by Anne Logston
Randon struggled only a moment longer to reload his cross-bow, then flung it down with a curse and devoted himself to his riding. Carada dashed between the boar and Nerina’s horse, and the boar turned again; then Kayli’s heart stopped as Carada stumbled and nearly went down. In an amazing feat of horsemanship, Randon kept his saddle, but now the boar was at Carada’s very heels.
Two guards’ arrows thunked into the boar’s flank and shoulder, but now the boar had spied Elaasar again, and this time it ignored the horse that darted across its path—
Danine!
When Kayli saw the horse turn too sharply and the slight figure tumble from the saddle, all rational thought fled her mind. She knocked her arrow and fired it, simultaneously focusing her power upon it, and the flaming arrow struck the ground directly in front of the enraged boar’s nose, less than a dozen paces from her father.
Horses and arrows the boar might ignore, but fire, never. Now there was panic in the boar’s squeal as it turned, presenting its face and side openly to the guards. Half a dozen arrows slammed into the animal, and one struck a vital spot, for the boar slowed, shivered slightly, and fell at last.
Finished. Kayli took a gasping breath and realized that she was shaking, her bow dropped from numb hands. She slid from the saddle, bolting for Danine, who was already standing, brushing dirt from her trousers.
“Are you hurt?” Kayli asked anxiously, running her hands down Danine’s arms and legs to feel for broken bones.
Danine shook her head.
“No,” she said, embarrassed. “But Father—”
“Your father is quite well,” High Lord Elaasar said, joining them, “and quite angry.”
He seized Danine by the shoulders.
“Never dare disobey me like that again,” he thundered. “I would have had to defend you as well as myself, and the boar could have turned either way at the last moment. When I tell you to stay out of the way, you stay, do you understand me?”
Danine’s eyes filled with tears, but she whispered, “Yes, Father.”
“All right, then.” Elaasar’s voice shook slightly, and he pulled his daughter to him, holding her tightly. “You were brave,” he muttered. “Foolish and disobedient, but brave.”
He glanced past Kayli and nodded with satisfaction.
“I see you dealt with the sow,” he said. “Good. We’ll eat well tonight, though it’s a poor trade for a fine horse.” He shook his head, glanced back toward his dying mare, and waved the approaching guard away. “I’ll see to her.”
Kayli turned away, not wanting to watch as her father drove his long dagger into his mare’s brain, ending her pain instantly. Randon slid from his saddle and put his arm around Kayli’s shoulders, kissing her forehead.
“That was a good idea you had, that fire arrow,” he said quietly. “Even if one of us had hit the boar with a killing blow, the sheer strength of his charge might’ve carried him on forward into your father.”
“Aye, it was a masterful shot.” Nerina threw one arm around Danine and one around Kayli. “Both my daughters are brave and resourceful—and headstrong.” She laughed. “But look at these swine. They look like spinefurs instead of tusk boars. Who can claim the kills? The sow?”
“Randon,” Kayli said at the same time that Randon said, “Kayli.”
“Well, I lost my crossbow before I ever got a shot at the boar,” Randon said good-naturedly. “Although it almost had a shot at me.”
“And I never so much as touched it,” Kayli admitted.
“Well, your arrow most likely kept my vitals in my belly, instead of hanging down around my boots,” her father said wryly, wiping the blood from his hands on the grass. “And your husband tried hard to get himself killed in my place, so I’ll cede the tusks to the two of you with my thanks. But how will we ever get our banquet home? We brought only the one sling carrier.”
“I’ll send two guards back for a wagon, High Lord,” Captain Beran said. “We can’t lose such a prize as the sow, and—begging pardon, High Lord, but we’d do as well to dress the two here, as your mare will draw scavengers anyway, and better here than at the camp.”
“And my chakene,” Danine put in. “Don’t forget that.”
“Aye, lady,” Captain Beran said solemnly. “Best we don’t forget it, as it was the cleanest kill made today.”
While Kayli liked to hunt, she had never enjoyed cleaning her game, and she watched with Danine as her mother and the men gutted the carcasses, wrapping the tastiest organs in sacks and piling the offal beside the dead mare.
By the time the carcasses were cleaned, the wagon arrived with more guards and there were plenty of men to help shoulder the boar and the sow into the wagon bed. Danine’s chakene was given a place of honor on the wagon seat, and Danine insisted on riding with it, Elaasar riding her gelding back to camp.
Apparently the guards who had ridden ahead for the wagon had sent word to Randon’s cook, for the fìrepit had been widened and lengthened to accommodate both pigs, and a good bed of coal was lit. When the wagon arrived, it took nearly a dozen men to cut the meat into pieces, work the massive spits through the hunks of meat, and hoist them over the coals, but soon the appetizing smell of roasting boar filled the entire camp.
Lord Kereg walked up as Randon and Kayli were watching, joining them beside the firepit.
“Congratulations on the hunt, High Lord,” he said, nodding at the meat roasting on the spits. “It seems successful beyond your expectations.”
“Yes, well, I was nearly killed beyond my expectations,” Randon said wryly. “Too much time sitting in a chair instead of a saddle.” He grinned at Kayli. “We must do something about that when we return home. I’d forgotten the pleasure of eating my own kill.”
“And I had forgotten how dangerous it could be,” Kayli admitted. “And how much I enjoy that risk.”
“Look here.” Randon picked up a small bundle of cloth and unwrapped it, showing Kayli the cleaned tusks of the boar, so long and curved that they overlapped in a circle. “One for you, and one for me, so we don’t forget again.”
Elaasar, Nerina, and their daughters and advisers arrived shortly, and Randon ordered a cask of his best wine tapped for the occasion. This supper proved more jovial than dinner had been, no hostility or awkwardness left, and both sets of rulers amusedly ignored their advisers marveling over the fine Bregondish furs, the excellent ikada-milk cheese, Lord Disian’s wagon wheels, or the plumpness of Agrondish turnips.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Randon murmured to Kayli after Lord Kereg had invited him to smell a Bregondish perfume for the fifth time. “I thought you’d be happy, this is going so well.”
“Oh, I am happy,” Kayli said with a sigh. “It is only hard, I suppose, to come back from our hunt and sit here with my family and talk of crops and pots and ikada hair.”
Randon chuckled and reached under the edge of the table, squeezing Kayli’s knee through her trousers.
“I could propose something a little more to your liking,” he whispered warmly.
An answering heat welled up in Kayli’s loins, and she laid her hand over Randon’s.
“Do you want another adventure?” she whispered in his ear.
“Hmmm.” Randon’s hand slid higher on her leg. “What were you thinking?”
“Remember how clearly the stars shine over the plains,” Kayli murmured. “Would you dare slip away tonight and risk all the dangers of the Bregondish plains—and a Bregondish lady?”
“Now, that’s a challenge I could never resist,” Randon said huskily. “But, I swear to the Bright Ones, if you say another word about it here at the table, I’ll drug the wine so we can slip away all the sooner.”
Kayli chuckled and returned her attention to the table, only to see Kairi glancing at her, a wicked amusement in her eyes. Kairi raised her eyebrows inquiringly and tilted her head slightly toward Kayli’s tent; Kayli shook her head just as slightly and glanced out at the plains, then back at Kairi. Kairi’s eyebr
ows jumped, and her hand flew up to cover her mouth; she coughed slightly, and Kayli knew that her well-disciplined sister was fighting down howls of laughter.
At the first opportunity, Kayli took Endra aside and told the midwife her plans. Endra delightedly entered into the conspiracy, only cautioning Kayli to stay near the camp.
It seemed an eternity before the two groups separated for the night, and even longer before most of the guards went to bed, leaving only the guards on night patrol. Kayli thought that Endra had forgotten her promise to help; at last the midwife emerged from her tent and walked up to the guard nearest Kayli’s tent. Kayli could not make out what Endra was saying, but a moment later the guard followed the midwife out of sight.
Kayli nodded to Randon and slipped quietly out of her tent; he followed, clutching a blanket-wrapped bundle and dropping the tent flap behind them. They crept out of camp as silently as they could, and Randon followed Kayli into the grass. After they’d been walking for some time, however, he spoke.
“We’re going awfully far, aren’t we?” he asked.
“We must get well beyond the range of my father’s guard patrol as well,” Kayli said, giggling. “And far enough that the glare from the fires will not spoil our view of the stars.”
When she decided they’d gone far enough, Randon opened the bundled blanket and, to Kayli’s surprise, drew out the wonderful cloaks that her father had given them.
“Randon,” Kayli chided gently. “It is far too warm to need such coverings.”
“I know,” he said merrily. “But it’s pleasant to lie on furs and make love, don’t you think?”
He plopped down on the cloaks and pulled Kayli down beside him.
“So tell me,” he murmured into her ear, “just what dangers I’m to face tonight.”
Kayli gasped as his hand slid into the front of her tunic, and whatever answer she made, only the stars heard.
Chapter Fourteen
Kayli woke abruptly at some inner prompting. For a moment she could not understand why she was lying on the ground, wrapped in a blanket in Randon’s arms with the great brilliant sky overhead; then she remembered and smiled. She stretched luxuriantly, enjoying the smells of smoke and plains grass and sweet earth, the bright stars above her—
Smoke?
Kayli jumped to her feet, eliciting a sleepy groan of protest from Randon. Now she could hear a distant sort of roar, not unlike that of approaching rain in Agrond, but as she saw the red-gold line on the northwest horizon, she knew that it was no rain approaching them. A part of Kayli’s mind was shocked to stillness—she knew how fast grass fires could travel.
“What?” Randon stood up leisurely beside her, stretching. “What’s the—” Then he saw it, and he, too, fell silent “It’s between us and the camps, isn’t it? Can we outrun it?” But from the gentleness of his words, Kayli knew that he, too, knew the impossibility of fleeing ahead of that hungry red line.
Randon grabbed Kayli’s shoulders, turning her to face him.
“Can you survive that? Can you walk through that and live, you and the baby? Tell me!”
Once again Kayli was shocked to silence as she realized what he was asking. Could she walk unscathed through such an inferno? Possibly. Once she would have been certain. But even if she could, Randon could not. Must she, could she, choose between her death and his?
But there was another possibility.
“The wine,” Kayli said rapidly. “Wet your kerchief with it. Tie it over your nose and mouth, and lie down on the ground. The smoke will rise. And do not dare distract me now.”
“What are you doing?” Randon asked. “You can’t—”
“Perhaps I can turn the fire aside,” Kayli said. “Perhaps I can even extinguish it.” Even as she spoke, she knew her words for a lie, but she took the ritual breaths of calming anyway, focusing her concentration on the fire, and opened the barriers she had erected between herself and her power, reaching to touch the fire.
Immediately Kayli reeled back, overwhelmed completely. Randon was beside her, not daring to touch her, saying something which she ignored. By the Flame, how could she ever hope to influence that. Why, she had lost her control to a simple forge fire. But this was the Flame unbound, dancing free across the plains and consuming all it touched, godlike in its magnificence, monstrous in its unseeing hunger, unbound—
Oh, how seductive the call of the roaring flames, much closer now, caressing her soul more exquisitely than Randon had caressed her body. She could surrender to that unimaginable embrace, let her mortal frame become ash and blow on the wind, but her soul would become one with that fire, burning more brightly with every moment—
No!
Kayli dragged herself free of her entrapment with a moan of disappointment. For a moment she wrestled futilely to damp the flames, to turn them, even perhaps to part them, but in vain. How could she rein in those flames when she longed so totally to abandon herself to them?
Kayli sobbed with despair. What was her magic if she could only make fire, not quench it? What good was—
“Yes!” she cried.
She could make fire.
Relief cleared her mind more completely than any discipline could. In utter clarity, Kayli extended her hands and let the fire leap form.
Flame jumped to the grass and feasted voraciously, but this was Kayli’s flame, and now it obeyed her. Tongues of fire darted to the right and the left, forming a line that pushed outward even as it spread to the sides. As it consumed the grass, the flames grew in size and speed, urged by Kayli’s power. They crept forward, then rolled more quickly, until at last those bright tongues of fire raced rapidly to meet the red line, leaving a widening band of bare earth and blackened grass in their wake.
Through the corner of her eye, Kayli could see Randon tying the cloth across his mouth and nose as she had instructed him, gathering the bundle of the blanket, the cloaks, and their clothes together and packing it down tightly. Good—no stray spark would set that alight. Randon remained silent, and Kayli kept her attention focused tightly on her small backfire, pushing it outward and forward as quickly as she could. Her awareness spread outward with the flames until she felt herself stretched so thinly that her mind spun, reeling almost out of control. She knew immediately that her backfire would not be enough, that the larger fire would simply race around the edges of her smaller blaze—
A sudden boom of thunder directly overhead startled Kayli so that she almost lost the thread of her concentration. Then lightning reached down a glowing finger to stroke the plains, and she felt that tongue of fire whip upward through her bones and straight through to her soul. Somewhere beside her, a thousand leagues away, Randon screamed in agony, and then Kayli was flung aside, her link with her small backfire shattered as rain poured down upon them.
Kayli was too amazed and drained to do anything but sit there in the rain as the clean fresh water, mingling with her own sweat and tears, slowly washed the soot from her face. In the back of her mind she felt the great fire raging against the rain like a cornered beast fighting to stay alive, but its might was slowly sapped. At last, slowly, in small sizzling hisses that sounded like whistling gasps, it died.
“What happened?” Randon asked, loudly over the rain. He ripped the wine-soaked cloth from his face. “I thought it rarely rained here. Did you do that?”
Not quite true; it rained more frequently, of course, near the border of Agrond. And there had been rain near the border not long before; Kairi had moved it into Agrond. And that meant that—
“Kairi must have done it,” Kayli said, a cautious hope growing in her heart. “The sky was clear only a short time ago. Kairi must have brought the rain back from Agrond to stop the fire.” She glanced at Randon; he was rubbing his temples again, his brow furrowed.
Kayli held out her hands.
“Send the fire back to me, as you did before,” she said. This time there was a stronger sensation of power transferred from his fingertips to hers, and Kayli wondered u
ncomfortably whether Randon had absorbed more fire energy from the lightning, or whether the repetitive exposure to fire energy increased the amount he channeled into his own body, as was true with herself.
“Well, then, let’s go,” Randon said, hurriedly pulling his now wet clothes on over his wet skin. “Enough adventure for one night. I’ll be glad to get out of the rain, even if it did save our lives.”
They walked back over scorched and blackened earth, the ashes of plains grass and brambles. Rain and mud and ash formed a thick black paste that quickly coated their boots, and the plains earth, stripped of grass, became slick and treacherous. They slid and stumbled as they walked, each bearing the other up when they slipped, forced to keep their eyes on their footing; thus it was that they were almost upon the torn and scattered Bregondish tents before they saw them. Then Kayli saw the first of the bodies, and her elation and conscious thought deserted her in one raw scream of horrified denial.
Randon forgotten, grass fire forgotten, Kayli found herself on her knees in the mud, frantically turning bodies over, flinging aside scorched tent hides and broken poles, weeping with relief when she failed to recognize the bloody faces—
Until she turned over a charred and mutilated corpse and stared into her mother’s unseeing eyes.
Kayli did not know how long she sat there, stunned and numb, the world unreal around her, before Randon gently lifted her to her feet.
“Kayli?” When she did not answer, he shook her gently. “Kayli. I didn’t find your father, or Kairi, or Danine. Maybe they got away. But—”
Kayli started to turn in the direction Randon had been searching, but he seized her shoulders again.
“No“ he said. “Better not look, Kayli.” He turned her away, but not before she had seen the two small bodies, smeared with soot and blood, flung heedlessly aside.
