The phoenix walked out of the ravine leading his horse. His eyes blazed with fire and death and he looked upon the horizon. Across that horizon was Fort Sundrick filled with soldiers for him to kill.

He didn’t know why he had to kill them. He knew they had done nothing to deserve it. But that wasn’t what it was about. It was about the fire within him that wouldn’t be quenched, about the ash and apathy that had long covered up the lost boy within. Now there was only fire, now there was only the rage of Raqos.

He mounted his horse and spurred it forward. The time for slowly stalking this army was over. The assault on him had shown that. This army was dangerous after all. The horse was a unicorn, desecrated by the fiefling. Once it was spurred into action it flew forward and it didn’t tire.

The phoenix was angry now and his fires raged. The grass wilted before him as he rode, some of it dried out and burst into flame. His eyes began to grow hotter in his skull and he roared in pain but he pushed on. There was a long way to go.

Karnell arrived at Fort Sundrick first. It was a long way to the stairs and you couldn’t ride a horse in the craggy rocks of the ravine. The army had already been there for a few hours and set up considerable defenses. Trebuchets ringed the battlements and an intimidating crossbow sat atop the fortress. But most impressive of all was the great walls themselves. Three of them, increasingly high and increasingly daunting. Each bristling with archers and soldiers. Not that it would do any good against the phoenix.

As he ran up to the gate the terrible waves of heat were already upon the fortress. Hot winds blew clouds of embers that drifted, stinging and biting, through the castle. In the distance the horizon shimmered with heat. All heralds of its arrival.

The soldiers were restless upon the battlements. No one had told them exactly what was going on, Karnell suspected he was the only one who knew. Rumours had spread, they didn’t know what was coming, what the mysterious rider in red was. But they knew that they were bait, they were there to lure it away. They knew they weren’t expected to survive.

Karnell was tired from his frantic rush from the ravine and the sweat from the blistering heat coated him. He stopped at the gate as it was opened before him and let in a painful gasp of air, the heat stinging his lungs. Then he ran. The gates closed behind him as he dashed through, ignoring all the soldiers who marveled at his survival.

“I need to speak to the General,” he said, over and over as people wouldn’t let him pass. They wanted to know why he was alive, how he got away from the rider. He wouldn’t tell them, there was no time.

The phoenix crested the last ridge and looked upon Fort Sundrick, shimmering in the heat. His eyes were blazing so painfully now he couldn’t think. His skull was being torn apart by rage. He needed a distraction, something else to focus on. The castle was full of them.

The grass wilted and dried and burned, the air shimmered and embers billowed through it, bugs and spiders and worms crawled away as fast as possible and died as they crawled, their bodies wilting and burning with the grass.

The soldiers in the castle had seen him. One of them fired the huge crossbow atop the fortress. It was an ambitious shot, an impossible shot surely. But the crossbow of Fort Sundrick had been built to fire impossible shots and it was manned by Enra Sundrick, the latest in a long line of Sundrick’s who had mastered the bow.

The huge arrow struck the ground where he’d been moments before and then burst into flame. His horse carried him forward over the wilting grass and towards the many little soldiers in the castle. He could see them all with his eyes, little shadows of heat. So many little shadows of heat.

Karnell reached General Rhine who was atop the battlements watching the flight of an arrow with a telescope.

“How are you alive?” Rhine asked, not looking away from his telescope.

“I made a temporary deal with the phoenix.”

“The what?”

“That’s what it is. A phoenix.”

“How do you know? Did it tell you?”

“No I...” Karnell had spent his whole flight from the ravine focussing on arriving as fast as possible. He’d not given any thought to what he’d say once he got here. He glanced out and saw a tiny rider silhouette dashing toward the castle across the shimmering hills. He’d better talk fast.

“Someone else told me but I am certain they were telling the truth. They also told me how to stop it.”

Rhine stiffened and put down his telescope. “They what! How!”

“Well...”

“How!” he thundered and Karnell shuddered.

“Well it needs to agree to it.”

“What?!”

“There’s a way to cure it, to banish the phoenix and get the man back. But it needs to be willing and-”

“Is it going to be willing?!”

“Um...” Karnell had been so sure of his task as he dashed across the hill. It had seemed so simple, get to the fortress first and tell the general what they were up against. But it wasn’t simple, phoenixes weren’t simple at all.

A cheer ran up along the battlements and the two men spun to look at the rider. It had gotten far closer than should have been possible, but it’d just been struck by one of the huge arrows from the great crossbow and little was left except a huge splash of blazing embers and a horse which slowed to a trot.

Rhine’s eyes narrowed suspiciously but he was hopeful too. What if it was really that easy?

Karnell didn’t share his optimism. If the embers could be doused in water while they were like this the phoenix would die. But there was no time for that.

Eyes so hot he could feel nothing else the phoenix burst from the embers, flinging huge chunks of molten coal all across the hills. His clothing was burned away and now he wore nothing but fire, but what a fire it was. Towering high above him there was nothing visible through it save for those terrible eyes.

His horse came back, unbothered by the fire and he mounted her again. Enra slowly underwent the process of reloading the great crossbow but it was too late, he was upon them now.

“We need water,” Karnell said. “If it can be doused while its body is shattered into embers it’ll die.”

“And curing it?” Rhine asked.

“That doesn’t seem possible. It looks quite angry.”

“Fill every cauldron and bucket we have from the well and make ready to spill them from the battlements,” Rhine ordered. “I want as many men on this as possible.” Some lieutenants ran off to fulfill the orders.

The heat waves swept over them and embers stung them as the rider grew nearer.

“We’re dead aren’t we?” Rhine asked.

Karnell watched the rider approach grimly. It would take time to get the water, he just hoped the walls would hold till then.

The first wall was the lowest, built last as a wall to ring the houses of the fortress’s inhabitants. The horse and the blazing phoenix leapt it, bringing with them death. Those embers, painful but harmless up till now, swept beneath them and into the soldiers manning the wall. Their clothes burst into flames if they were lucky, if they were unlucky, their skin did. They fired arrows but any that hit disappeared into the blazing fire and had no noticeable effect.

The monsters landed on the main street and the army rushed out to meet them. The man was unarmed, his sword lost when he’d died his first death. But he had no need for a sword.

The horse tore down the main street directly into the infantry charging toward them, they hadn’t been able to get any horse, no matter how well trained, to face the phoenix. The men charging were hot, far too hot, and some of them burst into flames but others had armour which couldn’t burn, although inside it was so hot they couldn’t think, could barely breathe. But they were soldiers, they could still fight.

The phoenix leapt from his horse, soaring through the air, bringing fire with him. He crashed down into a torrent of spears and swords. Blazing embers exploding from his body. The soldiers holding those collapsed, some dead, some still burning, their work done. But their work was not enough. The phoenix strode out of the blaze of his latest death, swords and spears melting and dripping from his body. Then his horse jumped over him and crashed into the next wall of soldiers.

She was impaled instantly from a forest of weapons and despite her thrashes which killed many more soldiers she fell to the ground dying. Then the phoenix set his eyes upon her and the blazing eyes melted away all the metal and weapons and wounds. She barely even staggered.

A huge crossbow bolt fell from the sky and tore through the phoenix, spraying his embers and coals all across the street. The soldiers that could still speak cheered. Then all the trebuchets, fired simultaneously, hit their target.

Karnell and Rhine watched the explosion of rock and fire as the trebuchets destroyed the phoenix and the street beneath it.

“Is it dead?”

“No,” Karnell replied. “I think it’s just angrier.” The soldiers chased the thrashing horse but it was still too hot down there for them to fight effectively. Then the ground began to melt.

The phoenix swam through the thick molten rock, burning it all away with his searing eyes. Under the street, under the soldiers and up to the wall. Then up and up the phoenix rose, melting away the wall beneath the first trebuchet. He burst from the wall in an explosion of magma and rock and fire. Especially fire.

The burning ruins of the trebuchet crashed down around him and he leapt nimbly to a section of wall that hadn’t melted, yet. The whole wall was creaking and starting to collapse. Soldiers charged up to him across the crumbling wall and he brushed them aside. Drenching them in embers with a sweep of his arm and setting their flesh alight whether they were wearing armour or not.

The wall crashed down in a huge cloud of smoke and dust and the phoenix walked away from it toward the last wall. His horse crested the crumbling wall and landed nimbly beside him. Together they walked toward the final gate which was already on fire. He was too close for the crossbow to hit him now and all the trebuchets not destroyed in the collapse were behind him. They had nothing that could hurt him now. He thought.

Karnell was sweating but he went out anyway. His clothes and skin were covered in embers and he’d just seen hundreds of soldiers burst into flames for less but he went out anyway. He was exhausted and terrified but he went out anyway.

Went out to face the phoenix who was sitting atop his horse, drawing ever closer to the last gate.

“Duren of Raharus!” he shouted above the roar of the various fires and occasional collapsing structure. “Phoenix of Raqos! I come to treat with you!”

The phoenix rode its horse forward, eyes blazing through the great fire around it.

“You don’t have to do this! There is a cure! Raqos gave me the knowledge of it in my dreams in exchange for my service!”

The phoenix barely heard the words, the boy within, trapped under mountains of ash, didn’t hear them either. With its burning eyes rendering all men shadows of heat the phoenix didn’t even recognise the man. But the horse heard, and she recognised the man who had helped save her in the ravine. The horse stopped and so the phoenix’s relentless advance stopped.

Behind it hundreds of soldiers poured over the collapsed wall and pointed weapons at it but they didn’t attack. They knew a respite when they saw one. The phoenix stood still and faced the man pleading desperately with it.

Within the mountain of ash Duren breathed. It wasn’t much but it was more than he’d done in a long time. The phoenix, stopped by its horse, registered the words and its eyes blazed.

It screamed and fell to the ground, clutching at the blazing orbs in its skull. Duren screamed too and ash filled his throat, but he kept screaming.

The soldiers rushed forward, sensing a moment of weakness. The great phoenix lay incapacitated on the ground, clutching at its eyes as it fought its own battle inside.

“No!” Karnell shouted. He had hope. Feeble hope but hope just the same. Hope that Duren could be saved. His hope withered as a torrent of spears impaled the burning body. It burst into blazing embers, incinerating the soldiers that speared it. Then water poured over the wall.

It would have worked, the phoenix was killed and in its ember state between life and death. The many torrents and buckets of water that spilled over the wall would have doused the embers and prevented any sort of resurrection. But Karnell hadn’t let the phoenix get close enough to the wall before he’d spoken to it. In truth he hadn’t expected it to stop at all. So the water fell short, most of it dousing Karnell instead. Some splashed onto the embers and the half formed flaming body that emerged from them, but not enough. Karnell stood helpless, looking at the rage of the phoenix.

All down the side of his body, life dripped away, leaden and rotted and dead. The skin of one arm and one leg was numb, his fingers twitching and spasming as their skin died. And his eye, his eye stopped blazing, there was nothing there but an empty socket, decayed and withered. But the pain of that was nothing compared to the pain of the other one. He screamed in pain and leapt at Karnell. Some of his skin might have died but his muscles were still very much intact and the leap sent him sailing across the entire courtyard. He grabbed the heat shadow and ripped it apart with his bare hands. This insignificant human had nearly killed him. He had actually wounded him in a way that wasn’t going to heal. He screamed as he ground the shadow to bone and the bone to ash.

Then he destroyed the castle. Tearing it apart, hands melting through the rock even as he ripped pieces away. The castle collapsed upon him and he melted it away as it did. The soldiers in the courtyard ran. He let them, he’d catch them later. He watched the heat shadows in the castle burn out and join his torrent, his molten castle of lava. The pain of the searing lava bathing him took away the searing in his eye and the cold dead numbness of the splash on his body. In that brief moment he felt peace.

Hundreds of soldiers poured from the ruins of Fortress Sundrick. Running and panting and staggering toward the outer wall, still intact, with the gates flung wide open. Behind them the castle crumbled into lava that slunk along the ground after them. The horse stood in the lava torrent, unfazed, watching one particular soldier run away. Her eyes still worked fine and she had no trouble telling the many humans apart. One heat shadow might look much like another to the phoenix but to her they were very different. She watched him run, but did nothing else.

Karnell staggered away from the crumbling castle. Around him soldiers dropped like flies, it was too hot to run. Few of them made it, none who’d been in the courtyard. Except him, because he wasn’t too hot, because he was covered in water.