Knight Of The Flame

by H John Spriggs

  He gasped as another sharp needle of pain made its way through his middle, and he found himself wondering if it was his injury or the master's work that had caused the sensation. His question was answered when Be'Var opened his eyes and removed his hand. "There," he said, "it will hold for the time being." He gave Garrin a serious look. "Keep very still," he said, enunciating every word, "or that will change."

  Garrin nodded, absently. He wasn't really paying much attention to what Be'Var was saying. He trusted the man to keep him alive for now, but he had to focus on what was happening below. "Thank you, Be'Var."

  Be'Var harrumphed in response. The battle for Kepren, far below them, didn't seem to register on his face as he also turned to look over the parapet. Garrin was about to remark on the old man's demeanor when he heard the sounds of small footsteps making their way up the spiral stairs of the spire. He'd sent all three of his runners away, with various messages, in the last twenty minutes. One of them was finally returning.

  He turned to look just as the boy's head emerged from the darkness below. "What is it?" he said, not even waiting for him to get all the way to the roof and announce himself.

  The boy, panting with the effort of climbing the long and steep staircase, sweat running from his red hair down his pale face, didn't appear to notice his sire's temper. "It's confirmed, Sir," he said, ascending the final three steps, "they lost a catapult." His legs were trembling, and he steadied himself against the wall. "The marshal says it was the saboteur."

  "Did they catch him?" Garrin asked.

  The boy shook his head, wiping his face as he did so. "They hadn't when I left, Sir."

  "Can the catapult be repaired?"

  "No, Sir," the boy replied. "They don't believe so."

  So, the engineers in the marshaling yard were down to a single catapult, and the man who had sabotaged the other one was still out there, somewhere. Garrin was about strike the stone wall in aggravation, but then he remembered his injury and what Be'Var had said. The incident would be doubly as bad if it caused him to tear his guts open, too.

  Instead, he nodded. "Is there anything else?"

  "No, Sir," the boy said.

  Garrin was no longer the prince of Kepren. He was now the king. That meant the boy should have been calling him 'Your Majesty' all this time, and not 'Sir'. Garrin had noticed the breach in protocol, of course, but he almost laughed at the thought of correcting the boy. Protocol didn't seem terribly important in the current circumstances.

  "Thank you, Charles," he said. "Sit and rest, while you can." The boy registered some surprise in discovering that the king knew his name, but his expression quickly changed to relief at the mention of sitting down.

  The king's heart sank as he looked out to the West: much of the Guard District—easily a tenth of it—was burning. He didn't know how that had happened. Elements of Black Moon had made their way through several of the barricades, of course, but they didn't appear to have reached any more of the locations where they might encounter barrels of fire-sludge. He supposed that the invading soldiers might have brought their own fire, resistant to it as they were. He wondered why he hadn't considered that possibility before.

  Now, they had gotten into the Grass District—from his vantage, it appeared that most of the invaders had gathered there, in fact—and elements from both that district and the Guard appeared to be converging on the main portal between them, the Grass-Guard Gate. He didn't want Black Moon controlling that gate; if they captured it, they would control all passage between those two districts. He knew that there weren't likely to be enough soldiers in that area to repel the enemy, to keep the currently separated elements from joining forces; too many of his men were still concentrated at the North Gate. He sighed and turned to the runner again. "I'm sorry, Charles," he said, "but I'm afraid you're done resting."

  To his credit, Charles jumped back to his feet, showing no signs of the fatigue he'd exhibited mere moments ago. Garrin had known Charles for a year now. He'd run many errands and messages for him, both personal and military in nature, and had always been reliable and quick. If he ended up as fine a soldier as he was a messenger, he'd probably find himself as a commander, perhaps even a marshal, one day. Garrin had never been prouder of him.

  "Tell Tanner," he said, "Black Moon has taken the Guard District. Tell him that he needs to reinforce the Grass-Guard before—"

  His words were cut off by a mighty explosion, far below. Garrin winced as he spun around to see where it had come from. His eyes were drawn back to the very spot he'd just been worrying about, the gate between the Grass and Guard Districts, where a huge column of black smoke was rising into the air.

  "I don't suppose we did that?" Be'Var said, flatly.

  Garrin closed his eyes and held his hand against the wound in his abdomen, tried to calm his breathing. "No," he said, "we didn't. If only we had a way to—" His eyes snapped open and he turned around, once again grabbing his abdomen in pain. He leaned down and put a hand on Charles's shoulder. "Forget what I said before," he said. "Get down to the marshaling yard and grab some signaling flags. I have a different job in mind."

  ***

  Milo had to concentrate hard on what he was doing, a task which, even in the best of times, wasn't generally easy for him. Creating a gust of wind was fairly easy. Maintaining a steady flow of air was more difficult. Holding two such flows, starting at the same point and separating out in opposite directions, required all his effort.

  "Run through!" Aiella shouted at the panicked soldiers. "You must run through!"

  Milo could understand the mens' hesitation. He was having to pull the air down from above, then force it out in two directions. He was essentially pushing apart the wall of flames that stood between him and the men by creating a vortex in a portion of it. The flames didn't enter the vortex, but they danced around the edges as though they were living things, trying to reach in and close ranks again. A person would have to have a great deal of trust in an air priest to believe he could hold the flames apart long enough for them to get through, unburned. These soldiers didn't even know Milo.

  Most of them did, however, know Aiella, and seeing her beckoning them, shouting at them to run through the void in the fire, seemed to bolster their courage. The dozen or so soldiers, who had been cut off from their own forces on the other side of the huge stretch of fire, hesitated again, then ran as fast as they could through the hole that Milo was holding open.

  When the last man was through, Milo let out a breath and relaxed his need. The void in the flames vanished. He smiled. He'd never done anything quite like that before. It had actually been kind of fun.

  The soldiers all stopped to look at the flames they had just avoided, some of them in obvious disbelief. "Thank you, priest," one of them said to Milo. "I think you just saved our lives." His chain-and-band armor was the same as his fellows', but his spaulders and gauntlets were painted red. Milo figured that meant he was in charge.

  "Of course," Milo grinned. "What are friends for?"

  The man looked at Milo quizzically. An old, white scar on his cheek bunched up as confusion set in. "Are we friends?" he asked.

  Milo opened the grin into a broad smile. He liked the man already. "We are now."

  Aiella approached the pair of them. "You are a lieutenant, yes?" she asked of Milo's new friend.

  He turned to her, seeming glad to have someone else to talk to in that moment. "Yes, Miss Aiella."

  Milo turned to look back at the wall of fire. Somebody was there, just on the other side. He couldn't see who it was, yet, but he could definitely sense a presence stirring the air, and that presence didn't feel right.

  "What are your men doing so far from the gate?" Aiella was asking, behind him.

  "We were keeping an eye on the West Gate," the lieutenant said. "Our task was to send runners to report when the enemy got near, when they started trying for the Grass District in force." He paused. "They came so fast," he continued. "We all ended up being runners."r />
  "You must get through the Grass-Guard, then," Aiella said, matter-of-factly.

  "I'm just glad he was here," the man replied. "At least they won't be able to follow us through the flames."

  "I wouldn't count on it," Milo said, over his shoulder. Whoever it was that was on the other side of the flames, he, she, or they were now coming through. He turned to see the astonished looks on the soldiers' faces. "Run!" he yelled.

  He didn't turn to look at their pursuers, but he could tell by the expressions of the soldiers, looking past him toward the flames, that that something was there. As their expressions turned from relief to panic, each man quickly turned and followed Milo's example. Milo was glad they were all taking his advice. Based on the displacement of air that he felt behind him, he guessed that there were a good three dozen man-sized somethings back there.

  The Grass-Guard Gate was a hundred yards, one right-turn, and then another two hundred yards away. All they needed to do was get through that gate before the bad guys caught up. At that point, they should either meet enough of their own forces to hold the enemy back or, at the very least, they should be able to slam the gate shut and cut off pursuit. He was pretty sure they could make it.

  Of course, the gate could be closed already, by now. The way he'd understood things, the plan was to keep the gates open until there was a reason to close them. The idea was still to try to corral the invaders, and opening the locks on the massive doors took a great deal longer than setting them. Whether they were closed or open now all depended on how things were going on the Guard side of things at the moment, since he was fairly certain nobody even knew there were krealites in the Grass District yet. Milo decided that the orientation of the gate's doors was just something he'd have to deal with when the time came.

  The group came upon the main thoroughfare through the Grass District, then took the right turn toward the gate. Milo snuck a look behind. Everyone was keeping up, for the most part, though four of the soldiers were lagging a bit, and the few dozen krealite men that he'd expected to see were about twenty yards behind them.

  Acting quickly, Milo took a quick look around to see what he had to work with. A handful of barrels, remnants of some merchant's stall, sat at the side of the road, which might make for a good impediment. He hoped the barrels were actually empty as he stopped and summoned a quick gust of wind to knock them over. He was in luck: they were empty, and they clattered to the ground just behind the slower soldiers. Of course, the improvised obstacles wouldn't really do much slow their pursuers at this point, but he was fast enough that he could afford the distraction, and every second he could buy for the others would count when they finally reached the gate.

  Having taken all the action he could for the moment, Milo spun on his heel and started running toward the gate again. Devouring the yards in great strides with a summoned wind at his back, he was near the front of the pack again in just a handful of seconds, and he rewarded the astonished glances of the soldiers with a little wave as he passed them. By the time he was out ahead again, he could see the Guard-Grass Gate looming only a short distance before them. They were in luck: one of the massive doors appeared to be opened toward them, though just a little bit, and the portcullis was raised.

  With a couple of hundred feet separating him from the gate, Milo slowed his pace dramatically and turned so that he was jogging backward. He wanted to be certain that the soldiers all went through the gate before he did. If worse came to worst, they would have a much harder time getting away from the krealites than he would.

  Fifty feet to go. Milo was moving backward a bit faster than was reasonable, but whenever he felt himself beginning to stumble, he caught himself with a little gust of air and kept going. He was now last in line, a few yards behind Aiella and the soldiers, the first of whom was already side-stepping through the narrow opening. Milo felt that bubbly, excited-terrified feeling in his chest; the krealites were getting very close. If they had been normal men, he'd have said he could see the whites of their eyes by now. As it was, there was no white to be seen, just gray, but he could certainly catch the glint of black on some of their blades. Interestingly, only the least-turned of them, those with the lightest hues to their outsides, seemed to have painted the black substance onto their weapons.

  He turned to look at the gate again, getting his bearings. If it had been just him running between the ten-foot-tall doors, he'd have had no problems getting through in time. The gate, however, was only open by a narrow amount, allowing just one person to pass through at a time. He looked back at the mob of krealites coming at him, trying to gauge their relative speeds. He didn't like the odds. With the soldiers stepping through the gate single-file like that, he was definitely going to have krealites nipping at his heels by the time it was his turn.

  Thirty feet. A few more soldiers had made it to the other side of the gate, and now Aiella was stepping through. Milo turned his body so he was facing forward again, but he kept a part of his attention on his pursuers. They were close: too close, in fact. He wasn't going to make it. Rather, he might make it, but not with enough time to close the gate behind him before krealite arms and swords were following him through. He was going to have to be clever again.

  Good. The moments when he got to be clever were always his favorite.

  While concentrating hard on maintaining his pace, he reached behind himself and felt for the air that was trailing behind his running form. When he had a good grasp on it, he felt, deep down, his need to get away, used that need to shape his actions, and grabbed hold of as much of the stuff as he could, scooping it up and pulling it along with him. He felt silly doing it. The action was clumsy and not particularly elegant, like he was holding onto great armfuls of silk as he ran up the street. He was in a bit of a hurry, however, so he decided that feeling silly was a price he was willing to pay.

  Fifteen feet left. From this distance, he could see that the gate was only open a scant couple of feet. Taking the angles into account, he veered off to the left, adjusting his approach so as to come at the opening straight on. This was going to be really close. The last two soldiers were still ahead of him and the krealites were less than two strides behind. He tried pulling another great wad of air along with him, knowing how narrow his escape was likely to be.

  With five feet to go, the last soldier, the lieutenant he'd spoken to earlier, still hadn't cleared the gate's threshold. Milo had rather been hoping he wouldn't have to use the air-ball in the end, but he didn't have much of a choice now. Holding his breath, Milo bounded with all his strength, throwing himself forward. He felt a bit sorry for the lieutenant as he crashed into the man's back, knocking both of them through the opening together. The cleverness, however, manifested while Milo was in the process of passing between the doors, before the lieutenant had even hit the ground. Still holding tight to the ball of air, Milo smiled as he felt it catch the open door. He didn't know just how much force he'd been pulling along with him in the end, but it slammed the door shut with a massive bang, knocking over a cart, which had, apparently, been holding it open.

  Milo did his best to put both himself and his unfortunate passenger into a roll, trying to soften the landing, but the lieutenant's armor wasn't terribly conducive to gymnastics. Once the two of them had clattered to the ground, he quickly disentangled himself, sprang to his feet, and turned to make sure somebody was keeping the gate closed.

  He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that other soldiers, who had apparently been waiting just behind the doors after having passed through them, were already throwing the metal bars down across the huge, wooden portal. They were just in time, too, as was evidenced by a huge clattering sound and a bucking of the doors that announced that the pursuing Black Moon soldiers were smashing against the now shut portal. Milo smiled, imagining how funny they looked piling up on the other side.

  "Back away!" came a voice from the gatehouse, and when the last of the soldiers had put a few feet between themselves and the gate, the hea
vy, iron portcullis came crashing down into place.

  "That sounded like a close call," came a voice from behind.

  Milo turned with a big smile on his face. "Caymus!" he said, "I thought you were up on the north side of this mess." Milo's old friend had changed a great deal in the last few days. The orange eyes, the animated mark on the back of his hand, and the flaming sword were fierce additions to his character, but Milo could still discern the aspiring fire-priest in that face, and he was glad to see him.

  The face nodded, looking very serious. "I was," he said. "We held them off for a good while, but the gate is mostly rubble now, so they've been looking for other ways in."

  Aiella, panting after their narrow escape, walked toward him, her hands on her hips. Milo thought she looked quite pretty today, despite the leather tunic she wore and having her hair tied back in a ponytail. "And so you came to this spot?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.

  Caymus's lip turned up at one end in a half-smile. His right hand was clutching that fiery sword of his, but he lifted his left hand to indicate the back of his neck. "I just followed this."

  Milo found himself absently nodding. He envied Caymus's ability to sense the krealites, even if the sensation was a bit uncomfortable. Of course, if following the buzzing was what had landed him in this spot, the obvious conclusion was that they were standing right next to the single largest gathering of krealites in the city. "So, now that we're all here," he said, turning to look at the massive gate, "what's the plan?" As he looked at the gate, he wondered why they weren't making more noise on the other side.

  "We hold the gate," Aiella said. Even as she said it, more of Kepren's soldiers started appearing from the streets around the gate. Only a few looked as though they hadn't seen any fighting yet. The rest looked worn down and very tired.