When Comes the Fire Read online

  Namida stared into the distant horizon, rolling the pommel of her sword in her hand before regretfully sheathing it. She wasn't sure if the regret was for leaving the battle site with no more enemies to slay, or if it was for walking away from her partner with the feeling that still swelled within her. She closed her eyes as she went, breathing in the dry heat of the desert, the coppery scent of blood overwhelming her senses. She gave a short, sharp whistle to cue Nyago that she was on the move again and looked over to see him loping to her side. Now that he was clean of blood, she gave him an approving nod, hearing Darwe shuffle up to join them on her other side as well. What a sight they must make, she thought to herself; a one-armed warrior woman, a reluctant killer, and an oversized beast of a hound that bonded to a nobody.

  "Kaska is in those mountains," Namida muttered, more to herself than to either of her traveling companions. The mountains seemed to loom three times higher after she uttered those words, towering to an unsurpassable height. A hand gripped her shoulder, and she looked to her left to see Darwe looking at her with that same look as before. She quickly looked down at the ground instead, unable to hold his gaze without something in her gut twisting uncomfortably.

  "It's okay, Mida," he said softly. "You're not alone. You don't have to do this by yourself."

  But in the back of her mind, she knew that at the first chance she got, she would leave both Darwe and Nyago behind. This was her fight, even though they had both been with her every step of the way. She was the one who would die for her revenge.

  No one else would be there when she took Kaska down with her. She would make sure of it.

  o—O—o

  A cold fog crept through the desert that night, no doubt the chilly air swept south from the mountain peaks that stretched high from the horizon in the distance. The change in weather seemed to be setting Nyago on edge, and it made Namida feel a bit antsy herself. Her loyal hound tended to have a very good judge of what should and shouldn't be concerning to the party of misfits. She trusted that his behavior wouldn't change so drastically unless there was something coming. Namida lay awake in her and Darwe's shared bed roll that night, her hand clutching the throwing knife that she kept hidden under her pillow just in case. Darwe shifted under the blankets at her back, pressing himself against her for warmth. She tensed at the movement, finding it very hard to relax that night as Nyago sat awake at the mouth of the tent, his ears flicking back and forth as he stared out into the surrounding desert from where the tent flaps didn't quite meet. She ground her teeth together and shifted her grip on the knife by her head. That was when it happened.

  A distant snap alerted her to the fact that one of the hidden traps she had set up around the perimeter of their camp had been activated. Within the blink of an eye, she was on her feet, her throwing knife in hand. Darwe gave a startled grunt as he was jerked from his sleep by her movement, sitting up right away and reaching for his swords when he saw her poised and ready for a fight, knife in hand. Nyago was standing silently at the mouth of the tent, his hackles raised as he growled low in his throat at the approaching threat. Namida crept closer to the tent flaps to peer out at whatever it was he was so fixated on.

  The fog in the desert night had intensified to the point where it was almost impossible to see through. The hairs on the back of Namida's neck stood on end as she sensed, rather than heard, a blade being unsheathed. She ducked to the left as a sword cleaved the spot she had just been standing in, ripping through the fabric of the tent and shredding the flap open so it fluttered in the night air. Hissing, Namida lunged forward and struck out at her unseen opponent, vaguely seeing their outline dressed in dark robes as their sword flashed in the dim light, aiming a strike for her jugular as she ducked underneath the blade. She struck at their ribcage, trying to seek out a killing blow with her knife, but they leapt backwards, out of her reach. Darwe gave an indignant cry as he ran at the pair of them, not caring that he and Namida were dressed in only their night clothes as he swung both swords at their stealthy opponent. He grunted as his blades were both deflected by the shadowy fighter's broad sword. He cried out as an unseen force shoved him backwards and he was sent stumbling back into the tent, dropping his swords as he went.

  "Darwe!" Namida shouted in worry, unable to see if he had been harmed. She quickly turned her attention back to her opponent though as he charged at her, blade first, and she somersaulted under and away from his strike, grabbing one of Darwe's swords from its resting place in the desert sand as she went. Her lip curled in anger as she hoisted the heavy blade, unused to its heavier weight than her light scimitar, built for her speed-over-strength combat style. After all, her opponents couldn't hit her if she was just never in the place they aimed for.

  "Who the hell do you think you are?" she hissed at the tall figure that loomed before her, half-shrouded in fog as they were. They shifted, and she could see as they lifted their great sword the strips of colored cloth that decorated their arms. She snarled. "Kaska's elite. I should have known."

  The figure chuckled.

  "Guess again."

  With that, he was upon her, swinging with such strength and wildness that she was driven back step by step, even as she frantically dodged his hits. If he were to land a blow at that strength, even with her sword up to deflect, she would be on her back in the sand. As it was, she was barely able to keep up with him. How did he have so much speed when he was wielding such a cumbersome blade? Surely he should be slowed down by it at least in the slightest. Her breathing was beginning to turn ragged as she fought to keep out of his reach, twisting and turning just out of range, unwilling to even meet his blade with her own borrowed one for fear that she would lose her only offence in the clash that would ensue. She was struggling, and she knew that this beast of a man was a fighter in a league all his own.

  The man growled. "Namida, I thought you would have been better than this by now. You think you can defeat me like this? Perhaps it would have been better if your brother were the one to survive..."

  A chill raced down her spine at the words. He knew her name? Not even that, but his last comment...it couldn't be.

  "Zuwa." The name came out as little more than a whisper. The man responded by swinging at her again.

  "Say it louder."

  A scream of outrage twisted its way out of her lips. "ZUWA!"

  A flame spiraled from her sword, and the man leapt aside, the edge of his cloak catching fire as he quickly patted out the smouldering edge of his hood. She could see the eyes that peered out from behind it, and they looked hauntingly familiar. She knew that shade of gray.

  It was the same shade that stared back at her in the looking glass.

  "Very good, Namida," her opponent said as he sank back into the fog. "Perhaps you stand a chance after all. Come find us then, if you truly think you're ready to take us on..."

  Namida let out a cry of rage and charged the spot he had been standing in, only to find no trace of him anywhere in the fog as she swung wildly around her, sending tendrils of flame scattered out into the fog to try and locate him. It dissipated the clinging dampness just enough to see that he was nowhere in the vicinity any longer. A choked sob rent itself from her throat and she sank to her knees in the sand, the heavy long sword dropping uselessly beside her. She clenched her fist in the sand, vaguely feeling the grit dig in beneath her fingernails as she did. Tears of anger streaked down her cheeks, and she collapsed on her side in the sand, staring unseeing into the distance as she did. What was she supposed to do now? She had found the right hand man of her intended victim, the one whose punishment was the reason for her existence, and she had allowed him to escape. Not only that, but those eyes...in the back of her mind, she had known who those eyes belonged to. She just didn't want to believe that it could be possible. She bit the inside of her cheek so hard that it bled, the coppery taste filling her mouth as she spit the red substance in the sand beside her head. The red scattered over the golden grains, causing a miniature re-enactment of
the macabre scene she had painted a thousand times before with Kaska's underlings. But she couldn't manage to do that to Kaska's mage. Was it her subconscious that had held her back during that fight? Now that she knew where to place those eyes, his voice became familiar once more. It was a voice she hadn't heard in eleven long years, but now it came back to her as clearly as it had the last time she had seen him as a child. The flash of a memory appeared in her mind's eye, and she remembered a large hand rustling her hair; the warm voice bidding her goodnight as he tucked her into bed.

  "Father..."

  "Namida!"

  The sound of her name brought her back to the present, and she slowly let go of the fistful of sand she held clutched in her fingers, reaching for the sword at the edge of her reach instead. She vaguely felt the metal bite into her fingers as she held it by the blade instead of the hilt, dragging herself to her feet and facing the direction the voice had come from. Darwe came stumbling towards her, nursing the back of his head as though he had hit it against something when he was sent flying. She frowned, forgetting about herself and instead being filled with concern for her partner. She dropped the sword once more, forgetting about her bloodied fingers as she jogged forward and reached for him, grabbing his face to turn his head so she could inspect the spot he was nursing.

  "Mida, what—"

  "Hush," she said, rustling his hair to feel a large knot on the back of his head. "This is going to bruise."

  "But your hand—"

  "My hand doesn't matter like a head injury does, and you know it."

  That shut him up quick. He muttered something under his breath about how stubborn she was, but gave in as she grabbed his hand in her bloodied one, dragging him into the tent so she could inspect his head by the lantern she promptly lit next to their bed roll. She didn't even think anything of the fact that Nyago was nowhere to be seen, too focused instead on making sure Darwe was going to be okay.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Namida sat sharpening her sword to a razor-thin point, until the smallest slice that it made would rend flesh and spill blood. Her mind was racing despite the calming, repetitive motion as she dragged the whetstone across the steel, and the anticipation of finally taking down Kaska and enacting revenge for her family and village. It didn't matter that her father was part of Kaska's elite; that he had never died in Endothar like she had thought. He might as well have, to her. The man she had loved and respected was not the man she thought he was. The man she had called father was not the man who had helped slaughter his own village and threatened her and everything she loved. He was not the man who told her it would have been better if her brother had been the one to survive, and was disappointed she had lived instead. Even though she had already known that it should have been Kafar who lived, had already been wallowing in that pain for a number of years since she first discovered her power over fire, the man she had once called father would never have said that to her.

  No. That man was not her father. She would cut him down, too, if she needed to in order to achieve her goal of killing Kaska.

  But what of Kilish? What if the woman was there in the midst of her allies—Namida and Darwe's enemies—and came to confront them with the others? Namida felt a shudder run down her spine as she realized just how many of her once loved ones had betrayed her, even though they still lived. She could all but feel the knife twisting in her back from all that they had done to her, the things that she hadn't even known until so recently. Her mouth drew into a grim line as her hands paused in their ministrations.

  No. She had made a promise to Kilish that if she saw her again, she would kill her. She would cut her down, too, if she needed to in order to achieve her goal.

  And Kaska...the monster that was once a man. Kaska the Maimed, the once renowned general of Queen Gawela's army. He had been named a war hero upon his fleet's return from the only Wildlands expedition ever funded by the monarchy. He and the queen had once been lovers, back when her reign had just begun and he had just started moving up the ranks of the royal army at a frightening pace. His skill with a blade had been unparalleled by all but Dorozi, his friend and comrade who had tried to refuse much of the power and titles he had been granted during his time there. But after Kaska and Dorozi had both been sent on the Wildlands expedition, they had come back changed men. Kaska visibly so, for the left side of his face was horribly disfigured, and Dorozi...well, he had sworn never to serve another ever again. He had become Dorozi the Unbound. He was unbound to the monarchy, unbound to a ruler or leader, as he took his most trusted comrades into the desert never to be heard from again.

  But Kaska...he had confronted Queen Gawela. He accused her of misleading her people, of abusing her power, and of being purposefully blind to everything that occurred outside of the capital. He accused her of sending her own soldiers—of whom only a ragged handful returned—off to die in the frozen wastes of the north. He accused her of killing men for nothing more than the whims of her own selfish curiosity. And when she had, in her fit of rage, stripped him of his rank and power, he had openly declared war on her.

  Having met Queen Gawela now, she had no doubt that the queen was rather detached from the fates of her people, but there was very little she could do at this point. The queen was not her target, though she would admit to herself that she rather despised the woman for her inaction in the war up to this point.

  Darwe's hand wrapped softly around hers, stilling the movement of her whetstone against the steel of her blade. She felt anger bubbling up within her at his interference, knowing that she needed to be prepared for this battle, and he was keeping her from that. The moment she looked up into his eyes, though, her anger faltered. His eyes were soft with an emotion she always dreaded seeing on his face. It was rare that he was so open with his affection, usually stealing glances and smiling softly or worriedly at her when he thought she wasn't looking. Those sorts of things were easy enough to ignore, to pretend she never saw in the first place. This, though? She fought the urge to grimace. There was no avoiding his loving gaze. She wished she didn't have to look at it. It made her regret ever letting him follow her. He could very well die tomorrow, and if he did, she would have to carry that burden to her grave. Perhaps she would even carry the guilt with her into the afterlife.

  "You've sharpened it enough, Mida," he said, slowly prying the whetstone from her fingers and removing the sword’s hilt from where she had wedged it between her knees, setting them both aside where neither of them could injure themselves on the wicked edge she'd refined while lost in thought. She frowned, tensing up when Darwe walked back and folded himself down to sit next to her on the bed roll. He rested his hands on his knees, and while his posture would look relaxed to anyone who didn't know him, she knew immediately the slight hunch in his shoulders and the way his hands didn't lie flat on the fabric of his pants meant that he was uncomfortable. She raised an eyebrow. It was rare that something shook Darwe enough that he showed his discomfort, even to her trained eye. He was always the epitome of calm; the ideal healer's temperament. She was struck again by how out of his depth he was going by following her down the path of death and destruction she'd chosen to pursue. Namida clasped her hands in her lap as she folded her legs in front of her.

  "Darwe," she said, catching his attention. He glanced over at her, giving a grunt of acknowledgment that she took as a sign to go on. "I've told you before, and I'll tell you again. You don't have to come with me."

  The glare he gave her said he was not to be trifled with on the subject. "If you think I'd abandon you now after everything we've been through, you're dumber than I gave you credit for," he said drily.

  It was Namida's turn to glare at him. "Doesn't matter what you say," she said, turning her glare down to her hand as she smoothed some unseen wrinkles in her pants. "I just don't want you to waste your life chasing after something I know you don't even care about." A glance over at Darwe caught the hesitant look on his face before he turned to her, wrapping his arms around
her shoulders. She froze, not daring to move as he pulled her close to him.

  "You're right that I don't care about revenge, but that's never been what I was chasing after," he said. Her hand clenched into a fist as her shoulders hunched. She could practically sense the words that were about to come from him, and she didn't want them. She didn't know what she would do with them if he said them to her. She pushed against his chest half-heartedly, torn between wanting the comfort of his arms around her and the separation that would keep her heart safe in the hours to come. It didn't work. He said it anyways.

  "I love you, Mida."

  Her struggling ceased as she clutched at the thin fabric of his shirt. There. He had finally put it out in the open, where she could no longer ignore his feelings, pretending to be ignorant even though she knew he suspected she was well aware of them. She felt utterly lost. What was she supposed to say? She couldn't return his feelings, even though she felt them stronger every day. She was a broken wisp of a woman with only one goal in life, and she refused to sacrifice that goal for her pitiful little feelings. She hesitated before lifting her head, having every intention to reject him then and there.

  "Darwe—"

  His lips crashed on hers, silencing her once and for all. She felt her heart break even as it felt it might burst with the emotions that flooded through her. It was as though her very blood was singing that she loved him. She loved this man, her best friend, the one who had followed her past the ends of the only world they had ever known and into the uncertainty that the future held. She loved this man that had been her protector since before she had the gall to believe she had the strength to look after herself. She loved this man. She loved Darwe.