The Firebrand Legacy (15 page)

David’s voice trailed off as they neared the
Navafort-Fletchkey border. Thick brick walls towered on the
horizon, surrounded by fields of cotton, indigo, and corn that the
centaurs sold downriver.

“It’s Midway,” Carine breathed. “I’ve only
ever seen this in murals.”

Giles smirked. “Just wait until you see
Verdiford.”

David clicked his tongue. “Their torch is out
too.”

Unlike Esten’s dragon statue, the torch at
Midway was stately: a large, smooth pillar that touted the strength
of the centaurs that built it.

“Have any Heartless entered Midway?” Carine
asked.

David shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out.”

But as the horses approached the closed
gates, Carine made the unnerving observation that not a single
farmer stood among the fields. Even the city itself seemed quiet.
At the twisting iron gates, Carine and the princes jumped down from
the horses.

“This isn’t normal,” David said. The first
thirty feet of a clean straight road were visible through the bars.
After that, houses blocked the view.

“This is Prince David, grandson of your king.
Is anyone there?” David said.

No answer.

He opened his mouth to yell, but Carine held
his arm. “Quiet! What if there’s a Heartless One in there?”

Giles stood with one arm across his chest and
his other hand under his chin. His lips were pursed as he gazed
into the city. “The gates of Midway do not close.”

“What is that?” Carine asked. “A poem or
something?”

“It’s a fact. Midway thrives in its trade. It
would never shut its gates.”

“So we should leave right now,” Carine said,
mounting one of the horses. “Let’s go around.”

“How exactly do you plan to do that?” Giles
asked. “We need to go north, but a river blocks us. To circle
around the city in the other direction would take even longer.”

“No, wait!” David pointed through the bars.
“There’s someone in there.
Hey! I see you! Open these
gates!
”

A man with white frizzy hair ducked back
behind a wall.

“What is he doing? Hey! We are your
princes!”

“Let’s go,” Carine said. “We’re wasting time,
and I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

“We can help you,” David said through the
bars. “Get us through Midway and we’ll get Kavariel to relight your
torch.”

Suddenly, the cornstalks bowed as a cold
breeze swept through the thin fabric of Carine’s surcoat. At first,
the silent bowing appeared to be a dramatic reaction to the wind.
The tops of the stalks swung low, hugging the earth, and staying
there. It began with the stalks along the path, but swept out to
all the fields. Every inch of crop folded over.

“What’s happening?” David whispered.

“The entire field is bending over, like it’s
been trampled,” Limly said.

Carine saw her own terror in his face. “Let’s
move!” Her horse whinnied nervously.

Giles pulled out his sword. “We can’t outrun
him.”

“What are you doing?” Carine hissed.

He ignored her. “Show yourself,” Giles
commanded simply.

The sorcerer didn’t answer. The grain had all
fallen over, and it remained so. Nothing else moved.

“Show yourself,” Giles repeated. His vocal
control gave Carine courage. “I know you hear me. Are you not only
Heartless but devoid of courage too? Show yourself.”

Maybe it wasn’t a Heartless One. Maybe it was
the one that had killed Selius, one that could manipulate nature on
his own.

“Maybe he’s gone,” Carine said. “Let’s get on
the horses and go.”

“And if he’s not?”

Carine’s blood boiled. “Get on the horses.
I’ve told you a million times. We can’t fight him. We have to
run!”

She pushed David toward the horse, but it
reared out of control. Carine reached for the reigns, but the horse
bolted into the field, receding into the distance as a brown line
among rows of green.

The other horse reared as well, and Limly
held on with all his might. It sprang away, but Limly, unable to
hold on, fell to the ground.

“Limly!” David ran into the field, but Carine
stayed with Giles, glad that at least he had a drawn sword. David
and the servant emerged from the field, Limly hobbling quickly back
to his second charge, Prince Giles.

Carine turned to the gate, searching for the
old man, who showed only his eyes and forehead as he looked out.
“Help us,” Carine begged. “Please.”

He disappeared again behind the wall.

She pounded her fist against the bars. “Don’t
leave! Let us in!”

“Carine,” David panted, voice rising, “close
your eyes.”

Before she could ask why, the ground shook.
Not the ground exactly, but the path. More specifically, the
particles of dirt trembled. They shook and sifted upward, like
slow, inverted rain. The dust plumed, engulfing the four in a cloud
of red silt.

Limly, David, and Carine backed together
against the closed gates. Carine coughed. David coughed. Giles
coughed, but she could barely see him through the cloud, just a
dark silhouette. She tried to bat the silt away. “He’s choking
us.”

“No,” said Giles. He sounded closer than he
looked. She could barely see him now. “Not choking. Blinding.”

The wind whispered far away. It did not
change how the silt hung in the air.

Through the red dust appeared a hooded
silhouette. He whispered two words:

“You left.”

The sorcerer’s whisper attested to the
silence. Only because they all held their breath could they hear
his voice. Carine’s heart pounded. Her hand was sweating as she
squeezed David’s. She felt his pulse in her grip.

Giles slammed his sword toward the sorcerer,
aiming for his side, but he did not scream. Instead, the sword flew
from Giles’ hand and landed at David’s feet. Giles moved again.
Through the dust, Carine saw the short edge of Giles’ knife. He
leapt to attack again, but this time he didn’t get close. The knife
flew away and hurtled toward them.

Carine ducked.

The knife struck flesh. Carine opened her
eyes. Blood spilled. Limly clutched his bleeding neck. He exhaled
and dropped.

“Limly!” Carine knelt, cradling him to keep
his head from falling back. “He’s bleeding out.” Blood pooled on
Limly’s shirt, staining the indigo flag. It dribbled onto Carine’s
surcoat. Limly’s eyes widened and looked between Carine and David.
He tried to speak, but no sound came.

The sorcerer stared down. Carine couldn’t see
his face through the silt, especially not with the hood blocking
his eyes.

Blood gurgled between Limly’s fingers. David
ripped the bottom of his shirt. “Use this.” His eyes pooled as he
knelt down, carefully tying the fabric, threading it around the
neck and Carine’s arm where she held Limly.

When Carine looked back, the sorcerer was
gone.

Giles seemed to have turned. Color came to
his silhouette as he stepped closer.

“Use the gullon blood,” she murmured. “Heal
him.” But even as she spoke she hated the position they were in:
use the blood for Limly and save his life, or use the blood for
Kavariel and save Navafort.

David reached for his pocket, but Limly
mouthed the word
no
. His lips moved as he tried to speak a
sentence, but he didn’t have the voice or strength to do so.

“We have to help you,” David said.

Giles clenched his jaw. “He’s mouthing
Save the dragon. Save Navafort
.”

“But Limly…”

The dust dropped over them like snow. The
corn still lay pressed to the ground, and Limly stopped breathing.
Carine braced herself against the gate. The bars were cold in
Carine’s grasp. She and the princes were alone now. Limly had paid
for their disobedience to the sorcerer with his life.

She knelt at the servant’s side and pressed
back his hair. Limly had said he wanted to serve the kingdom. If
the sorcerer killed him to instill fear or to inspire them to obey
him, then his plan did not work. It would not work. She squeezed
Limly’s cold hand, meeting David’s eyes in a shared spiral of
loss.

If she could not stop all magic in Navafort,
Carine would do everything in her power to keep out the Heartless
Ones. She would find out who this new sorcerer was and defeat
him.

“Why didn’t he kill all of us?” Giles
wondered as he dug the grave.

Carine cleaned off Limly’s dirty face with
some water on her sleeve. He looked younger than his age of
mid-forties. He shouldn’t be dead.

“The sorcerer might need you as a symbol,”
Carine said to the princes. “If you two go back, it will show the
kingdom that even the princes will bow to him…which means I’m his
next target.” The field, bare and flat, showed no sign of the
sorcerer. “How long until he strikes again?”

David brushed off his hands and came to
Limly’s ankles. He met Carine’s eyes. “Let’s not find out.”

Giles lifted Limly’s shoulders, and they
lowered him into the shallow grave. David hummed a funeral hymn as
Giles covered the body in dirt and parts of the nearby plants.
Carine put all her fingertips together on her right hand, placed
them to her mouth, then her heart, and released her fingers in the
traditional funeral symbol of releasing the spirit of the dead to
the Etherrealm.

Her heart, eyes, and throat ached when she
turned again to the gate.

The man with the white frizzy hair stood
inside. He met her eyes gently, sadly.

“Please, open the gate,” Carine said. Their
travel time had been going according to plan, but walking around
Midway, especially with this sorcerer lurking, would set them back
many days.

He squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t have the
keys to the gate, but I brought something else that might help
you.” From behind the wall, he produced a large bundle of white
rope and wood bars. “I don’t recommend you enter Midway. There is a
Heartless One loose in here, but if you trace the perimeter of the
city walking atop its walls, you can make it to the north
gate.”

Minutes later, he appeared panting at the top
of the wall. The rope unfurled against the brick until the rope
ladder grazed the plants that grew by the wall.

“Can we trust him?” David said, kneeling at
Limly’s grave. He watched the ladder like water in the desert, hope
in sorrow, but a potential mirage.

“We’ll have to,” Carine said.

The wind whistled through her clothes as she
neared the top of the wall. Carine didn’t dare to look down as the
breeze and the princes’ movements swayed the ladder.

“Hurry up! Hurry up!” the man said. “We’re
not supposed to be up here.”

“Then why do you have a ladder?” Carine
grasped his forearm, and he steadied her onto the top, which was
more than thirty feet high and no more than three feet wide.

“Not many menfolk live in Midway,” he said,
his voice low. “When I was young, I was hired as a messenger,
despite my inherent slowness as a non-centaur. The others used to
block me from coming in when I took too long so I fashioned this
ladder, and my sister would race up the ramps inside Midway and
lower it down to me.”

The man reached for David, who turned to help
Giles up. As usual, Giles clenched his jaw, but his posture wasn’t
straight. He crouched close to the wall.

David whispered to Carine, “You’d think by
the way he carries himself that Giles wouldn’t be afraid of
anything.”

“Let’s move!” hissed the man. He scuttled
down the pathway built into the top of the wall, the ladder bundled
under his arm.

Carine carefully planted her feet. On any
ground-level path three feet wide, Carine would have no trouble.
But knowing that falling would break her neck, each step took on
new urgency.

None of the three had energy to speak. Each
step required complete concentration.

The man didn’t have the same problem. “My
name is Riolo,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t intercede earlier. I’m
so sorry for your friend. I saw the Heartless One and was
afraid.”

“He wasn’t a Heartless One,” said Carine,
growing accustomed to the pattern of steps. “Unless there are two
of them.”

“What do you mean? He had magic?”

“There are a few things we know: a Heartless
One died in Esten without any flame to extinguish him. A few days
later, a man with magic demanded that no one leaves and today
killed Limly because we left. I think that they’re the same person;
the same man who killed Limly also killed Selius.”

“But that would require—”

“Mispronunciation,” Carine said, “which takes
more than a hundred years to dabble in, a length of time that
menfolk can’t commit to study, even if they live that long.”

Riolo turned. His eyes were wild, his figure
almost a silhouette against the setting sun. David, watching his
feet, bumped into Carine and lost his balance. Carine grabbed his
arm. He hugged the top of the wall and steadied himself.

“What happened?” Giles said, looking up from
the back.

Riolo hadn’t moved his gaze from Carine.
“Firebrand,” he said. His wide eyes didn’t blink. He didn’t
breathe.

“Who is that?” Carine asked. It was the same
name that Alviar had muttered during the storm.

“Who is Firebrand?” A dark laugh grazed his
lips. “Menfolk in Esten don’t study centaur history, to their
demise.”

“So he’s a centaur,” Carine said.

“Yes, and the most powerful sorcerer to ever
live. Come!”

Riolo sprinted now, his cape flowing behind
him like a dark flag. Questions whirred through Carine’s brain, but
Riolo was too far ahead to ask. She took off her shoes and stepped
barefoot over the wall, which had been smoothed by years of
rainfall. David mimicked her, but Giles lagged.

“Hurry!” hissed Riolo. Looking down into
Midway, Carine wondered at the empty stalls and streets. The
centaurs would be nearly sleeping now. But how could they, knowing
there was a Heartless One loose in their city?