by Joni Sensel
“It’s still creepy,” Ariel told her.
“These hills must attract thunderstorms,” Scarl said.
“Maybe.” Sienna’s doubt hummed.
They crossed the scorched earth until the land dropped and became green again, although the burnt stink would not leave Ariel’s nose. Then they spilled down a ravine and into a sloped meadow. Although scattered with shrubs and small trees, the meadow offered a sudden view—but not a distant one. A curtain of smoke hung below them. A livid red streak pulsed and leaped at its base.
Ariel recoiled. “Another!” She spun to face uphill. Palisades topped the slope the full length of the curving ridge, the rock as steep as a wall and twice as tall as Tree-Singer Abbey.
Scarl cursed. It frightened Ariel more when an oath fell from Sienna’s lips, too.
“We’re in trouble,” said the Flame-Mage.
“How could lightning start so many fires at once?” Ariel demanded.
“I don’t think it was lightning. Never mind. Later.” Sienna whirled to gauge the fire’s speed and potential escape routes. “If we have a later.”
The wind gusted, carrying the roar and crackle—and heat—of the fire below. Flames leaped on the breeze from one tree or grass clump to the next. Willow reared. One armed, Nace barely kept him. Scarl helped.
“We’ll have to retreat up the ravine,” Scarl said.
“No.” Sienna bit off the words. “Fire loves ravines. They’re chimneys. If we could reach the fireweed we passed, I’d do it. We’d be safe there in the char. But I don’t think we have time. Not uphill.” She hurried forward.
“We can’t hope to cross past it unless the wind shifts!” Scarl said. The open space was already narrowing as the fire clawed uphill. He jumped to grab Sienna’s arm.
She yanked from his grip. “Listen to me! I know more about this than any of you, even if it is just head-learning. It doesn’t matter if the wind shifts. We’re in a bowl, uphill and updraft. We’ve got maybe ten minutes—less. We’ve got to find somewhere to hunker.”
Scarl dropped to his knees. “We’ve seen lots of water today. I’ll find a creek. Or a pond.” He stared at one clenched fist.
Sienna turned to watch the fire and scan the still-unburned hillside. The flames snarled and gnashed, sweeping closer. With a stone in her belly, Ariel reached to help Nace with the horse.
Sienna moaned. “Our best bet might be—”
Hot air blasted them, nearly knocking Ariel down. It hurt to breathe.
“Get near the ground!” Sienna dropped into a crouch. “Scarl! Time’s up!”
His face grim, he pointed downslope. “There’s a hollow just past that rise.” A wooded hump sat between them and the fire. “It’s not much—it might be only a seep in the trees, but it’s all the water that’s close.” He tugged Ariel toward it.
“No!” Sienna grabbed Ariel, too, yanking painfully. “Too much fuel around it. If it isn’t knee-deep, it’ll boil us alive. We’d be better off running down through the flames!”
Scarl drew a tense breath. His voice came out even, but his grip on Ariel hurt. “Is that what you suggest then, Sienna? Through the fire to land that’s already black?”
She gazed downhill and swallowed hard. “Last resort,” she whispered. She spun. “I think we should do this instead. See that bare patch? Come on.” She ran toward it, bent low to the ground. Unsure what else to do, the others crouched and scrambled after her.
“What are we doing?” Ariel panted.
“Scrape it clear of fuel, best we can. Dig ourselves in. Mostly grass is around it. That’ll flare fast and not too hot. If we’re lucky.”
Willow squealed and tried to bolt. Scarl stopped to help Nace control him.
“Let him go,” Sienna cried. “He can maybe outrun it. We can’t.”
Scarl grabbed Willow’s bridle. “No. You and Ariel mount. He can carry you away, too.”
“We all can ride!” Ariel said. “If we squish. There’s no way I’m going without you.”
Nace shook his head.
Scarl closed his eyes and said quietly, “I don’t think he can outrun it carrying four.”
“Maybe not even two,” said Sienna. “Let him go. There’s no need for him to …” Her voice trailed off.
“Die,” Ariel whispered.
“No,” Sienna snapped, regaining resolve. “We won’t. Not if we get into that dirt. Let him go now, Nace. Now. We can hunker, but running is his only hope. If he’ll listen, tell him to go that way and downhill.” She gestured ahead. The fire was slightly more distant in the direction she pointed, the slope gentler, and the spindly trees farther apart.
Scarl snatched his coat from Willow’s gear and released him, but Nace grabbed the horse’s upper lip and twisted hard enough to get the animal’s attention. The Kincaller made some sound, too, although the fire’s growling drowned it. He yanked the bridle off so the reins couldn’t hang up. Willow bunched his hindquarters and tore away, chunks of earth flying. Ariel hoped they’d made the right decision. The crackling in the air was so loud she had to keep checking to be sure the rushing flames weren’t already upon them.
“Hurry.” Sienna led them to a dimple in the slope filled mostly with shale, windblown twigs, and dead leaves. With both her hands and her feet, Sienna swept aside everything down to bare dirt.
“Do this! The fire will jump over.”
“Here. A hoe.” Scarl tossed each of them plate-sized slabs of shale to scrape over the ground in great swaths. They soon had a clearing twenty feet across. Ash and embers, still glowing, rained upon them. The smoke overhead made noon look like night. Flames bloomed in grass all around their bare spot.
Sienna yelped and whisked an ember out of her hair. “Trenches would be good.” She panted, whirling her face toward the fire every few seconds. “To lie in. Cooler air. Here.” She plowed the dirt with three mighty drags of her shale. She grabbed Ariel and shoved her to the ground. “In. Belly down. Pull your shirt over your face. Cover your head with your arms. I’ll bury you some. It’ll protect you from the heat. That’s more danger than flames.”
The roaring threat sounded enormous, as though one continuous and boiling-hot sea wave were crashing over their heads. Too terrified not to obey, Ariel did.
“Scarl!” She peeked as Sienna dragged dirt and rocks over her back.
“I’m right here.” His voice sounded too calm. He’d already widened her trench. He thrust Nace in, too, nearly atop Ariel. Nace grabbed her hand.
She wailed, “You don’t have a trench!” Sienna did not, either, of course.
Ariel grunted in surprise and discomfort as the Flame-Mage dropped full-length atop her. By the time she understood, she could see Scarl’s body crushing Nace’s as well.
“We think alike, Sienna,” he shouted and dragged his coat over everyone’s heads. He must have shifted sideways, too, because even more pressure squashed Ariel into the dirt.
Talking stopped. The roar was too loud, the air too hot. Ariel buried her face against Nace in the stifling dark.
CHAPTER 29
Dog Moon and Fire
Ariel’s limbs shuddered uncontrollably. She thought she couldn’t get any more scared—and then she stopped being able to breathe. Sucking against fabric, she tried to drag in the searing air. Her lungs didn’t recognize it. Her chest heaved. No breath seemed to come. Her muscles twitched. She fought a swell of panic, a demand to get up and run.
She felt Nace jerk and strain to push himself up. The weight above her shifted and slammed the boy back to the dirt. Ariel gave up even trying to inhale.
Her heart pounded, counting time, her thoughts swirling too loud in her head. A dreadful image flashed in her mind: she and Nace, baked like potatoes in coals while the potato skins blackened and crisped. Wanting to moan but without breath to do so, she waited for the secrets of death.
The buzz in her head was louder than the fire’s roar when the weight on her eased. Flames were lifting them all into the sky like embe
rs, she thought dully, surprised it didn’t hurt more. As the buzz grew more distant and faded, she realized she was breathing again—hot air, but air her lungs would accept. The fire’s roar receded to crackles.
For a long moment, she did nothing but breathe, still too frightened to feel any relief. Some of the weight on her shifted and rolled off. Nace raised himself slightly. Sienna slid from Ariel’s back, an elbow poking down as she moved. Ariel couldn’t unclench her eyelids. She felt a touch at her shoulder and then a tiny shake.
Her eyes cracked open. A blizzard of ash fell about them. Flames still licked above, beyond their clear space, but the fire was burning itself out against the stone palisades—except in the ravine they’d descended, where it raged more ferociously than ever. Ariel had to look away from that brilliant inferno.
“Careful,” came Scarl’s voice, hoarse. “Stay low. Breathe.”
At that welcome sound, Ariel flipped over and lunged for him, on his knees alongside Nace. She buried her face in the Finder’s dirty shirt.
“I thought you were going to—” She couldn’t say it.
He brushed dirt from her cheek with his thumb. “We owe Sienna an unpayable debt. I never would have known what to do.”
Ariel turned to embrace Sienna, too. She stopped. Sienna sat in the dirt, staring at nothing and trembling. Fierce blisters covered the backs of her calves. Ariel’s exclamation hurt her raw throat.
“My fault,” Scarl said. “I was so concerned about covering your heads that I forgot her legs were completely bare.”
“It’s okay,” Sienna whispered, her voice distant. “It worked. It… I never thought… It hurts, though.”
Nobody else had more than pounding headaches and scorched clothes, which smelled so much like fresh ironing that Ariel wanted to laugh. She stuffed it back, afraid hysteria might snatch her. The heat eased in the wind, and Scarl helped Sienna stand. The young woman winced as her legs bent and straightened, and she clung to Scarl, whimpering. The transformation from her authority just moments before was startling.
“Come, Ariel, Nace,” Scarl said. “Let’s see if any of the water I found remains cool.”
The motion revived Sienna, and by the time they reached evidence of a spring, she had lifted her head and quashed the sounds of her pain. The mushy ground was indeed scalding, though. Ariel could see the spring’s tiny upwelling, pulsing and probably cool, but the water soaked into the ground rather than flowing away as a stream, so she couldn’t get anywhere near without burning her feet.
“It’s going to be a little while before we can get past hot mud,” she told Scarl.
“I’ll be all right,” Sienna said weakly. “Let’s find real water where I can dunk my legs in.”
Ariel propped Sienna, stroking her arm, while Scarl concentrated on finding. Nace took Sienna’s other hand. Words of thanks seemed completely inadequate.
“You were amazing,” Ariel whispered.
Sienna managed a smile. “I guess I’m truly not an apprentice anymore. A fire-trial like that should definitely earn me mastery. Don’t you think?”
Nace nodded hard.
“And then some,” Ariel added.
Charred snags toppled not far away. Sienna gazed at the burnt landscape as if seeing it for the first time. “Goodness,” she said. “I can’t believe we survived that. And I can’t believe I remembered what to do, either. I never dreamed I’d need that lesson, not ever. It all just came back, like a little cheat in my ear.” She tipped her head thoughtfully. “But I think I’m supposed to give this back to you now.” She slid her hand from Nace’s grasp and reached to untie Ariel’s necklace.
Ariel’s fingers flashed up to stop her. Despite the cramp of reluctance squeezing her heart, she forced words from her mouth. She’d gained a whole new sense of what was important.
“No, Sienna,” she said. “You… you keep it. If you want. We’d all be dead if it weren’t for you. And it’s my fault we walked into it. I should have been able to steer us around it.”
“Oh, piffle,” Sienna replied. “The first thing hammered into a Flame-Mage is that fire doesn’t always behave. If we can’t predict it, I don’t know why you should be able to. Silly.” She hugged Ariel. “No. It’s yours.” She drew back, removed the necklace, and tied it once more around Ariel’s neck. “But I enjoyed wearing it. Thank you.”
Ariel ran her fingers over her beads. If her dehydrated body had contained moisture to spare, she would have cried. Instead her eyes only burned. The necklace meant even more to her now. And although she did not understand how the moon could have known this, clearly Sienna had been exactly what Ariel had needed from Skunk.
And yet…
Nace reached to flick ash out of Ariel’s hair, combing his fingers through it to make sure it was gone and not burning. He gave her a strained smile. She rubbed his arm in its sling. She wouldn’t be here right now without him, either.
“How’s your shoulder?” she asked. He shrugged, but lifted only the good shoulder. Her friends were taking a beating. She hoped she could make it up to them somehow.
Scarl got their attention and they shuffled downhill. A substantial creek wasn’t far; the fire simply had already jumped it and stood between when they needed a haven. Everyone waded in, grateful to be cool. Sienna’s pain eased a little. Ariel searched for submerged marshyellow or water aloe. She found none. Scarl had no better luck.
“As soon as we can get somewhere not burned,” Ariel promised Sienna, “we’ll find something to poultice your legs with.”
Sienna sighed. “I had burn cream in my bag, if I’d thought to grab it. Oh, well.”
They all wanted to linger and recover, and they did so for more than an hour. But without any food or supplies, they soon had little choice but to seek somewhere unravaged by fire so Scarl might find them something to eat. They followed the creek, which suited Ariel’s feet anyway. After passing by several sweeping ridge views, however, it became clear that it would take all day to reach anywhere lush. Green hills rose in the distance, but before them, black ground, or black dotted with green, stretched for miles in every direction.
“I don’t understand,” said Sienna. “It’s like a quilt of different fires stitched together, as if each burns to the edge of an old one, and then another starts somewhere else where there’s fuel. I’ve never heard of anything like it.”
“I have,” Scarl muttered. “I’m just having a hard time believing it on a scale this big.”
He told them of Reapers who used fire to flush animals from hiding or drive them over cliffs.
Nace expressed outrage.
“It doesn’t sound fair to me, either,” Scarl told him. “But I suppose that depends on how hungry your family is.”
“That fits,” said Sienna. “I haven’t seen anything that looked like a lightning strike. But I did see hints of fires that did not want to burn and were coaxed.”
Ariel gazed around them. “Even a whole village of Reapers couldn’t need to burn this much for hunting, though. Besides, they’d get meat, but what about fruit and mushrooms and nuts and healing plants and everything else?”
No one had an answer. Nor had they yet seen any sign of a village.
“The only other reason,” Scarl said, “would be to wage war.” Feeling suddenly hunted themselves, they glanced into the black shadows and hushed.
Not too much later, however, they were all overjoyed to spy Willow splashing along the creek toward them, still bearing the packs. He whinnied in greeting. Embers had caught in his mane and among the folds of the packs, singeing both, but he seemed mostly unharmed. For a moment, Ariel thought Nace might cry.
Tears did slide down Sienna’s cheeks as she put her cream on her legs. Scarl shot Ariel several hesitant looks. She could guess what he was thinking. But it was only mid-afternoon.
Ariel exhaled hard. “You want to camp here and rest, don’t you?” she asked him. “Since Willow brought us food and our gear.”
“It might be a kindn
ess to your traveling companions,” he said quietly. “It’s been a trying day—several, in fact—and unlike you, we’re not all…”
“You can say it,” she muttered. “Obsessed.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of trail-tough. Or even… Farwalkers.”
She didn’t know how to explain that she wanted to rest as much as any of them. She was simply afraid to—particularly if she really had seen someone spying on them.
But Sienna overheard them. “I would love to stop,” she said. “Don’t get that wrong. But I’ll do what you need to do, Ariel. I don’t understand everything you and Scarl talk about, the moon and your map and all that. But I didn’t just save your life so something else dreadful can happen to you, and it’s obvious that you think it will, if we go too slow. It’s all over your face every afternoon. Like it is now. And I can’t think about the pain quite so much when we move. So we can keep going. If you ask me. Which you didn’t.”
Ariel’s heart swelled, but she felt even worse about wanting to push on. “How about just one more hour?” she asked. “Maybe… two?”
They ended up walking for three more hours, drawn on by a swath of enticing green and the turquoise jewel just behind it. At first glimpse Ariel thought the vast water might be an arm of the sea, but as they drew closer she could smell the algae and mud of a lake. It curled around the feet of a small mountain at its far shore—one untouched by fire. The water stretched farther into the distance in both directions than Ariel’s eyes could follow, curling away from the fringe of unscorched woods that embraced the travelers at last.
They made camp on the beach. Bleached snags and downed trees rimmed a high-water mark, with a wide strand of pebbles below. Minnows darted in the shallows. Scarl fished, Ariel made a poultice for Sienna’s swollen legs, and Nace seemed preoccupied with the flotsam at the water’s edge. They all fell asleep before dusk, so Ariel did not see that the moon was shaved only slightly out of round.
She dreamed of Zeke as he’d been last spring. Still expecting to become a Tree-Singer, he’d been worried that his favorite tree had stopped speaking to him. Ariel was gripped by the dream, so real that she fretted with him. She could feel the weight of the bucket dangling between them and smell the green tang of the creek water inside. Pollywogs squirmed beneath its sloshing surface.
