Stone and Fire

Maeril woke to the quiet scrape of Rishi’s hand along his staff.

He sat beside the cold hearth with the wood across his knees. His sandals were tied. His pack was closed. His breathing had already found the slow rhythm that made the hour before dawn look reasonable.

Maeril pushed the hair from her face and glared at him from the bedroll.

“Tell me the plan found fewer ways to kill us overnight. I spent half the night finding new ones, and it was not restful.”

Rishi opened his eyes. “I meditated on several ways to avoid death.”

“Were any useful?”

“That remains to be proven.”

She sat up and reached for her boots. “Then we make the plan look possible.”

“Are you awake enough?”

“We begin with tea. Tea has lower standards.”

Nashkel was still dark when they entered the yard.

Lanterns burned low around the wagons. Breath smoked from animals, guards, and anyone foolish enough to speak. Darran stood beside the lead team while Kora formed the strike party against the yard wall.

When Rishi and Maeril approached, Darran looked north along the road behind his caravan, then south toward the pass.

“I stay,” he said.

Rishi nodded.

Darran’s mouth tightened. “If you do not come back, I still have a mother, a grandmother, and two children to get away.”

He offered no apology. The five wagons stood behind him, along with every life he had agreed to carry.

Kora’s chosen guards looked worse in the hour before dawn. Everyone did.

Mist slicked their spear shafts. Shortbow strings received one last check. Kora pulled a twisted sword belt straight with two irritated jerks, then fixed her eyes on a guard who held too much bravery in his shoulders.

“Noise kills,” she said.

Boots stopped shifting.

“Panic kills faster.”

The guard lowered his shoulders.

“Heroics kill everyone standing near you.”

Maeril watched with open admiration. “Fiercely effective. An example to us all.”

Kora gave her a flat look. “Try to keep up.”

The strike party left before Nashkel woke.

Kora led with her spear in hand and her longsword at her hip. Her chosen guards followed in single file, uneven but quiet. Rishi walked among them. Maeril stayed at his side.

The upper road climbed into colder air. Mud thinned beneath their boots until stone took every step. Scrub caught at their cloaks. Above them, a kobold screeched once in the grey dark. Another answered from farther along the slope.

Maeril looked at Rishi.

We agreed. He goes alone. Knowing why does not make me like it.

Her hawk circled high above the road, pale enough to disappear whenever it crossed the clouds. Through its eyes, Maeril found the lower gullies, the bend, and the stone shoulder that hid the giant camp.

Kora raised one fist, and the line stopped.

Below them, the road stood empty. Above it, timber braces held the prepared rocks against the ridge. Smoke from the hidden camp thinned into the wind beyond them.

Maeril turned to Rishi.

“Only you.”

He nodded and stepped away.

She caught his sleeve. “If the stones argue with you, let them win and come back.”

“I will avoid debate.”

“I am serious.”

“I know.”

Maeril released him. Glyphs brightened one after another along her staff as she spoke the concealing word.

The spell closed over Rishi. His outline softened first. Then robe, staff, wrapped hands, and face thinned into the stone behind him. The red cord at his wrist vanished last.

Grit shifted beneath an unseen sandal, then again, farther up the slope.

Kora followed the marks for two steps before she lost him. “Useful.”

“It is.” Maeril allowed herself one proud glance, then sent the hawk over the ridge.

Rishi had disappeared from both kinds of sight.

Maeril listened through her own ears while the hawk circled above the camp. A pebble skipped down the slope. One guard breathed too loudly until Kora turned her head. Hide canvas creaked beyond the rocks. A giant’s slow steps moved through the ground and into Maeril’s boots.

Stone scraped where no one could be seen. Maeril held her breath. Another scrape followed, harder, and wood cracked above the empty road.

The first boulder moved with a low groan and struck the stone below it. The brace gave way. The whole pile began to fall.

Rock thundered into the bend.

The mountain struck Maeril through the soles of her boots and rattled her teeth. A slab split against the road. Smaller stones leapt outward, crushed scrub, and plunged into the ravine. Dust rose in a solid grey wall.

The place where a lead wagon would have stood vanished beneath broken weight.

Kobolds shrieked from the lower gullies. One giant roared behind the ridge; a second answered from nearer the campfire, deeper and closer. Through the hawk’s sight, Maeril saw a stripped tree trunk swing above the dust.

Kora held one hand high. The guards stayed where they were.

Maeril drove the hawk into a wider circle. Rishi should have cleared the trap. Dust hid the slope below, and the camp smoke gave her no shape that belonged to him.

Wind tore an opening through the haze, and the hawk looked down into the camp.

Casks stood beneath a hide cover. Sacks and jars had been stacked beside them. Oil blackened the nearby wood, all of it too orderly for an accidental heap and too close to the fire.

Lamp oil. Smokepowder. Pitch, perhaps. More than enough to burn.

Maeril fixed the place in her mind and looked toward it with her own eyes. The camp showed through the same gap in the dust. She raised one hand. Kora saw and lowered hers halfway.

A bead of fire left Maeril’s fingers, no larger than an ember. It crossed the open ground without sound and vanished beneath the hide.

Fire arrived all at once.

A red-gold bloom punched through the covering and swallowed the casks. Burning oil ran across the ground beneath a white flash of powder. Pitch caught and spat sparks into the smoke.

A kobold disappeared behind the flame and burst out again, shrieking.

The larger giant staggered sideways. Its foot came down on the kobold and crushed it into the earth. It threw one arm across its face while fire climbed the stripped trunk and failed against the wet bark, leaving black scars and smoke.

The lesser giant stumbled through a collapsing shelter and beat burning hide from its shoulders.

Maeril held her arm out until she found her breath.

Kora shouted, “Now.”

The guards advanced. One slipped on loose grit and caught himself on his spear. Another released an arrow too soon; it vanished into the smoke. Fear locked a third guard’s knees until the guard behind him shoved him forward.

Spears lowered and shortbows rose as Kora drove the line uphill. Swords remained sheathed; nothing that large had come close enough for a sword to be anything but optimism.

“Left! Spread out! Do not give it three bodies under one foot!”

Burned kobolds scattered from the camp. Several ran straight at the guards. One charged with a knife too large for its hand; a guard stepped aside and drove it onto the ground with a spear shaft.

Another crossed in front of the lesser giant as it emerged from the flames. The giant caught it with one shin and sent it over the ledge, then swept one huge hand through a burning frame and hurled a timber at the guard line.

Two guards dropped flat. A third moved too late. The timber clipped his shoulder and spun him into the dirt.

Kora reached him before the others could break formation.

“Up if you can. Crawl if you cannot.”

The guard groaned and pulled one knee beneath him. Alive.

The larger giant turned toward the sound and lifted the tree trunk in both hands.

Maeril saw the line of the coming swing: the giant’s hips turning, the trunk drawing back, the guards trapped between the ridge and the drop. They had no room to scatter and nothing that could stop the blow.

She stepped forward into the smoke. It scraped her throat, and tears blurred the firelight as she drew another shape through the air with both hands.

The concealment around Rishi slipped from her grasp.

Then Maeril reached for beauty and made it cruel.

Color opened through the smoke.

Not flame. Not any light a lantern could hold.

Ribbons of impossible color crossed and bent into bright geometry. Sparks entered the pattern and became stars. Ash curved around it in slow, perfect arcs.

The larger giant looked.

So did three guards.

“Eyes down!” Kora snapped.

The guards tore their gazes away.

The giant did not.

The trunk sagged in its hands. Its mouth fell open, the violence arrested halfway between thought and action.

Maeril held the pattern, fingers spread wide and jaw locked against the strain.

“Kora, get them clear. This will not hold for long,” Maeril shouted.

“Move! Around it! Spears low! Make room!”

The guards obeyed. The lesser giant remained free. It bellowed and turned toward them with both hands reaching through the smoke for anything small enough to crush.

Maeril’s arms began to tremble. Color trembled with them, but the larger giant kept staring.

Kora’s guards moved through the space she had opened. Behind them, the camp burned. Below, the spent trap covered the empty road.

Maeril searched the smoke with her own eyes, then reached once more for the hawk’s sight.

You should be clear of the stones by now, Rish. Where are you?

Fire and dust gave her nothing.