Bakkian Chronicles, Book I - The Prophecy (15 page)

The concussion knocked both Steve and Sarah well into the lake. The flash of searing fire and heat instantly vaporized the arrow in mid-flight, reducing it to ash where it floated away in the breeze. Their former captor, now wearing nothing but a light dusting of ash in front, while the clothing covering his now retreating backside still remained intact, turned tail and ran for all he was worth. With nothing to keep the clothes in place, they caught on little bits of shrubbery, or flapped away in the breeze, and generally fell off. The bare-assed thief disappeared into the woods, stringing curses behind him as he ran. No prize was worth this.

Coughing and spluttering, Steve and Sarah surfaced.

“
What the
hell
was that?” Steve coughed up water. Being thrown into the water unexpectedly was akin to getting a healthy dose of water up your nose and in your mouth. “Are you okay?”

Sarah coughed. “He blew us up? How’d he do that? What happened to the arrow? I saw him shoot an arrow at us!”

“
Yeah, me, too. Better question is, what happened to him? I don’t see him anywhere.”

They stumbled out of the water and collapsed onto the shore. Steve rolled onto his back, continuing to cough up water while Sarah, also struggling to remove all the fluid from her lungs, scanned the shore, looking for some signs of their pursuer. Her gaze fell onto their pack and her purse, still sitting where she dropped it by the brook. Then she noticed that the trees and plant life in the blast zone (as she called it in her head) had all been deeply singed. The trees all bore black scorches, but only on their eastern sides. Nothing on the west, from the direction of their assailant. If the pack, which was on the ground, was still there, that could only mean that whatever detonated did so in the air, not on the ground. But to have the vegetation burned on their side, the east? But that could only mean…

“
I think the blast came from our direction, and it happened in mid-air.”

Steve looked behind him. “From the water? Why did it blow us into it then?”

Sarah’s mouth closed with an audible snap. “Good one. Well, if it came from this direction, yet didn’t come from behind us, then that would suggest that it came from us!”

“
You mean you did something to protect yourself from that guy?” Steve was both proud and jealous at the same time. “Babe, that’s awesome!!”

“
I don’t think it’s me. I think it’s you!”

“
Me? I didn’t do anything! Why do you say that?”

“
Well, the only thing I did was scream. Nothing remarkable there. Can you remember if you did anything?”

Steve thought a moment. “It all happened so fast. I had actually stopped worrying about that guy. I let my guard down. I’m so sorry, babe.” Steve held his wife’s hand. “I heard a snapping noise; I looked up to see what it was. I heard you scream, and I saw that guy point his bow at you instead of me. My heart stopped dead. I just knew I had to get in front of you to somehow block the arrow, but deep down I knew it just wasn’t possible. You were too far away. I think I threw up my hands and the next thing I knew I was inhaling water.”

“
You gestured with your hands?”

“
I wouldn’t call it gesturing. More like helplessly flailing my arms.”

“
No you didn’t. I remember now. You put up both arms as if to brace for some type of impact. Remember?”

Steve thought a moment. He did, in fact, remember putting his arms up in a defensive position, as if he’d be able to prevent the arrow from reaching its intended target.

“
Well, maybe…”

“
Honey, that’s got to be it! You generated some type of blast that knocked us into the lake, out of harm’s way. And,” she eyed the vegetation, “it was a rather intense blast at that. It must have burned that arrow up completely!”

“
Did it incinerate the thief, too? That’s who I’d like to take out,” Steve muttered.

Sarah walked around the clearing, noticing bits of fabric here and there. She bent to retrieve a fluttering piece of cloth and held it close to her face for inspection. Her eyes opened wide. The giggles started bubbling out of her until she was laughing so hard she had tears running down her face.

Steve, baffled at his wife’s behavior, came up next to her and just stared at her.

“
What’s so funny? What are you holding?”

Sarah handed him the fabric. “This. This is a piece of his clothing. You can see it was once part of his trousers. The back side, if I’m not mistaken.” She chortled again. “This leads me to conclude that the front half of his clothes were flash-burned. Look, you can see the singed edges here. This half of his clothes were burnt off him, and the rest just fell off. That means he’s now running around buck naked!”

Steve held the fabric close to his face. Yes, he could see the burnt edges. He could even smell the burnt fibers. This piece of fabric had been burned recently, and it did match what the robber had been wearing. So that meant that he was indeed running around in the buff.

Whenever he started to heartily laugh, and then made some attempt to hold it in, Sarah had always told him that his laugh sounded more like a donkey’s bray. That’s what came out of him now as he pictured their former captor high-tailing it back to his place.

“
That’s too good to be true! Serves his ass right,” Steve muttered, his mood quickly turning dark again. “Punk. I just wish I could have burned something else off besides his clothes.”

“
It was better than that,” Sarah pointed out. “Do you really think he’ll bother us now? He probably wouldn’t touch us with a ten foot pole!”

Steve chuckled. “True. If that blast truly came from me, then I need to figure out what triggers it and how to bring it back and control it. That would be invaluable here.”

They started putting their belongings back into their pack. Sarah repacked her purse (properly) and stowed it in the knapsack. Steve checked their food stores and with a shout, pulled out a large leather pouch he hadn’t noticed before.

“
If I didn’t know better, I’d say this is a bouda bag.”

“
A what?”

“
A bouda bag. It’s a leather bag used for holding water, I’m sure of it. At any rate, I’m going to fill it up at that spring.”

“
Is there any water already in it?”

Steve pulled the stopper out of the bag and squeezed. A small jet of water whooshed out of the bag and splashed him squarely in the face.

Sarah laughed. “Yep! Now that you’ve emptied it, maybe we should fill it back up again.”

Steve ran his hand down his face, pushing the water off of him. Well, it did feel good. He hadn’t realized he was this hot. Probably tasted good, too. He took a long drink and offered the bag to Sarah. She drank deeply as well and passed the bag back to Steve, who proceeded to fill it from the spring.

As Steve was placing the leather canteen back into the pack, Sarah, who had been standing off to the side, walked up to him and ran her hands down his back, feeling his clothes.

“
You’re dry! Completely! Even your hair is dry!”

“
What?” Steve felt his shirt, pants, and then his hair. His clothes were dry already? How’d that happen so quickly?

Sarah extended her arms, palms facing Steve. “Do you feel how much heat you’re generating right now? No wonder you’re dry!”

“
You always tell me that I’m warm. No big surprise there.”

“
Enough to dry clothes? A body generates heat, yes, and given enough time, will dry your clothes, but not in five minutes!” She stared at her husband. “What are you thinking? Right now?”

“
Honestly? That I could go for a double western bacon-burger from Carl’s jr.”

“
Okay, before that. What were you thinking? Was it about that creep?”

“
Yeah, I just wish I could have inflicted some pain to him for all that he’s done to us. He tried to kill you. That sort of thing is hard to forget.”

“
So you were thinking about him, probably getting angry, right?”

Steve nodded. “What’s your point?”

Sarah smiled. “We found your trigger. Anger. You get angry, you get hot. You get angry and protective, God forbid, and you blow away the surrounding vegetation.”

“
Anger? You think my trigger is anger?”

“
Yes, I do. And the same the-stronger-the-emotion-the-stronger-the-magic bit is probably in place for you, too. The angrier you are, the more your jhorun will manifest itself.”

Steve laughed as he thought about that. “Just so long as I don’t turn green.”

Sarah giggled.

“
Do you mind if I test this? I’d like to think that I can control my anger. If I can find out what works and what doesn’t, it’ll make me feel a lot better.”

Sarah looked at the nearby lake. “Test away. Better here where there’s water than out in the middle of a forest where there isn’t any.”

“
Oh, ha ha ha. Think I’m going to burn down the forest, do you?”

Sarah turned and looked at the burnt trees.

“
Okay, bad example.”

He sat down on an overturned tree and started thinking. How do I start this, he thought. Anger. If I explode every time I get mad, then that isn’t gonna work. I’m going to have to be able to rein in my emotions so I don’t hurt anyone. Well, anyone that matters, that is. What can I start with?

His eyes started roaming the ground in front of him and alighted on a small branch that had broken off from one of the tree branches far above. He picked it up. Okay, this’ll work. Let’s start imagining that I know that the mugger is coming back. He obviously wants to harm us. Am I going to let him?

Steve gripped the branch tightly in his right hand, his left balling into a fist.

More than likely, that creep wanted to
kill him
because he probably would cause problems during the attempt at apprehending them again. Probably wanted Sarah for himself.

Wisps of smoke started to appear.

Standing quietly by the safety of the water’s edge, Sarah said nothing. She was too far away to see the tiny tendrils of smoke appearing over Steve’s hand.

The robber wanted to kill him and take his wife away, to make her a slave, to make her subservient to whoever “purchased” her. It was intolerable. Unthinkable! Not while he breathed! Not while he was able to fight, able to protect her, able to-

Now Sarah noticed the smoke. Where there’s smoke, there’s bound to be fire! Concern for her husband had her reaching for the lake water. She scooped up some water and paused.

“
Steve! Whatever you’re doing, stop! Snap out of it!” Sarah flung a double-handful of water in his direction. The few drops of water that made it to him hissed when they landed. Her husband didn’t react. Oh, boy. More dire action was needed. Reaching into the pack she grabbed the bouda bag, uncorked it and gave a mighty squeeze angled in Steve’s direction. The spray of water nailed him square in the face.

Steve jerked, looking over at Sarah. “Wha’? What happened? Why did you do that?” Wiping the water out of his eyes, Steve looked at the branch. No flames. “Something wrong?”

“
I see smoke! Something is smoking over there
!”

Steve looked at the branch in his right hand. No smoke there. He looked at his left. Smoke was indeed emanating from his clenched fist, which had turned a dark, mottled red.

“
Well, would you get a load of that!” Steve opened his hand. More smoke was billowing from his hand. A detached part of his brain thought maybe he should be in pain, but nothing registered.

His hand was tingling, as though it fell asleep. Still no pain. Was his hand going to literally start combusting, right before his eyes? He eyed it, waiting. Luckily, no flames appeared. However, his skin was still an angry red.