Who Walks in Flame (4 page)
The behemoth chomps at her with its wicked jaws but pulls up just short, toying with her. Laughing, the Witch-King links his hands, joining forefingers and thumbs. Dripping flames form between his hands and then blast toward her, growing as they near so that they will entirely consume her on impact.
The Scorch-Walker roars as Bregissa aims the pistol and pulls the trigger.
The elemental forces of fire and air collide. The explosion hurls Bregissa backward as it whirls the hellfire into a vortex. The magic of the rejuvenated gun of Arkos the Maker prevails and blasts the vortex into the still-opened mouth of the Scorch-Walker.
As the flames storm down its gut, the beast groans and convulses, bucks wildly, and wrenches its head back and forth. The Witch-King desperately clutches to the scales and screams words of power. The spell holding back the rain relents. Dark, heavy clouds appear suddenly and unleash a downpour.
“Gods bless you, Arkos,” Bregissa pants, as she reverently places the wind pistol aside, its barrel melted and bent. Then, ignoring the Scorch-Walker’s throes, she scurries about looking for Kerenthos.
With one final sputtering roar, the behemoth collapses with a thunderous shudder. Dust and ash fly through the air. In the distance, soldiers cheer Bregissa’s victory.
Bodies lay strewn across the battlefield, and Bregissa can't find Kerenthos lying amongst them, though she knows roughly where he should be. She searches for the white-steel sword as well, but it too eludes her.
“Let the Witch-King be dead,” she prays.
Her prayer is not to be answered.
“You will pay most dearly, human,” says a sibilant voice behind her. “A thousand deaths for the death of my friend—a being older than your world and of far greater importance.”
She turns to face the Witch-King of the Skithikri. From a sheath on his back, he draws a long, wicked scimitar. Flames creep down the length of the blade. Swiftly, Bregissa draws her saber and attacks. The Witch-King doesn't attempt to parry or dodge. He doesn't even blink. Her blade speeds toward his face, then collides with an invisible barrier only an inch away from his skin.
Eyes alight, Khuar-na spins his scimitar once then strikes. The blade bites deep into her right knee, slicing bone and cartilage and cauterizing opened flesh. A second swipe severs the fingers of her sword hand.
Along with her blade, Bregissa falls, eyes glazed with shock, her fingers scattered before her. Khuar-na readies another attack, but suddenly a mauled, lurching Kerenthos rushes out from behind one of the behemoth’s feet. Wielding the white-steel saber, he lunges toward the Witch-King’s back. As Khuar-na begins to pivot, the blade slides through his protective barrier, pierces his lower back and exits from his chest. Steaming, red-brown blood pours from the wound.
As Kerenthos twists the saber and drags it free, Khuar-na whips his own blade around and cleaves through Kerenthos’ wrist.
Hand and white-steel sword fall.
Kerenthos drops to his knees, clutching at the cauterized stump of his arm. It's not his only wound. Blood seeps from cuts on his chest and back. His left arm hangs useless, the result of a dislocated shoulder, and his left ankle can barely hold his weight. Only adrenaline, and his love of Bregissa, has kept him moving. Now, even that is not enough.
Vomiting blood, Khuar-na collapses to a single knee as the Eastern soldiers hurry toward them, having defeated the last of his soldiers. But Khuar-na is defiant. Grimacing, he picks up the white-steel blade and flings it away. Then he touches his talisman and chants a spell.
Flames shoot up from the ground to form a ten-foot high ring around Khuar-na, Kerenthos, Bregissa, and the Scorch-Walker. The flames burn so hot that the approaching soldiers can’t get within a dozen paces.
Heading toward Bregissa, the Witch-King stumbles and his eyes dim. Even so, she can’t summon the will to oppose him. Khuar-na recovers and lifts his blazing scimitar toward her.
Hellfire leaps from the blade to her injured leg, which bursts into flame. She screams, but the flames dissipate after only a moment. A cruel, mirthless grin tugs at the Witch-King’s lips.
She can do nothing to stop him. Yet she feels his death approaching. They have won the day and need only to outlast him.
She crawls toward Kerenthos. “Kill me, torture me, do as you will,” she says to the Witch-King, “but I will suffer at my love’s side.”
Khuar-na smiles in a most sinister way. "I am not a fool, woman. I know the game you're playing. Trying to delay me, to hold out just a little longer. But I will not let you win. You have ruined everything. Death slithers up to me, but before it strikes, I will see that you pay for what you've done."
He places a hand over his wound and staggers toward his huddled foes. The woman holds the man, tears streaking down her face, and with the power of her voice, she soothes his pain. Khuar-na gathers his fading strength.
I must see this through. I owe that and so much more to my old friend.
A rapid sequence of visions race through his mind, visions of twisting spires, of roaring crowds, of harems and feasts, and another planet he once called home.
“You must pay for the life you stole from me. Your people must pay for centuries of transgressions. This world will burn under my rage.”
She glances at the white-steel saber, lying ten paces away.
“Even dying, I could kill you three times before you ever reached that blade.”
Crestfallen, Bregissa and Kerenthos gaze into one another’s eyes.
“You have but a few moments left,” Khuar-na says. “Spend them wisely.”
Bregissa clings to Kerenthos, and tenderly, they exchange proclamations of love.
Khuar-na turns his back to them and trudges over to the Scorch-Walker. “Here you will always lie, old friend, your massive bones an eternal monument to our rage.”
“Hope,” Kerenthos whispers to Bregissa. “There is yet … hope for…” His body trembles and he begins to fade.
Bregissa thinks of the seed she planted in the roots of the Oak of Antenin. She looks at her lover, and suddenly she knows, somehow, what he did. She grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him until his eyes open and he focuses on her.
“Kerenthos, stay with me. Keep your thoughts on the Sacred Oak. Think with all your might. We fight for it now and we shall guard it into death and beyond.”
There is doubt in his eyes.
For the second time she summons the full might of her voice, backed by Orthinn's spirit and her own passion, and such is the power in it that they both believe what she now says beyond any shadow of doubt: “We will guard the tree in the beyond. We will guard it forever.”
Khuar-na, Witch-King of the Skithikri, pulls a jeweled knife from his belt and slits his own throat. He whispers a mighty incantation as his blood pools on the iron amulet hanging from his neck.
The wall of fire mushrooms and swallows Bregissa and Kerenthos, killing them instantly. From there, the flames spread outward.
Khuar-na’s last sight is that of a world ablaze.
***
On the Sacred Isle of Antenin, the shockwave of flames blasts the oak. But what is already burned by divine fire cannot be burned again, even by the otherworldly magic of Khuar-na. Instead of destroying what was left of the tree, the flames restore it to life.
New shoots spring out. Buds form and then flower. And as the heat recedes, a human embryo nurtured by the oak begins to grow rapidly and split once, twice, a half-dozen times.
The blast also strikes the two, mysterious clay pillars, and by the power of a voice carried on the shockwave, the flames reshape them. There stands there now two beings of clay: a man and a woman who once frequented this place. Guardians for the tree and the embryos, parents for the children soon to be born.
A hand moves. A mother smiles. One day the children of her children will fill the land and see the desert turn green once more.
Sign up for David’s Newsletter at
tinyletter.com/dahayden
or visit
Typing Cat Press
to stay informed about upcoming releases.
Other Books by
David Alastair Hayden
Tales of Pawan Kor
The
Tales of Pawan Kor
series can be read in any order.
Storm Phase
This enchanting Asian-inspired fantasy series delivers fast-paced adventure for readers young and old.
Chains of a Dark Goddess
Betrayed by friends and abandoned by his goddess …
Back from the dead and hellbent on saving his beloved.
In life, Knight Champion Breskaro Varenni zealously served the bright goddess Seshalla. He was a hero and a legend, the greatest knight of the age. But his most trusted friends betrayed him to the swords of infidels, and his goddess abandoned him, denying him Paradise.
In death Breskaro refused to fade into Oblivion, like lesser lost souls.
Instead he wandered the Shadowland for seven years until the dark goddess Harmulkot offered him the one thing only she could give, the one thing that still mattered to him...
A chance to save his precious Orisala from a fate worse than his own.
Returned as a wreck of embalmed flesh animated by sorcery, with a host of the desperate and the undead under his command, Breskaro will do whatever it takes to save Orisala, no matter the odds and no matter the consequences.
David Alastair Hayden returns to the exotic land of Pawan Kor, first seen in
Wrath of the White Tigress
, with this seductive epic of swords and sorcery in the tradition of Brent Weeks, Robin Hobb, Michael Moorcock, and David Gemmell.
Reader Advisory: This book may not suitable for readers of young adult fiction.
For Purchasing Information Click Here
Chapter 1
The desolate ravine lay deathly quiet in the perpetual twilight of the mist-draped Shadowland, seemingly empty of the demons that preyed on the lost souls trapped there. A man shambled into the gorge. Listless eddies of dust trailed his feet. Head drooping and shoulders hunched, he moved like a sleepwalker, unaware of his surroundings. Once-fine armor hung on his tall frame limply — its bright shine lost to the teeth and claws of countless demons. The sword he drug carelessly behind him bore the nicks and scars of many pointless battles.
A scaly shadow slithered into place behind a basalt outcrop. It flexed razor talons and flicked a ropy tongue over its rows of jagged teeth. With a hopeful spark dancing in its giant black eyes, it pounced — swift, silent, unseen...
Expected.
The man raised his battered shield a heartbeat before the demon landed on top of him. He twisted and deflected the blow, tossing the startled fiend onto the rocks. It scrambled to get back up. It was too slow. With a swift lunge and one smooth motion, the man sliced his blade through the creature’s corded neck.
The demon faded into Oblivion.
The man’s clouded eyes cleared as they stared at the spot where the demon had been. He could do that ... let go ... fade into Oblivion.
No. He shook his head, trying to remember. He was waiting. He had been promised something. He had been promised ... Paradise.
Sighing, he scanned the charred, mist-draped landscape. His eyes turned ashen and cold again like the dead sky above. His body lost its fighting stance and he wandered deeper into the ravine.
Hours, maybe days, passed. Time had no meaning in the Shadowland, not to him, not to anyone trapped there. A terrified scream shattered the silence. The man ambled forward without urgency. He rounded a bend and spotted the attack.
