by Glenda Larke
Jasper headed toward the waterhall, knowing he had to see what was left of his pitiful army who had fought so well. Knowing he had to see who was dead and who was alive.
The first person he came across inside the cavern was Laisa. Her clothes were torn, her chin was badly grazed from her fall, and she had a scimitar slash across the back of her arm. A physician had sewn it up for her, and now Terelle was bandaging it with a piece of cloth torn from a dead Reduner’s sleeve. They were arguing as she worked, Laisa snarling and cursing Terelle between gasps of pain, Terelle growling back, telling her to keep still. It was plain they loathed each other; it was equally plain, at least to Jasper, that each had developed a wary respect for the other that had nothing to do with esteem.
As Jasper stood and watched, his need of Terelle swamped him. How could he ever do without her? And yet he must. If the Quartern was to have stormlords, she would have to bring them. If she was ever to be free of her waterpainted future, she had to live that future.
As she tied off the bandage and leaned back away from Laisa, he heard her say, “Just keep your brat of a daughter out of my way. Or I might be tempted to paint her, and believe me, she wouldn’t like the result.” Then she looked up and saw him. She came across, both hands held out to take his. They stood like that for a long moment of silence and need.
“What are you doing down here?” he asked. “You should have waited up at the camp.”
“I stayed there until I saw the Reduners leave. I worried,” she said. “I lost sight of you in the battle. And Senya was worried about her mother. For once we found we had something in common, so we came down the slope to find you both.”
“Senya’s here? That surprises me. She doesn’t like unpleasant things.”
“Well, she saw Laisa was all right and then sat on a boulder at the edge of the wash and refused to look at anything. She’s probably still there. I can’t say I blame her.”
He opened his mouth to try to tell her how he felt. To say how much the idea of the dead and dying devastated him. To say his meeting with Mica had left him shattered, not knowing how to pick up the pieces. As usual, the words wouldn’t come.
Terelle understood. She put her fingers across his mouth, stopping the words he was trying so hard to voice. “No, Jasper,” she said. “I know how you feel. I helped to paint it, remember? Watergiver help me, these—these are my deaths, too. And we will learn to live with them, you and I, in time.” She took a deep breath to steady herself.
“We won,” he said, and knew he sounded foolish. “If you call this a victory.”
“It was,” she said firmly. “They won’t be back.”
He might. The thought was terrible. Too awful to ever put into words. How could he fight his brother? What had he ever done to Mica that he had been prepared to kill him? He knew the answer even before he formed the question, for Mica had told him. His brother saw him as joining the people responsible for their miserable childhood: the wealthy Scarpermen. The enemy of the Gibber, of the poor and wretched and waterless.
Terelle watched him, head to one side. “You found Mica.”
“Yes. He knew who I was. He wanted to kill me. Might have done so if his pede, the sandmaster and then Iani hadn’t intervened.”
She stared at him, horrified.
He looked away, adding, “All these years I dreamed of seeing him again, of rescuing him. And when we met, he didn’t want to be rescued. He wasn’t a slave, but an heir. Worse, he wanted me dead. He sees me as an enemy. I owe my life to a pede, Terelle. A pede with a long memory. I once pulled it out of a flood rush down a wash. How the salted damn Mica obtained that particular beast, I have no idea, but I’ll bet it isn’t a coincidence… I’m babbling, aren’t I?”
“Oh, Shale. I—that’s awful.”
He searched for hope in all that had happened. “In the end he didn’t kill me when he could have. Maybe—maybe he found he couldn’t. But I am not sure it’s ended. He’s the new sandmaster, and he wants to return to a Time of Random Rain. The fighting is not over.”
She was silent. There was, after all, little she could say.
“Terelle,” he said, “I’m sorry. So terribly, terribly sorry.”
“For what?” she asked.
“For asking you to waterpaint this. For taking away your choices, yet again. For not protecting you in the first place. For—everything.”
The smile she gave was both sad and knowing. “Neither of us had much choice, did we?” She made a gesture at the carnage around them without looking at the dead. “Make me another promise, Shale. Promise me you’ll build something decent out of this.”
“I promise I’ll try.”
“I keep forgetting to call you Jasper. Do you mind terribly? Jasper is the stormlord. Shale—he’s the person I care about.”
“You can call me whatever you want, and I’ll like it. Although you could try, um, ‘darling’ or ‘beloved’ or something.” He reached out and touched the tear hesitating on her cheek and a smile twitched at the corner of his lips. “Don’t leave too soon, Terelle. Please.”
She shook her head, and what Jasper read on her face made him pull her roughly into his arms. She clutched at him, her embrace as desperate as his own, her needs matching his, as potent and passionate, containing all the wretchedness he felt himself, and all the hope he dared to dream might be theirs.
They stood like that for a long time, two people loving each other, surrounded by horror, trying to make sense of it all and hoping that at the end, they would still have their love, even if all else had gone.
“Mother!”
Senya’s outraged tones cut through Laisa’s pain and brought her back to the present. Sighing, she gripped her elbow in a futile attempt to contain the agony of her throbbing arm. “What is it?”
“It’s that horrible snuggery girl!”
Laisa stared at her daughter in incredulous disbelief. “We are in the aftermath of a battle and you want to complain about Terelle Grey now? Can’t it wait?”
“She’s hugging Jasper, and he seems to like it.” Senya’s face was sour as she pointed at the subject of her ire.
Laisa glanced that way and sighed. “So?”
“He can’t marry her, can he?”
Laisa forced herself to coherent thought. “There would be plenty of objections. Jasper needs to have stormlord children, and your offspring offer a chance of being that, at least. You are the logical mate for him, but preferences don’t carry the weight of law, you know. We can attempt to persuade him, but we can’t force him.”
“I’m going to have his baby.”
“Oh.” She wasn’t surprised, but she had trouble grappling with the implications. She was hot and thirsty, exhausted and hungry. She needed rest and pampering, and Sunlord knew when she would get any of that. Damn you to a waterless hell, Taquar. You brought us all to this. “Then I think we shall have to make sure he will marry you, shan’t we?”
“Can we force him to?”
“Oh, for Watergiver’s sake, Senya, why would you want a husband who has been forced into marriage? No, we will entice him to do so. Easy, with someone who has an overdeveloped sense of duty. You might try being more pleasant to him, you know. If anything more is needed, we won’t do it.” Senya pulled a face at that, so she added, “If any further encouragement is needed, someone else will do it, not us.”
“Who?”
“Lord Gold and the Sun Temple do have their uses. For now, you can make yourself useful and get me a pede and a driver. I want to get back to my tent.”
“Lord Iani and that awful ’Baster man are saying the pedes are for the wounded.”
“Am I not wounded? Just go get one, Senya, and leave the conversation for some other time.” Left alone, she glanced over to where Terelle stood within the encircling arms of the stormlord.
Laisa’s eyelids began to droop with fatigue, then snapped open. I’ll be waterless, she thought. I know where I’ve seen that face of hers before.
&nb
sp; Not in person, but in a painting. A waterpainting, in the hallway of her own home, Breccia Hall. That strange old outlander artisman had painted a girl riding a black pede across a white saltscape. Laisa had been annoyed, because it hadn’t been quite what she expected when she’d asked for something unusual, unlike the artwork he had done for others. Now that she recalled the painting, it was obvious that Terelle had been the model.
She frowned, trying to make sense of that. Sometime, I must work out what this whole waterpainting thing is about. There’s a mystery there, and that girl knows what it is. But not now, not now…
Tired, she closed her eyes and lay back against the cavern wall.
She had no idea that, just over two runs of the sandglass earlier, Ryka Feldspar had done the same thing in the same spot.
CHAPTER FORTY
Scarpen Quarter
Warthago Range to the gates of Qanatend
Ryka, almost unbalanced by fatigue, tried several times to leave the cavern while the battle was raging outside. The first time, she was threatened by a Scarperman who almost ran her through before he realized she was a woman with a baby; the second time she came close to being knocked flat by a blinded Reduner warrior and then trampled by a pede. Both times she retreated and watched for another opportunity. She couldn’t tell who had the upper hand, and as the battle continued, she grew more desperate.
She tried again when the sun was low in the sky, the shadows long. Nothing much had changed. The fighting was still ferocious, the thickest of it directly in front of the entrance. She edged out past the grille, flattening herself along the rock face of the cliff, her arms wrapped protectively around Khedrim. Her chosen route was interrupted almost immediately. A Gibberman pulled a Reduner from his mount and both men thudded to the ground at her feet. They’d lost their weapons and rolled across the ground like a pair of schoolboys in a fight. Only this was deadly. The Reduner had his hands around the Gibberman’s throat and was choking him. The Gibberman was trying to knock him out with a rock. Ryka settled the argument by kicking the Reduner between the legs. She leaped over them both as the Gibberman finished what he had started, but she still didn’t progress.
Ahead a wounded packpede with a spear thrust into one of its eyes thrashed around in a frenzy of pain, attacking anything in sight. She took one look and retreated again. She knew she had built up a little more power after eating, but she was loath to use it on a pede. She wanted something in reserve for emergencies.
Just then, the nature of the fight changed. At first she wasn’t sure what had happened. Someone shouted, but she didn’t catch the words. A cry went up, a mix of victorious elation and wails of despair. It was followed by the rhythmic thump of a bullroarer. A heartbeat later, every Reduner seemed to be moving.
She paused, trying to make sense of it, hesitating about which way she should run. The Reduners were congregating in front of the cavern, cutting off her retreat in that direction; in front of her the maddened packpede had just impaled a Reduner with a mandible and now, crazed with pain, it was tossing him into the air. When it flung the body aside and lumbered in her direction, she turned to flee.
And came up against the body of a myriapede, deliberately pulled in front of her.
The driver was Ravard. Quietly he gave the order for the other six or seven Reduners on the rear to kill the wounded pede. One of them stood and launched a spear into the beast’s other eye. It reared, lashing its feelers through the air.
Ryka backed up against the cliff side. Carefully she sent her power to tease water out of the cistern. A single ball of water might be enough to confuse Ravard at a crucial moment…
“Get up on the pede,” he told her. “We’re leaving.”
She cursed silently, every foul word she could remember. If she’d stayed in the cavern, she would have been safe. You withering sand-brain, Ryka. You should have had more faith in Jasper.
“You may be, but I’m not,” she told him levelly. “I’m staying here, with my own people.”
“Get up, or I’ll haul you up.”
“Ravard, go away. You don’t want a reluctant woman in your bed, or another man’s child. You are young yet, and there are other women out there. Just leave me be.”
“I am the sandmaster now,” he said. “You’ll be my wife, and your sons will rule if they are water sensitive, I swear it. You’re worthy of being a sandmaster’s consort.”
“I haven’t the faintest wish to be a sandmaster’s anything! And you, sure as the sands are hot, don’t want me in your encampment. You wilted idiot—I’d kill your warriors given half the chance, and dance on their bleeding graves!” The ball of water was in the air above him now; she resisted the temptation to look up. Instead, she glanced around to assess the surroundings.
And stared, appalled. The man sent to kill the packpede had only made things worse. The now blind animal took a flying leap and hit the cliff beside her head on. The force of its charge, the weight behind that leap, broke its head open, spraying liquids and chitinous pieces into the air. And its great body, towering over her, began to topple in her direction. She released her hold on the water and turned to run, knowing she was too late to escape. It was huge, several times larger than any myriapede. It would crush her, and Khedrim as well, as if they were made of paper.
Ravard was showered with water. He didn’t appear to notice. With one fluid movement, he leaned down and grabbed her arm. He swung her upward, her upper arm clamped tight in his grip, yanking her away from danger. The Reduner behind him on the myriapede reached out to help him take her weight and drag her onto the back of their mount. Terrified for Khedrim, she clutched him to her breast with one hand and let it happen, even as her shoulder was wrenched and her body bruised.
Their pede was already moving, itself panicked. The falling packpede crashed into it. The myriapede keened its distress and bolted, but not before several more Reduners had leaped to take hold of mounting slots on the other side.
Ravard yelled for one of them to take the reins and drive. He himself pulled Ryka up into his arms and placed her in front of him on the second segment, his arms wrapped around her and the baby to stop her from falling. Khedrim screamed and screamed, his little body tense with instinctive terror. Ryka sobbed, ripped through with pain, her shoulder shrieking, her stomach cramping.
Oh, pedeshit, she thought, aware of the blood between her legs. This is not good. She bent her head over the baby and tried to soothe him, but he would not stop. Ravard was yelling, ordering his men to put as much distance between them and the Scarpen forces as they could before nightfall.
The pede was already in fast mode, feet whirring as it churned through sand and over rocks on its way down the gully. All around them there were other pedes, each packed with warriors. They plunged down the drywash in bucking lines, as frantic as a stampeding wild meddle. It wasn’t yet dark, but the light was fading. Neither the beasts nor their drivers hesitated or curbed the headlong rush to escape. The animals jostled one another, feelers swinging, mandibles clicking, segments brushing the boulders. Wounded men fell and were left behind.
Ryka, thrown from side to side, lurching backward and forward, was in constant pain. She couldn’t believe this was happening. After all she had gone through to escape, and now she was retracing the ride that had cost her so much to make. She was being returned to slavery.
And she could not stop Khedrim crying. She touched his face in concern. Two days old, and what had he known but war and confusion? I am so sorry, little one. You chose one sandblasted awful time to be born. And when I meet Kaneth again, I’ll kill him, I swear. And this great hulking lout Ravard as well, I promise.
Then she thought of a world where Kaneth was dead, and her heart sank within her. Why had she seen no sign of him in the fighting? Nor of Elmar? In fact, none of the other escaped slaves. Where did they go?
Kaneth had to be alive. Somewhere.
Later, much later, she was aware of being lifted down from the pede. Every bone, e
very joint, every muscle screamed with pain. At least Khedrim had finally fallen asleep, more from exhaustion than anything else.
Someone folded a blanket several times and placed it on the ground for her to lie down. It was dark and bitterly cold, and when she shivered, several cloaks were thrown over her. Under their cover she drew out the cloths between her legs and discarded them. They were saturated. She tore some pieces off the blanket and used them instead. Khedrim whimpered unhappily, so she fed him. Someone handed her some water and she drank deeply.
At least there was plenty of water; they were following the Qanatend tunnel and the men had broken into it through a maintenance shaft. What would once have assailed her rainlord’s soul, she now regarded with gratitude. She knew if she was dehydrated, she would have no milk for Khedrim. A little later Ravard appeared and gave her a handful of dried bab fruit. She took them wordlessly, ate every one and asked him, coldly, for more. He gave her his share. She took them without a word of thanks. Afterward she slept.
They had left sentries behind, and when no one came after them, they stayed where they were until the sky started to lighten in the morning. Ryka felt a little better when she awoke, glad to find her bleeding had lessened. She rose, wondering if she should escape now or later. When she reached for her powers, though, she realized her weakness. She could move water, but doubted she could kill in the rainlord fashion. Now was not the time to rebel.
Listening to the conversation of those around her, she gathered they intended to stay in Qanatend for a few days to rest the pedes and give the wounded a chance to recover. If the Scarpermen came, well, they would fight there. And win.
She had to eat well and rest herself so her powers would return. Soon, she told Khedrim in a whisper into his ear, soon they will learn what it is to cross a rainlord. She was fed up with being constrained by circumstances. Her rage was growing by the moment and it was all she could do to stay quiescent when Ravard approached her with his peace offerings—a water skin, something to eat scrounged from the little they had.
