Chapter 50

Aris snapped into action. “It’s arson,” he said. “Go down to the barracks now. Get every guard. We’re going to need all of them.”

Wallace was running down the mountainside at a breakneck pace before the General could finish his sentence. He had seen just how deadly fires could be during his younger days on the coast. That was on the seaside. How much more deadly could this tinderbox of a city —who’s streets were filled with wooden structures, barely a stone building in sight— be?

Wallace’s stomach sank, knowing he was about to find out.

In seconds Aris passed him on his mad dash down the mountainside. He was heading straight for the stables, straight to the riverfront.

In what seemed like the blink of an eye Wallace found himself at the base of the mountain that touched Aris’ estate. By the time Wallace arrived the whole squadron of thirty guards that called Aris’ compound home were all out in the sparring grounds, soaking their clothes in water and wrapping wet linens around their faces.

Wallace spied Kestrel among the crowd. He’d just ripped off his clothes, exposing his scar covered body, and dunked them in the large drinking barrel. In second he had the clothes back on again.

Someone had seen the fire and they were already preparing themselves. Bless the heavens for whichever guard had been so vigilant.

Wallace, not needing to explain the situation, fell in with the rest of the guards and quickly stripped to his underclothes, soaking his outer layers in water. He grumbled his thanks as a wet linen was handed to him and he wrapped it tightly around his face. It felt as if his nose might cave under the pressure of the wet rag, but Wallace would rather have sore sinuses than die from smoke inhalation.

In less than three minutes the guard company had finished their preparations and began their jog downhill towards the fire. It felt like they had run but mere seconds before the smoke overtook them and eyes began watering.

Still they marched onwards.

The heat increased with each passing step. Wallace took a sip of water from his leather water-skin hanging on his side and his throat was already beginning to tickle, and it would only get worse with each passing step. Nearly half of the other soldiers followed suit. Making sure they were well hydrated before stepping into the midst of the battle that would steal moisture from their skin.

Soon they reached the first of the fires. It was almost as if seeing the source of the blaze added intensity to the heat and as they neared the burning structures, the detachment of city guards felt as if they had stepped through of a wall of heat and into a furnace. Skin pricked from the inside out. Almost as if the fire summoned the heat from their bodies and it was desperate to escape its shell.

Upon the sight of the burning structures, the group went to work, grasping the fire-pumps that they had brought from the barracks, submerging them in nearby water barrels and going to work spraying down the ramshackle wooden buildings while others beat sodden blankets against smaller burns in an attempt to beat out the flames.

*****

Pump. Refill. Pump. Refill. Pump. Refill. Pump. Refill.

Kestrel fell into a routine. His skin felt like it was steaming from the inside, but he’d felt pain before. He had felt the burning of stinging cold and the extremes of a building on fire during his time spent on the streets. He had escaped those streets, but now he was back. He had a chance to save those same streets that raised him. He wouldn’t fail them. So, despite the air that threatened to choke him with each breath in-spite of his wet linen mask, Kestrel kept up his constant siphoning and spraying of water up.

Pump. Refill. Pump. Refill.

Kestrels arms began to ache.

How long had they been fighting the fire? How many houses had they saved from the fires? He’d lost count after the tenth one. It seemed that with each fire stopped, a new one sprang to life in another building.

Pump. Refill. Pump. Refill.

The air bit into Kestrel. It attacked him. The very atmosphere around him felt as if it were a malicious entity hungry for destruction. Feeding off of the sorrow that its presence brought with it.

The fires raged and Kestrel moved to help put out each new one. Each time he reached to grab a sip of water, his fear increased. His fear insisted he gulp down the liquid until he overflowed, protecting him from the inside out, but his training he’d received during his time spent in the barracks won out. He only drank enough to keep him going during each interval. Still, his heavy water-skin was growing frighteningly light, and each time he reached for the life giving water, his hands had a harder time breaking from their rictus around the water pump he wielded to battle the elemental monster that threatened to consume his city and had already eaten so much of the waterfront property.

What sort of monster intentionally cause so much destruction?

He wished the arsons death.

Pump. Refill. Pump. Refill.

Smoke stung Kestrel’s eyes. Tears fought back the damaging particulates, but also blurred his vision. He saw the world as if gazing through milk. Each breath was harder won.

Still he fought the fires.

Pump. Refill. Pump. Refill.

Kestrel glanced around him. All the other recruits had fallen into the same mechanical movements, long past the point of listening to orders, they simply converged on each new building and settled in to their routine. Pump. Refill. Soak. Beat. Pump. Refill. Soak. Beat.

Kestrel’s eyes searched for Wallace.

Where had the old man gone?

*****

Wallace hadn’t heard Aris riding up behind him, so caught up was he in his firefighting that he nearly punched the General in the face when he placed his hand on Wallace’s shoulder to get his attention.

It took the old soldier a second to realize who it was that had demanded his attention. “Come with me,” Aris commanded him.

Wallace nodded and loosened his grip on the water-pump. He grasped Aris’ outstretched hand and swung up onto General Ravenscroft’s horse.

“I already hunted down two of the arsons, and have tracked another one and they led me to a place nearby. They’re starting another fire now, I’m sure of it,” Aris stated in his no-nonsense manner.

Wallace grunted his acceptance. But why had he chosen him?

As if to answer the retired soldier’s unspoken question, Aris said to him, “they might be Memory Mages. That’s why I asked you to come with me. I’m almost certain that they’re Forgotten. I saw one of my spare guards confront one and no sooner had the arson laid his hands on him than the guard seemed to forgot everything that’d just happened and let the man walk away.”

Wallace’s stomach churned. Forgotten? Here? Starting the fires? Things were moving quickly. Much quicker than they had during the coastal destruction of his childhood.

Why?

He barely had time to think before Aris arrived at his destination and dismounted and beckoned him to follow suit.

“I saw them just up ahead. Follow me quietly. I want to catch them by surprise,” Aris said in a raspy, smoke sanded voice.

Wallace nodded. He followed quietly behind Aris and snuck up on a duo that were tossing pitch on an unaffected house.

The pair, so caught up in their destructive work, didn’t notice the General and Wallace until they were almost upon them.

The first arson heard a crunch behind him, and turning to see Aris with an upraised metalvine, raised his hands to defend the oncoming blow, but he was too late. Aris swung with devastating speed and power and caught the criminal with crushing blow to the man’s carotid artery. The man fell to the ground face first. He landed on his neck with a snap. Ensuring the death that Wallace suspected Aris’ massive blow had caused.

Wallace’s opponent though, had more time to respond to the older man’s attack and he raised his forearms quick enough that the blow Wallace had aimed to shatter the arson’s jaw slammed off of the meat of the Forgotten’s forearms instead.

Wallace retracted his metalvine for another blow, but as his arm pulled back the Forgotten’s hand grazed his arm.

Wallace’s mind went blank. It was only his soldiering instincts that saved his life. Everything that had happened in the last five minutes were gone. That part of his memory was erased.

Wiped clean.

A dark void melted into what should have been fresh memories. Despite that, his body moved with Falis forms so beat into him by his years of training and service that it saved his life when he saw, in a split second, a man barely inches away lunging at him with a knife.

Wallace launched himself backwards. He winced as his old bones slammed to the tough ground. The arson followed his stabbing attempt by aiming a heavy kick at the old soldier’s face. He rolled into the kick and wrapped his arms around the man’s knees.

The would be killer reached for him.

By instinct he slammed his feet into the other man’s knees, sending him tumbling to the ground and scrambled away from his attackers touch.

It was then that he noticed the heat. Why was everything so scalding?

The fire.

Fiell had been set alight. Aris had grabbed him to search for the arsons. He’d said something about them being dangerous. “I think they may be…” and everything had cut off.

What had Aris wanted to say?

Where was the General?

Wallace caught sight of Aris as he regained his footing. The General was fighting off two more attackers simultaneously. The duo kept trying to get inside Aris’ guard. It was as if they were desperate to lay their hands on him. Why? Wallace felt like he should know, but everything was gone. He couldn’t remember a thing.

He couldn’t remember a thing.

That was it.

He was fighting a Forgotten.

A Forgotten who had just recovered and was rushing him, trying to tackle him to the ground. He needed to move. He couldn’t let the man touch him again. He was terrified of what he might lose with even the slightest grazing of skin.

Wallace’s battle sense took over.

Time turned to molasses.

He saw the Memory Mage rushing him. Wallace could see each muscle rippling as the Forgotten barreled towards him. He just needed to wait.

Wait.

Almost there.

Now!

Wallace leapt up right as the Forgotten tucked his head for the impact of the attempted takedown. The old soldier’s knee slammed into the arson’s face. The man crumpled to the ground, his consciousness had fled with the impact and his legs turned to dust from the blow.

Wallace, without hesitation, stepped over the fallen man’s body and, as the man was beginning to stir, raised his leg and slammed his heel into the fallen man’s throat with a sickening squelch.

He stomped one more time to make sure.

Two down.

Aris.

He needed to help Aris now. He’d seen the General fighting another duo of Memory Mages. He couldn’t let them touch Aris Ravenscroft. He was too important. If they could take his memories it could prove disastrous for them.

It could prove disastrous for Vealand.

*****

Aris saw the arson’s hand skim over Wallace’s forearm.

Then the old man fell backwards.

Something had happened. Wallace had suddenly went from fighting with purpose to fighting on instinct.

The arsons HAD to be Memory Mages. They really were Forgotten.

Aris scrambled to help his friend, but, as if from nowhere, two hooded figures appeared and rushed him.

Even before he saw them, the visions of torture that crashed into him alerted him to the presence of an Inquisitor.

Memories of a branding iron lingering on his body, his skin sizzling and bubbling under its vicious touch assaulted Aris.

“Calm yourself. This memories aren’t yours. You’ve trained for this.” Aris breathed.

He fell into a defensive Falis guard. He was ready for them.

Vomit inducing memories overwhelmed Aris’ mind, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. He’d seen heads ripped from bodies during the Mountain Campaigns. He’d seen the worst of the world and had still walked away from it.

It hadn’t ruined him. He could fight through the memories.

The duo appeared in front of him. They swung their metalvines at him with a cold, mechanical precision. They were expert fighters.

They were ruthless in their attack, but they weren’t hardened by two decades of battles. Their patterns were easy to read and even with the mental assault that was causing his vision to swim, he could still fight them off.

He was a better fighter than them. He’d lived through too many battles. He wouldn’t be brought down now. He wouldn’t allow it to happen.

Metalvines rang as the flames that the arsons had brought to life danced and consumed the houses in the alley they fought in.

It felt like they were in the middle of a furnace.

Before Aris had realized it, they’d flanked him. Aris was sure that the second man, the one who kept trying to grapple him, was a Forgotten.

He couldn’t let himself be touched by the man. He was terrified of what the Memory Mage might take from him.

The Forgotten could take Aris’ memories of his family. He could end up just like his wife. With a whole life well lived, and then torn from her. Lost forever.

They could take everything he had come to learn of Emperor Evrain. They could make him into a mindless slave. Someone like them, who would blindly follow the monster that had manipulated them even onto their deaths.

No, he couldn’t let the Forgotten touch him. Even if that meant he fell at the hands of the Inquisitor who had raised his metalvine in an attempt to cave his head in.

Aris leapt towards the man, his arms covering his face. He took the blow and the impact felt like his arms might shatter, but he kept his momentum, grabbed the man’s arms and twisted him into the path of the Forgotten.

He was safe. If only for a breath.

But that breath proved to be all he needed as Wallace, who had dispatched the arson he’d been battling, rushed into the fray, jabbing at the Forgotten with a furious array of blows that left the unprepared mage unable to do anything but to defend. Despite his age, Wallace was quick as a cat and, with a quick shift of his footing, dropped under a wild blow from the Forgotten aimed to crack his skull, and slammed his metalvine into the man’s ankle, buckling him with an agonizing blow. Wallace then whipped his rear leg out and with a twisting motion, swept the man to the ground. Two quick blows to the Forgotten’s hands batted them away just enough to give him the split second he needed to jam the end of the metalvine into the Forgotten’s throat. Collapsing his wind-pipe.

Wallace followed up with two bone shattering blows to the man’s left temple.

Aris, though, didn’t have time to focus on the fallen Forgotten. The Inquisitor attacking him both physically and mentally demanded all his attention. The strain of the constant mental attacks was beginning to wear on him, and every time that Aris scored a hit on his attacker, the memory would rebound into his mind and sent a painful shock down his body. The constant mental strain was draining him. He could feel each swing coming a little slower. His nose had begun to drip blood.

From the memories?

Just how deep were the powers of the Inquisitors?

Aris knew he needed to do something, and quickly.

He couldn’t hold out much longer. The smoke sandpapered his lungs, the wet linen hindered his breathing and the Inquisitor’s deft assault with his Memory Magic ate at the walls that the General had erected against their assault.

The Inquisitor swung his metalvine again. He missed. Another swing came followed by a jab with the hardwood weapon.

There.

That was it. He’d found the arson’s pattern.

Aris launched a series of attacks which the Inquisitor dodged and parried. When he retracted his last jab with the metalvine, Aris let his hand drop, not needing to feign the tiredness that battered his sore body.

The arson swung. Aris dodged it. The Inquisitor followed with a jab of his metalvine.

Aris, anticipating the movement, leapt forward instead of sliding out and away from the attack. Aris’ lead arm wrapped around the would be assassin’s weapon hand, pinned it to his side, and a quick heavy jerk to the pinned arm dislodged both the metalvine and the Inquisitor’s elbow joint. Aris embraced the inevitable mirroring of the pain in his mind and, with the Inquisitor’s arm still trapped, he dropped his metalvine, slid his lead foot behind his attacker’s and his hand cupped the Inquisitor’s face and twisted his body downwards.

The Inquisitor’s head bounced off the hard packed dirt with a loud crack. He quickly rolled and regained his footing. His body moving on instinct, but Aris smelled blood and went in for the kill. In seconds the Inquisitor crumpled to the ground, his jaw shattered by a metalvine blow and his neck snapped.