Shadowblade: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Romance (A Dance of Fire and Shadow Book 1)

I CAN TELL FROM THE changing angle of the sun’s rays that Lupine has led us in a wide half-circle and after an hour she brings us to the Eldrin camp at the foot of the mountains. The trees are more stunted with the altitude here, surrounding a wide clearing of rough grass and heather. There is already a chill in the air as dusk falls.

Marin strides to greet us, relief etched on his face.

“There is food waiting for you at the fire.” He stoops to ruffle Lupine’s thick fur and then moves back a step so she can see and match his hand movements to his instructions.

“Lupine. Go back, check for enemies. Find Lania and bring her here. Understand?”

Lupine does her little acknowledgement whimper and lays her head on his arm for a final ear-scratch before loping off into the forest. I watch her go, longing for the day I can work so closely with a creature of the wild. Then I hurry after the others for a place at the fire and a bowl of hot soup.

The archers have formed four groups around their own cooking-fires, except for Allantis who is stirring the food over our fire, his cropped sandy hair a military contrast to the less formal appearance of the Eldrin.

Five of the archers are sitting a little apart, their hands bound and tied to a sturdy tree.

Deris loses no time in relating his meeting-conversation to Marin, carefully, word for word. I can’t imagine what he could have learned from such a short exchange, but he looks pleased.

“I managed to make Farang feel I believed his story completely and was desperate to go along with his plan. It encouraged him to relax and push his main agenda too quickly. It confirmed to me that his priority is to discover the location of Maratic. I think when Lania refused to take him straight there, he figured that luring Jantian or another senior captain into his ambush was the next best thing.”

I know I should hold back from interrupting but the memory of the double plot is too fresh.

“Marin, I’m sure those archers were really set up as bait to lure you there on your own. I think they would only have been used to kill us if the bait had failed.”

Marin ponders this for a moment. “Yes, I think you’re right––up to a point. Farang’s plan was to kill all of us except for our patrol leader, whether that had been Jantian or me. Those Rapathian special forces were supposed to capture me to use as a hostage. It ties in with what Allantis and I discovered while you were gone.” He tips his head in the direction of the five prisoners.

“We caught one of those archers trying to listen in to what Allantis and I were discussing. Then we discovered he had recently been added to the group from Farang’s own retainers, along with three others. They were all under orders to report useful information back to their master. The fifth prisoner is one of ours, pretending to be working for Farang and listening in to what the others are saying while they wait to hear what their fate will be.”

It doesn’t quite tie in for me. “Those five Rapathians looked like serious assassins. Couldn’t Farang make up his mind whether he wanted to snoop on you or kill you?”

Marin allows himself to relax a little and almost smiles.

“I think it was planned as a sequence or a maybe a backup plan. Or maybe both. Farang guessed we would keep our key people out of sight, anticipating an ambush. As you suspected, I walked into that particular trap, hoping to use my status to take over command rather than kill our own archers. That gave the spies a chance to overhear what Allantis and I were saying. Their plan was to lure me away from the main body of archers posted on that ledge to where the assassins should have been waiting for the signal to capture me.”

Seems like Deris hasn’t forgotten that he warned Marin not to take the risk of approaching the archers. “So… those spies were backup if Farang failed to torture the information about Maratic out of you.”

Marin dips his head in tacit acknowledgement and then smiles encouragingly at me.

“Luckily Lupine and Ariel saved me from being captured.”

This is getting far too devious for me to follow. “So the cohort of Rapathians Nem warned us about?”

Marin frowns. “Not sure. Maybe Farang was so confident his plan would work he invited them to collect prisoners and information, enhancing his reputation with the Emperor.”

Deris looks doubtful. “Maybe the Emperor sent them himself, because he feels the need to keep close watch on his pet traitor?”

Marin nods slowly. “Maybe. If there is distrust between them, that is to our advantage. What I still don’t understand is why Maratic? If Farang simply wants to destroy the Eldrin it would be easier to lure us all into the open by making threats to the king’s life. He knows we would do everything in our power to protect Tandarion and his nephew. Even with all our training and skill, the invaders outnumber us enough to be sure of killing us all if they could draw us out. But instead, Farang keeps the king safe to reassure us he is an ally, so we break with tradition and bring him to Maratic? What would he gain?”’

I have been pondering this myself in every spare moment today. Not that there have been many of those. And I still know so little about how things work beyond the bounds of my village. And yet, something is stirring in the newly-sharpened, calculating part of my mind and my encounter with the Shadowblade is pushing my thoughts in a different direction.

“Is Maratic the only place of power in Samaran?”

“There is one more, in the far north. Too cold and inhospitable to make much use of it.”

“What about in Rapathia itself?”

“There were two, but there was so much infighting in the previous dynasty of Emperors, both of them were destroyed in the constant civil wars and battles for possession of the land.”

I think I have the answer. It feels right even if I can’t fully prove it yet. The way both the Blade and Maratic are sources of similar power.

It all fits. Maratic is effectively the only source left.

“I think Farang wants to get control of Maratic and its power so he can use it to bargain with the Emperor for wealth and position. Now he has helped the Rapathians to invade, he needs more leverage to ensure he gets his promised rewards. It would be very easy for the Usurper to cast him aside.”

Marin stares at me. “It would partly make sense, except that only Jantian and a few of the more experienced Eldrin know how to teach others the skill of actually using that power instead of being overwhelmed, destroyed by it, the way Blade adepts very quickly go crazy with bloodlust and greed. People like that would be impossible to control. Useless as an army. And it takes years of hard discipline under skilled instruction to make any progress with it. It would be of no help to them.”

I’m not so sure. “Unless Farang has––or maybe the Emperor has––discovered some way of harnessing the power directly, maybe something like the way the Shadowblade does it. Or like the way he passes it on to others. Linked with a way of keeping adepts under control. An army of powerful, obedient slave-soldiers would be exactly what the Usurper wants.”

The others react in alarm. I can see this would be a terrible threat to Samaran, a development that would condemn our people to military occupation and enslavement with little hope of reprieve.

Marin frowns. “Ariel? You really think Purmut might be able to simply take power directly from Maratic and control it enough to use against us? Without years of training, just as you did from the Shadowblade’s gift?”

Deris interrupts with a question of his own. “Don’t forget the Blade was driven out of his place in Maratic centuries ago. Could the Emperor bribe him with promises of letting him return to his ancient home in exchange for creating an army of adepts for more Rapathian conquests?”

I wish they didn’t see me as the Blade’s spokesperson or expert, a role that feels even more uncomfortable than that of deadly weapon.

No choice. They are all waiting for an answer.

I go over in my mind the way the Blade endured the pain of some kind of embedded curse to help me save Marin and find my sister.

“I don’t think the Blade would help Rapathians.”

Marin shakes his head. “Elementals have no loyalty to humans, whether they see us as individuals or nations.”

I search for a solid reason behind my intuition.

“Maybe not that kind of loyalty, not as we experience it, but there is something guiding or informing what he does, some kind of personal agenda. I could feel it in the brief moment when I healed him. I just don’t understand what it is, beyond a deep hatred of anything Rapathian––”

“There is still one power place in Annubia.” Nem steps out of the shadows, leading her horse. Seems like she caught the last part of this conversation––and she sounds worried

“My people take every precaution to keep the location of the Annubian source a secret. When I left home I was too young to understand all the details, but my mother would visit me sometimes and I gradually learned more about it. I’m sure the fear of the Rapathians on our western borders is the reason it has always been kept hidden.”

“Point.” Marin signals her to sit with us and grab some food. “I’ll ask Jantian what he thinks when we get back to Maratic. Maybe we should slip into Corinium and talk to some of the Annubian traders there. We might find out something useful. What did you learn from your spy mission?”

Nem holds out her bowl for Brac to fill from the steaming pot on the fire. “Farang certainly wasn’t fleeing for his life, although he definitely looked nervous when the Rapathian soldiers arrived.”

Marin nods in agreement. “That fits with our guess that he was hoping to hand them more prisoners and information than he managed to extract from his meeting with us. Go on.”

Nem answers between hurried mouthfuls of soup.

“I was thinking I could gain more information by listening to the troop commander making clandestine comments to his men in their own language, but it turns out Farang also speaks fluent Rapathian. I suppose that is the first thing you learn––and learn to keep quiet––if you’re planning to betray your country to them. He told them he succeeded in convincing us that he is on our side and we will soon agree to give him access to Maratic, unless his scouts track us there first. He promised that it would then be easy to kill every one of us. That seemed to satisfy the Rapathian commander.”

Deris breaks in. “It looks like Farang really is playing a double game, if our guess about his underlying reason for wanting access to Maratic is correct. He wants to destroy the Eldrin, but he is even more interested in somehow using Maratic’s power as a bargaining asset with the Emperor.”

Marin stares at the ground while he unravels his own thoughts. “The only way would be to somehow coerce Jantian into showing him how to harness that power. Killing him would come later once the Fang has what he wants.”

It sounds so horrible, calculating, ruthless, especially after Farang’s little peasant speech about being a man of the people.

“Deris, why didn’t you give the signal for the archers to kill the miserable traitor? At least then we would only have the Rapathian army to worry about!”

Deris looks pained, as if I have just dumped a weight of responsibility on him.

“I know it’s a risk. But there was no immediate threat to any of us and right now Farang is our only link to discovering what the invaders might be planning next. Their only point of weakness.”

“Like dealing with a poisonous snake!”

Marin shakes his head. “Better than no snake at all. It’s a risk we have to take. Deris, I think you did the right thing. Don’t take all the responsibility onto yourself for that decision.”

Deris looks relieved. Not for the first time I notice how quickly Marin moves to reassure his people by taking responsibility for tricky decisions, as if he knows just how to encourage the best from them. If only the Blade’s gift had given me that ability as well as the raw power I’m struggling with. Power that is still hard to control. At least I’m learning a bit more about strategy.

Farang’s desperation to get control of Maratic suggests that neither he nor the Rapathians can use the Shadowblade as a direct source––at least I hope not. A horde of adepts with the kind of wild power I feel inside me is not a prospect I want to confront. Maybe the Emperor already knows about the Blade’s hatred of anything Rapathian…

An anxious yell from one of the lookouts has all of us looking round in alarm. Lania’s horse stumbles into the flickering light on the edge of the camp. Deris and Brac get there first, reaching up to steady Lania who is slumped forward in the saddle, an arrow shaft sticking out from her right shoulder like a long black sting.

But what has me rooted to the spot in horror is the bloody silver-grey bundle she is holding, draped across the front of the saddle.