Journey of Fire and Night (The Endless War Book 1)

by D. K. Holmberg

  She stumbled and sprawled across the ground. The j’na went flying, torn from her hand, and she landed on top of her waterskin. She rolled, instinctively knowing to protect it. Holding it out from her, she studied the bottle but saw no sign of damage. With a sigh, she crawled to her knees and started toward her j’na.

  Her hand grew slick as she did and she frowned. Why should she be sweating?

  Horror dawned over her. Not sweat, but water seeping from her bottle.

  In a panic, she ran her tongue over the side of the waterskin, lapping at the moisture and pinching the skin to try to hold the remaining water inside. More pushed through a crack she couldn’t see.

  Blast this place. Even if the fox calling over the stone didn’t catch her, she’d damaged the only way to stay alive.

  Ciara pulled the top off the bottle and tipped back the remaining water, drinking slowly, and then, as she continued to feel dampness on her hand, with more abandon. She licked the remaining drops from the bottle, not wasting anything, and then placed the top back on her skin and tucked it into her pocket.

  What now?

  She was too far from the village to make it back. Moving along the face of the rock ledge offered no guarantee that she’d ever find anything different than what she’d seen so far. That left down, but there was no way to get there. Nothing but the sheer face of rock.

  Ciara stopped, running her fingers along the edge. The surface was irregular, and she thought she felt places that could serve as handholds on the other side, but would she be able to use it to make it down the wall? Would she slip as she had when trying to climb the finger of rock in the village?

  Had she water remaining, she wouldn’t even consider it.

  To the south, she knew the ledge to be continuous. She’d walked in that direction for hours. How much farther would it stretch north? Would it eventually allow her to reach the floor, or would it keep going, running all the way like this until she reached… Ter? Someplace else?

  Ciara closed her eyes, trying to decide. Doing nothing meant death. Moving north was uncertain, but likely meant death. Though dangerous, down was the only option where she had even a chance.

  Before doing anything else, she secured her j’na to her belt. If she survived, she wanted it with her. The sharp lump of glass she’d pulled from the ground near Eshan jabbed her in the waist, and she moved it so that it wouldn’t poke her as she descended. The wrap with the painful needles went into a back pocket.

  She clutched the rock and eased herself over the ledge.

  Her heart fluttered, and she paused long enough to gain control of it. Panic wouldn’t help, not with what she needed to do, not if she wanted to survive.

  Her feet kicked at the stone, and she slid them along the edge, searching for anyplace she might find purchase. For a moment, she feared she would find nothing. The rock was irregular and rough, but there seemed nothing large enough to hold. Then she found a small ledge with her left foot.

  Ciara lowered herself, sliding carefully down the rock.

  The ledge held. Breathing out a sigh of relief, she shifted her right foot until she found another ridge, this one narrower than the other, but pinned to the wall as she now was, it would have to work.

  Finding handholds was easier. Her hands were small but her grip was strong from years spent training and climbing the rocks around the village. Like most children, she’d spent time scaling the rock fingers scattered throughout the edge of Rens. She was able to squeeze narrow holds and managed to hang on to the wall.

  With each step she took, she feared falling. Fas wouldn’t be there for her this time. Ciara didn’t dare glance down, knowing the hard rock was far below her. When she’d made the first dozen steps, she realized she should have made the climb in the daylight. At least the early morning light. Waiting until midday would only have left her too thirsty to go on, and the hot sun would have baked her on the rock. But at night, she had to rely upon feel rather than on anything she could see.

  Each movement went carefully. First the sliding of a foot, clinging desperately to rock as she attempted to remain in place, then a shift of a hand before moving her other foot, and finally her remaining hand. Slowly, over and over, she descended.

  Then a foot slipped.

  Ciara grabbed at the wall, squeezing with fingers already bloodied by the rock. Her hands were all that held her in place, but that grip began to fail. She slid her legs along the stone, praying that she would find another place to lock her feet into place, but found none.

  Then her fingers began to slip.

  Ciara cried out, unable to stop herself.

  She pressed against the wall, hoping to cling to it as if she were some sort of spider. How much farther did she have to go? She didn’t dare look down; even that little movement might be enough to send her dropping into the abyss below. Her sandaled feet caught nothing, or when they did, stone broke free and cascaded down the side of the wall.

  She slipped.

  Frantically, she scrambled to reach for something to grip, rasping her hands as she scraped them against the wall, grabbing for anything.

  When she fell, her mind went blank.

  Ciara thought of all the people she would be letting down. Her father, wanting nothing more than for her to serve the village, pushing her to be nya’shin even though she had no ability to shape. She thought of Fas and hoped he made it to the village, hoped they knew better than to attempt crossing the heart of the waste. Doing so only put them in danger; no water would be found here. And the village itself, all the people she had grown up around who relied on her ability to find water. Now she would let them down, too. Perhaps she never deserved to be nya’shin. Perhaps Eshan and the others who claimed that without the ability to shape, she would never be useful to the village had been right.

  Then she struck the ground.

  The impact took the wind from her and her back hit first, sending her shaking. Pain surged through her. Ciara cried out and heard the way the sound echoed across the stone in the moments before she saw nothing more.

  18

  Jasn

  Could it be that men do not intrigue the elementals? It is likely the draasin are not the only intelligent species, but none has ever revealed themselves in the same way as the draasin.

  —Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars

  Jasn sat among the tall pines and alder trees at the edge of the barracks, the wind gusting through their upper branches and sending twisting shadows crawling across the ground. They suited his mood. He could almost imagine the shadows creeping through his mind, matching the darkness that moved within him. His stomach ached slightly from the draasin injury, but that was more a memory of pain rather than real pain. It was the same each time he was injured by the draasin.

  In the distance, he heard the steady thumping of the larger creature against the stone of the pen. Were he to go there, slide his sword into its spine…

  Yet that was not what Alena wanted.

  She respected the creatures. They were powerful and clearly intelligent, but they were dangerous and deadly as well. Most in Ter wanted them dead, but not Alena. She would capture them, understand them. Control them.

  Did she think to ride them as well? Jasn had seen a few riders during his time in Rens. Such sightings were rare, but enough that he knew Rens had fighters capable of truly commanding the draasin. If Ter could manage the same… the war could finally be ended.

  Yet, Jasn had seen no sign that even those within the barracks knew enough about the draasin to control them. Hunt and capture, but control was something else.

  Too many questions remained, and he still felt like he’d learned so little while here. If Alena would teach, he might learn enough, but then that didn’t seem what she wanted either.

  With a shaping of wind, he followed the path to the camp the way that he did the very first day he arrived in the barracks with Lachen. At this time of evening, the camp began preparations to wind down. Smoke billowed from
the end of one building near the middle of the camp. Cooks preparing the evening meal would be working within, sweating over fires as they roasted meats culled from the surrounding mountains, or boiled stew, or baked the hard, crusty bread that wasn’t quite as good as what he enjoyed in Atenas. There were the soft sounds of laughter down another street, and he saw Bayan walking arm in arm with another shaper, a man named Olin. They saw him and waved. Jasn waved back but avoided going to them. As he passed another street, he saw another group, this with nearly five men. He recognized only Thenas’s and Porter’s faces. Jasn didn’t wave, and they made no sign that they saw him anyway.

  He found his way to the pen. It wasn’t surprising, really, that he should come to this place. Since learning that draasin were kept here, he’d felt drawn to it and wanted nothing more than to destroy the creatures held inside. The draasin held in the barracks might not be the same one that killed Katya, but he could imagine they were, and it sent an angry rage racing through him, driving him to unsheathe his sword and slam it through the back of their skull on a shaping…

  “Why do you hate them?”

  Jasn spun to see Alena watching him, one hand resting on the pen. “I don’t hate them. They’re animals.”

  Alena traced a finger through the writing on the outside of the pen. Jasn still hadn’t learned the shaping to enter.

  “They’re not animals.”

  Jasn grunted. “Creatures that attack men and are dangerous. Sounds like animals to me.”

  “I don’t disagree, but they are different. Can the wolves that prowl these mountains control earth as they control fire?”

  “The wolves can kill as surely as the draasin. At least the wolves aren’t controlled by Rens, sent to attack our people, kill those we know and care about.”

  Alena paused in the tracing and met his eyes. “That’s what this is about for you, is it? That’s the reason he chose you? Who did you lose? A brother? A friend?”

  Jasn refused to answer. He wouldn’t speak about Katya, not to Alena. From what he’d seen, Alena almost believed the draasin deserved to be protected, not hunted the way that Lachen wanted. “If you respect them so much, why are you here?”

  Alena turned her eyes to the pen and rested her hands on it, leaning almost as if in prayer. “You can respect something and not wish to see it destroyed but still wish to keep your people safe.”

  Jasn laughed softly, kicking dirt toward the pen. “You think you can herd them away from the border? That your shapings can keep places like Lith and Wessen safe?” They’d been the first cities devastated.

  “As one of the order, isn’t that your task?”

  Jasn shrugged. “That’s my task,” he agreed, “and my commander has given me a way to do it, only you refuse to teach me.”

  Alena slapped the stone, sending a soft tremble through it. Jasn hadn’t even felt her shaping. “Refuse? Is that what you believe? Then you haven’t been paying attention. I’ve done nothing but work with you, to try to show you what you will need when facing the draasin. What do you think all this has been about?”

  Jasn stared at her. Had she attempted to teach him?

  And if she could, there was so much that he could learn. He believed that she possessed shaping skill he did not, and wanted to learn from her.

  He couldn’t believe what he prepared to say next. He was a warrior of the order, trained by some of the most skilled shapers in Ter, but here he was, feeling as unskilled as when he’d first gone to Atenas, at least compared to the profound competence he saw from Alena. If he didn’t learn, he would never accomplish the task that Lachen had sent him here for. “Listen, I’ll do what you ask. I’ll follow your instruction. Teach me.”

  She tipped her head as if listening to something only she could hear before nodding. “I’ll make no promises.” She tapped the stone pen again and then started away.

  “Will you still work with me?”

  “Tomorrow,” she called over her shoulder without looking back. “If you fail again, I’m done with you.”

  Jasn watched her until she disappeared behind a nearby building. He sighed, leaning against the stone of the pen, and tapped his hand lightly on it. Energy radiated from the stone, but there was no sense of the rumbling that he’d detected when Alena slapped it. Even were he to learn that trick, the way to hide his shaping so that other warriors didn’t know when he shaped, it would be valuable.

  He sighed. As he did, he thought he felt a surge of fire through the stone, and jumped back.

  They were near the outskirts of Masul, a small village near the base of the Gholund Mountains. It was a logging town, a place where hardworking men felled trees, sending them down the wide Holad River to the mill in Masul. Sawdust filled the air, leaving the crisp scent of cut wood mixing with pine from cut branches hanging over everything and reminding him of his childhood.

  “Why are we here?” he asked, shifting his belt and feeling uncomfortable. She had told him to come dressed appropriately but hadn’t given any advice on what that meant or where they were going, forcing him to pack a small sack with a change of clothes. Jasn refused to grumble, not willing to do anything that might set Alena off.

  Alena was dressed differently today and wore a plain brown dress that accented her curves in a way that drew his eye. The black cloak draped over her shoulders hid her sword, making her look no different than any other traveler that would come through here. Only, that wasn’t quite true. With her long brownish blond hair and tanned face, she didn’t fit with the dark-haired, light-skinned people of Masul, not as Jasn would.

  “We’re here to see if you can save these people from danger.”

  Jasn smiled before realizing that Alena wasn’t kidding. “You placed one of the draasin here?”

  She shrugged. “You’ve failed in your previous lessons and wanted another chance. This is your chance.”

  Jasn stared toward the town, wondering where she might have left the creature. Even chained, it was still dangerous. The attempt he’d made on it had proven that as well as anything Alena had ever told him. Bound to the ground with the stone chains, the damn thing might not be able to fly, but that wouldn’t stop it from snapping its terrible jaws at the wrong person or breathing fire and consuming its victim no differently than it had done with Katya.

  Nothing in the town told him anything was amiss. People moved in the streets, men pushed logs along the shore with long poles, guiding them to the far end of town toward the mill, and children ran, high voices catching the wind, carrying the joy of their chase to him, joy that would be ended the moment the draasin showed itself.

  Jasn turned to Alena, rage building in him. “Where did you leave the creature?”

  Her face fell into a flat mask. “Careful, Warrior Volth.”

  “No. If you’ve left one of the draasin, even chained, in that town, we need to remove it. Now.”

  She started away from him. Jasn grabbed for her arm, but she shook him off. “No,” she said, “you need to find the danger. You’d better hurry, because it feels like it’s getting warmer.”

  Jasn ran to keep up with her. “Damn you, woman! Does Lachen know this is how you teach?”

  “The commander doesn’t run the barracks,” she reminded him.

  She continued onward to town. Jasn stared after her for a moment, anger coursing through him before he tried to tamp it down. He needed to do something before anyone was hurt. Afterward, he could go to Cheneth and share with the scholar the way that Alena intended to teach him. Surely he would have something to say about putting an entire town in danger.

  The air did seem to be getting warmer, but Jasn didn’t know if that was only his imagination. If it wasn’t, then the draasin would make itself known soon. How well would the stone chains hold? Would they be secure enough to keep it in place even when attacking others? Draasin were creatures of fire, with power greater than he could control—why should simple stone chains be enough to bind them in place?

  He had to act. Ja
sn might not know enough about tracking draasin in the mountains, but he wasn’t incapable and was better prepared to face them than anyone living in Masul. And he’d faced draasin often enough before, hadn’t he?

  Damn that woman.

  Alena had reached the town and still hadn’t bothered to look back at him, as if unconcerned about the death she might unleash were the draasin to manage to get free.

  Jasn paused near a cluster of trees to hide his pack—there would be no changing today—before jogging toward Masul. He slid his sword to the side but held the hilt he’d carved, taking deep breaths to calm himself as he reached the outskirts of the town. When he found it, would Alena even bother to help, or had she decided that this trial was up to him alone?

  He didn’t have the answer and had lost her along the street.

  Pausing near a small house with a thin trail of smoke spiraling into the sky, he sensed. Earth came first, and he detected the subtle energy all around him, the pressure of each footstep passing across the ground, the hundreds of people living in Masul. There were animals there as well: some dogs, likely kept as pets; a few cats chasing vermin or lounging in the rising sun; even birds chirping overhead, perched on branches or just flying above them. There was no sense of the draasin.

  Jasn hadn’t really expected to detect it this way. Alena had made the point that earth sensing wouldn’t always help and had forced him to use other senses to reach for the draasin when she’d blocked earth and water from him. Would wind work now?

  He reached for the wind, feeling for each breath as it moved through him, the way it played over his skin, the way it tugged at his cloak and hair. With the connection made, he stretched outward with it, listening for disruptions in it as others breathed it in. Jasn focused on each breath he detected on the wind, from the light touch of a child to the deeper breathing of the men working the logs, racing along the shore, but found no sign of the draasin’s breath. He continued to listen, but the wind would grant him no answers.