The Blaze Ignites (42 page)

Rabryn shifted his eyes to Cairikson. “Come
here, kiddo,” he said. Cairikson walked over and sat in his lap.
“You Whiteians are very brave.” Cairikson nodded. “I didn’t see
very much going on at the island but”—he sighed—“you should know
that a lot of your people have died in the woods.” Cairikson’s chin
started to quiver as his big blue-green eyes filled with tears.
Rabryn hugged him. “I’m so sorry.”

All of us bent down and offered weak gestures
of comfort to this boy who had lost more than a child his age
should ever lose. Azrel got to her knees and plucked Cairikson
right out of Rabryn’s lap and held him in a close, tight hug.

“What exactly did you see?” Azrel asked her
brother.

“Gorkors and Gibirs are scattered everywhere
in those trees. I think though, since I was spotted, they’ll
concentrate themselves over this way. Luckily I’m a fast runner so
I left them far enough behind. But we’ve got to go now if we’re
going to get into those woods. Otherwise we’ll have an army in our
way.”

“Don’t you need to rest?” Azrel asked.

Rabryn smiled. “If I say yes, you’ll suggest
we rest and wait. If I say no, I’d be lying.”

Azrel narrowed her eyes at him. “We’ll rest,
then.”

“Azrel, we don’t have time. We need to get to
the island to see if anyone is alive there. They’ll need our help
if there is.”

Azrel sighed and put Cairikson down as she
got to her feet. She gave a sharp whistle and all of the horses
came galloping our way. “Let’s hurry.” We all frantically grabbed
our weapons off the horses. Azrel said some quick words to her
horse about going around Galad Kas and meeting us on the other
side, and then all of them took off. Azrel looked at the rest of
us, “Let’s go.”

We all started jogging towards the trees,
Cairikson surprisingly keeping pace at the front of the group with
Azrel. We stopped just at the tree line and Azrel looked up into
the thick canopy. She had a sour look on her face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I grew up in a cave. I’m not so sure
treetops and I will like each other very much.” All of us
chuckled.

“Would you like us to hold your hand, oh
mighty White Warrior?” Reese asked in a mocking tone.

None of us were sure if we should laugh, but
Azrel playfully glared at him over her shoulder. “Would you like a
fist in your mouth to go with it?” We all chuckled and Azrel
smiled. She looked up at the tree tops again. “Rabryn, how did you
get up into the branches? They’re fifteen feet off the ground.”

“Like this.” Rabryn stepped forward, leapt up
with what looked like barely any effort, and grabbed hold of the
branch nearly fifteen feet off the ground. He wrapped his legs
around the branch and pulled himself up onto it.

“Must be nice to be a Salynn,” Ortheldo
muttered.

“Not all of us can do that!” Azrel called up
to her brother, who chuckled.

“Wizards can levitate to the branches,” I
offered smugly.

“That’s great for you, but what about the
rest of us?” Reese challenged.

I chuckled. “I can get you all up.”

“Actually I’m not sure you can,” Rabryn said
from the branch. All of us looked up. I almost got playfully
offended until I saw the look of concern on his face. “I can’t use
my magic.”

All of us blanched, particularly me. I held
my hand out and called wizard fire to me…nothing. My eyes went wide
and I couldn’t help looking at my fellow wizard with near panic.
Lisswilla looked at me with the same wide-eyed concern.

“It’s okay,” Azrel said calmly, “it’s not an
evil spell.” All of us glanced at each other and wondered how she
could know that. “The Salynns pulled together to put a protection
spell over their land to disallow any magic use.” Her eyes met
mine. “They wanted to make sure Hathum couldn’t use magic if he was
here.”

“How do you know, Azrel?” Ortheldo asked.

“The White Warrior just told me.”

“What?”

“You can hear her?”

“She talks to you?” We all burst out at
once.

Azrel nodded. “That’s one of the several
things I didn’t get to cover the other night when you all passed
out to meet with her. Among a couple other things but—”

“We don’t have time now,” Rabryn said. “Let’s
go everyone! Those beasts will be at the tree line any minute.”

“Azrel, you should still be able to use
your
magic to lift us up,” I offered.

“I can, but I won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because using my magic drains me. I want to
be in top form in case we have to fight anything on the
island.”

“Sometime this
age
would be nice,
people!” Rabryn called from the branch.

“Ortheldo help me,” Azrel said, then walked
to the tree that Rabryn was in. She and Ortheldo clasped hands as
they stood close to the trunk. “Rabryn, hang down and pull each
person that we lift to you up onto the branch.”

“You got it.” Rabryn hooked his legs over the
tree branch and hung down.

“Addredoc,” Azrel said.

I nodded and reached down for Cairikson, who
held his arms out to me. I picked him up and put him on my back,
then stepped up to her and Ortheldo. I placed a hand on each of
their shoulders and put my foot on their interlaced hands. We
bounced three times and then both of them lifted their arms up,
pausing at their shoulders.

“Up again,” Azrel grunted.

With another bounce they both lifted their
arms up over their heads, lifting me within reach of Rabryn’s hand.
I reached behind me, pulled Cairikson off my back, and handed him
to Rabryn, who pulled him up onto the branch.

“Addredoc!” Azrel cried.

“Sorry!” I called and then Rabryn grabbed my
hand and pulled me up onto the branch. I climbed higher to make
room for the others. One by one we were all pulled up into the
tree. Finally Azrel and Ortheldo were left.

“I’ll lift you and then you use your magic to
lift me. It shouldn’t drain you badly,” Ortheldo said.

Azrel shook her head. “I don’t want to be
drained at all. I’ll lift you up.”

“Then how will you get up?”

Azrel sighed and thought for a moment.
“Rabryn? Think your Salynn strength can leap up there while you’re
holding me?”

“Is that something my kin would normally be
able to do?” he asked.

Azrel nodded. “I believe so.”

Rabryn gripped the branch in his hands and
let his legs fall. Then he dropped gracefully to the ground. “Then
I should be able too.”

“Okay. We have to hurry. I can hear them
coming. Reese, hang down from the branch like Rabryn did and get
Ortheldo when we lift him up to you. The rest of you, get higher in
the tree so you’re not seen.”

Once Ortheldo was in the tree, Rabryn looked
at Azrel. “How do you want to do this?”

“Just like Addredoc and Cairikson did,” Azrel
said and immediately climbed onto her brother’s back.

He hooked his arms under her legs and hiked
her up higher onto his back before letting his arms fall. “Okay,
hold on.”

“Like I’m going to let go.”

Rabryn chuckled before he bent his knees and
leapt up with the grace of a mountain lion and gripped the branch.
I breathed a sigh of relief when Azrel took the branch and pulled
herself up and then Rabryn joined her.

“Start climbing. I hear them. They’re close,”
Azrel said harshly and all of us quickly started climbing higher
into the canopy.

I suddenly realized these trees were
monstrous! Looking up into them I got dizzy with how high they
were. They certainly didn’t look this tall from the outside. The
branches got thicker and thicker as I made my way up.

Finally we came across a wild tangle of
branches that were thick enough for two people to walk on side by
side. As far as my Salynn eyes could see, all the branches at this
height twisted and interlaced with one another like the vines of a
jungle, complete with almost hidden gaps that would cause us to
plummet to our deaths if we missed seeing them.

“How in the world are we supposed to get
through this?” I asked more to myself.

“Very slowly and carefully,” Rabryn said as
he climbed up onto a branch next to the one that I stood on. All of
us took various places on different branches.

“Let’s go,” Azrel said in front of me. “This
is going to be slow going enough without us pausing to chat.”

Before anyone took a step though, we heard
the grunts and pants of creatures running on the ground. We watched
them below us as they reached the tree line, where suddenly the
entire group slammed against air! All of our eyes widened as we
watched them ram into each other as if they had run into a wall.
But there was nothing there!

“What the hell?” Ortheldo asked himself
softly.

I looked at Azrel in front of me. She pointed
to Cairikson and I nodded my understanding; the Whiteians had cast
a spell. What I didn’t understand, though, was why they had cast a
spell to keep the creatures
inside
their woods. Azrel just
shook her head, silently telling me not to ask, and continued
forward.

All of us started walking along the branches
again towards the center of Galad Kas, staying almost silent
because Gorkors had very good hearing. I quickly noticed that many
creatures were gathering beneath us, sticking uncomfortably close
to the path we were taking above them. When the crowd got up to
three hundred, I looked at Azrel. She was already looking at me
over her shoulder, sensing my concern, and then simply patted the
pocket of her leggings in response. The necklace! They were homing
in on its power. That’s why they were sticking so close and
gathering nearby.

We continued on for hours in the treetops.
The going was slow, but safe. I watched as the sun started lighting
up the sky and realized we’d been up all night. The thought of that
made me sigh. Horseback would normally take us three hours to get
to the lake of Galad Kas. Up in this jungle of branches, however,
it was taking much longer. I’d never thought I would miss a horse
so much.

As I discovered my new respect for horses,
Azrel suddenly stopped in front of me. She stared down at the
massive group that had accumulated below us. Her sword was in her
hand and a fire that I had never seen before was in her eyes.

My eyes went wide realizing she was gearing
up to fight them! I immediately looked down below. Was she mad?
There had to be a thousand creatures scattered below! Did she want
us to climb down and fight them? Seven of us couldn’t take a
thousand! Seven of us couldn’t take
a hundred!
Not without
magic!

Azrel looked at me and I pleaded with my
eyes, asking the question, “What are you doing?”

She gave me a knowing grin, and then
unbelievably, jumped off the branch we stood on.

I gasped as I watched her fall. Fifty feet
she plunged, obliterating branches with her white fire magic until
she landed on her feet in a deep crouch right in the middle of the
mass of creatures! All of them cried out and jumped back in
surprise. Azrel straightened, put her free hand on her hip, and
smirked. She looked as I had never seen her look since meeting her.
She looked radiant! Strong! Beautiful! Confident!

“Hello boys,” she purred.

Before any of us could scream in panic, the
sky darkened with arrows. The only light came from Azrel’s white
fiery sword, which flashed triumphantly as it cut through creatures
like wind through an open field. She didn’t have to do much because
most of the creatures fell dead from the storm of arrows.

I wasn’t sure where to look first. It was all
happening so fast! So I looked in my leader’s direction. Acalith
stared down at the massacre with an open mouth and wide eyes. I
looked over at Rabryn and Ortheldo, who stared back with identical
expressions. So that
had
just happened. I wasn’t nuts.

I looked down again and saw Azrel step out of
the circle of bodies. “Come on down. It’s okay.”

No sooner had she said that than bodies
started gently floating down from the tree tops farther above us,
on clouds of sparkling white magic. It was the Galad Kas Salynns!
All two thousand of them drifted down from every area my eyes could
see.

A few of them stopped in front of us who were
still in the branches and offered their hands. I took the hand of
the one that stopped for me, stepped onto the cloud of his magic,
and we started to descend to the forest floor.

When we reached it Azrel was already holding
Cairikson in her arms and talking with a gorgeous curly
blonde-haired Salynn and a gentle looking white-haired elder
Salynn. The pair looked somber as the lady Salynn took Cairikson
and hugged him close, and the white-haired male petted the boy’s
head.

Azrel looked at all of us as we touched down.
“I know you have questions, but first allow me to introduce
Palpanor and Isadith—the lord of Galad Kas and his daughter.”

We all mumbled words of greeting and then
Rabryn immediately started in on her. “Azrel, what were you
thinking? You scared the hell out of me!”

“Perhaps I can explain,” Azrel’s voice said.
But it was cooler, older, and her appearance melted into that of
the White Warrior.

Tension immediately spiked. I glanced over at
Rabryn and saw his fists clench, his jaw set, and his brows draw
together. We hadn’t seen or heard from the White Warrior since his
defiance of her a couple of nights ago. For the first time ever, I
realized that I really didn’t want to see her.

“Azrel is perfectly capable of explaining
things. Why don’t you let her?” Ortheldo shot out.

Acalith suddenly sprung forward, gripped
Ortheldo’s shirt in both her fists, and jerked him forward so they
were almost nose to nose. “I’ve had enough of this disrespect for
the White Warrior! She just saved all your pathetic hides, damn it!
How dare you—”