Valley of Embers (The Landkist Saga Book 1) (9 page)

“If the stories are to be believed, then the Sentinels are the sentient Captains of the Dark Kind in the World Apart,” he said, staring at Linn all the while. “Where the Dark Kind are an unthinking mass of tooth, claw and tail, the Sentinels are cunning and deadly. Some say they even control the Night Lords themselves.”

Nathen’s eyes widened, no doubt thinking of their moonlit stroll.

“Why have they not come before?” he asked. “I thought the Dark Kind came through in waves—through rifts.”

“Not the Sentinels,” Linn said, seizing on the covered fear in the room. “They’re too powerful to make it through, too easy for the World to mark and destroy upon entering. They need to be let in.”

“Now you believe the Sages have turned their eyes on us, just because Kole says so?” Jenk asked. He looked far from convinced. “He doesn’t know what he saw when the Night Lord caught him in its gaze. And he’s not one known for being objective when it comes to the Sages.”

“The attacks are getting worse every year!” Linn shouted. “And now we have Night Lords and Sentinels in the Valley. The World Apart skirts no closer now than it’s ever been before. This is direct. It’s just like the stories.”

There was a silence.

“I hear Reyna was more than injured when they brought him back.”

The speaker was Fihn. Her voice was high with a sharp edge.

“They say his eyes are black pits, staring out at nothing.”

Linn was about to speak, but Larren cut her off.

“I heard his screams echoing from the tower on my way over.” He looked around the chamber. “That boy is stout. He is Ember. It is troubling, Ve’Ran.” He looked at her hard. “But solutions lie in preparation, not rash action. What is it you want us to do? Why is it you called us here, out of sight and out of mind of Doh’Rah, Ninyeva and the First Keeper? You saw what happened to Reyna for chasing demons in the woods. Why would we do the same?”

Linn swallowed. She had to tread carefully here.

“Kole said he sensed the White Crest.”

Everyone in the room shifted at that.

“He couldn’t decide which of his hated Sages he saw,” Larren said, and Kaya snorted her agreement, earning a withering glare from the Second Keeper that put her back in her place.

“Kole is an Ember,” Jenk said, speaking slowly. “We have powers, yes, but none of them stray into anything like the sight of the Landkist native to this land—of the Faeykin. If Ninyeva had said so—

“She may as well have,” Linn said, her words short and clipped. Steam from the grates clung to her brow, sticking her dark bangs and giving her the uncomfortable feeling that she looked very much like a little girl fresh from a bath. “Ninyeva did not dispute anything Kole said, not even when the White Crest was brought up.”

“The White Crest is dead,” Baas said, his tone flat. His people held no love for the Sage or his legacy. After all, it was his battle with the agents of the Eastern Dark that brought down the passes over the heads of his grandsires. It was not so long ago. The White Crest had not been seen or heard from since.

“Kole says he is alive,” Linn said, her voice growing desperate. “I know what it must sound like, especially to those of you who don’t know him like I do. But Kole,” she paused. “He has this sense about him. He’s had it ever since—

“Ever since his mother fell in the Steps,” Larren cut in. “Sarise A’zu was as strong an Ember as there’s ever been in the Valley. I have no shame in admitting that. Her loss was keenly felt, by that boy most of all. But the sense you’re talking about is obsession. Sarise was killed by the Dark Kind. They’ve always been thicker in the north of the Valley, especially around the Deep Lands. She was a fool for having gone. Had the White Crest been present, he’d have protected her.”

“He is alive,” Linn said, though her voice was now soft as a whisper. “He has to be alive. Ninyeva knows it.”

Larren looked about to speak, to cut her words down again, but something in her expression gave him pause. He swallowed and looked away.

“The old bird gave him leave to find out what he saw at the close of the Dark Months,” Fihn said.

“Does it seem to you he’ll be able to make that deadline?” Linn countered.

“Doesn’t matter much to me. Not sure why it matters to you.”

“Because she wants him to be alive,” Jenk said, understanding dawning as he studied Linn’s face. “And she fears what Kole will do if he finds him.”

“Where has he been all this time, then?” Kaya asked “Hiding?”

“It would make sense,” Nathen said with a light shrug. “If he was gravely wounded. We don’t know how long Sages take to heal.”

Larren scoffed, something entirely unlike him. But he did not speak, just stood there with his back to the wall, shaking his head slowly.

“He’s been gone our entire lives,” Taei said, and all eyes turned to him. He glanced at Larren. “Most of our lives.” It was rare enough for the Third Keeper to speak. Rarer even than Baas Taldis, but it was the Riverman who answered.

“Here’s hoping it stays that way,” he said and Larren straightened.

Trusted Towles sidled awkwardly between Linn and the others carrying another bucket of scented water. This one smelled strongly of lavender and sour orange, a pungent combination clearly meant to signal that he had had enough of harboring this particular meeting. The baths were no doubt heated overhead and he had customers to tend to.

“Who says the Dark Kind will stop with the coming of longer days?” Linn asked.

“All of our prior experience, since the first attacks occurred not long after I was born,” Jenk said. “These creatures are perverted wretches from the World Apart, leaking in from the broken kingdoms in other lands. They have grown in number, yes, but they have not grown so bold as to attack us in daylight.”

“The Dark Kind used to be a force of nature, and a random one at that,” Linn said. “Now they attack like clock work, as if their scourge is a season unto itself. Before last night, they have never been bold enough to take down an Ember on our borders.”

“An Ember who went out alone,” Kaya said.

Still, Linn could tell all in the room save Baas were unsettled, the Embers most of all.

“What of the Faey?” Baas asked.

“What of them?” Jenk asked.

The hulking Riverman turned to him, the bench creaking under his weight.

“They meddle in the ways of magic, no? Perhaps they have turned the Dark Kind on us, seeking to purge us from the Valley.”

“We settled our issues with the Valleyfolk before you were born,” Larren said. “Besides, only the Eastern Dark can control the Dark Kind.” He looked at Linn, and she was surprised to see that he was waiting for her to speak.

“If the White Crest is alive,” she said, “we will need him to stop what’s coming.”

“What’s already here, according to some,” Larren said.

“We have a week to decide,” Linn said. “Maybe less. We need the days to get a bit longer, but if the Eastern Dark is intent upon us, I doubt it will make a difference.”

“We would be depriving the Lake of many of its stoutest defenders,” Larren said. “On a fool’s errand, to brave the Deep Lands and the Steps, and to see if a Sage that has not been seen in a generation will save us once more.”

“Look at it this way,” Linn said. “If our old enemy has returned, where do you think he’s holed up?”

“He could be anywhere,” Baas said.

“Maybe.”

“We should wait until Doh’Rah, Ninyeva and Tu’Ren make their decision,” Jenk said.

“They are not our leaders,” Linn said, and the unintended venom with which she said it caught the room off guard.

She swallowed.

“They will drag their feet, as they ever have, while we wait for the days to shorten once again. And then we will be asked to hold out another year, to hold out before we make an attempt on the peaks, before we see the state of the World. No. It is time we took our destiny into our own hands.”

“But not with Kole along,” Jenk said flatly. Linn had no response to that.

Baas clapped once, loudly, and rose, the bench sighing in relief. He slapped Nathen Swell on the back and nearly drove the wind from him before heading toward the door, leaving the others stunned. As he walked past Linn, she grabbed him by the shoulder and stopped him.

“You will not come?” she asked, eyes shining.

Baas blushed.

“I will come,” he said, turning to look at the others. “Was that not obvious?”

He smiled warmly at Linn before shouldering a stone-crusted shield that must have weighed as much as him and heading out onto the road, the pink light of the half-day filtering in behind him.

Nathen nodded to Linn and Jenk, boyish features hardening as he tried to match the mood of the room.

“I don’t imagine you’d get too far in the woods without me,” he said, patting Linn on the shoulder with a wink as he followed the Riverman.

Kaya looked unsteady and nervous. She kept switching her gaze from Jenk to Linn and back, unsure what to do and unwilling to commit. With a huff, she shouldered past Linn, the twins following in her wake. While Fihn looked miserable as ever, Taei looked reluctant, even apologetic, as he showed them his back.

Larren straightened and moved to the front of the room, Jenk following his progress. The Second Keeper stopped between them and looked at both, his expression stern as ever, but Linn sensed a touch of unease that made her distinctly uncomfortable.

“What we plan to do is no small thing,” he said.

Linn and Jenk looked at one another before turning back to the Ember.

“Nor does it leave Last Lake in an enviable position,” he continued. “Still, I have had the same thoughts these last few years. No matter what lies in the passes—be it an ailing power we once counted as friend or the agents of one who has long been the scourge of our people, we have a duty to find out.” He looked at Linn. “The burden is not yours to bear alone.”

Jenk’s sense of relief was as obvious as the sigh he expelled. Linn’s was masked, but no less profound. Her knees felt weak. Larren Holspahr was as close to a legend as you could get in the Valley, an Ember of rare power and perhaps the most skilled combatant she had ever seen. Even as she felt the one weight lift off of her shoulders, however, she felt another press down, and had to admit that there had been a part of her hoping Holspahr would be the one to talk some sense into her.

Whatever might come, their path was now set.

“I will leave correspondence with a trusted guard,” Larren said, oblivious to Linn’s swirling psyche. “Tu’Ren and the other defenders will know precisely where we have gone and when we plan to return. That should give them some basis by which to formulate a proper defense.”

The Ember started for the door, grabbing his spear, which nearly scraped the ceiling. “Let us hope that the attacks diminish with the coming of longer days.” He turned back once more with the door half-cocked. “And let us pray that they are not fool enough to follow us.”

The green door closed with a scrape, and they heard the clink of the butt of Larren’s spear on the cobbles as he retreated into the morning light.

“I think I’ll be praying that we’re lucky enough to return,” Jenk said, getting to his feet, much to the delight of Towles, who busied himself pretending to clean the place where he had just been.

Jenk extended his hand, and Linn took it, their eyes meeting through the mist.

“You’ve pushed us onto the right path, Ve’Ran. The only one there was, I expect.”

Linn tried to feel proud of what she had accomplished, convincing even half of the assembled warriors to join her. But Kole’s inhuman screams still echoed in her mind, the Ember crying out from his tower with nothing but a worried father and the salt of her sister’s tears for company.

“Next moon, then,” she said, her usual calm returning like a familiar cloak as she made for the door, grabbing her bow on the way. She flicked a piece to Towles, who fumbled before catching it. “Can’t say I loved that last mix you put in.”

She left Towles blushing and Jenk smirking as she braved the cool blast of Valley air and steeled herself for the walk to the tower.

T
he fishermen were already calling it ‘The Tower of Screams.’ Their jests covered the dark nugget of fear the hardened men of the shore kept hidden, but Iyana knew better.

She had spent the better part of a week caring for Kole. In fact, she had hardly left his side, a fact not lost on her sister. Even Karin, himself distraught and tortured, cautioned her not to burn herself out. She reminded him that, though Landkist, she was no Ember. Her own fires came from the Valley: these were fires of healing, flames that repaired rather than destroyed, and those were not easily blown out. Not so long as she cared.

Karin Reyna had only left to gather what linens and poultices Iyana needed to work. In truth, she had sent him out as often out of worry for his mental well being as necessity. He was, after all, First Runner. Remaining in a stifled tower with the prone form of his only son had not done him well. Iyana knew him to be a calm-if-introspective man, but the lines of worry on his face had never shocked her so as they did when the golden rays of the first dawn had struck his face.