Knight Of The Flame

by H John Spriggs

  Why was the night so cold?

  Bernie arrived and stumbled to a halt. Panting and wheezing, he hunched over, placed his hands on his knees, and hung his head. Caymus thought the man might have vomited if he'd had the liquid to spare. After a moment, he pulled one of the waterskins from his shoulder. "I don't know how you keep all that mass moving, flame-lover," he said in a raspy voice, then handed him the skin.

  Caymus would have laughed, but he was too tired. He wasn't breathing nearly as hard as was Bernie, but the non-stop running was still taking its toll. Before taking a drink for himself, he unstopped the skin and reached over to lift Garrin's head. The prince wasn't fully conscious, but he seemed able to swallow, which lifted a huge weight from Caymus's heart. He didn't know much about the water element, but he knew that the man had lost a lot of blood, that blood was of water, and that he would need to drink if he was going to live.

  "How is he?" asked Bernie, opening a skin of his own.

  Caymus closed his eyes and reached out with his mind to inspect the prince. Garrin's arms and legs seemed colder than they should have been, as though the fire that remained in his body was pooling in his torso, keeping the blood pumping at the expense of the extremities. His heartbeat was slow, but it was strong.

  "I think he'll make it," he said, at last. He looked up to meet Bernie's eyes. "I don't think he'll wake up before we get him home, but I think he'll last long enough for us to get him to a proper healer."

  Bernie nodded, and Caymus detected what might have been the beginnings of a smile, though it quickly dissipated. "What happened back there?" he eventually asked, sitting down on the other side of the prince.

  Caymus considered the question as he put the skin to his lips. Looking back, it all made perfect sense: of course the prince's sword, passed down through the generations of the royal family, had turned out to be the sword of the Knight of the Flame. Gu'ruk's book, buried deep in the bowels of Otvia, had mentioned that Morogin, the original knight, had been the son of a king. It hadn't specified that his kingdom was that of Kepren, but the fact that the Tebrian region was named for him made the revelation unsurprising.

  He put the skin down. "You heard about all that time I spent unconscious, right?"

  Bernie tilted his head, remembering, "Garrin mentioned it when it was happening. He called you 'The Sleeping Giant'." He forced a chuckle. "He thought that was funny."

  "My body was asleep," Caymus continued, "but my mind was in the Conflagration, learning to fight the krealites." He looked up to find that Bernie was listening intently. "They were training me to be a knight, the Knight of the Flame. There was another knight, too, a long time ago, and after they trained me, they told me that I would have to find his weapon. It turns out that the knight’s sword and the Champion-Protector's sword are one and the same."

  Bernie looked down, not saying anything. He seemed to be weighing the words he'd just heard, trying to decide whether he believed them. Caymus didn't blame the man. It was a lot to think about. As he waited for him to speak again, he lifted his left hand up in front of his face to look at the mark there again. He had only noticed the difference after night had fallen, but he assumed that it had changed the moment his skin had touched the sword.

  The outline of the sword was still there, but the flame behind it was no longer a static object. It burned and danced like a living thing on his skin. He'd believed that the mark would change at some point, were he successful in his quest, but this had been beyond his expectations. Knight of the Flame indeed!

  He held up the hand for Bernie to see, and the dark warrior's eyes went wide. "How are you doing that?" he said.

  Caymus couldn't help but smile. "Part of the job, it seems," he said.

  He'd realized something else as he'd run through the desert and crossed into the dry grassland of the Tebrian plain. All this time, the strange, inexplicable kinship he'd felt with the prince was due not to the charisma of what was obviously a great leader, but rather to the presence of the sword he'd carried. Even now, he could feel that same connection from the sword, hanging as it was on his back. It was more than a weapon. It was somehow a part of him, a part that had been missing from his body until now.

  "The knight would be drawn to his weapon," Gu'ruk had said. Caymus was surprised at himself, at his not having put the pieces together sooner.

  He put the stopper back in the waterskin, placed it on the ground, then reached over his shoulder to pull the sword free from the makeshift scabbard he'd crafted from Mrowvain's armor. The blade was so long that, sitting as he was, it hung at a severe angle, the tip buried nearly an inch in the sand. He could hear the steel moving across the earth as he pulled, could feel the tip of the blade traveling through the grit. The moment the sword was firmly in his grip, he could sense a desire to burn emanating from it, as though the sword itself wanted to burst into fire again, to revel in the flames. The sword felt like it could be alive. For all he knew, it was.

  The sword made him remember things too; or rather it seemed to remove blocks in his mind, allowing him to recall certain events. The events were hazy though, incomplete, as if he were seeing the thoughts and feelings involved in the memories, rather than the images themselves

  He remembered the krealites, though not the ones he'd been facing since the attack on the Temple. These krealites were the ones from the first war, the Old War, the war that had decided the fate of the Quatrain. The kreal, like all the other elements that had battled for control back then, had found many supporters, had found many ways to assert its dominance, but the krealites—those huge, armor-plated insects—had been its greatest weapons. There had been so many of them. He remembered the death they had brought to the world. He remembered how terrifying they had seemed, how strong. They had an ability to tunnel through the element of earth to and from the Sograve, the elemental realm of kreal, but only in places where the walls between the Quatrain and the other realms were weak, where pure elemental power could pass through easily. In those days, such places had been everywhere, and the krealites had attacked like nightmares in the dark, appearing suddenly, then vanishing back into the ground.

  He remembered when he'd figured out their weaknesses, the method of piercing their armor slowly, rather than with massive blows. He hadn't figured it out on his own, though. He and the other champions had worked together: the Earthwarden and the Circle of Tamrin. He couldn't see their faces, couldn't remember, specifically, what they'd done, but he felt the impact they'd had on his life as though they had lived only yesterday.

  "What is it?"

  Caymus looked up to see Bernie staring at him. He was still sitting, waiting. His breathing had slowed, but he was tense, as though he expected danger to appear at any moment.

  Caymus wondered what the expression on his face must have looked like when memories that weren't his own had been flooding through his mind.

  "Nothing," he said. No, that wasn't fair. "The sword," he said, nodding toward the blade. "It's like it's teaching me, showing me what happened last time."

  "Last time?" Bernie seemed guarded, but genuinely curious.

  "The elemental war. The war between dozens of different elements that decided which would make up our world." Caymus found himself smiling, peacefully. The knowledge made him comfortable, somehow. He wasn't sure if the sword itself was remembering these past events, or if it had somehow imprinted the thoughts of the first knight on itself and he was simply accessing them with his touch, but they gave him a sense of calm, made him feel connected to the past.

  A flicker caught his eye, and he noticed that the flame on his hand seemed to be dancing more quickly now, more fiercely. It almost seemed a window into the Conflagration itself. He wondered if it was because he was holding the sword.

  "And it's teaching you how to beat Black Moon?" Bernie's voice was softer than Caymus ever remembered it being before, but it was still cautious, as though daring him to lie.

  Caymus nodded. "I'm a shaper," he said. "I can contro
l flame in a way that is completely different from the way the masters at the Conflagrationist Temple do it." He looked away, admiring the stars that dotted the horizon. There were so many of them tonight. "Because of that ability, the Conflagration chose me to be its champion during this war." He shrugged, then looked down at the sword in his hand. "Don't ask me how, because I don't know, but yes, the sword is showing me the way it happened last time, like it's trying to tell me what to do. It started the moment I touched the hilt."

  "And is that what happened to your eyes?"

  Caymus snapped his head up, his brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

  Bernie seemed amused by the question. He chuckled, then pulled a knife from his boot, which he spun around and handed to Caymus, handle-first. "See for yourself," he said.

  Cautiously, Caymus took the knife and looked at it. The blade obviously didn't see a lot of use; it was polished to a near-mirror shine. He took a quick glance back at Bernie, then brought the blade up in front of his face to look at his reflection.

  He could see what Bernie had meant. His irises had changed color, turned to a mix of oranges, reds, and yellows that seemed to slowly swirl around each other, like embers in a coal fire. He could swear that they were also giving off a faint light, illuminating the blade in his hand. Marked, then marked again: any doubt as to who he was, which element he represented, would evaporate for anyone who saw those eyes.

  He handed the knife back. Bernie seemed about to say something else, but then Garrin let out a groan of pain, which immediately silenced him.

  The two men looked at each other and nodded. Their break was over, and it was time to start running again.

  Caymus hoped they were closer to Kepren than he thought they were.

  ***

  Shivering slightly, Rill pulled his coat closed and began buttoning it up. He smiled when he discovered the gear embroidered on his breast. He was still occasionally surprised to find it there.

  "You should have been here last year," said Daniel, hugging himself against the chill, obviously uncomfortable. "By this time last year, it had already snowed on us a couple of times."

  "Yeah," said Rill, doing up the last button, "I'm sure you took that in stride, too."

  Daniel feigned a punch to Rill's shoulder, but didn't follow through with it, as though remembering where they were, that people might be watching.

  They two of them were making their way through the streets of the Guard District, heading to the northern gate. Rill had been assigned the task of checking the fire-sludge defenses that had been set up in several places around the city.

  Captain Draya's plan, to focus, at first, on teaching others how to make the sludge, rather than on raw production, had paid off. Shortly after the inquisitor had become part of their lives and had ordered 'round-the-clock protection at the Gearhouse, the engineers' output had increased tenfold and now several barrels of Rill's fire-sludge sat in various locations around the edges of Kepren, ready for use by the army in their defense of the city. The manufacturing procedure had, in fact, become so efficient now that Rill's own time was better spent out in the city, supervising the use of the material, rather than its creation.

  The reason that he was checking the sludge that particular afternoon was that, that very morning, a finished barrel of fire-sludge had been discovered to be inert. Inquisitor Dalphin had arrived to investigate immediately and had suggested that Rill, the foremost authority on the stuff, make certain that there were no more surprises waiting for the soldiers of the Royal Army. For his own part, the inquisitor had not yet caught their saboteur, but either his actions, or possibly his simple presence, in and around the Gearhouse seemed to have deterred the worst of the interference. Rill didn't know what Dalphin had been doing with his time since they had first discovered the sabotage in the Gearhouse, but he was glad the man was there—whatever he was up to—and acting on their behalf.

  Daniel's presence today had been a surprise. The fact that nobody knew quite how much time they had left before the arrival of the Black Moon Army had made today's inspections that much more important, and Captain Draya, therefore, had assigned Daniel to accompany Rill, acting as his second. Rill had actually been a bit uncomfortable with the arrangement so far: not only was Daniel technically his senior in the Royal Engineers but, generally, only captains or men of even higher rank ever merited having a second.

  He certainly wasn't going to complain about the extra help, though.

  For his own part, Daniel seemed quite happy to be acting as Rill's assistant today. The two of them had already spent the morning investigating the defenses that had been placed in the Reed District, and Daniel had been helpful and cheerful throughout. Despite his misgivings about their relative positions today, Rill was glad to have him around. It would have been a much more depressing sort of a day without a friend at his side.

  As they walked through the streets, they passed another group of soldiers setting up a barricade on the road. The sounds of hammers upon stone and nails echoed down the streets as the men worked, reminding Rill just how barren the city seemed today. The only people walking around were soldiers, engineers, and other people of the type who were used to carrying swords. The lonely hammering sounds chilled Rill almost as much as the weather.

  "If you'd told me a year ago that I'd see the streets of Kepren deserted," Daniel said, "I wouldn't have believed you."

  Rill smiled. "They're not deserted," he said, turning to his friend. "We're still here, aren't we?"

  The entirety of the Grass District and western half of the Guard District were empty, having been evacuated by royal decree that very morning. Inns, shops, and large homes in the Reed and the eastern Guard were, at that moment, being filled with those citizens who had decided to stay in the city. Many, of course, had chosen to flee instead. The Silvertooth River, which ran through the Reed District, carried a number of vessels upon its surface that afternoon. Between the large ships and the dozens of tiny rowing boats, thousands of people were being carried west, toward the ocean and the presumed safety of Shorevale.

  All around Rill, doors hung open and pieces of paper drifted down the streets on the breeze. A small fire, obviously built to keep somebody warm, still smoldered at the edge of an alley, giving evidence as to just how recently the evacuation had been ordered.

  "We'll hold onto it, won't we, Daniel?" Rill asked.

  "What's that?" Daniel asked.

  "The city," Rill said, his voice somber.

  "I hope so, Sir," Daniel said. "I really hope so."

  "It's just," Rill continued, "I only just got to Kepren and I was really starting to like it here."

  Daniel smiled. "You know, between that sludge of yours and whatever it is the prince got himself up to," he said, "I think we might just be able to beat the bastards."

  Rill nodded. "I hope you're right." He turned and arched an eyebrow at his friend. "Did you just call me 'Sir'?"

  Daniel gave a short laugh of surprise. "I suppose I did!" He gave Rill a small bow. "Begging your pardon, Sir, but I am your second, after all."

  Rill only shook his head. He'd thought their new assignments uncomfortable before; now they just seemed absurd. At least he could laugh at absurd.

  When they arrived at the North Gate, they found the area buzzing with activity. Soldiers and engineers were building fortifications, placing arrays of shields and spears at the various barricades, and doing something to the gatehouse, the small building beside the gates that contained some of their mechanisms, that he couldn't quite fathom. The huge, wooden doors themselves, the northern portal to the city, as well as the portcullis, were open.

  Dozens of men and women were working in the area. Rill smiled when he saw one that he recognized.

  "Hello Rill!" Milo grinned as he waved the two of them over. He was standing near one of the new barricades, wiping his hands on a piece of cloth. Rill was surprised to see Perra there too, perched atop one of the long, wooden spikes.

  Rill extended
his hand when he reached the priest, and Milo shook it warmly. "I wasn't expecting to see you here," Rill said. "Did they press you into service?"

  Milo put on a show of being hurt. "You make it sound like I'm not naturally helpful!" The expression quickly faded, and he nodded at Daniel. "Who's your friend?"

  Before Rill could answer, Daniel was already stepping forward and shaking hands. "Daniel," he said, beaming, "of the Royal Engineers, and you have got to be Milo."

  Milo cocked his head. "How'd you know that?"

  "Really?" said Daniel, chuckling, "'With the wings and everything? I think everyone in Kepren knows who you are by now."

  Milo lifted his arms up, inspecting his collection of feathers. "I suppose I do stand out a bit on occasion, don't I?"

  "Yeah," said Rill, shaking his head. "On occasion."

  Daniel stepped back, then pointed up a ladder to the battlements above the gate. "That should be where they're keeping it," he said. "If you want, I'll go on ahead and get started."

  Rill nodded. "Thanks, Daniel," he said. "I'll be there in a minute."

  As Daniel walked away and began ascending the nearby ladder, Milo gave Rill a curious look. "'If you want'?" he said. "What, does he work for you or something?"

  Rill knew it was hopeless just trying to shrug the question off. "For the time being," he said. "When it comes to Rill's fire-sludge," he continued, "they must think Rill's kind of the expert."

  Milo nodded, a genuine smile of pride and approval on his face. "Good for you," he said.

  Rill decided to change the subject. "So, what's happening here? I'm seeing a lot of fortifications, but it doesn't look like the gate itself is getting any attention."

  "They're leaving it open," Milo said.

  "What?" Rill thought he must have been joking.