by Scott Toney
Inferno
Smoke wafted through the trees as Jonah walked cautiously through the woods of Cush, armor on his back and sword in hand. Knights flanked him on all sides and the mercenary named Carn was with their company. They were headed for Cush’s main castle to try and save its king.
When they had arrived in Cush’s port the river towns had been ablaze about them, and the fishing boats sunken and charred. Bodies of dead men, women and children littered the shoreline.
As they headed through the forest, a thick smoky fog lay about them. “Cush is aflame,” he spoke softly.
“Hopefully we aren’t too late to do some good,” the knight beside him responded.
Flames exploded above the trees in the distance and then receded back out of view. As they walked the men breathed heavily, choking on the ashy fog.
Jonah heard something in the woods and his eyes shot in the direction of the noise but he could see nothing but trees and smoke. His arms shook as he braced his sword. “What was that?” he asked.
“It could be anything,” the man beside him said.
Carn was the only one who seemed unworried, which was strange to Jonah because although he carried a sword the man had been given no armor. And three knights kept close to him in case he tried to escape or turn on the company.
There were about forty men-at-arms here and a smaller group had stayed behind to see if they could help survivors in the river towns.
Another noise came from his left and Jonah turned to face it. Suddenly a charred man burst from the foliage and ran at them, falling in their way.
“Run!” the man shouted as cinders burst about him. “Run! They’re coming!” He choked and spat in the dirt. “It’s too late for me and my family!”
There were boils all over his face and the stench of burnt flesh hung about him. Jonah almost hurled.
“Help me with him,” one knight said to another and the two hoisted him into the air.
They moved quickly through the woods, unsure of what was before or behind them, worried that they were being watched.
Jonah leapt over a mossy tree trunk that lay in his path and his feet landed heavily on the ground as he continued moving. Smoke curled past his face and then his vision cleared. He almost ran into the trunk of a tree but spun away just in time.
When can I catch my breath? he thought. They ran and ran through the trees and foliage. Jonah came up beside Carn and turned to look at the hulking man as he moved. The man’s eyes exuded hate. What are we doing by bringing him along? He fell back to get away.
A blaze rushed through the forest in the distance and Jonah stumbled, catching himself on the shoulder of a man beside him and then moving with the group in a different direction than the blaze.
Jonah closed his eyes as they burned in the ashen air. He choked, and as he opened his eyes once more a group of deformed men with torches came at them from the burning woods.
“We must make a stand,” a knight beside him said.
Carn turned back to them, “Let me go first and prove my worth.”
“Be my guest,” the knight responded, “but know that we will kill you if you turn on us.”
Seconds passed before the men were on them. Carn slammed his blade against the blade of a man with crimson skin and horns protruding from his head. “Carn…” the beast hissed. “Why do you fight for them?”
The hulking man parried the mercenary’s blows and drove him back the way he had come. “I have my reasons!” he shouted. “Ye will die at my hands and never know!”
Steel clashed with steel and sparks flew into the ashen air, filled with even more smoke because the mercenaries had tossed their torches to the ground as they attacked.
Soon Jonah and two of the knights were fending off another man. Jonah looked up into a tall man’s eyes and struck his blade against the man’s own as it swung down at him from above. Clang! Clang! Clang! The sound of battle rang through the woods and Jonah saw the man’s sword coming at him again, almost lodging in his head. “Help me!” he shouted to the men around him. Suddenly a sword swept in beside him, knocking away the giant’s sword. Another sword crashed against the mercenary’s armor.
“You called?” the man beside him joked at he beat back the massive man’s blows. Suddenly the giant brought his blade down, cutting through one of the man’s wrists and sending him screaming to the forest floor. The giant kicked him in the chest and the knight fell silent, his head buried in the dirt.
“You will all die,” the giant said in a resonant voice and approached Jonah once more. “Run, boy, while you still can.”
Jonah looked to the knight beside him and then thrust his sword after the mercenary once more. Clang! Clang! The battle raged and the knight beside him kept slicing at the giant’s armor, trying to find a weakness in its plates.
A burst of flames swept through the woods nearby and Jonah saw Carn and three knights pursuing the horned mercenary through the inferno and disappearing in its heat. I hope he doesn’t turn on us, he thought. What a mistake it will have been to let him live.
Jonah’s sword clashed again and again with the giant’s, but he and the knight at his side were driven into the woods, almost completely away from the rest of the battle.
“Run! We can’t take him!” the knight called and as the knight turned to flee the mercenary’s blade almost struck his head.
Seeing his opportunity, Jonah drove his blade into the mercenary’s neck and the hulk of a man crashed to the forest floor with Jonah’s blade still lodged inside him. Without thinking, Jonah grabbed the hilt of his sword and drew it out of the man. The other knight turned back.
“We have to rejoin the battle. We’re losing men,” Jonah said and ran to attack one of the other mercenaries, slamming his blade against the man’s own. There were five of the mercenaries left now.
Clang! Clang! The sound of steel rang in the air as Jonah took turns with the knights of their company defending blows. Sweat poured down his brow and as a pain shot through his side he stumbled backward away from the battle. He held his hand where the pain had been, afraid of what he would find there. It took him a second but he realized that it was only a cramp.
He stepped on the hand of one of the knights who had fallen and looked through the man’s visor into his eyes, a stare there that was unflinching and hollow. “Ahhh!” Jonah yelled as he charged with his sword back into battle.
One of their enemies was bludgeoned through the back and crashed against the earth. Then another was cut off from his body at the knees where they were able to dislodge his armor.
Now about thirty knights remained alive and only three of their enemies. Suddenly Jonah spotted one of the mercenary’s torches still ablaze in the center of a large stone. Moss burned on the stone’s face and Jonah ran to it, picking up the torch and charging with it toward the mercenaries. He stayed out of range of the main fighting, letting the knights handle the attack, and when he saw his moment he charged at a mercenary with scales for skin and tossed the torch into the man’s face.
Flames burst in the man’s plated skin and he fled at once into the woods.
“Thank you,” one of the knights said to Jonah as they both attacked their final two enemies.
It was only a matter of time now before the two would fall. Why they didn’t turn and flee, Jonah didn’t know.
One knight was decapitated by a slim attacker with four arms. Another knight was dealt a death blow through his chest. Then the two remaining enemies fell to the blades of the remaining knights. Their bodies soon would lie mutilated and lifeless on the ground.
Jonah watched the flames surging through the woods around them, searching for the enemy that had run off, or for Carn and the knights that had gone with him. Where is he? What pact have we made? Jonah thought as he breathed heavily, his sword weighing down his arms. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched from the woods.
A thick smoke poured through the trees, choking him, and he kneeled cl
ose to the ground to escape it. Are you even a man, Carn? Or are you some beast from the world beyond?
҉
Carn breathed in the smoke and ash swirling around him, basking in the heat scalding across his face. The ring in the center of his forehead burned with life. “Ye cannot escape me,” he spoke to the horned mercenary just beyond the flames. He motioned to the three knights to follow him and saw them shielding their eyes from the heat with their hands. They would never survive without him, he realized.
“You follow me into flame? Surely you know you’ll not survive,” the horned man taunted him in a raspy voice as flames danced over his form.
“Time will tell.” Carn grinned and lunged through the flames. His sword found nothing, slicing through scalding fire and air.
The mercenary laughed. Then one of the knights following Carn burst past him to attack and was run through. The man screamed and was consumed by the writhing flame beneath him.
“Stay back,” Carn told the other two knights as he stepped slowly toward the mercenary. The ring on his forehead burned more with each step closer to the red-skinned, horned man. Sweat dripped down his brow then evaporated into steam. He thrust his sword once more toward the figure.
Clang! Clang! Clang! They traded blows and Carn was able to send the man farther back into the ignited woods. A gust of smoke swept past him and he breathed in its charred aroma.
“Ye forget,” said Carn. “I know ye secrets. I am one of ye.”
Clang! Clang! He attacked the man once more.
The red man’s eyes glowed with orange rage as he fended off the blows. “I am the only one of me,” the man hissed. “And I will see you dead for betraying me.” A forked tongue slithered from the man’s mouth and he dropped his sword into the raging fire about him. “I’ll ssssee you ssssoon.”
Carn’s muscles burned as he swept his sword through the air. His blade hit the man, a reverberation going through him as if he had just struck the ground. Instantly his enemy turned to charred wood and then exploded into ash, wafting upwards in the air.
“I’ll be waiting,” Carn said and turned to find the two knights behind him still shielding their eyes from the flame. One was coughing on smoke.
“Thank you,” the other knight said. “You have earned your place with us.”
Carn plunged his sword through the knight’s armor and into his lungs. “Ye should have stayed alert,” he spoke. “I am no man’s brother.”
The knight choked as blood filled his lungs. He fell against a flaming tree beside him and his body was consumed by fire.
Then the other knight came at him, still coughing on smoke. Clang! Clang! They parried and the knight’s sword slammed against Carn’s shoulder blade and ricocheted off.
Seeing his chance, Carn lifted his sword and hacked off the knight’s head. He grinned and walked over his body, stepping into the inferno around them. “What a shame to lose three men,” he said. “But worth it to save this land.”
He walked through pulsing flames for long moments before finding the company of knights on the trail they had taken. They had bested his fellow mercenaries and were now coughing and regrouping before moving on. The boy who had saved them on the ship kneeled on the ground. He seemed to be staring directly into Carn’s eyes.
“Ye are mine, boy,” Carn spoke in the swirling ash and flame. He waited another moment, and then stepped out of the flames and into the clearing.
“Carn? Is that you?” the knight he had spoken with on the ship called and came to him with a hand outstretched.
How easy it would be to cut off that arm, Carn thought. “I killed the horned one,” he said as he shook the knight’s hand and came into their group. “But he slew the three knights who were with me.” Carn stopped and looked toward Jonah’s leery eyes. “I couldn’t save them.”
Above them storm clouds brewed, twisting and darkening the sky.
24
