The Elder Stones Saga Boxset: Books 1-3

by D. K. Holmberg

  He waited.

  When they appeared, he pushed.

  Haern was relentless, sending them tumbling into the lava, ignoring their screams as they fell, knowing they deserved a fate far worse than that.

  One after another they appeared, and each time, he used his connection to lorcith, pushing the Forgers away from him, letting them fall into the lava. He stopped listening to their screams, hardening himself.

  His father had been right. The Forgers deserved everything he could do to them.

  He turned to the Forger he held. “You will return me to the temple.”

  “I will not—”

  Haern pushed, sending the Forger toward the lava, before drawing him back. “Bring me back to the temple, and I will release you. You can come slinking back here and do whatever it is you need to, but know that if you don’t, this will be your fate.” As if to punctuate it, one of the Forgers suddenly Slid, and Haern pushed on him, sending him stumbling into the lava. “Do you understand me?”

  “Do you think I fear death?”

  “I think you intend something, and whatever it is you intend can’t be accomplished by dying. So yes. I do think you fear death.”

  The Forger started to laugh, and Haern pushed on him again. He let him linger at the edge of the walkway overlooking the lava. He held him in place. How long would he be able to hold on? He wouldn’t be surprised if he suddenly failed. This new connection might be significant, but he had no idea whether it would be indefinite.

  “I don’t want to tear down everything within your hideout.”

  “This is not a hideout. This is—”

  Haern pulled the Forger to him. “I don’t care what this is. All I care about is getting back to the temple.”

  He had been gone a long time now. If he wasn’t going to be able to save his father, then at least he could fulfill his promise, save the young women as he had told them he would, and return to Elaeavn.

  He dreaded telling his mother what he had found. But she deserved to know. She was a strong woman, and she had faced so much, dealt with his father disappearing often over the years, and managed to hold everything together in the Aisl in his father’s absence. Haern had the sense she had never wanted that life for herself, that she would have preferred to have settled down, to have his father with her, and not have to wonder every time he left whether he would return. If nothing else, now she would no longer have to worry.

  Eventually, Haern would come back here. His father deserved that. With enough people who could oppose the Forgers, Haern would return with strength, and he would destroy everything they stood for.

  He would take up that mantle for his father.

  For the first time in his life, Haern thought he had the strength needed to do so. Now that he had this connection to lorcith, maybe he could pose a real threat to the Forgers. With Galen training him—if he survived—he could learn what was needed to defeat them.

  Another couple of Forgers appeared, and they tried to circle him, but with his connection to lorcith, he dragged them into the lava. He felt no remorse.

  “This is your last chance.” He pushed on the Forger, sending him to the edge once again. He let him lean forward, holding him in place.

  “I will return you to the temple,” the Forger said.

  Haern pulled him back and waited. “If you take me to the wrong place, I will end you, and then I will find anyone you care about and end them.”

  “Your father already has.” The Forger started to Slide, and Haern released the connection to lorcith, allowing him to Slide him. When he emerged, he looked around, half expecting that the Forger would bring him someplace deeper into the mountain, or possibly even drop them into the lava, but he did as he’d promised, and they appeared within the temple, back where he had left the others.

  Haern stepped back. “Go.”

  “You won’t hold me here?”

  “I told you I would release you.”

  The Forger attempted to Slide, and he hesitated before turning back to Haern.

  Haern pushed on him. “Don’t make me regret allowing you to leave.”

  With that, the Forger Slid away.

  37

  Haern

  The inside of the temple looked as Haern remembered.

  Chairs lined the walls, and banners hung overhead, symbols upon them that he didn’t recognize. A set of chairs near one end of the room sat upon an elevated dais, and the women were all gathered around, watching him with suspicion when he arrived.

  Elise stepped forward, regarding him with a strange look, and Haern took a deep breath, trying to hold on to the sense of lorcith, sealing it all around him. Several of these women had coins that he’d forged, and now that he was back, he felt the sense of that lorcith far more acutely than he had before.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “I went looking for my father,” he said.

  “Where is he?”

  “It’s possible he no longer lives.” The ground rumbled, and he turned his attention to the door behind him. The false Binders were still out there. Facing the Binders was very different than facing off against the Forgers and the augmentations they used to change themselves.

  “We need to get moving,” he said.

  “How? You said it’s not safe.”

  “I don’t know that it is safe, but we don’t have much of a choice.”

  “Where would you have us go?”

  Where could he bring them? He had thought that he was getting them to safety by coming here, believing the Binders would provide that safety, but unfortunately, that did not seem to be the case.

  And if the Binders weren’t able to protect them, he would have to do it, wouldn’t he?

  That meant Elaeavn, but the people of Elaeavn did not tolerate outsiders very well.

  Where else could he go?

  There were other cities that he knew were trustworthy. Places where the Binders would help these women.

  That meant delaying his return home. When he had wanted nothing more than to find his father, to save him, that would have mattered. Now, with the likelihood that his father had already passed from this world, the only thing he would be delaying was telling his mother what had happened.

  “There is a place we can go,” he said.

  “You said we could come here.”

  “And I thought we could. We’re going north, to a place called Asador. From there, those of you who want to return home will be able to do so.” Haern didn’t know if the Binders in Asador would actually allow that or not, but he believed they would. Carth would ensure they had some way of getting back to their homes, and those who didn’t want to would be able to work with the Binders. “I can help. I want to help.”

  Elise looked at the others with her. The steady rumbling from below continued, and there came with it the sense of lorcith. The Binders were carrying something, though he didn’t know if it would be something he could use against them.

  When another explosion rocked the tower, he made his way toward the door, standing there for a moment, listening outward.

  The sense of darkness loomed down the stairs, and he realized he couldn’t remember coming up these stairs in the first place. He must have, but that time was nothing more than a blur. He’d not been able to see anything, his vision blinded, only the sense of lorcith drawing him.

  As he peered out into the darkness, he realized something about his Sight had changed. There were lines across his vision, and through them came a sense of pulsing power.

  It was lorcith, but it was something else too.

  Could the temple hold lorcith within the walls?

  If this was a temple of the Forgers, then he thought it could, but how had he not noticed that before?

  Maybe that was why his vision had been a blur.

  Haern pushed on that sense.

  It was faint, but he was able to use it. He didn’t know if he would be able to do the same without his new connection to lorcith, but the longer h
e stood there, the more certain he was there was lorcith here. Not just here, but everywhere. The sense of it flowed throughout these walls, through floors, through everything.

  Strangely, the sense of lorcith wasn’t profound. It was faint, a trace amount, barely enough for him to do anything more than recognize it was present.

  Considering what he knew of the Forgers, they had to be aware that there was lorcith within the walls, but if it was intentional, why wouldn’t they have used a greater concentration?

  Why so little?

  He breathed out heavily, glancing behind him. Elise and the others stayed where they were, not approaching, and he realized they might not come.

  Footsteps sounded on the landing below him.

  If only he had a coin, a knife, something with lorcith he could use to help carry him down, he could reach the landing, figure out what the Binders were doing, and then return.

  But did he need that?

  With the lorcith in the walls, he could use that.

  He pushed and dropped down the flight of stairs, cushioning his landing with a push off the lorcith within the ground. There was movement below, and with that movement came the sense of lorcith.

  Haern erected a bubble around him, using the same technique he had when he had faced the Forgers. It might not work against the Binders, but then he felt the connection to lorcith and wondered if maybe their experiments had been similar to what the Forgers did.

  He glanced up the stairs, checking for movement before turning his attention back below. The attack was still further down the stairs.

  Blood on the walls caught his attention, and he realized that it had to be his blood. A trail from where his hand ran along the length of the wall weaved up and down the stairs.

  It was a wonder he was still on his feet, but even more impressive was that he didn’t feel bad. After everything he had experienced, and the fact that he had been fighting for as long as he now had, he was tired, and his hands throbbed, but nothing more than that.

  Hesitating for a moment, Haern couldn’t help but feel as if that were a problem.

  He shouldn’t feel better with Forger metal implanted in his hand.

  What if they had wanted him to have the metal implanted in his hand?

  It was something he would have to consider later.

  Haern pushed, jumping off and letting himself drop so that he descended to the landing below.

  Three women approached.

  He recognized one of them, having seen her at the house, but the other two he didn’t know.

  “You,” Julianne said. “You left us.”

  “You abandoned me,” he said.

  “We did what we were asked to do.”

  “You abandoned me. And you were responsible for what happened to those women.”

  “Careful,” she said.

  Haern focused on the sense of lorcith and could feel it from somewhere within her. It was faint, twisted, but it was there.

  Maybe it wasn’t lorcith at all but one of the alloys.

  As he stood there, he realized that the other two women also had lorcith within them.

  They had been experimenting.

  He was careful and pushed gently around him, creating a little bit of a bubble, enough that if they attempted to get too close, he could hold them at bay.

  More than anything, he wanted answers. If they were trying to mimic the Binders, he wanted to know why.

  The other two women he didn’t recognize shifted their stances, trying to slip off to either side of him.

  Haern pushed, blocking them from taking another step, and they surged forward, trying to reach him, but he held firm, keeping them from going anywhere.

  “You’re not even Binders, are you?”

  “You’re one of them.”

  “No.” He looked from one woman to the next and shook his head in anger. “They made me. I wasn’t anything but Sighted from Elaeavn. And now…”

  Now he didn’t know what he was. Something else, though what was that?

  “You couldn’t understand,” Julianne said.

  “Why couldn’t I understand?” When one of the others tried to surge forward, he waved his hand, pushing her forward against the wall and holding her there. “Try it again and see what happens.”

  “They came to our lands, enslaved our people, and we went for help. We thought we found others like her, others who wanted to attack, but they didn’t. They retreated, the same way that everyone retreats from the Ai’thol.”

  “Who did you find?”

  “The people you seem to revere so much.”

  “The Binders?”

  “Binders. What did they bind anyway? They bind themselves to fear, and they hide, avoiding those they could help, even though they have the ability to do so.”

  “What happened?”

  “What happened is that we were willing to fight. We were willing to do what was necessary. We were willing to sacrifice ourselves if it came down to it to free our people.”

  He didn’t know what to say. How could he argue with that? If they felt as if the Binders had abandoned them, how could he argue otherwise? It was possible that in their minds, the Binders had abandoned them.

  “But now you want to force others into your fight.”

  “We don’t force, we offer an opportunity.”

  “An opportunity to be changed. The same opportunity I was offered.” He held his hands up and pushed. All of the women went sliding back. “I can’t deny there is power in the augmentations, but those who receive them should agree to do so.”

  “You aren’t going to convince us,” Julianne said.

  “I don’t need to convince you. I intend to stop you.”

  “You’ve already made your first mistake.”

  He realized that she was delaying him.

  There was the sense of lorcith, but now it came from above him, and far more potently than he had noticed it before.

  Great Watcher!

  Haern pushed, using his connection to lorcith to travel up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, he pushed again and darted into the room. He skidded to a stop, realizing there were more than he had expected.

  There had to be a dozen of the false Binders, enough that he didn’t know if he would be able to overpower them.

  He started to push on the sense of lorcith but realized he couldn’t do that. The lorcith he’d gifted to the girls now became a deterrent. He couldn’t push away lorcith without impacting them.

  Could he do so selectively?

  Maybe he could hold on to his connection to the coins he’d made, pull on them, while pushing on the sense of lorcith he had not made.

  Doing so would be far more complicated than anything he had done so far since gaining an increased connection to lorcith, but he had to try.

  Haern pushed off the lorcith in the floor, reaching the center of the room. Once he was there, he pulled on the lorcith he had forged, drawing it to him, and then he pushed.

  There was resistance, and it took him a moment to realize that resistance came from lorcith within the floors and walls and ceiling. He was trying to push on too much. Could he filter his connection? Could he reduce it in such a way that he didn’t push on it quite so much?

  Haern changed the focus, drawing a little less lorcith, and he pushed outward.

  “You need to get them closer to me,” he called out to Elise.

  She looked over. Her eyes were wide, and he could see the fear fluttering within them.

  “Bring them to me, and I can push them away.”

  “How?”

  “I can’t explain it. Bring them closer.”

  He continued to hold out, creating a barrier. Those with the lorcith coins he’d forged were drawn toward him, and they stumbled into the center of the temple, coming closer to him.

  Elise gathered the others, attempting to bring them to her, but the false Binders were getting in the way, delaying her.

  Haern jumped forward, crouching in front of on
e of the young girls who held one of his coins. “I need the coin back,” he said as gently as he could.

  She nodded quickly, reaching into her pocket.

  He took it and pushed.

  With that, he sent it streaking into the nearest of the false Binders, freeing Elise.

  He pulled on the coin, holding on to the other connection to lorcith he had, and used the coin as he attacked, driving it around him, hitting one false Binder after another. He found he wasn’t trying to kill, only injure. As he attacked, pushing on the coin, he wondered if perhaps that were a mistake.

  If it were Forgers, he would have no qualms about killing, but for some reason the Binders made him sympathetic.

  Elise continued to gather the women with her and motioned for them to get near the center of the temple. Haern used the coin, pushing it around them, sending it streaking one after another, hitting one Binder after another, giving Elise a chance to get them together.

  When she had the last of them, Haern backed toward the center of the temple.

  There were nearly a dozen Binders, enough that he still didn’t know if he would be able to stop them, but for now, in this moment, he was able to push against them, holding them at bay.

  Faiza approached, her face bloodied, a small gash along one cheek, a sword in hand. She looked at him, coming as close as she could to the barrier that he erected. “How long do you think you can hold this?”

  “I’ll hold it as long as I need to get them to safety.”

  “Do you think this is all we will do?”

  With the comment, he realized she was right.

  He had attempted to find compassion, but what good would compassion do?

  Others would be captured, forced to undergo the experiments the Binders attempted upon them and suffer the same way these women had almost suffered. Was that what he wanted?

  There was something he could do, but it would require he be as cruel to them as he had been to the Forgers. Haern wasn’t sure he had it in him. He didn’t want to be that person, but what choice did he have?