Who Walks in Flame

by David Alastair Hayden

  Hellfire streaks down from above and strikes two knights, as the behemoth lifts a giant foot and stomps it down onto Lord Tantren. When the foot rises again, Bregissa sees neither man nor spear.

  Now only Kerenthos can kill the sorcerer. The third white-steel weapon she knows was lost along with its wielder, for Count Krenn, who commanded the outlying cavalry, loved his four ornately carved pistols. It would take too long to find the weapon now.

  The beast kills scores with several more stomps then swallows at least a dozen at once. Finally, it spins with surprising agility and flicks its tail through the ranks, breaking some soldiers and halving those in lighter armor. All the while, the Witch-King casts hellfire at select targets, seemingly tireless, as if the spell to ignite the army’s gunpowder had cost him no stamina at all. His victims writhe helplessly, their flesh burning as if coated in oil.

  As the army routs, Bregissa and Kerenthos are still hundreds of paces away from the behemoth.

  “We'll never get near them without cover, or some sort of distraction,” Kerenthos says. “Even then…”

  Bregissa clutches the amulet in which remains the bulk of the talent energy she took from Orthinn's soul. She calls out the power and catches it in her hands, cupping it like water. She lifts it to her lips and swallows. Immediately she employs the voice of influence and shouts as loud as she can: “Men of the East! Rally to me!”

  From all over the battlefield, those able to move heed her cry. Some of those fleeing stop and turn back, fighting their way through Khuar-na’s soldiers. They can’t help but meet her summons, for in that moment, her voice is fully awake, with all the force that her legendary father had possessed. And added to that is her own power, skill, and passion.

  Surpassing anything Orthinn ever accomplished, her voice perhaps works too well. Witch-King and behemoth turn toward her. A final swish of the beast's tail completes the destruction of the army’s high command, leaving the land nearly devoid of king and baron.

  I have outdone even you, Orthinn, she thinks. If I survive, it is me that history will remember most. You will be, at best, nothing more than the one who taught the greatest skald ever.

  In complete disregard of their fear, soldiers rush toward Bregissa. The Scorch-Walker crushes many of them as it speeds toward Bregissa and Kerenthos, covering the distance between them in mere seconds.

  The Witch-King draws back a hand and flings hellfire at her. She dodges to the right, but the flaming mass changes course to match her movements. At the last moment, Bregissa throws herself flat. The fiery orb passes over and strikes behind her with a heavy thud.

  With the stink of sulfur burning in her nose, Bregissa climbs to her feet, only to see two more streaking toward her, one lagging behind the other. With no chance of avoiding both, Bregissa stands tall. Perhaps her death will inspire those remaining.

  With the flames so close that she can hear them crackling, Kerenthos leaps out in front of her. Blade held before him, the fire hits the white-steel, splits in half, and fizzles into puffs of smoke. The second one nears, and Kerenthos bats it away with the sword.

  Khuar-na curses in his strange tongue, and the Scorch-Walker rears up.

  “Move!” Bregissa yells.

  She and Kerenthos sprint away, and the beast’s feet pummel the ground, barely missing them. Just as the two skid to a halt and ready their next move, the house-sized head of the behemoth snaps at them with far greater precision than its feet.

  Bregissa dives to safety, but Kerenthos, unable to run any longer, jumps as high as he can and drives his sword toward the beast, hoping to stab an eye. The sword misses and cuts through the scales of the lid instead, drawing forth a dark ichor.

  The wound is nothing more than a scratch.

  The Scorch-Walker snaps its head back and the curving horn of its snout bashes Kerenthos. The sword falls from his grip as he tumbles through the air, blood spraying. He lands fifty paces away and lies unmoving.

  Bregissa runs toward Kerenthos, but the beast’s head whips around and blocks her path. From high atop the behemoth, the Witch-King sneers, his sinister eyes alight.

  Bregissa draws the wind pistol. Maybe she can get a shot on the rider and knock him from his perch, for all the good that might do. Noticing the pistol, Khuar-na’s eyes narrow. He touches his amulet.

  The bronze wind pistol instantly becomes hot, but before she can cast it away, it cools suddenly. Then the tiny needle of the shot meter, which had sat on “1” for all her lifetime, goes haywire, pounding against the upper limit until the needle breaks and the glass that encased the meter shatters. The weapon pulses, almost as if it's alive. She prays it will yet work.

  “Face me like a man, coward!” Bregissa shouts, trying to lure the Witch-King closer.

  The behemoth chomps at her with its wicked jaws but pulls up just short, toying with her. Laughing, the Witch-King links his hands, joining forefingers and thumbs. Dripping flames form between his hands and then blast toward her, growing as they near so that they will entirely consume her on impact.

  The Scorch-Walker roars as Bregissa aims the pistol and pulls the trigger.

  The elemental forces of fire and air collide. The explosion hurls Bregissa backward as it whirls the hellfire into a vortex. The magic of the rejuvenated gun of Arkos the Maker prevails and blasts the vortex into the still-opened mouth of the Scorch-Walker.

  As the flames storm down its gut, the beast groans and convulses, bucks wildly, and wrenches its head back and forth. The Witch-King desperately clutches to the scales and screams words of power. The spell holding back the rain relents. Dark, heavy clouds appear suddenly and unleash a downpour.

  “Gods bless you, Arkos,” Bregissa pants, as she reverently places the wind pistol aside, its barrel melted and bent. Then, ignoring the Scorch-Walker’s throes, she scurries about looking for Kerenthos.

  With one final sputtering roar, the behemoth collapses with a thunderous shudder. Dust and ash fly through the air. In the distance, soldiers cheer Bregissa’s victory.

  Bodies lay strewn across the battlefield, and Bregissa can't find Kerenthos lying amongst them, though she knows roughly where he should be. She searches for the white-steel sword as well, but it too eludes her.

  “Let the Witch-King be dead,” she prays.

  Her prayer is not to be answered.

  “You will pay most dearly, human,” says a sibilant voice behind her. “A thousand deaths for the death of my friend—a being older than your world and of far greater importance.”

  She turns to face the Witch-King of the Skithikri. From a sheath on his back, he draws a long, wicked scimitar. Flames creep down the length of the blade. Swiftly, Bregissa draws her saber and attacks. The Witch-King doesn't attempt to parry or dodge. He doesn't even blink. Her blade speeds toward his face, then collides with an invisible barrier only an inch away from his skin.

  Eyes alight, Khuar-na spins his scimitar once then strikes. The blade bites deep into her right knee, slicing bone and cartilage and cauterizing opened flesh. A second swipe severs the fingers of her sword hand.

  Along with her blade, Bregissa falls, eyes glazed with shock, her fingers scattered before her. Khuar-na readies another attack, but suddenly a mauled, lurching Kerenthos rushes out from behind one of the behemoth’s feet. Wielding the white-steel saber, he lunges toward the Witch-King’s back. As Khuar-na begins to pivot, the blade slides through his protective barrier, pierces his lower back and exits from his chest. Steaming, red-brown blood pours from the wound.

  As Kerenthos twists the saber and drags it free, Khuar-na whips his own blade around and cleaves through Kerenthos’ wrist.

  Hand and white-steel sword fall.

  Kerenthos drops to his knees, clutching at the cauterized stump of his arm. It's not his only wound. Blood seeps from cuts on his chest and back. His left arm hangs useless, the result of a dislocated shoulder, and his left ankle can barely hold his weight. Only adrenaline, and his love of Bregissa, has kept him moving. Now, e
ven that is not enough.

  Vomiting blood, Khuar-na collapses to a single knee as the Eastern soldiers hurry toward them, having defeated the last of his soldiers. But Khuar-na is defiant. Grimacing, he picks up the white-steel blade and flings it away. Then he touches his talisman and chants a spell.

  Flames shoot up from the ground to form a ten-foot high ring around Khuar-na, Kerenthos, Bregissa, and the Scorch-Walker. The flames burn so hot that the approaching soldiers can’t get within a dozen paces.

  Heading toward Bregissa, the Witch-King stumbles and his eyes dim. Even so, she can’t summon the will to oppose him. Khuar-na recovers and lifts his blazing scimitar toward her.

  Hellfire leaps from the blade to her injured leg, which bursts into flame. She screams, but the flames dissipate after only a moment. A cruel, mirthless grin tugs at the Witch-King’s lips.

  She can do nothing to stop him. Yet she feels his death approaching. They have won the day and need only to outlast him.

  She crawls toward Kerenthos. “Kill me, torture me, do as you will,” she says to the Witch-King, “but I will suffer at my love’s side.”

  Khuar-na smiles in a most sinister way. "I am not a fool, woman. I know the game you're playing. Trying to delay me, to hold out just a little longer. But I will not let you win. You have ruined everything. Death slithers up to me, but before it strikes, I will see that you pay for what you've done."

  He places a hand over his wound and staggers toward his huddled foes. The woman holds the man, tears streaking down her face, and with the power of her voice, she soothes his pain. Khuar-na gathers his fading strength. I must see this through. I owe that and so much more to my old friend. A rapid sequence of visions race through his mind, visions of twisting spires, of roaring crowds, of harems and feasts, and another planet he once called home.

  “You must pay for the life you stole from me. Your people must pay for centuries of transgressions. This world will burn under my rage.”

  She glances at the white-steel saber, lying ten paces away.

  “Even dying, I could kill you three times before you ever reached that blade.”

  Crestfallen, Bregissa and Kerenthos gaze into one another’s eyes.

  “You have but a few moments left,” Khuar-na says. “Spend them wisely.”

  Bregissa clings to Kerenthos, and tenderly, they exchange proclamations of love.

  Khuar-na turns his back to them and trudges over to the Scorch-Walker. “Here you will always lie, old friend, your massive bones an eternal monument to our rage.”

  “Hope,” Kerenthos whispers to Bregissa. “There is yet … hope for…” His body trembles and he begins to fade.

  Bregissa thinks of the seed she planted in the roots of the Oak of Antenin. She looks at her lover, and suddenly she knows, somehow, what he did. She grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him until his eyes open and he focuses on her.

  “Kerenthos, stay with me. Keep your thoughts on the Sacred Oak. Think with all your might. We fight for it now and we shall guard it into death and beyond.”

  There is doubt in his eyes.

  For the second time she summons the full might of her voice, backed by Orthinn's spirit and her own passion, and such is the power in it that they both believe what she now says beyond any shadow of doubt: “We will guard the tree in the beyond. We will guard it forever.”

  Khuar-na, Witch-King of the Skithikri, pulls a jeweled knife from his belt and slits his own throat. He whispers a mighty incantation as his blood pools on the iron amulet hanging from his neck.

  The wall of fire mushrooms and swallows Bregissa and Kerenthos, killing them instantly. From there, the flames spread outward.

  Khuar-na’s last sight is that of a world ablaze.

  ***

  On the Sacred Isle of Antenin, the shockwave of flames blasts the oak. But what is already burned by divine fire cannot be burned again, even by the otherworldly magic of Khuar-na. Instead of destroying what was left of the tree, the flames restore it to life.

  New shoots spring out. Buds form and then flower. And as the heat recedes, a human embryo nurtured by the oak begins to grow rapidly and split once, twice, a half-dozen times.

  The blast also strikes the two, mysterious clay pillars, and by the power of a voice carried on the shockwave, the flames reshape them. There stands there now two beings of clay: a man and a woman who once frequented this place. Guardians for the tree and the embryos, parents for the children soon to be born.

  A hand moves. A mother smiles. One day the children of her children will fill the land and see the desert turn green once more.

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  Other Books by

  David Alastair Hayden

  Tales of Pawan Kor

  The Tales of Pawan Kor series can be read in any order.

  Chains of a Dark Goddess

  Wrath of the White Tigress

  Who Walks in Flame

  Storm Phase

  This enchanting Asian-inspired fantasy series delivers fast-paced adventure for readers young and old.

  The Storm Dragon’s Heart

  Lair of the Deadly Twelve

  Chains of a Dark Goddess

  Betrayed by friends and abandoned by his goddess …

  Back from the dead and hellbent on saving his beloved.

  In life, Knight Champion Breskaro Varenni zealously served the bright goddess Seshalla. He was a hero and a legend, the greatest knight of the age. But his most trusted friends betrayed him to the swords of infidels, and his goddess abandoned him, denying him Paradise.

  In death Breskaro refused to fade into Oblivion, like lesser lost souls.

  Instead he wandered the Shadowland for seven years until the dark goddess Harmulkot offered him the one thing only she could give, the one thing that still mattered to him...

  A chance to save his precious Orisala from a fate worse than his own.

  Returned as a wreck of embalmed flesh animated by sorcery, with a host of the desperate and the undead under his command, Breskaro will do whatever it takes to save Orisala, no matter the odds and no matter the consequences.

  David Alastair Hayden returns to the exotic land of Pawan Kor, first seen in Wrath of the White Tigress, with this seductive epic of swords and sorcery in the tradition of Brent Weeks, Robin Hobb, Michael Moorcock, and David Gemmell.

  Reader Advisory: This book may not suitable for readers of young adult fiction.

  For Purchasing Information Click Here

  Chapter 1

  The desolate ravine lay deathly quiet in the perpetual twilight of the mist-draped Shadowland, seemingly empty of the demons that preyed on the lost souls trapped there. A man shambled into the gorge. Listless eddies of dust trailed his feet. Head drooping and shoulders hunched, he moved like a sleepwalker, unaware of his surroundings. Once-fine armor hung on his tall frame limply — its bright shine lost to the teeth and claws of countless demons. The sword he drug carelessly behind him bore the nicks and scars of many pointless battles.

  A scaly shadow slithered into place behind a basalt outcrop. It flexed razor talons and flicked a ropy tongue over its rows of jagged teeth. With a hopeful spark dancing in its giant black eyes, it pounced — swift, silent, unseen...

  Expected.

  The man raised his battered shield a heartbeat before the demon landed on top of him. He twisted and deflected the blow, tossing the startled fiend onto the rocks. It scrambled to get back up. It was too slow. With a swift lunge and one smooth motion, the man sliced his blade through the creature’s corded neck.

  The demon faded into Oblivion.

  The man’s clouded eyes cleared as they stared at the spot where the demon had been. He could do that ... let go ... fade into Oblivion.

  No. He shook his head, trying to remember. He was waiting. He had been promised something. He had been promised ... Paradise.

  Sig
hing, he scanned the charred, mist-draped landscape. His eyes turned ashen and cold again like the dead sky above. His body lost its fighting stance and he wandered deeper into the ravine.

  Hours, maybe days, passed. Time had no meaning in the Shadowland, not to him, not to anyone trapped there. A terrified scream shattered the silence. The man ambled forward without urgency. He rounded a bend and spotted the attack.

  A young woman cowered at the back of a shallow crevice. She would have been beautiful in life. Now she was as washed out and grey as everything else here. Only her fear tied her to what she had once been.

  A demon with the body of a huge, decaying leper and the head of a wasp loomed over her. By the patterns left in the settling dust he could tell it had herded her there, playing with its prey.

  He charged. The monster was so intent on its victim that it didn’t even notice him coming. But she did, and her eyes filled with hope. That the fiend did notice. It turned to face the man just in time for him to sink his blade deep into its chest. The demon pawed uselessly at the hilt as it faded.

  The woman scrambled to her feet and threw herself into his arms with a sob. “Oh, thank you. Thank you. It was so awful. You saved me. Thank you, thank—”

  Her hysterical muttering ended with a surprised gasp as his sword slid into her side.

  “This is better,” he said in a distant, monotone voice. “You don’t belong here.”

  She jerked free and staggered back a step before slumping to the ground and fading away.

  He rubbed at the dull ache in his chest and sat on a nearby boulder. The young woman reminded him of something ... someone. A terrible, nightmarish reminder. His eyes glazed back over, and the pain faded. He stood and started down the ravine.