“They died.”
Her eyes widened. “All of them?”
Jasn nodded.
“From one draasin?”
“One large draasin,” Jasn said, remembering the size of the creature. It had been larger even than the one that had been held in the pen on the outskirts of the barracks, and he had thought that draasin large enough. “And attacked with a ferocity that I never saw again.”
“The draasin don’t attack in this part of Rens,” Bayan said.
“Then you haven’t experienced much of the front. Trust me. I spent nearly a year in these lands, and the draasin attacked more often than I can count.”
Bayan’s brow furrowed and she looked around the remains of the village. “T’shin. That’s where I served. It’s deeper into old Rens, but not so deep as this. Much farther and you reach the stretch of the blasted lands where nothing lives. Even the draasin don’t care to come here, Jasn. You think your experience in Rens has made you an expert, but it was nothing like standing watch in a tower within the castle at T’shin, watching the skies for the draasin, waiting for the attack. Those came in the late evening, never when we would see them coming, and often coordinated.” She scanned the sky and touched the hilt of her sword, her fingers squeezing nervously. “We were tasked with maintaining T’shin, promised that others were clearing the draasin so that we could fortify our position, but that never came. I’ve learned that the draasin still attack T’shin, still push on our warriors. We have numbers, but what happens when our numbers fail? What happens when shaping isn’t enough?”
“Isn’t that the reason the barracks exists?” Even as he asked, he wondered if Alena knew why the draasin had attacked. If she could speak to them, couldn’t she convince them to help end the war? Wasn’t that what they attempted?
Bayan pulled her gaze away from staring at the blank, blue sky. “Is it? A few lead hunts, but they aren’t frequent, and not successful. And now with what Alena did, the way that she freed the draasin that Calan and Ifrit thought to destroy…”
“You still fear the draasin?”
“Not the way that I once did. I might have trained in Atenas and I might be a warrior, but I’ve seen how ineffective my shapings are on the draasin. We slow them, often deter them, but in all my time in T’shin, we only killed one of the draasin, and that took nearly a dozen shapers.”
“How?” While he’d served on the front, they’d managed to kill a few, but at the price of countless shapers. That was why he thought the barracks could be useful, especially if warriors could be trained to kill the draasin alone or in pairs.
“It came from the sky. A caravan had come in from…” She frowned as she considered. “From somewhere deeper in Rens. The draasin attacked when the caravan arrived, but we were flush with new warriors then and surrounded it. We used earth and wind to force it to the ground, and fire was drawn away.”
Jasn had seen the effect earth had on the draasin and wasn’t sure what would happen if wind was mixed in, but the draasin seemed to use the wind, soaring on it in ways that suggested that they were also powerful with that element as well.
“That was once, out of months of attacks. The draasin are known to target T’shin and Ralass, though neither as much as Chalen.”
“Ch’len,” Jasn corrected, using the old Rens title for the city.
Bayan shrugged. “Does it matter? The draasin have always focused on the cities. Why would they attack here?” She pointed toward the building and kicked a booted foot through the dust. “There is nothing here.”
And there had been nothing here when the draasin had attacked. Jasn had come with the others, searching for life out here, and had found nothing but the draasin. Death from above.
Something about what she said troubled him. Others along the front had faced the draasin, but rarely so often as he did. Jasn had always thought it was because he was drawn to them, that the blood boiling within him, full of anger and his thirst for vengeance, had given him the opportunity to know how to find them, but what if that wasn’t it? What if the draasin were drawn to him and his strange connection to the elementals?
But why had they attacked here?
Jasn pushed away the dirt and dust in front of the building with a sweeping of earth shaping and stepped into the building. It had a low ceiling like most of these homes, but this had multiple rooms, each divided by a thick slab of stone. Wind and time had worn away much of the structure, and the shaping used in the attack with the draasin had damaged it further, leaving the walls nearly falling in. Bayan remained outside, watching him.
He reached one of the inner rooms and stared at the ground. That was where he had lain, resting while his body betrayed him by healing itself, binding together almost against his will. Jasn remembered well how he had felt when the attack had come and the blissful agony he’d known when his stomach had been torn open from a massive rock that had flown up from the ground. In that moment, he thought he would die, that he would join Katya in the After and finally see her again.
But his body had proven it had other plans.
Jasn stepped over the dark smudge that had been left by his blood on the ground and made his way into the next room. There was nothing there, though he hadn’t expected anything different. He used earth sensing, listening to the stone, wondering what stories Hessan might have been able to tell and where her people had gone. Jasn rested his hand on the wall and felt the deep connection to the village but couldn’t tell anything more than that.
As he started to turn, he sensed a shifting in the earth.
It started as a low rumble. Outside the building, Bayan called his name, a warning that came too late. The ground cracked, and the walls began falling.
Jasn raised his hand, instinctively forming a shaping, pushing with earth out and up to seal off the building and keep from getting crushed beneath the weight of the stone, but the shaping also pushed him down, splitting the ground with a massive crack.
He lost his footing and fell, careful to hold his shaping as he did. Walls crashed and stone collapsed atop him.
Jasn held his breath, at first uncertain whether he would take another. Stone pressed on him—his shaping hadn’t managed to hold it back completely—but he found himself standing in a small depression, something more like a cave. Rock crumbled around him, and he heard the stone overtop him, groaning as if it intended to crack again.
With a shaping of earth, he held the rock in place, fortifying it. As he withdrew his shaping, he realized that what he’d placed there would not be enough, not without somehow holding the shaping in the stone. Doing that would require maintaining, or sealing the shaping inside.
Could he replicate the shapings that he’d found on the draasin pen? They had used the strange carvings to hold power within them. If he could do the same, he wouldn’t have to hold the shaping.
But how could he add earth power to the mark if he had to hold the shaping to keep from being crushed by the stone?
Jasn didn’t miss the irony of how he had worked so hard and for so long to die in Rens, and now that he wanted to live, wanted to learn why the elementals had saved him for so long, he might finally succeed in finding death.
There wasn’t much room for him to move, though earth sensing told him that space opened up to either side if only he could free himself long enough to get to it. Using his sword, he pressed the blade into the stone and made the same symbol he’d seen on the pen. He didn’t dare shift his focus or remove the shaping that he held.
As he completed the mark, there was a quick flash and he felt his shaping practically sucked into the stone. Jasn released it. The stone held, sealed over him.
He let out a sigh. That would give him time to see if he could discover some way to get free from the pile of rock. Muted shouts tried to make their way through. Likely Bayan struggled to reach him. At least she hadn’t been in here with him. There was little enough space as it was, and he shuddered to think what would have happened had they both been insid
e the building when it began to collapse. He had seen enough die in Rens already, and he didn’t need to see her crushed as well.
Jasn paused and scanned the surroundings, detecting that something else was in here with him. It was distant, but he could sense the pull of heat, a drawing on him stronger than should have been found this deep in the earth.
What was it?
After checking to make certain the stone would hold, he pushed away from the mark he’d sealed with earth and tried going deeper into the cavern, but there wasn’t the room for him to move freely.
What did he sense?
He felt his way along, squeezing between the stones. There was just enough room for him to maneuver, barely more than that, and he slipped into a space with the walls pressing around him, threatening to suffocate him.
As he neared the open area next to him, the rock cracked again.
It came first as a continuous snap, then slowly spread out all around.
Jasn barely had time to react. He was caught between the rock, squeezed by it, and readied a shaping. He couldn’t get his sword up to make another mark in the stone, not as he had the first time.
Instead, he pressed into the rock, holding it with his shaping. Above him, rock and stone from Hessan slowly collapsed around him, bearing down on the earth shaping he struggled to maintain.
He had to get out or he would be squeezed as it collapsed. He had to somehow manage to get away, but how? All his energy was focused on simply holding the shaping in place to keep the earth from crushing him.
Jasn hoped Bayan could free him. If she couldn’t, he didn’t want to think of what it would be like as his shaping slowly faded and the rock above him settled, gradually crushing the life out of him. The image of the fallen pen in the barracks, and the draasin crushed inside, came to mind. How long until he ended up like that?
19
Alena
I search the heart of Rens, but have not found draasin in numbers to explain the attack. They must roost somewhere, but it is not in the waste, nor at the edge. Perhaps the riders have answers if I can gain their trust.
—Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars
Alena strode into the barracks, searching for Jasn Volth. After bringing him to the Sanash and showing him where Issa had died, she’d expected him to return here for answers. He wouldn’t have known that Cheneth was gone, nor could he know that Cheneth would have no more information than she had, but she’d seen the naked desire in his eyes for understanding, and she wasn’t sure she would be able to provide that for him.
After spending time in Atenas, the barracks were a welcome change. The solid, squat buildings served the purpose of providing a layer of protection and concealing the presence of the barracks, but there was something more to it as well. The buildings here made no effort to be anything more than they were and did not attempt to stretch to the sky and overpower those around them, not like the tower in Atenas did. There was a certain pompousness to the tower that she didn’t find in the barracks. Perhaps that was why she liked it here so much better.
She saw none of the people she expected to see, none that she needed to see. Cheneth would not have returned, and Eldridge would be off wherever he’d gone, but she’d expected to find Bayan or Volth, but neither were here.
Pausing in the middle of the street, Alena reached out with water sensing and mixed earth within it. Even Calan was gone. That shouldn’t surprise her. Likely he’d gone after the draasin, seeking revenge when none was needed or even possible.
Connected to the elements as she was, she sensed it when Ifrit approached. The small woman had hard, sharp eyes and had never shown any leanings toward helping the elementals. Not like Bayan. At least with Bayan, the girl had the good sense to be respectful with the draasin. Even if she didn’t believe that there was any reason to care about the creatures, the draasin could do her harm.
“You will not find them here,” Ifrit said.
Alena nodded to the younger woman. “No? Then where did they go?”
Ifrit sniffed. “Your students or Calan?”
Would Ifrit actually share with her what had happened with Calan? She didn’t expect that she would, not considering what she’d seen of Ifrit and how she had participated in the attack on the draasin.
“Either.”
Ifrit glanced at the trees—looking south, Alena noted—before looking back at her. “They are gone. Calan went first, searching for the injured beast. She was hurt before we even…” She shook her head. “Does not matter now, does it? I realize I’m lucky to be alive. And then, after your student healed me, he disappeared as well.” She hesitated, a frown furrowing her brow. “He is unique, is he not?”
“Calan or Volth?”
Ifrit laughed, and it made her seem more girlish and less angry. Alena found it unsettling to hear Ifrit sound like that given everything she’d see the woman do over the years. “Both, I suppose, but it’s Volth in particular. I’ve never seen a healer with quite the touch that he has.”
“Volth healed you?” That hadn’t been her expectation when he returned, and she had thought he might be too tired after healing Wyath.
Ifrit tilted her head in a nod. “Healed. Maybe more.” She said the last almost too softly for Alena to hear.
Alena waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. “Where did they go?”
“You don’t know? I thought you kept tabs on your students. I thought you were—”
Thunder exploded in Alena’s head and she heard nothing more.
Lren. You must come.
She grabbed her head from the strength of the calling, Sashi had been absent from her mind for days, at least since the time she’d helped free it, and coming back to the barracks hadn’t changed that. There was something different about the draasin since she’d returned, though Alena couldn’t put a finger on what it was.
Ifrit didn’t seem to notice Alena was in pain. She pushed the sense of the draasin back, trying to keep it from dominating her. Were she to let it, the draasin would overwhelm her mind, and it took every bit of focus for her to resist.
Where are you?
Near water. Come. You are needed.
Ifrit was still talking, but Alena had no idea what she was saying. “I need to find them,” she said, thinking that Ifrit was still talking about Volth and Bayan.
“Haven’t you heard anything I’ve been telling you?”
Alena blinked. Did she admit that she hadn’t? That the draasin commanding her to come had pushed away any sense of her surroundings? Revealing that would open her to more questions. “I’ve heard, but that doesn’t change that I need to know where my students have gotten off to.”
She turned away before Ifrit had the opportunity to say anything more, hoping to hide the way her heart skipped inside her chest. Ifrit was a skilled shaper and would recognize that it did and would likely have questions about why.
I will come. I need time to prepare.
There is no time.
As she neared the destroyed pen, she paused, considering the way the stone had crumbled under the shaping. This was not Calan’s work. They had been trying to attack the draasin in the third pen. Alena remembered all too well the pain the draasin had experienced when it had been crushed by the weight of the shaping. Thinking of it caused tears to well in her eyes. The draasin would not want her to mourn them, but she did.
What of the other?
I should know why you’re trying to get me to hurry. What will I face?
She stopped at the remaining pen and noted earth seals in place around it that weren’t there before. They were stout, meant to hold the draasin in place, but she realized they served another purpose. They reinforced the stone, making it stronger as earth infused it, perhaps strong enough that an earth shaping couldn’t crush the draasin inside.
Darkness.
Alena shivered, studying the pen.
The sense of earth coming off this pen was much more than it had been before. Some of
that had been Wyath’s work, reinforcing the stone so that Calan or his student wouldn’t attempt to attack the draasin again, but some was even newer than that. Cheneth? He hadn’t been here, she didn’t think. Eldridge didn’t have the necessary ability with earth to do this, so who?
She trailed her hand over one of the marks. Each line contained more earth power than she would have thought possible, the groove in the stone made precisely so that earth was trapped and held, fortifying the stone. Alena didn’t think that she would even be able to enter the pen. Hopefully that meant the draasin inside was safe. It could also mean that no one could get inside and that the draasin would suffer, but she didn’t think that was the case. If the person who had placed the stone seal wanted to harm the draasin, she doubted they would have had any difficulty.
Lren.
This time it was less a command, almost as if it came from a different draasin. When it didn’t come again, Alena pulled her hand away from the stone. She would have to take the time when she returned to understand what had been done here. If she could replicate it, it might be possible that she could better protect the draasin in the future.
At the stone circle, she stopped and used a mix of earth and wind to listen for the residual shaping that might have come through here. Detecting another’s shaping was a difficult task, but she had learned over the past ten years how to track shapings. At first, she had learned how to do it so that she could follow the others at the barracks, wanting to know where they disappeared. Originally she thought Calan was the interesting one, assuming that his loud and often brash style meant he knew tricks she could learn, but it was Wyath who had been the one to teach her.
She was preparing a shaping, readying the combination of each of the elements that would lift her into the sky on a bolt of lightning, when a shadow stepped out of the trees. Alena nearly directed the shaping at the shadow before recognizing who it was.
“Wyath. So you’ve returned.”
Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2) Page 17