Page 21 of Sun Warrior

Wilkes closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them he met Mari’s gaze, saying, “Please forgive me.”

Mari was wondering what he meant as she watched Wilkes unwind the woven hemp belt from around his waist. Then, with a movement so fast his body blurred, he struck, slipping the belt that was now a noose around Rigel’s neck, jerking it with such force that it lifted theyoung Shepherd off his feet as Wilkes pulled him up and back, in a tight, perfect choke hold, while Rigel struggled and gagged.

“Get your hands off him!” Mari shrieked at Wilkes, rushing at him, hands raised in claws, snarling her rage.

And that was when Mari saw the knife pressed against Rigel’s neck. She and her Shepherd froze at the same time.

“No! Don’t hurt him! Please don’t hurt him!”

“If you don’t call down sunfire I’m going to slit his throat.”

Mari would never forget how unemotional Wilkes had sounded. She looked into the Companion’s eyes and believed he would do it—he would kill her Rigel.

Anger, fear, outrage, and despair all flooded Mari. She could feel the breath being squeezed from Rigel—could feel her Shepherd losing consciousness as the knife pressed against his neck. It had already pricked through his thick coat so that drops of scarlet spattered the ferns at Wilkes’s feet.

Mari’s breath deepened. She followed the magickal, mysterious link that connected her to Rigel, allowing herself to be filled with the young canine’s fear and anger and pain.

The heat within her began to build and Mari embraced it—the anger, the fear, the pain, and the power that radiated, first from her Shepherd and then from above and around her, until she felt engulfed by it. Then Mari lifted her hands and screamed, releasing the yellow heat that poured into her, flinging it over Wilkes’s head, over the creek, so that it rained liquid fire past the felled-tree line, pouring like lava from the volcano that was Mari’s anger.

The force of the molten fire was like nothing Mari had ever imagined. It was not the cold, silver strength of the moon. This power—this liquid heat—was magnificent and terrifying. It poured through her, growing in intensity, as Mari watched, helpless to stop it. She saw the edge of the forest fire then. It seemed to be drawn, mothlike, to the tide of blazing sunfire come to earth. As the two forces met, Mari could feel the forest fire. It was ravenous, insatiable, and it struggled to absorb her sunfire so that it could go on feeding.

“No!” Mari screamed. She knew she needed more of the sun—more power, more heat. She closed her eyes and opened herself to eddies of sunlight that managed to slip through the smoke, accepting them as they entered her body with an eagerness that was foreign to her. The heat that had been pouring through her palms increased, with an answering roar from the deadly inferno that met it.

“You’re doing it!” Nik’s mouth was close to her ear. His voice was filled with pride and excitement. “When I tell you to stop, you must stop. Sunfire can kill just as surely as the forest fire.” There was a short pause and then Nik shouted, “Stop now, Mari!”

Mari opened her eyes. Tears streamed down her face as she tried to stare into the center of the waterfall of flame that continued to pour from her palms. Her body had begun to tremble violently and her knees felt as if they would give out at any moment. She tried to close her hands. Tried to stop the torrent of fire, but she couldn’t. She’d found sunfire, and now she had no idea how to control it.

“I—I c-can’t. It w-won’t stop,” she gasped through chattering teeth.

Then Nik’s arms were around her. From behind his hands traced along the outside of her trembling arms until they found her wrists and then the backs of her hands. He placed his hands behind hers, gently covering the backs of them, nestling them against the coolness of his palms as he spoke softly into her ear.

“Look to your right, Mari.”

She tore her gaze from the maelstrom of fire across the creek to see that Wilkes had released Rigel. The young Shepherd was pressing himself against her right leg, staring up at her and whining imploringly.

“Rigel is safe,” Nik continued in his calm, soothing voice. “You are safe. Laru and I are safe. You don’t have to be angry or afraid, Mari. Breathe. Relax. Then release the sunfire up—return it to the sun where it belongs.”

Mari kept her gaze on Rigel, focusing on the love that he was sending her. She drew a deep, full breath and then released it, along with her anger and fear, imagining that it geysered up and into the sky, along with the molten sunfire.

As quickly as that the sunfire left Mari. She staggered and would have fallen had Nik’s strong arms not held her upright.

“You did it!” He held her tightly. “You did it! The fire is out!”

Mari wiped her face as she turned in his arms. It was then that she saw he was holding his hands oddly—stiffly and away from her. “Nik, what’s wrong with—” she began, but her words choked off as she took his hand in hers and saw that his palm, both of his palms, were burned and bloody. Her body began to tremble again. “I did this. I burned you!”

Nik used the back of his hand to stroke her wet cheek. “Mari, I’ll take burns on my hands any day if the alternative is to have a forest fire devour the Tribe.” He laughed. “You are amazing!”

“But you are burned! From touching me.” Mari felt dizzy and a little sick as she grasped the edge of Nik’s tunic and tore strips from it, using them as makeshift bandages for his hands.

Nik was grinning as if he’d just been awarded his heart’s desire. “Well, Moon Woman, it looks like you’re just going to have to fix me. Again.”

Before Mari could answer, the air began vibrating. She and Nik whirled around to look with horror at the blackened, smoking mess before them. In the distance the land rippled and quivered as within the ashes of the incinerated forest the swarm lifted, departing the dark, secret places from which they slept and descended upon the Tribe.

CHAPTER 6

“Run! Climb! Get to safety! The swarm! The swarm comes!” Wilkes’s shout was a clarion call for the Tribe, and as one humans and canines ran.

“Mari! We have to climb!” Nik shouted as he pulled her with him, raising his voice over the cacophony of panic that surrounded them.