Die for the Flame (16 page)

“You remind me of someone. She was your age.”

“Was?”

“She fell in battle. Long ago.”

“I am sorry.”

“Be careful, Mishan. There is death everywhere.”

“The Flame protects me as it protects you.”

“Does it?”

“Yes. You must trust the Flame and call upon it. It will guide you.”

“I see only dying around me.”

“It will guide you past the darkness. Come. There are more challenges that await you. But the end of all this has already been written.”

Clarian followed the girl down from the rock, his cloak pulled up over his shoulders to ward off the rain, though the moisture soaked right in. The rain continued to fall, and the battlefield below filled with a heavy mist as night closed fast. At the base, they mounted horses, Clarian awkward from the pain of his wound, and rode past camps of Karran soldiers and around hundreds of smoking fires, to a sheltered area with trees and a stream. There, a large camp had been set up with rows of tents and not far off in the grass, herds of horses were watched over by mounted soldiers.

Standing under a stretched awning, Rokkman watched as Clarian and the girl dismounted. The girl took the reins from Clarian and walked away leading both horses. Rokkman nodded toward the large tent behind him. Clarian pulled back the flap and went in.

Seated on a camp stool was the Flamekeeper. A brazier glowed with red-yellow coals, giving off welcome heat. Two candle lanterns emanated a soft yellow light.

The Flamekeeper looked up as Clarian entered. Both the Flamekeeper and Rokkman were shocked at Clarian’s appearance once they saw him in the light. His face was pale and thin, and there were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. But most of all, his shoulders slumped forward, and he moved with great heaviness. The bandage wrapped around his chest bulged out from beneath his blood-stained tunic.

“Sit down, Clarian,” said Rokkman. “The Flamekeeper has come to see you. We were about to send for you.”

“I know. Your scout found me.”

“Scout? Never mind, you are here.”

Clarian bowed stiffly and, with some discomfort, sat on a stool looking over the brazier into the Flamekeeper’s eyes. The Flamekeeper, dressed in a violet cloak, leaned forward with a gentle smile on his face.

“You have stopped the dreaded Maggan, my son. You have done what was asked of you. And you are driving them back to their night lair. So, I have come to thank you.”

Clarian nodded.

“You grieve for those you loved who have fallen. Now I ask you to put aside your grief until the war is over, as hard as it may seem to be. There will be days of mourning, but they must wait until the peace is secure.” The Flamekeeper waited to see whether his words registered on Clarian.

“Now that you have beaten the Maggan, it is time to make peace with them and let them go back to their forest.”

“Are you out of your mind?” yelled Clarian, his eyes daggers of anger.

“Clarian! You are speaking to the Flamekeeper!” shouted Rokkman, jumping to his feet.

“I’m not letting them go! I’m going to kill all of them that I can!”

The Flamekeeper held up his hands. “The war is over, Clarian. They are beaten. They will not come out of the forest again, of that I am sure. Twice Ferman has been defeated. They will not follow him again. And you have burned their homes. They won’t forget the mighty arm of Clarian. I am convinced they will never again attack us.”

“They don’t attack us, they attack you, Holy One! They want the Flame! Don’t you understand? This isn’t about land! This is about religion! They want the Flame for themselves! They will never stop!”

The gentle smile on the Flamekeeper’s face was replaced by a hard expression. “You will negotiate a peace settlement with them, Clarian. I command you!”

“You were the one who made peace the last time before the Maggan were destroyed, and look what has happened! And now you want to make that same mistake again!”

“You cannot speak to the Flamekeeper in that tone, Clarian,” barked Rokkman.

“Our soldiers are dying. Many are now dead and lie waiting to be buried out there in the rain and the mud. I speak for them. There is no peace. This is not yet over.”

Anger flared across the old priest’s face, and he pointed his jutting jaw at Clarian’s face. “You are wrong and you
will
make peace. Let the Maggan go!”

“I intend to kill Ferman and crush these vermin once and for all!”

The Flamekeeper, trying to control his emotions, waved his arms as if to brush aside Clarian’s objections. “I am going to bestow on you great honors. I will raise you and your name to all the people of Karran as their prophesized rescuer. Your name will be forever written in the Great Book of Karran. I will…”

“Stop it! I don’t care about any of that. I just want to go back to my ferry and the Blue River to live in peace. And I can’t go if I leave Ferman alive behind me.”

The Flamekeeper rose to his feet and pointed at Clarian, his eyes hot, his mouth a thin line. “You will do as I have ordered you to do. Serve me as I demand. I am your Flamekeeper. My word must be obeyed. Go make peace, Clarian.”

Clarian stared hard into the Flamekeeper’s eyes, then rose, abruptly knocking over the stool he was sitting on, and barged out of the tent. He was seething. How could they stop now when they had the enemy by the throat? The only wise thing to do would be to crush the Maggan for all time. What did the old Flamekeeper know about war?

Martan intercepted him outside and guided him to a tent only a few feet away. Ruttu was tied up outside. Two soldiers stood guard. Inside, a brazier glowed, a sleeping pallet was laid out, and a camp table held food and drink. “Someone will be outside in case you need something. Both armies wait in this awful rain for the other to make a move. The Maggan will sleep even if it is night, although it’s so bleak and gray during the day it might as well be night.”

“Where is Mishan?”

“Who is Mishan?

“The scout.”

“I saw no one.”

“I need to think. Wake me in four hours,” said Clarian. He pulled off his muddy boots and lay down on the pallet, drawing a blanket over him, ignoring the food. After a few minutes of racing thoughts, he drifted off into a troubled sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY

C
larian dreamed of carrying travelers on the ferry with his father, pulling on the heavy rope lines that linked the ferryboat from one side of the river to the other. They had to pull hard on the ropes to get the craft moving and then the current would do the work and push the ferry to the other side. His father grinned at him as they toiled. “Pull, Clarian, pull!” The sunlight bright in a blue sky, the river milky blue and frothy beneath the ferry, and the wind grabbing at his hair, he laughed joyfully with his father at the thrill of it all.

Now he was awake. He didn’t know at first what had awakened him. Then he realized that he couldn’t hear the rain falling. It had stopped. He sat up in his pallet and pulled the blanket back. The brazier had almost gone out, and it was cold and dark inside the tent. A bit of light shone through the tent walls from a fire outside. He could hear soldiers talking softly, although he couldn’t make out their words. He got up and piled some charcoal into the embers in the brazier and blew on them to get them started. Just then, Martan pulled back the flap and looked in.

“We have work to do tonight,” Clarian announced.

Ferman sent everyone away and now sat under a canvas awning, one side attached to his wagon, stretched out to protect him from the rain. Wrapped in a blanket, he dozed for several hours, dreaming of when he was a young boy learning to plow behind a horse. He could smell the fecund richness of the earth as the plow turned it over. He felt the joy of the starry sky above, and the breeze through the trees carrying scents of the forest and flowers. When his legs tired out behind the plow, his father would seat him on the big horse, and they would continue plowing through the night.

His memory drifted to the fateful day when he was a teen. He stood beside his father in full battle armor facing the Karran arrayed across the field. His father reassured him that they would win the day and drive the hated Karran into retreat. The horns sounded, and they began to run toward the Karran lines. In moments the clash of swords rang out as the armies clashed.

“Stay close, my son!” shouted his father, as he leaped into the fray swinging his big sword. The fighting seemed to continue endlessly. Ferman swung his sword against surging, shifting enemies. He was trying desperately to stay alive as he was driven back and almost lost contact with his father. He was terrified, and the fear caused him to swing wildly at Karran soldiers. He stumbled into his father. His father sagged and reached out to him as he fell, a Karran soldier standing over him, piercing him deeply with a lance. Ferman cried out in frustration, dread, and pain as his father crumpled to the ground, dead.

He heard his father calling him again and again, and somehow he couldn’t answer. The face of his father faded away, but his voice kept calling.

“Ferman! Ferman! Ferman!”

He started awake and stared up at a disheveled messenger with a bandage around his head.

“Yes, what is it?”

“Karran, carrying torches, have approached the line. They ask for you.”

Ferman gathered his black cloak about him and stood up, his wound sore and his back aching. “Call my commanders.” Within a short time, his commanders were gathered at his tent. He noticed that the rain had stopped, but the night was cloudy and overcast. He looked them over, his eyes swollen and fretful.

“The Karran have come to talk. About what I am not sure, so I will go and speak with them. I do not think this is a trick. But we’ll see. Just to be sure, I want everyone to be at their posts and prepared for anything.”

Ferman began walking toward the front lines, joined by Neevan and several other senior officers. Ferman and the Maggan didn’t need torches as they could see quite clearly in the dark. As they approached the front lines and the barriers of brush and logs, they saw the Karran torches flickering and a group of Karran soldiers waiting several hundred paces off. They stepped through an opening in the line and sloshed across the muddy ground toward the waiting Karran.

“I think somebody is coming,” said Martan.

“You’ve got better eyes than I,” answered Rokkman.

Clarian, Martan, and Rokkman waited, along with two soldiers holding torches, and they finally saw the light from their torches reflect off the metal of the Maggan swords as Ferman and his group approached.

At a hundred paces, Ferman stopped and spoke in hushed tones to Neevan. Neevan then advanced several feet and called out, “Who calls for Ferman?”

“I, Clarian, call for Ferman.”

Neevan walked back and had a whispered exchange with Ferman. Neevan strode forward again.

“Ferman will not speak to Clarian. He sends another.”

“Come forward, then, and I will meet the other halfway,” answered Clarian.

Clarian sloshed forward through the mud leaving the torches behind. The ground was a swamp, and the air was thick with the smell of wet grasses and old fires. Behind Ferman’s group, Clarian could observe the fires of the Maggan soldiers reaching back as far as he could see down the valley. Wearing the violet cloak, he trudged toward the darkly dressed figure walking toward him. They halted a few feet from each other. The light from the torches behind him was dim but enough that Clarian thought the woman before him looked familiar. But how could that be?

“You are Clarian?” she said.

Then he remembered the night in the forest at the Maggan camp when he first viewed the Maggan and inadvertently bumped into this woman.

“I am.”

“I am Neevan.”

“I remember you.”

“And I remember you.”

Neevan wore a black tunic and trousers, black boots, with a sword at her hip. Her blue-black, shoulder-length hair was now matted from the rain. Clarian could see her green, catlike eyes gleam in the dark from the reflection of the torches behind him. She stood tall and straight.

She could see Clarian clearly with her night eyes. He looked tired and stern and somehow older than when they had met in the forest. She took in the wound and the bloodstained tunic. He had a grim smile on his lips as he struggled to see her in the dark.

“They say you are called the Chosen One,” she said.

“I’m glad you have survived this war,” he answered, “so far.”

“You attacked our homeland.” Her tone was accusatory.

“As you attacked ours.”

“We came for the Flame.”

“I know.”

“You wanted to speak to Ferman?”

“I would like to make him an offer,” he said.

“Yes?”

“We will end the war now. I will let your army go unmolested back into the forest.”

“We can go back to the forest whenever we choose.”

“Unmolested.”

“And what do you want in return?”

“You will leave Ferman here with me.”

Neevan didn’t say anything for several moments. Then she gave a short laugh. “You must be crazy. Give you Ferman?”

“Go and tell him and then come back and give me his answer, Neevan.”

She spun on her heel and walked back to where Ferman waited. Ferman seemed eager for her words.

“Yes? What did he say?” Ferman asked.

“We can leave, and the war ends now. But he has a condition,” Neevan said.

“Well, what is it, woman?” Ferman snapped.

“We leave you here to Clarian.”

The others in the group sucked in their breath. Ferman’s face clouded with anger and rage.

“Who has a bow?” he asked.

“You cannot kill him now, Ferman,” Neevan said.

“Would you leave me here to the Karran’s vengeance, woman?”

“Yes, I would. My friends are dead. Our city is burned and destroyed, and our families are turned out into the forest without food. I don’t know if my mother is alive. Yes, I would give you up,” she said.

“What about the rest of you? Do you want to see me die at the hands of these daylighters?”

No one answered.

“Let us not forget why we came here. We came for the Flame!”

“And instead we die in the mud,” Neevan said.

“Shut up!”

A senior officer who had said nothing up to this point now looked Ferman in the eye. “I followed you in the Great War, and I followed you here, but we are beaten again. We are not going to abandon you to the Karran, but we have to end this war. I want to see what’s happened to my family. I want to go home to Minteegan.”

Ferman glowered but said nothing. Neevan turned and walked back across the muddy field to where Clarian waited.

“We cannot give you Ferman. But we want to end the war.”

“I cannot let your army go unscathed only to reassemble and attack us again when we least expect it,” Clarian said.

“I can almost see the forest from here. We can force our way past you. Once we are in the forest, we will be back in our own element, Clarian. You cannot stop us here for long.”

“I would ask Ferman to sign a peace treaty, but he already did that. It didn’t mean anything to him.”

Neevan didn’t answer. A breeze blew, and it was cold. The smell of campfires and cooking drifted to them. It was morning for the Maggan—and breakfast.

“Do you have a family, Neevan?”

“Only my mother.”

“Was she in the caverns?”

“Yes. And what of your family?”

“My mother and aunt live far out on the Grasslands.”

Neevan was silent, and in that silence Clarian knew in his heart that this conflict was far from over and that they might have to defend themselves again at some future date. “Let me confer with my officers.” He turned away and walked back to where the Karran group waited.

He approached Rokkman and Martan. “I have asked that they give me Ferman. But they have refused.”

Rokkman gripped Clarian’s sleeve. “The Flamekeeper asks you to end this now. They will never give up Ferman. Would you give up the Flamekeeper?”

Clarian wasn’t so sure about that, but he acknowledged that there was little left to do but let the enemy pass. “This is a mistake, Rokkman. Remember this day.” His boots squished in the thick sludge as he walked back to Neevan.

“Well, Clarian?” From Clarian’s demeanor, Neevan sensed that the Karran commanders or whoever was their leader no longer wanted to fight, although Clarian did. She saw her opportunity. “We will leave now, Clarian. But you must say the words. I will advise Ferman to remain at peace, but I am only one of his commanders. I will try. And know that we hunger for the Flame. For generations, we have pledged to have the Flame returned to us.”

“It is not mine to give. Nor is it right for you to take it by force.”

“What is the answer? We yearn for the Flame with all our being.”

“Do so many have to die for this? There must be another way.”

Clarian had grave misgivings, but he would not disobey the Flamekeeper. He shrugged and pulled his cloak closer around his shoulders. He looked into the strange eyes of this woman who was his deadly enemy, but he felt no hatred toward her.

“You may pass. This war ends,” he said, his voice tired and husky.

“Good. Now you can go back to the Citadel, and I can go home to Minteegan to see to my mother.”

“I go home to the Great Grasslands. I love no other place.”

Neevan smiled faintly. Clarian reached out and offered his hand. She pulled off her glove and grasped his hand. Her hand was warm and strong, with long fingers. A current of electricity seemed to pass through both of them.

Neevan held his hand, a calloused, powerful hand, for what seemed like minutes. “Until I see you again, and in peace,” she said. “May the Flame be with you, Clarian.”

“May the Flame be with you, Neevan.”

In the shadows, Ferman’s sharp eyes pierced the darkness. He saw the handshake. He clucked to himself.

Only paces away across the muddy field, Rokkman stepped close to Clarian as they trudged together back to their lines. Rokkman could see the slump in Clarian’s shoulders and knew Clarian was deeply disappointed in the Flamekeeper’s decision. But Rokkman felt the Flamekeeper was correct in that the war was over. Let everyone go home. Why couldn’t Clarian see the wisdom of it?

“Clarian,” Rokkman called.

Clarian ignored the overture.

“Clarian. This is best. Many have died, and many more are wounded. Let us take this as a victory. The Maggan are broken. It could be years before they recover.”

Clarian halted abruptly and spun toward the priest. “That’s just it! They will recover, and then it will be war again. You and the Flamekeeper can’t seem to grasp the fact that I could have destroyed the enemy for all time. Now it slips away. Next time we might not be so fortunate.

“I know you feel that way, but I think you are wrong. And you need to mend your relationship with the Flamekeeper.”

“Leave me alone, priest.” Clarian hurried off into the darkness.

Ferman pulled at Neevan’s arm as she returned from her conference with Clarian.

“Would you have given me up?” asked Ferman, his voice tight with emotion.

“We were never going to do that. But that is what Clarian wanted. To kill you, I’m sure. But I don’t think that whoever makes the decisions for the Karran wanted to continue the war. They are as exhausted as we are.”

“They think that because they destroyed our home, we are beaten,” he said.

“We
are
beaten. Can’t you see that! Our army is in disarray, and we have lost great numbers of warriors. You were overconfident when this war started.”

“It is not your place to chastise me, woman. It was misfortune that caused our setback. But that is all it is, a setback.”

“What is it you really want? Why are you so driven to fight the Karran to the death?”

“I saw my father die before my eyes. I loved my father so dearly. He died at the hands of the Karran. I want to erase them forever in my father’s name. Call it revenge. I call it righting a wrong. And I want the Flame. We, as a people, have waited and endured eons of time without the Flame. I want to be the one who liberates the Flame and brings it home to our temple. And kill Clarian.”

“And what of all the dead?” asked Neevan.

“Don’t talk of the dead. They served their Flamekeeper, and they will live on in the Land of Dreams.”