Firehurler (Twinborn Trilogy) (7 page)

Denrik tried to block the silly banter of questions
from his mind as he sought to find the peaceful rest needed to meditate. His
muscles were still relaxing from the long day’s work, and he was still sweating
out the late-evening heat from his body—he was not ready for sleep quite yet.
And so he drifted into introspection, fleeing the ennui of his present and
wandering rather unwillingly into his unpleasant past. If only his wandering
mind was as obedient as his waking one …

*
* * * * * * *

“Ow, watch it with those,” he complained, rubbing the
sore shoulder where the apple had struck him. He was a small boy again, perhaps
eight years old.

“Oops, sorry, Deni,” his brother Kennon called down
from above, amid his giggling amusement at his little prank.

Denrik hated this memory.

Kennon was four years older than Denrik, and the two
were nearly inseparable, despite the fact that Kennon teased him and picked on
him all the time. It could hardly be helped, since Father would not let him go
anywhere unless he agreed to stay with his older brother. Given a choice
between the two of them, Denrik chose his brother’s company every time.

Denrik tried to duck the next apple as it sailed down
at him, but it clipped him in the shoulder anyway.

“Stop it, Ken!” he whined up to his brother.

Kennon was sitting up in the higher branches of an
apple tree and was supposed to be tossing apples to Denrik to put in the sack
he carried. They were not supposed to be in the Climmons’ orchard, but it was late
summer and the leaves on the apple trees were thick enough to conceal them
rather well if they drew no other attention to themselves. Kennon’s horseplay
was causing more noise than Denrik had hoped they would make. Denrik was scared
of the beating they would get from Father if Mr. Climmons caught them stealing
apples.

He saw a third apple coming right at his face and only
had enough time to turn his head before it clobbered him just above the ear.
Denrik lost track of the next couple seconds and saw grass just inches from his
face when he reoriented himself.

“Yeah, bull’s-eye!” came a triumphant cry from above.

Putting fingers to the side of his head, Denrik felt a
sticky mix of apple juice and a bit of blood running down toward his face.

“You asked for it!” Denrik yelled, forgetting for the
moment his fear of being heard.

Fallen apples around the tree far outnumbered those
still in the branches within Kennon’s easy reach. Denrik began hurling them
back up at his adversary. Dizzy as he was, and with the scrawny arms typical of
very young boys, few came near the mark. Ken taunted him from the branches,
saying he threw like a little girl and daring him to come up and get him. Then
chance, aided perhaps by a bit of anger and wounded pride, helped one apple
find its mark. Kennon threw his arms up in front of him as it was coming for
his face, and in his panic, he overbalanced.

Arms flailed as Kennon toppled backward off the branch
he had been sitting on. He grabbed at the lower branches as he crashed by them,
but he could find no hold to stop his fall, and in grabbing just ended up
jerking his body wildly in his fall.

Crunch!

Denrik remembered the sound vividly, even nearly forty
years later. Kennon had fallen headfirst to the ground a few feet from the base
of the tree and lay their motionless. When his brother continued to lie
completely still, Denrik stood staring and his breath quickened. He did the
only thing he could think to do. He ran to the farmhouse as fast as he could to
find Mr. Climmons.

The old apple farmer seemed to gather from Denrik’s
panicked confession and plea only that someone was hurt in the orchard. He let
Denrik take his hand and nearly pull him out the door of his own house and into
the orchard.

“You have to help him, he is hurt real bad, see?”

Denrik pointed under the tree where he and his brother
had been fighting. Next to the discarded sack, still half full of stolen
apples, lay Kennon. The boy’s neck was twisted at a grotesque angle.

The older man put his hand around Denrik’s shoulder.
Denrik could almost feel the rough firmness of it again, setting heavily on his
slender frame. It was as if he could feel the old man’s grief pressing down on
him.

“No, he is not hurt, son. Not anymore. The dead do not
feel pain. Now come on, let us get you inside. I will see that someone goes to
get your pappy and tell him.”

That night, Denrik was beaten worse than he thought
possible. When it seemed like the beating had gone on forever, he found himself
suddenly alone on the floor of the woodshed behind his father’s barn. He could
not get up. Everything hurt too much. In the hours it took him to cry himself
to sleep, he could not help but remember the farmer’s words: “The dead do not
feel pain.” He repeated them in his head until slumber rescued him.

So long as he could still feel the pain, he was still
alive.

*
* * * * * * *

Denrik wished his thoughts would stop wandering down
those dark paths from his youth. The memories still seemed fresh in his mind,
even after so many years had passed. But there was no longer the same sense of
horror that overcame him when he thought back on how his father nearly killed
him that day. Even in the pitch darkness of the cell, Denrik held his arm up in
front of him—as best he could with another bunk less than a foot overhead—and
imagined he could make out the scars left by his father’s belt.

To help banish the fearful remembrances of that night,
he forced his thoughts down a more satisfying path. He pictured again his
father’s bedroom, the blankets drenched in blood, his father’s eyes opened in
one last split second of shocked horror. He saw in his mind’s eye the hand of a
fourteen-year-old boy—still bruised from defending himself from a beating the
day before at the hands of the same father that seconds later became a corpse—holding
a knife meant for butchering chickens.

Those were his last thoughts for the night as sleep
finally claimed him. Then he dreamed of freedom—and of vengeance of a different
sort.

Chapter
6 - Flight from the Battlefield

What have I done
? That was Brannis’s first thought as the realization of the battle’s
end sunk in. All about him lay the unmoving bodies of the men he had shared a
meal and tales with over the previous night’s dinner, intermingled with the
scrawny forms of their goblin adversaries. There were few survivors of the
battle on either side. With forces well matched and a fierce determination to
prevail, both sides had fought to near annihilation. It was not until the
goblins lost the last of their sorcerers, and presumably whoever had led them,
that they realized that the remaining humans outmatched them, and they fled.
Iridan’s pyrotechnics had been the final seal upon their decision to withdraw.

Iridan!

Quickly Brannis turned to regard the spot where his
friend had fallen, wincing at the sharp pain the movement caused his right
shoulder. The shoulder was not dislocated, he knew, for he still had some use
of the arm, but the blast he had deflected with Massacre had wrenched it
horribly. Brannis saw the few remaining men of his command congregating near a
scorched spot on the ground, the center of which held Iridan’s still body. It
was as if the sorcerer’s loss of control had created an artificial desert of
parched and barren land around him, more than the length of two tall men in every
direction. None of the soldiers or knights dared cross the “border” where the
living grass gave way to the dead, scorched dust. They had all seen what
happened before when one approached, for charred skeletons of former goblins
lay alongside Iridan.

Brannis lost track of time in a blur, his thoughts
churning. He was vaguely aware of running across the battlefield and pushing
past his men. Next he knew, he was kneeling beside Iridan’s crumpled form,
turning him and laying him flat on his back on the baked turf, which was still
eerily warm to the touch. Iridan made no movement, and his limp limbs flopped
helplessly as Brannis rolled him onto his back. Bending over Iridan’s body,
Brannis put his ear to his friend’s nose. He could hear no breathing, but a rhythmic
tickling of air brushed past his ear—Iridan yet lived. Brannis let out an
audible sigh of relief.

“He is still alive,” he announced to the anxious men
surrounding him.

With worries for his friend at least momentarily
allayed, he turned his attention to the remains of his battalion.

“Any of you who are injured, see first to your own
wounds. Those who are able, we must check to see if there are any who yet live
among the fallen. And check the goblins, too, for it would not surprise me if
some felt it prudent to impersonate a corpse rather than risk becoming one.”

Taking stock of his own health, Brannis found that he
had suffered no worse than the shoulder injury, which nagged at him. His armor
bore a scorched mark in the center where the goblin blast had struck him after Massacre
had turned aside most of its strength. The sword bore no mark of the impact
when he found it, lying several paces from where it had flown from his hand.
The weeds and grass around where the sword had lain were all dead and withered,
but the mist had ceased to fall from the blade. It had depleted its reserve of
aether and would feel heavier and slower than it normally did, and the mist
would not return until someone replenished the sword’s store of aether.

Brannis aided in the search for survivors, though he
did his best not to stray far from the spot where Iridan lay. It was a grim
task for all, to search among the faces of the fallen and see friends and
comrades. The goblins, it seemed, had seen fit even in the heat of battle to
spare a spear-thrust for a downed human. Knights were plentiful among the dead
as well. The attention that a knight drew on the field of battle outstripped
the extra protection his superior armor provided, and the joints between plates
sheared spear tips easily when they were thrust between, as the goblins
intended. Of all the knights, only Brannis and Lugren now remained. Sir Aric,
made of tougher stuff than he would probably have wished, had been found still
alive despite a blade broken in his side, and he had suffering greatly. Having
neither the means to remove the blade nor carry him without further harming
him, it was with a heavy heart that Brannis took it upon himself to carry out
the older knight’s last request, gasped out between pained, shallow breaths. It
was the first time Brannis had ever killed another human.

When it was determined that there were no more
survivors among the fallen, Brannis took count of his men. Aside from himself
and Sir Lugren, he had only ten soldiers left to his command. Estimates varied
from man to man as to how many of the goblins had managed to escape, but all
agreed that at least a handful of the little runts had managed to elude the
fate of their comrades. There had been no chase, for goblins could outrun men
easily enough, given how lightly they traveled.

As Brannis looked into the weary faces of his men, he
took note of one whom he did not expect to see among them.

“Jodoul, when did you join the fighting? We gave you
neither armor nor spear, and yet here you stand, both armored and bloodied from
battle. How came you by that armor?”

Though Brannis felt obliged to ask, he dreaded the
likely answer. The grim necessities of war oft require unsavory deeds, but the
thought of stripping the dead left a poor taste in his mouth.

“Well, I saw your sorcerer was unarmored as the
fighting broke out and made no move to find it afore he started his spells.
Well, in my company, our man Kelurian was always grumblin’ ’bout having to go
about dressed like us grunts in heavy steel and all. I figured yours musta
refused to wear his, and so I sneaked to his tent when things started getting
hairy and nicked his mail shirt and cap.

“I couldn’t just sit on my arse while everyone else
was fightin’.” He grinned sheepishly. “Sorry, sir.”

“But wait, there were no extra spears in camp, or
shields,” Sir Lugren cut in. “That at least I am sure of. How did you not get
torn to bits by goblin spears?”

“Well, sir, I took up one of the bows your folks kept
around and made use of it like a club, see? As for the shield bit, well, I
never exactly made my way to the shield wall with the other fellows. I sorta
snuck ’round the side o’ the battle a bit and came up on them from behind,
quiet like.”

“I see,” Brannis replied, intrigued despite his
weariness. “Well, we shall talk of it later. Right now, we must get clear of
this battlefield. If the survivors among the goblins manage to return with
reinforcements, we had best not be here. Gather what supplies you can carry and
assemble at the riverbank.”

There was an uneasy stirring among the men, and they
hesitated before slowly moving to obey their commander. Brannis knew what they
were thinking, and he understood their reluctance.

In a quiet voice, he added, “I know, it pains me as
well. They are our friends and brothers in arms. To leave them here to be found
by wolves and crows does not do these brave men justice, but neither would our
deaths, and that is what remaining to burn them would bring. It is too great a
task for so few to do in haste. Our duty lies in returning to the Empire with
news of these battles and the strength of the goblin presence in Kelvie Forest.
Each of us must remember that, for if anyone becomes the last survivor among
us, he must carry on this task. Now make haste, for we cannot know when our
enemies may return in strength!”

At this pronouncement, his men quickened to their
chore, for they heard their own anguish echoing in Sir Brannis’s words. They
knew that though the leaving of their comrades’ bodies was a callous thing to
do, they did it for a greater duty that pressed on them.

The gathering of all that was fit to be carried took
less time than Brannis would have thought, and for entirely the wrong reasons.
Fire and blasts of aether had been hurled about with wanton savagery that it had
left little unscathed among the provisions. There was food to be had and skins
of water left undamaged, but there still was not enough to fill the packs of
the men who were fit to carry them. The cookware had been flung far afield by
Iridan’s magic, and lay blood splattered and dented in a wide swath of woods
just outside of camp. Many tents were burnt and others flattened, and Brannis
decided that they would leave them behind anyway as they were cumbersome to
pack in haste. The bows and arrows that had been used for hunting were not to
be found and were assumed to have been consumed utterly in magical fire, and
even the bow that Jodoul had taken as a club had been snapped in twain in the
line of duty.

So it was with little more than spears and what foodstuffs
they could carry that the men of Brannis’s command gathered near the banks of
the river. Brannis’s own pack clattered under the heavy burden of eight swords
and as many signet rings—heirlooms of the knights that had fallen in battle and
which needed to be brought to their kin. From tent poles and canvas, they had
made a litter on which to carry the still form of Iridan, for until the gravest
peril forced them otherwise, they would carry with them the fallen sorcerer who
had saved their lives that day.

The fording of the river was a simple—if
unpleasant—task, with only the concern for keeping Iridan from going beneath
the water slowing their progress. The river was only some fifty paces from bank
to bank and chest-deep at the middle. The current flowed at a leisurely pace
that did little to hinder them as they crossed, though the bottom was muddy and
tugged at their boots each time they lifted them.

*
* * * * * * *

They were exhausted and still damp when they stopped
at midday to rest and take a meal. Miles lay between them and the river, and
they had traveled mainly north, bearing slightly eastward. The woods were
lighter than they had been around the campsite, with warm, bright sunshine
streaming down between the canopies of tall, thin trees that Brannis could not
name. Several men removed their chain armor and the garments beneath to air
them in the warm breeze and drive out the wetness that had clung to them since
their fording of the river. The rest quickly followed suit, with even Sir
Lugren and Brannis taking off their heavy armor and letting it dry in the wind.

“Well, now that we have run blindly north throughout
the whole of the morning, it is time we made a plan,” Sir Lugren said. “We have
put distance between ourselves and the goblins, and bought time enough to let
cool heads decide our course.”

“I have already figured out our course,” Brannis
replied easily. “My mind was not idle as we trekked through the woods. Had we
turned south immediately after the battle, we could have made for Korgen and reached
it in two days, perhaps. But our message needs to reach the high command so
they can gather a force large enough to rout these goblins. A messenger from
Korgen would either have to cross the Bay of Naran by boat, or turn back north
and take the pass through the mountains. No, from here we turn our course
eastward and make for the High Pass. We shall cross over there and get horses
from the garrison at Tibrik. There we can leave those fatigued or suffering
small injuries and send the rest ahead to Kadris to deliver news to the Sir
Garibald and the high command.”

“I stand corrected then, for our flight was not so
blind as I had thought,” said Lugren, who obviously had wrestled with concern
for his commander’s prudence during their retreat northward but had kept his
thoughts to himself until just then.

“No, you were right that we went blindly. I kept our
course facing northward by the sun alone. We had no map left after the battle
that was in fit condition to guide our path, and I do not know precisely where
we stand within Kelvie. It mattered little to my thinking, for the Cloud Wall
Mountains lie east of here and cannot be missed. Once we break through the tree
line and reach the foothills in the shadow of the mountains, we can reconnoiter
and set our path aright. The High Pass lies just south of the Cradle Peaks, and
I daresay we can judge those by sight.”

Brannis thought the plan simple enough. Even with no
map, the Cradle Peaks were the two tallest points in the Cloud Wall, and could
hardly be mistaken, for they rose up as a great pair among the lesser peaks.

Iridan had shown no sign of improvement since they
carried him from the battlefield. His breathing was still shallow, and he had
grown pale, even compared to his normally light complexion. They had not tried
to rouse him to partake of their lunch, worrying that even if it was possible
to revive him, it might do more harm than good. It was yet another dark cloud
that hung over the mood of the weary soldiers.

*
* * * * * * *

Brannis led his men northward through Kelvie Forest.
After their meal and rest, he decided to hold their course northward until
nightfall, turning eastward in the morning. He was hesitant to give away their
eventual destination until he shook the nagging feeling that they were being
followed. Of course, Brannis was not the only one among them who had such
suspicions. Squirrels, birds, even the rustling of the wind in the leaves of
the trees above them: all gave pause to those who feared pursuit by a stealthy
adversary. Not every sound that was heard was so easily explained away, either.
The hours wore on the nerves of Brannis’s troops.