by Deck Davis
The Brotherhood of Fire – could it have been any worse? They worshipped the ever-burning lava fields in the south of the Fire Isle. Parents told their naughty children stories about the lava fields, emphasizing that anyone who went there didn’t come back.
He remembered everything he’d heard. Rituals. Torture. Sacrifice. It was inhumane. They bought criminals by the dozen, putting each of them through their fire trials. Most people died, and the ones who survived became acolytes.
Nobody knew the true reason for the trials. Some said that they worshipped a fire god, while others said it was merely a cover, and that the elder acolytes were sadists. Whatever the answer, Dantis felt sick.
Every part of him wanted to cry out. To protest. To grab the club from the guard, beat him over the head, and make his escape. There must have been something he could do. An illusion, maybe? A diversion?
He focused on the hole in the roof. Maybe if he was quick enough, he could cast an illusion before Lillian realized.
He tried to imagine an illusion of the cracks widening. Maybe if they thought the whole roof was going to crash down, there’d be pandemonium, and he and Ethan could escape.
As much as he tried, nothing happened. He didn’t get the usual feeling he got when he cast illusions. His mana was bottled inside him with a cork in it.
Lillian, the Wolfpine mage, stared at him with his red gem eyes. His smug grin spread wider across his face.
He sank back against the dock, his energy gone. He was a husk, a suit of skin with all vitality drained out. Bander approached the dock, ready to lead Ethan away. Ethan said something to Dantis, but his brain was so muddled he couldn’t make out the words.
A guard approached the dock, and leaned against it, with his back to Dantis and Ethan. He must have been making sure they didn’t try to escape.
The guard opened his palm behind his back to show a small, rolled-up piece of paper. He wiggled his fingers, gesturing for Dantis to take it.
Dantis took the note, and the guard moved away. Before he could read it, Bander faced him.
“Sorry lad,” he said to Dantis. “If I could have bought you, I would. Believe me on that. Justice is a fine thing, but sometimes what happens here isn’t justice. Keep strong; I can read a man, and I don’t see darkness in you.”
Bander’s sentence burned the reality of it deep inside Dantis’s soul. There was no them now; it was only he. Their crimes - their supposed treason – would lead them down different paths, and Dantis’s was darker.
Behind Bander, the Brotherhood of Fire acolyte eyed Dantis. He smiled, and this cruel gesture sent a shudder through him.
Chapter Five
Dantis
“Is your vow of silence for show, or are you a chatty guy when people get to know you?”
The acolyte focused on the landscape ahead, holding the reins in his hand. Whenever the two horses, one chestnut and the other milky-white, slowed, he tugged on the reins.
Wolfpine was a dot behind them now, and the Brotherhood of Fire acolyte steered the cart off the traveler roads, through a field of wheat, around a forest of dead wood, and onto the Road of Repent.
The road had fallen into disuse because of the frequency of bandit hold-ups, skarpion attacks, and mysterious disappearances, but it used to be used to escort criminals to a torture tower in the south. Spectral light whooshed and danced in the air. Some people said they were souls of the dead, and others insisted it was just a trick. Listening intently, Dantis heard voices in the light; whispers of remorse and repent from long dead criminals. I didn’t do it. I’m sorry. It was an accident.
The horses’ hooves clacked on the road. It was the only real sound he heard beside the spectral whispers; there were no birds, no insects, just silence. The humid air made sweat stick to his undershirt.
He looked don, and realized he’d cast his dragonfly illusion in his palm. Its wings flapped against his sweaty skin, but he couldn’t feel anything. Maybe one day, if he lived long enough, he could cast an illusion that he could really touch.
He let the illusion fizz out, saying goodbye to his dragonfly friend. Now wasn’t the time for magic; he needed to take the measure of the acolyte and see if there was a chance to escape. First, he had to get him talking.
“It’s getting dark,” he said. “We better stop soon, don’t you think?”
The acolyte ignored him.
“I know why you take your silence vows. I read about it. Your thoughts are winds that waft your inner fire, and opening your mouth lets them out. That’s right isn’t it?”
The acolyte grunted.
If he couldn’t escape before they reached the Lava Fields, he was done. Even if he didn’t die in their fire trials, acolytes screwed around with flames so much the older ones sported hideous burn scars over their skin.
It was unbelievable that nobody had done anything about the Brotherhood. People had gone missing all over the Fire Isles, and fingers were pointed at the acolytes. No matter how many men, women, and children disappeared, the emperor did nothing. Propaganda leaflets spread around towns like Rotterwell and Wolfpine always proclaimed how the empire was flourishing after the Soul Wars with the nearby island of Patton, yet still he didn’t spend gold or pass laws to stop the Brotherhood. Either the empire wasn’t as rich as the emperor and his officers said, or they had a reason to allow the Brotherhood to exist.
Even if he knew the answer, it wouldn’t help him now. Without Ethan, it was down to him and his wits. He’d thoughts of, and dismissed, a dozen escape plans since they left Wolfpine, but he had to be careful; this wasn’t the justice hall anymore. The acolytes punished wrong doing by branding body parts with scolding iron. Private body parts.
First, he needed to make sure his magic was working now that he was away from Lillian. He focused on a rock ahead of them and to the left. He imagined a mouse peeking out from beyond it, with just its head showing. Such an illusion needed the tiniest scrap of mana, and it should have been easy.
Instead of a warmth where mana flowed from him, he was cold. It wouldn’t come. He straight. Hrrrggghhhhh...no. He couldn’t conjure anything, ever since Lillian, with his damn gem eyes and stupid scepter…
The acolyte tugged the reins. The horses stopped, and the clack of their feet and clicks of the cart wheels stilled. The Road of Repent lay deathly silent.
“Why’ve we stopped?”
The acolyte drew back his hood, so that Dantis saw his face fully. When he did, he almost fell off the cart.
“Renton?”
Renton had a bald head, but his wasn’t shaved like the acolytes. He’d simply lost his hair in his teens. His eyebrows met in the middle, giving him a primal, unkempt look that matched how he lived his life. Renton was a traveler, carefree and always looking to find a new, unexplored place in the Fire Isles so he could write about it in the travel book he planned to publish one day.
He was Dantis and Ethan’s only friend. In fact, he was the only person they trusted enough to label even as an acquaintance. They’d met him in Rotterwell when they’d seen a group of drunken yobs following a girl, and decided to step in. Ethan had made the first move, of course, and Dantis had pushed back his hate of violence to help him.
After that, Renton told them they’d made a friend for life. If they ever needed anything, he’d be there. It turned out to be true.
“What are you doing here?” said Dantis, unable to stop the smile spreading on his face.
“Ethan told me what you were doing, and he wanted a backup plan in case things went to shit. He told me to keep an ear out for any arrests, and to help get you both out of the justice halls if you were arrested.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He said you don’t work well under the pressure. He didn’t want you to think anything could go wrong.”
“I guess he’s right. But what’s with the clothes?”
“I would have just bought you both in the auction, but they wouldn’t let me in. Said I don’t have th
e credentials. Never mind that they let every pimp this side of Rotterwell in there. I once found an acolyte robe when I was travelling near the Lava Fields, so I decided it would be a handy disguise. Even the bloody guards are scared of the Brotherhood.”
Dantis leaned back, feeling the tension leave him. Ethan had worked it all out. He wasn’t going to the lava fields, he wasn’t going to have to suffer a fire trial.
“I could kiss you right now,” he said.
“Buy me a drink, and we’ll talk. Now, Ethan is gonna escape from the heroes’ guild guy, and we’ll meet him in a tavern near Erlick in two days’ time. You heard of the Naughty Old Man?”
“Yeah, we took a room there once. Full of card cheats and whores.”
“It’s a beautiful tavern. Let’s get going. You’re sleeping in a read bed soon, pal.”
“How’s your sister?” said Dantis.
Holding the reins with one hand, Renton squeezed Dantis’s shoulder with the other. “They just accepted her at the Iswell Academy. She talks about you guys nearly every day.”
“We did what any decent person would do.”
“Nope, guy, most people who call themselves decent woulda walked on. They’d have stuck their hands in their pockets and hurried by, trying not to catch the bastards’ eyes so they didn’t get drawn in.”
“It was all Ethan really. He’s the one who charged in; I just followed him. If I’m honest…I don’t know if I would have made the call. I hope I would have, but I don’t know.”
“I respect a man who can say that. But you have bigger balls than you think, Dan-boy. I’ve seen them. But I don’t care what you might have done. I might have become emperor if I’d been born into the right family. I care about what you did. In the end, man, that’s all that really matters.”
“What’s new with you, anyway”
Renton smiled. “I’m getting married.”
“You’re settling down? No way.”
“Yup. Met a girl in the Gasping Falls. I’m moving to her place, and we’re getting hitched.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks. You owe me a hell of a wedding present after this.”
Renton whipped the reins, making the horses gallop faster. He wore a beaming smile, and he looked around to take in the sights of the Road of Repent. For a travel-bug like him, even a pitiful road like this was worth seeing.
Dantis had travelled as much as Renton, but he’d never gone south. He and Ethan stuck to the north, where most of the bigger towns and cities were, hopping from one town to the next whenever they began seeing their faces on wanted posters.
Even though he’d done a lot of travelling, it was never for pleasure, like Renton. They moved out of necessity, always keeping in front of their enemies – whether that be the law, or the people Ethan was convinced were following them.
He used to wish he could explore the Fire Isles. To travel from place to place, seeing the coastal ruins in the west, the dense forests north east. Now, after everything he’d seen, he just wanted a place to settle. A nice cottage where he could live out the rest of his life. Maybe one day.
Soon, Dantis saw something ahead of them. Wait – were there more carts in the distance? A mile further along the Road of Repent were four carts, eight horses, and a bunch of people. Some of them wore black robes.
A lump formed in his throat as he realized who they were. With their black robes emblazoned with flame prints, they could only be one thing; real Brotherhood of Fire acolytes. Four of them.
Dantis banged his head back on the seat. Damn it. How was he supposed to escape now?
“Renton…”
“Seen ‘em. We’ll take a detour.”
As he went to direct the horses to another path away from the road, a silver-furred wolf pranced across the road, and stopped in the middle.
The wolf. He remembered the note the guard gave him in the justice halls; ‘when you see the wolf, run.’
The horses reared at the sight of the wolf, and the cart thudded to a stop, almost tipping him and Renton out of it. Renton reached to the floor and grabbed a crossbow. He locked an arrow in place, then handed it to Dantis.
“I’ve never used a crossbow before.”
“Just keep an eye on the wolf.”
Renton leaned forward and stroked the chestnut horse nearest to him. “Easy, Sheila. Calm down. It’s just a-”
A purple trident of light shot through the air. It buzzed with energy, spreading when it smashed into the cart. Purple flames danced over the wood, charring it. As the horses wheezed and reared the cart tipped over onto its side, and Dantis couldn’t help his fall. He collided into Renton.
They squeezed themselves away from the cart and stood beside it. Renton took the crossbow and looked left to right for the source of the flames.
“What the hell was that?” he said.
“A spell,” said Dantis. “Arcane, maybe, judging by the color.”
Renton sniffed. “Aye, I can smell the mana. But arcane? How do you know that?”
“I like to read about magic.”
“There’s our mage,” said Renton. “Bitch.”
To their right, a hooded figure was standing next to the trunk of a dead tree. She was tall, with curly black hair and pale face. Purple energy sparked around her, and the tree next to her bore scorch marks from her spell. She leaned against the tree in a relaxed pose, as if she was enjoying the moment.
Renton, holding his crossbow with one hand, grabbed Dantis’s arm. “Get down. I’ll try and get a shot.”
Another ball of concentrated mana rushed through the air, ocean blue with waves of white flowing in the centre. As it approached, a chill seeped out from it, wafting over his face like a winter gale.
It smashed into the cart, covering the wood with ice. A blast blew back at Renton, but he ducked quick enough to avoid it. He raised his crossbow and fired a bolt, then watched as it sailed through the air and thudded into the tree next to the woman, inches from target.
In answer, another blue bolt crashed into the cart. Wood creaked as the ice covered it. It split, groaning apart into two. The horses whinnied. One strained at its reins, but it couldn’t pull free.
Ice. She’d switched to ice magic. That was clever. Ice was a perfect counter to fire, and it meant the woman knew two mage disciplines enough to swap between them mid-fight. Whoever she was, she was powerful.
“She’s too much for us,” said Dantis. “We better run. Maybe we can distract her, or…”
He stopped talking, because he had realized something. Renton was silent. In fact, Renton was spread out on the ground, his face coated in thick chunks of ice.
Ahead on the Road of Repent, the other acolyte carriages pounded toward them, horses kicking up dust, robed drivers lashing them with whips.
He shook Renton, but he didn’t stir. The ice thickened around him, forming a freezing mask on his face. His chest was still, his skin lifeless.
The woman left the tree line and headed in a straight line toward Dantis. A fire bolt flew at her from down the road, but she spread her hand, creating a shield of ice. The arrow smashed into it, and the ice shattered, but the woman pressed on unharmed.
Arrow after arrow met shield after shield, and still she walked on. She lowered her hands and then raised them swiftly. The ruined cart flew into the air and crashed twenty yards away, leaving Dantis without protection.
The carriages grew closer now. The woman looked at them. In that briefest of seconds, one of the approaching acolytes loosened a perfectly-aimed shot, and the arrow stuck in the woman’s chest.
She staggered to one knee while flames lapped on her robes. Panic cut deep in her marble face. She smacked at the flames licking her robe and, gritting her teeth, snapped the end of the bolt sticking from her chest.
The carriages drew within ten feet, and robed acolytes aimed their crossbows.
The woman stood up. The flames were gone now. She groaned in pain, then closed her eyes, and when she opened them s
he stood taller, as if she’d compartmentalized her agony. It was strange, but no blood flowed from where the bolt pierced her chest.
Dantis kneeled beside Renton, tugging at the ice around his face. No good, it was stuck. He felt his pulse, but it was still. Poor bastard. Wrapped up in our problems. He came to help me, and this is what he got. Who’s gonna tell his sister? His fiancé?
“I’m sorry, Renton,” he said.
Four robed acolytes raised fire-bolt crossbows at the woman. There’s no way she can get out of this one.
With one sweep of her hand, two carriages flew up, as if sucked into the sky. The acolytes shot up ten meters before crashing to the ground in a heap of broken bones. Seeing this, the remaining two acolytes shot fire bolts from their crossbows.
A wayward arrow skimmed through the air and pierced Dantis’s leg. The sting of the tip met with agony of fire, and the flames lapped over his trousers. He dropped to the ground and rolled. Certain the flames were out, he touched his leg. A shiver of pain ran through him.
The smell of spent mana thickened in the wind. Dantis coughed, covering his mouth until it passed. Acolytes groaned and moaned, while some stayed silent.
Dantis grabbed Renton’s crossbow. The agony left him, replaced by the numbness of shock. He struggled to his feet.
“Don’t move a fucking inch” he said, pointing it at the woman. The crossbow grew heavy in his grip, but he kept it trained on her.
A hand touched his shoulder. With a start, he realized that she was behind him now. Where she had been just a second earlier, the road was empty.
“The carriage,” said the woman. Up close, she smelled of spices, and mana swirled around her like a breeze. She emitted a power so strong the air seemed to tremble with it.
“Carriage? What carriage?” said Dantis.
“There.”
A carriage waited on the road, where there hadn’t been a carriage before. There were no horses in front of it. Had she conjured that, too? Dantis got a serious case of mana envy.
“The carriage,” she said again.
Ahead, the two remaining acolytes jumped on their carriages and whipped the reins. Their black, muscled stallions wheezed and broke into a run. The carriages headed their way, dust and stones flicking up from the wheels.