Dragonfly Ignited

by Aimee Moore

  Dal frowned. “Why?”

  I nodded. “If we're so insignificant and weak, then why? If your race is so superior, then why resort to such barbarism? Why rut with inferior creatures?”

  Dal let off a small sigh. “The Kraw in your world are warriors.”

  “So?”

  “Kraw warriors lust for battle as they lust for women. Taking spreads fear among the enemy, shows domination, and gives Kraw satisfaction in battle. The enemy's pains are as insignificant to a Kraw warrior as a pig's pains are to humanity.”

  I frowned up at Dal. “Can Kraw and humans have offspring?”

  “I do not know.”

  “What of Kraw females? They do battle as well, do they not suffer the same... need?”

  Dal gave a short nod. “They do, but females need large, strong mates. Human men cannot satisfy.”

  I glanced over at Mindrik, who was hunched against a wall on the other side of our hut, impervious to our whispering. “I see what you mean,” I said.

  Dal shook with silent laughter behind me. Both of us tensed when the first torch of the night passed by the dark lines around the door to our prison. I sucked in a deep breath as my heart raced into a gallop again. It passed without incident, as always, and we continued to share whispers as the next two torches passed us over the hour. One torch left.

  Dal sat up, stretching, palming around the dirt for his sword. “Human, it will be time for you to perform your task soon,” Dal whispered into the darkness.

  A petulant grunt came from the blackness.

  Another fifteen minutes passed. My fingers and toes were ice while my body was sticky with mud and sweat. I began to regret my decision. Staying in my prison was safer, wounds and all. Tremors of nervousness raced up and down my spine. Dal, sitting close, rested a solid hand on my back. It helped my jitters.

  At long last, the fourth torch passed. As the footsteps outside died away, I listened to the utter stillness through the village. No wind whispered, no crickets chirped, not even an animal scurried or snorted in the distance. Nothing. I let off a shaking breath.

  “Sera. We need light,” Dal said.

  This was happening. I nodded, calling the flame to my palm. A flame as tall as my head swirled to life in my hand, making Dal and Mindrik's faces swim in the darkness.

  “Well, beast, how do you think to make me free you?” Mindrik whispered.

  Dal pointed to the pit in the center of our prison that never got used for a bonfire. “That. Do it over here.” Dal pointed at the dirt against the wall of our prison.

  “You must be joking. You wish me to dig us out?”

  Dal brought his blade into the light and looked down the razor edge in my firelight. “Yes,” he breathed. “And make haste, for the longer it takes Patroma to know that we have escaped, the better our chances of survival.”

  “Madness,” Mindrik muttered, running his hands through unruly hair and standing.

  I offered light as he called water, watching in fascination as the ball of water swirled away at the edge of our prison in my dim firelight, pushing out more and more mud. The process was slow and draining on Mindrik, and more than once he had to stop and gather more water and strength. My heart pounded as he worked, and I wondered what we would find on the other side.

  What if, by some horrible stroke of luck, a Kraw came into the hut at this moment? What if there were warriors on the other side? A loud rack of armor? Metal pots or baskets of clanging weapons? I glanced at my flame to see it pulsing with my heartbeat.

  Time ticked on as Mindrik dug, and Dal sat nearby, sword poised in steady hands, at the ready. I glanced at Mindrik a few times to see that he was sweating, his hands shaking from exertion. A stroke of pity brushed through me. Another fifteen minutes, and the hole was big enough for Dal to squeeze through.

  “Very good,” Dal whispered.

  Mindrik put his ball of water into the pit in the center of the room, breathing with exertion.

  “I'll go first, then you two follow. Use caution. Be silent,” Dal said.

  “And what if he intends to leave us? The beast is always saying how superior he is, what if he has used us to escape and intends to leave us here to rot?” Mindrik asked, crossing his arms.

  Dal turned to us, one foot in the muddy hole. “Then you shall no longer suffer the indignity of sharing a cage with a beast, human.” And with a smirk, Dal scuffled through the hole, disappearing into the blackness below.

  Mindrik and I looked at each other. No sounds issued forth from the darkness that Dal had disappeared into, and for the merest heartbeat of a second, I feared that what Mindrik had said was true.

  “Go ahead,” Mindrik said.

  Frowning, I lowered myself into the hole, glad that I was already filthy as I sloshed around in the freezing mud at the bottom. Ducking and squeezing below the wall of the hut, I did my best to keep my fire on Mindrik's side as long as possible, before finally sucking in a great breath of fresh, frosted air on the other side. I let my flame die. A large hand circled my upper arm and hauled me out, and I put my hand on Dal's as I looked around.

  The moon was half a circle, illuminating crumbling rock of distant mountains floating skyward in its light. All around us were huts covered in snow, kissed by moonlight in the stillness of the night. The mud and ice of many footsteps marred the pristine white snow on well-traveled paths, and I realized that the exquisite blanket of white would betray our journey.

  Mindrik came through the hole as well, and Dal only helped him out when he started to make noises of struggle. The three of us looked at each other in the silence, startling when we heard footfalls coming our way from the left. Dal's hand squeezed my arm as he crouched. I did the same, holding my breath as all of us lowered into the frosted shadows.

  Around one of the huts, a large beast materialized. A Kraw mutt of some sort, the spines coming out of the mane-like fur on its scruff lending it an extra horrifying quality. The beast sniffed about, dug at something in the snow, and came up with a mouthful of gooey straw. It chomped at its find, not wanting to drop it in the snow, making loud smacking noises as it raised its head. All it had to do was look a little to its left and we were discovered. Could it hear my heart beating?

  The beast licked its muzzle and sniffed back into the snow again, before giving off a disappointed whuffle and shuffling off. I let out such a large exhale that I grew dizzy.

  Dal gave us a nod and began to make careful footsteps in the snow. It did not crunch, it was fine, frozen powder that left off crystallized crunches as we walked. I sent fire to my feet so that I would not freeze or make noise, and they glowed orange as the snow melted before I stepped in it. Mindrik was stepping in Dal's footprints. We passed two huts, looking at both of their doorways to ensure that the inhabitants could not see out.

  Our breath gave us away on the wind as it puffed above the huts, but we kept forward with a stealth that I didn't know I possessed. Passing through the village, heading toward the cover of snowbanks in the distance, we were almost free. Then I heard something that made me stop in my tracks.

  Chapter 8

  Fire in the Snow

  A whimper. Not a whimper of pain, but one of sadness, high pitched and helpless. A sniffle followed with no adult sounds of hush or comfort to follow it. For the first time, I considered that Mindrik and I might not be the only human captives. If it was a human child that I heard, he would die in this cold. I veered away from my group, toward the sound of the child. Dal's hand reached for me, but brushed my forearm as he missed.

  “Sera,” he whispered.

  The cry continued, getting louder as I approached. When I rounded the corner of a hut, I found a sunken pit bigger than two huts combined. The snow inside it was tinted red, and weapons and animal carcasses littered the space. There, on the dark far side, surrounded by glinting metals, was a small Kraw child. I halted, unsure of whether or not to help, but when our eyes met, I saw a small, dusky-skinned angel sitting among the gore. I made a noise i
n my throat, then ran to him.

  Dal caught up to me, growling. “Leave the child be, Sera.”

  “Look at him.”

  The child shied away as I approached, and I marveled at how the moon shined off of his black hair, unshaven, unlike the adults of his species. His large brown eyes held worlds in them, and I wanted to smooth away whatever it was that made his bottom lip stick out like so.

  “I am looking,” Dal whispered harshly. “He sneaks away from home to play with traps, and now he's been caught in one. We must leave.”

  I turned on Dal with a scowl. “He'll die here in the cold.”

  Mindrik was standing back with his arms crossed, impatient to be gone.

  “He is Kraw. He will bleed and he will shiver, but he will not die and he will not lose the leg,” Dal said.

  “I'm stuck,” the child whimpered in his language.

  “It's no more than you deserve,” Dal growled at the child, who glared back. “Your parents forbade you from coming here with good reason.”

  “Dal,” I said in a scolding tone. Then I turned to the child. “Here, let me help you,” I said in Kraw.

  “Do not touch me!” The child backed away, rattling the chains on the claw that had his leg. The chain rattles were like small explosions in the night.

  I dropped to my haunches and looked at him. “Why not? Do you not want help?”

  “Not from you. You will make me sick.”

  My lips parted in surprise.

  “This is all very touching, but I hear stirring back that way,” Mindrik said in a flat voice from behind me.

  “We have to help him, Dal. Get that off his leg.”

  “No.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “He'll run home,” Dal said in my language.

  “So?”

  Dal gave me an exasperated look.

  “You'd rather let this child suffer to save your own skin?” I asked.

  “He is not suffering; he is not wanting to be caught for his disobedience. Do not attribute human characteristics to Kraw children. We must leave. Now.”

  “I won't leave him.”

  “Yes, you will.” And with that, Dal's strong hands came around my middle, hauling me off the ground as if I were the child.

  I squeaked as the world whirred around me, stars and pink snow and the big brown eyes of the child. “Put me down!” I whispered in a frantic rush of air. But the world was moving some more as I was thrown over Dal's wide shoulder. I beat my fist into his back.

  “Dal!” I squeaked.

  “Come back!” The child called.

  “Your compassion may have doomed us,” Dal growled, taking long, quick strides.

  “Why did I have to be trapped with a woman,” Mindrik said to himself, keeping up with quick strides.

  “You cannot leave me here; it is dishonorable to leave injured behind!” The child called louder.

  Voices stirred in the huts. Dal took off at a run, and I propped myself up on his back just enough to see the child reaching for us through my ropes of filthy hair. My hands slipped, and all I could see were Dal's bare feet in the crystalline snow.

  A shout rang out in the distance.

  “Damn you, Seraphine, your foolishness cost us our lives this day,” Mindrik growled at me.

  “Enough,” Dal grunted, moving faster through the maze of huts. Kraw began to awaken. Torches were lit. Dogs barked.

  I tried to turn to see where we were headed, but it was useless. “Put me down, I can run on my own!”

  “No.”

  The village was getting smaller behind us now as Dal's strides ate up the field of snow. Dogs, snarling and barking with wild eyes, flooded out from between the huts. Torches swam through the sea of snowcapped buildings, and the black masses of more Kraw began to rush toward us, yelling.

  “Dal put me down or I'll burn you,” I said with a snarl. I was ignored, so I lit my flame and pressed it into Dal's back. He grunted and his body tensed, and when I lifted my hand there was a wide swath of cooked flesh. Guilt lanced through me.

  “Put me down right now or I'll scream the whole way.” I was hurled unceremoniously onto my feet, and ice bit at my skin.

  “Run, Sera, and don't look back,” Dal said.

  Mindrik was already running as fast as his feet would carry him, robes flapping over the snow, and I bolted forward to keep up. But no matter how hard I pushed my muscles, I was too wobbly and too out of shape to keep up with the two men, and I began to fall behind.

  Embarrassment and panic lanced through me as Dal turned and ran back toward me. Dogs were still barking behind me, snarling and growling, and getting louder. Footsteps and yelling were thunderous, getting closer with every heartbeat.

  Dal raised his sword as he got closer to me, and a murderous look stole into his eyes as his muscles bulged in the moonlight and he roared. My eyes widened at him, and for a fraction of a moment I feared that he was so angry with me that I would die.

  But he ran past me, and I turned to see him crash into dogs and Kraw, slicing anything that got close to him in two. My mouth dropped. Dal sliced and stabbed with a ferocity I had not anticipated. I had laid in those arms, arms that broke necks. I had let those hands travel over my skin, hands that were swinging a sword and ripping flesh apart.

  “Run, Seraphine you fool, run!” Mindrik yelled from behind me.

  “Dal!” I yelled.

  “Leave him!”

  “I can't!”

  “There's nothing you can do! Get out while you can!”

  But already Kraw were swarming around Dal's hurricane of death, closing in on me. One of them grabbed me by the arms as I turned to run, pinning them behind me with frightening ease. So strong, like hot iron. I craned my neck behind me to see Mindrik, calling water, heating it, and throwing it. A few Kraw were injured in their approach, but they overwhelmed Mindrik before he could do more harm.

  I turned wild eyes back to Dal, my shoulder sockets screaming from the tight hold behind me, and tried to shake my muddy ropes of filth out of my face. Dal was being restrained, flashes of metal were revealing gashes of crimson spattering into the snow.

  “No!” I screamed.

  The Kraw holding me lifted my chin, forcing my gaze upon the slow death of my only friend in the world. “So much for your guardian,” he growled into my ear with a laugh.

  “Dal!” I screamed so hard that my throat stung. Still, crimson was splashing the snow as grunts and wet slicing sounds rent the air. Tears stung my face, streaming into my filth as Dal lay on the ground, being hacked at. The fire within me blazed, warred, charred. I let it. I wanted to die in it for my stupidity.

  I cast myself into the fiery pit of hell that was anguish and regret. The flame rose and charred my emotions to ash. All but one. Vengeance rode on my flames like a great ship on a turbulent sea. I grabbed at it, held it tight, and let the sea of flames swallow me up.

  I could no longer see Dal through the writhing ball of Kraw muscles and weapons.

  I screamed again, this time letting loose all my fire. The manacle hands behind me vanished in a blinding flash of orange and white. For a brief moment, time stilled before me as fire shot out around me in a nova of terrible force. Brightness lit the horrified faces of the Kraw who were a breath away from being incinerated before blackness took me.

  ✽✽✽

  The sounds of running water filtered into my blackness. Bubbling, peaceful. Like the river I lived by in Lambston. Perhaps I was there now, and the Kraw were a nightmare. Perhaps if I got up, I'd realize I'd had too much of Butcher Garon's mead and fallen asleep in the sun with my sister, the taste of honey and wildflowers lingering on my tongue. We'd sit up on the lush green banks, blink and rub our eyes, and laugh at how much trouble we'd be in, saving the fear of consequence for later.

  “She stirs,” a familiar voice said.

  A rustle filtered into my consciousness, and slowly, the dream ebbed away. Something hot and heavy rested over my forehead. I let my
eyes flutter open, and I realized that my entire body ached as if I'd been mowed down by a horse cart. I shut my eyes and groaned. I wanted to sink back into my dream of that grassy bank with my sister.

  “Easy there, Bumpkin, you over did it,” Mindrik said.

  “Hurts,” I said through cracked lips.

  “I would imagine so. Here, drink.” Mindrik coalesced a small blob of water to my lips, and I drank, sighing and closing my eyes when I had finished. I wondered if Dal had been drinking water the same way, relying on the precious resource from the human he so despised.

  My eyes flew open. “Where's Dal?” I pushed my aching body up and cast around, going limp when I noticed Dal sitting behind me. It was his large hand that had been on my forehead a moment ago. Hazel eyes warmed into me like spring breathing life into a land ravaged by winter.

  “Great, now that she's up, we can keep moving,” Mindrik said, rising.

  I looked around. We were no longer in snow. Skeletal pine towered above me, bare arms dressed by the smoke hazing through their midst, taking place of the pine needles that now littered the floor. A bubbling river lay next to us.

  “She is not ready,” Dal said.

  His deep voice, no longer needing to be kept at a graveled whisper, was a comfort that filled me like a great song rising to the skies. I looked Dal over, realizing that he was in bad shape. Deep wounds and bruises slashed over Dal just about everywhere eyes could touch. His lip had two black spots, and a chunk of his nose was missing into deformity, raw and red.

  The wounds were mostly healed shut, but still horrid looking. A nasty cut on Dal's shoulder had maggots in it, and I let out a soft breath as I met his eyes again.

  Dal looked at the maggoty shoulder, then back at me. “They clean it; keep infection away.”

  “Dal, that's... horrifying.”

  Dal gave a soft laugh.

  Guilt churned in my stomach. “I don't have words for the sorrow I feel at causing you that pain, Dal. The fault is my own.”