The Blaze Ignites (30 page)

Before I could even attempt a counter attack,
a close, blinding red light filled my vision. I threw my arm across
my face. Realizing my mistake, I lowered my arm and took a stance.
The three Welptacks, however, were already a puddle of gore at my
feet thanks to Addredoc.

Addredoc stood in the middle of us all, an
egg-shaped shield of red light surrounding his body. He was
destroying the ones inside the ring as best he could, but I knew
his main focus would have to be keeping that protective ring
intact. There were bodies piling up all around that ring, a wall of
death already taller than I was. Before I could voice my concern
over that, Addredoc shot a heavy blast of air all around us,
clearing the bodies completely. The full ring of magic continued
killing Welptacks, though it would only a matter of time before a
wall of bodies would pile up again that they could climb.

I took this opportunity to look for Ortheldo,
finally spotting him in the middle of a pack of eight attacking
Welptacks with Acalith and Thrawyn fighting beside him. Both of
them were desperately trying to protect Ortheldo. As I suspected,
he seemed to be the main focus of the pack. Ortheldo had his sword
in one Welptack’s open mouth, the point exiting out the back of the
beast’s head, while his left arm swept out and sliced open the
throat of another from behind with his shorter hunting knife. Long
cuts up and down his arms dripped blood, but his face was as grim
and determined as I’d ever seen it.

Another Welptack lunged at him from behind.
Faster than I ever thought I could move, I scooped up my bow,
loaded an arrow, and fired, killing it in midair. Momentum carried
it forward and the corpse landed on Ortheldo’s back. He fell
forward to his knees just as the gaping mouth of another attacking
Welptack appeared behind him. That fall to his knees saved him, as
the Welptack leapt right over him, and Acalith was able to take it
out.

They were relentless! I couldn’t believe what
I was witnessing! I dropped my bow again and ran forward so I could
help protect Ortheldo. In that moment, my focus shifted from saving
myself to saving Ortheldo. I only took a moment to marvel at the
fact that I was truly and unconditionally ready to die for this
man…and I
so
was!

I pulled out my hunting knife and hacked into
the Welptacks, using my blades in ways I don’t even think Azrel
taught me. All over my arms I soon began to feel the burning of
numerous cuts from the close calls of teeth and claws, but I barely
even cared.

I spun around and saw behind me a Welptack on
its two back legs, its massive forepaw raised ready to come down on
my head. I moment later, it completely exploded into light. What
had happened? What kind of magic was this? Addredoc’s magic was
red, but the Welptack looked like it had exploded into
sunlight.

I spun around again just in time to see four
Welptacks leaping over the pile of bodies outside the ring and
coming up behind Ortheldo. Ortheldo dispatched the two he was
dealing with and then turned to look for me. Just as both our
blades came up, all four of the creatures erupted in another
explosion of yellow light.

Again, before I could figure out where the
magic had come from, four more beasts were trying to clear the ring
of dead Welptacks. Ortheldo and I spun around again. Addredoc sent
another blast of air to get rid of the bodies, but not soon
enough.

I was preparing myself to kill these four
creatures, exhaustion seeping into my muscles, when suddenly an arm
wrapped around my stomach. I was pulled to the side and completely
lifted off my feet. Ortheldo was also falling with someone wrapped
around him. I landed hard on top of something alive, my elbow
slamming down into bone that I heard crack. The four Welptacks
sailed above us, and then they exploded into yellow light.

“Seal it!” Acalith called loudly.

Seal it? What about…

“Azrel!” Ortheldo cried in joyous relief.

I sat up and saw her standing near Ortheldo.
My heart dropped because she looked awful. I finally looked down at
my rescuer, who looked even worse. I knew his face, but it took me
a moment to place him. “Reese?”

He nodded and closed his eyes a moment while
he lay on the ground. He looked so weak, as if it took everything
he had to even breathe. I stood and gently helped him to his feet,
which was like lifting dead weight. I don’t know how the guy
managed to stay standing after I let him go.

After making sure Reese was steady enough, I
looked around and saw another new person among us. It was a tall
thin stranger with a black mask over his face. All of us stood in a
full dome of red light made by Addredoc, and the Welptacks were
fervently stalking the walls outside. Some foolish ones jumped at
it and got zapped into oblivion.

My sister was doubled over, pressing her
hands into her thighs and breathing heavily. I cringed when I
realized how much thinner and paler she’d gotten since last I saw
her. Her eyes were glassy and as red as the dome we stood in. Both
she and Reese were beyond any normal level of exhaustion and
malnutrition.

Azrel held her hand out to Ortheldo. “Give me
the necklace.”

Reese and the masked newcomer managed to
chuckle softly, apparently knowing something we didn’t. With a soft
smile Ortheldo reached into his pocket and pulled the necklace out.
When it came into view, I was momentarily deafened as the remaining
Welptacks howled the most outraged howl I’d ever heard. All of them
leapt into Addredoc’s shield. The pile of bodies nearly reached the
roof of the dome. All of us looked around, stunned at the mass
suicide taking place around us.

When it was over, Addredoc sent a final blast
of air to clear the bodies. All of us looked around, stunned at the
silence of the woods. After a moment Addredoc lowered the shield
and headed into the trees.

“Dear Light Gods,” Ortheldo breathed as he
looked around the empty woods in awe. Then he looked around
frantically. “Cairikson?”

“I’m here,” was the response from above. All
of us looked up just as a white sparkling magic developed on a tree
branch and the little Salynn came into view, tears in his eyes.

Ortheldo immediately went to the tree and
pulled himself up the trunk and onto the branch Cairikson sat on.
“It’s okay. It’s over.”

Though the boy was crying, he had a hard look
on his face as he watched Ortheldo approach. He sniffed. “I need a
weapon, Ortheldo. I could have helped.”

“Oh Cairikson,” Ortheldo said
sympathetically, “I admire your bravery, but that battle was just
too big for you.”

“No it wasn’t!” The boy shot back. “I could
have shot arrows from up here! I could have saved her!”

All our brows dropped as we realized what
he’d said. I began to look around frantically—all the Redians were
gone. Before I could panic, I heard sobbing coming from the woods
outside
the barrier of where Addredoc’s protective dome
shield had been.

Ortheldo scooped Cairikson up in one arm and
jumped down to the ground. All of us ran towards the sound. The
first thing we saw was Addredoc and Thrawyn kneeling on the ground,
which made me run faster. As I realized what was in front of them,
I stopped in my tracks and had to throw a fist over my mouth so I
wouldn’t throw up.

Meddyn lay there in nearly two complete
pieces, her body so torn I couldn’t even recognize her. Bile burned
at the base of my throat, threatening to come up. Thrawyn was
sobbing with his head on the ground, completely gasping for air.
Reese dropped to his knees trying to comfort him. Addredoc just
stared in utter horror at his mother. Azrel sunk down at Addredoc’s
side and put her arm around him.

Meddyn, sweet gentle Meddyn, was dead.

“My first casualty,” Acalith said so softly I
barely even heard her. “The Second Shadow is coming.”

I felt uneasy for an instant, like I was
being watched. I turned my head and did a double take when I saw
from the corner of my eye a brown mass sitting in the trees behind
me. There the leader of the Welptacks, Imbrul, cowered.

He yelped as soon as I looked at him and took
off towards the clearing. I was after him, but I was soon passed by
Azrel who ran with speed I didn’t think possible. She looked like a
gazelle as she limberly leapt over roots and fallen trees on the
forest floor. Any second I expected her to trip on something, but
then she was in the clearing and was
gaining
on Imbrul! She
was out running a
wolf!
And a giant one at that.

She jumped, clearing ten whole feet, and
tackled the massive beast to the ground. They rolled over each
other a couple times with Azrel landing on top. Her Salynn blade
was at his throat so fast I didn’t even see her reach for it.

Ortheldo and I caught up to her, both of us
panting.

“Please don’t kill me!” Imbrul was begging
her. “Please!”

“You let your pack kill someone very dear to
me,” Azrel said through clenched teeth, looking down at him
dangerously. “But I won’t kill you for it yet, because I have a
message I want you to bring to your Wolf Lord.” Azrel shifted her
blade so the point was pointed directly up into his chin. “You tell
Karksar that I’m coming to get him and the rest of his pack for the
murder of my Redian friend.” She applied more pressure to the
point. “You tell him I’m going to wipe the entire
race
of
Welptacks from the face of the earth.” Then she put on a fake sweet
smile. “I
do
hope you can recall my message through the
pain.”

Imbrul’s eyes widened. “Pain?”

Azrel gritted her teeth and slashed her blade
upwards over his good eye. Imbrul yelped in pain and struggled
under Azrel for a moment but somehow she kept hold of him.
“
That
pain!” She put the point of her bloody blade under his
chin again. “
Don’t
forget my message, Imbrul.”

Azrel got off of him. As he rolled to his
side, she grabbed a fistful of his fur at the back of his neck and
his lower back, and with impossible strength she picked him up off
the ground and threw him eight feet. “Now get out of my sight!”

Imbrul looked over his shoulder pathetically
for an instant, then galloped away.

Both Ortheldo and I looked at Azrel with wide
eyes. She was trembling like a leaf in a breeze as she watched
Imbrul go. When he was out of sight, she turned to start back to
where Meddyn lay but stumbled in exhaustion nearly falling on her
face. Ortheldo caught her around her stomach before she fell.

“I’m alright. I’m alright. I have to…”

“You have to eat and sleep,” Ortheldo said
gently but firmly as he helped her steady herself on her feet.

Azrel looked at him over her shoulder. “Not
before we bury Meddyn and Thrawyn.”

My brows dropped. “Thrawyn? He’s fine.”

Ortheldo and Azrel looked at me with sad
expressions. “Come on,” my sister said and we headed back towards
the trees.

When we got there, Meddyn was covered with a
blanket and Thrawyn was gone. Addredoc sat against a tree with his
knees up, staring off at nothing, with a horrified look in his
eyes. Azrel pressed her lips together and got on her knees beside
him. She put her arm around him and pulled him against her
shoulder. He didn’t resist, he didn’t even blink.

“Where’s Thrawyn?” I asked.

“Off into the woods to will himself to die,”
the tall, black masked stranger said flatly. I flinched. “He went
to
what?
”

“You bastard!” Addredoc suddenly screamed and
he was on his feet heading towards the newcomer. Azrel jumped up to
hold him back, while the stranger lit a ball of yellow wizard fire
in his palm.

“Stop it! Addredoc stop!” Azrel yelled,
pushing on Addredoc’s shoulders. “We’re all on the same side!”
Addredoc stopped struggling against her but kept his wide eyes on
the stranger. Azrel spun to face him. “Look Lisswilla, I really
like you, but you’re going to have to learn when to shut up!”

My temper threatened to boil over. “What’s
happening with Thrawyn?” I yelled.

Azrel looked at me sympathetically but stayed
in front of Addredoc, least he lunge at the masked man again.
“Thrawyn went into the woods to will himself to die. Ortheldo and I
knew he would.”

I couldn’t even grasp the thought. For a
moment I couldn’t even think of anything rational to say.
“But…how…he can’t…people can’t…people can’t
really
do that
can they?”

“My father did when my mother died,” Ortheldo
said.

“But…how? I don’t…how could he do that?”

Azrel shrugged sadly. “You just end your
desire to live. It’s really easy after you lose someone you
love.”

They weren’t understanding me. I really
didn’t care to know
how
someone willingly ended their life!
“No!” I cried. “What I mean is how
could he
do that? He
still has a son! Addredoc is alive! Isn’t that reason enough to
want to live?”

Understanding washed over Azrel’s face and
she shook her head. “When you’ve spent thousands of years with a
spouse, a child you’ve known for only a few hundred years is not
enough to live for. Most Salynns feel that way.”

I shook my head in disgust, then I passed
Azrel and embraced Addredoc tightly. He began to cry heavily into
my shoulder as he returned my embrace. “I am so sorry, my friend.”
I found myself holding back tears of my own. “I am
so
sorry.”

Ortheldo

When we found Thrawyn’s body his red
Sallybreath flowers were grey and shriveled, with some scattered on
the ground. Rabryn looked in horror at what Thrawyn had done. Azrel
tried to comfort him, but he just didn’t understand. He was
young.

My arms and shoulders were cut up pretty
badly from the endless teeth and claws of the Welptacks, but no
magic user was in any shape to heal right now. My cuts weren’t
bleeding too badly, so I ignored them, as well as the exhaustion
from the battle as we buried Thrawyn and Meddyn. All I had to do
was look at Azrel and Reese helping out, even though they were in
much worse shape than I was, and I plugged on.