Stormlord rising s-2

by Glenda Larke

  "But we must escape before-" She hesitated. Before Ravard climbs into my bed. "Before we reach the dunes. Before we cross the Warthago Range."

  "Lord Ryka, he's not-"

  The door opened then, and Kaneth stepped in with the lantern and the water skins, now filled. He smiled absently at Ryka, as if he had forgotten her all over again. She felt her heart break, all over again, in answer.

  "Go," Elmar muttered. "Before you are caught here. Look after yourself and the child. It is all you can do."

  She turned away from Kaneth to stare at him. "How can you ask that of me? I made a vow once-"

  "Yes. I know. I was there, remember? But now your duty lies with your child. I am sure your man is in good hands," he said carefully.

  "He is also a prisoner of his worst enemies." For a moment she felt as if she had lost her hold on the conversation, as if the words were flowing by her like water from a broken jar. There was so much to say, to find out, but shock had left her with no idea what she should be asking first. Or how to grasp the meaning of words as they streamed past.

  Kaneth did not appear to be listening. He hung up the lantern again and placed the water skins back on the floor. "My head hurts," he said. "I think I will lie down."

  "Good idea," Elmar agreed. The look he gave Ryka was full of meaning, and Ryka saw his unspoken, You see?

  "This is insane." She lowered her voice still further. "Elmar, he is in such danger. If anyone gives them a hint of who he is-if he gives himself away, because he doesn't know his power…"

  He snatched the lantern from the hook, grabbed her by the elbow and pushed her through the door, which he then closed. Her last glimpse of Kaneth was of his burnt face as he lay on his side in the straw. The fresh scar was still raw and ugly. I wonder if I could quicken the healing, she thought, by drying it out… Or would that make it worse? She didn't know.

  Elmar handed her the lantern, then pushed her against the wall with an urgency she sensed rather than felt. "Lord Ryka, please heed me," he whispered in her ear. "He is not to be trusted. Do you understand? He doesn't know who he is. If you tell him your name and his name, he's likely to blurt them out to the first Reduner he meets. He's like a small child, with no sense of danger."

  "He wouldn't," she protested, her anger surfacing. "He is Kan-"

  He stopped the word by jamming his hand across her mouth.

  "No, he's not. Not yet. He's a sick man who can't remember a thing. His thoughts go nowhere and his pain is intense enough to make a sane man act sun-fried. The less he sees of you the better at this point, for your own safety."

  She pushed his hand away, the pain of his truth more than she could handle. "I'll never abandon him. Never. What kind of a woman would that make me?"

  "A living one! What kind of a mother would it make you to stay in danger when you have the power to escape?" he asked.

  Ryka's desire to slap him was intense and immediate, but she was also aware her anger was only so sharp because she knew he was right. And because she did not want to relinquish the man she loved into the hands of another who sometimes looked at him the same way she did. It was her duty to guard her child. Kaneth's child. Her duty as a mother, as a wife-and, as a rainlord, to bring another water sensitive into a thirsty world.

  "Escape now," Elmar whispered. "You know that's what your husband would want, if he was himself. If he regains his health, he will be able to get himself out of this. Me, too, I hope."

  She hesitated still.

  "You cannot trust him," he repeated. "Trust me. You know I'll care for him."

  Just then Kaneth called out petulantly, so unlike the man he had been she could almost believe it was someone else. "Elmar! Where are you?"

  She turned and walked away, back toward the muck chute. Ryka retraced her steps back to her room without any trouble. The two guards at the stable entrance had returned to their post by the time she reached the edge of the courtyard again, but were easily distracted by more gravel scattering in front of another block of water-stolen from the prisoners in the stable this time.

  No one had noticed the open kitchen door, the lamp from the passageway burning in the kitchen, or the missing candle lantern. She put everything back the way it had been. The climb down to her balcony proved easier than the climb up. She lay down on her bed-no, on poor dead Nealrith's bed-and surrendered herself to her grief.

  An hour later, feeling no better, but more in command of her emotions, she roused and went to wash away the lingering smell of pede droppings and stable hay. Her dirty tunic she stuffed under the mattress in the center of the bed.

  Odd, she reflected, for the first time in my life, I don't care about how much water I use. It was Reduner water now, not the Scarpen's, and she felt no desire to conserve it.

  Afterward, she sat in the darkness of Nealrith's study and tried to come to terms with all that had happened. She had already made up her mind that any escape would be better made from the caravan with a pede under her. That way there was the possibility of making it to one of the other cities and freedom. What she had not yet made up her mind about was whether she would escape at all, if Kaneth wasn't prepared to go with her.

  One by one she marshaled the advantages and disadvantages. With cold dispassion, she examined her own motives. If she was going to choose an alternative based on emotion rather than academic impartiality, she wanted to be aware of it.

  Finally, she drifted into an uneasy doze. An hour later, the serving woman brought in her breakfast. Quickly, Ryka roused herself and dressed. As an afterthought, she selected a number of board books from the collection in Nealrith's study and tied up the bundle with bab string, giving a wry smile as she did so. Even in a desperate situation, she could still dread the horrors of having nothing to read.

  She was just sitting down to eat when the door opened again and Ravard entered. She glanced up but did not rise.

  "Pour me some tea," he said, indicating the pot. "I'll eat with you."

  Silently she did as he asked, only then noticing there were two drinking mugs on the tray.

  He sat opposite her at the table, dumping the small cage he carried down on a spare chair beside him. She smelled its occupants: ziggers. Sunlord, how she hated them! Their sickly smell, their greed for human flesh, the promise of pain in their dribbling saliva and their clicking mouthparts.

  Oblivious to her distaste, he helped himself to a steaming bowl of bab-fruit porridge. "Dune god save me, I'm getting so sick of Scarpen food," he remarked. "At least there's one good thing 'bout going back t'the dunes. Decent game on the platter and damper made from root mash, not withering bab flour." He glanced across the table at her. "Why so silent?"

  She shrugged. "I have nothing to say."

  "What, no sharp words about my moral standards or my taste? Now that's a change!"

  "You expect me to be brimming over with delight at being carted off to another quarter as a slave for the entertainment of a man who has just helped lead an invading horde into my country, an invasion that killed my family?"

  "Why not? You'll share the bed of the Master Son, the man who will one day lead the dune that rules all others. That's a position some women of the tribe would kill for! 'Sides, I am young and virile, as older men are not. Bet your husband was old and lacking."

  She took a bite of her bread to stop herself from saying something she would be made to regret.

  "And remember," he added, spooning down the porridge in noisy gulps, "we have a bargain. You welcome me t'your pallet, I protect the child you carry, and keep the other men from you."

  "It would be easier if you tried courting me," she snapped, "after a decent interval of mourning. And if you didn't come to my bed while I carried another man's child!"

  He tilted his head, amused. "Maybe I would-if I loved you. But I don't. I want you. There's a difference."

  "You've just told me there are plenty of others who would like the company."

  "Ah, but I'm stuck with you now for reasons of pride,
aren't I?" He grinned at her. "Besides, I like a challenge."

  She gritted her teeth.

  "Don't be so difficult," he said. "I gave you a choice, remember?"

  "A choice? When the alternative is a piece of personal horror? You have a strange idea of choice, you Reduner barbarian."

  Ryka thought he would match her fury with his own, but he shrugged with an indifference that was chilling. "I suggest you make it easy on yourself when the time comes."

  "And just how do you recommend I do that?"

  "By accepting the inevitable calmly. What you had is gone. So why not enjoy what replaces it? A roll around on my pallet each night could well be pleasurable." He stood up and spread his hands out. "Look at me. Am I so unattractive?"

  She stared at him. Since she'd first met him, his hair had been washed and rebraided with red and black beads. His red belted tunic with its embroidered panel down the front accentuated his broad shoulders. Underneath he wore full breeks gathered in at the ankle. He moved with all the muscular power of the young and virile, yet his smile, revealing white, even teeth, was more boyish than manly. Even his reddish skin and hair were attractive. If he had not been a threat to her, she would have thought him appealing. And handsome. Instead, he represented a future she was dreading with a sickness deep in her gut.

  "You appeal to me about as much as those ziggers in the cage." She waved a spoon to where one of the beasts had climbed up the bars and was gazing at her with sharp beady eyes-more like a bird's eyes than an insect's-smelling her with its waving antennae and slavering at her taste on the air. She thought of it burrowing deep into the soft tissues of her eye, spreading its acid as it went, feeding on her flesh.

  "You'll get used to me, and them, too." He tapped the cage top and the zigger fell from the bars to the cage floor, where it spun on its back, legs flailing. For a brief moment it could have been just an ordinary beetle, but then it flipped right side up and snarled at her, as if blaming her for its indignity.

  "They are as much a part of a Reduner warrior," Ravard said, "as the scimitar at our belts. Without ziggers, we are not warriors and must have the status of a servant. On the Watergatherer, I own more ziggers than anyone but the sandmaster, as is my right."

  Ryka snorted. "Owning those monsters is nothing to be proud of."

  Once again he took no offense. He held out a hand to her. "Come," he said, "it's time we left."

  She snatched up her bundle of books without taking his hand, so he grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door.

  "What are those?" he asked.

  "Books," she said.

  He laughed. "Books? You want t'take books with you? Woman, there are better things t'do with your time on the dunes than read."

  "Like what?"

  "Weaving and sewing and tent-making and cooking and fetching water. And sharing my pallet. Womanly things. Your job is t'look after my comfort." He looked contemptuous. "We don't have women warriors as you Scarpen folk do. It's unnatural. A woman is not built for such things."

  "No? They cart water, bear children, dig for roots, cook over open fires in the heat while they are pregnant, and lots of other things suitable only for weaklings, eh?"

  "You don't know the strength required for a warrior."

  She looked at him brightly. "No, of course not. Funny, though-I did hear there was a Reduner woman warrior of considerable skill who has outwitted Davim himself. What was her name now? Redmane? Yes, that's it. Vara Redmane. Old woman, too, I heard."

  She expected him to be angry, she didn't expect him to flush; but he reddened enough for her to be aware of the darkening of his cheeks and neck. Embarrassment or anger? She couldn't tell.

  He changed the subject and asked, snappishly, "What's in the books?"

  "They are histories, myths of the past, that sort of thing."

  He snorted. "We have storytellers for all that. You have no need of books." He pulled the bundle from her and tossed it on the floor. "Come."

  "Just because you are an ignorant barbarian who doesn't know how to read or write his own name, doesn't mean there's no value in it!"

  Without warning, Ravard slammed her up against the wall. Her head rang as it hit the stonework. He leaned in against her. His arm pressed her back as he snarled, "Don't you ever despise me for what I am. Being different doesn't mean being ignorant! Not reading or writing doesn't make me a fool. Just 'cause you read your bleeding books, doesn't mean you know a sandflea's piddle about anything. You with your city upbringing have no right t'despise me 'cause I had a different life when I was a young 'un. Y'understand me?"

  Weakly, she nodded. She had feared him from the moment they had met, but this was the first time he had terrified her.

  "Sorry," she said unsteadily. "You are right. It doesn't make me wise, or you stupid." And that's the truth. Especially the bit about me being wise.

  He released her, opened the door and gestured her through to where the guard stood outside in the passage, but then turned back into the room. When he joined her, it was to thrust the bundle of books into her arms.

  I don't understand you, she thought, surprised. I don't understand you at all. Ryka rode with the female slaves, fifteen of them, all now belonging to Davim's dune and mounted on the same packpede. A Reduner drover guided the beast from the front segment, and another took the last seat at the back. None of the women were roped as the male slaves were. The men had their hands lashed together at the wrist, the rope then threaded through the handles screwed into every segment.

  As they rode away from Breccia heading north, Ryka gave a sour smile. The Reduners didn't trust the men, but it had evidently never occurred to them a woman among their slaves might not only know how to drive a pede, but had also accumulated several years of desert experience doing just that. If she could steal a pede, she could drive it.

  She knew none of the other women on the pede and none of them indicated that they had any inkling of who she was. Listening to their chatter as they rode, she gathered they were all women from the lower levels, all but one chosen for their looks and youth. The exception was Junial, a plump older woman, kidnapped, or so she said, for her baking skills. Nine of the younger ones were snuggery girls resigned to their fate; five others-inexperienced girls between fourteen and twenty-were dull-eyed with fatigue and the memory of horror, or weepy in their despair. Some bore the external marks of the abuse they had already suffered because they dared to resist: bruised faces, black eyes, cracked ribs.

  Rage gathered in Ryka. Sunlord forgive me, but if I had the power I'd kill every single warrior here…

  There were a hundred or so of them, every one a seasoned fighter, so it was hardly a sensible objective. And Ravard she could not kill with her water-powers, not if he had the usual skills of a tribemaster.

  The Escarpment dropped out of sight behind them as the pede caravan pushed its way in single file up the track toward the Warthago Range. She glimpsed Elmar on the pede ahead of her and thought with vicious enjoyment, Leaving him alive was another mistake you Reduners have made. Her next thought was one she tried not to think about at all. What if Kaneth never recovered from his injury?

  How the Reduners regarded him was puzzling. In the stable, he and Elmar had been given a stall to themselves. Now he was not roped and was being kept separate from the other slaves, including Elmar. He rode behind a couple of warriors on a myriapede. When they stopped to rest at midday, a bladesman brought food to him. Another gave him a water skin. Both men treated him with deference.

  Ryka watched, mystified. What the blighted eyes is going on? She looked across at Elmar where he sat with the other men on the ground, still roped together. He shot an unhappy glance at her and she guessed he was aching to get to Kaneth's side. When Ravard strolled up to Kaneth and sat beside him to eat his own meal, Elmar appeared positively sick. Ryka didn't blame him. She looked away and tried not to think too much.

  ***

  They traveled north from Breccia all day. Every now and then
they passed one of the inspection towers, obese brick giants that strutted in lines across The Sweepings. Their midday rest lasted several runs of the sandglass, until the sun had settled a little lower in the sky and the burn had gone from its rays. The pedes then rose of their own accord, shaking the sand out of their segments and swinging their heads around in search of their owners as if to say it was time to move on.

  Ryka saved some of her own food and, choosing a time when none of the warriors was looking, fed titbits to the mount she rode. She studied its carvings carefully so she could recognize it again, even in the dark. Then she spent the few moments before they mounted up rubbing the soft tissue where its head joined the first segment behind. The animal rasped its purring approval of her touch and gazed at her in short-sighted adoration. You never knew when a friendly pede would be an asset.

  Shortly afterward, the beast's driver shooed her away, and they were on their way once again.

  They passed through the first of the caravansaries without stopping, and it wasn't until the sun slipped below the rugged spur of the Warthago Range that they halted for the night alongside one of the inspection towers. In the shadows of dusk, the warriors untied the men and set all the slaves to work, the women to prepare the food and the men to unburden the packpedes, groom the animals and erect tents. To Ryka's horror, several of the warriors smashed the wooden cover and the iron grille over the shaft and bade the women haul up water from the underground tunnel. All her years as a Scarpen rainlord were assailed by their action. Hard-earned water-pulled from the sea by the sacrifice of Cloudmaster Granthon-now defiled, opened to the elements and stolen by invading travelers. They cared nothing for the damage they did, for the destruction they would leave behind. Breccian water meant nothing to them. As a rainlord, it was her duty to prevent both such thefts and any damage to the tunnels that would lead to silting. Having to stand and watch it happen galled her.