Old Wounds//A Svae short

~Old Wounds

"Get them within the circle."  
A dark shadow descended upon the village as impenetrable black clouds rolled overhead, chittering screams echoing down across miles of open farmland while wagons full of the season's harvest trundled over the narrow bridge that led into town.  A fiery-feathered woman stood at the far end, symbols arrayed before her feet, protective runes emblazoned with her power.  The masterful weaver who had scratched them into the ground, a full month of his labor inscribing his magic into a circle around the village, was out there now, at the farthest farmhouse trying to help two elderly terata make it into town before the storm hit.
"But Rishara, you don't need to stay out here.  When those clouds come down--"
"I'll be fine.  Go."
Little Yanchu's ears drooped, and then he was gone.  He was dreadfully worried about his father, the weaver who--with her aid--had protected this place.  She knew, in a soft but seldom heeded corner of her heart, that he was dreadfully worried about her, too.
The shadow deepened as the sun disappeared behind the shrieking black clouds, and she could hear the commanding voice underneath that chaos, the mumbling, frenetic rancor of the creature her King named Icthiel.
Somewhere in the heart of that mass, she thought.  I will find him.  Her fires flared.  The last of the wagons were coming in, and with them the food the teratas would need to survive until the next season.  Uncounted trillions of insects swarmed above, waiting to descend upon them in one fell wave, hesitating only because of her, and the promise of death her fire brought.  She craned her neck to look straight above as the last shaft of sunlight was drowned out by the shifting masses above, and their chirping squeals came down as sharp laughter in her ears.  Somewhere up there...one of those trillions, or was it all of them?...she would find him.  She spread her wings and brilliant streamers of flame whipped out across the fields, torching them as the last remnants of the terata farmers stumbled their way along the trail to the safety of the village.  She regretted that their lands had to be her battleground, but the choice had not been hers.
With a single downward stroke of her wings, she soared into the sky, her feathers igniting as the air rushed across them, purifying incandescence glowing from her plumage as she climbed ever higher.  The deafening, maddening sound of the swarm was rebuffed by her roaring blaze and with a triumphant shout she propelled herself into the heart of the blackness.  Their laughter turned to screams of terror as her fires caught, and they fell by their tens of thousands to the ruined earth below.  Her fire went before her and behind, fanned by each sweeping wing beat and fueled by hatred for the thing that was manifest in each flying, stinging pest before her.  They crashed in from both sides, seething waves of bodies, but all shriveled and died before the furnace of her wrath.  Rishara burned, fierce as the sun, within the heart of the storm as the last teratas made their way within the protective wards of the village.
There, last to return, was the weaver, Yanwei.  He limped raggedly within the circle, a hundred stings swelling up under his skin as several of his neighbors moved in to help carry him the rest of the way.  Wordlessly, Yanchu padded after them, tears in the boy's eyes as his father was half-lifted toward the town square.  It was by his wisdom that they had been spared.  Not a single insect had penetrated his barrier.  His magic, and the power of the spirit with whom he had allied, had saved them.  Someone was holding his hand, it was his wife, Yanchu's mother.  She was caressing his hair with two other hands, holding him close and whispering soothing words into his ear as he blearily blinked the pain away.  The last of the farmers had made it back alive.  He had done well.  So well.  They would treat his injuries, and then he would be fine.  Then everything would be fine.
He lifted his head, slowly, painfully, his face a mask of anguish as he looked her in the eye and mouthed the words he had no breath to carry.  I'm sorry.  Then he jerked his mouth open as wide as he could, the bone cracking as his jaw became impossibly distended, and he vomited a shrieking black cloud onto his wife.  Their son watched in mute horror as the flying, voracious insects began to consume her, digging furiously into her skin and eyes, their gleeful laughter drowning out her mortal cries as the cloud grew.  A glassy look was in Yanwei's eyes now, his death so apparent that it was a shock it had not been noticed sooner: the color had drained from his pale face and it seemed now as though he had been a corpse all the while.  He collapsed onto his side, and still the cloud of murderous locusts flew from his open mouth, a promise of death more certain than anything the farmers had ever known.  His mind broken, little Yanchu ran, straight on from the town square past the protective runes and into the fires of the fields where no insects dared approach.

***

The ravening spirit called Icthiel ate well that day, and even as his untold legions died in the skies above, he fattened up a new one on the flesh of those who had fled his hunger.  No one, no plant nor beast nor man nor god had the right to divert him.  His course was unstopping, unreasoning, but not unfeeling.  The desperation of his hunger and the mindless drive of his hordes were beautiful, moreso than any other thing in the retched world, and were not to be opposed.  The world was there to be consumed, and to do so was both inevitable and righteous.
When Rishara finally came down, the skies were clear once again, and it was the charred earth that was tainted black.  The runes which had protected the town from her blazes were dispelled with a gesture, and quietly she approached through the writhing carpet of his children, who sizzled and died at her feet.
"Icthiel."
He regarded her with a billion insect eyes, and as one the swarm replied.
"Rishara.  The king has sent you on a fool's errand."
"A fool's errand to contain you?  Yes.  Maybe."
She knelt down before the picked-over corpse of the man who had beseeched her aid.  She had done what she could for him, for his people.  She had even gotten close to some of them.  A foolish notion, to get attached to something so transient.  The runestone talisman at his neck was the only thing that had been spared: even the weave of his clothes had been devoured by Icthiel's boundless hunger.  Standing erect, she studied the tiny stone, such focused magic there, the last work of a master talent extinguished before its time.  She threw it to the ground amidst the insects.  They recoiled, then engulfed it in curiosity.
"Yes...I taste the magic, but what it is it?  What is its meaning?"
"It is your cage."
The raucous laughter began explosively, but Rishara's fires flared in answer and it quickly died down.  A thousand insects died at her display of anger.
"The king is no fool, Icthiel.  He has authorized me to destroy you if you refuse."
"Destroy me?"  The uncounted voices trilled in indignant fear.  "My hunger is undeniable.  My purpose unequivocal.  Destroy me?  For them?  I am greater than all of them.  Purer.  I am hunger without end.  I am clarity."
She shook her head.  Her fire brightened.
"You are gluttony, and the feast is over."  Wind whipped around her as heat bent the air.  Her blazing eyes fell upon the mound of scuttling bodies where the talisman fell.  "Because you cannot consume my fire.  But my fire..."  Icthiel's screams echoed through the air.  "Can consume you."