Stormlord Rising

by Glenda Larke

  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 mor
e. 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.

  When you are older, I shall laugh about this with you, she thought, and tell you what a brave boy you were. She touched his cheek with her fingertip and added a moment later, Please let that be true.

  They had no way to tell how much time had passed, but suddenly there was the sound of hurried movement, shouted orders from outside, followed by silence. She waited a while longer, then peeked over the top of the jars. The small cave was empty, and although she couldn’t see anyone in the waterhall, she felt sure there were people there, crowding at the entrance. She could no longer feel the presence of the pedes, so she guessed they had pushed the beasts outside the better to accommodate themselves.

  “I’m going out to see what’s happening,” she whispered to Anina.

  The woman nodded, but her face was a portrait of a fear so deep-rooted, Ryka wondered if she could even speak. She patted her arm and left.

  The waterhall was still crammed with warriors, but now they were only at the front, standing in rows, facing away from her. Preparing to advance, she assumed, as soon as they were given the order.

  And then the picture splintered as though they had all entered the heart of the spindevil wind. A huge rope of water, twirling and howling, touched down in front of the cave to scatter men and zigger cages and pedes, shooting out slivers of white as it passed. One of these shot into the cavern and came to rest near Ryka’s feet. She bent to touch it. It was ice. For a moment she crouched, unmoving, staggered by the thought anyone could do this. Outside, the sun, now low in the sky, was still hot; the land still burned with the heat of the day. How could it happen? She’d seen ice before; in the deep of the desert at night sometimes the dew froze, or the stopper in a dayjar iced up. But never in the heat of the day.

  There was no time for thought. The wind and water entered the hall, blowing men before it like grass seeds in a gale. She turned and plunged back into their hiding place, drawing Anina and Khedrim into her arms, wrapping them all in the cloth and the coverlet. Khedrim started to wail in earnest, but that was the least of their worries. No one was in any condition to hear him or, if they did, to care.

  Men crowded into the store cave again, screaming in terror and pain. Ice hit the walls over Ryka’s head, shattering and sprinkling them with shards. The wind rocked the row of jars, and several of the empty ones smashed. Fortunately half of one of these broken vessels came flying through the air, only to wedge firmly between a full oil jar and the wall, forming a shelter protecting them from the worst of the other flying debris. Ryka dragged up some dregs of power and used it to ward off flying ice and water.

  Anina sobbed endlessly, and Ryka could hardly blame her.

  Jasper, she thought, if I ever get out of this alive, I will wring your neck for scaring me to death.

  Just when she thought they might live through the stormlord’s version of a spindevil wind, a ferocious gust made a man stagger into one of the oil jars, sending it reeling into another to create a chain reaction. Several jars smashed and suddenly there was bab oil everywhere.

  Ryka leaped up, Khedrim clutched to her chest, to save him from being drenched in oil. She slipped almost immediately and sprawled, flinging herself onto her side to avoid crushing Khedrim. He woke in terror and immediately started bawling with surprising volume. And at that precise moment, the wind stopped. It didn’t die away, it simply vanished. People began to pick themselves up off the floor. Into the sudden silence, Khedrim cried, the insistent squalling of an outraged newborn. Heads swung her way, disbelieving stares sought her out.

  She scrambled up, horrified. The more she tried to quiet Khedrim, the louder he yelled. Someone came pushing through the crowd of armsmen, and Ryka found herself looking up at Ravard.

  For a long moment he was speechless, with rage or surprise she couldn’t tell. She stood, joggling Khedrim to quiet him, but he would not oblige. He was dripping with oil, and so was she.

  “What the sandblasted withering shit are you doing here?” Ravard asked at last.

  “Running away from the Red Quarter?” she suggested. “And having a baby.”

  He opened his mouth to say something else, but no words came out.

  Outside, people were calling for him.

  Finally he said through gritted teeth, “Stay here. I’ll deal with you later.” He turned and was gone.

  Ryka loosened her clothing and gave Khedrim the breast to quiet him, even as she looked for Anina. To her shock, the woman was lying as still as death in the oil. A pointed shard of pottery jutted from her breast. Her eyes stared sightlessly upward, an expression of surprise on her face.

  Ryka cursed, long and hard. The woman could have been safe, hiding with the other slaves, but she had come back to help.

  Oblivious, Khedrim sucked hungrily until, sated, he fell asleep again. There was nothing she could do for Anina, so she walked away with him in her arms into the main cavern. The Reduners—at least those who were alive and relatively unhurt—were all gone. Injured warriors were sprawled on the floor, some unconscious, some with broken limbs, along with many bodies. There was nothing left of the zigger cages, or the ziggers.

  Outside, after some sort of lull, the battle had been rejoined. Keeping close to the cavern wall, she peered out. A glance told her it would not be easy to sneak away. The fighting surged immediately outside the cavern, with the Scarpen forces pressing the Reduners closely. If she did venture out, she would be in danger of being trampled by a pede or cut by a stray antenna, not to mention killed by someone from the Scarpen forces. Her oil-saturated clothing was a traveling tunic of Laisa’s, but it had long since been stained red by the sands of the quarter. Her skin and her blond hair were red. The middle of a battle was not the place to start arguing your allegiance.

  Damn, she thought. Wearily she slid down the wall into a sitting position. She ached everywhere, uncomfortably aware she was still bleeding from the birth and that her exhaustion was worse after using her water-powers.

  Jasper, you had better w
in this battle because I don’t want Ravard to come for me…

  And where the blighted hells was Kaneth? Please let him be all right.

  It was every man for himself. Ordinarily the Reduners would have made short work of an army of shopkeepers, bab pickers and resin collectors, but Davim’s men were no longer the proud, undefeated marauders they had been a day or two before. The Scarpermen and their allies smelled victory and fought with a tenacious spirit. Jasper, far from being safe at the far side of the flat ground, found himself imperilled by the ferocity of the fighting around him.

  Sandblast them, he thought, they are out to kill the stormlord. He had taken advantage of the lull during the parley to eat as much as he could force down his throat. He could manipulate water again, but he suspected his renewed power would not last long.

  He stood up on the back of his pede and tried to keep himself above the worst of the fighting. He plucked water from the cistern and threw it at those who came at him, leaving their destruction to the guards around him. Laisa, next to him and still giving the appearance of being coolly unruffled, blinded Reduners by sucking the water from their eyes.

  Aghast, he saw Dibble fall, and then another of his personal guard, and another. His pede, driverless, reared in anger when a Reduner thrust a spear between its segments. Jasper tumbled and sat down hard on the saddle. He saved himself from a further fall to the ground by grabbing for the mounting handle. Someone cut the man down from behind, and the spear was dislodged.

  A Reduner driver on pedeback, tall and well-muscled and young, fought his way toward him. The man wielded both spear and scimitar and wreaked havoc among the bladesmen and pedemen tasked with keeping Jasper safe. The ordeal inside the cavern had not cowed this warrior. His robe was wet. His face was bruised and bleeding. His nose was broken. Yet he manipulated his steed with a finesse not many could achieve in normal circumstances. He alternated between scimitar and spear, slashing and stabbing with grim intent. When he wasn’t using the scimitar, he held it in his mouth, blunt side inward. When he wasn’t jabbing with the spear, he used it as a stave to ward off attack. Both weapons were red with blood; men died under the feet of his mount. He was terrifying.