Fortress of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  He pressed harder, straining with more strength in earth sensing than he’d used in ages. Once, he had been quite skilled, using earth sensing constantly as he made his way through the mountains around Nor. Living in Ethea took away his practice. Now, what would once have come easily to him required thought and effort.

  If Asboel was in danger, Tan had to push forward and find the answer.

  Watch over us? he asked of Honl.

  The elemental hesitated. I may be limited with what aid I can offer.

  Tan paused and looked toward the swirling colors he associated with Honl. Why? Can wind not go everywhere?

  Not when there is another.

  He noted the hesitance from the wind elemental. It was not the first time he’d sensed it from him. Ara?

  Ara prefers I not blow through her lands, but she tolerates me. This one will not.

  Which is it?

  Honl didn’t answer, only drifted forward.

  Could it be ilaz? The other wind elemental had buzzed through Ethea, so Tan knew it would be found near here. He was tempted to call to it to know for sure, but he dared not. The last time he’d done it, the painful sound it made buzzing around him had nearly been overwhelming. He might have Honl for help, but unlike ara and how it helped his mother with her attacks, Honl seemed reluctant to do much more than carry him. That meant Tan needed to be careful.

  They weaved around the poisonous Incendin plants. Without his ability to sense his way through them, Tan doubted that they would have survived. At least in the other place he’d been in Incendin, there had been a cleared path. Here, it was almost as if the plants had been set so as to prevent anyone from moving safely through.

  Amia held onto him carefully. At times, there was no safe way to move through the land and he had to jump on a shaping of wind. His connection to Honl grew stronger the more he used the wind elemental, and he found himself reaching for wind more and more. With it, Tan needed less help reaching his own shaping.

  Another jump and they reached the change in the landscape.

  The vibrant green grasses grew in an irregular line across the ground, weaving in and out of Incendin plants, almost as if intentionally pushing them back. Trees were set back from the grass line, and a few other plants grew among the trees, sprouting flowers of all different colors. The fragrances were nothing like anything Tan recognized.

  He paused and sensed the foliage. He felt nothing alarming from them.

  He started to take a step but Amia held him back. “Asboel is in here, but I don’t think he’s alone.”

  How would Amia know that if he couldn’t sense it with his earth sensing? “Another one of the draasin?” Could Enya or Sashari be with him? Was that why Tan couldn’t reach him as he thought he should?

  “I don’t think so.”

  “The lisincend?” The last Tan knew, the draasin had been attacking them. If anything were to happen to him, it would likely be from twisted fire shapers.

  Amia bit her lip as she frowned. She held onto his hand, her eyes sweeping into the grasses. “I don’t know.”

  Not knowing made the nervous energy rising within Tan even worse. If Asboel were in danger, he couldn’t wait to reach him. And if he didn’t reach him, what would happen to Tan? The pain searing through his mind remained a distant sense as he pressed it deep down inside him, but what would happen if he slipped and the power surged forward? What would happen if it increased in intensity?

  He took the first step across the border. The grasses swirled around his legs, reaching toward him. A pressure built in his ears and it took Tan a moment to realize someone was shaping. Not Amia; he’d know if it were her. But what? The shaping seemed to control the grasses, leading them to twist around him as they caught in the wind. Tan reached for Honl, but the elemental wouldn’t respond. With a shaping of his own, he silenced the wind, pushing it down.

  “This is shaped,” he said to Amia.

  “The wind?”

  He shook his head, surveying the grasses and the trees. “All of it, I think. It’s like what we found in the cavern near the place of convergence, what the ancient warrior shapers had made.”

  “Did they make this?”

  She meant the ancient warriors, but Tan didn’t think so. There was something to the shaping that felt newer. If so, that meant someone else had created this shaping, one strong enough that it pressed back the border with Incendin. Whoever had made this possessed skill that hadn’t been seen in nearly a thousand years.

  He should be excited to find someone with skill like that. Instead, fear left him cautious.

  A heavy wave of shaping washed over him. It came as an indistinct sense, slow and steady.

  “Did you feel that?”

  Amia stared toward the east. “Of course I felt it.”

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “No.”

  They continued onward. As they did, Tan reached out with his earth sensing, straining through the grasses and trees to understand what had made this and to find Asboel. Something in the shaping impeded him. It reminded him of what he had done when he obscured Asboel from the kingdoms’ shapers. Only this seemed intent to obscure everything from him, and over a massive scale.

  He wouldn’t be able to find Asboel this way. They could wander through here for days and still not find him. Tan needed another way.

  “Are you recovered enough to try to reach through me again?”

  “I can try. Since we’re closer, maybe it will be easier.”

  The shaping around them likely made it harder, not easier, and was probably the reason it had taken so much strength from her the first time she’d tried reaching for Asboel.

  “You’ll have to help again,” she said.

  Tan took a deep breath, focusing on his connection to Amia and using that to reach the sense of spirit. It was easier this time. Spirit welled deeply within him and he skimmed across the surface. Amia pressed through their connection, forced herself through the bond to Asboel, this time not moving with the caution she’d shown earlier. Pain split his head and seemed to last ages before she withdrew.

  Amia rested her hands on her legs, panting as if she had just sprinted through the desert. Her eyes were glossy from the effort and she took deep, steadying breaths before she could speak. “We’re close. He’s hurt. I don’t know how, but there’s something not right with him.”

  She led him into the deeper part of the grasses. They ducked beneath the drooping branches of trees, avoiding the spines that wanted to tear at their skin and hair. There was movement to the air, but when Tan tried to reach for it and shape it, it reacted differently. Whatever elemental worked through here resisted his attempt. Maybe it wasn’t ilaz, but what other elemental could there be?

  They walked for an hour, the sun burning brightly overhead, before he started to sense the change. It came gradually, the steady shifting of pressure on the grasses and a distant sense around the edges of trees. He didn’t need Amia to point him toward where they were headed.

  As they approached, a plume of fire shot to the sky.

  Tan froze. “That was shaped.”

  “I can see that,” Amia said.

  “Can you tell who it might be?”

  “Can you?” she asked.

  Tan tried reaching with his earth sensing, but the shaped land still resisted him. “Not well. All that I can sense is that we’re close. There’s something else here, but I don’t know what.”

  Another slow wave of indistinct shaping washed over him.

  “Asboel is here,” Amia said. “I can feel him. I think I retained part of your connection when I pulled back this time. I don’t know what I did, but it lets me reach him more easily than I was able to before.” She tipped her head toward a clump of trees. Tan thought it near the center of this shaped garden. “Whatever we’ll find is in there.”

  “You should stay here,” he warned. “You’re tired and weakened from helping me reach him. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

/>   She shot him a glare. “You’re not going to convince me to sit on the side while you risk yourself, Tan.”

  “We don’t even know if I would be risking myself,” he said.

  “I think we can assume that a shaped garden in the middle of Incendin carries with it some risk.”

  “I thought you said we were along the border of Incendin.”

  “Near enough.”

  “And Doma?” Tan couldn’t shake the sense that they should be near Doma, but Amia was right. This wasn’t what Doma looked like. There, the trees and forests looked more like Nor than anything else. There were pine and oak trees stretching along the mountainside. Even the scents of Doma were like what he found in Galen. Nothing like these strange trees.

  She pointed toward the north, where a dark blur rose above the horizon. “That would be Doma. Much farther to the east and we reach the coast.”

  Maybe if they were closer to the coast, he could ask the udilm to help. Then again, udilm might not answer. His water elemental connection was to the nymid.

  Another shaping of fire shot toward the sky.

  Tan prepared to attack if needed by mixing fire and air into a shaping of his own as he started forward. They stepped past a barrier of trees ringing an open area. Shaped flowers filled the clearing. There, in the center of the clearing, Asboel lay on his side. His breathing came slowly and irregularly. Flames scorched the trees around them, but not as much as Tan would have expected from the draasin. Amia held a hand on his arm, keeping him back.

  “Can’t you sense it?” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “Sense what?”

  “This was for him. I’m not sure what’s happening, but there is power here. Whatever it’s doing is holding Asboel in place.” She turned to him, sweeping her hands out in a wide circle “Now that I see him, I can sense it. All of this. Everything that has been shaped. This is the pain you feel.”

  A shaping raced toward Asboel and he responded with a spurt of flame, blocking whatever attacked him. That had been Asboel’s shapings he’d seen, but Tan hadn’t known. Had he pushed him so distantly into the back of his mind that he could no longer sense even that?

  All around him, he now sensed wind, but not wind he’d ever known. It mixed with water and earth, circling the ground below Asboel. Fire mingled within it. Tan might not understand what the shaping would do, but he understood the intent.

  “Spirit.” Someone intended a spirit shaping with Asboel.

  Doma shapers, then. It had to be. Other than the stolen shapers from Doma, Incendin didn’t have anything other than fire shapers. They must have learned this shaping from the First Mother.

  Rage bubbled up from Tan as he began to understand. The attack might not even be meant to harm Asboel. The shaping held him in place, but if they used spirit, they wanted to control Asboel, much like the archivists had once sought to control Enya. In order to do that, they’d have to sever the bond he shared with Asboel. Which meant these shapers knew of the connection. This attack was the reason he suffered along with Asboel.

  “Can you find them?” he asked.

  “Tan—”

  He shot her a look. “I will not sit idle while they attack him.”

  “As soon as you do anything, they will know you’re here, if they do not already. Without knowing how many of them there are, I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”

  Tan stared at Asboel. The only other time he’d seen the draasin injured had been when Althem had blasted him from the sky. Had Tan not intervened, he might have died. Asboel thought himself powerful enough that little could harm him, but in spite of his power, he was still mortal.

  Another cycle of shaping rolled through. This was different than before. Wind swirled around Asboel, lifting under his wings. Earth rolled over his front legs, holding him down. Water swirled in the wind. There was enormous strength to the shaping.

  Tan realized that he might not be strong enough to stop the shapers.

  Asboel roared, but weakly. Steam hissed from his nostrils. He attempted to push out with a shaping of fire, but it failed. Much longer, and his connection to Tan would be gone. Given what Zephra had described from the loss of the bond, that might be worse than dying.

  “Find them,” he asked Amia. “Send me their location. I have to stop this.”

  He unsheathed the warrior’s sword; he had only used it one time before.

  “Tan,” Amia started, “please come back to me.”

  He clenched his jaw, eyes flickering to where Asboel rested. Earth had nearly enveloped him completely. More than anything else, that would hold Asboel. Earth countered fire better than nearly any of the other elements.

  Tan began drawing shapings through the sword. Had he not been as angry as he was, he would have wondered if the shapings would work, but his anger fueled the shapings. Fire. Water. Earth. Wind came slowest, but it came.

  He looked back at Amia. “I have to do this.”

  The pained look on her face told him that she wished he didn’t, but the shaped connection between them told him that she understood.

  15

  Rescue

  The distance from the edge of the trees to Asboel, nearly enveloped by shapings, did not seem that great, but resistance hit him as soon as Tan set foot into the clearing. Grasses twisted and twined about his ankles. The ground trembled. The air felt thick and hot. All of it was shaped.

  With a roar, he pressed a shaping out through the sword, severing what worked to trap him. He managed to make it another dozen steps before another attack came. It was as if the ground and plants and air all conspired against him. Tan spun, slicing with the sword, pushing out with a shaping he drew through the sword, but they came quickly.

  The trees.

  It was Amia’s voice and it drifted through his mind, almost as if slowed by the shapings, as well.

  Tan glanced to the trees. At first, he saw nothing. A flash of color in one of the treetops caught his eyes. He focused his attention there, briefly ignoring the attack thrown at him. Fire. He was certain of it. When the shaper used fire, he sensed it.

  Tan raised the sword. Using earth, he sent a lancing shaping through the sword toward the shaper. Had they been anywhere but this strangely shaped garden, his shaping would likely have simply destroyed the shaper. Instead, it merely knocked him back. That contented Tan.

  The shaping attacking him—attacking Asboel—shifted. No longer did fire work through it. Whatever attempt they made using spirit changed, lessening with the absence of fire. Tan shifted his attention to wind. With the connection he’d formed with Honl, Tan thought he might reach wind next, but the shaping eluded him. Whatever wind blew through here kept Honl back. The grasses continued to spiral up his legs. The shaking ground trembled beneath him, threatening to topple him. If he fell, he suspected the grasses would quickly manage to hold him in place.

  Can you find them? he asked Amia.

  I can’t.

  They want to sever the bond. They want Asboel.

  The ground shook again, throwing his attention away from Amia. With an angry stomp, Tan sent a shaping through the earth, plunging deep as he reached for golud. Would the earth elemental even respond out here?

  Stop!

  He sent it as a rumbling fashion as he always did when speaking to golud, a demand upon the elemental. The trembling paused and he heard a startled gasp nearby. Tan focused on where he’d heard the shaper and sent a blast of fire through the sword. A grunt rewarded him.

  Two shapers were slowed. That left wind and water.

  Tan ran toward Asboel. This time, the grasses left him alone. He slashed at them with the sword as he ran. Wind coalesced in front of him, but he pressed a shaping of fire and earth against it, the warrior’s sword augmenting the shaping and burning the shaping away. The air became heavy, filled with moisture, and Tan pushed back with fire, burning away the water shaped in the air. Had he more skill, he might have removed the water from the air, but he didn’t know how.


  Then he reached Asboel. The heat that usually radiated from his massive sides had eased. His breaths came slowly. Tan touched his side, moving past the thick spines on his back. Asboel lifted his head and twisted to look at him with golden eyes that had gone dull. He shook his head once and tried to growl, but nothing came from him but steam.

  The attack changed.

  The shapers switched their focus from Tan and moved back to Asboel. Water and wind swirled around him. Fire added with it, and then earth. Whatever brief success Tan had in slowing them had failed.

  They drew on spirit. It pressed into Asboel.

  Tan felt the pain of the shaping through the connection he shared with Asboel. It was there, deep and buried, agonizing to the draasin.

  Is there anything you can do? he asked Amia.

  I’m not strong enough, not after… She didn’t need to explain. She’d spent too much strength simply trying to find the draasin. Can you stop the shapers?

  They’re too skilled and I don’t know where they are. They stopped focusing on me. They’ve nearly finished what they intend with Asboel.

  He had no idea what they intended by breaking the bond, but it could not happen. It would leave Asboel vulnerable.

  And if Amia couldn’t help, Tan had to do it himself.

  That meant pain. Possibly more than he could tolerate, but if he didn’t, Asboel would be lost. For all Tan knew, another could assume the bond.

  Incendin. One of the Doma shapers.

  Fur.

  Tan took a deep breath, but before drawing the connection to Asboel to the forefront of his mind, he reached deep within himself and found the connection to spirit. Each time he found it, it became easier. Tan pulled on this connection, hoping to protect his mind as he plunged through it to Asboel.

  Then he reached for the draasin. The pain was immediate and unbearable.

  He sunk to his knees. The grasses wrapped around his ankles and legs, reaching for his wrists. He ignored them, unable to focus on anything other than the pain.

  Tan steadied his breathing. With the connection to spirit, he pushed toward Asboel.