Pursuit of Shadows (The Keeper Chronicles Book 2)

by JA Andrews

  In a breath, the cool night air brushed against his skin as the heat from the stone was channeled away. From the side of the stone facing the goblins he pushed out the idea of a tunnel of clay, funneling all the heat in that direction. Thankfully, the fire near the wagon was burning strongly and he pulled more energy from it, strengthening the walls. His fingers burned from the vitalle pouring through them.

  The heat hit the first goblin and the creature twisted back away from it, with a shriek of pain. Will pushed the heat forward and more goblins cried out in pain, drawing back. The wave of heat pushed them all the way to the metal wagons before they stopped running and sank down, their white eyes glaring towards Will.

  Sora spun around and stared at him.

  His fingers ached, but this wasn’t enough. He needed so much more heat.

  Will dropped to his knees and looked under the wagon seat. A half dozen heatstones lay shoved in the corner. Will grabbed them all, tossing them down onto the blazing one.

  Sora cried out and dove away from the pile.

  The heatstones exploded into searing yellow light and Will flinched back, but the clay wall held and no heat reached him. Will drew even more vitalle from the nearby fire, pouring it into his air-walls. The tunnel rippled with heat, rushing toward the goblins in a narrow river, flattening and searing grass in a long line before widening out into a wave of air so hot that the goblins shimmered through it.

  The creatures shrieked, pulling back.

  Seeing the goblins’ hesitation, the Roven attacked with renewed fury, cutting at the edges of the swarm. A few Roven reached into the line of heat and spun away, crying out and cradling singed arms. Will turned his palm out instead of just his fingers, letting more and more vitalle flow through him to shape the walls. The energy pushed clay walls farther, wrapping the heat around the goblins until it herded them back out of the Roven lines.

  Will followed the retreating goblins with his wall, pushing the heat after them. The skin on his palms blistered. He squeezed his eyes shut, shoving away the pain, and cast out again, this time searching for all the fires and all the heatstones. He visualized another long, tall wall of clay along the inside of the fire line, growing up and bending out over the tops of the fires, reflecting all the heat out at the goblins on the Sweep.

  With a sharp slice of pain a blister on his palm burst, then another. Will bit back a cry and focused his mind on the wall.

  The goblins paused, then with a twist like a flock of birds spinning in flight, they turned and darted toward the openings in the hills. A cry went up from the Roven and hundreds of arrows shot into the air, dropping goblin after goblin to the ground.

  In moments the Sweep was empty. There was a shudder of the ground and the entrance goblin warren quivered and sank, turning the hillside into a mass of torn up earth.

  Will cut off the flow of vitalle. For just a moment the clay wall held, then the air relaxed into itself and a wave of heat rolled off the heatstones next to him, burning the skin on his cheeks and sending searing pain across his burned palms. He ducked down onto the seat of the wagon, cradling his hands on his lap.

  He’d never controlled that much vitalle before. The thought was dull and heavy. He stretched his fingers and pain lanced across his hands. Raw, red skin filled his palms, covered with blisters, some taut and shiny, some split open, dripping. His hands blurred as a wave of exhaustion rolled over him.

  Celebratory shouts from the Roven echoed around him as though they came from far over the Sweep. He heard Hal bellow something incomprehensible. Will’s body melted down against the wagon, his head falling back against the hard wood wall.

  The earth was spinning, falling. There was nothing but the sharp pain in his hands.

  Will closed his eyes.

  The pain in his palms was excruciating. He closed his eyes and cast out toward his hands, feeling the energy from his own body pressing against the inside of his skin, beginning the long process of healing. Burns were much harder to heal than cuts. Instead of drawing skin back together, this required growing new skin across both palms.

  Maybe he could dull the pain a little. Will cast out toward the grass below the wagon. His mind worked sluggishly, and when he reached for the vitalle, it dribbled through his grasp like water. His eyes slid shut and he lost focus. His arms rested heavy on his lap like two dead weights.

  A crack split the night and Will’s eyes snapped open. Sora stood at the side of the wagon, her knife jabbed down into the wood of the wagon seat. The brightness of the heatstones cast her face into stark light and black shadows.

  Her eyes glittered with an icy coldness he hadn’t seen before and her voice cut through the night like a blade. “What did you do?”

  Chapter Twenty

  Sora stood by the wagon, her face livid, but he was too exhausted for it to cause more than a thin thread of fear. And he was far too tired to open up to her and deal with her anger.

  Will closed his eyes again and the wagon beneath him spun slowly. All he wanted to do was sleep. But Sora shifted, and the movement sounded angry.

  She was always so angry.

  Will had just saved her life. He, Will, the least useful Keeper in the history of Keepers, had just fought off a hoard of frost goblins and saved dozens, maybe hundreds of Roven lives. He cracked one eye open and worked to focus on Sora. She stood stone still, her glare sharp enough to cut.

  If only it was Alaric standing there, not Sora. He’d appreciate what Will had done. How far had that wall reached down the line? He grinned. Yes, Gerone, he thought, I had a motivation problem.

  The palms of his hands were hurting worse by the moment, but he didn’t care.

  “Stop grinning like an idiot,” Sora hissed. “Do you realize—”

  “Sora,” he interrupted her, “why are you always so angry?”

  “I’m angry,” she hissed, “because you keep doing stupid things and I have to save your life.”

  He pushed himself up. “You’re the one who got me into all this, by telling Killien about me.”

  She leaned over the edge of the wagon, her hands gripping the side, her voice furious. “Killien knew about you before you finished telling your foreign story at the festival. He already saw you as a threat. I came to see if you were as dangerous as he thought.”

  “You hid in my room and threatened me!”

  “Killien had men set to take you when you left the city. I told him he should see if your stories were worth hearing.

  “I was going to help you escape while the clan packed. It’s not my fault you decided to play bosom friends with the Torch.”

  “He likes foreigners,” Will objected. “He knows more about foreign people than anyone I’ve met in this wasteland. Everyone else jumps straight to the sword. Killien realizes not everyone outside his clan is an enemy.”

  “Not everyone. Just you.”

  A rock fell into his stomach. “I’m a storyteller.”

  “Stop it.” Her face was taut and her shoulders tense. He opened up toward her and, for once, felt a rush of emotions. She was mad and scared and exhausted. She looked at him for a long moment, suspicion fighting with something else in her expression.

  Leaning closer, she whispered, “You’re a Keeper.”

  The word hit Will like a punch. He opened his mouth to answer her, but found nothing to say.

  At his silence she shoved herself away from the wagon.

  “Killien isn’t opposed to magic.” He shook his head, desperation growing. “He’s studying it.”

  “He’s against Queensland. And Keepers.” She turned away from him and rubbed her hand across her mouth, looking uncharacteristically nervous.

  To the east, the top of the Scale Mountains were visible as a dark wall beneath the stars. “What do I do?”

  She looked away from the mountains. “Tonight, after first watch, I’ll slip you westward into the grass. There are some small rifts that are almost impossible to find. You can hide until the Roven are gone, then yo
u can get yourself off the Sweep.”

  “West?”

  “Killien wouldn’t imagine you’d go farther into the Sweep. He’ll think you ran home.”

  “I want to run home. I’d run home crying if I thought it would get me there faster. What I don’t want to do is go farther into the Sweep and hide in the exact places where frost goblins frequent.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I know. And Killien will be counting on that level of…”

  “Cowardice?” Will offered, glaring at her.

  “…inexperience. He won’t send trackers west. He’ll send me. And I’ll take all the best trackers with me. When we can’t find your trail, we’ll blame it on your evil, deceiving magic. We just need to keep you away from him for the next few hours.”

  Will stared at her for a long moment. “You’re very sneaky for someone who disapproves of deceiving people.”

  The clan spread out around him, and he had no idea where Ilsa was. Or Rass.

  “I can’t leave.”

  Sora turned a disbelieving look on him. “Why not?”

  There was a loud laugh nearby and she glanced behind them and swore. A flare of anger, harsh and new blazed up. Killien’s voice came from nearby and Sora raised hers at Will. “You deserve to be burned if you were stupid enough to pick up a glowing heatstone.”

  The Torch stepped around the end of the wagon, his eyes sharp. Two thin lines of blood slashed across a bandage near his shoulder. With a glance he took them in, his gaze coming to rest on Will’s hands. Will fought the urge to hide them.

  “What happened?” Killien demanded.

  I saved your entire clan. Will thought. He could feel the tightly controlled fury of the Torch, and beside it, Sora’s towering fury, which had risen a hundred fold as Killien approached. But she kept her glare burning into Will.

  “I found some heatstones,” he began. He stretched up to see over the edge of the wagon at the pile of heatstones still shining painfully bright. “I heard people calling for more heat. And the goblins were coming this way. And”—he lifted his hand to show Killien the ring, still firmly on his finger—“I couldn’t get the ring off.” He looked back at the heatstones. “So I heated up one stone, then threw the rest on top of it.”

  This was a stupid story. It explained nothing.

  “And your hands?” Killien never took his eyes off Will’s face.

  “One of the heatstones rolled toward the wagon.” The lie was so stupid he didn’t need to feign embarrassment. “All the books were here…”

  “So he picked it up,” Sora finished for him.

  “I thought it was going to reach the wagon.” It felt good to snap at someone. “And I don’t like the idea of blazing hot things near a pile of books.”

  “Enough,” Killien said quietly. The fury Will could feel from him was unabated, but none of it showed up in his face.

  “If the heatstones are ruined, I’ll pay you for them.” Will lifted his hand again. “Would this ring cover the cost? It’s currently burned onto my finger, but once it heals…”

  Killien let out a little huff of amusement, and Will felt the fury subside the smallest amount. “No more resting. It’s time for a celebration. And for that we need stories.”

  Will worked a smile past his exhaustion. “Everything’s better with stories.”

  Sora made an irritated noise, but Killien kept his attention fixed on Will. “It’s a good night, Will. We’re almost to the rifts. No more watching out for monsters…no more wondering what is hiding right next to us.”

  Will ignored the implication and heaved himself up, climbing out of the wagon and following Killien. The Torch was splattered with dark goblin blood, the sword at his hip grimy with it. Across his back, the sword from Flibbet still hung looking unused.

  “Tell me, Will, are there monsters where you live? Creatures that hide close by, lulling you into the false sense that you are safe? When all along they’re just waiting for the opportunity to destroy you?”

  The sharp suspicion he felt from Killien cut through him and he shoved the Torch’s emotions out of his chest. “No. Just people trying to live at peace with each other.”

  Will couldn’t shake the fuzziness of exhaustion from his mind, but the conversation continued, Killien asking probing questions in his light, unconcerned voice, Will dancing along the edge of the truth in his answers. They reached a large fire surrounded by rangers. A handful of healers wrapped wounds, and children scuttled through carrying food and wineskins.

  Lukas pushed his way through the crowd holding a thick roll of bandages. The slaves grey shirt was splattered with blood, but it none of it looked to be his own. The blood on Killien’s arm had spread and the Torch offered Lukas his arm.

  “Have the healer see to your burns, storyman.” Killien winced as Lukas pulled a bloody dressing off his arm.

  Lukas gave the Torch a quiet apology, examining the two long, ragged gashes that ran down his arm.

  Killien kept his eyes on Will. “Stay at my disposal tonight.”

  A slave bandaged a ranger’s leg nearby, and Will sat down to wait his turn. A knot of dread sat in his stomach. He watched Sora take a seat behind the other Roven around the fire. There was no sign of Lilit or Ilsa, but he heard enough conversations to know that there’d been no injuries away from the front line of fighting.

  The healer spread a thick poultice across his palms and wrapped his hands, leaving his palms pleasantly numb and Will turned his mind to which story to tell. There were several stories from Coastal Baylon that painted Queensland in a bad light, and he was tempted to use one of them, but felt reluctant even to bring his homeland up. Instead he sorted through the stories he knew that mentioned neither Queensland, nor magic, nor anyone in disguise, and most definitely not any stories where traitors were put to death.

  Which left him with a surprisingly limited repertoire, and ruled out most of his favorites.

  He settled on one about a shrewd merchant trapped in the garden of the indulgent Gulfind god Keelu. The fast talking merchant was funny, and hopefully no one would draw too many parallels between a trapped merchant and a trapped storyteller.

  The lump of foreboding growing the longer he sat there, and when Killien finally stood to address the Roven around the fire, Will’s gut was in knots.

  “Our storyman,” Killien announced, standing near the fire and motioning Will to join him, “is here to entertain us.”

  There was a general murmur of approval from around the fire, and Will stepped up next to the Torch, clasping his hands together behind his back in case they started to shake. The fire lit the closest of the faces, but the back of the group, where Sora sat, was lost in darkness.

  “Our enemy in Queensland have their own magic men.” Killien’s voice rolled over the crowd. “They call them Keepers.”

  Will’s blood turned icy, his entire body felt too long, and too awkward.

  “The Keepers do not put their magic safely into rocks, though. They pull what they use from the world around them, then twist it to do their will.”

  Muttered disapproval rose around the fire.

  “So they do not share their magic with the people. Here on the Sweep, our stonesteeps infuse stones with power that are available to all. They ward our houses against disaster, guard our children against illness. Give us heatstones for protection. The magic on the Sweep is used for the good of all the Roven.

  “But in Queensland, the Keepers hoard all the magic to themselves. They hide away in a hidden tower, leaving only to consult with their ineffective queen.”

  The mutters of the group turned angry.

  “You’ve been to Queensland, Will. Tell us a story about their Keepers.” Killien’s eyes were flat in the fire light. “Tell us whether they’re as terrible as we’ve heard.”

  Will gave the Torch a bow, the motion stiff. A story about Keepers? That narrowed it down to hundreds of tales. None of which he was stupid enough to tell here. “In Queensland they don’t have the same v
iew of Keepers as you. The Keepers are…” He paused again. This was awkward. “The Keepers are honored there, revered even. The people there think that the Keepers protect their land and their history.”

  Killien’s eyes glinted in the candlelight. “And what do you think of them, Will?” His voice was pitched low, but the crowd was listening so quietly that Will knew every one of them had heard.

  “I think Keepers are known for preserving as many stories as they can. And in my mind, anyone who has that much respect for stories”—he nodded to Killien—“can’t be all bad.”

  The Torch didn’t move.

  Will’s heart was pounding alarmingly fast. He couldn’t tell any of the stories he knew. They all treated Keepers like heroes, or great leaders, or brilliant strategists. They were all spoken of irritatingly well, actually. He rubbed his fingers over the bandages on his hand. Tonight, faced with the fact that the only impressive thing he’d ever done as a Keeper was about to get him killed, and would never be told to anyone, he found himself wishing for more stories about Keepers that didn’t glow with adoration. Like that story from Coastal Baylon blaming one for a drought.

  He bit back a grin. It was perfect.

  “Queensland cannot be trusted to say anything but good about their Keepers,” he began. “Whether they do so out of fear or respect, I do not know. But no group of men can be as pure, as noble, and as faultless as Keepers are supposed to be.” He felt the truth of it growing in him, the need to say all these things building and gaining momentum. “They are just men. And men are not so uncontaminated.

  “A person can rarely see his own people clearly. His mind is so entrenched in his own way of thinking, he can’t even see where he’s blind. To truly see the Keepers, let’s step away from Queensland, with their prejudices and myths, and go to their neighbors, where men are not blinded by loyalty.”

  He told of the terrible drought that had plagued Coastal Baylon for two years after a skirmish involving a Keeper. He told of the rumors of a curse. The slow, starving deaths, the dusty, barren fields. He told of the superstitious farmers and the desperate lords needing someone to blame. How their prayers for rain were shoved away and their cries for vengeance grew. He told of the hatred that burned toward the Keeper, the oaths taken by those who vowed to bring him to Baylon and spill his blood on the ground he’d laid to waste.