Brightly Burning (51 page)

POL wanted nothing so much as to lie down. His head throbbed, the gash across his eyes felt like a burning brand, and he wanted so badly just to have the leisure to mourn his loss—

But not now. There was duty, and there was Duty, and Lan was desperately needed. If Lan was needed, so was Pol.

“I don't
care!
” Ilea protested behind him, as someone helped her down out of his saddle. “I don't care how much you need him! You get him a stretcher, and you take him there lying down, and
I
tell you when he's spoken enough!”

Pol wanted to protest but he couldn't. How could he? He could barely sit astride his Companion, even with the help of all the straps. He let himself be taken down out of the saddle and assisted onto the stretcher—and as his head touched the pillow there, he felt tears of relief seeping into the bandage around his eyes.

They carried him into the Lord Marshal's tent. Now Lan was Pol's eyes; all that time that they had spent linked so that Pol could show him the intricacies of his own Gift was serving a dual purpose.

Ilea allowed him to sit up, but only with the aid of several pillows and folded blankets. They sat in the tent of the Lord Marshal himself; the Lord Marshal's Herald watched them solemnly with an unidentifiable expression on his young face. This Herald Turag was a replacement. The Lord Marshal's original Herald Marak had been one of the first casualties of the stand at White Foal Pass. Not dead, but so seriously wounded that he would be months in recovering, and probably lose a leg.

“These new Sun-priests—we call them the Dark Servants—turned up a few days ago; they start in on their business at sunset, and these
things
howl around the tents all night long. Come morning, people are dead in their bedrolls—and the morale of our troops is being hammered,” the Lord Marshal said. The man looked very much as if his own morale was in jeopardy; there were huge circles beneath his eyes, and new lines of strain in his face. His thick, gray hair, tied back from his face in a utilitarian tail, was lank and brittle, and his beard hadn't been trimmed or properly cared for in a fortnight.

“We're outnumbered, but more to the point, we're at a profound disadvantage,” Lord Marshal Weldon continued. “How can we fight something we can't see? It strikes in the dark, and no one is safe. They've pushed us back every day, and every night we lose more men to their horrors. One more day, and they're going to break through, and they won't stop until they reach Haven.”

Lan clenched his jaw, and Pol felt it, but the boy was hiding his innermost thoughts.

“Are they out there now—the Dark Servants?” Lan asked. “Can we see them from our lines?”

“They make damned certain we can,” the Lord Marshal said bitterly. “You can see them—and their cursed bonfires—from here with no difficulty at all. We've tried shooting at them, but they're just out of range and no one wants to get any closer.”

Pol was suddenly left without eyes—Lan cut off his link. “Please, my lord, I need to see them for myself,” the boy said, then just got up, brushed through the tent flaps and was gone.

Pol didn't need to see to know that the Lord Marshal was nonplussed at this very junior Herald's abrupt departure.

“My lord—I think we had better follow him,” he said, as the new Marshal's Herald stepped attentively to his side and touched his elbow.

“No—” Ilea said.

“Yes,” Pol ordered through clenched teeth.

The stretcher bearers took Pol outside, following the Marshal, and they all went out into the open air.

Once outside, Pol found Satiran gently shoving the young Herald aside with his nose and taking the latter's place. Now he saw what Satiran saw—which was taking some getting used to, since there was a peculiar blind spot straight ahead, but an enormous amount of peripheral vision; one eye saw Pol, while the other surveyed everything on the opposite side. The Lord Marshal's tent stood on the top of a hill overlooking White Foal Pass, where the army of the Karsites spread out beneath them, an ugly blot upon the white snow. Although it was nearly dark, there was enough light to show more than Pol wanted to see.

Bonfires blazed along the front of that blotch, seven of them in all, and Pol saw why the Lord Marshal had called the bonfires cursed. At the heart of each was a stake, and tied to the stake was what was left of a man. Beside each fire was a person in long, hooded robes; encircling the fires at a healthy distance were other folk in the robes that Pol recognized as being the Sun-priests he was familiar with. Despite the distance, the clear air of these mountains made it easy to make out what was there—and Satiran's eyes were exceptionally keen. Lan peered down at the bonfires, one hand on Kalira's shoulder, standing as still as one of the trees beyond him.

“It's when the fires burn down to coals that the
things
start howling. The victims in the fires are no one of ours—none from the army, that is,” the Lord Marshal growled. “We try and retrieve the bodies of our own before
they
can get to them, and we've seen them dragging ruffians in Karsite rags to the fires and trussing them to the stakes. I'm assuming that the victims are brigands or thieves.”

“Or just some poor fellows who were in the wrong place,” Pol replied. “Whatever they are—I doubt they deserved—”

The fires below them suddenly—

Once again, Pol heard that strange sound, as of something soft and heavy hitting the ground; it wasn't like thunder, nor like a tree falling, though it had something of the character of both those sounds. Now, though, he realized what it was—what the cause was, anyway. Lan had called the fires, and they had answered.

Between one heartbeat and the next, the bonfires grew—no,
grew
was too mild a word for they way they increased exponentially in size and fury. The burst outward in all directions, and they
ate
the priests around them before the latter could even twitch, licking out, enveloping them and devouring them before the eyes of their followers! The newly-roused fires roared, their voice like a chorus of wild beasts, so loud that if there was any screaming going on down there—and there must be—it was completely drowned.

In the next instant, the fires merged into one, a line cutting across the pass, effectively separating the Karsites from Valdemar. Not a chorus of beasts now—the single fire roared in a solitary voice of triumph, and as it roared, it began to move, spreading toward the Karsite tents.

Pol and Satiran stared, mesmerized. Probably everyone in the Valdemaran lines was doing the same at that moment. For the moment, he forgot his pain, forgot he was tired unto death, forgot everything but the fire in front of him. The flames clawed at the sky, reaching higher than the treetops, high as the mountain peaks on either side of the pass. Little vortices twisted in the midst of the flames, dancing along the burning ground delicately, gracefully. The fire drove forward, chasing the Karsites out of their encampment, driving them back to their own border. Pol felt the heat of it scorching his face even from his stretcher; he couldn't imagine what it was like down in the pass!

Showers of sparks, storms of sparks spun through the sky above the flames, yet none of them landed on the Valdemar side of the fire-line. Choking, black smoke billowed above the fire, yet none of it blew across to fill the lungs of Valdemarans.

:What are our people doing?:
Pol asked Satiran, for nothing could be seen of the Karsite side but flame.

Satiran turned his head, and just below them ranged a sea of faces, all staring at the firestorm incredulously, mesmerized by the power and the awful beauty. No one moved; and if anyone spoke or even shouted, it couldn't be heard above the roar of the fire.

Trees actually exploded from the heat, burning pieces flying in every direction
except
toward the Valdemaran forces.

The fire crawled slowly away, and where it had been there was only bare earth and the smoldering remains of stumps. It retreated up the pass, presumably sending the Karsites fleeing before it.

:What's Lan doing?:
Pol prompted.

Satiran swung his head about, obedient to Pol's wishes.

Satiran couldn't see Lan's face from this angle, but the boy was no longer standing rock-steady. He swayed a little, and so did Kalira.

That wasn't what made the hair on the back of Pol's neck stand up, though. What he saw was chilling and was probably sending a finger of fear down the spine of everyone else who could see the boy.

Tiny blossoms of flame danced around Lan, flickering in his hair, floating in the air above him, twirling on his fingertips, and the tiny fires swayed to the same directions as the greater fires.

If there was anyone who hadn't known of Lan's powers before, they certainly were in no doubt of them now.

Lan's hand spasmed in Kalira's mane; the flamelets vanished.

The boy collapsed, his knees giving out beneath him. He slid down Kalira's side to land in a crumpled heap on the snow.

And the firestorm below faltered.

As quickly as it had begun, it died, until there was nothing in the pass but burning tree stumps, glowing coals, and blackened ground.

No one moved for a long time. Although normally this would have been an occasion for cheers, the sheer and terrifying power of the fire had left mouths dry with unspoken fear—and no one dared to approach the creator of that terror.

No one, except Elenor, who shook off her mother's hand and ran to Lan's side.

Kalira first knelt, then carefully laid herself down beside her Chosen, and Elenor propped Lan's head up against her flank as Pol finally broke his own paralysis and sent his litter bearers stumbling toward them, with Satiran right beside him.

“He's just exhausted,” Elenor said, looking up at her father with relief. “He needs to be put to bed, though, and he'll need to eat like a starving man when he wakes.”

Pol didn't doubt that in the least and fortunately the young Herald Turag was near enough to hear her. Without being asked to, he moved to Elenor's side, carefully scooped the boy up in his arms, and carried him off, Elenor running alongside. Kalira remained where she was, she was probably just as exhausted as Lan was.

:Turag's Adan will stay with her,:
Satiran said, moving in Herald Turag's wake. Pol went with him, lying flat and exhausted on the stretcher himself, one hand still on Satiran's shoulder. They caught up with the Lord Marshal's Herald just as he shoved his way through the entrance of a tent.

“He can have my bed for now,” Turag told Elenor as Pol reached for the tent flap and held it open so Satiran could see inside by the light of the lamp that burned beneath the centerpole. There were several cots set up, heaped with blankets; from the clothing scattered about, this tent was shared by several Heralds. Turag put Lan down on one of the cots, and Elenor carefully covered him over, taking a cushion from nearby and settling herself on the floor beside him.

Turag backed away, then turned and motioned to Pol's litter bearers to bring him inside as well. With Satiran outside—there was no room for him in the crowded tent—Pol was left in darkness again. They transferred him to another cot, as Turag hovered nearby.

“What happened?” the young man asked Pol anxiously. “Did that
boy
—I mean—”

“The boy is Herald Lavan Firestarter, and yes, he caused—all that.” Pol waved his arm in the general direction of the pass. “Mind you, his strength comes from anger, and if we hadn't been attacked today, I don't know that he could have. . . .” His voice trailed off, and he shrugged as Turag took in the bloodstains on his Whites.

“I forgot. You were the ones that were ambushed. I suppose that would give him enough anger for anything,” Turag replied, his mind clearly more on Lan and the firestorm than anything else. “I'm not really suited for this position, I—” He seemed to suddenly wake up, and looked sharply at Pol. “Sir, would you please be willing to put off your rest for a little longer? I think the Lord Marshal will want an explanation.”

Ah, gods, not more—
He wanted so badly to sink down into the blackness of sleep, rather than the blackness of sightlessness. “All right—” he began.

“A handful of words!” Ilea said angrily. “And no more!”

The Lord Marshal did, indeed want an explanation. The Lord Marshal also wanted a great deal of assurance that Lan was no danger to their
own
people.

Finally even Pol's patience and strength were exhausted, and Ilea's was already strained to the breaking point. “My Lord,” he snapped, his head pounding and his eyes one long streak of agony, “enough.”

Ilea took this as her cue to speak the words that had probably been trembling behind her lips for the past candlemark. There was
no
mistaking the anger in her voice. She couldn't revenge herself on the man that had attacked him, but she could, and would, vent some spleen on the Lord Marshal. “With all due respect, my Lord—
you
know the King's position on this boy already, and my husband is tired, wounded, and should have been in a bed the moment we entered this camp! If you must have reassurance, seek it somewhere else!”

Pol knew that tone of voice, and pictured her in his mind without any difficulty, her eyes flashing her head up, quite ready to do battle with the King himself at this moment. The Lord Marshal was no match for her in this mood.

Thank the gods.
Pol didn't think he could have stayed there for another moment, and he didn't have to. With stammered apologies, the Lord Marshal sent for servants, who bustled about the tent, fetching food, drink, and a fresh brazier, emptying the tent of all the cots but the ones Lan and Pol were on, and a third one left for Tuck, who was already asleep on it.