Ignite the Fire: Incendiary

by Karen Chance

  “Mircea?”

  “Lord Mircea,” I said, indicating the master vamp who was still just sitting in the dirt, his face splashed by multicolored explosions, watching us with dark eyes.

  Arsen flushed angrily.

  “No,” I said. “No, listen to me! He had a woman once, too—”

  “Then she may mourn him, when he is gone!” he said, and lunged.

  And was held back by my borrowed strength, although with difficulty. And then he got an elbow in my throat, when I tried to explain, making me gag. But I recovered a second later, getting him in a headlock that Pritkin had taught me, wrestling him into—momentary—control. And finally finishing my sentence, if only as an anguished croak.

  “—and Aeslinn took her!”

  It took a second, and Arsen did not turn back to me, but I saw his shoulders stiffen. He stared at Mircea, and Mircea looked back. He said absolutely nothing this time, because I don’t know of anyone who learns faster, but he also didn’t look away.

  “What woman?” Arsen finally snarled.

  “Her name was Elena, a human. Or so he thought,” I amended. “They met a long time ago, in a place called Romania—on Earth—where she had fled from Aeslinn’s control. We don’t know the whole story, only that he sent some of his men—his fey—after her. It took them a long time to find her, but they finally did, only by then, she and Mircea had had a child, too—a daughter. The child remained on Earth but Elena was taken. Mircea went after her, but he does not know Faerie and he lost her. He’s been searching for her ever since.”

  Arsen scowled, his eyes still on Mircea. “Is this what he told you?” he asked me.

  “Partly, but I was also there when Aeslinn’s men took her.”

  “Then you lie. The king has no interest in humans—”

  “She wasn’t human, at least, we don’t know what she was. Maybe another type of fey—”

  “Which he also disdains!” It was close to a roar this time, maybe because he’d just ruined his career only to find out he was rescuing someone he considered to be a war criminal. And I didn’t know how to prove him wrong.

  But, unexpectedly, I got some help.

  The goat creature, who had been lying by Pritkin’s side, appearing unconscious, suddenly spoke up. And croaked a word I didn’t understand, and couldn’t pronounce. But I guessed it made sense to Arsen, judging by how his face twitched.

  “More monsters,” he said, his lip curling.

  But then he looked at Mircea, who was still not moving. He could have gotten away, whether over Arsen’s dead body or not, but he’d already learned the hard way—getting away was not getting out when it came to Faerie. Or maybe he was playing for a much-needed ally; I didn’t know.

  But he didn’t move, even when Arsen shrugged me off, and took a step closer.

  “You lost your woman?” the tone was a challenge.

  “Aeslinn took her,” Mircea confirmed, his own voice rough. “I want her back. That is all I want.”

  Arsen’s eyes narrowed. “That is what you meant, at the capitol. Where is she, where, where, where . . .”

  Mircea nodded carefully. “I thought Aeslinn could tell me, that I could beat it out of him, but he wasn’t there. I risked everything . . . and left with nothing.”

  Something flickered over Arsen’s face, as if he knew what that felt like.

  Then he looked back at me, and his demeanor changed. “Can you carry two?” he asked. “My strength is . . . diminished.”

  “I can try.”

  He nodded and grabbed Pritkin, who was still out cold. He threw him over his shoulder, while I scooped up the goat, who helped by clinging to my back like a hairy backpack. Mircea got up, stumbling slightly, and I got an arm around his waist.

  And then the impossible happened.

  We just . . . walked away.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  A blast of sound hit as soon as we broke through the silence spell, loud enough to snap my head back. It was disorienting and coming in waves, like blows from a fist. It immediately sent me staggering, or perhaps that was Mircea.

  A heart wound could be healed by a master, or even by a non-master if he didn’t mind lying in a darkened room for a few months. Mircea, as a first-level master and a Senate member, would likely be back to his old self by tomorrow. But this was today, and we were doing a tipsy dance across the camp, sometimes sideways, sometimes forward, and on occasion, doing the cha-cha back a few paces, before I managed to get us righted.

  Fortunately, nobody seemed to notice. Probably because I’d been wrong—the ammo boxes hadn’t all gone off. Or else the fire was spreading and hitting new ones, causing me to keep flinching as random explosions erupted behind us.

  But even so, even with spewing lava and magical detonations and running trees, it remained surreal, just walking out of camp. In the space of a couple minutes, I’d gone from hope to horror to despair to acceptance . . . and now what? I kept looking behind us, as well as I could with one arm around Mircea’s waist and backpacking a goat. But so far, it was working.

  We were literally just walking away.

  “There!” Someone cried. “There they are!”

  Damn it!

  But I didn’t miss a step. Make it to the tree line, echoed in my head. Make it to the tree line, and we’ll figure things out from there. Just make it to the freaking tree line, Cassie!

  And then the tree line came to us.

  My little posse came running out of the night, and if you’ve never seen a herd of trees galloping toward you, you’ve missed out. But this time, they didn’t just surround us. They’d barely reached us before I was snatched off the ground by the hand-like branch of a mighty maple.

  And was dropped a second later, when said branch was sheared off by a bright yellow spell that shot by like the whirling blade of a circular saw.

  We hit the ground amid a sudden storm of trampling roots and exploding spells. Guess one munitions box made it, after all, I thought, while tugging on Mircea. “Come on! It’s just over there!”

  “What’s . . . over there?” he gasped.

  “The tree line!”

  “And that helps us how?”

  I didn’t answer because I didn’t know. But it was better than being here. “Stop talking and start crawling!”

  “A master vampire does not crawl,” he informed me, with a damned good attempt at dignity, all things considered. And then another of those yellow blades came whirling by, sheering off the top of his hair, and he crawled—fast. Because masters are also highly pragmatic.

  And so are Pythias, I thought, dragging the goat thing after me.

  I didn’t see Arsen in the chaos, or Pritkin, because I couldn’t see much of anything. Except for smoke and colorful explosions and slinging yellow spell blades that were now whirling everywhere, because somebody had figured out that they worked better than the torches. Which meant that, on top of everything else, we had to contend with falling tree limbs.

  One almost bonked me in the head, and another, as big around as a tire, flattened a fey. Arrows were also being loosed, but fortunately, the fey couldn’t seem to see any better than I could and were aiming above our heads, where we’d have been if we were still standing. But the arrows remained dangerous, as demonstrated when one slammed into the earth in front of me, having almost taken off the tip of my nose.

  But then a lot of what little light there was blanked out, causing me to look around wildly. Only to realize that the roots of the surrounding trees had just knitted together, and closed protectively over our heads. They formed a tunnel with only a few gaps here and there, sending light down onto the ground in smokey beams.

  I crawled faster, watching the battle taking place above us in glimpses, and wondered if I’d been channeling Mircea at Gertie’s, with that strange aversion to crawling. Because crawling was awesome. Crawling ruled.

  And we were almost there!

  The root tunnel let out at the edge of the forest, just at the tree
line, and I felt a huge sense of relief wash over me. Which immediately made me paranoid, because relief was a liar. Relief got you killed.

  And, right on cue, my eyes caught a flash of light above me, and a sword arcing down, too fast to dodge. But it never completed the stroke. Before I even had time to react, the fey holding the weapon turned gray, shriveled up, and face planted in the dirt, as lifeless as an empty soda can.

  From somewhere behind me, Mircea made a gagging noise. “They taste terrible,” he said, and grabbed the guy’s sword.

  And then something hit me in the head.

  But this was soft, more or less, like somebody had tossed a chunky blanket over me. I fought my way free only to find myself holding an armful of forest material, of the kind that had formed the pathway through the trees that I’d been on earlier. And which I was currently holding the end of, I realized.

  My eyes followed the flat, blackish substance upward to find that it formed a ragged and very unstable looking path through the trees. Unlike the one I’d been on before, which had mostly been supported by branches, this one had vines underneath it, causing it to sag significantly in between them, because they seemed to be spaced very irregularly. But its swinging support system also allowed it to climb at truly improbably angles, into the heights of a distant and very tall sequoia.

  I assumed it kept on going beyond that, but couldn’t tell because a platform high in the tree blocked the view. And, hanging over the edge of said platform, who did I see? Son of a bitch.

  I stared upward, feeling my face flush, as Guinn and Rhea waved at me frantically. Damn it all! I’d said to go home. Did nobody listen to me anymore?

  Of course, that would imply that anybody ever had.

  I couldn’t hear them from there, especially over the din of battle, but the implication of those beckoning arms was obvious. I threw my hands up, and made a few telling gestures of my own. At the derelict state of the path, at the way it swayed alarmingly at every touch, at the sheer improbability of anyone surviving a climb like that, even if they didn’t have an army on their tail!

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me!” I finally yelled, which only caused the beckoning to get more exaggerated. “Yes, yes, I know what you want. You’re just insane!”

  “Is this . . . the plan?” Mircea asked, crouching beside me.

  “There is no plan.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I gestured at my pathetic outfit, at my missing patch of hair, and at the general me-ness of the moment. “Do I look like a person with a plan?”

  He wisely did not answer that.

  “Just go on up,” I told him crossly.

  “Go up . . . what?”

  “That.”

  He looked at the path, which I let go of the end of, and which fell in front of him with a whump. He eyed it without favor. “That?”

  “Yes, that, that! This isn’t a perfect rescue!”

  “I had noticed.”

  “You think you can do better?” I said angrily.

  “Obviously not.” He paused to kiss me. “Don’t die.”

  “Yeah.” I traded the goat for the sword. And then bit my lip as he and goat boy started the ponderous climb upward, which would have been easier if they didn’t both look like death. And if there were any railings on that thing. And if it wasn’t close to an eighty-degree angle after a short distance, and also full of holes.

  But while it wasn’t pretty, it was better than staying here. Anything was better than staying here. But I still needed to find—

  Them, I thought, as Arsen and Pritkin stumbled out of the smoke, which had gotten ridiculously thick and was now boiling over the ground like the clouds at the base of the fey capitol. I couldn’t see much at all anymore, just flailing limbs—of both species—and random balls of fuzzy-looking light from exploding spells. But I got the impression that some of the fey were now attacking other fey, which made no damned sense at all.

  “A few are loyal to me,” Arsen said, before I could ask. “They are attempting to slow down pursuit, but they can’t hold for long. We have to hurry.”

  Yeah, I thought, staring upward.

  And then I got to hurrying, because what other choice was there?

  It was exactly as much fun as I’d thought. The matting under my hands wasn’t sewn, or fastened together in any way. It reminded me of the material that comes out of palm trees, only not that nice. Instead, it was a thick clump of old, damp, half rotted leaves, threaded through with sticks, moss, vines, ancient insect shells—the latter crunching horribly under my hands—tufts of animal hair, and bark, all of which had been pressed down and felted over time into a kind of . . . stuff . . . that was stronger than it looked, but not quite strong enough.

  Because it kept ripping apart under my hands.

  Of course, I got the worst of it, as I was bringing up the rear. Since, believe it or not, I was the one still best able to fight. Or I would have been, because Arsen had given me a second sword before throwing Pritkin over his shoulder and scaling up the shaggy highway like a monkey. But my arsenal was in my belt, making me look like Black Jack Cassie, scourge of the seven seas, as I needed both hands to hold on.

  And even that wasn’t working out so well.

  I could see the others through the spreading limbs up ahead, but I was finding it hard to make much progress of my own. Leaves slapped me in the face, my feet kept plunging through the crappy material, making new holes or falling into old ones, and my hands kept bunching in what felt like solid fistfuls of the stuff, until I tried to pull myself up. Only to find that they came apart in my grip.

  If it hadn’t been for borrowed strength, I wouldn’t have been managing at all, and if it wasn’t for Mircea’s speed, allowing me to catch myself when I stumbled, I’d have plunged to my death a dozen times.

  And it was still bloody hard!

  And that was before fey started jumping at me out of trees.

  Some of them must have spotted us heading up, but instead of taking their chances on the rotten old highway, they had scaled some nearby trunks. I spied at least four of them, although there could have been more. There were plenty of places to hide in the heavy tree cover.

  Not that they were hiding.

  “Oh, come on!” I yelled, as a silver haired bastard came swinging on a vine at me, like a pointy-eared Tarzan, sweeping me off the path and taking us both into the air.

  I saw Arsen look back and pause. “Witch!”

  “No!” I yelled. “No, go! I’ve got this!”

  He didn’t look convinced, but there wasn’t much he could do. He was drained and they were not, and his element was far below us now. Plus, he couldn’t do anything without dropping Pritkin, which was exactly what they wanted. I knew that because two of the others had just landed on the tattered ladder and were closing in on Arsen and his passenger.

  Oh, no, you don’t, I thought, and slammed my elbow back into my captor’s face.

  I guessed nobody had told him that he’d grabbed a wildcat, but that was what I felt like because I didn’t have time for anything more refined. A twist in mid-air, a knee to his groin—and this one wasn’t covered in chain mail. Then an uppercut to the chin, knocking his head back, followed by a savage blow to the chest—

  And it was over. He fell into darkness, unconscious or worse, and I swung back, striking one of the two fey currently on the path with outstretched legs. I knocked him off, taking his place on the sagging old trail, although he grabbed a nearby vine, saving himself from a hell of a fall. But the other fey had seen me and had started kicking me in the head with a hard soled boot.

  The Lord of the Rings lied to me, I thought, as the very un-Elven footwear smashed me in the face, over and over. Until I grabbed the offending foot and jerked, using every ounce of Mircea’s strength. And saw the bastard go flying.

  But now the one who’d caught the vine was back, swinging onto the path just below me, and the fourth fey finally made a move, landing up ahead and scurrying af
ter Arsen while the rest of us fought it out. Damn it! There was only one way to fix this in time, but nobody was going to like it.

  “Arsen!” I yelled. “Hold on!”

  I didn’t know whether he heard me or not, but there was no time to yell again. There was no time for anything except grabbing the fabric of the path and shaking it, although that term is far too soft for what I was doing. I was shaking it, clinging to my vine while what looked like tsunami quality waves formed in the ‘cloth’ and rippled upward.

  They caught the fey, right before he reached his target, causing him to slip. Not off the path—I’m not that lucky—but he grabbed a handhold of the material as his body slung outward, and I guessed that was too much for the crappy stuff. Because it tore, causing him to rip a huge piece out of the middle as he fell downward—straight into me.

  I lost my footing but somehow held onto the vine, and the fey held onto me. We swung outward, leaving the path again, and it took a moment for me to realize that the fey below me had been knocked off, too, and had grabbed my vine for support. That was good for Arsen, who I spied clinging to the fabric and riding the waves up high. But it was bad for me, as I had another two-on-one fight.

  And I was getting tired.

  I didn’t know if that was because Mircea’s body was using his power to heal, which the stake had previously prevented, and therefore accidentally restricting the flow, or if I was just running out of steam. But it was suddenly a far more even fight than it should have been. I was socked in the jaw by the first fey, hard enough to make my ears ring, and had my leg jerked on by the second, who was below me.

  And who clearly intended to send me flying, as I had his friend.

  I kicked him in the head, but I wasn’t sure how hard I’d connected, because I was getting pulverized up here. Blow followed blow until I couldn’t see straight, and it was impossible to return them as I needed two hands just to hold on. So, I head butted the fey instead, which . . . yeah. Did me as much harm as it did him.

  But at least the punching stopped, as both of us tried to remember which way was up. I wasn’t doing too good with that, twisting and whirling through the air while fumbling on my belt for a blade. I intended to cut the damned vine and lose one of these bastards, at least, but my fingers didn’t work right and the world was spinning and I was pretty sure I was about to fall off, all on my own.