Gown of Shadow and Flame

by A. E. Marling

“Surround it!” Tall Tachamwa shouted while scrambling away from the whoosh of its claws. “At its legs! At its legs!”

  Celaise was the first to lunge toward the Rock-Back. Jerani thought of one of its column legs snuffing her like it had a campfire.

  “Wait!”

  If she heard his cry, she ignored it. Celaise's arms snapped around a clawed knee like a queen beetle's closing jaws.

  She wrapped her arms around the behemoth's leg. Its claws were as large as the sword sickles wielded by guardsmen in Oasis City. Celaise did not fear it, not with her center of vulnerability behind her, beside a dirt tower.

  Her magic wormed up the great leg so the Headless would sense its flesh being blistered with heat. Then the worst thing happened, and Celaise felt the pain of failure like a switch leaving a bloody line on her back.

  The beast of beasts ignored her. It pounced forward to knock three cattle off their feet. Udders waggled upward with a chorus of wailing moos.

  Can't take it down without more Black Wine, Celaise thought. She would have to Feast on the weaker Headless first.

  Her glove trailed flames as she swept it from Jerani to the king predator. “Distract it!”

  To his credit, Jerani only paused one wide-eyed moment before rushing to the Headless lord, spear first. She wove shadows around Jerani then created a false image of him three steps back, complete with sweat-glistening muscles and fluttering red robe. Celaise was still not sure how much the beasts relied on vision, but any that looked would misjudge his location.

  She did not grant the same boon to the other Greatheart warriors. They were nothing to her.

  The cattle lowed as several predators ran closer. The behemoth Headless had pushed the cows into an ambush, but they reformed around their calves and forced back the smaller beasts. Even the bull smacked a wolf-sized attacker away with a sideswipe of its horns. The Headless beat the ground with their frustration.

  With a burst of her cape, Celaise launched herself upward then plunged to prey on a predator. Her clenching gloves dragged streamers of smoke. Men gaped at her fiery splendor while women shrieked their jealousy.

  “She's burning to death!”

  “Get back, Pirba! You'll catch flame!”

  “By fire and stone! She'll roast 'em all.”

  Celaise struck down with a firestorm of dress. A beast rolled itself into a ball, but its rocky hide did nothing to shield its mind from her heat. It tilted and tumbled in a shaking frenzy.

  When she told this Headless to die, it listened. Fear burst its heart. The predator collapsed on the cold dirt, its corpse not so much as singed, though she hid it from sight.

  While she could only eat raw meat off beasts, the men and women's terror was a seven course banquet by a master chef. Soon I'll have a proper meal. Soon. For now, she ate angry. Thick, dripping hunks of animal dread were gobbled quicker than potato mash. And she would never grow full.

  Three Headless had linked themselves together into an eight-legged monster. One predator led the charge with the two behind running on their back legs. Their forelegs gripped a natural groove in the craggy sides of the monster ahead of them, and with their combined force they smashed through the ring of horns.

  The cows cried out, and the calf Gem flopped to its side. Its front legs paddled in panic.

  Celaise had no intention of seeing the little thing hurt. She whooshed forward, her dress forming a woman-shaped tunnel of fire. The front Headless in the chain was engulfed.

  The beast behind it let go as Celaise's dress billowed in all directions. She digested the fear, and the cloth of smoke tightened around her body again, her dress spreading downwards, pooling over the ground to reveal a pit of fire big enough to bake three bulls at once. Black Wine lofted her two feet taller in the heat-rippling air.

  A tribesman scrambled away. “Mother's fire!”

  The calf looked as if it would topple into the blaze. Celaise reached out to pull that side of her skirt closer, and the furry animal scrambled to safety. She extended no such courtesy to the remaining two linked Headless.

  The now six-legged beast tried to turn both its lumps around, but fabric woven with sparks swept under them. One half of the monster fell into the dress' fire, tipping in the last creature in the chain.

  The nearest tribesmen were rooted to the ground in what looked like awe. One said, “Two Rock-Backs in one roast!”

  The rest of the smaller Headless slid to a dusty stop. They pawed the ground then began to turn around. Gorgeous bellowed, thrust her horns between a pair of clawed legs and flipped a Rock-Back over. Its feet wiggled in the air.

  “Don't just stand there gulping her sparks.” The tall tribesman waved his spear to the remaining behemoth, which was striking at Jerani. “Feed it horns!”

  Celaise was not sure how much more fear she needed to ferment into Black Wine to defeat the mammoth Headless. She would have to eat fast before a spiked pillar of a leg landed on Jerani.

  Jerani's spear pricked the giant's knee, and four claws snapped upward to impale him. The yellowish spikes ripped the air, and the currents rushed past Jerani as he rolled to the side.

  The creature was enormous, like a drooling hill, but it could pick up any of its legs and kick with alarming speed. “Isafo!” Jerani shouted to the only other warrior who had not yet run from the colossus. “Go for another leg!”

  The big man lunged forward, his spear going farther toward the leg. He nicked it. The Rock-Back reached to tear Isafo to pieces. Faster than thought, Jerani threw his war club. It smacked against the tip of the leg joint, and the entire limb twitched. Isafo had the time to get back.

  Jerani wheeled around the trunk of another leg and jammed his horn-tip in a crease of the layered hide. The Rock-Back bashed its other feet down and pawed at him.

  The claws whooshed behind Jerani. The monstrosity had misjudged where he stood, and Jerani had time to scramble behind a termite mound. He felt sick with relief. He had almost lost everything—Wedan, Anza, and Celaise—in the briefest of limb-tearing moments.

  “Thought it had you,” Isafo said. He jogged backward between the mounds of loam, not looking straight at Jerani. “Nothing for it against this horn-breaker. Run.”

  Jerani wanted to flee, and this brawny warrior had just given him permission. Running from this wouldn't make me a coward. The monstrosity must have started as a Skin-Back that had pricked an elephant. It had fattened itself on blood then turned into a Rock-Back and eaten the rest of the long-nosed herd.

  The colossus trod over a termite mound. Jerani scrambled behind another of the dirt piles. I should run.

  Celaise had told him to fight.

  She had to have a plan for toppling this thing. Jerani hoped she did. The corner of his eyes glimpsed her, and she seemed to be burning brighter with every snatched glance. She was like a sand cyclone, but of spinning scarves of flame.

  “Get back!” Isafo called from over his shoulder. “Jerani!”

  The Rock-Back lifted itself, a cow's hoof dangling from the jaws on the monstrosity's underbelly. It charged Jerani, dark tentacles of saliva swaying. White blades of teeth scraped against each other with the sound of rock on rock.

  Revulsion and terror stunned Jerani. The ground rippled under his feet from crushing footfalls. I can't do anything but run, he thought, and I can't outrun this.

  The massive creature loomed overhead. Jerani saw a chance to dash between its legs and try to scratch its belly, maybe toss the spear into its gnashing mouth. He was sure he would end up dismembered.

  Run and die, or wound it and die? Jerani wondered what else he could do.

  Celaise had not told him to kill it, only distract it. Again he decided to trust her. He would be the fly on the beast's back.

  Planting the horn of his spear into the ground, he jumped forward and used the spring of the bending wooden shaft to launch himself on top of the living hill. He scrambled over its domed back, sliding, missing handholds among the sharp ridges because he had trouble se
eing his fingers. Celaise's smoke coated his arms.

  The world shifted under Jerani. The Rock-Back turned as if trying to find where he had scurried. Between his grips, ruddy crystals curved in weaving patterns. He scraped out one with his knife.

  The bony plates cut his hands as the colossus heaved itself up and down. An earthquake, but with claw and fang waiting for me if I fall. Jerani rolled sideways, ridges raking his shoulders. His fingers found purchase, and he clung on.

  To his disbelief, Jerani watched a Skin-Back scuttle up along a groove and onto his hand. It pricked his fingers and oozed its way up his arm.

  Jerani thrashed, throwing the Skin-Back into the air but at the same time losing his hold. He slid feet over head, off the rocky back.

  Twisting in mid fall, he landed in a crouch. The predator leered over him with dripping jaws. He knew he could not escape, but he would scratch it with his knife before it ground his bones to powder. He would have his last sting.

  Celaise flew over him in a blue streak that left a searing afterimage. He thought she had donned the sky dress again, but then he felt her heat. Skin-peeling. Horn-melting. Water-burning.

  A twilight of flames draped about her, a haunting light that Jerani remembered so well from his journey up the Angry Mother. The goddess' handmaiden must have come into her full force of power, and even though he trusted her, he found himself cowering before her dress of blue fire.

  The elegant sleeves trailing her arms blinded him, and he could not look at her without pain. Neither could he turn away as she landed below the crevasse of the colossus' mouth. Drool sizzled. Her face calm amid a lace of blue fire, she pounced upward.

  The maw snicked closed after her, snipping off the bottommost folds of blue light. Jerani jumped to his feet then fell back to his knees again in worry. Seeing Celaise leap into the monster's mouth tumbled his feelings through the air, spinning and wheeling, never to stand on still ground for the rest of his life.

  The jaws blasted open in a gout of smoke and a powder of charred flesh. The reek might have sickened Jerani, but he had stopped breathing. The rest of the Rock-Backs fled, their feet clomping over the ground.

  The colossus' knees wobbled then stiffened. Its whole body trembled, collapsed. Armored sides fumed and shone through with light. Skin-Backs crawled from its underside, and they pattered away, smoke licking their gummy heels. Jerani stabbed one that tried to wriggle past him.

  A blue rent split the Rock-Back in two, and Celaise hovered above the fallen hill, brilliant and terrible like a closer sun. As tresses of fire flowed about her, Jerani wondered if his first impression had been right. Might she be the goddess herself?

  The blinding figure lifted one hand, and Jerani felt himself lurched as if grabbed then set back down. With a squelching sound, a score of pink blobs flew past him. The Skin-Backs paddled in desperate flight but could not change their course as they plunged into the blue inferno of Celaise's chest.

  Apart from her dress' hissing crackle, the night silenced. As she floated to the ground, her arms wove in graceful flame-like motions. Her gaze flashed to him, and her blue eyes came close to slaying him with awe. In them he saw all the world's beauty, as well as all its frightful power.

  “You did well,” she said.

  Jerani opened his mouth to say she had not done too badly herself, but his throat would not make the words. He felt sick with pride for her.

  “He didn't die,” Isafo said. He tossed Jerani's war club at him, and in Jerani's shocked state he missed the grab. The wooden head punched his stomach. Still, it was the closest thing to a compliment Isafo had ever said to him.

  Celaise slitted her eyes into bright lines.

  Isafo lifted a hand to his own throat and coughed. Celaise was painful to stand close to. She smelled exactly as Jerani remembered the fire on the yellow mountainside, a perfume of brimstone.

  Tachamwa shielded his eyes from Celaise, peering around for more Rock-Backs. They had rolled off into the night. “You did right for yourselves, both of you,” he said to Jerani and Isafo. “And you, woman of the goddess' fire. I couldn't think of walking ahead of you.”

  The warriors followed Celaise. The grasses dried around her, singing and blackening, though the fire did not spread. In fact, it withdrew into her and shifted hue from blue to a less painful red. Her skirt and sleeves shrank, and she drifted downward to her normal height. Jerani still felt her heat on his brow, as if he leaned close to the campfire.

  “No footprints.” Tall Tachamwa nudged Jerani.

  “I know,” he said.

  The herd trotted about the field, excited from the victory. One cow, Milkcoat, tried to mount Gorgeous. Milkcoat lifted to her hind legs and scrabbled her hooves over the back of the lead cow, but Milkcoat was too short. Gorgeous continued forward, and Milkcoat teetered backward, landing on her side with a thump.

  “Ha!” A warrior held his belly. “She's bullstruck.”

  After that upset, the cows walked in a more dignified single file. Gorgeous led them with dainty steps around a dead Rock-Back, turning her pink nose up with a moo of disgust.

  “Remember what I said.” Tachamwa bobbed his chin meaningfully twice toward Celaise.

  Jerani's face burned even hotter. He wondered how he could be expected to marry a goddess' handmaiden. To have survived that heat she had to be made of clay. “I'm not sure I should.”

  “Don't be a wet warthog,” Tachamwa said. “What could be the worst that'd happen?”

  Jerani could think of quite a few worst things. Burn me to a belch of cinders. Leave Wedan and Anza without anyone to look after them. Get mad enough to leave the tribe to the Rock-Backs.

  The sight of Celaise did not much impress the cows, and Jerani tried to model himself after them, though his beating heart did not want to slow from a gallop. Her hips never swayed as she moved, but they left orange afterimages in his eyes.

  But what if she said yes? What if she wants me to ask? Me, a mortal. He glanced at the glowing bracer on his wrist then shook his head. Jerani did not believe anything so good could happen to him.

  If any warrior clicked his tongue and made eyes at her again, Celaise would roast him. Let a man be hurt for once.

  She remembered—oh yes, she remembered—strong hands wrapped around her waist, their warmth seeping into her hips. A gasp had escaped her lips as he had stepped closer. His touch on her arm had felt so wonderful it hurt, like he had sparks on his fingers.

  Now I own a dress of sparks and fire. She wondered if the man who had given her the bracelet had felt anything for her. Perhaps not, but these days, she could stir plenty of emotion in men. Terror.

  Even worse, she did not think he had actually been strong. Not handsome either, with one front tooth jutting forward and kisses that smelled of onions. Not like Jerani. The moon-eyed girl she had been had just seen him as wonderful, had treasured his touch and felt as special as a high priestess to wear his copper bracelet. He had not even needed to lie to her. She had accepted his unspoken promise, had been drunk on trust.

  That had been years ago. Now she wondered if she was making the same mistake by relying on Jerani. He is the better man.

  The tribal women rushed to greet the warriors but hung back at the sight of Celaise. They sense the Black Wine, she thought. Soon, they will all know. Only the Holy Woman strode forward, coaxing the calf Gem after her by a brown ear.

  “You are honoring us,” she said, “so the Greathearts honor you. This is your calf now.”

  Celaise asked, “You're giving me this animal?”

  “The gods gave their four-legged children to their two-legged children, not for owning, but for protecting,” the Holy Woman said. “No honor greater, and Gem is the best-legged calf born a Greatheart.”

  Her nervousness smelled of cooked turnips. Celaise was suspicious. Does she think I'm a Feaster? Trying to track me during the day with the calf? Celaise knew she could not accept the gift—the lure—but part of her wanted to. Gem had the most sweet eye
s and innocent brown face. Animals don't betray their own.

  She had heard of a Feaster who had kept hounds. The dogs had guarded him while he slept. When the Bright Palms caught him, they murdered the dogs too and nailed them beside his corpse, as if in warning to other mongrels not to take up with such company.

  The thought of Gem impaled through its furry neck tortured Celaise. Her gaze whisked about, but the Bright Palm was nowhere in sight. Did he see my fire? She had not even thought to hide her magic, had gotten caught up in the Feasting, as she always did.

  The Black Wine in her blood turned sour. The thought of the Bright Palm revolted her. She had believed she would have a chance to destroy the Headless and complete her task. But he'll catch me. He'll spike me to a tree like he did Elsben and my skin will dry to parchment in the sun.

  Her eyes refocused on Gem. All the tribesmen were watching her, and as her heart trembled, she said, “I can't keep it.” I'll be dead in a few days. “I would like to. Let Jerani have Gem for me.”

  “I am understanding.”

  Celaise swore the Holy Woman winked at her.

  “He's a strong man, every part of him.” The Holy Woman walked the calf over to Jerani. “When he was a bit younger, he could aim his piss all the way over his father's head and land not a drop on him.”

  “I never…” Jerani choked, and his eyes scooted away from Celaise. “…I never did!”

  A tall tribesman laughed. “You're just bashful. By the sky cows, Gio used to be more fun!”

  Celaise only half listened, thinking about the Bright Palm and how it would feel to have a bronze nail driven through her leg. The name “Gio” sounded familiar. She did not bother much about remembering the names of people, but she felt she should know this one.

  The tall warrior approached her. “We're going round to the other tribes. See if they need a helping spear.”

  He stopped speaking, and Celaise supposed he hoped she would offer to assist them. She wanted to, wished to be finished with her trial, to be free. But the Bright Palm will see me. Straight through me.