Leaves of Flame

The only clan not present was Silver Grass.

As the last of the dwarren fled the flatland at the slide’s base, Quotl muttered to himself, “Now.”

Nothing happened. He sucked in a breath, held it, his own blood pounding in his head, heightened by the power that filled him. The Wraith army began edging up the slope, orannian and Alvritshai at the forefront, the stone-skinned terren bellowing behind them. Quotl exhaled harshly. “Ilacqua curse you, do it now, Attanna! What are you waiting for?”

Half of the Wraith army was now on the slide, the rest on the flat beyond.

And then Quotl felt the earth shudder on the plains below. He closed his eyes and muttered a small prayer, body tense.

When he opened them, the earth shuddered once again-

And then a section of the plains below collapsed, the earth cracking in massive fissures as the clan of Silver Grass broke the supports of the warren that lay underneath and the system of tunnels there caved in. The fissures crazed the rocky plains, snaking outward from the central chamber that lay a hundred lengths beyond the end of the slide like the frozen surface of a pond in winter giving way beneath someone’s weight. The Wraith army that stood above that hidden chamber and the tunnels beneath were thrown to the ground, and then, with a suddenness that startled even Quotl, the earth gave way beneath them, collapsing inward with a grinding, hideous groan.

At least a thousand of the orannian, Alvritshai, and terren perished as a plume of dust rose. The dwarren who had volunteered to break the supports died beneath them.

But it wasn’t enough. Too many of the enemy had made the landslide. Too many had survived the collapse of the sinkhole.

Quotl sank back into his saddle, a numbing despair washing over him. It had been their final defense of the Break.

Drums sounded, and dwarren began to withdraw from the Break’s edge, racing back across the plains toward the entrance to the warren they’d emerged from a week before. Claw Lake and Shadow Moon were pulling back from the cliffs. The Wraith army now filled nearly the entirety of the landslide, the Cochen holding the mouth at the heights.

Azuka suddenly appeared from the chaos of fleeing dwarren, riding hard to Quotl’s side. His eyes were panicked, but his voice was stern. “Quolt, don’t you hear the drums? We need to reach the warren. Quotl!” He reached out, grabbed Quotl’s arm, and tugged him toward the open plains behind.

Quotl jerked his arm out of his grasp.

Another voice cut through the chaos, cut through the numbness that enveloped Quotl. He turned to find Tarramic drawing his gaezel up short. “We’ve called the retreat, but too many of the Alvritshai have already reached the heights. You need to do something, Quotl. If we don’t slow them down, we’ll never reach the warren entrance in time to collapse it.”

Quotl barked laughter, the sound raw. “What do you expect me to do, Clan Chief?”

Tarramic frowned at his tone, then said brusquely, “Do whatever it was you did before. Call upon the gods.”

Quotl recoiled, as if Tarramic had slapped him. At the same time, the power within him surged.

Before Quotl could respond, Tarramic spun his mount and charged onto the plains.

Quotl glared out toward the slide, toward the fighting, now so close he could see individual dwarren dying beneath orannian and Alvritshai blades.

“Call upon the gods,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head. “That’s the Archon’s job.”

“You did it once before.”

He straightened in his saddle. He’d forgotten that Azuka was there.

He didn’t know what he’d done before, but sighing, he reached out through the power flowing through him, sank into the ground at the height of the Break, felt the stone beneath him, the layer upon layer of sediment and rock. He traveled through it, searching. Desperation had driven him before. He’d acted on instinct, reaching out and twisting without thought, and stone had shattered. Could he do that again?

Through stone, through the Lands, he felt… a flaw.

He sucked in a breath, centered on the flaw, on the weakness. It lurked in the rock of the northern cliff face, deep in the earth. As he explored it, he realized that it was the remnants of the flaw that had caused the Break to give way hundreds of years before, creating the landslide where the dwarren and Wraith armies now fought. The earth had shifted and settled since, but part of the flaw still remained.

All it needed was a push.

Drawing a deep breath, exhaling slowly, Quotl closed his eyes.

Then he reached out and shoved.

Stone cracked, the sound louder than anything Quotl had ever heard before, shuddering in his chest and making him gasp, eyes snapping open. Gaezels and horses alike stumbled in a panic, veering away from the sound. Those fighting on the slope paused, stunned.

Then the northern cliff face above the slide gave way, slipping and falling as a single, solid wall of stone. It avalanched into the Wraith army, burying it as the base of the stone face struck and it began tilting outwards. Everything in its path-orannian, Alvritshai, terren, gruen, and a host of luckless dwarren-turned and ran. The wall of stone slammed into the landslide, vibrations setting off another avalanche down the slope, taking a significant chunk of the Wraith army with it and blocking the mouth of the slide with rubble. Beyond, the earth’s trembling unsettled the plinth of stone enough that it began to topple, dust and debris rising in a choking cloud to obscure its last moments from sight. Dwarren swarmed from the mouth of the slide, gaezels out of control.

When the stone settled, Quotl turned to Azuka. The shaman looked shocked, his eyes awed, but tainted with fear. Any chance Quotl had of allowing the Archon to take responsibility faded. He could see it in Azuka’s eyes. “The warren,” Quotl said.

He pulled his gaezel about and streaked toward the distant warren entrance. The dwarren on all sides abandoned the Break, all of the clans heading west. As the sun sank into the horizon, Quotl caught sight of the Cochen and the Archon, the two surrounded by the mixed clans, and relief coursed through him. The Archon could order the warren’s mouth collapsed as soon as they arrived, Silver Grass already headed toward the two smaller entrances north and south with orders to seal them before rejoining the gathered clans underground. The Wraith army could not be allowed to reach the Sacred Waters and the Summer Tree. The dwarren had done what they could at the Break.

Now it was up to the Shadowed One.

23

Eraeth glanced toward Siobhaen, who nodded, and then, as if they’d planned it, both sheathed their swords and pulled the bows the forest had gifted them from their backs. Feet planted at the supple wood’s base, the two Alvritshai strung them in the space of a breath, Eraeth turning toward Colin, face taut and grim.

“You take care of Walter. We’ll deal with the sukrael.”

Neither waited for an answer, sprinting away from their location at the Source in two different directions, both reaching for the strange arrows the forest had left as they ran. Colin couldn’t remember how many arrows each carried, but he hoped there were enough to kill all of the Shadows that surrounded them. He counted at least fifty, perhaps as many as a hundred.

“Use the bows as staffs when you run out of arrows,” he shouted, brandishing his own staff. At the top of the steps, Walter drew a sword. “And remember that the sukrael perish if you can throw them over water.”

He caught Siobhaen’s first shot out of the corner of his eye, the shaft catching one of the Shadows and nailing it to the stone wall behind. Its supple, glistening blackness tinged with gold writhed and tattered as if it were cloth caught in a tempest

And then Walter moved, slowing time, his form blurring. But Colin had been waiting for it. He reached out and seized time as well, used it to find Walter, the flows disturbed by Walter’s presence, by his manipulations. Colin focused on the disruption and raced across the stone steps to meet his old tormentor from Portstown. Images of the abuse he’d suffered under Walter’s hand flared across his mind-the beatings in the streets of the fledgling town,