Stormlord rising s-2

by Glenda Larke

  "You did it well."

  He searched for the water of those who remained. Iani, Feroze, Laisa, yes-somewhere Mica was still alive, too. A moment's relief coursed through him, but hard on that joy came confusion.

  He felt something wrong, botched, water falling where there should have been none. Water bizarrely deformed. Panic rose in his throat.

  Not water. Ice.

  In shock, he remembered the clouds he had sent so high.

  Yelling for help from the rainlords, he strove to bring his powers into play. They nudged the falling ice in the right direction, so that it fell in front of the cavern and further down the gully, smashing into the bulk of Davim's forces. Rounded chunks of ice, each half the size of a man's fist, crashed down on the Reduners-and continued to do so.

  Jasper blinked, distressed. Some of his own forces were caught up in the edges of the ice fall, too. He saw three or four Alabasters fall from their pede, their bodies blossoming blood. A handful of Gibber men, too slow to separate themselves out from the retreating Reduners, dropped to the ground. A Scarpen pede screamed as its feelers were broken.

  Why had he forgotten? He'd sent the clouds as high as he could command them and waited for the ice to fall, but that had been much earlier. When nothing had happened, he'd decided the ploy had failed. He hadn't realized it would take so long.

  He looked around. His army and the Reduners were now separated. Davim's men-as many of them as could fit-had crowded into the cave. Those still outside had either run down the gully or sought shelter huddled alongside the pedes or flattened themselves against the cliff. Ice still fell on that side of the cleared area, the balls sometimes bouncing harmlessly off pede carapaces, sometimes cracking segments and breaking feelers. And sometimes killing men.

  Pedes. They didn't deserve this.

  Scarpermen, Alabasters and Gibbermen were scattered over the southern half of the flat land and on both sides of the gully running down the middle. The whole area, including the drywash, was littered with the dead, the dying and the injured.

  "'Ware ziggers!" Iani yelled, bringing him back to reality even as the ice continued to fall, smaller pieces now. "There's no reason now why those bastards in the cave don't loose the last they have in this direction." He stood up on his pede, ordering bladesmen to heap the dead, face up, as bait, hoping the beetles would not sense much difference between the recently dead and the living. Men raced to obey.

  Still keeping track of the falling ice balls to make sure they fell only in front of the cavern, Jasper turned his attention to those around him. He searched out the rainlords with his water-sense, dismayed to find there were six dead, their water lifeless. One part of him thought, We can't afford to lose so many; another part simply grieved.

  In front of him, Dibble twisted a torn sleeve around a bleeding wrist. Laisa sat on the back of a myriapede behind her driver, looking as if she had just stepped out of her tent. She had partially veiled herself to keep the dust out of her hair and nose; her riding clothes were immaculate still. Looking at her, Jasper was uncomfortably aware of his sweat and dirt and blood. Next to her, Feroze was standing on the back of his great white pede, directing men to carry the wounded to the back. On the ground nearby Jasper saw no less than eight white-clad bodies, and when he glanced over the battlefield he saw many more.

  The worst affected, though, were the Gibbermen. Inexperienced and badly armed, they had fought with heart but little skill. The results were horrendous. Their ranks had been thinned. Pedes which once had carried a dozen riders now settled down to rest, legs tucked under their bodies, riderless. One animal was running its feelers up and down a Gibberman's body, grieving. Jasper looked away; each and every death added a scar. Each scar was a burden he would bear.

  I'll make it up to them one day. Somehow. But how was it possible to compensate for even a single death?

  He searched for others he knew and could not find them. There were a number of suspicious gaps in his own guard he didn't want to think about. Oddly, he found himself thinking of Ryka. He'd never believed in ghosts, but for a moment her presence was there with him, so real he relived his grief at her death. She had taught him so much.

  He looked up at the sky. The dark storm clouds were localized directly above. Over to his left, the bottom rim of the sun was resting on the horizon, the light bleeding out over the land and bruising the turbulence of the black clouds with purple. Blighted eyes, the whole afternoon had gone, vanished into the hell of battle. He probed with his senses to see what ice or water remained. Entranced, he paused: the clouds were full of ice balls, rising and falling in the turmoil… but how to use them? He gave it a moment's thought, then drew the clouds downward, sucking the water in all its forms toward him.

  Already, as he looked back toward the cavernous entrance to the waterhall, he could see Reduners busying themselves with zigger cages, passing them outside to the armsmen sheltering beside the pedes. They wanted to release them on the edge of their forces to diminish the chance of accidents to their own men.

  Around him, Jasper felt the shiver rippling through his army. Facing a warrior was one thing, but a normal man quailed before ziggers.

  "Don't run," he yelled. "Whatever you do, don't run! Trust me." He continued to drag the storm cloud toward him, pulling it as fast as it would come, hoping he would be in time. "Rainlords, spread out! Concentrate only on the ziggers flying toward your section."

  "Down!" Feroze yelled from further along. His white robe was spattered with blood, but none of it seemed to be his. "All you men, crouch down. Put your head between your legs. Keep your nose, ears and eyes covered! Quickly now. Pack in close as you can to one another-that's it! Closer. Closer still."

  "You, too, Dibble," Jasper said. "This time I can look after myself."

  The man nodded and dismounted, pausing only to give the pede the signal to contract its segments to close up the gaps, and then to hunker down to protect its underside. With the pede taken care of, he joined the other armsmen. They all knew it was a temporary measure at best; few wore cloth thick enough to repel a determined and hungry zigger. Between them and certain death were the rainlords-and Jasper.

  The buzzing whine, when it came, sent shivers across his skin. Not one, not ten, but fifty or so ziggers, homing in, and behind them, the Reduners in the entrance to the waterhall were already reloading their zigtubes for the next wave. Jasper redoubled his efforts to bring the storm cloud.

  Iani looked at him briefly, his palsy accentuated by his fatigue. His face sagged in lopsided weakness, his left hand shook. "Pedeshit," he muttered and killed the first half a dozen ziggers heading his way, "I hope you know what you're doing, Jasper."

  The sight of the water cloud tearing through the air, a compact mass of dark fury, was as unnerving as the sound of ziggers, even to Jasper. Momentarily distracted, he missed an approaching beetle and had to whirl around to pinpoint its direction as it zoomed down on the huddled men. He shot a piece of ice, and it disintegrated, shedding chitin and wing cases and soft flesh harmlessly onto someone's back. Further along, several ziggers had penetrated through the rainlord's line and men were screaming with pain as the vile things burrowed in. The rainlords scrambled to deal with the beasts before they dug into their victims too deep to be shriveled.

  The second wave approached. Blighted bastards, Jasper thought, staring at the sky to concentrate on his cloud. Further along the line of rainlords, Laisa sat on her mount, no longer so cool and unruffled. "You conceited Gibber grubber!" Agitated, she waved an arm at the turbulence descending on them from the sky. "You'll kill us all with this kind of pretentious bragging!"

  "I doubt it," he said calmly, even though his heart hammered at his ribs. "Your hair might be messed up a little, though. Which could be a new experience for you, I suppose."

  "You could have killed us all with that ice!"

  Jasper whipped the cloud closer, twisting it as it came, moulding its shape into a long tube. And he sent it straight into the openi
ng of the waterhall, sweeping up the remaining freed ziggers and all the zigger cages on the way. He turned to Iani and Feroze. "Now's the time to move closer."

  Feroze stood up again and gave the order. Others passed it along to those behind.

  The Reduners in the entrance saw the cloud only at the last moment; their view had been blocked by the cliff above them. No sooner had they looked up than the cloud hit them, a whirling maelstrom of ice and mist. The wind tore their zigtubes from their hands and hurled the cages to the back of the cavern. It wrenched the wings from the bodies of ziggers, blew men to the floor and flung them against the rock walls where they were unable to rise against the gale of ice-laden air. Water drenched their robes; hail battered their bodies, bruising them under a barrage of ice. And it didn't stop. The wind Jasper created by hurling the cloud into the cavern had nowhere to go; it hit the walls and hurtled on, its turbulence whirling unabated.

  The men in the cave clung to the walls and floor. The ice hit them again and again, bouncing from walls and roof or buffeted in random directions by the wind. It hurt. It blinded. It knocked men unconscious. Sometimes it killed. It brought strong dunesmen to their knees, weeping for respite. Others hauled themselves toward the entrance, terrified, wet, bleeding and confused.

  And then Jasper collapsed. His power trickled away, replaced with profound exhaustion. He panted, gasping for air. Unable to stand, he collapsed to his knees. Dibble dug into the saddle bags and hauled out a handful of bab sweets for him. He hardly had the energy to chew, but he stuffed several into his mouth.

  The wind abruptly died. Silence came, so precipitate they were all taken unawares. Then, almost as suddenly, noise overwhelmed. Pedes keening in pain and clicking their distress, the appalling screaming of men overwhelmed by their agony. Men moved and groaned, pedes skittered and shuddered. And the sandmaster's army, what was left of it, began to emerge from the cavern.

  "We'll ask them to surrender," Jasper said to Iani as the rainlord rode up with Feroze not far behind him.

  "Iani can ask," Laisa said. "You stay here, Jasper. I don't want you going anywhere near those bastards."

  "She's right," Iani said, even as Feroze grunted in agreement. "All it would take would be one aggrieved redman to take it into his head to throw a spear…"

  Jasper nodded, understanding the reasoning, yet irritated, and a moment later Iani rode forward alone with his scimitar wrapped in cloth and held high in his good hand. Jasper guessed that was the accepted way of asking for a parley.

  A moment later a man rode out from the Reduners with his scimitar similarly wrapped. Jasper recognized the pede immediately: Burnish, the sandmaster's beast, and Davim was riding it. While he and Iani spoke, Jasper scanned the lines of waiting Reduners, trying to figure out which one was Mica, but in the crowd it was impossible to pinpoint one person's water from another's.

  I can feel him, though. He is safe. The joy he felt sifted through him. Soon we'll meet again, and everything will be all right…

  Iani returned almost immediately. He was glowering.

  "He said no, I assume," Jasper remarked.

  "Actually he said he doesn't care if they lose, as long as you die in the battle. He also said that if you personally surrender now, he will allow Mica to go and he will take all his men back to the Red Quarter. Including those in Qanatend." He gave Jasper a hard look. "He'd kill you, you know."

  Jasper sighed and looked once more at the Reduners. They were battered, but there were still enough of them to be a formidable force. They stood silent, armed and ready.

  Blighted eyes, he thought. We have to fight again. All because I have to live.

  "Are you all right, my lord?" Iani asked.

  "Exhausted," he said. "I've eaten something, but at the moment I have no powers to offer."

  "What answer shall we give them?"

  Forgive me, Mica. "We fight."

  "Then stay back," Iani said. "That's an order, my lord. We don't want to have to worry about you when we should be fighting."

  He nodded, knowing that made sense, and yet felt the heat of a blush in his cheeks. Shame. Shame at his relief. Silly, he knew, but felt it anyway.

  Iani turned to Dibble and said, "You and your men stay with the stormlord. He is your responsibility. You, too, Laisa." He then turned to Feroze and smiled. "Shall we advance on these drowned rats and put an end to this?"

  ***

  Ryka had no idea how many ziggers she disposed of before the first of the battles began, but it was certainly in the hundreds-enough for several of the Reduners collecting the cages to comment on the number of dried-up beetle husks in worried tones.

  "It's those devils of rainlords," another man said. "They're killing them, those skyless dwellers. Damn them to the dune god's hell!"

  Not one of them bothered to look at the slave woman huddled against the wall of the cavern with a dirty rag over her head. And then they stopped fetching the ziggers, the stones and pede segments stopped falling from the skies and the battle on the flat clearing in front of the cistern started in earnest. It was horrible to watch, yet there was a sick fascination about it, too.

  Too tired to continue killing ziggers, Ryka checked on Anina and Khedrim and raided the food for a meal. Then she crept back to the broken grille at the entrance. She recognized Davim and guessed at the identity of Medrim, the Warrior Son, standing on the backs of their pedes, stabbing with spears, swinging scimitars, leaving a swathe of destruction behind them. Ravard fought the same way, except he didn't use a driver. He'd taught his mount to respond to spoken commands; she knew that much from riding mounted behind him. His pede was ferocious. It augmented his forays with weapons of its own-cutting down anyone who did not wear red with the whip of its feelers or the crunch of its mouthparts. Together man and mount were formidable.

  As she watched, she tried to come to terms with the relief she felt that he still survived, then gave up. He's Jasper's brother; that's good enough reason. I personally don't care if he breaks his neck. And yet she remembered the last conversation they'd had, when she'd found out who he was and been touched by grief at his tragedy. It didn't change anything; he was still the enemy. He and Davim and the Warrior Son-the three of them seemed invincible, damn them.

  She scoured the battle for any sign of Kaneth but couldn't see him. Or Elmar, either, blast it. But then, with her poor eyesight, what could she expect? She thought she glimpsed Iani once, using his sword with a killing passion, but she couldn't be sure.

  She wanted to fight, damn it, but the thought of Khedrim, her own fatigue and the way in which her eyesight limited her in a large area like this battleground kept her where she was.

  Then, when a ball of water came flying past her out of the cistern, she changed her mind. She watched as it smashed into a Reduner face. The man jerked his head in shock, and in the aftermath, as he sat half stunned and half blinded on his pede, a Gibberman stabbed him with a spear.

  She grinned and decided even her meager skills could do that much; it was easier than drying out ziggers or drawing water from men. She sent ball after ball of water into the battle area. Withering hells, she thought, why didn't we think of this during the battle for the Breccian waterhall? She knew the answer, even as she asked the question. After a lifetime of always saving water and never, ever wasting it, the idea of flinging it at someone was almost blasphemous. It had simply never occurred to them to do it, let alone that such a harmless tactic could be so effective.

  Still, even throwing water around was tiring to her in her present state, especially as she had never been a particularly strong rainlord anyway. Fatigue soaked her, dragging at her limbs, miring her thoughts until they were almost incoherent. She slipped back into the smaller cave to check on Khedrim again. Her gaze softened as she cuddled him; it happened every time. Sunlord damn, what was happening to her? So absurd-she'd become as soft as a bowl of bab mash. Here she was, in the middle of a battle, wanting to smile at a baby or feel the tight grip he gave when she put
her finger into his palm.

  He was restless, so she fed him briefly and he soon dozed off once more. She forced herself to eat some more, pilfering bab fruit and dried apricots from the jars stored in the cave.

  When she returned to the main cavern, she had an even better idea. Now that no one was looking, she grabbed up as many of the zigger cages as she could carry and held them one by one under the water of the cistern until the beetles inside had drowned. Then she returned them to where they had been stacked. Each cage had ten ziggers, so she'd disposed of several hundred beetles before she had to stop-or be caught doing it.

  The battle had changed. The bullroarer was sounding and the Reduners were retreating in an orderly fashion toward the waterhall.

  "Pedeshit," she muttered. "Now what?"

  She hunkered down against the wall once more, still with her head and face wrapped in the cloth from the zigger cage. She could hear the sandmaster shouting, ordering the men to regroup in front of the cistern. And then Ravard's voice, yelling for the last of the unfed ziggers to be brought out. Hastily, she retreated to the store cave, but continued to peer around the corner. Anina was hiding behind the jars, begging her to do likewise.

  Something crashed down on the ground, shearing the nose from a Reduner warrior on the way down. It was white and hard, but that was all Ryka could see. A heartbeat later, more white rock-like objects followed. Some shattered harmlessly on the ground, others felled men, even killing them. Pedes bolted for the waterhall, fighting men in their frantic fear to get under cover.

  Blast, the place was going to get crowded. She dived for her hiding place behind the oil jars.

  It was cramped sharing the space with Anina, and stuffy under the coverlet. And nerve-racking. They could not risk talking and had to sit still and in silence. There were soon men inside the alcove, helping themselves to water and food or resting while they spoke of the battle and how this one had died or that one had killed a rainlord. And all the time Ryka watched Khedrim for any sign he was going to choose to cry. He snuffled once or twice, a small sound drawing no attention, and slept on.