Page 18 of Foundling

Wildfires happened; many trees needed the heat for their lifecycle, but she couldn’t turn away from the sight of frightened rabbits and deer and badgers fleeing, their fur singed and their eyes terrified. How many were trapped in their burrows or dens, protecting young or already cut off from escape? What if the wind changed and drove the fire north, toward the only village near this part of the border?

Let’s go, she urged Thalia.

And to the faelands she begged, Please, let me help you.

Attalus considered he might be dying. All right, he more than considered it—he knew it. If the gorgoroi couldn’t follow a lumbering red dragon through a clear sky, then he’d left plenty of blood across the southern continent for them.

He might have fooled them for a little while, given that his trail began over the sea, but any good hunter would note the sharks drawn by the diluted blood. Attalus couldn’t quite tell how fast he was bleeding, only that there were certainly envenomated globules littering his flight north.

He’d been flying for days—how many, he couldn’t say. A friendly wind bore him most of the way, keeping him aloft far longer than his wings could’ve managed without. Still, even Attalus, in the depths of a fever and flirting with delirium, could tell he was flagging.

Perhaps it was the treetops tickling his dangling paws.

Was this the way Theron and Briseis had come? Would he find them if he kept going?

But Attalus didn’t want to lead the gorgoroi to them. Better to stay away. That’s why they hadn’t brought him along in the first place, wasn’t it—better to leave him behind.

Attalus chuffed in annoyance, forgetting for a moment to flap. His tired wings ached and screamed in protest, and he just managed to keep himself from crashing into the trees.

He couldn’t say why exactly, but for long moments, he hovered there in the air, as though it wouldn’t allow him to pass. Perhaps the wind had finally abandoned him; perhaps he had even less strength remaining than he thought. Whatever it was, the air around him sparked with it, heavy in his wheezing nostrils.

Attalus finally managed to move again. He’d say he slipped through more than anything, as though gliding through water, and the air temperature and pressure lowered when he surged past.

He’d indeed lost the wind, and although he fought to stay airborne, even he knew he was losing the battle.

At least he’d given Araxos and Erastus hell. At least Attalus hadn’t died there, in the very spot his mother’s throat had been ripped out.

Let him die here, amongst this strange forest, in peace. He would go back to the earth, his flesh food for maggots and worms, his bones a shelter for moles and foxes. Let birds and rabbits line their nests with his shed scales. The forest creatures would know at least that Attalus Principes didn’t die in vain.

The hazy tang of smoke interrupted his thoughts, and he tried to focus his gaze ahead.

He didn’t imagine the great plume of smoke rising from the forest. A beacon, calling him home.

With the last of his might, Attalus rode the air to the crackling flames. He felt their heat in the warming air, and it sucked him closer. Flames licked up trees and jumped across creeks. The nearer he came, the more he saw this was more than a forest wildfire, it was an inferno.

Behind the wall of flames lay leagues of burn scar, ash matting and choking the ground. It invaded Attalus’s senses, clogging his nostrils and stinging his eyes.

This was just what he needed.

Perhaps there was hope for him yet.

Banking to the right, he found a particularly vicious area of fire. The heat crackled along his scales, and Attalus welcomed the scalding warmth. He crashed more than landed, the ash pillowing his fall. He groaned as his beleaguered wings collapsed around him, shaking with exhaustion. He pushed himself onto wobbly legs, staggering into the flames.

Fire scorched up his neck as he reached down to the festering bite wound in his side. Getting hold of the broken fang, he screamed in agony as he slid it free of his flesh. Blood, thinned by the venom, gushed onto the ash in a putrid mixture.

Attalus gathered glowing coals, pushing them up to the flames. He made himself a bed of fire and coal and lay down upon it, his open wound sizzling as the wildfire cauterized the flesh.

The pain was finally too much. As trees aflame crashed around him, Attalus faded into sweet unconsciousness, giving himself over to smoke and ash.

5

Look out!

Before Leita could react, Thalia pushed her aside with her chest, throwing them both out of the way of a falling tree.

Smoldering ash choked Leita’s nose and throat, and it was a moment before she regained her bearings enough to climb to her hands and knees. Thalia lay beside her panting, her beautiful white mane stuck to her neck with sweat, and the rest of her turned a sooty gray. Leita doubted she looked any better, her lips cracked from the heat and stinging with sweat and ash.

The fallen tree crackled, its charred black skeleton all that remained as flames ate past the bark. All around, the world was gray save for the wicked orange and yellow of scattered fires. The heat was unbearable and the choking smoke was worse. Tears clumped her lashes together as she blinked the grit from her eyes.