Valley of Embers (The Landkist Saga Book 1) (16 page)

“Fires!” Talmir screamed, iron in his voice. “Light and let fly!” And the arrows lit the sky like tiny comets streaking beneath black clouds.

None here had been born in the heart of the windswept deserts of the north. None here had felt the sand sting their eyes and backs, the elements lashing like whips against hides tough as horned runners. These were Valley children, soft and green. But there was fire in their blood, and it shined brightest when things from the night approached.

Swords and spears raised, strings pulled taught on bows, banners slapped in the violent winds and a single clear note rang out from the heart of the Valley, from Hearth. It was a note that rose on the beating of stubborn wills.

The black swarm slammed into the walls with a savage force that told Talmir all he needed to know: there would be no retreating into the night this time, no hiding from the dawn. The dark army broke upon his walls like a wave with white-capped foam. The shadows scrambled up the uneven face, hands hooked like claws, pulling themselves up only to be flung back to the burning ground below.

Talmir saw the giant, ape-like beast break off from the rest, thundering toward Creyath on the South Bend. The Captain took off at a run, jumping over clattering shields and feeling the blistering heat of Garos’s spinning staff even as he fled its arc.

He pulled up, skidding to a halt in sight of Creyath Mit’Ahn, who stood glowing like a firefly before a dark and wrathful god.

“H
ow is he?”

“How do you think?”

“I mean, how will he be?”

“How should I know?”

“Who would but you?”

“I wasn’t speaking to you.”

“Speaking loud enough for us all.”

Baas rumbled the last from his place beside the fire. He poked absently at the dying embers with a charred stick, simmering and unsure, as they all were. Nathen frowned but otherwise made no response other than to withdraw from his place beside Linn and climb into his bedroll in the corner of the cave.

Linn felt a pang as she watched him go, but had to admit she did not mind the reprieve. How was she supposed to know? What was she supposed to do about it?

But then, hadn’t this whole endeavor been her idea?

They were out here because of her. Larren Holspahr was out here because of her.

Linn peered through the hazy glow of firelight to the form laid at the back of the cave. She saw the telltale rise and fall that signaled life, but even those breaths were slow and labored. Larren had not appeared in tremendous spirits when she had first rejoined the group following her own battle on the trail, but his condition had deteriorated rapidly. Much like Kole, the Ember bore few visible marks from his tangle with the Sentinel, but it had done its work in other ways. Linn had been lucky.

Iyana and Ninyeva were nowhere close, and it appeared none of the Faey had a mind to lend their healers, even had they been watching from the trees.

The Second Keeper’s ailing condition had done more damage than she ever could have imagined to the group’s morale. Linn could not say she blamed them. In truth, she was probably the most disconcerted of the lot, other than Kaya Ferrahl, whose leg was in a bad way. They had one Ember left standing, and though Linn had certainly had her troubles with Jenk in the past, she found herself looking to him for guidance as often as he looked to her. So far, the extent of their leadership had been finding them a deep cave in which to wait out the storm, perhaps to bury their dead.

She tried to shake the image, but it would not quit.

Kaya was scrunched up against the opposite wall with her head resting on Jenk’s shoulder. Her leg was set in a splint Nathen had fashioned, and Baas had carried her most of the way here, half a day north of Hearth. When Larren had collapsed for the third time, he did not get up, and they had been holed up in this dank cavern ever since.

Try as she might, Linn could not entirely keep from placing some blame on Kaya for Larren’s plight. After all, she had not minded her footing and it had cost them an Ember in the fight. To protect her, the Second Keeper had been forced to sacrifice his notorious footwork in order to fend off the shadows that made for her like jackals at a wounded bird.

They had first made camp along the banks of the Northwest River, which joined up with the Fork and Baas’s people further east.

There, they were set upon for the second time.

Linn had spotted them first, black specs that must have caught their scent on the breeze. There were no Sentinels among them, but they were dangerous nonetheless. Baas and Jenk had done most of the killing, while Linn and Nathen assisted the injured Embers from the fray. Linn was sorely missing her bow, but it would be knife work from here on out.

Knife work, against the Eastern Dark. She supposed she had better turn her hoping to praying that the White Crest was alive.

Linn let a small laugh loose despite the circumstances, earning a glare from Kaya, a curious look from Jenk and something in between from Baas.

For the first few hours spent in the cave, they had jumped at every shadow—all of them but Baas. The Riverman had replaced his former enthusiasm for their trek with something more dour, but he was not afraid. Without his strength, they would not have made it this far. Linn hoped they could count on it to get them a bit farther.

Jenk might not be badly injured like their other Embers, but without a roaring fire to replenish his stores, he was running on fumes. Whatever work he might be able to do with his blade, she doubted if it would compare to the fight on the road.

Linn looked at Nathen as he curled up against the side of the cave. He was strong and hearty, but younger even than Kaya by half a decade. She felt sorry for how short she had been with him and considered going to him, but the rhythmic hiss of steam rising from his mouth told her he had found sleep where the others could not.

Another crack of lightning illuminated the sheets of pouring rain outside and set Linn’s head to buzzing as it collided with the rocky hillock above. Larren coughed and murmured in his sleep. He sounded in pain and it reminded her of Kole in his tower. She had visited shortly before setting out but could not bring herself to stay long. Iyana had cast her a strange look at that, but it could not be helped. Any further delay and Linn might have lost her nerve.

That, or her too-perceptive sister would have guessed the game.

Of course, things being as they were, that might have been the best outcome for all involved.

“Ahem.”

Linn was so lost in her own thoughts that she had not noticed Jenk’s shadow. He wore his customary smile as he sat next to her, but it masked an obvious worry. The gash on his brow seemed to be healing nicely, and the rain had washed the blood from his sandy hair.

Jenk shared a conspiratorial sigh as the two observed the silence of their heroic abode. And then the Ember croaked his own small laugh that cut the silence like a knife, jagged and crass. She understood completely, even if Kaya grimaced in her sleep.

“Enjoying the life of a traveling hero?” Jenk whispered.

“That’s ever been your role, Ganmeer,” she said, elbowing him in the ribs. “Something you always wanted.” He gave her a strange look, but she shook her head. “Don’t deny it. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but that complex has followed you ever since you lit your first blade. Before that, you’d practice your rally cries to the mice in the meadow.”

“You and Kole could be quiet when you wanted.”

“Very.”

Jenk was silent for a moment and Linn felt another pang for having offended him. He laughed again, this one a little louder. She felt lighter because of it.

“I guess we all played those games to some degree,” he said. “Back when we could afford to. Back when there was such a thing as playing.”

Linn’s face darkened, though Jenk could not see it as the flames flickered and came close to dying. Her parents had been among the first to encounter the Dark Kind in the Valley. It had not gone well for them. It had not gone well for many that first year.

It was strange, but the distinction between Landkist and not had never mattered so much and so little at once. Everyone who could lift blade, bow or bucket became a value against the night, but the Embers took their preferred place as the true heroes of their folk. Jenk, along with Kaya and Kole, was among the last known Embers born in the world. It was no small wonder he had grown up with some piece of destiny in mind.

“Feeling any better?”

“Pain has given way to exhaustion,” Linn said with a smirk. “I didn’t love the former, but I’m not thrilled with the latter. How are you?”

Jenk opened his hands. She hadn’t noticed before, but he had them clasped together. When they opened, she felt the warmth touch her face as the pile of burning coals tumbled over each other. No matter how often she saw the Embers fight, it was still amazing for her to see the little ways in which they communed with the fire. It was a part of them.

“Will that be enough to keep you going?”

Jenk closed his hands and leaned back, closing his eyes.

“A brazier would be ideal. But beggars cannot be choosers. I’ll do my part. I just hope we can find a place in the mountains to get a real blaze going, away from those things.”

“Might be more dangerous eyes up there.”

“True enough. But then, an Ember with a full blaze is no picnic either. If it comes to that, they can try their luck.”

Linn did not know if he truly believed it, but the words were comforting nonetheless.

“I tried to share heat with Larren,” the Ember said, glancing sidelong at the prone form at the back. “I burned him.”

As shocking as it was for Linn to hear, the effect on Jenk was tenfold. For an Ember as powerful as Larren to be hurt by flames rather than restored by them, he had to be in a state far worse than she had imagined.

“It was a brave thing you did,” Jenk said, looking at her. “Going after that cart. I thought you were lost to us.”

Linn looked away.

“Does Baas still want to turn east?” she asked, changing the subject. The Riverman had shifted to the back of the chamber, his footfalls impossibly soft for one as large as he—some trick of the Rockbled, no doubt.

“I think.”

“But you don’t think we should.”

“We don’t know where these Corrupted are coming from. Could be the Fork. Could be from the lands beyond.”

“The ones in the woods didn’t look like Rivermen.”

“No,” Jenk allowed. “But they were heading to Hearth. How many do you think there are if they’re heading for Hearth?”

“The Dark Kind attack Hearth just as often as they attack the Lake.”

“This is different. This is an army, with Sentinels and who knows what else? This is an army sent, an army controlled.”

Linn observed Baas as he squatted over their fallen leader. His were a strange people to her. The Rivermen refused to label their Rockbled as Landkist, though they clearly were, choosing instead to mark them as having earned the title due to their deeds in battle. It was likely an attempt to sew a feeling of equality among their ranks, and also to nurture a fierce will among the Rivermen not blessed by the earth.

She found herself wondering where they had come from, before the Emberfolk found them in the passes a century ago. When the Rivermen had been displaced from the canyons and trapped in the Valley with them, the Faey had treated them as much like foreigners as her own people, though they had been neighbors for some time before. Knowing how Baas felt about the forest peoples, it was not hard to imagine his tribe avoiding the woods of the Valley and keeping to their caves, but where had they come from before?

She focused on Baas because she did not want to focus on the form beneath him nor the spear leaning against the far wall, black blade cold and wet.

“Blame is a poison,” Jenk said next to her. “Don’t drink it yourself.”

Linn regarded him. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

“No matter the path we’re on,” he said, “we’re on it. And I mean to see it through.”

Linn swallowed.

“Do you think he can help?” she asked. “If the White Crest is alive.”

“I’m more concerned with the ‘if,’ but yes, I do. Either way, we need to find the source. We need to find out where the Sentinels are coming from, and we all know it’s in the peaks or beyond.”

“Why would he let this happen?” Linn asked, verbalizing what the Emberfolk of the Valley kept close and secret.

“I won’t pretend to know the mind of a Sage,” Jenk said, a hint of bitterness in his tone. “It was they who cast the world into the chaos it’s in. Them that drove us from the deserts.”

“One of them,” Linn said and Jenk shrugged. “You’re sounding like Kole.”

He chuckled. “I suppose I am.”

A shadow stole over Linn’s face and for a moment she feared the dark men had crawled into their cave undetected until another flash of lightning illuminated Baas’s hulking form. He was crouched before them, having moved from the back to the cave mouth in a silent blink. His eyes were pealed, one hand resting on the ground beneath him, fingers splayed in the mud. It looked like he was listening.