Cloud Warrior 05 - Forged in Fire

by Holmberg, D. K.

  Tan grimaced. It couldn’t have been Enya, could it?

  His mother nodded solemnly. “You understand why I wanted you to see this first.”

  “Mother,” Tan began, “this isn’t the draasin. I’ve bonded to one and know it wasn’t him. And now Cianna has bonded another.”

  “Cianna?” she asked thoughtfully. “She would serve well. But there are three adult draasin, Tannen. Can you tell me that the draasin had nothing to do with this?”

  He couldn’t. Not with real certainty. Tan didn’t know where Enya had been since Asboel had stopped her from withdrawing fire. He hated to admit that it was possible that she had been here.

  “You wanted to show me this to prove something to me?” he asked. “Is that what you thought?”

  “Not prove. You are bonded to the draasin. You understand them better than anyone alive. You should be the one to hold the draasin accountable.”

  “What of you?” he asked.

  “Theondar will need to know what I’ve seen,” she answered. “He is our king now.”

  “That’s not what I’m asking.”

  “I continue to search,” she said. “That is my task. And Incendin moves. You think we only need to fear Par-shon, but the Incendin threat is not gone. They are a greater threat than any shapers across the sea. I will see that we are ready when Incendin comes again.”

  She lifted to the air on a wind shaping and disappeared from view.

  Asboel, Tan sent, not wanting to wait to reach the draasin. You are needed.

  “Do you think this could have been Enya?” Amia asked.

  “I don’t know,” Tan admitted.

  “Why would she have done this?”

  He could think of several reasons. She’d been shaped by the Aeta once before, though that had been by the archivists. The archivists had scattered, but now they seemed to be returning to their families. What if Enya tracked the archivists for vengeance?

  Amia still didn’t look at the remains of the wagons. It reminded Tan of what he’d seen when he first found Amia’s wagons, when he had thought the lisincend had destroyed her. Incendin had attacked with fire and explosions and death.

  Tan was crouching near the broken wagons when Asboel settled to the ground near him.

  Was this Enya? he asked without looking up. Fire destroyed these people, Asboel. The attack is similar to what I saw when Enya attacked Ethea. I can’t tell if this was her, and I pray to the Mother this was not.

  If it was, it would make everything that much more difficult. If the draasin were feared again, if hunters of draasin returned, nothing would have changed. The bonds to the draasin were to help that.

  Asboel stretched his long neck over the wreckage, inhaling deeply. This was fire.

  Fire. Not draasin. Not Enya?

  You should not need me to tell you that.

  Tan reached with a fire sensing and stretched it out and away from him. It touched on the bodies, on the charred remains of the wagons, and he felt the residual effect of the shaping that had happened here. It wasn’t draasin.

  I should have sensed this myself first.

  Yes.

  This wasn’t twisted fire either, Tan realized.

  He had thought it either Incendin or draasin, but what if it was neither? What fire shapers would attack the Aeta?

  This was fire, Asboel agreed.

  “The draasin didn’t do this,” he said to Amia. His shoulders relaxed and he lifted his head in relief.

  “He’s certain?”

  “I’m certain. I shouldn’t have needed Asboel to tell me, either. Enya wouldn’t have done this. I don’t know if she could have done this with the shaping you placed on her.”

  “If she’s bonded—”

  Tan frowned. “The bond removes the shaping?”

  “I don’t know. When Cianna bonded, I could no longer sense the shaping over Sashari. I’m not certain why.”

  Tan wondered the same thing. What about forming the bond changed the shaping Amia had placed, and why had it not changed the shaping on Asboel?

  “If it’s not the draasin, you know what that leaves,” Amia went on.

  “Why would Incendin do this? They have no reason to attack.”

  “Are you sure of that? Your mother and Roine are right, Tan. We still don’t know anything about Incendin. They have attacked the kingdoms for years. That won’t change simply because we’ve learned of Par-shon,” Amia said.

  What did Tan know? Only what Cora had shared and what he’d seen. And hadn’t he seen Aeta attacked and killed by Incendin? “It wasn’t the lisincend. This wasn’t twisted fire,” Tan said. “It could still be Incendin fire shapers, but why would they have destroyed the Aeta wagon?”

  He didn’t expect any answers, and Amia provided none.

  Tan turned to Asboel. Will you hunt with me?

  You will find who did this?

  There’s something I’m missing. I would know what it is.

  Then I will hunt, Asboel said.

  Tan pulled Amia with him onto the draasin’s back. He could shape them, but riding Asboel gave him an advantage that shaping did not. He could use Asboel’s sight, could reach through the draasin and see the world in the shades of orange and red that he could not access when he traveled by shaping. To find fire, the draasin would be quickest.

  He settled into his usual spot on Asboel’s back. Amia followed him, fitting between the heated spines, careful not to hold too tightly.

  Where do we hunt, Maelen?

  The Sunlands, Tan answered. In some ways, Cora’s name for these lands felt fitting.

  They curled around to the north, flying high above Incendin. Asboel trained his eyes on the ground, his amazing draasin vision searching for movement or anything that would explain the fire. As they flew, Tan felt a growing unease. For them to face Par-shon and survive, they would need the draasins’ help. They might need Incendin’s help. Now he was spending time searching for fire when he should be searching for Elle.

  Water searches on your behalf, Maelen. You needn’t worry.

  Tan sighed. He would have to let the nymid search and be content that it would be enough. It was hard for him to let go, especially when someone he cared about was in danger, but there was too much for him to do alone.

  Now you begin to understand. You will gain wisdom yet. Asboel made a clucking sound much like a laugh.

  Tan gave Asboel a stern kick. That hadn’t been funny.

  Asboel dropped his nose and dove.

  Through the draasin sight, he expected to see one of the lisincend, or perhaps fire shapers, but instead he saw something else entirely.

  Aeta.

  You will frighten them, Tan warned.

  Fire burns already, Maelen. Do you not sense it?

  Now that Asboel mentioned it, he did. It burned slowly, steadily, but the intensity of the flames increased.

  If he did nothing, fire would destroy these people the same as the others and he couldn’t wait for Asboel to reach the ground.

  Tan stood and jumped from the draasin’s back, streaking down on a shaping of lightning, exploding near the wagons.

  Tan didn’t give the people time to react to his arrival. He focused on the fire shaper among the hundred or so Aeta huddled in their wagons. With a spirit shaping pressed through his sword, he cut off the fire shaper’s ability.

  The fire faded.

  Tan jumped into the wind, landing on the other side of the wagons. Where is he? he asked of Asboel. He sent a shaping of spirit and earth searching for where he’d sensed the shaper.

  Asboel showed him a vision of the wagons through his eyes. A flash of brighter orange moved near the back one.

  Tan leaped forward on the wind. The shaper was dressed in black leather and his head was shaved. He crawled forward with wide eyes staring toward the sun, and his breathing was erratic.

  An Incendin fire shaper, but why?

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  The fire shaper didn’t answer.


  Tan prepared another shaping, this one building with his anger at what the fire shaper had nearly done. He had thought they could work with Incendin, that they could find common ground, but what if he’d been wrong? Could Incendin really want nothing more than power? Was that why they had attacked the kingdoms for decades?

  Maybe they wouldn’t be able to use Incendin with Par-shon.

  Movement behind him caused him to spin. A thin man in a black robe stepped out of the nearest wagon. Tan shielded his mind before realizing he probably didn’t need to. Now that he shaped spirit, he was protected. At least, he thought he had been, but now that he knew one of the archivists was here, he recognized the subtle effect of his shaping, the way it slithered across his mind, only enough to add to his doubts.

  “Impressive work,” the man said. “Made all the more impressive when it’s learned that you killed all these people.”

  “You’re mistaken if you think you can shape me,” Tan said.

  “I’ve shaped other warriors before. You will not be the first.”

  Tan raised his sword and pulled angrily on a shaping of all the elements, surging it through the sword. “You haven’t shaped anyone like me.”

  “You are all the same. Weak minded.”

  Tan laughed darkly. “And you are predictably blind.”

  Asboel’s dark shadow began to descend. The man looked up, and as he did, Tan pressed a shaping through his sword, using the combined elements to wrap the archivist’s mind and bind it with power.

  As the shaping took hold, the archivist tore his eyes away from Asboel and stared wide-eyed at Tan. “That’s not—”

  “You know nothing of what is possible.”

  Tan twisted his shaping, and the archivist collapsed.

  17

  Spirit Shapings

  Tan started toward the fallen archivist as he rested against the wagon, his back arched uncomfortably, with one foot bent behind him. One hand reached toward a prickly bush, his fingers spasming. Tan checked the archivist’s injuries and found that he still breathed.

  He hadn’t killed him, but what should happen to him?

  The archivist had wanted the Aeta dead. He had known about the fire shaper. “Can you see if there’s a shaping on him?” he asked Amia as she approached, motioning to the fallen fire shaper.

  Amia made her way toward the man.

  Tan reached out with earth and spirit, layering the sensing over the Aeta within the wagons. None were dead, only stunned—shaped—though the shaping was a simple one. He sent a shaping through the sword and reversed the hold on the Aeta.

  Thank you, he sent to Asboel.

  I will hunt. You will join when you are finished here.

  Call Sashari and Cianna, Tan said. This will need more than only us.

  Asboel huffed in agreement.

  Hunt well, Tan sent.

  Asboel leaped to the sky and quickly became nothing more than a shadow. Tan turned back to Amia.

  “He was shaped with spirit,” Amia noted.

  “That is my fault,” Tan said. “I needed to stop him from shaping quickly.”

  “No,” she started, looking back at him. “Not yours. This is another. Different and complex. He was compelled.” She turned to the fallen fire shaper. “It’s much like what Althem used, but less complex. I think I can remove it, but it will take time.”

  “See what you can do.”

  Tan didn’t know what to do about the archivist. If he left him here, he ran the risk of the same thing happening again when he recovered. The shaping holding him should work, but what if he managed to escape from it? Could Tan risk that with the Aeta?

  He started down the line of wagons, checking inside. There would be the Mother, a Daughter, and the leaders of the wagons. Searching wagon by wagon, though, would be much too slow.

  He focused on a shaping of spirit and earth. If another among the Aeta could shape spirit, he might be able to sense them. Not all Aeta were led by someone with the ability to shape, but Tan suspected enough were, a secret the First Mother had hidden from even the rest of her people, leaving most thinking the ability much rarer than it really was.

  He didn’t really expect another spirit shaper among the wagons. For the archivist to be successful, he needed to be the only one able to shape. Tan sensed the hint of a void, but nothing as he had with the Aeta they’d met with Roine outside Ethea.

  He went back to searching the wagons one at a time. He paused at the innermost wagon, set in the middle of the line, and pulled the door open. A young girl, barely older than his friend Bal had been when he last saw her, stirred on the ground. A band of narrow silver encircled her neck.

  “Daughter,” Tan said as he approached her.

  She cocked her head and blinked sluggishly. He detected her weak attempt at shaping and blocked it. She started struggling, kicking.

  “Shh,” Tan soothed, holding his hands out to her. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “You’re Incendin! They attacked—”

  “Not Incendin,” Tan said. “I’m from the kingdoms. And it was not Incendin who attacked you anyway.”

  “I saw them… I sensed them,” she said.

  “You were shaped into sensing them,” Tan said, extending his hand to her. “Come. Let me show you.”

  She eyed his hand for a moment before taking it and letting him lead her outside. Some of the others had begun to recover enough to come outside on their own. They stood around, dazed expressions on most of their faces, confusion on the others.

  Tan braced himself as a younger man with more mental clarity than the others threw himself in front of the girl. “What is this?” he demanded.

  He couldn’t be more than sixteen or seventeen. The jacket he wore was tattered and stitched in dozens of places. His pants were loose. Tan had once thought all the Aeta families were successful traders, but this one appeared to have fallen on hard times.

  “This is us saving you,” Tan answered, trying to push past him. He wanted to show the Daughter the archivist. She needed to know what had happened.

  “By abducting the Daughter?”

  Tan suppressed the frustration he felt. It wasn’t this boy’s fault that he’d been shaped. “Had I wanted to abduct the Daughter, I would already be gone.”

  The Daughter rested a hand on the boy. “Easy, Kayl,” she said. She shaped spirit, using a faltering attempt to soothe him. She might be young, but she had grown accustomed to leading.

  “Where is the Mother?” Tan asked her.

  “She fell sick. We were nearly to…” She trailed off and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now. We had to turn back. Search for healers.”

  They had been heading to the Gathering in Doma, Tan suspected, the Gathering disrupted by Incendin. “Incendin attacked. You would not have wanted to be at the Gathering.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “How is it you know of the Gathering?” the boy demanded.

  He stepped in front of Tan again, his hands outstretched to stop further movement. He wasn’t particularly tall, or even threatening, but Tan appreciated the show of loyalty.

  Tan glanced from Kayl to the Daughter. There was more to this than he understood. With a quick sensing of spirit, he recognized she was more than the Daughter to him; she was his sister. “I won’t harm your sister,” Tan said softly, leaning toward him. “I’m here to help.”

  Kayl’s gaze slipped from Tan to the Daughter and then back.

  “Kayl,” the Daughter said soothingly.

  Kayl frowned but stepped aside, hanging on her arm and making it clear that she wasn’t going anywhere without him. He motioned toward the other Aeta, now coming out of the wagons.

  Tan shaped soothing spirit, much like he had when shaping all of Ethea, using what he’d learned from the First Mother. He didn’t need a battle here. What he needed was to understand where the Aeta were headed and how the archivist had come to join them.

  Tan stopped in front of the archivist. He
lay unmoving, though his eyes were now open. Tan sensed the other man’s tension, like a coiled snake waiting for an opportunity to strike. He sensed the intent hanging within the archivist as well.

  “Use the knife or don’t,” Tan said. “You will find that you won’t reach me if you try.”

  The archivist jerked his head around so that he could meet the Daughter’s eyes. “Do not trust him. He is of Incendin. My family’s caravan was attacked by one like him,” he said.

  The Daughter clutched her dress in her hands and her neck drooped. “You would do this?” she asked Tan

  Tan restrained the urge to kick the archivist but allowed himself the small pleasure of a shaping of earth so the man couldn’t move. “I’ve seen too many Aeta die already. This man is one of the archivists, sent to Ethea because of his ability to shape spirit. His kind have caused more destruction than any deserve. Where did you come across him?”

  “Archivist?” she asked, blinking.

  “He joined us in Doma.” An elderly woman stood leaning on a twisted cane of oak. She had hair so gray as to be nearly white, and a sickly sheen left her skin glistening. A wide band of silver circled her neck. “His family was lost, he said. He is one of the People so we provided shelter.”

  “Mother,” Tan said bowing to her. “The wagons are safe now.” He glanced at the archivist, still wondering what to do with him. Leaving him with the Aeta was risky, especially if he escaped, but it seemed particularly cruel to release him to Incendin. “I’m sorry for your illness.”

  She swallowed and licked a dry tongue across her lips. Her voice came out weak and wavering. “You are from the kingdoms?”

  “I am Tannen Minden, Athan to the king regent.”

  “You are young to be named Athan,” she said and coughed. A thick bubble of blood-tinged phlegm came to her lips.

  Tan used a soft shaping of spirit and water. She would need healing, but the illness he sensed was beyond him. He wondered if a water shaper skilled in healing would be able to help her or if she’d gone beyond the point where anything would help.

  “Perhaps I am undeserving of the title,” he said.