The barrier. He knew so little about it other than how shapers built it during the war. The construction somehow pushed Incendin back and out of the kingdoms. It was what prevented the worst of Incendin from attacking the kingdoms. “I don’t know anything about that.”
Roine nodded. “Pray that you don’t. Just know your mother—”
“It seems I know very little about my mother.” Tan didn’t mean to spit the last, and it came out angrier than intended.
Roine blinked. “I’m sorry, Tan.”
“Me too.” He turned away and grabbed his bundle and bow. “Are we walking or riding?” he asked without looking at Roine.
“Can we reach the pass by horse?”
He shrugged, still not looking up. “Equally fast either way. By horse we’d have to stick to the road. Slope is too steep otherwise. By foot we can climb straight up.”
“If it’s no faster by foot, then we’ll go by horse. Lord Lind promised any help we needed…”
Tan pushed past Roine and made his way to the stables. At this time of the morning, it was quiet. Horses whinnied softly. The cool air held the scent of hay and dung. He debated which horses to take before settling on a pair of solid brown mares. Then he moved onto a silver dappled stallion, smiling as he did. Lins preferred this horse.
As he saddled the third horse, Roine coughed. “Only two of us going, Tan. No supplies to carry.”
“I invited my friend Cobin.”
Roine frowned. “I never said anything about another person coming with us. We need to move quickly. A third might slow us down.”
He shook his head. “Not Cobin. He used to hunt with my father. He knows these lands better than anyone. If you’re so worried about an extra person, maybe you should just take him.”
“You don’t want to go?”
Tan thought about what he wanted. Leaving Nor for a while, even as briefly as the week it would take to lead Roine into the upper passes, might be time well spent. And he needed that time away from his mother, time to consider what he’d do with his future.
Cobin saved him from answering. He wore thick leathers and a massive axe slung over one shoulder. He carried his bow in hand. When he saw Roine, he frowned.
“Tan said you needed to reach the passes quickly.”
Roine eyed Cobin for a moment and then nodded.
“Seeing as he’s only been there once, he asked me to help. Consider it a bargain. Besides, he told me Incendin hounds made it into the woods. Might be better to have an extra body if they catch our scent.”
A look passed between Roine and Cobin that Tan didn’t understand. Roine finally nodded. Tan kept the dappled stallion for himself and led them from the stables at a steady walk. Cobin glanced at the horse Tan chose before chuckling softly.
As they left Nor and entered the shadows of the forest, he cast a glance back. The road took them above the town and from here, the angle of the path made small houses and low wall look small. Smoke from a few fires drifted into the sky, but otherwise the town was quiet. Before he turned away, he saw Bal watching him from atop the wall. She wore plain gray pants and a loose-fitting shirt—probably Cobin’s—and waved at him. Tan wouldn’t put it past her to follow them.
The road Roine led them on would eventually lead them to Velminth. Usually two days from Nor by horse, if they rode quickly enough. He wondered if they would reach the Aeta again. He doubted Roine would stop. Velminth was farther south than he intended to go.
They made good time riding mostly in silence, stopping around midday to share jerky and bread Cobin had brought. As they ate, a heavy roll of thunder echoed in the distance.
Roine looked skyward, straining to see into the distance. His head cocked as if listening to something only he could hear. Another peal of thunder rumbled, sounding far away but closer than the last. The wind picked up, whipping dust from the road into their faces.
Roine looked at them. “Storms usually come in this quickly?”
Cobin took another bite of bread. “They can. Weather moves over the mountains and seems to just appear.” He shrugged as thunder crashed again. The sky darkened quickly. “Looks to be a bad one. Haven’t had weather like this in a while. Probably should find shelter.”
Roine looked around, his eyes taking in the trees and steady slope of the mountains. “Where do you suggest?”
Cobin looked at Tan. “There’s a couple of places along the road where we could find some protection. Still going to get wet.”
Roine looked up at the sky again and nodded.
Cobin led them along the road quickly. The wind gusted, pushing against them. Thunder rolled regularly overhead and black clouds moved quickly in the sky. As Tan watched, light exploded in the distance, followed by a loud crack.
“These lightning storms can be dangerous,” Tan shouted over the wind.
“That’s why I’m trying to find an old mine shaft,” Cobin said. “Should be one soon.”
There was another bright flash of lightning followed by an ear-splitting crack. Closer now. And then the rain began. It started as slow drops, heavy and warm, but quickly turned into a hard downpour of tiny needles slicing into their skin.
“How much farther?” Roine asked. He’d pulled the hood of his cloak over his head. In spite of the rain drenching him, he rode tall in the saddle.
“Just around this bend,” Cobin answered.
The rain sleeted down and Tan struggled to see through it. As they made their way up the road, he realized something felt off. He listened, sensing the forest around him, before recognizing what bothered him. Nothing else moved in the forest around them.
A scent of char and sulfur bit through the rain. “There’s something—”
He cut off as they rounded the bend.
Broken and charred wreckage scattered across the road. Painted wood was splintered and debris strewn up and down the road, filling a rent in the forest floor. Random pieces of melted and misshapen steel were scattered across the forest.
It took a moment before he realized what he saw.
Roine unsheathed his sword with a soft ringing of steel. Cobin grabbed his axe.
“What happened here?” he whispered. His horse danced nervously beneath him. “What happened to the Aeta?”
Cobin and Roine sat atop their horses and surveyed the road and destruction around them. Neither spoke. Roine held his sword in hand with a white-knuckled grip. Cobin’s axe twitched in his hand.
“What happened?” Tan repeated.
Roine shook his head as if reluctant to answer.
It was Cobin who finally answered. “Incendin.” His voice was hollow and thin and shook more than he’d ever heard from the large man.
“How many wagons?” Roine asked.
“At least a dozen,” Cobin said. “I don’t know how many Aeta were among them.”
“At least three times that.” Tan looked past the debris, searching for any sign of the Aeta. They had to be close to the abandoned mine shaft Cobin had sought. “How far to the mine?”
Cobin looked back at Tan and met his eyes before shaking his head.
“What do you mean?”
“Too far, Tan,” Cobin said. He didn’t look up to meet his eyes.
“Wait…they’re dead?”
Roine nodded slowly. “As good as.”
Tan stared at the slowly smoldering remains of the wagons. The rain had not completely quenched whatever burned them and the now-steady drizzle left the broken fragments of wagon steaming. The small streams of rainwater runoff were lighter in color now. Thunder still rolled around them and the gray sky overhead matched his mood.
“How?” Tan couldn’t fathom how this destruction was possible.
“Incendin knows only one kind of shaping,” Roine answered. “And their fire shapers are quite skilled.”
“Fire shapers? But how would they have crossed the barrier?”
“I don’t know.”
Cobin watched Roine, a different question on his face.
“I don’t understand. Why attack the Aeta? They’re just traders.”
Roine sucked in a soft breath as he shook his head.
“Did hounds do this?” The idea terrified him, but what else made sense? Both his mother and Cobin warned him about the hounds, but how could hounds—even a pack—destroy a caravan of wagons?
“These aren’t hounds. Hounds are…messier.” Roine paused and looked around the destroyed road. “You said you tracked the hounds? That’s where you saw the Aeta at first?” Tan nodded. “How?”
Tan thought of the difficulty he’d had making sense of the tracks. “It wasn’t easy. Especially when they treed me.”
“Not many men can follow their tracks.” Roine paused as he surveyed the remains of the Aeta wagons. “I knew the hounds were already in the kingdoms. Possibly for days.”
“Not just hounds,” Tan said, remembering the other set of prints. “I saw another set mixed with the hounds.”
Cobin looked at him strangely. Tan hadn’t told him about those prints.
“What type of prints?” Roine asked.
A low cry echoing through the forest kept him from answering. The sound made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Tan recognized it; he’d followed the same sound only days before. He understood why he sensed nothing else in the forest around him, the same absence he’d felt while tracking the prints the other day.
The hound cried again, low and closer. Tan shivered, though not because of the rain. The Incendin hounds had returned.
12
An Unusual Storm
When the braying of the hounds finally stopped, Tan looked at Roine. He sat atop his horse, rain dripping from his face, bright blue eyes piercing the gloom of the forest. He’d slipped his sword back into its sheath.
“Where are the Aeta? The survivors?” Tan asked.
Roine shook his head. The sad look in his eyes spoke volumes. “I don’t think there were any survivors. This kind of attack isn’t meant for anything other than destruction.”
“Why the Aeta? Why would Incendin shapers attack the Aeta?”
“This type of attack hasn’t been seen in…” Roine shook his head. “The barrier has prevented this for years. A dark power is needed for this.”
“And they’re still here?” The idea of shapers powerful enough to destroy an entire caravan made him fear for Nor.
Roine shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“But there must be tracks we can use to find them.”
Cobin guided his horse over to him. “I don’t think you wish to find shapers this powerful.”
“So what? We let them roam Galen? I thought you served the king!”
“They will not remain behind. If this is what I fear, then this was a targeted attack. I suspect they returned to Incendin now.”
A crack of lightning split the sky, lighting the growing darkness overhead. A deafening roar of thunder followed. In the flash of light, the clouds overhead had been revealed as thick, dark smears in the sky, heavy and floating low, as if barely skimming the treetops. The lightning had come from behind them. Tan wondered how the worst of the storm had passed them so quickly.
“This is an unusual storm,” Roine said.
“We get heavy rains in Galen,” Cobin said. “Especially this time of year.”
Roine looked at him for a moment. “I think this is strange even for Galen.”
There was another crack of lightning, followed by another in rapid succession. The trailing thunder exploded around them, growing farther in the distance each time. Rain pelted down more urgently. Thankfully, the strange odors lingering on the air began to fade.
Tan listened to the forest. A few birds perched in the trees but otherwise it was silent. Wind whipped around him, tearing at his cloak. His horse danced beneath him.
An edge of frustration crawled through him. Had the rain not come, he could’ve tracked the hounds as he had before. And if he could track them, he could hunt them. Maybe chase them from Galen. But the rain would wash away any tracks, especially as heavy as it fell.
Something caught his eye off the road. Several of the low tree branches had snapped free. Such breaks could have been random—the heavy winds of the storm could easily have caused that damage—but there seemed a pattern to it. Leaves and weeds covered the rest of the forest, leaving no other evidence that anything else passed through here.
Tan jumped from his saddle to investigate, studying the broken branches while letting his eyes follow the disturbance, his focus wandering as he struggled to find meaning to what he saw.
“Tan?” Cobin called.
Tan ignored him. Another strangely twisted branch caught his attention. He followed it, picking his way forward. The bent undergrowth and random changes to the forest guided him farther from the road. Tan was not sure what it was that he followed, but it pulled on him, demanding he do so.
He came to an area of the forest where the ground sloped quickly upward in a jagged rocky climb. There were no branches here, no undergrowth to follow, just the rocks. As he nearly turned back, he saw scratches on the stone. The scratches were spaced evenly and regularly.
Higher up, long prints with a dimple near the heel seemed burned into the stone. The ground was drier here, protected by a rocky overhang. The heavy rain had not washed out the markings. Tan studied them; they were the same tracks he had followed the other day.
What kind of creature could scratch the stone like that? Was this the Incendin shaper Roine mentioned?
“Tan?”
Cobin watched him strangely, relieved to have found him. Roine followed, flickering his eyes as he looked at everything around him.
Tan pointed to the scratches in the rock.
Roine frowned and climbed from his saddle. He knelt next to one of the marks, following them the same way Tan had.
“How did you find these?” he asked softly.
“I followed marks left in the forest,” he said, though knew that wasn’t quite right. Subtle disturbances along the forest led him to the rocky incline.
“You tracked this?”
Tan shrugged. “Sensed it, probably. I’m not as skilled a senser as my father. Mostly a good tracker.”
Cobin smiled at him.
“Your mother said you had some skill. This is—”
He didn’t finish. “You recognize this?” Cobin asked.
Roine glanced at Cobin before nodding. “I haven’t seen these marks in years. Since before the barrier.” He looked down at the prints. “This wasn’t a simple Incendin shaper. Those are bad enough. Even the weakest of them knows shapings our fire shapers do not. But this…” He shook his head. “This is worse. Much worse.”
“What is this, Roine?” Cobin asked.
“I should have suspected when you told me of the Incendin hounds. But why would I? We haven’t seen them in so long.”
“Roine?”
Roine nodded. “To understand, you need to understand Incendin. Hounds are bad enough. They are dark creatures with strange gifts that have never been well understood. When I say you’re lucky to have faced hounds and lived, know that I don’t exaggerate. Once they have your scent, they don’t lose it. They will track you until cornered, and then they slowly tear you apart. That is the nature of the hounds.”
“Can they be killed?” Tan asked.
Roine nodded. “Not easily. It takes shapers usually. A few skilled with the bow or just plain lucky.” He met Tan’s eyes. “Remember when I asked about shapers in Nor?” Tan nodded. “Hounds can cross the barrier, but do so rarely, and at great cost. Most towns are protected by their shapers.”
Had his mother protected Nor? He didn’t think so, especially since she said she had abandoned her ability since settling in Nor. Then who? His father and Cobin often hunted in the woods, but he never heard anything about hounds. And Cobin hadn’t seemed to recognize the prints. “And if there are no shapers?”
“You pray they lose interest.” Roine looked up the ro
cky slope. “The hounds roam freely throughout Incendin, no different than the wolves of this area. But occasionally they’re directed.”
“Directed?”
Cobin’s eyes went wide. “Lisincend?”
Roine looked over to him and they shared a look. He nodded.
“You lost me. What are the lisincend?” Tan asked. What kind of creature could direct these hounds? How terrible must they be?
“They were men, once,” Roine answered. Cobin raised his eyebrows at the comment. “Long ago, the lisincend were men, fire shapers all, and powerful.” He paused, collecting his thoughts before going on. “Some have said they were all related to the Incendin throne. It’s not known how, but they performed a shaping upon themselves, using fire to alter themselves. Now they serve fire directly, twisted by their own shaping and empowered by it in a way none of our scholars have ever understood. They are powerful shapers, made more powerful by what they have become.” He voice grew more withdrawn as he spoke, and his eyes closed, almost as if remembering. “Even the hounds fear and obey them.”
“And they are here?” Tan asked.
Roine pointed to the tracks and nodded grimly. “It appears so, but I should have felt them.”
“How do you mean?” Cobin asked.
“The lisincend can’t move undetected. Their shaping has turned them into a manifestation of the fire they serve. They radiate heat as they move. This can be felt. This is one of their few weaknesses.”
“You think that a weakness?” Cobin asked.
Roine stared at him. “When you know where your enemy moves, you can either move to attack. Or avoid.”
Cobin grunted but said nothing else.
“Why are they here? Is it the same thing you’re after?”
Roine glanced to the sky. “I hadn’t considered the lisincend would be sent. The barrier should have prevented them. That they’re here…” He looked down at the tracks again before turning to Tan. “Can you follow these? Can you tell me where they went?”
Tan thought he could. Not just following the tracks, but if he focused hard enough he could sense the disturbance in the forest they made as they moved through. “The tracks start here.” He walked over to the rocks and pointed down at the prints evident in the dirt. “They climbed down the rock and jumped down here.” Enough of an indentation remained for him to almost envision the foot that left it.
Chased by Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 1) Page 8