Desert Fire (Legend and Lore Book 3) (6 page)

They parted ways, leaving the dragons behind to guard the camp. Brand did not know what to say, what to do as he suddenly found himself completely alone with Kamoor. At least before there had been two other men with them.

Kamoor’s hard, dark eyes cut to him as they walked deeper into the woods. “What does he see in you?” he questioned sharply.
 

Brand averted his gaze. “I do not know. What does he see in you?”
 

Kamoor turned his head roughly away, his jaw again clenching in anger. Brand couldn’t help but feel a bit satisfied at that, but his smile did not last for long. Khatlah loved Kamoor, no matter how cruel he had been to Khatlah in the past...
 

“Do not mock me. You know nothing about what has happened before you arrived.”
 

“I know that Khatlah spoke the truth to me last night,” Brand replied. “No one can make a lie so convincing, of that I am certain. He was crushed yesterday, because of you. Crushed. He has been alone for so long, no one gives him the time of day anymore. He was kind to me when no one else was, so I owe it to him to help him.”

“Help him?” Kamoor glared at him briefly before turning back to peruse the woods in front of him.
 

“Khatlah never betrayed you,” Brand told him quietly. “So wherever you got that notion, it is wrong. All he ever wanted was you.” Brand did not want to say the words, but he had to, for Khatlah. He quickened his steps, his boots crunching on the uneven ground of the forest, covered with grass, twigs and fallen leaves.
 

He could hear Kamoor following him, but he only increased his pace. Brand had lived in the forest all his life, while Kamoor was of the desert, and though he might be used to the treacherous ground of the woods, for Brand it was innate.
 

“Do not walk away from me, wolf!” Kamoor snapped. “You do not get to say such a thing and just walk away!”
 

“What more is there to say?” Brand replied tiredly.
 

“You do not know Khatlah. How can you know he speaks the truth?”
 

“I may not know him well, but when someone cries all over me, it generally means that person is speaking the truth!” Brand turned, glaring angrily at Kamoor. “Why can you not believe him? Who do you trust so much that you turn on the man you love?”
 

A stricken look flickered over Kamoor’s face for just a moment before he managed to mask it. He clenched his jaw again, anger burning in his eyes, but Brand could see the difference in it. His anger was no longer towards Brand, or even Khatlah, but someone else.

“Let us be civil and do what we are here to do,” he suggested, knowing that they would not get anything done if they continued to bicker. The ones they were there to find would hear them for miles—and they might run off, but most likely they would just kill them.
 

Kamoor’s anger dimmed as his mind settled on what they were supposed to do. He nodded, and Brand flexed his fingers, his eyes roaming. As a human he knew forests, he had lived in them, but as a wolf he was part of the forest.
 

“Let us hunt.” And so he shifted.
 

Brand used his powers to stoke the fire and watched the wood crackle. He could’ve made flames without the wood, but he did not want to constantly use his powers, because he did not want his eyes to constantly be the colour of the very flames he was looking at.
 

Kamoor was beside him, sitting on what appeared to be part of a fallen arch, and angrily carving on a piece of the wood they had brought from the forest. Brand did not have to look at him to see the anger and the tension, it was clear in his movements. It seemed to radiate from him. Night was starting to fall and they were waiting for Sakoptari and Sarab to come back.
 

Brand and Kamoor had not come across anything of interest in the forest, and had eventually returned to camp. The fact that the other two were not back yet gave Brand hope that they at least had discovered something.
 

Brand had not known the three men he had followed over the mountain had been a part of a bigger group. It did not surprise him, however. Those men had been scum and he had no doubt that the rest of the group was, too. He wanted them gone, because dragons were magnificent creatures that should not be killed in such ruthless ways.
 

“Do you name your dragons?” he questioned, breaking the heavy silence.
 

“Yes,” was the short reply.
 

Brand looked up at the sky. The dragons had left once he and Kamoor had come back, though he did not know to where. “What is your dragon’s name?” He couldn’t help but be curious, dragons were as far from his life as was possible. They had been myth to him for all his life, and though he had gone searching for them... he had not actually thought he would see one.
 

“Atesh,” Kamoor replied.
 

“Does it have a specific meaning?”
 

“Fire.”
 

Brand turned towards Kamoor at that and found him looking right back at him. In the ancient language, Brand’s name meant the exact same thing. He shared a name with Kamoor’s eerie dragon—it was a coincidence, but a disconcerting one.
 

“I do not think your dragon likes me,” he commented. “Though I should not be surprised. No one really does.”
 

“Khatlah likes you,” Kamoor replied, voice low.
 

Brand chuckled bitterly. “Not as much as he likes you.” Really, when this was over, Brand had to get away from there. He’d have to travel north, towards the Jotun Territory, because he was soon all out of options.
 

Kamoor cleared his throat, but movement ahead brought his attention away from Brand. Brand saw Sakoptari and Sarab heading towards camp, silently walking next to each other. Brand could practically feel Kamoor’s anger and tension return. Frowning, he did not even manage to turn his head before Kamoor was on his feet and stalking over to the two. He went right up to Sakoptari and swung his fist, catching the surprised prince on the side of his face.
 

Sakoptari went sprawling to the ground, but he quickly managed to get back on his feet and he stared with wide eyes back at Kamoor. “What is the matter with you?”
 

“You lied to me!” Kamoor snarled. “You are supposed to be my friend and you lied!”
 

Sakoptari looked completely bewildered, and Brand frowned even more. What was going on? Sarab looked completely out of it, too, keeping himself at a distance from the two friends.
 

“About Khatlah!” Kamoor yelled. “You told me—“ He had to stop and swallow, obviously not getting the words out. “You lied!”
 

Sakoptari’s confusion cleared. “You’re bringing that up? That happened ages ago!”
 

“That does not matter because you still lied!” Kamoor swung again, but that time Sakoptari was more prepared and blocked it. They scuffled for several minutes, neither gaining the upper hand, until Kamoor stepped back with a snarl. “I trusted you,” he got out through clenched teeth. “I trusted you and you went and ruined everything!”
 

He turned and stalked back to the camp, going past Brand without so much as a look and over to his sleeping pallet. Brand looked at his back for a moment, then turned to see what Sakoptari would do... and found Sakoptari’s eyes burning with hate as they stared at Brand. Brand felt a tingling sensation going down his spine, but he did not back down from that stare.
 

So Sakoptari was the one who had ruined everything between Khatlah and Kamoor. But for what? The hate in his eyes could not possibly be for Brand—not to that extent. But then who did he hate? Khatlah? Or Kamoor himself?
 

When Sakoptari broke the gaze to go over to his own bed pallet, Brand breathed out. His eyes flickered to Sarab, who had crouched down on the other side of the fire. Sarab was not looking at him, or at the other two. Sighing, Brand lay down on his bed pallet, which he had moved next to the fire. Fire was his element and he wanted to be close to it.

Brand woke to a hand covering his mouth and a dagger pressed against his throat. He did not protest as he was being dragged to his feet and pushed towards the forest. He blinked the sleep from his eyes, letting his brain clear. It was still night, but dawn was near, and someone was holding him at knife point, and they did not want him to be able to call for help. Meaning that at least one man had to be back at the camp asleep, without knowing what was going on.
 

They reached the forest and Brand was forced further in, before he was roughly shoved to the ground in the middle of a small clearing. Rolling over, Brand stared up at the one who had got the better of him. “Sakoptari.” He glared, but stayed very still, not sure what to expect. Those dark eyes still burned with hate and rage.
 

“Who do you think you are?” Sakoptari snarled. “Coming here and turning Kamoor against me? I did not mind you going after Khatlah. All the better, I say, because that would for sure get him out of my face at every turn. But no, you come after Kamoor as well, and then tell him I am a liar!”
 

Brand was starting to see where the conversation was going. “You lied to Kamoor,” he snapped. “You lied to him, thinking he would come to you in his grief, did you not?” The flickering of Sakoptari’s eyes told him he was right. “You lied to him about your own brother!”
 

“Kamoor is mine!” Sakoptari yelled. “That little good-for-nothing is not worth the attention of Kamoor!”
 

“So you made sure he would never get it again,” Brand commented, feeling his disgust with Sakoptari rise. Brand might’ve caused Garrick pain with his behaviour in the past, but he had never gone that far:
 
he had never tried to take another chance at love away from him. He would never do such a thing. Garrick was happy with his witch, and Brand had had to move on. He would never sink so deep. “But Kamoor never came to you, did he?” He couldn’t help but mock, because if Kamoor had ever gone to Sakoptari’s bed, then Sakoptari would not react so violently.
 

Sakoptari pursed his lips angrily. “You came here a prisoner. I beat you up so badly that my weak brother took pity on you. You are nothing here. Nothing! So do not come here and ruin everything I am working on. Because I will kill you.”
 

“If Kamoor hasn’t come to your bed before, he will not now!” Brand told him angrily. “You cannot force someone to feel that way with lies and deceit. It does not work that way!”
 

“And how would you know?” Sakoptari stepped closer. “It got them apart and it has kept them apart for so long. Until you arrived. You have been a thorn in my side since we captured you. I should’ve just lodged my arrow in your chest from the beginning and I would not have to deal with this.” He lunged, and Brand barely managed to roll over in time to avoid the sharp dagger.
 

He pushed to his feet and backed away, not knowing what to do. Should he just run? No, he could not do that, because then Sakoptari would go back to camp saying he had never been on their side after all, that when he had had the chance he had turned tail and run, and no one would know what Sakoptari had done. So Brand couldn’t. He had to stay and try to keep himself alive.
 

“Why aren’t you fighting back?” Sakoptari snarled.
 

“Because I cannot kill you,” Brand replied, dodging another lash out. “You are the crown prince and no one will believe it was in self-defence if I were to kill you.”
 

“Like you could kill me,” Sakoptari yelled. “I am a warrior and you’re just a lowly prisoner I beat up for the fun of it!”
 

Sakoptari was not sane, Brand realized. Not sane and certainly not fit to sit on any throne. Twisting away from another lash-out, Brand let his eyes roam the forest, looking for something to gain an advantage without having to kill Sakoptari. But in that moment Sakoptari saw his chance, and he was on Brand immediately, and they both fell to the ground in a flurry of arms and legs.
 

Brand called out in pain as the knife cut into his side, and when Sakoptari sat up he instantly moved his hands to try to stop the bleeding. Looking up at Sakoptari, who was straddling his waist, he saw that mad gleam in his eyes again as he held the dagger high above his head. Brand realized with horror that that dagger was going to be lodged right into his heart.
 

Sakoptari started to lower his hands and Brand saw it as if it happened much slower than it really did. He wanted to shift, but he would still be stuck. He wanted to use his powers but that would kill Sakoptari... and so he was destined to die by the hand of a madman.
 

Sakoptari jerked to a stop, the knife hovering inches above Brand’s heart. He jerked again, and his eyes widened, then a sword was thrust through his abdomen, blood gushing out over Brand to mix with his own. Sakoptari was pushed off of him, and then Brand saw what had made him jerk—two arrows lodged in his back.
 

“Brand!”
 

Brand looked up at Kamoor, dazed by his own pain and the fact that his attacker had just been killed. Kamoor stood above him, frowning down at him for a moment before he crouched down. “Where?” he demanded, but Brand’s clutching grip on his side gave him the answer. He pried Brand’s hands away and ripped more of the tunic open so that he could get to the wound. “Why did he do this?” Kamoor asked, the pain of killing his best friend clear to Brand, even through his own physical pain.
 

“Because of you,” he whispered. “Because he wanted you so badly... that he would get rid of everyone standing in his way.”
 

A twig breaking had his head moving, but it was only Sarab joining them in the clearing, still holding his bow and arrow at the ready. But something still did not feel right and Brand pushed himself up in a sitting position.