Queen of Fire

“All with power, yes. Gifts change, power not change. All one thing. Come.” He gathered the other Gifted and led them to his war-cats, all waiting placidly nearby. He pointed at the largest of the cats, like the others still fairly ragged of fur but noticeably better fed than when they had first been captured by his gift. “Speak,” he told Dahrena. “Give order.”

 

 

Dahrena approached the beast with obvious trepidation, for all the cat’s apparent calm she had seen the carnage meted out by Snowdance who usually appeared no more threatening than an overgrown kitten. She stopped a pace or two from the cat and tentatively reached out to touch her hand to its great head, closing her eyes to summon her gift once more. The cat blinked then lowered itself to the ice and rolled on its back, paws raised. Dahrena gave a delighted laugh and knelt to run her hands over the cat’s furry belly.

 

“All try.” Wise Bear jabbed his staff at the other Gifted and waved it at the cats. “Choose, give names. Yours now.”

 

Cara moved forward with obvious enthusiasm, as did Kiral, whilst Lorkan and Marken were much more cautious. “What if they bite?” Lorkan asked the shaman, taking a short step towards one of the two remaining cats.

 

“You die,” Wise Bear replied. “Don’t let them.”

 

Vaelin’s gaze abruptly shifted to Kiral as she rose from the side of the cat she had chosen, the smallest of the group with a mangled left ear. Her smile faded as she stood and stared towards the east with a sudden and fierce intensity.

 

“Danger?” Vaelin asked, going to her side.

 

“A new song.” She winced a little, shaking her head in confusion. “Very old, very strange.”

 

Wise Bear said something in his own language as he came to join them, his expression wary rather than fearful as he added, “Wolf People.”

 

? ? ?

 

He led them to another island at first light, the largest they had yet seen, with wide patches of bare rock and a small cluster of trees and bushes on its eastern flank. Vaelin set Scar to feed on what sparse leaves the bushes could offer, the warhorse snorting in appreciation as he began his first meal in days. “Should’ve named you ‘strength,’ shouldn’t I?” Vaelin asked, brushing the frost from his coat. “Sorry for all you’ve suffered, old fellow.”

 

Scar gave another snort and kept chewing.

 

He found Wise Bear waiting where the island’s shore met the ice. Nearby Iron Claw sat gnawing on a horse’s thigh-bone. “We go, others stay,” the shaman said. “Wolf People not hate like Cat People, but won’t like too many on their ice.”

 

“Where do we find them?”

 

Wise Bear’s laugh was soft as he turned and started walking, Iron Claw rising to lumber alongside with the bone still clamped between his jaws. “They find us.”

 

They trekked east until the sky had darkened to black and the green fire once again danced in the sky. Wise Bear rested on a stunted plinth-shaped mound of ice, regarding the sky and singing his song to his ancestors.

 

“What do you tell them?” Vaelin asked when he fell silent.

 

“Bear People still live. I still live, but not long to wait now.”

 

“Are you so eager to join them? To be with your wife once more?”

 

“She with me now, watching.” Wise Bear gave him a sidelong glance. “You think this . . . a story. Your word . . . the word for not real story.”

 

“A lie.”

 

“Yes. Lie. No word for lie in Bear People tongue.”

 

“A lie is still a lie, even if you don’t have a word for it. But no, I don’t think it a lie. I believe your people, and mine, crafted legends to better understand a world that often makes little sense. And a legend becomes its own truth in time.”

 

“Legend is what?”

 

“An old story, told many times and changed with the telling. A story so old none can say if it ever truly happened.”

 

“You had power, when we met. Song like Fox Girl, but stronger. That a legend?”

 

“No, all very true. But like a legend, it had an ending.”

 

“No.” Wise Bear lifted his staff to point at the swirling lights in the sky. “Nothing truly ends. There stories live forever.”

 

He looked over his shoulder as Iron Claw gave a low growl, rising to sniff the air.

 

“Many come.” The shaman sighed, getting to his feet. “War party. Keep hands empty.”

 

The spear-hawks came first, seven of the great birds descending from the clouds to circle them, occasionally swooping low enough to make Vaelin duck. He had heard enough stories from Dahrena to appreciate the birds’ deadly power but was still surprised by their size, judging each to have a wingspan of at least seven feet, their beaks as long as spear-points and, he noticed, steel barbs glittering on their talons.

 

“One shaman controls all these?” he asked Wise Bear.

 

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