You know what’s funny about this whole ‘wanted by the Inquisition’ thing, folks?

I’m Auren. No, really, I’m serious! I pray to Aure every morning. Have since I was a tot! But then one day some deacons decided that using Aure’s name was disrespectful. Blasphemous! Not someone you talked to but this big impersonal ruler with a capital ‘G.’

He wasn’t someone to know anymore.

Maybe I’m stupid, I guess, but wasn’t that kind of the point?

‘Take up your tools together, my fellows. Let us marvel at what we might bring forth!’

My fellows. That’s what Aure called us. He wanted to be our example, not our idol. How’d we forget that?

Spring 50

“Keep the scarf on and your head down, okay?”

“I understand.”

“And watch Lethe’s tongue. One ‘Wavespeaker’ out of her is a heap of trouble for you.”

“I understand.”

“Are you sure about this? We can spare a few–”

“I will be fine!”

“Okay. Okay! I believe you.”

“You don’t sound like you believe me.”

“I’ve got a lot on my mind!”

“Then tend to it. I will see you at the Cathedral soon.”

“Yeah…safe journeys.”

“You…you too.”

Watching this, Boucher rolled his eyes to the heavens. Smirking, he muttered, “Star-crossed as a pair of grade schoolers!”

But then, life could be short, and Boucher bit his tongue.

To the west, the smoldering barricade echoed with sporadic gunfire.

Holding the holy tide at bay another day.

***

On Spring 48, Oliver had estimated four days. A number as good as any other, but reality laughed at mere estimation. Some of the trucks broke down; a bout of flu forced him to order a quarantine for some of the drivers; and the price of petrol quintupled in these trying times.

The former mayor ransacked the borough, top to bottom. Whatever it took to purchase one more jug of petrol or one more tire. He pinched every copper and prayed, Let this be enough.

Last night, the constables had cut across to the northeastern road, dashed down, and seized Alderman Lee’s mansion as a forward staging ground. Greenleaf had let them, withdrawing into the warren rather than accept an exposed fight on the fringes around the island.

The right choice, agreed the mayor. Oliver could not hold this borough. He could send men to drop roadblocks, harry the constables in Sixborough with elemental beasts, and generally pre-occupy the coneheads with the barricade…

…but eventually enough force would gather as more constables streamed into Mel, or someone in the commander’s chain would find their scalpel instead of their hammer, or Briarwood would wake.

Their hope was only in escape before the slow beast roused to its senses.

Thank God the Conclave is useless these days!

Sitting on a trash can, munching stale bread, Oliver tapped his pen against hasty scribbles. “That’s all the women and children at least.”

His duty as a man satisfied.

Now, as a bonus, maybe I and my boys can survive this.

His scribbles outlined the planned collapse of their lines, an ordered retreat alley by alley to the very edge of the borough. Overlapping fields of fire, elemental beasts as mobile reinforcements, feints here or there to cover the overall movement…

And if it goes wrong, the retreat becomes a rout becomes a massacre.

Oliver played with maps while good Azure men ducked bullets on the barricade. He told himself the necessity of it; who else could draw an accurate map of Sevensborough?! Told himself that well-laid plans would save more lives than any heroics of phoenix and fire on the front line…

But hells if his gut didn’t clench with every shot, imagining another familiar face in the mud.

Do generals ache like this? Or are their men just battalions on a map?

He planned, and the messengers came every hour to tell him who else had died for Oliver Oshton’s evacuation.

***

Spring 51

The next morning, on less sleep than a man wanted, Oliver hunkered over his map with Boucher and crew. Line by line, he marked ceded ground.

“Warehouse eleven?” the former mayor asked.

“Set it on fire as we retreated,” Boucher answered.

“Good man.”

“Probably going to lose the third row on Main today.”

“I know. Soak it in oil and cede when the time comes.”

Oliver tried to tell himself that this was compassion: to spend as few lives as possible. But maybe it was just practicality. Civilians – even borough natives – won’t hold a wall against a concentrated assault. Deny the Aurens that fight.

His spies told him that Briarwood men with black armbands had been seen trickling into the Sixborough staging ground. Lieutenants with initiative or the prelude to something much worse? Only time would–

“Mayor! Mayor!”

Oliver steeled himself before he asked, “What’s wrong?”

An exhausted messenger skidded to a stop before him. He stank of horses and sweat, and Oliver placed him as one of the youths sent east with Belle’s truck.

Oh no.

“Our trucks ran out of petrol halfway!” the young man gasped. “Damn Aurens shut off the pumps when we went to refill! Worse, they set the hounds on us; the whole convoy’s huddled in an old barn!”

Which means she could already be–

He suppressed that thought. “Where?”

The youth gave him precise directions for an abandoned farmstead just south of the long, straight road to Lumia. Three hours out as the trucks rumbled; he avoided asking how the youth had found a horse to hurry back.

“Stranded for a jug of petrol!” Oliver swore. Damned old gas guzzlers!

Who could he trust that delivery to? Who could he potentially send into a trap laid in the bodies of…

Boucher laid a hand on his shoulder. “Oliver. Go.”

Shocked, the mayor stared at him.

“We’ve got the plan. We’ve got the strength to see it through.” Lowering his voice, he urged, “She’s going to need you, Oliver. Don’t need to be a Seer to hear her calling.”

Nix descended from the sky, champing to soar east.

“Y-yeah. You’re right.” Oliver swallowed. “Can I bum a ride?”

Boucher surrendered a precious vehicle without a fuss. The car was a former noble instrument, stripped of its upholstery and windows, but the engine wheezed to life on command.

As they filled the back with jugs of petrol, Oliver muttered, “I’ve half a mind to refill from the Auren posts at gunpoint.”

Bastards! To spend years keeping their little hamlets alive off Azure pilgrims and then shut the spigot in our hour of need!

Boucher nodded. “Wasn’t that long ago we were all on the same side, huh? Hating the Houses and the Guilds as we chewed our boots together.”

“Feels like a lifetime ago…”

“Do you want a rifle?” the other aldersman asked.

“Boys on the wall need it more,” the mayor answered. “I’ve got the artillery I need on the wing.”

Dropping the last jug into the back, Boucher straightened and offered his hand. “Good luck, Oliver.”

Oliver shook it. “You too.”

Both possessed by their separate dooms, they held their grip a long moment.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Then the former mayor slipped into the car, called Nix to the dash, and floored it for the east.

The highway remained clear yet, and the wind rattled the chassis. He forced his thoughts to his duty instead of the nightmares of possibility.

The once-proud highway shook and rumbled with potholes now, and he blew through the hamlets where signs still wet with paint declared, No Azure service.

Tiny towns, once the pitstops for nobility, now rotting into themselves and turning down a silver note to spite their brothers.

An hour into the ride, the engine coughed a gout of black smoke. It sputtered, threatening to die, and Nix released a sharp cry. An explosion rocked the tires, a chunk of hood flew over the cab, and the engine continued to churn by Will alone.

“Nothing stands in our way!” Oliver agreed through grit teeth.

Nothing!

He forced himself to exhale. Remember who we face. Most conscripts were farm boys trying to make their way – same as a foolish youth that thought he would waltz into Lumia and riches.

He could charge in, hate and flame roaring bright, but how would he look Belle in the eye afterwards?

Nix chirped.

“I know, I know. We do what we must to protect ourselves. But we’ll give them a chance.”

Cresting a hillock, he spotted a distant tendril of smoke. His breath caught in his throat, and he smashed the pedal to the floor. The car rattled like a dying beast, and he reached out a hand to rub Nix as she kept the engine alive.

As he feared, his exit onto the farm roads led straight for the smoke.

Soon, he spotted the barn. There four of his stolen trucks idled, sheltered behind the farmhouse. As he drew closer, he exulted to spot heads turn his way from around the truck.

They lived!

But massive blasts against the farmhouse had peeled back the wood, revealing the concrete core of a storm shelter, and he spotted the source.

Two trucks unlike any Oliver knew rumbled on the farmer’s lawn, boxing the convoy in like hounds against a fox. Squat and heavy, the vehicles scraped belly to the ground. Their tires bulged with pressure, weighed down by cabins refitted with metal plates and a heavy gun.

Tanks.

The mayor experienced a nauseating sense of vertigo at the word. He had never seen trucks like these, but he knew their name. Had never seen them, but knew the smell when one burned from the inside out…

He shook off the echo of past lives. People needed him here and now!

Judging by the mud, the tanks were fresh arrivals, and they kept the convoy pinned in place for fear of those turrets until reinforcements sorted themselves out.

Who sold Belle out? he wondered bitterly. Are they now pinned by the same guns?

Had the petrol been a part of that gambit or just bad luck?

Spotting his approach, one of the tanks kicked into motion, and Nix chirped a warning.

“Right. Questions for another day!”

His vehicle bucked over a wood bridge and up the hill towards the farmhouse.

“Step lively!” Oliver shouted, skidding to a stop in the dubious shelter of the walls.

Over the hill, the tank engines rumbled to life.

“Take the gas!” he ordered.

Amazing how fast a couple boys could unload an open truck as the rumbling grew over the hill.

“Get everyone loaded up!” the mayor called, gripping the steering wheel tight.

Though he desperately tried to avoid it, his eyes caught the flutter of Belle’s skirts. They locked eyes. He forced a grin.

“Just gotta deal with this. Be right back.”

“They’re coming!” the lookout shouted.

“Yeah, figured as much!” Oliver called back. He waved the boys back and floored it.

Out from behind the farmhouse, wheels lifting off the matted grass, staring down the hill at the guns. From his briefly soaring vantage, he even spotted the line of infantry tucked into the culvert behind the tank – waiting for the heavy equipment to do the dirty work.

Nix leaped into flight as he angled down. Turning the wheels, he slammed ground-wise and spun two full circles before his grasping hands mastered the wheel!

For a moment, he hung still as a sitting duck.

Instead of blasting him into oblivion, though, the nearer tank threw into a higher gear and banked to face him.

In that, a glimmer of hope. Unlike the tanks of his past lives, these were soldered into a single line of fire!

“Nix, we’re going for the tires!”

His phoenix trilled faithfully.

Let’s do Phi proud, okay?

His phoenix strafed the nearer tank, spitting fire, and the car engine sputtered.

“Come on now, there’s enough for everyone!” He snarled, smashing the pedal into the floor.

Nix’s opening shots bounced across the first tank’s armor. As she dove, she spat more into the wheelhouse. Superheated, the tires exploded.

She bounced from the impact, feathers frayed, and Oliver thought for a moment to lose her.

Just like Phi.

Sacrifice after sacrifice after…

But Nix cried out and banked away, only wounded!

“Fall back!” he called, pointing his car at the second tank. “I’ll take the rest!”

Leaning sideways, the first tank fired at him anyways.

Despite the illogic of it, he ducked. A silly impulse – he’d already be dead on a hit!

As the second swung its gun straight for him – and the car’s flagging engine finally died – he pointed the car down the hill at the tank and leaped free.

Gravel and mud rained down on his back as he tumbled across the hill. Then metal hit metal, and the car shoved the tank off kilter by its raw momentum.

“Eat dirt, you unbalanced load of crap!” he snarled, skidding to a stop. Bleeding and grass-stained, he hauled his sorry mayoral arse to his feet and booked it for the farmhouse!

A couple of the more enterprising infantrymen took pot shots as he ran, but that famed Briarwood marksmanship favored him once more.

Then, even off-kilter, one of the tanks fired.

And Oliver found himself flying, his body singing in agony.

Close was close enough where cannon shells were concerned.

Welp. Guess that’s that.

He slammed into the dirt, back spasming and ears ringing.

Ow. Hells, could have picked an easier way to…

Nix cried out for him.

Her warmth pouring into his mind, he snapped out of his stupor.

Shock giving way to agony as daggers ground against his spine.

“Sonnova…sonnova…” he muttered, deaf to the words.

Fine! Fine! I won’t die on you! Gritting his teeth and tasting blood, he tried to rise to a crawl. Shaking muscles spasmed at every move, and his shell-shocked limbs reacted like slugs.

Dammit all! Is this…is this my limit?

“Come on, you fat old loser!” he hissed at himself. “Up!”

But his muscles seized, hot as his scars, and he collapsed again.

Blood from his ears pouring down his cheeks.

Come on! We’re not ending here! You want Alisandra to find you like this?!

Yet she had not arrived to the farmhouse for Belle in need…

The Alisandra who would drop everything to save a drifting ship would not come.

And the Alisandra who might find him?

Would she gaze upon my body and grip that damned Blade even tighter?

Then, as he despaired, strong hands reached down around his chest.

Others around his arms and legs.

Bullets pelted, ignored.

“Lift!” someone roared.

Oliver screamed, dammit, as his back spasmed white-hot at the manhandling, and he couldn’t hear half of their words through the ringing.

Those hands bore him up, sparing no mercy in their haste.

Not that he asked for any.

Braving the infantry and tanks both for one stupid ex-mayor.

Head ringing, Oliver thought he heard a man’s hearty voice raised in Song.

You who have toiled without thanks

Who believed in the drunks and the beggars

Observe

Your harvest comes in

Loyalty repaid in full

Hands grasping hands grasping hands in unbroken chain, Oliver wondered. Don’t they know who I am? Should have left me in the grass…

They hurled him in a waiting truck where Nix and Belle waited, and the convoy fled the farmhouse that should have been their tomb.

Weeping, Belle caught Oliver’s shoulders and pulled his head into her lap. She spoke, but he couldn’t hear.

“N-no need for tears!” he laughed. What else could he do?! “If I was dying…it wouldn’t hurt t-this damn much!”

As the truck shook and bounced, he stifled screams. Every jolt incited his back, and he felt swelling fluids seizing up his joints.

“Hells of a shape I’m in…” he admitted to Belle above him. “That shot didn’t even h-hit me! Can you imagine what Ali would say?!”

She smiled, laying a scrap of cloth to his ears, and murmured something nice.

As the minutes dragged on and the hot fire of pain settled into a steady drumbeat upon his consciousness, he separated the sensations into quadrants. Back? Probably herniated. Left leg? Something torn. Arms? Bruised to the bone. Right ear? Ringing like a bad concert. Left ear?

…well, his left ear heard nothing at all now that he thought about it.

Behold the power of mortality…

The price of Fire, chewing him up bit by bit.

Their ride smoothed as the trucks hit the Lumian road once more, and Oliver breathed a sigh of relief. This should be lead enough for now.

“Somebody needs to radio back to Sevensborough!” he lectured.

Belle nodded.

“Good,” he grunted, wishing he could sever his mind from his flesh and the hot, turgid pulse of blood through his battered body. The first might have come for you, Belle, but there will be more.

With nothing else he could do, he laid among the feet of people fleeing for their lives and watched the canvas roof sway with the wind. Eventually, he sank into a lingering nightmare of pain, ringing, and Belle’s presence over him…

Leaning forward, her blouse drooping to let him see the phoenix chick now awake and watching him.

The little one’s eyes were sharp and alert now, and its down feathers flickered as Belle pressed a new compress against Oliver’s head.

Fresh warmth flowed through him, and the pain retreated.

“I guess it’s only right,” he muttered, slightly delirious.

The warmth of our hearth

The warmth of our hands grasping hands grasping hands

Who is to say that Fire must burn?

“That should have killed me,” he tried to explain. “Should have but the fire burns too bright to deny. It’s ours to define. It’s our Fire to grasp…to choose its future…”

She patted his chest, and Oliver sank back into his fugue.

***

At last, the truck slowed.

Oliver shook himself, returning to consciousness and its thousand aches.

“Can you hear yet?” Belle asked.

“A little,” he responded over the ringing. Probably permanent.

“We’ll get someone for you.”

“Yeah…sorry.”

The Wavespeaker leaned down, brushing a hair from his face. “Why?”

“For this sorry state.”

Her hands fluttered down to her waist. Plucked. Stilled.

“You saved us, Oliver.”

“I’m no use to–”

“You came for me,” she whispered, voice thick.

He swallowed.

“A-anyways. Let’s get you down…” Belle hurried to get help.

Soon, a stranger arrived in his field of view. An older gentleman, bushy-bearded and somber, brought a stretcher for him.

“Luther,” the man said by way of introduction.

“Oliver Oshton.”

“I remember you. The Inventor kid, right?”

“When I was younger and sexier.”

“Weren’t we all?”

Two old idiots sharing a laugh.

The next few minutes were awkward and painful. Oliver could barely move, and the stretcher threatened to rip under his weight. Once finally down, a new need arose, and the mayor was forced to impose himself upon Luther for the need of a privy.

The indignity of needing help with such tasks was worse than the pain.

Finally, Luther deposited him on a heavy mat across a hand-push wagon meant for the elderly.

Lame and infirm. Useless. Useless as…

Old memories stirred as he stared at the evening sky. If he strained, he could spot the rippling edge where the sky turned to the orange of Lumia’s fires…

If he listened beneath the ringing, he could still hear the screams.

Nix rested against his chest, resting as well. She chirped as other elemental beasts drew near, warning them away from her favorite toy.

“And here we are…” Oliver laughed bitterly. “Once more to the last refuge at the end of the world…”

But then, did we ever really leave? Was there ever a moment when I couldn’t hear that bastard’s laugh?

Belle sat down by his feet with a tired sigh. “We’re going to risk the night walk. Because of me…”

“I can…” he grunted, hissing as he managed to rise a few inches. Even that blurred his vision in pain!

“Rest,” she finished.

“The evacuation isn’t–”

“Why do you want to die so much?!” Belle snapped, clenching her fingers to her breast.

Around them, people averted their eyes.

“Wh-no, I don’t…”

“Living your life for anyone else! Living your life until the next crisis! Swallowing everything no matter what!” Her voice shook as she snarled at his feet. “It makes you strong, I know! Strong enough to turn Wyrmfire and face down a tank! But you just…you just keep letting it burn inside you! If you keep feeding that demon, you…you…”

Oliver stared at her, dumb as a mule.

“Everything in this world has a cost,” the Wavespeaker murmured, shrinking. “No one can sustain that kind of burn. Nix is strong, but we’re…”

Still mortal

The Wavespeaker firmed herself. “Aaliyah is ready to receive us, but we must brave the Azure path through Lumia. Our faith is strong, but the city is temperamental this time of year. When the memories stir, we must wait.”

“So we’re behind schedule,” he groaned. “Let me–”

“Rest!” snapped Belle. Then, embarrassed, she rose to her feet. Petting her phoenix chick at her bosom, she offered a thin smile. “Leave a little bit for me, okay? We’ll talk more after the doctors see to you.”

Someone called, and Belle turned away.

For a moment, she was framed by that Lumian sky above and the overflowing squalor of Walter all around.

Here, where Oliver found the limits of mortal endurance, he opened his eyes at last.

If anyone asked, he would have protested that his traitorous heart slighted the lost.

But it was Belle that finally filled his vision.

And the Wyrm’s mocking laughter fell from his heart.