Stormlord Rising

by Glenda Larke

  They had not crossed weapons, though Jasper had first glimpsed him earlier through the shambles of battle. Now he was close.

  Jasper threw water at him. The warrior appeared to sense it coming. He ducked and the water splashed harmless across his shoulder. When Laisa turned her attention to him, he spoke to his pede and a feeler whipped through the air in her direction. She saw it coming and threw herself sideways. The serrated edges of the feeler tore through her clothing and she fell to the ground.

  The Reduner reared his pede, throwing himself forward until his face was cheek down on the beast’s head. He yanked hard on one of the reins and yelled something to his mount. The animal pivoted on its back feet, and as it turned, its feelers swung out in a wide slashing arc, ripping at everything within range. Men fell, Scarpermen, Gibbermen and Reduner alike; pedes scattered.

  Jasper and the man were left alone in the center of a cleared space.

  I’m going to die, Jasper thought. Unless I think of something quick. He raised his scimitar into a defensive position and drew as much water as he could from the cistern with what remained of his power. I’ll throw the lot at him, knock him from his pede…

  The response was sluggish. He felt as if he was hauling a recalcitrant pede, not water. He panicked. He was tired, so tired. No, this is more than that. What the salted wells is he doing? And then realization: He’s a reeve. He’s fighting me with water skills. The man couldn’t move water, but he could resist it.

  When the pede whipped its feeler around at Jasper, fear clogged his thoughts. He jerked back, thinking he was going to be sliced open, but the animal stopped short of hitting him, and gently touched his face with the tip. Only then did Jasper notice the feeler on the other side was broken. He looked into the animal’s myopic eyes. It was stroking him, a pedeic sign of welcome to a friend.

  Jasper jerked his head up to look at the rider and was overwhelmed with a sense of recognition. It wasn’t Mica’s face he recognized, but his water. The features were those of a hardened Reduner marauder: sharpchiseled, calculating, stained red—that man he did not know. But the inner self? That was Mica; that hadn’t changed.

  And he was swinging his scimitar in a sideways slash that was about to remove Jasper’s head from his shoulders.

  Worst of all was the recognition in those cold, dark eyes. Mica Flint knew exactly who he was going to kill.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Scarpen Quarter

  Warthago Range

  The battle swirled back and forth. Attack, retreat. Retreat, attack. Slash, parry. Parry, slash. Reduner killed. Alabaster triumphant. Scarperman killed. Reduner victorious. A patterned chaos; a chaos with patterns of life and death. Deadly, desperate and bloody. Always bloody.

  And always ugly.

  The ugliness of the smell. The stink of voided bowels, of urine, of vomit, of guts spilled and trampled. Pede shit, pede piss. The sweet, strong stench of human blood. The ugliness of the noise of battle. The grating scream that wouldn’t stop. The harsh sobbing of human beings in pain. The bubbling gasps of men without lungs trying to breathe, the animal grunting of men without guts trying to go on living, the whistling breath of men with pierced windpipes. The guttural horror of the death rattle, that awful final sound of air expelled, never to be replaced. Each sound distinct, whether soft or loud, and each layered in its own special abomination.

  And now, for Jasper, another ugliness. His brother was going to kill him. Mica. Mica who had loved him. Worried about him. How could it ever have come to this?

  It was the pede that saved him, Mica’s pede. It brought a feeler down hard across Mica’s arm and the stroke went astray.

  “Mica!” Jasper cried. “It’s me—Shale!” And to make sure he was heard, he shut out the battle. He enclosed them in their own little world: he ringed them with water, a wall of water, with just Mica and him and their pedes inside. Sounds muted, and the men outside drew back, fearful. Yet the wall was nothing more than water, easily breached.

  Mica recovered from the pede’s blow and, cursing, swung his scimitar up again for another murderous slash.

  Jasper flung up his spear to parry the blow that was coming. “You used to protect me,” he said.

  The words were inane, yet they penetrated, and only then could he see the boy that had been Mica in this man, this Reduner. There, on his face, a brief look of worried uncertainty once so typical of Mica as his resolution wavered.

  Yet when he spoke, his voice was firm, the words those of an adult. Jasper recognized the voice, heard the slur of the Gibber accent, although it was no longer so pronounced. “I know. And you have t’die. I’m sorry, young ’un. But that’s the way it’s got t’be. We have t’go back to random rain. And my name is Ravard now,” he said. “Kher Ravard.” He lowered his scimitar slightly and Jasper read a brief flash of compassion in those dark eyes, even though the line of his mouth and jaw told him there was no wavering of the determination.

  Still, it was hard to believe he was in danger, so he ignored it. “I almost didn’t know you,” he replied. And it was true. Without the pede, would he have ever recognized this tall tribesman with the red face and hard eyes? The effect was accentuated by the newly broken nose, still bleeding, and the bruises on his cheekbone. “You’ve grown…”

  Sand-brain. Can’t you think of anything sensible to say? He blurted out what was uppermost in his mind. “How could you, Mica? How could you join Davim’s marauders? After what he did to us?”

  Mica stiffened. “Did to us? What did he do to us that hadn’t already been done by our own? Beaten, starved, going to bed thirsty night after night, licking the dew off palm leaves just t’get enough water.”

  “Davim killed Citrine,” Jasper snapped, outraged. “He threw her up into the air and caught her on his chala spear—”

  “I remember. So what? One less snivelin’ brat, what did it matter? She was a third child. She wasn’t even s’posed t’have been birthed. She should never have been born!”

  Jasper stared at him, appalled. “She was our sister!”

  “She was thieving our water, when we didn’t even have enough for ourselves. Soon enough she would’ve been sharing our food. A half-starved, snotnosed, half-wild animal like the other waterless brats of Wash Drybone. She would have growed up t’be another gormless bitch like Marisal, watching and simpering while her husband-pimp beat the hell out of his son. She was better off dead.” He looked at Jasper in scorn. “And so you’re the stormlord now. What have you done for the waterless of the Gibber, Shale? You going t’change it so bastards like Rishan the palmier don’t steal the riches of the grove from those who work it?”

  “Give me time—”

  “Time. Ah, yes, time. The rainlords and stormlords ruled in Breccia City ’fore we stood up to piss, Shale, long before. And they did dry-boned nothing for the likes of us in the hundreds of years they had power.” He leaned across from his pede to insert the point of his scimitar under Jasper’s chin.

  Jasper thought of lowering the water wall, of calling for help. But that would mean Mica would die…

  Inside he ached.

  Mica continued, apparently unworried about his own safety. “The poor of the Gibber won’t get any richer while water-soaked priests and rainlords sit on their well-watered bottoms and sip their sweetened drinks. I’ve been to waterless hell and back since we were parted, you stupid tick. I’ve dragged myself up through the ranks to what I am now—the Master Son of Dune Watergatherer. I did that, not any water-sated bleeding stormlord.”

  They were interrupted briefly then. One of Jasper’s guards and his Reduner attacker smashed through the water wall in a shower of droplets. They were so intent on their own fight they didn’t even seem to see the two men and their pedes. A moment later they splashed back out, grunting and panting, with their scimitars still clashing.

  Jasper hardly spared them a glance. “Mica, think! What about those innocents killed by Davim’s men? The children? The women raped? Countless pe
ople died in Qanatend and Breccia City just because they were outside their houses! Ziggers don’t choose…”

  “Where were those innocents—or their parents—when us two were growing up half-naked and starving and thirsty in Wash Drybone? Shivering all night long ’cause we didn’t have nothing but a sack t’cover us? Tell me that! They didn’t give a pede’s piss then.” His hate spewed out, hot and angry and twisted, all the more potent for its basis of truth. “Scarpermen came and took our resin, but what did we ever get back for it, you and me? Marisal sold her ’broidery for a pittance in tokens and never made enough t’feed us. She sold her body for water, a whore used by the Reduner caravanners and ’Baster salt traders. They used her and all the while they mouthed their pious sayings t’us kids. And in the end the only time the rainlords came t’see how well we did under their benevolent rule was when they wanted t’rob us of our talented brats.” The point of his scimitar forced Jasper’s chin still higher. “I will never be at the mercy of rainlords again, Shale. They doled out just enough water t’keep the tribes of the villages from dying, but never enough for us t’be free.”

  “You think it’s easy to bring the whole of the Quartern water? I’m only one man! The old Cloudmaster was only one man! How the—”

  Mica scowled and dug the blade point a little deeper. Jasper jerked back and pushed the blade aside.

  He opened his mouth to speak again, but Mica interrupted. “Sandmaster Davim has showed us how. If we can’t control a stormlord ourselves, then we go back to a Time of Random Rain—and so will everyone else. We’ll see who heads the meddle then, won’t we? Will it be a Reduner, d’you think?—or a Scarperman, used t’living inside his walls, with a roof over his head and a fancy ’broidered pillow under it?”

  “You’re not a Reduner, Mica. You’re a Gibberman.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. I’ve earned the right t’be a Reduner. And I’m not giving it up.”

  “You’ll have to kill me to go back to a Time of Random Rain.”

  “You could join us, urchin.”

  Was the offer made in all seriousness or did he do it to mock? Jasper didn’t know. He felt an overwhelming despair. Where was his brother? Where was the child who had cared for him as best he could? Where was that person in this man with the hardened soul and scornful words? “Mica—”

  “Mica’s dead, Shale. This man here in front of you? He’s Ravard. And he has no heart, no compassion, no place for affection for a long-lost brother. This—” he tapped his own chest, “—is what you got in Mica’s place. This is all there is: Tribemaster Kher Ravard, Master Son of the Watergatherer. Reduner with his own tent and his own woman and his own tribe.” He grinned, and there was nothing pleasant there.

  Jasper knew then he ought to kill this man. He ought to pour his water on him and then stab him with his spear while he was blinded and startled. But he couldn’t. For all his words, this was Mica. He had Mica’s mouth, Mica’s voice, Mica’s memory of their shared childhood.

  He didn’t know what to do, and his indecision twisted his guts with nausea.

  “Who’s the fastest, d’you think, brother?” Mica asked softly. “Can I plunge this sword into your throat quicker than you can hit me with that water, d’you think? You can’t take my water, y’know. I am water sensitive enough t’stop you.”

  He knows, Jasper thought. He knows I will never do it.

  And then he was forcibly reminded again that he and Mica were not the only two people in the world. A pede came crashing through the water wall, its rider crouched on its back, bloodied scimitar in his hand, his robes almost torn from his reddened body. Jasper recognized the beaklike nose and close-set eyes: Davim the Drover. Instantly, while Jasper was distracted, Mica had the blade back at his brother’s throat.

  “So we meet again, Gibber boy,” Davim said, and his voice was almost a snarl. “Leave him be, Ravard. This one’s mine.”

  “If my sword falls away from his throat, he’ll act,” Ravard warned, and his eyes never shifted from Jasper’s.

  “He’s mine!” Davim cried, and brought his pede closer to face Jasper’s, on the other side from Mica.

  Jasper flicked his gaze from Mica to Davim. The brightness of the glitter in the sandmaster’s eyes was fuelled by contempt and hate.

  Because I’m a stormlord. He needs no other reason.

  Mica shrugged and gave a slight quirk of his lips as if to say: What does it matter? He dropped his sword and moved out of the way. Jasper exploded the wall of water into Davim’s face.

  And Iani, appearing out of nowhere, flung his dagger straight and true into the sandmaster’s back. “No,” the rainlord said as the blade thunked home, “you are mine, Davim. For Qanatend and Moiqa.”

  For a moment, nothing changed. Then Davim’s scimitar dropped from his hand and he fell forward, toppling toward Jasper. Instinctively, Jasper raised his spear. Unseated and spewing blood, the sandmaster fell against the point, impaling himself. Soaked in blood and shuddering, Jasper pushed him away. Davim slipped from the steel of the spearhead and, his eyes wide in shock, crashed to the ground. He lay there on his back, looking up at Jasper with an expression of disbelief on his face as his life dribbled away.

  “Look, Lyneth! He’s dead. I told you, m’dear. I told you I’d do it.” Iani lifted his head and tried to grin in Jasper’s direction, but his twisted mouth drooped on one side, producing an ugly scowl instead.

  “For Citrine,” Jasper said.

  Davim heard the words, but they made no sense to him at all.

  By the time Jasper thought to look around, he was surrounded by Alabasters and Scarpermen. Mica had gone, melted away into the fight in front of the cavern. A bullroarer sounded a moment later, and the sound was taken up in ululations uttered by the Reduner warriors.

  The scene was confused. Reduner bladesmen on foot were sprinting away. The fight was abruptly broken off all over the clearing. The Reduners were retreating on the run, their pedes with them. And everywhere Jasper’s men, exhausted and wounded as they were, let them go.

  Feroze rode up, holding a piece of cloth ripped from his robe to the side of his head. His ear had been half torn off. He looked down at Davim. “Isn’t that the sandmaster?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Iani said. He jabbed the body over with his foot. “He’s dead.” He looked up at Jasper. “I think we should go after them. We need to free Qanatend, and if they are allowed to reinforce the men they already have in the city—”

  “Iani, they still number more than we do. We won because we had a stormlord and rainlords. And we are all exhausted. Look at you—you couldn’t raise a drop of water from a cup in your hand. If our men go after the Reduners with us in this state, more of them will die.”

  “More of us will die when we free Qanatend if we wait,” he returned.

  Feroze shook his head. “If we follow them now, there’s not much we can do. They can block the whole wash with a few men while the main force gets clean away. We should follow with the main force tomorrow once we have recovered our water-powers.”

  “Feroze is right,” Jasper agreed.

  “Who was that ye were chatting to in the middle of the battle just then?” Feroze asked, wincing as he pressed the cloth to his ear.

  “The new sandmaster of the Watergatherer,” Jasper replied. “He was the Master Son until a moment ago.”

  “And is he likely to be a thorn in the foot in the future?”

  When the long silence threatened to become embarrassing, Jasper forced the words out, trying to conceal the anguish behind them. “Yes. I rather think so. He also believes in a return to a Time of Random Rain. I’d like to say I could persuade him otherwise, if we were to meet again—but I suspect I would be lying.”

  Oh, Mica. It should never have been like this.

  Feroze heaved a sigh, then grimaced at the pain in his wounded ear.

  The sun had set, but there was still enough light in the sky to see by, now that the storm cloud was gone. Some of
the more resourceful men were already pillaging the cavern for torches and lanterns.

  Jasper, so fatigued his hands shook and he had to clench them into fists, took a moment to look around, but his head was having trouble understanding what he was seeing. The ground was littered with bodies of the wounded and the dead, their allegiance now irrelevant. Lord Gold was directing men to carry the injured into the cavern. One of the waterpriest rainlords from Pediment was methodically checking each body to see if they really were lifeless. Her clothes were torn and the whole side of her face was bruised. Several Gibbermen were walking behind her, collecting all the weapons. Off to one side, Messenjer held the corpse of Cullet, his eldest son—the one Terelle had never liked.

  She’ll be glad it isn’t Sardi, Jasper thought.

  Dibble was anxiously hovering at his elbow, inquiring periodically if he was injured. He shook his head. “Not as badly as you are,” he replied, taking in Dibble’s bleeding shoulder, cut wrist and bruised face. “Waterless skies, man, get a physician or a waterpriest to look at that shoulder. That’s an order. And get someone to do a count of all my guard. I want to know how many are still fit, and how many dead.”

  As Dibble left, Jasper turned to Iani and Feroze. “I’d like figures from everyone.”

  Iani nodded. He spared another glance for Davim’s body as he turned to go. “So much damage and sorrow,” he said sadly. “And for what? Moiqa is still dead.” He looked back up at Jasper. “And I don’t know why I’m still alive. I never wanted to be. So many good men dead, and this stupid husk of a man with his dribble and his limp lives on. I’ve lost the only woman I ever cared for, and the only child I ever had. Why would I want to go on living?”

  “I need you,” Jasper said simply. “Maybe that’s why.”

  Iani grunted. “Maybe. Maybe. Lyneth, oh, my little Lyneth. Four years in the hands of that monster…” His mumbling faded as he walked away with Feroze.