Child of Flame (Page 386)

“Where will you be?” A single tear snaked down her cheek.

“I will always be with you. I’ll follow when I can.”

She climbed down the ladder. A dozen adults formed around her and hurried away up through the higher embankments, toward the stone circle.

“Shall we shoot at them?” cried one of the archers near Alain.

“Nay, they’re no threat to us yet. Let them waste their arrows.”

Beor’s archers had begun to return arrow fire, and the archers of the Cursed Ones retreated to their main force, content evidently with the mischief their arrows caused in the village: five houses burned merrily now. Smoke boiled up into the sky, and ash fell everywhere. Yet the Cursed Ones waited as an unseen drum counted the passing with a steady rhythm that seemed to reverberate up from the earth. Leaning against the palisade logs, Alain felt that throbbing rhythm, oddly soothing, drawing his mind away, causing memories to flower as his attention drifted.

Up among the ruins near Lavas Holding, he sees the shadows of what had been, not the shadows of the ruins lying there now. The lantern’s pale light and the gleam of stone illuminate the shadows of the buildings as if they stand whole and unfallen. This filigree of arches and columns and proud walls stretching out as impossible shadows along the ground is the shade of the old fort, come alive as memories twist forward.…

Liath stands in front of a heap of wood. Everything is damp. Even the air sweats moisture; in a moment it will start to rain. All at once, fire shoots up out of branches, licking and crackling. Falling to one knee, Liath stares at the fire as a gout of flame boils up toward the sky. Are those shadows dancing within the flame? She stares, intent, as distant then as Adica has become now, and draws from her tunic a brilliant gold feather.

Ai, God! He knows that feather, or knew one like it: a phoenix feather like the one he plucked from the cavern floor. In her hands, it glints fire. The veil concealing the shadows in the fire draws aside, burned away by its pure light, and he can see:

An old man, twisting flax into rope against his thigh.

Why does he look so familiar?

Rage barked, startling him. He rubbed his eyes as the folk around him murmured uneasily. Below, grass and stubbled fields bled a gauzy mist into the air. The enemy faded beneath the sun as if they had only been illusion all along, first darkening to shadow and then lost in a shrouding fog that seemed to drift up out of the earth itself. Mist boiled forward over the ground, spreading out in a broad front that would engulf both village and tumulus. Not a single rider could be seen beneath that veil of fog. The Cursed Ones had hidden themselves with magic.

The wind shifted sharply, blowing in from the east, and as it gained strength, the magical shroud shuddered and gave ground, catching out a handful of riders, the vanguard, who scrambled to return to the cover of the fog. A thud rang out from the village.

“The catapult!” cried Alain

A large pot came sailing over the wall and vanished into the mist. Beor had unleashed the first surprise. Shrieks and panicked whinnying floated out of the drowning fog as bees, now free and agitated, took their vengeance upon the Cursed Ones. The mist rolled back to unveil one force advanced almost to the village gale and the other closing in on the tumulus. The enemy soldiers, their magic exposed and disrupted by the bees, fell back to regroup as the White Deer people showered the foremost riders with arrows. A third force of Cursed Ones could be seen circling around toward the east side of the crown.

“Sos’ka!” he called. She had sent eight of her comrades away along the tumulus already. “Follow that group to see where they’re going!” She cantered away.

The vanguard nearest him, retreating, reversed itself suddenly and charged for the ramparts. Arrows rained down and, after them, a hail of stones from slings. Children screamed. The man standing next to Alain jerked backward, spun, and fell to hit the ground below with a smack. Blood pooled under his body. The Cursed Ones leaped off their horses and hit the embankment running, scrambling up toward the parapet.

“Don’t waste your spears!” Alain cried, but even so some threw away their spears by trying to strike at the enemy below them, in vain.

Yet what point did it serve the Cursed Ones to come up against the palisade, which they could not climb without ladders? The soldiers held their shields high, protecting one among their number, a woman dressed more lightly than the others, as she raced forward to throw herself against the wood. Where she touched the posts, wood flowered to life as fire.

“Water! Water!” The cry came down the line. Buckets of water were handed up to those on the walkway, who spilled them over even as the Cursed Ones continued to shoot arrows at the defenders. The villagers dropped rocks on top of the shields, battering them down, and a ragged cheer rose out of the ranks when the sorcerer was struck directly on the head with a big rock and went tumbling back down the slope.