Maggie Furey - Sword of Flames

“I know, lass—you didn’t mean it the way it came out,” he reassured her.

Though she was comforted by her old friend’s words, Aurian didn’t cease to worry. With so many uncertainties before her, and so much potentially lethal power at her disposal, how could she not?

At last—after what seemed an endless round of discussion, preparation, and fruitless debate—Aurian and her band were ready to leave the Nightrunners. The Mage said a reluctant farewell to her son, for Wolf and his foster parents were staying behind in safety, though the wolves were clearly not at home in the crowded caverns of strange humans. Remana, though somewhat taken aback by the notion of having a family of wolves under her care, had promised to try to find them a quieter place, and to keep an eye on them.

Then, at last, it was time to go.

As she rode out across the cold, dark moors, Aurian felt incredibly relieved to be moving at last. She would have been far less happy some hours later, if she could have looked back to the Nightrunner haven. In the silent hour before dawn, two gray wolves, one of them carrying a cub, emerged stealthily from the hidden entrance to the ponies’ cavern. After casting around for a time to find the scent, they loped off across the bleak expanse of heathland, following the Mage’s trail.

But other eyes, hostile eyes, saw Aurian set forth toward the Valley.

In the Mages’ Tower in Nexis, Eliseth clasped her crystal in hands that were gloved, to hide the blistered burns that had been the result of her efforts to tame the Caldron. Time and again, as she had striven to master it, the Artifact had defied her, flaring out at her in a blaze of searing magical energy that had defied all her attempts at shielding and had blackened and scarred her questing fingers. With Miathan out of the way, however, time and determination had been the allies of the Weather-Mage. Following Aurian’s deadly attack on the Archmage so long ago, that had resulted in the destruction of his eyes, Miathan’s will had been gradually weakened, worn down not only by constant pain, but by the ever-present awareness of the hatred and contempt in which she held him for encompassing Forral’s death and cursing her son. It had been Aurian’s loathing and defiance that had undermined his hold upon the one Artifact that he possessed, to the extent of making Eliseth’s task so much easier.

Now, at last, the Weather-Mage was making headway. Though her mastery of its powers was as yet uncertain, her own relentless will had overcome the Caldron’s capacity to protect itself with excessive force, and though she could feel, as it stood on the table before her, the pulsing waves of resentment and reluctance that emanated from its blackened depths, she knew, if the need were desperate enough, that she could bend it to her desires.

And now it seemed that the need was upon her. The Weather-Mage looked again into the depths of her scrying crystal, where she could distinguish the troop of shadowy shapes that rode across the moors toward the Vale. So Aurian was moving at last. No matter how deep the darkness, or distant the Vision, Eliseth would have recognized the shape of her nemesis anywhere. But why the Lady’s Valley, rather than Nexis itself? For months now, some impenetrable barrier of magic had shielded it from Eliseth’s perception. Frowning, she began to wonder. What could Aurian be seeking there? What did the renegade Mage know that she, herself, did not?

The Weather-Mage put down her crystal thoughtfully, then summoned the captain of her mercenaries to prepare his troops with all hast. Whatever Aurian was seeking in the Vale, she would find that Eliseth was there ahead of her.

Dawn was gilding the curled fronds of the new green bracken, and the skylarks were climbing in dizzy spirals to shower the earth with song. The early sun shone unchallenged in the east, its splendor defying the heaviness of the air—unusual for spring—and the dark, forbidding mass of storm clouds that were forming on the western horizon. As Aurian crested the final rising swell of moorland and looked down across the last mile toward the home of her childhood, Schiannath, who was carrying her in his horse-form, hesitated on the brow of the hill and came to an uncertain halt as he felt her body grow tense with doubt and dismay.

“Now what’s wrong?” Shia demanded. Her temper was shortened, as was Aurian’s own, by the long, grueling three-day run, traveling all night and only stopping briefly by day for food and rest in a cheerless, tireless camp. Khanu, who had also been running at the Mage’s side, looked up questioningly.

Aurian stared in disbelief at the dark, impenetrable tangle of trees that surrounded the Valley and filled the bottom of the great bowl of obsidian stone. “I just don’t believe this—I would hardly have known the place. Anvar—what can have happened here? It all looks so different?” The Mage turned to her soulmate, who had been riding at her side, borne by Esselnath, the Xandim warrior who had volunteered to carry him—in his horse-shape a magnificent chestnut stallion who glowed like fire in the golden early light, his coat as deep a burnished red as Aurian’s hair.

Anvar rubbed at eyes that felt hot and gritty from three long nights of riding with no sleep. “It was the Phaerie who brought the Wildwood in to guard your mother’s Vale—I remember telling you, ages ago, after Hellorin and Eilin rescued me from the Aerillian Moldan and sent me to find the Harp.” His face darkened in a frown. “You know, they told me that D’arvan and Maya had been left here as guardians—but I thought they only meant guardians of the Valley. Why the blazes didn’t they tell me that the Sword was here? Think of all the trouble it would have saved if we had known.”

“I suppose they couldn’t—I think the location of the Sword was something I had to discover for myself,” Aurian said thoughtfully. “Besides, we would still have been forced to pass through the lands of the Xandim.” She glanced cautiously around to make sure that Cygnus was out of earshot. “You remember how the Skyfolk behaved toward us. They weren’t capable of carrying us all the way across the sea in any case, but even had it been possible, they would never have consented to do it.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Anvar said. “At least if D’arvan and Maya are the guardians, we should have no difficulty getting through the forest.”

“I hope not, but…” A shiver of unease ran up Aurian’s spine, and she clenched her hands in Schiannath’s crow-black mane until he shook his head in protest. “Anvar, what if D’arvan and Maya were put there to guard the Sword itself? I couldn’t bear to think I would have to fight my friends.”

Anvar looked grave—then his jaw tightened with determination. “Well, there’s only one way to find out…”

“Yes,” Shia added tartly, “and it isn’t standing out here in the open in broad daylight like a pack of fools. Come, Aurian, this is no time for hesitation…”

Her words tailed off as she was distracted by a rush of wingbeats overhead. Cygnus, who had been scouting ahead, came hurtling down from the skies. “Move!” the winged man shouted. “Run! An army approaches, led by a silver-haired woman! They are heading this way at a gallop round the southern side of the forest. If you do not hurry, they will cut you off!”

“Damn!” Aurian cried. “Eliseth! Come on!” With a bound, Schiannath was racing downhill at a breakneck pace, with Anvar and Esselnath but a pace behind. Together they thundered toward the shelter of the forest, their hair—fiery red and burnished gold—streaming behind them like bright banners in the early-morning sun. Behind them galloped their companions and the Xandim, while Cygnus circled like a vulture overhead. Already, coming into the open beyond the dark mass of trees, Aurian could see Eliseth’s army, speeding toward them from the west like a wave of darkness, with the storm following fast upon their heels.