First Hero (4 page)

A
breeze blew across the front of the cottage, carrying distant shouts from the village. The sounds of battle faded and stopped. Their work done, the raiders had departed.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, Tanner lifted his grandmother’s body — she was little more than skin and bones — and carried her indoors, carefully arranging her in front of the fire.

His grandmother’s box of oracle bones was lying near the table. Tanner lashed a foot toward it, scattering the pieces of bone across the floor.

So much for reading the future!

Gathering himself, he fetched a blanket from his grandmother’s bedroom and draped it over her body. He sank onto the floor beside her, reaching out for his grandmother’s hand, holding it in his lap. The flesh was already cooling. Her fingernails were yellow and ragged from a lifetime’s hard work.

For eight years she’s been like a mother to me, and this is how I repay her: by letting her die!

Through the haze of grief, he heard her last words again.
“Go to Colweir. Find the Mapmaker.”
But who
was
the Mapmaker? What did he have to do with the mask?

There was a screeching sound from outside, and a flurry of feathers. Firepos thrust open the door with her beak. Her gaze fell on Esme’s body.

Rage flooded through Tanner again. He snatched up a copper pan and hurled it at Firepos. It ricocheted off the Beast’s neck.

“Where were you when I needed you?” he yelled.

Firepos sank down onto her haunches, her shimmering gaze never leaving Tanner’s face. He felt suddenly ashamed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Firepos was holding one wing away from her body. Tanner saw the shaft of an arrow and leaking trails of blood across her feathers. She twisted her head, but couldn’t reach it. Tanner’s shame deepened. “Here,” he said. “Let me.”

Firepos lay down flat, extending her wing. The vicious barb had burst right through. Tanner snapped off the arrowhead and tossed it away, then stroked Firepos’s neck to calm her. Gripping the bloody end of the wood in one hand and steadying her wing with the other, he pulled firmly. Firepos shrieked as the shaft came loose. Flames spread over her wings, sealing the wound.

Tanner looked back at the house. He couldn’t leave his grandmother’s body in the front room.

He fetched a shovel from the outbuilding.

Tanner kissed Grandmother Esme’s brow for the last time; he would never feel her embrace again. Passing a hand down her face, he closed her eyes. He took the piece of red linen she used to tie back her dreadlocks and wrapped it around his wrist. Then he drew the blanket shroud over her face.

“Farewell, Grandmother,” he muttered. “Thank you for everything.”

After he had filled in her grave, he went back to the cottage. He didn’t need much for his journey, but there were two items that would be useful — his father’s possessions that Esme had kept. In her chest, he found the silver compass, polished to a shine. There was the Looking Crystal, too. It was an oblong of milky white stone. When Tanner held it to his eye, the swirling white would disappear and he could see across huge distances clearly. As a child, Tanner had marveled as he stared at distant mountains: The Looking Crystal made them look only a few paces away.

Firepos waited for him in front of the cottage. Tanner retrieved his sword, cleaned the blade, and sheathed it in his scabbard. Its weight against his side made him feel stronger.

Tanner looked back to the cottage for the last time. Without his grandmother, it could never be home again. He trudged toward the village, wondering if he could do anything to help. Firepos took to the air, watching him from above.

A choking canopy of smoke hung over the village. The gates lay on the ground where the varkules had battered them from their hinges. Crumpled bodies lay still, their limbs tangled and torn. The shouting and screaming had died away; the only sounds now were the crackling of flames that leaped from every cottage, and the moans and sobs of the few survivors. Tanner fought down a sickness that made him dizzy.

He saw a man rushing from the well with a pail of water to treat the grievous wounds of a boy on the ground. It was Ben, his face sheeted with blood.

A woman, stomach smeared in gore, stared up at him from the ground with unseeing eyes. A few paces away, a child’s body lay twisted in the dirt, golden curls matted with mud.

“Why has this happened?” a woman said, gazing at her dead child. She glanced up at Tanner. “Tell me!” she insisted, anger flooding her cheeks. “Why?”

Tanner shook his head. “I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I don’t know why.”

He turned on the spot, taking one last look at his shattered village. The fires were starting to burn out, leaving blackened shells where snug houses had stood such a short time before. Today’s attack on the villagers was surely linked with the death of his father all those years ago. His grandmother had hidden a fragment of the mask that had brought these men here today. Why hadn’t she destroyed it? Now Esme was dead — and others, too. Tanner felt guilty to still be alive.

“Firepos,” he said, turning to his Beast. “Take me away from here.”

T
anner awoke early the next morning. Firepos was standing guard over him. He stood next to his Beast and gazed out over Avantia. In the west, a black smudge stained the horizon.

“They must be burning the bodies,” Tanner said quietly. Grief settled in his stomach like cold stone. “We must honor Grandmother’s last words.”

Tanner leaped onto Firepos’s back. He felt relief at having a purpose that would distract him from the empty feeling of loss that gnawed at him. “Up, Firepos,” he cried. “To Colweir!”

Wind whipped through Tanner’s hair and clothes as Firepos hurtled through the sky.
Will the Mapmaker know I’m coming? What does he know about the mask?
Tanner wondered. And why did he have to find a map maker, anyway? Esme had never mentioned this person before.

Colweir was two days’ travel on foot, but soaring on Firepos would take much less time. He pressed himself into the sea of feathers, letting the Beast’s warmth pass to him. Woods and fields sped beneath them in a blur. He hadn’t flown this far east for many years.

Colweir was larger than Forton — a center of trade for many of the western settlements. It lay on the banks of the Winding River, where boats could unload and pick up cargo. Tanner steered Firepos along the river’s course, skimming low over the flashing water.

Tanner heard a distant booming, and as they rounded a curve in the river, he saw the sight he’d been dreading: Gor’s army, threading its way along the riverbank. Tanner pulled his father’s Looking Crystal out of its pouch and put it to his eye. The outriders seemed to leap toward him. Gor’s forces were marching at double speed, their leader mounted once again on his Beast, which was now in the form of a black stallion. One of the varkule riders was pounding a drum to keep time. Tanner’s blood ran cold.

Why are they heading for Colweir?
he wondered with a growing sense of dread.

Tanner swept across the riverbank and followed the army slowly, watching them from behind a ridge of rock. Gor was definitely heading to Colweir. Tanner remembered the rustle he’d heard from the bushes when Esme had whispered her last crucial words to him. He’d thought it was Firepos, but … One of Gor’s soldiers must have been spying on them!

Of course! That was why Gor let him live: He suspected Esme had a secret, and that she would give it up only to someone she trusted. And only then when she was at death’s door.
Did he kill my grandmother just to force her secrets from her?

Tanner’s grip tightened on Firepos’s feathers.
I brought them here
, he realized.
They’ll be after the Mapmaker, too. Why did I delay in coming?
Tanner cursed himself. He’d already seen how desperately the general had wanted the other pieces of the Mask of Death.
They’ve massacred so many and they’ll surely continue to do the same.

“We have to reach the town first,” he said to his Beast.

Firepos’s wings beat faster, leaving the army behind. With the wind rushing past him, Tanner shielded his eyes to scout the land. Just ahead, between the folds of two hills, he spotted clusters of red-tiled rooftops, veiled by smoke from their chimneys. Colweir. He shuddered to think of the people here meeting the same fate as those at Forton.

They crossed over lush, cultivated fields full of toiling peasants. A man — Tanner guessed he must be the landowner — was directing them from his horse. They were in the path of Gor’s army. Tanner pushed on Firepos’s neck, a signal to go lower. As they swept over the peasants’ heads, he called out. “Back to the town! Run back to the town!”

The peasants stared up in astonishment. One or two dropped their tools; these people had never seen a Beast before. Some might have recognized them from stories and pictures — the Beasts of Avantia were well-known in legends. Tanner knew that few believed that these creatures really existed, and the occasional sightings that had occurred over the years were usually dismissed as fanciful tales, or the result of too much ale!

Tanner made another pass, waving at the peasants. “Flee back to your town and close the gates. An army approaches!”

The man on horseback motioned to his workers to head to Colweir. They obeyed, glancing with frightened eyes at Firepos. Tanner suspected it was not his order as much as the sight of Firepos that made them run, but the effect was what he wanted. The horseman turned his mount toward the river and cantered off. Tanner turned Firepos around and swept over the peasants’ heads. How long did he have before Gor reached Colweir?

They soared over the red rooftops, Firepos’s shadow flickering below. Tanner spotted a man selling pies from a tray, children running along the street tossing a ball to one another, and a man perched on one of the nearest rooftops, mending the tiles. He looked up as Firepos skimmed past and nearly lost his balance.

Tanner urged Firepos into a steep bank.
Take us down
, he signaled to her.

The Beast dipped her wings and glided downward toward an open cobbled square beside the river, which ran past the edge of the town. A wide wooden bridge spanned the water — Tanner knew that Gor would lead his attack over this bridge.

Market stalls were set up in the square. On the far bank stood a water mill, its large waterwheel turning in the rapid current. Beside it, a man was unloading sacks from a pack mule.

The villagers in the market scattered out of the way and cried out as the magnificent flame bird descended into their midst, her talons scraping and sparking on the cobblestones. Tanner could only imagine what it must be like for these people to see her for the first time: her feathers rippling like molten gold, her hooked beak like polished amber.

“Do not be afraid!” he called. “She won’t harm you.”

The townsfolk who had not fled cautiously peered out from behind their stalls. With tentative steps, they began to emerge, staring and muttering nervously to one another. A few of them inched closer. Firepos settled onto her haunches, trying to make herself look as nonthreatening as possible.

A girl of Tanner’s age, her hair so fair it was almost white, walked up to Firepos, her face lit up with curiosity.

“Gwen, no!” shouted a boy from where he cowered behind an overturned barrel. He was as fair as the girl and had an identical curl to his lip.

“I’ll be fine, Geffen,” the girl replied.

They must be twins
, Tanner thought.

Gwen stretched out her hand to stroke the flame bird’s gleaming feathers. Tanner wasn’t sure whether he would have been so brave. The girl smiled up at him. “She’s beautiful.”

Firepos gave her a friendly nudge with her beak.

Taking courage from Gwen’s example, the villagers formed a circle around Tanner and Firepos. They kept a safe distance, but were obviously fascinated by the Beast and her strange rider. Relieved that the villagers had accepted them, Tanner scrambled upright onto Firepos’s back. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “You must leave Colweir! An army approaches. They destroyed my village and killed everyone.”

The townspeople looked at one another, then back up at Tanner, but none of them made a move.

“What are you talking about?” a plump stallholder scoffed. “What tall tale is this?”

Tanner’s eyes flickered west. How close was Gor? He remembered the horror of Forton — he did not need to imagine the terror these people would feel when the varkules ran into the square, tearing at everyone with their daggerlike teeth.
It must not happen here as well!

“You’re trying to scare us out of our town.” A tall man pushed his way to the front and gave Tanner a hostile glare. “Then you can take what you want.”

“No! Just listen to me ….” Tanner began to protest.

An older woman in a white apron stepped out from behind a baker’s stall to address the crowd. “What are you waiting for, you cowards? Run this boy and his unnatural creature out of our town!”

A chorus of agreement followed her words.

“Get out now!” someone yelled.

“You don’t understand,” shouted Tanner. “If you don’t do something …” He was drowned out by angry shouts. The crowd began to advance. Firepos stood up and unfurled her wings.

The sound of a galloping horse thundering over the bridge caused a few villagers to turn. Tanner saw that it was the horseman from the field. His face was grim as he pulled his horse to a halt in front of the crowd. “Gather your weapons,” he shouted. “An army is on its way.”