Eighth Fire

by Curtis, Gene

  Emerald’s third team was mounted and ready for the fifth flag. The General stamped his hoof anxiously awaiting Mark’s command to begin. The breeze had picked up now and he knew if it increased much more that laying down a smoke screen would be ineffective. He glanced to his right and saw his friends waiting just as eager as he was to start the play. He called, “Box formation if the wind picks up.”

  Everyone nodded their agreement. The standard box formation was where eight players surrounded the center flag carrying player and three riders took point in case the flag needed to be passed. The trouble was, with thirty-six players on the other teams all trying to get the flag the formation was difficult to maintain.

  Although this was just a five point flag, they needed every point they could get since Jasper tribe had already scored the bonus flag. Mark knew the best tactics involved distracting the other teams’ players and/or horses rather than trying to get the flag by brute force. The trouble was coming up with something the other teams weren’t expecting or hadn’t trained to defend. After more than five thousand years of flags matches and military history, doing that was an incredibly difficult task.

  Mark’s idea for this play was to set up a series of diversions to confuse and tire out the other players while his team stayed back. The first diversion would be reflected sunlight directed toward the other players after someone had acquired the flag. Nick had seen to it that this team all had Mylar mirrors stretched on a folding frame and stand. This would slow the players down providing more opportunity for more grabs for the flag thus wearing down the riders. Once past the line of mirrors the players would encounter a smoke screen which they couldn’t see beforehand because of the mirrors. The standard defense for a smoke screen was to slow down, split up and lose yourself in the smoke while getting clear of it as quickly as possible and then swiftly regrouping to defend the flag. Swiftly regrouping to defend the flag was difficult to do since there was always conflict and being wary of traps within the smoke screen. According to Omar’s Strategy Guide for Flags, the flag bearer almost always emerged from the screen first and was usually undefended if only briefly. The key would be to have Emerald players spread out and close enough to grab the flag as soon as the flag bearer emerged and make a run for home on their fresh mounts.

  “The flag is up and it looks like it’s going to be pretty far out,” called the announcer.

  The flag struck the ground farther away than Mark had ever seen it. As soon as it touched the dirt he set The General in motion while watching the other players to see who would take the lead. It didn’t really matter who took the lead or got the flag first. His team would slowly fall behind to implement this smoke and mirrors variation of Donavan’s Ploy.

  His headache began coming on quickly as he rode. LeOmi maneuvered up beside him and yelled, “Do you feel it?”

  He nodded. “Straight ahead. It’s a lot of people I think.” He called to the rest of the team, “Something bad is happening. I need everyone to follow me.” He said to LeOmi, “I need you to focus on following me and let your emotions be read. I’ll let everyone read my thoughts. I think we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

  A few minutes later Mark led all four tribe teams past the flag continuing on course straight for the opening in the perimeter wall to the engineering section.

  The announcer yelled, “I don’t believe it; nobody got the flag!”

  In the stands Tim stood and pulled out his spotting scope to look at the players on the field. “Something is wrong. They are all running full out straight for the Engineering Section.”

  Steve stood and shook Tim’s arm. Pointing at the field, he yelled, “Thralls!” He recalled Mrs. Shadowitz’s description of them after Mark’s encounter last Christmas: Foul manifestations, fetid, soulless things, sub-golem monstrosities, slaves to their master’s will.

  Tim looked to where Steve was looking. He shoved the scope back into Aaron’s Grasp and drew out his sword, a Chinese curved blade nearly five feet long. Steve grabbed his arm just before he remanifested down to the school grounds near the corrals.

  Mark brought his stallion to a stop at the passage to the Engineering Section and yelled, “I need auto cars for forty-eight,” as he dismounted. He ran through the opening. Using his binoculars he could see that a few miles away the battle was raging around the sunstone. It looked like more than a couple hundred people were engaged in close quarter combat. Figures were running up a mound of sand around the pedestal that was supporting the sunstone. When they reached the top of the pile they just dissolved to a pile of sand. The pile of sand slowly increased in size as more and more thralls ran up to the top and dissolved.

  The rest of the players filed in behind him. Cynthia Dover reassuringly put her hand on his shoulder and called out, “How many can remanifest?” About a half dozen students including her, raised their hands. “Well, what are we waiting for? Latch on to someone and let’s go!” She said to the wall, “Cancel the auto cars.”

  Back near the corrals two thralls obviously made from the sands of the school yard began running at Tim and Steve with their glass scimitars poised to strike. Tim’s blade flashed through their necks and both ghouls collapsed into piles of sand at their feet. That’s when Tim noticed Steve. “You are not supposed to be here! Grab on; I will take you back.”

  “I’m a Marine!”

  “You quit.”

  “Once a Marine, always a Marine.”

  The grounds were quickly becoming populated with more thralls and more Magi. Steve ducked and barely missed being cut by a thrall’s blade just before Tim dispatched it. Steve said, “I need a weapon.”

  Tim produced a shorter version of the sword he had and handed it to Steve. “Be careful, it is sharp. You have to take their heads off to kill them.” Tim turned and began dispatching thralls almost as they appeared.

  Steve saw a bit of motion out of the corner of his eye and turned just in time to block a blow from a thrall. The force of the impact knocked him back a step, but he recovered and was able to sever the thrall’s sword arm halfway between the wrist and elbow then spun as he had seen Mark do. Before the creature’s head hit the ground he saw another one attacking from his left.

  Mark, Nick, Jamal, Chenoa and LeOmi along with a few others let go of Cynthia after she remanifested them near the base of the sunstone pedestal. The clash of sword on sword was loud; roughly two hundred Magi were defending against what looked like an all-out thrall attack. Several Magi were down. Mr. Müeller was lying on his back not ten yards away, rocking back and forth while holding his stomach in his hands, blood oozing through his fingers. Blood stained the sand beneath several other fallen Magi lying nearby. LeOmi blocked a blow that surely would have taken Mark’s head had she not reacted in time. She back-slashed and took the attacking thrall’s head instead. Mark drew his sword; his head pounded; the nearby wounded needed his help but could healing the fallen wait while he joined the fray?

  Roughly twenty black robed, hooded figures were scrambling up the sand piled around the pedestal of the sunstone. The sand around the pedestal was almost high enough for anyone to reach the sunstone and lines of thralls continued to disintegrate one-by-one at the top of the pile causing the pile to grow ever taller. Mark yelled, “They’re stealing the sunstone!”

  Steve ducked one thrall’s blow while simultaneously kicking another in the midsection forcing it to topple over the nearby corral fence. He straightened and turned to face his other opponent. He caught a glimpse of long blond hair and a blur of arms as they wielded weapons to its neck severing its head. The creature’s body collapsed into a pile of sand revealing the warrior behind. She was wielding a pair of hand scythes and quickly crossed her arms in an attack posture in front of her toward Steve. Her eyes were narrow, her countenance fierce and for a brief moment Steve didn’t recognize her. When he did he could hardly believe what he was seeing. “Shirley?”

  Shirley lunged forward and for a moment Steve thought she was coming at
him. He side stepped and with a flurry she took the sword hand and decapitated the attacking thrall swinging its sword toward her husband. Without looking back she was onto the next thrall and Steve’s eyes were forced from her by a trio of thralls running straight for him.

  Mark turned to the group nearest him. “Jamal, Chenoa, get a team up there and stop them!” He pointed to the group climbing toward the sunstone. “LeOmi and I are rescuers. We have to tend the wounded. Cynthia, you and a couple of others cover LeOmi; Nick, you pick two more and cover me. Let’s go!”

  Mark started running toward Mr. Müeller, returned his sword to Aaron’s Grasp and took out the healing oil from his pocket. By the time he reached the fallen Magi he already had a drop of the oil on his finger. He rubbed it across Mr. Müeller’s forehead and said, “Healing oil; you’re going to fall asleep for awhile. When you wake up you’ll be okay.”

  Mark scratched a large check mark in the sand next to Mr. Müeller marking him as already treated. He was very glad that he didn’t have to place an ‘x’ next to his body. He turned to see where LeOmi was so he wouldn’t waste time covering ground she’d already covered before running to the next wounded Magi. A loud rumble from the direction of the school sounded. He looked up and saw a large cloud of dust rising into the air. Someone off to the side yelled, “They’ve got it!” He turned and looked where the sunstone used to be. The hooded figures were gone too. All of a sudden every thrall he could see, hundreds of them all around, just disintegrated. The sudden silence after such a great clamor was unnerving. He scanned for any more threat of danger and seeing none called out, “This fight’s over. Get back to the school; they probably need our help.”

  Jogging beside Mark, Nick said, “I’m staying with you.”

  “Nick, the fight is over. You’ll be more help at the school.”

  “I’m not leaving your side.”

  “No time to argue.” Mark knelt and put a drop of healing oil on the next victim.

  The explosion sent debris flying out of all exterior doors on the first level of the school. Steve flinched from the blast, and didn’t recover in time to block a thrall’s blade, the tip of which slashed him across the chest deep enough to bleed a lot, but not deep enough to have caused any major damage. He took its head with a back swing. He stepped back and did a quarter turn to the right to face his next opponent and it just crumbled into a pile of sand. He looked around and saw all the thralls were now just piles of sand.

  He collapsed to his knees and before he could fall over Tim grabbed his shoulder and said, “Looks like you need to go to the healing ward. Grab my arm.”

  Breathing hard and fast Steve asked, “Shirley, where’s Shirley?”

  “She is all right, but you are not. You have lost a lot of blood and we need to get it staunched. Grab my arm.”

  Steve nodded and grabbed Tim’s arm. Instantly they were on the second floor balcony just outside the healing ward. Tim scooped him up and carried him inside. He said loudly, “Got a bleeder here. Chest wound, superficial, but he has lost a lot of blood.”

  A white robed healer walked quickly toward them and said, “Put him on the bed,” indicating a bed near them.

  “There are a lot more coming. You are going to need more help.”

  She answered, “I’ve already sounded the emergency alarm. I’ll have help in just a few minutes.”

  Another Magi carrying someone came through the balcony door. “Five inch puncture wound, mid-abdomen, all the way through by a sword.” Two healers walked in behind him.

  The first healer indicated another bed and said to the newly arrived healers, “There’s been a battle and we’re expecting a large number of sharp force traumas.” She pointed at Steve and the other patient, “Get busy on these two and roll them farther in. I’ll get more beds closer to the door.”

  Tim walked back out to the balcony just as more healers were arriving.

  Most of the seriously wounded were students, but none had been killed. Steve was up and about looking around in the chaos of the healing ward for his wife. He had been taken care of straight away since he had managed to keep his wound clean. Others would have to have their wounds cleaned before being healed otherwise the body would heal around the foreign material which in most cases required later surgery to remove the extraneous stuff.

  Steve could not find Shirley but he did come across Mrs. Shadowitz. “Ma’am, do you happen to know where my wife is?”

  Mrs. Shadowitz’s mind was obviously preoccupied with the recent events. She looked at Steve with a vacant stare before focusing on him. “I beg your pardon; what did you just say?”

  “Do you know where Shirley Young is?”

  “I believe Jeremy took her to guest quarters.”

  “Ma’am...I saw her fighting on the field. She’s obviously had some training. Do you know anything about that?”

  “We’re in the way here. I’ll walk with you to the dorm.”

  Once they were in the hall Mrs. Shadowitz began, “I don’t know which is going to be more painful: me telling or you hearing what you don’t know about your wife and why she is the way she is.”

  Steve stopped walking and looked puzzled. “What do you mean, ‘the way she is’?”

  She nodded her head sideways indicating that he should continue walking with her and she continued speaking in a low voice. “Shirley was in her first junior year when it happened.”

  “First junior year! You mean my wife was a Magi?”

  “Yes, she was a Magi student here at The Seventh Mountain, very gifted in many areas.” The hall was lined on both sides with paintings and sculptures. Mrs. Shadowitz walked to a glass sculpture of a golden palomino standing on a pedestal and turned to look at Steve. He looked at it and then back at Mrs. Shadowitz. She pointed at the green lettered plaque:

  Shirley Torre

  Glass Sculpture 7,903,751

  “She would have been a great asset had she finished her training and she loved it here. Tim, Gerod and Shana were her best friends. Tim was particularly fond of her and I suspect he would have given you a run for your money in courting her. I didn’t realize how much he cared for her until after...after...” Her voice faltered. She turned away and wiped tears from her eyes.

  Steve put his hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed. “It can’t be that bad; after all, she’s alive and well.”

  Mrs. Shadowitz turned and looked him in the eyes. “Had it not been for Tim she would have died that day; she almost did anyway. It was his love for her that enabled him to find her and she doesn’t even remember.”

  She wiped her nose lightly with a handkerchief and continued walking. “Shirley had no idea that Tim had romantic feelings for her. She thought they were just close friends. Of course she thought that; Tim had given her no reason to think otherwise, but it was these very feelings that allowed him to remanifest to where she was, and just in the nick of time too.”

  Steve said, “I thought you had to think of a place in order to remanifest.”

  “That’s usually true, but the important thing is to visualize the place and to make it as real in your mind as if you were already there. Tim visualized himself in Shirley’s arms.”

  He pondered a moment and said, “I understand.” He nodded slightly while concluding in his mind that Tim still loved his wife and that was why he was there at the stables the day Mark was born.

  “I don’t think you do, not fully. You see; had Shirley chosen Tim, or anyone else for that matter, none of this would have happened. She loves you, of that there can be no doubt and she has never associated you with the cause of her suffering. I mean, how could she know? How could you have known? Nageed Shade’s intent was to prevent your firstborn from being born.”

  “Nageed Shade? I know about Benrah, but who or what is Nageed Shade?”

  “Benrah can’t harm anyone with a specific destiny directly, but he can harm those associated. The moment Shirley agreed to marry you she was targeted by Benrah. Nageed Shade is the c
hief prince of Angra Mainyu’s hoards and as such subject to Benrah’s wishes.”

  “Angra Mainyu?”

  “I believe you know him as Lucifer. While Benrah and,” she looked at Steve, “Lucifer can manifest in whatever corporeal form they choose, Nageed Shade must possess another’s flesh in order to carry out physical acts and that is exactly what he did fourteen years ago.”

  “Benrah is the son of Lucifer?”

  Mrs. Shadowitz nodded. “Nageed possessed a caretaker at the Zimbabwe national animal preserve and that is where he took Shirley. He has an affinity for living organs and having his victims staked out on the ground watching helplessly while he consumes them. He was actually the one that taught Central and South American tribes how to cut out a victim’s organs while they still lived and how to save the heart for last...

  “Tim arrived after he’d taken one of her ovaries. He knew he couldn’t beat Nageed alone since Nageed imparts the strength of twenty strong men to whomever or whatever he possesses, so Tim remanifested back to Shana and Gerod, grabbed them and remanifested back. Shana remanifested and brought more help while Tim and Gerod did their best to keep Nageed away from her. Nageed just tossed them aside when they attacked and continued with his meal. Gerod wishes he had finished developing his bug bombs sooner; they could have helped prevent a lot of the damage Shirley suffered.

  “Her body healed with treatment and her ovaries grew back but her mind never recovered. I doubt that it ever will. Her mind doesn’t want to remember what happened. It causes her to just shut down, to faint whenever anything might trigger those memories and, as you’ve seen, she’s pretty hostile about Mark and James being here. It’s her mind’s way of coping.