Benjamin Tate - Leaves of Flame

He turned to face Siobhaen, the young member of the Flame staring out across the dwarren plains, half standing in her saddle, her face scrunched up with doubt. He suddenly realized that Siobhaen’s journey to the White Wastes had likely been as far from Caercaern and her own House lands as she’d ever been. But this was different.

They were wandering into occupied territory now.

“You are too impatient,” he said. “We haven’t been waiting long.”

“But what are we waiting for?”

“The dwarren.”

Her eyes widened. “But it could take days for them to see us! We aren’t even on a road!”

“There are no roads in the Lands. At least, not what you think of as roads. The dwarren believe permanent roads are destructive to the Lands. And the dwarren have already seen us. An escort is on its way.”

Siobhaen glared out at the plains in clear disbelief. “I see no one.”

But even as she spoke, a group of Riders crested a far ridge and swept down its near side. The group-no more than five in strength-vanished beneath another obstructing fold in the land.

Siobhaen gaped.

“The dwarren have watchers everywhere,” Colin explained. “Even though you may not see them.”

They waited, Siobhaen’s tension rising as the dwarren drew nearer, her mount picking up on her uneasiness, huffing and skittering where it stood. She reached down distractedly to calm it. When the five Riders drew close enough that they could hear the gaezels’ hooves, her hand twitched toward her cattan, but she jerked it back with a tight frown.

The dwarren drew up twenty paces distant. Each rode one of the tawny gaezels, the lithe animals smaller than a horse but with wicked looking horns reaching back from their heads. Their sides were streaked with patches of white-and-yellow coloring. The dwarren sat astride saddles, copied from those introduced by the settlers from Andover, who brought the first horses to Wrath Suvane with them, but they didn’t use reins; they controlled the gaezels using their horns.

The leader of the dwarren glared at them all, then focused his gaze on Colin. A look of uncertainty crossed his face. All five were dressed in the leather armor of a Rider, their long beards threaded with beads and gold trinkets. Gold chains ran from earrings to their pierced noses, the leader with three chains, the others with only one. One of them bore the markings of a shaman.

The leader also wore a gold armband around his right forearm.

“Why do you wish to enter the lands of the Thousand Springs Clan? What business do you and the Alvritshai have with the dwarren?” he demanded in his own guttural language.

Colin nudged his horse forward a step, the dwarren tensing. “My name is Colin Patris Harten, known as Shaeveran. I’ve come, with an escort, to speak to the Cochen.”

The dwarren stirred at his name, the four behind the leader shooting glances toward one another as their mounts pawed the ground. No one spoke, but two of them edged away from the group. Only the leader appeared unruffled, his eyes narrowing.

“Prove it.”

Colin hesitated. He’d never been asked by the dwarren to prove his identity. He wondered what had happened in the past ten years to change that. But he reached down and pulled up the sleeve of his shirt, exposing his forearm to the bright midmorning sunlight. The swirling patches of darkness beneath his skin were clear enough that the dwarren gasped, murmurs hushed by the leader with a sharp look.

“That proves only that you are one of the elloktu.”

“Would one of the Lost be able to stand here on the Lands, this close to the Summer Tree?” Colin couldn’t keep a hint of annoyance out of his voice.

The dwarren leader considered in silence, then gave a grudging nod of acknowledgment and respect, although Colin could still see suspicion in his eyes. “Shaeveran. We will escort you to our clan chief, Tarramic.”

He spun his gaezel and issued a few curt commands, then motioned them all forward, the group breaking away and one of the dwarren ululating as the scouts spread out to either side.

“What did they say?” Siobhaen asked harshly.

“They questioned who I was, but have offered to escort us to the clan chief.”

On his other side, Eraeth said shortly, “That is the first time I have ever seen the dwarren question who you were. Or been so wary of those entering their land. Something has happened.”

“We already know that the balance of the Wells has been disrupted. The return of the storms would not have gone unnoticed by the dwarren. Perhaps that is all it is.”

All of Eraeth’s doubt was voiced in a look.

Colin kneed his mount forward, Eraeth and Siobhaen doing the same to either side. They charged down the low slope in the wake of the dwarren, their horses catching up to the gaezels after a long moment of hard riding, the two groups slowing and adjusting to a steady pace that wouldn’t drain their mounts. The leader of the dwarren party ranged out ahead, the other four members dividing and slipping to either side.

They rode for two days, setting a fast pace, halting at odd times during the day at water sources to eat and rest, the dwarren raising small tents for sleep at night. Their route was circuitous, the dwarren leading them off the direct path in order to keep their water sources and warren entrances hidden. Twice during the first day, they sighted occumaen in the distance. Not as large as the one that had torn through the battlefields at the Escarpment, but big enough to engulf a man and his horse. Both times, the scouts brought the distortions to the dwarren leader’s attention, his face hardening at each occurrence. The second day, storm clouds pounded the plains with a deluge of rain and blue-purple lightning to the north. The entire group paused on a low rise to watch, sunlight shaded with raised hands. Colin felt a tingle of remembered hatred, the cold hands of the dead against his skin. Karen and his parents-along with the rest of the doomed wagon train-had survived such a storm, only to succumb to the Shadows afterward.

For a moment, despair washed over him. What had he achieved since then? Nothing had changed. The world was still plagued by the Wraiths and Shadows, the unnatural storms and the Drifters still riddled the plains. What had been accomplished during all of that time?

“Nothing,” he said out loud. Eraeth gave him a sidelong look, but he ignored it.

But something within him hardened. His jaw clenched and he straightened, his hands trying to grasp the handle of the staff Vaeren had taken from him. He would need to ask for a replacement, wasn’t certain that the Ostraell would grant it. And he needed to convince the dwarren that the time for complacency was gone. He wasn’t certain how he would do that, not with the protection of the Seasonal Trees in place. For the first time since he’d created them, he wished he hadn’t. They were defensive, and they were powerful enough to allow the three races to settle back and cower behind that defense under the guise that nothing was wrong. The fact that Walter and the Wraiths hadn’t been able to break the defense, that they had vanished from Wrath Suvane as if they had never existed, hadn’t helped. Too much time had passed, and the races had grown complacent and lazy.

But no more, he vowed.

He turned toward the leader of their escort. “How much farther to the Thousand Springs cavern?” He knew, but he did not want the dwarren to lose their sense of isolation and security.

The leader tore his gaze from the storm to the north. “Two days, at most.”

“No. Not how long if we continue to travel the way we have been traveling. How long if we head directly there?”

The leader scowled, shot a glance toward the dwarren who had the markings of a shaman. When the shaman shrugged, the scowl faded and he caught Colin’s gaze. “We can be there by the end of today.”