2. Fire from Heaven, part 2: Afterburn
They found a place to rest in the woods that border that border the plain. They were unnamed for good reason: the villagers and farmers who lived nearby were afraid of the woods, as the goblins often came here for their bloody feasts.
Bartz set the fire and tied Boko to a tree. It took him several tries to get the fire started, but eventually a small flame was lit. He took out some oil and spread it over the wood, causing a huge blossom of flame, and then sat down next to it, pulling out some rabbit meat and roasting it over the fire using a silver splinter from his pack.
It was quiet, except for the blowing ashes and the wind in the trees. The stars were incredibly bright tonight; the moon was behind a cloud, half-shrouded in a dim sheath of gray, the other half like a broken face.
Boko whined, and tried to break out of the rope. Bartz dropped the meat, and tried to quiet him down.
"What's wrong, boy?" he whispered to him, stroking his hair.
As if in response, he snapped his neck again, this time with more violence, and the rope came apart like a piece of thread. He was a strong chocobo, and his impact caused him to prance forward, clambering over Bartz and disappearing into the darkness of the forest.
Bartz lay on the ground, feeling his arm. It felt like it was broken, but he had known enough pain to quell it before it caused him too much of a distraction. Boko was not easily startled: he was a chocobo of war, one bred by a local king who had his share of battles with the darkness. Bartz was suddenly afraid, and the pain came back to him with full force. He fell on his back and watched up at the sky, and suddenly felt the pit of his stomach reach into his throat.
There was a screaming in the air. It was as if the stars in the sky shifted aside to make room for something. The screaming grew louder, and suddenly the fire pit exploded into a bulbous flame, spitting out sparks to an impossible distance. Bartz brushed the smoldering flames off him; he felt the ground heave, dip, and roll about like the wave of an ocean.
As the sound came to its zenith, a dark shape roared across the night sky. It was covered in flames, as if it were the hand of God coming to destroy the world. It was the size of a small town, with pitted sides like it had been forged in a smithy. It screamed through the air, and as it passed by silence followed, like the afterburn of its flight carried some mysterious spell.
There was an ultimate quiet, and then the voices came. The goblins, in their bacchalic and mesmerizing singing, called out into the night veil like wolves in heat. Bartz tried to move, but found the pain too great.
"Boko!" he cried out. He was desperate; if the goblins found him here, they would cut him apart and use his skin as ornamentation. Or their madness would spill into him, and he would become a haunt of the moon, spreading chaos and blood across the Earth until someone ended his suffering by sticking a piece of metal in his gullet.
"Boko!"
Out of the corner of the wood, his chocobo came, bounding towards him, with fire in his eyes. Bartz struggled with getting up, and then threw himself on the back of the chocobo, using his good leg to slip through the leather of his pack.
"Go," he said. The howling was closer.
"Go!" he shouted. Boko danced a few steps, and then trailed out of the moon. He could hear the sound of the goblins rushing into the campground and their delight at the fire licking the night sky.