Season of Fire

by Lisa Tawn Bergren

  He smiled, and I saw gaps between his teeth. “It is fortunate for you that we are to bring back alive as many Remnants as possible. You fight for no reason. Surrender, show your mark, and you shall be saved.” He advanced on me, whipping his sword back and forth. Behind him, I saw our Aravander guide desperately bring my sword down on the rope where I had managed to partially cut it, just as the next group of Sheolites neared the end. If nothing else, if I could continue to distract this one, the boy would have a chance …

  My attacker tossed his sword aside and tackled me, apparently honest in his intent to return with me alive. I hit the ground and felt the wind knocked from me under his weight, but forced myself to twist and elbow him in the face, as our trainer had taught us. I gasped for breath, willing air back into my lungs and glimpsed Ronan driving back the next of the Sheolites as the guide hacked at the rope again and again. Trapped by those before them, the Sheolites could only watch in horror as the rope sprung loose, one strand at a time, gravity now taking its course.

  Two more managed to make it to the end before the rope, with a great thrum, broke apart. The men still on the bridge cried out, grasping for a hold, or pressed toward either end in a last, mad gambit to reach safety. The majority sank out of sight or screamed as they fell down the canyon. I winced and squeezed my eyes tightly, sickened by the sounds of terror. Even if they were my enemies, I thought it the worst possible way to die.

  Falling …

  My attacker leaped to his feet, enraged by the sight of his comrades dying, and whipped around toward me, clearly holding me responsible for his friends’ deaths. I managed to stand again, but viewed my trembling legs and hands with consternation as if they belonged to another. I was absorbing all their fear, feeling it with them. Despite the Sheolite closing in on me, I shut my eyes tightly, seeking to grab hold of truth, of the memory of some feeling that would bolster me and give me courage in the midst of this cacophony of panic and despair and furry.

  Love, I thought, remembering what it was to be in Ronan’s arms. To look around at my brothers and sisters, all in one circle. Mom and Dad, holding me close.

  Faith, I thought, remembering what it was like to see each of the Remnant’s gifts unveiled.

  Hope, I thought, remembering the Maker’s promises, and finishing the circle of protection in my mind.

  I concentrated on all three of these, remembering my father quoting the ancient sacred words. “But the greatest of these is love.” Love, love, love, I repeated silently, looking toward my attacker. I scrambled to hold on to some part of the feeling while I looked at him — ​even the scarcest measure — ​casting it toward him as he reached me, his fingers encircling my neck. But when he touched me, his fingers sprang backward, as if burned.

  His brown eyes narrowed in confusion. “H-how? What?” He reached for me again, but once more, he couldn’t hold on to me. His face softened, as if he wanted to hug me instead, as if we were friends, but I scrambled away. He took his head in his hands, as if intent on squeezing out the madness.

  A scream brought my head up and around. Tressa.

  The guide gestured toward me. “Come! We must be away!”

  But Tressa cried out Killian’s name, her tone desperate.

  They were both in trouble. If Killian was down …

  While I hated fighting and struggled to bring myself to bear arms, Tressa outright refused.

  We heard a desperate, guttural roar from Killian then. That was it. I set out running, passing Ronan, who had wounded one Pacifican soldier — ​now writhing on the ground — ​and struggled to keep another pinned to a tree. “Stay here, Dri!” he grit out, sweat pouring from his brow.

  But I ignored him.

  I broke free of the woods and was back in the clearing beside the bridge before I recognized the chill in my armband. I stopped short, realizing my folly of running toward the fight without my knight. Our enemy was here — ​Sheolites. Not just those who had managed to cross the bridge. Somehow, some way they’d gotten around. Maybe even before I cut the bridge down. Maybe even before we’d reached this side.

  Killian was down and yet struggling to rise, blood flowing up and around his fingers, covering a horrible abdominal wound. “Killian!” I knelt beside him and cradled his torso in my arms, urging him to settle back.

  His emotions flooded me.

  First panic. Heart-stopping, breath-stealing.

  Then the desperation — ​to get to Tressa? — ​chilled me more than the Sheolites’ presence.

  Then such sheer pain, making me suck in my breath.

  And yet still, Tressa’s knight tried to rise, looking to the far side of the clearing. “There,” he gasped, and I followed his gaze.

  I just caught a glimpse of the swirling red robes of two Sheolite scouts and Tressa’s boots dragging between them as they disappeared through the trees. “I know,” I whispered in his ear, “I know. We’ll get her. It’s all right, Killian. Right now, you just have to focus on staying still.”

  I put my hand atop his on his belly, and swallowed back a wave of bile when I felt the sickening, loose sensation, in a place that should be sheer muscle, strength.

  Maker.

  My breathing became shallow, panicked. We needed Tressa back. We needed her if we were to save Killian.

  Ronan burst into the clearing, then. His chest heaved and sweat dripped down his cheeks, creating rivulets through the blood spatters. “Are you all right?” he asked me.

  “I’m fine! They have Tressa! Two Sheolites!” I nodded toward where they’d disappeared. “Go!” I added, when he hesitated.

  He swiftly looked about, and touched his arm cuff.

  “It’s just those scouts we sense!” I insisted.

  Scowling and slowly shaking his head, Ronan stubbornly remained.

  “Ronan. If you don’t go after her, we’ll—” I began.

  “Lose us both,” Killian grit out, grimacing.

  It was an impossible decision for my knight. I knew that. But there was only one thing I wanted — ​Tressa back — ​and if he hesitated any longer …

  He let out a sound of exasperation and shook a hand toward us. “Stay right here.”

  Killian let out a wry laugh. “Hard for me to go very far.”

  “Dri?” Ronan insisted.

  “Yes! Yes! Go!”

  He turned on his heel and ran, sword in hand.

  I patted Killian’s shoulder. “I think it’s best if we get you flat. I’ll help you put some pressure on that wound.”

  He agreed, and as gently as I could, I moved out from behind him and helped him settle back, his dreadlocks snaking out among the pine needles. Ten paces away was a dead Pacifican soldier. I could see another’s boots around the corner of a boulder. Every enemy was dead, the Sheolites gone with Tressa, right? Why, then, did the chill remain in my cuff?

  “Dri,” Killian said, his forehead a mass of wrinkles from the pain. He gestured toward my cuff, warning me.

  “Shh, I know.” I set his fingers on top of his wound, which was still bleeding profusely. I strained to listen for some hint of an enemy’s approach, but heard nothing. “It’s just the lingering stink of their presence,” I whispered, shrugging out of my coat and pulling off my sweater, then my T-shirt, leaving only my camisole and bra.

  “Dri, please,” he said, “I’m taken.”

  “Shut up,” I said, shaking my head and using my knife to begin tearing a strip off my T-shirt, creating a long bandage as I tore around the bodice. His uncommon wisecrack made me long for Vidar and Bellona, who were now on the far side of the canyon. How I wished they — ​and Niero, and the rest of the Ailith — ​were with us. Once again, I paused, the hairs of my neck pricking up. I listened but heard nothing, so I resumed my work.

  When I’d ripped all the way to the neck of the T-shirt, I cut it off, then folded the remains into a thick square about the size of Killian’s wound. I thought about gathering some sort of poultice from the woods, but gave it up in favor of j
ust staunching the blood flow. Already, there was a small pool by his waist and his skin was growing ghastly pale. “Here,” I said, gently pulling his long fingers away from the wound. I tried to bring either side of his skin together — ​ignoring his gasp — ​and quickly placed my square atop it. I frowned as it almost immediately soaked through. But it was the best I could do.

  I’d planned to wrap the long bandage around his torso, securing the square, but I saw the folly of that. Moving him to a sitting position would just increase the blood flow. I looked up toward where Ronan had disappeared after Tressa, willing them to return on the run.

  I felt my lips part in horrified surprise.

  Because there, not ten paces from us, was Sethos.

  And on either side of him, a Sheolite.

  RONAN

  I ran through the trees, ignoring the bushy needles and branches scratching and tearing at my sleeves. I swore under my breath, feeling as if I’d been ripped in two — ​wanting to run back to Dri, and yet aware that if I didn’t take this path and free Tressa, we’d lose two Ailith this day.

  How far could they have gotten, dragging her? I could see signs of her struggle, deep trenches from where her boots had connected with the loose soil of the forest or piles of pine needles, deeper pits where she’d clearly wrenched away and then been pulled to her feet again. Good girl, I thought. Fight them. With everything in you, Remnant.

  After a few more minutes my armband fairly hummed with cold warning, telling me that at last I was getting closer. I paused to catch my breath so I might steal up on them. Taking on two Sheolites was infinitely harder than Pacificans, as it seemed their training had been nearly as good as our own.

  I heard the sounds of scuffling and stole closer, slowly peeking around the trunk of a broad tree. One of the Sheolites wrenched Tressa up to her feet and shook her, then slapped her across the face. Inwardly, I seethed, but I held back, considering my options. I figured I’d follow along for a bit, and next time Tressa fought or they paused to rest, I’d take down the other man and then turn on the second. I knew that Tressa couldn’t bear to kill another, but in times like this, she’d been known to at least try and waylay our enemy. If she could keep the second man occupied until I was free we’d have a chance. I just prayed we wouldn’t run into any other Sheolites before that was done.

  They took off again, mostly lifting Tressa between them. She didn’t help them, despite their threats, and was obviously a dead weight. When the weary men again stopped, and the leader raised a hand to strike her, I charged. I barreled into the first man, ramming him against a boulder and hearing the satisfying crack of breaking bone. He cried out.

  I rolled over and off of him and was immediately after the second man, who tried to grab Tressa. She ducked and rolled, evading him by inches, and he turned and pulled out two daggers, awaiting me.

  I brought my sword down toward him, but he leaned back and I missed him. As I was coming around, he pounced, plunging a dagger into my shoulder. Thankfully, my leather chest armor — ​a gift from the Aravanders — ​deflected his strike. We grappled, fell, rolled, and I lost my grip on my sword but ended on top of him. I concentrated on holding his other hand, still gripping a dagger, away from my throat as I choked him. I ignored his steady pummeling of my neck, my cheek, recognizing he grew more faint by the moment.

  Tressa moved to my sword and lifted it, ready to hand it to me the moment I asked. Finally, the man beneath me passed out. Ten paces away, the other Sheolite was fighting to rise, glaring at me with intense hatred. I rose, took the sword from Tressa, then whirled and cut his head off, so that he might never rise again. Niero had told us — ​piercing the heart or decapitation was the only way to be assured we wouldn’t fight the same Sheolite again.

  The other hobbled toward me, his leg clearly broken, nothing but murderous rage in his eyes. He wielded a sword as large as mine, and we circled, sizing each other up. “Run, Tressa,” I growled over my shoulder, as I came between her and the Sheolite. “Killian has need of your touch.”

  I smiled as I heard her turn and do as I’d asked. The man before me scowled, hatred practically seething from his pores. “What is it?” I asked. “Have I interfered with your mission? You shall never succeed in taking a Remnant while a Knight of the Last Order yet lives.”

  The man let out a scoffing sound and glanced to where Tressa had disappeared behind me. “We may have lost that one,” he said, spitting blood from his mouth as a slow smile crossed his face. “But the master shall have another this day.”

  A chill ran down my neck. Who did he speak of? Surely not — ​

  I charged him, ramming my sword down again and again, but he deflected each blow. If he’d had two good legs, I would’ve had a serious fight on my hands. Unfortunately his defense was formidable.

  It took until I was well winded myself, my arm trembling with the effort to raise my sword again, before I was at last able to take his good leg out from under him and then send him from this world.

  Panting, I turned to eye the path that would lead me back to Andriana.

  It was then that I realized my armband was still ice-cold, even after this last Sheolite had been dispatched. I rubbed it, thinking how it should be getting warmer now, or at least neutral, if our enemies had truly been driven away or killed.

  But it was the very semblance of winter about my skin.

  CHAPTER

  14

  ANDRIANA

  I rose slowly and casually swung my sword in a circle before passing it to my other hand for another circle. Sethos eyed me as if I were idle entertainment.

  I itched for the chance to take him down. Could I not summon the strength within me for this, the greatest opportunity I’d ever had to free Keallach from whatever evil hold his “guardian” had over him?

  And yet as soon as I began pleading with the Maker to steel me for the task, other Sheolites emerged from the trees, surrounding me.

  Sethos gave me a thin-lipped smile. “Fight or come peacefully, but you shall accompany me, Andriana.” He bowed his head and steepled his fingers, staring at me. “The emperor demands it.”

  I gasped for air as his look seemed to translate into a physical clamping around my neck. It’s a trick, I told myself. A sorcerer’s trick.

  I swallowed hard, planted my sword in the soil at my feet and rested my hands on the hilt of it, then returned his gaze. Maker, bind your enemy. Banish him from my heart and mind.

  Immediately Sethos lifted his head, his lips parting in surprise. He let out a laugh. “Well done, Remnant,” he said, striding toward me slowly, his hands outstretched to show me he was unarmed. But well I knew that his most powerful weapons were not of iron, but of the spirit. He thought himself invincible. That I wouldn’t dare to strike at him while I was surrounded by his men.

  It would be folly.

  It would be the doorway to my own death.

  It would be an honor, I thought. Without Sethos in the way, poisoning Keallach and many others in Pacifica, what headway could the Remnants make in securing a future freedom and peace? I was created for this moment, I told myself, my grip tightening on the hilt of the sword. I can do this. Strike down my enemy, endure the onslaught of emotional pain, with such a distinct reward in the end.

  He stopped in front of me. “The emperor would like me to bring you back whole, but he said nothing against beating you into submission.”

  “I’d like to see you try that,” I said. I visualized myself lifting the sword, the turn of my wrist, the muscles it would take to bring it up and through his neck.

  “Brave words for a Remnant without her knight.” He sniffed, looking over to Killian who had faded into unconsciousness. How many minutes did Killian have left? Where was Ronan? And Tressa?

  “Remnants trained alongside their knights,” I said. “But then, you know that. Because it was you who saw to it that both Keallach and Kapriel’s knights were pitted against each other, didn’t you? Conveniently removing them both an
d opening up the path for you to fully infiltrate.”

  A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “I know nothing of what you speak,” he said, an obvious lie. It enraged me that he could find amusement in the memory of the day two of my unmet brothers died. With a cry of fury, I lifted my sword and turned to give weight to the momentum of my strike, bringing it toward his neck.

  With casual elegance, he reached out and grabbed my arm, staying me.

  Without pause, I turned the other way, wrenching my arm free of his grip and coming around — ​hoping to at least wound him in the torso or leg if I couldn’t kill him.

  But he wasn’t where I expected him to be. He moved so swiftly … one moment on one side of me, the next, the other. He kicked the back of my thigh, making my leg buckle, then rammed an elbow between my shoulder blades. I went down hard, pain shooting up and over my head and down my spine. I tried to rise, but he put a boot on my back and shoved me to the ground again. “Bring her,” he said to the others. “Leave the knight to die.”

  I was up on my feet as soon as he’d taken a step, but the Sheolite guards were too, one taking each arm. I tried to wrench away, but a third faced me and rammed his fist into my belly. I gasped for breath and crumpled, my vision swimming, and felt the men dragging me forward, just as they had done to Tressa …

  Gradually, my breath returned, and when we entered a boulder field, I tried to use the varying heights of rocks we were crossing to pull away from the iron grip of my enemies.

  “Cease your struggle,” Sethos said, suddenly at my side again and grabbing hold of my hair. He forced me onward, pulling me upward again by the hair when I fell painfully to my knees. At last I saw that we were beside a cliff again. He pressed me forward until the tips of my boots were over the edge, pebbles around them tumbling downward. “Do you really wish to press me?” he hissed.

  My heart pounded. “No,” I grit out, giving in. What good would I do the Ailith if I ended up dead?