Fortress Of Fire (Book 4) (23 page)

She remains with the others.

Then what?

The answer came in a sudden surge of shaping power exploding from above.

T
he power
that erupted around them contained wind and earth and water and fire: all the elements working together. They had even more strength than Tan had seen yet, or thought to anticipate. They worked in concert, the attack building rapidly.

Asboel absorbed as much fire as he could, pulling it from the fire shaper. He roared as he did, anger and rage fueling a horrible sound.

Saa!
Asboel shouted at the other fire elemental.
You dare attack the draasin!

Saa is not in control,
Tan said.
It’s as I told you. The elementals were forcibly bound. Free the shaper and you free saa.

Asboel lifted into the air. Fire spouted from his mouth as he created a ring of fire around Tan, Vel, and Zephra.

The shaping that built around them hesitated. Tan took that moment to take to the air on a bolt of lightning. He hovered above the ground, searching for the shapers. Amia would have been helpful here. She might have been able to give them enough of a warning to avoid the attack.

Tan saw nothing below him.

With growing fear, he looked
up
. In Par, he’d noticed that even the earth shapers had managed flight, somehow pulling that ability from the earth elemental. Could they manage the same in Nara?

Above him were shapers. They circled, and Tan counted thirteen—more than Tan and Asboel could face alone. Probably more than they could face when Zephra arrived.

Tan drew through spirit, searching for the rune bonding the attackers to the elementals. His heart sunk. Each shaper had at least two marks. Even were he to separate them from one, they would have another bond to draw power from, strength that rivaled what the best kingdoms’ shaper could attempt.

Asboel lashed out. Fire spiraled from his mouth, but there were fire shapers among those attacking. They pulled the fire off, sending it harmlessly back to the ground.

Honl!

Tan sent an urgent call to the wind elemental. Would he have already reached Ethea with Amia? Could he reach Tan in time?

Hot wind swirled around him. Tan released his shaping and let the wind elemental hold him aloft. It was not Honl—not at first—but ashi.

Asboel roared through the shapers. He snapped at one—a thick, balding man with close-shorn hair—and ripped him from the sky. The shaper dropped in a heap, falling lifeless to the ground. Tan thought he should feel remorse but didn’t. Instead, he was thankful Amia’s shaping no longer held the draasin.

Asboel lunged toward another shaper, but they had seen what happened and created a buffer using wind thickened with water. It prevented the draasin from getting too close. He bounced off it, snapping with a frustrated snarl.

They attacked him with steady violence. Shapings of earth and water lashed at him. The strength of the shapings was more than Tan could fathom, more than he could summon. Two shapers came at him. Without ashi helping, he would have been overpowered. As it was, he managed to avoid the shapings but wasn’t able to do anything else.

He had to help Asboel. If Tan could get through the barrier, he could reach the shapers, but there wasn’t anything he could do while trying not to be shaped himself.

Tan readied a shaping, forming it over himself. As he did, he recognized Honl. The wind elemental had returned and swirled around him, ready to be called on. Would he be strong enough? Would he risk himself to help Asboel?
Help Fire, Honl. Please.

The wind elemental hesitated, then raced toward Asboel as Tan shaped himself into the air. He pulled on elemental power. Not Honl or Asboel, but on ashi and saa, drawing strength from the elementals around him.

With Honl’s help, Asboel pierced the barrier. Another shaper fell.

The Par-shon shapers shifted their focus entirely to the draasin.

Tan pulled on a shaping of spirit, mixing it with air and water, and struck the runes on the woman shaping those two elements near him. When she fell from the sky, her short brown hair caught fire. She screamed as she fell.

He should feel sympathy or remorse, or
something
, but all he felt was pleased that she was no longer a threat.

A tall, muscular man waved his hand and three shapers split off from the others, turning to face Tan now he’d revealed himself. He studied his new opponents and blanched: most of the others had two runes binding them to the elementals. These three had four.

Tan pulled on the sense of spirit within him, drawing the shaping as strongly as he could. Spirit would weaken him the quickest, but it was the one elemental they couldn’t shape.

He drew on each of the elements, pulling fire, earth, wind, and air together, binding them. To this, he added spirit. As before, the elementals of this land were drawn to the shaping, granting him power, and he added this to his shaping. Had he the warrior’s sword, he might be able to aim. Instead, he focused on pushing the shaping away from him in a burst.

Blinding white light arced out from him.

Tan tried to focus it on the shapers. He struck two, and they disappeared in a flash of white light. It missed the other shaper, the muscular man hovering on a cloud shaped from air and water.

The effort of the shaping drained Tan and he fell.

Honl!
Asboel!

Tan didn’t have the strength to force the sending. The ground rushed up toward him.

A burst of air caught him. Tan twisted his head and saw his mother’s tight face.

“You can’t shape like that without focus,” she warned.

She set him to the ground and then bounced back into the air, sending an attack of wind spiraling around a pair of shapers. Zephra was a skilled wind shaper and bound to ara, but she faced shapers with bonds of their own. They broke free of her attack and turned wind against her.

Fire spiraled toward her, mixing with water in a rush of hot steam. From somewhere hidden, Vel sent a shaping of cooling water, keeping her from harm.

Tan stood on the ground watching, too weak from his shaping to do anything.

They were outnumbered and did not have the same strength the Par-shon shapers could summon. There were simply too many. They would fail.

Asboel. Send Sashari away.

The draasin roared.
There is no other place for her to go, Maelen.

Great anger and sadness flooded into Tan through the draasin. If this was going to be the end for him, he would go fighting for his friends.

He focused on his breathing. To this, he drew strength from the air and earth. The other elementals would help. Saa might not answer him, but he could summon. The land was too dry for water elementals, but he could try.

Help me. I must free the bonded elementals.

He sent the request wide, to all the elementals that might be near enough to respond.

Slowly, too slowly, strength returned to him. He pulled on it, drawing it from elementals he had no name for but who answered his summons nonetheless. It rose within him, giving him enough strength to shape himself into the air again.

His mother glanced over at him. The expression on her face told him that she knew what would come, but she resolved to fight. Asboel still attacked, but more slowly than before, his thick sides dripping with blood from attacks Tan had not seen. Honl aided him, but even the wind elemental was injured. Tan hadn’t realized how easily the elementals could be harmed. Would Tan lose his bond as his mother had once lost hers? Would it matter if none of them survived?

He readied another shaping, pulling spirit to mix with the elements, knowing even as he did it that it wouldn’t be enough.

The air crackled with sudden power. Lightning struck.

Tan blinked weakly and looked over. Lightning?

Streaks of fire and wind and earth crushed two of the nearest shapers. Theondar jumped, flickering from lightning bolt to lightning bolt, a warrior’s sword held out from him, guiding his shaping. Even with Theondar, the shapers were too many.

“Your sword, Theondar!” Zephra yelled over the raging sounds of the battle.

He glanced over at her, pausing in the shaping of earth and sending rock flying to the sky. “The sword? What of it?”

“We need a true warrior.” Roine frowned and Zephra motioned toward Tan. “Give it to Tan!”

Without questioning, he tossed the sword.

It tumbled toward Tan. One of the Par shapers sent a gust of wind to push it away, but Zephra intervened, shooting the sword back to Tan on a powerful shaping guided by ara. Tan caught it and turned to face the other shapers.

With a deep breath, he drew in the strength of the elementals. This time, he even borrowed from Honl and Asboel. It might weaken them as he did, but he needed everything he could draw. He focused this strength, binding the elements as he drew upon spirit, and shaped through the sword.

White light spouted from it.

Tan aimed at the shapers. The nearest fell in a flash of light. He shifted to the next, and he fell. One after another, Tan shaped with spirit bound to spirit, a shaping he did not even fully understand other than to recognize how powerful it was.

The attack turned. Asboel took out a pair of shapers. Theondar stopped another. A blast of fire from the ground—Cianna, Tan realized—stunned one long enough for Zephra to wrap him in air. Tan took care of him from there with a focused shaping through the sword.

It left only the muscular man leading them.

He shaped with delicate skill, pulling on each of the elements. He bound them together, mimicking what Tan had done.

Tan held his breath, afraid that the other man might have the ability to shape spirit. If he did, he would be more formidable than any of the other shapers.

An explosion radiated from the shaper. Hot air and flames buffeted Tan, throwing him back. Honl helped hold him in place, keeping him from tumbling under the strength of the shaping. Chunks of rock and dust shot toward him and Tan raised his arms in front of his face to block the debris from striking him.

Then the explosion began to fade, leaving him hovering on a wind shaping assisted by Honl. He looked over to see his mother holding her hand to her face. Blood streamed through her fingers, but she was otherwise unharmed.

Asboel crashed to the ground and wrapped his tail around him. He slunk toward a pile of rocks. From where Tan was, he saw Sashari as she crawled out of the same pile of rocks. There was a distant sense through the fire bond Asboel had shared with him that told him the hatchlings were there. Tan would meet them later. For now, it was enough that they were safe.

All of this to protect the hatchlings and still they weren’t completely safe. Now that the Utu Tonah knew of them, others would return. Tan might be better equipped to face him, but they had lost too much already.

Theondar landed on a shaping of earth and air and turned to Tan. Pain pulled at his eyes. “I followed the summons when I realized both you and Zephra sent for help. What was this? Not Incendin shapers. They were almost like warriors.”

Tan sighed, looking at the fallen Par-shon bonded, wishing there had been a different way to save them. “They’re from Par-shon. They bond the elementals. Some are forced; others, they steal.”

Roine glanced over to where Asboel had disappeared. “I should not have sent you.”

Tan shook his head, lowered to the ground by Honl. The wind elemental circled around him with warmth, supporting him. “This wasn’t your fault. I’m a warrior, Roine. As are you.”

Roine opened his mouth and then clamped it shut, nodding to himself. “So you are.”

“When I learned of the hatchlings, with what had been happening at the Fire Fortress, I thought Incendin to blame.” Tan sighed, looking across Nara, letting the heat wash over him. Out there was the Fire Fortress, Incendin shapers that had somehow managed to fend off an attack from Par-shon for decades, maybe longer. Now what would happen? Now that Incendin had been weakened—that the lisincend no longer ruled—would Par-shon attack Incendin?

“I don’t think it was Incendin at all. I think Par-shon attacked. That was what we saw. But Incendin had the hatchlings. Something about them helped Incendin push back the attack. And then the draasin attacked, destroying the lisincend. It weakened Incendin.” It was hard to believe that he had come to view the weakening of Incendin as a dangerous thing, but for how long had Incendin stood between Par-shon and the kingdoms? Now that Incendin could no longer provide that buffer, what would happen?

Tan studied the rocks Asboel had disappeared behind. Would the draasin allow him to protect them? With the power the shapers of Par-shon controlled, the draasin would be in danger unless they allowed shapers to help. And if they continued to seek revenge for what happened with the hatchlings, Incendin would be further weakened.

But where could he take them? Where would they be able to hide from another attack?

He could think of only one place. “You need to know about Par-shon, Roine. As the ruler of the kingdoms now, there is much you will need to know. We will have to prepare. Others will come. If the Utu Tonah comes, we might not be strong enough.”

“What are you saying?” Roine asked.

Tan looked over at his mother, at Cianna, even over to Vel. Would they be ready for what he suspected would come? Now that the Utu Tonah knew of the draasin, only the kingdoms stood between him and the power he sought. Too many shapers had died battling Incendin for them to be ready.

Tan sighed, feeling along his bonds. To Asboel, injured and curled up in his den. To Honl, swirling around him, hiding around Tan. To Amia, safely in Ethea.

After all that he’d been through, all he wanted was peace. A chance for he and Amia to be together. Time for him to understand the bond he shared with Asboel and with Honl. Instead, they faced the possibility of a worse attack than Incendin. But it was the reason the Mother had given him his gifts. Tan was certain of that now. And how long had he wondered why he was able to not only shape all the elements, but speak to the elementals?

And he began to understand what had driven Incendin to seek power, even what might have driven the ancient scholars to seek the power of the artifact. As much as he might want to avoid using it, would he have any choice were he to save those he cared about?