Read Online Valley of Embers (The Landkist Saga Book 1) by Steven Kelliher - Free Book Online
Authors: Steven Kelliher
Ads: Link
immediately.
Shifa greeted the carrot first, crunching hungrily before finding the courtesy to reward Kole with a lick. She walked a circle around him, sniffing as she went, both to reacquaint herself and—he suspected—to ensure he was not further burdened with orange vegetables.
“That’s my girl,” he whispered, scratching behind a white-tipped ear. The other hounds looked on from their places beneath the thatch-covered slats, unimpressed.
Together, they moved around the back of the wood barracks, skirting the edge of the wall to the west, Shifa following Kole’s lead and mimicking him as he avoided the pools of orange light that marked the braziers’ glow. He chose the section of wall nearest Kaya to scale.
Shifa was a wall hound of the Lake, fleet of foot and cunning as a sharpened blade. The hounds here had to be, since it was their prodding and feigned retreats that helped to corral the attacking Dark Kind during assaults. The Emberfolk of Last Lake did not have the great white walls of Hearth to hide behind, so they worked with what tools nature gave them.
Kole sat the hound down in a darkened bend in the wall. He motioned with two fingers and she was up and over with a bound and scratch so faint one could be forgiven for thinking it a squirrel. He waited a short spell and then followed her over, finding her sitting and waiting, ears perked and matching tail wagging. They took off into the woods, and if there was a small part of him that felt foolish for following his flights of fancy, there was a keener part intent on discovering the source of that constant prickle, which was now a steady burn at his temples.
His veins felt hot, and Shifa’s hackles raised as she crossed in front of him on the trail, scenting the ozone he released. The Woodsmen of the Scattered Villages often said there were two choices when it came to trust in the deeper forests at night: the moon and the path. The moon was unreliable, dipping behind clouds and canopy alike; the path could be tricky, snaking this way and that, mingling with the Faey roads or washed out in the rains. Kole supposed it mattered little which he trusted now.
There were no Dark Kind laying in wait for them. If there had been, Shifa surely would have sensed them. Still, she had caught something. Kole could tell by the pace she set. He marked her progress by following the bobbing tufts of her ears through the dark.
Hunter and hound slowed their pace before halting altogether at the borders separating the Greenwoods from the Black. The branches were thicker here, the fur-covered vines forming dense curtains that reached to the forest floor. There, they intermingled with the roots and worms in the soft earth.
Shifa looked up at Kole, tongue lolling as she waited for him to make a move.
Kole slowed his breathing to a crawl, closing his eyes as he listened, intent on the woods. He heard nothing, a common thing in the Dark Months, but this was a thick and watchful silence. He felt Shifa go rigid beside him. She issued a low growl, a final confirmation. He moved forward, parting a fur-laden curtain with one drawn Everwood blade, which he left unlit.
In the deep forest, the roots grew thicker than beams, forming a sort of latticework—a second canopy above the tunnels and the soft, moving things below. If you had to traverse the great roots, you were better off going high than low. Kole picked his way carefully from root to root. He remembered coming here with Linn as a boy, when they used to imagine sliding down the tails of drakes.
The feeling of being watched intensified to a point of near-mania, and Shifa reacted accordingly, issuing her growls to the forest floor and the twisting branches above. Kole redoubled his heat, and his skin prickled, the sweat turning to a misty veil that enwrapped him like a forest ghost.
A misjudged hop and then a rotted root betrayed him, announcing his blunder with a resounding crack that echoed off the encircling wall of
Shifa greeted the carrot first, crunching hungrily before finding the courtesy to reward Kole with a lick. She walked a circle around him, sniffing as she went, both to reacquaint herself and—he suspected—to ensure he was not further burdened with orange vegetables.
“That’s my girl,” he whispered, scratching behind a white-tipped ear. The other hounds looked on from their places beneath the thatch-covered slats, unimpressed.
Together, they moved around the back of the wood barracks, skirting the edge of the wall to the west, Shifa following Kole’s lead and mimicking him as he avoided the pools of orange light that marked the braziers’ glow. He chose the section of wall nearest Kaya to scale.
Shifa was a wall hound of the Lake, fleet of foot and cunning as a sharpened blade. The hounds here had to be, since it was their prodding and feigned retreats that helped to corral the attacking Dark Kind during assaults. The Emberfolk of Last Lake did not have the great white walls of Hearth to hide behind, so they worked with what tools nature gave them.
Kole sat the hound down in a darkened bend in the wall. He motioned with two fingers and she was up and over with a bound and scratch so faint one could be forgiven for thinking it a squirrel. He waited a short spell and then followed her over, finding her sitting and waiting, ears perked and matching tail wagging. They took off into the woods, and if there was a small part of him that felt foolish for following his flights of fancy, there was a keener part intent on discovering the source of that constant prickle, which was now a steady burn at his temples.
His veins felt hot, and Shifa’s hackles raised as she crossed in front of him on the trail, scenting the ozone he released. The Woodsmen of the Scattered Villages often said there were two choices when it came to trust in the deeper forests at night: the moon and the path. The moon was unreliable, dipping behind clouds and canopy alike; the path could be tricky, snaking this way and that, mingling with the Faey roads or washed out in the rains. Kole supposed it mattered little which he trusted now.
There were no Dark Kind laying in wait for them. If there had been, Shifa surely would have sensed them. Still, she had caught something. Kole could tell by the pace she set. He marked her progress by following the bobbing tufts of her ears through the dark.
Hunter and hound slowed their pace before halting altogether at the borders separating the Greenwoods from the Black. The branches were thicker here, the fur-covered vines forming dense curtains that reached to the forest floor. There, they intermingled with the roots and worms in the soft earth.
Shifa looked up at Kole, tongue lolling as she waited for him to make a move.
Kole slowed his breathing to a crawl, closing his eyes as he listened, intent on the woods. He heard nothing, a common thing in the Dark Months, but this was a thick and watchful silence. He felt Shifa go rigid beside him. She issued a low growl, a final confirmation. He moved forward, parting a fur-laden curtain with one drawn Everwood blade, which he left unlit.
In the deep forest, the roots grew thicker than beams, forming a sort of latticework—a second canopy above the tunnels and the soft, moving things below. If you had to traverse the great roots, you were better off going high than low. Kole picked his way carefully from root to root. He remembered coming here with Linn as a boy, when they used to imagine sliding down the tails of drakes.
The feeling of being watched intensified to a point of near-mania, and Shifa reacted accordingly, issuing her growls to the forest floor and the twisting branches above. Kole redoubled his heat, and his skin prickled, the sweat turning to a misty veil that enwrapped him like a forest ghost.
A misjudged hop and then a rotted root betrayed him, announcing his blunder with a resounding crack that echoed off the encircling wall of
Similar Books
