Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

  It was a measure of her discomfort that she even considered it. No one was even around to witness her shame, but that didn’t make her any less embarrassed. She trudged on, fighting across the rolling dunes of endless sand.

  At least she had water. The strange lizard had directed her to the spindly plant where the thick gourds grew; they somehow sucked up water from the depths of the ground and stored it within their thick hides. Ciara felt almost embarrassed by the riches of water she carried with her, as if she should suffer more than she did, but crossing the waste this time was much different than the last.

  Using her knife, she stabbed into one of the gourds and drank the water within. Crossing the waste was dangerous enough, and she had no waterskin. The gourds provided, though.

  She couldn’t remember reaching the top of the shelf again. How had she climbed it? The last time she’d been through here, she’d fallen and nearly died. If not for the lizard… she didn’t know what would have happened. Maybe nothing. Had the lizard carried her up the side of the shelf as well?

  “You could slow down,” she said to it, pausing to take another drink. How many of the gourds remained? She’d lost count and didn’t have the energy to check.

  It glanced up at her and ran its tongue over its lips, the same tongue that had coated her in the strange crust that had healed her. She didn’t understand anything about the lizard, other than that it had helped her. Of that, there was no longer any doubt. But had she really heard it speak in her mind?

  The voice hadn’t come again, not since the single time, making Ciara wonder if maybe she hadn’t imagined it in the first place. She’d been sleep deprived and scared, and the heat of the desert had burned upon her, leaving her the potential for visions. Only, she didn’t think that was what she’d experienced.

  The strange shadow man who’d led her across the waste and nearly attacked her hadn’t been a vision, had he? Why the voice then?

  Ciara took another drink and continued on. Sand sloped ever upward, and the gray-scaled lizard pattered forward, undulating in that strange way he did when he walked so that the sunlight caught on whorls of blue along his sides. His fat tail traced a straight path across the sand, and she managed to follow it.

  “Where are you leading me this time?”

  The lizard didn’t answer, but she no longer expected it to.

  She followed, pausing every so often to take another drink. The hot sun baked her, and a part of her knew she shouldn’t be crossing in the day, that night would be cooler, but there were other dangers at night. She and Fas might have survived the last time, but she’d barely managed to do so, and she still didn’t know if Fas lived.

  The lizard led her toward a wide, packed path. Were it anywhere other than the waste, she would have thought it some sort of dry streambed, but no water flowed through the waste, not even after the Great Storms. Almost nothing lived here.

  Once, she had thought nothing lived in the waste. When she’d crossed with Fas, it had been too dark, but in the daylight, she caught glimpses of waxy yellow plants atop the dunes. The lizard never led her near them, and she never wandered away from it.

  “I need to stop,” she said.

  The lizard turned and made a soft hissing noise in the back of its throat. It had done the same each time she refused to follow as it intended.

  Ciara sighed and threw her hands up. “I’m hungry and thirsty.” And exhausted and scared. How many days had she wandered so far? She’d lost count at this point. As far as she knew, it could be days or weeks.

  The lizard came back to her and nudged her leg with its long, narrow head. It was stronger than it seemed and she stumbled, trying to use her j’na to catch her. When she fell, the gourds spilled out around her.

  She took a pair and stabbed them, drinking as much as she could, and chewed on the thick rind. It wouldn’t be enough to sustain her indefinitely, but there were worse things she could eat, and the water was clear, if not slightly bitter.

  The lizard nudged her again, and she collected the gourds before standing and following its trail across the sand.

  She lost track of time. The sun shifted in the sky, but it seemed to move slowly, as if time passed differently in the waste. She pulled on her elouf, trying to free the sand burrowed into places she’d never be able to get it free from, and moved the shaisa to keep sand from her mouth, but nothing seemed to stop the relentless shifting of the sand. The wind didn’t help.

  Her mind began to wander. At first, she recognized that it was happening, knowing it was a combination of the heat and fatigue. Nothing else would explain the way she could practically see the wind, swirls of translucent shapes moving in the hot breeze as if urging her on.

  Even the sand seemed to push her, sliding her forward as if the waste tried to shove her away. Ciara wanted nothing more than to lie down and move with the sand flows, but every time she attempted to slow, the lizard nudged her again and sent her staggering forward.

  Eventually the heat rising off the ground—had the dunes flattened so much, and why were there cracks in the ground?—created images in front of her. They had to be images a part of her knew, because there was no way she should see wagons, or the great chemel, or even a flock of ragged-looking shepa.

  Ciara stumbled and caught herself with her j’na, plunging the spear into the ground. The earth was harder than it should be, and she staggered until the end of the spear caught. Light danced off the draasin-glass tip, shining like the sun itself. She glanced down to the lizard to ask why she should now have visions, especially now that she had plenty of water and no reason to have them, but the lizard was gone.

  “Where did you go?” she said.

  The vision of wagons and chemel neared, and she fell forward. Strong hands caught her and she jerked. Had the strange shadow man returned? The thought of seeing him again terrified her in some deep way she couldn’t really explain.

  “Ciara,” a soothing voice said.

  She blinked, seeing nothing but a dark figure in front of her, and swung with her j’na, slicing outward with the spear. She reached for her knife, but that had been lost somewhere, leaving her with only the spear. As nya’shin, the spear alone should be enough for protection.

  “Ciara,” another voice said.

  This sounded like her father, but her father was with the village and lost to her. The strange shadow man claimed they lived, that the Stormbringer had provided enough rain, even if only to give them another few days, but she hadn’t been sure whether to believe him. Seeing what had happened to the lizards, she doubted that she should trust him at all. The lizard had helped her. What had the shadow man done?

  Then her j’na was forced down, the tip buried into the sand, and the spear itself pried from her grip. She let it fall.

  She was carried gently and placed onto a hard surface. A shadow covered her, and for a moment she panicked, kicking as hard as she could. Someone held her down. Was it the shadow man? Had he come back for her?

  Water dribbled into her mouth and she swallowed, wondering why she’d be so thirsty. She had gourds, dozens of them, enough to drink freely, but she’d been drinking from them over the past few hours, so maybe she didn’t have as many remaining as she thought.

  “Where did she get the osidan?” someone asked.

  It wasn’t the shadow man, but Ciara didn’t recognize the voice and wanted to grab her j’na, tell them it wasn’t osidan, but she couldn’t move. Her body felt exhausted in ways that she couldn’t explain. Everything about her hurt, reminding her of when she’d fallen from the shelf along the edge of the waste.

  “A different color of osidan,” someone else—her father?—said, though that couldn’t be right. Her father was with the village.

  Someone was brushing her hair, and then she was rolled, first one way and then the other before they settled her back on the hard surface. Ciara tried moving, but a comforting hand pressed against her shoulders, keeping her from going anywhere. A soft shushing whispered near
her ear. Distantly, she heard the hissing sound of the lizard.

  More water dripped into her mouth and she took another drink, licking her lips and thinking of the lizard as she did. Where was it? Why abandon her when she needed it the most?

  “How did she find us?” a voice, this one sounding so much like Fas, asked.

  “The lizard brought me to you,” she said. Her voice came out in a croak, the water pouring over her lips and mouth not making a difference. She ran her tongue over her lips, trying to wet them, but they felt thick and cracked.

  “What did she say?”

  “Sun sickness. How long has she been out there?” This one sounded almost like her mother, but that couldn’t be, as her mother had been dead for years.

  “She’s been gone…”

  Ciara strained to listen, her mind starting to clear, if only a little. Had it not been a vision? Had she actually reached the village?

  “Too long to survive,” someone else said. “Especially without water.”

  “She sent it with me.” Now she was sure it was Fas, but how could he have found her?

  “On the waste, alone? The Stormbringer must have watched over her.”

  “Not Stormbringer,” she said.

  The soothing hand touching her hair continued. Water dripped into her mouth, slowly, but more than she should be allotted, especially if she had returned to the village. They’d waste water on her.

  Ciara managed to open her eyes. A thin sheet hung over her, shielding her from the heat of the sun. A grizzled man with gray hair so much like her father’s looked down at her. Could he be her father?

  “Her eyes are open.”

  “I can see that her eyes are open, Usal,” her father said. He touched her cheek, running a callused finger across skin that ached where he touched. “She’s badly burned. I can heal her—”

  Ciara pushed up, and whoever held her shoulder tried to keep her from sitting too fast. “No. Don’t waste water on me.”

  Her father met her eyes, and she could see the emotion flickering across them. “We have water to spare.”

  He and another person placed hands on each of her cheeks. Ciara tried resisting, but cold washed through her more suddenly than she could react. It felt like she was plunged into an overpowering storm with sluicing rain sweeping through her. Her hands balled into fists, and pain surged. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe.

  Then it was over. Pain eased away, leaving her weakened. She struggled to focus, unable to wrap her mind around what had just happened to her. Pain that she hadn’t known she had been fighting was gone, leaving her feeling refreshed.

  Hands came away from her face, and the pressure on her shoulders eased as whoever had been holding her down relaxed their grip.

  Ciara sat up and slowly looked around. “You shouldn’t have—”

  Her father pulled her j’na closer and rested it next to the wagon she was lying in. “You are nya’shin, Ciara. You must be healed.”

  “How can I be nya’shin if I can’t shape water like the others?”

  He looked past her and she followed the direction of his gaze to see Fas watching her through somber eyes. His usually dark skin had a waxy appearance, as if the injury that he’d only barely recovered from the last time she saw him still lingered.

  “How did you survive?” He hesitated, then approached cautiously and took her hands.

  When the others around them backed away, her father squeezed her shoulder slightly and went with them, leaving her with Fas.

  Fas smelled of heat and sweat, but also something sickly. “You gave me more of the water than you should have. It wasn’t until I was nearly across the waste that I realized what you’d done.”

  “You needed to warn the village,” she said.

  “You needed to return with me.”

  “I returned.” Ciara still didn’t know how it had been possible.

  That wasn’t quite right. She knew exactly how it had been possible, only she didn’t know whether she could believe it. Had the lizard really led her across the waste and back to the village? Why drag her so far away from her people in the first place… unless that wasn’t what it had done at all.

  She hadn’t considered that possibility. Maybe the lizard had brought her back to the village a different way, one she never would have found on her own.

  If that was true, then where had it gone?

  “How long have I been gone?” she asked.

  “Nearly two weeks.”

  Two weeks. She would have expected days, possibly even a week, but two weeks? It seemed impossible that she could have been gone that long, but then, it was impossible that the lizard guided her across the waste.

  She shifted where she sat and felt pressure against her back. Reaching behind her, she pulled a gourd from the cloth of her elouf, somehow lodging inside and making it back with her.

  Fas studied it for a moment before his eyes went wide. “That’s wisani.” He used a word in old Rens, one Ciara didn’t recognize.

  Ciara shrugged and reached for her spear, stabbed the top of the gourd with it. Water dripped out and she brought it to her mouth. Fas stretched toward the gourd as if intending to take it from her.

  Ciara jerked her hands back and took a deep drink from the gourd, trying—and failing—to keep the water from dribbling down her chin. In spite of having access to so many of the gourds, she still struggled with losing even a drop of water.

  When finished, she set the gourd on her lap. Fas’s eyes were wide as he stared at it.

  “If you wanted some, you could ask,” she said.

  He shook his head slowly. “Wisani.”

  “That’s what you said. You know what they are?” When he nodded slowly, she said, “Then you know there’s water inside. They store them.”

  Fas pointed toward the gourd and waited for her permission before lifting it and studying it more closely. “Mother used to mention wisani. Water flowers, they used to be called, only the water is tainted. Dying men used to drink from them, thinking the water inside could sustain them, only to poison themselves. You shouldn’t touch it.”

  Ciara thought of how she’d survived on the waste using only the gourds. There had been other sources of water, but none quite as plentiful as when the lizard had dragged the dozens of gourds to her, letting her drink more than she ever dreamed. The rind of the gourd had sustained her as well, keeping her hunger at bay. Now that she was back with the village and healed by what her father had done, that hunger returned, setting her stomach rumbling with a vengeance.

  Without thinking much of it, she picked a part of the rind and chewed at it. Fas watched her, horrified.

  “Not poison,” she said between bites. “At least not from what I could tell. This was all I had to drink after I left you.”

  “What of the waterskin?” he asked carefully.

  She took another bite of the rind. It was chewy, with a woody texture, and had a hint of the bitterness that the water tasted of, but it settled her stomach. “The waterskin tore when I fell.”

  “Fell?”

  “From the shelf. I climbed down—”

  “Stormbringer, Ciara. You could have died!”

  She should have. Whatever the lizard had done had healed her. Twice. The second time had come when she injured her ankle. “But I didn’t. I think he watched over me and kept me safe.”

  “That’s where you found the wisani?”

  She nodded. It seemed strange to think the lizard might have brought them to her. At the time, she’d had little choice. Drinking from the gourds had seemed the safest—really, the only—way for her to survive. Would she have tried it had she known what Fas thought of them?

  “No one has found wisani for… for a long time,” he said. “Figures they would grow in the waste.”

  Ciara wasn’t sure that was true. Had she really been in the waste, or had she passed through, gone beyond the edge, only to return when guided by the lizard? Where she’d been, other things had grown, i
f not what she might have expected. There were other creatures, not only the lizard.

  And then there was the shadow man.

  She shivered, taking another bite from the gourd to mask it. It wouldn’t do for Fas to know how something like shadows had shaken her. She was one of the nya’shin and meant to be fierce.

  “I don’t know anything about the wisani,” Ciara said, “but the gourd kept me alive. Without it, I would have died that first day.”

  “You sensed your way back to us?”

  That would have been one way for her to reach the village, but after meeting with the shadow man and following him across the desert, she hadn’t attempted to sense anything. She’d followed the lizard, hoping it would speak to her again, thinking it hadn’t only been a trick of her mind. She still wasn’t convinced.

  “Something like that.” Ciara slid off the back of the wagon, wincing as pain shot through her legs and back as she did. Even with healing, she still felt as if needles were shooting through her. Sun burned on exposed skin as soon as she climbed from the wagon, and she realized with a start for the first time how disheveled she appeared and how tattered her elouf had become. Someone had removed her shaisa veil. As much as she fought wearing it so often, having the veil had saved her during the stretch walking across the waste. All that sand blowing around would have been even more miserable without it to protect her.

  “Where am I?” she asked.

  Fas caught her under the arm when she wobbled, and Ciara shook him off, preferring to use her spear as a crutch.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I saw the chemel and the shepa. Didn’t the village begin moving?”

  That had been the plan when she and Fas had departed, hadn’t it? They would find water for the village, and the village would follow. She couldn’t remember how far the lizard had brought her, but it didn’t seem possible that it would have managed to get her all the way back to the village, not without something being different.