Valley of Embers (The Landkist Saga Book 1) Read Free Page A

a litter back through the town he had helped to defend was not Kole’s idea of heroic. But then, nothing about the Dark Months was, not like the stories from the desert he and the other children had been told before bed each night.
    His thoughts drifted as the sorry caravan wended its way down the lichen-choked steps, the wood homes on the outskirts giving way to older, sturdier stone in the basin. The structures here were squat and weathered, pressed into the side of the slope like the mussels clinging to the mud on the beach.
    Kole strained and tilted his chin, attempting to raise his head, but a callused hand pressed it back down. First Keeper Tu’Ren walked beside him, his stern countenance augmented by a white mustache and beard.
    “Lake’ll still be there when you’re at the bottom, son,” he said.
    Kole struggled to speak through a cracked tongue and raw throat, so the other Ember leaned awkwardly as he walked.
    “What losses?” Kole managed to whisper.
    Tu’Ren shook his head, staring off into the distance. “Not what they could have been. More than they should have been.”
    He looked down at Kole, his expression morphing.
    “A fine thing you did.”
    “Holspahr struck the fatal blow,” Kole said.
    “True enough. Still, a fine thing. If you don’t know where to aim—
    “Aim for the gut,” Kole finished weakly, and the First Keeper smirked.
    Closer to the bottom, the path split, and Kole’s bearers turned him right and gave him a view of the lake. Even through the fading morning mist, it shined brightly, fishing boats bobbing, oddly content on their moorings.
    “Never seen one like that,” Kole said, finding more of his voice with each word. An image of the great ape—pale, blue eyes staring at nothing after it had fallen—came up unbidden.
    “Wasn’t a Night Lord,” Tu’Ren said. He nodded at Kole’s surprised look. “I know what it must’ve looked like to one as young as you. Hell, I know what I thought when I saw it bearing down on Holspahr. It was something, alright, and there’s only one place a thing like that came from.”
    “The Deep Lands,” Kole said.
    “Aye. Nothing’s come out of there near as long as I can remember. Then again, the Dark Months get worse each time, more of them finding their way into the Valley. Things must be getting bad out there.”
    Their exchange stopped abruptly as they reached the Long Hall, the last pattering rain slowing to a steady mist that carried on the breeze, soothing and cool. Kole was set down in the reeds beside the road and Tu’Ren squatted beside him with a groan.
    “Kole!”
    “Ah,” Tu’Ren sighed. “There she is. Linn ran off to find her straight away, seeing the state you were in.” He winked. “How you managed to ensnare those two lovelies is beyond me, but now you’ve got a nice scar to show them, eh?” He touched Kole under the cheek, his skin pulling with a pinch at the deep scab.
    “It’s going to scar like leather,” Kole said, leaving out that it was Linn who gave it to him. He probably owed her his thanks for that.
    “All Embers do,” Tu’Ren said, rising with a few more creaks and cracks than the reeds he stood on. “The fire in our blood cares for closing wounds, not stitching them proper.”
    A flash of blue and green and Iyana Ve’Ran was kneeling beside him, the First Keeper moving off with a bowed gait that stood at odds with his reassuring demeanor.
    “She was corralling a group of children and elders toward the shoreline,” Linn called over as she crossed the road. “They had boats waiting.”
    “You had so little faith in your fearless protectors?” Kole asked, fighting through the fog to lock eyes with Iyana.
    “The attacks get worse each time,” she said, squeezing his arm tightly as she closed her eyes and began to concentrate. “Perhaps a little fear would do our protectors well.”
    People were forming a crowd outside of the Long Hall. The rest of the fighters must have been up at the