The humans outside were warriors, but whose? I may have been summoned to fight, but what if I had been created to make peace? Those outside could be humans I should have been sworn to protect.

I simply did not know, and so I remained frozen beside the dead woman's husk. I almost asked her who the humans outside were, but I remembered her wet gargle, and winced. The woman may have known, but the husk was only an empty shell wearing her skin.

Outside, the kapatana ordered her warriors to surround the tent with weapons at the ready. If anyone fled the tent, the warriors were to gore them on their spears. They were men of the (Konic Empire), and she would not see them tremble before (pagan maijiks).

The shout brought me an unexpected measure of calm. There could be no doubt now that those outside were the dead woman's enemies. And an Empire at that. They must have been (invaders), though that still did not make my purpose clear.

What it did mean, however, was that the warriors outside likely knew even less than I. Some small part of me had hoped these new humans could offer me direction, but they seemed more inclined to skewer me on their spears.

"Cibor," the kapatana shouted. It sounded like a name. "Loose (Our Father's) fire on the heathens!"

I listened to the clink-clank as the armored warriors surrounded the tent. They muttered the same words, Our Father, under their breaths in (prayer). The same kind of devotion that must have called me to this tent, though their words were spoken without the same power.

My breath stilled and the tent seemed to shift out from underneath me as I realized what I had just said. Summoned through prayer. But this Father the warriors whispered about outside had to be one of their gods. Why would I have been called forth through the same zealous intercession?

I was allowed but two empty breaths of disturbed thought before the world fell silent. For the briefest of moments the noise of the warriors, the minute flap of the tent, the distant calls of war, everything held its breath as though in anxious anticipation.

And then the world roared.

The tent's leather cover was ripped away in a wreathe of fire. A great wall of blue flame twisted and strangled the tent's wooden frame. I could not see the morning blue or the warriors of steel through the red-blue violence of the summoned flame.

The grass floor of the tent instantly turned a charred black, and the bowl and knife disappeared in a crinkle of ash. The dead woman's strange clothes danced in a puff of multicolored smoke as they burst into flame.

But the fire merely tickled my skin. Even the husk was left unharried. The dead woman's hair was whipped about by the force of the flame, but it did not catch or burn.

I stood, oddly erect, as the wheel of fire slowed its mad twirl. I snatched glimpses of the Konic warriors from beyond the flame. Their metal armors glowed red in reflection, and the eyes that I found wore the dead woman's fear.

"Charge!" the kapatana shouted as the wall of fire fell. She did not wear the same metal armor as her warriors, but rather colored vestments of leather.

The roar of fire disappeared and was at once replaced by the roar of man. I glanced around the hilltop as no less than seven warriors huffed and screamed with their spears level with my chest and throat.

I shared in none of their fear as their steel glistened in the high sun and smoldering grass. I thought of the dead woman and her knife, and said, "Put down your spears."

The first of the spears pushed through my left breast. It was immediately followed by a second that ran through the smooth skin of my stomach. A third sheared past my neck as I stumbled in surprise.

"Stop that!" I said as blood bubbled to my lips, but the men did not.

Two of the warriors pinned me to the ground with their spears while the others turned into butchers. Pain did not accompany the wet blood. Where the steel entered and fled, all I felt was an uncomfortable tickle.

The kapatana shouted a command over (the melee), but I did not listen. The warriors abandoned their spears in my flesh as they fled. I scarcely offered their backs more than a glance.

Because it made no sense. One sentence had been enough to separate the dead woman's hands from her arms. A second sentence had stopped the heart in her chest.

The world stilled and quieted as like before, and then erupted in a monstrous roar of red-blue fire. The summoned flames ran across my impaled body like a hundred searching snakes.

"S-stop that," I said, my words hesitant.

One of the blue tendrils of flame trembled, unsure, and in its reluctance tickled a memory free from the fog in my head.

"Get off of me," I said, my voice full of confidence, and the summoned fire bounced off my skin as though in sudden embarrassment. It landed on some of the Konac warriors who howled with fiery pain.

I smiled in victorious recollection, and said, "Burn these spears to ash."

I could feel the Konac maij wrestle for control over his fire. They pulled and tugged as an infant would when their favorite toy is taken from them, but there was no contest. I was too strong.

The fire gnawed at the wooden shafts of the spears, and I was quickly freed. Those Konac warriors who did not writhe on the ground as blue flames tickled their armored bodies stumbled away in fear. Some made frantic gestures in prayer.

I glanced at the dead woman's husk, but the warriors had ignored her. I do not know why, but it brought me relief to see her unhurt. I had to remind myself she was already dead.

I turned my attention back to the Konac warriors and their maij. The kapatana had called the man Cibor, and it was not hard to tell which one he was. Of all the gathered warriors, only one wore deep blue robes colored with bright squiggly lines. He was rail thin, and the face beneath his blue robes was pinched and almost milk white.

Cibor the maij turned to the kapatana, a young woman with brilliant golden hair, worry written clear across his sweaty face. The kapatana seemed to share his unease. She stood stock still, frozen despite the blue flames that tickled and prodded some of her dying warriors.

I looked them all over with a satisfied smile, the frightened warriors and their terrified leaders, a strange emotion filling my chest.

"Come back to me," I said, and the remaining tendrils of red-blue fire bounded across the plains as though it were a (well-trained dog).

"Very curious," I said as I stroked my smooth chin. It seemed I could control maij and their maijiks, but not simple warriors and their steel spears.

I took a moment to consider how best to continue.