Child of Flame
The sun’s light hammered her. They came up over the hill, and she saw the stone circle below them just as a wave of dizziness swept her. The air seemed to boil and the sands to heave and shake. Sparks spit from within the loom. Without warning, arrows hissed out from the stones. Laoina shouted out in pain. Adica’s sphinx threw her head back, crying out, but no sound came from her open mouth. Her hind legs bunched under her as she readied to leap, all coiled power and fierce anticipation.
But the lion woman on whom Alain rode veered away at the last moment as a second arrow flight showered out of the stones.
“Cursed Ones’.” cried Laoina.
Figures with the bodies of men and the faces of animals lurked behind the stones. The glare of the sun painted their feathered cloaks bright.
The cries of the Cursed Ones receded in the distance. Faintly, Adica heard the blatting of a ram’s horn, sharp and urgent. The sound faded as the sphinxes crested a hill and descended onto a plain so flat and devoid of vegetation that it looked as though fire had scoured it clean. Her head pounded mercilessly. A wind had come blasting off the sun, and sweat streamed down her back until her thighs became slick with it. Her skin rubbed raw against the sphinx’s coarse fur coat as they ran on, and on, and on, endlessly on until she shut her eyes, hoping for respite, praying for water.
The Cursed Ones had learned the secret of the looms. All of humankind was doomed. There was nothing they could do to stop the Cursed Ones from winning the war if they could walk the looms.
If only they could rid themselves of the Cursed Ones, she could do anything.
2
ALAIN’S heart was still pounding from the unexpected attack, arrows whistling darkly out of the stone circle, the bright flash of feathered helmets. Maybe Kel was right. Maybe the Cursed Ones were simply bloodthirsty savages bent on destruction and war. He licked his lips with a parched tongue. Reflexively, he groped for the water pouch tied to his belt, but an arrow had punctured it.
Alain crouched beside Adica, stroking her hair. Even when she acted strangely, as she sometimes did, she was a joy to watch. Like Spits-last, she was full to overflowing with vitality, such a contrast to the remembered grief that often touched her eyes that he always wanted to make her smile. She leaned against him as he settled back against the rock. They shared a hank of bread, but he dozed off with it still in his hand.
When he woke, it was gone. Sorrow and Rage sat with their big heads on their forelegs, staring at him mournfully, hoping for more.
Beyond the shadow of the rock face, the three sphinxes sat enigmatically in the sun, tails lashing. One had her paws crossed. Another licked a gash on her foreleg. Their gaze, on their charges, did not waver.