Cloud Warrior 05 - Forged in Fire Read Free

direction.
    From where Cora stood.
    “Amia!” he shouted.
    Another shaping built. Tan sensed each shaping come as pressure in his ears. This built sharply, quickly, and targeted Amia.
    He couldn’t wait. With a shaping of spirit, he struck Cora.
    It was as light a touch as he could manage, meant to do nothing more than knock her unconscious. She fell to the ground in a heap.
    The wind shaping she’d been working eased. The earth stopped rumbling. The flames sizzling across the stone died quickly.
    Tan shot toward Amia and lifted her, spinning to check if she was injured.
    “I’m fine, Tan.” She looked down at Cora. “What was that?”
    He stared at the older woman. She had gray and thinning hair, now neatly trimmed. She wore simple clothes, a chestnut wool sweater over a light brown dress and looked nothing like a shaper, but of course, she had been in the separation chamber, her bond stolen from her by Par-shon, and was one of the lucky—or unlucky—to have survived. Tan had not managed to get her to say anything to him since he’d rescued her.
    “That,” he began, “is a warrior shaper.”

2
    A Warrior
    T an stared at Cora , unable to shake the surprise he felt at her attack. Not simply the fact that she’d attacked them, but that she had managed to do so using each of the elements. Other than Roine, Tan thought himself the only warrior shaper alive.
    Tan’s shaping left her lying on the street near the entrance to the university. No one else walked along the street, though that wasn’t altogether uncommon. With all the work the shapers were doing to repair it, most steered clear, unwilling to get too close. Since the attack on the city and the way the shapers had been controlled by the archivists, a general unease had developed about shapers, even those of the kingdoms. The unease spread throughout the city, leaving something of a quiet anxiety hanging over everyone living in Ethea, though with each day, that anxiety eased.
    “ She’s the shaper? Are you certain?” Amia asked.
    There were no windows in the rebuilt walls for someone to have looked through while they shaped their attack and he sensed no one else. Then he scanned Cora, looking for signs of the runes that would mark her as one of the bonded shapers, but didn’t see anything.
    “There’s no one else. It had to be her.”
    A warrior shaper. Had she been from the kingdoms once? Roine should have known her, though. Even Tan’s mother should have known her, and she’d never made mention of a warrior named Cora.
    “There should have been one of our shapers with her,” he said.
    Amia closed her eyes and shaped quickly, then pointed down the street.
    They found Cora’s escort not far away. Wallyn was a skilled water shaper who reminded Tan in some ways of the Par-shon bonded water shaper Garza. Wallyn had a similar build, all wide in the belly with loose jowls that shook as he laughed, which was often. He preferred loose-fitting clothes, wearing what looked like a lady’s dress that flowed over him and was tied loosely around the waist with a length of thick rope. He was balding, left with only patches of hair on each side of his head.
    Amia touched his neck. “He’ll be fine. I don’t even know how injured he is,” she said.
    As she spoke, Wallyn shook his head. “Not injured, girl, just ashamed. An old woman managed to surprise me. There was a time when no one managed to surprise Wallyn. I can sense when they shape, but you’ve got to expect that of them first. I’ve gone soft, not thinking her capable of it.”
    Tan stretched out a hand and helped Wallyn to his feet. The water shaper pursed his lips in concentration and grunted, barely helping and forcing Tan to draw on a shaping of earth to give him increased strength. “I didn’t think she’s said much since she’s returned,” Tan said once he had Wallyn back on his feet.
    Wallyn shook his head, the thick folds of skin under his neck shaking as he did. “Nay, she had