Cloud Warrior 05 - Forged in Fire (19 page)

C
old water met him
, sucking the breath from his lungs. The last time he’d been immersed in water like this, he’d nearly been transformed into one of the lisincend. He had called to the udilm, but they hadn’t answered. The nymid—always the nymid—had answered him, saving and restoring him.

Now he
needed
to reach the udilm. How had he managed the connection before? It was more than simply calling to water, more than letting it wash over him. It had taken a near drowning before.

Tan let the rest of his breath leave his lungs and sank toward the bottom of the sea.

Black water swirled around him, cold and heavy, pressing on him. Flashes of color streaked at the edge of vision. Pain filled him. Much longer and he would die.

Udilm,
he called.
Answer He Who is Tan!

Speaking with water required him to send in great rolling waves. Udilm was different than the nymid. The sea was vast and unforgiving, the power of the waves crashing constantly overhead.

The udilm’s answer came slowly, but it came.
You should not have come.

You would choose the bond? You would choose Par-shon over Doma?

There is no choice to those captured.

Water swirled around him and the blackness faded slightly, leaving the outline of a face. Tan stared at it, feeling a surge of anger.
There is always choice. You can choose another bond as you once did. There is one with me who once had bonded udilm.

The great water elemental shook, the water becoming agitated.
Many have been lost.

More will be lost if we fail
, Tan said.
This is why I come.

You have come for the Child.

Tan hesitated. His feet touched the rocky bottom of the sea. He was distantly aware of the cold and the darkness around him, but it was vague. Instead, he focused on the udilm, needing to reach them, needing their help. Not only might they know where to find Vel, they might know where to find Elle.

You know of the Child? Have the udilm bonded her?

She was not meant for the sea.

The where is she?

You must ask the others.

Others. What other elemental would Elle have found? The nymid would have told him if she had bonded to them. And udilm had restored her. Why wouldn’t udilm have bonded her?

What of Velthan?
He used his full name, though water would have a different way of calling him. Vel had once been bonded to udilm, but Par-shon had severed the bond, had stolen it when they captured him.

Udilm once knew him, but he is gone. He abandoned water.

Not abandoned. Had it separated from him. Stolen.

The udilm swirled around him, massive and powerful. Tan sensed irritation and anger, but it matched what surged through him.

The others will be sent from these lands. That is why I have come. That is why the Mother allows me to speak to you. You will help,
Tan demanded.
You will protect these shores once more.
Anger at what Par-shon did, how they used the elementals, gave his words power.

You would command the udilm?

Tan considered his answer carefully. Commanding the udilm was different than simply asking them for help. When he’d transformed, he had asked for help restoring him, but they had refused. They felt he had sacrificed too much. But now was not the time for gentle choices. Now was the time for strength and action.

I would command,
Tan decided.

The udilm swirled around him, pressing on him with the weight of the entire sea. Tan stood there, shaping earth and air to hold himself in place, pulling fire through him to keep from the frigid change in the water. Udilm continued, surging over him with wave after wave of massive power. Tan still remained.

Enough!

He added a shaping of spirit. Water subsided, the waves easing.

You will help
, Tan said.
Find the Child. Find Velthan. Restore him if you can. Protect the shores. Resist the bond. I will do all I can to assist you.

The sea calmed as udilm no longer attempted to pound over him. There was no sense of agreement, but he would take the silence.

Tan shaped water and tested the draw of the elemental power. Pulling on the udilm, he shot himself free on a streak of shaping.

Chaos greeted him.

The ground bulged over Asboel, holding him in place. Sashari lay stunned on the ground. Cianna attempted to hold back a dozen shapers, but he sensed her growing weary.

Tan roared. He freed Asboel with a snap of earth augmented by his sword. The draasin snarled, lashing his tail through the shapers, knocking four down, and then he pounced, crushing them beneath him.

The others reacted, shifting their attention to Tan, hanging on a wave. Tan pulled on the udilm, commanding the elemental to sweep over the shapers. As the wave crashed down on them, he lifted Cianna to the air on a shaping of wind, directing Honl to keep her safe.

Water pounded, wave after wave, and then finally receded, leaving only the draasin.

Tan lowered Cianna, who ran to Sashari. The draasin blinked slowly and attempted to stand. Her hind legs trembled and gave out. As they did, Tan noticed that one wing had been damaged during the attack.

What was this? What happened here?

They waited until you were gone. Then they attacked.

Should I not have gone?

You did what was needed. Sashari knows the risk.
Asboel lowered his head to meet Tan’s eyes.
If we are lost, you will protect the hatchlings.

It will not come to that,
Tan said.

Only the Mother can say with certainty. This is a hunt greater than any we have ever taken together. You are powerful, Maelen, but they are many.

Tan went over to Sashari and laid a hand on her side.
I will protect the hatchlings like they were my own bond.

He sent it with spirit and fire, directing it toward Asboel and Sashari. Both of the draasin roared, and flames leapt into the air from their mouths.

No longer did the attack have the same easy feel. They were down one draasin and one shaper when they had so few to start with. And he would have to leave Cianna here to keep watch over Sashari.

You will keep them safe
, Tan commanded to the udilm

He wasn’t certain whether the water would answer, but then the waves crashed with increasing force along the shore. They would be safe for now.

Tan crafted a shaping of earth, drawing strength from the sword, and wrapped it around Sashari and Cianna. He didn’t know how long it would hold, but it would give them another layer of protection.

“Find a place to hide. Sashari will need to heal,” Tan said to Cianna as he shaped.

“You cannot do this by yourself,” she said to him again. “Even you have limits.”

Tan knew what some of them were. Incendin had tested them. Par-shon had already exceeded them. Now they would see the extent of his anger.

“For the elementals, I have to try.”

He leapt onto Asboel’s back.
We will hunt, you and I.

The draasin roared his approval.

T
hey started toward Falsheim
. If there were as many shapers as it appeared, he would need to push the Par-shon shapers away from Doma and sweep them toward Incendin. The attacks they had faced already had been increasingly powerful, but there would be more. Tan had no idea how many Par-shon shapers had crossed the sea, but their numbers were limited only by their capacity to capture and bind elementals.

Fire burns brightly along those walls
, Asboel said.

Would Par-shon allow him to get so close again or would they be ready for him this time? Would he even be able to do what he thought needed to get done?

This close, Tan sensed the effect of the fire burning. It pressed against him in an angry attempt to push him away. Not only Tan, but the draasin as well. Something about the fire prevented Asboel from flying too closely. He flicked his tail, his frustration prominent through the bond as they struggled to reach the city.

Could it be that the shaping wasn’t meant to call the draasin as he’d thought, but to push them away?

Tan studied Falsheim through the draasin sight. The line of fire burning along the top of the wall shimmered a bright red. Flashes of lighter color moved within the fire, either shapers, or more surprisingly, he wondered if it might not be elementals. There was no sign of any Domans.

No, Tan!

The voice exploded in his head. The voice he’d been trying to reach for days. Elle’s voice.
Elle?

She’d been silenced. No response came, nothing that would tell him where she might be, but she had to be close. There was no way she would have reached him otherwise.

From above, the blue-painted slate roofs appeared like nothing more than an extension of the sea. There was even an undulating pattern much like swells of waves. Nothing moved within. Any of the people who had once been there were gone.

Falsheim was large, though not as large as Ethea. The massive walls circling it looked built to defend against the sea, to keep it from crashing on surges against those who lived behind its walls. Doma would not have abandoned her city.

But where would they be?

Can you see anything?
Tan asked.

Asboel snuffed a streamer of flame as he circled, unable to get too close to the city.
There is nothing.

Tan shaped spirit, mixing it with each of the elements, tying them together as he eased his shaping. He expected to find something—anything. Instead, it was empty.

Or was it?

Could their earth shapers really be so powerful?

Tan sent a shaping of lightning crashing into the top of the wall. It fizzled into nothing. No shapers were revealed. Nothing.

Another shaping had the same result.

Tan sat back on Asboel, frustration surging through him. He had heard Elle. She was alive. But where?

Udilm! Where is the Child of Water?

Tan sent it out as a booming question that slammed into the water. A massive swell came as an answer, sending spray shooting toward the sky, shaped at them.

Udilm answered, but did not answer him.

Tan suddenly understood: A shaper controlled the water elementals around Falsheim.

Could water obscure as well as earth? Wind had once helped turn Zephra into Sarah, hiding his mother from him, so why could it not?

It meant Falsheim was likely far more dangerous than he realized. And it meant that there might not be anything he could do to rescue Elle, or to help the trapped elementals.

I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do this,
Tan admitted.

And even if he managed to pull Par-shon shapers away toward Incendin, would there be anything that Incendin could do to defeat them? What of when they reached the kingdoms? There was even more elemental power there, especially Ethea, the place of convergence. How long would it take for Par-shon to trap them as well?

As Tan considered turning back, he heard Elle’s voice again.

Tan!
There was panic in it before it again cut off.

He had to help her. Tan didn’t know if it would even work. If the draasin couldn’t reach the city, what made him think that
he
could?

Asboel…I need to reach her. Can you watch over me?
he asked.

You would use me like some sort of spyglass?

Attack when you can. I will draw the others. Keep me safe.

Asboel breathed out a finger of angry fire.
I will watch,
Asboel agreed.

Tan took a deep breath, calling the free elementals to him, and then jumped from Asboel’s back into Falsheim.

T
an used a shaping of spirit
, wrapping it around himself to shield himself from the Par-shon shaping as he descended. As he did, he held onto Asboel through the bond, afraid to release the connection. He streaked through the clouds, dropping toward Falsheim faster than he’d ever moved. There was a sense of resistance from the shaping around Falsheim, and then he passed through. As he sensed the ground, he shifted the shaping, pushing wind and earth together.

A soft fog covered the city, sweeping in from the sea. It hadn’t been there before and didn’t appear shaped, leaving Tan to wonder what had happened. A soft chuckling from Asboel in the back of his mind made him think that the draasin helped.

He was attacked as soon as he landed.

Fire and wind came at him, shaped directly in front of him. Tan felt resistance when he tried to shape, but he had known this resistance before. It was the same as he’d experienced in Par-shon, using runes branded on the walls. As he had then, he shaped spirit, augmenting what he could control, and pressed through.

Tan didn’t need to see the shaper. Using his warrior sword, he caught the shaping and deflected it down. Then he blasted forward, spirit and fire drawn from Asboel. The shaper fell. A flash of light came as the elemental was released.

Another attack, this from behind him. Tan spun, catching the shaping and returning it upon the shaper. There came another flash of light.

Assist me.

Tan sent the request to earth, fire, wind, and water. He didn’t know which of the elements he’d freed, but they could be summoned. They could fight against those who would bond them. The elementals were the reason that he didn’t fight alone. They could help. They
must
help.

Two shapers, one to each side. Tan sent a spirit shaping at both. It struck with more force than he’d intended. One of the shapers fell. Tan made his way through the thickening fog and found her. She was small and young, dressed in dark brown breeches and the flared jacket of Par-shon. The bonds glowed upon her exposed skin, one for wind and earth. Using spirit, Tan freed them.

Assist me
, he sent again.

He found the other shaper he had attacked. An older man lay on the ground, face smeared with ash and dirt. Runes for fire and earth, elemental opposites, were branded onto his cheeks. Tan used spirit to free these bonds.

Assist me
, he said.

A series of shapings drew him. Tan jumped on the wind, augmenting it with fire, unwilling to use his elemental bond to Honl here until he knew whether Honl could be separated from him. He landed in the midst of the shapers, readying his attack.

The sensation of power pressing down around him increased. This was different than before. They were not attacking him the same way as the others had, not sending elemental power at him. Instead, it swirled around him, the shaping itself forming a rune around him.

Tan tried a shaping for spirit, drawing on Asboel as he attempted fire.

His shaping faltered and failed.

He tried again, this time reaching for each of the elements, mixing it with spirit. Again, the shaping failed.

The power surrounding him increased. There came a tearing sense, a painful ripping within his mind. With a growing terror, Tan understood what they attempted.

He had thought he needed to be in Par-shon for them to separate him from his bonds. He was wrong. They had drawn him here to attack, thinking to outnumber him. That must be the reason for their shapers spread throughout Doma. They intended to weaken him before he could reach Falsheim.

He focused on the sword, using spirit first, knowing it was the one element they could not use, and tried binding it to a combined shaping of the other elementals. Spirit built, drawing through the sword, straining against the shaping that threatened to overwhelm him. Spirit was pushed back against him.

Tan sagged. It had taken all of the strength he could manage to attempt that last shaping. He had grown so accustomed to the elemental powers aiding his shaping, to drawing on them for strength, that he had forgotten what it was like when he had to rely solely on his own stores of power. Now that he needed them, now that he was cut off from the elementals, he did not have the strength needed to escape.

A frustrated scream came from him, echoing through Falsheim. He would not fall, not in a city that was not his home, not so far from Amia and with Asboel so tantalizingly close.

He dragged on another shaping, straining through the sword, reaching for fire. If he could reach fire, if he could draw on Asboel, he might be able to break the pattern of shapers surrounding him enough that he could escape from the shaped rune and free him to reach the elemental powers.

Fire built within him. It came slowly, but it came. Tan added it to the sword, drawing through it, praying to the Great Mother that the runes would augment the shaping enough.

There, like a flicker of power, he sensed Asboel.

Asboel!

He couldn’t know if his sending worked. It had taken all of the strength remaining to him to reach for the draasin. Tan sagged to the ground.

The shaping continued around him. He sensed power building. The pain tearing through his mind increased, leaving him weakened, barely able to stand. This must have been how Asboel felt when Par-shon attacked him.

A gust of wind blew through the fog.

Tan saw his attackers. He stood on a cobbled street. Squat stone buildings rose up all around him. On each slate rooftop, there was a shaper, no longer attempting to obscure themselves. Each focused on him.

Tan swallowed and raised his sword.

The blowing wind caught the sword. Tan thought he might be too weak to hold it in the air, but the wind itself held it there. A flicker of light from the fading sun caught it before Tan realized that it wasn’t light, but fire. The fog that had been in the air coalesced and dripped along the sword. The earth rumbled beneath him.

Power returned, flowing into the sword. He felt it surge with elemental strength, strength that was freely given. He stood, drawing upon it with renewed vigor. Saa and nymid surged through him. Earth elemental power that he had no name for rumbled through him. The sword exploded with light.

Tan pointed at the nearest shaper. He bound the shaping together, not drawing from him, but the elementals themselves, drawn
to
him, and added his shaping of spirit to it. The shaping exploded from him, striking the two nearest him.

The light struck them, and the elementals bound to the shapers exploded away from them.

Assist me
, Tan called.

More elemental power swirled toward his sword. He focused on two other shapers, the light-infused shaping streaking from his blade and crashing into them. The bonds shattered.

The shaped rune around him failed.

The shapers changed their focus. Now they attacked Tan. Elemental power struck him, buffeting against him, the sword, everything. He stood rooted in place, reaching through the earth on a shaping as he strained to sense where other shapers might be hiding.

The city held dozens. Too many to search and hunt out one by one.

Tan called on the elementals. Power swirled around him, fed by unnamed elemental power answering his call. He pressed out through the sword, through the elementals he sensed, and turned them against the shapers within the city.

Power exploded outward. Whatever shaping had surrounded the city failed with a thunderous
crack
and a flash of flame that faded into nothing.

But not all the elementals were freed. Seven shapers took to the air. They faced Tan, circling him in a tight pattern and a shaping of air and fire. Smoke trailed from them, cloying and thick. Tan felt their shaping build, drawing away the power he’d gained from the elementals. One of the shapers stood at the head of the others, bald and with dark, piercing eyes. He wore the same leathers that Tan had seen in Par-shon. Bonded elemental runes glowed across him, more than Tan could count. Not the Utu Tonah, but one with nearly his ability.

Tan shifted his shaping to him, but that power was deflected. The man raised his arm and smiled as he withdrew a sword covered with glowing runes. A warrior sword.

The shaper attacked, sending a shaping more powerful than anything Tan had ever experienced before toward him. Tan ducked behind the sword, clutching it in front of him, holding the blade out and praying that it would catch the shaping.

As he did, he begged of the elementals again.

Assist me.

Power burned through him. Tan held his arm out, trying to maintain the shaping as the Par-shon bonded circled over him.

A loud roar echoed overhead.

Tan opened his eyes to see Asboel streaking toward him. The draasin flew with his jaw wide and open, fire and steam shooting from his mouth. The Par-shon bonded scattered, fearful of the draasin. The flames struck everything around Tan, scattering harmlessly around him.

The heavily bonded shaper lingered a moment before he scattered with the others, disappearing and leaving Tan shaking among the broken remnants of the city.

A
sboel landed
in a clearing within the city. His great golden eyes searched around him, checking for another attack, but everything Tan sensed told him that the Par-shon shapers were gone. A few remained, but those were shapers whose connection to their bond had been broken. The flames along the city wall sputtered and eventually faded.

You have hunted well, Maelen.

Two fallen Par-shon shapers lay unmoving, one with his back twisted at an awful angle, the other with her head bent impossibly. He did not feel as if he’d hunted well.

Par-shon had planned this, whatever
this
was.
Did they think to capture me?

They are tightly bound to the elementals. It is possible that they could have held you.

The only reason he could think that Par-shon would trap him was to separate him from Asboel, but why would they risk it here?

This shaping intended to separate us.

Asboel sniffed, steam streaming from his nostrils.
They would have you hunt alone. They could bind you then.

But why? And why had this shaping reminded him of the one he’d found in Incendin? What was the purpose of the shaping?

He stepped into the street. Asboel’s lazy fog still lingered. It drifted slowly back toward the sea, receding like the tide. Had udilm helped here? Tan didn’t think so. Whatever elemental power of water he’d used had come from the mist itself, different than udilm, different even than the nymid, and more like the mist he saw swirling around Asboel when they flew.

Tan focused on spirit and earth, drawing power from Asboel and his proximity, and shaped.
Elle!

He pressed out with the sending, using more than a simple sensing of spirit. There came the sense of resistance, and then it faded.

Tan!

He heard her joy.
Where are you?

As he asked, he felt a steady rumbling, as if the city itself would collapse. Then it cleared.

Beneath the city.

Tan frowned. How could anyone be beneath the city?
Where?

Come to water.

Tan glanced at Asboel. The draasin seemed to have heard, too, because he flicked his tail. Tan took to the air with a quick summons to Honl and floated above the city. Asboel launched after him with a great flapping of wings, hovering and keeping a close eye on Tan.

Reaching the water took him past the walls and out to the rocky shore. He lowered himself, looking for where Elle might be. Water crashed along the shore. The sense of udilm was in the water, and Tan was aware of something almost like relief.

The great elemental had been freed from whatever bonds held it. There would be others of the udilm trapped, their bonds forced upon them, but for now, water could serve Doma again.

Protect these shores,
Tan asked.

He didn’t expect a response. The udilm had been angry at the fact that he had dared demand service from them. But the waves slowed, the angry splashing eased, and a peaceful sliding of waves pressed around him.

From within the walls and from above, the city seemed to have an even and flat course. But from the water, he saw how it was built above the rock, the buildings nestling atop massive stone pillars that plunged into the sea bed. Shadows moved between the rocks. Tan didn’t need earth sensing to know that was where he would find Elle.

When she came to him on a sliver of water, sliding across the rock as if sailing atop the waves, his jaw nearly dropped in surprise. Elle had changed.

She had always been short and smaller than him, especially in the baggy clothes she had taken to wearing while in Ethea and studying at the university, but in the time he’d been away, she had filled out some and grown about three inches, and now the thin white dress she wore actually fit her. Her brown hair had grown long and she wore it down across her shoulders. Eyes that had once matched her hair now were lighter, almost misty colored. She would be a lovely woman someday.

An older boy stood next to her, eyes narrowed at Tan, angling himself protectively toward Elle. Tan smiled at him, but it only made the boy more defensive.

“It
is
you!” Elle said. She threw her arms around Tan and hugged him.

He hugged her back, more shocked than anything, and stunned to silence. When he collected himself, he pushed her back and stared at her. “Elle? What happened here? How are you alive?”

“I didn’t think you’d come. I’ve been trying to reach you for the last few weeks, but there’s been no way to get through to you safely. Those shapers have blocked me somehow.”

“I don’t understand. How were you alive under the city?”

The boy opened his mouth as if to object. Elle whispered to him, and the boy clamped his mouth shut. Tan almost laughed, wondering what she’d said. He had been subjected to her moods before. Though he had not known her long, he felt he had known her well.

“Falsheim is built on a shelf. Not many know that.”