Wind-Scarred (The Will of the Elements, Book 1) (38 page)

Ernest grunted, picking up
a fancy teacup and wiping away an imaginary spot as Bert hurried to
the center of the square. The fire-kissed procession was still a
little ways out of town. Ezra scanned over the rest of the little
square, and as he passed over a group of children jumping rope, he
caught the words “-
and will harbor no
wrong
,” in a familiar singsong chant. He
stopped, startled, as the children continued.

The wind-scarred are tricksters

They'll steal your things

Then fly through the sky

Like a bird with no wings

The Sons and the Daughters

Of Lightning will tell

How to save your soul

And keep you from hell

The little girl jumping rope tripped on the
last line, sending all the children into a fit of laughter. A boy
jumped up as the rope started spinning again, and the rhyme began
anew.

A water-seer's eyes

Are as blue as the sea

They'll heal all your hurts

But there'll be a fee

A fire-kissed burns with

A passionate heat

They make all the laws

And keep our towns neat

A worried looking woman interrupted the
game, hurriedly shooing the children indoors. She glanced back
toward the gate before shutting the door behind her.

The Besmirched group had finally entered the
town. Guards fanned out, creating a perimeter, hard eyes scanning
for trouble. The mysterious figures in black robes took up
positions on either side of the palanquin as the slaves set it down
gently.

“
Whole lot of fuss over one blighted fire-kissed,” Mat
whispered as two of the slaves prostrated themselves to act as
steps while four more brought around large fans. The last two
reverently cinched back the silk drapes to let out their passenger.
Mat rolled his eyes. “I take back everything I've ever said about
you Legacy pansies, this is just strucking-”

One perfect, bare leg emerged from the
shaded interior.

“
-hot,” Mat finished weakly. “Ezra, man, move over...” Mat
nudged at him absently, eyes still glued to the woman exiting the
palanquin. Ezra watched as a golden goddess stepped into the
sunlight. Her skin was flawlessly tanned, practically glowing light
gold. Just the curve of her calves had Ezra adjusting his pants,
and the rest of her curves were at least as enticing. A long slit
ran up both sides of her slinky red dress, hinting tantalizingly at
the shapes of her thighs as she stepped delicately over the slaves'
backs. “Does she look as good up close as she looks from here?” Mat
wiped a hand over his mouth. “Please say yes, oh god, please say
yes.” She shaded her face with her hand and looked around the town,
laughing fetchingly. It did fetching things with her bosom as well.
As in, it fetched the attention and didn't let it go again. Ezra
found himself smiling stupidly and pulled himself away from the
scope, breathing heavily.

“
Men,” Sarah muttered darkly as she took charge of the railgun.
She let out a soft gasp. “Well... maybe I can't blame you, this
time.”

Ezra grabbed his canteen and took a long
drink, still haunted by gleaming golden ringlets spilling over
smooth, gorgeous shoulders, burnt red highlights throwing back
glimmers from the sun. And none of it had compared to her face...
cheeks slightly flushed, luscious lips smiling with deliberate
wickedness. Those captivating golden eyes with tiny emerald flecks,
practically burning with a sensuality that... Ezra swallowed and
dumped the remaining contents of the canteen over his head. It
helped, a little.

“
I
wanna be a Besmirched,” Mat whimpered miserably, “if it means I get
besmirched by her.” He shook his head in wonder. “If the Chancellor
looked like that, I'd never want to leave Sanctuary.”

“
You and me both,” Sarah murmured. Ezra gaped at Sarah. Mat
eyed her appraisingly. Her head shot up as she realized what she
had said, then her eyes narrowed into a defensive look. “What?
She's really hot.” Sarah shrugged and settled her eye back to the
scope.

A velvety voice purred through their
communicators. “Mmmm, I smell jasmine tea. Bert, darling, you
remembered.” Ezra desperately wished for more water.

He inched up to watch the
scene below them unfold. A chill wind gusted through the bell
tower.
Ah
, Ezra
thought,
probably why the conspirators
didn't pick this for a sniping location
.
From up here, however, they could see everything play
out.

Valerie and her two cowled shadows walked to
the cleanest table in the tavern, as expected. Men with bows crept
along rooftops, staying low and out of sight from below. The
fire-kissed took a seat, robed figures flanking her, as the gangly
teenager Jeremiah carefully brought her a steaming pot of tea. How
he managed to make it to her without killing himself was a mystery
to Ezra, as the boy was clearly at once smitten and terrified out
of his mind. Val must have smiled at him or something as he
retreated, because he tripped over two chairs and a table while
backing away. Her guard spread out in a semi-circle facing out from
the tavern.

None of them saw the bartender pull a loaded
crossbow from behind the bar and level it on Val. “Freedom!” he
roared as the arrow flew, straight and true.

“
Freedom!” echoed the twenty men on the rooftops, loosing their
arrows at precisely the same moment.

“
Freedom!” cried every single person milling about in the
square as they all drew steel, some falling upon the shocked
guardsmen, others hurling missiles at Val's exposed
back.

The elementalist took a calm sip of her tea.
One of the cloaked figures raised a hand, and the air went still.
So did every projectile in flight.

The other dark silhouette threw back his
cowl, revealing delicate features etched with fine, silver scars.
He looked around impassively, then brought up both arms. Heavy
sleeves fell back as his scarred hands lifted, like a maestro
conducting an invisible orchestra. His hands flickered, and chaos
consumed the little town.

A whirlwind whipped into existence, centered
on Val and her wind-scarred minions. Arrows, daggers and axes were
thrown into a frenzied blur of motion, slicing through people and
walls alike. The wind tugged the cowl free from the other
wind-scarred, revealing a young woman's face. Ezra squinted. In
fact, from up here, the two of them almost looked like...

“
Twins,” Sarah muttered in disbelief. “A matching pair of
scarred twins in her pocket the whole time.” She began to fiddle
with the scope. “Hold on, I'll try to get audio from inside their
windstorm.”

Ezra saw Val reach up to catch her hair as
it blew wildly around her head. “Kiril,” she said in sharp
reprimand.

The wind elementalist glanced back toward
the seated woman. “Apologies, lady,” he said softly, never letting
the air that danced around him waver in its intensity. A rebel who
had managed to slip through the ring of guards was abruptly caught
up in his working and hammered through a pile of firewood. Within
the insanely whirling funnel of air, however, the breeze died down
until Val's hair was barely fluttering. She took another sip of
tea, seemingly oblivious of the chaos and carnage going on around
her.

“
Kirin,” the male wind-scarred, Kiril, murmured in his soft
voice. “Archers on the rooftops.”

“
Busy,” his twin chimed lightheartedly. Her hands moved in
elaborate motions, swirling as if holding a large ball before her,
pulling it to the side. With a smooth flick of her wrists she
extended both arms toward the back of the tavern, where Ernest had
taken cover behind the bar. A pressurized blast of air exploded
through the room, catching tables, chairs, the bar, and the
bartender in a wall of force and fury. The back of the little
tavern erupted in a rain of torn and splintered wreckage as the
barkeep bounced a few times then landed bonelessly. The
wind-scarred woman nodded in satisfaction, then sang out, “Rooftops
you say, brother dearest?” Kiril paid her no mind and she laughed a
musical laugh, her hands gathering the wind for another
strike.

Ezra watched as an archer took careful aim
and managed to hit one of the guardsmen, only to be swatted from
his post on the roof in an explosion of cracked tiles and
irresistible force as Kirin's attack dented the building beneath
his feet.

“
Blight and thunder,” Mat whispered in shock as the chatter of
automatic weapon fire began to ring through the town square. The
small army Val had brought with her quickly formed up, using their
superior weapons and training to brutally turn the tide of the
sortie outside the twisting wall of wind. Ezra counted two of them
on the ground, not moving. Another one was grimly pulling an arrow
from his leg, murder in his eyes.

And still the townspeople fought, madly
trying to make it through the guards. Those few who did were
flicked away by concentrated blasts of air or torn from their feet
mere steps from the fire-kissed's back and tossed around like toys.
Val calmly poured herself another cup of jasmine tea, holding it up
to her nose and inhaling the scent serenely.

Something was nagging at the back of Ezra's
mind. “Um... why are their guns working?” He turned to Mat, who
looked at him in surprise, then narrowed his eyes at the
courtyard.

“
I
don't know,” Sarah hissed between gritted teeth, furious. “They
shouldn't be. It doesn't make any sense.” She slammed a fist down
next to her as one of the men who had tailed she and Mat was gunned
down mercilessly.

“
It's gotta be because the fire-kissed is so blighted calm,”
Mat said slowly. “That was probably the whole point of this.” He
clenched his fist tightly. “Those guns look brand new. I bet this
whole thing was a setup so that the little kissed princess down
there could see how well her Sanctuary-made firearms work when
she's around.”

“
Thundering hell. Get out of there, kid,” Sarah whispered
softly. Ezra turned back toward the three elementalists, and
watched as Jeremiah made his uncoordinated way out from under a
table, inside the circle of calm. He looked around shakily, and
then miraculously pulled up a cocked and loaded crossbow from the
tangled mess of furniture. Kirin trilled out a merry laugh and
rounded on him, only to come up short as Val raised one hand,
setting her steaming cup down carefully.

“
Oh, don't be like that,” the fire-kissed pouted at the
terrified young man, velvety voice caressing the words. “Wouldn't
you rather come join me for a nice little... chat?” Ezra gulped as
the promises implicit in that enticing voice pricked the ears of
his inner neanderthal and set it beating its chest.

“
I-I don't have nothin' to s-say to you.” The crossbow waved
wildly as Jeremiah trembled in fear. “Nothin at all!”

Val made a fascinating little sigh of
disappointment. “I was so hoping you and I might be friends. Come,
sit,” she cooed. “Tell me about the fire-kissed who burned this
valley to the ground. I should very much like to meet someone like
that.” She tossed her hair and cocked her head toward the boy,
arching her back ever-so-slightly. Ezra could imagine it having a
devastating effect on someone in front of her. “Wouldn't you like
to tell me?”

The crossbow stopped wavering and settled on
Val's heart. “You won't lay a finger on Stephen, you blighted
witch,” the awkward teenager whispered fiercely. The weapon twanged
as the arrow shot forward.

And exploded in a burst of flame.

“
The arrowhead,” Sarah gasped as something tumbled free from
the cloud of fire that had been a crossbow. It bounced once on the
table in front of Val. There was a distinct clink as it hit the cup
of tea. The steaming cup tipped, wobbled on its edge, then fell,
spilling the hot liquid across the little table.

And directly into the fire-kissed's lap.

Val gasped, pushing away from the table and
looking down at her dress in disbelief. “How dare you!” Her voice
rang with pure outrage. Jeremiah stumbled to his feet, hands and
face burnt and blistering. He leaped over a fallen chair and
started running for all he was worth.

He managed to take two steps.

A pillar of white hot flame shot up where
the gangly teenager had stood, bathing the embattled town in heat
and light. Mat and Ezra were forced to step back, shielding their
faces, as Sarah cursed and jerked away from the scope. The fire
burned for a heartbeat then vanished, leaving a blackened circle
and nothing else. Everything was suddenly silent and still.

“
Bad things happen,” Mat almost prayed, fear etched in his face
as he stared down at the golden elementalist.

The sounds of fighting were quickly replaced
with screams as the townspeople began to run for their lives. Ezra
looked on in horror as the guards lifted their guns, lining up
shots on the fleeing people. A trigger was pulled, accompanied by a
loud clicking sound but no bullets. The guard holding it looked
down at his weapon in confusion as his neighbor's gun exploded,
tearing into the face and arm of the man who had tried to fire it,
eliciting shrieks of pain as he fell to the ground.

Through the scope's audio beam the team
heard Val snarl as she gestured absentmindedly toward the ravaged
guard. He went up in a ball of fire, leaving only blackened bones
behind. The rest came suddenly to attention, although several
dropped their weapons in the process. “Kiril, Kirin, round them
up,” Val shouted to the two wind-scarred. Mat pushed Ezra to the
ground as one of them took to the air after the faster villagers.
“Check the blighted houses,” the Besmirched screamed at the guards.
“I want all of them out here, now!”