Brightly Burning Read online

  “Boys that age usually are, if they’re unaffected by the girl in question,” Pol said dryly. “If they do notice, they’re generally so embarrassed they try to avoid her altogether, and I can’t see where that would be an improvement so far as Elenor is concerned.”

  “At least it would be rejection, and maybe she could stop trying to convince herself that if she just proves her devotion he’ll repay it,” Ilea responded, and took the empty bowl from him. There was more irritation in her voice now, and Pol guessed that she was more put out with her own daughter than with Lavan.

  “It’s Elenor I’m really irritated with,” she continued, confirming his guess. “How much will it take before she gives up? The boy couldn’t be more indifferent to her, and she’s a Healer. She has to be able to sense his lifebond with his Companion by now!”

  Interestingly, Ilea’s annoyance with her daughter lessened Pol’s. “She won’t see it until she stops believing it isn’t there,” he told Ilea, and put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her a little closer. She resisted for a moment, then gave in and relaxed against him. “She doesn’t want to see it, and at her age, what you want seems more important sometimes than what is.”

  “Gods,” Ilea groaned. “We may be dealing with this for years, then. Can’t you do something?”

  “Lan doesn’t need me now,” Pol replied, after a moment of hesitation. “Not after White Foal Pass. If—when this war is over and the Karsites are driven back, perhaps it would be wisest to have him stationed here permanently. . . .”

  Even though he was thinking aloud, the idea caught hold of his imagination, and he could see how well it would work out. Elenor would not be allowed to go far from the Collegium; Mind-Healers were too rare, and most people that needed them were brought to them rather than the other way around.

  And for Lan, this would be the ideal place. He could be left here on circuit for the next two years with a senior Herald, then take over the circuit on his own. If the Karsites dared set foot across the Border again, Lan would send them back with their tails smoking.

  “That would be perfect!” Ilea replied, seizing on his idea. “Separate them! She can’t obsess about someone who forgets to even answer her letters!”

  “We can’t do anything until the war is over,” Pol cautioned her, as he sensed her relief and enthusiasm. “A great many things could change between now and then—”

  “I know—I know—”

  “And during that time we’re going to have to bear with her tears and tantrums,” Pol continued. “Not to mention every other wretched thing that a war can throw at us.”

  “But I can put out my hand and feel the candle, even if I can’t light it yet,” Ilea replied, sounding much less anxious already. “Just knowing it’s there is enough.”

  Pol just nodded, and tightened his arm. Sometimes knowing that there would eventually be an end to something was enough. Strange, that Ilea could cope cheerfully with the endless flood of injured and dying, and be thrown so off-balance by the mere heartache of their daughter.

  And of her own inability to create a miracle.

  “I have to go; the Healers should be packed up by now,” Ilea said abruptly. “I suppose—”

  “You know where to find me,” Pol replied, with a final squeeze before he let her go. “You go to your duty, love.”

  “And you to yours,” he responded, and waited until the creak of her footsteps on the snow faded out of hearing range before summoning Satiran.

  :Are we ready to join the Lord Marshal, old friend?: he asked, as he felt his Companion’s warm breath on his neck.

  :Better ask if they are ready for us!: Satiran replied, with a mental chuckle, as he linked in with Pol and gave him sight again. :Let’s ride!:

  TWENTY-THREE

  LAN lay flat on a rocky overhang, peering down at his latest target, with the shepherd Wulaf beside him. Young Wulaf was a native of these parts; he and his shaggy pony could go very nearly anywhere that a goat could go. The boy was far more intelligent than he looked, and so was the pony; Lan and Tuck marveled at how much he knew about the area, and his pony’s clever ability to find trails where there was no sign of where to go. Both pony and boy were, in the main, shaggy, untidy, brown. Both surveyed the world from beneath heavy forelocks of brown hair with blond streaks bleached by the sun.

  So far Lan had managed to eliminate two potential trouble spots without actually killing anyone; both of the Karsite strongholds positioned strategically above the route the army would have to travel had been simple wooden fortresses, thrown up out of local logs, and just starting a fire that the enemy couldn’t put out had driven the Karsites into the open. He burned their fortresses to the ground once there was no longer anyone in them to prevent the enemy from retaking and repairing the places. Once they were no longer protected behind walls and out of local logs, just starting a fire that the enemy couldn’t put out had driven the Karsites into the open. Once they were no longer protected behind walls, the garrisons retreated back south and east without even putting up token resistance.

  This place, however, would prove a harder nut to crack.

  Below Lan, tucked into a flat space about halfway down the mountain, was what had begun its life as a robber-baron’s stronghold. Built stoutly of stone, kept even safer within high stone walls, it must have taken a very clever plan to capture it in the past. Subsequently, it had become a farm; mainly raising sheep, goats, and mountain ponies. Then the Karsites took it for themselves, and it became the platform from which they could prevent any passage through the pass below.

  “Look, yon,” Wulaf said, pointing at the largest building in the complex, with a round, squat construction beside it. “That war yon barn an silo, an’ reckon they bain’t took out fodder an’ th’ like, nah?”

  “Huh. Hay burns,” Lan replied, shading his eyes to get a better view. “And their main gate is wood. I can take that out, and leave them without a way to keep attackers out.”

  “Aye that,” Wulaf agreed. “Reckon ye burn all what bain’t stone, they canna stay. Burn gate, food, beddin’, clothes. . . . Start wi’ barn, belike, an’ silo.”

  Lan narrowed his eyes, held tightly to the dragon’s bonds with both mental hands, and allowed it to wake—a very little.

  He projected the power past the slate roof of the round towerlike silo, sending a little spark into it to find tinder.

  He sensed it catch.

  Then the mountainside beneath him shook with a deafening roar!

  The mountain trembled; he and Wulaf clung to their rocky perch and stared at each other; Wulaf’s pony locked his legs in place but screamed with fear, tossing his blunt head upward, his eyes wild beneath his shaggy brindled forelock. Beneath them, a fountain of rock, dust, and snow blew out in an extravagant plume from the spot where the farm had been.

  “Get cover!” Wulaf shouted, far quicker of wit than Lan; he and his pony scrambled back beneath the safety of an overhang, while Lan and Kalira followed—and just in time, as a rain of rocks, some half the size of the pony, plummeted down on the mountaintop. For a few moments, all they could do was cower as boulders crashed all around them, chipping ice and rock from their protection, landing nearly at their feet. Every time one crashed near them, the rock under their feet vibrated.

  When the last pebble ticked down, a heavy silence descended. The haze of dust hanging over everything made Lan cough.

  “Wha’ the de’il hoppened?” Wulaf asked rhetorically, and sneezed, his eyes as round and big as prize whortleberries.

  “I—don’t know,” Lan said, who had heard him only through a ringing noise in his ears. He made his way to the edge of the precipice on his hands and knees, testing each step before he took it, and looked down.

  The fortress was gone. Where it had been was a tumble of rock shaken down from the mountain above it, a tumble that continued down the side of the mountain and into the valley, seen imperfectly through a thick cloud of dust. Lan’s jaw dropped; Wulaf appeared beside
him, and whistled.

  “Way-ell. That be a nest’a snakes we bain’t to handle,” Wulaf said, with a studied air of disinterest.

  But Lan could only think that once again, the dragon had feasted on blood, for no one in that fortress could have escaped.

  They found their way down the mountain with some difficulty; in many places the path was blocked by boulders or small landslides and they had to backtrack to find another route. When they finally reached the scouts, however, they found that the mood was one of elation—and there was no question there about what had happened. They had already worked out what had caused the explosive eruption.

  “It was a farm, you see?” Diera said as Lan and Wulaf waited for someone to enlighten them. “You must have ignited the grain dust in the silo.”

  Lan’s complete bafflement prompted more of an explanation. “The dust from grain—powdered chaff, pulverized grain, bits of straw—can build up in a silo. And the silage at the bottom can ferment and give off fumes, too—sometimes farm workers drink the stuff to get drunk. Set a spark to that, if it’s thick enough, and you get what—you got.”

  “Oh,” was all that Lan could think of to say. “Were there any captives in there? Women? Children?”

  “Probably not,” Diera replied, dismissively. “And even if there were, all you did was set a spark to what would have gone off eventually anyway. Anyone poking around with a lamp, a candle, or a torch would have done the same, and they were obviously too ignorant to prevent it from happening.”

  Lan didn’t answer; instead, he turned to Kalira for comfort. He was doing that more and more as the days passed, going into a wordless communion with her whenever he was troubled. Somehow she managed to make him feel that his guilt was no greater than anyone else’s, and that he must go on, for the greater good of everyone in Valdemar. He found reassurance in her that he could not extract from anyone or anything else, and a bond of love that was beyond anything he had ever dreamed of. It was not that she loved him unconditionally, it was that she knew the very worst of him and loved him despite that knowledge.

  One of the scouts rode back to tell the rest of the army that the way was clear; the rest of the scouts pitched camp where they were, for there could be no safer place to spend the night than one where they had cleared they enemy out beyond question.

  Lan went about his chores mechanically, most of his attention bound up in Kalira. Not surprisingly, he was in charge of the fire, and he and Tuck had the task of gathering wood and water. The scouts did not use tents, so a fire was all the more important to their camp; they camped rough, often supplementing their dried rations with game hunted as they moved.

  A wind sprang up above them and carried the dust away in a long, trailing plume, but nothing could hide the ugly scar down the mountainside. Lan was grateful for the evergreen trees, for their thickly needled branches hid that scar from him.

  When he brought back the first load of wood, he added it to what Tuck had brought and the others had gathered from around the campsite. He built a long fire, rather than a typical pyramid; after all, he could keep anything he chose burning, and this way everyone would have a place right at the fireside to keep warm. With a careless flick of his mind, he set it burning.

  Green wood or windfall, dry or wet, it all burned at his touch, and burned totally, leaving behind only ashes and producing very little smoke. He went out into the scrubby forest time and time again, returning to the campsite with loads of wood or great enormous logs. Kalira helped there, dragging the logs in tied to her girth. He laid or rolled the logs down on his fire with Tuck’s help; an advantage of having a long fire, since it meant that no one had to chop the logs up to fit. Calum had charge of the primitive cooking by common consent, since he never, ever burned anything. Tonight’s catch was hare and squirrel, and very tasty it smelled, too, at the point when Lan was ready to stop hauling in wood.

  He accepted his rabbit hindquarter, with a mug of strong tea, and sat down beside Tuck to eat it. Stars bloomed overhead, and it seemed an impossible thing that this place could have been scarred by war only a few candlemarks ago.

  Tuck poked him in the side as he sucked meditatively on a rabbit bone. “What’re you thinking?” he asked. “I can almost hear your thoughts jabbering to each other.”

  “Nothing much,” Lan demurred. “Just that I don’t know what they’ll do with me when the war is over.”

  Tuck snorted, and punched Lan lightly on the upper arm. “No fear of that any time soon. Did you hear the scout reports? This Karsite lot doesn’t know when to give over!”

  “And we do?” he countered with a dim smile. “But it’s our land we’re fighting on, so I suppose we can’t give up.”

  “Suppose! You know we can’t!” Tuck exclaimed, giving him a peculiar look, as if he suspected his friend had gone mad.

  Lan didn’t respond; he just dropped back into his link with Kalira, who came to stand behind him.

  :When is this going to end? And when it does, what will they do with me?: he asked her plaintively.

  :I don’t know for certain, but you mustn’t fret about it, love,: she replied. :You will always be needed—:

  Something interrupted her. Her head went up and her eyes unfocused for just a moment. Across the fire, the same was happening with Fedor’s Companion, and Tuck’s Dacerie as well—and that could only mean one thing. The situation had just changed again, and they were getting new orders.

  Kalira snapped out of her trance first. :No rest for the weary, love,: she said apologetically. :Get the tack; we have to ride.:

  Lan had not been aware that the rest of the scouts were watching him, Tuck, and Fedor, but the moment he got up and reached for Kalira’s saddle-blanket, the scouts started moving.

  “Load and ride,” Fedor said shortly, as he and his Companion came back to themselves. “The Karsites are moving faster than we thought they would. Our job is to get Lan here to a point where he can hold them back until the rest of the army comes up.”

  Me? They’re depending on me?

  Although he had been told that something of the sort might happen, the words still put a chill down his back and a lump of cold fear in his stomach. They are all expecting me to do what no one else can. He froze for a moment, but no one else even paused in what they were doing.

  In fact, if anything, they put a bit more speed on.

  His fingers fumbled with the buckle on Kalira’s girth until she enclosed him in a cocoon of calm. He couldn’t help but feel comforted and steadied; his hands stopped shaking, and he finished his jobs just as quickly as the rest of the scouts.

  They all mounted within moments of each other. “Kill the fire,” Calum ordered, and Lan, who had discovered that he could extinguish fires as easily as he started them, obeyed. The flames shrank down to nothing in a heartbeat, the coals lingered a moment, then with a metallic clinking, went black. You could put your hand right into the middle of the ashen remains now, and feel nothing more than a bit of residual warmth.

  “Right,” was all Calum said; he turned his horse’s head up the trail, and motioned to Fedor to take the lead. Companions had infinitely better night vision than horses; Fedor and his Companion would find the trail and set the pace.

  The pace—in a moment, as Lan and Kalira swung into place behind Diera and in front of Ben—was going to be grueling, at least as far as the horses were concerned. It was a good thing that there was a full moon, and that the snow reflected back so much moonlight. They alternated between a fast walk and a canter, holding the latter as long as the horses could bear up. Only when the first began to flag did they slow; interestingly, the horse that failed first was generally Calum’s mount, not the shaggy little pony that Waluf rode.

  :Where are we going?: Lan asked, keeping himself low over Kalira’s neck.

  :A bit farther in than we’d planned to—you’re going to be blocking a pass at the southern tip of that pine forest,: she replied. :On the way there is one more possible Karsite stronghold, but
it’s another wooden fortress; you can probably burn it out as we go by.:

  True, but he wouldn’t be able to do so in a way that would ensure the Karsites got out before he sent it up. That’s just too bad, he told himself—or tried to. They’re the enemy, after all. They’ve killed plenty of our people without caring what happened.

  But had they? He couldn’t say for certain if this particular batch of Karsites had been cold-blooded killers like those priests, or the assassin that had attacked Pol. They might just be ordinary folks, as troubled in their minds about dealing death as he was. . . .

  But if he left them in place, they would kill Valdemarans, whether or not they were troubled afterward, so he had no choice.

  Far sooner than he would have liked, the time to act came upon him.

  Fedor brought them all to a halt with an upraised arm, and motioned to Lan to come up beside him. “See that little dot of light?” he asked, pointing to the mountainside. Lan sighted along his arm and nodded.

  “That’s the last Karsite post, and it’s a wooden fort.” Fedor didn’t bother to say anything more; Lan already knew what was needed.

  Lan gritted his teeth and steeled himself against what he was about to do to those unsuspecting Karsites in what they thought was a safe shelter. Best to get this over with—

  “I can’t do this!” In memory, Ilea sobbed in Elenor’s arms, the recollection painfully clear in Lan’s mind. “Nothing I’ve tried is enough! I can’t bring back his sight!”

  Never again will I hesitate.

  The dragon came up in a rush of fury, and flung itself at the proffered target. On the mountainside, a fire-lily flung open hectic petals to the moon.

  His mind closed to anything other than the fires, Lan let the dragon have free play. At least they were far enough away that he couldn’t hear the screams. Only when there was nothing left to burn did he haul the dragon back to its lair deep within his soul, only partly sated at best.