When the rain came, he rejoiced.
Until it turned hot.
Hot rain? He had never heard of such a thing. Rain was simply rain, sometimes very cold, sometimes less so. But this rain, these drops striking him, was decidedly hot.
Davyn heaved himself to his feet. The wind had not died; in fact, it blew the rain sideways. Ducking his head did little to keep his face shielded from rain that blew horizontally. He was soaked in a matter of moments … and the rain only grew hotter.
Scarlet lightning danced upon the earth as Davyn began to run.
THE WIND BUFFETED Audrun unceasingly. It was almost impossible to walk. So she staggered, tangled hair trapped against her chest by tightly folded arms, head down, shoulders hunched, eyes slitted. Her torn skirts flapped and cracked, tugging her first one way and then another so that her strides were ragged. She considered removing the skirt so there was less for the wind to grab, but her smallclothes were of finer fabric and she feared she would give up a measure of protection, slight though it was. So she walked on, doing her best to hold a straight line in the direction the guide had indicated.
She had given up shouting for Davyn, Gillan, and Ellica. The roar of the wind was too fierce, the thunder too con- stant. She flinched each time lightning shot over her head; flinched again as thunder boomed behind it.
When the ground shook beneath her, Audrun stumbled and fell, instinctively turning in midair to protect the unborn child. Her shoulder and hip took the brunt of the impact. She lay against the earth on her side, gasping for breath, pulling arms and legs close against her body so the child would be sheltered. Even with eyes closed, even with one hand spread over her eyes, she could see the flashes of crimson lightning.
Despite the stillness of her body, her thoughts ran on. What if I stayed here? What if I waited out the storm here? Could she? It had to stop at some point. What if she let it pass on while she lay huddled in the wind-flattened, tattered grass?
If it passed. If it stopped.
Was this Alisanos? Unceasing wind, lightning, and thunder? Shuddering earth?
Something struck her. And again. She believed it debris; she had been battered by all manner of twigs, leaves, branches, even small stones mixed in with grit and dirt.
But this was wet.
“Rain!” She levered herself up on one elbow, turning her face to the heavens. Indeed, rain.
Audrun laughed in relief. Rain would wash away the dust in the air. She would be able to see again, to find husband and guide and children.
Raindrops fell faster, harder, smacking against her face and scalp. Audrun sat up, hands outstretched to the heavens as she grinned widely, joyfully. She prayed to the gods she favored, thanking them for the blessing of their rain.
But the wind still raged, and the sharp, stinging impact of large drops blown hard against her body kept Audrun from realizing the truth of the rain for several long moments. When those drops began to burn, she was stunned. Hot rain? Hot rain?
And hotter yet.
Hot as fire.
This rain was not a blessing bestowed by gods.
Sheer instinct pushed Audrun to her feet. Rain continued to fall, a hard, hot, slanting rain, burning her skin. She gathered up damp, tattered skirts into fisted hands and ran as hard, as fast, as she could.
Chapter 46
RHUAN LED THE HORSE and thus the children into the shelter of the forest. The wide tree canopies offered some protection against the storm, though even the greater trees had limbs tossed by the wind. There was no path save for the one he broke, and it was a difficult passage even for him.
He came across a tumble of boulders, massive boulders the size of karavan wagons. He tied the reins to a tree branch and turned back to the children. He squatted and kept his voice calm. “What are your names? I do you dishonor, I know, to forget them, but I have.” His smile was crooked and felt forced. “I’m Rhuan. And I’m here to help you as best I may.”
They told him as a flicker of lightning illuminated their dirty, tear-streaked faces. Thunder crashed overhead.
“I want Mam!” the little girl cried. Very likely she had been saying it for some time, but in the storm no one could hear her. Here, the forest muffled the worst of the wind and thunder.
“They’ll come,” Rhuan said. “The horse couldn’t carry everyone, so I chose the most important folk.”
The boy slanted him a disbelieving glance. “Da’s the most important.”
Rhuan elected not to argue it with them, even as a de- vice to distract them. “There is a crevice here where these two boulders meet. See it? It’s not large, but I think it will do for a brother and sister.” Rising, he untied his bedroll from the back of the saddle. “Here is oilcloth, and a blanket for each of you. Climb up in there and wrap everything around you, even over your heads.”
“What about you?” Megritte asked.
Rhuan began to drape a blanket around her shoulders, bundling her up. “I,” he said, “am going to ride back a way and look for the rest of your folk … can you hold this? Good.” He pulled a portion of the blanket over her tangled hair, turned her, and gave her a gentle push toward the crevice. “Go on up there, and leave room for your brother.”
Torvic was struggling with his own blanket, but Rhuan didn’t want to injure childish dignity by treating him as mostly helpless. He waited until Torvic had climbed up tumbled fragments of shattered stone and sat down next to his sister, then swept the oilcloth around both.
Lightning sliced diagonally into trees some distance away, shredding leaves, exploding trunks. The children flinched. Tears rolled down Megritte’s cheeks.
“I’ll be back,” he told them. “I swear it.”
“With Mam and Da?” Megritte asked.
“What about Gillan and Ellica?” Torvic demanded.
“Gillan and Ellica, too,” Rhuan declared. “But maybe not all at once.” He smiled at them, then untied the horse. “I know you’re probably hungry and thirsty, and when the storm dies we can go back to the wagon for water and food. But for now you must remain here, tucked up in your stone cocoon. Will you do this for me?” Both nodded. “Good. I will see you as soon as may be.”
It was far more difficult walking away from them than he expected. But there was nothing else he could do. While the storm raged, blotting out visibility, smothering shouts for help within the cracking and crashing of thunder, he believed it unlikely the rest of the family might find one another. He saw better than they in the gloom and was not intimidated by the first tentative awakening of Alisanos. He was the only one who could find the family.
Rhuan led the horse back along the way they had come, following broken stems and crushed vegetation. But when he was clear of the forest, walking out of the depths into the thinner verge, he realized he had far less time than he’d expected. The rain had turned hot, much too hot for humans.
Swearing, Rhuan tossed his reins over the horse’s head and swung up into the saddle. With a mental apology, he asked the spotted horse for a gallop once again and headed back the way he had come, ignoring lightning, thunder, quivering earth, and burning rain.
AS BETHID AND Mikal ran, debris from the settlement blew past them, tumbling along the ground, carried on the wind. From time to time something struck them; Bethid reflected that she’d be bruised by morning, provided morning ever came. Mikal now was laboring, but she knew by the look in his eye that he was committed to continuing on no matter how difficult. But the wind’s strength was greater than his, the wind’s speed faster. Bethid finally pulled him to a stop, but let him believe it was she who needed it.
“Wait,” she gasped breathlessly; the word, the plea, was snatched out of her mouth so quickly she didn’t know if Mikal even heard it.
He tugged at her hand. “Come on!”
Bethid, bent over for breath, looked back toward the settlement. It was invisible in the shroud of ash and dirt—or else it no longer existed.
Could the wind be so strong as to erase an enti
re tent settlement? Or was it all Alisanos?
Mikal tugged again. “Beth, come on!”
Even as she straightened to continue, she wondered how Timmon and Alorn were. She wondered where Timmon and Alorn were. Ahead of them? Behind? Possibly even dead? Her courier’s oath required her to help fellow couriers in need; she felt surviving this storm qualified. But all she could offer were prayers that both would be safe.
ILONA, CLINGING TO the security of Jorda’s belt as they rode his draft horse through the storm, thought she might be chafed before they completed the ride. Draft horses were never meant to be ridden; they were huge, ungainly horses prized for their strength, their stolid temperaments, not their gaits. She had already discovered that this one favored one side more than the other, and was large enough, powerful enough, that any human upon its back for any length of time would end up sore. She fully expected her spine to be bent like wire by morning.
But she was infinitely grateful to have a horse to ride. She and Jorda passed many people straggling unhappily from the settlement, wives clearly commanded by husbands; husbands obviously begged by wives. And there were those who did not straggle, but ran; jogged when they could not run; walked when they could not jog. As an exodus, it was something; as actual escape, Ilona could not say. But she was safer than all of the others, save those who were also on horseback.
She had no idea how far they should ride. For all she knew, that entailed riding through the night. A deeper night; the day, at the moment, looked more like twilight because of flying ash and dust.
They and others who were mounted were glared at by those on foot as they rode by. It was true that the urging by Bethid and Mikal strongly suggested all settlement dwellers leave at once, forgoing horses if they had them, and now, clearly, folk regretted their hasty departures. In fact, Ilona saw a few families stopped along the way, arguing over whether to continue on or turn back. So once again she played the part of Rhuan’s proxy.
“Keep going!” she shouted into the wind. “There are no tents left! Keep going!” She didn’t know for certain that no tents survived, but she believed it likely. Too often the wind carried items past them that had clearly come from the settlement.
Jorda turned his head so she might hear him. “How far?”
Ilona raised her voice. “Rhuan just said to go east!”
She sat close enough to his broad back that she could feel his grunt. “Trust him to give us only half the information.”
It was true Rhuan had said nothing at all about how far they should go, or when they might stop. But she knew him well enough that she felt it likely they would know when to stop, that something would happen to provide the information.
For now, the wind still raged, debris still blew, the east yet lay before them.
And rain began to fall.
IN THE MIDST of a modest clearing, surrounded by elderling oaks, Ferize danced in the rain. Her skirts flared out as she spun, arms outstretched, black hair flying. She laughed as she danced, as she twisted and spun, as the wind slid through the grove, tossing branches and fluttering leaves. Brodhi, leaning against a wide trunk with arms crossed against his chest, allowed a smile to reshape his mouth, to let his face shed its usual solemnity and relax into appreciation of Ferize’s dance. It was not solely for him, he knew; the wind sang of Alisanos, of deeper woods than this, of sulfur pools and sweetwater, of crags and heat and ice, of a land that, as easily as Ferize, shifted its shape from day to day, from moment to moment. Ferize was born of Alisanos; it lived within her body. And that body, now, rejoiced in the process that would set her homeland free.
She danced her joy in Alisanos, laughed aloud as she whirled, gestured for him to join her. But though he heard the same song she did, he was not moved to dance. His joy was not of the deepwood and its imminent move, but of her, only her, dancing for Alisanos in the midst of windruffled elderling oaks and rain.
TWO HUMAN SHAPES, holding hands as they ran, hove out of the gloom as lightning streaked overhead and sheets of rain fell from the skies. Rhuan slowed his horse so he wouldn’t overrun them. He recalled their names: Ellica and Gillan, the eldest of the children.
That they had been hard-used by the storm was obvious. Ellica had gotten the worst of it, with torn and tattered skirts and hair so tangled she would need to cut it off. Their faces were browned by dust, eyes reddened from irritation. The rain, burning hot, flattened their hair against their scalps and soaked the shoulders of their tunics. They flinched as droplets struck them.
Rhuan reined in for only a moment, long enough to give them explicit directions to the boulders in the forest where the youngest took shelter. “Keep running,” he told them as they slowed. They were young, with more strength than even they knew inhabiting their bodies. They might think they could run no more, but what he said next would assure they could. “It will only get hotter.”
A muted wail of exhaustion and fear issued from Ellica’s mouth. Gillan, face taut with fear, reached for her hand and closed it in his own. “Let’s go, Elli.”
Rhuan nodded approval and went on. Riding west as they ran east.
DAVYN REALIZED THE rain, hot as it was, had begun to settle the dust. It was easier to see now than when the wind was whipping dry dirt into the air. Ahead of him he saw a distant fringe of tree canopies along the horizon. His children were there somewhere, but Audrun was not.
The wind still blew, thunder still crashed in the wake of lightning, the rain, hot rain, still fell. But he stopped and turned around, hoping to see his wife. Instead, he saw only the grasslands, flattened into submission beneath the continuing storm. Wind stripped his hair back from his face so that raindrops, unhindered, burned against his skin.
Davyn placed cupped hands over his eyes as a shield against rain and wind, squinting. “Audrun!” As before, the wind caught his shout. He tried again and again with no result.
Standing still gave the rain carte blanche to hammer at him, drenching hair and clothing. His flesh quivered, flinching from the heat.
Now he cupped hands around his mouth. “Audrun!”
Could he have gone astray? The storm had destroyed his sense of direction. It was possible he—or even she—had run the wrong way. All were blinded by the storm; it was a simple matter to take the first wrong step, then more and more and more. He could be anywhere, lost amid the grasslands. Or she could.
“Audrun!”
Nothing. Nothing. The only thing he could see, the only thing he could recognize, was the distant fringe of trees along the horizon, little more than a smudge of darkness. That, he could use as orientation. He prayed Audrun would, if she saw it. If she were not going in the wrong direction.
In despair, as the rain grew hotter yet, Davyn once again faced the horizon with its rim of trees. And ran.
AUDRUN GASPED AUDIBLY as she walked, unable to breathe normally. She was exhausted, empty of all save the conviction that, for the sake of the child, she had to keep going. One step, followed by another, and another, and all the additional anothers she needed to arrive at what safety the guide had promised when he told them all to go east. Told them to run.
But she couldn’t run anymore. Her body’s comprehension of the movements required to run had dissipated moments, or even hours ago. Walking, she could manage. Walking, she maintained despite the lashing of burning rain. It was all she could offer the child in her belly.
Chapter 47
MIKAL FELL TO HIS KNEES. He gripped his chest, panting. Sweat sprang onto his brow. His face was gray.
“Mikal!” To see him, Bethid had to turn into the wind. “Mikal, we have to go on!”
He shook his head, breathing heavily. “I can’t.”
“Mikal—”
“I can’t… but you go on. Go, Beth!”
She knelt before him. “What’s wrong?”
“My chest … pain.” He patted his broad chest with one hand, gasping for breath. “Pain inside.” He gazed at her out of his one good eye. “Go on, Beth.”
<
br /> She shook her head. “I won’t!”
“… lie down …” Mikal slumped to the side, collapsing onto his back. “…must …”
Bethid was paralyzed, staring down at the man so obviously in pain. What do I do? What do I do? Her world was full of wind and lightning and thunder, of fear and desperation. A portion of her wanted to get up and run again, to leave Mikal in the dirt. And on the heels of that realization came shame. What I can do is help this man.
Kneeling in the midst of the storm, Bethid looked around. Most of her world was blotted out by dust, by blinding crimson lightning, but she could see dark shapes within the dust and debris, people from the settlement going east, as she, and Mikal, had told them. If a man would stop, or even two, they could lift Mikal up and carry him east.
Bethid shouted for help. No help came.
Mikal, she knew, was dying. She knew also that she could not leave him.
She moved around the ale-keep until she could block some wind with her back, take his head into her lap. She leaned over him, closing her eyes against the storm.
The ground beneath her trembled as hot rain fell.
“Alisanos,” she murmured. Alisanos is coming.
THE GROUND SHUDDERED. Rain was not enough, wind was not enough, lightning was not enough. Now the very earth beneath the hooves of Rhuan’s horse rebelled.
Oh, it was close, so close, Alisanos. Rhuan gritted his teeth, baring them in a rictus of frustration, of pain. He felt the deepwood as a thrumming in his bones. His skin itched. Rain bathed his body with welcomed warmth, but the wind howled on.
He was dioscuri. Could he control the storm? Could he placate the earth?
Ah, but this was of Alisanos. And Alisanos wanted, it very badly wanted, to move to new environs.
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