Stormlord Rising

by Glenda Larke

  She came to sit by his side on the rugs.

  “How can I do something that is probably going to kill the last member of my family?” he asked. “I’ve thought and thought, trying to find a way to protect him. If I knew exactly where he was, maybe I could… make sure he was all right. But my feelings are so nebulous… it’s been too long. I doubt I can pinpoint precisely where he is in the middle of a battle. And so there’s nothing I can do. Nothing. Tomorrow there’s a fair chance someone is going to kill my brother.”

  “Send him a sky message,” she suggested.

  “He couldn’t read. And I don’t imagine that has changed.”

  She was silent, unable to offer him any comfort, let alone a solution.

  “Why did you come?” he asked. “Is there something wrong?”

  A hot flush crept up her neck. “I came to make sure you sleep well tonight, because… because tomorrow you will need all your strength.”

  “Sleep? I can’t sleep—”

  “You will,” she said, and bent to kiss him full on the lips. Once more there was that wondrous feeling of water recognizing water belonging to the same vessel, of the desire to join the two parts of the whole.

  When they parted Jasper said huskily, “But I thought you weren’t certain—that you weren’t ready—”

  “You know what?” she said. “Being ready for marriage and ready for this are two different things.” Her fingers found the ties of his tunic and deftly undid them. He reciprocated, but his fumbling at her clothes was tantalizingly clumsy.

  The water within her responded so that her whole body sang. I bet the snuggery girls never felt this.

  He was naked, and so was she. Tiny shudders skimmed her skin. He pulled her down, clasped her tight. A moan of pleasure escaped her. After that, she was incapable of a coherent thought for quite some time.

  She was right; Jasper slept very well indeed that night. Terelle lay awake for a long time beside him, caught in the muscular curve of his arm. She felt as if every sense she had was sated, every particle of her body was warmly glowing. Nothing she had ever learned from snuggery girls had prepared her for this. Jasper and she had something special and she knew for the rest of her life she would always be aware of him, through his water. She would always know where he was. She would know if he died. At the same time as she was suffused with the joy of it, she felt a wrenching sadness.

  She still felt the tug of the mountains, she still felt the power of Russet’s last waterpainting.

  I’m still trapped, she thought. Our cage has no visible bars, but they’re there nonetheless. But I swear it, I’ll break them somehow, because this is where I belong.

  Ryka awoke in the morning, lying in the small store cave off the main cavern of the mother cistern. Tucked into a small space between the rock wall of the cavern and the smooth earthenware oil jars, she found her world had contracted to this space, hardly large enough for her to lie straight. If she stood erect, she was in danger of being seen, and she had to be careful. Fortunately the slaves, all Scarpen folk, knew she was there and were prepared to keep one of their own hidden at a risk to their own lives.

  At first, she was glad of her inactivity. She was exhausted. The arduous ride and giving birth had left her wanting no more than rest and copious amounts of sleep and food and water. And so she stayed hidden and quiet. Besides, she was prepared to do almost anything to avoid Ravard. The thought that he might find her, that he might claim her child as his own, made her gorge rise. Never. I will not allow it. Not now, not ever.

  Fortunately, Khedrim was content to eat and sleep most of the time. She lay gazing at him for long periods, enjoying the little moues of his lips, the way his tiny lashes lay against his cheek as he slept, the perfection of his toes, his fingernails, the delicate curve of his ear. This was her child. Hers—and Kaneth’s, if he ever came back to claim him.

  Oh Kaneth, I wish—I wish you could see him. I wish you could feel what I feel now. I never knew it was possible to feel like this about another person, never. So protective. So utterly consumed with love.

  Khedrim. A Reduner name for a Scarpen baby. He’s our future, she thought.

  When he cried, it was usually in a fretting, irritable way, rather than bellowing, and she was grateful because it meant no one heard. Anina brought food and water from time to time. Ryka managed her body wastes, and Khedrim’s, by extracting the pure water and putting the dry residue in a pot for Anina to take away when she had the opportunity. She’d had to explain to the bemused woman that she was a rainlord, then reduce her expectations because Anina’s immediate idea was that a rainlord could rescue them all with a minimum of trouble.

  After several days of enforced rest, Ryka grew more fidgety. Her frustration boiled deep inside her, but she could not give it a voice, nor quell it with activity. Anina had told her the Scarpen forces were now arrayed around the rim of the crescent slope surrounding the flat area in front of the cistern cave. Kaneth would be there, surely; so near—yet he might as well have been on the other side of the Quartern. He didn’t recognize her water anymore, let alone remember her.

  She was a rainlord, able to help in the coming battle, but surrounded by Reduners, how could she do anything without dying in the first few minutes? And there was Khedrim to think of. He changed everything…

  I will get out of here. With my son. I will take him to safety. I swear it. I just have to wait for the right moment. Maybe during the battle. If there is a battle.

  Patience, Ryka, patience.

  She sighed. Ryka Feldspar had never been known for her patience.

  Early that morning, Ravard took over the task of cleaning his own pede, much to the surprise of the slave whose job it was. He found a measure of peace in the rhythmic polishing and brushing. And he needed to calm the tumult of emotions, the way his thoughts bucked and churned, refusing to focus on ordinary tasks.

  It wasn’t the thoughts of war that unsettled him. They excited rather than unsettled. No, it wasn’t the coming battle. It was the playing of chala with the heads of their enemies. Not the game itself, but that Davim had asked him to play in the first place, in full view of any watching Scarpen folk.

  He’d wanted Shale to see. He’d wanted to remind him what happened to Citrine. I wonder if Garnet is right? Perhaps the sandmaster had been the one who had caught Citrine on his spear, all those years ago. The thought made him sick. He hadn’t thought about it in years, yet now it all came flooding back, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like the idea he had been used.

  No, Garnet must be wrong. Davim came to admire my courage. He saw I could be a warrior. He saw I had water talent that I didn’t even know about and that I could be a tribemaster, even a sandmaster. It wasn’t just because I was Shale’s brother. It wasn’t.

  She was wrong, and yet he thought of her all the time, unsettling, restless thoughts. He didn’t know why. She was a slave. She was a lot older than he was. She wasn’t particularly beautiful, although he loved her thick wavy hair and—ah, the sheer arousing sensuality of her long legs…

  But she only lay with him to protect her baby. That hurt. He’d thought it wouldn’t matter; now he found he wanted more. Sometimes he ached with the need to see a certain look in her eyes—fondness? Pleasure he was near? Something other than anger or pity or resignation. She had tried to escape with the other slaves, with Uthardim, he was sure of it. Something had brought her back, but he wasn’t sun-fried enough to think it was her affection for him.

  As he turned his attention to brushing out the grit from the softer flesh under the overlap of the segments, he pondered his mistakes. If he could, he would’ve turned the sandglass over and gone backward in time to undo those errors.

  I should never have made the safety of her child a reason for her to come to my pallet. I should have given her and her babe protection and waited for her to come to me.

  What he had done was wrong. It made him… less, not just in her eyes, but in his own. He knew that now, when it
was far too late to undo the damage. Frowning, he wondered how he knew. Everyone around him took the slaves whenever they wanted. Just as men had come to Marisal the stitcher, his whore of a mother, when they had wanted to lie with a woman. They had paid her, it was true, but their attitude had been the same. She was available and they thought a few tokens bought them the right to do what they liked with her body. He remembered their unpleasant contempt. He remembered that all his father cared about was the tokens. He remembered the times they had been told to leave the hut so she and her customer could have a semblance of privacy. Growing up he’d thought nothing of it; why then did he now feel distaste for her situation, rather than contempt for her?

  Garnet, it was all Garnet’s fault. She had twisted his world somehow with her refusal to be cowed. Her refusal to bow to fear or defeat, her courage—and not least her way of making him think.

  Sandblast her, he thought.

  “Kher?”

  He turned to see one of the chalamen from his own tribe. He forced a pleasant smile. “Havelim? What’s the problem?”

  “I’m not sure it is a problem, exactly. You haven’t seen that young son of mine about, have you? Khedrim?”

  “No. Why? He shouldn’t be here at all, surely? The lad’s hardly old enough.”

  “I agree. That’s just it, he shouldn’t be here, but I just saw that his pede—one of those youngsters we brought in, remember?—is down on the pede lines. In fact, two of those young ones are. Which strikes me as strange. Would be unlike the lad to be disobedient, and I can’t find anyone who’s seen him, but who else would bring in an undersized runt from the dune? Right mystified, I am, Kher.”

  Ravard’s heart started to pound under his breastbone. “Who owned the second one?”

  “Don’t rightly know anyone had claimed it. That slave of yours was looking after it.”

  “My slave?”

  “The woman. Garnet.”

  The withering bitch. He could hardly believe it. She had followed him, he knew it. She was here somewhere. But why? Not because she missed him, that was for sure. God below, she must be ready to drop her babe any time and she had ridden across the dunes and The Spindlings just to escape? Was she weeping sandcrazed?

  “You haven’t seen her here, I suppose?” he asked dryly.

  “No, Kher.”

  “I want the whole area searched for her.”

  The man blinked, puzzled. “For who, Kher?”

  “The slave!”

  The man looked at him as if he truly was sand-witted.

  “You heard me. Organize a search. Use our tribesmen, and look for anyone who shouldn’t be here. Especially Garnet. I don’t think you need worry about your son.”

  The man bowed his head slightly and moved off to organize the search.

  Ravard stood still beside the pede, the pede brush he had been using dangling from his hand, his task forgotten.

  * * *

  Terelle rose early that morning, at sunrise. Even so, Jasper had already disappeared from the tent. She dressed, then stepped out through the flap yawning and stretching, smiling in joy at her new memories—only to come face to face with Lord Gold. He must have been coming to see Jasper; instead he caught her in what could only be a compromising situation. She was snuggery trained, and it meant nothing to her, but the expression on Basalt’s face told her he had a different opinion.

  His cheeks purpled in anger and his eyes blazed. She was taken aback at the ferocity of his stare and retreated a step. Sandblast him, the man had never even spoken to her and he was acting as if she was a Reduner about to impale him on the end of a spear.

  But no, I won’t let you spoil anything, you stupid scrawny-spirited priest…

  “Whore!” he said. “Have you no shame?”

  There had been a time when she would have slunk away, apologetic, but that was long past. “Actually, no,” she replied. Ashamed? Of what happened last night? With effort, she stopped herself from laughing in his face. “Not with regard to this, none.”

  “You belong in a snuggery! You should have stayed there. How dare you corrupt the stormlord?” He stepped forward, thrusting his face into hers, spittle spraying. “It was bad enough when I thought you were a Gibber grubber, but I’ve heard you are actually an outlander, one of the blasphemers who call themselves Watergivers. Your very presence here corrupts. How dare you defile one of our lords?”

  She stared at him, more in astonishment than outrage. The sun had risen on a day of battle. By the time it set, many of those in this camp would lie dead—and this pompous fool of a priest wanted to single her out for his ignorant diatribe?

  She placed her hands on her hips in deliberate provocation. “You don’t even know me and you condemn me? What kind of a religious example do you set for the rest of your followers, Lord Gold? And you don’t even know what you are talking about. May the spindevil winds preserve me from the stupidity of waterpriests in general, and you in particular!”

  He gaped at her. “You ill-mannered slut,” he hissed. Before she could think of an appropriate reply, he turned away and stalked off.

  “Not the wisest of moves, my dear—making an enemy of the Quartern Sunpriest.”

  Terelle turned. Laisa, of course, who else. Blighted eyes, the woman was always listening, spying, poking her nose into Terelle’s business. “Maybe not, but it felt good.” That was true; it had felt marvelous. She gave the rainlord a broad smile.

  To her surprise, Laisa favored her with a conspiratorial grin. “Nasty, pompous old bore, I agree,” she said. “But take my advice anyway, and watch your back. Shall we go find some breakfast?”

  “My lord!”

  She had been dozing, Khedrim lying sated and content in the crook of her arm, but the urgency in Anina’s voice jerked her wide awake. She sat up, still holding her son, to see the slave woman’s head peeking over the top of the jars.

  “They are looking for you! They’ll be coming any minute!”

  “Who? Who’s looking?”

  “Ravard and the men from his dune. They are doing a thorough search, and they mentioned you by name.” She didn’t need to say the hiding place would not survive a proper search; Ryka knew it.

  She handed Khedrim to Anina, stuffed the pot and the extra cloths into a gap between the jars, and grabbed up the padded coverlet she had been using in place of a pallet. When she scrambled out from her hiding place, she took that with her; dark and dingy in color, it was ideal for what she had in mind. Once she was standing beside Anina, she took Khedrim and then wrapped herself in the coverlet, covering the both of them.

  “I’m going to hide under the water in one of the cisterns,” she said in answer to the woman’s questioning look.

  Anina’s worried look intensified.

  Ryka peered around the corner so she could see into the main hall of the cave. It was dim, lit only by sunlight from the entrance. There was the usual bustle: slaves bringing in the pedes to be watered or filling dayjars and water skins, others taking food from the stores to the camp fires out in the open. Outside, though, there was a group of Reduner warriors standing in the sunlight. One of them—or so she deduced from his gestures—was dividing the group up to send them in different directions. She swore under her breath.

  “Anina, you will have to tell me when it is safe to come out. Look for me in the far corner of the last cistern at the back of the cave.”

  Anina stared, bewildered.

  “I’m a rainlord, Anina. I’ll be fine. We shall be fine. What I want you to do now is walk to the entrance of the cave and then pretend you see a zigger coming. Scream, yell ‘zigger’ and point—but just make sure you point away from the back of the cave. I want everyone looking the opposite way. Now go, and don’t look back. Go!” Ryka gave her a push.

  Anina hesitated only briefly, then nodded. Ryka watched her go and waited.

  Her scream when it came was blood-curdling. Ryka didn’t wait to see every head swing the way of that sound; instead she walked rapidly
to the back of the cave to the echo of the frantic shrieks of “Zigger! Zigger!”

  The cisterns—there were two—were gouged out of the rock of the cave floor. The rim was flush with the floor and the water started about a hand-span below. As far as Ryka could judge, it was deeper than she was tall, but not by much. The back one was fed by the inlet pipe, a system engineered so long ago in the past that no one knew who had been responsible. There was a constant flow from one cistern to the other, and the mountain water was always cold.

  Ryka knelt by the back cistern, in the darkest corner where little sunlight reached, still clutching the dark mottled coverlet around her. Ignoring the commotion at the entrance to the cave, she pushed the water aside and dried the floor. Then she let herself down to stand on the solid stone. The air was damp and cold and dark. Khedrim stirred against her making sucking noises, and she wrapped him deep in the coverlet.

  She lowered herself to sit, then gingerly allowed a layer of water to close over her head except for an open funnel of air about the width and length of her arm. She kept the coverlet over her head, and hoped if anyone happened to glance into the cistern they would not notice anything.

  As she settled down to wait, praying Khedrim would not start crying, she remembered that other time when she had found safety in a cistern—the day her world had disintegrated into pieces she knew she’d never find again, let alone rebuild into something worth living. She remembered the last words she had spoken to Kaneth as she watched the spreading stain of blood in the water around them: Live, live for the three of us.

  She bent her head over Khedrim’s. “Live, little one,” she murmured. “Live, and we will build a new life, and it will be good, I promise.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Scarpen Quarter

  Warthago Range

  Terelle lay just below the crest of the hill and waited.

  Everything was in place. They had spent the better part of the day preparing for this moment, for the precise time when Jasper decided the sun was high enough in the sky for the angle to be right. When everything matched her painting.