Born of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 8) (15 page)

There came a deep response, almost too difficult for him to understand, that reminded him of a drumming, much like what the shapers of Chenir used.

Then the walls around him began to shake.

Tan listened to the earth and felt the ongoing shaking. It would collapse in moments.

He started into the tunnel, sending a surge of heat toward the rock that now covered the eggs, pulling saa into the protection. He drew on wyln and udilm as well, not certain they could do anything to help the eggs here, but they had provided some protection before Tan had asked them to withdraw.

There wasn’t a chance for him to know if they answered.

The tunnel began to collapse around him.

T
an shifted
his focus to earth, forcing it back and to the sides to keep from getting buried in stone. He pushed heat and flame that he drew from saa at first, and then from the fire bond itself against the rock. With enough force, he pressed up and up, streaking ever higher through the tunnel.

Walls began to collapse on him, but Tan continued to push, using shapings that he controlled, not calling on the elementals. When that failed, he added the strength of the elementals to his shaping, drawing from Kota, from fire, and from wind. All of it boosted him and sent him skyward.

But he wasn’t fast enough.

The rock collapsed, sending him backward.

Tan dropped, pressed down by massive amounts of stone and wind, all pushing down on him, attempting to crush him. Only by the strength of his shaping did he manage to keep from getting crushed under the weight of the rock.

At the bottom of the cavern, he rolled to the side as rock and debris crashed into the cavern with him. He shaped a barrier of earth and wind around him, buffering the impact of the stone. Even then, he barely held out against it.

The rock stopped moving.

Tan stood, pushing away the rock that had fallen around him. Little room remained in the cavern: rock filled it. He reached with fire sensing and detected that the draasin eggs were intact, and let out a relieved sigh. Whoever had attacked him had failed to damage them.

At least there was that victory.

But now he had to get free of the rock.

He moved slowly, finding that each step was difficult. The rock piled all around him, and he had to crush it with a shaping of earth and wind, pulverizing it so that he could move freely.

He glanced around. The tunnel should not have collapsed on him. He had shaped it with earth, using fire to augment his shaping, but something had failed. Was there something that he missed? A shaper stronger than he realized? Or had Tolman misled him?

He would have answers.

First, he had to get free.

What had once been a massive expanse of a cavern was now full of loose rock. Tan shaped his way toward the draasin eggs, careful to shield his shaping as he went. If there were someone above ground who had attempted to harm him, he would not have them know they had failed. But what better way to rid Par-shon of the Utu Tonah than to crush him beneath the ground?

Not Tolman, though. Tan didn’t think that the earth shaper would have betrayed him, not considering his connection to earth and the fact that he had revealed the draasin eggs. That meant that there was someone else here who intended to harm him. And perhaps not only him, but the eggs as well.

He continued to crush rock, leaving it as little more than dust that he swept away on a shaping of wind as he made his way toward the draasin. Fire sensing told him that they were intact, but they had survived in this cavern for at least a thousand years. He would not have them damaged the moment that he discovered them.

When he reached the eggs, he found the rock around them had practically melted. Saa had done its part to protect them, granting them the heat from the elemental. The earth elemental here had absorbed most of the impact, but there was one egg where the rock around it had failed and where the heat from saa had slipped through, heating it to a glowing red.

Tan approached carefully, holding his hands out in front of him.
What happens when saa heats the egg?
he asked Sashari.

Saa would not do something like that.

Not intentionally.

He sent an image of the collapsed tunnel and the way that the rock and saa had worked together to try to protect the eggs. Through the fire bond, he sensed Sashari’s agitation at that, and a few for the unborn draasin.

That one must be fed, Maelen.

I don’t understand.

There was a delay as if Sashari had to push to get through the connection, making Tan wonder if whoever had attacked had somehow managed to impact the fire bond, but then she answered.

Her answer came in images, much like what Tan had been sending to her.

When she mentioned feeding the draasin, he imagined hunting for food, as Sashari had done for her hatchlings until they were old enough to hunt alone. But that wasn’t what she had meant at all. The draasin didn’t need food at first, but to be connected to fire and the fire bond. They were of fire, but the initial moments after birth were essential for tying them to fire.

And this egg, heated as it was by saa, would hatch.

Another draasin would join the world. It would be Tan’s responsibility to see that it lived.

He grabbed the egg in both hands and sent a shaping of fire through it, reaching for a connection to the hatchling within. The sense of it was weak but grew stronger. Saa maintained a connection as well, understanding that now that the draasin egg had started to hatch, fire must remain in contact with it.

Tan added his shaping to it, filling the egg with a shaping of fire that came from him but also from the elemental energy he sensed around him. The draasin hatchling began to stir. Slowly at first, but with increasing movement, striking at the shell. The heat softened the shell as well.

Sashari pushed on him, guiding him how to feed the draasin, showing him how to send even more fire to it. The draasin became more active, pushing on the shell.

And then Tan felt it within the fire bond.

No longer was it some vague sense of fire. This was an elemental of fire, born into the bond. There was power here, and he needed to bring it to life.

Tan continued to draw on fire, pulling more, borrowing first from his own stores and then from saa around him. When that began to be depleted, Tan started pulling from the connection he sensed with the draasin, pulling from Asgar and Sashari and Enya, who each gave freely. Then he sensed that beginning to fail, and Tan pulled from the fire bond itself.

He had never pulled on fire through the bond before. Had he not been wrapped as he was in the shaping, needing the strength of fire in order to help the draasin egg, he would not have tried. But he had the sense that the egg would not survive if he did nothing.

The attack that had collapsed the tunnel had required the help of saa and the earth elemental, but this egg had been damaged and had started the process that would lead it to hatch.

Wrapped in the fire bond, he felt the overwhelming greatness of fire. There was the memory of Asboel within it, and he imagined that his friend guided him, though he had only spoken to Asboel through the fire bond once since his friend had died.

Power flooded him.

But Tan was not the vessel and was not the target of the fire he summoned. He poured it into the egg, in massive amounts, and heat and flame flooded it.

Even that began to fail.

His strength was not enough to feed the draasin and save the elemental of fire. The egg, and the potential of the draasin, would die.

Use the Mother.

The suggestion came from somewhere. Perhaps saa, or Asgar, or Sashari. But it sounded like Asboel once again guiding him.

Tan added a shaping of spirit.

At first, he drew on a small shaping, but then he pulled on more and more, the fire bond telling him that he
needed
to use more spirit. He exhausted all the spirit that
he
could pull, and then reached through his bond with Amia and began pulling on that as well. She gave to him gladly, suddenly aware of what did and what he attempted.

Spirit flooded from him, joining the shaping of fire, as it began to sink into the egg.

The shaping failed.

The egg cracked.

Tan sagged and fell against the nearest egg.

His body ached. His mind throbbed.

And he felt the egg shaking.

Tan turned to the egg. The shell had a long split down one side of it, and what had been a black shell with streaks of gray now glowed a red so dark that it might still be black.

A small claw poked out of the shell and began pulling at shards. Wings unfurled.

Tan watched, mesmerized by the way the draasin hatched. Long forelegs crawled out of the egg and then the long snout pressed out, piercing the shell.

Small, yellow eyes blinked open.

The draasin snapped and hissed a breath of steam at him.

It crawled from the egg and fully unfurled its wings. They were deep black, much like the shell. The draasin flapped its wings but couldn’t fly.

Tan stood and didn’t try moving toward the draasin, not wanting to frighten it.

The draasin started forward, flicking his wings and sniffing at the air. With each breath, it snorted steam, and then it managed to shoot fire.

Reaching through the fire bond, Tan connected to the draasin, sensing the connection there. The draasin resided within the fire bond, but only weakly. The connection grew stronger with each moment, pulling on fire,
feeding
on the bond.

Now he understood what Sashari had meant about feeding the elemental.

You have done well, Maelen
, she sent to him.

What now?

The hatchling must feed. Then it must eat.

How will I know when it is ready?

Sashari sent a sense of amusement through the bond.
You will know.

Tan looked around the cavern. One of the hatchlings had survived. Another draasin was born into the world. And he had aided in that.

Is that what it was like for you with the hatchlings?

Each is different. This one will be strong. Much fire was needed to feed the hatching, and the feeding is not yet complete. He will rival even Asboel.

But first, he had to survive.

And that meant that Tan had to get free of the cavern and then find a way to protect the draasin. The hatchling was small, no larger than a puppy, and it completed a circle around the other eggs, sniffing at them as it went. When finished, the draasin curled up on the ground in front of Tan, wrapping its wings around itself.

“Time to get you out of here,” Tan said to it.

The draasin tipped his head back and looked up at him, blinking with its two yellow eyes. It snorted a streamer of steam as if to answer.

The draasin would not be strong enough to make it out of the cavern on his own, and Tan didn’t want to leave it here, not while it continued to feed on the connection with fire and still needed to eat.

“Will you come with me?” Tan found speaking aloud to the draasin easier. He could attempt to reach it through the fire bond, but given the size and the fact that the draasin continued to feed on fire, he didn’t want to distract it from the bond.

The draasin stood on thin legs. If Sashari was right and the draasin would eventually rival Asboel, the creature would grow to an enormous size, but right now, it was small and frail. It would need protection.

Tan lifted the draasin, who crawled up his arms and looped around his neck, settling in there. Tan didn’t have to hold it this way, and it managed to secure itself there.

Having the draasin riding him was a strange sensation. Even stranger was the fact that the draasin rode him in nearly the same place that he did when riding on Asboel or Asgar.

Through the fire bond, he heard an amused laughter from Asgar.
Now you’re the horse for him.

Tan ignored him.

He stopped where he had landed when the tunnel collapsed. The ground showed the impact of his landing, and he’d left a trail in the pulverized stone as he made his way toward the draasin. Getting back out meant that he would have to shape his way free from the tunnel, but after feeding the draasin, he wasn’t certain that he had the necessary strength to manage that.

But the elemental might be able to help.

Tan focused on the power that he sensed within the stone. The elemental continued to provide protection for the draasin eggs, supported by saa.

Help me get this hatchling to safety,
he sent to the earth elemental.
You have protected him for long enough; it is my turn to do what I can.

The ground trembled softly in response.

Above him, rock pulled apart, separating into a crack wide enough for him to get through. Tan pushed up on a shaping of wind and fire, into the crack, trusting that the elemental would allow him to get free.

Unlike the tunnel that he had shaped that had narrowed the closer he went to the cavern, the crack remained the same size all the way along. The draasin barely moved, radiating a comforting warmth. Tan recognized the way it continued to feed on the fire bond, though the draw became less and less, as if it was getting full.

The rock was smooth all the way through.

Tan shot through the crevasse formed by the elemental.

Then he emerged.

He stood upon a shaping of wind, anger coursing through him at the fact that someone had thought to attack him while he was beneath the ground, thinking that they could harm him as he sought to understand what happened to the draasin, that they would endanger the draasin that had been protected by this cavern for centuries. They would find that he would not fall easily.

Lightning crackled from the sky, summoned by his shaping.

The draasin stirred on his back and sent a single huff of steam.

Tan surveyed the ground around him, but there was no sign of whoever had attacked, causing the tunnel to collapse.

What of Tolman?

He rose higher and higher until he reached the top of the rocky overlook that led down into the ravine. Once there, he searched using earth and spirit.

Then he saw Tolman.

The shaper’s body lay bent and twisted on the ground. Blood streaked around him, soaking into the earth.

Tan dropped next to him and reached for the pulse in his neck. It was there, but thready and weak. Using water, he stabilized the injuries, but water shaping was not something he had much skill with. Tolman needed a healer.

But would he be able to find Garza and convince her to help?