Fortress of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Tan pulled the cover back on the box, unwilling to keep looking at it.

  He scanned a row of shelves lining the wall. Answers might be in one of the books sitting here, but he’d need to take the time to find them. He thought that was what he wanted—that having nothing but the time to sit and study these ancient volumes would make him happy—but he found himself getting restless. Incendin remained a threat.

  Tan closed his eyes. Asboel.

  Asboel pulsed in his mind, a steady presence. Once, the draasin had clawed through him as it fought for access, but now Tan had a peace with him. Asboel wouldn’t overwhelm him. Perhaps he could not, now that Tan understood the connection between them.

  Maelen. You should not have called.

  Tan pressed through the connection to Asboel, trying to see what he saw. Why should I not have contacted you? Are we not bonded?

  There came a delay. We are bonded.

  Something strained Asboel. Tan caught flashes of landscape around him. Brown rock and a bleak expanse of land. No fire. Tan had only visited once before, but he suspected it was Incendin.

  You shouldn’t attack Twisted Fire on your own. Let me hunt with you.

  You are not ready for this hunt. There are more than before. The draasin will cleanse Twisted Fire from these lands.

  There is danger in those lands. You were the one to show it to me.

  There is more danger than you know.

  What is it?

  Tan wasn’t certain Asboel would answer. Then he let out what came through their connection as something like a sigh. Fire.

  An image of the fortress burned suddenly bright in Tan’s mind, flames leaping from it. What did it mean for fire to return to Incendin with such intensity?

  You should not return. Twisted Fire is dangerous, Tan said.

  This is more than Twisted Fire.

  I don’t understand.

  Nor do I. We will learn. Then perhaps you may hunt with us.

  The bond conveyed more, a hint of emotion that Asboel sought to hide from him.

  We are bonded. You must share. I might be able to help.

  The irritation surged more brightly. You cannot help with this, Maelen. It is Enya.

  Tan’s heart fluttered. The last time the youngest of the great fire elementals had been involved with anything, part of the city had been destroyed, burned while the archivists controlled her. Had something similar happened?

  Twisted Fire? Tan asked.

  They do not have her.

  What is it then?

  She seeks revenge for the hatchlings.

  And you do not?

  Not like this.

  Another image came to Tan. In it, he saw fire burning across already desolate plains. The ground was scorched and twisted, destroyed by time and the effect of fire, but made worse by whatever Enya had done. It was not simply a fire shaping, but something different and darker.

  Is that fire? Tan asked. The way the earth seemed shifted and changed by the shaping of fire left him uncertain. He couldn’t imagine the power that would have been necessary to create such a shaping. More than what he’d seen in Ethea after the attack, though there had been Incendin shapers involved as well.

  That is Fire.

  To Asboel, it was clear there was a distinction.

  What does she do?

  She seeks to withdraw fire from these lands.

  Can such a thing be done?

  Asboel went silent for a time. Not easily, but it can be done. If she succeeds, it will be my fault. I shared with her the process. Doing so makes her stronger, but changes her as well.

  As fire changed me?

  It is different, Maelen.

  Tan wondered if that were true. Fire changing Enya seemed not all that different from what had happened with him. Where is she now?

  She remains in the waste.

  An image of Incendin came through the connection. In Incendin?

  I will keep her away. Remaining is too dangerous.

  You don’t want revenge for what happened with the hatchlings, too?

  Vengeance will come in time, Maelen. Asboel paused. You must stay away. If she withdraws fire, it could damage one like you connected to fire.

  Would she hurt me?

  Tan sensed the uncertainty in Asboel. Not intentionally, but you would not be safe. With what she does, it is possible she would manage to withdraw fire from you as well.

  The bond would not protect me?

  Not from this. Your other gifts from the Mother might help, but I am not certain.

  What can I do? There must be something, Tan said.

  You must stay away. Even I must stay away as she does this, or I risk the same damage. Now you must not interfere. What I do next is difficult.

  And if you fail?

  Asboel seemed amused by the idea. You distrust me so much as that?

  You know that I don’t. Tan wished he could help, wished there was something Asboel would let him do, but without having mastered shaping the other elements, anything he could do would be limited. I will be ready to help if you summon.

  There was a pause before Asboel answered again. I will be careful, Maelen. Do not fear for me. I have survived much worse than you will ever imagine.

  Then Asboel receded, leaving him with only the most distant of senses of the draasin.

  8

  Earth Master

  Master Ferran stared at Tan, his lean face unreadable. “You lose focus easily. Earth does not answer as quickly as some of the elements.”

  Tan doubted that Ferran knew how earth answered compared to fire or water, both of which would respond to him more easily. Yet he was an earth senser first. It was the one gift his father had left him with, knowledge of how to stretch out with his senses and listen to everything around him. He had been an earth senser far longer than he had been anything else. Why was it so hard for him to reach earth for a shaping?

  They stood in Ter, brought away from Ethea on a shaping of wind, Zephra dumping him almost in an attempt to prove how much he relied on the elementals while in Ethea, but even there, golud did not answer as quickly as the others. Tan felt it there but sometimes struggled to reach it, to speak to it even as he did with ara.

  A wide field of flowing grasses, now drying in the autumn air and turning to brown, pressed against the wind. Hills rolled around him and trees dotted the hills, nothing like the thick forests of Galen. The wind blowing out of the north held an edge to it, a cold bite that slipped through his heavy cloak. Tan resisted the urge to shape fire and warm himself.

  “My father never taught me shaping of earth,” he told Ferran.

  “You still know of it. That is enough, I think. You are a skilled earth senser, if you take the time to reach for it.”

  Tan didn’t miss the implication. Even Ferran thought he went too easily toward fire.

  “To become the warrior you are capable of being, you will need to master all of the elements. Zephra tells me wind is coming along. You have shown promise with water. And we know how well you manipulate fire.”

  Water came along only because Tan had connected to the nymid first. Despite the lack of an active bond with the nymid, Tan shared a connection to it that was unique, and nothing like what he shared with the other elementals. It granted him the ability to shape water more easily, not requiring the same strain that he felt when trying to shape wind or earth.

  “Zephra taught me to focus on my breathing. What is your trick?”

  Ferran looked offended by the question. “Trick? There is no trick with earth. Earth is everything. It is power and creation. It is life.”

  Tan noted that shapers of each element felt the same way. Perhaps they were each right, in their own way. “How do you shape, then?” he asked.

  “Earth shaping is within the shaper. It lies deep within you, tying you to the land. When you feel it—when you can easily reach for it—you will understand and the shaping will come. Golud will not always be present, Tannen. That golud lives w
ithin Ethea is a boon, but not one that must be counted on.”

  He’d found golud outside of Ethea, but then, he’d been at another place of convergence. What would happen when he went searching for earth elementals outside of Ethea and they didn’t answer? Would it be as his mother suspected, or would he manage to reach one of the other earth elementals, one he had yet to learn of?

  He tried reaching for golud, sending a slow, rumbling sort of request to the earth elemental, and waited. There came no response. Maybe this was the elemental’s way of teaching him that he needed to control his shaping or he’d run the risk of not reaching the elemental when needed.

  Tan took a deep breath and thought about what Ferran had said. If earth was found deep within him, could he draw it out much as he drew out fire? He was still not certain fire wasn’t tied to him by the elementals, but there was no doubting the fact that he could shape fire easily. Even here in Ter, far from Ethea, he only had to reach and fire would answer. How could he do the same with earth?

  What would his father have said? All of his early lessons with sensing had come from his father, not his mother. For so long, Tan had thought it because his father was an earth shaper while his mother was a wind shaper, but if she’d lost her connection to the wind, if that bond had been severed, she might not have been able to teach him. The thought of losing the connection to Asboel left him feeling nothing but emptiness.

  His father had taught to stretch out his senses around him, to listen to the earth. Tan did as his father had instructed all those years ago. It seemed so long since he’d actively used his earth sensing. As he did, he felt the connections stirring around him, the sense of everything blooming around him. The grasses, the insects crawling along the ground, the rabbits and field mice burrowing, himself and Ferran disturbing the earth around themselves. Could he use that connection to shape earth without needing the elementals?

  The first attempt he made did nothing. Neither did the second. Both left him feeling weakened from the effort. On the third attempt, he did nothing more than try to bend the grasses flat around him.

  The earth rumbled softly in answer.

  “Good, but was that you or the elemental?” Ferran asked. He performed a quick shaping, sending the earth heaping around him so that he rose to stand taller than Tan.

  If Ferran could shape like that, how was it that it took so long for them to rebuild the university? Strength like that should give him the ability to pull the stones and stack them back into place, building up what the draasin had knocked down.

  “That was me,” he answered. How long had it been since a shaping of earth—one of any substance that he had done on his own rather than a shaping meant to bind with the other elements—had come from him rather than through golud? Tan couldn’t really remember.

  “It is a start. Do you know what it is that you did?”

  “I started with sensing, connecting to everything around me. Once I did that, then I was able to use that to create the shaping.”

  Ferran used another shaping and the earth smoothed again, looking as if nothing had changed. Tan thought he could sense what it was that Ferran had done. It was much like when Cianna first taught him fire. The more often he paid attention when a shaper was working with the shaping, the easier it was for him to create.

  “You must practice,” Ferran said. “Shaping of plants or even trees requires little power. It is moving and manipulating the earth itself that really tests the shaper. Your father had a particular talent with it.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Tan said.

  Ferran’s face barely changed, but the earth seemed to rumble softly beneath Tan’s feet as if in answer. “You know the lessons he taught you. They were the lessons that helped you survive against Incendin when you first went with Theondar. I believe you told me how you managed to evade both hounds and the lisincend? Even a powerful senser would struggle against such odds.”

  Ferran twisted so that he looked toward distant Ethea. The faint lights of the city were only just visible. “And then you managed to hide the draasin from me. Golud may have helped, but that doesn’t change the fact that without training, you still managed to hide one of the elementals from a Master shaper. I would say that Grethan’s lessons served you well. My hope is that what I can teach will build on that and perhaps give you a way to reach for earth without the elemental power, as Zephra continues to work with you on wind.”

  Tan agreed that he needed to become more skilled with shaping. If he hoped to be of any use to Asboel or even the kingdoms as they faced whatever it was that Incendin planned, he would need to have complete mastery.

  “What do you do when you begin your shaping?” Tan asked.

  Ferran nodded, as if pleased by the question. “I begin each shaping as you described. The shaper must be connected to earth to have any control over it.”

  “How do you do it so quickly?”

  Ferran made a motion with his hand, sweeping it all around him. “I’ve learned to never lose the connection to earth. As soon as I do, the shaping changes.”

  The fact that Tan no longer knew how to remain in constant contact with his earth sensing told him how much he had changed since first leaving Galen. Back then, he had used his earth sensing to track through the mountains. It had been a game for him and his father, and then later, it had been how Tan managed to hunt and serve as one of the most skilled trackers in Nor. Cobin always had some talent, but not the same as Tan or his father.

  Not for the first time, Tan wondered if Cobin and Bal had managed to find safety. The last time he’d seen them, Cobin had provided part of the distraction that had enabled Tan to reach Amia. Without that distraction, would he ever have become the person he was now? How had they adjusted without Nor? When everything finally settled down, Tan vowed that he would find Cobin, but so far there had not been the time. Maybe there would never be the time to find his friend. Given how much had changed, perhaps that was best. And what of Lins Alles? Other than Bal and Cobin, he was the other survivor from Nor. Had he gone to Incendin or did he find some small village someplace in the kingdoms to hide?

  Tan shook away those thoughts and stretched out with his earth shaping again. Muted by lack of use or the fact that Tan relied so heavily on fire, it was a different sense than it once had been. Then, it had been all that Tan had known. Now, other senses competed. Water and wind might not be as powerful for him as fire, but he could sense them as well.

  The sense of the earth around him was solid. He tracked along, pressing through the grasses and rolling hills and stretching as far as he could, moving into the flatlands. He lost the connection there. Once, he would have managed to reach all the way into Nara, but the sense was weak now, nothing like what he needed. With practice, Tan hoped to regain some of that skill.

  His mother had instructed him to focus on his breathing to reach for the wind; how was this any different? Fire was no more difficult for him than drawing it through him, but maybe that was because he was in constant contact with it. He didn’t have to sense fire; because of Asboel, it filled him.

  As he held the contact with earth, he sensed a change around him. Wind blew with more force than it had before. Tan pulled back his connection, drawing it in, and realized that the wind was shaped. Zephra returned.

  She glanced from Ferran to Tan as she came to land, the wind stirring the leaves around her. “I’m sorry to disturb your lesson, Ferran, but I would like your assistance with something.”

  His eyes narrowed and Tan felt his shaping build. It lingered for a long moment and Tan sensed its intent, how it was made to listen, augmenting Ferran’s ability to sense. “Yes. I think Theondar would appreciate my help,” he agreed. He turned back to Tan. “Continue to practice until I return.”

  “I can help,” Tan started.

  His mother cut him off with a shake of her head. “You are the student now, Tannen. The university may have fallen and the Masters may not be as powerful as they once were, but that much has not c
hanged.”

  She waited for Ferran to step next to her and then lifted them on a shaping of wind.

  Tan stared after, watching them disappear. At least there was no one around to see how angry he was that his mother had again chosen to leave him, as if he were completely incapable of doing anything to help the kingdoms. He had shown his worth over and again, and still she thought to shield him.

  But it wasn’t even that fact that bothered him the most. It was the possibility that whatever she needed Ferran’s help for had to do with whatever kept Asboel silent. Since warning him of what Enya planned, Asboel had remained completely silent. That didn’t necessarily mean anything; there had been many times since they bonded where Asboel had gone silent, but this felt different in some ways.

  As Tan watched the wind carry off his mother and Ferran, he decided he had to know.

  Did he dare attempt a shaping that would bring him toward Incendin? Maybe he didn’t have to reach Incendin itself. From Ter, he could reach Galen and peer over the border from there. He knew shapings that could help, if only they would work.

  He started with fire. Not only because it was the easiest, but the chill air left it difficult for him to fully concentrate. When he mastered a shaping of warmth around him, he focused on his breathing, slowing and pulling on wind. It came slowly at first but seemed drawn by the warmth he had shaped, lifting him with a gust of wind that held him much like he’d been lifted by the lesser wind elemental. Tan used earth to stabilize himself.

  Roine had once shown him how warriors traveled, but Tan knew he wasn’t ready for that sort of shaping. This might not be as quick, but he could use it.

  The shaping took him up. With a little effort, he realized he could direct the wind, drawing him over Ter and sweeping high over the countryside.

  He had passed the border of Ter when the shaping faltered. The wind slowed and died. Tan flailed at it, using the shaping of fire to keep him aloft, but even that began to leave him and he tumbled to the ground. All around him were trees, the hills of Ter starting to slope upward into the mountains of Galen.