Stormlord rising s-2

by Glenda Larke

  Ravard looked around.

  One of his own bladesmen came up, his face haggard, his gaze still glassy with shock. He was holding his zigger cage. There was only one zigger inside. It sat quietly, cleaning itself.

  "What happened?" Ravard snapped.

  "Those that came back were hungry. So they burrowed into some of the men from Dune Sloweater."

  "They were our ziggers? You're sure?"

  The man nodded. "They didn't touch any of our sentries on the way in. None of our dune men here have been killed as far as I can see."

  "How many others died?"

  "Not that many. Maybe twenty or so."

  "There were thousands of ziggers out there!"

  "They-they haven't returned."

  "Then what the bleeding hells happened to them?"

  They looked at each other, unable to offer an explanation for the inexplicable.

  "They couldn't just disappear!" Ravard protested.

  "Kher, they've had more than enough time to fly there, gorge themselves ten times over if possible, and fly back. It has been more than two runs of a sandglass. We waited and waited. And then a few trickled in. But they hadn't fed. They were hungry!"

  "The rest are dead?"

  "Either that, or captured. Not one that came back had fed. Not one."

  Ravard thought about that, his face grim.

  "They say rainlords can kill ziggers with a glance," the bladesman remarked.

  "Thousands of them? I doubt it. Where's Medrim?"

  "Talking to the other tribesmen. Their sandmasters are furious, Kher. They don't like losing men to our ziggers. And our men aren't happy, either. They don't like losing trained ziggers."

  "I'll go tell Sandmaster Davim what happened. He'll have to talk to the other sandmasters." He ducked back into the tent.

  "I heard," Davim said irritably. He was strapping on his scimitar. "I'll speak to the sandmasters and tribemasters, although why I should have to is a mystery. Did they expect to fight a war without losing a man?"

  "What do you think happened? I mean, where are all the missing ziggers?"

  "Don't be pissing waterless! Dead, of course. It was a trap. Maybe the camp was full of rainlords waiting for them to fly in. Maybe it wasn't a camp at all. Maybe it was just the lights. You know what they're like around lights-moths to candle flame if they don't have anything else to distract them, like people to eat."

  "Taquar-?"

  "Taquar's no fool and he knows ziggers." Davim paused, and when he spoke again, his rage was more under control. "But Taquar needed us. It can't have been him. We have been tricked, Ravard. Go organize the burials while I calm down the dunesmen." It was much later when Ravard finally lay down to sleep in his own tent, tired, irritable and besieged by worries he could not shape into any sensible plan of action. He woke at the hour of deepest night to a sound he had never heard before. For a moment he lay absolutely still, listening to the impossibility of hundreds of fingertips pattering on the tent top. And a feeling of being surrounded by water.

  God, he hadn't had that feeling since he and Shale had played in the water that came in that unexpected rush down the drywash when they were boys…

  He sat up, listening, his overwhelmed senses muddled. The pattering changed to a battering, and water dripped onto his face. Water.

  He stood up and touched the ceiling of the tent. A trickle of water ran down his arm. The tent sagged as a pool formed on the roof.

  Water dropping on us. The thought was ridiculous. The stormlord must have broken that cloud over their heads. But why? The waste! He straightened his clothing, grabbed up his scabbard belt and scimitar and ran outside.

  The darkness was profound. He wasn't used to that, and immediately ran smack into a panicked chalaman who had come to wake him. Water was falling on them, wetting their hair, their clothes, running into their eyes and ears. It was cold.

  The chalaman blurted out, "Kher Davim wants to see you, Kher Ravard!"

  Ravard pushed him away and ran on. Davim was standing outside his tent. "Why would the stormlord want to do this?" Ravard asked. He had to shout to make himself heard above the noise of the rain.

  "I don't know," Davim yelled back. "One thing for certain, Taquar is not controlling him. I should have known that bleeding boy was going to cause us trouble. Smart-mouthed little wretch he was, even back when Taquar kept him caged. Tried to mock me-me!-by holding a ball of water over my head!"

  As he was speaking, a tribemaster's tent next to them collapsed in on itself as tent pegs loosened in the deluge, and the jute canvas absorbed too heavy a burden of water. It had been a long time since Reduner tents were made to shield occupants from more than the sun, the night-dew and wind. Pedeshit, Ravard thought. If we ever do return to a Time of Random Rain, we are going to have to rethink how to make a tent.

  The rain pelted down and Ravard was both appalled and impressed-water, wasted as if it was no more precious than dust on the wind. Water just flowing away, unused, sucked into thirsty, useless soil. "What should we do?" he asked. He was stunned, at a loss, wanting leadership. He wasn't the only one; the other sandmasters and tribemasters were gathering around. Several men were trying to funnel as much water as they could into their dayjars; others were ineffectively trying to shore up their tents.

  Davim singled out Medrim. "Make sure the sentries stay alert. Double their number. I shall talk to the men." Ravard returned to his tent to snatch a short sleep. He dropped off quickly, but soon woke again to another sound, and to a hauntingly familiar feeling of unease. A murmur in the distance, getting closer; that mutter becoming a roar-

  A rush down a Gibber wash.

  For the first time in a long while he felt the starkness of terror. Not fear for himself, but for others. He dived out of the tent and began to run, not to safety, but down the slope toward the warriors still in the wash. Slipping and sliding, he fell down on one knee, rose with his trouser leg heavy with water and his arm covered in mud up to the elbow. He ran on.

  Dune god save me, save the men, why didn't I remember the rush, why didn't I think, Wash Drybone after rain…

  Most of the men were now huddled among the rocks trying to keep out of the rain, or attending to the pedes still pulling at their lines and bucking in nervous spasms as they felt rain on their backs. As he ran, he bellowed at the top of his voice: "Out! Out of the wash! Out! Run!"

  He skidded to a stop just in time: just before the plunging wall of water slammed down the gully-and obliterated everyone there as if they had never been. In the darkness, he couldn't see much; above the thunderous roar of the flood he couldn't hear much, either. The water lapped around his ankles where he stood on the slope. Someone brought a lamp and he grabbed it, raising it high. They stared into the darkness. There was no one. No men, no pedes, no packs.

  Gods, but it was dark! A black void overhead, disgorging water as if the stars were pissing on them. Perhaps there were survivors out there he could not see, perhaps there were pedes that would ride the waters down-yet, somewhere inside his reasoning mind, he knew they had just lost five hundred men and who knew how many mounts. He lowered the lamp. This was not war. A real man fought with a scimitar or a spear or a knife. But with water? What could you do against water? Against rainlords and stormlords? This was cold-hearted murder.

  Shale. Blast him to a waterless death.

  At his shoulder someone asked in bewilderment, "Where is everyone, Kher? Faldim was camped here, with all his brothers. And Karidar-you remember Karidar? He was the fellow with the ridiculous nose…" His voice trailed off. There was no one to find.

  Gods, Ravard thought, will this nightmare never end?

  He stood where he was, mind-sick. Water rolled from his chin to sputter on the heat of the lantern glass. Some irrational part of him blamed Uthardim for all their recent ills, and he couldn't rid himself of the idea. The bad luck had started, or so it seemed, the moment that strange man with the scars entered his life. He turned the dune god against us, an
d our luck has gone.

  He was relieved to see Medrim arrive, giving orders to some of the men around him, bidding them find a couple of pedes and ride downwash to search for anyone who needed help.

  Ravard plodded back up the slope to where Davim waited. "I can't see anyone," he said, "and very few appear to have climbed out of the wash in time. There may be some on the other side of the water, though."

  "But you think most of them will have died," Davim finished for him.

  He nodded. "What should we do?"

  "Break camp. We will move back to the cistern."

  "In the dark?" Medrim asked, astonished, speaking for all the gathered sandmasters and tribemasters awaiting orders.

  Withering hells, Ravard thought, there's water in the wash. The ground was slick with mud, and it rained still, blinding men and beasts.

  "In the dark!" Davim confirmed in a temper. "We are vulnerable here. What better time for them to mount an attack? At least at the cistern we will have our backs protected by a cliff wall, and we have the supplies. I will pick the battle ground, not some half-grown, brown-skinned lowlife!"

  Ravard tried to think rationally. Jasper Bloodstone. Shale Flint. But what sort of army could he have? Breccia was defeated, and Taquar's men would not follow him, surely.

  "I'll skin him alive one day, along with every rainlord and reeve I can lay my hands on," Davim said, his voice choked with rage. "Reduners will never kneel to the blackmail of stormlords, not ever again." He looked up the wash, into the terrifying blackness of a rainy night. "We will go back to random rain," he whispered. "I swear it." And he shook his fist at the darkness blotting out the stars, at the clouds that were manifestations of a stormlord's power.

  Ravard shivered at the vicious hate he heard. Then he turned to find his own tribesmen, to find out who lived, and who had died.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Scarpen Quarter Warthago Range "Lord?" Iani's voice spoke into the darkness.

  Jasper jumped. Would he ever get used to a man of Iani's age and experience calling him "lord"? He sighed. Maybe it was just as well they all did. It reminded him he wasn't Shale the Gibber grubber anymore and, spindevil take it, he still needed to be reminded. Often.

  "Are the men in position?" he asked, wondering if anyone would hear the waver in his voice. The panic. Probably not. He was good at hiding his feelings. An expert at displaying a cool calm to the world. His father and Lord Taquar had done that much for him.

  He smiled at the thought and felt better.

  "Feroze says we're all ready," Iani said. Near him, there was laughter as Gibbermen on pedeback teased one another as if the thought of death was far from their minds.

  The timing of their attack would be all wrong, though. They had wanted to hit the Reduner camp immediately after the flood passed down the wash, but he'd miscalculated the speed of the floodwater build-up. His fault-he was the stormlord, yet he had not expected the hill slopes to drain off so quickly. The surge had followed hard on the heels of the zigger attack, instead of later, at dawn, as they'd intended.

  The men had not been in position; and now the scramble down the wash after the Reduners would be a nightmare of slipping and mud and falls and bruises. Iani and Feroze had pressed to go ahead, feeling that it was better to attack while Davim's forces were still reeling from the effects of the water rush, before they had a chance to regroup at the mother cistern. "We have to grab every advantage," Iani had said, "because they outnumber us and are better armed and more experienced. And right now they are confused and suffering."

  Jasper swallowed his reservations and nodded to Iani.

  "On your signal," the rainlord said.

  Around him, his personal guard mounted their pedes, their excitement and their fear tainting their water with the same sweaty sourness he smelled on himself. He turned his attention to the remnants of cloud overhead, forcing them a little higher. A light shower was to be the attack signal to his troops scattered on both sides of the wash.

  He swallowed, still nauseated, as the rain started again. He didn't expect any more ziggers, but some of his men could soon die anyway, because he asked them to fight. They were no match for seasoned Reduner warriors. You couldn't make an armsman out of an artisan in a matter of days.

  Men dying at his request: it seemed an obscenity; a disaster compounded by his mistake with the timing of the flood. He pushed back the doubt as Dibble turned their mount down the slope toward the remains of the Reduner camp. He was Jasper Bloodstone. Stormlord. Cloudmaster. He knew what he was doing.

  Mind you, it was so dark he doubted Dibble had any idea where the pede was putting its feet, but never mind, the beast seemed to know. Its flow down the slope was as smooth as wine from the calabash and surprisingly quiet. Those on foot were far less comfortable with the descent. Behind him, Jasper heard the slither of stones, the sounds liberally studded with only half-subdued curses.

  Irritably, he pushed away the rain drifting into his eyes, and directed it to where the Reduners were. From every side now, he could hear his men and their pedes pouring downward into the wash, rivers of men and beasts taking the easiest course. He reduced the cloud cover to allow the starlight to shine through, and a little later he spotted the camp, or what was left of it. To his chagrin he realized all of the Reduners were already mounted-apparently they'd decided to leave without waiting for the morning.

  Hearing their attackers, the Reduner pedemen whirled the beasts around with flicks of their reins and goaded them into fast mode. Their feet slashed through the mud as they flowed away into the darkness, back down the gully toward the cistern.

  With whoops and yells, Jasper's pede-mounted men followed, leaving those on foot behind. Dibble pulled back into the middle of the pack, not wanting to expose Jasper to the dangers inherent in being among the leaders. Even so, for a moment they were racing at breakneck speed among the rocks and the mud of the wash. Jasper gripped the segment handle to the front of his saddle pad, something a more skilled rider would never have done.

  The rush ended abruptly in a swirling mass of pede bodies, of screaming men and the clash of weaponry as the Scarpen leaders caught the slowest of the Reduner pedes. Jasper drew his scimitar. His personal guard, on their own myriapedes, tightened the circle around him, beating off any mounted Reduner who came near. Someone screamed.

  Sunblast! What's happening? In the darkness, it was hard to grasp the larger picture. Everything was fragmented, immediate, imminently dangerous. Small pieces telling him nothing of the progress of the larger battle. He glimpsed a pede laden with six or seven of his men ride down a slow-moving Reduner pede with a single driver. Gibbermen attacked the man with a mishmash of implements and makeshift weapons. The Reduner pedeman impaled the driver with his chala spear, and slashed the man behind with his scimitar, opening up a bloody gash on his leg. Jasper gripped his own blade tighter and yelled at Dibble to guide their pede closer. When the guardsman was slow to obey, Jasper in frustration gathered a ball of water from the pools left by the rain and flung it in the face of the Reduner. The warrior faltered, blinded. One of the Gibbermen took advantage of the moment and stabbed him with a bab cutter. As the man fell, another Reduner driver came to his aid. His pede carried six chalamen, and several Gibbermen disappeared from the back of their pede with spears in their bodies.

  Jasper gave up trying to follow the fight and concentrated on his small part. He grabbed water from wherever he could find it, shooting it like darts into ears and eyes and open mouths. Dibble, grinning, controlled their pede to keep his stormlord on the edge of the battle.

  The predawn air was filled with sound, every cry and clash grating along Jasper's heightened nerves. The screams of men in intolerable agony. The wailing ululations of terrified pedes. Shouted orders no one could hear or understand. The rolling scream of ziggers released from a falling cage. Howls of desperation from men who knew they were about to die. Cries of triumph from others who knew they were about to prevail. Insanely, Jasper wan
ted to yell, to tell them all to stop, to be silent so he could think. So he could do something more than just fling water around.

  And then, above it all, the boom of an Alabaster horn, signaling a retreat. "Oh; Watergiver's mercy," Jasper thought. "We've lost." And he hadn't even used his scimitar.

  He looked around to sort out what had happened. Someone had a lighted brand. A few of the slow Reduners had been killed and their pedes captured, but-from the look of it-only after they had inflicted casualties out of all proportion to their numbers. Jasper drew in a sharp breath. The death of such experienced marauders came only at a high price.

  He could hear Iani shouting orders and cursing at the top of his voice, his anger directed at those mounted Scarpen forces who were following the Reduners escaping down the wash. Even though Feroze had sounded an immediate retreat, many of those exhilarated by their supposed victory had not obeyed.

  As light crept into the valley, Jasper surveyed the bodies of the men who had died where he had been fighting. They looked so young, so vulnerable. So very, very dead. Limbs and guts and organs and clothes in a horrible bloodied mix, like a knacker's offal heap. Scimitar slashes. They were messier than swords or spears.

  And these had been people he knew. He felt his stomach constrict, radiating pain. Those who had followed the Reduners did not return. Their missing water, the empty spaces they left behind, were further wounds to Jasper's soul.

  This was what it was to lead men to war. Surprisingly, the pain was bearable. It was the intensity of the pressure, not the pain, that made Ryka groan and drive her nails into the palms of her hands. The effort involved was so concentrated she wondered how she could ever survive it. How any women ever survived it. When she said as much, in between the spasms, one of the slave women tending her laughed and patted her hand.