Valley of Embers (The Landkist Saga Book 1)

by Steven Kelliher

  His veins felt hot, and Shifa’s hackles raised as she crossed in front of him on the trail, scenting the ozone he released. The Woodsmen of the Scattered Villages often said there were two choices when it came to trust in the deeper forests at night: the moon and the path. The moon was unreliable, dipping behind clouds and canopy alike; the path could be tricky, snaking this way and that, mingling with the Faey roads or washed out in the rains. Kole supposed it mattered little which he trusted now.

  There were no Dark Kind laying in wait for them. If there had been, Shifa surely would have sensed them. Still, she had caught something. Kole could tell by the pace she set. He marked her progress by following the bobbing tufts of her ears through the dark.

  Hunter and hound slowed their pace before halting altogether at the borders separating the Greenwoods from the Black. The branches were thicker here, the fur-covered vines forming dense curtains that reached to the forest floor. There, they intermingled with the roots and worms in the soft earth.

  Shifa looked up at Kole, tongue lolling as she waited for him to make a move.

  Kole slowed his breathing to a crawl, closing his eyes as he listened, intent on the woods. He heard nothing, a common thing in the Dark Months, but this was a thick and watchful silence. He felt Shifa go rigid beside him. She issued a low growl, a final confirmation. He moved forward, parting a fur-laden curtain with one drawn Everwood blade, which he left unlit.

  In the deep forest, the roots grew thicker than beams, forming a sort of latticework—a second canopy above the tunnels and the soft, moving things below. If you had to traverse the great roots, you were better off going high than low. Kole picked his way carefully from root to root. He remembered coming here with Linn as a boy, when they used to imagine sliding down the tails of drakes.

  The feeling of being watched intensified to a point of near-mania, and Shifa reacted accordingly, issuing her growls to the forest floor and the twisting branches above. Kole redoubled his heat, and his skin prickled, the sweat turning to a misty veil that enwrapped him like a forest ghost.

  A misjudged hop and then a rotted root betrayed him, announcing his blunder with a resounding crack that echoed off the encircling wall of trunks. Kole slid into a role, cursing as he crashed down into the leaf-laden sludge between roots thick as serpents. He managed to come up with his blades drawn, flexing his core and releasing a spark that set them alight.

  Shifa issued a startled bark and navigated the root system down to him. At the bottom, she darted in front of him, tail stiff, forming a shield between Kole and the deeper darkness of the tunnels beneath the trees. The ground was uneven, and the roots made arches and snares. It was a poor terrain in which to fight, if it came to that.

  The sensation of motion ahead caused him to drop his blades away from his eyes, the better to see. It was a mistake, as the blackness formed itself into the hurtling shape of a man that came on with unnatural speed. Shifa leapt, her jaws snapping a piece of the blackness as it shot past, and then it hit him full in the chest.

  Kole landed in a rolling heap and tasted blood as he came up slashing. Hands that were impossibly strong grabbed hold of his wrists and launched him back with a kick, ripping the burning blades from his grasp as he flew back. The creature screamed and flung the blades aside as Kole tumbled down a steep embankment of rock-hard roots that took the wind from him. He looked up. Standing on the crest of the gnarled rise was a black form silhouetted in the guttering light of his discarded blades. It leered down at him with eyes that shone like bloody rubies.

  A small form hit the demon in the back, but it twisted and slashed with its black fingers, Shifa yelping as she was thrown aside. Kole rose on shaking legs and heard more than saw the form land next to him with a crunch among the dried refuse of the canopy. He turned and extended his hip, lancing a kick that missed. He was driven back and the demon pummeled him, his head spinning as it ricocheted off something hard as bone.

  “Shifa!” Kole screamed it with all the strength he could muster. His blood pumped hot liquid fire and he lashed out weaponless, but the demon was strong and unyielding. It parried his blows and sent him tumbling into the deeper darkness. Kole rolled to his knees as the red-eyed form approached, the darkness seeming to swell around it.

  And then the light exploded, Shifa shooting over the lip of the ledge above, one of Kole’s Everwood blades clenched burning in her maw. The black hands made a grab for her, but she was too swift, and Kole snatched the blade from her jaws as she tore off into the brush toward the sound of rushing water.

  Kole flared the blade back to life and stabbed upward, driving the black form back. With his feet under him, he sliced the air in sharp angles, forcing it to dodge, its red eyes burning with hate. His head swam, the fire in his blood unable to fully undo the effects of the demon’s attacks. It circled like a wolf, darting in and out, always staying just out of range of the slashing blade and its fiery trails.

  In the space between beats it came on again, and Kole tore a black hand from its body in a crescent of yellow. Still it came on, scoring deep gash in his forearm and making his hand go lax, fingers numbing instantly as the blood ran. They danced, cutting and slashing among the ancient roots, until finally Kole’s legs failed him, his arm going slack, blade tearing free from his grasp as he fell to his knees.

  Those red eyes seemed to lock him in place, its mouth opened in a toothless screech, and the details of the forest around melded into a swirl of agony. Kole cursed his stupidity and felt a voice in his head whose words he could not distinguish. It urged him to stillness and he struggled against it, fearing he would die alone in the dark.

  Just like his mother.

  The surge came from a place beyond himself, a well deeper than thought and older than memory. The light of its burning was impossibly bright and the demon’s screech turned from triumph to searing pain. It tore at him with its black claws, pulling at his burning hands, which were now clasped around its throat. It twisted and wrenched like a trapped animal and Kole poured his fire into it.

  He collapsed when it was done, the flames extinguished in an instant. He looked around with blurred vision and found himself at the center of a charred circle, the roots all burned away.

  Kole retrieved his smoking blades and staggered through the brush in the direction Shifa had gone, holding his bloodied arm to his chest. He found her breathing shallow on the edge of a muddy stream the color of rust. He lifted her and she whimpered softly, the echoes of the demon’s dying careening in his skull as he walked on unsteady legs.

  The rest passed in a haze of pain, and the feeling of pursuit never dissipated, though the demon had burned like birch, its face curling in the flames. His blood felt slow and stagnant, the darkness around him close and stifling, and his mind wandered, delirious. He moved with a singular focus as he fell to ruins on the path back to Last Lake.

  He reached the gate without knowing. Torches waved and boots splashed in the mud, carving the night with light and sound as they approached in a fervor. Kole tried to speak, but his voice failed along with all sense. He collapsed in a space between wake and sleep, and lingered there awhile.

  A long while.

  The smell of hot mint and sage assailed Linn’s nostrils when she opened the door, and the voices she had heard from outside muted upon entering. She wafted the steam out of her face and took stock of the gathering in the guts of the modest bathhouse.

  There was an elderly man dressed all in green: this was Towles, the proprietor; he was nicknamed ‘Trusted’ for reasons Linn hoped were well founded. Linn’s sudden appearance caused him no untoward alarm as he bent back to his work, pulling a lever that announced a jet of steaming water—and another flush of mint—the pipes rattling their protests as they emptied the mixture onto a large grate covered my smooth, black river rocks.

  The latest cloud parted to reveal the handsome face and close-cropped hair of Jenk Ganmeer, who sat on an oak bench slick with residue. He smiled lightly at her, features
warping strangely in the shimmering heat.

  “Ve’Ran,” he said. “Fashionably late.”

  The other men and women, who sat in their various places between and around the benches and steaming grates, regarded her with a discomfiting assortment of expressions. But these were the faces of soldiers she knew well.

  “It’s a gift,” Linn said, setting her bow down in a pile with the rest of the weapons—a considerable set—before making her way toward the front of the small room. As her nerves built to a steady, screaming crescendo, an image of Kole’s black, unseeing eyes set into a face drained of all color flashed. She could not shake it, just as she could not shake the sounds of her sister’s silent sobbing as she had worked over him in the tower.

  “We’ve been dragging our feet long enough,” she said, forcing a layer of calm into her voice that she did not feel. “It’s time we made good on our talk and left.”

  There was a pregnant silence of which Jenk was at the center. The Ember stood and moved to her side, rewarding her with a curious expression as he turned to address the rest.

  “These aren’t the type of people you can push, Linn.”

  Linn ignored him and studied the gathered soldiers. It was unlikely Larren Holspahr held any great opinion of her either way. He kept his own council, but her keen eyes had saved plenty throughout the Dark Months, and that was something he would not forget. In fact, it was likely all that had brought him here to her summons when he could have been resting for the following night and whatever terrors it might hold. Larren’s spear dealt the final blow to the beast that had smashed the gate, but she could tell the experience had rattled him. That was good.

  To the right of Holspahr sat Nathen Swell, her hunting companion whose jovial manner painted a stark contrast to the Second Keeper. Further along the bench, which bowed under his considerable heft, was Baas Taldis, who was one of the Emberfolk in name only, his father well known as the son of the River Patriarch of the Fork. Taldis had largely been raised among the Emberfolk of the Lake after his father had settled with one of their own. Though he was undoubtedly the strongest man on the Lake, Baas left the guard duties to the Embers and their ilk. He preferred fashioning weapons to wielding them. As for why he was here, Linn had it on good authority that he found her particularly fetching. She had no qualms about using that to her advantage.

  Standing off to the side was a duo that likely made up the most deadly pair in the Valley—the twins Taei and Fihn Kane. They were a strange lot, and though only Taei was Landkist, Fihn could more than hold her own with a blade. Where Taei was calm, cool and collected, his sister was quick to anger and long to forgiveness. Linn had no idea where they would fall in this.

  As for the final member of the gathering, Kaya Ferrahl had likely only come because Jenk had. The youngest Ember in the Valley held no love for Linn or Kole, and the feeling was mutual. Given the covert nature of this meeting, taking place out of earshot of the First Keeper, Linn was not entirely comfortable with her presence. But beggars could not be choosers, and for all her faults, Ferrahl wielded the flame. That was reason enough to have her along.

  Kaya mostly ignored the front of the room, focusing instead on the gouts of steam that issued up from the grates. When she did glance at Linn, she did so with hateful eyes. Truth be told, Linn did not know where they had fallen off with one another, though she suspected it had something to do with the fact that Linn took a more active role in safeguarding the Lake than an Ember. Sometimes, however, Linn had to admit to herself that she knew exactly how Jenk looked at her, and how Kaya looked at him.

  “We’ve been meeting like this for weeks,” Jenk said, blushing as Larren raised his brows. “We cannot keep doing so without making a decision. That said, you do seem a bit unhinged at the moment, Ve’Ran.”

  Linn bristled.

  “I’d say the whole of Last Lake should be feeling the same,” she said, trying to keep her voice level.

  Jenk pulled up a stool and moved aside. He sat, nodding at Linn to continue. She had trouble deciding if he was condescending or not, and then decided that it did not matter either way.

  “What’s this about?” Larren asked gruffly.

  “I’d hazard a guess it has to do with Reyna,” Kaya sneered. “What state is he in? What on earth was he doing out in the woods during the Dark Months? He’s not half the Runner his father is.”

  Linn winced. She tried her best to ignore Kaya, but she cursed herself for not approaching Larren and explaining her plan separately. Her demeanor must have been more off-putting to him than she had expected.

  “The Dark Months should have ended a week ago,” Linn said.

  “They’re tailing off,” Nathen said. “The sun floats higher in the lake each day and hangs longer before sinking.”

  “Yes, Nathen. But the attack that took down our gate was the worst we’ve ever seen, and now one of our Embers, our Keepers,” she looked challengingly at Kaya, “has been attacked in the woods by something far worse than the Dark Kind. You’ve all heard the whispers, try as Ninyeva and Doh’Rah might to dispel them. You’ve heard the word they’ve been tossing around.”

  “Sentinels,” Baas said. He did not elaborate.

  “Tall tales from the desert days,” Larren scoffed, but he looked unsettled.

  “What is a Sentinel?” Nathen asked.

  Jenk cleared his throat.

  “If the stories are to be believed, then the Sentinels are the sentient Captains of the Dark Kind in the World Apart,” he said, staring at Linn all the while. “Where the Dark Kind are an unthinking mass of tooth, claw and tail, the Sentinels are cunning and deadly. Some say they even control the Night Lords themselves.”

  Nathen’s eyes widened, no doubt thinking of their moonlit stroll.

  “Why have they not come before?” he asked. “I thought the Dark Kind came through in waves—through rifts.”

  “Not the Sentinels,” Linn said, seizing on the covered fear in the room. “They’re too powerful to make it through, too easy for the World to mark and destroy upon entering. They need to be let in.”

  “Now you believe the Sages have turned their eyes on us, just because Kole says so?” Jenk asked. He looked far from convinced. “He doesn’t know what he saw when the Night Lord caught him in its gaze. And he’s not one known for being objective when it comes to the Sages.”

  “The attacks are getting worse every year!” Linn shouted. “And now we have Night Lords and Sentinels in the Valley. The World Apart skirts no closer now than it’s ever been before. This is direct. It’s just like the stories.”

  There was a silence.

  “I hear Reyna was more than injured when they brought him back.”

  The speaker was Fihn. Her voice was high with a sharp edge.

  “They say his eyes are black pits, staring out at nothing.”

  Linn was about to speak, but Larren cut her off.

  “I heard his screams echoing from the tower on my way over.” He looked around the chamber. “That boy is stout. He is Ember. It is troubling, Ve’Ran.” He looked at her hard. “But solutions lie in preparation, not rash action. What is it you want us to do? Why is it you called us here, out of sight and out of mind of Doh’Rah, Ninyeva and the First Keeper? You saw what happened to Reyna for chasing demons in the woods. Why would we do the same?”

  Linn swallowed. She had to tread carefully here.

  “Kole said he sensed the White Crest.”

  Everyone in the room shifted at that.

  “He couldn’t decide which of his hated Sages he saw,” Larren said, and Kaya snorted her agreement, earning a withering glare from the Second Keeper that put her back in her place.

  “Kole is an Ember,” Jenk said, speaking slowly. “We have powers, yes, but none of them stray into anything like the sight of the Landkist native to this land—of the Faeykin. If Ninyeva had said so—

  “She may as well have,” Linn said, her words short and clipped. Steam from the grates clung to her brow, s
ticking her dark bangs and giving her the uncomfortable feeling that she looked very much like a little girl fresh from a bath. “Ninyeva did not dispute anything Kole said, not even when the White Crest was brought up.”

  “The White Crest is dead,” Baas said, his tone flat. His people held no love for the Sage or his legacy. After all, it was his battle with the agents of the Eastern Dark that brought down the passes over the heads of his grandsires. It was not so long ago. The White Crest had not been seen or heard from since.

  “Kole says he is alive,” Linn said, her voice growing desperate. “I know what it must sound like, especially to those of you who don’t know him like I do. But Kole,” she paused. “He has this sense about him. He’s had it ever since—

  “Ever since his mother fell in the Steps,” Larren cut in. “Sarise A’zu was as strong an Ember as there’s ever been in the Valley. I have no shame in admitting that. Her loss was keenly felt, by that boy most of all. But the sense you’re talking about is obsession. Sarise was killed by the Dark Kind. They’ve always been thicker in the north of the Valley, especially around the Deep Lands. She was a fool for having gone. Had the White Crest been present, he’d have protected her.”

  “He is alive,” Linn said, though her voice was now soft as a whisper. “He has to be alive. Ninyeva knows it.”

  Larren looked about to speak, to cut her words down again, but something in her expression gave him pause. He swallowed and looked away.

  “The old bird gave him leave to find out what he saw at the close of the Dark Months,” Fihn said.

  “Does it seem to you he’ll be able to make that deadline?” Linn countered.

  “Doesn’t matter much to me. Not sure why it matters to you.”

  “Because she wants him to be alive,” Jenk said, understanding dawning as he studied Linn’s face. “And she fears what Kole will do if he finds him.”

  “Where has he been all this time, then?” Kaya asked “Hiding?”

  “It would make sense,” Nathen said with a light shrug. “If he was gravely wounded. We don’t know how long Sages take to heal.”