The Banned And The Banished - Witch Fire Part 6

The tower of knives waved slightly back and forth in front of the stunned guests of the inn. A smattering of claps spread into a moderately enthusiastic applause. The tinkle of a few coins in his pan accompanied the acknowledgment.Each copper bit, which could otherwise be spent on ale, was hard won. If he wanted to purchase dinner tonight, he still needed more of a take. He seldom earned enough to put a roof over his head in the evening, but he was used to sleeping under his horse.

He swung to the side of the stage and opened his satchel. He retrieved his next trick-a set of oiled torches. He grabbed the three in his fist and lit them from a flaming brand in a brazier. They flared to life.

The audience responded with a hush when each torch burned a different color-a deep green, a sapphire blue, and a red deeper than ordinary flame. He had learned this trick, which used an alchemy of special powders, during his years in the Southlands.

A few claps erupted behind him.

He turned to face the audience with the torches raised high and flung them upward, almost to the rafters of the inn's common room. As they cascaded down, showering a trail of light, he caught them up and returned them toward the roof.

The applause was now vigorous, but his ear still only heard a few coins tapping into his pan. So he sent the torches even higher, his biceps bulging with the effort until his body shone under a thin oil of sweat. A few women oo/i'ed to the left of the stage, but he noticed from the corner of his eye that they were staring at his physique and not the cascading torches. He had learned that there were other ways to earn a living on the road, and he was not above showing his wares.

As he worked the torches, he flexed his shoulders, displaying his wide chest and ample musculature.

Black haired and gray eyed, with the ruddy complexion of the plainsmen of his home, he had been known to juggle more than knives and torches to earn a room and a bed.

More coins were flipped into his cache.

With a final flourish, he bowed with all three torches still aloft. The audience gasped, as usual, as the torches tumbled toward his bowed back. He noticed one of his buxom admirers raise a concerned hand to her mouth. Just as the torches were about to hit, he performed a standing flip and caught each torch one at a time, sailing the torches into a waiting bucket of water. Each sizzle of vanquished flame accelerated the clapping. When he was done, the audience was on its feet clapping and thumping tabletops with mugs.

He noticed his pan was still filling with coins. He kept bowing until the audience calmed and the coins stopped flowing. With a final wave, he collected his knives and pan and leaped from the stage. The crowd still murmured appreciatively, and a few patrons patted his back as he moved through them. He pulled on his leather jerkin, still too heated from his performance for the thick cotton unders.h.i.+rt he normally wore.

By eyeballing the pile of coins, he knew he would eat well tonight, and with luck, he might just have enough left over to pay for a room at the inn. If not, he spotted a few ladies who still had an eye fixed on his bare chest. There wereother options.

The innkeeper slid his fat belly down the bar toward him, his chubby face pinked by the heat of the room to the color of a pig's rump. He wore the wine-stained smock that seemed the usual attire for the owner of an inn of this quality. Pus.h.i.+ng back the four hairs that still adorned his head, he swung his wide nose to the juggler and plopped his thick paw on the scarred wood of the bar. "Where's my cut?" he said in a wheeze.

The juggler counted out the proper percentage of coins to pay for his use of the stage. The innkeeper's eyes watched each copper descend into his meaty palm. The juggler expected him to begin licking his lipsat any moment, the l.u.s.t was so evident in the keeper's eyes.

"That's all?" he said, shaking the fistful of coins. "I saw those coins filling your pan. You're holding out on me."

"I a.s.sure you, your percentage has been met." The juggler stared the innkeeper square in the eye.

The innkeeper backed down with a grumble and swatted a barmaid out of his way as he returned to his post farther down the bar. Another barmaid, a comely la.s.s with thick blond hair in braids, slipped a gla.s.s of ale in front of him while the innkeeper had his back turned. "Enjoy," she whispered to him with a slight smile and lowering of lash. "Something to cool the fire in you until later." She continued to the next customer with only the briefest glance back at him.

No, his horse would definitely be sleeping alone tonight.

He collected his gla.s.s of cold ale and twisted around to lean on the bar and watch the next performer mount the stage. This was a tight crowd, and after his performance, he pitied the young boy he saw climbing the steps to the stage.

Not boy, he realized once he saw the performer straighten from placing a pan by the ap.r.o.n of the stage.

She was small, and the gray trousers and plain white s.h.i.+ft she wore did little to highlight her feminine attributes, the few that there were. At first he thought her barely past her first bleed, a sapling of a woman, but once she sat on the stool and faced the crowd, he knew he was wrong. Her face, young with a b.u.t.tered complexion and a rosebud for lips, belied the look in her violet eyes: a sadness and grace that could only come from the pa.s.sage of many hard years.

The crowd, of course, ignored her as she slipped a lute from a cloth case. The tables grew raucous below her with the din of wine orders, friends carousing, the clink of gla.s.ses, the occasional guffaw. Pipe and torch smoke thickened the air. She seemed a petal amidst a raging storm.

The juggler sighed. This was not going to be a pleasant sight. He had seen other performers pelted from the stage with soiled napkins and the crusts of bread.

But the small woman positioned the lute against her belly, leaning over the instrument like a mother with a child. The wood of the lute was thickly lacquered, almost appearing wet in the sheen of the torches. It was the reddest wood he had ever seen, almost black, and the grain of the wood whirled in tiny pools upon its surface. This was an expensive instrument to be carting through the backwoods.

The crowd still ignored her. He heard an argument break out concerning who would win the cider contest at the local fair next month. Fists flew and a nose was broken before the combatants were pulled apart-all over cider. Well, he supposed that during his travels he'd witnessed other ridiculous fights that had ended worse than a split lip and a bloodied, battered nose.

He sipped from his ale, letting it slide down his throat. He allowed his eyes to close halfway just as the woman on the stage strummed her first chord. The music, for some reason, seemed to cut right through the chatter and settle in his ear like a nesting bird. She repeated the chord, and the crowd began to settle, the voice of the lute drawing eyes back to the stage.

He widened his own eyes. The bardswoman looked out, not to the crowd but farther, somewhere other than here. He watched her s.h.i.+ft her fingers slightly on the neck of the instrument and saw the nails of her other hand strum down the strings. The new chord was a sister of the first. It echoed across the room as if searching for those first notes. The crowd settled to a silence, afraid to disturb this quest.With the lull, the woman began to play. The sweetness of the music spread across the room, speaking of happier times, brighter times than the cloudy day that had just ended. The juggler watched her fingers dance across the wood and strings. Then she did the most remarkable thing: She began to sing. Her voice started low, barely detectable from the honeyed chords, but as she played, her voice raised as a harmony to the other. Though he did not understand the tongue she sang, he sensed the meaning. She sang of years, of the turning of seasons, of the cycle that all life followed.

The crowd sat stunned in their chairs. One man coughed, and his neighbors glared at him as if he had spat the foulest offense. But the rest ignored him and stared slack jawed toward the stage.

She continued, oblivious to their reaction. Subtly her voice changed, and the chords began to moan more than sing. She now warned of danger, of the time when the cycles of life are threatened. She sang of beauty destroyed and innocence shattered. Drums could be heard behind her voice and the strike of her chords.

The juggler found himself wanting to console her, to tell her all was not lost. He watched her fingers slow on her lute as her song again s.h.i.+fted to a new rhythm, the beat of a fading heart. Slower and slower the chords stretched across the aching room. Patrons leaned toward the stage, trying to keep her from stopping. But stop she did, a final brush of nail on string, then nothing. Only a single note of her voice hung in the air. Then this, too, faded with her breath.

The room was deathly still, no one wanting to be the first to move. The juggler inexplicably felt a tear roll down his cheek. His hand did not move to wipe at it. He let it fall. Many other eyes in the room were wet and cheeks damp.

He expected this to be the end, but he was mistaken. A whisper of a chord began to drift again from her lute. Her fingers did not seem to be even moving. It was as if the lute itself were singing. The music wafted through the room, brus.h.i.+ng the many moist cheeks. Then her throat sang the final pa.s.sage-of one alone, the last of the brightness standing among the ruin. Her music drew further tears from the juggler, as if her song were specially for him. But he was also aware of the many others in the room touched by her music, other souls attuned to her rhythm. Then with her final chord, firm and clear like a bell, and with the last whisper of her song, she offered them all one consolation, one word: hope.

Then it ended. He watched her s.h.i.+ft from her stool and stand.

The crowd took the breath it had been holding and released it in a single gasp. A murmur of surprise followed by clapping ensued. There was a rush to the stage to rain coins into her pan. Before he knew what he was doing, the juggler found himself standing before her pouring the coins from his own pan into hers.

He glanced up to the stage and found her violet eyes staring back at him. She was cowering at the back of the stage, apparently intimidated by the frenzy around her and the calls of praise. She held the lute clutched to her chest.

Suddenly there was a commotion from the door to the inn. A man burst into the common room. "There's a fire burning at Bruxton's place!" he yelled to the crowd. "The orchard's afire!" The audience erupted in response.

But the juggler ignored this all, his eyes still fixed on the lute player. The fire was of no concern to him.

She darted to the front of the stage, to him. The bards-woman knelt until she stared directly into his gray eyes. "I need you, Er'ul of Standi."The fires lit the horizon behind Elena. Smoke blacker than the night rolled toward them between the rows of trees, and a crackling roar growled down the ridgeline. She tried to urge Mist to a faster pace, but the horse began to founder, sweating fiercely from its panicked run.

"We need to rest her, El!" Joach yelled from behind her. "Mist can't keep up this pace."

"But the fire!"

"We've a good lead! The winds here will slow the flame." He reached from behind her and pulled on the reins. Mist slowed to a walk.

Joach rolled off the mare and swung the reins forward to guide the horse. Mist huffed thickly into the night, her nostrils flaring, eyes wide and frightened. The smoke and the roar of the fire kept her skittish, hooves dancing, wanting to run again.

Elena patted her neck and climbed off the horse, too. Joach was right. Mist would run until her heart burst if given her head. She took the reins from her brother and kept Mist walking.

Joach laid a palm on the horse's wet flank. "She's overheated. We can't ride her again tonight. But I think we made enough of a head start."

Elena stared back at the fiery heights. She remembered the flames consuming her home, then leaping to the horse barn, and a heartbeat later, burning embers blew from the barn's roof into the trees, igniting the dry orchard. After the drought of summer, the undergrowth was ripe tinder for the torch, and the fire spread with an unnatural speed.

She had watched her world burn to ash, set to flame by her own hand. Unconsciously, she rubbed at the scant remainder of the stain on her right palm.

Joach noticed the tears that had begun to flow across her cheeks, but he misunderstood. "El, we'll get out of here. I promise."

She shook her head and waved to the growing fire. "I killed them." She again pictured the wall of flame rus.h.i.+ng toward her parents.

"No." Joach laid a hand atop hers on the reins. "You didn't, Elena. You saved them from horrible pain."

"Maybe they could've survived."

Joach shuddered. "Mother and Father had no chance. I saw how quickly those snake monsters devoured Tracker. Even if they did somehow survive, I don't think... I don't think it would' ve been a blessing."

Elena hung her head, silent.

Joach raised her chin with a finger. "You're not to blame, El."

She twisted away from her brother's touch and turned her back to him. "You don't understand... I...

I..." Her tongue resisted admitting the guilt in her heart. "I wanted to leave... I wished it." She swung back to him; tears ran hot across her cheeks. She pointed to the naming orchard. "I hated this place...

and now it burns by my hand!"

Joach took her in his arms and held her tight as she shook with sobs. "El, I wanted to leave, too. You know that. All this is not your fault."She spoke to his chest. "Then who is to blame, Joach? Who caused all this?" She stepped from his embrace and held up her right fist. "Why did this happen to me?"

"Those are questions for another time. Right now, we need to reach Millbend Creek." He stared back at the flames cresting the ridge behind them, flames licking up toward the moon. "If we can cross the creek, we should be safe from the fire. Then maybe we can think."

Elena bit at her lower lip, suddenly afraid of the answers she might yet discover, knowing that Joach's words of consolation might prove hollow and that what occurred this black night might yet be laid at her feet. She sniffed and rubbed her nose.

As Mist nickered in fear beside her, Elena ran a hand over the mare's quivering nostrils. "Shh, sweet one, you'll be fine," she whispered to the horse.

Suddenly, Mist jerked back, almost ripping the leather reins from Elena's fist. The startled girl was lifted off her feet as the horse reared, neighing in terror. Mist bolted down the slope, dragging Elena with her.

"Whoa, Mist! Whoa!" Elena scrabbled to get her feet under her. Bushes, twigs, and stone tore at her coat and knees.

"Let her go, Elena!" Joach called in pursuit.

But Elena was not about to let this one piece of her home disappear into the night. She clenched the reins tight in both fists. As she bounced and ran along, she managed to plant a foot on a boulder, then yanked savagely on the leather reins. Mist's head flew backward, and the horse's rump flipped forward down the slope. Elena threw the reins around the trunk of an orchard tree and secured them, praying the bridle would not snap. Thankfully, it held. Mist floundered, then fought back to her feet.

Joach slid to a stop next to her. "What was that all about?"

"Shh!" Elena said.

Through the roar of the fire, a new noise grew. At first just a whisper, then more clear. The beating of heavy wings, like someone waving a thick rug, approached.

Mist nickered and pulled against the reins, eyes rolling to white. Elena found herself ducking lower, and Joach crept under the branches of an apple tree.

Both scanned the sky. Smoke obscured the stars, but the cloak of soot swirled as the winged creature beat past. It was something large, with a wingspan longer than two men. Just the tip of one wing-a bony structure spanned by membranous red folds-poked through the smoky s.h.i.+eld for a heartbeat, then disappeared again.

The sight iced Elena's blood. What flew this night was not a denizen of the valley, but something that roosted far from here, far from the view of good men. It flew toward the fire.

After it pa.s.sed, Joach spoke first, his voice a whisper. "What was that?"

Elena shook her head. "I don't know. But I think we'd better hurry."

ROCKINGHAM PRESSED A HANDKERCHIEF OVER HIS NOSE AND mouth while holding a burning torch as far from his body as possible. His throat ached with soot and smoke. He flipped the torch into a dry hawthorn bush at the edge of the orchard. The bush blew into flame as he danced backto the hard dirt yard of the homestead.

He stumbled to where Dismarum leaned on his staff. The seer held one hand up in the air, testing the wind. "One more." Dismarum pointed to a pile of dead leaves raked near the edge of the field.

"I've lit enough fires," Rockingham said, wiping ash from his hands onto his pant leg. Sweat and smoke marred his face. "The whole hillside is ablaze."

"One more," the seer said again, pointing to the pile. His dark robe, singed black at the edges, swirled in the night breeze.

d.a.m.n this one's cursed eyes, Rockingham thought. He stayed rooted where he stood. "The fire already burns fierce enough to flush the children out of the orchard hills and into the valley floor. We don't need to scorch the whole mountain."

"Let the valley go to ash. All that matters is the girl."

Rockingham wiped his face with his handkerchief. "The orchards are this valley's livelihood. If these farm folk even get a hint that we spread this fire-"

Dismarum spoke to the fire. "We blame the girl."

"But the townsfolk, they'll-"

"They'll be our net. The fire will force her to Winterfell."

"And you expect the townspeople to capture her if she shows her face? If these b.u.mpkins think she burned the orchards, you'll be lucky to get her back in one piece."

Dismarum pointed his staff to the stack of dead leaves. "She must not escape us a second time."

Rockingham grumbled and grabbed another torch. He lit it from a small fire still sputtering in the husk of the burned barn and crossed to the pile of raked leaves. He shoved the flaming torch deep into the mound. As he backed away, rubbing his hands together to remove the grime, the parchment-dry leaves instantly bloomed with flame, snapping and growling hungrily.

He coughed at the thick smoke billowing from the pile. Suddenly, a fierce gust of wind blew toward him, and a tumble of flaming leaves swirled around him like a swarm of biting flies. He swatted at the burning embers, his expensive riding cloak singed in several places. "That's it!" he yelled, stomping a flaming twig under his heel. "I'm heading back to town!"

Smoke stung his watering eyes. His nose, clogged with soot, itched and burned. He sneezed a black foulness into his handkerchief. Waving an arm through the smoke, he tried to spot Dismarum through the smudged curtain. "Dismarum!" he called.

No answer.

The old man had probably hobbled to the road. Rockingham fought his way across the smoky yard, using the smoldering skeleton of the homestead as a guide through the haze. He coughed and spat into the dirt. Then his foot hit something soft. Startled, he jumped back a step, then realized it was Dismarum.

The old man was kneeling in the yard, his staff dug deep into the dirt. Rockingham noted a flash of pure hatred in the seer's milky eyes, but the venom was not directed at Rockingham but at something behind him.Rockingham froze, suddenly awash with the overwhelming sensation of cold eyes drilling into his back.

He swung around. What he saw through the smoke forced him to fall screaming to his knees beside Dismarum.

The beast towered just beyond the flaming pile of leaves, scabrous wings spread wide, eyes stung red in the firelight. Standing twice as tall as Rockingham but thin as a wraith, its translucent skin was stretched taut over bone and gristle. The spasms of four black hearts could be seen in its chest, pumping black rivers through its body. The fires illuminated other internal details, a churning and roiling foulness.

Rocking-ham's stomach seized in nausea, and even with the fire's heat, a cold sweat pebbled his forehead. The creature's wings beat a final time, again sending a flurry of burning embers toward him.

Then the wings pulled back and folded behind the creature's thin shoulders.

The beast stalked into the yard, its clawed feet gouging the packed dirt. Its bald head and muzzle swung between the two men, yellow fangs protruding from its black lips. Tall, pointed ears twitched in Rockingham's direction. A hand reached toward him. Daggered claws slid free of fleshy sheaths, a green oil dripping from their razor tips.

Rockingham knew poison when he saw it and knew what stood before him. He had never seen such a creature, but rumors of them were whispered in the halls of the Gul'gothal stronghold: the skal'tum, lieutenants to the Dark Lord himself.

It opened its mouth to speak, baring teeth filed to points. A black tongue lashed out, as long as a man's arm. Its voice was high and sibilant, with a hissing quality to its words. "Where isss the child? Where isss the child the overlord seeksss?"

Dismarum raised his face, but he still refused to meet its gaze. "She is ripe with power-" He waved a hand to encompa.s.s the fire. "-and burned her way past us. She flees through the trees."

The skal'tum lowered its head and lunged closer to Dismarum. It used a talon to raise the old man's face farther into the light. Rockingham watched the seer strain back his neck to keep the sharp tip from piercing his tender skin. "She ess-caped? Why was the ma.s.sster not told?"

Dismarum's voice was as thin and whispery as a reed in a wind. "We have laid a trap for her. We will have her before the sun rises."