David Farland - The Sum of All Men

For good measure, he somehow felt compelled to pull off his scabbard, throw it down too—as if it might burst into flame from its long association with the blade.

Too late he realized his mistake in killing the flameweaver.

A powerful flameweaver cannot be killed. She can be disembodied, and in time she will dissipate, become one with her element. But there is a space of time, a moment of consciousness between death and dissipation, where the full power of the flameweaver is unleashed, where the flame-weaver combines with the element she served.

Gaborn staggered backward as quickly as he could, pulling Rowan with him. Even in death, the flameweaver sought to remain human, sought to retain her form, so that one moment a great fountain of green fire rose skyward, and the next a huge woman of flame, some eighty feet tall, began to take shape.

The inferno assumed bodily form—a marvelously compact assortment of topaz and emerald flames, her sculpted cheeks and eyes perfect, the small breasts and firm muscles of her legs all reproduced with marvelous accuracy. She stood as if confused, looking blindly to the south and to the east, from whence came the noise and clamor of battle.

The flameweaver's elemental reached out, curious, touched the rooftop of an ancient shop on Market Street. As she steadied herself with one fiery hand, the lead on the roof melted, began running molten from the gutters.

This was a wealthy district, and many of the shops had large glass windows, which shattered from the searing heat. Wooden posterns and signs burst into flame.

Yet the elemental was not fully conscious. The flameweaver perhaps did not realize yet that she'd been murdered. For a few moments, Gaborn suspected, he would be safe.

Then she would come for him.

“Run!” Gaborn hissed, and pulled Rowan.

But she stood in shock, for the fierce heat burned her more than it could him. Rowan screamed in pain, her fresh nerves suffering from the close proximity of the elemental.

A china shop was to his left, and Gaborn hoped only that it had a back entrance as he raised his arm, ran headlong through its glass windows.

Shards of glass rained down on him, cutting his forehead, but he dared not slow to assess the damage. He pulled Rowan through the mess as he ran for the back of the shop, toward an open door that led to a workshop. He glanced back in time to see a fiery green hand snake through the shop-window behind them.

A green finger touched Rowan's back. The young woman screamed a bloodcurdling cry as fire pierced her like a sword. A long tongue of flame exited through her belly.

Gaborn let go her hand, astonished by the pain in her eyes, by her horrible dying scream. He felt as if the fabric of his mind suddenly ripped. He could do nothing for her.

He ran through the workshop door, slammed it behind. The chisels and awls of a wood sculptor lay all about. Wood shavings cluttered the floor.

Why her? Gaborn wondered. Why did the elemental take her and not me?

A back door stood here, bolted from inside. He threw open the bolt, felt a wall of heat rushing up behind him. He fled into an alley.

Began to dodge left, up a blind run, but went right. He shot into a narrow boulevard, some twelve feet from doorstep to doorstep.

Gaborn felt desolate, hurt, remembering Rowan's face, how she'd died. He'd sought only to protect her, but his impetuousness had killed her. He almost could not believe it, wanted to turn back for her.

He rounded another corner.

Two of Raj Ahten's swordsmen stood not twenty feet from Gaborn, eyes wide with fear. Both of them scrabbled backward, seeking escape, oblivious of Gaborn.

Gaborn turned to see what they stared at.

The flameweaver's elemental had climbed a rooftop, now straddled it like a lover, and the whole roof was sprouting in flames, a terrible inferno of choking smoke that roiled black as night.

The elemental was losing her womanly form—the flames of it licking out greedily, stretching in every direction to wreak havoc. As a flame touched a building, the elemental grew in size and power, became less human.

The fiery whites of her eyes gazed about, searching all directions. Here was a marketplace to burn—below lay the wooden buildings of the poorer market. To the east stood the stables, and to the south the mist-shrouded Dunnwood with its cries of death and shouts of horror.

Her eyes swept past Gaborn and seemed to focus on the two soldiers, an arm's length away. The soldiers turned and ran. Gaborn merely stood, afraid that the elemental, like a wight, would be attracted by movement.

Then the elemental gazed back toward the vast rolling hills of the Dunnwood, the tree limbs reaching above the fog. It was too tasty a feast for the elemental to ignore. The flameweaver became a hungry monster now, a devourer. The stone buildings of the market offered little sustenance.

She stretched her hand, grasped a bell tower, and pulled herself upright, then began racing toward the woods, legs of flame spreading over rooftops.

There were shouts of dismay down below as she reached the portcullis at the King's Gate. Soldiers manning the towers at either side of the gate burst into fire at her approach, dropped in flaming gobbets like chunks of meat burning on the spittle of a campfire.

Friend, enemy, tree, or house—the flameweaver's elemental cared not what she consumed. To get a better view, Gaborn climbed an external stairway behind an inn. There he crouched just beneath the eaves of a roof.

The stone towers at either side of the portcullis cracked and blackened from the heat as the elemental passed. The iron bars of the portcullis melted.

And as she hurried down toward the lower bailey, toward the city gates, hundreds of voices broke out in unison, screaming in fear.

By the time she reached the outer gates, the flameweaver had begun to lose her human form entirely, and instead was a creeping pillar of fire. She climbed the city wall, just above the drawbridge, and stood for a moment atop the towers, perhaps fearing the moat. A face flickered in the flames, so much like a woman's face, which gazed back longingly toward the wooden shacks in the lower part of the city, down toward the Butterwalk.

Then the flames leapt the wall, over the moat, and raced through the fields toward the Dunnwood.

Distantly, Gaborn became aware again of the sounds of war, the battle horns of his father's soldiers as they sounded retreat upon those mist-shrouded fields. His heart had been pounding so hard that he had not heard any other sounds for half a minute.

The light of the elemental's fire blazed, cutting through that blanket of fog. In that light, Gaborn could see—as if lit by a flash of lightning—three mounted soldiers battling among the nomen, swinging their great horseman's axes wide over their heads, locked in furious combat.

Then the soldiers were gone, consumed in fire. The elemental began sweeping over the plain, so greedy for dry grass and timber and human life that she seemed to dissipate altogether, to lose consciousness, and become nothing but a great river of flame gushing across the fields.

Gaborn felt sick of heart. When the elemental had touched Rowan, he'd almost felt as if it pierced him, too. Now he heard shouts of despair in the fields, mingled with screams from the injured and dying here in Castle Sylvarresta. He could not block out that last horrid look of pain on Rowan's face. Almost a look of betrayal.

He did not know if he had done well or ill in slaying the flameweaver. Killing the flameweaver had been impetuous—almost a reflex that felt somehow right, yet carried dire consequences.

For the moment, the walls of fire rising up from the field kept Raj Ahten from exiting Castle Sylvarresta, from sending his men into battle.