Chaos Trapped

by Eric T Knight

  “Go get the terl,” he told his friends. “I need to talk to him right away.”

  Before his friends could gallop off, Hulagu pointed toward the front of the wagon train. “Here he comes.”

  Dashin galloped up and pulled alongside the wagon.

  “This fire is Kasai’s doing,” Karliss told him.

  The terl looked from him to the fire and back again. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “It’s going faster than we are. How long do you think before we can make it to the river?”

  “Around midday. Faster if we abandon the wagons.”

  Karliss looked at the terl sharply. The man looked calm, but he had to be pretty worried if he was even suggesting such a thing. The loss of the wagons and all their gear would be a devastating blow for the clan. It was a blow they might not survive.

  Right then there was a gust, and the wind grew stronger.

  “It’s going to catch up to us before then,” Karliss said. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Nergui had been listening. He popped the reins and flicked his whip, but it didn’t make much difference. The yaks were frightened by the fire and already going as fast as they could.

  “Can you do something about it?” the terl asked.

  “I’ll try. I should be able to.”

  Dashin looked at the fire again. The flames were readily visible now. “Do your best,” he said. He looked at Karliss’ friends. “Fetch horses, so Karliss and Nergui have something to ride if the wagons have to be abandoned.” He turned his horse and galloped away. Karliss’ friends followed, heading for the herds, which were ahead of the wagon train.

  “Karliss?” Nergui asked, a tremor in his voice. “The fire is scaring me. Can you fix it, make it go away?”

  “I’m going to try,” Karliss told him grimly.

  Karliss gathered himself and summoned the wind. He pulled in as much as he could manage, more than he ever had before, and then channeled it at the fire. The breeze pushing it was weak enough that he should be able to overcome it. He sent the wind at the fire at an angle, thinking that it would be easier to redirect it than to stop it altogether. If he could just set it back on its more easterly path, it might still sweep by them.

  For a while it seemed to be working. The fire began to move off at an angle. Nergui looked over his shoulder and gave a small cheer.

  Karliss didn’t share his enthusiasm. He could feel resistance, something pushing back against the wind he was channeling. He gritted his teeth and pushed harder, knowing he probably couldn’t keep this up for very long, but determined to try.

  The resistance increased as well. A few moments later it overcame him. The fire shifted and began moving straight towards them again.

  Still Karliss did not give up. Maybe he couldn’t redirect the fire, but he could at least slow it down, hopefully enough to allow the clan to make it to the river. If they could get across that, they’d be safe. No matter how big the fire got, he didn’t think it could make it all the way across the river.

  For some time he was able to hold the fire back. The gap between the clan and the fire grew larger. He was aware of his friends returning with extra horses, but he didn’t look at them or speak to them. He was taking all his focus and strength to keep it up. Sweat ran down his face, and he began to feel lightheaded and dizzy, but he did his best to ignore it.

  Gradually, he became aware that the resistance was growing stronger. It built steadily for some time, while the wagon bumped over the uneven ground, and Nergui called out words of encouragement to the yaks, words backed up by the sharp crack of the whip periodically. Karliss gripped the side of the wagon tightly, knowing he was fighting a losing battle.

  All at once he felt a sharp push, and the resistance grew suddenly much stronger. His efforts were overwhelmed.

  He released the wind and sat there, breathing hard and sweating fiercely. His hands were shaky, his stomach sour. Hulagu was saying something to him, but he couldn’t tell what because there was a roaring in his ears.

  He shook his head and looked at Hulagu. He could hear him now, asking if he was okay, but still the roaring persisted. He realized abruptly that the sound wasn’t inside his head. It was coming from the fire, faint, but clearly audible.

  “What is it?” Hulagu said, reading something on Karliss’ face.

  “There are aranti behind this. There has to be. Nothing else makes sense.”

  “You think some of the aranti are helping Kasai?” Batu asked. “But I thought they were afraid of him.”

  “They are,” Karliss replied.

  “Then why would they help him?”

  “Maybe they have no choice,” Hulagu said.

  That was what worried Karliss. Was it possible Kasai had gotten hold of the words of power and was using them to control some aranti? But he hadn’t felt anything, and based on his limited experience with the words, he thought that if Kasai used one he would feel echoes of the power radiating outwards.

  He listened deeply for a moment, sorting through the babble of voices from the aranti. He couldn’t make much sense of it, but they were clearly alarmed about something. There were quite a lot of them in the area, circling excitedly.

  “I’m going to go take a look,” he told his friends. “Something is going on, and I need to find out what.”

  He closed his eyes and whistled for an aranti. One arrived quickly, and he caught hold of it. There was the familiar lurch, and then he was up in the sky. He turned his mount toward the fire. It resisted, but not much, and he was soon able to coax it to fly that way.

  They raced toward the fire. The flames were huge, much bigger than he’d thought. They seemed far too high when all there was to burn was grass.

  He passed through the fire, and what he saw on the other side shocked him.

  Four riders on giant crows were flying along behind the fire, almost like they were herding it. The riders wore hooded gray cloaks and carried bone staffs, the same as the rider who’d attacked the clan had carried.

  Trailing behind the birds, attached to leather ropes, were black, oddly-shaped, metal objects, each about the size of a person’s head. The black metal objects had numerous holes in them and curved grooves cut in their surfaces. Karliss knew immediately what they were.

  They were a type of krysala. Kasai’s men were using them to control aranti.

  All along the back side of the fire swirled dozens of aranti, forcing the fire forward. Karliss could hear their cries as they sought futilely to escape their captors.

  The nearest gray rider sensed Karliss then, and the man’s head turned toward him. His head was skull-like, his skin the color of burned leather and stretched so tight around the bone that every contour was visible. He had no lips, and his nose was nothing but a hole. But most horrifying of all was his eyes. He had none, only empty sockets in which burned gray flames.

  Karliss was already driving his mount sideways when the gray-cloaked man raised his bone staff and pointed it at him. Gray flames flickered along its length, then a bolt of flame shot out of the end.

  The bolt struck Karliss hard. If he hadn’t been prepared, he would have lost his grip on his mount. As it was he barely managed to hang on as the gray fire engulfed him. It burned, the pain incredible, and he screamed, knowing that somewhere in the back of a wagon his body screamed as well.

  The aranti he was riding squealed and bolted. Karliss focused all his strength on not losing his hold on the creature. He was dimly aware of another bolt of gray flame flashing by, barely missing, and only because his mount was zigzagging wildly. He felt the heat from its passing.

  The aranti raced through the wall of smoke and flame, Karliss clinging desperately to it. After a moment he managed to regain control of it and turn it towards the wagon. Shortly thereafter he was once again in his body. He opened his eyes.

  Batu and Hulagu were close by the wagon, looking down at him with alarm. Nergui was looking over his shoulder. Karliss sat up.

  “You were s
creaming, Karliss,” Nergui blurted out. The whites of his eyes were showing. “Why did you scream? Are you okay?”

  Karliss looked at himself. From the intensity of the pain he wouldn’t have been surprised to see his skin blackened and blistered, but instead it looked normal. He still hurt, but the pain was only a ghost of what it had been.

  “It was a gray rider on a giant crow,” he told them. “Like the one that attacked us before.” He took a deep breath. “Only there’s four of them now.”

  Hulagu and Batu looked toward the fire, both of them laying hands on their weapons as if afraid the gray riders would appear out of nowhere and attack them right that instant.

  “They’re controlling aranti and using them to drive the fire at us. They have krysalas.”

  “What are you going to do?” Hulagu asked.

  “I’m going to attack them,” Karliss said grimly. “I’m going to drive them out of the sky.”

  “Do you think you can beat four of them?” Hulagu asked.

  “I have to.” Karliss looked up at the fire. It was even closer than before. The roar was louder. The smoke from the fire was blotting out the sun, prematurely darkening the day. He could feel the heat from the fire for the first time. “It’s our only chance.”

  “You’re going to use a word of power,” Hulagu said. It was a statement, not a question.

  Karliss nodded. He settled himself and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and called the second word of power to mind.

  “Akuy-ken-shai!”

  The power of the word rippled outward from him. Behind him he heard Nergui saying something, but he ignored him. He had to keep his focus; he couldn’t let himself be distracted.

  Aranti began to answer his call. Ten, twenty… He felt them resisting him and was reminded of how tenuous his control of the word, and thus of the aranti, really was. He wouldn’t be able to control them for too long.

  He tried to recall how many aranti the gray riders were controlling. He needed at least that many of this own. But he wasn’t sure. Two dozen? Three?

  Distantly he could feel sweat running down his face, and his muscles trembling from the strain. It felt like something inside him was stretching too far, something was close to snapping, but he pushed it out of his thoughts. It didn’t matter what the cost to him was. He would pay it twice over if need be.

  When he had all the aranti he could control, about two score, he cut off the word. Then he summoned one of the closer aranti and grabbed onto it, letting it pull him out of himself and up into the sky. As if sensing what he was about to do, his mount bucked under him and tried to twist free. While getting it back under control, he nearly lost hold of a couple of the aranti he’d summoned as they saw their chance to break free and tried to take it.

  Knowing he didn’t have much time, he turned his mount toward the fire and raced that way at top speed. Moments later they broke through the smoke and flames. Immediately Karliss split his forces, sending a handful of aranti at each of the four riders, commanding them to attack the giant crows. The crows were the riders’ weak point. If they could be driven out of the sky, the riders would no longer be able to use the power of their krysalas. Then the aranti they were controlling would flee.

  Nearly a dozen aranti converged on the nearest gray rider. He saw them coming and threw up his bone staff. Gray power began to gather at its tip. But the aranti were too close. They struck him with the power of a gale-force wind.

  Crow and rider were thrown sideways violently. The crow let out a single squawk as one of his wings snapped audibly. The rider was knocked from its back, and the crow spiraled toward the ground. The aranti the rider was controlling quickly fled in all directions.

  Karliss immediately turned his attention to the other three riders. The next closest one managed to direct some of the aranti he was controlling to intercept the attacking aranti. What happened next surprised Karliss.

  When the aranti collided, there was a burst of blue sparks that shot off in all directions, followed quickly by a shockwave that Karliss felt from where he was. The aranti rebounded, crying out as they did so.

  Most of the attacking aranti were fended off, but several slipped through. But before they could strike, the rider barked out a word and waved his staff. A faintly glowing gray shield appeared around him and his bird. Wails of pain and fear arose from the aranti when they struck the shield, which flared from the impact. They panicked and bolted, and Karliss lost his hold on them.

  But the force of their impact was enough that the crow was knocked backwards, and its rider nearly dropped his staff as he fought to keep from losing his seat. The crow began plummeting earthward, its wings flapping mightily as it tried to stay aloft, its rider barely clinging to its back.

  Karliss turned to look for a new target as a sudden blast of heat and pain rocked him. For a moment his world was nothing but pure agony as the gray bolt washed over him. As it began to recede, he dimly saw one of the remaining riders point his staff at him and unleash a bolt of gray fire. A heartbeat later the second struck him. The pain was even more intense this time. For long moments that might have been eternity, his world spun crazily, and he lost all sense of anything except pain.

  Then it faded enough for him to come back and reorient himself. He realized that his mount was fleeing the battle at top speed. Probably that was the only reason he hadn’t been struck again by the riders’ attacks.

  With an effort of will he got the creature under control and turned back to the battle. He spent some time assessing the situation. He’d lost probably half of the aranti he previously controlled. Fortunately, there were still a half dozen or so attacking each of the two remaining riders. Somehow, he’d managed to retain control of them even through the pain.

  An aranti darted at one of the riders, who met the creature with a close-up blast from his bone staff. The aranti wailed, an eerie, ululating sound, as gray fire coruscated across its body. It broke away from Karliss’ control and fled.

  The other rider swung his staff like a club and struck an oncoming aranti with it. There was a blinding flash of blue and red light and the aranti went berserk. It spun away, trailing sparks, and fled the scene.

  Karliss realized he had an opportunity, with both remaining riders occupied for the moment as other aranti flew at them. He sent his mount into a climb, rising quickly high into the air to a spot directly above one of the riders. The rider dispatched another aranti that had broken through his ring of defending aranti with a blast from his staff, and then turned to look for another target. Karliss sent his mount into a hard dive.

  The rider never saw them coming.

  At point-blank range Karliss hit the giant crow with a channeled blast of air, the strongest he could manage. One of the bird’s wings snapped instantly. It croaked with pain and tumbled toward the earth. The rider fired wildly at Karliss, but the bolt went wide. Karliss hit him with another blast of air, and he lost his hold on the bird and fell off.

  Karliss turned his mount to home in on the last rider. The man was fighting off two aranti that were darting at him and wasn’t looking at Karliss. Karliss gathered his remaining aranti and directed them at the man.

  Suddenly a blast of gray fire hit Karliss from behind. But this one was different from the previous ones. Instead of dissipating it stuck to him, burning, clawing at him. He screamed silently as the fire ate its way through him. He lost the word of power, he lost his hold on the remaining aranti, and he lost his hold on his mount. He drifted through the air, trying to fight back the pain, trying to do something, anything. Dimly he realized that his attacker was one of the riders he thought he’d driven to the ground. The man was flying straight at him. Gray flames wreathed his skull-like face, and he held his staff straight out like a lance. Power danced at its tip, waiting to be unleashed.

  Desperately, Karliss called for an aranti, knowing it probably wouldn’t work, but he was out of options. Some vestige of power must have remained to him because one of the fleeing ar
anti turned back. Karliss caught hold as it shot by him and was jerked to the side just as the rider fired.

  A bolt from the other remaining rider followed close on the heels of the first, and only luck saved Karliss as his mount twisted abruptly and shot off in a new direction.

  There was nothing more he could do here, Karliss realized as his new mount bore him away from the battle. There were no more aranti he could attack the riders with. He didn’t have enough control over the one he rode to make it turn back towards them. He wasn’t sure if he could survive another hit either. Every nerve was still jangling from the last one.

  He managed to urge his mount back toward his body. Another bolt of gray flame shot by, too close for comfort, and then he was obscured by the smoke and safe. For the moment at least.

  A few moments later he was back in his body, blinking in the sunlight.

  “That sounded bad!” Nergui said as Karliss groaned and rolled onto his side.

  Karliss sat up and immediately grabbed his head. His head felt like it was splitting open. His entire body felt raw and burned.

  “Did you get them?”

  Karliss opened his eyes and saw his friends looking at him, their faces creased with worry.

  “I got two of them. There’s still two left.”

  Hulagu looked back at the fire. Karliss rubbed his eyes and looked as well. He saw right away that it was closer. The roar of it was constant thunder. Hot winds blew around them. The flames seemed to reach clear to the sky. The heat coming off of it was intense. Had he even slowed it down? he wondered.

  “We’re not going to make it,” Batu said.

  Karliss turned. They were on the lip of a broad, shallow valley. Down in the bottom was the river, sunlight reflecting from its surface. The herds were already across it, but the first wagon hadn’t even reached it yet. Riders were bringing spare horses and taking away all the passengers on the wagons, leaving only the drivers behind.

  Karliss turned back to look at the fire again. Batu was right.

  “Maybe it’s time to go,” Batu said. The horses were dancing skittishly, eyes rolling in their heads.