FireCall Read online

  Copyright 2012 by C.L. Daniels

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  A FIRELORD & FLAME DOUBLE SHOT

  FireCall

  SoulFire

  The koldeer buck hangs limp and heavy in my jaws. Sweet flesh from a swift kill. I sate myself till the growl in my stomach quiets and my eyes begin to droop. Feast drugged, I force myself to clean its hide. Suck its bones. Leave nothing for the carrion birds circling disappointed in the sky. Life lessons me the next meal may not be so easily had.

  Full-bellied and content, I drowse.

  =o=

  I jerk awake. Harsh shouts and banging drums rend the morning air. A frightened hare dashes by, paw-strike close. I squint into the rising sun. In the glare, a line of men appears. Beaters are they, to flush the prey for the two who walk behind.

  A company of grouse spraddle past, squawking with surprise and veering fast when they catch sight of me. In the distance, an aardwolf slinks quickly by, parting the high grass in its haste.

  The beaters take no notice, their path straight, their rhythm true. Toward me they come. My blood sings flee, flee, flee.

  My body hears. On limber limbs, long and thin, I rise and run. West, because there is no other way. West, into the set of moon and sun. West, into the Waste.

  The beaters pursue me. The hunters pursue them. I snarl my anger to the gathering Waste. I am not mindless quarry to be so abased.

  =o=

  I look behind, beside, ahead. The hunters harry my steps. Armed. Feather-fletched shafts tipped with tooth-sharp steel. Flung spears that root for flesh like boar tusks root for blood.

  Familiar steppes grown high with tawny grass lie far behind me now. Yet still the hunters come, driving me on. Forcing me to the Waste. Already, the acrid air stings my nostrils, burns my throat. Sense-blinding sulphur reaches through the night to drag me down like a claw-caught shrike.

  Suddenly, a koldeer leaps ahead, bounding near. A second, then a third, spring across the crusted Waste. Heading not west, away from hunters and hunted, but east into their teeth.

  Then I see the deer stop short. Even from a distance their panic fills my senses. Their heads swivel, from east to west to east again.

  I hear them then. A second line of men with shouts and drums. Closing from the west, circling ‘round. Cublings hunt in packs like this.

  The deer, too terrified to think, stand in sacrifice between. The twang of bow and whine of arrow cut across the Waste. But the falling deer are not the prize. Certainty fills my soul. It is me their death-tipped arrows seek.

  I am no mind-numb deer to panic and be caught. But the hunter circle tightens and options now run low. Still, I will not fall here, to leak my life upon this Waste. I am more than quarry, more than prize.

  Snarling, I crouch low upon the ground. Waiting. Muscles coiled, conserving strength. And as I crouch, something moves within my breast, thrills within my soul. No blood lust this, running deep, but an urgent summons. A primal call.

  I hesitate.

  The bevy of men circle close. Something on the edge of sense circles them. But I can have no thought save for the two who are hunters lifting their yew-made bows. I spring. A high scream rips the sky. It comes not from the man I hold within my jaws. This man has no throat. Another scream rises on the wind. I let this hunter fall, his blood upon my tongue, fear flown from his dead eyes.

  I turn, jaws eager for the second man. The wind now is filled with hollow screams, the sky with angry flame. White fire sheets the hunter, wrapped close as winding cloth. In his hands the wooden bow disintegrates in flame. But not before its well-nocked arrow flies.

  I twist.

  Too late.

  The arrow’s tooth bites deep into my flesh. It digs behind my shoulder, between my ribs. Pain, like a jag of lightning, rips through my chest. I sway. But the beaters will be upon me now. I cannot fall. Through blooded eyes I squint to see how close they’ve come.

  Everywhere I look is white fire, white flame. A world gone white. No men, no Waste, no wide and welcome sky.

  If the men of the Waste yet live, then let them come. Little have I thought upon my dying, but this white flame feels like death. This, and the clarion call within my soul that bids me come … come … come …

  The pain is overmuch. I can stand no longer. A supplicant, I fall and give myself to the god’s own fire.

  =o=

  I wake to dreams of sharp-tipped pain and the world eaten by flame. Awareness drips into me like a slow spring rain. I feel the pain, jackal close, harrying at my side. But above the pain shouts something more. The siren call, like the sound of war horns, thrumming through my soul. Insistent. Demanding.

  Beyond all else, I must find the source. I open reluctant eyes and peer about. The cloying darkness resolves into night. On the edge of vision, a flicker of flame burns tamely on the Waste. Cloth covers my side. The bitter whiff of crushed camal leaves mixes with the blood scent there. Another scent as well. I ease my head around to better see.

  “Greetings.”

  The word falls soft upon my ears. Startling, though, and unexpected.

  “I mean you no harm.” The voice is warm, sincere. But the essence of the woman who kneels at my side betrays. Power pulses through her. No nurselings’ mother this, but huntress. I recognize the bond.

  “The wound is not mortal,” she assures me. “Bone and muscle were rent, but nothing more. So long as we keep contagion from it, the wound will heal.” Slowly, as if in pain herself, she shifts around to where I may lay my head down and observe her still. My nostrils flare, but I smell no blood upon her, no open wound. If hurt she is, the hurt is deep inside.

  “I am Mara,” she tells me.

  How is it she knows I understand? I wish a voice with which to answer her. To ask the questions that are pounding in my head. Why does she tend me? Why does she pay deference? And what is the call within that sings so strong?

  The firecast catches her eyes. They are darkling, wise and deep. They hold answers to questions I have not yet thought to ask.

  In one short breath she answers all. “I’m a firemage — and I have summoned you.”

  The stars above spin and I feel myself fall. Falling on the shaft of her words, on the poniard of her craft.

  She is come for me.

  Are the hunters then hers? Am I felled here on the Waste by her command? But no. I remember. White flame rushing in. Screams of the beaters as they are consumed by fire. The hunter sheeted in flame. She is rescuer, redeemer. She is summoner. She is mage.

  “I have watched you,” she tells me. “I have seen your wit and seen you hunt. You are beautiful when you move, terrible when you kill. Like fire. I would have you by my side. If you would. The choice is yours.”

  She gives me life when it would have been slain and ignites my soul with her summons. Then she offers me choice. The same choice the doe has when she drops her fawn upon the grass. To abandon the babe or nurse it, care for it, protect it until it is ready to face the world upon its own. A choice that is no choice.

  The summons thrills through my veins like wind-caught leaves clinging to their branch. A binding to be obeyed.

  What does it mean to be bound? To be soul-shackled to another till one of us lies dead? To never again be free?

  More questions skitter through my brain, but answers scarce matter. The mage — my mage — reaches across the small distance that separates us and lays a hand upon my brow. A benediction. A plea. A simple show of trust.
>
  “When you are well, then you can decide.”

  But the decision, of course, is already made. And the soul-bond that calls already answers to her touch. I savor the hint of firecraft that trickles through that bond. It tastes of power. Power unimagined. With promise of more to come.

  Magecraft, though, is not the whole of this soul-bond. More there is than a sharing of craft. There is a sharing, too, of hope. Of fear. Of the very self to be explored. And there is, too, a sharing of pain.

  I see my mage stiffen at the shiver of pain that passes from me to her. But more, a portion of the pain she bears invades my senses. A pain not of the body but of the soul, tied up in craft. Real pain, for all of that.

  Reluctantly she draws her hand away. “Mage-pain,” she answers, as though my question were asked aloud. “It comes with the wielding of craft. And stays for many sunspans after.”

  Already I miss her touch upon my flesh. But the soul-bond, awakened now, will not lightly be dismissed. Shreds of sensation crawl cautious as a scolded cub across the unseen thread that binds the mage to me. Impatient, it waits uneasy for fulfillment. For the consent needed before it can launch itself between and ensoul us, inseparable as moon and tide.

  I close my eyes. Fever and weariness give me patience the soul-bond lacks.

  But before I sleep, my mage gives me one more ease. “You need a name. And since you will be my strength, the vessel to keep my craft whole and my fires bright, I will call you Flame.”

  Flame. It fits. Like hide to hair or bark to tree. As though I always have been and ever will be. Flame.

  =o=

  “Can you travel?” my mage asks.

  I pad the Waste, still stiff and sore. But I can walk, I can move, I can hunt. And I will not be coddled more. Three times the sun has risen since first she found me. I butt my head against her chest. She rings my neck in her embrace.

  “I can’t stay here any longer.”

  This I know. A war, she says, burns hot across the land. The war horns call. She is a champion among her kind. More than simple mage. More than firemage even. Firelord is she. The craft she wields from the firegod’s very forge. Only a few are craftlords such as she. Only a few can summon such as me.

  “Will you bond with me?”

  That impossible choice is already made. Yet still she asks. Not in doubt, but from respect.

  I stand before her, not sure what I must do.

  “Nothing,” she tells me. “Everything.”

  She lays her hand upon my head. The soul-bond flares. Eager. Ready. Her firecraft twists the bond, opens it up to me. Opens herself, laying bare her heart and soul and craft.

  I find I do know what to do. As surely as the cubling knows how to suck or huntress and hunter how to mate.

  Through the bond I see and hear, feel and taste all that she is, all that she was, all that she will be. In the soul-bond there can be no deceptions, no doubts, no lies. It cleanses like a fast-flowing creek. Like a storm-drenched gale. Like a pyre of white fire. I walk through water, wind and flame. My mage catches me, holds me, binds me to her lifeforce. Magery, hot and swift pours through me, permeating my mind, my life, my soul.

  I feel her reach for her craft. A pillar of fire erupts from the Waste. She reaches for me. Power thralls me as it courses through my soul. I brace myself, find a center in the firestorm. From within, I reach back out, and feed my mage my center and my strength. My mage reels at the unexpected force.

  The pillar of fire lunges for the sky.

  Firelord is she. Flame am I.

  Flame I become. At one with my mage, bound to her will, bound to her power. In lieu of words I do not own, the bond pledges her my all — for today and tomorrow too.

  “Oh, Flame,” she whispers and her words shout within me. “We are one. Craft and life and soul.” She laughs, and the sound echoes in my blood. The pillar of fire we fuel burns on. Through forever it may well last, so potent the bond we share. But with a sigh, my mage allows the flame to fall. A beacon it is, and magery ill-spent. The mage-pain testifies to that. We are together still when it hits between the bond, racks my head with its blinding rage. Quickly, like a mother calls her wayward cub to heel, she calls it off of me. I feel the soul-bond dissolve and thin till it is gone.

  Gone. I am left hollow and bereft. Barren and chill. Except … I reach, not far, and the soul-bond is there, ready, waiting. I can bear its passing, knowing it will be there still.

  I nuzzle against my mage, taking comfort in her touch, giving her what comfort that I may. It is so little, but for now it is enough.

  =o=

  When her pain lessens, we are gone. I hope we travel east, back to the steppes and their high grasses, away from this harsh and dismal Waste. But no. It is west we go. The land today is hospitable enough, but tomorrow? The Waste is vast, and that which stretches west is land not meant for life of beast nor bird.

  I stretch stiff muscles and go to catch a brace of starveling kits. Little there is here to fatten any prey, and few options for the hunt even once my wound is fully healed. My mage skins the kits and spits them over her crafted fire. The taste of flame-cooked flesh is not unpleasant. I look forward to more such meals in twilight with my mage.

  “You are special, Flame,” my mage tells me. I stretch beside her, cracking the skull and licking the brains of the cooked kit between my paws. A purr rumbles through my chest. “There is power in you — not quite, but almost, craft. You leak it wherever you walk. Other mages can sense this power in you. And while it is how I knew to find you, it’s how the hunters found you, too.

  “That arrow only meant to wound, not kill. You’re valuable to them. Tamed, you’re a prize for any mage. And should you have been captured and chosen not to be tamed, then Regist warriors would have condemned you to their Citadels where they experiment on the likes of you and me.”

  I shudder, but that fate belongs to someone else and is of no concern to me. My soul-bond has seen to that.

  My mage scratches me behind the ears. “We are not so safe as you might think. We both have bounties now upon our heads. There will be other hunters, soldiers, mages even who will seek us out, track us down.”

  I growl at that, reminding her I am no ordinary prey.

  She smiles. “And in the meantime, we will hunt them. We cannot strike at the heart where the Twin-Born rule. Not yet. You and I together are stronger than I dared hope we’d be, but still not strong enough for that. So we will harry them at their borders, keep their attention and draw them out to fight.”

  I shake the kit bones between my jaws and they rattle as they fall apart. To hunt, to fight. I am more than ready to follow my mage into battle such as that.

  She laughs and I prick my ears to hear. There is fierceness in the sound. She, too, is more than ready. And already we know each other well. “There’s an outpost on the Waste that guards one of the Citadels. Perhaps the one that birthed the Twin-Born, but who’s to know for sure. It’s a small outpost, lightly garrisoned, for the Waste itself offers some protection. Three days travel, if the maps have the right of it. Provisions must be carted in, for between here and there is little water, little food … And there is something more.”

  She hesitates, until she finds courage to continue in my unflinching gaze. “Beneath the Waste the worldfire roars. The farther we go, the more havoc it will play on craft. There is danger in that. For me. For you as well.”

  I understand only danger, but I have no fear. I am huntress and protector, too. As is my mage. While we have breath, there is naught to fear.

  “In all else would I trust,” my mage responds, her voice gentle as moonfall. “But in matters of craft, my Flame, you still have much to learn.”

  =o=

  We keep a steady pace as we track across the barren Waste. Pools of poisoned water lie pocked across the crust. Sulphur-taint is everywhere, not to be escaped. I cannot breathe but the fumes hasp my breath and burn my lungs. Plumes of sulphured water geyser through the air, spattering my fu
r.

  Hard it is to find sweet water, though, to drink. Still, we do. Pockets of rain-pure liquid hidden under rocks. Springs heated by the godfire banked beneath. Enough to keep throat and tongue sated and my mage’s pouch replete.

  Enough unpoisoned water to give the beasts that wander the Waste time enough to starve. Carrion birds and hunters harried from their packs and prides are all that prowl these plains. Outcasts given nowhere to survive. Thin-skinned and hollow-flanked these starvelings. I catch a long-tusked boar, well past its prime. Tough hide, poor flesh and gristle-full, it fills the stomach for a day and two.

  Mainly it is the worldfire that fills us now. Vents open wide and wider still as we advance across the Waste. Great steaming maws of dragons buried deep. The stench of sulphur rides the air, oppressive odor that overwhelms all else. From underground comes a constant hiss like an enormous angry snake. In the steamline, geysers erupt, a mating of earth to sky that showers us in fine hot mist.

  In the presence of the godfire, my mage leaks craft like flood from a rain-glutted stream. A nimbus glow, firefly bright, engulfs her.

  I, too, feel the worldfire call, its voice a whisper in my ear and a shout within my soul. Almost, I feel I can touch my mage’s craft and wield it for my own.

  =o=

  We are a half-day out from my mage’s mark when a flutter like moth wings beats inside my head. My mage’s craft betrays us.

  “Mages! Close.” My mage stands still, listening to the magespoor in her brain. “Two, I think. One quite powerful. Certainly an Adept. Blades, but I had hoped to meet them closer to their post.” She takes my head between her hands, stares deep into my eyes. “They’ll have warriors with them. Are you ready to fight?”

  The question is so foolish coming from my wise mage I cannot help but snarl my surprise. Her lips, like mine, curl back. Twin predator smiles we wear as our prey appears. Dark smudges against the sulphur-yellowed sky. They count on numbers, not surprise, against us. I easily pick the scent of power from the two mages that march among the rest. Fourteen they are to challenge us.