ki’s discarded spear, was the short figure of the Shadow. Though it had no face, she could sense its gaze upon them, the sickening feeling of wrongness washing over her like a cold draft from a window someone forgot to shut.

  “Keep an eye on it, Ki,” she said.

  When she turned back to Mr. Raines, he had stood, legs wobbly, but he had pulled his other gun from his belt and pointed it at her. She chastised herself for not taking it, too. Unfortunately, the pistol she had commandeered from him she held down at her side, and she knew he could kill her well before she could snap it up.

  “Again I thank you,” he said, voice raspy, barrel pointed between her eyes.

  Arianne swallowed hard. This was the end for her, she knew it. Melchor was a member of the Fist, insanely loyal and utterly cruel. If his mission was to assassinate her, he would do it. Ki moved in front of her, shielding her from Melchor’s gun, her arms outstretched.

  “You know,” he said, taking a step forward and craning his head around Ki to se
e her, “when I read the Queen’s will and discovered that you were her chosen successor, I couldn’t believe it. I thought you too soft, but I see that you have some iron, after all.”

  Arianne regarded the hardened man, trying to divine his purpose. Could he be so callous as to kill her after she had freed him from the Shadow, or did he want her alive? His eyes burned with purpose, but he wasn’t settled. Something still churned in his mind, some decision he hadn’t quite made. She needed to stall him. The shooting in the distance had nearly evaporated, and Davon still roared.

  “Just leave us be,” Arianne said. “You can just walk away—”

  “Out of the way, north woman,” Melchor ordered, taking another step closer and pointing the gun at Elaine. “Or I start shooting.”

  Ki didn’t budge.

  “Step aside, Ki,” Arianne said, tapping the woman’s leg with the gun. “It will be all right.”

  Ki nodded, and as she moved to the right, the snow finch carving leapt from her shoulder right at Melchor’s face. Arianne raised the gun and fired. Distracted by the bird, Melchor didn’t stand a chance. The bullet took the awful man in the belly, a red stain blooming on his shirt. Eyes wide, he staggered back, but didn’t fall. He raised his gun, Arianne expecting immediate death. But he hesitated, a smile coming to his lips. Ki stepped in front of her again, and again Melchor pointed the gun at Elaine.

  “Move,” he ordered. “I want to look her in the eyes.”

  “No,” Ki said.

  A rustling in the bushes diverted their attention. Mr. Goodwin struggled to his feet just behind Melchor, a thick trail of blood drying on the side of his face. The Creetisian pointed the gun at him for a moment, but Mr. Goodwin skirted him, coming to stand in front of Elaine to shield her from the gun.

  Melchor probed the wound in his belly, looked up, and then dropped his gun. Hands raised, he knelt on the ground.

  “I make you a bargain, Lady Hightower,” he said. “Cauterize the wound and I will tell you how the Creetisians plan to overthrow Bellshire tomorrow.”

  “You are a liar,” she said, searching his intense, gray eyes.

  “Not about this, Lady Hightower,” he countered. “I give you my word. Is that what you say in Bittermarch?”

  “Your word means nothing,” she said.

  He shrugged. “If your nation means anything to you, you should hear what I have to say. Cauterize the wound.”

  “Let him die,” Ki said. “I haven’t read him, but I know filth such as this without having to try.”

  Arianne weighed the options. Melchor was growing pale. She could not trust the man, but if he were telling the truth, it would cost her little to hear what he had to say.

  “Very well,” she said. “Ki, Mr. Goodwin, come with me. On your back, Mr. Raines.”

  He sank back into the ferns, and Arianne approached and knelt next to him. Ki held the moss in her left hand and from her belt pulled a bone dagger much like Davon’s, pressing it to Melchor’s throat. Mr. Goodwin sat on the Creetisian’s legs, his own knife at the ready.

  It took a moment for Arianne to locate the source of the wound within all the blood. Melchor just watched her, face set. He nodded and she pressed her burning palm onto the bullet wound. Eyes crammed closed, he gritted his teeth. The rancid smell of burning blood and flesh wrinkled her nose again. Only a moment, and it was done.

  Melchor relaxed, but in a flash his left arm grabbed Ki’s wrist and he twisted. She yelped in pain, and somehow he had the dagger. His other hand grabbed the front of Arianne’s dress and he pulled her down, knife tip pressed against her neck.

  “Back off,” he said. “Back off and I won’t kill her. What I have to say is for her alone.”

  Ki and Mr. Goodwin stood stock still.

  “Step back,” she ordered. “Stand with Elaine.”

  Slowly they retreated and Arianne turned to find Melchor staring at her with an odd smile.

  “Now listen,” he said. “A force of Creetisian soldiers is hiding behind a hill to the northeast of Bellshire. The remaining Creetisian force will attack the gates and then retreat. If your men open the gates to attack what they think is a fleeing, weakened force, the hidden regiment will slaughter them and pour into the city. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she said, every swallow reminding her of the knife at her throat. He seemed sincere with his information, but why would he divulge it to her?

  He pulled her closer. “This is important. You are the Queen of a nation full of traitors, even among those you call friends and family. I doubt you know the half of the treachery that your peers have committed or what they’ll do when this war is over. Let me live and you can have my information and my skills to aid you.”

  His knife flashed. At first Arianne thought she was done for. When he released her, she fell back, finding that he had only sliced away a lock of her hair, which he clutched in his right hand. Dumbfounded, she scrambled back into the welcoming arms of Elaine and Ki, who steadied her. With a groan Melchor struggled to his knees, and on seeing him fully revealed in the weak light, Arianne doubted her ministrations had done any good. His complexion seemed more hollow and pale than it had just moments before.

  “What say you, Queen of Bittermarch?” he asked with a weak, gravelly voice. “Are you ready to face your traitorous people alone, or could you make use of a man like me?”

  “I won’t be alone.”

  He laughed, blood spittle flecking his lips. “You think Baron Carver can guide you? If you want to survive the first year of your reign, you’ll need something more than a man of principle. You’ll need a monster, a monster loyal to you. Let me help you.”

  Arianne was no fool. How could she employ a man of such wanton and callous cruelty? She could never be sure of his loyalty. And something within her, some instinct, told her that his motives had little to do with helping Bittermarch. She opened her mouth to say as much when the befouling feelings of the Primal Shadow seeped into her heart. But there was something else, an odor that reminded her of the stale, disused room at Frostbourne where Asper Carver’s corpse had moldered.

  “Arianne!” Ki said.

  Arianne turned, following Ki’s gaze back to the fallen tree across the stream. The Primal Shadow still stood there, but behind it was something else, a bear of enormous proportions. She froze, her mind not wanting to believe her eyes.

  A chuffing roar rumbled deep within the bear’s throat, and it lumbered forward, wood whining under the weight of its heavy tread.

  Chapter 54

  Davon roared one last time and transformed back into his human self before crouching behind a chunk of granite near the camp they defended. The Creetisian bullet had penetrated deep into his meaty sabercat ribcage. As a giant predator he was formidable and intimidating, but his size and white fur made him an easy mark, even in the dark. Some observant Creetisian soldier had scraped up enough grit to overcome his fear of the bellowing roars and slashing claws and put a bullet in the one thing that had kept him and his comrades from overrunning the camp.

  Curse the luck. Davon probed the wound on the left side of his chest, fingers coming back slick with blood. A rib bone had been cracked for sure, and he hoped that his difficulty breathing stemmed from that injury and not any damage to his lung. As yet, the Creetisians had not advanced far, but Davon knew that without the giant sabercat ripping apart anyone that got too close, it was only a matter of time before the Creetisians rushed forward in force. As yet, the gunfire had popped sporadically in the night, sometimes heavy, sometimes slow. It was nearly non-existent, now. They were preparing for a coordinated attack.

  Keeping low and holding his side, Davon jogged back toward a knot of Bittermarchian soldiers fanned out around the folds and mounding roots of an Elder Oak. The pain of movement nearly undid him. Every fall of his right foot was agony, and every fall of his left murder. When he found Captain Gage in a large fold to the left of the tree, Davon slumped against the trunk and slid down.

  “I kil
led nine,” Davon reported. “There are at least thirty more out there. How many have we lost?”

  “Two dead and three wounded,” Captain Gage said before firing off another shot. “That leaves five of us and you. We can’t hold them. You’d best get the Queen free of here. We’ll hold them off for as long as we can. It won’t be long. Are you well?”

  Davon grimaced. He wouldn’t make it far. “No. I can still shoot, but I can’t travel like this. I will stay and hold them off. You take Arianne north. Ki will guide you.”

  The Captain reloaded. “Are you sure? She won’t like leaving you.”

  “And I don’t like being left, but there’s no other way. Ki will help convince her. Go. She’s a half-mile up the stream.”

  Captain Gage nodded, took one last shot into the dark, and scurried away into the night.

  Davon unlimbered his rifle and lay on his belly, trying to find some way to position himself that wouldn’t hurt so badly. Standing was too painful. But as he shoved a bullet into his breech loader, a symbol, that of the Eternal Flame, appeared on the stock of the rifle. It was a ghostly image overlaid upon the wood, and in a moment the intuition surged into his mind. This was a template, a guide to follow.

  He slipped his hand into his carving bag and grasped the handle of his wooden carving knife. The symbol of Eternal Flame on the knife’s handle glowed amber. As he lifted it out, a bullet hit the bark of the root he hid behind, spitting wood into the air. They had spotted him.

  With a bodily scoot to the right so painful that it nearly blacked him out, he retreated farther behind the tree proper. With fluid movements he etched the symbol into the stock, the pine-wood blade cutting easily into the harder wood of the stock. The moment he completed the design, the symbol glowed with the color of fire.

  What did it mean?

  “Advance!”

  Thirty yards ahead in the dark, other Creetisian voices took up the order, and the forest came alive with the sounds of cautious but purposeful marching.

  Davon turned to his companions near the tree, who were staring at his rifle rather than the forest. “Hold your ground for as long as you can,” he wheezed. Breathing was hard. It hurt.