Knight Of The Flame

by H John Spriggs

  As a group, they moved toward the face of the mountain, stepping gingerly over rubble and the dead alike while shooing flies away from their faces. Bridget was still holding Gwenna's hand, squeezing it tightly.

  Gwenna couldn't see the entrance itself. The surface they now stood before was as flat and featureless as it was perpendicular to the ground. For a dozen yards, not only to the left and right, but also up above them, the smooth, stone surface continued until it abruptly ended and became the natural, jagged rocks of the mountain. The entire shelf that the encampment sat upon, combined with this flat, up-and-down wall, gave the impression of the mountain having been a large cake from which some immense force had carved a piece.

  Gwenna still couldn't find the doors, though. The last time she had looked upon this wall, a massive pair of stone doors had stood here, extending in a large arch that was over a dozen feet high. She'd glanced those doors half-a-dozen times, and they'd always stood at least partially open. Now, they were simply gone.

  "They were here before," she said, running her hand along the surface. "I swear they were."

  "I'm sure they still are," said Be'Var. He was looking very closely at the stone, his face mere inches from it. "The mitre can do some very impressive things with earth, but I doubt they'd actually make the only way in disappear completely."

  "Unless that's how they kept the creatures out," said Caymus.

  "Maybe," said Be'Var, "but from what I know of the mitre, actually sealing up rock like that takes a little while, too long for them to do it as a reaction to an attack, anyway."

  As the rest of the group also felt the stone, the master traced circles upon it with his eyes, obviously looking for something. "There must be a small gap somewhere," he said. "I wonder if someone sensitive enough could find a draft." He turned around, saying, "Milo, could you—" He looked around, as did the others. Milo was nowhere to be seen.

  "Slag and Cinder!" said Be'Var, "where's he gone now?"

  "Leave him be," said Y'selle, gently, "he's done more than earn his keep, wouldn't you say?"

  Be'Var grumped, then turned back to the wall. "Yes," he said, "I suppose." Then, he suddenly turned to Caymus. "Boy, what are you doing?" he said.

  Gwenna looked at Caymus. He had his eyes shut, his head cocked to one side, as though listening for something. She looked down at his right hand and saw that his index and middle fingers were twitching. He had a tendency to do that when he was working with the Conflagration.

  "Feeling for the entrance," he said. "There has to be less fire in the space between the doors, right?"

  Be'Var looked almost pleased, but not quite. "I wouldn't count on it," he said. "I'm not sure how it is they build these place, but—"

  "Be'Var!" Milo's voice interrupted, from the other side of the camp. "Be'Var, come here, and quick!"

  The group made a mad dash across the encampment, each of them occasionally calling out, trying to locate the air priest. They ran through three sets of broken buildings and tents, trying not to see the bodies on the ground, until they rounded a still-standing wall and found Milo squatting next to a large flap of blue tent canvas that was draped over what was left of some masonry.

  "What?" said Be'Var. "What is it?"

  Milo motioned for them to come closer and then lifted up a corner of the canvas. Underneath were three mitre bodies.

  Gwenna was struck by the paleness of their skin. The complexions of mitre were always light to begin with—all the time they spent underground was sure to leave a mark on them—but these people, two men and a woman, were almost white. Their huge, lean bodies were pressed close together on the ground. As was typical of mitre, they had no hair, not even eyebrows, and they wore very little in the way of clothing: leather leggings, cut off at the knees, and a short-cut tunic for the woman. Gwenna was struck at the difference between these bodies and the humans they had seen earlier. They showed no signs at all of the decay or bloating.

  Then, Gwenna realized why Milo had called them over so insistently: very slowly, their chests were moving, rising and falling with barely perceptible breaths.

  They were still alive.

  "Caymus," said Be'Var, urgently, as he pushed past Milo into the makeshift tent, "get in here."

  Caymus did as he was told. For a moment, Gwenna was surprised by how quickly he moved, how little hesitation he showed as he ducked under the canvas that Milo held up for him.

  Gwenna felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Y'selle looking past her and Bridget at the scene that was playing out. "Come, ladies," she said to them as she turned around and walked back toward the wagon. "If he manages to revive them, they'll be thirsty."

  The three women moved quickly. Gwenna tried not to think about the corpses she was stepping around as she went. She looked over at Bridget, who still looked ill, her face a ghostly shade of white and her eyes wide.

  "Bridge?" she said, trying her best to look sympathetic.

  Bridget didn't look back, keeping her eyes straight ahead as though afraid to see the place through which they were walking. "They're all dead," she said, her voice faint. "All of them. Even that sweet little boy."

  Gwenna swallowed hard. "You saw him?" she asked.

  Bridget opened her mouth, then shut it again. She just nodded.

  Gwenna knew the boy she was talking about. When they had passed through here on their way north, they had placed their wagon near a small family that had recently set up a stall selling small pieces of jewelry that they made out of shells and colored stones. The parents had been in their thirties. They'd had two children, the youngest of which had been somewhere between five and ten years old. He'd been quiet, but bright and inquisitive, and Bridget, in particular, had liked him a lot.

  Gwenna was grateful she hadn't seen the body. She'd never been more grateful for anything in her whole life.

  When they reached the wagon, Matron Y'selle climbed onto the driver's bench and motioned for the girls to lead the horses. Gwenna took hold of Feston's harness, and she and Bridget together started moving the wagon—and the precious water it contained—back toward the mitre.

  About halfway there, they reached a point that was too narrow to fit the wagon through. Rather, it was too narrow to navigate without having to drive over a pair of sun-scorched bodies. Gwenna was hugely relieved when Rill and Milo appeared before them and, without being asked, started quietly moving the corpses from their path and tucking them under the folds of fallen tents. Every few yards, they did it again, going about the task with solemn silence.

  Gwenna hadn't thought much of Rill when she'd first met him. He wasn't stupid, but he seemed directionless, as though he had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. Her evaluation of his character quickly changed, however, as he and Milo worked, picking up and dragging the bloated bodies so that she and Bridget wouldn't have to. She mouthed the words "thank you" when she caught Rill's gaze. He just nodded.

  By the time they had stopped the wagon in front of the section of tent that covered the three mitre, Caymus had emerged and was walking toward them. "Water?" he said to Y'selle, who turned around and picked up one of the small containers, which she handed down to him. Gwenna recognized the little cask with the long scratch around its middle. She'd filled it herself with packed snow the previous day.

  "Thank you," said Caymus, tucking it under his arm. "They're awake," he continued, turning his head to address the group as best he could. "Be'Var says they'll be fine, they're just dehydrated." Then, he turned to take the water to his new patients.

  Gwenna moved to follow him, but Y'selle called for her to stop. "They're probably not quite ready to meet all of us yet," she said, dropping back down off the bench.

  "You're...dirty." It was Bridget who spoke. Gwenna turned to see her pointing at Milo. He'd gotten dried blood on his beautiful sky-blue tunic.

  "He's going to get dirtier," said the Matron, assessing both him and Rill. "Come on," she said. "Our hosts will be up and about eventually." She looked a
round at the scene around them, and sighed. "We should take care of these poor souls before the sight of them causes any further anguish."

  Several hours later, filthy and exhausted, Gwenna found herself standing before a giant mass of flames as the bodies they had collected, thirty-seven in all, burned themselves out of the world. She stood next to Caymus, leaning on him, her arm crooked around his. He felt solid and warm. She was glad he was there.

  The entire group, everyone but Be'Var, stood before the funeral pyre, observing the solemnity of the moment with their silence. They had built the pyre at the northern edge of the shelf, as far from the road and the camp itself as possible. Caymus had placed a torch to it just as the last light of the sun had disappeared behind the horizon. Gwenna thought it should smell different, the burning of all those bodies and the cloth and tent fabric they were wrapped in. But she didn't smell anything but woodsmoke and her own sweaty skin.

  She looked around at the group. Bridget had regained her composure some time after they'd started cutting up tent fabric into shrouds for the dead. She'd claimed she'd felt better when she knew that the little boy's body would be taken care of. She stood the closest to the flames, Y'selle close behind her. Rill sat on the ground, hugging his legs to his chest as he watched the flames do their work. Milo sat cross-legged next to him. He'd said that the people he came from tended to bury bodies, rather than burn them, but hadn't given voice to any complaint.

  Be'Var, as far as she knew, was still on the other side of the camp, talking to the mitre, who were, by now, up and about. He'd spent most of his time with them that evening, making sure they didn't run into any complications as they drank and rested and slowly re-hydrated their bodies. She wondered how they'd come to be there, the three of them amongst naught but humans. She wondered about the creatures that had so obviously been here, about the one trapped in the cave several miles down the road, and why it was they had to just show up and start killing people. It didn't seem right. It didn't make sense.

  She tried to push the thoughts out of her mind as the members of the little group, one by one, turned and moved back in the direction of the wagon and the surviving mitre. Eventually, only she and Caymus remained.

  "Why did they do it?" said Caymus. "Why do they attack us?"

  Gwenna was surprised to hear her own thoughts passing his lips, but she couldn't find any pleasure in it. "I hate them," was all she said. Then she squeezed his arm. "We should get back," she continued, and they both turned around and walked in the direction of the others.

  When they reached the camp, they saw that a small campfire had been set up near a freshly erected tent. The three mitre all sat on the ground on one side of it while the rest sat on boxes, stones, or other makeshift chairs. One of the mitre men was speaking as they approached and sat down.

  "I had been studying the Ritual," he was saying, speaking to Be'Var, but occasionally turning to the others in order to include them as well. "My teacher had been asking me to take my turn, and I had been there for hours with Er'ken and my sister, Muria." Gwenna didn't know what 'the Ritual' was, though she expected, coming from the mouth of a mitre, that it had something to do with the worship of the earth element. She had learned, earlier in the day, that the speaker's name was Merkan.

  "They came fast," he continued. "There was shouting and screaming, and the call came through the halls to go to the Center."

  "The Center?" asked Milo. He was doing something with a piece of leather in his hands as he listened.

  Merkan paused for a moment. He didn't seem to know what Milo was asking, so Be'Var spoke up. "Think of the Center like the keep in a castle. It's the most heavily defended place in their city," he said. "Now hush," he continued. "Let him speak."

  Merkan nodded toward both of them, with a slight smile for Be'Var. "As we ran for the Center, we saw them, the monsters. They were like giant insects, with swords for claws and skulls for heads, and five of my people were trying to fight one of them off. So frightening." His face grimaced, looking angry at the memory. "I couldn't believe what my eyes saw. Within moments, they had cut down two of my friends. I told Er'ken to take my sister to the Center and I ran to help the ones that remained."

  Gwenna looked at the three of them. They seemed so much taller, now that they were no longer lying down. They were all fit and well-muscled, and she had trouble imagining them being frightened of anything.

  "I brought my blade to bear and I ran at the monster, knocking it over onto the ground." He raised a closed fist and made a stabbing motion. "The blade, though, it could not get through, as though the monster wore the thickest armor. I struggled to keep it down, to keep it pinned on the floor. I yelled at the others to go, but they would not leave me." He shook his head. "They tried to help me, but they had no training in a warrior's arts, and so they did not know how." Then, he lifted his arm up in front of his face, rotating his hand left and right. "One of my friends, I saw his fingers were cut off as he tried to hold on to it also." His voice drifted off slightly at that, as though he were lost in the memory. "I don't know what happened to him."

  After a moment, he dropped his hand. "When that happened, I pushed it again, pinned it against the wall." He made the stabbing motion again. "I tried again to pierce the monster's armor." He paused, holding his hand at the bottom of the stabbing arc. "I could not get a good swing, though. All I could do was press into the armor. And as I pressed, the blade began to pass through." He dropped his hands to the ground. "Slow at first, but then quickly, the blade sank to the hilt."

  Milo had dropped the piece of leather by now. "You actually got a knife into one of them?" he said, his eyes wide. Be'Var was looking cross again, but Milo pushed on anyway. "How? I must have fired twenty arrows at those things, at the weakest points I could see, and they all just bounced off."

  Merkan looked at Milo and shook his head. "I do not know," he said. "It was as though the quick motion," he brought his hands up and clapped them together, "could not get through the armor, but the slow press could. I do not understand it."

  "What happened after that?" said Be'Var.

  Merkan continued. "The monster disengaged. I heard it gasp, then it got away from me and it ran," he said. "We did not follow. We ran to the Center, but when we got there, we found the doors were shut and barred, and many more of the monsters were moving around outside, trying to get in."

  Gwenna shuddered. She remembered all-too-well a very similar situation.

  "So," Merkan continued, "we fled out here, among the dead men and women." At that point, he suddenly dropped his head, putting his hands to his forehead. "I am so sorry that we did not bury them properly, and I ask your forgiveness."

  "It's fine," said Be'Var, in a surprisingly gentle voice. "You had other things on your mind."

  "Thank you," said Merkan, raising his head again. "Yes, we fled here nearly a week ago. We made camp, and we have occasionally gone back inside to see if things have changed, but the monsters are still inside. Our families and neighbors are still locked away in the Center." He looked in the direction of the mountain. "We sealed the door so that the monsters would not surprise us as we slept and waited."

  "Waited for what?" asked Be'Var.

  "For anything," Merkan replied. "We had no weapons to fight, no way to reach our people. We had to wait for something to change so that we could rescue those who are trapped. The Center has food, water, ventilation for many, many weeks, but they cannot leave that place without help. The circumstances prevented us from helping our families, so we waited for the circumstances to change."

  "Earth is a very patient sort of element," Be'Var said in response to questioning looks he was getting from Caymus and Rill.

  Merkan nodded, then raised his eyes, looking at the darkening sky. "Then," he said, "the snow came." He ran a hand over his bald head. "We were not prepared for that."

  Gwenna thought she saw the other male mitre shudder at the mention of the snow.

  "We made a cover for ourselves as bes
t we could," Merkan continued, "stayed together for warmth." He looked directly at Be'Var. "My next memory is of seeing you, Master Be'Var." Then, he took a deep breath, and his eyes took on a slightly pleading quality. "My family, friends, the entirety of my people are trapped in the Center of Otvia, with monsters I do not know how to fight hunting outside. Do you bring new circumstances? Can you help us?"

  Be'Var was quiet, appearing deep in thought.

  "We have to!" said Caymus. The look Be'Var gave him signified what Gwenna was sure the rest of them must have been thinking: of course we have to help, but how?

  "You have a suggestion?" Be'Var said, a look of frustration in his furrowed brow. "We can't burn them down without the help of the Conduit, and aside from what Merkan just told us about his knife, I've never heard of anyone being able to hurt one physically before. If you have an idea about how to take on a dozen of these things at once, I'd be glad to hear it."

  Caymus seemed like he was about to say something back, then stopped himself and frowned. He turned to Merkan. "Earlier, you said your friends weren't warriors. Does that mean you're some manner of soldier?"

  Merkan nodded. "I received training in the Mael'vek nation's regular army. I was apprenticed there for seven years and thought I had measured myself in every kind of combat." His eyes seemed to glass over slightly, as if remembering something. "These creatures though, I have a hard time describing the way they fight, but I believe that is only my training that left me alive to be speaking to you about it now."

  "Your relative size probably had a little to do with it as well," said Be'Var, absently.

  Merkan nodded again. "Your point is taken, Master Be'Var."

  Gwenna didn't know much about Mael'vek, the city that controlled an empire, far to the south of Kepren. She knew that the two cities, Kepren and Mael'vek, had warred with each other frequently over the territory between them in the last few hundred years or so, and she'd heard that Mael'vek's warriors were among the fiercest in the world. The thought that even a mitre, trained by Mael'vekians, was barely a match for one of these things sent chills up her spine.