Elena, accompanied by the mountain man for protection, traveled slowly toward the fire and smoke. The wagon trailed behind, its bells tinkling brightly in contrast to the dire wood they skirted.
Although the morning sun had quickly burned off the dawn haze, the forest itself still clung to the night’s shadows. Wisps of trailing webs, many carrying the red-blistered bodies of their makers, reached from the wood’s edge toward them. They kept well away from these clinging strands, aiming for the fire.
Mogweed drove the wagon behind her, bearing Fardale and Tol’chuk. Er’ril had insisted no one should travel this trail on foot; the risk of a spider bite was too high. Even the horses’ legs were wrapped in leather straps.
Elena glanced over her shoulder to where the two draft horses strained in their harnesses. Her heart went out to them. Er’ril had tried to corral Elena within the wagon with the og’re and the wolf. “It’s safer under the wagon’s canopy,” he had claimed. But she would not leave Mist tethered to the back of the wagon. Restricted by the lead, unable to maneuver, her mare would be easy prey to the crawling beasts. She could not allow that. Risk or not, she would stay with her horse.
“Yo!” Kral called to Er’ril as they neared. Elena’s eyes were drawn forward. “If you stoke that fire any higher,” the mountain man bellowed, “you’ll be chasing us back to my clan’s caves.”
Er’ril raised his single hand in acknowledgment but kept his head bowed near the silver-haired elv’in. The plainsman’s hand and face were smudged with char and ash.
Meric shook his head vigorously at something Er’ril said. Even from here, Elena could see the elv’in’s blue eyes flash angrily.
Ignoring their argument, Nee’lahn stood between the fire and the forest, wrapped in her cloak and mask, her shoulders tight by her ears. She stared steadily toward the forest, her eyes moist with more than the sting of smoke. The nyphai raised a black hand to her cheek and brushed away a tear, leaving a smear of ash under one eye.
The jangle and clatter of the wagon as Mogweed pulled to a halt finally drew the three fire builders. Er’ril straightened and crossed toward them, trailed by Meric and Nee’lahn.
“We’re ready,” Er’ril said, eying Elena on top of Mist. A momentary flash of irritation mixed with worry seemed to cross through his eyes. He turned to face the others now gathered. “I’ve torches flaming at the fire’s edge. Everyone on horseback needs to grab one. Once remounted, we’ll spread out on either side of the trail opening.” He pointed for where he wanted everyone positioned. “Then on my signal, we’ll burn a swath through this cursed wood.”
Heads nodded and everyone, except those in the wagon, approached the fire. Er’ril laid a hand on Elena’s knee when she tried to dismount. “You stay by the wagon. This is not for you.”
Elena deliberately removed the plainsman’s hand. “No,” she said with heat in her voice. She jumped from the mare’s back. “This is for me. This is all for me. I understand the need to conserve my own magicks until I’m more skilled, but if we are to burn a forest, then my hand, too, will lay torch to wood. I’ll not sit idle.”
Er’ril’s face had darkened fiercely. “Yes, this whole journey is for you, Elena. But its purpose is not for you to burn a forest. If we are to trust prophecy, you are our last hope against the Gul’gotha. You, child, have no right to risk—”
“First, I am tired of being called a child. I am well past my first bleed.” She moved to swipe back her hair, realizing too late that her locks were long gone. She dropped her arm, her face reddening further. “Second, if I am to save these lands, I must learn to face adversity, not be hidden away and coddled like a babe. On this journey, I must learn to harden my heart in tempered steel. And, as you taught me, only the hottest fire can forge the strongest steel.”
Er’ril just stared at her, his mouth hanging slightly open. The others had stopped to stare at them, though several eyes now darted awkwardly away.
“I will not shirk my responsibility here,” Elena finished, her hands in fists. “I will face my fires.”
Er’ril shook his head ever so slightly. “Fine,” he said aloud, but as she tried to brush past him, he stopped her with a hand to her shoulder. “But you stick close to me,” he whispered fiercely. “Lessons learned do no good to the dead.”
Elena nodded and crossed toward the fire. The others had already gathered burning brands. She reached for a stump of dead wood protruding from the fire and pulled out its flaming end.
Er’ril did the same. “Mount up!” he called to everyone.
Elena and the others returned to their horses. Mist shied from the torch’s flame at first, but with a few soothing words, Elena was able to calm the mare and regain her saddle. She walked Mist closer to Er’ril’s white stallion. The plainsman, guiding his horse with motions of his legs, held his own torch high.
Suddenly a breeze blew up from the lower valley and scattered smoke and flaming ash from the tip of Er’ril’s torch toward Elena. Er’ril twisted in his saddle to face Meric. “Are you certain you can manage this?”
The elv’in scowled at him. “You have already asked me that a fistful of times. My answer remains the same.”
Er’ril persisted. “Yes, and you have also told us a fistful of times that your heart is not firm on this journey. Our success here depends on your elv’in skills, Meric. If you cannot master these winds and keep the fire driving ahead of us, we will be forced to retreat.”
“I know my duty. I have given my word as an elv’in lord to drive this blaze through the heart of this foul forest. My winds will not fail me.”
The two men stared icily at one another for several heartbeats. Elena could tell Er’ril hated being dependent on another. She guessed that after centuries wandering the roads of Alasea alone, the plainsman had grown to distrust any arm but his own. She moved Mist between the two men. “Meric will not fail us,” she said, with a nod toward the elv’in. “He knows my wishes and will not balk from his duty.”
Meric bowed his head. “I see the elv’in king’s wise counsel has not been diluted by generations of ordinary blood.”
Kral called out from where he and Nee’lahn were guiding their horses away. He carried three brands caught up in his large fist. “If you’re done warming your jaws, we’ve a fire to set!”
Er’ril raised his torch higher and kicked his stallion toward the forest. Elena followed, with Meric trailing. The trio aimed for the forest to the left of the trail, while Nee’lahn and Kral trotted toward the far side.
“Sick-looking beasts,” Meric said as Er’ril pulled his group to a stop just beyond the eaves of the forest.
Elena found the elv’in’s words to be too mild. From the forest’s canopy draped a tangled curtain of webbing, snarls that hung like clotted blood from an open wound. The fat red bodies of the spiders, singly and in frenzied groups, added to the image that the trees bled.
“These are not natural beasts,” Meric said. “They stink of corruption.”
“Natural or not,” Er’ril said, raising his torch toward a tangle of web blowing out toward them, “a hot-enough fire can burn out any corruption.” He laid his torch to the mass of strands. The torch’s flame jumped to the web. Sizzling and hissing, the fire ran up the strands. A handful of spiders caught in the blaze tried to scrabble away, their bodies afire. Several blazing spiders even managed to pass the fire onto neighboring webs, while others popped and burst from the poisons boiling within their bodies. Splashes of caustic poison etched the wood and bark they touched.
Er’ril raised his voice, his words echoing across the valley. “Now! Set it aflame!” He threw his torch into the forest.
Elena threw hers where Er’ril pointed. Meric moved his filly to the side a few steps, then flung his own brand deep within the wood. Deadwood that had accumulated like driftwood at the edge of a sea greedily consumed the torches’ fires.
“Again!” Er’ril called out. Elena and the others returned to the fire to collect more torches. T
hey repeated their attack upon the forest, seeding new fires and spreading the breadth of the fire’s front. After four trips to the forest’s edge, they were forced to stop. The blaze had grown too hot to approach closer than a stone’s throw.
Er’ril called for everyone to regather. As the others joined them, Elena could not keep her eyes from the flames licking up at the sky. The fire crackled and popped like the choking laugh of a predator. What had they done?
Elena walked Mist beside Nee’lahn’s horse. The small woman hung limply in her saddle. The nyphai, too, could not turn her back on the fire. Firelight reflected in her tears. “We . . . we had to do it,” Nee’lahn muttered, reaching a small hand out to Elena.
Taking her hand in her own, Elena stayed silent, knowing that no words could ease this pain.
Nee’lahn continued, “I know the forest is dead . . . and I am glad to see the fire destroy the Horde that murdered this proud wood . . . But . . . but still . . .”
Elena squeezed her hand.
Tol’chuk had by now wandered over to them, his amber eyes aglow in the flames. The og’re’s sharp ears must have heard Nee’lahn’s words. “The spirits of the trees be gone now. Free now. It be not right that these beasts feast on the carcasses. It honors the dead to send their ashes back to the sky and ground. With the way burnt clear, life can begin again.”
Tol’chuk’s words seemed to straighten Nee’lahn’s shoulders. “Green life from red fire,” she said softly.
“What was that?” Elena asked.
Nee’lahn sighed and shook her head, slipping her hand free of Elena’s. “Tol’chuk is right,” she said. “Even the last of our elders prophesied that my own forest home could only be rebirthed in fire. ‘Green life from red fire’ were the elder’s dying words.” Nee’lahn wiped away her tears and pointed an arm toward the fire. “Today we have not birthed a fire of destruction, but the first flame of new life.”
Er’ril called to them all, drawing their attention back to the circle of companions. “The fire burns fierce enough. It’s time now to give the fire its legs. Everybody load up and get ready. We must stick close to the heels of this marching flame.” Er’ril swung to face Meric. “Are you ready?”
“Always.” Meric reined his filly around and trotted her several paces away from the group, toward the fire’s edge.
Once clear of the group, Meric settled his mount, then bowed his head with his arms tight across his chest. At first nothing happened. Elena noticed Er’ril’s stallion dance on its hooves as the mount sensed its master’s nervousness. What had to occur next was crucial to their plans.
They waited, everyone eying each other. Only Meric sat calmly upon his steed, his head still bowed.
Then a high whistle echoed down from the peaks, like the keening cry of a hunting hawk. Elena held her breath. At first, she felt a slight shift in the air. The smoke that had wafted toward them in waves, fouling the breezes with its stink and ash, suddenly cleared around them. Fresh air, crisp from the cold peaks, washed away the smoke.
Then it came.
In a rush that had all members of the group scrambling to keep their mounts steady, a gust of swift air swept down to engulf the group and slam into the fire’s raging front. The flames swelled hugely, leaping toward the sky, as if trying to stop the wind—but the gusts grew in force.
Elena crouched lower atop Mist, offering less of a target to the gale. Behind her, the wagon’s bells clanked angrily, and its canopy snapped sharply in the wind. With the gusts whistling in her ears, she barely heard Er’ril yell for everyone to make ready.
Soon the fire began to retreat from the wind, digging deeper into the forest, forging a wide path through the wood. The wind, knowing it had won the battle, calmed slightly but still blew steadily from the peaks, driving the fire onward. Their plan was to burn a swath through the forest wide enough to keep the spiders lurking to either side at bay. But they couldn’t delay too long.
“Let’s go!” Er’ril bellowed to them. “Stay together.”
Ahead, Meric shook back his hood. His face, lit by the retreating fire, was aglow with rapture. He turned to Er’ril. “Do you still doubt my abilities?”
Er’ril led the group. “Not as long as that wind keeps blowing,” he said as he passed the man.
Meric tried to scowl, but after touching the elemental power in his elv’in blood, he could not erase the wonder and awe in his eyes. For the first time, Elena could see the prince in the man.
“We must hurry,” Er’ril yelled, struggling to be heard above the fire’s roar.
Elena faced the burning woods. The trail, a moment ago full of flame and smoke, was now an open throat, awaiting them. Elena pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders and kicked Mist forward.
VIRA’NI KNELT NAKED in the small glade, a delicate figure of carved moonlight, her fingers planted to the largest knuckle in the dank dirt. She listened with her head slightly cocked. Her long hair, silky like her children’s webs, draped to the leaf-strewn forest floor.
Surrounding her, the trees were now just black skeletons under shrouds of webbing. Thousands of her children scurried along the busy thoroughfares and byways of their magnificent construction, adding and building, fighting and mating. But Vira’ni ignored all this as she strained her senses. Like the trees, Vira’ni herself lay within a nest of silver web, but from her nest, eight cords of braided silk extended out to all compass points to merge with her children’s handiwork. These cords vibrated and thrummed like the strings of a finely tuned lute.
In her nest, Vira’ni listened to the music of her children’s instrument. Not just with her ears, but with the bones of her body. Since dawn, something had been happening. She read agitation in the faint vibrations.
One of her children scampered down a cord toward her. She pulled a hand from the dirt and reached a finger toward it. “What is it, my sweet?”
The spider crawled up onto her palm.
“You have news?”
Her child sat with its furred legs bunched under it in the center of her palm. It quivered ever so slightly.
“Don’t be afraid,” she cooed softly.
She raised the spider to her lips and placed the child in her mouth. Such a delicate creature. The warmth of a mother’s love for a child ran through her veins. She felt its eight tiny legs dance on her tongue, and a smile turned the corner of her lips. Oh, how she loved this tiny one, but now was not the time to dally. Something was happening. The vibration in the cords increased with each breath she took.
Vira’ni moved her child with her tongue. Now tell me what you know, little one, she thought as she crunched the spider between her teeth. Its poisons swept through her instantly. The master had prepared her well.
Vira’ni swooned slightly, both hands again planted deep into the soil for support. Her vision swam in myriad hues. The trees and webs blurred. Then she saw—saw with the vision of her children—a great conflagration consuming her forest. It raged many leagues away, near the edge of her wood. She spied the fire from thousands of eyes all at once, her mind’s eye fractured into a thousand pieces.
Stinging tears flowed across her cheeks as she bore witness to the holocaust: sheets of flame consuming wood and web . . . her children fleeing . . . smoke from countless windswept fires . . . spiders aflame and dying . . . and for a moment, a charred wagon, its canopy smoldering, pulled by two wild-eyed horses . . .
She spat the hollow husk of her child to the ground. “No,” she moaned. “My children!” She pushed to her feet, snapping free of clinging webs.
Vira’ni looked toward the far western sky, trying to pierce the net of branches and webs. The sky above her was clear, with the sun directly overhead, but to the west, the horizon was blotted out by a huge black cloud. If not for her vision, she might have mistaken it for an approaching storm, black with angry thunderheads—but she knew better. What fed these clouds was not rain and lightning, but fire and wind.
As Vira’ni watched, she began to hea
r a distant roar like the call of an approaching beast, and in the skies above, tendrils and roots of smoke began to worm out of the black wall, reaching toward her.
The fire was coming this way, sweeping through the forested valley!
She shuddered as she realized its impact. It would consume all in its path! She raised a muddy fist to her mouth in horror and tore her eyes from the roiling skies. “The Horde must not die,” she cried. In her breast, the numbing fear for her children was laced with the strangling terror of offending the Dark Lord if she should lose his sweet gift.
Her mind dwelt for a moment on the thought of trying to contact her lord, but by the time she could purify the ebon’stone and perform the rites, the fire would be upon her and all would be lost. That must not happen! No, she thought as she hugged herself, the call would have to wait. Once she and her children were safe, she would let the master know what had happened.
Behind her, the roar grew louder, and the day began to darken as smoke ate the sun.
She must hurry.
Scrambling free of her nest, she squatted in the damp mud, her small knees spread wide. She closed her eyes and opened that part of her, allowing the scent to flow out from her. It smelled of ripe meat and spoiled milk.
Come to me, my children.
She spread her knees wider, and they came—crawling, scrabbling, scurrying from all directions. She knew she could not save them all. Such a deed, besides being impossible, was unnecessary. She needed only to protect a fraction of the whole, only a small seed from which the Horde could grow forth again.
Come, come, she urged. Hurry.
Her children crowded over her knees and up her smooth legs, returning to where they had been birthed. They squirmed and wiggled their way to the angle between her legs. She smiled with motherly pride as they entered and filled her womb. As she began to hum a lullaby taught to her by her own mother, the Horde kept flowing into her, thousands of scrambling spiders, swelling her belly ever larger. Soon her stomach was as wide as a mother birthing twins. Vira’ni felt her children settling in her belly and grinned.