Valley of Embers (The Landkist Saga Book 1) (23 page)

“Push off!” Nathen screamed, likely for the tenth time, bloody hands cupped over his mouth to be heard over the rush. Linn tried, but her kicking found no stone and only served to send them into a chaotic spin.

“There!” he screamed, and Linn came back around, her heart catching in her throat as she saw a steep swell up ahead. It looked like the fin of some great leviathan, and though it could just as easily kill them, it marked their only hope.

Live.

The thought was a small, glowing thing at her center—the same that had compelled her to fight back against the Sentinel on the road. She had then and she would now.

The frothing spur shot toward them—or they toward it—and Linn braced, extending her legs forward and preparing for the shock of impact. When her feet struck, it was all she could do to keep Jenk from being torn from her grasp. She heard Nathen yelling, heard the roar of the falls and she despaired.

Until she heard Jenk breathing. As the current buffeted them on the near side of the stone, she pulled the Ember close and felt the heat of his breath on her ear, the rattle of phlegm in his chest. She concentrated on her legs, judging the distance between her and Nathen’s promontory.

Hers were legs that had run down bucks under the trees. They were legs that acted as unmoving beams that rooted her to the wall as she fed slicing shafts to the Dark Kind. These legs did not shake when she learned of her parents deaths or saw the sheet fall from her father’s face.

She met Nathen’s eyes, and her steely look had him swallowing, his feet shuffling forward as he crept to the very edge of the plateau.

One moment to erase all others, and she shot across the breach. The current caught her around the knees and tilted her awkwardly, Jenk’s prone form acting as an anchor she tried to drag with her. But Nathen caught her hand, his seafaring muscles bunching sickly at odds with his boyish features. He heaved and brought them both up, and she felt the cold obsidian rush up to meet her as she fell coughing onto its surface.

The panic took time to settle, and Linn pulled herself away from the rushing river as if it were a beast deprived of its prize. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the spinning and throbbing to stop. When it did, she pushed herself up onto her knees and turned to see Nathen working over Jenk, his palms pressing furiously on the Ember’s chest as water bubbled from his open mouth.

She thought Jenk lost, and the look on Nathen’s face nearly confirmed it, until that look turned from horror to discomfort. The air shimmered around Nathen and the prone Ember like liquid. It bent and twisted like a mirror, and then the steam began to rise from him as the water was burned out of his lungs. His chest rose and fell at even intervals.

“Jenk,” she choked, struggling to her feet and dragging herself forward. She kept a wary eye on the black current. Though its roar now seemed dulled, they were still far too close for her liking.

“Ve’Ran,” Jenk wheezed, smiling up at them both. “Swell. I see the two of you made the trip in one piece.”

Jenk appeared none the worse for wear, but the gash he had suffered on his scalp was a nasty thing, his hot blood doing little to close it in the chaos and exhaustion. Nathen drew a needle from the drenched pouch on his belt and tore a blue thread from his shirt, setting to work as Jenk winced.

“Now, now,” Linn said, settling down gingerly onto her bruised tailbone. “You’re an Ember of the Lake, Ganmeer. Don’t let a fisherman’s hook scare you when demons cannot.”

“Fair enough,” Jenk said through gritted teeth.

A short time later, Nathen pulled his shoulders back in a stretch. He stood and wrung out the remnants of the river from his shirt, a thread of which now adorned Jenk’s bloody blonde hair with a streak of blue. Jenk sat up, and the three were silent for some time, the drone of the river the only conversation.

“Where are we?” Nathen asked. He looked to Linn and she to Jenk.

Jenk had his dark Everwood blade drying in his lap. Somehow, his sheath had held where theirs had not. Aside from a long knife Nathen had beside him on the stone, Jenk’s was the only weapon between them.

The Ember raised his arms to encompass the view behind him. The high ceiling was lost in the filtered gloom that had now grown darker than before. The lake shown like a glittering black gem and the white spray of the river lapped hungrily at the glass shelves before tumbling down into the winding depths. To the right, there was something approaching a natural staircase, framed away from the curving river by a natural pillar that spanned the space from ceiling to floor.

“My children,” he said, blowing out a sigh. “Welcome to the River F’Rust.”

Nathen looked confused, while Linn’s eyes widened.

“The river that was broken during the White Crest’s battle with the Night Lords?” she asked, looking around in awe.

“The very same that feeds the waters of the Fork. Though, you can never truly break a river, only redirect it. Looks like this one retreated down. Our great grandparents likely walked along its shores when they first entered the Valley.”

Nathen looked embarrassed.

“I wasn’t raised on the Lake,” he said by way of apology. “The folk in the Scattered Villages aren’t much for history lessons.”

Linn nodded. She knew the folk in the villages, though Emberfolk by blood, had largely cast off their histories. She could not say she blamed them.

“We need to get moving,” Jenk said. “This is the River F’Rust, or some spawn of it. If we follow it, we should be able to find our way to the Steps above.”

“It’s no wonder,” Linn whispered, and the others regarded her. “It’s no wonder Baas and his own fear the Deep Lands. There aren’t any Night Lords lying in wait for us—no Sages prowling the depths. But think of how many of his folk must have fallen in the battle. The Rivermen weren’t named by mistake. The passes were their lands before the Breaking of the Valley.”

The caverns took on a new light, the echoing sounds of the water crashing discordantly, like voices. Nathen shivered and Linn felt foolish for having said anything.

She rose and checked herself over, noting few cuts but myriad bruises that had purpled her flesh. As she turned, she noted Jenk’s roving look and strange expression.

“Nothing like that,” Jenk said, holding up his hands as he gained his feet. “It’s just, seeing the state you’re in, I can only imagine how I look.”

“I’ll manage,” Linn said. “I imagine you will too.”

Nathen rolled out his pack, revealing their meager stores. They ate the soggy bread immediately, since it would not keep another day, and distributed the thin strips of dried meat. In the silence of preparation, Linn could not help but replay the scene in the cave. She heard Kaya’s breaking and wondered how long Baas could have lasted against the Sentinel wearing Holspahr’s skin. Judging by their expressions, the others were thinking along the same lines.

“Where to next?” Nathen asked. It would have been funny if his easy demeanor was not just a pale mask. Linn smiled at him anyway. If ever there was a time for masks, this was it.

“For starters,” Jenk said, “it looks like we’re going down.”

He pointed behind the two of them to the sloped chute that carved half a hollow from under the pillar. Jenk took the lead, but kept his blade doused for the time being. There was still enough of the filtered light to see by, spilling down through the cavernous heights and following them into neighboring chambers that broke off from the guts of the subterranean lake.

“That light has to be coming from somewhere,” Nathen said.

“I’d imagine the sky,” Jenk quipped.

“The sky is black,” Linn said, and the three of them stopped dead in their tracks. “Wherever it’s coming from, it has to be above the clouds.”

The revelation propelled them onward, and they took comfort in each other rather than dwelling on what might lie in wait above or below. They walked for a day and more, and the light faded, the sloping caverns traveling down along the thickest sections of the river rather than up. For the most part, they managed to keep their course, following the flow by walking on shelves alongside or crossing the river. Linn never looked at the black water for long.

There was nothing soft in the Deep Lands. No moss grew along stalactites or stalagmites. No animals skittered in the darkness. Their journey was beginning to remind Linn of being on the inside of a massive nest of coral, only one devoid of life. It was place for ghosts and bones. She thought of Iyana and how her younger sister would collect the dried pieces of white and pink from the shore and line them on her windowsill.

If there was one benefit to the exhaustion they all felt, it was that it let them sleep anywhere and at any time. She could not speak for Jenk and Nathen, but for Linn, the fatigue also served to keep the nightmares at bay, picking at her from the edges but rarely stepping into the light. She hoped it would last and felt guilty for it, the faces of Kaya, Baas and Larren passing like shadows behind her eyelids.

She woke to the sound of rushing and the furious beating of her own heart. Though it was cool, she was sweating. This rush was not the sound of gentle running they had followed for hours the previous day, but the concussive roar that had swept them along its thrashing currents and nearly drowned them. For an instant, Linn thought it was the confusion and haze of waking, but as she stilled her breathing, she listened closer.

It had not been long, but Linn felt as though she knew the River F’Rust as if it were a living thing. She knew its moods and dispositions. This was a drum of anger, the steady pounding of the river against the bowels of the broken peaks that formed its prison.

Linn rose and drifted toward the back of the small cavern in which they rested. She reached the back wall and placed her palm on the black stone. It was slick with wet, soaked through and thrumming like a bird’s wings. It was pitch dark, Jenk unable to keep his blade going without wasting precious reserves, so she navigated by touch.

She yelped as her right hand passed through the space where the wall should have continued. Luckily, the fall was not far, her hands scrabbling for purchase as the bottom of a small tunnel reached up to greet her. The sound was magnified here and the air less stale.

Nathen and Jenk were up in a rush, their feet slapping on the stone. A flare burned up the darkness and had Linn yelping again, this time for the shock as the light hit her eyes.

“I’m fine,” she said, holding up a hand to ward off the yellow light. “More than fine, actually.”

“What is it?” Jenk asked. “What did you find?”

“The way up.”

A
s it had so many times before, the dream marked his passage into sleep just as it ushered his way into waking. It was the same dream Kole had been having since he was nine. It was a dream of his mother.

Sarise A’zu was surrounded by shadows in a strange, wind-swept land of rocky crags and misty peaks. She bled from a dozen wounds, weakened from a hundred slashes and bruised from scores of staggering blows. But she fought, drawing the flames from the air itself when her twin blades broke and tumbled into the swirling clouds below.

The dream had grown clearer as of late, the shadows resolving themselves into forms more distinct, more horrible. Even his mother’s face, which he had never forgotten, grew lighter. It was stern and beautiful. Just as she always did, Sarise burned all of the shadows away, the Dark Kind fleeing before her wrath. This was where the dream usually ended and the confusion set in.

She had killed them all. They were ashes in the wind and rain. But there had been another. Until now, it had been a presence, like a feeling on the edge of seeing. Now, he saw the white robes fluttering like wings, and he saw Sarise standing at the heart of her flames, her eyes piercing and chin up. She looked like defiance, mouthing words he could not hear.

For a long time, Kole thought the flames she conjured from her bare hands were an invention of his subconscious. Now, he was not so sure. Not after what he had witnessed before the walls of Hearth. Not after what he had done.

Did all Embers possess such latent power? Did Tu’Ren? Larren?

It seemed impossible, but seeing that his body felt like a burned-out husk and his head pounded like he had drunk nothing but mulled wine for a week, he supposed there were reasons to keep from finding out. There was another, but it was beyond his reckoning at present, dangling just behind his conscious mind.

He swept his legs over the edge of the cot, his feet touching the cold stone of the barracks floor with a shock. Captain Caru’s chambers were sparse and modest, the light limited to the blue nightglow issuing from a lone square window and the dull red flicker of the dying embers in the grate. He crossed to the fireplace and dug his fingers into the ashes, communing with the burning nuggets within. Though they were loath to give up their heat since it meant their deaths, they did so for the Landkist of the deserts.

Kole breathed deep and rose, feeling stronger than before. He felt his blood run hotter as it passed through his heart and into his aching limbs, where it warred with and ultimately annihilated the pain. He put on the clothes that had been laid out for him and tied his harness, eyes widening when he noted the scars and cracks along his Everwood blades. It was said such weapons, properly treated, could survive a thousand battles. How hot, then, had those fields become? It was all too hazy for him to remember.