On Fire’s Wings

by Christie Golden

  Suddenly the Arukani archers leaped from hiding. Arrows rained upon the approaching army so thickly that for a moment Kevla’s vision was obscured. The strange metal the men wore protected them from some of the arrows, but not all; many fell, as did their unprotected horses, amid shrieks and screams of pain.

  “First line, fire!” cried Melaan. Two dozen archers leaped up from where they had been hiding. Their clothing had been carefully chosen to blend in with the natural hues of the stone, and Melaan felt hope rekindle in him as every one of the Arukani archers took down an enemy. He stood behind a large boulder, which protected him and allowed him to see in almost every direction.

  “Drop! Second line, fire!” The first line fell back into hiding, to refit arrows to their string, and the second line erupted. More of the Emperor’s men fell.

  “Drop! Third line, fire!”

  But this time, as the third line of defense leaped up, the Emperor’s men were ready for them. Some fired their own arrows almost as quickly as the Arukani. Others headed to where they knew the archers lay in concealment. Leaping over the stony ground, they jumped headlong into the Arukani hiding places. An arrow was no match for a sword at close range, and Melaan heard the grunts and screams as his men began to die.

  He had expected this. It was why he had volunteered to lead this front, insisting that his khashim fight elsewhere. Melaan had no wife or family, unlike Terku. The men who had agreed to hold this first line of defense had done so in the full knowledge that they would be the first to die.

  “Drop! Fourth line, fi—”

  He never saw the arrow, nor heard it sing as it flew with deadly accuracy. Suddenly, he found himself facedown on the stone, unable to move. Breathing was agony and his legs felt cold.

  From where he had fallen, he could see boots running toward him. They stopped in front of him and then he heard a sound he knew; the sound of a sword slicing through the air.

  Be careful, Kevla.

  Kevla watched in horror as the balance shifted abruptly and the Emperor’s men began firing on the Arukani. Some ducked back to safety; others clutched their chests and toppled from Kevla’s sight among the boulders.

  The attack continued, and while the advance was slowed, it was not stopped. Fewer arrows came from the Arukani side; fewer men rose to fire them.

  Kevla swallowed hard and tried not to count up the dead. The rest of the clans’ warriors waited in plain sight, at the base of the mountain, armed and silent. Their numbers were a handful compared to what was spilling over the mountainside. Her people were waiting to be slaughtered.

  Suddenly, a fierce protectiveness welled inside Kevla. It snuffed out her panic, her fear, her sense of inadequacy, as easily as she might snuff out a candle. She felt as if there was something deep inside her, growing larger, pushing her to extend and open. She was bigger than Kevla Bai-sha. She was bigger than any of the other lives she had ever lived. Her people needed her to be there for them, to fight for them, to embrace every bit of what it meant to be the Flame Dancer, both the light and the dark. She didn’t have the luxury of being small anymore, of being afraid of her powers, of being unwilling to use everything she could to defend and protect. And with that surrender, she felt power and knowledge flow into her.

  She had been clutching the Dragon’s spine ridge so tightly that her hands ached, but now she released her grip. She did not need to worry about balance. She was the Dragon, and it was her. There was no risk of falling.

  Kevla lifted her hands, feeling the movement as sensuous and graceful, and for the first time understood on a primal level why the guardians of the worlds were called Dancers.

  It is like a dance, she marveled. I know each step, but I don’t know that I know it—

  Suddenly her mind was filled with images of Jashemi holding her, kissing her, making love to her. That fire that had burned in her, roused by his touch, smoldered inside her still. She could call on it, control it. Use it to protect her people.

  Her eyes flew open. Her vision took on a clarity it had never had before. Her skin sensed the wind caressing it with vibrant intensity. Everything was heightened, sensitive—ready to accept Fire.

  Attuned to her as he was, the Dragon sensed her readiness and swooped down toward the Sacred Mountain. Kevla stared at it, at the smoke that drifted upward. In her mind’s eye, she saw again the pool of red-orange liquid. She reached out toward it with her mind and her hands as if to embrace it.

  “Not yet,” cautioned the Dragon. Kevla blinked as if emerging from a trance and saw the wisdom in his words. The army had only begun to come down the mountain. She looked over her shoulder at the tiny figures of the clans of Arukan.

  “Dragon, they’re dying down there!”

  “I know,” he said, gently. “But you must wait.”

  Kevla kept the simmering energy bottled inside her. Wait. Wait.

  The sun rose higher and more soldiers flooded down the mountainside. Tahmu, atop Swift-Over-Sand, tensed, but did not charge.

  “Hold your ground!” he cried. His men, many from his own Clan but a greater number from the Star Clan and the Horserider Clan, shifted uneasily. He shared their feelings. He had sent his best archers up to the pass, and had watched them kill and be killed with pain and resignation. This was the first place where the Arukani army—strange, to think of it that way—had tried to dam the flood of warriors. They had slowed it, but not stopped it.

  Now, it was Tahmu’s turn to try to hold them before they reached the open plains. His heart pounded in his chest and every sense was alert as he watched them come, some on foot, some on horses. Wait. Wait. Let them come to us, waste their energy in running.

  “Now!” he cried, and kicked Swift. The warhorse charged, snorting. A hundred other mounted warriors did likewise. Scimitars glinted in the bright morning light as Tahmu’s men surged forward, greeting the enemy with naked steel and the resolve that can only come from defending one’s homeland.

  Tahmu grunted as he swung his scimitar. The men were armed and armed well, and some of the men he led had already fallen beneath their blades, but they were not invincible. Their metal was vulnerable at the joints of neck and shoulder, and once he had spotted the weakness he did not hesitate to exploit it.

  Suddenly, Swift screamed and collapsed beneath him. Tahmu barely leaped clear in time. Landing on his feet, he whirled to look at his mount. Swift had been eviscerated by a single long stroke. The blow had missed Tahmu’s leg by a hair’s breadth. Now the mighty beast churned up sand with its frantic kicking, his entrails spilling forth in a glistening red pool.

  Pain sliced through Tahmu’s heart. He had ridden Swift for over two decades. Even as he mourned his fallen friend, his heightened senses alerted him to danger and he whirled, bringing up the scimitar just in time to block a sword stroke.

  For the briefest span of time, he thought about allowing the enemy to take him. He would make a good end that way, dying in battle. The way he died would be more honorable, more respected, than the way he had lived. It would be sweet, to put down the burden of guilt he bore for all the wrong choices, the lives lost.

  But no. That was a coward’s way out. Whatever his flaws, Tahmu knew he was a strong and cunning warrior, and Kevla needed every one of her warriors now if she was to succeed. Her success, the protection of their people, was more important to Tahmu than any false peace he could achieve by bowing his neck to the enemy’s blade.

  He parried his foe’s next stroke, calmly eyed the gap in the enemy’s armor, and with powerful arms that were strong and sure he struck.

  It was then that the sheets of flame erupted.

  Kevla watched as the Arukani battled the flank that charged forward, but her attention was caught by the second flank. They busied themselves digging ditches and pouring barrels of fluid into the channels. One of them touched a torch to the shiny pools and leaped back.

  Fire sped along the pool and Kevla realized what they were doing. The warriors in the first wave were a sacrifice, a
distraction. Now the army had made what they perceived to be a successful defense against the gathered Arukani—a wall of flame with a heavily guarded break.

  They’re protecting themselves from attack until the rest of them get here, Kevla thought. She felt her lips twist in a harsh smile.

  “Take me closer,” she called to the Dragon.

  “Kevla, I don’t—”

  “Take me closer!” she cried, anger flooding her. The Dragon obeyed, tucking his wings and diving down at a staggering speed. Kevla extended her arms out to her sides, her movements fluid and in control. She fastened her eyes on the leaping flames, concentrating on them.

  As if they were living things, the sheets of flame dove for their tenders. Men staggered and fell, uselessly beating their bodies in an attempt to douse the fire. Others, seeing what was happening, turned to behold the Great Dragon swooping down. He opened his mouth and breathed a long sheet of flame, further adding to the conflagration.

  Kevla heard a strange noise. It was a sharp pinging sound. It took her a moment to realize what it was as an arrow whizzed past her ear. The sound was that of arrows striking the Dragon’s heavily scaled frame.

  Suddenly, she felt giddy, indestructible. The fire blazed through her and she had never felt more alive in her life. She began singling out men, taking aim and reaching out to them, the fire forming at her fingertips to rush in a glowing orange ball toward their chests.

  Abruptly the Dragon began climbing upward again. The pinging diminished.

  “Why did you—” Kevla began, but the Dragon interrupted her.

  “Look at the pass,” he cried. She did as he asked. Many more had come over in the time she had spent battling the front line. It was at least double, perhaps triple the numbers. She could see that the Arukani line of defense was falling back; could see fallen bodies in rhias being trampled upon in the melee.

  Now.

  Rage boiled inside her, and she turned again to face Mount Bari, to summon in her mind’s eye the image of the boiling pits of liquid fire.

  Come forth!

  She heard the rumbling even from this distance, and knew that those with their feet on the earth could feel it. Perspiration dewed her forehead and she began to breathe raggedly. It was harder to control than she had expected, but she called it, and it came.

  Lava erupted from the depths of the earth with a terrible roar. Bright orange flowed down the mountainside.

  “Take me down,” she called to the Dragon. “I need to be closer!”

  He obliged. She could see the individual rocks in the tide of liquid fire now, darker spots being swept along in the glowing yellow-orange flow. With a flick of her fingers, she summoned more lava. It spilled over another side of Mount Bari, this flow streaming over the pass. Anyone who had not yet crossed into Arukani lands now was completely cut off. A good quarter of the army would now never make it down the mountain.

  The first stream twisted and snaked downward. It chased the men, who screamed and ran before it, into the waiting arms of the Arukani clans. Those who were not swift enough were engulfed in its lethal wave. Men, horses, wagons, casks of oil that exploded on contact, weapons—all fell beneath the merciless lava flow.

  She heard the cries of the armies as they met in battle, heard the clash of steel on steel, but suddenly her attention was directed to a handful of men. Some of them clustered around the enormous bow and were pointing up at the dragon. Straining, they tilted the weapon skyward and fitted an arrow. One of them leaned forward, using his weight to pull back the string and—

  Numbed with horror, it seemed forever until Kevla regained the use of her tongue.

  “Dragon, watch—”

  She felt the impact of the enormous arrow as it plunged into the Dragon’s body. He let out a dreadful cry and bucked. Kevla clung to his neck, and looking down she could see the awful thing impaled in his left side, between his mighty forepaw and his wing. It had gone deep, and for a long, terrible moment, the Dragon’s wings stopped beating.

  He bellowed in pain and began to stroke the air once again, desperately trying to keep them both aloft and alive, turning away from the dreadful bow.

  Fear for her friend erased everything else. She hugged him, leaning on his neck to cry to him, “Get down, get down! You’re hurt!”

  Kevla heard a stinging sound and felt a hard blow to her back that almost knocked her off the Dragon. Searing pain ripped through her and she couldn’t breathe. Something wet was tricking down her right breast. She looked down and for a moment didn’t see the blood, the same color as her flame-created clothing. There was a lump where there shouldn’t be and—

  A wave of dizziness and white-hot agony swept over her as she reached with her left hand and her questing fingers found the sharp metal tip of an arrow protruding through her shoulder.

  “Kevla!” roared the Dragon. “Fight it, Kevla….”

  But she couldn’t. The world began to turn gray. Kevla swayed forward and tumbled from the Dragon’s back.

  Chapter Thirty

  Tahmu had watched in awe along with everyone else as Kevla turned the army’s own fire against them and caused Mount Bari to erupt.

  The sight had rejuvenated the forces he commanded. They now shrieked their battle cries and fell upon their foes with fresh passion. The Emperor’s men, by contrast, seemed stunned by the unexpected and shocking turn of events. Some dropped their weapons. Others surrendered eagerly, and Tahmu realized that several of the men they were fighting were actually Arukani.

  One boy fell to his feet in front of Tahmu and begged, “Please, lord, they forced us to fight, spare me, spare me!”

  “Get up!” cried Tahmu. “Drop your weapons. Keep your hands in front of you so no one will think you armed and head for the tents!”

  Others, overhearing, imitated the boy, dropping their weapons and rushing gratefully to safety. Tahmu wondered if this was a battle or a rescue mission.

  There came a brief lull in the battle and as Tahmu wiped sweat and blood from his face, his gaze traveled skyward. He saw the Dragon wheeling, saw Kevla as a tiny shape atop it.

  Tahmu frowned. Something was wrong.

  The Dragon was flying erratically, and as Tahmu watched in horror, a small shape toppled forward from the safety of the Dragon’s broad back.

  “Kevla!” he cried in impotent horror as his daughter hurtled toward the earth. There was nothing he could do for her, nothing to stop her downward plummet.

  The Dragon dove, extending his enormous forepaws and catching the falling woman just in time. Relief washed over Tahmu.

  She was safe. His daughter was safe.

  “My lord!” The voice was Dumah’s. Recovering himself, Tahmu whirled just in time to parry a stroke and begin a counterattack.

  Kevla awoke from dreams of pain to the reality of agony. She was lying on her side, and as she tried to draw breath the pain increased a thousandfold.

  “Gently,” came a familiar voice. “Don’t move. Asha is working on your injury now.”

  Kevla blinked, trying to keep still. “My lord?”

  Tahmu was there, kneeling in front of her, tenderly holding one of her hands in his. “Don’t speak, Kevla.”

  But she had to. “The Dragon…he’s hurt, too….”

  “Do not fear for me, I am all right.” Despite the reassuring words, the Dragon’s voice was laced with pain. He moved so she could see him. “They were able to remove the arrow. I will heal.”

  Tears trickled down her face. “I’m glad,” she whispered, then arched in torment as behind her, someone touched her back.

  “Careful, Asha!” cried Tahmu.

  “My lord, I am sorry, but—may I speak with you?”

  Tahmu squeezed Kevla’s hand and then rose. He and his healer walked off a few steps and conversed in whispers. Kevla locked eyes with the Dragon.

  “Make them tell me,” she whispered. “I need to know.”

  He nodded his understanding, lifted his head and bellowed, “Tell her wh
at is wrong, Asha!”

  The healer knelt in front of her, looking more sorrowful and frightened than she had ever seen him.

  “It’s bad, Kevla,” he said. “An arrow entered your back at an angle. The shaft runs all through your body. The tip comes out in your shoulder. I fear that I will be unable to remove it without causing fatal damage.”

  Kevla blinked, not comprehending. To have come this far, to have endured so much, and now one arrow would take her life? Doom the whole world?

  She started to shake her head, then hissed as the movement exacerbated the pain. She licked her lips and spoke.

  “No. There has to be a way.”

  “Truly, there is not. Nothing has been pierced yet, but the arrow’s shaft….” Aware that he was repeating himself, Asha fell silent. Tahmu shoved him aside and again gripped his daughter’s hand, his gaze roaming over her face.

  “Dragon,” Kevla whispered, looking into her father’s eyes. “Dragon, you know more about me than I know about myself. Is there nothing that can be done?”

  “Yes, there is. But it will be difficult.”

  Hope swelled inside her, dimming the pain ever so slightly. Tahmu looked up at the Dragon.

  “Save her.”

  “She must save herself.”

  “How is she to do that?” Tahmu demanded. “She lies near death, an arrow running the length of her body!”

  Kevla closed her eyes, drifting. The Dragon continued to speak, but she barely heard him.

  “The arrow is made of wood. You are the Flame Dancer. You must burn it, Kevla. Burn it to ashes inside of you. Burn it away to nothing. You know how to do this.”

  Because I did it to Jashemi. Tears leaked past her closed lids.

  “Fire destroys,” said the Dragon, as if she had spoken aloud, “but it also cleanses and purifies. Burn the arrow shaft, and cauterize your wounds.”