The Prince of Earthen Fire

by B C Penling

  Orderic’s face was loose and he stared at the wall.

  “I can smell elf here,” he hissed. “I know an elf has been here recently. I can smell her all over you.”

  “I’m not sure I can answer that in the entirety. I know not which elf you seek.”

  “Young female, dark hair and brown eyes,” he pressed. "Lived in Arbortown."

  Lana swallowed dryly. He was looking for her. She must have been right about the attack at Meridsani. They were pursuing her.

  Orderic drew on his pipe and blew the smoke out his nostrils.

  “I take your silence as confirmation,” the general said with a sneer of vicious pleasure. “Did she have anything with her?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re asking about,” Orderic replied. “What is it that you seek?”

  The Warisai’s lip curled sinisterly. “I want answers,” he said spitefully. “Perhaps I need to fetch your wife or daughter to help us figure this out. Or,” he paused, “both? Those puny door locks won't protect them. And neither can you.”

  “That’s unnecessary, General Donovan,” Orderic said flustered. “I was only trying to get specifics from you.” Orderic took a deep breath to calm himself. “People travel with a lot things. I was only trying to narrow down your search.”

  “Of course it’s unnecessary to you,” the general sneered. “You don’t want to repeat history.” He chuckled deeply, with a disturbing pleasure. “Tell me what she has!” he barked impatiently.

  “She had clothing and a sword,” he said stammered quickly.

  “Is that all?” Donovan stepped closer to Orderic. His leather cloak swayed from side to side enhancing his threatening stalk.

  “That’s all I saw.”

  “Is she alone?”

  The words echoed in Lana’s thoughts. Fear gripped her further, ripping at her insides. Zen… He was crippled.

  “A dragon, perhaps?” Donovan asked. He stroked Orderic's jawline with the back of his claw.

  Lord Orderic nodded, his face petrified with fear and dread.

  “Where?”

  “Stables, the dragon is in the stables,” Orderic mumbled. “He’s been injured.”

  “And the girl?” Donovan pressed him, his yellow eyes rabid with excitement.

  “Last I saw, she was on her way to the marketplace.”

  “Do not leave this house,” Donovan demanded. “If you so much as look out a window, I’ll have your head. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll go to your room and stay there.”

  Lana took a step back. She had to get out of there. She had to warn Zen. They must escape.

  A hand clamped down over her mouth and she was pulled back away from the peephole. She would have screamed if it weren’t for the kind words whispered in her ear.

  “Shh,” she hissed. “You have to get out of here while you still can.”

  “Vyrdessa?” The hand was removed from her mouth and she turned around.

  “Quickly,” she said, grabbing Lana’s arm and leading her to the hidden door.

  They heard the library door shut and Donovan’s feet thundering down the staircase. They exited the passage and slid quietly into Lana’s room. “Get a coat and go out the back window. Use the lattice to climb down,” Vyrdessa said, shoving Retribution into her hand. “Get your dragon and go as far away as you can. This place isn't as safe as we pretend it to be.”

  “I’m sorry, Lana.”

  Lana whirled around. Lord Orderic stood with a mortified expression. “Your hospitality is like poison. How could you?”

  “He killed our daughter, Benali, in front of our own eyes with the dagger that was at his waist,” Orderic said. “He held her head against his chest and slit her throat from ear to ear. If that wasn’t enough to watch, he burned her while her life still lingered. He threatened to do the same to Vyrdessa and Farisa if I don’t give him what he asks for.” Tears streamed his face. “For a while, I forgot all about him. Forgot about the trouble that follows their cursed footsteps. We had you stay here and I felt hope. Hope that we'd be liberated from our fears. That’s something I haven’t felt in a long time.”

  “I can’t help but feel betrayed,” she hissed. “You’re a traitor to all of the civilizations of Ancienta and all of Dagan.”

  “I gave him ships so he’d spare my people. I bargained…”

  “Those ships carried my dead family and friends, my parents, my brothers, to their heathen lands. Their blood still stains them,” Lana interrupted.

  Lord Orderic look horrified at the revelation.

  “Think about what will happen when your usefulness runs its course. Your life is nothing but a debt to be paid," Lana spat.

  “He killed my daughter. She was gifted with that of foresight. He forced her to give his fortune. It was only my daughter, Donovan, and I inside that small cottage. She mentioned an elf that would come to possess a powerful trinket; a trinket that would contain the power of an ancient, a trinket that could be used for ill purpose. At much prodding she drew a picture with the likeness of you. If he gets his hands on you, all will be lost. Our hope lies with you. You must leave quickly and quietly. Take Zen and run for the mountains.”

  “Are you actually helping us or doing so for personal gain?” Lana said bitterly through clenched teeth.

  “Helping you is one way I can defy them. I lied and said the last I knew, you were on your way to the marketplace. If I told him you were in your room, you’d be in his grubby hands right now. Leave, and don’t let him catch you, at all costs, don’t. I don’t know what you have or if you have anything he seeks; and I don’t want to. Now get out of here before we waste so much time it’s too late for both of you.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a dull object. He handed it to Lana and wrapped her hand around it.

  “Take this, please,” he said. “It was my daughter’s ring that she always wore. It was the only thing left after…among the ashes. Please, forgive any wrongdoing of mine. I truly am trying to help. We’ve been peaceful for centuries. We’ve forgotten how to fight. Courting the enemy was the only thing I could do to save the rest of my family and my people.” He walked into the corridor and extinguished the lamps. “Quickly,” he hissed, waving her toward him. “I don’t want him happy. The sneer on his lizard lips made my stomach churn. Run. Run far away from here, far from him and everything like him.”

  The palm of her hand panged suddenly and the ring began to hum softly as if the very soul of Benali called to her, urging her to trust her father and run. The hum turned into a tingle and the tingle crept up her arm. She shoved the ring into her pocket.

  “We people in Eyzin are not faithful to the Warisai. If the time comes to fight alongside others, we will make the attempt. Remember that. Now go!” Vyrdessa ushered Lana toward the window. “Quickly, carefully lower yourself down. The lattice is strong enough.”

  Lana peered out the window. There were no Warisai and it was eerily quiet. She swung her legs over the sill and jumped. She landed quietly on the lawn below and darted straight to the stable. There were no sounds. No Warisai, yet. She entered the stable and roused Zen.

  “We need to leave, right now," she whispered quickly. "Warisai are here and they'll be coming for both of us.”

  Zen grabbed Lana around her midsection and pushed her onto his back. He crawled out the stable’s opening, cautious not to displace his wing, and ran sunwake.

  “They’ll see your footprints,” Lana whispered.

  “Unfortunately,” Zen said with a hushed voice.

  He picked up his pace into a run that rivaled the speed of racehorses. For six miles he kept the pace along the road to the forest. His long strides helped them reach the location where the densely growing trees swallowed the road with their shadows that were cast by the moon above. They traveled swiftly, putting as many miles between them and Warisai.

  “We need to find a place to hide,” Lana said.

  “Just hold on,” Zen said. “I’ll go as far as I
can and then we’ll hopefully find a place.”

  She detected discomfort in his voice and guessed it was from his wing. Unfortunately, they had no other choice but to flee on foot or else one would face death and the other an uncertain future. They had gone twelve miles without a hint of Warisai. Lana hoped Zen could keep up the pace and keep it that way.

  By daybreak they reached the foot of the Alven Mountains and began traversing the foothills before moving steadily up the rocky ascent. Zen drove himself with anger; a deep surging anger at the creatures that killed Mailaea and now pursued them, and anger toward Thalassinus for breaking his wing and crippling him. A cool wind blew in his face, inviting him to soar upon it. For the first time in his life, he had to decline.

  Lana contemplated the encounter with Orderic. He was playing on both sides; a survivalist. Where did his loyalties truly lie? With the winners of a war that had yet to begin? He had given her their daughter’s ring that was tarnished from the flames that devoured her flesh. Why? Did he want his daughter avenged or was it a ploy to gain her empathy? Did Benali ever exist?

  Lana looked behind them. Port Eyzin was far behind. Were they even still alive? They did help her escape. Was it at the expense of their lives?

  Zen climbed and scrambled along what he believed to be an old trade trail. It was unkempt but wide enough for him so he continued over rockslides and around boulders. Wherever he could, he would knock away supporting rocks to cover the path behind them. The pathway wrapped around a peak and then snaked along a ridge, headed the south.

  Lana looked sunrest. The view was awe-inspiring with the coastal city beside the forest, the harbor and the expanse of ocean beyond.

  Miss Lana, look at the treeline! Caeda commented. They’re definitely following us.

  Panic jumped into her throat at the sight of black figures filtering from the trees and following their path into the mountains. It was unnerving. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Warisai were already on the pathway and more followed.

  “Zen, I can see them,” Lana cried fearfully.

  The ridge intersected another larger mountain that scaled steeply into a snowy peak high above them. The pathway split, one path led sunwake and the other continued south. Zen went left, taking the sunwake trail that wound its way along the side of a steep mountain.

  Zen quickened his pace along the treacherous path. It rounded its northern face and rose toward a flattened ridge that was dwarfed by the taller peaks adjacent to it and beyond. The evidence of rockslides increased, making the security of the trail questionable but Zen pressed on; up and over mounds of shale that shifted beneath his talons. He kept going strong and didn’t slow despite the growing winds and unreliable terrain that perched precariously alongside a cliff. Along the sunwake face of the mountain, past a sweeping curve in the path, he stopped.

  The valley far below them cradled the stretching shadows as Sunwake bade goodnight to the world. A sparkling azure lake was far below them and many trees inhabited the rugged range. Pinkish clouds began to shroud the peaks in their nighttime ritual.

  They stared in disbelief at the trail in front of them, or lack thereof. They had reached a dead-end. The path had fallen victim to a massive rockslide that cascaded it to the lake below. Zen punched the ground in frustration and growled.

  “What should we do now?” Lana asked. “Go back?”

  “And get eaten?” Zen spat, breathing heavily from exertion. He looked around frantically for ideas, an escape, something that could get them out of their position. He turned on the spot a couple times and desperately looked for an answer.

  “I didn’t see another way,” Lana said desperately.

  “Neither did I, except all the way back where the trail forked south,” Zen replied, spinning around. “I’ll just have to make one. Hold on.”

  Lana held onto the straps on the saddle and pressed herself back against his spike. He lunged forward and leapt onto the steep side of the mountain. His legs sank deep into the shale as it parted beneath his weight. He grappled with the rocks for a few harrowing moments before making any progress up the side of the mountain’s rounded peak.

  Once he was away from the edge, he walked steadily up the side, sinking up to his knees and elbows as he went. Halfway up, he stopped and turned around. His tracks stood out like scars on a face. You couldn’t help but notice it.

  Zen swept his tail along the shale causing a small rock slide that swallowed up most of his tracks. Higher up he went and repeated it all the way to the top. It wasn’t perfect but hopefully it would help. Upon cresting the mountain, Zen realized that most of the peak had crumbled away and had taken the path along with it. He walked along the ridgeline and found where the path began again.

  “There,” he said. “We’re not doomed afterall.”

  He cautiously slid his way down the mountain to the ridge over the path. He examined the stability by looking beyond and below at the slope that supported it. He slid slowly from the ten foot ridge and onto the pathway. He walked slowly and cautiously along the trail, not entirely trusting its solidity.

  The air had grown cooler and more damp, the ground as well. He walked around a sharp turn in the trail. They heard it before they saw it. A rapid river tumbled and cascaded down the mountain’s north face and fed a lake in the draw between the mountain and the spur. From there it turned into a massive waterfall that thundered down the draw and jetted over the mossy ledge above the path and plummeting into the lake far below. Its source high above them was hidden by thick clouds that always engulfed the peak, one of the largest in the Alvens.

  “What a magnificent sight,” Lana awed.

  “Thank Magnen, I could really use a drink,” Zen said, walking briskly toward the waterfall along the narrowing path. Zen stopped beneath it in a moss-filled niche and put his mouth in the waterfall, drinking deeply until he had his fill. He took a deep breath.

  “That smells so nice. I'd love to stop and stay here if I felt we'd be safe,” he said, exiting the mountainside grotto. “I think we should keep moving though.”

  The pathway widened again and rounded a corner along the top of a sheer cliff. He looked over the side at the near vertical drop to the lake below. “Whoever built this path must’ve been either insane or had wings.”

  Shouts echoed in the ravine, instantly grabbing their attention. Lana barely caught a glance of the Warisai on the other side before Zen moved quickly around the corner. Fear hazed her thoughts and fostered a tumult of questions that rushed through her head, one after another. Although she believed she would meet her family once more, she began to fear death.

  Was that what humans felt all the time? Did they contemplate death and what followed? What if there is nothing after life? Will I meet an absolute end or will I experience the Life After in all its extravagance? Will Zen be with me? It’s my fault he’s here…

  Where do dragons go when they die?

  “We return to the earth,” he said softly.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ask that aloud.”

  You didn’t, said Caeda with a curious tone.

  Zen stopped short and growled. “Lana, you’ll have to continue alone. It’s too narrow for me.”

  The path had suddenly tapered to the width of a person, no longer capable of fitting a dragon on it.

  “No, Zen,” she cried. “I’m not leaving you!”

  Zen backed up and turned around in a wider spot.

  “This might be your only chance of escape, Lana,” he replied. “I don’t want to watch you die.”

  “I don’t want to watch you die either, Zen,” Lana replied. “You’re the only family I have. I’d rather die beside you than live my life knowing that I abandoned you to die alone. I’m with you. Wherever you decide to go, I’m staying with you.”

  Zen looked at her with deep admiration. He smiled. “You’re my only family, too. Until the end?”

  “Always and forever,” Lana replied sternly. “Look out!”

  Zen ducked tow
ard the mountain as an arrow zipped past his head. A Warisai archer had just rounded the curve in the path, a fatal mistake. Zen unleashed his deadly fire breath and cremated him on the spot, leaving nothing more than a smoldering pile of ash and singed bones.

  A mob of Warisai came around the corner and joined the archer in a pile on the ground. A few more waves of Warisai and the pile grew. The more he killed, the more came. The pile grew savagely but didn’t deter them. They pressed forward in their onslaught that lasted half an hour.

  “We can’t stay here forever, Zen,” Lana said. “We need to get out of here.”

  “I know,” Zen said. “I’m thinking.”

  That was the only place they had to go. Behind them was too narrow for him and before him was the enemy. Beside him was a cliff littered with scree and beyond them was the same. Only there was water at the bottom…

  “I have an idea,” he said. “It’s a gamble.”

  “It’s probably better than being stuck here,” Lana cried.

  Zen torched another group of Warisai that hadn’t learned from the fate of the others.

  “Hold on,” he said firmly. “I’m jumping!”

  “What?” Lana screamed, shocked. She adjusted the shoulder loops, made sure her feet were secured in the stirrups, and grabbed onto the straps in front.

  “Hold on tight!” Zen’s white flame issued forth and charred the next wave of Warisai. He determined they were timed and had a feeling they were spacing their attacks intentionally, waiting for him to tire.

  He charged through the ash and smoke that used to be their enemies. Despite the growing darkness, it was easy for him to determine where the ledge ended. His hands landed on the edge, followed by his hind feet. He pushed off with all the strength he could muster and launched off the ledge.

  A moment of weightlessness ensued.

  Zen clawed at his belly to break the ropes that bound his broken wing. He tore the bottom half of the sail that was his sling. For a moment, Lana thought he was going to start flapping and fly far away from them but it wasn't a realistic anticipation.

  Instead, he held the corners of the sail with his legs and spread the wings on his tail. The sail cradled his wing which collected enough air to prevent them from plummeting too quickly.