Chapter 5

Firedancers! That was my first and only suspicion as the gray smoke began seeping into the room. It was no drunken patron having knocked over his candle in the night, no badly cooked breakfast being served. The firedancers had found me!

The woman, Nightbreeze, rose at once when she saw the fear in my eyes. As I grabbed at her she grabbed at the bucket of water. Then, as the door in matter of seconds went from dry wood into a blazing inferno that roared and unnaturally flung a vicious fire tongue at the bed where we had just been sitting, we lay soaking wet in the farthest corner. Which I could tell by the intense burning pain in my face and throat was not far away at all.

I understood at once that if we had been sitting on the bed our bodies would now be contributing to a cozy, crackling fire. Cinders flew wildly across the room, but our wet clothes shielded our bodies. Once I felt a searing sting on the top of my head, but I pawed fervently at it, and it left nothing but a mild irritation.

Then the flames died away like a candle being snuffed out, leaving a black carpet of orphaned smoke that was slowly pulled through the small window to join the poisonous smog of the greencoal-fueled, huge furnaces that heated every floor of the sky-reaching towers of the city, contributing to the Brooding Cloud that ruled over even the Tyrant himself.

Through the door, a dagger aflame in his hand, came an old yet hale man of my own race, a long beard a-flying, dressed in the fiery red garments that I had been dreading to see for so many weeks now. With terror I saw that in place of his eyes he had two gaping pits of molten lead that seemed to be in turmoil from some inner rage. Even his dagger-wielding hand seemed to be consumed by fire. His movement was carried on to a lunge at the charred, smoking bed, snarling "Flaming flesh! Fire in the heart!"

While I was gasping for breath and the firedancer was off-balance, Nightbreeze was moving. I noticed vaguely that she had risen, but then I lost sight of her actions in the smoke and confusion of the situation.

"Argh!" The firedancer suddenly screamed, a scream of pain and fear, and he seemed to almost topple over towards me, the fire of his jagged blade going out. The woman's teeth were at work again, fastened to the man's free hand like she were a dog of war. If she was able to be as vicious as this with two teeth missing, I dreaded the one who would have to face her with all her ivory in place.

The firedancer fixed his wrinkled, evil face fixing on the woman and the flickering tongues of fire from his molten lead eyes almost covered his countenance. With a growl he lifted his flameknife up high, shouting "Fire in the heart!" in a harsh voice. With a blinding light the cruel, jagged blade lit up again, a white-glowing instrument of slaughter. And merely a foot or two away was Nightbreeze's exposed neck. In the light from the deadly dagger I saw two other men hovering on the threshold behind him. This was it. They had found me, and it was time to die and end my two month long career as a Wanderer. The only thing remaining to me was to try to show a small fraction of the courage which Nightbreeze had just displayed.