The Cinders of Dezu

22nd: The Fuja (1)

The four legged reptilian creature was about the size of a small dog. He climbed up a rough stone with his claws extended into the crevices and then stopped. He looked around. He had heard a sound. An odd one. But he saw nothing. He was about to continue his travel when a burst of heat cut through the forest air.

The lizard fell to the ground. It was in two pieces now. The head lay on one side of a tree root and it's body lay on the other. Talia appeared in a moment to lift it's body out of the brush. She looked at the severed neck. It was a pretty perfect cut. She didn't know what she was calling it. The move had transformed over time. She could now concentrate the heat in such a way that it was like a blade through the air. A fire slice? A fire razor? A flame arrow? No, because it wasn't an arrow.

It took a lot of practice and concentration to get the fire and heat condensed like that. And it was another challenge entirely to keep it intact as it shot through the air. At least enough to cut through things and not just burn them. She was getting better at it.

She had told Cairo and Julian yesterday that the meat they had had after their fight with Moss Linga was from a lizard called a kernen. She had flame broiled it with spices and gave it to them on a stick. Julian was disgusted by the very notion but ate it anyway. She could tell he liked it but was pretending not to. Cairo on the other hand had sung her praises. He was open minded. She liked that. And the way he looked at her after tasting her cooking had produced in her a flutter that she hadn't expected.

She figured it would be a good breakfast and a hot meal contrasted from the dry foods in their packs and in the safe house stores that Harper provided. She didn't want to put Laina and Corliss out, even though she knew Laina would have happily fed them. She had gotten up early to have the three of them be on their way with something warm in their bellies shortly after the two woke up. She hadn't gone too far out from the tree and had waited until the sun had broke through the darkness enough to scare most of the shadow dogs away.

She collected her spoils by the tail and went around the boulder and beyond a few trees to where she had left her hunting supplies. She strapped the fresh kernen up to bleed out, placing it high enough that the average opportunistic predator couldn't get to it. Afterwards she set off back into the trees. She thought she had seen a smattering of leafy foliage nearby that looked like leeks.

As she turned a corner, she saw a sight that stopped her in her tracks. In the light of daybreak, she saw the turquoise wisps of the creature wafting about in the morning air. It hadn't seen her yet. It's face was down in a patch of grass, pulling and yanking up it's own morning meal with her teeth. Her tall muscular haunches and hoofed legs were smoking in steady clouds of the colorful mist that matched the shade of her thin shiny coat. It was a bispin.

Her mother had talked a lot about these. She always said it was her favorite Dezuian animal.

"The bispin," she had said, "cares for no rider. They are the steed most sought after and the rarest to be ridden. That's because the bispin knows what it means to be free."

Talia was frozen as she stared at it. It's mane of turquoise smoke was still puffing peacefully from the back of its neck. It hadn't noticed her yet. Which was a good thing for two reasons. First, she knew bispin were omnivorous and were not above eating a person or anything else it could manage. It certainly had the teeth to manage it. But secondly, a bispin on its own was hard to find, but a bispin with a saddle on its back; that could only mean one thing. And it was not good for any of them.

She slipped silently behind the tree she had just walked out from. She leaned her back against the trunk and breathed as silently as she could. The bispin lifted her head. She looked around with her slightly iridescent white eyes. The trot of its investigation made it to Talia's ears.

Talia looked up and jumped towards the low hanging branch above her head. The rattling leaves as she pulled herself up was too much. The bispin turned the corner and looked up the trunk at the young woman clinging with her arms and legs wrapped around the branch above. The creature bared it's glowing white teeth in a snarl that Talia found disturbing in its strange silence. To her surprise, the elegant and suddenly fearsome looking creature turned from her and trotted away, leaving its colorful mist behind.

Talia cursed herself, feeling like a fool. Whenever climbing trees didn't work as a strategy she often felt like a little girl simply climbing trees. But this is what she had been taught for her survival. And it did usually work. But not this time. Not with the cleverness of a bispin. The thing had seen her and run with a saddle on its back. This wasn't the move of an animal operating purely on instinct. This was an animal trained. And whoever trained it, Talia was sure it had gone to them just now to consult. She dropped from the tree and quickly began to run.

The crack of splintering wood rang out through the forest. Talia burst through the trees just in time to see the tree the three of them had slept in over night, slowly begin to tilt and fall. Then it was stopped. She saw the hammocks of the Cairo and Julian rock to the side as they moved to match gravity in the sideways tree. A massive furry hand was wrapped around the tree trunk. He held it like he was in the middle of dipping a woman in a dance. She knew him immediately. His horned head turned in her direction with his blazing yellow eyes in a blank and deliberate stare. His wide and freshly swung battle axe held in repose at his side. It was Dai.

"The king neglected to include you in the details, Huntress," he said in his smooth and base filled voice, "I regret that."