Knight Of The Flame

by H John Spriggs

  Caymus looked at his old mentor, and his gaze shifted to the sword he carried. "I thought you were a physician?" he said.

  Be'Var nodded. "That I was, but it doesn't mean I wasn't called on to fight, sometimes. The quartermasters, the engineers, and yes, even the physicians…we all had our jobs to do, but as far as the army was concerned, we were all soldiers first."

  "Master Be'Var," Caymus said, "if that thing had gotten loose and tried to attack us, what would you have done? Even the two of us together couldn't have burned it. Not without the Conduit."

  Be'Var brought the blade up to eye level as he answered. "I still know how to use this," he said. "I severely doubt that I'd have been able to kill it—blades and arrows just bounce off the carapace, after all—but I might have been able to hold it back long enough for the rest of you to escape.

  "And what would I have done?" said Caymus.

  Be'Var looked at his pupil and cocked an eyebrow. "Is this your ever-so-subtle way of asking me to teach you to use a sword?" he said.

  "Yes," said Caymus. "I don't really see what else I might be able to do the next time we run into one of those things."

  Be'Var nodded. "I suppose," he said, "it was only a matter of time. And if I'm going to teach you everything I know, it may as well be everything I know. We'll start in the morning." He put his hand on Caymus's shoulder. "Come on," he said, steering him back toward the front of the cave. "If we don't get back to it, Y'selle will have us both roasting on spits by night's end."

  As Caymus returned to the business of setting up camp, he thought about the day's events. Nobody had even mentioned the blizzard, still raging outside, how it had so suddenly appeared, or what it meant for them. Nobody seemed to want to talk about it.

  He also spent a long time thinking about the dead creature in the back of the cave. He was glad it was hidden around a sharp corner, that they wouldn't have to look at it all night. The idea that Gwenna and Rill had hatched about how it had gotten there had been an interesting one. If it was, in fact, true that the creatures could only enter into their world at very specific places, then they might be able to effectively plan against attacks in the future. He wondered what kind of planning that might entail, what kind of fortifications or weapons would be strong enough to protect the people he cared about against another onslaught. So very little that they had tried been effective against these monsters, so far.

  He also noticed that the tingling sensation at the back of his neck had gone away. He was thankful for that.

  Milo was standing to the left of the wagon, working with a roll of twine, doing his best to set up a drying line for their clothing. As Caymus watched him work, he remembered the 'experiment' that the two of them had performed in the clearing on the night of the attack. The two of them, together, had created a flame so hot and so strong that it had melted through a foot of stone in mere seconds. They had decided that night that such a cooperative effort between worshipers of different elements might be best kept to themselves, but now Caymus was thinking that that might be the worst action they could take. As he dropped the last sack of wet clothing down onto the bench, he decided that he would tell Be'Var about what the two of them had done that night, and he would hope that the master ended up seeing it the way he did: as a possible weapon against the creatures that had invaded into their world.

  CHAPTER 7

  "Keep your shield arm up, fool!" Be'Var yelled out, yet again. On this occasion, he also jumped off of the wagon's bench and marched fiercely to the point where Caymus and Rill had, until that moment, been sparring with each other.

  Gwenna couldn't help but smile. She knew that Master Be'Var wasn't actually angry with the boys, and that they knew it, but she felt a little sorry for them, all the same. Be'Var reminded her of her grandfather: stronger than he looked, and just as cross-looking when he was trying to get a point across. She wondered if the master had any children—or grandchildren, for that matter—of his own.

  "What did they do wrong this time?" said Bridget, just quietly enough that Be'Var couldn't hear, her own grin concealed behind her hand.

  "Shh," said Gwenna, as Be'Var forcibly grabbed Rill's wooden sword away from him. "I think we're about to find out."

  Two days had passed since the blizzard and the dying creature in the forgotten cave. None of them had slept easily knowing they had been sharing space with that monster, dead though it was, but they had at least awakened to good news: the snow had stopped completely. In fact, it had been as warm the next day as it had been cold previously and most of the snow and ice had quickly melted, leaving a lot of puddles amongst the rocks and brush they now traveled past.

  She'd found out the morning after the blizzard that Caymus had asked Be'Var to show him how to use a sword, and that Be'Var had agreed on the condition that Rill learn as well, an idea which neither boy had seemed to take any issue with. Since the bargain had been struck, however, she wondered if they'd had moments to regret their decision.

  The heat that radiated off the gravel and red stone that surrounded them, when mixed with sweat and road grit, must have been only barely tolerable, and Be'Var had insisted that they practice—"drilling," he'd called it—while they moved. Not only were they swinging their newly-made wooden swords and shields at each other all the time, they were having to do so while keeping up with the horses. If that weren't enough, there'd been a frightening moment on the first morning when a startled Staven had nearly bolted free of his harness. The event had taught the boys that they needed to stay well-ahead of the wagon, where the horses could keep an eye on them.

  That was how the last day-and-a-half had gone. Be'Var and Y'selle drove the wagon; Gwenna and Bridgette walked alongside the horses; Milo disappeared for hours at a time, scouting the area around them; and Caymus and Rill spent hour after hour smacking each other's shields, arms, and heads with lengths of hardwood that Be'Var had carved into makeshift weapons.

  She watched with some amusement as Be'Var explained to them—demonstrating with Rill's sword and shield—how they were making a mockery of swordsmanship. It seemed that, when swinging or stabbing forward with their lengths of wood, each was unconsciously trying to gain more leverage by pulling their shield arms backward. Be'Var appeared less than satisfied with this behavior, and was demonstrating to them how they must keep the shields in front of them for protection while they "lunged like idiots" with their blades.

  Gwenna gave some thought to the lesson she was observing, but didn't understand what the problem was. Of course you'd want to keep your shield up at all times, especially when taking a swing. It wasn't until she mimed the action herself that she discovered that she, too, had a tendency to throw her left hand back when she lunged forward when her right.

  "Oh my," she said, miming the motion again, "that's going to be hard to un-learn."

  Bridget peered past the horses at her. "Going to be a swordsman, too?" she mocked.

  Gwenna smiled. "Just trying to figure out what he was on about."

  Bridget grinned at her, seeming unconvinced.

  "Now drill it," Be'Var said as he tossed the wooden implements back to Rill and stormed back to the wagon, which, by then, had nearly caught up to the three of them.

  Caymus flashed Gwenna a quick glance, a look of quiet surrender on his dirty, sweat-streaked face. She grinned at him and gave him a wink, after which he and Rill jogged another few dozen yards up the road for another round of drilling.

  "How do they keep going like that?" said Bridgett, a small note of disbelief in her voice. "My arms would be falling off by now."

  It was true, Gwenna thought, that they'd been at it for an awfully long time. When they'd camped the night before, the two boys had fallen asleep nearly immediately after the evening meal. They'd both been rubbing sore muscles, and Caymus had told her that his right hand, the one holding the sword, had been smacked so many times that he could barely feel his fingers. The fact that they were still at it was, she had to admit, quite impressive—or, she s
upposed, maybe just a bit thick-headed.

  She watched the two of them drilling the lesson that Be'Var had just taught them. Even in this simple act, it was easy to see just how different the two boys were. Rill slowly went through the motion of swinging the sword, backing the arm up and moving it forward again, correcting here and there, trying to find and fix the mistakes he was making as he made them, as though the motion of swinging the sword was a procedure that he had to learn to execute properly. Caymus, on the other hand, swung the sword, over and over again, going through the entire motion at once, until, little by little, the problem behavior disappeared. The act was more physical, more kinetic for him.

  She wondered why she was so fascinated by this boy from the Temple. He was so different—and not just in how tall he was—from other boys she'd met around the streets of Kepren. Most were loud and boisterous and always doing stupid things, trying to impress her, but Caymus just seemed to quietly get on with it, and he spoke to her as though they were old friends. Maybe it was just that, the fact that he seemed so comfortable around her, which made her feel so comfortable with him.

  "Ahem." Gwenna turned to see Bridgett, who had moved to walk between the horses, looking at her pointedly.

  "You were staring."

  "I was not!" said Gwenna, a little louder than she'd meant to.

  "Were so!" countered Bridget, grinning at her and pointing. "If you weren't staring, then why are you blushing?"

  Gwenna pushed Bridget's hand back down. "Stop it!" she said, trying to shush her friend. She was looking around, hoping the others hadn't noticed this little exchange, and trying to be as small as possible. Be'Var and Y'selle, sitting mere feet away on the driver's bench, had obviously heard, but the boys both seemed to be too busy with their exercises. Y'selle raised her eyebrows with a little smile; Be'Var just shook his head.

  Gwenna was grinning so hard that her face hurt.

  "Okay, okay," said Bridget, lowering her voice again and patting Feston's mane. "I still don't get it," she said, after awhile, "I mean, tall is one thing, but he's the size of a house!"

  Gwenna just shrugged. "I know," she said. "He's unusual."

  Bridget seemed to accept this, and she and Gwenna went back to watching the boys practice, which was really the only entertainment to be had. By this time, the pair of would-be warriors appeared to have decided that they'd mastered waving the swords around at the air and were going to go back to waving them at each other.

  Gwenna wondered about the justification for it all, the two of them learning how to swing a sword. Caymus had told her his reasons, how he felt that he needed to be able to defend himself, defend all of them, and that the work he and Be'Var had been doing so far was of no use against the creatures. She had to admit, it seemed like a really good reason to learn to use a sword, and she suddenly wished she was learning, too. She wondered if Be'Var would teach her though, if he'd even be willing to take on any third pupil at this point. Even if he did teach her, she wondered if she had the stomach to actually swing a blade at a living thing.

  Then, she thought of Milo, and of his weapon of choice.

  "Do you think Milo would teach us how to shoot a bow?" she said.

  "What?" said Bridget. "Why would you want to do that?"

  Gwenna turned to her. "For protection," she said.

  Bridget seemed genuinely confused by the idea. She motioned to Rill and Caymus, practicing their stances. "Isn't that what we have them for?"

  Gwenna sighed. She turned back to the practicing young men, pulling a stray strand of hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear. "Yes," she said, "I suppose you're right." It seemed that her friend didn't share her ideas, that if she was going to try to convince Milo to teach her, she'd be doing it on her own. She just hoped Milo wouldn't want to strike the same kind of deal Be'Var had made about having a partner.

  They walked in silence for awhile. Rill and Caymus drilled until the horses had caught up with them, then jogged ahead again. Gwenna, having turned her attention to the subject of Milo's bow, had all kinds of question suddenly coming to her. What kind of wood was the bow made of? How did he get it to curve the way it did? How were the arrowheads made? How did he get the little feathers at the backs of the arrows to stay on?

  Her mind stayed busy with these thoughts until the group caught up with the boys again. The pair jogged ahead, and this time turned a corner, passing a particularly large boulder, and disappeared from view. Gwenna noticed that the sounds of practicing didn't resume, though. When the rest of them rounded the boulder, Milo was there with them, sitting by the side of the road on some dusty, flat rocks.

  He didn't look happy.

  "Whoa," said Be'Var, bringing the horses and the wagon to a halt. He rested his elbow on his knee and looked at Milo. "Problem?" he asked.

  "We're there," Milo replied, standing up and dusting himself off. "The mitre encampment," he continued, pointing at a large rock-face a few hundred yards up the road, "it's just ahead."

  "Good," said Be'Var, nodding, "I can't wait to—"

  Milo interrupted. "It's not good," he said, shaking his head.

  Be'Var looked at him severely. They all understood the unspoken question.

  Milo sighed. "There are bodies".

  When they reached the encampment that signified the above-ground area of the mitre city of Otvia, Gwenna couldn't help but gasp. She, Bridget, and Y'selle had passed through this place on their way to the Temple mere weeks ago. The camp had been a far cry from the bustling metropolis of Kepren, but it had felt alive with color and activity.

  Mitre were a quiet, private race. Their huge statures—some measured over ten feet in height—belied their gentle natures and peaceful countenances. The entire race was comprised of earth worshipers and so they lived nearly exclusively underground in vast networks of caves and tunnels. Gwenna had never been beyond the camp and into Otvia itself, didn't know how large it actually was, but she liked to imagine that the city honeycombed the entirety of the mountain range that they had spent the last few days climbing.

  Mitre didn't invite others into their cities; Gwenna had never met anybody who had claimed to have stepped foot into even one of their tunnels. Some people claimed this was due to a kind of xenophobia that permeated the entire race, but Gwenna didn't believe it. She hadn't met many mitre, but the few she had encountered had made her believe that, as a people, they didn't have the capacity for hate. They simply wished to keep their homes to themselves, and to keep the loud, obtrusive outside world out on the surface.

  Mitre accomplished this by building these encampments outside their doors. The camps were meant to make human visitors and traders comfortable while avoiding the need to bring them underground. This one, the Otvia Encampment, had consisted of a combination of white-brick structures and canvas-covered meeting areas where mitre and humans alike opened small stalls or sold goods off the sides of wagons. The encampment occupied a flat area of ground which resembled a shelf that had been carved out of the side of the mountain, about fifty yards to a side. It had been home to nearly a hundred souls when she had last come through.

  They were all dead.

  Be'Var and Y'selle stopped the wagon and climbed out as they all took hesitant steps forward into the camp. Gwenna couldn't believe what she was seeing. There had been bright, red and yellow-striped tents erected at this, the southern edge of the shelf, the last time she was here. People had drunk their ales and wines here, had talked and laughed into the night. It had been a happy place. Now, the tents lay broken upon the ground, their fabrics shredded. Even the brick structure that had been here was barely standing, two of its three walls having been knocked to the ground. The rest of the camp, as far as she could see, was in a similar state.

  Then she really looked at them, the bodies. There were so many. Two of them lay directly in front of her, faced down, half-covered by the remains of the tent: a human man and woman. The man's legs were hidden by the canvas, but Gwenna could tell by the way the
fabric fell that most of the left leg was missing. The woman had a large tear in what had once been a pretty blouse, and Gwenna guessed that if she were to look underneath, she would find a similar tear in her flesh, extending straight through her torso to her front. Their skins were dry and cracking, and their appendages seemed swollen and distended.

  Then there was the smell, a putrid aroma of rotting flesh that mingled with the sounds of swarming flies.

  She had become used to tending to the dead and the dying, but this wasn't a hospital. This was a graveyard.

  "Flames," said Rill, quietly.

  Bridget collapsed to her knees and vomited. When she was finished, Gwenna bent down to help her back to her feet, but she couldn't take her eyes off the scene in front of her. The bodies were scattered all over the area. Some were covered by the remains of ruined buildings. Others had simply collapsed in the open. She had to avert her gaze when she noticed the body of a young woman that had fallen on her back with her head turned toward them. The girl's eyes were missing.

  Bridget managed to stand again, but she didn't let go of Gwenna's hand.

  The group was silent for what seemed like ages until Caymus spoke. "They're all human," he said. "All of them."

  Indeed, when Gwenna looked around, she didn't see any mitre. "You're right," said Be'Var, who started forward. "Come on," he said, "let's take a look at the doors. If there's any luck left in this world, it's possible they didn't get in."