Daughter of Fire

By K. B. Forrest

Korin is a slave—beaten and abused, but never broken. Every day she watches the soldiers of the Imperial Army practice and wishes she were one of them. One day, her slave supervisor attempts to blame her for the catastrophic loss of the army’s herd. In the resulting dispute, she accidentally kills him and flees to the army camp, where she is mistaken for a minor officer.

Thus begins Korin’s journey in the land of free men. She doesn’t ever want to return to her old life. When crazy Antiochus, a superior officer, takes her in and covers for her, she takes up her duties with a passion. All is threatened when a fellow slave recognizes and reports her. Will they call her bluff and engage in a sword duel meant to uncover her real identity? Worse yet, the last of the pureblooded demons, Vorak, has taken an intense interest in her. He suspects, like the others, that there is more to Korin than meets the eyes.

Could Korin’s uncanny strength and affinity for the night have a more sinister meaning than she realized? Could she be a demon? Korin must discover the meaning of her strange powers before she gets caught up in something she can’t control.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: Jul 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781771112116

Book preview

Korin is a slave—beaten and abused, but never broken. Every day she watches the soldiers of the Imperial Army practice and wishes she were one of them. One day, her slave supervisor attempts to blame her for the catastrophic loss of the army’s herd. In the resulting dispute, she accidentally kills him and flees to the army camp, where she is mistaken for a minor officer.

Thus begins Korin’s journey in the land of free men. She doesn’t ever want to return to her old life. When crazy Antiochus, a superior officer, takes her in and covers for her, she takes up her duties with a passion. All is threatened when a fellow slave recognizes and reports her. Will they call her bluff and engage in a sword duel meant to uncover her real identity? Worse yet, the last of the pureblooded demons, Vorak, has taken an intense interest in her. He suspects, like the others, that there is more to Korin than meets the eyes.

Could Korin’s uncanny strength and affinity for the night have a more sinister meaning than she realized? Could she be a demon? Korin must discover the meaning of her strange powers before she gets caught up in something she can’t control.

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Daughter of Fire

Copyright © 2012 KB Forrest

ISBN: 978-1-77111-211-6

Cover art by Martine Jardin

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Devine Destinies

An imprint of eXtasy Books

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Smashwords Edition

Daughter of Fire

Fire Demon 1

By

KB Forrest

Prologue

The night was cold and the tribe was hungry. The Paralatae Scythians were no strangers to this rough life. They lived in the wild outlands, rarely coming into contact with civilizations. Their only form of entertainment was hearing the stories of past heroes and their deeds.

Listen, my friends, to the story of Atar the Firestarter.

The oft-told story still held their fascination.

"Hundreds of years ago, Atar, the son of the Firestarter Anacharsis and Queen Cunaxa of Persia, was sent to live in our tribe. He grew up hated for being a foundling and for his inability to speak. Since then, our people never scorn the orphans and the cripples.

"Atar was called the Idiot, and were it not for a werewolf by the name of Bulliwuf, he would have died. The Royal Farr in the form of the great boar, Verethragna, always followed him, but people knew not his greatness. Even when he defeated the ghost of our great progenitor, the first king, Colaxais, and was granted the sacred mace, people ignored his greatness.

"At the same time, Atar’s half-brother, whose father was the evil wizard Dahaka, was also taken in by our tribe. He was granted all power and he became the chief. But his power was eclipsed by that of Atar. Day by day, he became more and more envious, until one day he cried out to the demons. He was granted a terrible boon. He gained power. He became the emperor, but he gave up his humanity.

"The kiss of a demon allowed his body to give rise to two monsters who appeared as dragon-snakes on his shoulders. Every day they demanded the brains of men as food. The people rose against him. The blacksmith Kava led a rebellion. They enlisted the Firestarter, Atar, as their general, and with his help, they chased the Dragon King away. Eventually he returned, but the heroes Atar, Bulliwuf, and Kava enacted a terrible punishment. They chained him deep in Mount Damavand. There he lives even today, but some say that before he was imprisoned, he fathered a son.

"This son was taken to Arabia, where he lived and gave rise to a people, a tribe called the Turanians. That son cursed Persia again and again. He vowed that his people would one day take back the kingdom. Some say the day has already arrived. The king of the Seven Kingdoms who calls himself Zohak II is said to be a direct descendant of that cursed monster.

Now that the pages of history stand poised to repeat the evil story, only the gods know if a hero like Atar shall rise to put an end to his evil reign. We, the wild Paralatae, stay far from such evils. Wicked enough are the wolves, both two legged and four legged who steal our herds. We thank Api that we are far from the clutches of the Dragon King of the Seven kingdoms.

Chapter One

Moonlight fell over the girl who was curled up on worm-eaten burlap sacks against the autumn breezes that swept over the grasses of Verethragna’s plain. The only thing above her was the vault of stars and a silver crescent moon that seemed to shed a cold light.

Not far from where the girl slept, the tent city spread out into the distance. None of the soldiers of the Persian army stirred, except for the bored sentries making their rounds through the neat rows. Beyond the far edge of camp, barely visible on the horizon, was the great city of Pasargadae, where Emperor Zohak II himself lived.

Korin shivered and opened her eyes a second before Mogpaste’s strangled shriek cut through the silence.

Get up, you worthless gourd head! What are you doing sleeping so late? Do you want Master Sheed to send you to the slave block again?

Korin lurched to her knees. She never wanted to go back to the slave block. Just because they had been unable to sell her last time didn’t mean they wouldn’t be more successful if they tried again. She began to roll up the threadbare burlap sacks that had covered her.

A vicious blow to the back of her head sent her sprawling onto her face. A stone on the ground cut into her, but she refused to cry out. Mogpaste cracked his hobnailed boot against her ribs and Korin scrambled to get away.

Get to work, you useless sack of mule dung or I swear on Mithra’s crooked member I’ll sell you for half a copper to the salt mines!

He tried to kick her again, but she sprinted away from him, snatching her herding stick and stumbling away from their crude campsite. Mogpaste ran after her, cursing, but his foot got caught on a small brass pot near his bedroll.

He squealed and flailed his arms for balance. Korin ran away toward the herd-beasts. She disappeared from Mogpaste’s sight into a slight dip in the land, where the night mist had gathered more heavily.

Behind her, she could hear Mogpaste’s cursing fade, but she didn’t slow down. As Korin glanced up into the sky to orient herself, she noticed that the moon hadn’t reached its zenith. Mogpaste often woke her up before he was supposed to, but this was early even for him.

What a useless heap of rotting entrails, she said.

Her body was still warm from sleep, but now she shivered as the wind tore at her. She scanned the moonlit landscape for the endless herd. The night was too still. Where were they? She spotted them in the distance. How could Mogpaste have let them wander so far?

Korin ran forward and realized that the large goat herd was churning with agitation. But where was the smaller herd of precious cows?

She stopped and caught the bovine odor that hung in the air.

They must be close.

There was something else she sensed. Blood. High yips made her whirl around. Not far off, a pack of wolves was defending their kill against a herd-beast. The other herd-beasts were clustered around the spot, bellowing. Korin’s night vision was unusually keen, and from where she stood, she could make out the tiny, blood-spattered hoof of a slaughtered heifer.

So, this was why Mogpaste had awoken her up. He must have fallen asleep and let the wolves kill the calf without sounding the alarm. Now Mogpaste would tell Master Sheed that it was all her fault and she would be beaten.

Maybe she would be sold.

The thought hardened into certainty. Her hands trembled as she clutched the herding stick and felt the cold night dew on her bare feet. One goat could feed many men, it was a serious offense to let one die, but the death of one of the large cattle was inexcusable.

The mother herd-beast lowed and charged at the wolves with her head down. Her blunt horns connected with a wolf’s flank, and it screamed as it was tossed into the air. It landed without whimpering and was trampled.

Korin backed away as the roiling herd drifted close to her. Her herding stick seemed like small protection against the enormous creatures. A bellow rent the air and Korin could feel the earth shake. The herd’s bull came thundering into view with his horned head held alert. She could hear the flap of the dewlap on the bull’s neck, and the popping sound of the tough grassroots being sliced by his massive hooves.

He was almost twice the size of the cows. Now he was only a few horse-lengths away from Korin. Iridescent gray eyes met