Wings of Flame Read Free Page A

coughing. Among the men there was more blundering than battling now—no one could see. She scarcely could either, but her bare feet knew every inch of the ground she trod. She found Kyrem’s arm and tried to tug him away, but he fought her. She was just another enemy in the smoky chaos to him.
    â€œCome on,” she urged, as if urging a donkey.
    The soft voice, so soft that only he could hear it. He recognized it and followed it into the cramped maze of pens and stalls. The stableboy knew the way quite surely even in the confusion of dark and smoke and flickering shadow. Wild shouts of men behind and screams of animals all around.… There was Omber, plunging in his place, too frightened to flee, panicked as a horse will be by fire. The stableboy slipped off her ragged shirt and tied it over the lurching, struggling beast’s eyes, and Kyrem laid his hand on the neck. Omber calmed as soon as he felt that touch, for power still flowed in Kyrem.
    â€œLead us,” he murmured to the girl.
    They walked one on either side of Omber’s head, coaxing him forward, coughing in the smoke, thinking they would die in the smoke—but in a moment they were outside at last, and the shuntali slipped the blindfold off the steed. Kyrem vaulted onto his mount. The stableboy got back into her shirt, silent and shivering. There was shouting in the darkness all around, pounding of hooves under the trees, and the inn—the inn was going up in flames.
    â€œYou can’t go back there,” said Kyrem. “They’ll kill you. Come on.” He hauled the youngster up onto the horse behind him. She went without question, even though she had never sat a horse before, for she had nothing to lose, and she was used to doing as she was told.
    The other horses were gone from the place she had put them. Kyrem sent Omber plunging away into the darkness, whistling and shouting as he rode. The girl rested against his bare back, hanging on and paying little attention. Her cut head hurt. After a while she drowsed, and when she awoke, it was dawn.

Chapter Two
    The sun came up at their backs. Straightening, the shuntali vaguely remembered a night of riding in zigzags and circles, Kyrem’s shouting, other shouts answering his across the darkness. But with the dawn they were traveling mostly westward, down the mountain slopes toward Avedon. Half a dozen riders accompanied the youth and the girl now. She recognized the older man who had spoken with Kyrem the previous evening. He was blood-splattered, as were the others, and he looked grim.
    â€œSo much for the local hospitality, Captain,” said Kyrem, breaking a long silence.
    â€œThe fault is all mine, my prince, I admit it,” the other answered bitterly. “I spoke of danger, but I never truly expected—”
    â€œStop it,” Kyrem ordered. “How could you possibly imagine that we would be so treacherously attacked? There will be no talk of fault. And do not call me prince.”
    They rode in silence out of budding blackthorn forest and into a high mountain meadow, the thin, rocky, brown soil studded with tiny red flowers, blood-of-Suth, amid moss. Lush new growth of bright green ferns showed where a small spring ran. “Let us stop here and breathe a bit, now that we can see about us,” said the captain when they reached the open ground. “What is that rag you seem to have attached to your back?”
    â€œThat little rag-tag saved my life twice last night.” Kyrem swung a leg lithely over his horse’s neck and dropped to the ground. The girl sat up stiff and dazed on the horse’s rump where he had left her. He helped her down.
    â€œYou are a prince of Deva,” she whispered.
    â€œKyrem son of Kyrillos, gratefully at your service.” He set her down on the ground. His men were drinking at the spring by turns; none of them had a flask or a cooking pan or even a hat to hold water in. They had escaped with only