“Go!” Jenk yelled, stalking between the slabs. “Kole, go! After her! She’s his right hand. Get her, and we’ve got something. We’ve got this.”
Kole took one more step toward Jenk, but the Ember chanced a look his way that told him all it needed to. Kole needed to trust him, otherwise the Shadow would dance away again. Again and again, until the world ended.
“Shifa,” Kole said, turning toward the deeper dark of the tunnel. The hound sprinted past Pirrahn, who had regained her feet and was in the process of making her gauntlets once more, and charged past Jenk as the Ember readied for the next attack.
Kole ran as fast as his legs would carry him, not trying to conserve his heat. His blades lit the path ahead, and in the darkness of the tunnel, he saw those lavender eyes smoldering from atop another promontory. Daring him to follow.
Shifa outstripped him. It seemed no matter how fast he was and no matter how much fire he put in his legs, the nimble, bold hound would always reach the end of their present road first.
The tunnel lit bright yellow and gold for a blinding instant. The Shadow shielded her eyes and shrieked and Kole slid. He lost his balance as he turned, frantic. He half expected to see Jenk spitted on the end of one of those red-clawed fists. Instead, he saw the Ember pouring a torrent of yellow fire from the end of his blade into a door-shaped slab, which melted away. He spun and launched a crescent out as he whirled to burn away another of the icy shards, ensuring he could not be taken by surprise. Pirrahn shrank toward the back of the chamber, squinting as she attempted to suss out the next avenue of attack.
“I really need to stop underestimating you, Ganmeer,” Kole said. He meant it to Shifa, but the hound had continued on ahead. He turned and saw her nearly reach the Shadow beast, who was just recovering from Jenk’s blinding flare. The hound leapt over the shallow mound on which she perched, and the Eastern Dark’s servant just managed to melt away in the darkness that rushed back in like an interrupted wave.
Shifa landed in a slide, her claws echoing atop the ice in the gloom. Kole caught up to her as she regained her balance, and together the two of them flew, boot and paw barely skimming the surface of the ice, which was growing slicker under the focused heat Jenk filled the antechamber with. The tunnel sloped downward for a short spill before angling back up. Kole could see daylight and feel the refreshing kiss of the open air. There was a howl like wind from the demon at their backs, and while there was no further sign of the clever Shadow, Kole and Shifa knew she was there.
If a part of him felt a fool for following the creature so brazenly, the greater part was eager to see what she had in store for him.
The light was blinding white as they broke the space from cavern to open sky. The ground grew rough, Kole’s boots breaking the crust of frost and salt as he raised one arm over his eyes. He felt Shifa press her side against the front of his knees as he came to a quick stop. She growled, adjusting quicker than he could.
Kole blinked away a few tears and the frozen wind dried the rest as his vision cleared. He pulled his arm away but kept his blades lit, pulling some of the fire from his legs and feeling it flood back into his chest. He sent it down the veins of his arms and felt it tingle the tips of his fingers. The flames along the Everwood lengths responded, lapping up the renewed energy from his hands and going from orange to amber with flecks of red.
They found themselves in a miniature valley. The walls rose on three sides. Kole might have been able to clear the top and reach the surface of the frozen sea with a running start, but even that would be a near thing. The borders of the edged bowl were white and glittering. It looked like snow, but Kole felt the sting as the wind kicked the salted dust into his eyes, where it gathered around the red rims and settled there in a paste he had no time to clear.
The sky was bright. Brighter than it had been just a short time before, and Kole chanced a look to the west, where the tails of the gray storm clouds Linn had conjured or called could be seen racing away. The air was damp with their passing, but already the icy air was drying it out.
“You Embers sure are easy to lead.”
Kole hadn’t seen her, but now that he heard her voice, he saw the little beast’s diminutive profile sitting atop the wall directly ahead of him. She was black as midnight, shining like oil in the light of day. She sat like a child might, with her feet dangling over the edge, kicking in the wind. She watched him with interest, her lavender eyes switching to Shifa and back up again, as if she couldn’t decide which of them was the bigger fool.
“What, then?” Kole asked. “Show me the great trap you’ve laid.”
“You’re in it,” Shadow said. “Am I not threatening enough?” She smiled or sneered, her too-white teeth showing sharpened edges that Kole did not think had been there before.
“You don’t mean to fight me,” he said. “Not here. Not ever.” He let his burning blades fall a bit lower at his sides.
She pressed her palms flat into the frost and leaned back, kicking her legs up higher. “No, no. I suppose not. There you have me.” She looked up at the sky and then fixed her eyes back on him, all thought of mirth fleeing under the weight of her dark hunter’s intent. “Doesn’t change anything. I have you here, and here you will stay, brave Valley hero.”
Kole was growing impatient. He rolled his eyes and meant to say as much, but then she spoke.
“Unless …”
He watched her. Shifa stepped away from him and began to pace, her nose working at the air, no doubt sniffing out the ambush the Shadow intended to lay.
“Unless what?”
“Unless you give thought to joining with us, that is.”
“Joining with your master, you mean.”
The Shadow shrugged. “Call him a Sage. Call him the Eastern Dark. Call him Ray Valour or all manner of names besides.” She smiled. “Call him the winner in this conflict. For that is what he is soon to be.”
“Not if we have anything to say about it.”
“And what do you have to say?”
Kole frowned. He heard another shout echoing from inside the tunnel, felt another current of heat that had made it all the way through and caught the wind in the salt valley.
“Do you truly think the Frostfire Sage has your best interests at heart, and those of your fellows?” she asked. “Do you think she’ll truly be able to stop what’s coming.”
“The World Apart,” Kole said. “What your master called.”
“Who better to put it back?”
Kole had no answer. He swallowed and cursed himself for it as he saw those purple orbs flash in recognition. This one missed nothing.
“What’ll it be, then?” she asked. “Join with your once enemy against one you’ve yet to make and save the world you so cherish, or burn it all away?” Her smile dropped, and now her look verged closer to hate. Kole did not think it was meant for him alone. “I could not care less. Truly, I could not.”
“How bold of you. How brave.”
“Bold and brave,” Shadow mused. “Coward and craven. The former belong to heroes. The latter to those who survive them. I know which I intend to be.”
“And what of your master? What of the Eastern Dark? Has he truly had a change of heart? Does he truly regret his war upon the lands and all the people in them, upon the Sages and their ilk?”
“Do not speak as if you hold them in high esteem,” Shadow said, going so far as to laugh. “You, of all people.”
“What do you know of me, little beast?” Kole felt his blood go a bit hotter. He didn’t try to stop it. The Shadow’s eyes twitched down to his hands, no doubt marking the way the fire bled red.
“I think there is a lot of him in you,” she said. Her voice changed. It was subtle, and it might have been a trick or simply a mistake on his part, but Kole thought she sounded wistful, however brief.
“Who?”
“Rane.�
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Kole did not speak. What could he say to that? Shadow watched him, seeming disappointed.
“Death, then,” she said. Her chin tilted up and she looked at something, someone, off to the side. Kole saw twin figures move up on either side of the bowl, standing with long, blowing hair. They were slender, but he left the details to the side, his attention still fixed on the Shadow.
“You can’t trap an Ember, Shadow,” Kole said. “You can only give him what he desires. The others might not want to admit it. Ganmeer, fighting that red beast in the gloom. Ve’Gah, battling your master and his lackeys. Rane, before the end. But the Embers were made to do one thing, and do it well. In truth, we’d be much better at ending the world than saving it.” He shrugged. “But we don’t always choose our lot.” She smiled, but Kole matched it. “You think I jest.”
“No, Kole Reyna,” she surprised him by saying. “I only think that I like you, and I look forward to seeing how it all ends.” She stood without effort, and Kole noticed how none of the salt or frost clung to her inky skin. She was all eyes, this one. “I do hope you’re left standing. The others of whom you speak, and those in the Valley core, clinging to the white rock and the moss along the lakes and streams. They have your spirit, but you’ve got something they do not. May you find it before the end.”
Shadow stepped away. She addressed her companions, but never took her eyes from Kole. “He’s all yours. Do yourselves a favor and make it quick. I’ve seen what happens when one thinks an Ember’s fire spent.”
Kole watched her turn toward the east. Her look, which had been light, turned grave. Kole listened and thought he heard thunder rack the sky, echoing along the bottoms of the clouds far above.
“Where are you from?” Kole asked as his would-be killers stepped over the lip of the ledge on which they stood and slid down into the bowl, trailing a glittering spray of dust that made misty rainbows in the sun.
“You know,” one of them said, and the other, who looked very much the same, smiled. “Your world would call us strangers, and yet here we are, and with pleasure.”
Kole frowned. His heart picked up its pace.
“Landkist,” he said. “You are Landkist, from the World Apart. That fool went calling again, brought you in to do his dirty work. Did he run out of slaves?”
The slender, snow-white twins with pink eyes looked askance at once another. The male shrugged. “Call us what you will, Son of Fire,” he said. “Your Worldheart is strong, to bless you so. Strong, and foolish.” Kole frowned, confused.
“We come to save,” the female said.
“You are on the wrong side,” her brother intoned. It sounded as if nothing could give him more joy. “Your world is doomed. The Sages do not know this. They believe they can stop it, or use it to further their selfish ends. They cannot, and they, too, will die.”
“And what of you?” Kole asked.
“We are here to watch the convergence,” the female said. “And to kill Him, when he comes through. He ruined our world. He will do the same to yours, but he will pay for it. This we promise you.”
“You are on the wrong side,” the other said.
“Hearing that a lot, these days,” Kole said.
His blades had cooled, burning a faint yellow that was lost in the haze of the afternoon sun. It made diamonds in the frost below his feet. He poured in the heat he had held back and the fire changed, the waves along the Everwood lengths growing more jagged, speeding along like rivers, and the color changed, growing darker and more orange. He pushed it to red, and the reflections in the frost now leered up at him like rubies, or like droplets of blood.
The twins were well controlled. They did not react to the change in heat or to the sound of cracking as the thick permafrost began to groan and split beneath their feet due to Kole’s vibrant aura. Instead, they stepped back and began to circle. Shifa stepped away from Kole, already panting in the wash of heat.
“Take care, girl,” Kole intoned, and the hound let out a low sound in her throat. Her tail was up and still, ears pointed. She began to match the female on the right, her paws making soft scraping sounds in the crunch.
Kole began to edge backward, keeping the twins in front of him. He saw the female begin to turn her hands over. He watched her palms, expecting to see something similar to the Nevermelt that the Blue Knights could make. Instead, he saw the skin shift along her forearms. She turned her palms up, smiling at him all the while, and Kole grimaced as he watched a pore on the underside of each snow-white wrist open, admitting a pearl of white bone that slid out into her waiting grip. The pore closed behind the objects, which were bleached white as bone and looked to be made of it. They were jagged clusters, like clumps of snow or frosted ice, and she clutched them as if she intended to throw.
The male, for his part, ceased his pacing and squared to meet Kole. He stood a stone’s throw away, and rather than turning his wrists up, he held his hands out to his sides and closed his eyes. Kole nearly took the opportunity to strike, but the female watched him closely. That, and curiosity got the better of him.
Where his sister’s slender arms had bunched and shifted, Kole saw a more dramatic version of the change in this one. The twins wore nothing but the armor they had likely been born with. It covered their chests and midsections, separated into segments. They wore jagged spurs of bone atop both shoulders, and the male even had a small ridge that began at the top of his nose and curled up on either side of his brow.
His sides began to shift, the ribs seeming to slide over one another like the scales in Kole’s black armor. The sight, which was already verging on surreal, passed by it in short order as the strange warrior lifted his chin and flexed every muscle he had. Two sharp spurs of bone emerged from his sides, bloodless. They might have been the bones of his ribcage, for all Kole knew, but they were long as scythes. He turned his hands in and grabbed hold of them, drew them out with a scraping sound that made Kole cringe.
When it was done, he stood facing Kole on bent knees, two arm-length cuts of his own bones resting in his palms—grisly blades that matched his own in length.
“Come on, then,” Kole said as another peal of thunder rumbled across the blue sky.
Shifa had the same idea. The hound exploded into motion as Kole did, cutting right, toward the female. Kole watched her from the corner of his eye, but his attention was forward. He shot toward the white swordsman with all the speed he could muster. He would have been lying if he said it didn’t impress him how calm the warrior remained. How still.
What beasts, Kole wondered, gave creatures like these pause?
But then, they had never faced an Ember. Kole meant to show them something to remember his kind by.
“Take this with you,” he said as he reached the swordsman.
Kole slid his left foot forward, kicking up a spray of shining white dust. He twisted to the right, bringing both of his blades down toward his back hip. As he reached the swordsman, he brought his left up and across at an angle that was meant to miss.
Instead, the swordsman did not dodge as Kole had expected, but rather brought his right blade down, meeting the Everwood with a crack that echoed off the sides of the rough-cut bowl. He was strong, and fast. Kole was only able to hold his blade still for a moment before the otherworldly Landkist began to press it down. Kole planted his rear foot and flared his right blade, lancing it in beneath the first and straight toward that armored midsection.
Kole nearly smirked as his Everwood came close to the mark, but the red-eyed warrior beat him to the look, his too-wide mouth turning up at the corners. Kole’s blade struck true, the impact creating a dull sound and the force jarring his arm up to the shoulder.
He spared a glance down and saw his burning red blade turned to the side, with nothing to signal its having struck other than a black mark in the center of the shell.
“Fair enough.”
The demon moved quicker than Kole had been expecting. He hooked his right blade over Kole’s lead and brought him closer. Kole twisted to avoid being spitted by the rear bone scythe, which screeched along the scales of his armor, ripping one link away completely. Kole tried to bring his low hand up, attempting to ram the butt of his blade into the chin of his opponent, but they were too close, and the demon had other plans.
As Kole planted his feet and shot his right hand up with all his might, he saw that white face screaming toward his own. When the boney brow collided with his, Kole saw a blinding flash. His heart poured heat into his body, flooding his veins and giving Kole the momentary burst he needed to disengage. He stepped back and slashed a backhand with his right blade. It was intercepted once more, but he brought his left screaming back in in an overhand. When the demon blocked this one, his grin shifted and grew strained. Kole was stronger, now, and he let the beast feel it, flaring his blade so hot it went past red and began to verge on blue.
Kole felt his head beginning to swim, partly from the impact—he could already feel the blood on his brow drying to a syrupy paste—and partly from the energy he used.
Mostly, from the anger he felt. Anger that began to verge closer to rage.
Kole heard Shifa howl. He broke off from the exchange and slid backward, settling into a low crouch, blades guttering. He drank some of the fire back from them and felt his palms thrumming.
To the right, Shifa raced in a wild circle around the female, who spun to meet her. Kole saw red staining the white paws of his ally. All around the dancing pair, he could see what looked to be a blanket of shards sticking up from the frost.
As Kole watched, Shifa leapt in, mouth agape, fangs threatening. Her aim was true, as was her speed, but the dancer simply tensed and sprang, going up over the hound with ease. She twisted in the air and let fly one of her jagged white darts. It sank into the frost with a thorny grip and Shifa came down just beyond it. The hound scrambled, verging on panic, and tried to race away from the cluster. Kole rose with a frown as the female landed, and caught her eye. She smiled at him and winked, and as she did, the cluster shattered into a hail of flying spikes. Kole raised his arm and felt the bolts ting off the metal. He felt a burning in his side and lowered his arm, feeling along the bare skin where the length of armor had been stripped away. He ripped the spur free, wincing, and tossed the bloody bit of bone to the side.
The Frostfire Sage Page 59