Stormlord rising

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Red Quarter Dune Watergatherer The blood-spotting soon stopped altogether, much to Ryka's relief. She forced herself to rest and eat well, wryly amused at how difficult she found the first, and how easy the second. She had developed a fondness for deer baked in heated sand beneath an open fire, for the delicious desert beans always in plentiful supply, for sandgrouse eggs boiled and stuffed with wild garlic served with a sauce of spicy beka seed pods, for sliced melon flavored with a tangy sweet paste from powdered vine seeds.

It's odd, she reflected, I hate being here, but there is something seductive about the life. Now, if only they had books, or I had my own pede to ride out on a hunt…

And Kaneth at her side, loving her. Damn the louse of a man.

No, don't think about that. Not now. Kaneth is gone, changed into Uthardim. And he doesn't know you. Or care, not really. Think instead about how you love the desert nights. Think about all the things you appreciate.

That feeling of openness she'd never had within the walls of a city. The kindness of the women, their wisdom and the way they passed it on from one generation to the next. The way the tribespeople gathered around the fires at night to sing or dance or listen to the storytellers among them. (How she longed to have parchment and pen to record that wisdom, those tales!) Beyond the encampment the night-parrots boomed and the crickets sang; above, the Star River passed in a blaze of light.

Early evening, before the light was gone from the sky, the women would mend and embroider while the men sharpened or oiled their weapons, or made needles and brooches from bone to give to their womenfolk, or sewed leather into sandals or water skins and other items. Children played hide and seek in and around the tents.

And then there were the days. The gloriousness of the dawns and the way the dune shadows shot miles across the plains as the sun came up, as if attempting to drape the landscape-in vain-with the last vestiges of the dark. The way the hawks hung in the sky as if they had been pinned there. The way the dune sang deep inside as the sand shifted, or the way tiny spindevils whispered as they played their games along the crests.

She'd even made a friend, of sorts-the lad, Khedrim. For some reason he'd taken a liking to her, and whenever he had any spare time he became her shadow. With his strange mix of bright intelligence and a clumsy lack of social skills, she couldn't help but like him as he chatted away, impervious to her supposed lack of understanding.

Blighted eyes, she thought, why did these Reduners have to spoil it all with their schemes of war and dreams of a Time of Random Rain?

Fortunately Ravard was no longer so inclined to take her to his bed. His anger and suspicion simmered. He watched her, his glower a mix of rage and pain. Mostly, though, he was too concerned with the tribe and the morale of his men even to speak to her. Once his back allowed it, he pushed his men hard and himself even harder, often disappearing for days while they chased the meddles of wild pedes and brought in some of the immature beasts for taming.

When in the encampment, the men spent their days encouraging the animals to accept saddle and bridle and rider, equipping them with handles and mounting slots, persuading them not to panic at the sound of ziggers in cages. It was hot, back-breaking work, and usually at the end of the day, after eating a meal and drinking amber around the fire, Ravard would tumble onto his pallet and sleep the night through, exhausted.

Or maybe, she thought, it's just that a woman as pregnant as I am lacks allure to a man as young as he is. Whatever the reason, she appreciated the result.

In the meantime, she planned her escape, even though she was not sure when to risk it. The return to the heart of the Scarpen would take her possibly twelve days or more, riding hard and direct and resting little. Along the way, she would have to bypass Qanatend without being seen, because Ravard had told her Davim still had a remnant force there, under the Warrior Son, holding both the city and the mother cistern up in the Warthago Range. At least Breccia was free again.

But first she had to steal a pede, more difficult now there were fewer of them around. She needed to pilfer enough food to last for the journey. Even feeding her mount would be a problem. A pede could graze on plants, but the grazing time needed for a beast to obtain enough nourishment was substantial and, for a fugitive, time would be in short supply.

Night after night, she slipped out under the walls of the tent-easier now she slept alone-to filch food, one small theft at a time. Families made it easy because they kept their stores outside their tents, usually in half-buried earthenware jars shaded by a woven grass canopy. Stealing was unknown within the tribe, unnecessary even, because food and water were freely shared. She found petty thievery was simple: a handful of pede kibble here, a few strands of dried pede meat there, some salted eggs from a jar, dried bab fruit originally stolen from Qanatend. No one expected it; no one took any precautions against it; no one noticed.

She wrapped all of it carefully in cloth she cut from her bedding, then stored it under the carpets in her sleeping room, in holes she dug then salted to keep the grubs and ants out. It was a slow process, but at last she decided she had sufficient food for herself for the journey. The pede kibble, though, was not enough. She would have to achieve a more audacious theft on the night she left. Water she could take from the waterhole on her way off the dune, using her rainlord skills. The panniers and jars to carry it would be more difficult.

The pede presented a problem, too. The one she had befriended on her journey into the Red Quarter had been taken by Kaneth. The new ones were semi-wild and only just beginning to bond with their trainers. The old, tamer ones were now tethered close to the tents. Stealing one of those would be fraught with danger, as pedes being saddled tended to be restless, noisily snuffling and blowing, or clicking their mouthparts.

Finally she settled on one of the three youngest of the newly caught beasts. They were corralled together in an enclosure at the foot of a dune not far from the waterhole. They were all five or six moults away from maturity, and of no interest to warriors looking for a mount now. Pedes entering moult were useless for half a cycle until the old chitin had been shed and the new hardened. Khedrim, not yet old enough to be granted his own myriapede, had been told to look after them, and he'd gratefully accepted an offer of help from Ryka.

"This one," he told her the first time she came to the yard, pointing out the largest of the three, "is going to be mine. I've called her Redwing. My brothers laugh and say she is too young to train, but already she comes when I call. That one there I call Blackwing. And the third one is Skite, because he likes to show off."

Talkative and trusting, both character traits making him the butt of jokes and teasing from his peers, Khedrim was happy enough to escape the camp as often as possible in order to tend to the three young pedes. Ryka, mixing sign language and horribly broken Reduner mangled by a terrible accent, made him laugh, and she soon had him following her lead without even knowing he did so.

She started by coming with him when he led the pedes to water every evening at the waterhole and helping him collect feed. Fortunately, Reduners thought nothing of women working physically hard until their confinement, so no one remarked on her activities. She trained the one he called Blackwing to come when she called, to associate her presence with delicious treats and delightful rubs between the segments. She asked Khedrim to carve mounting slots and screw a saddle handle onto the animal.

"The chalamen say that's stupid," he said. "After they moult you have to do it all over again when the new chitin grows in."

"What matter?" Ryka asked with a shrug. "Khedrim, Garnet, ride now can, eh? Young," she added, pointing to both pedes, "learn quick. Easy teached."

He looked shocked. "Women don't ride pedes!"

"Blackwing, Redwing, not proper pede," she said hurriedly. "Baby only!"

He still looked dubious, but she persuaded him to do it, then impressed on him that it was probably better he didn't tell anyone she intended to ride. By the time he had second thoughts, he was already complicit and it was in his interest to keep quiet. Inwardly she felt guilty. He was so gullible, and she was using him. One day he would get into a heap of trouble because of it.

Apart from a couple of times with Khedrim when no one was around, she mounted Blackwing only at night. She'd wait until the sentries were on patrol in the opposite direction-easy enough for her to determine with her water-sense-and would ride the pede round and round the corral. When the sentries returned, she would duck down behind the young pedes and wait for them to pass. It did not take her long to teach Blackwing to put up with her on its back, to obey the bridle and to respond to the prod.

In her life around the camp, she was careful never to upset Ravard or any other Reduners. She was helpful, pleasant and hard-working. She had no great skill as a cook, so she made a point of doing much of the other work for Ravard's servants, and once her slight bleeding had stopped, she never let her pregnancy be an excuse for shirking. It was hard to make any friends other than Khedrim, though, when she had to pretend that her language skills were pathetic.

Most of all she missed Junial, who had been claimed by one of Davim's men. One day, Junial, she promised, you will be free again.

In the meantime her problem remained: should she risk her own escape at all? Blackwing was small and would not have much stamina for a long journey. She was carrying a child; what right did she have to risk his life? In the end, it was Junial's absence that decided her. She wanted a Scarpen woman with her when she gave birth.

Sunblast you, Kaneth, why in all the waterless hells aren't you here to help? "Kher?"

Ravard looked up from his midday meal. He was sitting on the carpet in the main room of his tent, helping himself to the array of dishes Ryka had placed in front of him. Once she would have eaten with him, but no longer. Now she knelt a short distance away and waited.

"Blast," he muttered. "First time I've sat down today and I'm interrupted."

Khedrim stood hesitantly outside the open entrance. "Yes?" Ravard asked. "What is it?"

"There's a messenger from the sandmaster, Kher."

Ravard's face didn't change. "Bring him here." The lad ran off. Ravard pushed his plate away. "It'll be about that message we saw written in the clouds at dawn."

Ryka gaped. No one had told her about any message in the sky, and she had not seen it herself. Jasper? she wondered. It has to be. She hid a grin of appreciation at his ingenuity.

"What did it say?" she asked Ravard.

"I can't read, can I?"

The messenger appeared in the doorway a moment later, but Ravard did not rise. He didn't send Ryka away, either. "You have a message for me?" he asked.

"Yes, Kher." The man, grimy with dust and sand, launched into the memorized wording. "Sandmaster Davim wishes to tell you the following, Kher. He says: 'I have had word from the Scarcleft Highlord, Taquar. The first message, by pede, arrived last night. It said Scarcleft was surrounded by rainlord forces and asked for aid. The second message arrived earlier this morning, written with clouds in the sky. It said Taquar agrees to give Lord Jasper Bloodstone to the sandmaster in return for our aid against those who besiege Scarcleft.' "

Ryka's eyes widened. She turned her head away so neither of the men would see her surprise and realize she understood. Taquar? Taquar can't send clouds sailing across the sky, let alone fashion letters out of them first. He couldn't even hold onto that storm he stole from Granthon, sandblast it! Which means the words can't be true. I hope.

"Is that all?" Ravard asked, when the man stopped to catch his breath.

"No, Kher. The sandmaster says we are riding to seize Stormlord Jasper. He says the remaining fifty lashes due to you are repealed. He orders you, and as many warriors and pedes and supplies as you can muster, to come to Qanatend as soon as possible. All dunes have the same instruction. He says the sun soon rises on the day we hold the last of the stormlords. That is the end of the message. And Kher, I am returning your personal pede to you, at his request. I have left it at the pede lines."

Ryka's thoughts raced. Jasper had somehow come into his own and was now a cloudmaster powerful enough to send such a message? Was Taquar really involved at all? Maybe Jasper was still free and trying to entice the Reduners out. Which seemed foolhardy, to say the least.

Blighted eyes, not knowing was frustrating.

After the man left, she decided to risk asking Ravard what the messenger had said, but he forestalled her, and told her everything anyway, his satisfaction obvious. "You see?" he concluded. "The Scarpen'll be on its knees before us soon."

"You're all sun-fried," she said. "If you don't know why, then go and take a look at how much water is left in the encampment's waterhole. How the waterless heavens are you going to survive without stormlords?"

"Ah, but we'll have one. Didn't y'hear what I said? Taquar's giving us this Jasper Bloodstone. The sandmaster has no intention of killing him! At least, not yet. The stormlord'll be forced t'bring us water till we're ready for the Time of Random Rain. Then, when all the rainlords are dead, and no one's collecting the random clouds along the edge of the Giving Sea, some will come inland to us, and we'll go back t'being true nomads."

"That idea is as daft as a legless pede. What was the matter with the way of life you had before? Davim is leading you to disaster and death. Can't you see that? How many of you are going to die first? What loyalty do you owe him, anyway? He had you whipped as a boy! Forced you to kill your friend. That's sick, Ravard. You are a greater man than that."

"I owe him everything. I grew up as poor as a pebblemouse in a sand patch. My father spent any tokens he could get us t'earn for him on raw amber. He was slurped nine days in every ten. My mother was the settle whore, sleeping with any caravanner who passed through-"

She stared at him. "Settle? You are Gibber born?"

He stared back, his surprise evident. "Of course! Surely y'knew that? How else would I speak the Quartern tongue so well? And I reckon I don't sound like you city-dwelling fancy-hats from the Scarpen, neither."

"I thought you must have been taught by a Gibber slave. Davim certainly collected enough of them."

"Taught by a Gibber slave? I was a Gibber slave!"

"Davim enslaved you and yet you still serve him?"

"In the Gibber I starved! I was cold and hungry, or thirsty and hungry. He took me and made a man of me. He taught me t'fight. T'stand up for meself." He rose, agitated, and waved a hand around at the tent and its contents. "Look at all this. I'm comfortable, Garnet. In the Gibber, we froze at night. Froze with rumbling bellies. I'm somebody now. I own things. People respect me, fear me-"

"You think all this is what makes a man? Davim just had you whipped, scarred you for life, and you bore it. He made you kill your friend to prove your loyalty when you were a child. And probably the only reason he not only didn't kill you, but made you the Master Son, is that he needed your water sensitivity because he had so little of his own. Is any of that the mark of a man to look up to? You want to be like him?"

"I'm the sandmaster's chosen heir. Davim wouldn't give such a place of honor to a man unworthy of his respect. Had he died in the siege of Breccia, I'd be sandmaster now. If I live longer than he does, that's what I could become."

"Don't be a sun-fried fool, Ravard. Do you think you'll still be Master Son once his own sons are grown? I hear he has several. If any of them are water sensitives, Davim'll have half a dozen spears plunged into your back the moment it suits him. If Chert had been the one who had water talent, he'd be the one sitting in this tent, not you."

That name, she'd heard it somewhere before. Presumably on the rainlord search through the Gibber to find water-sensitive children…

And then memory hit her like a slap in the face. She lumbered to her feet, staring at him, searching his face. "Dear pools within! Chert… That was the name of the palmier's son. Oh, what a sun-shriveled fool I am. Sunlord save us all, you're Shale Flint's brother! That's why Kher Davim made you so loyal to him, not just because you are water sensitive!"

He was silent then, his speech stolen by her words.

"Why didn't I see it? There's even a bit of a resemblance! Your skin and hair are so red that I never dreamed you weren't born Reduner, dryhead that I am." No wonder something had puzzled her when he'd been speaking to Davim. His accent. And Davim had called him an outlander. She'd been stupid to be sidetracked by his color; even her own hair and skin showed signs of a reddish stain.

"Shale Flint," she continued. "Shale Flint of Wash Drybone Settle. He had a brother, an older brother, called Mica."

The wary look he gave her then was a mix of worry and outright shock. Again, she was reminded of how very young he was. Young, and surprisingly vulnerable. Pedeshit, she thought, dismayed. I've been bedding Jasper's bleeding brother. Oh, Sunlord's balls. How will I ever explain that?

"What's it matter now who I was?" he asked at last. "Yes, I had a brother. He's probably dead. You knew him? Shale?"

"That's Jasper's real name."

"Whose-? You mean the stormlord? You truly are sun-shriveled!" He laughed again, but the laugh soon faltered and died. "You're lying."

"No. Why should I?"

He stilled. The venom in his next words made her shrink away from him. "You lie. Shale was no stormlord!"

He whirled away from her to where his scimitar hung in its scabbard from the central tent pole.

She jumped to her feet, her heart pounding. Sunlord save me from this sun-fried idiot of a man!

He slid the blade out and grabbed her by the waist, twisting her back up against him so the blade lay against her throat. "Say you're lying!"

She eyed the family-sized water jar in the corner of the tent. It was closed tight. No help there. She said, "The way I heard it, you weren't a water sensitive as a child, either. Shale was-is-now more than he was. So are you."

"I'll kill you!"

"I've seen him, Ravard. Mica. I've spoken to him. He told me how Davim killed Citrine, pitted her on a chala spear-"

"Shut up!"

She twisted in his grasp, pushing his arm and sword away, and he let her go. She stood facing him, her arms crossed protectively over her abdomen. "You can't run away from the truth forever. You know what happened. You were there. You know what Davim did. What you didn't understand was why."

When he didn't reply, she risked continuing, even as she edged closer to the water jar. "He and the Highlord Taquar planned it. Taquar came to your settle with the other rainlords, remember? He tested Shale-"

"He didn't! He didn't! Shale was never tested."

"He was. Taquar did it in secret and realized what Shale was. He told Davim, and the two of them planned for you and Shale to be taken. Taquar took Shale, Davim took you. I suppose he wanted to use you to force Shale to cooperate if need be, but then he realized it would be even better if you were on his side. Shale would do anything to save you."

He struck her then, the blow coming out of nowhere, the flat of his hand slamming into her cheek. She staggered back against the water jar. The lid jabbed into the small of her back. She turned to lean into it sideways and, even with her head ringing, managed to ease the lid off as she clutched at it for support. At least now she had access to water.

"You're lying," he said, the words, thick with venom and contempt, ripping out of him. "How could you know any of this, anyway? You're just a Scarperwoman who cheated on her husband with the first handsome bladesman who passed her way."

Briefly she considered telling him she had been there, in his settle, the day Shale had been tested. No, too risky, she told herself. It might jog his memory, or he might guess I am a rainlord and I want that to be a nasty surprise when I need it.

She said nothing.

He raised his hand again. She refused to shrink from him, saying, "You can hit me all you like. You don't scare me and it won't change a thing. Davim used you. Taquar told him he had found a boy who had a good chance of being a stormlord, and it amused him to turn a stormlord's brother into the supposed heir to the Scarpen's worst enemy."

He heard her, and she knew her words hit home. He wasn't stupid. He was thinking the same thoughts, but just didn't want to listen to them. Waggling his scimitar in her face, he growled, "Don't say another word, or I kill you. Baby or not, I kill you."

Ryka, she thought, take the hint. This is the moment when it would pay you to keep your mouth shut.

He stared at her a moment longer, recognized she was not going to say anything more, then plunged out of the tent, shouting orders. She listened and heard him give the instructions for a dawn departure.

So be it. And I will be right behind you, Mica Flint.