The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle

by H. O. Charles

  infinitely better than having an empty stomach. Taking a pile of slices in his hands, he trotted back to the horse, forcibly extracted the animal from the brook and set it to eat some grass. After thirty minutes of munching, it was time to reprise the trail.

  As they gently cantered back over the grey sands and rocks, a figure became visible ahead. Its body glowed brilliantly in the harsh sunlight and its hair fanned through the air in dark waves of ebony. It looked female. “Mother?” He dismounted to approach the luminescent young woman. “What are you doing here?”

  She floated around to face him and smiled with her bright green eyes. It was her, though her skin seemed almost to exude light. How was she doing that? Morghiad moved to

  embrace her, but his arms clutched at nothing and her image merely wavered in the breeze. Abruptly the sky took on every colour a rainbow could have offered, and the hues swirled quickly around him. The ground began to move under his feet soundlessly, also taking on impossible colours. “I’m hallucinating, aren’t I?” he asked the drifting Queen Medea.

  She smiled and held her arms outstretched, silently mouthing words to him. They looked to be, “My son.”

  “Blazed cactus!” he uttered whilst stumbling back towards his horse, which had now transformed into a giant, fire-breathing monster with black fur. Morghiad closed his eyes and shook his head to rid himself of the image, but only succeeded in filling his vision with bright stars of blue light. Dropping to his

  knees, he forced himselfto regurgitate the remains of his mind-altering meal. His action didn’t seem to affect his vision much or the rate at which the ground seemed to spin, but he soon managed to feel his way back to Tyshar’s fetlocks.

  The horse whickered at his master’s peculiar behaviour, but remained still enough for Morghiad to climb into the saddle. He lay there for a few moments while he tried to regain his orientation, digging his fingers deeply into the thick hair of his mount’s mane. Aware that he was losing time, he kicked Tyshar into a contained trot with the glaring sun behind them. That direction had to take them back to Reduvi’s trail within the next twenty minutes, assuming Morghiad’s perception of time was anywhere near correct. It was a pity he didn’t

  have time to build a water clock. Morghiad kept his head close to the ground as he rode, checking through the confusing melee of colours that he remained on the path of his own footsteps. In time they came to a familiarlooking stone, and the colours started to fade. From there it was easy enough to pick up the tracks of multiple horses and a few men on foot. From time-to-time through the day, he continued to see flashes of light and fire streaking through the skies, but his fear at them lessened each time. When the sun had set, his hallucinations had been entirely replaced with a throbbing headache.

  Again the moon guided him along the path of his prey, and he pushed Tyshar to a hard gallop to make up the distance between them. As the moon lowered to the horizon, it

  illuminated the outline of trees - hundreds of tall and leafy trees. Rehmain had to lie among them somewhere. Inside the peculiarly gnarled woodland, the prints became tricky to identify amidst the half light of the morning and the canopy shade. Morghiad was forced to slow his horse’s pace to a walk in order to pick out the tracks when, unexpectedly, he came to a fence.

  There were more signs of human activity on the other side of the boundary: deserted bonfires, a turned-over plough and some broken ladders. He loosed Tyshar in a long-abandoned field and hid his saddlery in the crook of an ancient black-bark tree, before walking carefully to the town perimeter. The buildings were constructed from the same grey stone that had filled the Ash Canyons, though

  their roofs were tiled with glittering red clay. A few of the inhabitants had already begun their morning activities, and Morghiad circled the edge of the houses with as much subtlety as he could manage. After spending several days in the bleak desert and dosing himselfwith hallucinogenic cactus, he probably looked a sight.

  He padded along the outside of a circular grain store, feeling the polished surface of its carved blocks with the dry skin of his fingers. There was a crunch of a twig to his left, and Morghiad snapped his gaze round to its source. A milkmaid stood in her blue-green apron, holding a pail of freshly drawn liquid. Her blue eyes were open wide at him, but she quickly regained her composure and stepped closer. “What business do you have here,

  warrior?”

  He supposed it was an easy assumption to make; he still had numerous blades strapped to his back and legs. “I’m looking for someone – a group of people actually. Perhaps you could help me find them?”

  The woman smiled broadly. “Some strangers came the day before yesterday. One of them was a small woman, with short blonde curls, who seemed to be their prisoner. Sound like them?” she said in her clipped, Hirrahan accent.

  Morghiad’s heart beat faster with anticipation. “That’s them alright. Do you know where they were headed?”

  She moved closer to him. “I willtell you, warrior. But you must first take some rest

  and eat a little food.”

  Recognising the look in her eye, and the cooing nature Hirrahan women’s voices seemed to take on when they wanted something of him, he shook his head. “I cannot stop. Please tell me where they went.”

  “Nonsense.” She twirled her brown hair about a finger. “You need rest. Come to my home and I’ll see you right. Then you may know the fate of your group.”

  Morghiad was fast becoming exasperated. “My wife would not approve,” he lied.

  The milkmaid looked around. “I do not see her.” She smiled mischievously. “Has your hair always been like that?”

  “Where are they?” he asked more firmly. Time was slipping away, and so was

  Reduvi!

  She raised an eyebrow at him and strode away with her pail. “You follow me, you’ll find out where they went. It’s up to you,” she called back.

  Morghiad thought carefully. He could spend another few hours or days trying to find someone who knew of Reduvi’s direction, and risked revealing his identity to someone who knew of him. There was no better option. He sighed with annoyance, and trotted quietly after the manipulative woman. Her house was situated near the centre of the town, and he was forced to negotiate some dark alleys in order to reach it unseen. She led him into the fabric-lined living room and bade him sit on a worn chair.

  “Now, warrior,” she said as she knelt

  to remove his boots, “Why are you so far from your wife?”

  “I had to leave her somewhere safe.”

  The woman stood to examine him closely. “You had to have been through nalka to get here. This must be a very important journey you have undertaken.”

  “It is. And the longer I stay here, the farther that group get ahead.” Morghiad loosened some of his sword straps. He was very weary, now that he considered it.

  She placed her hands on her cottonswathed hips. “Important enough to leave your wife and break your bond with her? That is interesting. Now, would you like chicken or mutton?”

  He compressed his lips. “I would like to know where the blonde woman and this

  group are.”

  “Chicken it is.” The milkmaid marched into the next room.

  While she was gone, he moved his eyes to the small bookshelf, stood and walked over to it. A purple, cloth-bound volume immediately caught his attention and he picked it up. Kings and Queens of the Sennefhal Continent. He flicked through it slowly, glimpsing Acher’s generously sized entry and that of the current Hirrahan rulers. It was too old a publication to contain any mention of him and the fall of the House of Acher, but he soon found his mother. There was an engraving of her portrait next to her description, and his desert vision of her had been a reasonable match. Morghiad scanned through the text. It mentioned Alliah, still a baby at the time of the

  book’s writing, and his father; it spoke of Queen Medea’s generosity to the orphaned children of wielders, and her efforts to set up schools for those with Blaz
e abilities. He wondered how the history books would remember him, and if any of it would be positive.

  “Different life those soft royals lead, isn’t it?” the milkmaid quipped.

  Morghiad allowed a smile to escape.

  “Very.”

  “Well, except for that new King of Calidell. They say he is as hard as cast iron plate, and fearsome as a Jarhoan dragon.”

  “Really?” he said drily.

  The woman laid out the meal on a small wooden table; it looked rather appetising, and it would have been very rude to refuse it. He

  reprised his seat on the ragged, red chair.

  “Did you have a falling-out with your wife?” she probed. The woman was almost as bad as Silar.

  Morghiad bit deeply into a chicken thigh. It did taste excellent. Once he’d finished chewing, “Will you stop asking questions about her?”

  “That’s a yes then.” She took a sip on some water. “My name is Cass.”

  “Kalad,” he offered. He’d always liked that name; it meant ‘bold’ or ‘fearless’ in Old Calidellian.

  Cass moved to sit closer and started running her fingers up and down his left shin. He ignored it while he ate.

  “Do you love her?” she whispered.

  Morghiad dropped the clean bone. “Of course! No more questions about her.”

  “I wager you haven’t told her so for some time.” Well, she was right about that. But he had good reason not to. Artemi would think him a madman if he tried to explain the depth of his feelings to her. Cass moved her hand up to his thigh, and he caught it before she became any more aggressive.

  “I am not here for that,” he stated, and moved her hand back from his leg.

  She gave him a weary look and poured herself some more water from a pewter jug. “I have a bath in the next room. Are you sure you won’t stay here to wash?”

  Morghiad shook his head, and noticed that the light from the windows was blurring. He dropped the third piece of chicken. “What have you done?”

  “I told you. You need to rest,” she smiled warmly.

  When he awoke, the sky outside had darkened and numerous candles burned throughout the room. Morghiad sat up quickly, noting that he was in a small bed and, surprisingly, naked.

  “Who is Artemi?” Cass was sat in the corner, a pile of sewing in her lap.

  Morghiad swung his legs over the bed’s edge; they certainly felt stronger for his sleep. “No one you need to know about. Where are my clothes?”

  “I’m fixing them. Good quality coat, this. You ought to have taken better care of it. And what is that tattoo on your shoulder?”

  “Mark of the army,” he muttered as he pulled the bed sheet around him. Using the

  dark blanket to cover his modesty, he stood to reclaim his underclothes and trousers that dangled before the fire. They smelled of fresh laundry soap.

  “No need to cover what I’ve already seen,” Cass grinned. “You are a very wellconstructed man, Kalad - if that’s your name. Truly one of the finest, and most generously proportioned examples I’ve witnessed.”

  Morghiad frowned out of awkwardness as he attempted to dress in front of his audience.

  The milkmaid stood and handed him the fixed coat. “You spoke about her a great deal in your sleep. I think you should give up this chase and return to your Artemi.”

  “I’m doing this for her.” He took the coat. “Thank you.”

  Cass folded her arms. “Well then, I suppose you’ll want to know that your group is staying at the inn on the high street. Word is that they’ll leave tomorrow morning.” That was good; it meant he had a whole night to capture them!

  Morghiad trod down the stairs and into the reception room where she’d drugged him, realising she must have been moderately strong to have lifted him all the way to the bedroom. His weapons lay on the chair, and he set about re-arming himselfbriskly. One very important item was missing. “Where is the dagger?”

  Cass drew the silver blade from her apron and turned it over slowly. “I didn’t grow up here, you know. My childhood happened a long way from Hirrah, but I remember the names of my queen and her consort.” She

  handed the dagger, hilt-first, to him. “If there is any other way in whichI may serve you, my king, you only need ask.”

  Morghiad took the blade and nodded gratefully.

  “And my apologies for... encouraging your sleep, my lord. But you did need it.”

  He smiled. “Thank you for looking after me.”

  As he stepped out of the house and into the night he flipped the dagger in his hand. Elegant script in the Gialdinian dialect ran along its smooth surface: Al Talone Kantari sur Talone Jade’an loitaar tuliden a tulevar. Morghiad returned to the anonymity of the shadows, and turned his attentions to finding the inn.

  The smooth silver metal clicked as it locked into place, buckling the thigh holster tightly around a row of three sharp daggers. Artemi took a deep breath as she wound a second layer of bandaging over her injury; it still ached like a blazed lump of rock in her guts. She then took up another length of bandage, and commenced winding it firmly around her bust until she’d comprehensively suppressed the two rather obvious clues to her gender. She plaited her long hair, padded out her shoulders, threw on a billowing shirt and completed her

  disguise with a headscarf which left only her eyes visible.

  The final item was her sword, only very recently reclaimed from Corlands and covered with a new hilt ribbon. It strapped securely onto her hips, and she was pleasantly surprised to see how un-feminine she looked in the mirror. Silar had left that morning in the belief that she still slept soundly, having been given some very important business to attend to. It had provided her with an excellent opportunity to have some fun in his absence. Not that she objected to having the man around; he was certainly more pleasant than her other prisonkeepers. And for such a well-respected General of Calidell’s Armies, it was amusing how easily he could be distracted by a simple pair of breasts. No, she liked Silar an awful lot, but she liked a challenge just as much.

  Artemi opened the casement of the bedroom window and eyed the guards, three floors below. They would be able to see if she stepped out of the washroom door and onto the balcony, but she could easily stay hidden if she clambered through the left window and up the corner alcove of the outside wall. Artemi took a deep and excited breath, now was her chance. She opened the other window and hopped onto the sill with lithe movements; she’d taken every opportunity of privacy, every toilet break and bathing session to exercise and strengthen her limbs. And now they responded well to the first of the activities she had prepared for.

  Artemi sprang up the side of the rough grey wall and peeked over the gutter to

  examine the roof above. Evidently Silar had the acumen to anticipate her misbehaviour, for a guard silently paced the far edge of it. Three chimneys protruded from the tiled surface, and she smiled to herselfas she counted down the seconds before she could move to the shadow of the first one. The soldier’s movements were regular, and it wasn’t long before she’d reached the third chimney. Artemi counted a further five seconds before rolling over the edge of the roof behind the guard, and then shimmied silently along the gutter below.

  From there she padded across varying levels of rooftops, jumped between chimneys and leapt over windows until she reached the edge of The Great Courtyard. The structure in the middle had grown to a vast, wood-borne maze of balance tests, sword fighting trials and

  speed challenges. Artemi had been born for this! A jostling queue of masked contenders filled most of the entranceway and a whole side of the court. Their face coverings reflected a variety of spring themes and fabled monsters. But where to get one of her own?

  Artemi noted a small table through the other side of the portcullis; it was covered in piles of masks for sale. She grinned beneath her face covering and leapt clumsily onto the perimeter of the castle walls, very nearly losing her footing and sending cascades of dust to the ground below.
Her body had suffered through its recent neglect, and it simply would not do for this trial! Carefully, she edged up the wall and onto the walkway that ran its length. A well-timed descent down the outer surface of the wall was all she needed to reach one of the

  swirling roads of the city, and soon she was walking down the pathway to the front gates.

  Artemi reached inside her pocket and took hold of a brass coin, which she flipped arrogantly from her hand and onto the mask table. Forcing her voice low and gravel-like, she said, “I’ll take the panther.” The irony of its symbolism amused her greatly. The man at the stall merely raised his eyebrows and handed her the black cat mask, together with a copper coin as change. Artemi strapped her new face on and jogged back into the castle to join her competitors.

  Several of them had already started running through the trials, variously tripping up on moving blocks or overbalancing on narrow beams. Few of them really looked like they could walk down a street competently, never

  mind compete! The queue moved very slowly, but eventually Artemi arrived at the signing-in desk.

  “Name?” an officiator asked.

  “Laurus Daienara,” she said in her peculiar man-boy voice.

  A diminutive man with long, pale hair, standing behind the desk, folded his arms and smirked at her. What did he find so very funny?