A faint rumble penetrated the dawn calm. I squinted, watching the stone outcrop for motion. As soon as the pillar fell, the boy could harness the energy of its motion and redirect some into clearing the debris before us. Or so I hoped.
The noise stopped, and the boy frowned. He bowed his head, hunched his shoulders, and screwed his face up with concentration.
Nothing happened, and then, very faintly, the earth began to vibrate with a rhythmic thud. It reminded me of a distant and powerful heartbeat.
The boy’s eyes flew open.
“It’s all right son,” Fishel said, laying a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Take your time.”
Face blank with confusion, the boy slowly shook his head. “It’s not me. It’s not earth energy at all.” He raised an arm and pointed down-valley. Dawn had brought color to the landscape. But for some reason, the shadows that filled the lower reaches of the roadway hadn’t dissipated. In fact…
“No,” I whispered.
The first, desperate shouts echoed up the valley from the wardstone bearers. “Hold them!” one yelled. The others were unintelligible shrieks.
The mob of Provs panicked. Refugees surged past the wagon and scrambled onto the landslide’s berm. Children screamed and men shouted.
Shock fastened me in place until the Prime yelled. “Defend the Emperor!” She drew a pair of daggers and leaped from the wagon as a tide of Riftspawn spilled into the valley, darkness washing the slopes as they broken into a shrieking run. Every few paces, they stepped down in unison, shaking the earth with their terrible, rhythmic pulse.
Beside me, the boy mumbled to himself. His eyes were closed again, his fists balled at his side.
“No,” I said, gripping his arm. “There are people on the slide now.”
Too late. With an immense crash, the upper half of the rock spire smashed into the trees below. The air about the boy seemed to crackle with potential. Panicked, I squeezed his arm hard. Harder than I meant to.
The boy didn’t seem to notice. Still whispering to himself, he raised his free hand and waved it forward. My eyes followed his gesture and widened when the cliff bands above the foot of the valley began to shudder. Dust puffed from cracks and chimneys, the force of the boy’s gnosty rippling up the valley until both slopes above the Spawn’s advance turned to liquid.
Trees leaned and fell, splintering like kindling as massive avalanches of stone poured down onto the Riftspawn. As the leading edge of the Spawn army raced uphill, the boy cocked his head, raising fins of rock to direct the landslides toward the forerunners.
A few Provs stopped moving, sudden stones in a river of fleeing humanity. They stared, open-mouthed, at the sight of whole mountains sliding down upon the beasts.
Only when the figures ran from the garrison did I realize… the thunder and shake of the boy’s avalanches had loosened bonds in another cliff band. High above the garrison, sheets of rock were sloughing off and tumbling downhill.
Men and women screamed and ran for us.
In the chaos, three figures dashed out of the garrison’s front gate. Lilik, Azar, and Avill stumbled into the center of the road as the leading edge of the dustcloud gusted over the garrison. The women sprinted forward but stopped when the avalanche of stone drew too close to deny.
As if to take final comfort, they pressed together in a huddle. A breath later, a hundred wagonloads of stone covered the road where they stood.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Savra
Clinging to Azar, Westpass Garrison
AZAR DODGED BACKWARD when Fishel and Kostan ran out the gatehouse door.
“Your eminence?” she called to Kostan’s retreating back. Either he didn’t hear, or something more important had captured his attention.
It’s okay, I said. We can tell him later. He has an Empire to run.
“So what do we do?” she asked aloud. Apparently, she hadn’t learned the trick of projecting her thoughts.
I peered over the wall and spotted Lilik helping the refugees load rucksacks with supplies from piles laid beside the wagons. Tell Lilik—she’s outside wearing my body. You can’t miss the red hair. Tell her you need to speak to her and Avill in private. I want my little sister to know I’m alive.
After a small amount of cajoling, Azar managed to gather the pair inside Kostan’s bedchamber. Though Avill was still rubbing her eyes and yawning, her shoulders were straighter this morning. Her feet hadn’t dragged on the short walk across the garrison. The solid night of sleep had strengthened her.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Lilik said as she shut the door behind her.
“Azar. Ferro order. I’m a friend of Kostan’s. Listen—Avill,” the ferro mage said, turning to my sister. “Savra is alive… Well, her spirit lives. She’s here.”
Avill’s eyes widened and all traces of sleep vanished. “Savra! Where?” She looked around as if her eyes could suddenly pick me out from the air.
“Near,” Azar said with a smile.
As the ferro spoke, I watched Lilik’s face for a reaction. Was that guardedness I spied? Was she nervous knowing that I had a connection to the physical realm and possibly a route back to my body? I hated that I felt suspicious, but the unbreakable shield inside my flesh still nagged at me. Why was contact with my body so different than what I’d felt from others?
“If she’s really here, we may be able to fulfill the Lethin’s hope,” Avill breathed. “I don’t know… there is something I need to understand.”
“What’s this?” Lilik asked, head cocked.
Avill shook her head while she chewed her lip. “I—Savra and I come from the Maelstrom. Or as near as people can get. But we aren’t corrupted. It feels like we need to be the ones to…”
Her eyes went distant and she started chewing at a hangnail on her thumb. As my sister fell into her thoughts, Azar turned her attention to Lilik. A look of confusion clouded the ferro mage’s features.
“What is it?” Lilik said.
Azar’s gaze slid away. “Your spirit doesn’t fit the shape. And it’s… It reminds me of a puppeteer pulling strings.”
Lilik raised her eyebrows. “That’s a lot to see with just two ranks.” She glanced pointedly at the pair of black-iron rings encircling Azar’s fingers.
The young mage pressed her lips together. “Our ability is supposed to be in direct proportion to the amount of black iron we wear, but I’ve always believed we had our own sensitivities and aptitudes.” She shrugged. “The magic comes easy to me, anyway.”
“Maybe you have a trace of spiritism.” As Lilik spoke, I could swear I sensed a trace of nervousness in her voice.
Don’t answer this aloud, I said. Do you think you can help me back to my body?
Azar licked her lips then nodded, just a faint twitch of her chin.
Wait until I say. Lilik’s never given me a reason to doubt her, but I think it’s better to be cautious.
Again, the nod.
“Can Savra hear me?” Avill asked.
“I—yes, I believe she can,” Azar said. “Is that right, Savra?”
Tell my sister she’s the bravest girl I know. I miss her so much.
As Azar repeated my words, a faint tremor shook the room. Lilik scurried toward the window as another shake rattled the frame. The women looked at each other in confusion. Another shake. The quaking was rhythmic, like a drumbeat, and growing stronger.
“What…?” Lilik bent her knees as another tremor passed beneath her.
Now, Azar! She’s distracted.
As another low shake rumbled through the garrison, I dove for Lilik.
Azar’s touch began as a faint brush of a feather against my spirit, and suddenly, I felt squeezed. I couldn’t move. Could scarcely think. I panicked and thrashed against the boundaries. My screams of protest died before they could form.
“Don’t fight,” Azar whispered.
“What—oh!” Lilik said as Azar shoved me aga
inst her aura. Her spirit was like a suit of steel armor inside my body, and as Azar pressed me against it, numbing pressure spread through me. The area where our auras contacted was a radiating pool of pain. I tried not to resist, but it hurt so much. I was an almond in a nutcracker, ready to pop.
“Wait!” Lilik cried. At the same moment, shouts filled the garrison.
“Riftspawn!” someone yelled, rapping sharply at the door. “Escape if you can!”
“Here? Already?” Avill asked. She’d scrambled to the corner of her cot and now sat with the covers pulled to her chin.
“Lilik…” Azar pushed me harder, sending agony to every corner of my spirit. “Let go. I can’t get her in if you cling so tight.”
“But I—”
Another loud thud cut off Lilik’s words as the quaking earth sent her staggering. And in that moment, something slipped. As if Lilik’s armor suddenly popped, I flooded my limbs, felt the rush of blood in my veins, the giddy sensation of air in my lungs.
I coughed, fell to a knee, and coughed again.
“Avill,” I said, dashing to my sister.
“We have to get out,” Azar said, stuffing a pair of rucksacks with whatever she could lay hands on.
Snatching Avill by the wrist, I dragged her to the doorway.
“Wait here,” I yelled to her and Azar as I sprinted into the garrison’s yard. The earth beneath my feet continued to shake, a maddening pounding. I couldn’t make sense of it. But I knew we had to run.
Soldiers crisscrossed the garrison like ants defending their hill. I caught one by the elbow. “I need a blade.”
The man looked me up and down. “You should run while you have the chance.”
“Never mind,” I said, as I ran for the makeshift armory, a shed that leaned against the outer wall. The barrel next to one of the shed’s posts held weapons that needed repair. I snatched out a long dagger with a broken tip and checked the edge with my thumb. Better than nothing.
“Avill! Now!”
Still blanket-wrapped, my sister ran from the building with shuffling strides. She carried a rucksack in one hand. Azar followed on her heels, throwing the satchel over her shoulder.
“Do you know how to fight?” Azar asked me.
“Hit them with the sharp part,” I answered as I grabbed Avill’s wrist and ran for the gate.
The sight down-valley nearly stole my courage. A line of dusk advanced up the road, lapping against the slopes on either side. Screams echoed off the cliffs. In a few spots, indentations in the advancing darkness marked the position of the wardstone bearers. Desperate, I backpedaled as, one by one, the line of defenders drowned beneath the advancing wave.
“Lilik,” someone yelled from within the courtyard.
I felt a faint jolt from my bracelet as I whirled toward the voice. A Stormshard fighter ran toward us.
“I’m not— yes?” I said as I shepherded Azar and Avill back beneath the garrison’s gate.
“I shouldn’t have kept it in the first place,” the Sharder said. He grabbed my hand and slapped a wardstone into my palm. “The child,” he said, nodding at Avill. “She deserves a chance.”
I pressed my lips together to contain my emotion. “Thank you.”
As we regrouped and readied to dash into the road, a grating sound vibrated my teeth. The entire valley suddenly shuddered. A low roar rose from the bones of the earth, and dust began to sift from the cliffs over the advancing Spawn. Sudden hope caught in my throat as loose stones began to tumble from the cliffs and then, all at once, the slopes gave way.
A sharp crack split the air, and I whirled. My blood turned to ice. Above the garrison, an escarpment nearly as tall as Steelhold’s spire collapsed. Time slowed as a mountain of stone plummeted for the garrison. There was no outrunning the collapse. We tried anyway, sprinting a few paces before realization caught up with us. Desperate, I grabbed hold of Avill and turned, hunching over her as if I could shield her.
I clenched my eyes shut as Avill started squirming. I held tighter, willing a miracle to save us.
“Let go and give me your hands,” Avill shrieked. “Now!”
When I didn’t release her, my sister kicked her heel into my knee. I yelped, and she wiggled free of my grip. Quick as a snake, she snatched our hands.
“Wait—”
My body felt lighter. Insubstantial. As I stared at my sister, her boundaries began to dissolve.
And then we were nothing.
Wind.
***
Out of the emptiness came motion. A tugging that brought awareness. Resistance at the fringes of my senses gave form to the others. Azar and Avill skated near me, their pressure wavering as air currents sheared us one way and then another. Crystals of frost prickled as we slid through the moistness of a cloud. High up, so high, wind tossed us on a bumpy river of air, warm and cool pockets that sent us skidding and bouncing.
My thoughts were nothing but the capering of a whirlwind. My body was the shape of a Chilltide gust. The sky offered no argument as I flowed through it at the mercy of forces beyond my understanding.
Like the kiss of down feathers, Avill’s gentle pressure wrapped around me, nudging me between currents. Cooler air dipped and washed us, carrying me downward. A chute of wind tossed me this way and that, my gusts threatening to overspill the boundaries. But with the passing moments, Avill’s feather-touch of guidance became a silk-weight cloak. So softly, she cradled my wind-shape and molded my passage, protecting me from the swirling tendrils of air that wished to spirit me elsewhere.
Bubbles of warmth past through my shape as I learned to perceive the land below our slip-sliding voyage. I groped for understanding of the flat vastness beneath and my place above it.
How…? Of course. Mother’s pendant. The Wind’s Gift.
The more I understood, the more I could make sense of my surroundings. The morning sun waked breezes from the grasslands, waves of warmth tossed upward by the golden expanse. A column of smoke rose from beneath me—us. Soon, I realized we were circling a town, descending slowly. Human scents penetrated my being.
And finally, like a cloud of butterflies touching down in the tall grass, Avill brought us to rest a few hundred paces from the angular hardness of buildings that cut the air into unnatural forms.
With a faint pop, my wind-self vanished. I was whole again, human, and—thank the clear skies—in control of my own body. With a deep breath, I savored the sensations: grass poking my thighs, chill air stinging the tip of my nose. I’d never thought woodsmoke could smell so good.
“Lilik?” Avill asked as she dropped to a knee beside me, shoulders sagging. “I guess it worked,” she said with a watery smile.
“No, it’s me, Avill! It’s Savra!”
Her brow furrowed as she swayed and dropped to a seat on her rump. “Did I… put you back?”
I shook my head. “It was Azar.”
The ferro mage was sitting in the grass, a paralyzed expression on her face. Of course. Azar had no idea what had just happened. She hadn’t been at the garrison when Avill had arrived, and she didn’t know about my sister’s pendant.
“Azar?” I asked, crawling over to her. “Are you okay?”
The mage turned vacant eyes toward me.
She’ll be fine, Lilik said. Just give her a moment to recover.
I took a shaky breath. So, Lilik had returned to the bracelet. But only after fighting against Azar’s attempts to restore me to my body. I pressed fingernails into my palms while I tried to decide what to do about her actions.
Yes, I believe I have some explaining to do, Lilik offered. But perhaps it’s not the time. Your sister…
Avill’s face was fish-belly pale. Sweat slicked her forehead. As she planted a hand behind her, her elbow buckled. I scrambled for her, catching her torso and propping her on my lap. Beneath half-closed lids, her eyes flitted. “So… tired… Like carrying a pair of horses for leagues.”
“Av
ill?” I asked, patting her cheek. I turned desperate eyes to Azar, who shook off her daze and then shrugged.
I believe it will pass, Lilik said. Magical energy always comes from somewhere. She’s depleted her spark and needs rest.
At this point, I wasn’t sure I should believe the woman, but I tried to take hope. Bundling Avill close, I broke off stalks of grass that were poking her face and brushed the hair from her forehead.
“Do you know what just happened to us?” Azar asked.
“I—yes, I think so.”
Shouts from the town interrupted our conversation. As Azar stood, I shifted Avill’s weight and pulled the dagger from my belt. I tossed it onto the ground at Azar’s feet then peered over the grass behind her. A group of five men was advancing from the village, and they didn’t look pleased to see us.
Azar held her arms out to the side as if to indicate she was no threat. “We mean you no harm, friends.”
“Move away from the others. Now.”
Azar glanced back at me, confused. The man in the lead nodded. Behind us, grass rustled. Azar’s eyes went wide. She stepped backward as three crossbow-wielding Provs rose from a hollow in the earth.
“What’s going on?” I asked as the townspeople surrounded Azar. They ignored Avill and me, narrowed eyes focusing only on the ferro mage.
They’d forced Azar back around ten paces before one of the townsfolk, a woman, lowered her makeshift cudgel and stepped back to where I sat in the grass. She plucked my broken dagger from the ground and held it out to me, hilt first. “It’s okay now. We have means of controlling the likes of her.” With her last words, the woman turned a glare on Azar.
“But she’s my friend. We traveled here together…” Storms. Where were we?
Low voices rumbled around Azar. One of the men stepped forward and placed his dagger against her ribs. I noticed he clutched something else in his free hand, but I couldn’t get a good look at it. Wide-eyed, Azar raised her hands higher and nodded. With a last, desperate look at me, she turned and started marching for the town.
Fate of the Drowned (The Broken Lands Book 3) Page 18