Chased By Fire (Book 1) (11 page)

What kind of creature could scratch the stone like that? Was this the Incendin shaper Roine mentioned?
 

“Tan?”
 

Cobin watched him strangely, relieved to have found him. Roine followed, flickering his eyes to look at everything around him.

Tan pointed to the scratches in the rock.
 

Roine frowned and climbed from his saddle. He knelt next to one of the marks, following them the same way Tan had.

“How did you find these?” he asked softly.

“I followed marks left in the forest,” he said, though knew that wasn’t quite right. Subtle disturbances along the forest led him to the rocky incline.

“You tracked this?”

Tan shrugged. “Sensed it, probably. I’m not as good a senser as my father. Mostly a good tracker.”

Cobin smiled at him.

“Your mother said you had some skill. This is—”

He didn’t finish. “You recognize this?” Cobin asked.

Roine glanced at Cobin before nodding. “I haven’t seen these marks in years. Since before the barrier.” He looked down at the prints. “This wasn’t a simple Incendin shaper. Those are bad enough. Even the weakest shaper has skills our fire shapers don’t. But this…” He shook his head. “This is worse. Much worse.”
 

“What is this, Roine?” Cobin asked.
 

 
“I should have suspected when you told me of the Incendin hounds. But why would I? We haven’t seen them in so long?”

“Roine?”

Roine nodded. “To understand you need to understand Incendin. Hounds were bad enough. They are dark creatures with strange gifts that have never been well understood. When I say you’re lucky to have faced hounds and lived, know that I don’t exaggerate. Once they have your scent, they don’t lose it. They will track you until cornered, and then they slowly tear you apart. That is the nature of the hounds.”

“Can they be killed?” Tan asked.

Roine nodded. “Not easily. Shapers usually. A few skilled with the bow or just plain lucky.” He met Tan’s eyes. “Remember when I asked about shapers in Nor?” Tan nodded. “For some reason, hounds can cross the barrier. They do so rarely, and at great cost, but most towns are protected by their shapers.”

Had his mother protected Nor? He didn’t think so, especially since she said she had abandoned her ability since settling in Nor. Then who? His father and Cobin often hunted the woods, but he never heard anything about hounds. And Cobin hadn’t seemed to recognize the prints. “And if there are no shapers?”
 

“You pray they lose interest.” Roine looked up the rocky slope. “The hounds roam freely throughout Incendin, no different than the wolves of this area. But occasionally they’re directed.”

“Directed?”

Cobin’s eyes went wide. “Lisincend?”
 

Roine looked over to him and they shared a look. He nodded.

“You lost me. What are the lisincend?” Tan asked. What kind of creature could direct these hounds? How terrible must they be?

“They were men, once,” Roine answered. Cobin raised his eyebrows at the comment. “Long ago, the first of the lisincend were men, fire shapers all, and powerful.” He paused, collecting his thoughts before going on. “Some have said they were all related to the Incendin throne. It’s not known how, but they performed a shaping upon themselves, using fire to alter themselves. Now they serve fire directly, twisted by their own shaping and empowered by it in a way none of our scholars have ever understood. They are powerful shapers, made more powerful by what they have become.” He voice grew more withdrawn as he spoke, and his eyes closed, almost as if remembering. “Even the hounds fear and obey them.”

“And they are here?” Tan asked.

Roine pointed to the tracks and nodded grimly. “It appears so, but I should have felt
them.”

“How do you mean?” Cobin asked.

“The lisincend can’t move undetected. Their shaping has turned them into a manifestation of the fire they serve. They radiate heat as they move. This can be felt. This is one of their few weaknesses.”

“You think that a weakness?” Cobin asked.

Roine stared at him. “When you know where your enemy moves, you can either move to attack. Or avoid.”

Cobin grunted but said nothing else.

“Why are they here? Is it the same thing you’re after?”

Roine glanced to the sky. “I hadn’t considered the lisincend would be sent. The barrier should have prevented them. That they’re here…” He looked down at the tracks again before turning to Tan. “Can you follow these? Can you tell me where they went?”
 

Tan thought he could. Not just following the tracks, but he could sense the disturbance in the forest they made as they moved through if he focused hard enough. “The tracks start here.” He walked over to the rocks and pointed down at the prints evident in the dirt. “They climbed down the rock and jumped down here.” Enough of an indentation remained for him to almost envision the foot that left it.
 

“How many?” Roine asked.

Tan shrugged. “I can’t tell. It might only be one.”
 

Roine looked at the rock again, considering. “One is probably more than we can handle. Pray there aren’t others.”

“If it’s the lisincend, where’d it go?” Cobin asked.

He was answered by a series of lightning strikes in quick succession, far in the distance. Heavy waves of thunder followed. Roine turned, looking back down the slope.

Toward Nor, Tan realized.

Over the drizzling rain and the rolling thunder, Tan smelled the stink of sulfur.
 

Roine took off without saying another word. He rode through the forest and back toward Nor. Cobin looked after him. “Tan…” He trailed off, as if unable to say anything more.
 

Tan nodded. “I know.” If the lisincend had attacked Nor, what would they find? Would his mother have been able to defend the city or had the wind not answered when she called? Tan knew so little about shaping. Had she told him about what she could do sooner…but it wouldn’t have changed anything.
 

Would they find Nor looking like the Aeta caravan?
 

A nauseated knot rose in his stomach and he struggled to swallow against it. He’d already lost his father. Nor was home. His mother was there. Everything he knew was there. And there wasn’t any reason for Incendin to attack Nor. The mines weren’t even really active anymore. It was just a mountain town like so many others.

Cobin watched the struggle play out over his face. “Did your ma tell you what he searches for?”

He grabbed the reigns of his horse from Cobin and shook his head. “Nothing. I’m not sure she knew.”

“Or that she’d tell you if she did?”

Tan sighed. “Or that.”

 
The rain picked up again when they reached the road, sluicing down, heavy and painful. Gusts of wind from high in the mountains blew at their backs, suddenly cold and biting. The sky crackled with lightning coming in rapid succession. Sharp explosions of thunder split the air. Ripples of rumbling followed, finally fading. Tan felt the silence as much as he heard it.
 

Roine rode far ahead of them. Tan and Cobin chased after as quickly as possible. No one spoke. The horses seemed to sense their unease and pushed forward. Relief flooded him as the packed path began to widen.
 

Roine and Cobin pulled up suddenly.

Tan stopped alongside them. “What is it?”
 

And then he looked past them. His heart seemed to stop.

Nor was no more.

A blackened crater spread out where the town had been. He saw no sign of the low wall that surrounded the town, none of the shops or homes within the town, and nothing of the manor house. The crater steamed like the charred fragments of wood where the Aeta caravan had been destroyed.
 

The scent of ash and soot filled the air. The smell of sulfur hung overtop everything.

Tan hadn’t known what to expect, but not this.
 

He looked at Cobin. A pained look pulled at the corners of Cobin’s eyes and mouth. He had no family, no children, but Nor had been his home, too.
 

“I don’t—” Cobin started. “Bal?”

Tan jumped from his saddle and started forward. Roine held him back with a firm grip. “I need to go see—” Tears welled in his eyes.

Roine shook his head. “Not yet.”

Tan forced back the emotion threatening him. “Why? Why Nor? We’re no threat to Incendin. There’s nothing here…”

“I don’t know,” Roine answered.

“What could do this?” Cobin asked. His voice had gone high and shaky.

Roine sighed. “This…this is the lisincend.”

“But the caravan…”

Roine shook his head. “That was probably a single lisincend. This is what happens when the lisincend work together.” He closed his eyes. “I have seen this only a few times. The last was long ago.”
 

“Did anyone…survive?” Cobin asked.

“This isn’t meant for surviving. They cover their tracks, obliterating any evidence of anyone who might have seen them pass.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”

When he had first seen the remains of the Aeta caravan, he had thought it a terrible fate for the peaceful people. This was worse. This was people he knew, had loved, had lived with. People he’d called friends. His mother. Bal. So many others. All gone.
 

Tan turned away. He could no longer look.

“Is this because of you?” Cobin asked. Something in his voice had changed. A hard edge had come to it. “Did they do this because of what you seek?”
 

Cobin worked to choke back a sob, staring at the emptiness around them. Tan had never seen him so distraught.
 

When he finally turned back to Roine, anger and rage flashed across his face. “This. This was
your
fault. You’re the reason my Bal died!”
 

He jabbed his finger at Roine with each word.

To Roine’s credit, he didn’t move, just shook his head. “I’m sorry. Truly, I am. It’s possible they came here searching for me.”

“And the king. What will he do?”

Roine frowned.
 

“You’re the Athan. What will the king do to Incendin?”

“You’re asking if the king plans to resume the war?” Cobin didn’t answer. “If I don’t manage to reach the passes first, it might not matter. If Incendin manages to get this item first…” He shook his head. “Other places in the kingdoms will face the same fate.”

“What is it? What does Incendin think to find that would let them enter the kingdoms so easily?”

Roine inhaled deeply. “There is an artifact…”

Tan barely listened. Since his father’s death, he’d argued with his mother about leaving Nor. She feared he would settle, never experience the world around him, never understanding that he loved the forests and mountains around his home. But now? Now there was nothing left for him. Even if he wanted to stay, he couldn’t.
 

He could go to one of the neighboring towns. Velminth. Delth. Maybe as far to the north as Galesh. Towns similar to Nor. But they wouldn’t be the same.
 

Tears streamed down his face and he didn’t bother to wipe them away. Would his mother finally get what she wanted? Now that she was gone, would he finally have to leave?

A hand on his shoulder startled him. He looked over and saw Roine standing alongside him. “Tan—”

Tan swallowed, understanding the question in Roine’s tone. What would he do?
 

“I’ll still see you through the mountain pass.”

Relief washed over Roine’s face. “And then what?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. My mother…” He couldn’t finish.
 

Roine nodded. “She wanted you to go to Ethea.”

Tan sighed. Ethea. The capital. The university. Going meant he’d owe the king service. Like his father. Seeing the crater that had been Nor, Tan knew he wouldn’t serve, not willingly. What was he in the face of such destruction? A weak senser, nothing more. No…Ethea wasn’t the answer.

Only, he didn’t know what he’d do.

“When this is over, I will bring you there if you choose.”

Cobin watched him. Tan didn’t want to meet his eyes. What would Cobin do? He was as homeless now as Tan. And without Bal, Cobin had nothing left.
 

“I’ll see you through the pass.”
 

Beyond that…Cobin needed him now. Tan wouldn’t commit to anything more.

Tan walked into the forest, wanting to look out at Nor before he left. Nor was completely leveled. The earth curved downward in a slope, as if a huge boulder had been dropped onto the town. Everything around it was blackened and covered with ash. Low-lying smoke still hung like a fog over the land. Nothing moved.

Tan didn’t want to go near the crater—something about it just struck him as wrong—and let his feet carry him along the once familiar woods. He paused, listening as his father had long ago taught him. Everything was silent.
 

He circled the remains of the town before stopping near the remains of Cobin’s farm. The pens had been destroyed. Some of the wooden fencing remained, blackened and charred. There was no sign of the sheep.
 

Tan sighed. Cobin stood in the center of what had been his land, looking around as if in a daze. Tan considered going over to him, but decided to give him space. He mourned just the same as Tan. Tears coursed down his cheeks and Tan turned away.

As he did, marks in the dirt caught his attention. Tan paused, staring for a long while before realizing what it was about the prints that seemed out of place. There was nothing unusual about these tracks; it wasn’t the type of print or the size that caught his attention. Rather it was the direction in which the tracks traveled.

They headed away from Nor.
 

The ground had been dry for weeks before this recent rain, so he knew these were new tracks, but with the rain, they should be heading toward the safety and shelter of town, not away.