CHAPTER TWENTY-eight:

FIRE

 

            Of course Tyree gave up his grandfather’s tired sword, replacing the relic with the new brave iron blade Golanka had given him. The Kodiak seemed to improve the shape and balance of their weapons with each season. Tyree’s youthful form filled out and, two thaws later, his casual collection of hand-me-down armor was replaced by a fitted suit of brave iron. It covered shoulders, forearms, back, thighs and, most important, torso.

            Tyree went on the mining mission to watch his armor forged from the special metal that was melted from a dark ore by volcanic fire. He watched as the forge tenders cracked the casts for his breast and back plates, then used metal tongs to carry the glowing armor to the snow, placing it there with hundreds of others. The snow hissed and the armor groaned as it cooled. The Kodiak believed that the snow locked the volcanic fire inside the brave iron armor, gave it the strength and power bravery demanded.

            Now, fire from within the earth was consuming Verdanta. From a distance, the Tranca and Tyree watched in awe.

            “Verdanta is lost,” Tyree said, his wife and son at his side. “We must find ample grazing land for the clan’s livestock before we pursue the Logalla.”

            “But the Logalla are defeated,” Shuyah said, “completely and fully. And we have wounds to heal. Children to comfort. Is it only revenge against The Scar that fires your desire to pursue them?”

            “As long as The Scar breathes, the Logalla may again become a threat,” Tyree reasoned, yet knowing that revenge was his greater motive.

            They made camp near a tundra bush forest far from Verdanta. Still, they felt the tremors and marveled at the vast clouds of ash and smoke that rose over the distant paradise, lost. The widening cloud of black and gray spread up into the heavens. The sky became dark at the height of day. By the time they joined up with the rest of the Tranca army, the wind held a chill uncommon even in these snowy environs. Shuyah’s volunteers settled in with their brothers and sisters, resting before they made for the north.

            “Again, we disagree,” Tyree said as he and Shuyah sat huddled in one big snow bear blanket by the fire outside their hut. Inside, young Valaar slept. “You could just order your warriors not to volunteer should I ask them. They would not disobey.”

            “I know. Still, you would go alone, and you could well be killed,” she shrugged. “My warriors might save you that fate, but die themselves. Therein lies my quandary.”

            “I will not go alone,” he smiled, “yet I will ask no Tranca to join me.”

            “I suspected this, my husband,” she sighed, relieved that he’d spared her the royal predicament, yet still concerned. “Will you speak upon the wind?”

            “I already have,” Tyree replied, then he put his gloveless fingertips under her flawless chin and kissed her flawless lips. It had been many thaws since their kisses were tentative and brief.

            Leaving it to Shuyah to take the Tranca army north to rejoin their clan hiding there, Tyree struck out alone in the general direction of the twisted forest. At sunrise of the second day, Kodiak warriors began joining up with him. Konka and Drinda arrived first with a hundred Kodiak. Among them was Golanka’s son, Thorda, who swore allegiance to Tyree.

            “All the warriors want you to replace my father as military commander,” Thorda said. “The alliance with the Tranca is our future, and you know the Tranca better than any Kodiak.”

            “I hope many of my Kodiak brothers will listen to the wind.”

            “They will, cousin,” Thorda grinned.

            By the fourth day, they were five hundred strong.  They cut the Logalla’s trail and tracked down their hiding place deep within the forest of twisted black trees. The Kodiak crept through the trees into the wind, their special senses judging the Logalla’s exact location. When their outer defense sentries started to vanish, the Logalla knew the Kodiak had arrived. It was then that Boozagloo made a monumental mistake. Boozagloo sought to use the wind against Tyree and his Kodiak brothers. He had his minions set fires throughout the western edge of the forest. The wind was blowing favorably, and carried the fire toward the Kodiak. The Kodiak instantly smelled the fire, and could have easily escaped, but suddenly, there came a hush. Then the wind shifted. It reversed its direction and the last of the Logalla army was enveloped in the very death trap they had set for their enemies.

            Yet The Scar still lived. As his men were west setting the fires, he had taken his five most trusted warriors and went east, escaping both the fire and the Kodiak.

            But not Tyree.

            “Something moved ahead,” Boozagloo’s first guard said.

            “An animal panicked by the fire,” Boozagloo muttered, hoping his worst fear was false. It wasn’t.

            There, seeking no attempt to conceal himself among the twisted trees, was the Kodiak, Tyree.

            “You cannot run from your destiny, Scar,” the Kodiak called out with jaw firmly set, “for it will find you.”

            Boozagloo hated the name Scar, and hearing it from the Kodiak’s lips inflamed him.

            “I should not have entrusted your death to my legion,” he shouted back, “but instead entrusted it to my own blade!”

            Boozagloo called for his men to attack. They were the five strongest, most capable he could find in the Logalla’s considerable ranks. “Occupy him so that I may strike the final blows!” The Scar screamed.

            Instead, two of The Scar’s guards bolted their horses off in two different directions. They quickly vanished into the twisted forest, unwilling to face this single Kodiak.

            “We will face him,” the overlord’s first guard said. Then he looked to the other two Logalla warriors, who nodded their nervous agreement to join the attack.

            The three spurred their horses into full charge. Logalla battle stallions were well versed in this direct approach. On his snow pony, Tyree galloped steadily toward his attackers. In the first strides he unleashed his snow star. The whirring blades of the snow star hissed through the trees, actually arcing right, up, then down, to swing around a large trunk and bury itself in the skull of the first guard. He tumbled backwards off his galloping horse, comically, like a man made of rags.

            Kodiak warriors were expert at shooting arrows from horseback at full gallop. Tyree shot just one, its brave iron tip piercing a second Logalla’s armor and sending him tumbling dead in the snow.

            Next Tyree drew his lance. The last Logalla guard already had his leveled. They met in a crescendo among the trees, the impact hurling both mounts and their riders against the trunks of the twisted trees. Both lances fractured upon impact with the opponent’s shield. Wide-eyed, the Logalla let go his reins. His horse shuffled nervously, it’s actions turning its rider’s profile to Tyree. Tyree saw that a splinter from his broken lance now protruded from the Logalla warrior’s throat. The Logalla suddenly slumped in the saddle, then fell, leaving only Tyree and Boozagloo.

            Boozagloo knew he could not run. He spurred his battle steed forward and charged. Tyree’s snow pony did the same. Boozagloo had his lance leveled. Tyree no longer had a lance, but Tyree charged as if he did.

            Tyree could have sent out an arrow to fell his enemy’s horse then dispatched him easily, but Tyree wanted no advantage in this fight. Tyree ducked just under The Scar’s lance, letting the shaft ride up his shield then off the armor atop his left shoulder. Then, as The Scar went by, Tyree spun and lashed his sword against the lance, severing it in two. Tyree and The Scar galloped on past one another, pulled up their mounts, and turned. The Scar dropped the hilt of his severed lance and drew his sword. It was the moment for which Tyree had longed: going blade-to-blade with the murderer of his parents. Their blades met sending off showers of sparks that rivaled the forest fire that was approaching at alarming speed. It was then Tyree realized that Boozagloo held a Kodiak sword.

            “I see a Kodiak sword improves your worth.”

            “I took it from your dead father!” Boozagloo shouted. He then attacked with desperate ferocity.

            More sparks flew as they fought in the growing inferno. The fire overtook them, so they turned and rode away from it side-by-side, slashing at each other the whole way. A huge fallen tree blocked Tyree’s path, and Boozagloo sprinted ahead. He rode hard, the heat of the fire fading until he found a clearing, crossed it, and turned. It was a wide, cool, patch of snow deep within the twisted forest—an apt place for a snomad to die.

            Boozagloo charged as Tyree entered the clearing. They met in a great clash of swords at the clearing’s center. Boozagloo’s much larger horse slammed into Tyree’s snow pony. Tyree and his pony somersaulted forward in a shower of snow. But training did not fail the Kodiak and even this snow pony, in Tyree’s service less than a week, knew what to do. It caught its own fall in such a way as to protect its rider still clinging to its back. The snow pony found the leverage and performed a practiced tumble that brought it back up onto its feet at a gallop, rider still in place.

            Boozagloo was incensed by this equestrian performance. He charged and sent out a backhanded swipe meant for Tyree’s throat, but Tyree bent under it and plunged his own blade cleanly through Boozagloo’s armor and into his heart.

            The Scar’s horse trotted nervously around the little clearing the fight had found in the forest. The raging fire approached, bathing the scene in an eerie dance of light and shadow. Boozagloo, still in his saddle, looked down in shock at the blood spurting in succinct bursts from the wedge-shaped puncture in his armor.

            “You should have stolen my father’s armor, as well,” Tyree called out above the roar of the forest fire.

            A moment more, then Boozagloo fell from his horse to spill his life in red upon the unforgiving snow.

 

LOOK FOR CHAPTER 29: “STRAGGLERS”

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