The Flame of Wrath (46 page)

             
The others sat within the wake of those words.

             
Autumn lifted her face to the sky. The air was growing colder. She watched as it gave her breath a visible life. When she lowered her eyes to her friends, she took note of Zahara's thoughtful expression and the manner in which Echo and Myth held hands while silently staring into their remaining stew.

             
She had to do something, she told herself. She couldn't let the entire army be massacred. It couldn't all have been for nothing?

             
“So we're all alone now,” Echo whispered.

             
“Without any hope of help coming,” Zahara added quietly.

             
“No,” Autumn countered. Her eyes were determined even as her voice sought to gently reassure those around her. “We aren't without hope. You heard what Myth said. When we make it past this trial, divinity will intervene. That's what we hang on to. That's where our hope comes from.”

             
“But this isn't Pyros,” Echo murmured. “This land is---” She shivered at the chill in the air. It ran right through her. She was so tired of the cold and longed for the warmth of her home.

             
Abruptly, Autumn rose to her feet. She gently patted Echo's shoulder as she walked past her.

             
Looking after the chocolate-haired Queen, Echo frowned. “Where are you going, Autumn?” she called after her.

             
“I will return, cousin,” Autumn promised before disappearing beyond the reaches of the fire's light.

             
The others looked to each other in bewildered silence. They had waited for what felt like a small lifetime before the familiar sounds of Autumn's footfalls came to them like a nightingale's song. As one, their faces turned in the approaching silhouette's direction.

             
“The leaders are making their way over the hill,” Angels' Queen said.  “They should only be a few moments.”

             
“We're having a meeting?” Zahara asked hoarsely.

             
Autumn nodded absently. She stoked the campfire, bringing both more light and more warmth to her closest friends. As she did, she envisioned her maps of the area. She clearly saw every noted tree, every hill. So lost in her concentrations was she that she scarcely heard the arrival of the Pyrosian generals.

             
One by one they stood or knelt around the fire. They were weary men and women with haunted eyes and shoulders slumped beneath the burdens they carried. Each day that they were forced to endure this battle meant that they lost another soldier they had come to know. At this point in the war, their numbers were dwindling in such a way that it was impossible not to know each member of one's own command. They weren't just losing soldiers. As this continued on, forced to rely solely upon one another, they were losing friends.

             
With the fire basking all their faces in gaunt shadows, they felt the cold sting of a snowflakes falling upon them. They lifted their heads to the sky above. Quietly snow danced above them. Its descent brought an eerie sort of stillness. And yet to one, it brought a consuming sense of calm.

             
As Autumn peered up into the sky, she remembered the beauty of raining Djidjiga petals. She lowered her head, focusing paling eyes upon those present.

             
Without another moment's hesitation, she drew her sword. She ran its tip against the earth, drawing a map of the land with its blade.

             
“Illusions,” she began authoritatively. Her voice snapped the others from their reveries.  “With night to aid you, I want you leading teams into this pass.”

             
Frost lifted his head nobly. “What is our objective?” he asked. He watched over her with a fondness touching his soul. In that moment, he recognized a bit of Angelos in the late-King's daughter.

             
Autumn slid her hand over the pass' surface as her eyes held those of King Frost. As he nodded, she knew he understood.

             
“Echo,” Autumn began. “I want you readying traps along this area here.” Her sword circled the territory just beyond the pass. “If any make it past the first attack, then your traps will take care of them.”

             
Lifting her eyes to meet the general of a few of the smaller provinces, Autumn pointedly called upon their skilled archers. “I will be waiting with my men in the fields. Those who remain will pursue my men as we seem to withdraw,” she said. “When we have brought them into range, rain down on them with your arrows.” She pointed her finger to the woods creating a crescent around a field.

             
Scouring the eyes of all those present, Autumn infused them with her rising calm. “We are the best our land has to offer, but for too long we have fought as though we were invaders from another land while they have fought as though they have the advantage of being in their element. We must all remember that our greatest strength is that Pyrosians have always adapted to the land. We must adapt to
this
land. Or we will die on it.”

********

              Autumn held her ground as dawn approached. She heard the volatile explosions of a landslide echoing loudly in the distance. Birds cawed and circled above the mountain pass. She knew that the first of many obstacles ahead of the Lucidian army had greeted them.

             
Raising her hand high in the sky, she motioned her chosen forward. Her keen eyes followed the swooping forms of her armies' remaining transports as they raced toward their targets.

             
In their massive talons, they held huge vats. The Guardians removed the large parcels from their backs as their birds spirited them towards the battle. The women draped the ghost shrouds over their large birds of prey, until as one the departing teams disappeared from sight.

********

              The Lucidian army was dazed. Their soldiers at the front had fallen victim a ravenous earth. They were nestled between boulders which held them possessively.

             
As their ranks split, their greatest strength was diminished horribly. The sheer might of their numbers had been dramatically devastated in a single blow.

             
One force powered over the debris, keeping true to the path while the other detoured to encircle the Pyrosians whom they suspected waited over the other side of the pass.

             
The path was clear. The Lucidians advanced with zealous speed along the river. Vengeance burned heatedly inside their eyes. They were nearly in position when massive tubs began materializing from nothingness to crash at their feet.

             
A Lucidian soldier knelt down. His fingers prodded the substance curiously. He brought it to his face, inhaling the fragrance wafting from it.

             
With a confused frown, he looked to his commanding officer. “It's meat dripping,” he said.

             
Massive currents of air followed the ghostly shadows which raced over the ground. Eyes ventured skyward but nothing which might claim these frightening shadows appeared in the sky. Then as if appearing upon a whim, torches raced across the sky.

             
The soldier, realizing that he and his comrades were covered in oil, let loose a panicked cry of alarm. “Take cover!” he screamed.

             
As the Lucidian army disbursed to take cover, balls of fire began raining from the sky. The moment their flames touched the oil, the oil whooshed into eager fires.

             
Lucidians rushed about like morbid candles. They threw themselves into the river, hoping to extinguish their lights.

             
As chaos consumed the scattering army, loud explosions filled the air. The burning balls thrown into the oil had heated until their contents burst from inside sending a medley of sharp stone and jagged metal shavings in every direction.

********
             

             
Autumn's men never saw their opportunity to fight. The Lucidian army had taken flight, regrouping to a preordained refuge. It was on that day, that the Pyrosian army no longer felt as though they were simply keeping the Lucidians at bay. On this day, the Pyrosian army felt as though they had a fighting chance.

********

              “Be strong, my brother,” he whispered.

             
The voice had come from the encompassing darkness. Hooves stamped lightly at the hay-covered floor beneath them. Gently, he shushed the horses around them as the men hid anxiously within the stables.

             
“Be strong?” another hissed. “How can I be strong when around us our kindred die? We are hunted like beasts and for what?”

             
A light pierced into the stables as the barn door was opened then quickly closed. Footsteps came closer before stopping directly ahead of the corner which hid them. They held their breaths fearfully.

             
A hooded-figured hurried into the small stall. He quickly latched the gate behind him then knelt down in the shadows with his comrades. His shaking hands pulled back his sienna hood. The gaunt thinness of his face was revealed. He was but a haunting reflection of his former self. His blond hair was limp from the sweltering heat of the summer day. Not even the rain could bring relief. Beneath his crimson eyes, dark circles reigned. “My brothers,” he said, “we must make our way to the woods. Elder Soren has found sanctuary. We must warn as many as we can.” He paused. His thoughts traveled to the darkness which might claim them. 

             
“We cannot die,” he whispered. He thought of all their brothers. “Our ancient truths would die with us.”

             
“Soren lives, Gabriel?” The news had come as the most mind-blowing of all the words. In all the madness, no one had known for certain if Soren was still alive.

             
“Yes,” Gabriel answered, “though the bounty for his life has increased. Who knows how long he'll survive while people continue to grow more desperate for food and protection from the----”

             
“Don't say it,” the fearful-one begged. “Don't speak their names.”

             
Gabriel sighed sadly. “Remember what you were taught,” he said. “If you turn away from what frightens you, you grant it the power to rule over you.”

              “It does rule over me, over all of us! Its name is Aurea.” His voice grew more panicked. “She and her Assembly of Light will stop at nothing until they have seen us all dead.”

             
“Soren will save us.”

             
“Soren is a coward! He left us.”

             
“He---”

             
The explosion of the door being kicked open sent the horses shrieking in alarm. The druids each held their breaths and their tongues as their argument was instantly silenced.

             
With the silver sky at his back, a man in golden armor entered the stables. His footsteps were purposefully slow. They taunted the racing hearts of the druids. At his back, a pure white cape hung like lowered wings. “I know you're here, vermin,” he said.

             
His dark eyes searched the stables from behind his majestic helmet. The turning of his head showcased the wing-like design of the helmet at the sides of his angelic head.

             
“Thirty gold coins,” he said. “That was all it took to set the man's tongue wagging. How does it feel to know your lives matter so little?”

             
The blond shifted his eyes as he heard the tiny whimper escape his terrified brother. He narrowed his gaze upon him. Gabriel knew in that instant that their whereabouts were known.

             
The Knight ceased all movement. Behind the face-mask of his helmet, he smiled.

             
A crowd had gathered around the stables. The Knights of Virtue had descended from the mountain on high. This could only mean that more druids had been discovered.

             
Within the crowd, some dared to silently weep while others boisterously cheered. Those cheers in truth, could mostly be attributed to fear. If the Knights thought these people were supportive of the druids, they would not hesitate to come down on them with all their might.

             
A crescent circle of large white birds all but glared in the direction of the weathered stable-barn. Their noble height had them towering above the villagers and even their solemn horses. Sitting atop the silver and gold saddles upon their backs were the feared Knights. They were five strong with the exception of their leader, Angelos, who had disappeared into the stables and another, Donavon, who commanded the forces controlling Logos.