Swift Magic (The Swift Codex Book 2) (38 page)

“Banana?”

“Banana.”

I laughed. “How can I take it seriously?”

“You're not meant to.”

“You're totally giving me a safe word?”

“Unless you can think of an alternative?”

Now that it was in my head, it was the only thing I could think of. “Here I was being all sappy and romantic, and you're practically ignoring my heartfelt apologies.”

Mordon's deep chuckle gave me goosebumps deep under my skin and stirred something else to life.

“I'm sorry I frightened you. I had a duty I thought I was ignoring for my own desires. But I'm not sorry for doing this,” he said and caressed my hurt shoulder.

“I'm not sorry for that, either,” I said. “Or rather, I'm not angry with you for it. For any of it. I wish I could take back what I'd said.”

“Not that I didn't deserve some of it.”

“No,” I said, thinking. “You didn't deserve it.”

I studied him by the first rays of the light cresting over the bare ridge of the mountains, hazy and defined with the smoke outside the fey circle. “I love you. No, don't say it. Listen to me. I didn't know what it meant, what it meant, before now. What it means to be in something deeper, something older, than just being in love. To feel fealty and faith. Unreservedly. To know that it's just the beginning. That I don't have to constantly fall back on my own plans, my own initiatives, my own resources. That I can really and truly trust you. Does that make sense? I feel like I'm talking circles and babbling nonsense.”

When I looked at him, his lips were twitching between a smile and a frown and his eyes were wet. I thought I might have upset him, but he kissed my temple and put my forehead to his, and we didn't say a word to one another as we watched the sun rise through a dusky red sky.

***

We let the others sleep as long as we could before waking them. That we were in the path of the wildfire was obvious the longer we were in it, and already we could feel the temperature rising even as the sun darkened and became an orange glow through the black rolls of smoke.

I was the first one who noticed the wildlife gathering at the edge of the lake. Anything which could fly flew out to the ruins and roosted there, as far away from us as they could at first, then closer and closer as places were filled, taking whatever spaces were still available. Eventually, a hawk landed within the fey circle and gripped ahold of a man's leg, not caring when he jumped and thought the better of yelling. There was a moment when the bird thought of departing, but it seemed to know, seemed to understand, that the thin film of a spell was keeping the air clean. And other birds soon enough followed.

There was a moment when everyone woke up and stirred and stared at the invading animals. That we heard the snapping roar of a fire coming down the mountainside, and heard the cries of animals caught up within it. Trees, old and dead and yet to be taken for lumber, lit aflame first. Then the younger trees, the strong ones, trees which boomed like a gunshot as the sap and moisture within steamed and exploded them apart.

“What do we do?” Mordon asked, softly so no one else could hear.

One by one the trees succumbed under the flames and the smoke grew and the temperature rose. The animals splashed into the water and their pleas were cut silent. Behind them the forest disappeared into a raging inferno of hellfire and destruction. None of them looked back. Each was lost in its own world, trying to escape the heat, the flames, the smoke which clogged their lungs. Predator or prey, it didn't matter in the face of an even greater monster, a thing which killed indiscriminately, a thing which would alter the landscape forever. Escape on the other end of Lake Alarum was impossible. The fire had spread there, too. Within minutes they were as far as they could go, a few trying to paddle the water before returning to their shelf, exhausted, and just as doomed to die as those who had fallen behind on the slopes of the mountainside.

“We expand the circle as far as we can,” I said at last. “If we tap into the residual magic the same way as the caravan had before us, we should be able to circumference the lake and wait the fire out.”

If I'd expected to explain myself, I was disappointed. Mordon nodded, ordering the feys into wakefulness. The spell soon occurred.

All around us as I led the construction of a massive fey circle, the rain started. Lightning struck ground, missing the lake, lighting up trees and sending ashes down on the landscape. Hot embers sifted through the air. They steamed when they hit the circle.

When I felt our spell-casters connect with the residual magic of Alarum, I saw something large looming through the suffocating dark of bilious smoke clouds. It seemed I was the only one who could see it, and I didn't need to point it out to someone else.

It was a great dark dragon, rising out of the flames, its body casting a shadow through the orange light of the fire, then it rose into the sky, arching overhead. It cried out and flames billowed from its mouth, unseen and unnoticed by anyone else. It was then I understood.

All of this, all the forest fire and the husks and walking animations, it had all been targeted against me. But it was the residents who were paying. It was the wild deer who lapped at the lake water, mingling with the domestic cattle of the feys. It was the coyotes and wolves and foxes who cowered in the shallows, hot and singed. It was the things of the sky, battered and burned and too weary to press on. Against the threat of the fire, their petty squabbles meant nothing. They were too tired, too frightened, to mark a territory. All they knew was that amidst the death and destruction, they had found a pocket of protection.

I bolted to the edge of the walkway, prior exhaustion from spell-casting gone, staring out at the fey circle in comprehension.

“What is it?” Mordon asked.

“This is a price,” I said. “This is the price the Unwritten has asked for. I don't know what has given in exchange, but I know how to scrub it clean and start afresh.”

No one was very thrilled with my proposed plan, which I'd expected of Leazar and Mordon, but not from all of them. We were eating elk meat, specifically the hind leg of a calf which had succumbed to burns or smoke inhalation prior to reaching the lake. Simbalene ate little of it, chewing instead on watercress and some sort of moss she swore would boost her strength.

The fire had moved on, leaving nothing but ashes behind. Well, ashes and rocks. There were a whole lot more rocks and boulders on the mountain than I had imagined. It would take a lot to get regrowth started.

“It will work,” I said, “there's no need to jump to the worst possibility.”

“We're not jumping to the worst possibility. That one is the spell collapses, we all die, and we sterilize the soil for miles around. That's the worst possibility,” Leazar said. “That the leader of the chant will keel over dead is a probability, not a possibility.”

“
But if we set up the counter ward in the same place as the Unwritten, reach into the same energy source, and kick the original spell-casters out by taking their place, it will all be stable and sound and you'll have the Wildwoods back. Maybe not exactly as it used to be, but it'll still be there.”

“I know the theory, but in order to do that, someone will have to listen in to the original incantation, step into it, and basically yell over them until the resonance is broken and the new chant takes root. The original spell won't look too kindly upon an intrusion like that, and it will do everything it can to destroy the interloper. No one here is trained to do that, much less ever done it.”

We were gathered around the camp fire, ironically huddled up near it for warmth. With the passing of the major wildfire there came a bitter chill which left a frost in its wake indistinguishable from the white tinges of scorched earth. Lyall had told me that the rest of the battalion sheltered in the heart of the village, where they had made a control-burn to deflect the intensity of the fire. He was the only one who could still navigate the portals of the Wildwoods, but even so he now said that he'd given up on the mode of transportation. The problem, he said, the real problem, was that the Infection hadn't stopped at the edge of the Wildwoods. It was leeching into the rest of the landscape. Which had progressed to my proposal which was now being examined.

“But what if we had someone with experience?” I asked.

“Then we'd be having a different discussion,” Leazar said.

Catching Mordon's eye was a mistake. He shook his head, but I went forward anyway.

“I've done it before,” I said. As their attention returned to me, I continued, “I've done it right here. On this lake. Mordon was with me, he knows. The spell was ancient.”

A mutter of surprise spread through the assembly. Some looked skeptical, as if I'd made the story up to settle the argument. Others seemed excited to have me be the leader. A few flatly rejected the notion as impossible. They silenced to get Mordon's opinion.

“I'd call it old, not ancient. Pioneer-era,” he said at last.

“Right, at least a hundred years old. This Unwritten is days old, perhaps weeks. I can do it.”

Mordon dragged a hand through his hair. “I am loathe to tell you what you can't do.”

“Then don't,” I said.

“Fera, the spell of the pioneers was not done with ill-intent. It was meant to last, but it didn't have a built-in defensive guard.”

“We don't know that the Unwritten does.”

“But we should expect that it does. If it doesn't, that's a blessing.”

“If it does or doesn't is a moot point. Let me put it this way. We can't attack the Unwritten with a direct force, because it will absorb the blow. That eliminates a whole lot of options. The situation will only get worse from now on. The Wildwoods belongs to that spell. That means the Unwritten is the Wildwoods, and presumably there are two strongholds which are not yet in the Unwritten's domain—here, where we've held it back, and in the village where the rest of the battalion is. That's our foothold, and if we lose that foothold, which we will, then the Unwritten has untold-of power. I don't think it's happy with this small kingdom. It wants an empire. We have to stop it now, before that fire progresses and takes even more.”

“I agree with you on those points,” Mordon said. “What I am disagreeing with you on is who will lead the chant.”

“I am the one with Unwritten experience, and the one who pulled off this stunt before. That's two counts in my favor above everyone else.”

“You're not strong enough.”

“That might be an advantage if I fall to it.”

Mordon curled a fist. “You can't even light a flame. How do you expect to do something this big?”

“Because it's not about brute strength. This is about finesse and manipulation.”

“I'll do it. You don't have enough power, it's that simple.”

“You're needed to keep the husks at bay. Your dragon form is perfect.”

Mordon shook his head. “Not if we have a ward up like last time.”

“It'll be worse than last time, so much worse. And this time, their leader will know better than to use any magic at all on the ward. He will batter it until it collapses, and he'll take advantage of the close quarters after that. No, you need to be the aggressor. You've got the head for this, I know you do. You and Sim are needed on the front, same with anyone who is good at hand to hand combat. It'll have to be a small group to go with me. I'm the one who has the wits to go up against the Unwritten. Look me in the eye and tell me that you disagree.”

My words made Mordon scowl into the fire for a moment, then he raised his lion-like eyes to mine. There was resentment, and behind that, there was fear and refusal.

I waited. When someone started to talk, I held up a hand. They quieted mid-word.

Mordon dropped his gaze to his hands. He ran them through his hair again.

“When do you want to do this?”

“As soon as we can. I worry that Magnus' group won't be able to hold off the fire. The longer we wait, the harder it will be to stop. And we're decently rested and fed now.”

“Can't we join Magnus instead?”

“We'll leave this place unguarded, and when it falls, the village might be lost anyway. No, we need to leave this place and go straight for the heart of the Unwritten without haste.”