Rift Walker (Ember & Ash Book 1)

by E. A. Copen

  The first dragonling reached our ledge and clicked its flint-like teeth together. Sparks lit shimmering air and the monster belched a narrow column of flame at us. Foggy evaded the fire and stepped in, swinging his massive hammer with a grunt. The dragonling ducked its reptilian head, avoiding the blow.

  Another dropped onto the ledge behind me. I didn’t give it the chance to spark fire. Gathering momentum from my turn, I brought the blade down in a perfect horizontal slice. The dragonling let out a primal screech as the sword bit into the side of its neck. A superficial slice and nothing more. The damn thing had moved away at the last second.

  “Zia!” I shouted, and took another swing. “Hurry up!”

  A less draconic screech sounded above us, near the cave entrance. A beat later, the pale white body of a vampire, streaked with blood, tumbled through the air. It fell, twisting like a cat, as if it could land safely on its feet. But it missed the ledge and smashed into the rocks below. Zia let out a desperate scream and gripped the silver band on her head. She clawed at it, ripping at skin and hair with blind eyes, her face locked in an expression of pure terror. Her fingers froze, curled into claws, and her head fell back, her entire body going rigid while she made choking sounds.

  “What the hell is happening?” I brought my sword up, deflecting the claws of a dragonling.

  Foggy kicked his foe back and smashed the pommel of his hammer into its throat. “Whiplash! She was in that thing’s head when it died.”

  The dragonling reared, curved claws swiping through the air. I thrust the sword forward in a perfect strike, piercing a weak spot at the base of its neck, just above the ribcage. It flailed around a moment before making a misstep and sliding off the side of the cliff. With wings still too small to fly, it too fell to its death far below.

  I turned to help Foggy with his dragon, but paused when I saw more of them pouring out of the den above us. There must have been a dozen or more dragonlings, some of them large enough that it wouldn’t be an easy fight. They came clawing their way down the sheer rock face, tongues flicking and teeth clicking.

  “Screw this,” I spat, and reached down to lift Zia over my shoulder. She was heavy, but I’d lifted heavier. Carrying her limp body down the mountain, however, wasn’t going to happen. I needed Scorch. “Foggy, quit playing around and let’s go!”

  The dwarf gave one last mighty swing of his hammer, smashing the dragonling’s head to a bloody pulp against the cave wall. He turned and followed just as a larger dragonling dropped onto the ledge behind him.

  “Foggy! Behind you!”

  He turned too late. The dragonling opened its jaws, a ball of white-hot flame forming in its mouth.

  A dark shadow dropped out of nowhere and landed between Foggy and the dragonling. In the dim light, I thought it might be another dragonling until Ash stood up. “Get behind me!” He thrust a hand forward, opening a rift in the air just big enough to swallow the dragon’s fire.

  The dragonling belched out the last of its flame. Ash pushed the rift bigger. Pebbles along the narrow path rose, suspended in mid-air by the magic. As the rift grew wider, the pull became stronger. First, it only swallowed the pebbles. Then, I felt it pulling on my clothes.

  With a grunt, Ash pushed his arm forward, and with it the rift. The dragonlings turned to flee, but they weren’t fast enough. In a matter of seconds, the swirling rift swallowed them all. Once they were inside the rift, he closed his fist and the world exploded in a shower of green light and flame. He teetered in place for a moment before falling to his knees.

  I pushed Zia at Foggy and went to Ash to grip him by his cloak. “Where is Dex?”

  He stared at me, wheezing. The left side of his face twitched into a sneer. “I just saved your life and the first thing you do is ask about him?” He shakily pushed to his feet.

  I tried to help him, but he shoved me away. My back hit the cliff wall, and I held on, shaken. “Ash, where is he? What did you do? Answer me!”

  Ash ran his fingers through his hair and adjusted his cloak. “It was a big rift. I told him to stay back, that he was just there to make sure I could finish the job uninterrupted. Even drew a line on the ground and told him not to cross. It’s not my fault, Ember.”

  I stared at him, imagining it in my head. Had he pushed Dex over the line? Tripped him? Dex had been so weak, so sick. I shouldn’t have let him go.

  The guilt quickly spun into anger. My fingers curled against the smooth rock face. “You bastard!” I lunged at Ash.

  He sidestepped and swung out a foot, knocking me off balance. My breath caught as I tipped over the cliff, but Ash grabbed me by my belt. Rather than pull me back, he let me dangle over the black abyss, a deadly drop of several hundred feet onto sharp stone.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you,” he said to Foggy. “Hit me and I might lose my grip.”

  The dwarf’s nostrils flared as he held his hammer at the ready. “If she dies, you die.”

  Ash ignored the dwarf and looked at me while I flailed my arms helplessly. “I could let you fall. I could kill you both and then tell any story I wanted.”

  I swallowed and tried to calm my panicked breathing. The anger was still there, but it had pushed behind the fear of falling to my death.

  Ash yanked me back onto solid ground. “But remember that I didn’t.”

  I wanted to stand, but my legs wouldn’t hold me.

  Foggy backed slowly away from Ash and put a hand on my shoulder. “You okay, lass?”

  I nodded shakily and slowly got back to my feet. Inside, I was a maelstrom of emotion. Anger, fear, grief, sadness… It swirled in a tight ball in the center of my chest. “I want to see where it happened.”

  Ash shook his head. “It was far up the mountain. Besides, there’s nothing there. He’s gone, Ember. Accept it.”

  “I’ll accept nothing from you, you lying, traitorous ass!”

  He heaved a heavy sigh. “Regardless, you’re not going up that mountain.”

  Foggy put a hand on my shoulder, his expression grave. “I hate to say it, but he’s right, lass. Zia’s other vampire is still up there somewhere, and without her controlling it…” He trailed off. “And that’s saying nothing of any other dragonlings or other creatures who will come to investigate what’s happened here. The paths are narrow, and we don’t have sufficient light to make the trip now.”

  “Come.” Ash walked over, picked up my sword from where it lay on the rocks, and held it out to me. “The dragon will return from its hunt soon. It will feast and sleep with a fully belly. We’ll come back up in the daylight and you can inspect whatever you like.”

  I jerked the sword away from him, trembling with rage. Knowing they were both right didn’t make it any easier to believe. Dex was gone.

  More people would die needlessly if I left Ash to succeed. The only way I was going to save anyone was if I stayed alive long enough to claim the dragon’s heart from under him.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  We found Scorch a short distance away and put Zia on her. Zia hadn’t moved. She still wore the same blank, wide-eyed stare she’d had when she slumped over.

  “Will she recover?” I asked Ash. I was still furious with him for what had happened with Dex. All the way down the path, the only thing I could think about was pushing him off the mountain. But if I killed Ash, I wouldn’t be any better than he was. What was it Old Jim used to say? If you kill a killer, the number of killers in the world stays the same.

  Ash took Scorch’s reins and pulled. “You were supposed to protect her.”

  “We did.” I took Scorch’s reins away from him.

  “As best we could,” Foggy agreed. “No one could’ve known about the dragonlings.”

  Ash scowled and walked on, keeping both of us in front. “Dragonlings complicate things. It means our dragon is mated.”

  “Two dragons?” We had only seen one, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t another hiding somewhere else in the mountain range. There were more than enough peaks
and cliffs for each dragon to have their own.

  But Ash shook his head. “No. A dragon’s territory is vast, and they don’t overlap. Once they reach maturity, they either leave or become food for other dragons.”

  Foggy sighed. “Well, at least that’s gone right. One dragon, we can kill. Two? Even I know fighting two is stupid.”

  “Our dragon must be a female, which means there is a male somewhere out here,” Ash continued. “Those were older dragonlings, close to outgrowing the nest. How old, I can’t say. It’s possible, however, the dragon’s had time to mate again. She could have an egg in there.”

  “And you’ll find no fiercer mother than a dragon.” Foggy ran his fingers through her beard. “This is a fight that will be hard fought.”

  “Dammit, Zia,” Ash muttered, lowering his head. “Why now? If anyone would’ve known about the mating habits of dragons, it would’ve been her. All that valuable Institute knowledge wasted. And we didn’t even get a map of the cavern system.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh well. It can’t be helped. The Institute won’t be happy about losing one of their own.”

  My fist closed tighter around Scorch’s reins. “Zia’s not dead.”

  “She might as well be. She’s useless to me as a catatonic. I told her not to take any risks with those vampires. Now what do I do with what’s left of her?”

  I stopped and spun around, blocking Ash’s path forward. “You’re getting a healer to look at her.”

  Ash glared down his nose at me. “We didn’t bring a healer.”

  “Then after. You take her wherever you have to, and you make sure she’s taken care of, Ash. Like she did for you. I may not like Zia, but she doesn’t deserve to be discarded because she’s no longer useful. She’s a person, not a broken toy you can just throw away.”

  “We’ll talk about what happens after later. For now, walk.” He grabbed my arm and forced me to go forward.

  Foggy shifted his grip on his hammer and squinted at Ash. Ash sneered back at the dwarf, but released my arm so I could walk on my own. Foggy relaxed.

  As we neared camp, the clamor of shouting voices greeted us. A handful of the non-affiliated fighters we’d brought with us had gathered in the middle of camp, surrounding Ike, and they didn’t look happy.

  “I told you already the wagons belong to the expedition,” Ike shouted. “And so do the supplies.”

  “How do you expect us to make it back then?” a man in the crowd shouted back. “Half of us are already too sick to walk. No telling how many we’ll lose if we have to walk the whole way.”

  Someone drew a knife. “Then we take it by force.”

  “Don’t make me fight you.” Ike lifted his hammer from his belt, but they outnumbered him. He looked past the crowd and spotted Ash. A relieved expression crossed his face. “There. You want to take it up with someone? He’s the one who brought us here.” He pointed at Ash.

  Faces turned to us, scowling. More hands found weapons.

  “Desperation,” Foggy whispered. “Nothing more dangerous in a group of armed men.”

  “He’s brought us here to kill us all,” someone shouted. “That way he doesn’t have to pay us.”

  “We’re dragon bait,” someone else added.

  Ash stepped away from me, Zia, and Foggy. “There’s no need for violence.”

  “Easy for you to say,” said the man with the knife. “You’re not sick. Why are you immune? Why are any of you immune?” His knife shifted from being pointed at Ash to pointing at me and then Foggy. “Eddie’s gone blind. Torrin’s got a fever and rash. Good men, both of ‘em and they’ll die here for you. And for what? What will you do for them? Didn’t even build a pyre for the last one you killed. You left him where he fell.”

  Ash lifted his chin. “I explained the danger back at the tavern. You signed a waiver.”

  “Paper,” spat the man. “Means nothing out here. You said so yourself. If we kill you, who’ll we answer to?”

  Ash lifted one hand, and the man flinched. “Think carefully before you let your cowardice in the face of death guide you. You’ve seen what I can do. With one stroke of my blade, I decapitated the last man who challenged me. I have magic at my disposal and armed guards posted around the camp.”

  I scanned the camp perimeter. Since we’d arrived, several guards had stepped forward, their hands on their weapons.

  “Do you really want to attack me?” Ash’s words dripped with unearned confidence.

  The man licked his lips and looked around, counting the guards. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Whatever’s killing people, it’s a slow and painful death. Maybe this way is faster.”

  Ash shrugged. “And maybe you won’t get sick at all. Maybe they’re weak and you’re strong. Maybe you’d be better off surviving to bury your friends.”

  There was a pregnant pause in the camp. With the rift gone, the night was so quiet we could hear one another breathing.

  It came out of the shadows at the edge of camp, a blur of pale flesh and fangs. One minute the man with the knife was standing in front of us, weighing his options, and the next he was on the ground gurgling while the vampire ripped a chunk of flesh out of his throat.

  The vampire lifted its head, blood dripping down its chin, and let out a wet snarl.

  Someone shouted, “Vampire!”

  There was the sound of several swords unsheathing at once before the camp erupted into chaos.

  The vampire leapt into the crowd, tearing into whoever was unlucky enough to come face to face with it. Those close to the victim tried to pull the vampire off, but it turned on them instead. Vampire claws raked across faces, tearing them to the bone. Teeth tore open bodies like ripe melons. Powerful legs kicked out, knocking down more victims. The crowd scattered, stampeding over one another to get away.

  Ash’s guards had brandished pistols out of nowhere and had them pointed at the crowd, waiting for his order to shoot, an order he was prepared to give without hesitation.

  I grabbed Ash’s arm. “You’ll hit your own people!”

  “There’s no way to tell who’s infected now and who isn’t. Better to kill them all.” He shook free of my grip and turned his back to me.

  Do it, said the shadow warrior’s voice in my head. Use me!

  And then the sword was in my hand. I didn’t remember drawing it, but I didn’t fight whatever had driven me to do it. Inside, I was numb. I was tired of watching people I cared about die, tired of not doing anything to stop it. Ash was my responsibility.

  My fault.

  I lifted the sword, ready to strike.

  A gun went off to my right, the sound a deafening boom. I felt the impact of something wet on my side. It hit me hard enough to make me stumble. Stunned, I lowered the sword and touched my side, only to have my hand come away bloody.

  Ash had turned around by the time I looked up, and he looked at me with a horrified expression.

  I tried to say something, but my chest was sinking into my toes. The world tilted sideways, and I fell.

  With a frustrated growl, Ash turned on the guard who’d shot me and stabbed him. Before he could jerk his blade free, the vampire vaulted out of the crowd and leapt onto Ash’s back.

  It all happened so fast, yet I swore I was watching it in slow motion with sound pulsing in and out of existence in time with my heartbeat.

  “Lass!” Foggy was on the ground with me. He had blood in his beard.

  There was blood on my fingers. Was that my blood in his beard or someone else’s?

  He lifted his head and looked around as if he were searching for someone, but the camp was chaos. I couldn’t even see Ash anymore.

  “I’ll be back,” Foggy promised.

  “No! Don’t…” I tried to grab onto him, but he was already gone. I let my arm fall limply into the blood-soaked ground. “Don’t leave me.”

  It was cold on the ground, and my side burned like it was on fire. Everyone was screaming, but the shouts were getting quiete
r, further away. The ground felt like it was far away, too. If I didn’t know any better, I could’ve sworn I was flying.

  Open your eyes. The shadow warrior was talking again.

  So pushy. Didn’t that thing ever shut up?

  Open your eyes!

  I sucked in a gasp and forced my eyes open, only to find myself staring into a pile of rocks. I was no longer on the ground, but the ground was beneath me, moving. No, I was moving, and the rocks were carrying me.

  “What’s happening?” I tried to twist free in a panic, but white-hot pain shot through my side.

  “Try not to move. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” Ike’s voice.

  The whole thing suddenly made sense. This was his golem. I must’ve lost consciousness at some point. Ike made another golem, and it’s taking me… somewhere. “Where are we going? What about Ash and the rest of the hunting party?” I turned my head so I could see Ike walking alongside the golem.

  Ike shook his head. “Dead. Everyone’s dead except for that bastard, and a few of his crew. I knew this wouldn’t end well.”

  “At least we got you out, Lass.” Foggy’s tone was grim.

  I swallowed. My mouth was so dry. “Ash will notice I’m gone. He’ll come looking.”

  Ike nodded. “He’ll go after the dragon first, giving us all the time we need to slip away. That’s always been his priority.”

  I stared up at the sky. It was a red dawn, as if the sky itself was bleeding. “Dex…”

  “I know. I wanted him to pay for it. For everything. I could have. He was right there.” Ike made a fist and then released it, letting his shoulders slump. “But I had to make a choice. Saving who I could was more important.”

  “The right choice,” Foggy reminded him.

  The golem halted. With a gesture from Ike, it lowered me to the ground. I winced when its arms struck the dirt.

  Ike knelt next to me and lifted the dressing someone had hastily applied over my clothes to stop the worst of the bleeding. “I’ll do what I can, but I’m not a healer. I have… I have people who do that for me in the guild. We should have brought Fiona. Dammit!”