Honl swirled through as a cloud of inky smoke. Through the bond between them, Tan sensed him searching for Zephra. Like the hounds and masyn, Honl would be an elemental that Par-shon had never seen before. Could they use that to let them reach Zephra?
Could he use an elemental that Par-shon had never encountered? Masyn would be here, or else Elle would not have been able to find Zephra. But what? How could he reach the elemental?
He focused on water, pulling on his connection to the nymid. The nymid moved like the powerful current of the river, strong and steady. Reaching udilm was different. They were powerful, but more like the waves, strong enough to overwhelm and attempt to force a shaper to alter their focus. But masyn was the mist, the heaviness of the air, the dampness of the fog.
Tan pulled in a breath and let it out, thinking of how to reach masyn. Masyn, help Maelen find Zephra.
Tan sent the request out on a shaping of moist air, mixing it with a shaping of water and wind, combining them in his attempt to reach the elemental. He’d told Elle that he thought that he could reach masyn, and now he had to prove it.
A voice drifted into his mind, thick like fog. He Who is Tan.
Tan almost breathed out a relieved sigh. He hadn’t been sure that masyn would answer, and even if they had, would he be able to hear them? How long had it taken him to understand golud? Even now, Tan could speak to golud but struggled to hear and understand a response from the elemental. There was a part of Tan that worried that speaking to masyn would be the same.
The Child of Water claims you know where to find Zephra, Tan said.
She is here. She is sick.
Tan tensed. What had Par-shon done to his mother? Her bond?
Ara remains, but something is wrong. Zephra fails, He Who is Tan.
A surge of anger came through him, but he tamped it down. He couldn’t allow himself to be overcome by emotion. To help his mother, he needed clarity of thought. He needed to remain calm and reach her, or she would suffer. Tan wouldn’t let that happen to her, not when he was close enough that he could almost reach her. All that he needed was to reach her location.
Honl swirled toward him on a dark cloud. Without taking any form, Tan heard him through the bond. She is down there, Tan. There is another, much like the Bonded One.
Tan hadn’t heard the elemental refer to the Utu Tonah by that name before, but it was fitting. Without seeing the shaper, Tan worried that it might be the heavily bonded shaper that he’d faced twice before. Each time, he’d barely survived. Those times, he’d had Asboel with him. Now, without the draasin to assist, would he be strong enough to get through this shaping and rescue his mother?
He had to try.
But he didn’t want to attempt to reach her without saying something to Amia first. There was a part of him that wished that she was with him, but her place was with her people. The Aeta needed her, much like the elementals and the people of the kingdoms needed him. If he couldn’t rescue his mother quickly, then the other warrior shapers would be in even more danger. They bought him time, but Tan didn’t think they could hold out indefinitely.
Amia, he sent, straining through the spirit bond between them, uncertain what more he could say to her. They had shared so much in the time they had known each other. All that he wanted was a chance to be with her, a chance for the two of them to know peace, but maybe they weren’t meant to find that kind of peace, at least not until he managed to stop Par-shon and prevent another attack.
Her response came quietly, building steadily. It came as a sense of warmth that washed over him. I know.
It was all that she needed to say.
Tan took a deep breath. Take me to him.
Honl’s face appeared briefly, concern creating something like wrinkles across his brow. Then he nodded.
Tan pulled on the elemental energy that he sensed around him. There was power here, at least more than he’d sensed when he’d been attacked by Par-shon before. He could call upon that strength, could borrow from it. The elementals wouldn’t have to sacrifice themselves, and neither would Tan.
Power flooded into him, but he pulled on more, calling to the connection he shared with Kota, to Honl, and to the nymid. Tan didn’t dare borrow from Asboel any more than needed. Weakened as he was, the draasin didn’t need Tan destroying him.
Then Tan shot toward where Honl led.
He erupted with shapings building all around him. There was power that rivaled what he could draw, enough that had Tan not pulled on the elementals, he would have been overwhelmed. It threatened to separate him from his bonds, but Tan pushed through it, forcing the connections to remain.
Par-shon would not take his bonds from him.
Tan raised the warrior sword and lashed out with a combined shaping, sending it out in a circle of power that quickly expanded away from him. He continued to draw on the power, continued to pull, and felt resistance as his shaping washed over Par-shon shapers.
Kota howled. Wind whistled around him. The air was damp from the mixture of masyn and the nymid. Only fire was missing.
Tan reached for the fire bond, bypassing Asboel. Connected to the bond, he found fire that he could reach, and borrowed from nameless elementals all within it.
With this, he pressed even harder.
The shaping that obscured the city fell.
Tan stumbled. He stood in the middle of a street with homes made of thick stone. Straw roofs sloped to a high point on each. He saw no other shapers on the cobbled street but sensed those who had already fallen.
Kota, keep me safe.
The hound howled.
Masyn, where is she?
The elemental appeared in a cloud of mist that thickened, guiding him forward. It stopped at one of the nearby houses and Tan listened, pausing long enough to sense who might be on the other side. There, he detected his mother. As masyn had told him, something was wrong.
Tan shaped the door open, and it exploded with a splintering explosion.
The room inside was small. There was nothing but a mattress within. Tan’s mother lay upon the mattress, but she didn’t move. She wore a dirty gown, and her arms and legs were unbound, but there was nothing else that seemed to hold her in place.
Zephra didn’t look up as he entered. What had Par-shon done to her?
Tan glanced around and noted the runes carved into the walls, one for each of the elements. As he considered each, he realized that there was something different about them than what he’d seen in the testing room, different even than the runes he’d seen when he was in the place of separation. Mixed within the runes was the mark for spirit.
Par-shon had learned of the runes’ weakness.
Tan focused on the first rune that he saw, the one for wind. With a combined shaping, he pressed into it. Destroying it took more strength than he’d remembered, and he had to draw upon the elementals once more, borrowing from their strength. The rune split with a soft crack.
He turned his attention to another rune, this one for water. With another shaping, it cracked. Like before, the effort to destroy the rune was more than Tan had expected.
Pausing to collect a breath, he was tempted to step further into the room and go to his mother, but concern for how the runes might affect him prevented him from moving any further than the doorway.
Somewhere behind him, Kota growled.
Tan spun. A bald shaper covered with glowing runes stood at the end of the street. He wore only leather pants, leaving his chest exposed. Dark tattoos streaked across his chest. The runes extended down his chest and coated nearly the entirety of his uncovered body.
He was the same shaper Tan had seen before, the one who had twice nearly separated him from his bond, and a shaper who had nearly enough bonds to rival the Utu Tonah.
“You are predictable, Warrior,” he said.
Tan stepped back into the street, not willing to risk being too close to the building with runes, fearing what might happen were he forced into it. Water and wind might be ava
ilable, but not earth or fire.
“Zephra returns with me,” Tan said.
The shaper tipped his head and Tan realized that he must be listening to the bonded elementals. Tan counted dozens of bonds on him, so many that even were Tan able to separate even a few, the shaper would remain powerful.
Can you do anything with him? Tan asked Kota.
The hound gave him a rumbling response.
Tan reached for Honl but couldn’t find the wind elemental. There was a distant sense of him, but nothing more than that. Even the nymid had faded from his connection, though he still had the armor.
“He thought you would be drawn by her. The resemblance is clear. And the others will soon join you.”
“You won’t capture the others.”
The shaper took a step toward Tan and his smile spread. “How many do you think your shapers can stop? One hundred? Two? A thousand?”
Tan’s heart fluttered. There was no way that Roine, Cora, and Elle would stop even a hundred shapers. “You don’t have a thousand stolen bonds.”
“Stolen? Is that what you fear? These creatures are no different than the dog you brought with you. They are no different than the cows you raise for meat. They are gifts, meant to be used by those with the capacity to understand how those abilities should be used.”
The shaper took another step toward him, moving leisurely. He walked with an impossible grace, one that Tan had only seen once before, and that from the Utu Tonah. “You think that you can stop me by yourself?” Tan asked.
The shaper paused, and then his smile spread more widely across his face. “Bold, warrior, even for one such as yourself. Yes, you have slowed me once, and you have delayed Him before, but can you stop us both, especially while your friends are separated from you?”
Tan sucked in a quick breath, suddenly understanding why the shaper delayed. He waited for the Utu Tonah to arrive.
How much time did Tan have?
Maybe not enough.
Tan pulled on the elementals around him. As he did, the shaper’s eyes narrowed. He had sensed what Tan did.
Tan pulled harder, reaching for earth, binding what he could from Kota, demanding the nymid help as he used water, and reaching for wind, straining for whatever help that Honl would grant him. Power filled him, but it would not be enough.
The shaper started toward him again, runes glowing brighter with each step. Like Tan, he must have been pulling on his bonds, drawing strength from the elementals. With each step, he glowed brighter, soon becoming something like Tan’s sword when he mixed the elementals.
Tan reached for other elementals. In this part of Chenir, with most of the elementals drawn away, there was little for him to reach. He found an earth elemental that he couldn’t name. There was the hint of ara—maybe from Aric—that mixed with the thickness of masyn, an elemental that Tan recognized as water and wind. There was the distant pull of fire, though he couldn’t tell which elemental. Tan pulled on them all.
Strength flooded him, and he called more through the sword. Even with all of that, it still wouldn’t be enough. Tan sensed the shaping the Par-shon warrior created, and knew that he wouldn’t be able to stop it.
He needed more. He needed fire.
Asboel—
Take what you need, Maelen.
For the first time in days, Asboel’s voice came through with strength and vibrancy. Asboel’s power filled him, called by their connection, but added to it through the fire bond. Tan screamed out, pulling on a massive shaping, one greater than any he’d ever attempted alone.
The Par-shon shaper paused.
Tan bound his shaping together but didn’t have enough spirit to bind. Reaching again through his bonds, he called to Amia and borrowed from her. Spirit strength filled him—enormous stores, and more than Tan had known Amia possessed.
With this, he called to the elementals. Even those bonded to the shaper responded, dragged away from him. Tan pulled on the shaping, binding each of the elements together, securing it with spirit. This he turned on the shaper.
Light brighter than any bolt of lightning shot toward the shaper. He was illuminated for a moment, surprise etched on his face, and then his bonds exploded from him.
He screamed and ran toward Tan.
Tan’s strength faded, the effort of the shaping draining him, but he raised his sword.
It would be too slow.
After everything, he would still fall.
A streak of brown fur bounded over Tan and landed atop the shaper as Kota quickly tore him apart.
Tan felt another shaping building in the distance. He didn’t have to use his connection to the elementals to sense that it was the Utu Tonah, summoned by his warrior. Tan was exhausted, but he reached toward the elementals, hoping those that he’d freed from the warrior would assist him, as they had once assisted him when he battled in Doma.
Strength came back to him, but slowly. Through it, he sensed that hundreds of shapers came toward him. Not only the Utu Tonah, then, but the rest of the Par-shon shapers.
He needed more power. This would be his opportunity to stop the Utu Tonah and finally be rid of Par-shon shapers. He could end the war with Par-shon. If he could summon support like he had summoned when facing the other shaper, he might have enough.
Only, he had no strength remaining to do so.
Tan sagged to his knees. A black cloud swirled across his vision as he fell.
And he knew that they had lost.
23
The Price of the Rescue
Tan awoke surrounded by shapers he knew. Zephra sat in the plush chair of his home, hands folded in her lap as she watched him. A fire crackled in the hearth, saa swirling around within it, moving strangely and with something like lethargy. Zephra’s hair was cut short, more wrinkles lined her brow, and her back had a stoop to it from the way her shoulders slumped forward, but it was his mother.
“How?” he asked, trying to sit up. He was still weak, but it was a physical tiredness, not the fatigue of shaping.
Zephra took a slow breath. “You risked much coming to my rescue, Tan.”
“I had to do it,” he said. “Not just for you, but to try and return the elementals.”
She breathed out. “I’m not sure that you did. What would have happened had you been captured? What would the kingdoms have lost without you alive?”
“There are others,” Tan answered.
She nodded slowly. “There are others. And we have you to thank.” She straightened her back as she looked to the fire. “You know that Alan has bonded to ara?”
Tan shook his head.
“And Wallyn. He said you guided him to the nymid. They have bonded him as well.”
Tan smiled at the thought of Wallyn binding to the nymid. The nymid were different from other elementals in many ways. They were strong and had healed him many times, but there was not a single distinct nymid like there was with the other elementals that Tan had encountered. Maybe it was the same with masyn for Elle, and even the udilm. He’d never really considered if all water was the same.
“It’s good that the elementals have resumed the bonding,” Tan said.
“I can’t help but wonder if it is too late,” she said. “Will it matter if Par-shon forces bonds and takes all of our elemental strength?”
“They won’t be able to take it all,” Tan said. “Not if we’ve bonded to them.”
Zephra looked over at him. “Those bonds can be stolen, Tan. You know that.”
Tan managed to sit up. The window was open to the street, and a cacophony of sounds filtered through. He was struck with the realization that most of those on the street knew nothing about what was going on. How many would be surprised to know that Par-shon had reached Chenir? How many would even know about Par-shon?
“I couldn’t let you fall to Par-shon,” Tan said. He swung his legs off the bed and leaned forward. His head swam for a moment and a warmth flashed within his pocket.
“Again, Tan, I’m not any
more important than any other shaper. I was mistaken staying in Chenir. I know that now. Par-shon is unlike anything we’ve ever faced before. I don’t know if we are strong enough to stop them. That’s why you should not have come for me.”
Tan took a deep breath, his mind clearing. “That’s just it. For this, you might be the more important one.”
She dropped the bunched-up cloth she held in her hand and frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
Tan took a moment to tell her what he planned, and how he thought that the kingdoms needed to shape wind. “Now that Alan has found wind, I think it might work. I wasn’t sure before. With Incendin, Fur can use kaas to shape. It makes the shaping even more powerful. Doma has Vel using udilm, and Elle. There might be others, but I don’t know. Chenir might not have any bonded shapers,” he said, realizing that he didn’t know whether they did or not, “but they can summon the elementals, earth especially. The kingdoms need to work with wind.”
“Tan—”
He stood and went to the window. “This has to work. We can push them back. If the nations work together like that, it will work.”
Zephra sighed. “Chenir has been forced to withdraw. Par-shon came with more numbers than we could counter. There is nothing more we can do.”
“What?”
“When you fell, you’d freed me. I don’t know how, but you did. Something came over me, a thick fog that left me refreshed and restored my connection to Aric. I came out of that building and found you on the ground. Par-shon shapers were returning, so I escaped on the wind. As we did, I summoned Theondar. I didn’t know that you’d already summoned him. They were pushed back and barely escaped.”
“What of Chenir? The Supreme Leader was going to have them stop summoning the elementals.”
Her face tightened. “I don’t know what they were doing. The barren lands are unchanged, if that’s what you mean. Chenir did that to protect the elementals.” His mother shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. They will cross the barrier and then Theondar will replace it. We will be safe.”
Servant of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 7) Page 18