Fire

by Rosie Scott

  Then, the campfire flickered over the outside edges of the shadow, pushing it back into the forest by a couple of inches. I saw the glimmer of silver on a sharpened point, and immediately thrust my hand out. By the time my arm was straight, the spell was recited. With a zwip, a clear, flickering energy spread out in all directions from my palm, surrounding my body in an egg-shaped orb. A split second later, the arrow that had been meant to kill me bounced harmlessly off the shield, landing in the brush some feet away.

  “Company!” I exclaimed, keeping the shield up with my right hand while trying to decide what spell to recite with my left. I heard the others waking to help fight, even as the uncertainty of our attackers still hung like a heavy curtain in the air.

  I saw the silver glimmer again. This time, the arrow wasn't meant for me. Before I could decide on a different spell, I was shielding Silas, defending him against the next arrow.

  The elf already had his beautiful pearl white bow in his hands, and was firing off arrows.

  Arrows. Plural. I refocused on the forest. The would-be assassin had only been the first attacker. Perhaps he had meant to kill me, the look-out, so that the others could be killed quietly; now that his plan had failed, the shadows of his friends grew in the forest until an entire group of orcs were rampaging toward us.

  I had heard of orcs. I had seen paintings and drawings of them. Nothing could compare to seeing them in person. In drawings, one cannot see that orcs tower above most men at seven to sometimes eight feet tall, or that their muscles bulge much too far in husks of dark green and grey skin, thick veins threatening to pump their raging blood straight into the air. Drawings cannot recreate the seething hatred that is exuded from the blood red or black irises of the creatures. They were running so fast, their heavy footsteps causing the ground to tremble, even the flames of our campfire shaking in intimidation. Each orc held a weapon that was stained in the blood of previous battles, while more swung heavily from sheaths at their waists. There were no orc archers; the archers in the woods were all human or goblin slaves. Orcs were clearly partial to melee weapons, particularly of the ax, mace, and club varieties. Most of their axes had either holes in the blades or were hooked at the end, ensuring maximum pain and trauma when creating a wound or exiting it.

  I knew orcs were distant relatives of other races of elves. So despite how different they looked from humans, I knew they were mortal and could die by battle. I had all of the elements at my disposal, but this close to the forest, I didn't want to use fire and recreate the risky battle at Amere. I needed to remember that forests catch fire much too easily, and that like the orcs, my friends could also die by flame.

  Nyx locked her attention onto one of the first orcs to make it to our camp, and engaged him in melee. She was much quicker than him, dodging around most of his weapon swipes that meant to crush bone or break skin and muscle. At the same time, she was slicing and dicing through him with her blades, and he barely noticed.

  There was another orc engaged with Theron, who was prickled from Silas's arrows. It was only when one of the arrows went through an eye that he fell.

  I decided then that I needed to support my allies rather than attempt to kill the orcs through full force. There were probably fifteen or so orcs, with three slaves left shooting arrows from the edge of the forest. We had only killed one orc and two slaves thus far. I needed to buy my friends time.

  Creatius la agua a friz. Water lapped up against the magical barrier above both my palms, before a crackling, sizzling noise began to pop in the air, the water beginning to harden and freeze, the sharp designs of ice clinging to the barriers. I felt a faint coolness on my hands, the ice I held so frozen that the temperature began to leak through the safety of the magic shield.

  I hurried over to Nyx, who was still fighting the same orc. The orc noticed me, and sidestepped Nyx to focus on me instead. Perhaps he was tired of getting nowhere fighting her, and wanted to try his hand at me. I thrust my arm toward his legs, and the ice immediately surrounded them, crawling up his legs with a crackle, until he roared in frustration and became stiff, stuck to the ground in one place. It wasn't but a few seconds after that when Nyx was able to slit the orc's throat, hot blood pouring from his wound and running deep red over the bright whitish-blue of the ice below. The deceased orc's red eyes still showed rage, even in death.

  The orcs were surrounding Theron. He was holding his own, and had even felled two of them thus far. Silas was still loosing arrows from near the campfire, and had added another orc to his kill count while I had helped Nyx. It was Theron who needed the most help, as he had attracted the most attention by engaging the enemy in melee, where they were most comfortable.

  With my remaining ice spell, I froze two of the orcs' legs that were focused on Theron. Because I had split the energy between two targets, the spell didn't quite freeze them to the ground, but it was enough to make them stiff and slow to react, which was enough for Theron to finish them off.

  I heard a growl. One of the orcs before me redirected his attention at me, sick of my meddling. He swiped his ax toward my stomach, but I jumped back to avoid it...just barely.

  I'm not trained for this. I could hold my own in a fight. I could not go up against an orc physically and win. The orc knew this; most mages were trained to support and complement melee fighters in battle. He wasn't interested in fighting fair. He was interested in killing me.

  The ax was swiped again, and this time, when I dodged, I didn't dodge far enough. The sharp, filthy blade missed my stomach, but ended up slicing across both of my arms, which I'd held before me defensively. The pain was immense and biting, and I tried to re-focus myself over my own whimpers as hot blood ran down my arms. The orc smiled, pleased to see he was making progress. Yet another one of Silas's arrows pierced the orc's back as the elf tried to protect me. It was yet another arrow that was ignored in the orc's rage.

  The orc went for another swipe. He knew I'd been forced to the defensive; I was getting clumsier and had to spend most of my time defending rather than thinking of an attack.

  Focus. You didn't leave Sera just to die here. This time, when the ax started to complete its arc toward my gut, I shielded myself while backing up. Most of the ax's momentum was absorbed by the shield, but it flickered with the force of it. I knew without looking that my light armor had been pierced. Thankfully, I didn't feel any wound on my stomach.

  I left the shield up, allowing the spell to continue taking energy from my environment. I knew my energy reserves were running low. It was a dry, calm night. My spells so far had probably taken energy from the exertion of the warm bodies surrounding me, and in the distance, I could see our campfire wavering, and I knew that my magic was taking the energy from its heat. There were still orcs fighting my friends, and I would need to heal myself after the fight. I needed to save all the energy I could...

  ...or recycle it.

  The shield shuddered as the ax once more attempted to break it. Within its protective barrier, I lifted a hand toward the sky.

  Generat la bolta!

  A low rumbling vibrated from the skies above me. Thick, dark clouds accumulated in a thick blanket that blocked out the stars and part of Meir, stealing some of the light the large moon had cast over the land. The orc before me knew I had cast a spell, but he wasn't going to let that slow him down. As the sky prepared its attack, I quickly whispered another spell command, leaving the shield up in my right. A new protective barrier spread out from my left hand, its energy clear with a tint of blue. It was one of the stronger ward spells I had access to, meant to protect me from magic energy. As the sky opened up above me, I knew I was going to need it.

  Sss...CRACK!

  The lightning bolt was so bright and had such purpose, that I was thrown back by my own spell, landing on the ground some feet away. I watched through dazed eyes as the orc jerked around in place, the lightning channeling electricity through him from the sky. Within seconds, his deep green skin was sizzling, and the skin on h
is upper arms began to get etched, the brutal energy scarring the skin in such a way that looked like the branch of a fir tree.

  The brute's eyes rolled back in his head, before they began to smoke, wisps rising from his sockets. Then, the bolt retracted into the sky, and the orc collapsed, dead.

  I dispelled both my ward and my shield, and hurried to stand, the stench of charred flesh heavy in my nostrils. The lightning bolt had been powerful and had taken a lot of my energy; but, as I had planned for, the result of the spell had left the energy rife in the air, prepared to be reused. Now, another orc was dead, and I was no worse for wear—save for the deep gashes in my arms.

  I ran back toward the camp site, where my friends were still fighting the remaining enemies. In my defensive maneuvers, I had led the now fried orc quite far away from where we'd began. As I approached everyone, I let myself take note of the situation.

  Nyx had an arrow sticking out of her upper arm, and had left it in its wound. She knew better than to remove it and cause unnecessary blood loss. She was fighting an orc that was missing an arm, and it must have been removed recently, as the limb was limp on the ground nearby.

  Silas was untouched. He'd remained on the outskirts of the battle, letting his arrows puncture the softest of places, killing a number of orcs and fatiguing others.

  Theron had taken the brunt of the damage, and was fatigued from his efforts. Blood dripped from a wound in his upper thigh, and his right eye was closed. He had missed fully dodging a hit with a blunt weapon just above his eyebrow, and the blood had overwhelmed his eye. When he grunted, I could see blood between his teeth, from where it had seeped into his lips from the wound. I didn't allow myself to be overly concerned; head wounds tended to bleed far more than most, so I doubted the wound was as serious as it looked.

  By the time I arrived, there were only three orcs left, one focused on Nyx, the other two on Theron.

  “Givara la mana,” I breathed, dodging the two orcs with Theron, and directing the energy toward the ranger. Theron became distracted for a moment, glancing up at me, before he realized what I had done. No longer as fatigued, he took on his remaining foes with much more gusto, and they were dead within the minute. By the time I turned to help Nyx, her foe was already dead and lying on the ground, blood still leaking from his stump of an arm.

  The four of us just stood there and breathed hard for a few moments. The thick clouds from my earlier spell had dissipated, allowing the moonlight to display the scene of the battle. The stench of clotting blood and body odor from the orcs was overwhelming, as was the smell of burning flesh. With a glance toward our campfire, I noticed that one of the deceased orcs had fallen partially into it, and the fire was currently making short work of the flesh of his back.

  “Ah. Well,” Theron finally spoke up, before wiping some of the blood from his face with a forearm, “That was refreshing.”

  Nyx laughed heartily, the edges of her voice laced in fatigue that did not seem to affect her spirit. “I knew I liked you for a reason.”

  “Just one?” I teased.

  Nyx glanced over at me, her dark eyes catching on the blood running off the tips of my fingers and to the ground. “Kai, take care of your arms.”

  “Both you and Theron have wounds,” I replied, nodding toward her arrow. “Let me help you both first.”

  Theron shook his head, wiping his swords off on an orc corpse nearby to get the majority of the blood off of them, before sheathing them on his hip. “The healer is healed first, lest the healer be rendered unable to heal.”

  I wasn't sure if that was a saying, or if it was Theron's own words. In either case, they made sense to me.

  “Fine,” I agreed, sitting down on the log near the campfire like I had when the battle had started. Putting my right hand to my left arm's wound, I murmured, “Promotus le imun.” Though I felt the heat on the wound, it did not close. But it wasn't supposed to. I remembered how filthy the orc's ax had been. Before closing the wounds, I needed to boost my immunity to infection. After the heat from the spell settled into my arm, tingling through my blood stream past the wound, I went on to use the next spell. “Givara le life.” Holding my palm just an inch or so above the wound, the energy transferred to it. More tingling, and then itching. I watched as new, fleshy pink muscle began to build in the cut, slowly connecting itself to either edge of the hurt muscle. I'd never had a wound this bad, and it itched more than anything I'd ever experienced as my body repaired itself at an intensely accelerated speed. Once the muscle was fully repaired, my skin followed, the two broken halves of it slowly mending together.

  Healing my wounds had all of my attention, so I was a little startled when I heard Silas's voice just beside me. “How are you feeling?”

  “Tired,” I admitted, watching my second cut slowly heal itself.

  “From a lack of sleep, or otherwise?” I knew from this second question that he was truly trying to figure out how the battle had affected my mortality. At this point, I supposed I should have just started expecting him to ask.

  “A lack of sleep combined with the thrill of battle, I think,” I replied, watching my healing wound push a rush of blood out of its edge. The blood had a tiny piece of leaf in it, that must have gotten there when I'd fallen to the ground. It always amazed me how the body could detect such things and proceed to help itself heal, with or without the spell.

  “I am sorry I could not protect you.” Silas was normally good at keeping emotion out of his voice, but there was legitimate sorrow that exuded from him this time. Perhaps he had thought he was really going to lose me.

  I wanted to tell him it was not his job to protect me, but it was. It always had been. Of course, that job was bestowed upon him by my father, not me.

  “As far as I'm concerned, Silas, it is not your job anymore to protect me. For as long as my father is out of my life, his actions should not affect us.” Finished with my healing, I stared up at him.

  “Regardless of your father's actions, I am here to protect you.” He said it as a statement, not a question.

  “You may be here for that, but I'm telling you, you don't have to stay for it.” I looked away from his gaze for the moment to stand. “I want you to be here because you want to be, not because you are obligated.”

  “I haven't felt obligated in a number of years,” he replied, his voice soft.

  I hesitated from walking over to where Nyx and Theron were chatting. I needed to heal them, but at the same time, Silas was being oddly personal at the moment. I looked back to him, and was uncertain as to what, exactly, his deep green eyes portrayed.

  “I have a lot on my mind. It wouldn't be wise to distract me with conflicting statements that make me wonder what the last year has really been for you.” I was calling him out for confusing me. It was almost as if he was opening himself up to something more with me again. As much as I would have loved that, I didn't want to be jerked around.

  “My apologies, Kai. It wasn't meant to be conflicting.” He hesitated. It was a rare moment when the elf sounded as uncertain as he did now. “I, too, have a lot on my mind. I am not used to failing you like I did tonight, and you were seriously hurt as a result. It calls a lot of things into question for me.”

  I looked away, toward the friends I had yet to heal. I swallowed hard. I hated being rejected, and had already experienced heartbreak by Silas just the year before. For him to seem to be warming up to me just to wave away my concerns hurt all over again.

  Silas spoke when he realized I wasn't going to. “Theron told me today you have plans to visit Thornwell, and that is why we are making our diversion from the forest tomorrow.”

  It was true. Nyx's idea to visit the small fishing village and look for Cerin had planted itself into my plans. Because the village sat on the northern edge of Chairel beside the Servis Ocean, we would need to take a detour to visit it. There was quite a distance of plains between the ocean and the Seran Forest, which we'd been following thus far on our trip to the Cel Mounta
ins. Everyone knew of these plans except for Silas, at least, until today. I hadn't told him simply because of the reason we were going.

  “Yes. It is one of the last villages marked on the map before the mountains,” I replied, vaguely.

  “There are villages too small to be on any map,” Silas pointed out. “Amere was not on our map, and we had shelter there.”

  “I realize that.”

  “You are hiding something from me.”

  “I am not,” I said, realizing that could be seen as a lie. “Ask me anything you wish, and I will tell you the truth.”

  “Why are we going to Thornwell?”

  Despite how I had said I would tell him the truth, it was still hard for me to respond. “There's an old classmate of mine that I would like to find. He is from Thornwell.”

  “Cerin Heliot, the healer,” he said, almost as if he was answering a question. I was shocked that he remembered me telling him the story, let alone that he remembered his name. I had only mentioned Cerin to him once, and it had been many years ago. “Do you think he will join us?”

  “I don't even know if he's alive, but he was the closest thing I had to a friend until I met Nyx.”

  Silas nodded. Just before I left his side to go heal the others, he said, “Then we will go to Thornwell and we will find him.”

  Eight

  The aroma of salt and fish hit our noses over a day away from Thornwell, and only became stronger as our journey continued. The plains on the way to the village were beautiful. Long, green and yellow grasses waved rhythmically in patterns over rolling, small hills, creating a constant hum as a backdrop to our conversations. Up ahead, toward the Servis Ocean, the sky grew grey and cloudy. When we were still half a day's travel from our first destination, the first of the storms came.

  “What is it about the ocean that makes the gods so angry?” Theron mused, hints of annoyance in his voice. We were in the midst of the plains, and the sun was setting somewhere behind the thick storm clouds. We were all tired and looking to rest for the night, but we had no shelter save for our tents.