Kissed by Fire

  The howls rang long and loud over the sleeping woods, drawing closer and closer every second. Even with the crackling fire at his back to spoil his sight, Yesugei saw many eyes glittering over rolling slopes of the hills beyond the treeline.

  “More fire! Dump everything you have!” he called to the two warriors as they hurriedly slipped on their armor. “And take up torches - wolves they may be, but they still fear flame as any other beast!”

  The campfire flared with new life as Bykov fed it all of their firewood. Tuyaara brought their horses up from the flatlands onto the willow hill, and there they prepared their stand.

  Another chorus of howls echoed, much closer than the last. Black shapes cut across the silver surface of the streams running through the floodplains. When the flames swelled, Yesugei dipped an arrow wrapped in twine into the heart of the fire, and shot it high over the field below. Where the arrow flew, the glow illuminated gnashing teeth and dark-brown fur. The pack scattered into the darkness, though they did not flee.

  “Yesugei!” Tuyaara called to him. He saw she had the horses’ reins in hand, and the message was clear. Flee, flee while we can.

  He opened his mouth to reply when Kargasha shouted, pointing towards the woods. There, something else moved amidst the rushing pack - a great column of flame, bobbing up and down as it surged forward alongside the wolves, casting them all in a red glow.

  As the light drew closer, he saw in the shroud of the great fire were paws, a snout, and a single red eye. Running at the center of the pack as if a noble lord, a scarred wolf towered above the others. Its fur was a blazing cascade of crimson, causing its very form to flicker and warp with the intensity of the flames. The shadows it cast against its fellow wolves twisted and writhed unnaturally, like grasping fingers. From its massive jaws molten drool fell like iron slag, hissing and sizzling as it met the cool night air, while the ember within its single eye socket pulsed with a malevolent gleam.

  “Gods…gods above…” gasped Kargasha as he took his sword in one hand, and a torch in the other. “Earth-Mother, give me strength. Lightning-Lord, give me courage. Xors, bring your morning light quicker, dammit!”

  “Hells, what is that beast?!” shouted Bykov, taking up his club.

  “Whatever it is, we cannot outrun it - not in darkness!” replied Yesugei as the flaming wolf bore down on them. Its paws seemed to float above the ground as it ran, leaving a trail of scorched grass and embers in its wake. He drew back the string of his bow as the wolf bounded over the streams, overtaking the pack, drawing nearer…nearer…

  The hunting bow twanged, loosing a barbed arrow towards the flaming wolf’s eye. The deadly arrow soared for its mark, but as it flew flames erupted along the length of the shaft, and it scattered into ashes mid-flight. He cursed under his breath, but before he could nock another arrow the flaming wolf drew suddenly to a stop, its jaws opened wide.

  “There he stands,” spilled the voice from the wolf’s burning throat - the voice of a man, deep and dripping with malice. “There he stands - the son of the White Khan. Yesugei…it’s been too long.”

  The flaming wolf’s eye fell upon him. Within the circle of fire were tiny specks of gold, as many as stars in the night sky. Yesugei was strange presence lurking within - a will beyond that of the wolf - and when he peered deeper into the vastness he saw, for a brief glimpse, a face staring back at him.

  “My kin have traveled long and far in search of your filth,” snarled the wolf, its voice echoing in the looming darkness all round. “For it is by the gods’ will that we were sent, and by their Chosen: Naizabai, the Blackwind, the Fire-Kissed.”

  The face he saw staring back at him was that of his father’s blood-brother. Within the circle of flames, the Blackwind’s face seemed like a broken mask, and from behind the cracks spilled a golden light which twisted and shone as the Quanli khan’s lips twisted into a smile.

  “By what sorcery has Naizabai sent you?” Tuyaara cried, a knife in her hands. “From what terrible hell do you crawl from, spirit?”

  “Sorcery?” it scoffed, the word dripping with contempt. “We are of the cleansing flame, come to purge the chaff of humanity for the Harvest. This is the hour of wolves, of strength, for those who are brave enough to embrace it.”

  One of the dark shapes around the flaming wolf stepped into the light of the campfire. The light illuminated the steppe wolf’s face, and the burn scar across it, shaped like a clawed hand. The symbol pulsed with otherworldly energy, and the shadows of the campfire twisted into strange shapes on the ground.

  The flaming demon, its gaze fixed upon the cowering figures before it, let out a low growl. The rest of its kin stepped forth into the light; two dozen wolves, all of them bearing the same, ugly mark upon their heads.

  “Behold,” hissed the flaming wolf, its voice dripping with malice. “Behold the mark of the Father’s Kiss - the mark of transformation, of strength, of destiny. The weakness of men is gone from us - now we are fire and fury given life.”

  The flaming wolf stepped closer, its eye filled with very human fervor. The campfire danced in wildly fashion as the wolf drew nearer, and Yesugei took a step back from the growing heat.

  “We are the chosen of Naizabai, the harbingers of a new age,” the burning wolf proclaimed, its voice carrying the weight of divine decree. “The deliverance of our people is almost complete, but the divine flames hunger for more. They demand a sacrifice of all remnants of the old order, of the weak and the corrupt who cling to the past ways like.”

  The red eye fell upon Yesugei once more, narrowing with a predatory gleam. “You, lesser son of even lesser sires, Naizabai demands you. Your line rejected our holy destiny, and your father corrupted our ways with weakness and rot.

  “But the time of weakness is over,” the wolf’s jaws snapped shut, and its lips parted in a feral smile. “And for our deliverance, Naizabai has said you must die.”

  There was a sudden roar and crackle. The campfire erupted into a blazing column. In an instant, the willow tree that shielded them burst into a great bloom of fire, and the air filled with a storm of burning leaves. Yesugei brought one hand up to shield his eyes from the singing glare, but as he lowered his hand he heard a snarl over the roaring of the fire all around. A wolf burst through the burning curtain of leaves, its jaws wide open to close around his throat. Suddenly there came a shout, and the leaping wolf fell to the ground; a longsword buried in its side up to the hilt.

  Kargasha ripped his blade free from the wolf’s corpse, and Yesugei loosed an arrow into the throat of another before it could throw itself at the warrior. Beside them, Bykov gave a hoarse shout as another wolf savaged his maille-clad arm - with a wild swing, his studded club shattered the beast’s skull.

  All around them, the wolves pressed in closer and closer even as Yesugei and Tuyaara loosed arrows upon them like rain. Kargasha and Bykov might have been screaming, but he could not be sure - in the roar of the flames, the snarling of wolves, and the shrieks of horses, the terrified screams of men were drowned. Slowly, the four of them began to draw back, climbing higher and higher along the low hill, but wherever they went flames were at their backs - the willow tree had become like a cage of fire, and nowhere could they find reprieve from the heat.

  Just as Yesugei feathered another steppe wolf, he saw the flames grow brighter from one side. With a great snarl and a shake of the earth, the flamebound wolf leapt through the curtain of burning branches and landed atop the corpses of its lesser kin. It plodded towards them at leisure, and the curtain of fire around them grew wilder, casting them all in an orange glow.

  Two arrows sighed through the air, and both turned to ash before they met the wolf’s red hide. The wolf’s red eye passed lazily over the four mortals before it, lingering on the two Klyazmite warriors.

  “Kneel,” snarled the wolf, its words like splintering wood and grinding stone. The borrowed voice of an Apostle. In an instant both warriors let their weapons fall from their hands, then fell to their knees as if in prayer.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Yesugei’s heart sank at the sight, and he saw only despair upon Tuyaara’s face as she beheld the approaching demon. He cast his useless bow aside, then scooped up Kargasha’s sword. The blade glowed bright orange by the light of the dancing flame.

  "Come, do not hide behind a child of the forest," sneered the Flame-Kissed wolf. "Come to me, lesser son, and show me the dance of the Qarakesek."

  Yesugei took the sword in two hands, pointing the notched and rusted blade towards the wolf as he advanced. All around him more wolves howled, watching from behind the curtain of fire with glowing yellow eyes. The flaming wolf came to a stop three paces away and growled, then opened its jaws. Within its maw, Yesugei saw many rows of teeth - some were pointed as those of a wolf, but others were flat, like those of a man’s . The wolf’s jaws snapped shut with a thunderclap, and then it leapt for his throat.

  He rolled to the side at the last moment, raking the longsword across the wolf’s burning hide. He saw no blood spill as the wolf landed on its feet - and the tip of his blade was red-hot and deformed. The wolf was in no rush to kill him, and as it crept forward Yesugei walked a slow circle, his breath heavy from the rising heat and smoke. The wolf’s dribbling saliva fell in red-orange drops, and hissed as it fell to the ground.

  Then the monster came at him again, and its snapping jaws missed by a hair’s breadth as he stumbled away. The blaze of its fur cast a dark burn across his robe, his sleeve briefly came alight. He feigned a cut to the wolf’s leg, hoping to ward it off, but the beast did not fear his blade. It charged again as soon as it had missed - and he was off-balance.

  “BACK.”

  The word left his lips like rolling thunder, drowning out the roar of the flames. A blast of fiery leaves struck the wolf like a mallet, smacking it out of the air and sending it sprawling to the ground. It bared its many rows of teeth, eye blazing as it hissed, “What magic is this?” The pack whimpered. Tuyaara watched him with horror written plain across her face. “How do you speak with the voice of the Star-Eater?”

  The name echoed in Yesugei’s mind - a vision of mauve and violet clouds, lightning streaking across an endless, unknowable sky. The sensation struck him like a flood, both electrifying and numbing. From his dead heart, it surged through his body like water rushing from a broken dam, pooling in his fingertips, solidifying into power. Domination. And in the palm of his hand.

  Memories not his own bled into his mind—ancient, sorrowful, whispered in love and despair. An arcane glyph, pulsing with life essence, flickered before him. Instinctively, he traced it in the air. His eyes glowed with terrible golden light, and a roar of command tore from his throat.

  The shadows of the dancing branches writhed up from the ground, twisting into grasping tendrils that wrapped around the flaming wolf. Where the shaped darkness gripped, fire sputtered out in choking puffs of smoke. The wolf snarled furiously, but Yesugei tasted its fear - richer than any other was the terror of the girl-shaman, kneeling in awe and dread.

  Then suddenly, pain - sharp and blinding, as if an iron spike had been driven through his skull. The wolf’s fire flared, and his own spell wavered. There was a press of two forces in his mind like two giant stones, pressing, crushing, grinding. He was caught between them, and losing.

  “You cannot bind me forever, lesser son,” the wolf hissed as it shrugged off the darkness. The bindings unraveled, dissolving into flickering shadows as Yesugei’s strength failed. “Slave of a slave of a slave…that is all you are, and that is all your power.”

  The pain was blinding. Stars swam before his eyes, and when they cleared the wolf was already free. With a great leap it fell upon him, its jaws aimed for his throat. He had no time for sword or spell - only a scream.

  Fangs tore into his neck. Blood erupted in a great spurt, turning to steam as the surging heat engulfed him. The blistering agony of the fire was absolute, more consuming than the wolf’s teeth. He collapsed, barely aware of the ground beneath him, his world reduced to fire and millions of lashing orange tongues.

  The wolf’s mouth tore free, full of blood and flesh. It spat, grinned, and sank its many rows of teeth into him again. Yesugei thrashed wildly beneath the beast’s weight, and in desperation shoved one hand against its jaws. The flesh of his hand came alight, then began to slough off from his bones, steaming blood and dripping viscera.

  His other hand found the fallen longsword. With a gurgle, he drove the chipped blade into the wolf’s side—only for the metal to turn red-hot and shatter from the heat.

  Its great red eye pulsed with delight and hunger, burning brighter with every shearing tear of flesh/ The glow drew him in, closer, deeper, until he was sinking into an ocean of cruel red. With the last of his strength, he tightened his grip around the broken sword, then struck again.

  The jagged iron plunged into the wolf’s eye.

  Then there came a deafening, world-shattering howl.

  The beating flames rose away from him as the wolf fell off of him, screaming in blind agony from the sword plunged into its eye. A great geyser of fire erupted from the wound - spraying the ground with fire. The wolf stumbled, howling and shrieking, its voice equal parts wolf and man, blinded and burned.

  Eventually the wolf’s strength came to an end - the beast crumpled to the ground with a resounding crash, and did not rise. And there, just a few paces from its quarry, the Flame-Kissed of Gandroth died. A great pool of fiery blood seeped out from underneath the wolf’s form, and the hungry flames began to consume the carcass - fur curled and blackened, bones cracked and popped, and flesh and fat sizzled with a choking, acrid smell.

  For a brief moment, the sloughing flesh revealed the form of a man from within the wolf's corpse. It was a Khormchak - a noyan, thin and frail, but even as he burned by his own flames Yesugei could make out his face. B?rijan, noyan of the Quanli, stared up at him with hate and terror in his eyes.

  "How...how?" gasped B?rijan as he collapsed on all fours, his robes and hair alight. "Fire cannot harm one who is kissed by it...how? Why have you forsaken me, o Lord of Fire and Lash...why?"

  The noyan's mutterings turned into a faint gurgle as he sank into the pool of fiery blood, and was swallowed without a sound. A faint shadow rose up from the burning carcass, and it fled into the dark night sky.

  Slowly around them, all fires died till nothing was left but falling ash and sparks. Dark smoke curled from the blackened willow branches and blew away with the breeze. The shadowy forms of the wolves began to retreat, following after the darkness that itself was fleeing before the morning light. The wet grayness of the early morning flooded the open plain, but Yesugei could not rise.

  He unfastened his robe with his unburnt hand, and slid his hand over his heart, still pulsing defiantly. He curled his hand into a fist, smiled, and then felt himself slipping away into a dark void. The last thing he remembered was a strange sensation of silky coolness coiling around his burnt arm - the scales of a serpent he could not see, for his eyes were fixed upon the stars which faded into the morning sky.

  They had never looked so beautiful before, in all his years beneath the heavens.

  ***

  When he opened his eyes, he was standing in a great hall he did not know.

  The wooden walls around him were washed and faded by time, and beams lay broken and splintered about the carpeted floor with streamers trampled and tangled among them.

  Chipped stone pillars running the length of the hall towered over his head, rising high towards a shattered roof through which he saw the night sky, lit by stars and a pale, dead moon. The silver beams played across the rafters, and as they twisted about the domed ceiling Yesugei saw there swayed a great bell, shrouded in writhing darkness that turned it almost invisible in the shadows of night.

  The doors at one end of the hall were wrought of black iron and inlaid with silver, but even as he beheld them the doors began to creak open. In the great beyond, he saw a city crumbling apart. Buildings collapsed and exploded soundlessly, crushed by an invisible hand, only the debris and dust fell upwards, sucked into the cold sky. And in the distance, two lights danced and wove between the spires and rooftops - one gold, one silver.

  He strode down the hall to get a better look, but as he went forward he saw the hall waver. The carpeted floors began to stretch out, growing longer and longer as the hall lengthened. Every step he took made the hall expand - every step closer, sending him further.

  He tried to call out, only to feel blood - black and thick with corruption - come spurting from his mouth. He choked and gurgled on his words, and then spat a glob of pitch-black essence onto the ground. Where it landed, the dark stain suddenly began to expand. Then, from the swelling blackness there yawned a great hole whose depths he could not fathom.

  The hole grew larger, ever larger, and Yesugei thought to scramble back only when it was too late.

  He slipped into the darkness without a cry, and the yawning hole closed above him, swallowing the light of the moon and stars overhead.

  Yesugei awoke with a start, gasping for breath.

  For a moment, he didn’t know where he was. Dark branches swayed above him, and a chill breeze prickled his skin. His robe was still undone, but his chest was covered with bandages - he was lying on a sheepskin blanket, and morning had come.

  His neck was stiff and hard to turn - a damp poultice covered his neck from jaw to shoulder, but it had grown swollen and smelled foul. He sat up and removed the poultice with a hiss just as he heard footsteps crunching up the slope.

  Tuyaara shouted. In an instant of cheer he was suddenly being crowded by the shaman and the two Klyazmites, their voices sounded muffled, indistinct save for their differences in tone. Strong hands gently propped him up against the willow’s ashen trunk. The Klyazmites spoke quickly and with fear to the shaman, who herself was afraid - he sensed their fear on the tip of his tongue, sweeter than any wine or honey. That much had not been a dream - and it terrified him. Sickened him.

  Yesugei brought up his injured hand to wave the three of them away, to give him space to breathe. Seeing his hand, Kargasha and Bykov recoiled. He looked at them with bleary confusion - then, blinking, he followed their gaze.

  He flexed his fingers, then clenched them into a fist. Charred and black was his whole hand, with deep fissures running to and fro reminding him of cracked, barren earth. A dim crimson glow pulsed from within the cracks, and wisps of dark smoke curling up from his fingertips.

  A stolen kiss dwelled in his hand. A kiss of fire.