The Elder Stones Saga Boxset: Books 1-3

by D. K. Holmberg

  It was there. And it was his coin.

  He came to rest on a stout two-story building. Two windows on the front of the building glowed softly. There was no movement around otherwise. He dropped onto the roof, trying to slow his descent, but with so little lorcith in these coins, control wasn’t something he had in great quantities. It was hard enough for him to simply push off, as that took incredible strength. Control was the next piece, and it was one he hadn’t yet mastered.

  Haern made his way to the back of the building, looking around. It was a walled garden around the home, and he detected nothing else that suggested there might be more lorcith here, though the fact that he sensed anything at all reassured him. The coin had a certain signature to it, letting him know it was his coin.

  He searched around the outside of the building to see whether anyone else moved. Finding nothing, he dropped another coin to the ground and pushed off, lowering himself back into the garden.

  Fragrance from flowers lining a path caught his attention, and he ignored it, plucking the coin off the ground. A trail around the home suggested that it had been patrolled before, but there was no evidence of a patrol now.

  He reached the door.

  It was locked.

  Taking one of his knives, he twisted it in the lock until it popped open. His attempt wasn’t as skillful as what his mother or Uncle Brusus would have been able to do, but it worked. The entryway was darkened, and he paused for a moment to let his eyes adjust. When he did, he Saw faint shadows and crept forward, pausing at each open door to glance inside the rooms. This was nothing more than a home—and empty. It was odd that he would detect the coin Galen had on him here.

  His whole body remained on edge. Not only was Galen missing, but with the Forgers in the city aware of him, it wouldn’t be long before they detected where he’d gone and came after him. If they used their ability to Read him, they would be able to find him far too easily.

  As far as he knew, Reading was similar to following lorcith. It was likely they would be able to track a certain signature the same way he could track lorcith he’d had a hand in forging—the same way that he was now tracking Galen.

  The sense of lorcith was above him.

  Haern found a staircase in the middle of the home and took the stairs two at a time, moving as softly and quietly as he could. It was times like these when he wished he had the ability to Slide.

  When he reached the upper level, he paused. There had been light in two of the windows, and now that he was on this level, he could see movement shimmering under closed doors.

  The lower level had been empty. This level was not.

  He needed to be careful.

  Holding on to his knives, he was ready to push them if necessary.

  Reaching the first door, Haern paused, pressing his hand upon the door, focusing on the sense of lorcith.

  It wasn’t there.

  He moved on, staying pressed up against a nearby wall, keeping his back flat against it as he went, searching for signs of any movement. When he reached the next door, he pressed his hand against it, focusing. As before, there was no sense of anything behind the door.

  He paused. Was the lorcith still here?

  It had to be.

  How had Galen managed to get here so quickly? He wouldn’t have been able to travel the same way as Haern, and without any way of Sliding…

  Unless he hadn’t Slid himself.

  This didn’t look to be some sort of Forger stronghold, but there should be no way Galen had reached this part of the city on his own.

  It might be a mistake for him to come like this, but he wasn’t about to leave Galen behind. Were the situations reversed, Galen would have come for him. He’d done so before.

  Stalking forward, keeping his steps as quiet as possible, wishing he were a Listener, he reached the next door.

  He pressed his hand on the door, focusing on lorcith.

  The sense of it reverberated from the other side of the door.

  Haern checked the door.

  Locked.

  Taking one of his knives, he tried to pry it into the door, but it seemed to be bolted from the other side.

  What were his options?

  He studied the layout, realizing he might not be able to get to it from this side. But what if he came at it from the other?

  Haern hurried back down the stairs, back outside, and pushed off on one of his coins to reach the rooftop. Once there, he traced the layout on the inside, reaching the point where he thought the room was.

  Looking down over the roof, he saw a light glowing in the window. From here, he could reach it, but it would take a different sort of approach. He would have to suspend himself in the air.

  It required control.

  Did he have that kind of control?

  To reach Galen, he would need it.

  Haern dropped the coin, lowering himself to the ground. He was in front of the house, facing the street, but a massive stone wall surrounded the entirety of the house, giving a certain privacy on this level. That privacy would disappear the moment he hovered in the air.

  Taking a deep breath, he pushed.

  He did so slowly at first, pushing carefully as he sent himself higher and higher into the air.

  He reached the bottom of the window.

  As he continued to push, he grabbed the windowsill and then reached for the windows, pulling on one of them to see if it would open.

  It did.

  Next would be the hardest part. His strength was waning, and he would need to act quickly. If he didn’t, he would fall back to the earth.

  He rolled into the window, pulling the coin back to him. He crashed with more noise than he wanted, coming quickly to his feet, grabbing his knives and pointing them outward.

  There was no one here.

  How was that possible?

  He focused on the lorcith, and the sense of the coin was still here.

  Haern looked around. The door on the other side would lead out into the hallway. It was bolted, but for how much longer? He’d made considerable noise crashing into the room, and he worried that whoever was guarding the house would come and investigate what had happened.

  There was another door, and he turned to that one.

  It would lead to the room adjacent, but he didn’t think that was where he’d detected the lorcith. Instead, it seemed to come from a large trunk along the wall.

  The trunk was locked, and he tried to pry his knife into the lock, but it wouldn’t open. Unsheathing the sword, he slipped it into the lock and tried it. With a scream, the lock snapped at the same time as the wood cracked.

  If someone wasn’t aware that he was here already, they would be now.

  Haern flipped open the lid.

  Inside, he expected to see Galen and was prepared to grab him and return to where Thoren would meet them and Slide them back to the Aisl.

  Only Galen wasn’t inside.

  His cloak was.

  Haern grabbed the cloak, clutching it in his hands, staring at it. What had happened to Galen?

  Something thudded against the door.

  He needed to get out of here before whoever was on the other side of that door came crashing inside, but if he left, he would miss out on the opportunity to find out what happened to Galen.

  A thought occurred to him, and it was one that should have come sooner.

  Why would the door be locked from this side?

  16

  Haern

  Something thudded against the door again, and Haern grabbed Galen’s cloak, squeezing it in his hands, turning back toward the window. He wasn’t going to go out the door; then again, if this were Forgers, they would have just Slid into the room. The fact that someone was trying to open the door suggested this was something else.

  The realization that someone had locked the door from this side troubled him.

  As he turned, he came face-to-face with a Forger.

  This was a different Forger than the one he’d enc
ountered in the street. He had a youthful face, and the scar working along his chin looked to be fresh and still healing.

  The man glared at him.

  “Where did you come from?” he asked.

  “How do you have this?” And why was it here? Could Galen have managed to get away?

  Great Watcher. Could he have made a mistake?

  He’d been following the coin in Galen’s pocket, but what if he’d lost his cloak while escaping the Forgers?

  Haern pushed on his knives.

  They crashed into the Forger, catching him in the stomach, and Haern pinned him to the ground. He lunged forward, landing on top of the other man, withdrawing the knives and shoving them into his shoulders. The man screamed until Haern clamped his hand over his mouth, silencing him.

  “We’re going to talk.”

  “You won’t get anything out of me.”

  “Probably not, but it seems your friends aren’t going to be able to break down the door, and until someone else Slides in here, I think you and I have a chance to chat. Where did you get this cloak?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me.”

  “Some fool thought to hunt the people of the city.”

  “He wasn’t hunting the people of the city.”

  “And what was he doing? He carried poisons with him. He’s a man we know all too well.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “Galen,” the man spat. “He’s been hunting the Ai’thol.”

  Haern blinked. Galen had been hunting the Ai’thol? As far as he knew, Galen had remained in the city, working to train him, but could that not be the complete truth? Galen certainly had far more skill than Haern at using his abilities. Maybe he’d been working the streets, trying to find answers to what happened with Rsiran. If so, everything he’d said to Galen would be wrong. Galen hadn’t given up on Haern’s father. He had done things his own way.

  “Where is he?”

  “Did he hunt you, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you should know he will face Ai’thol punishment. As will you for breaking into this place.”

  “I don’t intend to face Ai’thol punishment.”

  “And yet you have presented yourself for it.”

  “All I’ve done is come for answers.”

  “There will be no answers. Nothing but the Council.”

  “The Council?”

  The man glared at him, his gaze darting past before flickering back to Haern’s face.

  The pounding on the door had eased, and still Haern worried that he didn’t have much time remaining. If they managed to break down the door—or if another Forger suddenly appeared—he would need to be ready.

  “Where is he?”

  “I’ve already told you that he will face the Ai’thol punishment.”

  “And I don’t mean Galen. Where is Rsiran Lareth?”

  The man glared up at him for a moment before his gaze changed, amusement sparkling on his face. “Interesting. You would go after Lareth?” He cocked his head to the side, and Haern reacted, slamming his barriers into place. He hoped that he did so before the other man managed to start filtering through his thoughts. He tried to solidify the mental barriers with lorcith, using the technique his father had taught him.

  He waited. If this Forger had managed to Read him the same way the other one had, then he would know.

  No spark of recognition crossed the man’s face.

  “Where is Lareth?” he asked.

  “He has been granted a great honor.”

  “And what honor is that?”

  “He gets to speak with the Great One.”

  “And who is the Great One?”

  The Forger smiled. “Unfortunately, I cannot speak his name. To do so would be a violation.”

  Movement on the other side of the door drew his attention, and Haern glanced back.

  The Forger trapped beneath him tried to Slide; Haern could feel it.

  The Slide failed.

  How?

  Could it be the knives?

  If so, they would have prevented the other Forger from Sliding as well, but that hadn’t seemed to be the case.

  Maybe he wasn’t able to Slide with Haern sitting on him, or maybe he didn’t have as much ability with Sliding. With the freshness of the scar, it seemed as if this Forger wasn’t nearly as established as some of the others, so perhaps that was it.

  Something flickered around him again, and Haern glanced up almost too late.

  Another Forger had appeared.

  The same one Haern had attacked.

  Blood stained his jacket where Haern’s knives had pierced his shoulders, but he moved as if unharmed. Could he have found a Healer?

  Haern jumped to his feet, pushing off on the knives and spinning around, unsheathing his sword. He flicked it around, catching the other Forger on the arm, carving through skin and bone.

  The Forger jerked his hand back, away from Haern. Blood poured from the wound, but the man gave no indication that he suffered ill effects from the attack.

  “Why are you here?” the now injured Forger asked.

  “He’s here to find information about Lareth,” the younger Forger said. “Why would he think we have information about Lareth?”

  “Because Lareth is his father,” the injured Forger said, clutching his arm to his chest.

  The younger Forger backed toward the window, preventing Haern from heading out the only way he could. Two Forgers blocking his path would make it difficult for him to escape, but not entirely impossible. He’d already harmed both of them, and with the knives and his connection to the lorcith within them, perhaps he could push through anything they might be able to do.

  “He would make a great prize.”

  “Stop talking about me as if I’m not here,” Haern said.

  “He would,” the other Forger said.

  He still didn’t know what happened to Galen but was increasingly convinced that the former assassin had managed to escape. Following him here, following the cloak and the coin, had been a mistake.

  And somehow he had to get out of here, return to that place along the street, and do so by the time Thoren reached them. If he didn’t, the next window wouldn’t be until considerably later, which meant Haern would be trapped in the city, possibly for a long time.

  “He’s not said to have the same abilities as the elder Lareth.”

  “If he did, he would have Traveled, and yet he remains here. Look at the uncertainty on his face,” the older of the two Forgers said.

  “Shall we?”

  The two Forgers converged.

  Haern pushed on the knives, trying to send them in opposite directions, but splitting his focus in such a way was difficult, almost more than he could manage. He felt some resistance to the lorcith within the blades, enough that they lost the momentum they had had.

  The Forgers had discovered that they could overpower his connection to the knives.

  He jumped forward, swinging the sword. In the confines of this small room, there wasn’t much space for him to use the sword as he had been trained to.

  As he swung the blade, pressure pushed against it.

  Haern continued to fight, using both his physical strength and his connection to lorcith, forcing the blade down. It carved into the side of the younger of the two Forgers, and the man crumpled.

  Haern spun around, turning to the remaining Forger.

  “Perhaps you aren’t as weak as we were led to believe.”

  The man flickered and disappeared in a Slide.

  Haern glanced down at the fallen Forger, listened to the sounds of pounding on the other side of the door, and jumped toward the window.

  As he cleared the window, he pushed down on one of the coins and then off, soaring back into the air, over the street. He pushed and pulled on coins, using them to travel into the city, back the way he had come, hoping he would get there in time to track down Galen.

  He hated
that he was running again. It seemed as if every time he tried to bring the fight to the Forgers, something happened and he lost. This time was supposed to have been different. This time was supposed to have allowed him to use the filaments of lorcith within the knives and the sword to overpower them, but even that hadn’t been enough.

  How was he going to overcome them?

  More than that, how was he going to be able to rescue his father?

  He had some information, but not enough.

  He slowed when he reached the place where he’d left Galen the first time. He searched for signs of movement, but there was none. He hesitated, scanning the street, afraid that one of the Forgers would return. When he did, there would likely be more. It wouldn’t take long for them to get reinforcements as they were able to Slide. His own ability to recover and escape was much more limited, something that the Forgers now knew about him.

  There was no movement.

  Could he have been wrong? Could Galen not have escaped?

  He didn’t think so. With the cloak, he believed Galen had managed to get away. But he wouldn’t have gone far, knowing this was where Haern would return to meet up.

  Movement at the end of the street caught his attention.

  It was a flickering sort of movement.

  Sliding.

  Great Watcher.

  There were at least three distinct people Sliding down the street, and as he turned his attention in the other direction, he saw more.

  Too many.

  Worse, they were going to trap him in between them. The moment they got here, he wouldn’t be able to fight. Which meant he would be captured.

  A hissing noise caught his attention, and he jerked his head around, staring down into an alleyway across the street.

  Galen stood there, crouched in the shadows, looking up at him.

  He breathed out a sigh of relief. Galen was here, which meant he wouldn’t have to face this alone. But as he watched the street, witnessing the various Forgers making their way down here, he counted almost a dozen. That was too many for the two of them to take on. It would have been too many for his father to take on.

  And it felt as if he were trapped here.

  He wasn’t about to stay trapped. He pushed off on a coin, sending himself streaking across the street, and came to land near Galen. He pulled on the coin, summoning it back. The other man looked over, frowning at the cloak.