The Shadowsteel Forge (The Dark Ability Book 5) (23 page)

R
siran Slid
with Jessa to Brusus, and grabbed him. The next Slide took them into the main part of the tavern, where they emerged into chaos.

Tables were overturned. The musician cowered along the back wall, a gash in his forehead. Food and drink were spilled onto the floor. Those who had remained in the tavern backed against the wall.

Rsiran’s eyes were drawn away from all of that.

A trio of men stood arrayed around Alyse near the hearth. She’d lifted the sjihn tree sculpture and swung it something like a club, spinning to hold them back. A spray of light and pressure came from it as she did.

“Did you know that it could do that?” Jessa asked in a whisper.

He shook his head. “Watch for others,” he told Brusus.

“What are you going to do?”

“What Haern trained me to do.”

Rsiran
pushed
on three of his knives and sent them streaking toward the men facing Alyse. Without any of the men turning, the knives stopped and dropped to the ground.

He swore under his breath. At least he knew they controlled lorcith.

Alyse swung the sjihn sculpture in his direction. The light shooting from the base washed over him, a familiar sort of energy, and slipped harmlessly away.

The men attacking her were not left quite the same way.

Rsiran felt a stuttering sort of power. It took a moment to realize what he sensed: they attempted to Slide. Somehow, the sculpture kept them from being able to.

But not him.

Rsiran
pulled
himself in a Slide and emerged near the hearth. As he did, he
pushed
on a pair of knives, sending them flying, at the same time he
pulled
on the knives that now rested harmlessly on the ground, drawing them back to him.

One of the attackers turned. With a wave of his hand, the knives Rsiran sent at them went flying. He
pushed
, keeping them from hitting any of the others still in the tavern.

Using lorcith wasn’t going to work.

And he couldn’t run, not like he had the last time that Alyse had been attacked. He might be able to get himself free, and possibly his friends, but there were too many others here. If he left them, they would be as good as dead.

That meant finding some way that he could contain and stop these attackers.

Just because they could control lorcith didn’t mean they could control heartstone.

Rsiran unsheathed his sword and swung it in a pattern that Haern had demonstrated.

The man who had deflected his knives smiled and drew a sword from beneath his cloak. The metal was a deep black and like nothing he’d ever seen. Could it be the shadowsteel that he’d overheard Thom mention? If so, he would need to study it to understand what it could do, and whether there was any potential to it that he could discover, especially if it was the reason that the Elder Tree failed.

Alyse kept the other two attackers at a distance as she swung the sjihn sculpture.

The man challenging Rsiran darted forward, swinging his sword in a quick cutting motion. Rsiran blocked it and Slid back a step. The other man attempted to Slide—Rsiran saw it as a stuttering type of motion—but failed, still controlled by whatever Alyse did.

“Better if you just leave,” Rsiran said.

The man grinned. “Like the last time you faced one of the Hjan?”

Rsiran frowned. That was a term Haern had used for the assassins of Venass. “I’m better prepared this time.”

“You’re lucky to be alive.”

The man slipped forward, gliding as if on ice, as he ducked low, stabbing with the sword.

Rsiran had been ready and slashed, blocking the movement. The man spun, bringing his sword around. Had Rsiran not Slid to the left, he would have been hit.

This time, he
pushed
his entire sword toward the man.

Since his attack, the connection to heartstone had changed. No longer did it have the same slippery quality. Now, Rsiran had a tight grip. When he
pushed
on the sword, it flew straight.

The sword pierced the man in the chest and he fell.

Rsiran
pulled
his sword back to him. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Jessa sneaking toward the attack.

“Careful,” he warned. “They can control lorcith.”

“So can you,” she said.

“Grab the sword. I might need—”

One of the men attacking Alyse spun and threw a knife at Jessa.

It wasn’t lorcith.

Rsiran reacted the only way that he could. He Slid, grabbing Jessa, and
pulled
her to the side. He wasn’t sure that he had been fast enough.

When they emerged, she was unharmed.

The man grabbed a sword and spun toward Rsiran.

Rsiran shoved Jessa behind him and held the heartstone sword out from him. When this man attacked, he moved faster than a snake. He didn’t even need to Slide to be deadly.

He
pushed
on his sword, but he knew he wouldn’t be fast enough.

Then the man fell to the ground. Two knives stuck out his back.

“Never cared for the Hjan,” Haern said, grabbing the knives, “even when I was one of them.”

Only one of the men remained, and Alyse had him confined with the sjihn sculpture, bathed in white light that spilled from the end of the sculpture.

Haern simply walked up to the man and smacked him on the back of the head with the end of his knife. The man crumpled to the ground.

Alyse swung the sculpture toward them before catching herself. She lowered it slowly, but didn’t set it all the way to the ground. “What happened?” Her voice trembled nearly as much as her arms.

“Seems that Venass thought it was time to attack you,” Haern said.

Rsiran glanced around the tavern. Brusus had shooed everyone else out, and blocked the door. When Brusus saw Alyse still standing, Rsiran watched relief flood his eyes.

“Why would I be attacked?” Alyse asked.

“Because of him,” Haern said, pointing a thumb at Rsiran. Haern turned to Rsiran. “What changed? I See… something is different. I can’t tell exactly what.”

Rsiran glanced to Alyse. That she would be attacked so soon after Rsiran had overheard their grandfather meant the Venass were no longer going to hide their intent. And if Alyse could be attacked…

“We need to get to Della,” he said.

Brusus nodded. “Go. I’ll stay here and find out what he might know,” he said, nodding to the fallen man, “and I’ll keep her safe. Take Haern.”

Haern smiled. “Seemed like she’s the one who kept herself safe.”

Rsiran Slid, grabbing Haern. He turned to Jessa. “Stay with Brusus and keep each other safe,” he said.

“You shouldn’t…”

“Haern will be with me.”

Jessa looked like she wanted to say something else, but she bit her lip and shook her head. With a nod, she went over to Alyse.

“You ready?” Haern said.

“I’m not sure we have a choice but to be ready,” Rsiran answered.

They Slid, emerging in Della’s home.

A body lay on the floor near the hearth. Rsiran Slid to it and checked for a pulse, but there was none. He rolled the person, and didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t one of the guild members that Ephram had asked to keep watch over Della.

“Hjan,” Haern said.

“Like you?”

Haern tapped his scar. “Not anymore.”

Haern traced a finger over a scar on the man’s chest. Rsiran listened for lorcith, and then for heartstone, but detected neither.

“What did they use to augment their abilities?”

“Some were lorcith, others heartstone.” Haern traced a finger over his scar again. “Others… well, the most dangerous of the Hjan used something else.”

“Shadowsteel,” Rsiran said.

“What kind of metal is that?”

“When I Traveled and overheard my grandfather. They spoke of shadowsteel.”

Haern inhaled slowly. “Not sure that I ever heard of that.”

Rsiran started toward the back room, where he’d last seen Della. With a dead body by the hearth…

When they reached the back room, they found it empty.

“Where is she?” Haern asked.

“She was here. Resting after we went into the Aisl.”

Rsiran made his way around the bed, looking for sign of where Della might have gone. And had she fled from the Hjan attacker? With one dead on the floor, would that mean there’d been more than one, and that maybe Della had been taken? Or worse?

“Where do you think she went? Do you think she’s in danger?” Rsiran asked.

“Not much I can See with her. She’s too powerful for one like me.”

He noticed a trail of blood near the bed and leaned to it. Not only blood, but a silvery mixture mingled with it. “She’s hurt.”

Haern leaned over him. “Hmm.”

Rsiran stood and returned to the main room. There were no other signs in the home to help them determine what happened.

“We need to find her.”

When Haern said nothing, Rsiran turned.

Haern stood in the doorway to the back room, staring at Rsiran with a blank expression. Behind him was Thom.

“Didn’t expect to see you up and around so well,” Thom said.

Rsiran Slid forward in anger before catching himself. “And I didn’t think that you were foolish enough to face me again.”

“What’s foolish when you have the advantage?”

“What advantage is that?”

“You still don’t understand what I can do, do you?”

Rsiran
pushed
on a pair of knives, sending them toward Thom. “And you still don’t understand what
I
can do.”

Haern spun and Thom’s eyes widened. He dropped and kicked at the same time, sending Haern flying toward Rsiran. Something cracked as Haern landed.

“You won’t be able to Compel him,” Rsiran said to Thom. “And you remember what happened the last time you tried to Compel me.”

“Interesting. It almost makes me want to capture you alive.” He spun a pair of knives in a blur.

“They don’t want me alive?”

A dark smile passed over Thom’s face. “They did, but you’ve proven more troublesome than you’re worth. And they think they now understand what they needed, anyway.”

Thom took a step toward Rsiran.

Rsiran
pushed
on his knives.

Thom blocked two of them, but he wasn’t quick enough to block the pair that Haern had been carrying. Those Rsiran
pulled
, and caught Thom in his arms, and
pushed
hard enough to drive him back, forcing him all the way to the wall where the knives sank into the wood.

His face darkened, and he writhed in place, kicking toward Rsiran, straining against the knives that held him against the wall, but Rsiran used the strength of Ilphaesn, imagining the lorcith in the mountain itself, and held him down.

“Where is Della?” Rsiran asked.

Thom stopped moving.

Rsiran kept himself far enough away that Thom wouldn’t be able to reach him. “Where is she?”

Thom lifted his chin. “You know, when I first met you, I thought you were soft. You came looking for your father, thinking that he might have some answers for you. It was then that we thought maybe he had more of a hold over you than we’d anticipated. But you left him to Venass. Never went after him. And we realized that hold might not have been so strong, after all.”

“Where is Della?” Rsiran asked again.

“But then you went and saved your sister. I’ll admit that I didn’t think she would hold any sway over you, but
he
was convinced that you were more tightly tied to her than we realized. I don’t know that I would have believed it. A good thing that we now have her.”

Rsiran held his sword toward Thom, the point nearly piercing his flesh. “If you thought that you managed to grab my sister, then
you
were wrong. I was there. She’s safe.”

Thom only smiled. “Is that what you think?”

Rsiran glanced to where Haern lay on the ground. He hadn’t moved since landing. Rsiran would have to get him help before too long. He’d have to find Della for Healing. But he needed answers as well. And Thom would have them.

“Where is Della?”

He stabbed with the sword, drawing a wheel of blood from Thom’s neck. He winced and jerked his head back. Only then did Rsiran see that Thom’s eyes drifted to the far side of the room.

Rsiran
pushed
the blade a bit deeper, then
pulled
it back and spun, swinging his sword around.

His grandfather stood across from him. A dark smile spread across his face.

“Rsiran. Finally, we meet.”

Rsiran readied to
push
a pair of knives. Quietly, he counted the remaining knives that he had on him, and realized that he might have to
pull
on those still in Thom if the fight became too much.

His grandfather eyed the heartstone sword and waved his hand. The sword dipped to the ground, nearly forced out of Rsiran’s hand.

Rsiran gasped.

“You are not the only one able to control the potential of lorcith.”

Rsiran glanced to the sword blade. It wasn’t lorcith. Which meant that his grandfather could also manipulate the potential of heartstone.

“If you can do that, why did Venass need me to study?”

His grandfather moved his eyes from the sword to Rsiran’s face. “Did you really think that you were the only one with your gift? There are others. There have
always
been others.”

With a
push
that Rsiran felt, one that was stronger than he would have imagined possible, the sword fell to the floor, pinned there.

His grandfather waved his hand and a pair of lorcith knives flew to him. Blood stained the tips, and Rsiran turned in time to see that Thom was freed from the wall. Thom stepped over Haern, and stood next to his grandfather.

“Why?” Rsiran asked. “Why would you side with Venass?”

His grandfather tipped his head, and amusement wrinkled his brow. “Side with? My dear boy, I think you fail to grasp the entirety of the situation. I have never
sided
with Venass.”

“Then why are you working with them?”

His grandfather’s smile widened. “Again, I think that you have missed the point of what is happening.”

Rsiran glanced from his grandfather, to Thom, and then down to Haern, where he still didn’t move. An overheard comment came back to him, one that he hadn’t grasped the significance of while Traveling and observing his mother and grandfather. Thom had called his grandfather ‘Master.’