by Deck Davis
“I didn’t know it was possible to pay a king’s gold to an oracle who doesn’t just miss one storm, but two. I’ll hang the bastard from Equi rock, Helena. Or I would, if we didn’t have to change course right now.”
“Change where? We can’t go east, can’t go west. We can’t head north because we’ll hit Straggler’s Gully, and there’s no crossing it.”
“We could try. I’ve heard of people getting through safely.”
“You haven’t heard of the dozens who didn’t, because they didn’t make it back to tell the story. The quicksand will swallow us like a whale gulping shoals of fish. And if we go south, we’ll ride over our own dust prints. We might have to try and thread through the middle of the storms,” said Helena.
“I wouldn’t try and ride through a dust storm’s fart, never mind through the storm itself. But if we stay here, they’re both going to trap us like a mouse in a bullpen.”
Some of the children were distressed. They could feel the change in the air more instinctually than the adults because they were young and hadn’t learned to ignore their intuition yet. It was clear in their pale faces that they were worried.
The necromancer hopped down from a nearby wagon and approached a group of them. He carried a fold of cloth with him.
“Watch this,” he told them.
He gently unfolded the cloth and laid it across the ground, revealing five dead butterflies.
“You can each name one.”
“Why?” asked a child.
“Give one a name, and you’ll see.”
The child tapped his chin with his index finger. “Ga…no. Ter….”
“Get on with it!” shouted another kid.
“Okay, I’ll name that one Sammus.”
He pointed to an ocean blue butterfly with shocks of yellow on its wings. The necromancer smiled. “Sammus, like the knight in the Travelling Bard stories? That’s a good name. Okay, Sammus. Rise!”
He spoke another word now, a word none of them had heard before and that felt uncomfortable to listen to. A terrible light spread from his chest but it was only a snap of it and then the dark feeling was gone, and the butterfly flapped up from the cloth. It fluttered to the boy and landed on his head.
The children laughed and cheered now, speaking all at once so that it was just a din of noise. Some of the parents watched, and their suspicions toward the mancer were eroded even further. A man who could make their kids forget their troubles was good to have around.
Tek emerged from the line of wagons now. A man hobbled in front of him, stopping every few yards like a petulant child, only to get a shove from the apprentice. Tek had less meat on his bones that a fried fly wing, so it said something that he could bully the storm oracle.
But then, Gunar hadn’t hired Tek for his muscles. At age eight, Tek had a head for numbers that would have but a banker to shame. He was apprenticed to an accountant, but getting caught with a fist full of ill-gained gold put an end to that. Deciding that his numbers brain could be put to better use, Gunar had taken him on, vowing to instill a bit of iron and survival know-how to complement Tek’s brains.
The apprentice gave the oracle one last shove until he was standing in front of Gunar. The oracle was a strange man, and it was hard to spend any amount of time in his company without thinking about this constantly.
People sometimes said that pinecones closed upon themselves when a rain bout was due. Well, the oracle looked a little like a human pinecone. Curvy around his arse and belly and then with a thin neck and a small head, and with skin a deep brown tan.
He had a scowling manner about him most of the time, and he’d already proven himself selfish when, on a particularly grueling day, he’d drunk half a barrel of water to himself. A ration like that should have kept six to eight people refreshed for a whole afternoon. When Gunar found out, he wanted to tie the oracle to the roof of a wagon until he baked in the sun and sweated the water back out.
Gunar would never use him again. That was for damned sure. But right now, the oracle was all they had.
“Now, you rotten basta-” began Gunar, before a receiving a look from Helena so sharp that the watching caravaners, the ones who hadn’t already started oiling cartwheels and hinges or playing caravan craps, winced.
“We haaaave a contract, Mr. Helketoil,” said the storm oracle. His accent was from the north of the queendom where people over-pronounced the beginning of their words and added a strange high pitch at the end of them. It always made some of the less mature caravaners laugh.
“It says in my contract I am to divine storms. To do that, sir, I need to sleep. Dreams can’t come to a waking man.”
“Don’t give me that shit. The necromancer explained spells to me. He uses essence from dead cows and stuff. You use something similar; maybe not essence, but something like it. You draw your spell power from the weather, and you use it to divine the future. It’s not as complicated as you like to pretend.”
“To an onlooker, a butcher just chops away at meat. Yet the butcher himself knows his work is more refined.”
“Cut the crap, the smell is making me sick. Look over there, oracle. Look west. Look east. I don’t need an oracle to tell we’ve got two dust storms heading faster than I’d like, and they’re gonna crush us in the middle like a nut between a barbarian’s butt cheeks.”
“Those aren’t dust storms, Mr. Helketoil. They are storms of an altogether plainer variety.”
Gunar studied the oracle now. He always liked to think of himself as a fair man, never quick to judgment so that he’d always feel righteous when he eventually made it.
What he saw on the oracle’s expression wasn’t truth. He knew it as well as a dung beetle knew a pile of manure. He saw a man trying to lie, either wave away his mistakes or save face.
“Tek,” he said. “Get me one of those wooden struts from Argyle’s caravan. Fetch me some rope.”
“We’re hanging him?” said Tek, wide-eyed.
The oracle tensed up. His fingers curled into fists. To cast a spell, maybe? Probably not; mages didn’t become storm oracles if they held a stronger magic in their bones. To be certain, Gunar nodded at two mercs who were watching the scene; one smoking paper and tobacco, the other relaxing against a cart with his finger looped in his belt.
The merc saw his nod and understood the message. Seconds later they were beside the oracle, swords drawn.
“Hanging a man who tells you the truth,” said the oracle. He said the words as carefree as always, yet Gunar’s ears were tuned enough to hear the tremor of fear.
“I’m not hanging you, oracle. You say those are regular storms. Well, we’re turning back and cutting a safer route to be sure. But I’ll give you a nice view of them as they pass. I’ll even tie you to the roof of a wagon so you don’t have to waste precious energy standing up; you can just enjoy the storms. If you’re telling the truth, all you’ll get is a little wet.”
The oracle’s eyes showed his fear now. “Perhaps another reading might help. Storms have been known to change…”
“Mage, do you think I floated down to ground yesterday on the gust of a dragon’s fart? A dust storm isn’t wet. It’s thousands and thousands of dry grains whizzing together so fast they can flay the skin off a man. They don’t come from the clouds. Most importantly, they don’t come from the sky. Look at the storms. They look like they’re coming from the sky to you? Next you’ll tell me a tiger can become a bear if it spends enough time fishing for salmon.”
Helena touched Gunar now. “Guny,” she said, “We better move. Don’t waste any more time on this bastard.”
Orders were issued. Wagon masters checked their route with Gunar and then relayed it to the driver, while their children or apprentices lashed down any contents inside the canvas that were likely to fly around and smash if they caught the tail end of a storm.
Ostlers and beast-hands checked horse reins and packed away water troughs, making sure to pour unconsumed water back into the rations barrel mark
ed livery and not into the trader’s rations. Many who’d traveled with Gunar still remembered the Toil trip of 2F9, when words like livery written on a water barrel didn’t mean much when accident after accident meant they were all traveling with cracked lips and tight throats.
Two spotters stayed on the front-most caravans, while three others tore south on horseback, where they’d follow the caravaners’ own tracks for two miles before cutting south-south-east some and making sure Gunar’s oracle-free trail was safe.
There was something in the air now. A tension that remained unspoken, and because it was unspoken it seemed to grow stronger. Everyone could feel it.
A wry observer would see mothers holding their children just that bit tighter. Wagon drivers lashing out a little too hard with their whips. Even the spotters, chosen for their ability to stay alert through all kinds of tiredness, weather, and outside danger, felt their nerves prickle.
It was the first real setback of this outing. Not bad considering they’d already traveled halfway, but the horizon seemed to threaten that this obstacle would be a devastating one.
CHAPTER 3
It shot from the sky, a bolt of pure white light. Beautiful when viewed from a safe distance, but terrifying when it exploded just meters away from the wagons.
It happened in a millisecond, the beginning of the chaos that marked the end.
The bolt hit a cart driver, blowing him clean off his seat and onto the ground.
A little boy screamed. Other carts stopped.
The spotter on top of the stricken wagon scampered backward across the roof, his fear refusing to let him stand up, as if the lightning were a hunter who was circling them and ready to come back and finish what he started.
Another driver from four wagons along stood up. He was the oldest of them. His ancient eyes had seen more miles than every wheel of every cart in the convoy.
“Everyone back behind your canvas. Stay away from anything metal and don’t open the water barrels. If you’re thirsty, tough titties.”
Gunar was the next to speak, calling from his wagon. “Rodge?” he said to a young lad cowering near the blackened wagon. “You’re Henry’s apprentice, right? Get his body into the canvas and take the reins. He’s taught you enough to control the bison?”
“Excuse me,” said a voice.
This was a high voice. Laughable, even. And it was one that everyone ignored now, giving the owner the most peaceful punishment a trader caravan could; a shunning.
“Yes, sir,” said Rodge, approaching his master’s scorched body and biting his lip to keep his fear inside.
Gunar gave him a kind smile, despite everything. “You won’t be an apprentice by the end of this trip, boy.”
“But…I thought I was doing a good job…”
“I’m saying you’ll have passed your apprenticeship, you moon-struck oaf. I’m proud of you. Now get your master into the wagon. Carefully, now.”
A spotter and a tall woman with bony hips rounded the side of poor Henry’s cart and approached. “The bolt hit him in the chest. His clothes are singed to hell, his skin’s like a beef patty left in a fire.”
“Get someone in there with a poppy lotion to stop the pain,” said Gunar.
“He needs a surgeon now. We can’t wait.”
The sky bellowed then. It was an angry rumble, a threat aimed at the travelers who’d breached Sun Toil.
But the sound didn’t come from clouds overhead. This came from north-west and east of them. Tandem warnings from the dust storms that could no longer be denied by even the most optimistic of travelers.
“The storms are gaining ground,” said Gunar. “I’m sorry, but we can’t wait to patch Henry up.”
“I’ll look at him while we’re moving,” said a voice.
Gunar couldn’t believe what he’d heard. More accurately, who he’d heard it from.
It was a young man. Early twenties. He had crow feather hair and a stubbly black beard that added a few years to his face.
His eyes, though. His eyes added half a dozen more. He didn’t mean to have that effect; if anything, Gunar had found the young man to be pleasant and happy to pitch in even on work they hadn’t agreed to in his contract. No, it was glimmers he caught in the man’s stare, ones that happened without his control.
His skin was tanned through travel. Peeling in places, like he wasn’t used to it. The first time Gunar had met him, the man’s wardrobe had consisted of a long, black coat with buckles and pockets everywhere. Ever since they entered Toil, he’d swapped to tight-fitted shirts with sleeves rolled up. They still had more pockets sewn into them than most shirts, but at least they didn’t cover his whole body.
Gunar hadn’t expected him to know much about travel, the wilderness, or any of that, but he’d surprised him with his knowledge. It must have been something the academy taught.
“Appreciate the offer,” said Gunar. “But he’s not dead yet.”
The necromancer nodded solemnly. “If he was, I’d be no use to you. Told you that, Gunar; I’m not a master necromancer. Bison and horses, that’s my game. I’ll bring those back from the dead. Can’t do the same for a person.”
“What can you do for Henry?”
The necromancer got closer now. Close enough that the caravaners, those of them who weren’t applying alchemical ointment to canvas roofs or checking on their bison but instead were just watching, couldn’t hear.
“Necromancy isn’t just about death,” he said. “We draw our essence from death, but the spells we use can bring life.”
“Sounds like mystical bullshit. Thought you told me you hated that? I’ve already got one storm oracle who talks horse crap.”
The necromancer laughed. He didn’t do it much, but when he did, it was a nice sound. The kind that put people at ease. Gunar thought he ought to do it more often, it might have made the magic-suspicious members of the caravan more likely to talk to him.
“Fine,” said the necromancer. “What I said was true, but I said it like an arse. I have a healing spell.”
“And it’s powered by…”
“By death. Yes. But death does not affect the healing, alright? I’m not going to turn Henry into an undead, he won’t be possessed by a demon, and he won’t wake in the night hungering for blood.”
“Then by all means look,” said Gunar. “Thanks, Jakub.”
Gunar watched the necromancer walk away and he felt grateful. It had been a risk bringing him. Though the man hadn’t asked for much pay, his presence had made others uneasy. But Gunar was sick of having to account in advance for losing bison. It looked like the risk had paid off, if he could fix Henry.
A rumble in the horizon broke his gratitude, turning it bitter when he saw the twin storms.
“They’re getting closer,” said Gunar. “Moving fast. Must be a current helping them along the way. Hitch up the weaker wagons. One of the food wagons has a wonky wheel, right? Hitch it to a stronger one and double up on beasts to pull them both. How are our bison? If some are tirin’, I want them paired with tougher ones. Hurry.”
The storm oracle approached them.
“We can’t stay for this, Mr. Helketoil,” he said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“You think lightning’s going to hit us again? More chance of the queen asking for my hand in marriage.”
“This isn’t a lightning storm,” said the oracle. “This is dry lightning. Do you see any rain clouds overhead? No.”
“Funny that you’re suddenly attuned to the clouds again.”
“Dry lightning doesn’t come from clouds. It forms around us like a static energy. It might look like it comes from above when it strikes, but that’s because when you see a flash in the sky, you’re used to looking up. Dry lighting forms from the center. It builds in energy, spreads out, and explodes.”
“And where was this knowledge when I asked you to choose a storm-free path?”
“Everyone is fallible,” answered the oracle, finally.
The admissio
n of his mistake didn’t make Gunar feel better. The oracle was such a stubborn man that his admission sounded like defeat, like giving up. Maybe the dry lightning was the last step, maybe it worried him so much that he didn’t care how he looked now.
Gunar’s stomach knotted up, and he fought to keep his rising nerves from showing. His fear would spread through the fleet like a disease if he let it.
“Is there anything we need to do?” he asked. “I know to stay away from trees, from metal…”
The oracle shook his head. “You aren’t getting it. Though it looks similar, this is not the lightning you know. Forget the rules you were taught. Dry lightning has enough force and enough explosive energy that it could tear through steel.”
“All the better we didn’t get caught in it.”
“We’re already in it! A dry lightning storm doesn’t hover above. It doesn’t rumble to let you know it’s there. It just throws forks of explosive light. It draws its power from movement; every movement around a dry lightning storm creates a static energy. This energy hangs in the air, only moving when it spots pockets of energy created by movement. These pockets find each other and merge invisibly, growing larger and more unstable with each blend, until finally, they explode into dry lightning.”
“The more we move, the worse the dry lightning gets.”
“Correct.”
Gunar looked around. He saw all his people. Over a hundred of them. Half as many bison. Inventory caravans, living quarter carts. So many people and things, so much movement.
He wanted to yell out to everyone to stay still, but such an order would create fear. Besides, most people were glad of the extended break and were taking the opportunity to rest. Old Fogen Jones had hitched a hammock from one cart to another, and he was dozing in it. The soles of two pairs of boots poked out of the end of one cart, with the owners laying on their backs, napping.
He spoke quieter now. “Just how much movement is enough to force a strike?”
“The last one, the one that hit the poor driver, was ten minutes ago. In that time the energy has been quietly gathering. It won’t be much, yet, but everything adds to it. See there? See Mrs. Elanor’s children playing tag? They’re adding energy to the storm. See the merchant swinging his hips? Adding to it.”
