“Was that why she died?” he asked.
“Lacertin—”
“Did the barrier prevent her from returning?” Lacertin pressed. No one had been able to tell him how she died, other than that the lisincend had attacked, but Pherah was a powerful warrior and Lacertin had seen her hold her own against three lisincend. With Roln with her, they should have been strong enough to survive the lisincend.
“I don’t know,” Veran said.
“What of the shapers with her?”
There was no sign of additional shapers, but then again, once the barrier was in place, the shaping required to hold it became much easier, barely needing more than a single shaper to maintain it. For that reason, Ilton felt the barrier could be maintained indefinitely. Shapers could be brought to the barrier and asked to maintain it. From what he understood, some would rotate, while others, men like Grethan, who had volunteered to serve along the border in Galen, would remain.
“They have moved on. The attack is over, Lacertin.”
He licked his lips, trying to draw moisture to his mouth. When he’d been young, he’d been accustomed to the desert and the heat. Now that he was older and had been away for years, it affected him in ways that it wouldn’t have when he was a child out playing along the dunes and climbing the hot rock with his brother. Chasn would have laughed and called him soft, but then, his brother had always been harder than him.
“Was it here?” he asked, stopping near a tall finger of rock.
It rose from the ground like a shaped tower, as if an earth elemental reached a hand from beneath Nara and stretched for the Great Mother. Dholund Rock served as part of the boundary between Nara and Incendin, an easy and unmistakable marker between the two countries.
As a child, Lacertin had climbed the rock, scrambling up the surface using handholds that had long ago been dug out or shaped. Most children growing up in this part of Nara used Dholund Rock as a way to prove their strength, and Lacertin had been no different. Now, climbing to the top of the rock would be no more difficult than drawing on the necessary shaping.
Veran pointed toward the base of the rock. “There.”
Lacertin said nothing more until he reached the place Veran had indicated. A shaping of water and wind told him that blood had been spilled here, but he couldn’t tell how long ago or what type. Rains were too infrequent to wash away the effects of the battle, but the sun was strong and burned away life as easily as rain would wash it away or the wind would wear it down.
He ran his finger along the stone, using earth sensing to strain for what had happened. He sensed the echoes of what had come before, of the men and women who’d been there, but it mixed with the countless others, the children of Nara who climbed the rock.
“I used to climb this rock as a child,” he said as he knelt on the ground.
Veran slapped a hand against the stone and frowned. “You were a shaper then?”
“Not a shaper. This was before. Many children did.”
“The children of Nara would climb this?” Veran asked.
Lacertin made his way around the base of the rock, moving back into Nara rather than out toward Incendin. The barrier might prevent him from crossing had he gone the other way. He stopped where a single mark had long ago been scratched into the stone and reached above his head, feeling for the first handhold. This was the only mark for the climb.
Pulling himself up, he reached for the next handhold, and then the next, pausing when he was twenty feet in the air and hugging the stone to glance down at Veran. Then he let go, softening his descent with a shaping of air and earth, landing next to Veran with a thud.
“The children are the only ones who climb it,” Lacertin said.
Veran craned his neck to peer toward the top of the rock. From this angle, it seemed to stretch impossibly high above them. “You would do this with ropes?”
Lacertin shook his head. “Not ropes, and the climb was always done alone.”
“Why do you do this?”
“For answers,” Lacertin started. “There is something about sitting atop Dholund Rock, with nothing but Incendin to the east and the rest of Nara to the west, to make you feel like you are a part of something greater.” Growing up in these lands, that was a sentiment that most needed.
Veran snorted. “And the fishers of Vatten are chastised for bringing our children aboard the ships at the age of seven. How many are lost to the climb?”
Lacertin ran his hand across the rock again. What would he think were he to climb to the top now? Would he have the same sense of wonder, or even the same answer as when he was young? Like most growing in Nara, he had wondered where he belonged. Climbing to the top of Dholund gave those who made it the chance to see into Incendin. It was after this that those who would attempt to cross would do so. It was when Chasn had crossed.
“Too many,” Lacertin said. Then he sighed. “Probably as many as your children are lost on the ships.”
He continued around the rock but saw nothing else that would tell him what had happened. Lacertin hadn’t expected to, but had hoped to find answers. It seemed that was all that he ever wanted to find.
It took nearly an hour to make it all the way around the rock. When he stopped on the other side, he stared out into Incendin. A haze of heat layered over the ground. Wind moved across the barrier but didn’t gust with the same ferocity as other places within the kingdoms. A low, mournful howl caught on the wind, and was followed by another.
Lacertin’s ears perked at the sound and he shaped water between his hands, drawing what moisture he could out of the air to create something like a lens for him to look through. It was a trick he’d learned from a Doman shaper. Within the kingdoms, the shaping was easy, but here, with as dry as the air was, he practically had to draw the moisture out of himself.
Another howl came, growing sharper than before. The hounds must have acquired their scent. They were creatures of fire, somehow like the lisincend, but also not. They couldn’t shape, but they burned with a simmering fire. Lacertin had always been intrigued by them.
“We should be going,” Veran said.
“You fear the hounds?” Lacertin asked.
“Not the hounds, but we have no need to let them claim our scent.”
Through the shaping, Lacertin caught sight of the nearest hound as it raced across the hard ground. “Will it be able to cross the barrier?”
“I don’t know,” Veran said.
“Then we stay.” When Veran arched a brow at him, Lacertin shrugged. “We need to know whether it would hold out even the hounds.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
Lacertin stared through the lens. The hound was long and sleek. Short, dark hair covered its hide, and long teeth jutted down over its lower jaw. A shimmering sort of haze, thicker than what radiated naturally from Incendin, rose around the hound, as if trying to veil the creature from them. Another ran alongside the first, suddenly joining it, then a third. A pack.
“Then we will have to fight them off.”
CHAPTER 7
The hounds howled as they raced toward the barrier. Lacertin knew that he should ready a shaping, but he was more interested in watching the hounds as they streaked across the hard ground. As a child in Nara, hounds had been rare, but they had hunted, unopposed by any barrier. Most knew to run from them, and there were enough sensers throughout Nara to hide from them, to keep the hounds from capturing the scent, but even then, the hounds occasionally managed to kill. Lacertin rarely had the opportunity to simply observe them.
They were powerful creatures and moved with a sleek grace. Their lean bodies flexed with each jump, leaping almost as much as they ran and chewing up the distance faster than they should be able to manage. The lead hound flicked its gaze as it ran before fixing Lacertin with a steady and determined gaze. He almost took a step back under the intensity.
When the nearest hound struck the barrier, it howled, a loud and painful sound that echoed, piercing through the hot air as
it bounced off the rock. The barrier held and the hound paced on the other side, pawing at the ground.
Veran let out a relieved sigh.
“You didn’t know?” Lacertin asked. The other hounds reached the barrier and snarled but didn’t make any attempt at getting closer. They took the lead hound’s direction and dug at the ground. Surprisingly, for creatures so tightly bound to fire, they managed to make more headway than Lacertin would have expected.
“Suspected, but didn’t know,” Veran said. He moved along the barrier, holding his shaping at the ready as he did. “What happens to it if they dig below?”
Lacertin shrugged. “The same as above, I suspect.”
Veran tilted his head back to peer high into the sky, cupping one hand over his brow as he studied the sky overhead. “How far up does it extend?”
“Far enough that shapers couldn’t go over it,” Lacertin said. “But Incendin has no warriors, so we don’t need to fear them making it over.”
“We assume they have no warriors.”
“In twenty years of war, we have seen no sign of warriors. Fire shapers. Earth and wind. Even water shapers.” That was surprising, given that much of Incendin was desert. Usually, shaping manifested where there was the capacity to use it. Water shapers struggled in Incendin. Even wind shapers struggled at times. Lacertin remembered what the wind shaper Zephra had once told him about the wind when she’d attempted to cross Incendin. The hot air had nearly betrayed her, and she was one of the strongest wind shapers the kingdoms had ever produced. “But no warriors. Wouldn’t Incendin send warriors at us if they had the capability?” he asked. “Wouldn’t they rather have warriors than have their shapings limited?”
“Many would say their fire shapings aren’t limited,” Veran said. One of the hounds snarled and leapt at the barrier before squealing and dropping back. The lead hound studied the place along the barrier that had been attacked but didn’t make any attempt to charge again.
“Only for the lisincend,” Lacertin said.
“And they have consumed so much fire that even our warriors struggle to contain them,” Veran went on. “We’ve only seen a handful of lisincend. How long before we face a dozen? Two dozen? When do they have numbers that will overwhelm us?”
Lacertin didn’t have the answers. Likely, Veran had heard the same reports as Lacertin about how difficult it had been to create the lisincend. There was a sacrifice involved, but no one really was able to explain exactly what the sacrifice had to be. Even Zephra, who claimed to witness the creation of a lisincend, hadn’t known.
“The lisincend are not the match for our warriors,” Lacertin said.
Veran sighed. “Until they come in numbers. Lacertin, how do you think Pherah and Roln died? Do you think they were so unskilled that they couldn’t handle fire shapers? It was the number of lisincend and the hounds that overwhelmed them.”
Veran turned to the barrier and sent a shaping of earth rumbling through it.
“No—” Lacertin started.
He shook his head. “The shaping doesn’t affect the barrier.”
As it struck the barrier, it fizzled, but the ground on the other side of the barrier heaved slightly, lifting the nearest hound. The lead hound lunged, jumping at the barrier where the shaping had passed through.
Lacertin expected the hound to bounce back, away from the barrier.
Instead, the hound slid slowly through the barrier. It happened slowly, but the brightness to the hound’s eyes told Lacertin that the creature had expected to be able to make it through the barrier, as if waiting for one of them to be foolish enough to shape through it.
Veran wasn’t ready. He scrambled back, a shaping building, but he was too slow.
The hound reached him, sharp nails scraping against Veran’s chest. The wide jaw dipped toward his neck. Veran recovered enough to throw the hound off him and came to his knees. Blood dripped from wounds gaping across his chest.
The other hounds followed the first, pushing through the sudden weakness in the barrier.
“Are you able to shape?” Lacertin asked.
Veran nodded. He fumbled for his sword and managed to unsheathe it. With a shaping of wind and earth, he trapped the hound that had attacked him. Lacertin focused on the other two, using a similar shaping but adding more fire to his than Veran had attempted. He bound the hounds in the shaping and squeezed, pulling the air from a bubble that surrounded them.
The hounds attacked his shaping frantically, but Lacertin held onto it. Moments passed and the struggling grew weaker before they finally stopped struggling. Within the shaping, the hounds fell at nearly the same time.
The lead hound that Veran held trapped in earth stared at them defiantly. Sharp intelligence burned in its eyes. Veran approached and, with a heavy sweep of his warrior sword, beheaded the hound.
He turned to Lacertin, clutching a hand over his chest. “They shouldn’t have been able to cross…”
“You disrupted the shaping,” Lacertin said. He started a water shaping to attempt to heal Veran, but there wasn’t enough water in the air to do much. He might be able to slow the bleeding, but he wouldn’t be able to fully mend the wounds. What Veran needed now was real healing, not what Lacertin could offer.
But before he could do anything to help Veran, he had to repair the barrier. Lacertin listened to the shaping, using the vibrating sense of each of the elements to guide him. He reached the place where Veran’s earth shaping had disrupted the pattern. With a draw on fire—the element opposite earth—he pulled the barrier back into alignment.
Was that why the hounds had been able to cross? Would it have mattered if Veran had used water or wind, or was it that he had chosen earth? Lacertin didn’t know, only that he’d worried about what a shaping through the barrier would do to it. He’d never had the answer before, but now he did.
Lacertin lifted Veran off the ground, ignoring the blood pooling from the hound. Part of him wished they had been able to study the hounds. They had never managed to catch one of the creatures alive. So little was known about them. How did Incendin create them, or were they some twisted form of elemental? How did the lisincend control them? Were the other shapers of Incendin able to control them?
If they had the opportunity to study them, they might be able to answer some of the questions. Once again, they wouldn’t know.
He carried Veran toward the village, using shapings of earth and wind to help him. When he reached the outskirts of the village, he paused. Nassa hadn’t been his village, but he’d grown up near enough that he knew many people here. Now the streets were empty. Had they left because of the attack, sent deeper into Nara and away from the border for safety, or was there a different reason? He could imagine the suspicion the shapers would have and they way that they would wonder and fear whether the people of Nassa would help Incendin. Those shapers wouldn’t understand that those who remained in the village had already made their choice.
Near the small well at the center of the village, he stopped and lowered Veran to the ground. The other man groaned but didn’t say anything else. Lacertin used the bucket for the well to pull water to the surface and dripped it into Veran’s mouth and then over his wounds. Using a shaping of water, he probed for the extent of Veran’s injuries. The warrior had lost a lot of blood, and there was a warmth burning within what blood remained, a warmth that was in some ways familiar.
With a shaping of water, he sealed the wound and tried to draw the heat out of Veran’s blood. He could heal, but not with the same deft touch the master water shapers could manage.
Veran rested more easily with Lacertin’s shaping, and his ragged breathing eased.
Lacertin looked around. Within Nassa, had there been anyone here, he might have tried to leave Veran and return to the university for help, but with the village empty, he couldn’t just leave the other warrior here, not without knowing the extent of his injuries.
Returning meant controlling a shaping that would carry them both. Lacer
tin had attempted it before, but such a shaping would take much strength, maybe more than he could tolerate. It risked both of them.
“Go,” Veran said weakly.
Lacertin glanced down at him. The bleeding that had eased now opened again, as if the shaping had already failed. Were the hounds’ claws poisoned? As far as he knew, none had ever survived a hound attack to know for certain. When shapers encountered the hounds, they made certain to keep far enough away so as not to risk themselves.
They’d grown careless with the barrier, and had assumed it would hold.
“If I go and something happens…”
Veran tried to laugh but winced. “Something already happened. This was my mistake. Don’t let it claim us both.”
“I can get you back to Ethea,” Lacertin said.
Veran grunted. “You really think you can travel so far with another? I’m not sure such strength was even known when the ancients still walked these lands.”
They didn’t really know what the ancients were capable of doing. Most assumed they all spoke to the elementals and that was how they managed shapings that would be impossible now. Others figured it was the fact that those shapers were able to mix spirit into their shapings, an element that had been lost over time, as if the Great Mother didn’t want them shaping it anymore.
Lacertin glanced around and shook his head. “I’m not leaving you. We won’t lose another warrior to this war,” he said.
“We’ve lost so many already. What’s one more?”
“No,” Lacertin said.
He stood and took a few steadying breaths. He would need speed and control for this. Strength would help, but strength would only get him so far. If he could move quickly, he wouldn’t have to hold the shaping quite as long, but moving quickly carried with it other risks.
“Can you shape at all?” Lacertin asked.
Veran’s eyes had fallen closed again and his breathing came out slowly. He blinked slowly and ran his tongue over his lips. “Not well. It burns, Lacertin.”
Prelude to Fire: Parts 1 and 2 Page 5