Amber dug her fingers into her thick hair and tugged nervously on the long brown strands. She braced herself, preparing for the worst. “What do I do? What do I do?” she thought frantically. She ducked down behind a tree trying to hide and never before had she been so grateful to be small because it increased her odds of remaining undetected.
She endeavored to call the fire into her hands but she couldn’t even make a spark. She doubted it would have helped much against a rock elemental anyway, but it would have been comforting to have some sort of weapon. She tried to console herself with the fact that the other great thing about being small was speed.
With no other option left she took a deep breath and took off running. She darted a quick glance over her shoulder and then focused her attention back on the treacherous path in front of her. “Don’t trip. Don’t die,” she repeated over and over again like a mantra.
The ground was covered with rocks and twigs and the rain had turned the fallen leaves into a slippery mess. The rock elemental was gaining on her rapidly. Amber screamed when the burning tree elemental darted in front of her and jumped to the side to get out of its pathway.
She saw the rock elemental grab the burning tree elemental and snap it in half like it was a tiny matchstick and not a giant full sized tree. She stayed, still praying that it wouldn’t notice her as he beat the tree into a pulp even jumping up and down on it until all the flames at last went out. Amber held her breath, afraid to make any sound at all as the rock elemental paused and rotated his head around, almost as if he smelled the air.
He began to move around, beating out any small traces of fire before they could grow or spread further. Amber couldn’t believe it when he walked right past her without detecting her presence. She stared in awe as he raised up his arms and the earth began to rumble and open up beneath him.
When he’d completely disappeared beneath the surface of the earth again Amber slowly heaved herself to her feet. The immediate threat may have disappeared but none of that changed the fact that she couldn’t stay in the woods. She had to find the nearest town.
When she was younger her father had told her stories about how some of the smaller towns didn’t have big walls like their city but that they still had wards to protect them. Some people even had them on their houses. Oh how she wished she’d paid more attention to her father. He’d even tried to teach her about some of the basic wards, but she’d never seen the point in it since she had always been protected by the walls of the city.
When she heard the whimpering sound her first instinct was to run. But it sounded like a little child crying and her humanity won out over her drive to survive. She moved slowly trying not to make a sound as she approached. With every step she took closer she could only hope that it wasn’t a trap.
She pulled back a tree branch and winced as the rough needles scratched into her arm. The keening sounds grew louder when she pulled back the branch as if the tree had been acting as a muffler. There sitting on the ground before her was a little boy.
He was filthy, covered from head to toes in mud and what looked to be layers of grime. Not that she was one to judge covered in all of the muck and mud of the forest, but hers was recent and his looked like it had been slowly building up over a period of days or even weeks.
He was so thin that his cheekbones were unusually pronounced and his hair was so matted with leaves and other debris that it was hard to tell what color it was. Amber’s first thought was to turn around before he saw her. She couldn’t even take care of herself right now, let alone another person.
But she knew she’d never forgive herself if something happened, and she knew that in a world full of violent and powerful elementals it was only a matter of time before something horrible did indeed happen to him. His obvious misfortune tugged at her heartstrings when she became aware of the fact that he couldn’t have been more than seven years old.
“What are you doing out here all alone?” Amber asked.
The little boy started sobbing and she realized too late that that might not be the best or even the most sensitive of questions. She felt totally out of her element, like a fish out of water, and she didn’t know what to do so she dropped to her knees on to the ground next to him and began patting him softly on the back.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
The little boy shook his head no from side to side.
“Where are your parents?”
The little boy didn’t answer and Amber knew deep down that something horrible must have happened to his parents. Amber briefly considered her options before she launched into action. She stood up and adjusted the strap to her satchel, amazed that she hadn’t lost it in the course of all the frenzied running.
“Would you like to come with me?”
The little boy nodded yes and Amber leaned over and held out a hand to help pull him to his feet. Somehow she always felt better when she’d finished deliberating and made a decision. Whether it was a good idea or not, once she’d resolved to do something she didn’t have to worry about it anymore.
He took her hand and Amber pulled him to his feet and they continued to hold hands as they started walking. It started raining again and they were both soaking wet and freezing but without shelter they had no choice but to keep walking. There were sounds of things moving in the forest and Amber hoped it was animals and not elementals because, storm or no, night had descended in full.
Incendiary the Fire Elemental Series 