Shadow Warrior (Sky Raiders Book 3)

by Michelle Diener

  The path he'd carved out turned left, and she followed it, turning the corner to find a solid wall of trees in front of her.

  He'd stepped out of the inbetween here, and gone on without it--she could only guess because he hadn't wanted to overshoot his target.

  She'd come to a halt at the sight of the undisturbed forest in front of her, and now she moved forward more cautiously, trying to make as little noise as possible as she entered the cool darkness of the woods.

  It was as if there was no one here but the wind in the branches and the small animals and insects that scurried underfoot.

  She stood still and closed her eyes, listening intently, and when she opened them, there was a man watching her from thirty feet away.

  He stood between two trees, and he held something loosely in his hand she couldn't quite see. Something small enough to fit in his palm.

  He tipped his head to one side, studying her with almost insolent thoroughness, but that was fine.

  She studied him right back.

  The sudden, shocking sound of a fight raging somewhere deeper in the trees had him turning sideways and looking toward the confrontation.

  Taya drew her weapons when he moved, because there was no way she would allow him to come up behind Garek or join in a fight against him.

  He stilled when he saw the knives.

  “You're all the way over there,” he said, voice low but loud enough to carry. “How are you going to hurt me with those?”

  He took a step away from her.

  “Stay where you are.” She heard the panicked snap in her own voice.

  “What if I don't?” He took another step, and she lifted both arms, elbows bent, hands back, ready to throw.

  With a grin, he turned to face her and started walking backward, and she threw, aiming the blades, but calling her Change to propel them forward.

  He smirked, concentrating on the knives, and with shock she realized he was calling his own Change, that he thought he could control the knives himself.

  The moment he realized he couldn't, his smirk turned to panic, and he threw the object in his hand without aiming.

  She changed the trajectory of one of the knives, intercepting what seemed to be a disc, and with a high-pitched ting, it flew off into the trees to her left.

  The look of astonishment on his face almost made her laugh, but he was still a threat.

  She stopped the flight of both knives, careful to keep them a few meters from him.

  The last man she'd played this game with had died, and she shied away from the thought of doing it again. But for Garek's safety, she would.

  “Who are you?” he asked. There was almost a reverent tone in his voice, but she didn't answer. There was no quick and easy answer to that question, anyway.

  She started walking toward him again, steady and relentless.

  “No closer.” He brandished another disc, an almost curious look on his face, as if he wanted to find out how she would counter him a second time.

  She ignored him, and with a quick grin, he threw the second disc, which she met with her knives again, crossing them over each other and knocking it to the ground.

  He saluted her, and before she could uncross her blades and aim them at him again, he ducked behind the tree and disappeared from view.

  She ran forward, calling her knives back, and kept them in her hands as she reached the spot where he'd stood, but he had disappeared between the trees.

  A sound behind her made her spin around, knives raised, to find Savo standing there, his face carrying a strange, unreadable expression.

  He bent down and picked up one of the discs. “Looks like you found the Iron Guard.”

  The arrow came at him the moment the archer swung down from the tree, and Garek was grateful for every moment of his training. He dived low, rolled and came up running full tilt toward the shooter.

  He had no weapon of his own beyond his body and the strength of his Change; he'd given back his sword when he'd left the Guards in Gara, and he hadn't chosen to acquire another one since.

  Now he lashed out, knocking the bow from the archer's hands before he could notch another arrow. If he was Iron Guard, though, he wouldn't need the bow to propel the iron-tipped arrows, so to counter it, Garek used the last of his power, drained by the inbetween, to swirl the air around them, throwing up the dead leaves and other debris of the forest floor so it was a battle to see clearly.

  “How,” the archer grunted and leapt back to avoid a hit, “did you get here so fast?”

  Garek ignored him. He focused on the way the guard moved, and grudgingly admired his style and form.

  “Tell General Hanson I need to speak to her.” He avoided a blow, and didn't strike back, even though he could have done so, to underscore his point.

  “Who are you?” The archer didn't give anything away.

  “Garek of Pan Nuk. Friend of Aidan of Juli. And the man who controls a sky craft.”

  The archer stepped back, hands up, and Garek did the same.

  “I don't know who General Hanson is.”

  Garek shook his head. “The time for games is over now. We've got war on our doorstep from the sky and from our neighbors. Tell Hanson she needs to speak to me, and soon.”

  The archer's gaze flicked momentarily over Garek's shoulder, and Garek used the last, the absolute last, of his Change to jump.

  A disc thudded into the tree beside the archer, embedded deep, and as Garek landed back on the ground, half-turning, he saw a second man with his arm drawn back to throw another disc.

  He didn't think he had anything left in him, but he managed to squeeze out a final dust devil, swirling it around the newcomer so he was curtained in soil and leaves.

  The man coughed, rubbing at his eyes, his arm lowering.

  “You play dangerous games with people you might want to be friends with later.” Garek shook his head at them, the headache from the overuse of his Change pounding spikes into his head and making his temper flare. “Tell Hanson, either she comes to me, or I will come to her. And neither of you will like it when I do.”

  “Did you destroy the forest?” The second man kept the disc at his side.

  “I did.” He held the man's gaze for a long beat. “Tell Hanson. Time is wasting.”

  He nodded, and edged around Garek until he reached the archer standing by the tree, and used a tool on his belt to retrieve his disc.

  “If you wouldn't mind asking the other guard if she would collect the other discs, I'd appreciate it.” The iron guard slid his discs into a pouch.

  “Other guard?” The pounding in Garek's head intensified, and he felt a frisson of fear run down his back.

  “The woman with the knives.” There was something awed and a little too interested in his tone.

  “If you have hurt even one hair on her head--” Garek stepped forward, and from the look on the two iron guards’ faces, he was finding the inbetween again, even though it should be impossible in his current state.

  They ran, and he stood for a moment, unable to move.

  “Garek?” Taya's voice cut through the fog, and he turned to her, saw she seemed unharmed, and then went down like one of the trees he'd just destroyed.

  Chapter 3

  Garek flickered in and out of the inbetween, and then turned as she called out, broke into the strangest smile at the sight of her, and then collapsed.

  Taya ran toward him, knives out, and behind her she heard Savo and the guards on his team spread out to look for the two men they'd seen standing off against Garek.

  She went down in a crouch, ready to jump up and defend Garek if she needed to, and brushed gentle fingers over his face.

  “Just tapped out,” he murmured, eyes closed. “Too much energy expended.”

  She bent over him in relief, resting her forehead against his for a moment, then looked up as Savo approached her.

  “He burnt himself out,” she said, looking up at him. “Can you help me get him back to camp?”
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  The sky craft was sitting there unprotected, a nice little gift for the sky raiders, should they come by. She could fly it now, Garek had shown her how while they waited for Quardi, Garek's father, to sharpen and finish off the shadow ore weapons they had made together, but it was still very much necessary to have Garek onboard to help with the take-off and landing.

  Savo nodded, and indicated with a wave of his hand for another of the guards to come over. They were a similar height, and they lifted Garek between them, getting under his shoulders, but after a few steps, changed their strategy and called another two helpers to carry him horizontal to the ground.

  The trip back to the camp was done mostly in silence.

  The pulverized wood, lying on either side of a clear, person-sized pathway, seemed to render the guards mute, and Taya took turns with them as they carried Garek carefully back over the river.

  No one spoke, not even to discuss who the two men had been.

  By the time Taya had Garek back in the sky craft, comfortable on the mats they'd brought from Pan Nuk to sleep on, and had taken some of their food out to cook on the camp fire, the sky had darkened almost to night.

  The guards' banter died out when she dropped to the ground from the sky craft's ladder, and she forced herself forward when her inclination was to turn around, climb back inside, and continue watching over Garek.

  She looked up at the sky first, just to make sure there was no sign of sky raiders. It was clear, and Taya hoped their close proximity to the wide river would help to confuse whatever systems the sky raiders used to trace their craft.

  Water was a shield, and there was certainly enough flowing past the camp.

  She set down the bag of flatbread to be warmed over the coals, and some carefully wrapped bobber. It was fresh, wouldn't last long, and there was more than enough to share.

  Perhaps it was time to forge some allies.

  “Garek and I came from Pan Nuk this morning,” she said, looking over at Savo. “I've got enough bobber and flatbread for everyone.”

  Savo jerked his gaze to her in surprise. “That would be a nice change. We've only had one night here, last night, the rest of the time we were traveling from Juli, and we had to live on pack food, and you know how monotonous that gets.”

  She hadn't had pack food before; the dried meat, fruit and double-baked hard biscuits that were a staple for traveling guards. But she realized he thought she was a guard herself, because of the clothes she was wearing, and probably because she'd called her Change in the forest.

  She lifted out the two bobbers, the birds already dressed with a spit stick through each of them thanks to Quardi, Garek's father, and two of Savo's team stepped forward to help her set them above the fire.

  The other four guards, Savo included, drew nearer, sitting on the rocks and old tree stumps someone had set around the fire pit.

  “So,” Savo broke the silence. “This is Rig,” he pointed to the big man who'd initially helped him carry Garek. “This is Fran and Ness,” he pointed to the two women who'd rolled some logs close to the fire to sit on, “and then there's Yanni, and that's Elina.” He waved his hand at the two who'd moved forward to help her.

  “I'm Taya--”

  They were nodding before she went any further.

  “We saw you, the night you arrived back from Shadow with Aidan,” Elina said, pushing back a short piece of hair that had fallen over her brow. “Garek, too.”

  “Didn't know he could do that, though,” Savo said, looking across the river at the devastation Garek had caused.

  “He'd told me what happened when he was in the inbetween,” Taya confided, “but today was the first time I'd actually seen it.”

  “And when he rose up in the air,” Rig said. “That I've never seen before, either. I call the air Change, and I've never even considered doing it.”

  “You should try,” Ness said to him, leaning forward and hooking her arms around her knees. “You never know what you might be capable of.”

  “Ask Garek how he does it, and give it a try,” Taya told him with a smile.

  “What I'd like to know is, what Change do you call?” Savo watched her as he put his hand into a leather pouch at his side and pulled out the two discs the iron guard had thrown at her. He tilted them so everyone could see them in the firelight, and they were both deeply chipped, damaged on their rims in such a way that cracks spidered from the outside toward the center.

  Taya took one with interest, turning it in her hands and holding it close to the fire to see better.

  She'd seen shadow ore penetrate rock on Shadow, and the outer shell of sky craft, as well. It was satisfying to see it worked on iron and steel, too.

  Looking at the damage done by her knives reminded her that she'd left them in the box on the river bank before she'd climbed into the sky craft earlier. Suddenly nervous about their safety there, she stood and walked over, put the lid on the box and carried it back to the fire.

  “Why do you keep your knives in water?” Fran spoke for the first time, stretching out her long, lean legs.

  “It protects them.” She wasn't going to give them information that would allow them to damage the sky craft until she could trust them, and they were still a long way from that.

  “What are they made of? I've never seen dark purple metal before.”

  Taya hesitated. “It's shadow ore. It's what we were mining for the sky raiders on Shadow.”

  “So you call this shadow ore as your Change?” Rig put out his hand, silently asking her permission to touch, and she dipped into the water and handed him a knife.

  The less people who knew her Change the better, but this was a tight-knit team and they would have spoken to each other. Savo at least had seen her with the knives this afternoon. Possibly others, too.

  “I think it's a type of earth Change. Just very specific to shadow ore. And I'd never have known I had a calling if I hadn't been kidnapped to Shadow.”

  Savo had leaned in to look at the knife Rig was holding, but his gaze snapped to her. “You only found your calling on Shadow?”

  She nodded. “I discovered it there, because I was exposed to shadow ore every day.”

  Everyone absorbed that for a while, and Taya turned the bobber spits, so the fat dripped from them, and the aroma of roasting meat hung tantalizingly in the air.

  “I've never heard of someone finding their calling so late,” Rig said at last.

  “I've thought about it a lot, how many people must have a calling but never encounter their element.” Taya lifted the bobbers off the fire one at a time and placed them on the smooth, flat plates the guards had put near her. She carefully set the flat breads on the coals, keeping a careful watch on them. She looked up. “I've even wondered if everyone on Barit has a calling, and it is just that those who find theirs early call more common elements. After all, we're all people of the same place. Why shouldn't everyone call a Change?”

  There was another silence at that.

  “I've never heard that theory before,” Savo eventually offered.

  “I'm the living proof it's possible.” Taya pulled her second knife from the water and used it to flick the flatbread onto a plate.

  Rig helped her cut up bobber with the shadow knife he still held. “I would do a lot to get a knife made of this ore,” he said when everyone had a piece and he handed it back.

  “There were two statues in Kardanx that I saw when we took the Kardai who’d been captured back home. Both had shadow ore in them.” Taya recalled the surprise and excitement she'd felt when she'd sensed what the two stylized trees were. “So there is a mine or a source of it somewhere on Barit.”

  Rig cast another, covetous look at her knife as she cleaned each blade carefully with an oiled cloth, and then tucked into his food.

  They ate in a more companionable silence than they'd had before.

  “Did Garek manage to tell you what happened between him and that member of the Iron Guard?” Savo threw a bone into the fire
.

  “No, but I assume he told them we want to speak to General Hanson.”

  “He did.” The voice came from just outside of the fire's glow.

  All the guards were on their feet and facing outward faster than Taya could react. She set her plate down next to the one she'd set aside for Garek, reached for both knives, and stood.

  She would need to get quicker, learn to react faster.

  Garek had begun teaching her, but she'd sensed a reluctance in him. He knew it wasn't something she enjoyed, and his natural inclination was to make her happy.

  She'd let him set the pace, and she saw now she should have committed more fully to becoming a better warrior. He had taken his cues from her, and she had been holding back because she didn't want to become what she needed to be.

  “Little girl in the middle, are you the one my sentry came back babbling about?”

  There was something derisive in the voice of the woman who spoke, something belittling, and Taya's temper flared higher than the fire in front of her.

  “I don't know, am I?” she asked, and threw one of her knives into the air, holding it still above the fire, where it was clearly visible.

  There was a sound of surprise, a deeper-pitched murmur, and Taya saw from the way Savo shifted, he'd heard it too. There was more than just a single person out there in the darkness.

  “Well, well.” The voice still held a hint of dislike, but it was smothered over in surprise. “I see my sentry was right. What do you want?”

  “I think we’ve established you already know what we want,” Savo said, voice cool. “To speak with General Hanson.”

  “You are speaking to her,” the woman said, and Savo shook his head.

  “You run along and tell General Hanson that Captain Savo of the Juli Night Guard wants to speak to her. Tomorrow morning is soon enough.”

  There was silence, and Taya thought she sensed a tinge of shock to it. She called back her knife, slipping it into the sheath on her belt.