Firemoon (29 page)

Katja remained still. In addition to the pain of wounds she began to feel just how far she had pushed her body and soul. She had fought intensely before but never used the Sentinel Flame so much before, and was now paying the price.

She sank down to her knees in exhaustion. She had done all she could to defend the city, as the intention had been since she left Serdra and the burning fort. She had done her part, and neither she nor others could demand any more of her. She could permit herself to collapse.

The cheering continued, in spite of shouts that Captain Jormundur had died.

Now it comes
, Katja thought. She didn’t have much energy left for strong feelings. The Flame had burned her almost as much as it had the demons.

“We broke them! We sent them running!” Borgo shouted, as drunk with relief as everyone else. “They cannot possibly launch another assault!”

“No,” Katja whispered, heard only by herself. She stared down at the blood-soaked walkway. “Now it comes.”

She began to sense Peter’s sorcery. It was the same thing she had felt in the thorn forest, except now it was stronger. Much stronger.

“Fathers and mothers!” someone screamed as the sky suddenly brightened.

Katja slowly raised her head and looked up. It was as if cracks were forming in the air in hundreds of places, and fire shone through.

“Now it comes,” she repeated wearily.

She didn’t hear Peter, but still felt how his words shaped the spell. His patience was utterly at an end. The fiery cracks turned into clouds and the first sparks began to rain down. The cheering died and turned into screams.

Those who had shields held them above their heads, and others made do with their hands. The sparks grew larger and more numerous and people fled for cover. Katja just watched the little balls of flame hit corpses and stones and puddles of blood. She could do nothing to stop this.

Valur passed by, but stopped and leaned down to her.

“Get into cover!” he said and took her arm. “Come!”

She shook her head.

A large spark hit Valur, and he screamed and continued running.

Katja looked over her shoulder, at the city she had fought for. The rain of sparks was spreading out, and would grow far more intense. Peter was still applying himself. Now he would show the world what the Dragon was capable of.

This is almost beautiful
, she thought.

Something within Katja demanded that she stand up, and she obeyed. She grunted out loud at commanding such a task of her exhausted muscles, but she managed to face the situation upright. A few sparks hit her, but weren’t large enough to do much through the armour.

Panic had taken hold among the defenders, and most had fled into cover. Katja wondered whether to seek Linda out, or if she had a duty to stay here until the end.

A spark hit the hood and she flinched.

Peter fell silent. She stopped feeling his sorcery, and the rain ceased.

“What?”

A few small fires had started here and there, but the effects were still a far cry from terrible. People were singed, not burned. This was in no way enough to destroy the city.

Katja stepped up to the battlements, along with a few stout individuals who emerged from cover.

There was nothing to see except darkness, but as her mind recovered Katja began to understand.

“Duke Kjalar is here,” she said.

Those closest to her heard and understood.

Katja cracked a smile. She had interpreted her own dreams correctly. Kjalar, duke and Shade, had arrived with his army and had now come up behind the spent northerners. They had no choice but to turn their backs on the city and defend themselves.

But this still wasn’t over. Peter was still out there and could turn his sorcery on Kjalar with no inhibitions. The Dragon surely had some limits, but he might still very well be able to burn both this newly arrived army and Pine City in the same night.

Katja finally sheathed her knives as people began cheering again. She leaned out on the battlements, closed her eyes and tried to sharpen her mind. Fatigue weighed her down, but she nevertheless began to sense something familiar. Another Redcloak was nearby, and it could only be Serdra. If Katja wasn’t mistaken the woman was nearby, and approaching fast.

She also began to sense another future, one of sorcery and fire outside of the city. The Dragon had to be brought down, and she and Serdra were the right people for the job.
Together
.

Katja filled her lungs with air that smelled of blood, faeces and fire, and walked to the damaged section of the wall. A hook that had been thrown up was still there, and she clumsily knelt down by and began to climb down the rope.

“What are you doing?!” shouted a soldier who saw her.

More came and called out to her, but she didn’t bother to listen. She just focused on getting down quickly without losing her grip. She let herself drop once the ground became visible, and landed on a body. She fell down on all fours, but sprang back up.

Katja felt around among all the men that had been cut down off the wall and found a long-handled axe. She took the weapon with her and headed off into the darkness. As she left the city wall behind, she began to hear the din of Peter’s men as they lined up against this new threat. They were some distance away, and the taint she recognized as Peter felt rather closer. Of course he would stay in the back, rather than in the front line against Kjalar’s force.

It was
possible
that she might get to him if she moved quickly.

Before she could give it any further thought, that strange sensation that marked the presence of a Redcloak strengthened even more. Katja stopped, hesitated, and then beat her axe handle on the ground.

Serdra appeared out of the darkness. She had her sword, bandages around her left hand, and Katja saw signs of fatigue in her manner.

Katja walked up to her mentor and wrapped her up in a hug.

“We must hurry,” Serdra said quickly with that emotionless voice she used when much was at stake, and broke the hug.

“What happened?” Katja asked.

Serdra headed into Peter’s direction. Katja followed.

“I made it to Kjalar in spite of some difficulties,” the woman explained in a clipped tone. “I explained the situation to him and he gathered an army. There were further difficulties on the way here, but now the duke has arrived with a force that should prove sufficient. I decided to circle about and find you. We can hopefully get up behind Peter Savaren and slay him.”

“I’m all for that,” Katja said.

There was much she had thought to say upon seeing her mentor again. Much she had wanted to express gratitude for, ask about, and brag about. But the most dangerous part of this adventure was ahead, and she had to remain a focused warrior.

This time it will work
, she thought as they approached Peter’s aura.
This time we will kill you!

She snatched the red scarf from her face, and was relieved to be able to breathe cool air again. Then she drew one of the moonblades and licked the blood off it.

Peter began his measure against Kjalar. Katja’s sensitivity wasn’t at its strongest, and she wasn’t sure whether it was the fire, the madness, the fog or something even worse, but the man was calling upon something.

She saw a few burning lights in the distance, all that could be seen of the two armies who presumably now stood lined up against one another.

“If Peter doesn’t mean to kill the remains of his army, then he must mean to keep it back and try to destroy Kjalar before the fighting truly starts,” Serdra said. “Hurry.”

The woman began to jog. The seriousness of the situation and the old desire to do well in front of the older Redcloak enabled Katja to demand yet more of her body, and keep up.

We are coming!
she thought as Peter’s sorcery approached a climax and her weariness turned into flat-out pain.
We are coming and then this can end!

Peter stopped when Katja felt she was almost as close to him as she had during the failed assassination. Somehow he knew they were there. Kjalar had been given an extension, but now the Dragon’s attention was focused on the two of them.

The reaction was quick and rough, and reminded Katja of a blow that damaged the fist just as much as the target.

The sky began to burn much faster than it had earlier, and in a few moments large balls of fire began to rain down.

“Follow me!” Serdra commanded, and seized Katja’s left hand. The woman was better at letting the sensitivity guide her past danger, and Katja obeyed gladly.

Serdra pulled her along to the right, left, left again, stopped a moment before a fireball landed right before them and darted to the right. Katja kept her hood up and covered her face with her axe-hand. Though they managed to escape direct hits, there was no way to avoid getting burned. Sparks and tongues of flame filled the air all around, as Peter poured all his power into killing them. The area lit up and Katja saw a few vague human silhouettes ahead, near a burning building.

Most were on fire and ran or rolled around blindly in search of some kind of shelter. But on the edge of the fire rain she saw one figure that stood firm, blindingly white in the light cast by the flames.

“Ready!” Serdra said in the stealth language, and let go of her hand. For a moment Katja felt utterly vulnerable, but the rain was letting up and she could dodge the balls on her own. They were almost at their goal when things got worse.

The air came to life. Katja felt she was drowning in sorcery and supernatural evil as the world of mankind and the underworld somehow coalesced around them, and innumerable limbs scratched and grasped at them from every direction.

Though fires burned all around she saw very little, as if she stood in a black flog. The voices of demons sounded in her ears and her soul, nearly deafening both. She couldn’t help but scream.

Serdra channelled the Sentinel Flame into her sword and swung wildly. Katja did the same with the axe, and tried to change her scream into a war cry.

This was like squeezing through the thorn forest, except now the thorns were actively scratching her. Serdra cleared a way for them, and Katja did her best to protect their rear. Their glowing weapons drove the darkness away and lit a path to the foulness that had started all this.

There he was, a few meters away, wearing his white and gold robe.

The living thorns vanished, but in their place a few of the humans charged. The flames had caught in their clothing to varying degrees, but still they attacked with raised weapons.

Serdra went to the left and Katja to the right. Katja drove her axe through the head of a swordsman, dodged a spear thrust and chopped that man in the shoulder and then the chest, and finally drove the weapon into the skull of a man who staggered at her with a hatchet.

Serdra had already slain her opponents and charged at Peter, but he had bought the time he needed.

The world grew even darker, and Katja felt a terrible screech. It was like she was being squeezed on the inside, and the sound blocked out all rational thought.

There was little left other than the sensitivity, and she saw the mighty flame that was Serdra totter before the thing that was killing them. She no longer saw a man in a white robe. She saw the silhouette of many monsters crammed together, as well as the black energy that swirled around the abomination and was driving the life out of them.

Katja let Serdra’s flame guide her in this darkened death-world and took clumsy steps past her. Time did not behave normally and she had trouble remembering what was going on, other than that the terrible amalgamation was an enemy.

She raised the axe for a blow. The monsters stopped focusing on Serdra and aimed one hand at Katja. She swung, and something struck her shoulder. The handle had snapped, and the blade bounced back at her.

But the pressure on Serdra was relieved enough that she could move a step closer and drive her sword into the Peter’s belly, and the shining Sentinel Flame into the cluster of demons.

The world exploded into an awful choir of piercing howls as the Flame and the demons met like fire and water. But this was quite a lot of water, and Katja saw her mentor struggle to keep the weapon in and the Flame active.

Katja lifted the broken handle and drove the jagged end into Peter’s neck. The tip penetrated the flesh, and she added her own Flame to the power Serdra was pumping into their foe, and so the demons succumbed.

The world returned to normal.

Serdra stood stock-still and still held the sword in Peter’s belly. He stood hunched over, but some energy still clung to him.

Katja left the handle in his neck and kicked him in the chest with a shrill scream. He was thrown back, off the sword, and staggered back up to the burning house. Katja followed and kicked him again. Peter Savaren flew back at a door, which shattered and let him in. The fire that had begun to burn on the inside flared up at the influx of air and the Dragon vanished into an inferno.

Katja retreated from the great heat with her hands over her face.