A Plague of Giants (Seven Kennings #1) - Kevin Hearne Page 0,82

its trailing vines blocked his path, he shouted a curse and pointed his axe, and flame traveled up the handle to the head and sent a gout from the blade, lighting the vines on fire. He was lavaborn—and he alone, since none of the others had set anything alight. And it was precisely that ability that was so dangerous to the Canopy. The bantil vines blackened and shriveled, and he stepped across them into safety before stoking the flames higher and making sure the entire bantil plant would be consumed—along with his erstwhile companion, who had stopped screaming but was still being eaten. I lost sight of the giant after that; he was hidden behind a wall of flame and writhing vines. He left the others to die, I noted, but perhaps he realized there was nothing he could do to save them now. A strategic retreat was his only option, and it was mine as well.

My muscles wouldn’t obey me, though. I couldn’t get up; channeling all that energy had wiped me out, and the fire most likely would move faster than I could. No matter; the others had escaped and would warn the Canopy of the danger, and I had served the Canopy above myself as a greensleeve should.

I lost some time in the darkness, a blissful time when the screams and the flames all faded, and woke up as someone grunted and tried—unsuccessfully—to lift me onto a horse. It wasn’t Kam Set Sah or Pak Sey ben Kor. It was my cousin Pen Yas ben Min.

“What’re you doing?” I mumbled.

“What needs doing,” she replied. “Pak was saying you shouldn’t have sprouted the bantil plants and Kam was telling him he has the brains of a puffweed, and neither of them was saving you. Can you just help a little bit? Get yourself draped across the horse and I’ll walk you down.”

She gave me an undignified push on the rear, and I scrabbled weakly across the saddle, draping across it much like a sack of barleycorn. There were no sounds of dying now from the hounds or their houndsmen, only the sound of the fire behind me and the three other young bantil plants feeding on their kills and growing at their natural rate.

“Have you seen the last Hathrim?”

“The lavaborn? You mean he got away?” Pen asked.

“Unless one of you killed him, yes.”

“We didn’t see him come our way. We just saw him briefly as a silhouette and assumed you must have gotten him after that since he didn’t start any more fires.”

“No, he didn’t need to,” I said. “I think he just wanted to get away, like us.”

“I’m glad he did.” She took the horse’s lead to guide us downhill, watching out carefully for any scattered bantil seeds or vines that might have slithered across her path since she had passed. She had a bright yellow glow bulb in one hand to help her see, brighter than the ones I was used to.

“Where’d you get that glow bulb?”

“Jak had it with him.”

“Who?”

“Jak Bur Vel. The boy who wants to be a mushroom farmer?”

“Oh. Sorry, I think it’s me who has the brains of a puffweed.”

“He’s really into fungus like this. Told me all about the Silver Carp Clan that harvests these in the caves near the Raelech border.”

She was talking fast, obviously nervous, and I listened to her talk about Jak and his strange fungus collection so that I wouldn’t have to listen to the bantil plants eating. Pen might have been talking for the same reason. I grunted in appropriate places as we picked our way downhill to the Canopy, where the others waited. Jak and Kam were relieved to see me and heaped praise on Pen for rescuing me. Pak Sey ben Kor, I noticed, said nothing as they helped me off the horse and braced me between them. I met his eyes and asked him a question.

“Did you report what happened already through root and stem?”

“Not yet.”

“Then let’s do so now, together, as agreed.”

“Let’s talk first about what you just did,” the Black Jaguar said, pointing at the fire. “You used your bantil seed, and now there are hundreds more of them up there. You’ve effectively turned the pass into a major hazard.”

“The lavaborn are a major hazard to the Canopy,” I replied. “And thanks to the bantil plant, the one they brought with them never got this far.”

“He’s going to get reinforcements.”

“And so will we. I think we should request them now and