Serpent of Fire by D. K. Holmberg Page B

around him for strength.
    “Did it work?” Ferran asked.
    Tan listened for golud. At first, he heard nothing, but then the angry rumbling that had awoken him came again, slowly building, rolling toward the north like a thunderous bell tolling. “You should hear it, too,” Tan said.
    Ferran laid back against the ground. “I hear nothing.”
    “That shouldn’t be,” he started. “The elemental should be bound more tightly to you if anything. I used spirit…”
    Ferran rolled onto his side. “I felt what you did, but I think it was not soon enough. The separation came first. The connection is gone.”
    Frustration built within Tan, but anger with it as well. For Par-shon to come to the kingdoms and steal the bond from one of their shapers… He would not tolerate that. “Stay here.”
    Without waiting for Ferran to respond, Tan took to the air on an angry shaping of wind and fire. Asboel. You are needed. Honl. Come to me. Nymid.
    Asboel stirred from wherever he rested, registered Tan’s need, and took to the sky. Honl was upon him in moments, fluttering around him. Even the nymid coalesced from water droplets in the air, coating Tan with a greenish film.
    Maelen, you should not hunt when angry, Asboel warned.
    Par-shon will learn that they cannot simply steal our bonds. They cannot come to these lands and harm the elementals.
    Tan’s anger was about more than that. If he couldn’t protect Ferran—a shaper bound to the elemental—what hope did he have of protecting the kingdoms? Worse, if he couldn’t protect golud, how could he save the hatchling?
    Within moments, Asboel circled overhead. Tan lifted on the wind, rising to the draasin. We will find them. All of them.
    Maelen—
    They will force bonds to other elementals, Asboel. Ethea is a place of convergence. Think of what will happen if they manage to reach and take bonds throughout the city? How many elementals will be affected? How many will be forced to bond?
    The draasin snorted. You do this not out of anger but out of concern.
    Tan looked up at Asboel. I am angry, Asboel. I am very angry.

9
    A Warrior’s Anger
    W ind billowed around Tan, pulling at his hair and jacket. Heat radiated from him as he allowed fire to fill him, letting it burn with his rage. This was different than when fire controlled him; this time, Tan controlled his anger, using it to power the shaping he would need.
    Tan unsheathed the warrior sword and pulled a shaping of each of the elements through it, merging spirit with them. He drew upon his bonded elementals for strength but reached deeper, to the land around him, toward ara blowing in the wind, toward golud, still tenuously free, toward the nymid in the stream, and through the fire bond, reaching for all the fire elementals that he could detect. Power filled him.
    He pointed the sword at the ground and unleashed the shaping.
    It washed over the earth, spreading out from the point of contact with the ground.
    The shaping allowed not only Tan, but all the elementals to be attuned to it. As it struck, Tan sensed a distant awareness of power and turned toward it. Asboel noted it as well, and flames spilled angrily from his nostrils.
    They streaked toward the sense, moving west and slightly north. The shapers he sensed moved quickly, but Tan was a warrior shaper, fueled by elemental energy and moving on a storm of power.
    Remain with the draasin, Tan sent to the nymid and Honl. He didn’t want them to risk capture if something were to happen to him. He needed their strength, the connection he had to them, but he would keep them safe.
    Summoning a bolt of lightning, Tan landed amidst a mountainous area, likely on the edge of the Gholund Mountains as they began to create the border with Chenir and Incendin. Rocks and tall pines grew around him.
    The air sizzled with shaped energy. Par-shon had expected him.
    Tan was assaulted as soon as he appeared. Shapings of wind and fire and earth all reached toward him, coming from every