Storm Phase Series: Books 1-3

by Hayden, David Alastair

  The canyon narrowed, and the walls grew steep on both sides. Slowly, those sides closed in at the top, almost forming a cave. There was still an opening above and snow fell through it, but by riding to one side they were able to get out from under the snowfall. But what blocked out snow also blocked out light. Turesobei cast the spell of the moon mirrors.

  “Should we continue?” he asked. “Looks like it’s going to close up into a proper cave soon.”

  “Let’s ride a little farther, then,” Narbenu said.

  And so they rode, until the two sides of the canyon merged above them to form a ceiling.

  “Well, it’s not the way out,” said Narbenu. “But we can wait out the storm here and rest. How long do you think the storm will rage?”

  Turesobei shrugged. “I was going to ask you. My spell created a small but powerful storm. Unfortunately, I think that triggered a larger one from the snow that was already falling. The spell has almost certainly ended, but what it started is obviously still going.”

  “Blizzards rarely last more than a day,” Narbenu said. “By daybreak, it should be over. We can rest up until then. But we need to be careful and not go any deeper. Large caves can hold … well, you name it: sonoke herds, demons, beasts.” He jumped down and started unloading the packs from his mount. “Everyone remove your saddles and check your mounts again, carefully. Make certain they’re completely okay. Check the straps on your packs and saddles, be certain they’re secure. They might have gotten damaged.”

  Turesobei and Zaiporo stripped their mount, and Narbenu and Kemsu checked it. There were no injuries worse than a scrape, so they strapped the beast back up, and then Narbenu inspected their work to make sure they’d done it correctly.

  “If your clothes are wet inside, you’re going to have to switch to dry gear,” Kemsu said.

  Everyone but Kemsu and Narbenu had wet clothes, so they had to switch. But the only extras they had were inner shirts and pants. Turesobei didn’t really want to expose his bare skin to this cold. He reached for a star stone, then thought of how little warmth it could provide even at its maximum capacity.

  “Could we risk a fire, for a short time?” he asked. “Enough to warm up and dry out our clothes a bit.”

  “A magic one?” Narbenu asked. “I guess it wouldn’t be any more attention-getting than the mirrors. Go for it.”

  “I thought it was difficult to do fire spells here,” Zaiporo said. “Your fire globes fizzled.”

  “It is hard, but I figure it’s worth it. A quarter-hour is probably the best I can do.”

  “Don’t overdo it,” Enashoma said.

  “I won’t. Promise.”

  With a flat, ice-free rock as his target, he summoned a basic fire. The effort he put into it was enough to normally summon a small bonfire, but he expected the intensity of a flame suitable for slow-roasting a rabbit. What he got was a roaring campfire. The heat blasted out, causing everyone to back up a few steps.

  “Wow,” Kemsu commented. “Didn’t expect that.”

  “Neither did I,” Turesobei replied. “There’s a lot more fire kenja here than I would’ve thought. Perhaps there’s a hot spring deep inside the caverns.” He motioned toward the fire. “Well, ladies first.”

  While standing near the fire, Iniru, Kurine, and Enashoma swiftly changed their inner layer of clothes and laid their outer layers out to dry. When they were done, Zaiporo and Turesobei changed. He felt like he’d been plunged into ice even while standing beside the fire.

  The fire sputtered out after an hour. They put their outer layers back on, and brought out the star stones to give a little warmth. Because the space was large and airy, the cave wasn’t going to be as warm as a snow house.

  Lu Bei stood and twitched his nose and ears. He flicked his forked tongue out a few times and made a face, like he’d bitten into a lemon. He shot up and zipped around them several times, but didn’t venture farther in.

  “I don’t like this place, master. Something’s wrong.”

  “What is it?” Turesobei asked.

  “Don’t know, master. Just a bad feeling.”

  Turesobei remembered the stronger-than-anticipated fire energies. He activated his kenja-sight. “I’m seeing strong fire and earth kenja and — wow, didn’t expect that. There’s forest kenja here — and it’s incredibly strong.”

  “Forest energy in a cave?” Kurine said. “How’s that possible?”

  “Don’t know,” Turesobei replied. “Based on what I’m detecting, I would guess that at the heart of this cave, there’s an enormous hot spring that’s exposed to a lot of sunlight and surrounded by a large forest. Naturally, that doesn’t make sense. And … and there’s something else about the energies … something that’s just not right.”

  “Like what?” Narbenu asked. “Demons? Beasts?”

  Turesobei shrugged.

  Motekeru peered deeper into the cave. “I can take the hounds and explore deeper, master.”

  Lu Bei plunged down and landed on Turesobei’s back. He leaned over and whispered, loudly. “Trouble and trouble, master. We’re not alone.”

  Turesobei reached for the sword that wasn’t on his belt. Zaiporo backed up to the mount and drew a spear.

  Iniru lifted her head. “I smell … a tree … coming toward us.” Her ears twitched. “Maybe a whole forest worth of trees … somehow.”

  Everyone drew weapons and backed up together toward their mounts.

  Tiny emerald eyes sparkled at the edge of the darkness, reflecting the light from the moon mirrors. Dozens and dozens of eyes sparkled from deep within and from the walls and ceiling, too.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Hundreds of knee-high, human-like creatures with knobby wooden bodies, stunted heads, stumpy legs, and spindly arms rushed toward them. The creatures scurried along the walls, the ceiling, and the floor.

  Turesobei jumped into the saddle behind Zaiporo. “Take the reins.”

  “Do you know what they are?” Zaiporo asked.

  “Not sure,” Turesobei replied. “Narbenu?”

  “No clue,” the goronku responded.

  “Maybe we should talk to them,” Turesobei said as they backed their mounts away. “Some spirit creatures are friendly.”

  “Nothing in our world is friendly,” Narbenu said.

  The creatures began chanting in clicking, rasping voices. “Knob knob knob. We the knob, they the bad. Get them, get them. Bring them in.”

  The knobs launched toward them.

  “Ride!” Iniru shouted.

  The group spun their sonoke around and rode toward the open canyon. Lu Bei soared above them. Turesobei turned around in the saddle so he could face the knobs. With adequate fire kenja available, Turesobei cast the spell of the curtain of flame and held it in his mind, ready to release it should they need it. While he’d never been good with the flame curtain and this would be a weak and brief one, causing the knobs to pause, even for a few moments, could save their lives. But he didn’t think it would be necessary. The sonoke were outpacing their pursuers easily.

  “Master!” Lu Bei cried. “Look out!”

  Something struck Turesobei in the head and landed on the back of his shoulders. Something solid, heavy, and grasping. He tumbled off the mount, and struck the icy cavern floor. The spell vanished from his mind, along with the breath from his lungs. A knob clutched at his throat. Dozens closed in on him. Lu Bei zapped the knob on Turesobei’s back. The creature’s grip loosened, and Turesobei slung it off him, turned, and ran toward his companions.

  Knobs poured from a hole in the top of the cavern, falling onto Turesobei’s companions. Shoma, Kurine, and the hounds were on the ground fighting off knobs, trying to get back to their mounts. Narbenu elbowed one off his mount, speared at another, then fell as two landed on top of him. Kemsu struck one with his spear. The point glanced off the knob’s body. Two knobs grabbed Kemsu by the leg and pulled him from the mount. Iniru vaulted off her mount and landed beside Enashoma.

 
A knob slammed into the small of Turesobei’s back, and knocked him down. He squirmed free, only to be tackled around the waist by a second one. Motekeru jumped down from his mount and plowed toward Turesobei, swatting the creatures aside.

  “Motekeru!” Turesobei yelled. “Protect Shoma!”

  A knob wrapped his arms around Zaiporo’s neck, choking him, but Lu Bei zapped it in the face, and it dropped off, clicking and chattering. With a knob clutching her leg, Kurine limped back to her mount, and drew an iron war hammer from her saddle. She spun around and smacked the knob in the head. A sharp crack like wood splintering resounded. The knob fell dead.

  Turesobei shoved free of one, but others leapt in, clawing and hitting him. Lu Bei landed on Turesobei’s shoulders, shooting sparks to ward them away. Though no more fell from the ceiling, the mass that had first pursued them closed in. Turesobei was surrounded and too far away from his companions. Catching a moment’s break, he quick-cast the spell of prodigious leaping, spending far more internal kenja than it normally called for to make it work immediately. He leapt over a dozen knobs, and landed between Kurine and Kemsu.

  Nearby, Iniru dodged, spun, kicked, and jabbed with her spear. Narbenu shattered his spear against a knob, and then drew his mace, swinging it back and forth in wide arcs to keep the creatures at bay. Motekeru clawed the head off a knob, and then shattered the chest of another with a kick. The hounds zipped around Enashoma, biting at the knobs. There wasn’t much they could do to them, but getting in the way helped. The knob bodies were solid and heavy, almost as hard as petrified wood.

  “Regroup!” Iniru shouted. “To me!”

  Slowly, they all backed up together, forming a circle. Why was Iniru gathering them here? Why not with the mounts? Turesobei swatted a knob away and looked to the sonoke. Attacked by the knobs and without their riders, the sonoke had turned wild. Spitting and hissing, the sonoke thrashed with their tails and butted knobs with their horns.

  Hundreds of knobs closed in. While no one was seriously hurt yet, since the knobs were tougher than they were vicious, they couldn’t keep this up. Motekeru was the only one who could injure them reliably.

  “We’ve got to break free,” Iniru said.

  Turesobei backed into the center of the circle. “Shield me so I can cast a spell!”

  Kurine winked at him. “Whatever you need, lover.” She turned and cracked a knob in the head with the war hammer, shattering its jaw. Iniru flicked her eyes angrily at Turesobei, and then, appreciatively, at Kurine before resuming the fight.

  Turesobei again quick-cast the spell of the curtain of flame, aiming it at the center of the knob mass. It was a tiring spell, one of the newer ones he’d learned after returning from Wakaro. He hoped fire would frighten these kagi, since they were made of wood.

  A sheet of flame no thicker than a rope strand but a dozen paces in length and height erupted amidst the knobs. With a force of will that caused him to cry out and buckle at the knees, Turesobei threw the flame curtain over on its side, as if casting it across the ground like a blanket.

  The knobs touched by the flames screamed and flailed and ran wildly about, their limbs and heads singed and smoking, but not on fire. It wasn’t the effect Turesobei had hoped for. The rest of the knobs didn’t panic. Instead, they entered a maddened frenzy and charged with such abandon that the faster knobs leapt and crawled over the slower ones.

  The flames flickered out. Turesobei cast the spell of compelling obedience. “Stop fighting!” he shouted, his voice echoing through the cavern, filled with power and deeper than normal in resonance. “Stop fighting, and leave us be!”

  Unfazed by the spell, the knobs crashed against them like waves against rocks on the coast. For each one they knocked away, two more took its place.

  A knob leapt over Enashoma and crashed into Turesobei. He chucked it over his shoulder and cast the spell of banishing lesser entities which was used to send demons back into the netherworld. He had used it with some success against the kagi that had ambushed them on their way to the Monolith of Sooku.

  The spell went off. The knobs nearest them paused and staggered back momentarily, but dozens more rushed through and over them.

  He staggered. “Too many … of them … nothing I can do …”

  One of the hounds, Rig, yelped desperately. Two knobs had captured it and were running away with it. Ohma charged after her companion, but was likewise taken and carried off.

  A knob tackled Zaiporo, and as he went down, a second elbowed him in the jaw. Zaiporo fell limp.

  “Zai!” Enashoma shouted. “Are you —”

  Blood sprayed into the air as a knob leapt feet first into Enashoma and smacked her in the face. She slumped. Lu Bei zoomed in, firing sparks so they couldn’t capture her. Turesobei stepped toward her, but a leaping knob crashed into him. By the time he fought it off, five knobs had dragged Kurine to the ground, and Kemsu was staggering, swinging wildly, with a knot swelling on his forehead. Before Iniru could step in to help, the knobs took Kemsu down. Narbenu fell a moment later. Kurine and Iniru fought, back-to-back, desperately. Motekeru began to sag under the weight of the knobs that were piling onto him. A blow brought Iniru to her knees. No longer shielded by his companions, Turesobei faced the onslaught of knobs.

  It was over; they couldn’t win.

  But the knobs weren’t killing anyone, just disabling them, and they had carried the hounds away … Turesobei held his hands up.

  “Wait! We surrender!” He fell to his knees. “We surrender. We won’t fight anymore.”

  The knobs paused, peering at him with their sparkling emerald eyes, their tongues clicking maliciously. A huge knob, as big as Motekeru, waded forward.

  He spoke with a voice like the groan of an old oak in a storm wind. “Wise it is. Most very wise.” His lips parted in a smile showing teeth of amber. “You can’t get away from my brothers. We are many, too many for you.”

  Motekeru stopped fighting, and Iniru set down her spear. Turesobei crawled over to Enashoma. She held a hand to her nose; blood was gushing out; tears streamed down her cheeks. “It’s broken, I think. Zai?”

  “I’m okay,” he responded in a slur of words. “Just … a bit … wonky is … all.”

  “Kurine?” Turesobei asked. “Iniru?”

  “I’ll be okay,” Kurine replied.

  “Just hacked off,” Iniru responded.

  “I’m going to be hurting tomorrow,” Kemsu said, “if I’m still alive.”

  “Me, too, lad,” Narbenu added.

  “Get your mounts and follow me,” the big knob commanded.

  The mounts were still hissing, but they weren’t thrashing now that the knobs had backed away. Narbenu approached them with soothing words, and they calmed down enough that they could grab the reins. Knobs had lined up between the mounts and the entrance. There would be no sudden attempt to mount up and break through.

  “What do you want with us?” Turesobei asked.

  “It is not us who want,” the big knob replied. “It is Master who wants.”

  Hundreds of the knobs surrounded them and escorted them deeper into the cave.

  “Oak and leaf, root and knob,” the creatures chanted. “Knob knob, cavern clan. Outsiders for the master. Outsiders feed the tree. Knob knob, cavern clan.”

  This was bad. If only he’d had a full supply of spell strips. And Sumada — especially Sumada. Slicing through dozens of them might have struck fear into them. He was going to have to call on the Storm Dragon. The only question was whether to do it now or wait.

  Iniru tapped him on the shoulder and shook her head. He got the message and nodded in response. He’d wait; maybe there’d be some other way out of this.

  The knobs led them deeper and deeper into the canyon. “Oak and leaf, root and knob. Knob. Knob.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The cave narrowed until they were crammed hip-to-shoulder with the chanting knobs, while the ceiling lowered to the point that Motekeru had to hunch over. But the
n abruptly, the passage opened into an enormous, brightly-lit cavern. Turesobei stopped to gaze in wonder at the sight before him. A pool of water lay in the center of the cavern, and a brilliant golden light shone out from the pool, emanating from a glowing orb like a miniature sun that sat at the pool’s bottom. Hanging from the ceiling above the pool, upside down, was a giant oak tree with sprawling branches that stretched all the way out to brush the pebbles along the pool’s shore. Roots as thick as a sonoke threaded the cavern roof, anchoring the oak.

  The knobs shoved Turesobei forward. A wave of vertigo briefly washed over him. Suddenly, he was walking through the sky, upside down, the miniature sun in the pool above him, the tree on the ceiling below. Kurine stumbled, and Kemsu grabbed her arm to support her, but he was lurching, as well.

  Enashoma muttered, “I’m going to be sick.”

  Zaiporo fell to his knees and vomited. Iniru closed her eyes and swayed. Narbenu fell. Lu Bei did barrel rolls as he flew. Motekeru stomped on as if nothing had changed.

  Swaying, Turesobei cast the relatively simple spell of dream breaking, and the illusion ceased. Their perception of everything returned to normal. They were walking across the cavern floor. The tree was hanging up above, with the pool below it. The knobs didn’t seem to care that he’d cast the spell. Perhaps they hadn’t even noticed.

  “What — what was that?” Kurine said.

  “An illusion. I dispelled it.”

  “And the big tree … the yellow sun in the water?” Enashoma asked.

  “Those are real,” Turesobei said.

  “I’ve never seen a tree like this before,” Kurine said. “It’s amazing.”

  “We have trees like that everywhere in our world,” Turesobei said, “though few are as magnificent as this one.”

  The knobs herded them into a section marked by knee-high boundary stones near the shore on the far side of the cavern. The amber hounds were waiting there already. They rushed up to Turesobei, and he patted their heads to comfort them.

  The big knob walked in front of them and fell to his knees at the shore.