Wind Warrior (10 page)

“
Xander!” his grandfather
yelled as the elder man hurried down the street to catch
up.

Xander stuffed his hands deeper into his
jacket pockets and kept walking. His grandfather caught up with a
huff of exertion and fell into step beside his grandson.

“
Come back to the
house.”

“
I don’t think so. You all
have been lying to me my entire life. You, more than
anyone.”

“
Then where will you
go?”

“
Anywhere but
here.”

“
Quit being such a little
kid, Xander. I know you’re angry right now but your life is in
danger.”

Xander stopped walking and turned toward the
old man. “Don’t you think I know that? I took a girl out on a date
and she tried to set me on fire. No one knows the danger I’m in
better than me.”

“
I’m… I’m sorry. You
shouldn’t even be going through this yet.”

Xander furrowed his brow. “That’s the second
time you’ve told me I’m too young.”

“
That’s because you are.
Wind Warriors are born with our powers but they don’t manifest
until you turn twenty-five. I don’t know why you suddenly got your
powers so early. It doesn’t make sense. But if you got them,
there’s a reason.”

Xander’s thoughts drifted to Sammy. He knew
some people looked deceptively young but he doubted she was
twenty-five either.

“
What reason could there be
for ruining my life?”

“
Quit being a drama queen,
boy,” his grandfather growled. “You may not appreciate it but
you’ve been given a great honor.”

“
I don’t appreciate it
because I’m apparently the only person that doesn’t know what the
hell is going on.”

“
Sit,” his grandfather
said, pointing to a bench on the outskirts of a city park. “Sit and
I’ll try to explain it to you.”

Xander hesitated as the older man took a
seat on the bench. With a sigh, he walked over and joined his
grandfather.

“
So what is a Wind
Warrior?”

“
You’ve already figured it
out. We can control the wind—shape it into whatever we want it to
be.”

“
No, I understand that
part. I mean what
is
a Wind Warrior? Why do we even exist?”

“
To explain it in the
simplest terms possible, we’re the guides for humanity. We’re part
of one of the four elements: earth, water, air, and fire. Those
four elements exist in the four elemental castes. You’re a part of
the Wind Caste.”

“
And Sammy is a part of the
Fire Caste.”

“
Exactly. The Wind Caste
served as the spiritual guides for humanity, inspiring them to
reach for the heavens. We were the wise old men sitting on
mountaintops dispensing advice.”

“
No,” Xander joked, his
humor serving as a defense mechanism when he grew increasingly
nervous. “You’re just an old man sitting on a park
bench.”

“
I used to be so much more.
I gave it up.”

“
Why?”

“
Because your father was
right. I was a terrible dad to him growing up, always putting the
duties of the caste above my duties as a father. I think he knew
that I was disappointed when he didn’t become a Wind Warrior. I
swore that it wasn’t too late to be a decent father, so I became a
father and grandfather rather than a warrior.”

Xander was surprised by the depth of his
grandfather’s answer. He never considered the sacrifices the elder
man had made—first for the caste and then after for his family.

“
So if we’re Wind and Sammy
is Fire, then there are whole other groups of Earth and Water
Warriors running around too, right? How come I’ve never heard
anything about them?”

His grandfather shook his head. “Because
there are no Earth or Water Warriors left. There wasn’t even a Fire
Caste until a few decades ago.”

Xander sat forward on the bench. “Where did
the others go?”

“
They died.”

Xander looked mortified but his grandfather
dismissed his concerns with a soft chuckle.

“
No one killed them, if
that’s what you’re thinking. Each element serves its purpose,
helping the evolution of the planet, but no two castes ever exist
at the same time.”

Xander remembered something Sammy had said
in the dilapidated house. “Earth gives way to the sea, the sea bows
before the wind—”

“—
the wind feeds the flame,
and the flame burns the world of man back to the earth. I see
you’ve heard it before.”

“
Sammy said it to me—the
Fire Warrior.”

“
Well, she’s a smart girl.
Dangerous but smart.”

“
If no two castes can exist
at the same time, how can there be Fire Warriors now?”

His grandfather looked solemn. “I think you
can figure out that answer.”

“
It’s because our time is
coming to an end, isn’t it?” he sighed.

The old man nodded. “There used to be
thousands of us but we’ve slowly been growing old and passing on
without leaving new Wind Warriors to take our place. You’re the
first new Wind Warrior in over twenty years.”

“
How many of us are
left?”

“
Too few,” his grandfather
replied sadly. “Far too few. The Fire Caste has been born because
our era is nearing its end.”

“
Wait, the prophecy says
that the flames burn the world of man. What does that
mean?”

The elder shrugged. “Exactly what it says.
Don’t look so surprised. Nearly every religion has a prophecy about
the end times, when the Earth as we know it is destroyed and reborn
anew. Christians have Revelations. The Norse had Ragnarok. This is
just our version of the same story.”

Xander stood and turned toward his
grandfather. He couldn’t believe the man he’d known all his life,
the man who showed so much compassion for everyone he met, was so
calm about the end of the world.

“
They’re planning on
destroying the world. How are they not our mortal
enemies?”

“
Because they’re not,” his
grandfather replied gruffly. “They’re not evil people. They’re
fulfilling their role in the natural cycle of
evolution.”

Xander leaned forward until his face was
inches from the old man’s. “No, they’re not. They’re trying to kill
us. There’s nothing natural about that.”

“
I will admit that trying
to kill us isn’t part of the plan. It sounds to me like there’s an
offshoot of the Fire Warriors who don’t want to wait their turn,
especially with a new Wind Warrior being activated after so many
years. Before you, they might have just been content waiting out
their turn for a few more decades.”

“
How do they even know
about me?” he said, walking away from the bench and staring up at
the clear night’s sky.

“
The same way I knew about
you. We’re all connected through the elements. When one of us uses
our abilities, everyone else can sense it. We used to use that
ability whenever a new Wind Warrior reached the age so that we
could bring them into the fold. I guess it makes sense that Fire
Warriors have the same connection to us, though that’s just
speculation.”

Xander cursed himself quietly for being so
stupid. Everything made a lot more sense now. Sammy had shown up to
his class the day after he saved that man from being hit by the
bus. She had to have sensed his power and was sent immediately
afterward. How could he have been so blind?

He sighed and turned back to his
grandfather. “So what do we do now?”

“
We run. We get as far away
as we can and we keep you safe.”

“
And then what? Never use
our powers again? We know they can track us—so we just all live to
a ripe old age until we die of natural causes and the Fire Caste
takes over?”

“
I didn’t say it was a good
plan.”

“
And what happens when they
do take over? What happens to the Earth?”

His grandfather shrugged. “As each of the
Wind Warriors die, I would assume volcanoes would erupt. There
would be city-shattering earthquakes. When the last of us pass on,
the Fire Warriors will be able to fully escape their prison and
roam the Earth.”

Xander shook his head. “Then I’m not
running. I can’t hide and save myself while knowingly damning the
rest of the world.”

“
You’re a stubborn mule of
a boy, you know that?”

“
I’m sure that’s hereditary
too,” he replied with a smile. “So where do we find these Fire
Warriors?”

His grandfather’s smile washed from his
face. Xander felt it too, a sudden surge of energy like the static
charge just before a lightning strike.

From out of the trees in the park behind
them, dark-robed men emerged. In their hands, burning orbs danced
in the darkness.

“
I don’t think finding them
will be a problem,” the old man whispered.

His grandfather launched into the air,
carried upward on a sudden gust of wind, just as the bench ignited
in flames and sparks. The wind died when the old man was nearly
twenty feet in the air, leaving him hovering as he redirected the
wind flow. A sudden downdraft of pressurized air slammed into one
of the Fire Warriors, driving the man into the ground with violent
force.

“
Run, Xander!” his
grandfather yelled. “I’ll hold them off.”

“
No way,” Xander replied.
“I can help.”

He was stepping toward the dark-robed men
when the ground in front of him erupted in a wall of flames. The
flames burned nearly white with an intense heat that washed over
him. Xander staggered backward as his clothes began to smolder and
the air burned in his lungs.

He could barely see his grandfather land on
the far side of the flames. He heard, rather than saw, a roar of a
tornado as it touched down, uprooting one of the trees in the park.
Xander saw the silhouette of a man being launched high into the
night sky and didn’t envy the painful landing he had in his
future.

Beyond the wall of flame, sparks roared into
the night air. Balls of flame exploded against the ground as they
sought the agile old man. One of the Fire Warriors stretched out
his hands and a jet of flame poured across the field. His
grandfather rolled to the side but the flames ignited the side of
his shirt. A quick arctic breeze froze the shirt and extinguished
the flames but Xander could hear his grandfather’s labored
breathing over the din of battle.

He waved his hand and a futilely small gust
of wind crashed against the wall of fire. Instead of breaking
through, the wind only fed the flames that grew more intense in
response.

Frustrated, Xander stepped further away.
Maybe his grandfather was right? He barely knew how to control his
powers. Maybe he was a bigger liability by sticking around. Maybe
he should run, like his grandfather had asked.

A scream split the air, a throaty yell that
sounded close to a mix of pain and coarse coughing. Xander knew
that sound and the cough that accompanied it. His grandfather was
hurt.

He closed his eyes and bit back the tears of
frustration. “Please, I know you can hear me. You used me as a
vessel when you helped save that man from the bus. Help me save
another of your children. Use me however you have to, just save my
grandfather!”

The wind turned from a faint breeze to a
gusting hurricane that nearly knocked Xander from his feet. The
wind blew from behind him but never passed his body. It poured into
him like water into a pail, filling him quickly to the brim. The
gusting wind whispered to him as it filled his essence, speaking in
a language he didn’t understand but telling a story he knew all too
well. In that divine moment, Xander reached a point of celestial
clarity.

With a wave of his hand, the wind crashed
into the wall of flames. The fire swirled madly before burning down
to hot coals on the ground. Xander stepped through, his eyes
glowing a frigid white in the moonless night.

The Fire Warriors were frozen in a horseshoe
around his grandfather, who knelt on one knee clutching his chest.
Before the first Fire Warrior could turn toward the new threat,
Xander formed a ball of air in his hand and whipped it outward. The
ball crashed into the nearest warrior, lifting him from his feet
and throwing him into the depths of the park. Xander heard him
crash into a tree and heard the splintering of wood from the
impact.