Fire Heart (The Titans: Book One) (22 page)

The question took her aback. “What? I—of course.”

“Truly.”

There was a hint of danger in the desert woman's voice. “Of course,” Clare repeated, this time with conviction, and her tone challenged Serah to believe differently. “I've only known him for a short time, but...” She shook her head, unsure how to finish.

“But you would die for him,” Serah supplied.

Clare blinked. She realized that she would. “Yes...that's odd...”

Serah chuckled. “The Dragon King has that effect on people,” she murmured with a faint smile.

They were silent for a moment. “Well,” Clare said finally, “I'd better go get ready. And go...erm...see to Will.”

As she walked away she heard Serah say in an exasperated tone, “Jhai, Zizo, stand up. He is gone.”

Grim crept silently from the shadows and joined Clare on the stairs, his sudden presence making the bodyguards reach reflexively for their swords. Clare hid her smile and patted Grim on the head. “Good boy,” she whispered.

She met Will at the top of the stairs. He was fussing with a buckle on one of his bracers and almost ran into her, but stumbled back abruptly. “Sorry,” he murmured. “Didn't see you.”

“It's fine,” Clare said, just as softly. They stared at each other for a moment in awkward silence.
I
wonder if he feels anything for me,
Clare mused. He continued to idly fiddle with the bracer, and winced as he turned his arm too far.
He's still recovering. He shouldn't be fighting. He could get hurt even worse—or die.
“Here,” she said, and reached up to help him, her fingers deftly tying the final knot in the laces. He said nothing, his whole body stiffening at her touch. After a moment she blurted, “Stay close to me. I'll protect you.”

His eyes widened in surprise and he opened his mouth to reply, but Clare squeezed past him before he could, quickly shutting the door to her room once Grim was inside. She listened intently for a moment, her ear pressed against the wood, but heard nothing. With a sigh she pressed her back to the door and slid down its length until she was sitting on the floor. Why had she said that? Grim nudged her shoulder and she shook herself. Now was not the time for idle speculation—she had a job to do.

She stood and, pushing all thoughts of Will from her mind, began to don her clothes and weapons. She had lost one city to the yaru already; she would not lose another.

The Titans tried desperately to reverse Keth's gift, but to no avail; the gift of a Titan, once bestowed upon Pallamar, can never be taken back.

And so instead they turned their fury on their brother and cast him from Ataavtic Vinouac, sending him alone to the darkest reaches of the Nether Realms. Again, only Koutoum wished for a different punishment, but his voice was lost among his siblings' rage.

And Keth was forced to wander the depths of the Void alone. Beset on all sides by despair and those entities opportunistic enough to prey on a lone Titan, his immortal mind began to crack.

Ragged and weary, he finally stopped to rest. The being that had once been Keth was slowly becoming eclipsed by a new personality—one that called itself the Dark One.

“Keth,” it whispered into his fractured mind, “Keth, who brought you to this level?”

“My brothers and sisters,” he sobbed.

“But why, Keth?” the Dark One hissed.

“Because...because of my gift.”

“But a gift must never be squandered, dear one,” the shadowy entity purred, and it held Keth to its bosom like a child. “Pallamar has grown dull once again. It needs something to...liven it up.”

“Yes,” Keth whispered, and with an insane cackle he began to fashion a new creation from the nightmares of humanity. “This one...this one I shall call a yaru.”

~

The flocks of Pradian civilians moved, Will decided, like herds of livestock. It didn't matter to them how much of a sense of urgency the Ravens had; they were going to move at their own pace, and nobody else's.

“You know, I don't understand it,” he said to Castor beside him. “We tell these people that they need to get to the city center quickly; they take their time. We tell them that their city will soon be under attack; they take their time. We tell them it will be under attack by a giant horde of
yaru
, and they
still
take their time.” He heaved an exasperated sigh. “What in the name of the Void is wrong with these cretins? Do they
want
to die?”

They stood in the very center of Prado, just beneath the statue of Gefan. The city had been designed and built long, long ago, and its architecture bore the signs of an age long past: the inner circle was enclosed by a secondary wall meant as a fallback point during the sieges of old, and the inner keep—recently converted into the
taen’s
private estate—was in fact a small, solidly built fortress designed for the sole purpose of withstanding bombardment from ballistae and trebuchets. With the constant warring state that each of the four Inner Kingdoms lived in, large fortress cities like Prado had become a luxury in a world of small, cramped keeps designed for the sole purpose of conserving building materials.

Castor shook his head slowly. “I think this is called denial, Will,” he grumbled. “These people refuse to believe that such a large helping of trouble is going to come knocking on their door. Prado has been here forever. I suppose power breeds complacency.”

“We were heroes a few weeks ago,” Will groused. “You'd think they would listen to us.”

“You'd think,” Castor agreed.

For awhile they watched the shuffling masses in silence. Exasperated, Will decided to ignore the Pradians and instead turn his thoughts to Clare, who had gone with Serah and Katryna to see to the defenses.

“What do you think of her?” he asked suddenly.

Castor started as though awakened from a doze. “Hmm? What? Who?”

“Clare,” said Will. “What do you think of her?”

Castor gave him a lopsided grin and said, “She's a pretty thing, isn't she?” Seeing the look on his
friend's face, though,
he
held his hands up defensively and laughed. “Easy there, boy. I won't steal your girl.” He gave Will a sidelong glance. “Goodness, Will, I've never seen you this worked up over a woman before. She's really had an effect on you.”

Will shrugged. “I suppose, yes.”

Castor snorted and said, “Will, it's written all over you. You look like a serving boy gawking at the princess of Avalone.”

“Avalone has three princesses,” Will pointed out.

Castor waved his hand in the air dismissively. “That's beside the point. So tell me, what's she like? Did she really save your life?”

“She did. The yaru pack was being led by the biggest one I've ever seen, and he would have killed me if she hadn't shown up when she did.” Will smiled a little. “She's incredible, isn't she? Did you know she's from the Westlands? She's been hunting that pack all the way from Dahoto.”

Castor grinned. “You've got yourself a fine catch there, my friend. One of a kind, for sure.”

Will chuckled.
But does she feel the same way?
he wondered. “Castor,” he said slowly, “remember when I told you I'd never found a girl that felt right?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Well...Clare does.” He turned to Castor. “Don't you find that funny? I mean, I'm almost forty years old, and I've never been with a  woman. And then I almost get killed, and the one who saves me is the one I finally...well, she feels right.”

Castor chuckled. “What's funny about it?”

“I don't know. It just seems strange. Maybe I hit my head too hard.” He gave a small laugh. “It just doesn't make sense.”

“Does it have to?”

Will looked at him. “What?”

Castor put a knowing arm around Will's shoulders; the effect of the gesture was lessened somewhat by their difference in height. “Will...these things happen. Call it fate, or whatever you want, but they just happen. There's no rhyme or reason to them, because there doesn't have to be.” He pounded Will lightly on the chest with his fist. “Katryna? She was the first woman I ever met that I actually wanted to be with for longer than one night. Imagine my surprise with that.”

Will grinned. “Well, I just hope Clare feels the same way. She's incredible, isn't she?”

Castor laughed. “Oh, I think she does. Now come on,” he said, clapping Will on the shoulder, “I'm tired of watching the herd. Let's go see what our women are up to.” He winked, and they both laughed as they walked off toward the wall.

~

“Do you see anything yet?” Will asked, squinting into the darkness. Now he stood atop the city wall, scanning the surrounding lands for any sign o
f attack. The fact that he had s
een none yet was good, but he almost wished the yaru would simply get on with it; his nerves were frayed and he was nearly at his wit's end with dread anticipation. He took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself. It didn't work, so instead he surveyed the countryside once more.

Prado stood in an immense plain of dirt, short grass, and scattered copses of oak—not an ideal position from an offensive point of view, but the yaru were an unconventional breed; they lacked the intelligence to use siege engines or weapons of war, so cover was a negligible attribute to a fight for them. Rather than wait just out of reach of the Pradian cannons and crossbows, they would storm and scale the walls to get at the defenders behind them. Their bestial behavior and inhuman abilities would effectively negate any advantage high stone walls and an open plain gave the humans. The inevitability of such a tactic, and the knowledge that an attack could come from anywhere, was beginning to fray Will's nerves. It didn't help that he could not be everywhere at once, nor that the men-at-arms patrolling
the city were severely undermanned. Those few soldiers that they did have were fresh recruits, too, and Will did not have an overwhelming amount of faith in them.

“No,” Clare murmured at his side as she scanned the horizon. Grim sat next to her, panting loudly and obviously miserable in the Southland nighttime heat, but he was otherwise inactive. “And apparently Grim doesn't see anything, either,” Clare continued, “so I don't think they're near yet.”

“How far away can he smell them? Or...whatever it is he does to find them.”

“A long way.”

Will let the vague reply slide, and turned and lifted a lantern into the air, waving it back and forth over his head. Off in the distance a second and third dot of light appeared at separate sections along the wall, mimicking his motions—the signal from Castor and Serah that all was quiet at their positions.

“How are you feeling?” Clare asked once Will had turned back around.

“I'm...fine,” he answered haltingly. He wasn't, really—not by a long shot, but there was no way he was going to worry Clare needlessly with his trivial aches and pains.

Clare narrowed her eyes in concern. “But you still hurt.” Will shrugged. “Stay close to me during the fight,” she said, sounding almost bashful. “I'll make sure nothing happens to you.”

Will smiled. “My guardian spirit, always keeping me safe.” He paused for a moment, then added, “I'm glad you're with me. I know I said that already, but...it's true.”

Clare smiled back. After a moment they both turned away to the task of watching for trouble. Overhead the stars and a sliver of moon cast a weak glow over the countryside. It was not enough to see by, however, rendering the city's defenders virtually blind despite the torches they had lit along the wall's outer perimeter. Firelight only went so far, even with the help of the expensive reflective mirrors the Pradians used to project the light onto the ground below.

“How many men did you say we had, again?” Will asked.

“Around nine hundred.” Clare began to tick off on her fingers as she talked, and Will tried to hide a half-smile when she took a stance that had obviously been acquired from her years of military service. “The Pradians have a hundred crossbowmen, and we supplemented them with about a hundred and fifty archers from your Ravens, give or take based on whether we need arrows or swords. The other three hundred Pradians can be either lancers or swordsmen depending on our needs, and Katryna and I put about fifty in charge of manning the cannons. The rest of the Ravens we put to work making sure everything flows smoothly.”

“How many of those do we have?” Will asked. “The cannons, I mean. I've only ever heard of them. Apparently they make quite a boom.”

Firesand had been discovered in the Eastlands less than a century before, and the desert people zealously guarded their discovery from the Lower Kingdoms. Smugglers brave or stupid enough to risk the Kalifa's wrath could make a small fortune by selling firesand weapons to the Southlands and Westlands, but such people were few and far between. Fewer still were the ones who managed never to run afoul of the Kalifa's soldiers. Firesand weaponry, as a result, was exceedingly rare in the Lower Kingdoms. That Prado had even one cannon was a testament to its legendary bottomless wealth.

Clare laughed. “All this time fighting and you've never seen a cannon? We used them often in Dahoto—took them off of dead Northlanders when a good runner wasn't around to sell. We even had a few shoulder-throwers as well. We called those shoulder-breakers.”

“What are they?”

“Basically a tiny cannon.” Clare pantomimed holding one, and it looked almost as though she were carrying a plank of wood on her shoulder. “You held it like this, and then there was a crescent moon-shaped piece right here that you held against your shoulder to steady it. The firing lever was back here, and when you squeezed it this little burni
ng fuse hit a tiny dish of fire
sand. It made quite a bang, and the ball that flew out of the end of it either killed whatever it hit or scared the enemy so badly that they turned tail and ran. Of course, it almost dislocated your shoulder every time you fired it. That wasn't nearly as fun.”

Will raised his eyebrows. “Sounds complicated...but effective.”

She grinned back at him. “Wait until you see the cannons.”

“How did the Northlands come by such things?”

“They're allies with the Eastlands,” Clare replied. “It may not show so much down here, I suppose, but far to the north there's a city called Al'Dahib. It's basically one enormous fortress that doubles as a trading hub between the East and the North.”

“Huh,” said Will. “I'd heard they never fought each other, but not that they were allies.”

“Yes. Apparently it's been that way for centuries.”

They lapsed into silence once again. A warm breeze blew by, tickling Will's skin. It gently stirred Clare's hair, which he noticed for the first time had the slightest hint of a wave at its ends. It reminded him of a dark river when the wind caught it.

“Maybe they aren't coming tonight,” Clare murmured after some time had passed, startling Will from his daze. She yawned, attempting unsuccessfully to stifle it with her hand, and grinned sheepishly.

“Don't fall asleep,” Will laughed. “I'll be defenseless!” Clare chuck
led and turned from him to gaze
out over the city, her face hidden behind her hair.

Will stared at her, wanting to say more—anything to keep her talking—but nothing came to mind. He had always been able to talk to women with relative ease, and Clare was no different. So why not now? At times he could carry on a conversation as though he had known her from birth. And then, for no reason at all, the strangest feelings would twist in his gut when she looked at him, and when she spoke it was all he could do to keep his tongue from tying itself in knots.
Maddening,
he thought with annoyance.