Leaves of Flame (24 page)

“That proves only that you are one of the elloktu.”

“Would one of the Lost be able to stand here on the Lands, this close to the Summer Tree?” Colin couldn’t keep a hint of annoyance out of his voice.

The dwarren leader considered in silence, then gave a grudging nod of acknowledgment and respect, although Colin could still see suspicion in his eyes. “Shaeveran. We will escort you to our clan chief, Tarramic.”

He spun his gaezel and issued a few curt commands, then motioned them all forward, the group breaking away and one of the dwarren ululating as the scouts spread out to either side.

“What did they say?” Siobhaen asked harshly.

“They questioned who I was, but have offered to escort us to the clan chief.”

On his other side, Eraeth said shortly, “That is the first time I have ever seen the dwarren question who you were. Or been so wary of those entering their land. Something has happened.”

“We already know that the balance of the Wells has been disrupted. The return of the storms would not have gone unnoticed by the dwarren. Perhaps that is all it is.”

All of Eraeth’s doubt was voiced in a look.

Colin kneed his mount forward, Eraeth and Siobhaen doing the same to either side. They charged down the low slope in the wake of the dwarren, their horses catching up to the gaezels after a long moment of hard riding, the two groups slowing and adjusting to a steady pace that wouldn’t drain their mounts. The leader of the dwarren party ranged out ahead, the other four members dividing and slipping to either side.

They rode for two days, setting a fast pace, halting at odd times during the day at water sources to eat and rest, the dwarren raising small tents for sleep at night. Their route was circuitous, the dwarren leading them off the direct path in order to keep their water sources and warren entrances hidden.Twice during the first day, they sighted occumaen in the distance. Not as large as the one that had torn through the battlefields at the Escarpment, but big enough to engulf a man and his horse. Both times, the scouts brought the distortions to the dwarren leader’s attention, his face hardening at each occurrence. The second day, storm clouds pounded the plains with a deluge of rain and blue-purple lightning to the north.The entire group paused on a low rise to watch, sunlight shaded with raised hands. Colin felt a tingle of remembered hatred, the cold hands of the dead against his skin. Karen and his parents—along with the rest of the doomed wagon train—had survived such a storm, only to succumb to the Shadows afterward.

For a moment, despair washed over him. What had he achieved since then? Nothing had changed. The world was still plagued by the Wraiths and Shadows, the unnatural storms and the Drifters still riddled the plains. What had been accomplished during all of that time?

“Nothing,” he said out loud. Eraeth gave him a sidelong look, but he ignored it.

But something within him hardened. His jaw clenched and he straightened, his hands trying to grasp the handle of the staff Vaeren had taken from him. He would need to ask for a replacement, wasn’t certain that the Ostraell would grant it. And he needed to convince the dwarren that the time for complacency was gone. He wasn’t certain how he would do that, not with the protection of the Seasonal Trees in place. For the fi rst time since he’d created them, he wished he hadn’t. They were defensive, and they were powerful enough to allow the three races to settle back and cower behind that defense under the guise that nothing was wrong. The fact that Walter and the Wraiths hadn’t been able to break the defense, that they had vanished from Wrath Suvane as if they had never existed, hadn’t helped. Too much time had passed, and the races had grown complacent and lazy.

But no more, he vowed.

He turned toward the leader of their escort.“How much farther to the Thousand Springs cavern?” He knew, but he did not want the dwarren to lose their sense of isolation and security.

The leader tore his gaze from the storm to the north. “Two days, at most.”

“No. Not how long if we continue to travel the way we have been traveling. How long if we head directly there?”

The leader scowled, shot a glance toward the dwarren who had the markings of a shaman. When the shaman shrugged, the scowl faded and he caught Colin’s gaze. “We can be there by the end of today.”

“I need to speak to your clan chief immediately. It concerns the storm and the occumaen and the renewal of the Turning.”

The dwarren’s eyes widened, and the shaman suddenly stared intently at Colin.

“We will take you to him now.”

It was the shaman who spoke, nodding to the leader curtly in an unspoken order.

The leader glared at the three of them as if they’d somehow shamed him on purpose, then pulled on his gaezel’s horns to bring the beast about. He said nothing, merely kicking the mount forward with a wordless guttural cry.

All formality fell away as the Riders tore across the plains, the horses struggling to keep up. Colin found himself leaning forward over his horse’s neck, urging it onward with soft words. To the side, Eraeth and Siobhaen did the same, although he thought he heard Eraeth cursing. The land fell away, yellow-green grass blurring as the storm to the north edged farther southward, dogging them. The group flowed over the low hills and sped across open flats, heading almost directly south. By the time the horizon began to flare with orange along its length as the sun set, still shimmering with the day’s heat haze, Colin felt every muscle in his body burning with the exertion and shudder of the horse’s muscles beneath him. He thought they were going to have to ride into the night.

But then they crested another rise, no different than the scores they had already crossed, except that this time, the plains opened up to reveal one of the dwarren tent cities.

Colin had seen them before, but not for twenty years. Thousand Springs had grown since then.

A huge central pole thrust up out of the plains, as thick as the boles of the cedars near the Well in the Ostraell, shorn of limb and with the bark peeled back. Colin had been to the center of the tent city before, had touched that central spire and knew its strength. Blue cloth had been fastened and wound around it, flaring outward at seemingly odd intervals, creating the main enclosure beneath, composed of a hundred rooms, the material twisted, draped, and wrapped around a thousand additional lines, poles, and stakes. The result was a reversed whirlpool, the swirls of cloth winding upward and drawing the eye to the darkening sky above, where the first stars were beginning to appear. In the twilight, the blue of the cloth appeared violet.

The rest of the city had been constructed around this central tent, never reaching as high, but crafted in such a way as to mimic the central flow so that when the winds blew across it, the rippling of the cloth echoed the currents of a river. From this distance, the entrance to the underground warren and the true home of the Thousand Springs Clan couldn’t be seen. A hundred years before, the tents would have been erected only when the dwarren were preparing to fight one of their own clans, or the invading Alvritshai or human forces. Now, it appeared more permanent. Lanterns were being lit, and through the silhouettes of tents and the figures of dwarren going about their nightly business, he spotted the wooden fence of a corral alongside a rounded water tower with sluices that led to troughs. Some of the land had been plowed recently, and a few granary huts stood to one side. There were no defenses of any kind; no walls or watchtowers. The dwarren’s greatest defense was to retreat beneath the plains, to their interconnected strongholds underground.

The escort of dwarren tore down the side of the ridge without pause, Colin taking in the differences in the tent city as his horse’s gait jarred his bones.To the side,he caught Siobhaen gaping at the sight. Within moments, they were moving between the outermost tents, dwarren scrambling out of their way as they began to slow. But the leader of the escort didn’t halt. He raced through curved thoroughfares between the tents, moving steadily inward toward the entrance to the caverns beneath. Dwarren shouted at them as they passed, Colin catching shocked faces as the men and women saw the Alvritshai and human in their midst.

By the time they made the last turn, the dwarren who guarded the entrance were waiting for them. There were enough to block the entrance, and the escort was brought up short.The leader and the shaman cantered their gaezels forward to speak to the guards. As they did so, Colin scanned the group, frowning at what he saw.

“What is it?” Eraeth asked immediately.

“There’s more than one clan represented in the Riders guarding the entrance. I see Thousand Springs warriors, but also Silver Grass and Shadow Moon Clans here as well.”

“What does it mean?”

“If it were merely one other clan, I’d say nothing, but two. . . .” Colin shook his head. He took a closer look at their armor. “They aren’t dressed for a formal visit either. They’re dressed for war.”

The shaman and their leader broke into heated argument, the Riders they spoke to eyeing Colin skeptically. Whatever the shaman said, though, the guard fi nally relented.

“Stay close,” Colin said. “Tensions are bound to be high with three clans present.”

Three additional Riders joined their escort, one from each of the three clans, and then the shaman led the group down into the black entrance to the dwarren tunnels. The three horses balked at passing underground, but relented after some coaxing.

The main entrance opened up into a large room, then narrowed to a doorway, giant doors pulled back to the side beneath a massive mantle of carved stonework. For the first long leg, the grade of the slope was smooth, the corridor shored up and lined with cut stone of various colors from across the plains, massive support columns at regular intervals. Each support column had a central keystone in place at its height, which Colin knew could be knocked out, allowing the arch and a good portion of the tunnel roof to collapse. If the main doors couldn’t be held, then the dwarren were prepared to seal the entrance completely. Each section between keystones was lit with metal sconces of oil to either side.

Once they passed beyond this initial defense, the corridor narrowed and branched, the cut stone giving way to a type of granite that was too smooth to be natural, with no obvious seams to indicate how it had been constructed. It appeared to be made of solid rock, yet with carved murals at various points along its length. The number of sconces dropped, so that they passed from one pool of light to the next, the space between growing dark, but close enough to the next sconce that it wasn’t completely black. More and more dwarren appeared, carrying baskets or satchels, some pulling carts or pushing wagons loaded with stone or grain or unidentified barrels. Interspersed among them all were dwarren Riders, usually in groups of two or three, an occasional messenger trotting alone, a carved wooden cylinder clutched in one hand like a baton.

Then the corridor changed, sloping downward sharply enough that the escort Riders were forced to slow. The number of dwarren increased as well, the corridor now thronged with them—women and children appearing with greater frequency, nearly all of them carrying baskets or satchels of food. More joined them from side corridors in steady streams. At Siobhaen’s questioning look, Colin said, “They’re returning from the surface.They must be harvesting early spring crops.”

The corridor ended suddenly, opening up into a massive cavern filled with the roar of thousands of dwarren and the thunderous crash of water.As they descended a ramp to the wide flat plaza that made up the center of the cavern, Colin heard Siobhaen gasp. Even Eraeth drew back in shock.

Water streamed down the entire far wall of the cavern, its source coming from at least three major tunnels and two smaller ones, the streams crashing together in midair before plummeting in a single column to a massive pool below.The air was filled with mist, lit by hundreds of sconces scattered around the plaza and shining from the openings that covered the remaining walls of the rest of the chamber. This was the dwarren’s true city, rooms carved out of the walls all the way to the ceiling that towered overhead. Stairs and ledges zigzagged from door to door in a maze that nevertheless appeared to follow an intricate pattern, one that Colin thought he would be able to make out if he could spare the time. It was a hive of activity, bustling with dwarren as they moved from one level to another. Near the base of the walls, larger doorways led to storerooms, and nearer to the waterfall lay the chambers set aside for the clan chief, the head shaman, and the keeva—the room reserved for ritual contemplation and the heavy decisions made by both.

The escort surrounded them and led them toward the keeva after a word with a group of dwarren standing guard near the entrance to the cavern. As they approached, Colin picked out the heavy scent of yetope smoke beneath the thick layer of dampness and the heavy musk of earth and dwarren living in enclosed quarters for centuries on end. The doors to the keeva were shut, but he could see light shining in the cracks between it and the frame.A faint wisp of smoke curled from the edge near the top.