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Authors: Shannon Hale

Enna Burning (17 page)

BOOK: Enna Burning
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The soldiers outside had grown quiet. She peered out the flap. The guard and three soldiers she could see were asleep, the others gone. Scarcely believing it could be so easy, Enna slipped out into the chilly night.

The camp was quiet. Most of the soldiers stationed there must have marched with Sileph or Tiedan. If only she could catch up with Isi. There was little chance of finding Razo and Finn, freeing them, and getting to Isi in time, so she would have to get back to her tent before anyone noticed she had left. Trying to look casual and still not make noise, Enna picked her way through the sleeping bodies and toward the edge of camp.

“Stop there, fire-witch.” Two soldiers returned carrying a pot of stew. Their cheeks were a rough red. “Just where are you so set on going?”

“To the privy,” she said, nearly spitting at them with the words.

The heat from the soldiers and their fire was crashing against her skin as though it sensed her anxiety and wanted to aid her. Suddenly, everything looked like fodder. For a time, Sileph had tricked her into forgetting that Tira was her enemy. But the fire needed fuel, and she needed an enemy, and the two had converged once again. The urge had not been so powerful since the night she burned the gallows.

“Not without us, you don’t. We will be glad to help you.”

One of the soldiers grabbed her arm with a sickly smile. She pushed him off. He stepped closer, gripping the neck of her dress and pulling her face close to his. His breath was thick with the sweet, rotten-fruit smell of drunkenness. His hands were hot.

“Don’t provoke me, my lady fire. All I need is one reason to kill you right now and call it an accident.”

“Get your hands off me, pig-boy,” she said through her teeth.

“That is a pretty good reason.” He shoved her back and took up his sword.

As he raised his sword for a neck swipe and the other drew his sword, Enna pulled in heat and sent it into both their hilts. With a painful gasp they dropped their swords. Enna sucked the heat out of the metal to cool them, sent it into the still blazing fire, and picked up both swords. She held one aloft, the blade pointed at the neck of the nearest guard, and said in a low voice, “Call out or dash away and I’ll either run you through or burn you up, whichever’s easier.”

Enna did not know how to use a sword and did not dare start a fire lest it spread and warn Razo and Finn’s guards, but the drunken men believed her threat, nodding with frightened wide eyes. One took a step backward, slipped onto his rear, then looked at her as though she had made him do it. With a sword, Enna cut a length of rope off the nearest tent and told one to tie up the other. Then she cut more rope, letting the tent slump down, and tied up the second man. She hacked two pieces of fabric from the tent for gags and, smiling, turned to leave the camp.

And smelled burning cloth. The tent had fallen into the fire pit and was blazing.

Razo and Finn. Their guards had orders to kill them at the first sign of unusual fire. In panic, she sucked the heat out of the burning tent, enough to extinguish the flames, and with the heat raging in her chest looked around wildly for a place to send it. Nothing. She let it go on the bare ground, and the fire burst in a brief, bright explosion.

“What’s all this?” The inebriated soldiers around her tent stirred at the sudden pop of her blaze. She was tugging the fallen tent away from the campfire, but it had lit again. One of her guards stood and began to shout, “Fire, fire!”

“Hush up. There’s nothing. It’s fine.”

But he continued to shout. Across the camp, Enna heard the answering calls from sentries:
“Fire!”
She cursed, abandoned the tent to its flames, and ran toward the center of camp. Two of the soldiers roused and called after her, “Stop there! Fire-witch escaped!” She heard swords ringing free of sheaths. She could not stop to deal with them now. With a backward glance she sent fire into their swords.

The screams that followed stopped her cold. She looked back to see a soldier beating at the flames that clawed up his tunic. She rushed back, sucking the heat from that fire and setting the ground before him ablaze.

“I didn’t mean . . . ” Her stomach turned to see she had broken that rule again, as she had with the sentry, as she had tried with Isi. Keeping her promise felt like her only safeguard against losing herself completely to the fire. She looked around—soldiers yelled across camp to one another, one tent was crushed to black remains fuming smoke, one beside it split with fresh flames. The soldier lay before her, his tunic still smoking, and he watched her with angry, fearful eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said to him. “But Razo and Finn, and Bayern, they’re more important.” She fought a wave of nausea at her resolve as she turned and ran, but she knew now that to save them and stop the war, she would have to break all her rules, even the one that killed Leifer. Eventually she would have to surrender to the fire.

She raced through the tented camp to the town. To add to the confusion, she scorched the tents in passing. Wherever sentries or soldiers tried to stop her, she sent fire, hopefully into their blades and bows, but she did not look back.

The first building she reached appeared to be an old barn. Only one young guard stood before its bolted door, staring at her with wide eyes, holding up his sword in defense. She heated his sword and he dropped it, his expression barely changing, as though he had been expecting that. She held up her two swords to his throat, but they were too heavy, so she dropped one and held the other with both hands.

“Where’re the two Bayern boys kept?”

The soldier shook his head.
Burn him
, prompted the fire. The excitement of burning was simmering in her, heating her up for more action. She felt invincible and dangerous and at the edge of surrender, the means to burn more than she ever had before. But she resisted, for now.

“I think you should run now,” she said, and he did not delay.

Inside, several taken Bayern women and some townsmen stood in the center of the barn, fear in their faces. Enna recognized the blue-eyed woman.

“Where’re my two friends?”

“In the old merchant’s house,” said the woman.

“Show me.” Enna took her arm and hurried her out of the barn. Behind them, the Bayern prisoners fled, two picking up the swords Enna and the guard had dropped.

Enna let the woman lead her through town while she scanned for soldiers. She continued to send flames into tents, wagons, anything that was Tiran made. She was not conscious of having to pull the heat from anywhere—it seemed to follow her now, hover around her like a swarm of wasps. The woman struggled to loose her arm from Enna’s.

“What’re you doing?” Enna asked. “I need your help.”

“Yes, I’ll help, girl,” said the woman, rubbing one arm with the other, “but you’re so hot.”

Enna glanced down at herself. Her clothes appeared to be steaming faintly in the cold air. She nodded. “Lead the way.”

They ran to the house and found it guarded by four soldiers. One held his sword to the throat of a bound, blindfolded Finn. Enna did not hesitate. While still advancing, she set fire to three soldiers’ leggings. They screamed and dropped to the ground, trying at once to put out the fire and move farther away. The soldier holding Finn blinked.

“Kill him and you’re dead,” said Enna. “Drop your sword and I’ll let you run.”

He blinked again, let his sword fall, and scurried down the dark street.

Enna ripped off the blindfold and sawed through the ropes around Finn’s wrists and ankles. They fell, revealing raw, red welts. Enna hissed at the sight, and that place in her chest yawned, aching for heat. She met Finn’s eyes. He would have a scar down his cheek when a cut there healed, and his eye was green with an old bruise, but he smiled.

“Hello, Enna,” he said, his voice creaking from disuse.

“Hello, Finn,” she said softly. The heat around her dissolved for a moment. She felt her heart beat in that emptiness, and for the first time in weeks she felt something like good, clean hope. Shouts from down the street were getting closer.

“Razo?”

“Inside,” he said.

“More guards?”

Finn shook his head. Enna pushed them both in the door and out of view of any archers, gave Finn her sword to loose Razo, and turned to the blue-eyed woman.

“Have you heard anything?” she asked.

“Sileph’s army marched three days ago, Tiedan’s yesterday. Don’t know where Sileph went, but I heard Tiedan is headed for the capital. They’re marching west of Ostekin.”

Enna smiled. “You’ve heard quite a bit. Thanks. Now we could use horses.”

The woman pointed to the near end of camp.

“You should get out of here, and let others out if you can,” said Enna.

“All right,” she said, but stopped to put her fingers on Enna’s forehead. She frowned. “Be careful,” she said, and ran out of the barn.

Enna turned to see Razo and Finn, both armed with swords, both looking skinny, sickly, and anxious, but also a little pleased.

“Oh,” she said, “they’ve been so cruel.”

Razo shrugged, then winced in pain. “We’re all right. You look pretty good, pretty well fed and all. That’s a nice dress.”

“It’s new,” she said, despising herself. “I’m sorry, Razo, Finn. I’m just so sorry.”

Razo shrugged, then winced again. Something in his manner reminded her fiercely of Leifer. She nearly sighed in contentment just to be speaking with Finn and Razo again. She had thought she was alone, but she knew now that she had been wrong. Razo, Isi, and Finn felt like her last family, and one that she was determined to keep.

“You’ve got to stop shrugging,” she said, almost laughing. “What happened to your shoulder?”

“It was that captain, uh, Silver or something. He came in one day, mad as a chased hornet, and just took to beating us.”

Enna blinked slowly. “Sileph did.”

Razo nodded. “Oh, I’m all right. Alive. Just pulled my arm out of joint or something. He hit Finn harder, huh?”

Finn just gave a half smile and looked at his boots.

“Who was the third boy who came with you, the one killed?” she asked.

Razo and Finn glanced at each other.

“Don’t know what you mean,” said Razo. “We two came alone. Talone didn’t even know.”

“But wasn’t there . . . Sileph said . . .” Enna stopped. It had been another lie, of course, told to make her a little more unsure, work on her to believe that Razo and Finn had been assassins. Enna squinted, seeing Finn turn a sickly yellow, then noticed that the yellowish shade was everywhere. The heat was suddenly awful, and she realized that she was enraged. She spoke slowly with forced calm, almost afraid that if she spoke with her real anger, her very words could scorch them.

“We’re getting horses and riding north. I’ve got to finish this.”

From outside, they could hear soldiers shouting. The fire blazed inside her; she resisted and immediately felt her body cringe and loosen. Her knees gave and she slumped. Finn was beside her, his arm supporting her.

“Easy, Enna, you all right?”

She nodded and the room wobbled. “It’s worse, Finn. I started to let go out there, burning people and all. The fire wants to keep going; it wants all of me.” She swallowed and felt her dry throat scrape against itself. “I’ve got to stop for a minute, so I can last until we find the army.”

Finn set her carefully against the wall. “Sit easy. We’ll take care of them.”

“No worries, Enna-girl,” said Razo, raising his sword with an eagerness that belied his tired, bruised body.

The door thrust open and five soldiers entered. Enna managed to burn a few swords out of hands before she concentrated on letting go of the heat, on breathing clear air. Behind the swirls of yellow and orange, she heard Finn and Razo fighting. She had no doubt they would win. They had to win now that she knew what she must do.

After a time, Finn’s mild voice said, “We’re ready, Enna.”

She opened her eyes and nodded. “Let’s go.”

Hours later, they rode in the wake of the army. The frozen grass and wheat stubble was well trampled, the area scarred with the black pockmarks of fire pits. Sometimes, from far ahead, Enna could feel a tremendous heat. The cold night and the wind of riding fast had cooled her off. Now the rim of the sun was blazing over the horizon, and the promise of battle and the heat of hundreds of bodies began to taunt her. The hollowness in her chest throbbed like a wound.

“Let’s skirt them if we can,” she said.

Razo and Finn nodded. They had managed to scavenge some armor and two shields in Eylbold. Finn’s helm made him look much older. Razo’s was ill-fitting and tended to slip forward over his brow, and he reminded Enna of a small boy playing at dress-up. She cringed at the thought of his getting killed.

“On second thought, I’ll go alone,” she said. “You two go straight to the capital or Ostekin—whichever you think best—and warn.”

Finn and Razo glanced at each other.

“Enna,” Razo said gently, as though talking to an ill person or a child. She noticed he did not call her Enna-girl, and the abbreviation seemed to warn of something ending. “I think it’s a bit late for caution. Scouts must’ve seen them by now, and the king’s reinforcements’ll come as soon as they can.”

BOOK: Enna Burning
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