Chased by Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 1) Read online

  Another, weaker crack came as the ice split again. Two smaller creatures crawled forth and followed the first, neither looking at Tan. They disappeared into the growing night onto the far shore. Tan thought that would be the last he would see of the creatures, but moments later they erupted over the treetops, huge wings beating the air, and circled the lake a moment before soaring up and over the nearest mountain and disappearing.

  Tan sighed, feeling a sense of peace for the first time since making contact with the draasin, and prayed the connection in his mind had been broken. Amia sighed as she watched the draasin disappear.

  Time to hunt, little warrior.

  The thought exploded into Tan’s mind, forcing him to cover his ears as if he could actually hear the words. Tan had thought the connection had been broken, yet it had not.

  Hunt well.

  The creature laughed and his awareness of the creature grew fainter. It did not disappear altogether.

  “I don’t know the consequences of what we just did,” Roine said. He had propped himself up and stared after the draasin as well, his face drawn and his eyes wrinkled with concern. “And I am afraid.”

  30

  Away from the Water

  Roine pushed himself to standing and wobbled a moment, leaning on the sword clutched tightly in his fist before steadying enough to sheath it. His eyes watched the horizon, looking up and over the mountain peak the draasin disappeared behind while shaking his head.

  “Nothing more we can do.” He blinked quickly to shake whatever thought had been running through his head. “Can you follow it now?”

  Amia closed her eyes and focused. A shaping built slowly, released as a soft wave rolling toward the mountain. “There,” she pointed.

  Tan followed the direction up along the mountain face. The rock itself was steep and there didn’t appear to be any possible passage or any way to reach the area where she pointed. “How will we get there?”

  Roine waved his hands together in front of his eyes, murmuring under his breath. There was a surge of wind and a spray of cold water. He stared for a moment and then turned back to them. “There’s a path about halfway up.”

  “How can you tell?” Tan asked.

  Roine smiled. “Perhaps my old eyes are stronger than you think, Tan.”

  The relaxed comment gave Tan a sense of relief. Each shaping Roine performed obviously exhausted him. Tan didn’t know what would be required once they found the artifact, but suspected additional shaping would be necessary. Then they had to return. The lisincend were still out there. The hounds still hunted.

  “Are you ready?” Roine asked, more gently than he had in the past.

  Tan offered Amia his hand. She took it and they stood together. She wrapped his cloak around her waist, pulling it tight for warmth. Tan stared, admiring her figure as she did. Amia saw him watching and Tan flushed, turning away. She took his hand, turning him, forcing him to meet her gaze. When she smiled at him, her face glowed. Tan couldn’t help but smile as well.

  She pulled him by his hand, holding it tightly. Roine led them forward, his gait slower than it had been and the limp that had been present ever since finding them again noticeable. They tracked along the shoreline and Tan noticed that the ice slowly melted, liquid water returning to the lake once more. Whatever they’d done with the shaping to release the draasin had also given the lake back to the nymid.

  Near the end of the lake, the ground turned from soft soil to hard rock. Small boulders littered the shore, forcing them to walk around, and occasionally overtop, the rock. Soon they reached the rocky slope that Roine indicated, reaching nearly straight up from the ground and stretching high into the sky overhead. The rock itself was nearly smooth; it had no cracks or handholds by which they could climb up its steep surface.

  “Up?” Roine asked Amia.

  Amia released Tan’s hand and he let her go with reluctance. She closed her eyes briefly and when they reopened, she nodded. “I can’t tell any other direction from here,” she said. “I know we’re below it.”

  Roine sighed. He turned to the rock and opened his hands, palms facing the rock. With a quick shaping, the rock in front of Roine began to crumble. It cracked first then small pieces fell, tumbling to the ground in a small rockslide. Another section of rock cracked and followed the first, higher, and the trail moved its way down toward the ground. One after another there came small cascades of pebbles and rock fragments, each preceded by a tiny snap. As he watched, divots formed in the rock wall appeared, small and regularly spaced.

  Handholds.

  Roine expected them to climb the rock.

  The snapping and trail of rubble continued for long moments until Roine could either do no more or he was too tired to continue. Either way, he slumped down and sat looking dazedly at the rock. Amia’s mouth was fixed in a tight line of worry.

  “I fear that freeing the draasin may have been too much for him,” she said quietly, pitching her words for Tan alone.

  Roine looked up slowly, having heard what she said, and shook his head. “Perhaps it was necessary,” he said. “Perhaps too much. Either way, it’s done.” He pushed himself back up, standing again. “And I’ll be fine. That’s not a difficult shaping, just a repetitive one. That by itself is draining.”

  Tan looked from Roine to the rock wall. “You want us to climb?”

  Roine smiled a half smile. “You can’t fly. I don’t have the strength to call the wind to lift us. So we climb.”

  Roine started first, leveraging his weight up the slope. He moved slowly, carefully, and there was a fluidity to his movements. This wasn’t the first time Roine had climbed this way.

  He made it about halfway up the face of the rock when he paused. “You coming?”

  Tan looked at Amia. “You should go next.”

  She craned her neck to stare up the wall of the rock and then turned back to look at Tan. A smile quirked her lips. “You just want to watch me climb.” She turned away before seeing Tan blush again.

  She moved at a steady pace, her body hugging the rock tightly and her arms and legs moving steadily. Roine had disappeared from view and Amia was soon high enough that Tan felt compelled to follow. He had to admit that he did enjoy watching her climb. She was graceful and lithe and moved in such a way that he couldn’t help but stare.

  Tan wasn’t particularly scared of heights, but the sheer drop made him nervous. There wasn’t anything below him except for rock. He found the handholds to be solid and could move steadily up the face of the rock. He forced himself not to turn or look down, focusing on each handgrip, reaching and pulling himself up as he climbed.

  A soft spray of rock sputtered down toward him from higher up and he waited until it passed. Tan heard grunting, then a cry. He looked up to see Amia dangling. Only one hand held the rock.

  He heard the shaped command ring loudly in his head. Protect me!

  Tan moved quickly, afraid of what would happen were Amia to slip any further. She was too far over for him to have any chance of catching her and high enough up that she wouldn’t survive the fall. He looked for Roine, praying he saw Amia falling and could do something to help her, but he was nowhere.

  Tan practically jumped from handhold to handhold. Amia called out. He heard it equally loud in his mind. Through their shaped connection, he felt her panic. Another spray of rock followed.

  “No! Roine!”

  Time seemed to slow as he saw her fall.

  She spun, flailing her arms wildly, reaching for purchase in the rock, and slipping down. Panic struck him. With it came a surge of pressure and pain unlike anything he had ever known.

  Pressure exploded in his head. His vision spotted for a moment. The wind gusted up from below, whipping at his clothes and stinging his face, forcing Tan to cling to the rock so that he did not get blown off of it.

  And then Amia slowed.

  She practically hovered next to him, floating. Another explosion burst behind his ears and he was forced to close h
is eyes, squeezing tightly to the rock as he did. When he opened them, Amia was gone.

  Panicked, he looked down, fearful that she had completed her fall.

  He saw no sign of her body.

  He scrambled up the rock. The rock split and then opened into the path Roine had seen. Amia lay upon the path, panting. Roine stood over her, a worried look to his face.

  Tan hurried off the rock and collapsed next to Amia. She thanked him silently, though she still shook. He took her face in his hands and touched the top of her head. “Are you…” He couldn’t finish.

  She allowed herself to be soothed and nodded. “A gust of wind saved me.”

  Tan looked up to Roine. He shook his head. “She was saved, but I don’t think I was the one to do it,” he said. “I had wandered down the trail and by the time I saw her, the fall had been slowed.” Roine shook his head again. “I lifted her. That was all.”

  “How, then?” Tan asked.

  Roine looked at Tan with a strange frown. “I don’t know.”

  Tan looked away, turning back to Amia, thankful that she was still alive. He put his arm around her and held her while she shivered. Roine moved up the path, crouching down and leaning his head against the rock and closing his eyes.

  One face of the mountain opened to a small path leading up and around the mountain, circling the huge stone peak. A steep drop led off the other side. Tan was thankful the path was at least wide enough for them to walk side by side comfortably.

  “Where does this go?”

  “I followed it for only a hundred paces or so. Once it twisted around the side of the mountain, I stopped following.”

  Amia finally sat up, holding tightly onto Tan’s arm with her free hand. She stared at Tan, watching his face with her dark eyes. After a while, she turned from Tan and looked at Roine.

  “There are wind elementals?” she asked.

  Roine looked up, his eyes glazed with his fatigue and he shook his head to clear them.

  Amia looked toward the mountain edge and shivered roughly before turning back to Roine. “We have met nymid and draasin on this journey. Water and fire.” She tilted her head as she looked at Roine and inhaled deeply. “There are wind and earth elementals?”

  He nodded slowly as if finally understanding the line of her questioning. “There are,” he said. “But the fact that you’ve now seen two elementals is itself incredibly rare. Probably tied to the power of the lake, the place of convergence. And, I suspect, tied to the artifact.”

  “What are the others?”

  “The great elementals? They are udilm, ara, and golud. Water, wind, and earth. But they, like the draasin, have been gone for centuries. When they still spoke to man, it was their teaching that allowed some of the most skilled shapings to exist.”

  “But the nymid are water elementals.”

  Roine nodded. “The nymid have never disappeared, not really, and never to those who knew how to listen. They’re considered a part of the lesser elementals, more common and weaker than the great elementals. The lesser elementals have never been lost.”

  Tan frowned. “The nymid seemed impressive to me.”

  “If the draasin still live, does that mean that ara and golud still exist?” Amia asked.

  Roine looked at her and frowned. “It’s possible. Though the greatest scholars on the elementals claim they are gone. Much research has gone into this topic, as you can imagine. If they still exist, why have they have broken off contact?”

  “Have they?” Tan said. “Maybe we only stopped listening.”

  Roine looked out over the lake and shrugged.

  “Are all the great elementals as fearsome as the draasin?” Amia asked.

  Roine shook his head. “Not from what I’ve read. They served as teachers, guiding the first shapers. The archives are full of accounts of early shapers guided by the elementals, taught the intricacies of their craft.”

  “You wish you could have learned from them,” Amia commented, staring at him. Sensing him.

  Roine frowned and she turned away. “There hasn’t been a warrior so trained in over five hundred years. That was the last time warriors were truly powerful.”

  Tan looked at Roine with surprise. The man’s shaping and skill was impressive enough, but several times he had commented on the fact that the ancient warriors outstripped him in strength and skill. Tan began to wonder how much greater the ancient warriors truly were.

  “What is the great elemental for spirit?” Amia asked.

  Roine looked at her and shook his head as he answered. “No one has ever discovered an elemental for spirit. Greater or lesser.” He paused, holding Amia’s gaze. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Most of the archivists suspect they exist but have never been seen.”

  “Perhaps they have and were made to forget,” she said.

  Roine leaned back against the rock and startled them by laughing. “Years of study and you’ve offered the first argument that makes sense.”

  As his laughter died, he fell silent.

  Tan rested, holding Amia, and neither of them spoke. They sat on the edge of the trail, quiet, drifting in and out of sleep, as darkness crept overhead, passing into night, and on until daylight cracked once more. Tan was not sure how much he truly slept—it was fitful and full of dreams of soaring in the clouds and hunting—yet when he blinked his eyes open to the breaking day, he felt rested.

  Roine waited, watching them. “We should be off,” he said quietly when he saw Tan waking.

  “The lisincend?” Tan asked. He closed his eyes and searched outward. Within the rock, he felt nothing. There was no disturbance, no sense of the trees or insects, nothing of animals. Just solid stone.

  Roine nodded. “They’re back there. Probably trying to figure out the rock. The climb should slow them more than it slowed us. Still, we should hurry.”

  Tan woke Amia and she smiled at him sleepily before rubbing her eyes and stretching stiff muscles. “He let us rest.”

  “I think we all needed it. Perhaps me most of all.” Roine waited until she stood. “Do we follow the trail?”

  Amia closed her eyes briefly and nodded. “We are near.”

  They started down the trail and Roine’s limp was less than it had been before. The trail wound around the mountain, presenting them with an amazing view of the trees and rocky slopes below them as it overlooked the lake. The ice that had been there had melted completely. They followed the trail as it twisted, slowly winding up the slope. The path narrowed and, at one point, split. One way led them down the slope of the mountain while the other continued upward. Amia pointed upward.

  It was late in the day when the trail ended at a huge cavern in the mountain face. The rock was carved with symbols. Tan recognized many of them from Roine’s sword and others from the golden box he carried. Triangles with lines and squares interspersed with circles and carved figures. Words written in a foreign tongue arched over the opening. Around everything, Tan felt a shimmering energy. This was a place of power.

  Amia looked into the cavern and pointed. “We must go in there,” she said.

  The darkness loomed and Tan shivered.

  Roine looked at the cavern as well; turning to Amia and seeing her confirmation, he nodded. “So we will.”

  31

  Key to the Artifact

  Tan started toward the darkness of the cavern, but Roine grabbed him by the shoulder, holding him back. “This is warded against entrance,” Roine warned.

  “Warded? What does that mean?” Tan asked.

  Roine shook his head and frowned. “I don’t know what all of these runes mean,” he answered, looking at the carvings on the outer wall, “but I sense the warding. And it is powerful, unlike anything I’ve ever encountered.”

  Roine released Tan’s shoulder and Tan stepped away from the entrance, staring at the carvings. He became aware of a low, sizzling energy hanging over the cavern, the rock, everything, and sensed a warning within. “What will happen if you can’t remo
ve the warding?”

  “Then we can’t enter,” Roine answered. “Not safely, at least. I don’t know what the warding will do. I sense a protective barrier, but it might be a defensive shaping as well.” He stared at the markings, as if doing so would provide answers.

  Roine paced outside the entrance to the cave, eyes locked on the lettering, his face pulled tight as he considered. “There is usually some type of key,” he said, muttering mostly to himself, “but I see nothing in these writings that indicates what it might be.”

  “What kind of key?” Tan asked.

  “For something like this,” Roine answered, motioning at the cave, “it should be written on the stone. The method to safely bring down the warding. There is nothing. Of what I can read, there is only a warning.”

  Amia looked up at the writing, tilted her head, and frowned, but said nothing.

  Roine continued pacing, his face drawn in concentration. He scrubbed occasionally at his hair in annoyance. He paused to finger the runes upon the stone, shaking his head as he did, and stepped back to reexamine the writings. At one point, he tossed his bulging pack to the ground near Tan’s feet where it clinked.

  Tan hadn’t really paid much attention to the pack since Roine had returned. He toed it open and the gleaming metal box reflected the early morning light.

  Amia knelt next to the box and pulled it out from within the pack. She stared at the inscriptions on the surface, then looked up and stared at the writing upon the stone. Her fingers ran over the carvings on the box until reaching a position only she could feel, and then she pressed.

  There came a small snick as a lock released and the lid of the box opened.

  Amia looked over to Tan, a small smile to her face, and turned back to the box. Roine paced, ignoring them. The interior of the box gleamed just as brightly as the outside did. Carvings were worked on its surface as well.