by JA Andrews
A rock dropped in Will’s gut. “She can’t. It doesn’t run in families like that.” He could see Vahe’s face in the window, reaching for him. The man’s fury when Will hadn’t come.
“He wasn’t there for Ilsa,” Will whispered. “He was there for me.”
Vahe had taken Ilsa only because Will had refused. The truth felt so obvious, he couldn’t believe he’d never seen it before.
All this time he’d felt guilty because he hadn’t fought hard enough to save Ilsa. When in reality, his fighting had been the reason she was taken.
Will pressed his eye shut, finally understanding Killien’s comment in the rift. “Ironic,” Will whispered in agreement.
He stood. “We need to find a way back into the clan.”
She threw up her hands in exasperation. “We can’t—”
“Will!” Rass shrieked from below.
He scrambled to the entrance.
Hal stood in the barren clearing below the cave. His huge hands held Rass’s tiny form in the air at arms length while she thrashed around, her legs flailing and her arms pinned to her side.
Sora stood next to Will perfectly still, her knife in her hand.
“You’re in luck, Will,” Hal said. “Bringing you back to the clan is exactly what we’re going to do.”
Chapter Thirty
“Come down. Sora first.” Behind Hal a ranger stepped forward, an arrow knocked and aimed at them.
Will cast out, but the vitalle of the nearest trees was too far away and the ground from the cliff to the forest was just dirt.
“Anything your magic fingers can do right now?” Sora asked him under her breath.
Will shook his head. “And there’s no grass nearby for Rass.”
Sora waited a breath before shoving her knife back into her belt and flinging her pack onto her shoulder. Will searched for anything to do, but came up empty. Sora started down the rocks and Rass went limp at the sight. Hal lowered her until she stood on the ground, but kept this hand clamped around her little arm. When Sora reached the bottom, she dropped her pack and the ranger stepped forward, keeping his bow trained on Sora until the last moment, when he grabbed her and tied her arms roughly behind her back. He gave a sharp yank and Sora grunted in pain.
“I confess I’m a little surprised to see you here,” Hal said to Sora. “When Killien said not to trust you, I doubted him.”
Sora fixed him with a furious look. “You know Will doesn’t deserve what the Torch has planned for him.”
Hal motioned for Will to come down. “Will is a Keeper, who can suck the life out of us at any moment. Who traveled with us for weeks, and lied to us the entire time. What confuses me, Sora, is that you spent most of those weeks trying to convince us he was a liar. Then, when he proves it, you’re suddenly friends with the man?”
“Of course he lied,” Sora said, squeezing her eyes shut as she shifted her shoulders, pulling against the ropes.
Will climbed down while Sora’s feet were bound, the truth of their situation gaining more of a stranglehold on him the farther down he went. Before he reached the ground, the ranger took Rass from Hal, gripping her shoulder with one hand and holding a long, wickedly curved knife in the other. Rass’s face was set in a little mask of fury.
“Hello, Will.” Hal clapped his hand on Will’s shoulder and pushed him to his knees several paces away from Sora.
Will shoved against Hal’s hand. “Let Rass go.”
“I have no intention of hurting the girl.” Hal looked at Rass with an apologetic face. “Are you thirsty?” He nodded to the ranger who, after the slightest hesitation, offered her a drink from his water skin. “She’s too young to be held responsible for her terrible taste in friends.”
Will cast out toward the trees again, but they were just too far away. Hal pulled a leather package from his pocket and unwrapped a long chain holding a blue stone. He slipped it over Will’s head and it thunked against his chest. A crushing wave of exhaustion rolled over Will.
He cast out for any vitalle he could find from the trees or even Hal, but it dribbled through his grasp like water. His mind worked sluggishly. His eyes slid shut and he lost focus. His head felt like dead weight, and his body pressed heavily down into the ground.
“The compulsion stone will only work for a few hours.” Hal crouched down in front of Will, studying him. “But I think the exhaustion should keep you too tired to work any magic. It’s too bad we don’t have a stone that could keep you from lying.”
The ranger came over to Will and wound ropes around his wrists, tight and scratchy.
Will shook his head, trying to clear the fog. “The only thing I didn’t tell you was that I was a Keeper.” Will shifted his shoulders, trying to relieve some of the pressure in his arms.
“And that you were from Queensland, you sit on the queen’s council, and you wield magic.”
The ranger gave one last, sharp tug on the rope and a shooting pain sliced up Will’s arm to his shoulder. With a few quick loops his feet were tied together too.
“I don’t sit on the queen’s council,” Will muttered. “That would be my friend Alaric. He’s the one who talks to the queen. And he’s quite a bit better at magic than I am. Actually, he’s better at translating runes too, so he’s the one Killien should have captured.”
“Is he nearby? I’d be happy to bring him to Killien also.”
Will let his eyes slide closed. “He’s too smart to come to this barbaric, ugly land.”
“Ugly land?” Rass sounded sleepy too.
“Lukas made the compulsion stone you’re wearing. We weren’t sure it would exhaust a Keeper to the point where they couldn’t perform magic, but it looks like it’s a success. Which means I didn’t really need to use my backup plan.”
The world beneath Will spun slowly and he forced his eyes open. “If it was Lukas, I’m surprised he didn’t make it something deadly.”
“Lukas isn’t that bad,” Hal said. “Although I have noticed he doesn’t like you much.”
Rass swayed slightly on her feet and the ranger sheathed his knife. Will’s heart lurched and he leaned toward her, but Hal held him back. Sora strained against her bonds.
“What did you do?” Will demanded.
Rass’s eyes sank shut and her knees buckled. The ranger caught her and lay her down on the ground.
“Rass!” Will called, pulling against Hal’s grip.
“Just an added measure of security,” Hal said. “She’s sleeping. Would you like a drink too? It’s the same concoction Killien put in your wine the night of the attack, although a much lower dose.”
Will glared at Hal, hopeless fury rising in his chest. Hal pushed Will over and he crashed onto his side, landing heavily on his shoulder. The ranger rested his knife on Rass’s sleeping chest.
“I don’t want to hurt her, Will, but if you give me trouble, I’ll do what I need to do.”
Hal opened Will’s pack. “The Torch will be pleased that you still have his book.” He went to a pack sitting near the trees, wrote something and tinkered with a cage. A small raven flapped out and soared out toward the Sweep. “That should let Killien know where we are.” He crossed over to Rass’s limp form and gave the ranger some orders. After a last check of Sora and Will’s bonds, the ranger struck out down the hill. “There are rangers spread out all across the Hoarfrost looking for you. Reinforcements will arrive soon, and we’ll all be on our merry way back to the rift.”
Will let his head sink down on to the hard ground and watched the ranger go with a sick feeling in his stomach. Maybe it was better this way. Maybe if he could get back to Killien, he’d convince the Torch to let Ilsa go.
There was no hope in the thought.
“Let Sora and Rass go,” he said to Hal. “I’m the one Killien wants. He doesn’t even know Rass is here, and you can say Sora got away. He’ll believe it.”
“When Killien finds out that Sora helped you, he’s going to want her too.” He leaned back against a boulder
. “Let’s all just sit tight for a bit. Shouldn’t take more than an hour or two for the nearest rangers to get here.” He glanced at Sora. “We didn’t really follow your orders, of course. We’re spread all across the Hoarfrost and the Scales to catch our Keeper no matter which way he ran.” He gave her a look more regretful than angry. “Killien liked you. He never likes foreigners. And yet he brought you in, trusted you, paid you better than any of the rest of us—”
“I’m better than any of the rest of you.”
“—and despite your constant superior attitude, Killien still put up with you. What made you take up with this traitor?”
“I am not a traitor!” Will threw the words at Hal. He shoved his elbow against the ground, trying to push himself back up to a sitting position, but his strength gave out and he just rolled to the side, sending dust into his own face.
“Killien was generous to you, too.” Hal turned on Will. “He shared meals with you. I heard him tell you his dreams of peace for the Roven.”
“Oh yes,” Will said, spitting out dust, “he’s an amazing, benevolent leader.”
Hal looked at Will as though he’d spoken in a foreign tongue. “You think that because you lied to him and he got mad, that it negates all the good he does?”
“No. I think Killien is actively searching for knowledge that only leads to tyranny and death.”
“What are you talking about?” Hal asked, irritated.
“Killien has a book by Kachig the Bloodless.”
Hal’s eyes narrowed.
“It describes how to—how did you word it? Suck the life out of someone. And use it for your own power.”
“Sounds like it should have been written by a Keeper.”
Will clenched his jaw. “A Keeper would never do that.
“Ahh, you didn’t deny you can.”
“Yes, I can pull the energy out of you. But you don’t need a compulsion stone, or to sit there threatening a sleeping girl, to keep me from doing it. Keepers believe that the energy in a person is sacred. We would never take the smallest bit from you unless you wanted us to. If we need energy for something, we pull it from a fire, or from plants. Or from ourselves.” He looked at Hal, and the hardness in the man’s eyes felt like knives. “You’ve never had anything to fear from me.”
Hal’s expression didn’t soften.
Will shifted his arms against the tightness of the rope. “Whatever Killien wants with that book, nothing good can come of it. No matter what he’s told you about wanting peace and wanting to unite the Sweep, there is only war and death in this book. And magic beyond anything Killien has the power to do. The magic in this book would require advanced stonesteeps from the Sunn Clan.”
Hal’s jaw clenched stubbornly. “If Killien is trying to read it, he has a good reason. Everything he does is for the good of the clan.”
“So that makes it ok? Sucking life out of people is fine as long as they’re not your people?” Will snorted. “You’re lucky I don’t feel the same way.”
“Killien wouldn’t do something like that.” There was a note of finality in Hal’s voice.
Weariness washed over Will again and he let his retort go.
“Who set the fires?” Sora asked.
“Our visitors from the Sunn Clan.”
Sora mouth dropped open in shock.
Will let his head sink down onto the ground. “I thought they were coming to invite Killien to some enclave.”
Hal sank back against a boulder and blew out a long breath. “So did Killien. It’s been ten years since he was invited. But he’s been in communication with so many of the other Torches that when the Sunn wanted to visit, he thought…”
Will fought to keep his eyes open. There had to be a way out of this. He watched Sora, hoping she was working on her bonds, but he couldn’t tell. “What happens at the enclave?”
“The powerful clans make demands.” Hal made an irritated face. “And the smaller clans agree to them publicly. But Killien thinks that if the smaller clans can band together, they can have a voice. Together the Morrow, Panos, and Temur clans would make the third largest group on the Sweep. Both the Panos and Temur have been in talks with Killien all winter. Right now the struggle for power on the Sweep is caught between the Sunn Clan with all their stonesteeps, and the Boan with their huge army. Killien’s determined to change that.
“Over the winter he managed to settle a longstanding dispute between two of the western clans over a river. It made enough of an impression across the Sweep that last night the nephew of the Sunn Torch, was supposed to be coming to invite Killien to the enclave. And probably demand his support.”
Sora snorted. “Killien wouldn’t support the Sunn in anything.”
Hal nodded slowly. “Twenty Sunn warriors hid on the Sweep and started the fire before Avi, the nephew of the Sunn Torch, had time to talk to Killien about it. So I’d say they didn’t expect him to.”
Sora considered this for a moment. “They attacked Killien too? With him dead, there’s no good choice for another Torch in the Morrow.”
“They tried. Killien hadn’t trusted the little weasel, so he’d had guards in the back room. Little Avi didn’t even get his knife close to Killien before they’d caught him. We killed twelve of them and captured the rest, including Avi. The man’s a weasel but some say he’ll be the next Torch of the Sunn. So Killien has a powerful bargaining chip.”
Sora looked at Will, uneasily.
Will looked between the two of them, understanding dawning. “Killien can get stonesteeps from the Sunn, probably enough to do whatever magic he’s trying to figure out.”
Hal shook his head. “The Sunn have more stonesteeps than blades of grass, but most of them aren’t worth the cost of feeding them.”
Sora turned her head slowly, looking over the Sweep with wide eyes.
Will’s mind was too sluggish to follow. “What else does the Sunn have that Killien would want?”
Neither Sora or Hal answered, but the truth hit Will like a stone in the gut. “The dragon.”
“Killien was still composing the ransom letter when I left. But, yes, he’s demanding use of the dragon.”
“How do you use a dragon?” Will asked.
Hal pulled his hand through his beard. “The stonesteeps of the Sunn Clan control it, so whatever Killien wants it to do, they’ll have to agree to it. I don’t know what he has planned. But he was very pleased about the opportunity.”
“He told me once,” Will said, glancing up at the sky as though expecting to see an enormous creature flying across the Sweep, “that all he needed to solve the world’s problems was a disposable army and a dragon.” He looked back at Hal. “So he’s not invited to the enclave?”
“No.” Hal leaned his head back on the rock. “And even if he were, among the Sunn attackers we found three from the Panos Clan.”
Will let out a long breath. “Who were supposed be Killien’s ally.”
The three fell silent. Will’s shoulders ached from his hands being tied behind him, his wrist chaffed from the ropes. He lowered the side of his head down to the ground again, shifting his wrists back and forth. The ropes felt as though they might be getting looser.
A very small bird soared across the sky and settled high in a nearby pine. Relief and alarm vied for control as Will glanced toward Hal to see if he’d noticed Talen’s arrival, but the huge man had gone back to spinning the knife point in the ground.
Will cast out toward the hawk and felt his little coil of energy. Talen was far enough away that Will couldn’t feel any emotions from the bird. What had he done before? When Talen had listened? With the stone and Sora he’d sort of pushed the idea of them, the longing for them at the bird.
Will gathered all the strength he could, firmed up the image of Talen sitting on the branch in his mind, and infused it with the feeling of contentment. He pushed the idea up toward the hawk.
Stay there.
Talen’s wings flared, and for a heart-stopping moment
Will thought he would dive down. But the hawk merely shifted his feet and settled down on the branch.
Rass stirred. She stretched and opened her eyes to look around groggily. Hal set a hand on her arm.
“Are you alright?” Will asked her.
Her tiny arm looked like a stick grasped in Hal’s enormous hand.
She blinked at the sunlight and peered at Will, then turned to Hal with a thunderous face. “Did you make me sleep?”
Hal laughed. “I did, little fiery girl. I see why Will likes you.”
She tugged against his grip, but she couldn’t even jostle his arm.
Hal sighed. “If you don’t want to be put back to sleep again, stop fighting. Look at Sora and Will. We’ve got a nice, calm afternoon going here. No problems, no fighting, just some friends chatting on a mountainside.”
Rass glared up at him. “You should let us go.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because Will is a mighty wizard and Sora’s smarter and faster and braver than you. They’re letting you sit here for now, but you can’t win against them.”
Hal eyebrows rose and he let out a long, rolling laugh. The first real laugh he’d given all day. He glanced at Will. “This girl is a treasure.”
Past Hal, Sora stiffened. Her gaze snapped uphill, searching.
The rangers couldn’t be back so soon. Will cast out and his stomach dropped. Two people were approaching from behind him higher up the slope. And up past them waited two more.
They were out of time. He strained against the ropes at his wrists, desperation returning.
Sora’s eyes, still staring up the hill, widened in surprise.
“Treasure?” a gruff voice called out from behind Will. He spoke with a rough brogue. “There’s no treasure here. We’ve searched it before. Nothing here but rocks.”
Will twisted, trying to see behind him, and caught a glimpse of the two people he’d felt. It wasn’t Roven rangers.
Stumping down the side of the rockslide were two dwarves.
Chapter Thirty-One
