Valley of Embers (The Landkist Saga Book 1) (45 page)

As one, they spun to the north. There, faint and fading, the great serpent floated, its bright eyes glowing like the pre-dawn sky. Its look was wild and hateful, and its features shifted chaotically from reptilian to avian and back.

Kole stepped forward, spreading his arms wide in challenge, his twin blades burning brighter than the golden fields beyond, the fading sunlight illuminating his black armor like a grounded star.

“Is this all your power?” he screamed. “We have taken the dark from you, monster! Now we take your life.”

With a piercing shriek, the serpent wheeled and dived toward the keep, its passing churning up the pathway and shattering the marble gate in a rain of gray shards. Kole, Baas and the warriors of the Fork took up the chase, while Misha stayed back with Linn and the others, Jenk’s crackling blade held uncertainly in her hands.

Kole felt the familiar heat light his veins like glowworms, his muscles charged and thrumming, aching to be freed into the beautiful chaos of battle. The flames along his blades streaked like razors, bouncing from tip to hilt and even engulfing his hands as he fed the fire.

He was first to reach the steps of the mock citadel and he plunged into the inky black, his blades flaring as he entered, tongues of fire whipping and curling. He cast about, wild, and saw nothing but the amber light reflected back from the cracked marble floors and sparkling soapstone pillars. Above, the light caught the glint of mirrored surfaces—armored figures with the stern, alien faces of birds.

“Sage!”

Kole shouted his challenge. He heard Baas and the Rivermen file into the hall behind him, spreading out among the pillars with practiced ease.

There were steps ahead, and Kole started up them. He had cleared half a dozen when the black shape before him resolved itself into a massive chair of carved turqoise. The glassy surface was slick with damp, but, unlike the broken floor, nothing grew here.

Seated upon the throne was a suit of armor twice Kole’s height. His blood hot, he shot one blade forward and sent a jet toward the helmeted visage, and a blue glow flashed behind the visor. There was a sound like shattering stone and a great gauntleted hand stretched out with inhuman speed. Kole leapt backward and avoided most of the blow, but the impact still sent him skittering along the floor of the hall like a swatted fly.

The Ember kept hold of his blades and rolled to his feet, charging forward with Baas at his back, the warriors of the Fork flanking them. And then the chamber burst into a storm light that froze them all in their tracks. All movement ceased but for the hungry flicker of Kole’s blades, which merged with the blue light of the Sage’s making.

The titan stood upon its dais, glowing eyes looking down at them through slits in a polished helm that narrowed to an eagle’s peak. Even from a distance, Kole could see black slits bisecting the blue eyes, giving impressions of lizard, cat and bird at once. The blue glow was not limited to the helm, but bled through cracks in the body of the armor, the molten scales shifting like feathers that struggled to contain the power within.

Another shriek carried a hurricane’s wail and nearly brought the party to their knees. But Kole struggled forward, his steps lurching as his head wrung. The White Crest looked down at him balefully, great gold-tipped wings unfurling behind the armored back.

Kole heard a crack and something hurtled past him, flashing in the blue light. The Sage’s eyes never left Kole’s as one wing carved the missile from the air. White dust swirled as shards of marble flew in all directions.

“You destroyed them.”

The voice carried a strange echo, but it was firm, strong and inhuman.

Kole shifted and began to walk forward again, Baas moving out to his left, the Rockbled female who had launched the tile on the right. Shadows shifted and metal glinted in the gallery above, making the gooseflesh rise along the nape of Kole’s neck, but his heat was up, and the fire needed feeding.

“We did,” Kole said, the flames on the tips of his blades dancing.

The Sage traced his path but stood unmoving.

“You know not what you’ve done,” it said, its focus singular, unconcerned.

Baas raised his shield before his chest, gearing up for a charge.

“I could have killed her. I let her live so I could strike a bargain with thee.”

“You are a scourge on this land,” Kole said. “We are the folk of the Valley. We are the cleansing fire, come to purge you away. I will not bargain with you.”

Kole ceased his advance at the foot of the dais, doing his best to match the blue stare.

“You have doomed your kind,” it said, wings rising in an arch, spreading like an angel of nightmare.

Kole spat, the wet dart evaporating as it passed through the burning gate framed by the blades in his hands.

“You were supposed to protect us,” he said, anger rising, flames settling into a low growl, turning from orange to red with flecks of blue. “We counted you as ally, and you turned the weapon of our enemy against us. This is your reckoning, and this is the place we’ll have it.”

The Rivermen began to emerge from the shadowed pillars, and the Sage’s eyes flickered as he took in their approach.

“I’ve seen your eyes before,” it said in that haunting melody, its head tilting in an affectation of owl or dog. “When I slept. I saw eyes like those.”

“You saw them in another,” Kole whispered, his heart turning from fire to cold stone. “She came to you for help and you cut her down. She came to you.”

“You mistake me for your enemy,” the Sage said. “But I am merely the object of your vengeance. Tell me, what will you do against the Eastern Dark when he comes for you without me? Without your protector?”

“You would have us all dead before then!”

“Only the weak,” it said in a voice full of pity, or something like it. “You do not see things from outside of yourselves. I did not turn the dark against your mother. Yes, I remember her face. No, I harnessed the dark after waking. I turned the hearts of his generals to my own ends. He would have used you against me. Against the World. There is no other way to defeat him than to use the same fire. My brothers and sisters do not see. I would have been the end of him.”

“You would be the end of us,” Kole said.

“I would have been the sword to carry out your vengeance.”

“What good is vengeance if none of us are here to see it?”

“A question I have long pondered, mourning the loss of my people.” The blues flared to life. “Though I do not have their souls for companionship, their forms are always with me.”

The shadows in the alcoves above shifted and a dull glow came down from the corners. The warriors at Kole’s back spread out in a ring, backing into the center of the hall, weapons raised.

“I have sensed your coming for some time, now,” the White Crest said, stepping down with a clack. “The Dark Hearts are no more. Your people are safe. It now falls on us to face him directly. To dispel the darkness, once and for all.”

The Sage’s feet were great metal talons, spread out and tapping.

“You fear us,” Kole said, holding the blue gaze. “In trying to prevent your rival from using us against you, you’ve spelled your own doom. Your fate is sealed.”

The blue eyes widened ever so slightly.

“He’s weak,” Baas said, tone firm, and the blues shifted to him. “It’s why he’s confined himself to this form. He’s weak. Something’s changed.”

The titan took another deliberate step down, talons clacking. The blue glow in the gallery above brightened as he neared.

“What will you do?” it asked.

“Find a way,” Kole said, and he launched himself forward, blades-first.

A great wing slashed down from the left that surely would have sliced Kole in half had Baas’s great stone shield not intercepted in a shower of sparks. The blues flashed behind their armored slits and the titan bladed its body, shifting so that Kole’s blades only scored gashes in the armored midsection rather than piercing clean through.

A clawed gauntlet flashed out. Kole took a hit in the ribs as he twisted and lunged back with a counter, flames flaring hungrily. A force like a lightning strike smashed Kole in the chest—the titan’s foot, talons splayed—and sent him tumbling from the dais as Baas swiped low with his shield, taking the behemoth from its feet with a crash.

Kole came up in a roll next to the female Rockbled. She had her eyes closed in concentration as her brethren surrounded her, staring up into the alcoves with weapons bared. Cracks split and raced along the floor around her, and her eyes flashed open, arms extending in a push that sent shards of marble lancing toward the grappling pair on the dais.

The projectiles struck them both, bouncing harmlessly off of Baas and doing little more than distracting the armored Sage. One gauntleted hand closed around Baas’s throat and Kole screamed as the other streaked toward his stomach, launching Baas back with incredible force. But the talons came away bloodless, the Sage’s attack doing little more than ripping the Rockbled’s leather armor and knocking the wind from him.

Kole shot to the top of the dais as the titan regained its footing. Another Riverman came up in a two-hand spin, axe a whirling blur aimed squarely at the armored chest. In a flash of blue light, the axe fell with a clatter, the warrior’s head with a thud.

Kole leapt onto the armored back, wrapping his legs around the torso as it thrashed, spiked ridges ripping his cheeks and digging into his black shell. One gauntlet interrupted his Everwood blade, but he stabbed the other down at the crease between neck and shoulder, the flames glowing a deeper blue than the light beneath the armor as Kole drove in with all his strength.

The seam parted and the Sage unleashed an animal scream, arms thrown wide as lighting ricocheted throughout the chamber, bouncing off of Baas’s shield and striking several of his kinsmen. One went down in a smoking husk, but the others found themselves and regained their feet.

Kole was launched forward, tumbling, his back slamming against a pillar near the entryway. White lights joined the blue and red as he struggled to right himself.

The titan was in a rage now, and another Riverman went down in a mess of blood and thrashing silver wings as he moved to guard Kole. The stone bracers of the Rockbled droned as they summoned strength from the stone underfoot and the earth beneath it, setting their feet for the clash.

The rails above shattered and came down in a rain of stone and dust, and a score of armored warriors taller than the tallest of the Rivermen streaked down on armored wings, duller approximations of the titan’s form. The hall came alive with the screeches of hawk and the challenges of man and woman as the two sides came together in a blur of chaos.

“Draw them outside!” a voice shouted and then gurgled as a pack of winged assailants covered her in thrashing talons, her bracers shattering as her concentration broke and the razor weapons found homes beneath her flesh.

“I knew you would come for me!”

An uppercut took Kole in the chin and blasted him out into the open air. He landed in a crunch and rolled across the rocks in the ruined courtyard, blades nearly coming loose from his hands. He struggled to rise, and then another staggering blow landed, this one launching him into the crumbled ruins of the marble gate.

Kole felt something crack and hoped it was armor, though he tasted blood.

“Kole!” Linn shouted from behind. He could hear Misha shouting as well.

“No,” Kole coughed. He set his feet on the moss and used the loose stones to help him up into a hunch. His veins felt cold, but he forced all of the fire he could into his blades, which deepened their color once again.

A bladed wing the size of a horse lanced down in a crescent shaped like the moon. Kole ducked it and scored a long slash, turning silver to liquid metal as he slid by. He spun and made to stab forward with the other blade, sending a fan of flame from the first up into the titan’s visor, but a gauntlet knocked him away and one blade went spinning.

“I could have killed you at any time!”

Another blow landed, and this time Kole knew it was not just the metal of his suit giving. He turned the wracking cough into a strangled growl and sent a gout of flame from his remaining blade that scorched the armored visage and sent the titan stumbling.

“You took the Dark Hearts,” the Sage circled, blue eyes flickering as it wiped ash from its helm. Behind, Kole could see the melee spill out into the yard, human warriors parrying and smashing apart an armored flock that wheeled and dived, prodding with spear and halberd and making mad screeches as they died.

“I offer you the chance to help me,” the White Crest said. “Kill him. End his scourge.”

Kole spat, breath wheezing out of him as he circled, blade guttering.

“You are a part of that scourge,” Kole said. “You could have come to us first. Trusted us. But you feared us. You let the Eastern Dark guide your hand.”

The Sage’s silver hand glowed with energy. Though each circled the other, only one was the wolf, and they both knew whom it was.

“He’d have turned you against me, just as he turned your Ember King.”

Kole stopped dead in his tracks.

“What did you say?”

A ball of lightning drove into his chest and a blast of wind from the other palm sent him crashing through the gate. He hit the ground with a thud, loose rocks scoring scrapes as his shell split. He tumbled down the slope before coming to rest in a heap a few strides from the lip of the ledge where Linn stood watching.

He could hear her yelling, pleading. But Misha held her back in an iron grip, her other hand leveling Jenk’s glowing blade as a ward. The avian warriors fell on them and Misha released Linn as she did all she could to keep the lancing spears at bay.

There was a weight on Kole’s chest, and he looked up to see the hawkish visage of the Sage glowering down at him like molten ice. He hacked a bloody cough as the titan’s foot pressed, folding him up in a haze of pain and phlegm.

“Yes,” he said, easing up so Kole would not expire. “I honored the alliance with the King of Ember. We rode out and met my dark brother in the east. Your king was struck down. I saw the corruption leaking into his eyes even as I made good my escape.”