Valley of Embers (The Landkist Saga Book 1)

by Steven Kelliher

  The titan took another deliberate step down, talons clacking. The blue glow in the gallery above brightened as he neared.

  “What will you do?” it asked.

  “Find a way,” Kole said, and he launched himself forward, blades-first.

  A great wing slashed down from the left that surely would have sliced Kole in half had Baas’s great stone shield not intercepted in a shower of sparks. The blues flashed behind their armored slits and the titan bladed its body, shifting so that Kole’s blades only scored gashes in the armored midsection rather than piercing clean through.

  A clawed gauntlet flashed out. Kole took a hit in the ribs as he twisted and lunged back with a counter, flames flaring hungrily. A force like a lightning strike smashed Kole in the chest—the titan’s foot, talons splayed—and sent him tumbling from the dais as Baas swiped low with his shield, taking the behemoth from its feet with a crash.

  Kole came up in a roll next to the female Rockbled. She had her eyes closed in concentration as her brethren surrounded her, staring up into the alcoves with weapons bared. Cracks split and raced along the floor around her, and her eyes flashed open, arms extending in a push that sent shards of marble lancing toward the grappling pair on the dais.

  The projectiles struck them both, bouncing harmlessly off of Baas and doing little more than distracting the armored Sage. One gauntleted hand closed around Baas’s throat and Kole screamed as the other streaked toward his stomach, launching Baas back with incredible force. But the talons came away bloodless, the Sage’s attack doing little more than ripping the Rockbled’s leather armor and knocking the wind from him.

  Kole shot to the top of the dais as the titan regained its footing. Another Riverman came up in a two-hand spin, axe a whirling blur aimed squarely at the armored chest. In a flash of blue light, the axe fell with a clatter, the warrior’s head with a thud.

  Kole leapt onto the armored back, wrapping his legs around the torso as it thrashed, spiked ridges ripping his cheeks and digging into his black shell. One gauntlet interrupted his Everwood blade, but he stabbed the other down at the crease between neck and shoulder, the flames glowing a deeper blue than the light beneath the armor as Kole drove in with all his strength.

  The seam parted and the Sage unleashed an animal scream, arms thrown wide as lighting ricocheted throughout the chamber, bouncing off of Baas’s shield and striking several of his kinsmen. One went down in a smoking husk, but the others found themselves and regained their feet.

  Kole was launched forward, tumbling, his back slamming against a pillar near the entryway. White lights joined the blue and red as he struggled to right himself.

  The titan was in a rage now, and another Riverman went down in a mess of blood and thrashing silver wings as he moved to guard Kole. The stone bracers of the Rockbled droned as they summoned strength from the stone underfoot and the earth beneath it, setting their feet for the clash.

  The rails above shattered and came down in a rain of stone and dust, and a score of armored warriors taller than the tallest of the Rivermen streaked down on armored wings, duller approximations of the titan’s form. The hall came alive with the screeches of hawk and the challenges of man and woman as the two sides came together in a blur of chaos.

  “Draw them outside!” a voice shouted and then gurgled as a pack of winged assailants covered her in thrashing talons, her bracers shattering as her concentration broke and the razor weapons found homes beneath her flesh.

  “I knew you would come for me!”

  An uppercut took Kole in the chin and blasted him out into the open air. He landed in a crunch and rolled across the rocks in the ruined courtyard, blades nearly coming loose from his hands. He struggled to rise, and then another staggering blow landed, this one launching him into the crumbled ruins of the marble gate.

  Kole felt something crack and hoped it was armor, though he tasted blood.

  “Kole!” Linn shouted from behind. He could hear Misha shouting as well.

  “No,” Kole coughed. He set his feet on the moss and used the loose stones to help him up into a hunch. His veins felt cold, but he forced all of the fire he could into his blades, which deepened their color once again.

  A bladed wing the size of a horse lanced down in a crescent shaped like the moon. Kole ducked it and scored a long slash, turning silver to liquid metal as he slid by. He spun and made to stab forward with the other blade, sending a fan of flame from the first up into the titan’s visor, but a gauntlet knocked him away and one blade went spinning.

  “I could have killed you at any time!”

  Another blow landed, and this time Kole knew it was not just the metal of his suit giving. He turned the wracking cough into a strangled growl and sent a gout of flame from his remaining blade that scorched the armored visage and sent the titan stumbling.

  “You took the Dark Hearts,” the Sage circled, blue eyes flickering as it wiped ash from its helm. Behind, Kole could see the melee spill out into the yard, human warriors parrying and smashing apart an armored flock that wheeled and dived, prodding with spear and halberd and making mad screeches as they died.

  “I offer you the chance to help me,” the White Crest said. “Kill him. End his scourge.”

  Kole spat, breath wheezing out of him as he circled, blade guttering.

  “You are a part of that scourge,” Kole said. “You could have come to us first. Trusted us. But you feared us. You let the Eastern Dark guide your hand.”

  The Sage’s silver hand glowed with energy. Though each circled the other, only one was the wolf, and they both knew whom it was.

  “He’d have turned you against me, just as he turned your Ember King.”

  Kole stopped dead in his tracks.

  “What did you say?”

  A ball of lightning drove into his chest and a blast of wind from the other palm sent him crashing through the gate. He hit the ground with a thud, loose rocks scoring scrapes as his shell split. He tumbled down the slope before coming to rest in a heap a few strides from the lip of the ledge where Linn stood watching.

  He could hear her yelling, pleading. But Misha held her back in an iron grip, her other hand leveling Jenk’s glowing blade as a ward. The avian warriors fell on them and Misha released Linn as she did all she could to keep the lancing spears at bay.

  There was a weight on Kole’s chest, and he looked up to see the hawkish visage of the Sage glowering down at him like molten ice. He hacked a bloody cough as the titan’s foot pressed, folding him up in a haze of pain and phlegm.

  “Yes,” he said, easing up so Kole would not expire. “I honored the alliance with the King of Ember. We rode out and met my dark brother in the east. Your king was struck down. I saw the corruption leaking into his eyes even as I made good my escape.”

  Kole wheezed again as he tried to speak.

  “Coward,” he spat through bloody teeth. He tried to infuse strength into his ailing limbs, but none came.

  “You call me coward?” the Sage scoffed, beaked helm leering down. “I fought the Eastern Dark. And when your King was thrown down, I fought off the Night Lords that would have razed this Valley and everything in it. It was my battle with them that made the Deep Lands, which broke the River F’Rust. I took their hearts, and though they sank me into a poisonous sleep, I have awoken, and I had control. I had power over the Corrupted, over the legions of the World Apart.”

  “You left him,” Kole said, accusation dripping. “You left him to die.”

  “As he would have left me.”

  The weight eased from Kole’s chest and he was sent into a violent fit of coughing. The Sage swept his gaze out to take in the melee before the keep. Kole craned his head, seeing Misha put Jenk’s blade to good use, carving into any beasts that drew too near. Linn worked at the huge bow the Rockbled had dropped. She had dragged one of the great silver shafts to the ledge, her teeth gritted as she forced exhausted sinews into the effort of pulling.

  Baas was at the center of the battle
on the hill, his great shield knocking flying beasts from their paths and shattering those that attempted to stand too long and challenge him. Only half a dozen Rockbled stood with him, but it was enough, and none looked to be slowing as the Sage’s army dwindled before his eyes.

  “I lost my people once,” the Sage said, strange voice lilting. He watched the melee with a distant expression that was the most human that Kole had yet glimpsed in the immortal’s façade. “I know what it is to lose.”

  When the blue eyes looked down at him, they hardened.

  “The Dark Hearts spoke to me in that long darkness. I saw the corruption they sewed in the Valley that was my charge. The Dark Kind attacked each year, their numbers growing steadily for a generation. It was a strategy meant to strengthen the Landkist residing therein—the Embers most of all.”

  “My heart bled for the losses, but I could do nothing. But you fought back, and you fought well. There are braziers in the hearts of your people that will not be put out easily.”

  Flickering.

  “The Eastern Dark was too preoccupied with finding his champions in other lands and making his wars on the other Sages to pay any real heed to the goings on in his Valley at the edge of the World. And that is where I saw my opportunity.”

  “To destroy us,” Kole rasped.

  “His darkness would have taken you all eventually,” the White Crest said in a tone that approached sorrow but came up wanting. “I learned of the Sentinels. I invited them in. Better you be used by me than him.”

  A pause.

  “But you surprised even me. A few of you, that is. Some not even counted among the Landkist. Together, we can stand up to him. Without the denizens of the World Apart. Without the Dark Kind and their dark gifts.”

  “Horrors,” Kole said.

  “Yes.”

  Kole sat up, his face coming within spitting distance of the armored visage.

  “Why take down one evil just to prop up another?”

  The blues flashed dangerously.

  “For vengeance. For your mother.”

  Something snapped in Kole, and the Sage sensed it too late. He called to them, and the flames answered.

  Kole’s eyes peeled back to expose the fire within, and the flames from his discarded blade leapt of their own accord and traced a path to his waiting palm. The fire coiled there like a disc of sunset. The titan shrank back, blue light arcing up through the feathered contours in the silver armor, but Kole was the quicker. He thrust his palm forward and drove the disc into the sharp visor, and the sound of it was thunder.

  The Sage roared and keened as it lit amber, its head thrown back in a violent retort, the armored body following as it twisted, wings flapping as it careened through the air like a meteor, smashing through the wall of the keep across the way. Fire sprang along the newly made entrance, and Kole was up and charging, his hand glowing, the orange outline spreading along his form until his body held a sheen that matched his blazing eyes.

  Some part of him heard Linn screaming for him, but he kept on, eager to carve the darkness of the gap with his own burning.

  Just before he reached the smoking stones, he saw the blue glow flaring to life within, outlining the silver form, which was now topped by a half-melted helm that glowed a dull red from Kole’s attack.

  Kole launched himself, wisps of flame trailing. The wind hit him like a hurricane, sucking the air from his lungs, but his rage only redoubled and he smashed down in the gallery, his landing making a crater where the Sage had crouched seconds before.

  A bolt struck Kole in the shoulder as he charged again. He shrugged it off, along with the next gust of supernatural wind. He shot forward, slamming into the titan’s armored chest with a crack like heat lightning. They locked hands, Kole’s fiery glow muted by the blue and white of the storm.

  The power of the skies flowed through him and set his teeth to chatter, his spine to quiver, but the Sage’s gauntlets began to glow. They morphed from orange to red before warping to match the pitiful helm that stared at him now through one open slit. Kole glimpsed fear within, and the fear fed him, building his heat to a crescendo as his armor split, his bare skin reflecting the colors of their clash, all amber and blue.

  The loose slate and marble from the broken floor and gallery spun in a cyclone as the titan called the air again into its service, its great wings thrashing in the maelstrom.

  “The dark has made a weapon of you,” Kole said.

  The White Crest recognized its death was close at hand, and the wind became a tornado. Black tiles ripped loose from the walls and pink light spilled in from the newly opened skylight. Overhead, the stone supports creaked like timbers.

  One metal hand shattered like ice in Kole’s palm, and the Sage screamed something that sounded the cousin of rage and pain.

  “You are all the same. I’ve known it all my life. You all need to go.”

  Their embrace was a torrent.

  And then, just as quickly as it had come on, Kole’s blood went cold, the flames evaporating from his skin and leaving motes and fireflies in their wake. He flew back, the remainder of his black shell shattering against the soapstone. He slumped, the blood in his throat drying to a thick paste.

  And the White Crest approached, his footsteps halting.

  “Fool,” he said, blue sparks jumping from the one good hand to match the glow behind the melted helm. The storm quieted, which only served to heighten the sound of popping as tiny bolts built to their lethal charge beneath the armor. There was not a seam that was not lit.

  “If you cannot defeat me, what hope have you against him?”

  Kole struggled to find his voice.

  The Sage stood over him, blue hand raised in the premonition of a god’s smiting.

  “I sensed your coming,” he said. “I sensed your power in the fields of Hearth as you turned the dark army to ash. As you killed hundreds.”

  “Your army,” Kole croaked.

  “I still sense that power,” the Sage said, tone curious, head tilting in a disgusting comedy. “And yet, here you sit, all but spent and at death’s door knocking. Tell me, what tricks have you left?”

  Kole doubted he could have lit a candle at that moment. His look said as much, and the White Crest sighed as if he were disappointed.

  “No matter, then. Thanks to you, I must go into hiding, never to return. I cannot hope to defeat the Eastern Dark now.”

  “You never could.”

  And the voice that issued from the shattered sky above was not Kole’s. The White Crest wheeled, and Kole felt his fear keen as a knife’s edge.

  The Eastern Dark had come.

  Linn Ve’Ran had fought creatures of dark from the time she could hold a bow. Now, those had given way to beings that shined golden in the dying sun—angels of silver and red that streaked before her like harbingers.

  They struck with spears and raked with talons, gnashing beaks never still. But the worst of it were their screams; they screeched like eagles riding the winds of death.

  “Run!”

  Misha had yelled the order three times now, but Linn would not heed her. The Ember wielded Jenk’s Everwood blade better with each passing beast, slashing and stabbing from the shifting balls of her feet. Winged assailants came for her by the dozen, and many of them fell. But she could not keep it up forever.

  Linn’s knuckles were raw, lips cracking as she strained the corded band of the war bow back inch by gargantuan inch. It was a weapon unlike anything she had handled before, made of some mixture of earth and wood. It felt as though it would only yield to a giant’s strength and Linn was fresh out of that. But she was a Ve’Ran. She struggled, and each creak the cord made was a small victory in the face of overwhelming defeat.

  Kole had disappeared into a gap of his own making, and the lights that issued forth bleached the stones themselves, drenching the rocky slope in a splash of orange and blue that challenged the sunset and won out. The howling of the wind merged with the sharp retorts of lig
htning, and at its center, the maelstrom within the keep expelled its chaotic sounds and smells, all ash and ozone.

  Linn cried out as the cord snapped back and nearly took her thumb, her concentration broken by a boom louder than the others. She looked up and through the mess of avian beasts and the warriors of the Fork to see a rain of red tiles that littered the slope like frozen blood. A swirling tornado of spinning clay speared its way through the roof, tongues of yellow flame climbing free.

  “Argh!”

  Misha staggered and nearly went down, her blade flashing out to parry a hawk’s spear that nonetheless came away red with the Ember’s blood. The Third Keeper of Hearth clutched her side and growled.

  Nathen struggled to rise, but he was too weak, his bout with the Dark Hearts having sapped what remained of his strength.

  Linn cursed and rose, bow in one hand, silver shaft held like a spear in the other.

  Misha whirled to meet a second attack, turning the lancing spear aside and striking back in a shower of sparks, but her left was unguarded and the first hawk dove back in.

  Linn shouldered the Ember out of the way and intercepted the spearhead with the front of the bow. She spun, dipping down and lifting her hips as she slammed into the armored chest. The arch of the bow caught the barbed spear under its head and Linn used the anchor to send the creature flying over her back and toward the ground, the razor wings gouging lines along her back and shoulders as she heaved.

  They finished face-to-face, Linn and the white-eyed hawk. Before the beast could right itself in a furious flapping of wings and armored limbs, she released her hold on the bow and brought the silver arrowhead down with all the force she could muster. It was enough, shattering the metallic visage and cutting short the painful echoes of its dying.

  Linn retracted the shaft from the earth and was surprised to see that it remained intact, none the worse for wear after passing through metal, magic and the face of the cliff itself.

  Something flashed and Linn fell back as the shadow of another winged beast angled toward her. She dove to the side, the ground rushing up to meet her, but she needn’t have. The hawk fell dead, its midsection ripped open and dripping molten, eyes losing their sparking light soon after.