Leaves of Flame (48 page)

C
OLIN GLANCED UP as a sudden gust of wind blew sand into his face and tugged at his shirt. His horse whickered, tension rippling through the muscles of its neck and shoulders. He stared out across the grassland, minor plinths of striated rock piercing up through the soil on all sides. The sky was a vivid blue, no clouds in sight.

But the air shuddered around him. For a moment, he could see it, like heat waves shimmering above the earth, distorting the panoramic view on all sides. It was hot, sweat a faint sheen against his skin, but not hot enough for heat waves.

He twisted in his saddle and whistled to catch Eraeth’s and Siobhaen’s attention. “We need to find shelter!”

“Why?” Eraeth shouted, already heading toward him. Siobhaen followed, scanning the horizon with a look of confusion.

“We’ve reached the edge of the Summer Tree’s influence,” Colin said. “There’s going to be a storm.”

Siobhaen shot a glance upward. “But the sky’s clear—­”

The air around them suddenly crackled, all of the hair on Colin’s arms standing on end, his skin prickling. A sharp metallic scent struck them. Siobhaen gasped, nose ­wrinkling
from the stench even as she shuddered, but Eraeth shrugged the sensations aside and pointed.

“Over there,” he shouted over another gust of wind, all three hunching down in their saddles. The wind was bitterly cold and stank of rain. “That rock formation!”

Colin merely nodded and spun his horse about, kicking it hard toward the column of rock Eraeth had indicated. As he neared, he saw why. Chunks of stone had fallen ages past, forming a rough arch against its side. It looked like it would be large enough to shelter all of them and the horses.

When he was still a hundred yards away, the land beginning to slope down before rising toward the rock column again, a shadow descended over the plains.

Colin’s gaze shot upward as Siobhaen cried out from behind. Massive black clouds had begun to build, shooting skyward in roiling plumes along a clear-­cut front that undulated high overhead, running north to south. The cloud cover spilled westward from the sharp demarcation, like a flood of black water rushing across an unseen surface. Colin slowed, his horse gnawing at the bit, but waved Eraeth and Siobhaen toward the shelter. He could feel the energies building now, pressing against his skin. Wind blew more sand and grit into his face, but he squinted and raised a hand to shield his eyes. He wanted to see how the storm built, how it was created.

But then jagged purplish lightning sizzled across the clouds, so close the hair stirred on his scalp and his horse jolted forward with a panicked scream. As he cursed and seized the reins, bringing it back under control, he felt the first drops of rain patter against his skin. He nudged the horse toward the shelter, where Eraeth stood staring out after him, his face hard with disapproval, Siobhaen behind him holding both of their skittish mounts.

A moment later, Eraeth and Siobhaen vanished behind
a deluge of rain, sheets of it blocking Colin’s view. He spluttered, digging in his heels, felt the horse begin the climb up the slope toward the stone plinth. A moment later, soaked to the bone, he and his mount passed beneath the overhanging ledge of rock. Eraeth grabbed hold of his mount’s bridle and drew him deeper under the enclosure.

“Why did you slow down?” Eraeth demanded as Colin slid from the saddle, reaching to pull his packs down as well. Colin shivered, water runneling off him in streams.

“I wanted to see how it formed,” he said through chattering teeth. He caught Eraeth’s gaze and muttered, “It’s cold.”

Eraeth shook his head.

“Where did the storm come from?” Siobhaen asked, taking Colin’s lead and removing packs from the other two horses. “The skies were clear. It came out of nowhere. Literally.”

“It’s the boundary between the Summer Tree and the Source the Wraiths are using to attack it. The friction between the two powers creates energy, and that energy has to be expended somehow. That’s how the storms are formed, and something similar creates the occumaen, although I’ve never seen the occumaen’s formation in person.”

“But you said the Source was only recently awakened. The storms began long before that.”

“The storms are created when two magical forces are at odds with each other. The storms from before came from friction between the unbalanced Wells. The balance had not been thrown that far off, so the storms weren’t as common, the occumaen not as strong. But when Walter and the Wraiths began waking the dormant Wells.…”

He didn’t finish; another bolt of lightning sizzled outside their shelter, the crack of thunder so loud he felt it lancing through his bones. It sounded as if stone had shattered. He
gritted his teeth against it and stared out at the suddenly blackened day, rain sheeting off the stone shelf above them so fast it formed a waterfall over the shelter’s entrance. Somewhere in the rock plinth behind them, the water had found a niche or crack and ran in a slower trickle down one side of their alcove.

“How long will this last?” Siobhaen asked, her back pressed against the crumbling stone wall farthest from the entrance. Her eyes were wider than normal, her shoulders hunched. When she saw both of them watching her, she stiffened and glared. “I don’t like lightning.” Her voice dared them to laugh.

Colin shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. I’d settle in, though. I don’t feel any lessening of the energies that are creating the storm at the moment.”

Siobhaen nodded and began rooting through her satchel, pulling out a package of smoked meat and a skin of water, both provided by the dwarren. Colin remained near the opening, faint spray from the rain dampening his face. He shivered again at the chill, although the worst of it had passed. His clothes clung to his skin.

Eraeth shifted beside him.

“You realize what this means, don’t you?” Colin said softly.

Eraeth nodded. “Once the storm passes, we’ll be outside the protection of the Summer Tree.”

“We’ll have to keep sharper watch. The Shadows and the other creatures of the Wraith’s armies will be able to attack us.”

He felt Siobhaen still behind them, staring at their backs. Then Eraeth turned away from the driving rain.

The storm lasted for nearly six hours, the lightning and thunder fading to the west, the trickle of water that had become a small stream lessening as the rains abated. Eraeth and Siobhaen had begun sniping at each other after the first
hour, glowering and glaring in the small, confined shelter. Colin had ignored them and their bickering, finding a shelf of rock that acted as a bench. He’d settled in and closed his eyes, trying to sense the energies of the storm as they were created, but he found himself limited. He couldn’t connect to the Summer Tree here, could only feel its presence through its interaction with the Source, and then only barely. The play of the two powers overhead was obscured by the chaos of the storm. Only the effects could be seen, not the cause.

He’d finally given up and made himself comfortable, allowing himself to nod off to the sounds of the rain and the scent of dampened stone.

He startled awake to a low growl of thunder, looked through bleary eyes to see both Eraeth and Siobhaen stretched out on the stone floor, satchels used as pillows. The horses whickered when he rose, nostrils flaring as they fidgeted where they stood. He moved to calm them, then stood in the entrance and watched the storm retreat across the plains to the west. They’d lost the entire afternoon, the sun setting, burnished light glinting off of the rain-­washed red stone plinths that dotted the landscape. He couldn’t see the sun itself, but he watched the shadow of the column of stone that had sheltered them elongate as it sank toward the horizon. In the last of the fading light, he heard a hawk shriek and saw it dive toward the freshly washed grasses, struggling back up into the sky with a hapless prairie dog or rabbit clutched in its talons.

For a moment, the sharp memory of hunting prairie dog with his sling cut painfully into him.

When the sunlight had reached its most vivid, the reddish-­orange stone all around glowing with its vibrance, he heard Eraeth stir, then rise and join him at the entrance to the shelter.

“We’ve lost the daylight,” Colin said.

“You should have woken us,” Eraeth said, the reprimand sharp in his voice.

“I only woke myself a short time ago. The storm has only just receded.”

“Then we should travel at night to make up the lost time.”

Colin shifted restlessly. “I don’t think that would be wise. The Wraiths and Shadows hunt much more effectively at night.”

Eraeth nodded. “Then we should rest while we can.”

“Go. I’ll take the first watch.”

Eraeth returned to his makeshift pallet.

In the morning, Eraeth shook him awake. They fed and watered the horses, then mounted and rode hard to the east, watching the horizon intently for any sign of the Wraiths, the Shadows, or the purported army they had gathered. They saw nothing that day or the following day. The landscape shifted around them, the grasses giving way to hard-­packed earth and stone and sand, the fingers of rock growing in size and complexity and color.

“I never knew rock came in so many colors,” Siobhaen muttered at one break, staring out across the wide horizon, eyes shaded. “It’s mostly gray and white and blue in the Hauttaeren.”

Two more of the strange storms developed over the course of the next few days, but always to their west, marking the edge of dwarren and Wraith lands, the black clouds moving away from them. To the east, the sky was almost preternaturally blue, only a few faint white clouds scudding across it, heading southeast.

On the fourth day, Siobhaen cried out and pointed into the sky. “What is that?” she shouted, keeping it in sight as she urged her horse closer to Colin and Eraeth. “Do you see it? There, above that mesa with the arc of stone jutting off to one side.”

Eraeth squinted into the distance, began to shake his head—­

But then both he and Colin caught its movement. Something black and winged hovered in the sky over the massive table of rock. It glided over the mesa for a moment, then banked sharply and vanished behind the upthrust stone.

Eraeth and Colin traded troubled looks.

“It wasn’t a hawk or a vulture,” the Protector said.

“It was too big,” Colin agreed. “And there was something odd about its wings and feathering.”

“Do you think it saw us?” Siobhaen asked.

“We have to assume it did, and that it may be part of the Wraiths’ army.”

Eraeth swore.

Colin twisted the reins in his hands, bringing his horse about. “Let’s move. Put some distance between us and the mesa. We may be far enough away from the army that they won’t be able to track us once their scouts get here.”

“What if that thing
was
their scout?”

“Then we fight.”

They rode the horses hard for a short time but saw no one pursuing them, and no second sighting of the winged black creature. But unease crawled across Colin’s shoulders and he startled at every sound. They paused at a pool of water hidden beneath an overhang of umber rock, the water a vivid blue-­green. Siobhaen refilled their waterskins as Colin scanned the skies, shrugging his shoulders in an attempt to relax the tension there. But the sensation wouldn’t pass.

He’d lived too long to ignore the warning. He didn’t know what was causing it, but he’d listen.

“Something’s wrong. I think we should halt here for the day, even though there’s at least an hour of daylight left. Siobhaen, see if you can find something besides the dried meat to eat, but don’t wander far. Eraeth—­”

“I’ll come with you.”

That wasn’t what Colin had intended, but he saw the stubborn set of the Protector’s jaw and let it go.

“Of course I’m the hunter,” Siobhaen muttered under her breath, but loudly enough to make certain they both heard. She pulled some lengths of leather gut from her pouch and with a few quick twists knotted them into snares. She halted before Eraeth, face-­to-­face, a little too close, but Eraeth didn’t draw back. “Next time, I accompany Shaeveran.”

Then she stormed out from beneath the overhang.

Eraeth didn’t comment, raising an eyebrow toward Colin. “Lead the way.”

Colin gathered his staff and satchel, slinging it over one shoulder, then motioned toward the north.

They followed the edge of the mesa at their backs, the stone rising vertically to their right, the ground sloping away to the left. Rocks cascaded down the slope as they moved, catching in the dried sagebrush, sword grass, and scree. The loose soil and pebbles made keeping their balance difficult, Colin’s staff nearly worthless. He grunted, catching himself against the crumbling wall of the mesa as his left foot slid out from under him. They rounded one edge of the mesa and found a wall of stone protruding from the far side, an irregularly shaped hole piercing through it, its edges smoothed as if by water. Stones perched precariously on top of the jagged arm of rock, as if set there by a child-­god’s hand. Colin made for the hole and the patch of blue sky through it.

“What are we looking for?” Eraeth said when they were halfway there.

“I’m not certain. But something isn’t right. I can feel it.”

Eraeth grunted. Colin caught him loosening the clasp on his cattan as they reached the base of the wall of stone, the loose rubble giving way to layered shelves of sandstone and
basalt. They began climbing the layers like steps, moving diagonally toward the hole in the wall. To the west, the sun had dipped nearly to a horizon dotted with more rock formations. Colin passed into the shadow cast by the wall, the ridge of rock striking almost due west. He paused to wipe sweat from his brow in the cooler shade, then pulled himself up into the lip of the hole.

Then he froze and ducked back down behind the stone, even though he stood in shadow.

“What is it?” Eraeth hissed, scrambling up the last leg and settling down beside him.

“The Wraith army,” Colin whispered, his voice grim.

He waved a hand toward the wide stretch of sand and stone spread out before them, even though Eraeth had already pulled himself up high enough that he could see. The Wraith army stretched from beneath the mesa across the plateau, a black stain on the reddish sand and stone. It was too distant to pick out many details, but it had obviously halted for the night, fires already blazing across its breadth, smoke trailing into the sky. It appeared to eddy and flow as groups moved back and forth, punctuated by gray as tents were raised and horses and gaezels were herded and penned for the night. A line of supply wagons trailed behind the main force, and Colin could see others trundling across the scrubland to the east, coming to join them. At least a score of the strange black birds they had sighted earlier circled above, wheeling through the layers of smoke. A few shrieks pierced the dusk’s quiet, along with an occasional bellow or cry. The army was too distant for general sounds to carry.