Dragon's Mage (An Advent Mage Novel), The - Raconteur, Honor (21 page)

“Southern end, in Venkat.” She lifted an arm and pointed it in a southeasterly direction. “So we actually need to change headings a little.”

I nudged Kara around to face the direction Mari pointed. I urged her to speed up as well, which she did easily. The pace she flew at now would devour the miles quickly and put us there much faster than if she sprinted madly and crashed into exhaustion at some point. Besides, just getting there was only half the goal. We still had to have the strength to fight a raging forest fire once we arrived.

But right now, the only thing we could do was fly.

Eventually night fell, with a thick cloud cover blocking the moon, and we had to set down for the night. I had never learned how to navigate by the stars—I never thought I would need to know—and neither had Mari. So until daybreak, we were grounded.

The area we set down in had a good tree cover nearby and a little brook. As neither Mari nor I had thought to bring anything to eat, Kaya and I did a brief hunting trip through the woods. I caught two rabbits, and she caught a boar for dinner. Politely, she devoured it well away from camp, taking my cue as I had washed and prepared the rabbits in the stream before bringing them back to the campsite.

Mari had gathered firewood and refilled our canteens while we hunted. She had even stacked the wood in preparation for a cook fire, but hadn’t lit it. As I walked back into camp, I pointed to it and asked, “What, you didn’t start it?”

“With a Fire Mage and a dragon as my companions?” she retorted, hands on both hips. “Why on earth should I argue with a piece of flint when I can just wait for you to do it?”

Laughing, I shrugged, acknowledging her point. With a snap of my fingers, I threw a quick spark at the wood, instantly catching it on fire.

As we set up the rabbits to cook, Kaya came back, licking her chops clean with a satisfied expression. As usual, she curled herself around the campsite, lying like a living barrier between us and the outside world.

Mari watched her settle in with a raised eyebrow. Silently she inclined her head to the dragon, expression asking,
does she always do this?

I nodded wryly. Always. “You have to admit,” I said in a low tone, “there’s not a man or beast that would dare cross her. We couldn’t be any safer than if we were in a proper inn.”

“We might actually be safer,” Mari admitted thoughtfully. “We don’t have to worry about sneak thieves.”

“See?” I settled cross-legged on the ground, waiting patiently for the rabbit to cook, and took in the area around us. We were somewhere in southern corner of Teancum, so we had crossed most of the distance we needed to. Venkat would be another three hours flight from here, at most. This particular area had absolutely nothing around it. Not even a farm. It was just grassy, dry land with little stands of trees here and there. In this kind of flat country, a person could see for miles—or at least, I could have if it wasn’t pitch black. The campfire was the only source of light with the moon totally blocked overhead. The place smelled earthy and mixed with the smell of smoke, it was pleasant. The ground felt very firm underneath me, almost bedrock hard, and the grass crinkled. It didn’t promise to be comfortable to sleep on.  

This open amount of time gave me a good opportunity to ask something I really wanted to. After that conversation with Cora this morning, I had more courage to say something now than I had before. So I cleared my throat slightly and said, “Actually, I’m glad you came with me.”

“Oh?” Mari responded invitingly.

“Did anyone ever tell you that magicians never work alone?” I cast a quick glance, wanting a look at her face. She looked…as if she were waiting with baited breath, not sure where I intended to go with this. “Part of that is because mages aren’t good with any magic outside of their element. But part of it, too, is that when we’re focused on a task, we’re pretty oblivious to everything else. With firefighting, I especially need someone at my back that I can trust to watch out for the things I’ll miss in my preoccupation. I, um, rather hoped you’d think about partnering with me. You don’t have to answer me right away,” I hastily added, not wanting her to feel pressured. “I understand if you want to think about it—”

Mari put a finger at my lips, halting me mid-sentence. “Krys, you’re babbling.”

“Yes,” I managed around a dry throat. “I tend to do that when I’m nervous.”

“Well, in this case, you shouldn’t be. I’d love to be your partner.”

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, a smile breaking out over my face. “Delighted to hear it.”

Without missing a beat, Mari turned to Kaya and asked, “What do you think, Kaya?”

“Mari-friend good partner,” Kaya assured her with a pleased bob of the head. “Lucky.”

“Then we’re settled.” Mari sank back into her original position and gave me a pat on my shoulder. “I thought you’d never ask me, y’know.”

“Nerves?” I offered, feeling more candid now that my worries proved to be useless. “It’s a lot of work, after all. And I’ll be constantly yanking you away from your desk.”

“Yank away. I get bogged down there sometimes. I don’t mind it from day to day, but I don’t want to be chained to the desk either.”

Actually, that brought a good point up. “Um, they’re not going to mind that I’ll be stealing you on the bigger jobs, will they?”

“No, this is rather usual,” Mari assured me dryly. “Every firefighter administrator was in the field at some point, and we prefer to actually be out there in it than doing reports on it. So we’ve come up with all sorts of reasons and excuses to get away from the desk on a regular basis. During an actual emergency, everybody knows what to do as well as I do. They don’t do more than touch base with whoever’s in the office and make sure that we all know what everyone else is doing. Sometimes, I got so bored in there that I would sneak out and join one of the units.”

Interesting. “So really, your job doesn’t start until afterwards, when all the paperwork on it has to be done.”

“To sum it all up, that’s it.” She reached out a hand to idly trace the contours of the saddle lying next to her. “There’s surprisingly a lot of room up there. I thought it would get very uncomfortable and cramped for a long trip. I noticed it last time, too. Did you design this?”

“Well, in a way.” I told her the story of how we came into Sol and been adopted by a whole border town. She laughed when I told her of the less than graceful first few flights. Kaya turned her head at one point and said, “Sorry.”

I patted her neck, assured her it was fine, and went back to filling Mari in.

 “Kaya?” Mari asked.

The dragon lifted her head and cocked it slightly.

“Krys told me that you were far south of where he expected you to be. Why were you so far away from the other dragons?”

I perked up too as Mari asked the question. I’d always meant to ask Kaya this, but hadn’t ever found the right timing for one reason or another.

“Big storm came,” Kaya explained with a twitch of the tail. “Was chasing fast-fire. Then storm got very big. Very strong. Blew me far, far away. Was blown to the sea.”

I blinked. All the way to the sea? But the closest sea was the Arapeen Sea, which was
south
of the Empire of Sol! That must have been quite the storm.

“But I not lost,” Kaya assured her audience proudly. “So, flew back home. But on way, saw fire-ring. Fire-ring pretty. Saw that man-made fire-ring.” She gave me a look, amused at herself even as she told her story. “Was curious. Stayed to see how man make fire-ring. Then he juggle fire-balls for me. Make friend. I like man, so I stay.”

So, it really was that simple? She’d just been blown far from home because of a storm, happened to see me as she flew back, and decided she liked me.

“Do you miss your home?” Mari asked, a little taken aback, I think, that Kaya would attach herself to me so easily.

“Mmm,” Kaya wavered her head from side to side, indicating that she sometimes did. “But more fun here. Small Kryses to play with. Things to burn. Krys give pretties. Have meat-sauce. City to protect.” After counting off these reasons, she gave a firm nod. “Better here.”

I thought about it, for the first time, from her perspective. What would it be like, to be in a barren area that only had your own clansmen? To go day in and day out with only the same food source that you were in constant competition with. To not have anything to do except eat, fly around, and play around with fire. I imagine she got bored of it fairly quickly. Kaya loved learning and experiencing new things. She liked helping people. Being in a clan of dragons, no matter how familiar and loving, would have bored her to pieces. No wonder she’d been chasing lightning and gotten so easily distracted that she’d been easily taken far away from her home.

“Well, Kaya, I’m glad it happened.” Mari shot me a look as she leaned over the fire and turned the rabbits over. “I think Krys would be very lost without you. We certainly would. In fact, I wish more dragons were firefighters like you are.”

True, even without a magician on their back, the dragons could do a lot of good in firefighting. But I don’t know how you’d manage to convince them to come away. Kaya came easily, but almost certainly not every dragon had the same personality as her.

Well, I could scheme along that line later.

We ate dinner, cleaned up, and went to sleep that night against Kaya’s very warm side. After the events of the past week, I slept like a dead man and would have kept on sleeping if Mari hadn’t shaken me awake.

By the time the sun peeped over the horizon, we were back in the air and flying at full speed for Venkat. But with the morning sun lighting the way, I didn’t need Mari’s map or her direction for long. Thick plumes of smoke billowed up into the sky, standing like a beacon for me.

“Great good guardians, I’ve never seen a fire that big!” Mari yelled, her arms leaving my waist briefly so that she could lean over my shoulder, getting a better look. “How much area is that? Can you tell?”

“Two or three miles, I would say,” I responded grimly. She was right, I’d never seen the like before. The smoke had the darkness of a thundercloud, and it stretched over the horizon like a storm that had touched the earth and lingered there. It looked awe-inspiring, in a destructive and spine-chilling way.

“Can you do anything from here?”

I shook my head in frustration. “No, not yet. That smoke is obscuring my sight—I have to see the fire to know how to manipulate it.” I estimated we had another thirty, forty miles before that could happen. Turning in the saddle a little, I met Mari’s eyes. “When we’re closer, get the handkerchiefs out. We’ll need them. I won’t have time to set down.”

We’d decided before leaving that I would land first and talk to the ground crew before going up again to firefight. Mari instinctively opened her mouth to protest before she paused and took a good look around.

“The wind’s direction…is north-easterly.”

“Yes.” I knew she’d pick up on it quickly. “If I don’t act immediately, we’ll lose the whole Mhazzaekul Forest.”

The forest crossed three whole city-states and even ventured into Hain. It would be a disaster if this fire got any further out of control. She understood that as well as I did. After another glance at the clouded horizon, she gave me an acknowledging nod.

“Probably the best call. All right. Start on the far end, near the Boren Mountain range and then work inward. They’ll have started on the forest line.”

Made sense. “When we do dive in, I need you to keep an eye on my back. If anything sparks up again, tell me. I don’t want hot spots re-kindling the fire in our path.”

“Understood.”

It seemed like eons before we finally came close enough to the forest fire. I kept testing, straining to my limits to see or somehow control it from here. I could almost feel it well enough, but not so that I could actually do anything with it. The air got stuffier, hotter, as we approached. Mari reached into the packs behind her and tied a kerchief around both of our faces. She also grabbed the canteen and made me drink the whole thing down in preparation for having the heat suck me dry. The preparatory tasks helped speed time up a little, but not by much.

When I finally did make a connection with the fire, I let out a hiss of triumph from between my teeth and instantly snuffed it out. By that point, we were only a few miles away from the scorched edges of the forest. I took a brief look down, but it pretty much met my expectations—the earth black from soot and ashes, the remains of trees lying on the ground, the grey haze of smoke lingering. On the outskirts of this, a large group of men steadily dug lines of trenches to keep the fire from spreading, while others manned a large pump that sprayed water over the rest of the fire. From this height, they looked like miniature toys.

I focused back on the fire, reaching out with magic to snuff it out. In the next instant, we dove into the thickest section of smoke, making my eyes water and my nose tingle a little. Shaking it off, I narrowed my eyes to focus and kept working, extinguishing every bit of flame I could detect. With this thick smoke all around us, I had no landmarks to work off of, no way to tell distance or direction. It seemed like we flew straight through, as Kaya didn’t bank one direction or another, and that she flew for quite some distance before we broke through into clear air again.

I lifted the kerchief around my mouth and took in a deep breath of clear air. Then I took in another, feeling like I had been holding my breath the entire time we were in there.

Mari tapped my arm to get my attention. “Krys, two spots flared back up!”

“How can you tell?” I called back to her.

“Smoke patterns!”

And she could see this in this murky eddy of nothing but smoke and tell? Of course, she’s the expert at this sort of thing, not me.

Busted buckets. I nudged Kaya back around and dove back into the smoke, searching for the places Mari had seen. Fortunately, she had a better sense of direction than I, and quickly pointed both of them out. I snuffed them out, good and hard, then turned back around, aiming for the northern area that lay at the foot of the mountain.