Some two dozen men of the First Company followed him, and it took only moments for them to surround the gates of the Lord Chancellor’s manor, blocking us in. I recognized a few of them from the journey out of Waymark; Lieutenant Ralsten was notably absent. While those within the courtyard rushed out to see the source of the commotion, I tried to sidle my mount back through the gates, away from the armed soldiers of the First Company.
“What is the meaning of this, Ord?” Illias demanded.
“I’ll not let her leave! She hasn’t the right!” Ord was a hurricane of fury and noise; at this distance the voices whirling around him were deafening. But it was not only him. It felt as though his men were part of it now, or some of them at least, and their presence amplified the cacophony. I wanted to block my ears, but I knew it would do no good.
Korus stepped through the gate, his hands raised in a calming gesture. “This is not seemly, High Commander. The King has already given his approval.”
Ord levelled his sword at Korus. “And where were you then, Scriber? You allowed this to happen! They cannot be permitted to pursue this nonsense!” He jabbed his blade at the air to emphasize his point. I barely heard him; I could only hear the hundred voices behind his words, screaming, “It must burn!”
“What could I have said?” Korus was defensive now; he had never taken criticism well. “I don’t like it, but they found something.”
Bryndine nudged her horse forward. “Let us pass, cousin,” she said. Her voice was hard as stone.
Ord replied with an enraged roar, kicking his mount into motion and cleaving his sword down at his cousin’s unprotected head.
Bryndine’s horse danced backwards and the blade whistled through empty air. Her hand flew to the hilt of her sword, and in a single, smooth motion, she pulled the heavy blade from its sheath.
Within an instant, every blade within thirty yards was bared. Bryndine’s women hesitated, waited for orders; the men of the First gave no such pause. “Death,” I heard the voices wail, and then the First Company attacked.
The ring of steel tolled through the air as the women were forced to defend themselves. Sylla spurred her mount forward to deflect a strike at her Captain’s exposed back, and other men and women crossed blades in the periphery of my vision. But I could not tear my eyes from Bryndine and Uran Ord.
Ord charged forward again with a snarl, launching a deadly blow at Bryndine’s neck; she struck it aside with an effortless sweep of her sword. But she did not strike back. Instead, she held her position and shouted, “Stop this, Uran!”
Without hesitation, Ord pressed the attack. Their blades met once, then again, each clash sending the High Commander reeling back from the strength of Bryndine’s parry. With a frustrated grunt, he sliced sideways at her chest with all his might, but she leaned back just slightly, letting the blade pass by and sending him lurching sideways in his saddle. Bryndine advanced, smashing her sword down on his like a blacksmith hammering an anvil. The force ripped the weapon from Ord’s hand and sent it crashing to the ground.
Ord thrust his hand out to the man beside him. “Your sword!” The soldier instantly reversed his blade, offering it to the High Commander hilt first.
“Surrender!” Bryndine commanded, looking at her cousin with disbelief. “This is madness!”
But I could hear the voices urging Ord on, screaming for blood and vengeance, and I knew he would not stop until she was dead.
Or he would not have stopped, except that at that moment, Korus yelled, “You’re doing exactly what they want you to, Ord!”
To my surprise, that caught the High Commander’s attention. He looked up at Korus, the anger on his face giving way to confusion. And when the High Commander hesitated, his men instantly pulled back. It did little to thin the tension; the women watched them like hawks, keeping their swords at the ready.
Korus rushed to explain. “Lark told the King that you’re unfit to serve because of that head wound. You couldn’t have chosen a better way to prove him right. If you have any interest in keeping your position, you need to stop this immediately.”
Ord lowered his hand. The soldier beside him withdrew his sword, returning it to its sheath; the other men did the same. The voices descended into a low chant. For a moment, I dared hope that we might leave without bloodshed.
Then Ord laughed, and the sound of it sent ice through my veins. It was not the laughter of a sane man. “Fine then.” He turned his eyes back to Bryndine. “Go. It doesn’t matter. There is nothing you can do.”
He took up his reins and led his horse away, his men following in silence.
“You were right, Lark,” Korus grumbled, obviously unhappy to admit it. “I will tell the King. Ord needs to be dealt with.”
Bryndine looked at the retreating column of men thoughtfully. “Something is certainly not right with him,” she said. “He has never been unskilled with a sword. I should not have defeated him so easily.”
Illias raised an eyebrow. “I think his actions are of more concern than his skill right now. It is lucky that you raised your concerns when you did, Denn.”
I did not answer; I was barely listening. Ord’s last words repeated endlessly in my mind as I watched him disappear down the street. Not the last words he had spoken to Bryndine—though those were chilling enough—but the ones that only I could hear:
“All will burn.”
Chapter Twenty
I have never believed the legends of the Wyddin. Tree spirits who can possess the bodies of animals, jealous children of the Mother and the Father seeking vengeance against mankind. The source of magick. It always sounded like nonsense to me. There was no magick in Elovia, I was sure of that. The Sages could not harness the power of something that does not exist.
I may have been wrong.
— From the personal journals of Dennon Lark
For the first three days of the long ride down the Searoad towards Ryndport, I could not stop thinking of the whispered threat Uran Ord had left in his wake. Korus had promised that he would see the High Commander stripped of his rank, and I had no reason to disbelieve it, but still I worried. There is nothing you can do, Ord had said to Bryndine. What had he meant by that?
Three days out of Three Rivers, I found out.
I heard the voices before we saw the men. For days, I had been hearing whispers whenever we passed one of the many fireleafs that grew in the hilly interior of the Three Rivers barony, and so I barely noticed the noise until Selvi and Elene galloped up alongside Bryndine to make their report. The twins were the fastest riders and the keenest eyes in the company, and Bryndine often sent them afield to scout. One of the two—Selvi, I believe—said, “Men coming from behind, Captain. About thirty of them, looks like they’re with the Army.” Though they did not seem concerned, both women had their shortbows out and ready.
I looked back over my shoulder, squinting against the light—it was still early in the day, and the sun was bright in the eastern sky. Sure enough, I could see them: a group of riders, barely more than dots on the road now, but quickly gaining.
It was then that I realized the voices were growing louder.
Bryndine brought the company to a halt with a raised hand. “We will see what they want. They may have a message for us.”
“Fire,” the voices chanted. “Vengeance. Death.” They came not just from the approaching men, but from all directions, a murder of crows screeching inside my head. It was worse than Ord’s interrupted assault at the manor; this was more like that night in Waymark, the night the voices had made me burn.
“It must not be found,” they wailed. “All will burn.”
They were coming to kill us. I knew it instantly and without doubt. They wanted Fyrril’s books to remain hidden, or to be destroyed, though I did not know why. Uran Ord had tried to stop us more than once, and had failed; now it had come to this.
“Don’t stop,” I begged Bryndine. “We need to get away from them.”
She gave me a questi
oning look. “What do you mean, Scriber Dennon? The Army is no enemy of ours.”
“Please! If you have ever trusted me at all, trust me now. Those men mean us harm!” The wailing in my head was too much to bear; I clapped my hands over my ears. I could barely keep from screaming. “It is not only them! They’re all around us, they’re coming, I can hear them!”
“What do you hear, Scriber?” Bryndine looked at me doubtfully as I gripped my head and peered frantically back at the soldiers.
They had cut the distance between us in half, and now I could see the brown of their uniforms. They rode in complete silence, yet the fury of the voices tore through me. They knew me now; I felt that unseen eye turning towards me once more, as it had in Waymark. They only find me when I’m frightened, some part of me realized, a strangely detached thought in the midst of my terror. But it did not help; if anything, it made me more afraid.
“BURN.”
I did scream then, as the flames devoured my skin.
“Ride!” I yelled at Bryndine, consumed by rage and pain. And for some reason, this time she listened.
I bent over in agony and felt myself toppling from my saddle, but Bryndine reached out and grabbed me by the collar. With impossible strength, she lifted me onto her horse one-handed. Clutching me to her chest, she grabbed the reins of my mount with her free hand.
“You heard him! We ride!” she shouted, spurring her mount forward and leading mine alongside.
I shook in Bryndine’s grip, but she held me tightly, not letting me fall. Fire that only I could see ran over my limbs, melting the flesh from my bones, burning the hair from my head. But somehow, I fought through it enough to open my eyes.
As the company galloped away from the approaching men, the voices hissed in anger. We had discovered their ambush, but they were not yet thwarted. “Kill,” they said, and hundreds of men and women poured over the hills on either side of the road, sprinting towards us. If we had stopped and waited at the sight of the Army uniforms, we would have been crushed in that furious pincer. But we were nearly by them now. We were going to escape.
And then the earth began to shake.
The horses faltered on the quaking ground, but they were trained for combat, and their riders were skilled. The women mastered the frightened animals and rode on. But our pace slowed, and the rebels closed in from behind.
“Burn. Burn. BURN.” the voices cried, and lightning struck just behind us with an ear-splitting crash. This was the sorcery Fyrril had warned of; lightning and earthquakes, the Wyddin magicks I had so long dismissed as superstition.
I watched through agony and fire as Genna’s horse reared at the sound of thunder, throwing her from its back. The stocky woman rolled and came to her feet in a smooth motion, axe in hand; her mount was already gone, galloping into the hills. Several of the women made to stop, to go back for her despite the fact that it would destroy our small lead. But when Genna looked over her shoulder at us, there was a fury in her eyes I had seen only a few times before, and I knew what she meant to do.
“Go!” she shouted. And then she charged directly at the oncoming horde.
She closed the short distance in an instant, swinging her axe in a deadly arc. With a single sweep, she cut two of them down; she felled another with a vicious backhanded strike. As she cleaved through a half dozen rebels, I almost believed that she could stop them, that she could single-handedly hold back the entire horde. But the sheer number of them was too much. A moment later, the swarm pulled her down, and she disappeared from sight.
We did not stop; there was nothing we could do for her now.
Genna’s doomed assault had delayed the Burnt just slightly, and I felt a moment of hope as I watched them fall behind. When I turned my eyes forward, that hope evaporated. Ahead of us, more rebels rushed from the hills, hundreds more, blocking the road completely. There was nowhere to go.
I heard a terrible shriek as my left eye burst from the heat of the flames; a moment later I realized it was my own voice. Clinging desperately to my senses through the pain, I craned my head around, looking for some way out, some respite from almost certain death. Two hundred yards north of the road, there was a fireleaf tree, its branches nearly bare save for a handful of red leaves. It was the last thing I saw. My other eye split open like an overripe fruit, spilling its innards down my cheek, and my vision went black.
But in that darkness, I saw an image from my dreams. “The fireleaf,” I gasped to Bryndine. “Tell them you’ll burn—”
Flame poured into my mouth, burning away my voice. I felt the soft flesh of my throat sear, heard the crackle as it blackened and split. I could not even scream as I lost consciousness.
* * *
When I awoke, the Burnt were gone.
Like the last time, there was no evidence of burning anywhere on my body. I felt no pain, and the eyes that had failed me could now see perfectly well. I glanced around to get my bearings.
The company clustered around the fireleaf tree I had seen before fainting. Dusk was falling, but most of the women held torches, and a small campfire burned a few feet from where I lay, casting a flickering orange light around the foot of the tree.
Wynne sat beside me, and when she saw that my eyes were open, she called out, “He’s awake, Captain.”
I groaned and sat up. “What happened?” I asked.
“I don’t know, Scriber Dennon.” Wynne’s features creased with concern. “Are you all right?”
“Not particularly.” Her eyes widened, and I clarified quickly, “But I’m not injured.”
As Wynne fussed over me, Bryndine approached with Tenille and Sylla at her side, Deanyn following closely behind.
Deanyn gave me a small smile. “Well, you’re alive. That’s something.”
“Genna,” I said, remembering the woman’s brave charge. “Is she…”
Bryndine bowed her head. “She is gone. We went back for her once the Burners left, but we found nothing, not even the men she killed. The rebels cover their tracks well.”
“I’m sorry.” I lowered my eyes. I had liked Genna, despite her shyness around me; she was a gentle soul. “But… why did they leave?”
“I hoped you could tell us, Scriber,” replied Bryndine. “We did as you told—we threatened to burn this tree, and the Burners retreated. How did you know they would do that? Why would they do that?”
I hesitated to answer. They had seen the lightning and felt the ground shake, but would they believe me? Whatever I told them, it would not sound sane.
Wynne filled the silence with a guess of her own. “Could it be religious? Trees are holy to the Mother and Father.”
Tenille shook her head. “The Book of the Divide says the plants were put here for us to use; they’re holy, but not protected. But the rebels may be some sort of fanatics, I suppose.”
“It’s nothing like that.” I climbed to my feet, leaning against the trunk of the tree for support. “Or rather, I wouldn’t know if it was.” I did not want to continue; they would think me mad. But I knew now that I was not. The danger was real, and I could not hide the truth from them any longer. “I… I hear voices. Voices no one else seems to hear. They call themselves the Burnt, not the Burners. I—”
“This is insanity.” Sylla’s voice cut through my stammered explanation. “The man is out of his mind.”
“He’s just had some sort of fit,” Wynne said, crossing her arms and glaring at Sylla. “He’s disoriented, that’s all.”
“And yet, he knew they were coming, and he knew how to escape them.” Bryndine looked at me with searching eyes. “And we all saw the lightning, and felt the tremors. Fyrril’s message said something about the whispers of sorcery. Scriber, are you suggesting…” She paused, clearly struggling with the idea. “Some sort of magick? Some Wyddin trick?”
“I cannot explain it any other way.” I spread my hands. “I have heard the voices ever since Waymark. I don’t know what it is, or how they do it. But surely you’ve noticed the st
rangeness about the rebels. They can’t be caught. They appear without warning all over the Kingsland. They called lightning down on us, you all saw it; lightning struck in Waymark as well, out of a clear sky.”
“There is some truth to that, Captain,” said Tenille, though she did not seem comfortable admitting it. “I noticed strange things as well. In Waymark, they never spoke out loud, and some of them kept fighting when I was convinced I’d killed them. They barely even bled. I… thought it was just the heat of battle, or my imagination, but…”
Sylla crossed her arms. “I saw them bleed plenty.”
“Not while they still fought,” Tenille said with growing conviction. “Only after they died.”
“But why did you not speak of this before, Scriber?” Bryndine still did not look convinced, and she was not the only one—even Wynne, usually my greatest supporter, looked sceptical.
I narrowed my eyes in annoyance. “Would you have believed me? Look at their faces.” I gestured at the other women. “They barely believe me now, after everything we just saw. I only just believe it myself, and only because I can’t think of an alternative.”
Bryndine nodded slowly. “You are right, I suppose. But what do the rebels want? Have you heard anything of importance in these whispers?”
I could only shake my head. “I know nothing about their motives. But they attacked because they do not want us to recover Fyrril’s research, I am certain of that. I hope that if we find those books, it might explain some of this. I need to understand why I am hearing these voices, why they can make me have these… fits.”
“What of the fireleaf?” Bryndine asked. “What significance does it have to them?”
“I honestly don’t know. I had a dream, in Waymark. The Burnt surrounded a burning fireleaf tree, and they… did not seem pleased.”
Bryndine raised an eyebrow. “A slim thing to hazard our lives on.”
“Positively fat, I’d say, compared to the alternatives we had,” Deanyn remarked.
Bryndine nodded without speaking, turning her eyes up towards the flame-colored foliage of the tree that towered over us.
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