The Jack of Ruin

by Stephen Merlino

  66

  A Cure For Fleas

  Harric stood. He couldn’t breathe. It felt like someone had set a huge stone on his sternum.

  Numbly, he picked up the spitfire and stared at the blazing tree, which had already spread its fire to several beside it.

  A funeral pyre. To keep his body from capture.

  He let out a rueful laugh as the fire crackled and spread in the thick tinder beneath the trees. Kogan had chosen the whole cobbing forest for his pyre. And as the heat of it warmed Harric’s face, the north wind cooled his back and sent a shiver up his spine.

  The north wind—the blessed north wind!—would push this fire away down the canyon toward Bannus. And if the entire hillside blazed, Bannus would have to turn back.

  Suddenly alert to possibility, Harric scanned above and below the trail. Kogan’s fire would not spread fast enough to spread up and down the whole hillside before Bannus arrived—there would be plenty of room above or below the fire for the immortal to skirt it by bushwhacking.

  Unless Harric finished the job.

  Grinning like a madman, he drew the second spitfire from the pack and aimed it between the trees below Kogan. If he got lucky, the wad would race between a dozen trees, spattering them all before it hit one full-on. He squeezed the lever and the stock bucked against his shoulder, spitting the wad past a half-dozen trees before it crashed against an age-silvered pine.

  Bannus’s horn sounded again, but much louder than before, as if he had finally climbed above the rapids and onto his trail. Then the clear notes of hunting horns joined in the mocking tune of “Hang High, Father.”

  The heat from the fire was already uncomfortably hot, forcing Harric to grab his pack to move it farther up the trail. As he passed the father and Geraldine, he tripped over the axe.

  “Geraldine, you’ve got to get out of here.”

  Harric dropped the pack and spitfires a few paces up the road, then returned to pick up the axe, which was already growing hot to the touch in the glare of Kogan’s fire. When Harric heaved the enormous weapon onto Geraldine’s back, it nearly mashed the little basket there.

  “Spook!”

  The lid jumped as if the little cat were trying to get out, but the priest had fastened its strings so it wouldn’t open.

  “Not much longer, boy,” Harric said, as he shifted the axe and lashed it to the saddle. “You’ll be safer in there.”

  Spook mewed, but Harric ignored him.

  Despite Harric’s coaxing, Geraldine did not want to leave Kogan, and his efforts to drag her enormous head around went almost unnoticed. He’d almost given up when one of the trees beside Kogan’s fire went up with a whoosh that sent a tremor through her. Then she turned with little urging, and he was able to slap her rump and send her cantering up the trail.

  Heat hammered Harric’s bare cheeks as he recovered his pack and followed Geraldine to a comfortable distance. As he reamed and reloaded the spitfires, he judged that the blaze had already doubled in size. The dry wood seemed greedy for fire, and the north wind just as eager to feed it. As soon as the spitfires were loaded, he sent blazing comets into the trunks above and below Kogan’s resting place.

  Harric reamed and fired, reamed and fired, extending the wall of flames above and below, and when the trumpet end of one spitfire began to flame like a resin torch, he grabbed his gear and climbed the hillside, setting it to every tree he passed. By now the hillside was an almost continuous wall of flame, and he had to retreat again from the ferocity of the heat.

  Horns sounded, so close he thought they must be rounding the last bend, but he could no longer see the trail beyond a raging wall of fire and smoke.

  When he was confident the upper hillside was impassable, he hurried down to finish the job below. Before he even reached the trail, the heat beat him back another ten paces and a steady stream of sweat began to blur his vision. He was now a good sixty paces from the flames, and whole trees were blooming spontaneously into torches. The roar of the flames grew deafening.

  When he struck the trail, he paused to catch his breath and retreat another five paces from the heat. Beyond the wall of flames, he imagined he glimpsed men and horses and heard shouts and whinnying. Then a tree engulfed in flames crashed down across the trail where Kogan lay, and sent a gout of sparks into the sky.

  Bannus’s horn ripped the air so near that it made Harric’s heart skip. Through an eddy in the smoke, he glimpsed the immortal on Gygon, thundering up the trail straight toward the fallen tree as if they’d leap it and trample Harric.

  Fingers fumbling, Harric stuffed a double charge of resin in one spitfire and sighted down the trail, aiming right between the violet eyes.

  The double-charged weapon bucked so hard it knocked Harric backward.

  A pair of shrieking comets corkscrewed toward the immortal like javelins of fire. Bannus roared and Gygon veered off the trail and into the trees below it with a tremendous crash. Another flaming tree fell, this one beyond the fire, and Harric thought he heard screams of confusion from man and horse alike.

  Harric yelled in fear and triumph, “Run! Flee, you stinking cobs!” but the roar of the fire had reached such deafening pitch that he doubted any but himself could hear it. As if in answer, a tree below exploded with a report like a resin charge.

  A spot of heat at his cheek startled him, and then he felt a sizzle and burn at his ear.

  Cursing, he dropped the spitfire and swatted at the flames in his hair. A burning glob of resin dropped to the ground, and some burned the skin on the back of a finger. By the time he wiped it off with a handful of dirt, it left a burn the size of a small coin on the finger. Touching gingerly, he guessed a similar blister adorned his ear.

  Stupid. The overloaded weapon had spat back a burning hornet of resin, and he hadn’t been wearing his spitfire mask.

  Harric imagined he heard Sir Bannus howl in rage, now much lower on the hillside, and it sent shard of panic through his stomach. He hadn’t seen to the lower flank of the fire yet, so Bannus might yet find a place to ride through.

  Reaming and loading a spitfire, he shouldered his pack and dove down the slope, careless of the clawing branches. When he finally approached the edge of the cliff above the river, however, he found that the dry forest and the north wind had done the work for him. Flames in the lower flank roared ten fathoms high with no gaps for Bannus to cross, and now the roar of the flames was so great that Harric couldn’t hear his own panting breaths.

  “We did it,” he said, though even he couldn’t hear it. “We cobbing did it.”

  Cheeks stinging, he retreated to a stone upthrust and climbed atop it to survey the fiery maelstrom. It was solid flame and smoke. Nothing of the canyon beyond was visible through the conflagration.

  Twisting shapes rose in it like fiery dust devils—spirits of the Mad Moon, they seemed, wild and mad with triumph. Banshee wails pierced the general roar, and despite the heat, Harric felt a shiver run up his spine. Were they not spirits of that moon? Fink would know. One of these whorls rose high above the blazing crown of the trees—a giant of twisting flames—and from its out-flung limbs rained flaming branches and cones to the opposite side of the canyon.

  Spots of fire rose in the dark trees on that side of the river.

  Soon the whole canyon would be a furnace of whirling spirits.

  Peering up at the trail, he sought the mound of Father Kogan in the blaze, and imagined he saw the priest standing in his smothercoat amid the flames, head thrown back in laughter.

  The fire was Kogan’s victory. Bannus got Holly and he killed both Brolli and Kogan, but Kogan had denied the immortal his trophies and driven him back with his tail between his legs. “Plus, it’s a sure cure for fleas, father,” Harric said.

  As the flames rose higher and the heat became once again unbearable, Harric climbed down from his viewpoint and hiked to a comfortable distance of at least a hundred paces, then climbed back up to the trail. The north wind now rushed to join the fire, suck
ed forward by the heat rising from the inferno, and as he turned his back, its touch cooled the sweat of his body.

  He now stood at the end of the canyon. For the next half-mile northward, the steep slopes on either side of the river melted into a wide-bottomed valley. The sight further lifted his spirits. Soon it would be easy to remove himself far enough from the river to enter the Unseen.

  Later. There was no longer any rush, and leaden weariness now infused his limbs. He sat heavily on a log by the trail and drained his waterskin without pausing to breathe.

  The thunder of hooves approached from ahead. Molly, Harric guessed.

  Rousing himself, he stood and carried his pack and weapons into the first trees above the trail in order to give the beast space. His pack was light now. He’d spent all but a few resin wads, which he’d have to conserve now.

  Willard reined in beside Harric but did not acknowledge him. He glared down the trail at the fire, huge body tight as a bowstring. Red light gleamed from Belle in his hand. Fury boiled behind his eyes. And again Harric thought he saw the shadow of despair he’d seen on the pan.

  The roar of the fire was now as loud as the rapids of the river, the heat of it strong on Harric’s face. “The fire was Kogan’s last act—” he said, and his voice cracked as he said it. Stupid. He always looked weak in front of Willard. “His pyre.”

  The knight’s eyes remained on the fire. Harric wasn’t sure if Willard heard him over the flames. In any case, the knight was probably angry. The Blood probably made him want to face Bannus—to win Holly back—and the fire prevented him.

  “Bannus?” said Willard.

  “Stopped. He—I think he turned back.”

  Tension drained from Willard’s shoulders, and he sighed. “Yes. He would turn back. This blazing conflagration is Kogan’s parting gift to us. Stinking, big-hearted fool.”

  He pulled a roll of ragleaf from his gauntlet and stuck it between his teeth. As he lit the roll with his flint wheel, his violet eyes turned to Harric without him turning his head, and his gaze rested on the deflated resin pack and still-smoking spitfires. When the ragleaf caught fire, he blew a gust of smoke from his nostrils and gave Harric a slow nod of acknowledgement.

  “Might be the wisest thing Kogan ever did. And you did well to further his wishes.”

  In spite of himself, Harric experienced a small wave of gratitude. “As long as we have this north wind, the fire will chase them down the canyon. Might buy a couple days.”

  “At least.”

  “He also sent the axe along on Geraldine. Did you see?”

  Willard snorted. “I saw.”

  “I think he thought you left it on purpose. Told me to make you promise you would take it and use it. Told me to tell you it was his dying wish.”

  Willard’s shoulder plates rose and fell in little jerks. He was laughing quietly, and the silent shake of his barrel chest built to a deep chuckle. “Very well, Kogan,” he called into the fire. “By this hand, if I can use your fool axe, I will!”

  From one of his many saddlebags, he pulled a tarnished brass horn that Harric had never seen. In the ballads, Willard had blown a horn called Gold Throat as he went into battle. It had been a gift from the Queen when he was her champion, and Harric wondered if this could be the same horn.

  “Farewell, Kogan,” Willard shouted to the flames. He lifted the horn to his lips and blew a long, clear, soaring note. He blew it again, and again, his immortal lungs imparting a ringing power that hung loud and pure and glowing in the air. Harric took satisfaction in the thought that Bannus’s men were sucking too much smoke now to wind theirs in defiance.

  “Call it ‘The Good Father’s Cavalcade,’” said Willard, as he lowered the horn.

  He smoked quietly for many long heartbeats, and the roaring silence seemed tribute to Kogan.

  “I failed, this day,” Willard said, still watching the fire. “Sir Bannus outplayed me and outwitted me.” He rubbed his face. “Seems my disciplines are no longer as sharp as they once were, and I let the Blood cloud my judgment. Nor did I think his mad brains had the wit for strategy any more. Nor the sanctity for prophecy.” He leaned to one side and spat. “He let me believe it was me he wanted, and under that pretense took two of our company and Holly.”

  “I’m sorry for Brolli,” Harric said.

  The roar of the fire devoured the words, and Willard lifted his eyes again to the fire.

  “Mudruffle has preserved the ambassador’s body with the magic of his moon,” said Willard. “And I will return him to his people. I owe him that. And such a gesture may be our only hope of salvaging this disaster. I fear our quest is lost. I fear that when they see their slain ambassador, there will be war. Still, I must try, for the Queen needs allies, not enemies. And we must hope.”

  A huge tree collapsed in the wall of fire, sending a fountain of orange sparks to the sky.

  “Sir Willard, I must tell you something about Brolli. This is a bad time, because what I have to say is not flattering to his memory, but you must know before I leave. It may change your mind and plans.”

  Willard turned his violet eyes on Harric, and his jaw muscles bulged.

  The sound of hoofbeats drew Harric’s attention up the trail, and there he saw Caris riding toward them on Idgit—a sight as ridiculous as when Willard rode her—which made him wonder if Rag had been injured.

  As Idgit slowed to a walk and Caris drew near, Willard snorted. “Well, boy? Out with it.”

  “I’m sorry, Sir Willard. But this is only for your ears.”

  Willard sucked hard at the ragleaf. “Very well. But if what you have to tell me is some new knavery to get back at Brolli for an imagined slight, I shall know it, and I shall chain you and leave you for Bannus.”

  You judge men by the color of their garments and call it wisdom. But any child knows it’s a fool who judges a horse by its saddle.

  —Queen Chasia to First Herald Timus when he denounced her removal of the sumptuary laws

  67

  Separations

  Harric risked a look at Caris as she stared in awe of the raging flames. “We are safe? They are turned back?”

  Willard nodded. “Why do you ride the pony? Is your mount hurt?”

  She looked down. A lock of hair fell about her face, but Harric saw a tear leave a track in the dust on her cheek. “She won’t let me near her,” she said, voice hoarse. “Can’t contact her. Can’t…” She gave her head a shake as if casting off weakness. “Can’t control her anymore.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Willard, and the gentleness of his voice surprised Harric.

  “Mudruffle asks for your attention, Sir Willard. Something to do with Brolli.”

  Willard’s jaw pulsed, and he glanced at Harric. He acknowledged Caris with a nod, and Molly began to move up the trail. To Harric, he said, “Find me when you’re ready.”

  When Willard had left them, Caris dismounted on the opposite side of Idgit from Harric and stared at the howling inferno. Wind raced past, sucked in by the towering flames, blowing her hair forward and once again concealing her face.

  “Brolli…” Her voice choked off.

  “I know.”

  “There will be war with the Kwendi, Harric. We failed. And Holly is gone. Gods leave us, it’s like the Chaos Moon is coming.”

  Harric nodded, but said nothing.

  “Kogan’s in there?” She was staring at the fire.

  “Set the fire himself. It’s his pyre.”

  A small smile bent her lips upward, and she bowed her head.

  “I’m sorry about Rag,” Harric said. “You should take Snapper. He’s a good horse. And Phyros-trained. I won’t need a Phyros-trained horse any longer.”

  She pulled the hair back and tucked it behind her ear to look at him, and her gaze—her dispassionate, unattached gaze—sent a tremor of doubt through him. It was a look of frank regard that he had not seen from her for a very long time. Not since Gallows Ferry. Not since before the ring.

  �
�So you’re leaving,” she said.

  He nodded, studying her closely now. “It’s best. And I could take Rag, if that’s what you want.”

  “It’s too late for what I want.” She looked back to the fire, and the wind whipped her hair back over her face.

  Harric put a hand over his oculus as if he were merely shading his eyes from the glare of the fires. Since the river was bending away, it might be possible to crack his oculus open for a look at her spirit. Of course, if it wasn’t, he’d end up slamming his face to the ground, which would be awkward. But he had to try. It would be his last chance.

  The sunburn itch began the moment it opened, but this time it was bearable. He let out a quiet sigh and dropped his hands to his side. Then he closed his eyes and turned his spirit vision on Caris.

  Bright Phyros violet startled him. Streaks of the stuff mingled among her brilliant blue strands and looped off toward Willard and Molly. Gods leave her, Willard made her drink from Molly. He still found it hard to believe, and anger pinched in his heart. But this would certainly explain why Rag had rejected Caris so absolutely. Rag hated being near Molly, and if Molly’s blood was in Caris… Could the old knight not see what that took from Caris? And then Harric noticed other strands of violet stretching south through the fire, and he stared for several long moments, trying to make sense of it. Surely there was no attachment to Gygon. But could that be an attachment to Holly?

  But even more shocking were the weaves of the ring.

  Because they were gone.

  His jaw dropped as he set to studying more closely. He hadn’t been mistaken. The weaves were gone. He could hardly believe it, but the Phyros fire had done it. She was free. And a new lightness filled his heart, like a joyful wind lifting a paper lantern.

  “What are you doing?” Caris’s voice was hard.

  Harric’s eyes snapped open and he closed his oculus to find her glaring like she was about to reach across Idgit’s back and slap him.