The World Weavers

by Kelley Grant

  “Simply throwing our fighters at theirs will waste many lives,” the Herald said, frowning. “Can we approach from behind?”

  “We have only one guide,” the Crone said. “We have to follow the route he knows. Who cares how many humans we spend, as long as we win out in the end? Recovering our deities’ lost powers is our priority.”

  Parasu nodded. Kadar ran back to them, not looking happy.

  “I think I’ve found enough humpbacks to mount the Voices and carry some of the supplies,” he said. “We’ll have to load up your mules and horses as well, and hope enough of them survive until we reach the next oasis.”

  “We have wagons for supplies,” the Crone said, frowning.

  “Only if you want to push them every time they sink into the sand,” Kadar said. “You’ll be lucky if you don’t lose most of your horses, with a ­couple days between oases, anyway. You don’t want to lose your supplies as well.”

  Jonas stared out at the shimmering dunes that lay south of this town. “Is it really possible to make it to the temple?” he asked. “Or should we turn back?”

  Kadar grinned. “I can get you there,” he assured them. “You might be a little hungry, but I’ve done this route hundreds of times, in some of the worst conditions you will know. If you are willing, I will find a way.”

  Parasu stirred in the back of Jonas’s mind. “We are willing,” Jonas heard himself say. “It is imperative that we visit this temple.”

  “Then you will visit the temple,” Kadar said. “I give you my word.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Kadar waited on his humpback beside the Crone as the Templar sent Knights and soldiers ahead with their feli, scouting out the first oasis waymarker. The sun beat down upon their party, broiling them in the early-­autumn heat. Kadar knew the Crone’s geas was supposed to prevent him from seeing the army that followed behind, so he pretended to focus on only the smaller group of Voices and guards. Something deep inside of his brain was guiding his actions, as though he’d been geased before he’d met the army and the deities.

  The geas didn’t want him to notice, but surreptitious glances behind showed him the troops were flagging, exhausted from marching through deep sand that sank with every step, requiring twice the effort to move forward. Heatstroke and burns from the sun were common maladies. Kadar didn’t know how many fighters the army had lost already in this easiest portion of the journey. The Knights had scoffed when Kadar showed them how to wrap their fair skin and create a desert headscarf. After three days of travel in blinding sun, with blowing sand gritting their eyes and mouths, all the troops now wore some sort of headscarf. Kadar had offered his own beeswax lotion to the Crone, whose lips and hands were so chapped they bled.

  The scouts rode back to the Templar. The horses they rode had sunken eyes and walked with their heads down, dehydrated from water restrictions and eating dry feed. Kadar shook his head. Even with watering at this oasis, the beasts wouldn’t last the longer distance between this oasis and the next. At last night’s camp he’d overheard the Templar talking to soldiers about butchering the horses that had already fallen on the route. The Templar would do better to butcher the rest of the poor animals to feed the humans. But the fighters would struggle to carry their own water and supplies to the Obsidian Temple.

  “My feli saw nothing,” a Knight reported to the Templar. “No Tigus or signs that an army had been to the oasis.”

  “Could they be waiting behind the wards of the oasis?” the Templar asked Kadar.

  Kadar shook his head. “The wards could hide a small party,” he said. “But nothing as large as an army.”

  “Let’s get you to the waymarker,” the Crone said. “I long to see a bit of blue water in this desolation.”

  Kadar approached the stone with some dread. He raised his hands and used the mudras and words of power taught to him by his uncle Aaron. He felt a pang of sadness realizing that Sulis had been here a few months before, had learned these same wards from Grandmother. Now they were both dead.

  He finished the chant, placed both hands on the waymarker, and focused his energy, silently sending the last command into the earth. The Crone gasped from beside him.

  Kadar looked up to find the way open before them. It was a small oasis, smaller than he remembered, but palm trees and short grasses surrounded the blue water. The troops would drain the water almost to nothing, but the spring would slowly replenish the basin once they’d left. He sagged in relief.

  “You were worried, weren’t you?” Jonas said from beside him.

  Kadar nodded. “I was afraid that the Tigus lied to me,” he admitted. “I was afraid a sacrifice had been made here, too, and the wards would no longer open to the old commands.”

  “I think Parasu would have felt that large a sacrifice,” Jonas said. “He felt the sacrifice at the last oasis before we reached it. How many times have you done this, released the wards and made the water appear? It seems most magical when you are as desperately thirsty as our group is.”

  Kadar grinned. “I’ve seen it done hundreds of times,” he told the other man. “But this is my first time releasing this ward.”

  He laughed at the consternation on Jonas’s face. “I was only taught the wards last summer, when Sulis was injured and I stayed in the desert to help. Before, my teachers were worried our twin bond would give the deities a way of learning what we knew.”

  He choked as thoughts of Sulis filled his eyes with tears, but the pain quickly subsided, the Crone’s geas putting a veil between him and his feelings.

  “And yet here you are, guiding the deities,” Jonas said.

  Kadar glanced at him sharply. The man’s voice had flattened, his demeanor changing slightly. Sulis had told him Jonas shared his body with his deity, without Parasu taking over completely. Kadar decided that was happening now.

  “The warriors of the One should not have killed my family,” Kadar told him, letting anger rise up in him at that injustice, letting it cloud his thoughts. “They are not serving the One if they kill innocent ­people. The Crone has explained your plan to me, how the deities will create balance in the world after regaining their true selves. They will be able to give my family justice and create a more peaceful relationship between the North and the South. It is worth angering my ­people to create a peaceful, just society.”

  As Jonas studied him, Kadar let his thoughts drift to the Crone. A peaceful lassitude settled over him, and Jonas looked away.

  “Why are you still standing here?” the Templar asked, still on his humpback. “Are the wards down? Is it safe to enter?”

  Kadar refocused. “Once you can see the oasis, the wards are down and it is safe to enter. I and the other caravan masters will explain how to water dehydrated beasts. Make certain your men don’t cut down the palms or dirty the water with feces, urine, or trash of any kind. No bathing or wading in the aquifer except to draw water for the beasts. This is all the water we will have for three days. Don’t let them make it undrinkable,” Kadar warned, worried the men would rush to drink and destroy the oasis in the process.

  The Templar shouted orders, directing his Knight and soldiers on how to command their fighters. Kadar escorted the Crone to the shade under the palms.

  “I will help your men set up your tent, my lady,” Kadar told her. “You should stay in the shade to revive yourself.”

  “You are a gentleman,” the Crone said.

  As Kadar helped unload the humpback, he overheard the Templar and Herald talking.

  “We need to stay here at least a day, possibly more,” the Herald said, coughing. “Almost a thousand fighters trail behind and won’t arrive until late afternoon, exhausted by the heat and sand, if they survive at all. My healers have left hundreds of bodies behind on the trail—­without horses to haul the stricken and water and shade to revive them, my healers can do little.”

  “The Sout
herner says this is the easiest section of the journey,” the Templar said. “We will have to continue with night marches. I did not want to, because it will be too easy for us to fall into an ambush, but we can’t continue in this heat. The troops will have to toughen up. Any unnecessary baggage has to go. We’ve lost fifty horses, and the rest won’t last to the next oasis. The mules are doing better, but I don’t know how much farther we can push them.”

  The Herald coughed again and cleared her throat. “We’ve already loaded the healing supplies onto the mules,” the Herald said. “I’ll give orders that any free space must be taken by water pouches and jugs.”

  “Go rest—­have your Ranger give the orders. That cough is getting worse. Heal yourself; Aryn will need you,” the Templar said.

  “My Ranger will take over as Herald if I fall,” the Herald said hoarsely. “That’s why every Voice brought a spare. We are expendable.”

  As Kadar helped set up the Voice’s shelters, a line formed at the oasis. Fighters passed buckets down the line to water thirsty beasts and refilled canteens and waterskins.

  The Crone put a hand on his arm. “You don’t have to sleep out in the open, like you’ve done the past few nights,” she murmured in his ear. “You are welcome in my tent.”

  Kadar breathed deeply, trying not to resist the geas and pull away. He hid how horrified he was at the suggestion he would sleep with someone past his mother’s age. He imagined Onyeka laughing at him for his age prejudice and turned to the Crone.

  “I am honored, my lady,” he murmured as quietly as she had. He showed her the bracelet around his wrist. “But my lover would be quite upset if I shared a tent with another woman. And I quite like sleeping under the stars.”

  The Crone squeezed his arm, and he could feel her trying to lay her will onto his. He smiled blandly at her. She smiled, a little brittlely.

  “I understand,” she said. “I would not wish to get in between two lovers.”

  Kadar gave a small bow and went to help the bucket brigade.

  The army stayed at the oasis two nights and a day. The third evening they set out again.

  “How do you know what way to turn in the darkness?” the Crone asked, shivering in the night air as they traveled toward the next oasis.

  Kadar pointed to the vast, glimmering field of stars. “The star of the Great Feli lights the South,” he said, pointing to the brightest star. “I learned to navigate by the stars when I first traveled by caravan. It is easier for me than traveling in daylight, though my sister never quite learned the route by starlight. The cairns that mark the way to the first oasis are sometimes covered by sandstorms and we remark them.”

  “Sandstorms?” the Templar asked. “Do many occur on this route?”

  “The autumn rains in the mountains never touch the Sands,” Kadar said. “But the winds blow over the desert and create sand funnels and obscure everything. Small sand squalls are common—­you have to hunker down and wait them out. Large storms happen only every few years and are often fatal to those who can’t find shelter in an oasis or near a large rock.”

  “Were you ever caught in one?” Jonas asked.

  “Yes—­near the oasis we are traveling to,” Kadar said. “We were fortunate. There was a large outcropping of rocks and a stone of power was among them. My uncle Aaron was able to augment his powers and create a shield over the caravan.”

  “Stone of power?” the Crone asked.

  Kadar nodded. “There are several around the desert. Most are covered by the dunes, but a sandstorm will occasionally reveal a new one or cover an old one.”

  “What are they?” the Templar asked.

  “My uncle said they are connected somehow to the bedrock at the Obsidian Temple,” Kadar said. “It pulls the power of a source held in the temple. Occasionally he could even tell who was in the temple when he used the stone.”

  “How close to the oasis is this rock?” the Templar asked. “Has it been covered over again?”

  “My uncle said it was still here last spring,” Kadar said. “It’s only a quarter day ride from the next oasis. Uncle Aaron always rode to the stone to gain some energy while we were resting at the oasis.”

  They set up camp in the middle of the desert before the sun rose, their only shelter the tarps and tents set up by their camp. The sun baked them during the day and none of the Voices looked rested when they broke camp in the evening.

  A soldier ran up to the Templar. “Fighters in the ninth and tenth divisions killed horses. They said the horses had succumbed to heat, but the beasts looked fine this morning,” he reported. “They were running low on supplies. Should the men be punished?”

  The Templar grimaced. “No. Pretend you believe their story. The beasts won’t last another day and the men need the meat to keep their strength up.”

  By the next morning, hundreds more of the troops had fallen behind.

  “They’re dead on their feet,” the Herald reported. “Many are falling asleep as they march.”

  “We have to keep moving until we reach the next oasis,” the Templar said. “We’ll spend a few nights there and they can catch up. We are leaving a wide trail for them to follow.”

  “They won’t survive without supplies,” the Herald warned.

  “We have to continue on. The greater good is what matters. We must get to the oasis.”

  They did not reach the oasis by the end of the third night, to Kadar’s dismay. The humpbacks of a caravan walked longer and did not need to rest like an army of troops did.

  “Should we push on?” Jonas asked Kadar. “Even our humpbacks look parched.”

  The Templar conferred with a scout. “He says a waymarker for the oasis is only a quarter day ahead. We need to push on. The troops need that water.”

  It was close to midday, the sun blazing overhead, when they reached the oasis. Kadar’s own strength flagged as he released the wards on the waymarker and the oasis was revealed.

  The Templar screamed orders as the troops behind them surged forward at the sight of water. Knights were stampeded as they tried to hold the troops back. Kadar moved his humpback out of the way of the fighters, looking on with weary frustration. If the fighters reached the oasis, they would foul it for the rest of the ­people.

  A fireball of light and heat hit the front line of the rioting fighters before they could reach the blue water. The smell of ozone and burned flesh made the rest of the stampeding troops recoil, as the stricken men screamed in agony. Kadar blinked away the afterglow of the flare. Dozens of bodies lay on the ground in front of the oasis.

  “You will form rank,” the Templar screamed, his eyes blazing red with Voras’s anger. “You will obey your section leader. Or I will kill every last one of you humans!”

  Kadar shivered at the coldness of Voras’s voice. The troops muttered, but subsided into order as the Knights directed them around the camp. The Herald’s cough was more pronounced as her healers tended to the wounded. Kadar helped drag the dead fighters out into the desert.

  Once the Voice’s tents were set up, the Templar collapsed, his deity gone from him. The healers carried him to his tent as his second in command directed the watering of the troops.

  Jonas stood beside Kadar. “You said that stone of power is by this oasis?” he asked.

  Kadar nodded. “Just southeast, a short ride.”

  “You will take the Voices there,” Jonas said. His voice was flat again, and Kadar looked into his eyes and recognized Parasu. “If we deities have a source of power, we can heal and energize our Voices. We use the energy around our Voices to keep them healthy and able to meet our demands. No energy exists in this wasteland for us to draw on. The Herald is ill from lung sickness. The Templar has been drained. The Crone is exhausted from the pain of sunburn. And my Voice needs to regain energy. Be ready to guide us when the sun begins to set over the dunes.”

>   Kadar shook his head. “I will need morning light,” he said. “This is not a part of the usual caravan route, so the way to the stone is marked visually, by cairns.”

  Parasu sighed. “It is probably better in the morning. I do not know that any of the humans will be able to travel without an extended rest.”

  At first light, before the sun had even risen above the dunes, Kadar was arranging travel with the Voices. The Templar’s scouts reported no sign of the Tigu nomads or warriors of the One.

  The Templar left his second in command at the camp to maintain order. There was a short debate about whether the seconds of the other Voices needed to come along. In the end, the four Voices, the Mother Superior and the Ranger, and all the Voices’ guards rode out. Their feli ranged around them, some alongside the humpback, some loping into the distance to scout.

  “The advance cohort of warriors and healers is positioned behind the sentinel rocks, a short ride from the oasis,” a scout reported to Master Gursh. “Our scouts report a small group of Northerners, led by Kadar Shalendar, has broken off the main army and is traveling east.”

  Abram stood with Casia behind Master Gursh at the small watering hole they were camped at, a sandglass from Voras’s army.

  “The separation has gone as planned,” Master Gursh said. “Another sandglass and they will have traveled too far to turn back in the face of a sandstorm.”

  The weather mages, warriors of the One with magical talent, and half the Tigus were at this camp, raising energy under Master Sandiv’s command. Once the sandstorm was unleashed, the advance cohort would attack Voras’s army. Here at camp, those warriors who were not exhausted by the weather working would form a second attack against the army. The Tigus would continue their illusion, making the sandstorm seem to last half a day. Voras’s fighters were expected to surrender when battered by the sandstorm and demoralized by waves of fighters attacking them.