Fires of Prophecy: The Morcyth Saga Book Two (10 page)

“Crap!” James exclaims, as he sees the fire
beginning to burn out of control.

“What?” Jiron asks.

“The fire!” he says, pointing to the blaze.
“The wind is going to push it this way! We’ve got to get out of
here!”

As they turn to race up the mountain, Jiron
asks, “Do you think we got everyone?”

“I think so,” James says, “no way to be sure
now. At least the fire will hide the evidence of what we did here.”
Smoke is beginning to thicken as more and more of the forest
becomes ablaze.

“Let’s get the others and find a way around
the fire!” James yells.

They hurry up the mountain and before they
reach the camp, they see Tinok and the girls coming down to meet
them.

“What’s happening?” Tinok says, as he gazes
down the now thickening smoke.

“James set the forest afire,” Jiron tells
him.

“What?” Tinok exclaims. “Why did you do
that?”

“Didn’t mean to,” admits James, “it just
sort of happened. Anyway, we have to get out of here before we’re
cooked alive.”

James heads them southeast since the wind is
blowing from the east. Running as fast as the forest will allow,
they move laterally along the mountainside, trying desperately to
gain the far side of the fire before it cuts them off.

Smoke is thick and he can hear the others
begin to cough as the smoke in the air thickens. In her haste,
Cassie snags an exposed root with her foot and stumbles, falling to
the ground. Her screams bring the others to a halt as she rolls
down the mountainside, closer to the approaching fire. She comes to
a stop amidst a tangle of undergrowth and fallen branches.

“Help me!” she cries out when she realizes
she’s stuck within the tangled mess and the fire is quickly
approaching her.

Tinok bolts down the mountainside after her
and quickly reaches her side. “I’m here,” he assures her as he
begins pulling back the brush which has her trapped. The fire is
burning closer and a tree no more than ten feet away suddenly
bursts into flame.

“Hurry!” she urges, her eyes on the tree
being engulfed by the fire. At last he manages to free her and
helps her to her feet. He has her lean on him as they make it back
up to where the others are waiting for them. Behind them, more
trees burst into flame as the wind spreads the fire rapidly.

Looking at the treetops, James notices how
the fire hopping from one tree to the next, reminiscent of a
documentary of the Yellowstone fire he saw years earlier. As Tinok
and Cassie join them, they once more begin moving as fast as
possible away from the quickly approaching inferno.

Suddenly, they break from the confines of
the forest and stumble upon a small road running due east. Ruts
line the road, showing that wagons have moved through here. Turning
onto it, they’re able to make better time.

The fire behind them is gaining rapidly,
they begin to feel the heat of the raging inferno drawing ever
closer. James looks up again and sees that the treetops above them
are already beginning to catch.
There’s no way we’re going to
outrun this!

Continuing on as best they can with the
smoke thickening rapidly, their lungs burn from the heated smoke
they’re breathing. Cassie falls to her knees, coughing, overcome by
the smoke and unable to continue. In desperation, Tinok picks her
up and carries her onward. James looks in dread as the trees along
the road ahead of them begin to catch fire, the wind pushing the
blaze ever forward.

“We’re not going to make it!” Delia cries
out to him over the roar of the fire.

The forest before them suddenly opens up to
a wide canyon, five hundred feet across. A rope suspension bridge,
barely wide enough to accommodate a wagon, spans it.

Thank goodness!
James thinks to
himself when it comes into view. Just then, a branch being consumed
by flame falls upon the bridge, twenty feet from the edge. James
stares in disbelief as the fire which is consuming the branch
begins licking the ropes holding the bridge in place.

“Move!” he yells, allowing Jiron and Delia
to cross first and then Tinok with Cassie right behind. Once
everyone is on and crossing to the other side, he steps upon the
bridge and begins to cross.

Delia comes to the point where the burning
branch has fallen upon the bridge, but it’s burning so hot, she has
to pass by as far to the side as she can. The wooden planks she’s
walking upon are beginning to burn as well as the supporting
ropes.

When James gets to the fire on the bridge,
he can see that the ropes have already almost completely burned
through, only a few strands keep it from snapping in two. “Hurry!”
he shouts as they quickly make their way to the other side.

Jiron reaches the other side first, just
ahead of Delia. Then Tinok reaches the other side and carries
Cassie away from the edge of the canyon before he lays her on the
ground. James is almost to the end when one the remaining strands
of the support rope snaps, causing the bridge to skew suddenly,
throwing him to his knees.

“James!” Delia cries out when she sees the
bridge lurch to the side and James almost plummeting to his death
on the rocks far below.

Jiron comes to the edge and reaches out to
help him the last of the way. Seeing the hand before him, James
stretches his arm out, trying to grab hold of it. Before he’s able
to take Jiron’s hand, the remaining rope suddenly snaps, causing
the bridge to break in two and each half falling against their side
of the canyon.

James loses his grip and falls. Reaching out
in panic, he tries to grab hold of one of the wooden planks of the
bridge. He finally manages to stop his plummet ten feet further
down as he catches hold of one of the planks that’s still attached
securely to the rope. He holds on tight as the bridge slams into
the side of the mountain and prays he doesn’t fall. Once the
section of bridge he’s clinging to settles down, he looks up and
sees Jiron looking down at him from the top, twenty feet away.

“Come on!” he yells. “Climb up, you can make
it.”

James makes the mistake of looking down at
the river far below. Panic overcomes him for a few seconds, causing
him to hug the board in a death grip. The panic slowly subsides
when he realizes he’s not going to immediately plummet to his
death. After taking a couple deep breaths, he reaches up to grab
the board above him and starts climbing up.

One by one, he climbs the boards on his way
toward the top. Suddenly he hears one of the girls scream and looks
up, but Jiron is no longer there. He continues climbing and when he
is less than five feet from the top, a body flies over the edge and
falls, narrowly missing him.

What the hell?

Climbing as fast as he can, he reaches the
top only to find Jiron and Tinok standing shoulder to shoulder as
they face three men with swords. Six men already lie dead on the
ground. As James climbs over the top, another of the men falls to
the ground as he holds his stomach where Jiron had sliced him open.
Then in a flurry of motion, Jiron and Tinok each take out one of
the remaining two.

Coming over to them, he asks, “Everyone
okay?”

Jiron has a wound in his side oozing blood,
other than that, its just minor scrapes and cuts. Delia comes and
helps him to bind it, while James goes over to where Tinok is
holding a coughing Cassie and asks, “Is she going to be okay?”

“I think so,” he replies. “She just needs to
get the smoke out of her lungs.”

“What happened?” he asks, referring to the
dead men.

“They came out of the trees just after the
bridge broke,” he explains. “I think they were robbers, probably in
the area and coming to see about the fire. When they saw us, they
attacked without warning.”

At mention of the fire, they all look across
the chasm at the roaring inferno consuming the road they just left.
Some embers are being carried across the canyon, but are failing to
start any fires.

“Let’s search them and see if they have
anything we can use,” James says.

He and Jiron go about the task of searching
the bodies, but only come up with a pouch for each of them and a
belt knife. They also find some coins, though not nearly replacing
the amount that is still within his backpack back in town.

By this time Cassie is doing better, just
coughing a little bit. “Ready to go?” James asks as he comes over
to her.

She nods her head yes and then gets up with
Delia’s help. James and Jiron again take the lead as they continue
to follow the narrow road through the forest. Behind them across
the canyon, the fire still blazes with violent intensity. Even from
this distance, they can feel the heat.

They follow the road as it twists and turns
among the trees, continuing its way through the forest, leaving the
canyon and the heat from the fire behind. They don’t travel very
far before the road opens up to a clearing. Within the clearing
they find two wagons as well as two men sitting on the ground next
to a fire. Twelve horses are secured in a picket near them.

At their approach, one of the men turns
toward their way and begins to say, “Herec, what did you…?” He
stops abruptly when he sees them entering the clearing. Grabbing a
crossbow sitting on the ground next to him, he hollers to his
friend who grabs one as well. Without even a word of warning, he
lets loose a bolt, taking James through the right shoulder,
knocking him backward to the ground.

Knives flash as Jiron and Tinok advance upon
the men. Cassie and Delia come to render what aid they can for
James.

The second man, seeing Jiron and Tinok
coming toward him, lets fly with his bolt but it goes wide, missing
Tinok by scant inches. Drawing their swords, the men prepare to
defend themselves.

Tinok closes with the first man, while Jiron
goes after the second. Knives dance as they parry the sword
thrusts, but the men are no match for them and are soon lying on
the ground, dead.

They come over to James where he’s lying on
the ground, blood welling out from where the bolt had struck him.
Jiron rolls him over slightly to look at his back and sees that it
hasn’t gone all the way through. He looks in James’ eyes and says,
“It’s got to come out.”

James just nods his head in understanding
and braces himself.

“Hold him tight, Tinok,” Jiron says. Tinok
comes and holds James firmly as Jiron grabs hold of the bolt.
“Alright, on three, okay?” he asks James.

James nods his head again and braces for
it.

“One…two…” and then he yanks it out, causing
James to cry out in pain before passing out. Turning to Delia he
says, “Look through the wagons and see if there is anything we can
use for bandages.”

She rushes over to the wagons and then comes
back with a couple of shirts that she quickly tears into strips.
Jiron takes them from her and uses them to bind James’ wound.

“We camp here for the night,” he says.
“Tinok, find some wood to keep the fire going until dawn. Cassie,
search the wagons for any food and drink.” Turning to Delia he
says, “You stay here with James, I’m going to scout a little
further down the trail to see what’s there. I’ll be back
shortly.”

Getting up he hollers over to Tinok who’s
gathering wood, “I’ll be back shortly.”

“Be careful,” he hollers back.

Turning toward the east, he breaks into a
quick jog which soon has him disappearing down the road.

When he returns, he finds James awake and
having a meal of trail rations that Cassie had found in one of the
wagons. “How do you feel?” he asks.

“Shoulder hurts bad,” he says. “I can barely
move my right arm.”

“At least you’re alive,” Jiron says.

“There is that,” he agrees.

“There’s nothing down the road for a while
but more trees,” Jiron says as he sits on the ground next to him.
Seeing a pile of papers on the ground near James he asks, “What’s
that?”

“Had Tinok search the wagons and he found
bills of sales and contracts,” he explains. “Seems we ran across
some smugglers, at least I think they were. No honorable trader
would’ve attacked us like that.” He holds one up and says, “This
one here is for a shipment of…, I’m not exactly sure what it is, to
a man in Korazan.”

“Korazan?” Jiron asks excitedly.

“Yeah,” James replies, “seems we caught a
break on that one.” He holds up another paper and says, “This one
is in a language that I can’t read, but it has what looks to be an
official seal here at the bottom. I’m hoping it’s a letter allowing
us to travel through the Empire, though we won’t know until we put
it to the test.”

“If you’re wrong, it could be bad,” he
says.

“Probably,” he agrees, “but we don’t have
much choice.”

“So we’re going to pretend to be those guys
there?” he asks, pointing to the two stiffs lying off in the
woods.

“That’s the plan,” he replies. “Oh, we found
a chest filled with gold and some gems. So things are looking
better.”

“We probably should stay here until
tomorrow,” James tells him, “give me a chance to heal and everyone
could use the rest. Then we’ll push on down the road and see just
where it leads.”

While they take their ease, Tinok comes over
to him and asks, “You didn’t get all weak and tired like you did
the last time you did magic. Why not?”

“Last time I had used the power within me,”
he explains. “This time I had time to plan ahead for the battle, so
was able to harness other sources of power.”

“Other sources?” he asks. “What do you
mean?”

“I set up spells that would slowly absorb
power from the trees and other living things around them, storing
it up until needed. Over the course of several hours, they had
absorbed all the power they required for their spells. So when they
went off, no power was drained from me. That’s why a lot of the
vegetation around them had begun to look wilted.”