Leaves of Flame

by Benjamin Tate

  “Quotl!”

  He turned as Azuka rode toward him at the back of the fighting. The young shaman was covered in blood, a gash along his forehead bleeding down into his beard. His scepter was slick with the black blood of the gruen.

  When Azuka came close enough to see him clearly, shock registered on his face and he drew back in uncertainty. “Quotl?”

  “What is it?” Quotl asked. His own voice thrummed on the air, vibrated through his body and caused his gaezel to shift in place.

  Azuka swallowed, as if to steady himself. “Peyo doesn’t think Corranu and Painted Sands can hold much longer.”

  Quotl glanced toward the northern line. It had given more ground than Thousand Springs, the Riders nearly to the ditches and mounds of earth. “Tell them to order the retreat. I’ll inform Tarramic.”

  Azuka spun his mount and sprinted toward the northern line. Quotl watched a moment, feeling the gaezel’s hooves trembling through the soil, then turned to find Tarramic.

  The dwarren clan chief was engaged in the midst of a roiling battle with the Alvritshai. Even as he watched, Tarramic—­mouth twisted in an animalistic snarl—­stabbed his sword into a mounted Alvritshai’s side, his other hand grabbing the pale-­skinned rider’s armor and pulling him down from his horse. Blood splattered Tarramic’s face, but as the horse the Alvritshai had ridden was cut down, more Alvritshai slid forward to take their fallen comrade’s place.

  He would never reach the clan chief in time. Not through the chaos of the fight.

  He spun and found one of the younger Riders who carried a drum. Kneeing his mount forward, he ground to a halt in the rocky soil at the Rider’s side and pointed with his blood-­soaked staff at the edge of the fighting. “Call the retreat!” When the Rider flinched, eyes going wide at the sight of the head shaman, he barked, “Now!”

  The Rider fumbled with the drum, brought it around and pounded out an unsteady rhythm. Quotl didn’t wait, racing down the length of the army’s back, roaring, “Retreat! Fall behind the defenses!” his voice throbbing with power, reverberating on the air. Those at the rear of the army turned startled glances back at him, hesitating as the drumbeat steadied and began reiterating the command. All along the line, the shamans took up their head shaman’s call, scepters raised, and slowly Thousand Springs began to pull back. To the north, Quotl heard the drums of Painted Sands echoing the call, saw the Riders breaking away and fleeing northward around the ditches, others heading directly toward them, leaping their depths with their fleet gaezels. Quotl found himself surrounded, his own gaezel snorting and stamping the ground as the dwarren retreated, but he did not allow his mount its head. The Wraith army had begun hounding the retreat, the Alvritshai leaping forward to seize the advantage, cutting down dwarren as they turned, the front of the line fighting hard to hold them back while seeking an opportunity to flee. To the north, the mixed creatures of the Turning roared in triumph, the terren and gruen breaking formation as Painted Sands gave up completely and ran, a few dwarren stout of heart overwhelmed in instants. In the south, the last line of dwarren in Thousand Springs held more firmly, intent on giving their fellow dwarren the greatest chance possible of reaching the defenses before the Wraith army.

  Including Clan Chief Tarramic.

  Cursing, Quotl kicked his mount forward, passing through the last stragglers racing for the ditches. As he drew up behind Tarramic’s position, he bellowed, “Tarramic! Retreat! Pull back now!”

  He saw Tarramic’s attention waver, knew that he had heard. But the clan chief roared and dove forward, attacking with a vengeance.

  Growling in frustration, Quotl reached for the power that suffused him, sank into the earth beneath on instinct, seized the patterns he found there, and without thought twisted.

  The earth beneath the Alvritshai forces shattered, flinty stone shards flying upward into the Wraith forces like daggers. Horses screamed and reared, throwing their riders to the ground as they kicked the air with their hooves. The dwarren who had engaged them a moment before shied back, a few caught in the edge of the destruction, the gaezels milling in confusion.

  Quotl himself felt a moment of utter shock, slicing down through the power that pulsed through his body, followed by a wave of weariness, but there was no time to evaluate it, no time to think. He raised his scepter and pointed toward the defenses behind them. “Retreat, you gods-­damned fools! Now, before they have time to recover!”

  A few of the Alvritshai already were, rallying around those who had been at the back of the Alvritshai forces and had not been caught in the blast. Riderless horses bolted across the plains behind them, but there weren’t enough dead to shift the tide of battle.

  And there were still the reinforcements waiting beyond.

  As soon as Tarramic broke and tore toward the ditches, his entourage covering his withdrawal, Quotl jerked his gaezel about and sprinted toward the dwarren regrouping behind. The ditches and mounds of dirt stretched across the earth in an arch over a thousand strides long, a swath of flat land before the landslide began sloping toward the plains above. He could see the archers of Claw Lake lining the cliffs to the north, Shadow Moon to the south. Any of the Wraith army that passed the ditches would be in range of the archers. The confrontation on the plains had only been a delaying tactic; it had never been meant to hold for long. The real defense would now begin.

  He focused on the ditches a moment before his gaezel tensed and leaped the first, landing with a jarring thud on the far side, sprinting for a breath, two, then leaping over another. Quotl grunted on the last leap, steering his mount toward the bulk of the army, saw Tarramic doing the same to one side. They arrived at the same time.

  “What shattered the ground?” Tarramic asked, an edge of fear in his voice.

  “The will of Ilacqua,” Quotl answered.

  Tarramic spun toward him, the rest of his leading Riders milling around behind him. The clan chief’s eyes narrowed, tense, then widened in awe. “What’s happened to you, Quotl? You’re…” He groped for a word, shook his head when he failed.

  Quotl recalled Azuka’s reaction, knew that something about him had changed, although he didn’t know what. But he could hear it in his voice, knew that he had caused the earth to shatter.

  “The gods are working through me,” he said, trying to stem the flood of panic in his chest. He’d said it softly, but most of those near heard, spreading the word through the ranks in a nearly visible ripple. Quotl frowned in annoyance, catching Tarramic’s gaze. “The defenses,” he prodded.

  Tarramic snapped out of his awe, although Quotl could still feel its brittle edge as the Riders watched him out of the corners of their eyes. “Prepare to defend the ditches. And call in the archers.”

  Half of the Riders dismounted and scrambled over the earthworks, the other half herding the gaezels a short distance away before converging on the open area between where the ditches ended and the cliffs of the Break rose to the south. Painted Sands had already begun digging in to the north. From behind, the small group of archers from both clans who had waited in reserve trotted forward and arrayed themselves behind the lines.

  “Is it the Archon?” Tarramic asked. “Is he channeling Ilacqua’s power through you?”

  Quotl’s skin prickled at the gruff awe in Tarramic’s voice, but he paused, took a moment to test this newfound strength. He could sense no connection between the power flowing through him and his sense of the Archon to the south. “No, it is not coming from the Archon. It’s coming from the Lands.”

  Tarramic merely frowned. In the distance, the Alvritshai and the rest of the Wraith army had broken off their attack on the retreating dwarren and reassembled, the reinforcements that waited behind moving forward. As the new forces merged with the rest, close enough to see now, Quotl realized why they had appeared so strange.

  “Orannian,” Tarramic spat.

  Quotl grunted in agreement. The dwarren histories spoke of those with the skins of lizards. They had once been like the
dwarren, but they had been changed by the cataclysmic Shattering that had destroyed the world and reshaped it. How the Shattering had come about, and how it had changed the world, was unclear, those oldest of oral histories fragmentary and obscure, but the mentions of the orannian were not.

  And yet, Quotl could not sense them as he could the rest of the creatures of the Turning.

  He frowned, but tore his attention away from the gathering forces. Wounded were dragged from their gaezels and led away, although there were few. Most of those grievously hurt had been left behind on the broken rock now beyond their reach, and those who’d managed to escape to the ditches weren’t wounded enough to be pulled from the ranks. Some of the shamans were passing among the Riders with vials from the Sacred Waters, the pink-­tinged liquid healing the least of the wounds so they could continue fighting; others were passing out food.

  Quotl felt sick at heart over those left behind, but there was nothing that could be done.

  Azuka appeared with water and dry flatbread, handing it out among Tarramic’s entourage. The clan chief drank, handing the skin to Quotl. “It will be a small reprieve,” Tarramic said, voice somber. “The Wraith army already gathers.”

  Warning drums sounded. The dwarren shifted where they stood, restless, eyes on the enemy. Quotl raised his head to the sky, the midday sun high overhead and shimmering down with a relentless heat he could feel against his skin. The power that suffused him had abated, but he could still feel it, thrumming in his blood.

  Alvritshai horns cut across the desert. Tarramic tensed. The Wraith army marched forward, but this time the dwarren did not rush out to meet them. Drums sounded again, dwarren readying in their trenches, those to north and south scrambling to mount.

  Tarramic glanced toward Quotl. “Can you do what you did before again?”

  “I don’t even know how I did it the first time.”

  “The Archon is going to be furious.”

  Something seized in Quotl’s chest. He suddenly regretted his announcement earlier that the gods were working through him. But what other explanation was there? He had never done anything like that before, had only felt the gods’ presence during spirit walks and meditations in the keevas. This had been different. This time, that presence had filled him, and he had used it to kill the gruen, to shatter the earth.

  He shuddered at the ramifications, both for the Archon and for himself, then calmed himself. The Archon hadn’t retained his position this long without knowing how to manipulate the clan chiefs and the head shamans. He would undoubtedly claim the power had been channeled through him. Only Quotl could gainsay him, and Quotl had no aspirations for the Archon’s position. He could let the Archon claim responsibility.

  Yet even as he relaxed, a pang of uneasiness threaded through him, of doubt. This power should have manifested itself through the Archon, not through Quotl. What did it mean that it hadn’t?

  On the desert, the Wraith army suddenly broke into a run, the orannian outpacing the rest. As they approached, they spread out, the Alvritshai and other creatures coming up behind.

  “They’re going to hit on all fronts,” Tarramic said.

  To their right and slightly behind, a drum suddenly thrummed and two hundred archers snapped their bows to the sky, arrows already placed. The drum thudded again and bows creaked as they were drawn. The whirring release sounded like a thousand birds taking sudden flight. Quotl watched the arrows arc over the ditches, some of the winged dreun banking out of the way with harsh shrieks. They fell in a deadly hail, another swath of arrows already launched, but it didn’t slow the Wraith army down at all. They struck on all three fronts almost simultaneously.

  Deep within, Quotl felt the power he held swell as his heart quickened.

  Siobhaen cursed and Colin spun to find her stumbling down the last of the massive ridge of shattered stone that encircled the center of the city. It was like a wave caused by a rock cast into a pool of water had petrified in place. Debris avalanched down with her, disturbed by her feet. Eraeth took a step toward her as she neared the bottom, but she caught herself against a boulder twice Colin’s height, what had once been part of a building based on the detailed carving etched across one face.

  She straightened and muttered, “I’m fine,” annoyance making her voice taut. She wiped sweat from her face with one hand.

  Colin glanced toward the midday sun, felt the grit of dust mingling with the sweat on his own face, then focused on the broken towers ahead.

  They’d found shelter in one of the half-­collapsed buildings in the outskirts of the city when darkness fell, using the walls to conceal their fire. The night had turned chill. During his watch, Colin had ascended to the precarious height of the wall—­the roof had caved in uncountable years past—­and searched the wide valley that cupped the ancient city for signs of life, for evidence of the Haessari and the Wraiths and their armies. Most of the city had been lost in the darkness, the ruined buildings not even shapes in the scant moonlight. But the center of the city had glowed with a pale, bluish light, the shattered towers silhouetted in the distance. Colin had felt the power of the Source from his perch, had felt himself drawn to it. It had throbbed in the ground beneath him, and he knew he sensed the lake far beneath the surface, the reservoir that gave the Source its power.

  And it was still awakening, its power growing. He shuddered at its strength.

  That power had held his attention for at least an hour. He’d studied it, tested it, tasted it, trying to determine how he would manipulate it when the time came. Part of its power was already in use. He could sense the flow that attacked the Seasonal Trees. He would have to block that, but it would not be enough. The Source needed to be balanced with the other Wells. It needed equilibrium.

  And it needed protection from interference by the Wraiths.

  When he’d finally learned what he could from a distance, he’d turned his attention back to the city. It had been still, dark, lifeless. But to the north, fire dotted the landscape. An entire array of light, flickering against the black backdrop of the night. It had taken him ten minutes to realize that the fires weren’t spread out flat over a wide plain, as he’d first assumed, but were vertical.

  Like the dwarren in the subterranean warrens, the Snake People lived in the cliffs surrounding the city. He’d wondered briefly why they hadn’t taken over the ruins themselves. Some of the buildings were still mostly intact, especially near the outer edges of what he’d come to think of as the city proper. The destruction where they had camped had not been as prevalent as what they’d passed through at the city’s edge. But as the city emerged into dawn’s light, he’d suddenly realized that he wouldn’t want to live in the city either. Even now, what had to be thousands of years after its fall, he could feel ghosts in the streets, in the buildings, as if an energy had been absorbed by the stone and was still seeping out. An energy that had nothing and everything to do with the Source.

  He’d been concerned that he’d react to that energy as he had within the caverns of Gaurraenan’s halls, but he hadn’t felt time tugging at him as it had in those frigid chambers. He wasn’t certain why. Except that the energy here felt… dry, used up, and old. The stone within the mountains to the north had been vital, thick with a visceral sense of blood.

  They’d headed toward the Source at first light, Colin pointing out the direction of the Haessari’s city. They’d kept as many of the intact buildings between them and the cliff faces where the Haessari lived as possible, even though they hadn’t encountered any of the Snake People in the city at all.

  As soon as they descended from the strange ridge of stone debris, the nature of the destruction changed. The buildings they’d passed through before had collapsed, ceilings and walls buckling inward as time clawed and ate its way through the structures.

  Not so here, Colin thought as Siobhaen dusted herself off and joined him and Eraeth at the edge of the inner city.

  “It’s as if all of the stone here simply… fractured,
” Eraeth said, waving a hand toward the debris field that spread out before them. “As if it splintered and the pieces were thrown aside.”

  Siobhaen knelt and picked up a shard of rock at her feet. She hissed as she touched an edge, blood welling against her fingertip. “It’s sharp as a blade.”

  “The entire central city is fractured,” Colin said, motioning toward the stumps of the towers. “Unlike the outer city, the towers were sheared off, their tops blown off by some central source.”

  “The Well?”

  Colin shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps. Whatever it was, it destroyed the city completely. And the Source appears to be at the center of the destruction.”

  Neither Alvritshai said anything, both scanning the distance with shaded eyes. Then Eraeth strode forward, down the debris-­covered street that appeared to head toward the confluence of the two rivers and the tallest of the truncated towers.

  A moment later, Colin and Siobhaen followed.

  They wound through the streets, the construction of the buildings changing as they passed from section to section. A dark red stone was used in one area, replaced in another by basalt, then a dirty white with flecks of quartz that glinted in the sunlight. Even shattered, they could discern different styles. In one district, the sandstone had been carved into blocks, in another, mudbricks. As they neared the dry riverbed, the buildings appeared to have been formed from living rock itself, sculpted like clay, what remained smooth and seamless.

  They reached the riverbank, rock walls hemming the ancient water in and thick stone supports for docks and bridges jutting up from the cracked and brittle riverbed beneath. Eraeth pointed to where one of the bridges remained mostly intact and they skirted the dry river’s edge to reach it.

  “We’ll be exposed,” Siobhaen said as they stared across its length. Portions of it had been sliced away in the fracturing of the inner city, chunks of thick stone lying in the river­bed below, but a path still existed all the way across to the city. The width of the bridge was immense, at least eight wagon-­lengths from side to side.