Through The Fire: The Alawansi Book One

by Valerie Puissant

Jabari looked abashed. “I have a letter with father’s name on it if anybody asks, but my friend Jako tells me no one bothers to ask if you look old enough.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “So you mean to say your father does not know? You are running away from home?” I thought about the recent upset in my own home. “Oh, Jabari, have you thought about how your decision will affect your father? This is foolish and selfish. You cannot imagine the pain in the heart when you lose someone you care for deeply.”

  “He raised his chin defiantly. “I am sixteen now, a man by law. I can make my own decisions. I know this is the right choice for me. I have already missed my chance to join the prince’s elite knights. I will not miss this opportunity too. Besides, all Father and I do these days is bicker. I should think he would be glad to have me gone.”

  I did not speak though I knew there was no truth to his words. “I have left him a note, explaining my decision. My friends and I leave in a few short hours, but I wanted to come and speak to you before I leave. I wanted to th-thank you. Without you, I would never have become what I am today.”

  He did not need to explain his meaning. I knew he was talking about the rune book that I had given him that had given him his strength and fighting prowess. I should have felt proud that my gift had changed him so much, but I was overwhelmed with guilt. If I had not given him the book of runes, he might still be a sweet, dreamy bookish boy. Of course, without the book, he might also have been condemned to a life of invisibility. I would not have wished that on my friend.

  I sighed heavily. “I suppose there is nothing I can say to convince you to wait one more year for your father’s peace of mind and mine?”

  He groaned and turned away from me. “Safi, you have to understand. This is my true calling. I am a great warrior. The blood of my fighting ancestors flows strong in my veins and I must answer its call. I am leaving and I want to leave you on a happy note. I do not know when we will next meet. I want to part as friends.”

  I gave him my hand once again and we clasped forearms. “We do part as friends, Jabari. I will miss you, my friend.”

  He looked relieved. “I would ask one more boon.”

  “Name it friend and if it is in my power, I will grant it.”

  “Will you watch over Father for me. He is nowhere near his dotage, but Mother is gone now and he is alone. Most of my brothers have been called to arms so they will not be nearby. I ask that you just check in on him from time to time to see that he is well?”

  I nodded, “I will, for as long as I am able, but you must know that I will soon be leaving the kingdom myself.”

  His eyes widened, “But surely your training is not complete. You must have years left before you are released from apprenticeship.”

  I shrugged, “It is a complicated tale and your time is short. Just trust that I will be well and I will do all I can to see to your father’s comfort before I take my leave and I will ask that Wylan do the same for as long as he is able.”

  Jabari nodded, satisfied. He stood in silence, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I guess that is all I came to say. Thank you Safi. I wish you luck in your travels.” He moved in and put his long thick arms around me, gathering me in a warm, firm embrace. I threw my much smaller arms around him and squeezed. We stood that way for several moments before he pulled away, smiling. Suddenly he held a hand in the air. “Oh, I almost forgot.” He reached into the pouch on his belt and pulled out a small leather square with an intricate rune burned into the center. “This is a locating rune. It will allow me to find whoever holds it, No matter where they are in the world. Now that I know you will be traveling, perhaps I will use it to come and visit you someday.”

  I looked down at the rune, touched that he wanted to maintain that contact with me. “Thank you, I will make sure it stays safe.”

  He bowed at me. “Then I will take my leave now. I am joining the men at the barracks for a short sleep and an early start.” With a wave, he turned and ran off into the night with the unnatural speed he was now capable of achieving. I wondered if I would ever see him again. Suddenly I was grateful he had thought enough of me to stop by. I went back into the tower and went back up the stairs to my own bed.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Wylan and I sat at our kitchen table. I had one of my favorite books open in front of me. My eyes were focused on the page but I had not read a single word. Wylan sighed and I seized the opportunity to distract myself and looked up at him. He looked at me. “Do you think we are fools?”

  I sighed back at him. “I do not know. This is the day Uma specified in her instructions. This is the day we are supposed to leave the tower and journey to the safe house, two months to the day after the troops depart for the east.” We had both been awake since the moment the day dawned though I know, for my part, I had hardly slept the night before. Our cart was packed and we had given it to Savan the carriage driver to take and hide in the woods.

  Uma did not explain why we would need to hide it in the woods, she had just said “Trouble is comin’, and when it do, y’all do not try to fight it. You just get up and go. You will know when it is time to go. It will be very clear. Y’all stay safe and know that all will be well.” We had not even questioned it. We had loaded a cart with food and books and supplies and sent it out into the woods.

  “She said we would know when it was time.”

  Sitting at the kitchen table in the quiet, early morning, it was hard not to feel foolish. I looked back down at the pages of my book. None of the words were sinking into my consciousness.

  Wylan suddenly slammed his own book shut. “I cannot concentrate. I need to do something.” He grabbed hold of his staff and stood, then he froze. His eyes widened. “Safara,” my name came out in a hoarse whisper.

  “I am not in the mood to garden, Wylan. You go and do that yourself.”

  “No! Safara, sense it! Do you feel it?”

  I reached out with my magic and knew immediately what he felt. I gasped. “People are coming. There must be hundreds!”

  Wylan nodded, “They march in orderly rows, soldiers.”

  I stood, sensing the coming horde, unable to react. I remembered the words in Uma’s instructions. “Remember what Uma said? Do not fight it. Just go.”

  Wylan shook his head, “No, an enemy approaches. We must warn the king, we must warn the people.”

  “How will we get to the gates before the soldiers arrive. We have no cart or horse.”

  “We go to the top of the tower and sound the horn of alarm, then we head for the castle on foot. If the king is wise, he will send a carriage to meet us on the way. Hard to say if he will though.”

  The king had not gotten over his impatience with us and our claims of foul play. We had worked hard to fulfill his demands for weapons, but Wylan had not backed down from his position and neither had King Naser. We had not had a royal audience in months, but His Majesty could not fail to heed us with the enemy bearing down at the gate.

  We sounded the alarm and headed up the road leading from our tower on foot. We had gone less than three quarters of a mile before a carriage with the royal seal picked us up from the road. The driver was not Savan, since we had sent him away. We climbed into the coach and sped back to the city.

  To our surprise, the driver did not take us straight into the castle. He turned and sped towards the city walls. We arrived at the city gates just as they were being closed and bolted against the enemy. The king waited next to the door as we arrived.

  King Naser walked up to the carriage as we descended. “I suppose you have come to gloat?”

  I took his meaning immediately, but Wylan looked genuinely puzzled. “Sire?”

  “Oh do not be coy, mage. You were the one who warned me of deception. You were the only one to speak out against sending our forces away in such large numbers and now the enemy Zuunland marches on our city and our defenses are sorely depleted of manpower.” He beckoned for us to follow him as he entered the guard tower
and ascended the stairs that led up onto the city walls.

  We stepped out onto the wall and the king handed Wylan his scope. Wylan held it to his eye and hissed, then he handed it to me. I looked through the eyepiece and gasped. The troops were still three miles away, but I could see the large, orderly group as it moved towards us. I could just make out the high shoulder pads and flared kilts of the Zuunland soldiers. I was shocked speechless. The king turned to Wylan. “Will you still tell me that Zuunland is no threat to this kingdom?” The monarch looked defiant, as if he needed to be in the right about some part of this fiasco. Wylan did not answer.

  “Your Majesty, we must get you back to the castle now that you have seen that the doors are secured.” It was a city guardsmen speaking to the king. The man stood with his back straight and his chin held high, affecting that thousand mile stare that soldiers always used when they were forbidden to look in the eyes of a superior.

  The king waved at him dismissively. “Nonsense, we are perfectly safe up here. We may not have many troops, but thanks to our mages, we do have plenty of weapons more deadly than our foes can imagine and I mean to make full use of them.” He adjusted his stone enchanted armor and screwed the helmet a bit tighter onto his head as if to emphasize the point.

  Wylan shook his head. “Sire, you chose not to heed my warnings before, I beg you, heed them now. The weapons are good, but they are meant to aid an adequately sized fighting force. These men will have enough to do without worrying about defending their king along with the city. Please, follow the guard back to the castle so that they can focus on their jobs.”

  “The men can do their jobs, as you say mage. You two are here to protect your king.”

  Uma’s words came back to me. “When the danger comes, do not fight it.” She never explained what I was supposed to do if I could not walk away from the fight. I had read tales of epic battles described in glorious detail in the pages of some of my favorite books. The large group of men marching over the distant rise did not fill my heart with a valiant thirst for victory. The only thing I felt was terror, complete and all consuming. I could not remember a single lesson from my combat training. I had not even thought to bring my bow. It was packed on the cart along with other things I thought I would need later. I do not think I had ever expected to actually have to fight. I stood next to the king paralyzed with fear.

  The troops approached as we stood on the wall. King Naser pointed at them. “Here they come to negotiate the siege.” He turned to us. “No cause for worry, men. We had a bountiful harvest and food stores are plentiful. Winter is fast approaching and they will not weather it well in flimsy tents. We will win this struggle easily. The city wall was twice the height of a man, but suddenly that did not seem nearly high enough. I felt vulnerable, exposed. We watched as the massive fighting force arranged itself across the rise. A small group of soldiers advanced towards the gate, but most of the men stood near enough for us to see them, but just out of range of our arrows and cannons.

  Archers stood at the ready but they held their fire as the soldiers approached, offering no aggression. The enemy force stopped feet from the gate and suddenly an arrow sailed out of the center of the troop and landed in the chest of an archer on the walls. I watched, wide eyed as the man cried out and fell. Wylan moved with lightning speed, opening up holes at the feet of the Zuunland soldiers. “Light the wick on the fire cannon,” shouted the king. He was looking in my direction but I was still frozen on the spot.

  The cannoneer grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me over to the device that I had labored over so enthusiastically. He pointed at the priming wick and without thinking, I lit it with the end of my finger and felt the perverse tingle of pleasure as the small magic flowed through me. The cannoneer aimed the primed weapon at the enemy and pressed on the lever. A stream of fire spurted out of the gun. I was close enough to see the shocked looks on the faces of the men in the holes. The group was engulfed in flames in minutes and they screamed in agony as the sickly stench of smoke and charred human flesh filled the air. I had seen death before. It was simply a part of life in the village where I grew up. The old, the weak and the young often perished from disease and I had mourned many a passing, but I had never had a hand in the taking of a life before. Never had the blood been on my hands. Thirty men, most of whom had done no wrong, lay dead in a hole and I had built the gun and filled it with the sticky fire serum. I had even lit the fire that rained down upon their heads. This was what I had done. This was what I had labored over and created, this instrument of horrifying and grizzly death. I fell to my knees and crawled to the city side of the wall and vomited onto the ground below.

  I was shaking uncontrollably. “Get to your feet, young mage. You need to see the king safely back to the castle while we hold off defenders.” I had no idea who had spoken. I was hauled roughly to my feet. I was disoriented. I had no idea what I was supposed to do or where I was supposed to go. I stayed along the back side of the wall, as far away from the gruesome scene on the ground as I could get. Finally my eyes focused on the bright green robes of my friend. I seized upon the familiar sight and hurried to catch up to him. The king was with him and he clapped me on the back. “Well done, lad! That is the way to show them. Next time I wager you will be ready to torch them with your own hands.” I swallowed hard to make sure I did not lose the contents of my stomach again. The bodies writhing in the flames rose in my mind again and I could not stop the tears that spilled from my eyes. There was already enough blood on my hands, but the day was still young.

  The royal coach waited for us as we descended the city wall and the three of us climbed in. I watched the city move past the cart for several minutes. People had begun to emerge from their homes as we passed. The alarm horns were blaring through town.

  Foot traffic grew thicker the closer we got to the castle. It became nearly impossible for the carriage to pass. People clogged the streets and blocked the way to the castle.

  Soon travel became impossible. “Majesty, I think we need to go on foot from here.” Crowds headed towards the castle walls were so thick, it took great effort to travel even a few feet. I applied a hot finger to the backs of the necks of a few citizens to get them to move out of the way, but progress was still slow. Worried people were desperately trying to get inside the castle walls for safety.

  Suddenly, a panicked scream sounded from behind us. We turned in time to see another small troop of armed men wearing Zuunlander uniforms marched up the street, clearing their path with the hilts of their swords and a few well placed arrows. Wylan and I pulled the king into an alley beside a bakery as the troops came to a standstill not ten feet from our hiding place. We were not at the castle, but we were close. The king leaned over to Wylan and whispered. “I do not know how they got into the city, but we need to stop those men before they reach the castle.”

  Wylan frowned as he looked at the streets which were thronged with panicked people. Innocent men, women and children criss crossed the streets, darting in, out and around the troop ranks. I watched Wylan concentrate and open up deep holes that dropped in all the troops along with a fair number of innocent citizens. There was no way to avoid it. The king nodded, satisfied that the danger had been temporarily stopped. “Now fill the holes.”

  The color drained out of Wylan’s face. “Sire, I cannot fill the holes. There are women and children, whole families down there. If I close up, they will suffocate and die. I cannot kill innocent people. You cannot make me do this.”

  King Naser grabbed the front of Wylan’s robe with both hands. “If you do not do it, I will have to ask the fire child to do it. How many more innocent lives will be lost if we begin to start fires with all these citizens in the streets. In times of war, innocent lives are always sacrificed. I ask you to do this because we have no choice. A few must die in order to save many more. Now you close that hole for your king and your country, boy or you will be hanged for treason.”

  Wylan looked stricken. He had never seemed
so young and so vulnerable to me before. I was crying uncontrollably. How could this be happening? I shut my eyes tight I could not look. I heard the earth move and the screams coming from inside the hole. I opened my eyes again and I turned to look at what Wylan was seeing. A woman stood on the edge of the hole, reaching down into it, calling for her husband who had been dragged in. She watched in horror as the hole closed around him and everyone else in the hole. The screaming did not last long as earth filled the holes and the mouths and lungs of the people inside. Wylan sat heavily on the ground but the king stood. “The traffic is lighter now. We should be able to slip past the distracted crowd and into the castle.”

  The king walked away without looking back to see if we were following. Wylan was staring at nothing, slowly shaking his head. I knelt beside him and shook him hard. I put my hands on his cheeks and made him look at me, sending an uncomfortable amount of heat into my hands, enough to get his attention, but not enough to burn him. Slowly, he turned his gaze to me. His normally calm and impassive eyes had gone dark, his expression hopeless. I spoke to him as quietly as I could. “Wylan, remember what Uma said. All will be well again, we just have to make it through this. Please, I need you to be strong for just a bit longer. I will not make it through this without you. Please, for me you have to get up.” My words slowly sank into his consciousness and he nodded.

  I stood and grabbed his wrists and pulled him to his feet. I kept my eyes forward as we walked so as not to look at the patch of disturbed earth that was now a mass grave filled with the enemy as well as our countrymen. I focused on the shining armor of our king as he made his way to the castle gates. I was practically dragging Wylan along. We were making slow progress, so the king moved faster than we did and by the time we reached the gates, someone had already given him a speaking trumpet.

  A ripple surged through the crowds as he lifted it to his lips and I could hear the panicked screams of the assembled crowd. “The gates of the city have been flung wide and the enemy troops are marching towards the castle!” King Naser let the trumpet fall to his side again, an expression of shock on his face. Citizens pushed forward with renewed energy, trying to get inside the gates. There were too many people. The castle walls would never protect them all.