Chased By Fire (Book 1) (3 page)

 
“Not these. Look at the toes. Too small for our wolves.”

Cobin squatted and stared at the dusty soil, dark eyes squinting in concentration. He grunted again. “Then what?”

“I followed them up the mountain—”

Cobin interrupted him with a deep laugh. “That explains it, then.”

“Explains what?”

“The scuttlebutt coming from the lord’s house.”

Tan looked at Cobin before staring off toward Nor, scrubbing his face with his hand. “Mother?” He already knew the answer.

“She’s not pleased,” Cobin answered before laughing again. “Could be someone else drew her ire. Probably too late for you anyway.”

Tan wished Cobin were right. “These tracked several miles up into the mountains before being joined by another type of print. Like this.” He traced the strange print into the dusty soil, remembering the heel spike.

“Did you find anything?”
 

“They found me.”
 

Cobin looked up into the mountains and his face went slack for a moment. “They?” he asked. “You mean a pack?” Cobin’s hand squeezed the handle of his axe unconsciously and his knuckles turned white with pressure.
 

Tan shrugged, trying to ignore the memory of the creatures. The appearance of the Aeta had pushed away most of the anxiety from his experience with the animals, but enough remained and he shivered. “There were at least three, I think.”

“You didn’t get a good look?”

He shook his head. “I saw only flashes of fur. I got chased and climbed a tree to get away. Everything got smoky, but it was probably dust from as dry as it’s been. I couldn’t see anything.”

Cobin grunted.

Tan shrugged, understanding his friend’s unasked question. “Not sure what it was. The wind picked up suddenly and scared them. I didn’t give chase.”

“Glad I don’t have to be there when you tell your ma where you’ve been.”
 

Tan sighed. Since his father’s death, she wanted him anywhere but in the mountains. Preferably in Ethea, studying at the university. Only the idea of sitting and staring at books all day left him feeling anxious and fidgety.

“Maybe not all of it,” Cobin agreed.

Tan laughed and tapped the ground. “What do you think this is?”
 

“Not entirely sure.” He looked up at Tan. “You want to track it again.”

Tan shrugged. “I think we need to. If it’s come this close to town, we should know what it is.”

Cobin hadn’t taken his eyes off the track, brow furrowed as he studied it. “You’re probably right. I’ll get Heller to come, as well.” He paused. “Don’t tell your ma.”

A bit of his anxiety eased. Cobin would provide support as they tracked it, and Heller, though nearly fifty, was a crafty old man and knew much about the woods. Plus, he was still one of the best shots with a bow in this part of Galen.

“Tomorrow?”

“Probably not tomorrow. Might want to give it a day.”

“Too long and we’ll love the track. You thinking your ma won’t let you out of her sight once she hears what you were up to?”

Tan grunted, lifting his eyebrows. “There’s that,” he agreed. “And the other thing we found.”

“We? Bal with you?”
 

Tan debated telling Cobin, but he’d promised Bal he wouldn’t say anything. Cobin wasn’t quite as protective of Bal as his mother was with him, but it was a close competition. “Just the lower hills. She’s the one who found the Aeta.”

“Where’d they come from? Nothing there but Incendin.”

Tan nodded. “Came on an old road I’d never seen.”

Cobin nodded slowly. “An old trader road. Don’t think anyone has used that path in more than twenty years.”

“The Aeta did.”

Cobin frowned. “Shouldn’t be able to cross the barrier. Wonder where they came from?”

Tan remembered the darkness that seemed to follow the Aeta. “Not sure, but they should reach Nor tonight. Figured they get set up and trade…”
 

Cobin laughed. “What you think you got to trade with the Aeta?”

Tan shrugged. He hadn’t planned on trading anything. Not that he had much anyway. “See you in town?”
 

Cobin nodded at him absently, and as he left, his friend circled the pen, staring at the tracks, a troubled expression etched onto his face. Every so often he would glance up into the mountains and frown.
 

What did Cobin know and not share?

Tan would need to face his mother sooner or later, so closed his eyes and took a deep breath, steeling himself before entering her room.
 

She looked up from her massive desk and eyed him, noting his dirt-stained face and clothes, before snorting and turning back to the stack of papers she sorted through. A hand reached up and touched the jet-black hair pulled severely back from her face.
 

She ignored him while she sat stiff-backed working through the house numbers. Tan stood quietly in front of her desk like all the other house servants she supervised, trying not to rock anxiously on his feet. Nervous energy welled through him at the thought of the visiting Aeta. Even his mother would be interested in their visit, wanting to see the items they had for trade, and he bit at his lip to keep from saying anything that might make his scolding worse.

“You shouldn’t chew your lip,” his mother admonished without looking up.

“I’m not,” he protested weakly, looking away. The walls of his mother’s office were decorated simply, just a sigil of the Great Mother hanging. A large wrought-iron lantern rested on the corner of her desk, giving the room light.

His mother looked up at him and sighed. “Tannen, you know better than to lie to your mother.” She blinked a moment before setting her hands upon her desk and meeting his gaze. “Where have you been?”

Tan resisted the urge to turn away. He couldn’t lie—his mother would see through him easily—so he decided on the truth. “I found some prints near Cobin’s pens and followed them.”

“All day?”

“Not all day. The last hour or so I was with Cobin.”
 

“You went into the mountains, then.” When he didn’t argue, she went on. “What of the task you were assigned?”

Tan had forgotten about that. She’d asked him to sweep Lord Alles’s barn on the edge of town. He had put it off, thinking he would have time after following the prints, but he had gone farther into the mountains than he had expected. The Aeta pushed all thoughts of chores out of mind. “I didn’t do it,” he admitted, “but I saw something you need to know about—”
 

“I am sure you did. Cobin told Davum it was probably wolves got into his stock. The men should know how to protect their stock from wolves, especially in this part of the kingdoms. I don’t need you tracking wolves and risking yourself like that while ignoring your chores. There’s a reason Lind allows you to remain in the manor house. If you ignore your responsibilities…”

“I’ll get them done. Wouldn’t want Lord Lind upset that I didn’t sweep the stables.” He sighed and nearly turned away. Cleaning the stables felt like such a waste of his time. Had his father still been alive, he wouldn’t have to do it. Tan didn’t know what he’d end up doing if his father still lived, but not that. “Besides, it wasn’t a wolf. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t a wolf.”

His mother looked up again and pushed her papers away, focusing on him entirely. “What was it, then?”
 

Tan wasn’t sure if she humored him or if she believed his concern. Cobin hadn’t questioned. And his mother knew he was a skilled tracker and what he’d learned from his father.
 

“Some kind of hound,” he answered, shaking his head. “I couldn’t see them clearly. Some kind of smoke or cloud of dust.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, visibly calming herself. “You came upon a pack while tracking an unfamiliar creature.”
 

There was a heat to her words now. Tan needed to choose his answer carefully. “We needed to know what attacked the flock. Father would have done the same!” Immediately he knew that he’d misspoken.
 

Her eyes flashed with a quick anger. Fists clenched before slowly relaxing. “Your father,” she began, taking a deep breath before continuing, “is no longer with us.”

Tan knew she intended to say something different. Almost more than him, she still suffered daily by his father’s absence. Before he’d gone, she smiled easily and laughed often. All that changed when he went to war at the king’s bidding. When he didn’t return, neither did his mother’s mirth.
 

“Tan,” she said quietly. “I cannot lose you, too.”

“I know.” But she still wanted him to leave Nor. She wanted him to go to Ethea, learn at the university like his father had, but Tan wanted something different. Why should he go to the capital when everything he knew and loved was here?

She shook her head, touching a hand to her neck where a small locket hung. “How did you get away?”
 

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
 

His mother didn’t care what he’d seen, only about his safety. But there something about the creatures gnawed at his senses.
 

He sighed, knowing his father would have understood.
 

“Sighing won’t bring him back.”
 

“I know,” he said softly.
 

She set her hands on either side of her desk and studied him a moment. Then she took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “It’s time for you to think about your studies.”

Tan swallowed before answering. “But I don’t want—”

“You need to understand your gifts, Tan. Like your father, the Great Mother gifted you as an earth senser. You can learn to master that gift in Ethea.”

“And have to serve like Father?”

She nodded.
 

After what happened to his father, he didn’t understand why she pushed him to study in Ethea. “The other sensers in Nor never went to the university. Most are like me—too weak to do anything useful anyway.”

“How can you know how strong you can be if you never try?”

He shook his head. His father would have understood. Had he not gone off for the king, he would’ve taught Tan himself. “What can I learn at university that I can’t in Galen?”
 

“The fact that you ask tells me how much you have to learn.”

He sighed.

“Tannen!”

He blinked and took a deep breath. “The king called Father to serve
because
he’d studied at the university. I’m just a weak earth senser. No use to the king.”

“That’s for the king to decide.”

“He’s not my king,” Tan mumbled. He squirmed under the look she shot him. A moment of silence fell between them and he let it settle before speaking again. “There was something else.” She opened her mouth as if to say something, but Tan pressed forward. “Bal saw Aeta.”
 

“Bal was with you?”
 

He shook his head. “Not with me,” he said. “I found her. She followed Lins Alles into the upper reaches but got lost. If I hadn’t found her—”
 

Hopefully telling her about Bal would ease some of his mother’s anger. She knew how impulsive Bal could be.

“And she found Aeta?”
 

Tan’s frustration continued to rise.

“And where were they traveling from?”
 

 
“Came from Incendin direction. An old traders’ road.”
 

His mother’s sharp eyes closed for a moment, quickly considering what he told her. “They crossed through Incendin?”
 

The question took him aback and made him think of the darkness that trailed after them. “Can they cross the barrier?”

His mother frowned at him. “Another reason you need to go to Ethea. The barrier doesn’t prevent all passage. Just some. You’d know that if you studied.” She came around her desk and waved at him. “Come.”

She led him through the manor house and quickly to the lord’s office. The door stood open and she did not knock before entering, walking brusquely into the room. It was a large room, with a fireplace in one corner and walls interrupted by large open windows, letting in the warm breeze that smelled of rain. Animal hides adorned most of the remaining wall space, though the horns of an elk were displayed proudly as if Lord Lind caught the animal himself. The manor lord sat at his desk poring over a stack of parchments, and looked up at the sound of her entrance, smiling when he realized who entered.
 

“Ephra,” he said warmly, setting down his pen. A dark red ink smudged his hand, looking almost like blood. “What brings me this honor?”

The quiet snort was such that Tan knew the lord would not have heard it. Lind Alles had been pushing his mother for marriage since she had joined his staff with an insistence that irritated him. He was reassured that it still was obviously so for his mother.
 

“My lord,” she answered curtly. Lord Lind only smiled wider. “Tan brings word of the Aeta. Likely traveling from Incendin.” She said the last as if it were important. She didn’t mention the strange beasts that killed Cobin’s sheep.
 

Lord Lind turned toward him and the smile was still painted across his face, yet his eyes narrowed and his shoulders tensed. “Truly?”
 

Tan nodded, not wanting to make eye contact but knowing his mother would be angry with him if he did not. “I spied them in the mountains.” Better not to admit to Lord Lind that Bal had been with him.

Lind scratched his chin and a bit of the dark ink stained it. He turned to look out one of the large windows of his office, staring out into Nor as if the caravans would already be arriving.
 
“See that they set up outside of town.”

His mother tilted her head slightly and crossed her arms over her chest. “You know custom allows the Aeta to trade in town.”

Lind turned back and shook his head once. “Not in town. They may set up outside of town only.” When she didn’t move, his face changed. “Do not cross me in this, Ephra.”