Rise of a Hero (The Farsala Trilogy) (17 page)

The candlemarks dragged on, until moonrise cast a line of silver rectangles on the wall opposite the eastern vents. After the total darkness of the last few marks, it seemed very bright. Kavi could make out his companions’ expressions now, and see when Tur’s hands began to move. A clenched fist over the heart in approximation of a Hrum salute, a hand to the lips, and several gestures Kavi didn’t understand.

“He says the Hrum are going to be asking about this,” said Dalad. “He wants to know what the townsfolk should say.” He smiled at his brother. “I’m for telling them that a djinn did it, like the deghans would’ve.”

Kavi’s breath puffed in a soft laugh. “No, tell them it’s Sorahb who did it. Restored to life, now that the land needs a champion and all.”

With Dalad and Tur, he’d made no pretense that this plan wasn’t his own—he’d scarce had a choice, since he’d made up most of it on the spot.

Dalad snorted. “That’s even less convincing than a djinn.”

“It serves a purpose,” said Kavi. “Most folk I talk to think some deghan is in charge of all this and is using that name to hide his identity. If we can get the Hrum to waste their time chasing after ‘Sorahb,’ then the rest of us are that much safer.”

“Hmm. Sorahb it is, then.” Tur snorted, and Dalad ruffled his brother’s hair, grinning when he ducked. “Never thought you’d be part of a legend, did you?”

Tur scowled and pointed to the moonlight, which was creeping down the walls.

“He’s right,” said Kavi. “It’s time.”

Kavi’s first thought had been to pour the lamp oil on the floor, but Dalad had advised painting it on the walls instead.

“Like varnish,” he repeated now, “only it will burn even better.” He didn’t lower his voice till Tur glared at him. In all the time they’d waited they hadn’t heard a sound from the sentries patrolling outside, and they were getting careless. Kavi was beginning to wonder if the sentries were even out there. They’d better be! No, they would
be. With deghans he wouldn’t have been certain, but the Hrum were as reliable as good steel.

They painted the walls as high as they could reach, using the short-handled brooms that Tur had brought in his barrel for brushes. Oil dripped onto their hands, and over the floor, but when they finished they still had half a barrel of lamp oil left.

“Pour it out?” Dalad asked softly. “It could make one corner of the room go up real quick.”

“No,” said Kavi grimly. “If it goes too cursed quick, we’ll be regretting it. Leave it here, where it won’t catch for a while.”

Dalad nodded. Even his expression was somber for once.

They had discussed the timing over and over. How fast would the building burn? How fast would the Hrum arrive? Dalad swore it would take time for the fire to take good hold, that painting the walls as they had was the only way to make certain it couldn’t be put out.

Kavi had sworn that the Hrum would respond quickly, arriving to fight the fire within moments. But in the end they were both guessing. Educated guesses, but guesses nonetheless.

“Get the striker,” he told Tur.

Before they set anything alight, they wiped the oil off their hands and soaked themselves in the water barrel, sitting in it to saturate every scrap of clothing, dunking their heads to soak their hair, tying wet scarves over mouth and nose. It was harder to breathe through the wet cloth, but Kavi knew he’d be glad of it soon enough.

The scarlet cloaks were the last to go in—they held water like sponges and seemed to weigh forty pounds, but no one wrung them out.

It was Dalad who took the striker and lit the torches, good Desafon torches, made by men who understood wood and pitch. The flames boiled up, revealing serious eyes over the scarves that concealed his companions’ faces.

“You two take the sides,” said Kavi. “I’ll get the back wall.”

They hadn’t painted oil on the wall with the big double doors in it, by unanimous consent. This whole scheme was crazy enough—they had to set some limits.

To Kavi’s relief, the lamp oil didn’t instantly burst into sheets of flame, but wherever his torch touched the wall, flowers of fire opened and began to spread. There were lots of crates, bales, and
canvas bags stacked against the back wall. Kavi had to detour around them in several places.

A startled shout from outside was echoed by more distant shouts. Kavi grinned, for he knew the Hrum word for fire.
Right on time.
So why was his heart beating like pigeon wings?

By the time he reached the far corner, where Dalad had started toward the front, flames were pouring up the side wall and reaching around the corner to ignite the back. The heat was fierce. Clothing that had been cold and clammy when Kavi started was now warm and clammy, and he drew the scarlet cloak’s hood up over his head, grateful for the thick, sodden fabric.

Even over the noisy rush of the flames, he could hear the voices of the approaching Hrum—not just cries of alarm, but firm, shouted orders.

One of the Hamaveran’s tributaries ran only a few hundred yards away. The Hrum would have a bucket line set up in moments. Then they would open the doors.

Kavi started walking toward the other end of the warehouse, where Dalad and Tur waited by the barrels. The cloth over his mouth was still damp, but smoke stung his eyes and was beginning
to sear his throat, even though most of it was pouring out the roof vents, just as Dalad had promised. They should wet their scarves again.

But it wasn’t just the smoke that dried Kavi’s throat, he admitted wryly. Vines of flame were climbing up the walls now, and despite the certain knowledge that the Hrum would open the doors in a moment, Kavi was beginning to seriously doubt the wisdom of setting fire to a building when he was locked inside.

He began to run, eyes fixed on the brothers who were standing near the barrels, so he saw it happen.

Flames sprang suddenly down a pile of neatly stacked bags. Kavi didn’t know what was in them, grain perhaps, but the rough sacks ignited far too quickly. Tur, watching the doors, surrounded by flames, didn’t see it till his sleeve caught fire. His mouth opened in a silent cry. He leaped toward the water barrel, knocking into several others on the way, and thrust his arm inside. One of the barrels he’d run into was the one still half filled with lamp oil. To Kavi’s horrified gaze, it seemed to tip in slow motion, farther, farther, and then it fell and rolled, dispersing its contents in a shimmering
stream of oil. It became a stream of flame before the barrel hit the crates and stopped rolling, cutting Kavi off from the rest of the warehouse, off from the doors.

Dalad’s eyes, above the cloth that covered his mouth, were wide with shock. He looked from one side to the other, seeking a way around the flames, but the crates the barrel had rolled up against were too close to the burning walls.

Kavi looked at the fiery track that danced across the floor. It was expanding slowly, but not yet so wide that a determined man couldn’t jump over it, at least if he got a running—

An ax crashed through the warehouse door.

If he didn’t jump now, he might not have a chance later—but if they were seen inside the locked warehouse where the fire had started, scarlet cloaks or no, they would all die.

Kavi darted sideways, between two stacks of crates, and watched Dalad drag his brother into another narrow isle. The crates gave him some welcome protection from the heat, since even his thick cloak was beginning to steam.

The big doors flew open with a rush of wind, which was greeted by a rumble from the fire. The
sudden burst of flames forced Kavi down to the floor, seeking cooler air. He crawled to the corner and peered out.

If the Hrum who entered shouted, their voices were lost in the fire’s waterfall roar. Trying to fight this was useless—and with a sinking heart, Kavi knew that the Hrum would soon realize it.

The band of fire on the floor was growing.

The first soldiers through the door cast the contents of their buckets on the flames and ran out as others came in—in through the left door and out through the right, with perfect Hrum efficiency.

In the flame-lit, smoke-filled chaos, no one but Kavi saw that two more scarlet-cloaked figures had joined the exiting men. Exactly as planned, Kavi reflected bitterly, except for the blazing section of floor, which was now so wide that even in the chaos a man who tried to jump over it was bound to be noticed.

He would have to wait, wait till the Hrum gave up trying to put out a volcano by pissing on it, and follow the very last of them out. At least by then Dalad and Tur would have shed their cloaks and vanished into the brush-shrouded fishermen’s trails that lined the riverbank.

But while the Hrum were fighting their futile fight, and Dalad and Tur were escaping, the river of fire on the floor grew wider and wider. It was too wide now for any sane man to jump, but Kavi was ready to try.
Feel free to give up any time now.

Being Hrum, they continued to dash in and out like suicidal ants. Kavi dug his fingernails into his palms. Soon he would have to choose between death by fire, or death by Hrum torture, and he wasn’t at all certain which would be worse.
Quit, you stubborn bastards!

Finally the stream of men coming through the left door slowed. The last of them cast their water onto the flames, barely glancing at the fire anymore, and ran out, arms raised to shield their faces.

Kavi was already sprinting from his hiding place when two more Hrum rushed into the inferno.

Flame take them!
It seemed to be a literally likely fate, and Kavi could wait no longer, no matter who saw him.

But where the last dozen men had cast their buckets at the fire near the doors and exited as fast as possible, these men ran to the center of the
warehouse and threw the contents of their buckets onto the burning floor.

One of them was smaller than the other.

As a patch of blackness swept through the shimmering flames, Kavi began to run. His folk might not be fighters, like the deghans had been, but they were the bravest and best of comrades. The thought lightened his heart, lightened his heels, so when he leaped he sailed through the flame-striped space, lit firmly on the charred patch the soldiers’ buckets had created, and made for the door without breaking stride.

He barely had time to whisper a prayer that no one would notice that three had come out where two had gone in, then he was through the door, running away from the fire, into the cool dark.

The first breath of fresh air raked into his lungs, and he fell to his knees and began to cough. His throat felt as if he’d tried to swallow a pinecone, and it had gotten stuck halfway down. He knew he should rise, and casually wander off before some helpful Hrum surgeon approached, but his lungs had a will of their own and took over the rest of his body. All he could do was try to drag in air between the spasms.

Then Kavi felt strong, woodworker’s hands grip his arms and lift him away from the fire, away from prying eyes. They all but carried him, for he could offer little help.

He was just beginning to get his feet under him when they dragged him into the river’s shallows and dropped him. Cool water flowed over scorched skin, easing, steadying. Small sips soothed his roughened throat—and if the water wasn’t clean, Kavi didn’t care.

In a few moments he was able to wipe his streaming eyes and sit up, looking back at the fire.

He needn’t have worried about anyone counting who went in and out the doors, for the scene was a fire-lit bedlam of running men. They were trying to clear the brush around the building, and wetting the ground where it would fall. Soon now, for the flames were eating through the walls and beginning to seep through cracks in the roof planks. Nothing could survive in there now, Kavi realized. He shuddered.

“Thank you.” His voice was a husky rasp. He’d best not be talking to any Hrum for a few days.

“What, were you thinking we’d leave you to
burn?” Dalad’s voice sounded almost normal, which was good, since the Hrum would be questioning the townsfolk.

Tur, who had no voice to betray him, nodded emphatically.

“Is your arm bad?” Kavi croaked. “Will they—” He broke off, coughing again, though not as convulsively now.

“Barely scorched,” said Dalad, and Tur nodded again. “His sleeve will hide it—it won’t even be showing in two days.”

“No one saw your faces?”

“You are a proper old woman, aren’t you?” But Dalad’s hands, as he released the clasp on Kavi’s cloak, were gentle. “Everyone in that crowd had scarves tied over their faces. No one looked twice at us. Just like no one’s looking now. Time to go, grandma.”

He was right, Kavi saw. Even the men lifting buckets out of the water paid no attention to two soldiers helping another who’d been overcome by the smoke.

Kavi kept alert as they eased into the bushes, but no one was looking their way. No shouts rang out. They were almost a quarter league away
when he heard the distant crash as the warehouse finally collapsed, but unlike Tur, he didn’t look back.

The Hrum were a careful folk, for all their arrogance. They’d be standing well back when it went down. Kavi’s second venture into sabotage hadn’t taken a single life—unlike the first. He greatly preferred this peasant way of fighting.

Despite the lack of bloodshed, it was effective. They had just destroyed the largest Hrum supply depot in Farsala, and all the goods within. It was Sorahb’s first open move against the enemy, and a worthy one. Kavi couldn’t help but wonder how the Hrum would react to it.