Elementals: Battle Born

by Amie Kaufman

  They puzzled over other ideas, but eventually, Rayna sighed. “We’ll have to figure it out later,” she said. “We’ve made it all this time without her, we can last a little longer.”

  Anders reluctantly agreed. “We can’t stay here all night, trying to guess what a wall wants.” He ached to find a way through the rock, to find out what was on the other side—whether his mother was truly there—but their friends were waiting. And their friends had gone to battle and lost their homes today, for him.

  He took one last look at the glowing words, then stepped back. “Cloudhaven,” he said. “Our friends are camping in the entrance hall. There aren’t any beds there, there’s nowhere to eat.”

  “There’s only one bathroom,” Rayna added, making him smile.

  “Cloudhaven, please take us to something that will help make this place easier to live in.”

  Just as they had the other times, the lights dimmed, then illuminated once more, a new path stretching away into the distance and around another corner. Anders and Rayna followed it, Kess perched on Anders’s shoulder as they walked past long rows of doors set into the rock. There was no way to tell what was behind any of them, and Anders’s curiosity tugged at him, but on he went.

  The stone of the tunnel was dark, its edges rough, but although it might have felt like they were walking into somewhere forbidding, somewhere dangerous, Anders didn’t find Cloudhaven threatening at all. In the strangest of ways, he felt completely at home here. Still, it was with a flush of relief that he saw that this time, the path ahead ended at a wooden door, rather than a rock wall.

  He and Rayna exchanged a long glance, and then Anders pushed up the bar that was holding the door closed. The hinges were silent as it swung open, as if they’d been oiled only yesterday. But he barely noticed that. His eyes were on what was within the room they had revealed, and it was . . .

  “What is that?” Rayna whispered.

  Anders had never seen anything like it in his life. The room was large, as big as one of the shops back in Holbard, or perhaps the living room of a house, though Anders hadn’t been inside many of those. It was completely full of what he could only assume was . . . machinery?

  His heart sank as he took it in.

  Wires stretched between the walls like a wild, tangled spiderweb. Some were strung with beads, others in motion, turning on little pulleys, carrying small buckets back and forth. Beneath them were huge cogs and wheels and gears, altogether comprising a strange machine that took up the whole of the floor. As he watched, a marble traveled along a small track set into the wall to his left, then plummeted down a long slide, dropping into a container that rested at one end of a seesaw. With the addition of the weight, the container slipped, slowly lowering itself and lifting the other side of the seesaw, which tapped another bucket in turn, setting it in motion.

  Every part of the machine seemed to be connected to every other part. But why?

  “Sparks and scales,” Rayna muttered. “There’s no way this can make living at Cloudhaven easier. I don’t even know what this is, let alone how to use it.”

  “Maybe it controls the sorts of things we want?” Anders guessed. “Water, heat, that kind of thing? But if we use it wrong, who knows what we could break.” He leaned against the doorframe, not daring to set foot inside the room.

  His heart was thumping in his chest, and his lungs felt too small, like he couldn’t get a proper breath. Everyone was depending on the twins to get them past the great door—to somewhere they could hide, to somewhere they could eat and sleep. To somewhere better than the big, cold, drafty entrance hall. And he and Rayna were stuck here looking at this tangle of cogs and wheels and wires that could take a lifetime to figure out.

  He made a soft sound of frustration, and Rayna buried her face in both hands, her shoulders slumping. Anders felt like his very bones ached after the battle above Holbard, and the seemingly endless trip they’d made around Vallen before it, to gather the parts of the Sun Scepter. Why couldn’t just one thing be easy?

  It was a dejected pair of twins who closed the door to the machinery room once more and made their way back to their friends. As they approached the circle of firelight, nine faces turned hopefully toward them. But their hope dropped away at the sight of Anders’s and Rayna’s expressions.

  Jai rose to their feet, red hair and pale skin glinting in the firelight as they walked over to offer each of the twins half a sandwich—all there was for dinner. Then, a hand on each of their shoulders, Jai steered them back to take their places around the fire.

  Anders made himself comfortable, and Kess climbed down from his shoulder to take herself off on a circuit of the group, as if making sure nobody else had done anything interesting while she was away. The dark-brown bread of the half sandwich was turning stale, and the filling had gone soggy, but it still felt amazing to bite into anything at all. Anders tried to keep his bites small, so it would last longer.

  As they warmed themselves, he and Rayna recounted what they had seen, and everybody else was as baffled as they were.

  “One thing’s for sure,” Lisabet said. “We’re not going to guess the answers to these questions. We need more information, and the sooner, the better. Right now, none of the adults will be expecting us to show up hunting for any, so it’s the best time to go.”

  “Go?” Mikkel protested, almost choking on his sandwich. “Go where? To Drekhelm, where the dragons are waiting for us to come and fight for them? Or to Holbard, where the wolves think we attacked them?”

  “Well, we have to do something,” Anders said. “We can’t just sit here.”

  “All right then, what do you suggest?” Mikkel pressed.

  It was Lisabet who answered. “Both. We should try for the records at Drekhelm, and we should go to the Ulfar library.” She paused. “Or whatever’s left of it. We need to find anything that can tell us about how this place was built.”

  Theo nodded. “We have to look this up,” he said. “None of us knows enough to figure it out alone, and we can’t just ask someone. But Lisabet knows that library inside out, and I specialize in the records at Drekhelm. Between us, maybe we can understand enough about Cloudhaven to learn how to live here.”

  “Well,” interjected Viktoria, as the group began to murmur about this idea, “as the only trained medic here, I’m banning anyone from trying to go anywhere tonight. We’re exhausted, and it’s not safe.”

  “I couldn’t fly even if I wanted to,” Ellukka admitted, and Anders, Lisabet, and all the dragons knew what she was really saying—that she was the strongest, and if she couldn’t fly, nobody could.

  But Anders wasn’t sure that was the only reason Viktoria was grounding them all for the night. He saw the way she glanced at Sakarias, Det, Jai, and Mateo, and the way they looked back at her. He could see they wanted to talk. The wolves and the dragons might be stranded here together, but despite having taken the first steps, they were a long way from trusting each other.

  “Let’s sleep,” said Rayna. “And be ready to leave at dawn.”

  Nobody could object to that. The wolves transformed so they could sleep in a pile by the fire—and, Anders was sure, so they could talk without the dragons understanding them.

  The dragons stayed in human form, settling themselves in the small circle of firelight.

  Anders stayed where he was a moment longer, hesitating. Should he transform as well and join the wolf conversation? Or should he let them talk without him? His friends might have risked their lives to protect him back in the battle, but that had been a decision made in the heat of the moment. It didn’t mean he was completely forgiven, or that they completely trusted him.

  Rayna was curled up beside Ellukka, but he realized Lisabet hadn’t transformed either—she was busy building up the fire so it would last for the night, perhaps as an excuse to give the others some space. So with a soft sigh, he rose to walk one last circuit of the hall.

  He made his way to the arch that led out onto the landi
ng pad, to stare out through the ever-present mist and wonder what was beyond it. There was a weight on his shoulders he didn’t know how to shake.

  He felt responsible. Everyone here had trusted him, and now they had no food, no defenses, no allies, and they were being hunted by wolves and dragons. They had no hope, either, except to dig through the rubble of Holbard, through a disaster they had caused, or perhaps to sneak into Drekhelm in the hope of learning something about their hiding place.

  He wondered if they should try somewhere other than Cloudhaven, but this was where their mother had last been, and where she still was, if he was to believe the glowing paths.

  This place held so many artifacts and secrets. If anywhere had the answer to this mess, it was Cloudhaven.

  Other places could hide them, but only Cloudhaven could help them.

  They had no choice but to stay. But as he eventually fell asleep, staring at the embers of the fire, he felt more and more uncomfortable about their choice.

  Chapter Two

  THE NEXT MORNING AT DAWN, THEY ALL ROSE with hungry bellies, and sore muscles from sleeping on the rock around the campfire. It was decided that Anders, Rayna, Lisabet, and Mikkel would go to Holbard together.

  Anders and Rayna were going because they knew parts of Holbard nobody else did, and were used to acting as a team. After all, they had spent their lives growing up in every part of the city’s streets, and frequently across her rooftops as well. Lisabet was going because she had a better chance than anyone else of successfully digging through the ruins of the library, and Mikkel was there in the hope they’d have extra supplies to carry home. All the wolves were worried about friends and family in Holbard, but they knew that the more of them there were, the better the odds someone would be spotted, so the rest of the pack loaded the research party up with questions and things to keep an eye out for if they could.

  Ellukka and Theo were readying themselves for the attempt to sneak into Drekhelm. Ellukka had grown up among the dragons and knew its layout better than anyone, every crack and crevice of the mountain. Theo had a list of books he wanted to steal, and he knew his way around the archives best—their plan was to try to creep in and out without anybody knowing they’d been there.

  Everyone was keen to get underway. A few items of clothing were swapped so Mikkel and Rayna weren’t wearing any red—the traditional color of the dragons, and unusual in Holbard—and then they began their preparations in earnest.

  “How do I look?” Rayna asked, smoothing down Theo’s green tunic, which she had switched for her rust-colored one. After the battle of the day before, she needed to look as far from a dragon as possible.

  As the four heading for Holbard readied themselves, the others were adjusting Ellukka’s harness so it would fit onto Mikkel, and tying together the broken pieces of Rayna’s harness—it had been badly burned by the Sun Scepter the afternoon before.

  Once Anders had finished explaining to Kess that Holbard was no place for cats right now, Det quietly pulled him to one side. Det was Mositalan—he had grown up there, only coming to Vallen the year before for his transformation, and had the same dark-brown skin and musical accent as the Mositalan sailors who often came into Holbard’s harbor. As well as being the most relaxed of Anders’s pack, he also often thought a little differently. He hadn’t grown up with stories of the evils of dragons, and that changed the way he saw them.

  “Anders,” he said softly, “are you sure you’re all coming back from Holbard?”

  Anders blinked at him, but kept his voice low as well. “Of course I’m sure,” he said. “What do you mean?”

  Det hesitated. “When you all go, it will only be wolves left here. Ellukka and Mikkel could send dragons for us, to attack. They—”

  “They won’t.” Anders cut him off.

  “Can you be sure of that?”

  “Yes,” Anders said firmly. “Ellukka and Theo gave up everything to help us try and stop the war. They deserve our trust.”

  Frustration welled up in him, though he tried to keep his voice calm. He had thought at least Det would give the dragons a chance, but it seemed their lessons at Ulfar had made that impossible.

  “We’re all there is to stop a battle even worse than the one we saw yesterday,” he said to his friend. “Believe me, I wish an adult were here to take charge, or there were more of us, or . . . something. But we’re it. And if we can’t work together, we have no hope at all.”

  Det inclined his head gracefully, accepting Anders’s words, and for a few minutes, Anders thought he had solved at least one problem.

  But then Ellukka left those adjusting the straps on Mikkel, to catch at Anders’s arm and draw him aside. “Is it safe to leave the wolves here?” she asked quietly.

  “What?” Anders said. “Yes, of course it’s safe.”

  “You trust them?” she pressed.

  Anders groaned. “Yes, I trust them,” he said. “They stood up to the Fyrstulf for us. Ellukka, wolves are a pack. You can’t imagine what it took for them to do that.”

  “Probably not,” she admitted. “But they’ve had a whole night to think over what they did. Do they still feel the same way?”

  “I trust them,” Anders said. “And if you trust me, then you should as well.”

  She was quiet for a long moment, and then she nodded. But Anders wasn’t completely sure he’d convinced her.

  Finally the harnesses were ready. Anders stepped back out of the way as Rayna shot him a grin, dropping to a three-point crouch, resting one hand on the floor. An instant later she was growing too fast for the eye to follow, shifting her shape as her skin changed to a rich crimson, with highlights of darker bronze and glittering copper darting across her scales. Her wings unfurled and her tail lengthened and gave one cheerful flick, and she was her dragon self, looming above him.

  She dipped her head as Anders pulled on her harness, and held still as he tugged at the weak spots they’d mended until he was satisfied they wouldn’t snap in midair, sending him tumbling toward the ground below. But she was clearly impatient to be aloft and spread her wings properly, and after a minute she snaked her neck around so she could nudge at him with her nose. She might as well have spoken out loud—she was saying, “Let’s go, hurry up!”

  So he planted one foot on her forearm and grabbed hold of the leather straps, pulling himself up until he could take his place just above her shoulders, fastening himself in. As soon as he reached down to pat Rayna’s neck and signal he was ready, she launched, wings spread, letting an updraft carry her away from their temporary home.

  He tried to admire the dawn as they left Cloudhaven. The mist pooled like water amid the trees below, tinted golden by the rising sun. But it was hard to keep his mind off his troubles. Though he understood why it was so difficult for his friends to trust each other, he didn’t have time for them to slowly come around. Things were far too urgent for that. He leaned into Rayna’s comforting warmth, closing his eyes and trying to convince himself all would be well as her wings beat beneath him and the miles stretched out below.

  But when Holbard eventually came into sight, Anders forgot all his worries about his friends.

  The city was a scene of devastation.

  The great outer walls were crumbling, the stones spilling onto the ground. Huge swaths of buildings had simply been flattened when the earth had shaken beneath them, especially near the Wily Wolf tavern, where the Snowstone had exploded, and around the huge cracks that had opened up in the ground as the lava pulled by the Sun Scepter had fought to free itself.

  The wreckage of ships floated in the harbor, and small fires still burned in shops and homes and warehouses. The north and northeast gates in the city walls had collapsed completely, but lines of people streamed out of the west and northwest gates, carrying what they could in their arms.

  The dragons kept their distance, circling down to land well to the west of the city, where they had before. Everyone looked grim as Rayna and Theo shifted back to human sh
ape, and they worked together to hide the harnesses in the bushes.

  But even in the middle of his horror, Anders’s stomach still managed to rumble, protesting its lack of breakfast. One more small problem to add to his big ones. It was going to be a long walk to the city, but there was nothing for it except to get moving.

  They pushed through the tide of people streaming along the road. Up close the refugees were ragged and covered in dust, and Anders could see the shock in their dirty faces, eyes fixed straight ahead, gazes set on nothing in particular.

  The children passed through the west gate, walking past the crumbled, ruined buildings lining Ulfarstrat toward Ulfar Academy. The great street itself was mostly clear, and they were able to dodge debris as they made their way along it.

  “We can make it the rest of the way,” said Lisabet. “You should get moving.”

  Though none of them much liked the idea, they had decided to split up, with Lisabet and Mikkel to explore the ruins of Ulfar for what they could find of the library, and Anders and Rayna to search for food and supplies for the group. They would meet at noon at the west gate or, if any of them were held up, that night where they had hidden the harnesses.

  “If we’re later than that,” said Rayna grimly, “then you’ll know we’re in trouble.”

  It was a strange, scary experience, making their way through the streets of Holbard. As Anders and Rayna climbed over a big chunk of rubble, he realized that just now, seeing the city like this reminded him of his first time in the Ulfar uniform. He had gazed in the mirror and seen his face looking back out of somebody else’s body, his hair cut short, his uniform too different from his street clothes. Only his eyes had seemed really the same. The rest had been unrecognizable.

  Among the ruins he could see familiar glimpses of a shop sign here, the brightly painted wall of a house there, crumbled into rubble.