Seana, Eganene

“Where is he?” the trader moaned, drawing the sheets on Bekka’s bunk to his chin. “Bring me more wine!”

Bekka grimaced. At this rate, he might drown before he bled to death. She glanced at the door, wishing the skinny, young man with the sword would return. It had to have been half an hour since he told them to run into the wagon.

“I don’t know if we have another,” Kat answered.

“No more?” the man roared. “I told you to bring me wine, girl! I want my wine!” He turned to Franc who stood beside Kat, “Where’s Ian? Go get him.”

They only had a single lamp burning, but the light was enough for Bekka to see Franc’s face blanch. There was no way to know if this Ian was even alive. And Franc didn’t have any weapons. How was he supposed to protect himself?

Kat stepped back onto her foot. “Don’t even think about it,” she hissed.

Bekka kept her eyes on the trader. The Creeling were dangerous, but she wasn’t unarmed. She had done something when Tonelle was attacked. Not enough to stop the beast, but she’d made fire again. And done it without thinking! At the same time as she’d jumped away from the monster.

She closed her eyes, seeing the ball of orange flame materialize from her fingertips. There’d been no time to see the wisps of power swirl and grow. Bekka had been following Tonelle, listening to her prate on about the market in Orlenia, when the screaming started.

It had been an accident. Stumbling away from Tonelle, she had tripped on her oversized shoes and fallen. She remembered shock of fear as she’d seen the creature from the corner of her eye, and the icy chill in her veins as the monster swooped down, its powerful, leathery wings pumping the air.

Bekka had thrown her arms up as if to ward it away, but she had done something far more. Faster than thought, her magic had come to her aid, swirling red and yellow spinning out of her hands and into a ball of flame. Not that it paused for her to see all this. It was a literal flash and then the rushing sound of fire and wind, the peculiar smell of jasmine and lemons trailing in its wake.

Obviously, she had missed. She hadn’t even been aiming, hadn’t expected to shoot fire from her hands. But she had. The flames from the Inn were still roaring. She could see them through the boards of the carriage walls.

She hoped everyone had gotten out alive. Still, if she had a chance to do it again, she would have. Those flames had woken the rest of the caravan. They may even have chased off the beasts.

Tonelle, however, hadn’t made it. She had been pulling Bekka from the ground when another of the Creeling had taken her. The woman’s calloused hands had been on her shoulders when the beast ripped her away. Tonelle’s face had been terrified, her long, braid whipping out behind her as she was lifted up into the air and out to the forest. As much as Bekka despised the woman, she hoped that Martin would find her. No one should have to die that way.

She looked down at her hands. They were motionless in her lap. She wasn’t trembling or crying. For the first time in a long time, she felt strong. It was like she had woken up from a nightmare and suffered through some prolonged sickness, but now the lights were on and she was healthy.

The magic was the difference. All the things she had gone through, all the horrifying moments with Billy and Tonelle, in all those moments she had been powerless. She’d been a little girl without a weapon. She closed her eyes, seeing pink light behind her lids.

Now, she was different. This place had changed her. Eganene and the magic that sprang from her fingertips. She was someone new, someone with the power to stand up for herself and help her friends.

“Go on, boy,” the trader was saying to Franc. The sheet beneath him was stained with blood. The man shook as he spoke, the words tumbling over one another in a drunken slur.

Franc looked to the door, indecision freezing him to his spot. He knew leaving the cabin was a death sentence. They’d all seen the monsters. But, his other option was defiance. The trader might be bleeding out, but there was no way to know how fast that was going to happen. The Hunter might come back before then, and if Martin found out Franc had been disobedient…

Bekka bit the inside of her cheek. She couldn’t let him make that decision. Not when she could help him. If the scars on Kat’s back were anything to judge by, Martin would never forgive Franc.

“I’ll go,” she offered, pulling her foot out from beneath Kat’s. “I can go with Franc. Two sets of eyes are better than one.”

Lenold popped up out of the back of the wagon, concern and confusion writ across his face. “You can’t go out there, Bekka!”

But the trader liked the idea, “Yes! Good! Go get me some more wine. Find Ian and bring him back here. He needs to see to my back. It hurts!”

Franc was looking at her like he had never seen her before.

Maybe he hadn’t.

Bekka was feeling something, all right. She felt like she was on fire, like she had electricity pouring through her veins. She wanted to use her magic again. And letting Franc go out by himself wasn’t right. He was weaponless. She was not.

She took Franc’s hand, feeling his rough palm as she led him to the door. He was big enough that he had to stoop as he moved. She felt like she was pulling a giant along behind her.

“Are you sure about this?” he whispered, stopping her at the door. “I don’t have a sword, and those monsters are big. I saw one, Bekka. You don’t want to go out there.”

“Neither do you,” she returned, looking at the trader. “But he was going to make you. Do you know where we can get more wine?”

Franc nodded, his eyes on her face, “I think so. I helped load several wagons. If they aren’t burning, I should be able to find one. But what about the Hunter? What if we don’t see him?”

“Go on!” the trader yelled, tossing something at them.

Bekka unlocked the deadbolt and stepped outside. She felt Franc follow her, the door slamming closed behind them as they stopped to survey the ruined yard. The caravan was in shambles. It was easy to see. The Inn still burned brightly, the flames reaching up into the sky as though grasping for purer air.

Several of the wagons were overturned and the others were their own smaller infernos. Franc squeezed her hand as they looked, and she chanced a glance at him. She had never seen that expression on his face before, his fear twisting his features so that he appeared years younger.

The air was still heavy with smoke. It looked like fog in the night and smelled like Christmas, the burning wood wrongly aromatic. “Which way?” she asked, crouching.

Franc copied her movement, pointing away from the river. “There,” he said. “It looks like there are fewer flames. I think we’ll have better luck searching those.”

“It’s darker over there,” Bekka observed.

He nodded.

“I’ll follow you,” she said, watching as he took a deep breath. He hadn’t let go of her hand, and she gently pulled away. If something did attack them, she needed her hands free.

As they walked, they kept their eyes to the forest line, searching for movement in the branches. Franc found a burnt log and picked it up, supposedly to use as a weapon. Bekka readied herself to make fire. He couldn’t see what she was doing, but tendrils of red and black had begun to spin at her fingertips, the magic trailing behind her like a long vail.

Half-way to the wagons, they found their first body. The man was face down on the ground, long wounds striping his back where the Creeling’s claws had gouged into him. Franc tried to shoo her away, but Bekka ignored him, kneeling by the body and rolling him onto his back. She knew it wasn’t going to be the Hunter they were looking for. The dead man was too stout, and the Hunter had been as thin as she was. Yet, she couldn’t just leave him lying like that.

She shut his eyes. The man had blood in his beard, and when she touched him the wetness covered her hand. She wiped it on her dress and picked up the man’s sword. “Here,” she said, handing the weapon to Franc.

“I can’t!” he hissed, stepping back.

Bekka glared at him, “Of course you can! Do you think Martin wants you dead? What use would you be to him, then? Take it!”

Still the boy vacillated, indecision warring in his eyes. She felt sorry for him. He might be bigger and stronger than she was, but he was already broken. “Don’t be stupid,” she growled, thrusting the pommel at him again. “You need a weapon. It won’t matter what Martin thinks, not if you’re dead. And who’s out here to see you?”

She turned in a slow circle, the end of the sword tracing a circle in the dirt. “There’s no one out here. Everyone is hiding or they’ve gone to look for the Creelings. No one is going to care that you picked up a sword. Martin might not even come back. But if there is one of those beasts still waiting, then you need it. Take it!”

“You’re right,” he said, the muscles in his shoulders rolling as he tested the blade in the air. “But I don’t know how to fight. I’ve never even held a sword before.” He looked at the dead man at their feet, “It didn’t do him much good.”

Bekka shrugged, “The creature got him from the back, which is not going to happen to us. We know it could be out there. We’ll see it if it’s coming.” She tried to smile, “Plus, something is better than nothing. And it’s sharp.”

He sighed, pointing with his sword, “Come on. We’re almost there.”

They found more bodies along the way, but Bekka didn’t stop. Besides the crackle of fire, she heard nothing. Well, nothing she could pinpoint, anyway. She thought she could hear low moaning, but couldn’t decide on its direction.

Be ready, said the voice in her head. Bekka nodded.

The swirls of power she had summoned had grown. The magic trailing from her hands had tripled in size. She checked behind her. Something was following them.

Grabbing Franc’s arm, she stopped, glaring into the darkness.

All at once she understood. She had been drawing power since they’d left the carriage. That power hadn’t had anywhere to go. It hadn’t just dissipated. She needed it, and so it remained, swirling in a pinwheel behind her.

To her eyes, it looked like baseball sized globes of spinning light. Each one was the same. Orange, red, and yellow light spun faster than she could track, the jagged flashes of black light illuminating them from within. Bekka looked up. More spheres spun above her. There had to be over twenty of them in all.

“I don’t see anything,” Franc whispered.

Bekka shivered, wondering what the spheres would do if she was attacked. She didn’t know how to use them or how to control them. And there wasn’t just one fireball; she had a fireball machine gun floating behind her.

Control was definitely an issue, she thought, glancing at the burning Inn. She didn’t want to accidentally hit Franc.

You won’t, said the voice.

“How do you know?”

Concentrate on guiding them. They will do as you bid. They were born from you, made from your Power. They understand your will. You have but to direct them.

Franc replied, too, “What do you mean? Of course I don’t know, but I don’t see anything. Why did you stop?”

Bekka frowned, “Doesn’t matter. You’re right. Keep going.”

They found the wagons a few minutes later. The smoke was less thick here, the wind blowing it towards the river. Franc dug through the nearest wagon and pulled out four skins of wine. He tried to pass them to her to carry, but she shook her head.

“Can’t you carry them?” she asked. “I want to have my hands free.”

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He shrugged, “I guess. The sword isn’t that heavy. I can hold them in one hand.”

“What do we do about the Hunter? We haven’t seen anyone since we came out here.”

Franc wrinkled his forehead, “No, we haven’t. He must be in the woods.” He looked into the darkness, “We can’t go back without him.”

“Maybe that man will drink himself to sleep before we get back,” Bekka said.

“We should be so lucky.”

Working quickly, they made their way around camp. In this direction, they were looking at the fire. The light and heat was intense, and she used the back of her hand to wipe the sweat off her forehead. Bekka’s guess was the light would be visible for miles. She hoped it kept burning for a while. Without it, they would be left in darkness.

Bekka watched Franc settle himself. She had to look up a foot and a half to see his expression.

“We’re going to be fine,” she told him. “We haven’t heard anything since we came out here. The creatures are probably long gone.”

He smiled, a crooked half-smile, but a smile nonetheless, “I should be the one helping you be brave. What happened to you, Bekka? I’ve never seen you like this.”

She looked behind her, seeing the hovering balls of light revolving in the darkness. There were more, now. He couldn’t see them, and she couldn’t explain. But he needed something. Some proof that her confidence was not all bluster.

She had nothing else, she thought, putting her hand into the pocket of the dress. Before she could change her mind, she took out her necklace, holding it out in front of his face so that he could see the large, green gem in its center.

“This was my mother’s,” she declared. “It is special. It will keep us from harm.”

Franc’s mouth opened in surprise, “If they knew you had that…”

“They don’t,” she said, forcefully. “And they won’t. You won’t tell them.”

He shook his head, “Of course not.”

“It will help us. It will keep us safe.”

But Franc wasn’t so easily convinced, “It didn’t help you before. Back when you were with Billy. I heard you tell your story. That man hurt you.”

“I didn’t know how to use it before,” she answered. “I only figured it out a few days ago.”

Franc took a step back from her, his eyes going wide, “It’s majic?”

Bekka followed him, closing the distance, “And if it was? You would be scared of me? You wouldn’t want me to come with you anymore?” She pointed at the wagon, “I could be in there while you wandered around out here by yourself.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he tried. “I just…”

Bekka glared at him, “Are you scared of magic, Franc?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve never seen it. The Family, they…”

“Who cares about the Family?” Bekka growled, letting her voice rise. “There is no Family here. There are only Creeling. And if magic can protect you, then you ought to be happy to have it.”

Franc spread his free hand, “I’m sorry Bekka. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

She huffed.

“Seriously. I know you didn’t have to offer to come out here.” He took her hand, “I appreciate you coming with me.”

He met her eyes, “If you do have a majic necklace, then I’m glad. It will probably be more effective than this sword.”

Bekka looked down, losing some of her anger, “I don’t know about that. I’m just hoping.”

He grunted, “That’s more than I had when the trader told me I had to come out here.”

Franc let go of her hand, seeming to find his resolve, “We might as well get this over with.”

“While there’s still firelight,” Bekka added.

“Right.”

He led the way to the woods, and she followed him. He was a big man, bigger than most of the people she knew, but she was afraid for him. The Creeling had to be several times his weight. If they were in the trees above them, then she wouldn’t have much time to react.

As soon as they stepped beneath the branches, the light changed. The fire’s brightness was dimmed by the screen of trees. The temperature dropped, too, reminding her that winter was not so far gone. The sweat on her back and the cold clamminess of her shirt made her shiver.

“Hunter?” Franc called, softly. “The trader wants you back.”

Bekka scanned the trees. They were massive pines, the trunks close together, and she was having trouble seeing the sky. If something was waiting for them, it would need to be low to the ground. There were too many broken branches in the way for it to sit high up.

“Come back, Hunter!” Franc called, again.

Bekka put her back against his, feeling the warmth of his body, the strength of his muscles. She held her hand out loosely in front of her while the globes of magic began their dance. Like a whirlwind, the globes began to spin around both of them. There were enough now that she couldn’t count them all.

She could tell that Franc felt nothing. There was no rush of wind, no change in the light in front of his face. He walked deeper into the darkness. She followed him, stepping carefully backwards and keeping her back against his. He stopped and inhaled, “Hunter! Ian! The trader wants you to return!”

Bekka fought the urge to hush him. He had to call out. Otherwise, the Hunter would never hear them. It was just that the forest was so silent. She could even hear the crackle of the fire. Not that she had spent much time near a burning Inn before, but the quiet seemed unnatural.

“He isn’t answering,” Franc said.

“He has got to be out here,” Bekka replied. “Where else would he have gone?”

Franc didn’t answer her, but began walking again. He didn’t go deeper into the woods, but instead skirted the outside of the clearing.

Bekka had trouble keeping her feet while walking backwards. There were too many rocks and broken branches and she kept tripping. Instead, she tried to keep the side of her arm against his arm. Soon, her eyes grew tired from trying to identify every shadow. The light from the fire was making everything shift and swim, turning shadows into wavering nightmares that swept across the forest floor with ill intent.

“Hunter! Ian!” Franc called every few minutes.

Still, there was no answer.

“Can we go back?” Bekka asked. “Maybe that man is asleep. He could have bled to death by now.”

Franc shook his head, “No, Lenold would have called us. I’m certain of it. We can’t go back, not yet. We either wait for Lenold’s call or we find that Hunter.”

Bekka glared into the woods, “You don’t think he left, do you? Just said ‘screw it’ and ran off to safety?”

“Might have,” Franc said. “He didn’t seem the type though. I watched him fight earlier. It looked like he had some backbone.”

“Yeah. I saw him fight, too. He was good.”

Franc agreed, “Doesn’t seem likely that he was killed. We didn’t hear anything. He would have at least put up a fight.”

“That stupid trader was doing an awful lot of hollering.”

“True,” Franc nodded. “I don’t know. Let’s just finish the way around camp. Then, we can go closer to the Inn. I felt more comfortable with all that light.”

Bekka glanced at the burning structure. She would have imagined that the fire would have burned itself out by now, but it didn’t seem like it had lessened at all. She refocused closer to herself, seeing the orbs of wispy magic that swirled around them. If only she knew what they were going to do.

Trust yourself, said the voice.

“Easy for you to say,” she replied.

Franc gave her a look, but Bekka missed it.

Something had changed. She just didn’t know what it was. She put her hand on his arm to stop him, “Wait. I think I saw something.”

“Where?”

Bekka shook her head, “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Where, Bekka?” he asked again, anxiety bruising his voice.

She pointed, “I was looking at the Inn and then I looked away. It took me a moment to realize I saw something. But…but I’m pretty sure it was something.”

“Not just light and shadows? I’ve been having the hardest time deciding what I’m seeing out here.”

“I don’t know. It was just different. I think we should go back that way.”

Franc scratched his face, “I suppose. We don’t have another plan. Maybe you caught sight of the Hunter. Maybe he was just patrolling the outskirts of the clearing and we missed him before.”

Bekka was moving before he had finished the sentence and heard him coming along quickly behind her. She hoped the globes of light would compensate for the new distance between them, but she didn’t want to wait. If it was the Hunter, she wanted to find him and get back to the wagon as quickly as possible. And if it was something else, she wanted to be there first. Since she had no clue how to control her Power, it seemed a good idea to keep Franc behind her.

She hurried towards the Inn, keeping her arms in front of her and one of them blocking the light from the fire. Smoke still covered the area and the Inn still burned. There was no one foolish enough to wander the clearing, no one but them. She glanced back at Franc, but he was turned away, his eyes on the forest behind them. It made her feel better that he was with her. That she had someone to watch her back.

Still, she didn’t think the Creeling was in the woods. It had been quiet and silent, as though the woodland animals were hiding from something, but she hadn’t felt any presence. Suspecting that she could sense the creature was probably foolish.

“Hunter! Ian!” she heard Franc shouting.

“Come back! The trader needs you,” she called, joining her declaration to his.

It must have been her voice.

The shadows on the ground moved in a way she had never seen before. Instead, of the undulating waves of fire, the erratic sway and jerk of the flames, the shadows moved in tandem. It was as if many smaller shadows, pieces and fragments of darkness, suddenly congealed into a shape. And that shape was big.

Bekka tore her eyes off the ground, seeking the Inn, following the flames up until she saw darkness. It was blacker than the sky, except where the firelight reflected off the underside of its belly. There, it looked like a sea of molten flame, the fire racing along with its movements so that the creature seemed to be sliding through the air faster than possible, like a river of fire cascading down towards her.

Bekka screeched to a halt.

They hadn’t been alone. All this time, the beast had been watching them. It had stayed on the far side of the Inn, letting the bright light ruin their ability to track it, deciding when to attack. And now that they were close again, it was diving for them.

“Get down!” Franc screamed behind her.

Bekka almost expected him to pull her down, to jump on her like some hero from the movies. She locked her knees. She wasn’t going to run. Not again. Not ever.

Shoving her hands forward, she found the monster’s eyes. It was staring at her as though it had come for her, as if Franc were not even there. Having crested the apex of the Inn’s roof, it gracefully unfurled its wings. They were long and leathery, the skin thick enough that the firelight did not penetrate their depths.

She inhaled once. The last time she’d seen the creature, she’d been having an asthma attack, her vision blurry and unreliable. Now, the monster was here, close enough to kill her. It was even more terrifying up close, with hind legs the size of Franc. They dangled in the air, held loosely. Its front ones were slightly smaller, the ends of its feet tipped in inches of glittering, white claw. The creature’s mouth was open, filled with canine teeth and a dark tongue.

“Bekka, get down!” Franc screamed again. She knew he wouldn’t get too close. He needed room to swing his sword.

The Creeling’s wings caught the air, the creature slowing its decent just enough. Its eyes never left hers. She saw it swoop down, saw the claws ripping at her arms, the back legs picking her up to carry her away.

But then she saw something else. The globes of light that were swirling around her, the ones that had been moving too fast to count, began to glow. Yellow, orange and red, the fire burned inside them, like bubbles filled with lava that moved at her command.

Bekka took a deep breath, just one, that was all the time she had. She heard Franc gasp, seeing what she saw for the first time. Then, she shoved her hands forward, willing the magic to do what she wanted.

The creature swept lower. It was almost on top of her.

There, she thought.

And the world exploded. Or more specifically, the swirling mass of glowing, magic balls erupted in a conflagration. It was a bottomless sphere, a wall of fire that the monster could not penetrate.

The Creeling hit the wall with a mighty thud. Had she been able to see outside her sphere, she would have witnessed an eruption of flame that shot twenty feet into the air, globs of fire exploding off to either side.

What she did see was the curved inside wall straining in towards her as it bowed against the pressure of the beast. She could feel the heat, the warmth almost too hot to stand. It felt like the hottest summer day, the light so bright that it seared the lids of her eyes as she closed them.

But the wall did not break.

She felt Franc’s arms circling her waist, dragging her down so that she knelt upon the warm dirt, the radiant light filling her vision. The creature was injured, its screams high pitched and urgent. She could feel it thrashing against her wall, its powerful, claw tipped legs ripping at the boundary, trying to tear it down to save itself from burning.

Bekka shrugged away from Franc’s arms and raised her hands up, trying to feed more Power into the flames. She wanted to look, to see if she could see the wisps of magic streaming from her fingertips, but the fire was too hot and she didn’t dare open her eyes.

Franc had his head buried into her side. And she felt a momentary relief that she hadn’t hurt him when she set the wall aflame. “Hold on,” she told him. “This isn’t over.”

If he responded, she didn’t hear it.

Good! said the voice. You are doing well. Keep going. Do not let the monster escape. It will continue to hunt you. It will never stop.

Focusing, she imagined her flames reaching out from her wall, imagined them slipping their fiery fingers around the beast’s legs. She saw them climbing the Creeling’s back, hotter than any real fire. Her flame sucked the very air from the creature’s throat, the burning tendrils sinking into its flesh and crawling down into its lungs.

The flames moved like water, the rushing stream inexorable, going where it would despite the Creeling’s effort to scrape it from its skin. Clinging to the monster, it moved ever upwards, as though using fiery hooks to climb the beast’s neck and back. Fire didn’t behave like that, didn’t move with deadly purpose. But her magic did, following her will.

At some point, the monster stopped screeching. Franc was the one who noticed it. Bekka was nearly unconscious on her knees. He pulled her into his arms. She let her hands drop, the last sputtering scraps of flame disappearing into the air.

“It’s dead!” he sighed, the relief in his voice like a soft pillow.

Bekka sighed, letting herself sink into his chest. She had never been so tired in her life. Her exhaustion was bone deep, different from what she had experienced after Billy’s basement and the long nights when she first became Tonelle’s prisoner. She felt empty, as though everything she had inside her had been pulled out, every bit of energy and Power, every thought and desire.

She wondered if Franc could be right, that the Creeling might really be dead, that they might truly be safe. She shook her head, silently denying his words. It was too much to hope for.

“Open your eyes, Bekka.” Franc coached. “Look for yourself.”

She did as he suggested. The light was still bright, the Inn still burning before them, but the creature was indeed dead. Its corpse was a smoking ruin. What was left of its skin was like a wrinkled canvas, wrapping paper that had warped and withered in the holiday fire. Unfortunately, the smell was something else entirely. The meat stunk of char, blood and piss. Bekka stumbled to her feet and away from the beast. She didn’t want to see it anymore.

But wherever she turned, the image followed her. The creature’s mouth was a ruin, so burnt that she could see where its teeth met the white of its jaw. Its powerful hind legs had shrunk to crooked sticks of scorched bone.

“Wait!” Franc called from behind her.

She stopped, delaying her flight. She owed him that and she needed to explain.

He reached her and took her arm, spinning her gently towards him and putting his hands on her shoulders.

Bekka was scared of what he was going to say, afraid of the look that might be on his face. She had done something amazing, had saved both their lives. But people in this world, in Eganene, were afraid of magic. She had shown Franc that she had an amulet, something that would help them fight the Creeling. She hadn’t known that she was going to make a firestorm, a sphere of Power which would surround and protect them.

“I’m sorry,” she said, before he could speak. “I didn’t know I was going to do that. It just happened. I saw that monster and I…I just reacted.”

Bekka studied his leather clogs, “Please don’t tell anyone. I think…I know… that Martin and Tonelle would be angry.”

He was shaking his head. She could see it from the way his shadow moved across the ground. When he spoke, his voice was soft and measured, as though he had thought about his words before he said them. “I won’t tell anyone Bekka. What you did was amazing. Truly. You saved us.”

Bekka’s chest felt tight, not the bad way like when she was going to have an asthma attack, but the good way. The way you feel when you cry in the theaters at the end of a particularly emotional scene. She took a breath, trying to figure out what to say.

“Thank you,” she managed eventually, meeting his eyes.

His hands slid from her shoulders to take her hands, “I owe you my life. It is I who should be thanking you. You didn’t have to come out here with me. You didn’t have to risk your life to save me.”

“If you need anything, Bekka. If you need anything, ever, all you have to do is ask. I will be there for you. Whatever it is. I swear it.”