The Keep of Fire (34 page)

Grace returned the knight’s grin. It was good to see him smile. There had been a time at Calavere when the expression had been all too rare.

“I was beginning to wonder if Sir Tarus had lost you.” Beltan winked at the red-haired knight.

Tarus spread his arms in mock apology. “I was just taking them by the scenic route.”

Beltan lifted a hand to give Grace a half-whispered aside. “Sir Tarus isn’t the brightest fellow, and he hasn’t quite discovered the fact that one tree looks much like another. But he’s pretty to look at, so I keep him around.”

The red-haired knight only smiled, as if he had not heard a word. Grace stifled a laugh.

Lirith drifted forward, holding the hem of her riding gown just above the leaf litter. “Are you certain you and your men are working here?” She raised her eyes to the trees. “To me, this all appears suspiciously similar to fun.”

Tarus scratched the red goatee on his chin, giving the witch a sheepish look. “The tree forts were Sir Beltan’s idea.”

The big knight shrugged. “And which king decreed that work can’t ever be fun?”

Lirith laughed, but then Beltan’s smile faded.

“And there are other reasons for not staying on the ground at night.”

They followed Beltan through the camp to a circle of stumps gathered around a fire pit. Along the way, Grace counted about fifteen men in the camp, and she supposed, from the number of tree structures, that an equal number were out on patrol or standing watch on the camp’s perimeters.

Daynen chattered as Lirith guided him by the elbow, asking what the knights looked like, how many tree forts there were, and other questions the witch was more hard-pressed to answer. Luckily, Tarus came to her side and helped by explaining how the
knights had built the encampment. As they reached the circle and sat, Daynen moved on to ply another one of the men with more questions, his face shining. Lirith cast a grateful look at Tarus. The red-haired knight bowed.

“You should think twice before you show me such respect, warrior of Calavan,” Lirith said.

“And why is that, my lady?” Tarus said, straightening.

Lirith tapped a dusky cheek, as if searching for just the right words. “Queen Ivalaine is my … 
mistress.”

Tarus raised an eyebrow. The expression seemed genuinely startled, but only for a moment, then his grin returned. “I see. And does this mean you’re going to wave your fingers and turn me into a shrub, my lady?”

“Are you not afraid, warrior?”

“Oh, trembling.”

Lirith laughed, but the sound became a sigh, and when she spoke again the playfulness was gone from her voice. “I hope the time does not come when that is the case, warrior of Vathris. Indeed, there are those among your brethren who would believe that time has already come upon us.”

“And among your sisters, my lady.”

Lirith nodded.

Grace watched this exchange with interest. She knew the followers of Vathris tended to mistrust the Witches. But what had Lirith meant? What time did some believe had already come?

Before she could ask, Beltan was there, gesturing for her to sit on one of the stumps and pressing a pewter cup into her hand. Only then did she realize how thirsty she was, and she lifted the cup and drank: cool, spiced wine.

The other travelers joined her in the circle. Soundlessly, Tira clambered into Grace’s lap. Grace’s shock
lasted only a moment, then she gathered the girl in close.

She needs you, Grace
.

Or was it the other way around?

“What’s your name?” Beltan said in a gentle voice, kneeling before Grace and the child.

Shyly, Tira looked up, then just as quickly bent back over her doll, letting her crimson hair hide her face. Beltan glanced at Grace.

“What happened to her?”

Grace licked her lips. “Fire.”

Beltan stood and made a sharp gesture to Tarus. The young knight nodded and left them. Grace knew they would not be disturbed while they talked.

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it, Beltan? Because of the fires.”

All looked at Aryn. Grace expected to see fear on her face, but instead the baroness’s visage was as smooth and serene as water at twilight.

Beltan paced inside the circle. “I was at our fortress in Galt when we first heard of them. It was two months ago, and I was just getting ready to lead a group of knights on patrol for an exercise. Then we heard that several villages had been burned, two in the northeastern region of Calavan, a few more in the marches of Toloria, beyond Ar-tolor. We thought maybe some of the wildmen who dwell in the Fal Erenn had organized themselves into raiding parties and had managed to ford the Dimduorn. I took thirty knights, and we rode here to set up an encampment and keep watch.”

For the first time since entering the camp, Meridar spoke, his voice hoarse. “But it was not wildmen you found, was it?”

Beltan clenched his jaw, then nodded.

“Have you seen them?” Grace said, surprised at the trembling in her voice. “The
krondrim.”

Beltan rubbed his chin.
“Krondrim
. Yes, I heard an
old man use that word to describe them once. But usually they’re just called the Burnt Ones.” He shook his head. “No, I haven’t seen them. Just some of the work they do.”

“How long?” Durge said.

Beltan shrugged. “How long have they been coming down from the Fal Erenn? It’s hard to say. Two months, three. Maybe even longer. But we didn’t learn of their existence until a few weeks ago. When they …”

“When they burned a part of the forest just a league from here,” Durge finished.

Beltan turned toward the Embarran, his face hard. “That wasn’t forest, Durge. That was the village of Carnoc.”

It took them all a moment to find their voices again. They had come upon burnt villages before, but in each of them at least some ruins had remained. However, the destruction in the circle had been complete. Only the charred carcass of the animal—which Grace supposed now had been a dog—had remained. She had to tell the others what it meant.

“There was a burnt bear,” she said before she lost the courage.

Beside her Aryn stiffened, and Lirith reached out to grip the young woman’s left hand. Beltan cocked his head, listening.

“It came upon us just a league from Calavere. It …” This was still so hard to speak about. “It killed a friend of ours. The bear had a horrible burn in its pelt. The pain had driven it mad. I thought it must have been caught in a brush fire, but …”

Beltan shook his head. “That’s dark news. From what I’ve seen, they—the Burnt Ones—usually stick to the Dawning Fells. What you’ve said makes it possible that at least a few of them have made it across the highlands of Galt and have crossed into the Fal
Sinfath.” He ran a hand through his thinning hair. “But I suppose in a way that makes sense.”

A frown creased Lirith’s brow. “How does it make sense, Sir Beltan?”

The big knight squatted, picked up a stick, and scratched a vertical line in the dirt. “Here are the Fal Erenn,” he said, then he drew a pair of rough shapes below the line. “And here are the marches of Calavan and Toloria. For the last few months, stories and incidents involving the Burnt Ones have been sparse, and all of them have been confined to these regions”—he pointed to the areas just beneath the mountains—“here, and here.”

“And now?” Durge said.

“Now we’re hearing new stories almost every other day, and they’re coming from”—Beltan hesitated, then circled his entire map—“they’re coming from all over this area.”

“Of course,” Grace murmured, her brain working quickly, piecing together all of the evidence. “It’s the progression in every pandemic. The first incidents are isolated—the infection cycle is so rapid that it kills faster than it can spread. But now the contagion has had time to adapt. It’s not killing its hosts as quickly, and that means the affected area can begin to grow. Only the lack of traveling in this world has kept it from spreading faster.”

She looked up and saw the others staring at her.

Durge shook his head. “What does it mean, my lady?”

“It means,” Beltan said, setting down the stick and standing, “that the Burnt Ones—the
krondrim
—are on the move.”

“But why?” Lirith said. “What do they want?”

No one had an answer to that. The silence of the forest settled over them. Grace drew in a deep breath. It was time to finish this.

“Beltan,” she said in a low voice, “there’s more.”

She wasn’t sure how he knew. Maybe it was something about the tone of her voice or the expression on her face. Or maybe it was something else, some thought she projected. Regardless of what it was, the blond knight met her eyes.

“It’s Travis Wilder,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

She could do no more than give a stiff nod. Beltan knelt before her, reaching around Tira to lay big hands on Grace’s shoulders, his eyes hard as flint.

“What’s happened to him, my lady? You must tell me.”

At last air rushed into her lungs, and she was able to speak. In dry, emotionless words she explained the dream, the vision, and the purpose of her journey. She was dimly aware that she had told none of this to Meridar. However, if the knight was angry he did not show it. He still stared at the map Beltan had drawn in the dirt.

When she was finished, Beltan stood.

“It is not far from here to the bridge over the Dimduorn,” the knight said. “We can cross into Toloria tonight, then be to Ar-tolor before this time tomorrow.”

Grace shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m coming with you,” the blond knight said.

Travis was on fire.

The world should have been brilliant with the flames, but instead it was dark and suffocating. Hot, black fabric swaddled him, tangling around his limbs. The place seemed a tomb—confined and lightless, walled in stone. How had he gotten there?

The hands. Yes, that was it. The hands had reached out of the darkness, batting at him, tearing off his
clothes so that he was naked once again. They had dragged him through swirling murk, jostling his body cruelly, piercing his flesh with fiery needles and sinking them deep into the joints between his bones. Then the motion had ceased, and he had been here, the walls compacting the gloom against him. The hands had wrapped him in a shroud of shadow, and the flames had risen up to lick at him.

Did they think he was dead? They had set him on a funeral pyre. He had to shout, to let them know they had made a terrible mistake, but the heat fused his jaw shut, melted bone and snapped tendons. They were burning him alive.

Master Wilder?

The roaring voice of the flames phased into words.

Master Wilder, can you hear me? Try to move your head if you can understand what I am saying
.

The voice was kind yet stern. Travis wanted to obey, but molten bands encircled his body, paralyzing him.

Do you know what ailment afflicts him?

This voice was different from the first. Smoother and more sibilant, but sharper somehow.

I am not certain. But it is a fierce fever that has seized his body. Master Eriaun has spoken many runes of cooling over him, but I fear they have had little if any effect
.

Is it the fire sickness, then?

By Olrig! Do not speak such a thing. How could it be such when he comes from so great a distance?

Forgive me, All-master. It is only that I have heard it said it begins this way. Yet you are right, of course. It is impossible the sickness could have reached so far as the place from which he came
.

The soft voice was contrite, yet somehow this made it all the more damning. The kinder one—the one called All-master—answered with only a grunt.

Travis knew he had to speak, to tell them they
were wrong, that the sickness they spoke of had indeed reached his world. He tried to open his eyes, only he wasn’t certain if he had done it. Then, like red dawn, a brightness stabbed into his skull. He recoiled, sinking back into darkness. However, just before the light vanished, he thought he saw a shadow against it. No, not a shadow, but a man with keen blue eyes and a white beard. Jack? Was it Jack come to put out the flames?

The voices were receding now.

Master Wilder!

It is no use, All-master. He cannot hear you
.

No, you are wrong, Master Larad. Did you not see? He opened his eyes—for only a moment, yes, but he did
.

If you say it, then it is—

The voices dissipated, smoke before a wind, and the roar rose again around him.

It was sometime later that he was aware of waking. He lay still, listening, but there was no sound, and the silence was like a balm for his shriveled soul. Perhaps the flames had done their work. However, if this was death, it was certainly better than dying. The tomb was cooler now, filled with silvery light.

He heard a rustling sound. Travis turned his head to one side. That he could see impinged upon him only after a moment, for he did not remember opening his eyes.

He could not see much. Even this soft illumination drove shards of glass into the backs of his eyes. The tomb was mostly a gray blur, although Travis could make out what might be stone walls, and he sensed that he was lying down on some sort of bed or bier. He blinked, and one more object came into focus.

At first Travis wondered if the man was one of the two speakers he had heard earlier, then something told him this was not so. The man seemed young. His
face was broad, homely, and beardless, and even sitting he seemed short, although his arms and shoulders looked powerful. The man wore a robe of drab brown, and for some reason that struck Travis as wrong. Shouldn’t the robe have been gray?

The man smiled—a grotesque expression, yet not frightening. He must have seen Travis’s movement, and he stood and moved out of view. This sent a jolt of panic through Travis, but a moment later the man reappeared, a cup in his hand. A cool scent reached Travis’s nose. Water.

How long had it been since he had drunk? He tried to work his tongue, but his mouth might as well have been filled with cement. The man knelt beside the bed, slipped a thick arm beneath Travis’s neck, and lifted his head. Travis tried to drink, but most of the water spilled down his chin and onto his chest. However, a small amount passed between his lips, and he tasted metal. The man lowered him back to the bed.