A shape barreled out of the woods to our left. Some part of my mind screamed at me to move out of the way, to shove Prevna away, but my limbs might as well have been weighed down by mud for how slow I was in responding to it. Someone screamed and then I was on the ground. It took another long moment to register that Prevna was on top of me with her arms wrapped protectively around my head. Still, I could see enough to watch an elk-like creature disappear back into the other woods on the other side of our group.
Elk didn’t travel alone. Even through my exhaustion I knew that, and I doubted that creature was much different. More would be traveling through and we had no idea how big of a herd we would need to out pace.
Prevna scrambled up and pulled me to my feet with her. Another elk-like animal thundered past a handful of feet in front of Tike. Not a moment later and two more sprinted past behind us. The ground was starting to rumble from the oncoming herd.
“Up!” I pointed at the tallest, sturdiest looking tree nearby. It certainly wasn’t an elder tree that had weathered hundreds of storms but it didn’t look like it snap if something rammed into it either. “Go up or get trampled!”
That got everyone moving. Tike heaved Klus up onto his shoulders and, in an unexpected show of strength, heaved himself and his crocodile up into the branches. Kuma lifted Jika up to a higher branch, grimacing as she put weight on her still healing arm, while Deamar scrambled up after Tike. Kuma snagged me next before I could protest and I grabbed onto the branch shoved in front of my face. Then I scrambled out of the way so Kuma and Prevna could have a spot to climb up to. The branch below me groaned a bit under Kuma’s weight but it held, and I wasted a moment making sure Prevna had followed the boys into the branches.
Prevna caught me looking and gestured upward with her head in silent encouragement to keep climbing. We climbed and the forest below us filled with a thundering mass of hooves and antlers and thick bodies that were more like a living, raging river than anything else.
The branches jittered and shook beneath us from the impact of their passing. At one point, Deamar was suddenly confronted with a face full of crocodile when Klus slipped from his ungainly perch on Tike’s shoulders. He caught the crocodile and through a lucky combination of a sturdy branch at his back and Prevna’s help they didn’t tumbled into the herd below. After that, we settled around the middle of the tree and they passed Klus back up to Tike so they could cling together.
“What are they?” Jika was staring down at the herd.
Deamar puffed out his chest, proud to know something we didn’t. “Bounty elk. It’s said you’ll never want for food, plant or meat, if you tame a herd of them.”
From the glimpses I had gotten of the creatures I could understand where the legend had come from. All of the bounty elk had snow white fur and the bunches of plants growing off their flanks stood out starkly against it. Dark green leafy vegetables and bright berries. Gourds and flowers twining around and nestled among antlers.
I had never seen anything like them but in that moment I could have honestly said that I preferred the elk I was used to. None of those had ever nearly trampled me.
Tike clutched Klus closer to him. “No one’s been able to tame them though. They have a temper worse than the male crocodiles during mating season. All the time.”
We waited for the herd to pass us by, clutching white knuckled to the tree so we wouldn’t fall. The herd passed, but the crush of animals didn’t disappear. Others took their place: hares and foxes, the oversized rats, squirrels and wild cats without a single glance between predator and prey.
More animals than I had seen since coming to these mountains and they all seemed to be following one directive: get away as fast as possible.
And we weren’t moving.
I tried to wipe the exhaustion from my eyes before I skewered Tike with a glare. “Do you know what’s happening?”
He was about to respond when a red ember floated past his face. He paled as soon as he saw it and said, more to himself than us, “But it’s too early.”
Deamar caught sight of the ember as well and his face froze with fear as well.
Jika hissed, “What is it?”
I watched Tike take in our group, most of us missing what was happening simply because we hadn’t grown up in the inner valleys, and I watched his fear turn to dread as he realized there was too much to explain in too short a time.
Deamar scrambled to his feet. “We need to get back to the village.”
More embers drifted past and Tike shook his head. “It’s too far. Based on the course I had planned we would make it back by this evening. We won’t make it.”
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“So make another path!” Deamar demanded.
Tike hunched in on himself and Klus hissed at Deamar. “It’s too far.”
Jika looked about ready to start yelling, Deamar to keep spouting pointless demands, and if they both bore into Tike I knew I’d lose my one good source of information.
I cut them both off with another glare. “Shut up.” They shut up and I focused on Tike. “Tell me the bare basics. What are we up against? How long do you think we have until it gets here?”
The words spilled out him just like I wanted them to. “The fire dancers. Normally they show up after the high point of the growing season but it’s—”
I cut him off before he could start rambling about how it was too early for them to show up. We had heard that already. “And what’s dangerous about them?”
He swallowed before stammering out, “T-they set whatever’s in their path on fire. The ash is important but they can even set the black wood we use in the lava on fire with their touch…it doesn’t spread but from what we know they don’t always discriminate about what to touch either.”
“And how long until they reach us?”
He focused on the glowing embers. “Soon.”
So.
We had to run and hide from “fire dancers” that would burn us to a crisp if they got close enough to touch us.
I watched as an ember touched the trunk of our tree but it didn’t even leave a singe mark. Perhaps those didn’t need to be a worry then.
We had less than half a day until we needed more of the fog resistance drink and animals were still streaking by underfoot.
“Is there any place they don’t go?”
“The village,” Deamar grumbled but I ignored him. That wasn’t an option.
Tike shrugged helplessly, “Their path is unpredictable. They always emerge from the lake at different spots every year and return to it at different places too.”
“Do they do anything at the lake?”
He shook his head. “Not after the first part of the dance.”
A stupid, reckless plan was forming in the back of my mind but I didn’t have anything else and it was clear staying in a forest with pyromaniacs would be even stupider.
We weren’t near the edge of the valley any more and I doubted we’d be able to find a suitable cave to hide in with the time we had. Not when all the animals had run in that direction and there wasn’t exactly a direct path through the forest to its edge. Not when we couldn’t know which direction the fire dancers might decide to go.
But we did know where they wouldn’t be. They didn’t return to where they’d already been. If we went to the lake it might be fire and ash and ruin, but if we could avoid the worst of that we could also avoid the dancers. And we were relatively close to the lake. You always were in this valley.
All of this was also contingent on if we could avoid them when we inevitably had to go around their fiery rampage, of course.
I decided to get one last piece of information from Tike. “Are there any of those floating boxes near here? Any place like the one near your village where they commonly dock at?”
“I—I don’t—”
“Steamer’s Fall.” Deamar leapt at the chance to show what knowledge he had even if it meant helping out the ones who ruined his spoiled life. “We collect plants and water from there. I think someone is sent out everyday to check on it.”
At least he could have his priorities straight when our lives were on the line.
The question was then: how close was Steamer’s Fall to where the fire dancers had emerged? Possible rescue or should we head to whatever disaster had been left in the dancers’ wake? And if we did the latter, would we be able to that point without running into the fire dancers?
My head ached and the embers were getting thicker while the stream of animals was getting thinner and thinner. One way or another we needed to move.
“Down. We’ll head for Steamer’s Fall.”
Everyone listened without a fuss.
Despite the fact that Deamar had named our destination, Tike and Klus still led the way. They seemed to know the dangers of the valley more intimately than Deamar and Tike knew where the fall was even if he hadn’t recalled the supply run.
Kuma fell into a protective spot at the back of the group as we all broke into a jog. Part of me just wanted to sprint but that would have been a fool’s move between the fog and making our stamina last. We were pushing it by running at all when we couldn’t see that far around us, but I doubted we could walk and avoid the fire dancers’ path.
The rest of us fell into a clump between them. Normally, I would have insisted that we fix our positions so we couldn’t trip each other up, but between keeping up with everyone else’s longer legs and trying to force my mind through contingency plans, I didn’t have the energy spare.
Tike led us in a wide arc around the direction the embers were coming from. They were our best indicator of where the danger lay and everyone was keen to avoid that. The trouble was that the embers were getting thicker and thicker, filling the air, and with the way they shifted with the wind it was beginning to get more difficult to tell if the dancers’ path had changed directions or not. If we were avoiding them like we wanted.
The embers also stung but they didn’t leave marks behind when they touched our skin or clothes. Another unnatural thing about this valley.
We ran.
At first all I heard was our panting breaths and the thump and crunch of our footsteps but at some point something else started to tease the edge of my hearing. Something high and layered and full of joy.
A smaller noise came from the front of our group and I cut my gaze to Tike. He glanced back at us, past us, just for a moment, before he was forced to face forward again or risk running face first into a tree.
But we all still heard him when he said, “The old men always said that if you could hear their singing you might as well sing along and enjoy your last moments.”
“Don’t waste your breath,” I snapped.
We kept running and I quietly hoped that Steamer’s Fall was as close as Deamar claimed. That whoever had been sent there today hadn’t finished up early. That whatever the fire dancers were they kept to to their path and well away from us.
I had enough to deal without the real possibility of only coming out of this with only a crocodile that could swim in lava for company—and there was the chance Klus wasn’t immune to the fire dancers’ touch either.
I glanced over at Prevna and gritted my teeth. That wouldn’t happen. I wouldn’t allow that to be the outcome.
And there was just as strong of a possibility that the fire dancers would veer away from us if what Tike had said was true. They were unpredictable. The worst possibility wasn’t guaranteed.
So we ran and I did my best to think of every other possibility.