Results of the Flames

And the trees continued lighting the sky into the night. Fire swirling toward the sky. It ate at trees, grass, and all leaves. Birds and forest foragers fled as fast as flight and legs carried them.

Upon the Blue Mountains, the Lanaz guard took notice of the fire that would run into their borders if left unchecked. Signals were lit for the closest griffins and scrying reports were wrote out to those in the capital post haste. News got out quickly. Or that those with eyes to see noticed the fire.

Volunteers scrambled at the foot of the watch tower, a stone silver line into the sky. The assortment included those on foot, beasts of burden the ocu birds, griffins snapping their lion tails at flies, and a wyvern.

"Get back, get back!" One of the watchmen blocking the door cried.

"What's wrong with wanting to help?"

A man in a simple blue cloak said. He was the ringleader apparent, but no one could have told you why. The watchmen's knuckles whitened as he clenched his fist.

"We've told you: the Aldles Kingdom won't take kindly to strangers ripping up and down their land. Downright suspicious of it, actually."

"The only thing we'll be carrying is water and things to carry water. What could be the possible objection?"

The other watchman stepped in, before the first burst.

"Please, we have a treaty with them. It doesn't cover wildfires yet. There are scries being traded. We'll tell you when we have more information."

"So we're just going to stand around here, waiting until the fire spreads to us? Let me speak to the mage of this tower, Noag. I know him."

The watchmen stepped to the side as the door opened up. A withered hand lay on it.

"Is that young Rubo I hear?"

An old man, hunched over with braided white hair looked over the crowd. They quieted at the sight. For a small moment.

"What's the news?"

A voice from the crowd piped up. A long breath was the first reply. The old man followed his sigh with words.

"...The only reply was that the situation was well under control, needing no help from outsiders and that the terms of the treaty could be revisited at the agreed upon date."

"Noag, is the only thing we can do wait for the fire to come to us?" Rubo said, the young man in the blue cloak.

The older man snorted.

"No, I, and others, will be setting a barrier. In this season, after all the rain, the cause is most likely magical. If we drain the fire's connection to the magic, it should make it play by the rules once more as for you and your volunteers..."

He looked out over the crowd, stroking his chin as thoughts played out.

"I cannot see how the griffons could hide themselves, but they and the rest could prepare what they could to stop the fire here. I'll need all the help I can acquire to set up an unbroken line along the mountainside. And our resident wyvern riders can fly across the border to douse the flames further. As long as you don't near too close to the Aldlesians, I can make the wyvern's color look like their breed."

Questions erupted from the crowd, so the old man turned to his watchmen. They were the ones who shouted over the crowd and sorted the volunteers. Old man Noag moved down the steps and motioned Rubo towards him. Rubo stretched nearer to listen.

"I am already nearly sure, but are you certain Rubo? There's no telling how the Aldlesians will react if they find a wyvern rider from their neighbors, and I may have to deny you so as to keep peace."

"I'm certain," Rubo said. "But would the fire truly stop at this sigil line you're considering?"

"Oh, it, along with the damp land should do it. Anything that really rages on should be stopped by the watchmen or these helpful volunteers. But it won't stop the fire, not at the source."

"What would you have me do?" Rubo said.

The old man put his hands on both Rubo's shoulders.

"What I have already said. Cross the border, slow the fire down as much as possible. But if you see the source of the fire, try to mar whatever sigil started this."

"How would I mar something that is, probably, on fire? I'm not a mage or magi."

The old man frowned.

"Damn, you're right," he said.

He pulled at his left eyebrow, the hair thinned from the repeated motion of it.

"But I think I have something that should work despite that, come with me."

The surrounding crowd around them still made considerable noise. Yet now it bustled with purpose. Rubo spared a glance, but his role as temporary leader of them seemed to be gone once authority aligned with their goals. He followed Noag.

The inside of the tower was clean and ordered. A rug and banners were the only decorations in the first room. It was a place one might stay overnight, but not live in. When Rubo entered Noag's room, the level of clutter and personality increased considerably.

Noag coughed as he reached up to a dusty shelf. Patting it off, he handed it down to Rubo. The young man held the wand tipped with a sharp gem and scrawled across with inscriptions.

"This should drain the mana of anything the tip touches," he said. "As an experiment, I couldn't make it without the mana gem shattering and the sigils refusing to activate on other mana contact, so it was an expensive failure. Then I got busy watching the mountainside. Anyway, it should work on one thing. Let's just hope the flames are sourced from one location. Even if they're not, removing one source should be more than enough to slow the fire."

Rubo looked at the wand in his hand, one thought came to mind.

"Could we fletch it?" He said.

Noag raised an eyebrow as he grinned.

"I think that would be best."

Melorandious and Danielle had spent hours walking through the fire. Their mouths covered with soaked cloth, and the ever-thinning water shield spared them injury. But not misery or discomfort.

The heat cracked Danielle's lips with each breath giving less air. Droplet proved less useful in finding breathable air than water. So Melorandious' task was to lead away from the fire's path. Always following the twists and turns of air. It was the lifeline that they clung to, more dangerous than the fire, the lack of air. Which made the fight for survival one without outcry. Hacks and coughs broke out. The greatest sound was the crackle of the flames. The crashing of a burning branch or tree. Droplet quivered constantly on Danielle's shoulder.

Danielle didn't notice exactly when they broke away from the flames. Not to be swallowed again by the flames as had happened so many times, but truly free of them. A wind blew into her face. The air was still thick with the taste of smoke, but Danielle breathed easier.

They walked past the trees. Leaves of green looked back at her. Twisting in the breeze as if nothing was wrong. A simple turn of her head would show the terrible light burning, a hellscape of dark dark lines lit. The smoke in the sky could have been clouds of rain. Once the flames passed, what was once a flush forest behind her would turn into a barren landscape.

Danielle knew that green shoots would sprout up again and that the forest would heal startlingly fast. Even knowing, more than the taste of ashes soured her mouth. The trees might grow back, but what of the animals? She thought. What of the people?

She shook her head.

There's no point thinking about it, she told herself silently. Danielle wasn't even aware of any people nearby.

But she felt her emotions rolling inside her again, and again.

I'm too strained to think straight, Danielle thought.

But that also gave little comfort. As soon as imminent death disappeared, wrath arose.

If only she had come up with a better plan before the crazy man had burned everything if only she wasn't with the insane bastard in the first place. The thoughts of how she should have run from him the first chance she got settled into a blissful tired numbness that was becoming all too normal.

Until he spoke.

"...we should search for cover," Melorandious said.

His words were soft, muttered. Danielle barely heard them. His words could have been anything, anything at all. Her fragile peace cracked. She gritted her teeth. Now was not the time.

Melorandious' thought process was quite different. After the long process of straining his senses for wind and the educated guesses of where the fire would be, its path, and their path in response to that, he found himself back in a forest with riders scouring the mountainside for them. They were still close by to where the wyverns had caught them. Not nearly far enough to relax.

At least the fire still obscured the trail of mana they inevitably left. Yet, the fire would not stop the Aldlesians only distract them. If the two were to run into one, Melorandious had no doubt the rider in question would make time to catch them, the perpetrators.

The fire still raged and neither sound or sight of the Aldlesians had come near. There was still hope. Hope to survive by another hair's width.

A bright shot streaked past the sky, the light cutting through the smoke. Melorandious felt it cut the mana from the flames even as he couldn't hear the resounding thunk. Through smoke, he saw in the sky the dark shadow of pointed wings. Hope extinguished like two fingers smothering a candle flame.

Ah, he thought. Why not try the impossible?

He continued walking for the tree line. Still he would wait for the best chance: the shortest distance, better visibility, and clearest mind. It would likely be only one shot.

"Danielle, would you rush ahead for me?" Melorandious said.

"No," Danielle said. "Why?"

He looked and saw her expression. Gritted teeth and guarded eyes.

"Whatever you like," he said. "Ready yourself."

His right hand rose toward the sky, the tattoos across his arm coming into clearer view as his sleeve slid. His other hand rested on the orb, which it had lay in Dainelle's satchel since the time they found the stream. Her eyes followed the direction of his arm to the sky. The sight of the wings brought them to widen.

Distance, as well as his own control of the restrictive sigils on his arm, played a role. Unrestricted incineration had proved difficult to convince someone to tattoo on his arm. The width of the spell was only around three feet and the height was around eight. Around an extra third bigger than the average man.

The distance he could aim this was theoretically anywhere he could see. Realistically, the motions used to aim the sigils became so fine that after six yards a millimeter's mistake could strike the spell a mile off the mark.

So hitting a rider in the sky was impossible. Melorandious tried anyways. And the fire struck.

Rubo felt the heat of it on his skin. Holding to the neck of the wyvern, the beast swerved in the sky. Righting his posture, Rubo raised his bow in the direction of the fire, but they disappeared. The flames had little to burn.

He lowered the bow and himself as close as he could against Ber's scaled neck. Discovery Rubo was convinced of. So his eyes scoured the skyline first to find nothing. Straightening his back for a better view also showed no Aldlesian riders.

Then he thought of the ground and saw the two small figures dashing across it. Their clothes were those of pacifist wanderers, he blinked a bit.

Half-formed questions of what Rovers would be doing here without a caravan, why they had attacked him as pacifists, and why they were in the middle of this disaster fell away as he dove toward them. An action not intended as threatening. It still sent the small figures running for their lives.

They think I'm a man of the Aldles, Rubo thought.

Danielle rushed ahead for her life. Melorandious stopped and turned pushing her on ahead. She looked back.

"What are you doing?!"

He raised his arm at the wyvern quickly flapping towards them. Another ball of fire erupted, this one much wilder than the other.

"OK, fine! Dammit all!"

She put in another umph in her stride, but the pace was almost slower than the pace they had before the storm.

"Stop!"

The rider of the wyvern cried.

"I have no wish to fight!" He said. "Let me help you."