The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle

by H. O. Charles

  equations: combinations of heat and mass and speed. It was the sort of thing Artemi had studied at several wielder schools over several lifetimes, but she could not have pieced together the meaning of it all in a single day.

  “It is the movement of Blaze through our world,” Medea said in low tones. “It cannot be created or destroyed – that is the fundamental rule, yes?”

  “Generally.” She still hadn’t forgotten what she had seen Morghiad do on his second day back in Gialdin.

  “Well, I’ve been looking at the rot – the thing that affected the true

  spears. Don’t you think it is odd that both you and Mirel made the gale swords, and that yours are fine, but the spears are rotted? And the Sky Bridges-”

  “Med! I told you not to go near those. They are close to collapse!”

  She harrumphed. “I didn’t open one. I just... looked around. Anyway, I took some measurements... and I found something – a few things, actually.” She reached for a book amongst a pile of scribbled papers. “This was started in the third millennium PD. It is an attempt to measure the amount of Blaze in this

  world, and it always comes up with the same result.”

  “That is ridiculous. It isn’t a bucket of water. It’s infinite.”

  Medea shook her head. “No, but there is a lot of it. It’s in the trees, the earth... well, you know. So, the author comes up with a unit of measurement: a flare. 378.6 billion, billion flares were estimated to be present in this world in 2657 PD. And the same amount was present in 2899 and again in 3001. But look at this...” The kahriss cast the first book aside and reached for a second, much thicker one. “Another wielder, Terenne, took measurements

  every day of every year from 3056. Everyone around her thought that she had gone mad, but somehow she knew it would be important. She knew that change was coming.” Medea opened the book on a well-thumbed page, and handed it to Artemi.

  It was a list of dates and their respective flare counts.

  And the list went on. “She must have driven herself mad with this! And even if we can trust her observations, what is so special about the day it falls?”

  “Father,” Medea said confidently.

  Artemi shook her head. “No. He

  was born on the 19th day, that’s fourteen days... after... Oh.” But it was a something of a leap to think that Morghiad had anything to do with this, surely? How many other children had been conceived on that day? “Do we know if you or your brothers had the same effect? Did it fall again?”

  “I was not made in this world.” Medea half grimaced. “At least, that’s

  what you told me. But no, the level has remained – more or less - the same since 3192 PD. I don’t think I need to tell you which day.”

  The day the walls of Gialdin had been destroyed; the day Morghiad’s first parents, and his sister, had lost their lives. “Only more or less?”

  Her daughter frowned. “It’s only an estimate... so it can only be accurate to the nearest billion flares. But in 3234, in spring, there is another slight... blip. It’s Terenne’s last measurement. After that she writes pages about the horror she feels. And the final entry is written by the

  publisher. She committed suicide by burning herself in her own flames.” Artemi swallowed. She could never quite forget how that felt, even when caught in the midst of lunacy. “I’ve performed the same calculations as she did and I find the same result as her very last one. Do you know what happened in 3234, something that perhaps concerned father? I’ve searched everywhere, but I can’t find any records about the specific date or what he was doing.” Already the answer was making itself known in Artemi’s mind. She flicked to the final pages in the book,

  most of which were full of scrawl, and found the date. She could not be sure, of course, but it fitted well with her memory. “Medea, you must keep this to yourself. I’m not sure, but I think this was the day he went chasing after Febain Reduvi. The Sky Bridge collapsed beneath them... Dorlunh wrote a great deal about it, but I’m afraid I... burned many of his things after he did what he did.” She’d done more than burn them; she’d ensured that nothing of their existence could ever be detected again. “Dorlunh thought your father had essentially cooled the Blazes. Whether any of it is true – who can say? And Morghiad would never destroy everything, even if he did have the power to do so, which is a ludicrous thing to say in itself. All this shows is that he may be... an anomaly.”

  “My father is an anomaly... of Blaze?”

  Artemi shrugged, but recalled the strange spark she only felt with him, and no one else. Certainly a more literal spark...

  The kahriss pressed her lips together. “There is something else.”

  “What?” Her soldiers would be waiting by now.

  “When the flares fall in 3188, other measurements start to change around the world. A man recording the length of a day in a village in Northern Tedarah found that it had lessened by 1 minute and 12 seconds – across an average - from one year to the next. An astronomer in Western Rhofin found that the angle of the sun has altered by 0.05 of a degree over its course. The days are darker. The currents off our own coast have moved. Deserts shrink and lakes grow all the time, but these other things should not alter. It’s as if... the world is out of balance.”

  Artemi studied her daughter

  closely. For the first time in years, Medea had debated with her mother and stuck to her words. Her back was straight and her green eyes earnest. But why did it have to be over this? “It may be out of balance, but it is not over yet. Perhaps, with your rather impressive skills, you can work out a way to fix this. Find a way to put The Energy back – a way that doesn’t involve killing your father, obviously.” After all, Morghiad was a hero; he always did the right thing. If some Blaze had to be sacrificed in making him and keeping him, perhaps it was better for the world than worse.

  The kahriss smiled broadly. “I will do my best.”

  “Stay safe while I’m gone.” She embraced her daughter tightly and stepped out of the room.

  The anomaly was waiting for her in the hallway, his expression grim. “Took your time.”

  “It was important. Let’s go.”

  Her last goodbye, quite naturally, was to Silar. He was waiting with the horses, looking more than a little morose. “A word with you, my lady.”

  Why was everybody so keen to speak to her of urgent business now?

  Why not Kalad? She ground her teeth and joined him by the stable block, some distance from the assembled squad. He’d finally taken the time to shave. “Don’t forget what I said about Seffe,” he barked.

  Artemi folded her arms. “Anything else?”

  “Keep this on you at all times.” He pressed a vial of swift into her hand. “Be wary, even of Morghiad.”

  “Alright, I will.”

  He nodded with approval. “Your dagger is gone.” And then his expression changed. Silar seemed to become very upset then, kicking at the

  straw on the ground and gripping the hilt of his sword. “You told him I kissed you. Wonderful. He’ll wring my bloody neck when he realises its significance.”

  “He won’t, Si. He-”

  “Just stop. Now. Here is how this conversation will go. I will say don’t be gone for long. You will say that you have no control over it, and then I will say you do, and you will tell me to shut up and look after your children, and then I will say that I won’t let anything happen to them, and then you’ll say goodbye, and then I’ll start bawling like a babe in arms. So

  let’s skip all that so that I can finish making a fool of myself. I’ll see you soon, Temi.” Were his eyes watering? Silar’s?

  She blinked at him, quite aghast, for a moment. At length, “Take care, Silar.” She did not dare look back as she clambered onto her horse. Finally, after everything - three children, a dead husband, a brief liaison with an alternative version of him, a mad Kusuru, a murdered sister and a broken-hearted general – finally, it was

  time to leave
the castle. It was time to be free.

  The wind was blowing a fierce gale across the budding tops of the trees, causing the entire forest to creak and protest with long, painful whines. The old leaves hissed as they rushed over the floor, and everywhere branches snapped as they gave way to the air about them.

  “Isn’t it incredible?” Calidell’s former queen yelled above the noise.

  Another tree fell mere inches from her horse, but neither she nor the animal appeared to notice. She had a wild sort of excitement in her dark eyes.

  “Hurricanes like hurricanes, it seems,” Koviere boomed back.

  “Oh, shut up Kove! I’m nothing but a sneeze compared to this!” She kicked her mount again, and was charging down the road before anyone could say more to her.

  Morghiad raised his eyebrows at his compatriots. Really, how was any man expected to protect someone if they insisted upon running around like a blazed madwoman? He kicked his

  somewhat panicked horse into a gallop after her, and prayed that he would not be thrown from the saddle along the way. He was in luck, however, as he soon found her beneath a large oak tree a mile ahead. She was conversing with her friend, The Hunter.

  “Gale’s the perfect opportunity,” the man shouted in his thick accent, “I sniffed them out, Artemi. Kids are in a mine. Their master won’t return to the site until this afternoon.”

  “Then we’d better get in it and get them out!”

  “No time like the present! Follow me.” He charged off on his

  Calbeni racer.

  The lady gave only a brief glance back to Morghiad, and kicked her horse into the storm once more. Another five miles of blustery, detritusfilled road passed before they reached a bluff outcrop and a deep crevasse. The wind howled here, causing Morghiad’s black gelding to hop and dance perilously close to the cliff edge. He reined the animal in a touch harder. The other members of the squad were fast assembling around him, but given his horse’s mood he was forced to move away from them and closer to his mistress. He could smell the soap she

  used and the soft leather she wore. No perfume, of course. Women who liked to sneak up on you never wore perfume.

  A strand of her hair was loosened in the wind, and came to land on his neck. Damn stuff! It got everywhere! It fizzled away at his skin, teasing him with Blaze echoes and the power he could not touch without permission. Morghiad swiped it away with a bridle-roughened hand. He’d found more fibres of her hair amongst his clothing that morning, invading his privacy as much as their owner did.

  “Two exits and this main

  entrance, Tem.” The Hunter nodded to a narrow pathway behind him. “Exits are amongst those trees, but they’re covered.

  “I want one wielder at each exit,” she shouted over the din. “Koviere and Seffe, I know how claustrophobic you are. You will join them. We’ll tie up the horses out of sight. The rest of you will come with me.”

  When they’d finished hitching their mounts to the somewhat fragile trees, they headed down the side of the cliff. Tallyn Hunter led the team with

  Lady D’Avrohan next, and her

  bodyguard immediately behind her. His eyes were caught by her glittering swords, swaying atop her back with each of her movements. Her practice fight with The Hunter had been fascinating to watch the previous evening. Both had speed on their side, skill... and strength. In truth, they had just about everything on their side. It was a wonder that the battle had finished at all. But Morghiad had a better idea of what he had to prepare for now. Not for the first time, he was glad for his outwardly purposeless appointment as bodyguard. It certainly placed him where he needed to be.

  The mines were poorly lit affairs, with rubble strewn across the ground and broken carts piled against the walls. Streaks of red and silver were splashed across the stone: giveaway clues that this was a mine for iron ore. A very sickly looking pony stood comatose before the wooden struts that supported the roof.

  “That animal is coming out of here, too,” the former queen whispered.

  “You’re getting soft in your old age,” The Hunter chuckled back.

  She gave him a gentle punch in the lower of his back. “Not that soft.”

  It was quite a walk through the darkness before they came to the mine’s guards, who were clearly simple grunts employed by a master who wanted to save money. Morghiad incapacitated the first before the man even had a chance to look at him, while the two Dedicated took the second and third. The team pushed deeper into the tunnels, until they reach a vertical shaft that dropped into blackness. The air shimmered around Lady D’Avrohan briefly; she was sensing her surroundings. “That goes deep alright. And it’ll be tight. There are children in every part of this place. I want you to

  take each level in pairs, peeling off from the back first. Morghiad and I will take the deepest level. Kill the guards if you have to. Get the kids and bring them back up here. Keep it quiet.” With that she vaulted gracefully onto the ladder, and began sliding down it. Morghiad had to hurry to keep up with her. He had no idea how far they were descending into the earth, or what to expect when they arrived at the very lowest section. Small, gauzecovered oil lamps burned against the soaking rock at irregular intervals. The air was cool and damp against his skin, but grew colder as they dropped. Odd,

  he was sure he had heard of mines being unbearably hot places to work in. And then there was the smell. This place had an acrid odour, like rotten food and old sweat.

  After a seemingly endless descent into the heart of death, Tallyn and Beetan, who were directly above him, left the ladder to explore the sixth level. Assuming his mistress knew how to divide her team evenly, there could only be one more floor remaining. Then she stopped.

  “It’s a bit narrow,” she whispered as she removed her swords from her back. She winked at him, and clambered through a hole in the shaft wall.

  He moved down the ladder steps to inspect the void, but quickly found his heart sinking. The gap was fine for her; not so good for him. Bloody light of Achellon and all its sodding, blasted fires! And damn that Caala woman for all her insistence upon his eating ‘muscle food’. The lady likes her soldiers strong enough to snap whole oak trees over their thighs, Caala had said, setting out a tray full of meat before him. No amount of treebreaking quadriceps would help him here.

  His single blade would have to travel ahead of him, of course. Morghiad gritted his teeth, unclasped the leather strap and thrust himself and his weapon through, bundling into a tight knot of shoulders and arms that could not even fit down his sides. He had to use his elbows to drag himself forward, and his toes to push. No wonder they only had kids working down here! No one else could be expected to get through, no one except for wilful, deranged ex-queens.

  A dim light filtered through from ahead of him, though it was frequently obscured by the wriggling form of his

  mistress. After an age of scrabbling amongst cutting rock and dusty grit the light steadied. There was a distant sound of a scuffle, and then the light went out again. Her face was in the way of it. “Dealt with,” she said exultantly, “Are you coming out of there or not?”

  Morghiad grunted in response. If he could move faster, then of course he would! The last few feet of tunnel seemed to be even trickier to navigate than the first squeeze, but at length, he found himself stumbling out of the hole and into a chamber filled with unconscious bounders. All were wiry,

  whip like men, and none appeared to be even half as tall as he was.

  “Are you alright, Zennar?”

  He shook the dust from himself and half-hooked his sword at his waist. “Fine.” He wanted this to be over with as quickly as possible. The roof seemed to bow inwards, and the wooden supports looked rotten, at best.

  “Let’s move.” Lady D’Avrohan hopped into the grand cavern beyond. It was an utterly different scene to the narrow crevice they had just inched through: an enormous chamber filled with rickety struts and brightly coloured stone. Twenty-odd scrawny and

  muddied
children were busily gathering hunks of ore into carts, or drawing them along a track way. A huge pile of the stuff lay to the right of the exit. The former queen clambered to the top of it and began shouting, “Work time is over! Drop what you are doing; it’s time to leave this place! Now! Now! Get a move on!”

  Some of the kids stopped to stare at her, and him. But some sprinted straight for the exit without any sort of hesitation. Morghiad could not help but notice how starved every one of them looked. Slavery had not given these children anything in return

  for their labours.

  “Faster,” she yelled.

  The more bewildered-looking ones started to move then, some with tears streaking over their mud-slicked faces. When the last of them had left, the former queen readied herself with Blaze to sense if there were any more. “Clear,” she said finally. “Now we can get out of this dungeon.”

  Morghiad did not wait to hear more. He sprinted back into the chamber full of bodies in time to see the last of the kids scurry through the hole. They ought to be glad they were so small! He would not mind borrowing their size for a