Firebrand

Shadows slithered by his feet. Others moved quickly among them, growling and snarling. They were horned and tailed and scaled, and stank of decay when stabbed. They flapped just above the heads of the soldiers, and some made chuckling, chittering noises before sinking serrated teeth into an unprotected arm or leg.

The Aeon Iire was broken, and now their only hope was that the avatar of Westrion truly existed and would come to their aid.

AUREAS SLEE

Slee continued to drift in its insubstantial form. Its time in the arctic had helped heal it some, and during its drifting time, it had plotted and planned, and found it had not the patience to wait until winter to take its revenge. So, it hunted, and brought with it snow.

It searched for the one who had hurt it most, the Zachary, and then it would hunt the others who had injured it, and take the Beautiful One with her offspring to its new domain, an ice cave in the far, far north. There they would live together. The Beautiful One would grow to love Slee. It would make her.

Slee had caught the tang of the Zachary upon the wind. He was still in the north region. It then whiffed the scent of the other that was dear to the Zachary, the Karigan. She was not far off.

Slee moved against the air currents to investigate. It roiled across tundra, over treetops and boglands. More woods and a stretch of rocky terrain. The air was milder here, but Slee persisted and found the Zachary below, in the wood. He smelled of metal and intent, as did the many other humans who moved with him.

A little farther south, Slee located the one it sought. The Karigan sat before a fire with another woman. Others kept watch nearby, but they were of no concern. She smelled of blood and wounds, and a darkness surrounded her. The guards carried the accursed steel, but she did not. She was weak. Slee was pleased.

The air felt potent, crackled with energy. Slee collected itself as it prepared to take revenge. Hurting the Karigan would hurt the Zachary in a most pleasing way. Slee prepared to descend. It would snatch the Karigan, torture her, turn the snow beneath her red. Slee imagined the Zachary’s anguish with much anticipation. It began to drift down, but the atmosphere abruptly changed, and Slee paused. The air currents of the north carried to it a foulness that it could not ignore, a sensation of great impending horror.

Down below, its prey stood. Slee roiled into itself when it sensed a god-being approaching her. The Karigan, it now saw, served the gods, and Slee would not interfere. Doing so would only end badly. So it would wait and observe, investigate the foulness on the air. After the Karigan had attended to her duty for the gods would be soon enough for Slee to satisfy its thirst for revenge.

THE DEATH GOD’S OWN

Karigan was up and down in an attempt to ease her back. She’d taken to leaning on the bonewood to steady herself. The muscles in her back were just too injured, and she was not accustomed to being up and about for such a long stretch. Estral, she observed, tried to write by the fire, but mostly she stared into the flames. Connly periodically paced out to check on their guards.

“Don’t you think you should go lie down?” Estral asked.

Karigan was exhausted. She knew she should, but how could she? “Maybe in a little while.”

It was past midnight, and it would be hours before they had any word of the assault on the Lone Forest. The night was deceptively quiet but for the restive moan of the wind. She thrust her hands into her pockets against the cold. Yes, she should try to sleep, but she knew anxiety would leave her unable to even close her eyes.

Clouds had moved across the field of stars like a low, oppressive ceiling. It reminded her of winter, the night gravid with uncertainty. More than that, the world felt thin, as though it chafed against others, other layers. Ghostly presences stepped through the thin places to make themselves known.

It began to snow.

Estral shut her book with a thump and hastily slipped it into its oilskin cover. “I can’t believe it’s snowing.”

Snowflakes tapped on Karigan’s shoulders like a drumbeat, lightly at first, then harder, thicker.

“This is just what they need for battle,” Estral said, her voice despairing.

Karigan put her hand out and caught snowflakes on her palm. The flurries showered down harder and harder, walling them off, confining them to the glow and hiss of their fire. Did she hear voices in the wind?

Her gaze was drawn across the campsite as she detected the approach of . . . She peered through the snow. A large dark shape advanced through the curtain of white, becoming darker and blacker as it neared them. Estral was oblivious to it, and Karigan said nothing, just waited, for a knowing came upon her. She knew who sought her as though she’d been expecting him all along. The shape solidified into a horse as she knew it would, an impossible black like a horse-shaped hole to the heavens. No snow alighted on him. He halted before her and gazed at her from beneath his long forelock. Firelight did not touch his liquid black eyes.

“Karigan?” Estral said. “What do you see?”

Death and gods and duty, she thought.

Salvistar, god-being, the harbinger of strife and battle, and steed of the death god, blew gently through his nostrils, and there was memory. Memory of herself as Westrion’s avatar.

“You need me,” she murmured. She could not demur. Westrion had already laid his claim on her.

“Who are you talking to?” Estral asked.

Karigan did not acknowledge her. “I cannot ride,” she told the stallion. “I am injured, weak.”

Ride, Green Rider, breathy ghost voices told her. Ride.

With the knowing that had come upon her, she understood she would not feel the pain, the weakness, the exhaustion while she worked on Westrion’s behalf. She knew his steed would not have come to her without great need. It was her duty as avatar. He knelt before her.