From The Ashes by Ian Alexander, Joshua Graham Read Free Book Online Page B

facing the arena, but Ying could see Chi gathering a group of his fellow townsmen together for some kind of attack.   Perhaps all was not lost.   Ying shrugged and glared at the Elder.   “Choose your final words with care. Your death is at hand.”
    With one hand, the Elder snatched a crossbow from one of his archers and pointed it straight into Ying’s chest.   But Ying could not help but focus over the Elder’s shoulder where the pyre in which his beloved Mei Liang’s form burned brighter still.   Even the Chungan soldiers backed away from the flames, shielding their eyes from the blinding light and rising heat.   It was so overpowering that they didn’t notice furtive movements of Chi and his men holding stones and the spears of the fallen contestants which they’d picked off the arena grounds.
    “I don’t truly believe those tales of the Sojourners myself,” the Elder said, “But one can never be certain, can one?”
    “Is that why Xieh Di wishes to subdue this entire region?   Because of what might be?   Haven’t you heard?   The Sojourners have been all but extinct for centuries.”
    “And what about you?   Are you not a Sojourner?”
    Before he could reply, a fierce battle cry flew up.   Chi’s men rushed up the steps with their weapons aimed.   The Lord Regent sighed, turned and pointed his crossbow at the peasants.   He nodded over to his archers, “Dispatch them at once.”
    They were helpless against the arrows.   In an instant, they’d all be killed.   “Wait!”   Ying tried to reach out and stop as many Chungan soldiers as he could, but could not move without getting a sword or arrow thrust through his body.  
    And just as the bowstrings twanged, the arrows whistled through the air, something most remarkable happened.
    At first, Ying thought a bolt of lightning had lit the sky.   It left him partially stunned and blinded.   But the sky was blue and the only clouds that hung in the air were cottony white.   The sound was neither a crack nor an explosion, but something that resembled a mighty wind.
    Just before his eyesight returned, the rushing wind blew over everyone with the force of a gale and the heat of a furnace.   But from where?   And stranger than the looks of bewilderment on everyone’s face, stranger than the enormous ball of fire which had grown from Mei Liang’s burning body into a monstrosity of flames, were the arrows which for a moment stood perfectly still, suspended in the air in front of Chi and his men’s bodies.  
    In the space of a breath, the arrows turned to ashes and fell to the ground.   At the very same moment—for this all took place in the time it takes to blink—the fire in the center of the arena burst out in all directions.   A curtain of flames stretched up into the sky, its heat warming Ying’s face.  
    Some of the Chungan soldiers cowered back and made frightened sounds.
    Even the Elder took a step back, “Courage, men! You are warriors, not children!”   But the trepidation in his own voice betrayed him.   The sight of the inferno whose flames resembled limbs groping for purchase, its crackling and howling wind struck awe in all present.
    All except for Ying, who heard her voice again.
    // COME TO THE FIRE, MY LOVE //
     
    Swords and other weapons fell to the ground.   Many of the soldiers covered their eyes and faces because the heat was becoming unbearable.   This left Ying free from the threat of their weapons.   They didn’t even notice when he leapt up and followed the voice in his mind.
    As Ying passed over the heads of the soldiers, the Elder chastised his men and commanded them to pick up their weapons and shoot.
    All eyes were on the fire which writhed like a living creature of enormous proportions.   None of them paid attention to Ying while he hovered above the ground just a few feet from the flames.   Those Chungan soldiers and archers unfortunate enough to be standing too close now lay on the ground, their