Free Who Walks in Flame by David Alastair Hayden Page A

and dance they remember their legacy. Khuar-na, their last king, has returned after 2,746 years. The day of their restoration has come. 
    From his perch on the top of the Scorch-Walker’s head, saddled on a vestigial horn, Khuar-na immediately senses their difference and studies these people with his witch-sight.
    This is all that remains of my kind? Ignorant brutes, hidden like cowards, appearances masked by magic. A final spell from my sister, no doubt.
    They're savages, unfit but for slavery. It is not acceptable.
    But I have no choice. From these I must build our future. 
    Patience.
    I have time enough for restoration after my vengeance is taken.
    As his people, the Skithikri, gather before the Scorch-Walker and kneel, Khuar-na turns his gaze upon what was once his glorious palace, his golden eyes turning a languid gray. For a few moments he sees not ruins but strong walls, curling spires rising far into the sky, and fluttering pennants, captured from his enemies. He hears the sibilant voices of children, the laughter of corpulent wives, the grunting of soldiers training, the whispers of scheming magi. He smells roasting flesh and jasmine wafting on pure mountain air. He relives his greatest moment: The spread of an army a hundred thousand strong, throughout the valley and down into the lowlands: Crying his name, swearing their allegiance to the second century of his reign, their first on this planet, having fled their dying home world.
    The Scorch-Walker lowers his head, parallel to the ground, and Khuar-na walks out onto the tip of the snout. His magically enhanced voice booms through the valley as he addresses his fellow Skithikri. Through no small effort, he hides his contempt. 
    “My people, your King has returned! Blessed are the days. Deserts shall return. Palaces will rise again. Humans will bow to us as slaves.”
    He raises his iron amulet high above and speaks a spell of countering, made easy for he remembers well the structure of his sister’s spells. The illusion of pure humanity falls away, revealing…
     Khuar-na recoils in disgust. They have mated with humanity. Their blood has been watered down. In silence he stares, openly contemptuous of their pale skin, patched with scales, the hair on their heads, the fattened pupils… He closes his eyes. 
    Strength. Patience. It is nothing that I cannot correct in time.
    Spurred now by a surging anger, he shouts: “Make ready now! We are few in number but strong in desire. I have seen our enemy on my way here. They are weak, unsuspecting. The crumbling age of men shall end in the fire of our vengeance.” 

    ***

    As she sits on the steps of the Grand Library, waiting for the Kings of the East to gather, Bregissa burnishes the long, bronze barrel of her wind pistol, a magic device fashioned three centuries ago by Arkos the Maker. The perfect weapon for a skald forbidden the use of gunpowder by religious edicts. Except that the pistol is nearly useless. When constructed, it could fire ten shots each day, recharging them as the sun rose. Now it holds only one.
    “How much longer must we wait?” asks Kerenthos, waking from his nap. He is ten years her senior, maimed and scarred by war. But to the Skald of the Land, he is kind and grimly handsome. She depends on him, and she honors Kerenthos by allowing him to witness rituals few have ever seen.
    “Until the kings all say so,” she replies. Then smiling she adds, “Or noon.”
    Laughing, Kerenthos glances up at a sky of blue like Bregissa’s eyes, a sun as golden as her hair. “Better get my leg on then.” He connects a wooden prosthetic to his right knee. “If that’s okay with you, oh woman who commands the Kings of the East!”
    A playful shove throws him off balance. “Watch that tongue of yours! I’ll not be mocked in so august a gathering.”
    “Oh yes,” he whispers. “Such great and honorable warriors are gathered here. Many can no longer fit their fat bellies within their