Child of Flame

Formidable, except that they were all dead now.

The man moaned, gurgling. His crested helmet had been half torn off his head, his wolf’s mask ripped clean off, but the death wound had come when claws had punctured his lungs.

“Poor suffering soul,” murmured Alain, kneeling beside him. His proud face reminded Alain bitterly of Prince Sanglant: the same bronze complexion, high, broad cheekbones, and deep-set eyes, although this man’s eyes, like a deer’s, were a depthless brown. Despite his wounds, he hissed a curse through bloody lips when he saw Alain looming over him, and in an odd way, Alain felt he could understand him, a dutiful soldier defiant to the last: “Although you defeat me, you’ll never defeat my people, beast’s child.”

“Hush, now,” said Alain. “I hope you find peace, Brother—”

Laoina stepped up beside him and drove her spear through the man’s throat. “Sa’anit! So dies another one!” She spat on the Cursed One’s face.

Alain rose. “What need to treat him cruelly when he already dies?”

“How is a quick death a cruel one? That is better than the death his kind give to their human slaves!”

“So may they do, but that doesn’t mean we must become as they are! If we let them make us savages, then we have lost more than one battle. If we lose mercy, then we may as well become like the beasts of the wild.” With his good hand, he gestured toward the carnage left by the phoenix. Blood stained the sand and leaked in rivulets out into the sea, soon lost among the surging waves.

Laoina stabbed her spear into the sand to clean the blood off of it. When she looked up, she met his gaze, warily respectful. “Maybe there is truth in what you say. But they still must die.” Then she flushed, looking at his wounded arm.

“I won’t die,” he promised her. But he thought, suddenly and vividly, of Lavastine and of the way Bloodheart’s curse had, so slowly, turned the count into stone. Yet when Alain touched his swollen, hot fingers they hurt terribly, and he could still feel bone, flesh, and skin. Even to turn his wrist caused enough pain to make him dizzy. But he wasn’t turning to stone.

The sea hissed as waves sighed up onto the beach and slid away again, leaving foam behind.

“Hei!” By the cliff, Two Fingers pulled a bush away to reveal a cave’s mouth.

Alain stayed on watch while the others dragged out a slender boat, deep-hulled, with clinker-built sides, a steering oar, four oar ports on each side, and a single mast, and shoved it down over the sand and into the water before fastening down all their gear and looted weapons as ballast. Alain whistled, and the hounds came galloping back, eager and fresh, to pile in with them.

Two Fingers unwound eight heavy ropes fastened to hooks at the stem of the ship and flung them over the side. He stationed himself at the stem. While the boat rocked on incoming waves, he drew a bone flute out of his pouch and began to play.

They came, first, like ripples in the water. Two creatures reared up from the waves, their bodies glistening as foam spilled around them. They wore faces that had a vaguely human shape, with the sharp teeth of a predator. The skin of their faces and their shoulders and torsos had a sheeny, slick texture, as pale as maggots. The first dove, swiftly, and slapped the surface of the water with a muscular tail.

Alain stared. “He’s summoned the merfolk! I never thought—” He reeled as the boat rocked under his feet. How long had it been since he had dreamed of Stronghand?

But he was dead, wasn’t he? The dead did not dream, and he had not dreamed of Stronghand since the centaur shaman had brought him to Adica’s side. In a way, staring at the sea, it was like dreaming of Stronghand all over again.

If he was already dead, then he could not die again, even from a poisoned snake bite. He laughed, grasped Adica’s shoulder, and turned her so that he could kiss her on the cheek.

“Maybe the poison makes you lose your wits,” muttered Laoina.

Adica’s frowning apprehension was as strong as the salt smell of the sea, yet she was too practical to weep and moan. She crouched in the boat and began to rummage through her pack while, as Two Fingers played the flute, the merfolk circled in reluctantly.

A second pair arrived, and a third, and suddenly the boat lurched under Alain, and he sat down hard onto the floorboards, clutching at the side with his good hand. His staff clattered against the sternpost. He caught it just before it tumbled into the water. The hounds settled down, whining softly. Laoina spoke soft words, as though she were praying, and stared in wonder and horror as the merfolk caught the ropes in their clawed hands and, to the tune of Two Fingers’ flute, pulled the boat onto the sea.