The Place of Knowing, page 11
part #5 of The Volatar Saga Series
“I don’t see any of them.”
“They have to be here,” Hevith said.
They did. He just didn’t know where. They would have to be here as they were swirling that power around, but there wasn’t any sign of them. Just the feeling of the power.
“Form a circle and push outward,” Hevith said.
“Are you sure that’s the right strategy?” Coldan said.
“It’s the right move.”
Coldan whistled and the others began to take position, creating a ring that formed all around them. Hevith waited, and the darkness started to press inward once again, growing thicker around them.
Calling on the elaron, he forced it out from him again. The power surged, filling him.
It came from some deep place within him, and he used what he could to push it out and let that power flow away from him and into the blade of elaron.
The air sizzled. They stepped forward. Nothing changed, other than the energy persisting in the air. Another step.
Hevith could feel the power flowing, the energy rolling out from him, and he pushed outward, letting that sizzling energy clear the air.
He might be able to clear the space around him, but what he needed was to be able to clear the space all around the others.
Hevith had something that might work.
It involved connecting to the others.
Wasn’t that what he thought that he could do? He was the Volatar.
The elaron pushed from him. He let the elaron connect to him, and then to the others outward.
Coldan gasped.
Power suddenly flowed. He could see it as it did, and he could see the way that light began to burn from within them.
That power connected to the others.
He used the elaron to surge between them. Hevith helped the elaron stretch away, guiding it. Using that power in the way that he did, he felt energy sizzling. It was powerful. Protective.
And it overwhelmed the darkness caused by the Hith.
They surged forward.
Hevith squeezed the power of the elaron out from him, letting it flow in a way that turned it into something more. The bright light sizzled against the darkness, the energy that he summoned now stretching away from him, but turning into a glowing light that he attempted to control. Yet that light continued to burn, making the energy crackle around him. Hevith pushed forward with that.
Shapes appeared in the darkness.
“Hith!”
Someone shouted it, and the others reacted.
They had been training. Working on becoming the soldiers they wanted to be. Readying for the violence that they would have to endure in order to protect the Jahor. Hevith hadn’t known just how skilled they might be, but he had been ready for the possibility that some of them would fall. When they did, he knew that he would struggle. He would be the reason for them falling, the reason that they had come here, willingly offering themselves. If there was anything that he could do to protect them…
There was.
He could use the elaron the way that he already had. Connect to the Jahor. Let that power flow from him.
The shapes attacked.
Hevith stayed near Coldan, trying to get a sense for how many of the Hith had surrounded them but failing to get a good count. Instead of trying to see them, he focused on the power within him to see if there might be something he could determine through the elaron.
The Hith pressure against him allowed him to detect something.
He could feel their power. They pushed against him. The attackers weren’t all Hith.
There were probably a dozen Hith, but there had to be several hundred soldiers with them as well. That many and they could be overpowered.
Hevith would focus on the Hith. Let the Order deal with the others.
Chaos struck.
The fighting was difficult for him to track. He looked around him, trying to keep alert on the fighting, but he had a hard time doing so. Hevith was only able to keep up because of the elaron flowing from him. With that, he could track the fighting, but it revealed more than what he wanted.
Men dying.
So far, he didn’t think that any of them were his men, but how long would that last? Eventually, some of the Jahor would die in this small grove of trees, only a few days from Laranth, and a few days from the next battle that would bring them to Vor.
Hevith would have to keep that from happening.
He stepped out, holding on to the blade of elaron, the power flowing from him, and he focused on where he could find the Hith. The dark energy from them was out there; he just had to target it.
When he came across the first of the Hith, he didn’t hesitate. He used the power within him and surged it into the glowing sword, and carved through the Hith.
Hevith spun, turning to the next.
There was another attacker.
This one wasn’t Hith.
That didn’t matter. They fought with the Hith. That was enough.
Hevith battled, striking out as quickly as he could, twisting and turning and using the elaron to guide him. That power continued flowing, and as he used that power, he could feel the energy starting to shift.
The Jahor shouted as they surged.
He struck.
Hevith focused on what he could see in front of him. He focused on what he could feel around him. There were other Hith. He had battled with them before, but never had he battled them and felt the confidence that he had now. Never had he fought the Hith knowing that they wouldn’t be able to do anything to slow the Jahor. The Hith weren’t going to stop them.
He found another Hith.
He was powerful. Darkness flowed toward him, stretching across the ground in vines of power, searching for the next person that the Hith would attack. Hevith carved through it, using the power of the elaron to surge as he did, letting that energy slice through the vines.
Another Hith stepped toward him, holding on to a dark curved blade.
“You should not have that,” Hevith growled.
The anger within him surprised him. It wasn’t just that he was angry. That didn’t surprise him. He felt that anger, and he felt the rage that filled him, the same rage that had wanted to free him and his people from the prison. What surprised him was the suddenness of it that filled him, an anger that left him wondering if he might lose control.
Lessons from his old instructor Vard came back to him then. Vard had warned him, wanting Hevith to know that he didn’t have to lose control, that he could find that patience and that peace, but he would have to work for it. He remembered those lessons from Vard, and he had to embrace them now.
Hevith took a deep breath, trying to steady himself, to slow the anger.
Then he pushed power out through the sword.
The elaron surged, the brightness of the light beginning to take a different sort of hold, and Hevith worked to avoid carving through any of the Jahor with him while he let that power flow up and through him. He didn’t know if he would even be able to harm the Jahor. Could they be injured by power that they possessed as well?
The Hith blocked him.
Power swirled out from the Hith, twisting around the blade, and he used his ne’rash to brace himself from Hevith’s attack.
Hevith called on more of the elaron.
He would have to find a way to burn through the ne’rash, though without overwhelming the others with him.
He might need to borrow power from them, but he didn’t want to do so if they were going to end up weakened because of it. Hevith didn’t dare take his gaze away from the man in front of him. The ne’rash from him was too powerful. Instead, he held on to the power that he had, using it as he tried to maintain a control over the elaron without sending too much.
The Hith was powerful.
They danced around each other.
If Hevith couldn’t handle one powerful Hith, how did he expect to deal with the others when it came down to freeing Vor? If he went to the city, he would run the risk of finding more Hith just like this one. Enough of the Hith that he would have to see if there would be any way for him to simply carve through him in a way that would leave him down.
“You will fail.” The Hith smiled at him.
Hevith looked back at him, trying to ignore the rage that threatened to spill out of him. For him to hold on to the elaron, he wanted to maintain the control that he had; it just meant that he would have to be careful and quick about it.
“What do you think you can do to stop us?” Hevith could feel the others near him, the power the Jahor used as they fought, and he felt confident he could continue to oppose anything the Hith would bring. Cut this man down and then they could move on. The storm would end, and they could reach Vor. They could free the Movras. They could do everything that they had been planning on doing since they left. It all started here.
The Hith pressed out more of the dark energy.
It curled and swirled, power that flowed from him.
Hevith braced for it, but even as he did, he had to reach for the elaron in order to cut it off. He wasn’t going to be able to twist the sword fast enough to stop his opponent. He would have to find another way.
There was something that he could do.
It involved letting the elaron flow from him, embracing that power that burned within him, and letting this man get close enough that he could find a way to overwhelm him.
Hevith withdrew some of the power that flowed in the blade. The Hith tried to move closer.
Hevith grinned. Then he darted toward him, exploding the power of the elaron.
He felt something slam into him. Pain surged.
That pain was temporary. It had to be.
What he needed was to feel the power that came from the elaron and filled him.
The Hith used the ne’rash. Darkness flowed from him, attempting to slam into Hevith. They fought, though neither of them moved. The power flowed from one to the other, the ne’rash battling with the elaron coming from Hevith.
He wasn’t going to be strong enough on his own. He needed help.
That was something he could do. He had help.
He drew on the others with him. That power came to him, filling him with even more energy. The elaron exploded.
Then the Hith fell.
Hevith staggered back.
He focused on the elaron blade again, but by the time that he surged another into existence, it didn’t matter. The others were already finished.
Coldan was near him, looking at him with a strange expression in his eyes. “What did you do?”
“I stopped that Hith.”
“It looked like… I don’t know what it looked like. Only that I didn’t like it.”
Hevith took a deep breath. Some of the pain he’d been feeling lingered, but as he remained connected to the elaron, that pain gradually started to fade, disappearing into little more than a memory of what had been there.
He crouched next to the Hith. The man wasn’t dead. His chest rose and fell, but moved slowly, leaving Hevith wondering how much time he had remaining.
“How did you know we were here?” Hevith demanded.
The Hith didn’t look over at him.
Hevith grabbed him, twisting his head and forcing him to look over. “How?”
The Hith grunted, a thick cough coming to him as he did. He laughed. “Do you think you can move through here without them knowing?”
He coughed again and Hevith waited for him to say something more, but he didn’t. He stopped breathing.
Damn.
He leaned back, getting to his feet and looking around. The Jahor had finished the fighting and the others, those of the Hith and the regular soldiers they had brought with them, were all down. That left only the Jahor. A few of the fighters were still alive, but from what Hevith could tell, none of the Hith lived.
“What was that about?” he whispered.
It was mostly to himself, but with Coldan standing next to him, he just shook his head. “They were trying to test us.”
“They did test us,” Hevith said.
“They tested and they failed.”
Hevith took a deep breath. They had failed. The Hith had sent almost two hundred men out here. Had they expected to be able to overpower Hevith? That wouldn’t surprise him, nor would it surprise him to learn that the Hith had some way of tracking those that they had sent, waiting for them to return. If they didn’t, Hevith would have to be ready for another attack, and the next one would likely be worse.
What if this was more than just a test?
He didn’t know what it would be, but he could easily imagine the Hith having something they hoped to learn from them. Thunder rumbled again, this time close as it had been before. It suited his mood.
“We should get ready,” he said to Coldan.
“For what?”
“For the next wave.”
10
Volatar
The forest loomed before me.
We went the opposite direction than I had expected to go. After heading to Coynahl, I had expected that we would end up going north, freeing other cities, finding the next line of attack. Eventually as we made our way north, I anticipated that I would find a way to rescue more of my people. I had not expected that we would turn and head back toward the is’anish.
That was where we needed to go, though.
The memories from within the ne’rash had told me that we needed to do this.
“They keep watching us,” Shae said.
I looked over to her, seeing the way that she held on to the elaron, and the power that flowed through her as she did. I smiled. “When you’re doing that, they will.”
“What am I doing?”
“Look at what you’re holding?”
She wasn’t the only one. Coldan gripped the hilt of his sword, and even Erich held on to a hint of power, a small band of elaron that would allow him to surge his connection more strongly were he to need it. The rest of the soldiers of the Order were ready, watching and trying to see if the Hith would do something threatening. I didn’t expect it, but I also understood that we needed to be careful. Mistakes could easily be made, especially in a war that had been raging for as long as it had.
The peace was tenuous, but with my new understanding of the ne’rash and how the Hith used it, I had to think that connection could help me understand whether the Hith might attempt something that would pose an increased problem for us.
“I guess you’re right,” she muttered.
“You guess?”
“I’ve never been this close to so many Hith,” she said, her voice lowered as she did.
“That’s not true. But what is true is that you’ve never been this close to so many Hith who might not want to use you.”
“Do you really believe it?”
I looked over to the line of Hith. There were a hundred of them, a few more than what we had in our procession, and from what I’d been able to tell, more of them had a connection to the ne’rash than the Jahor with us had a connection to the elaron. Those with us who did have a connection didn’t always have the strongest one. Some of them were soldiers of the Order, only bound to the elaron in a way that made them stronger.
“I want to believe it,” I said. “I think we need to believe it.”
They marched onward. After a while, the Jahor paused at a stream to take a break and the Hith did the same. I made my way over to the Hith, watching for Nevii as I did, and found her near the stream and leading the line of the Hith. As their leader, at least now that we’d chased away the ger’thin, she was responsible for deciding the direction of what they did. She was dressed differently than she had been in the city, now wearing something of a dress that clung to her figure, revealing curves I hadn’t noticed before. She was lovely, though I had to push those thoughts away and be careful. We were on opposite sides of what had once been a war, and I didn’t think that she wanted anything to do with me in that sense.
“You didn’t say that we’d be traveling this far,” Nevii said.
“I told you what we’d be doing. The forest is at the edge of your lands.”
“All are our lands.”
I tipped my head to the side, frowning at her. “We’ve had that discussion already.”
“The truce will hold. For now.”
That had been my first order of business after helping restore the temple. We had needed to find a way to get the Hith to refrain from attacking the Jahor. Nevii had sent word north. Whether that would make a difference or not still remained to be seen. I had my doubts about whether the Hith would listen to her, but she seemed convinced. There was still the likelihood that there were ger’thin in some of the other cities. Perhaps all of them.
Nevii hadn’t believed in the ger’thin, though, which was why we traveled south. The detour from what I thought was necessary would help. I had to believe that. In order for us to be successful, and to find a lasting peace, they had to understand the same truths that we had come to understand. The problem was that I wasn’t even convinced that I knew the truth. I had thought that I had, but after what I’d seen in the temple, I no longer knew if it was the case.
“We need to get through the forest, and then you will find the understanding that you want,” I said.
“If you are lying to us…”
“I’m not.”
She frowned at me. It was better than the glares I had been getting. As more of the Hith learned I was the Volatar, they started to watch me with increased suspicion. Though I had helped with their temple, I was still the Volatar. That name had a reputation when it came to the Hith. As I had always intended it to.
“We should—”
There was a surge of energy behind me.
I spun before I had an opportunity to finish telling her what we should do.
There wasn’t anything about that energy that told me what it was, only that there was a power to it that I suspected came from one of the other great powers. Not the elaron and not the ne’rash, which meant we had to be especially cautious.
“What is it?” Nevii asked.
