by Glenda Larke
Fortunately, he was fully occupied with his men. Warriors from outside Ravard’s tribe were not happy at being led by a man so young, in a retreat from a battlefield where almost two thousand of their warriors lay dead. Ravard had to act now to consolidate his position, and she saw little of him.
They reached Qanatend in the mid-afternoon under a blazing sun.
When Ryka saw the city walls ahead of her, ringed by bab groves, she could only feel relief. Sunlord, how she needed some rest! The southern gate was directly ahead of them at the end of the track, and the gates were closed. Towers on the walls were tall enough to overlook the bab groves, and beyond them the city rose to the top of the conical hill where the city’s waterhall and its windmills for raising the water were located. Immediately below was Qanatend Hall, where Moiqa had once lived with Iani and Lyneth.
As they rode the last of the track, the gates swung open. Ryka, sitting behind Ravard, holding Khedrim, had to peer around him to see what was happening. To her mild surprise a group of Reduners rode out toward them, some sort of welcoming party, she assumed. Simultaneously, the walls came alive as tens of men lined up behind the daub parapet.
Ravard jerked in surprise. “What the—” he began and hauled on the reins to halt his mount.
Kher Medrim, the Warrior Son, who was riding next to him, looked across uneasily and said, “They must have every man we left behind up there on the walls!”
“And some,” Ravard muttered, frowning.
Ryka squinted to see better. The wall bristled with spears as if they were making it clear they were well armed. Even more odd was what she noticed next. The person in the lead of the group coming toward them appeared to be a child. When she stared harder, Ryka realized she was actually an old hump-backed woman, small in size because she was wizened and shrunken with age.
“Who the sands is that?” Kher Medrim asked. “There are no Reduner women in Qanatend!”
“There certainly weren’t a few days ago. Go back through the men,” Ravard said quietly. “There is something odd here, and I can’t smell what it is yet. Warn everyone to be on the alert. Weapons at the ready. Put a watch on all sides and tell the rearguard to scatter through the trees in case anyone comes at us from behind.”
Medrim nodded. The others on his pede dismounted at his request, and he rode back through the column. Ravard gestured to the men now on foot to line up on each side of him. He then turned to Ryka. “Get down and stand over there at the side of the track. I think there’s trouble, and I don’t want either of you hurt.”
She nodded and did as he asked.
The riders from the city continued to approach. Four pedes headed the group, each with only the driver. Thirty bladesmen and chalamen followed on foot. When they were within twenty paces, two of the riders detached and rode ahead another ten paces. The woman and a tall man.
Ryka shaded her eyes with a hand, squinting in her attempt to recognize them. The woman she didn’t think she had ever met. Strangely, she rode a packpede, not a myriapede, and it dwarfed her, accentuating her small stature. The man… his red hair was short and lacked the braids and beads of a Reduner warrior. His face was scarred.
Deep within Ryka a sob swelled but was not voiced. Kaneth.
It was Kaneth. Fear and delight warred with astonishment. Disbelief. He was with the Reduners? No, wait. That wasn’t possible. Then—?
The old woman: she must be Vara Redmane, of course. Which meant Kaneth had not tried to head south for the Scarpen but had sought Vara’s rebels, and then together they had taken Qanatend. I’ll be withering waterless. That rangy bastard of a husband of mine, he always does like to do the unexpected.
Hope went to her head like the strongest of amber taken on an empty stomach. She could hardly contain the bubble of laughter, or joy, that begged to explode from her lips. She wanted to say aloud to Khedrim, “Look! That’s your father!”
She edged off the track back into the first line of bab trees, and while Ravard was still in shock, she took a few steps closer to the rebels. Toward Kaneth.
And then another thought, less happy. Or is he still Uthardim? Please remember me, love. I am bringing you your son.
He had not noticed her, or rather perhaps he’d made nothing of the Reduner woman with an anonymous bundle in her arms.
There was a time when you knew my water, she thought numbly.
“Kher Ravard,” Kaneth said in Reduner, and his voice held authority. “You are not welcome here. This city is returned to the Scarpen. The warriors you left behind are either dead or gone back to their dunes. As you must go now. We are several thousand strong, all well armed. We have ziggers. Release those you have, and ours fly from the walls to you.”
His Reduner had improved considerably since she had last heard him use it, but still she wondered: several thousand men? Was he getting his numbers mixed up?
Without waiting for Ravard to reply, he continued, “We are fresh and our men—”
“—and women!” Vara added in Reduner.
“—are spoiling for a fight.” He exchanged a grin with the old woman and switched to the Quartern tongue. “You may have more men, but our armsmen want to end the Watergatherer’s dominance of the dunes. And seeing as you are here, I guess you have lost the battle against the stormlord. I don’t see the sandmaster. Is he dead?”
“I am sandmaster of the Watergatherer!” Ravard snapped in Reduner. “I rule the dunes now.”
Kaneth continued in his own language. “If you mount a siege here, how long before the stormlord and his men appear behind you? You would be the insect crushed beneath our feet. Go, while you still can.”
Why is he giving them a chance? They are tired and wounded and demoralized. Perhaps he doesn’t know how badly they have been defeated… Her thoughts jumbled, Ryka edged further and further away from Ravard and unstoppered the water skin she carried. No, he’s not an idiot. He has a reason for not attacking. Or Vara Redmane does. Don’t bother with that now, you sun-fried woman. Just get out of here! She poised herself to run to him.
Ravard yelled at her. “Garnet! Stop where you are!”
Kaneth’s head jerked her way. And he tensed in the saddle, his spine rigid, his hands tight on the reins. His eyes bored into hers. Astonishment—no, shock—drained color from his face. He appeared to be rendered speechless, incapable of movement.
Ryka whirled to face Ravard. Drawing herself up, holding her chin high, she spoke in the Reduner tongue, wanting him to know exactly what she was. “This ends here, Mica Flint. I am no slave of yours. I am Lord Ryka Feldspar, of Breccia.” She pulled the water out of the water skin into the air and kept it hovering in the air between them.
“No,” he whispered, the sound strangled in the back of his throat. “That’s not possible.”
“Uthardim is my husband and he will pull the earth from beneath your feet if you lay a hand on me again. Remember what he did to Davim’s tents in your encampment.”
Color drained from Ravard’s face, then rushed back, darkening his features. Fury flashed in his eyes. He leaped to his feet on the back of his mount, his spear poised to throw. Instantly she sent the water to hover at his cheek. When he tried to bat it away with a hand, his fingers ran through it without effect.
A murmur of fear and anger swept the Reduner ranks. Men hefted their spears, awaiting the word to kill. To kill her. To kill Kaneth. Uthardim.
Behind Kaneth, his men edged closer to him and Vara. A mix of ex-slaves Ryka knew and Reduners she didn’t. She recognized Elmar on the pede that moved up to Kaneth’s side.
“You’re a single breath away from death,” she yelled, still in Reduner so his men would all understand. She touched the water to his cheek. “Think before you move a finger. I can smother you with just this much water, and I can take the water of any man who thinks to spear me.”
He swallowed, then looked from her to Kaneth and back. The moment stretched taut, every warrior poised on the brink of explosive action. Ryka’s gaze ne
ver shifted from Ravard’s. If he gave the order to kill her, he would probably succeed, although he would doubtless die as well.
He moved first. He lowered his chala spear. “I will never rest until I have killed you,” he rasped, and it was to Ryka he spoke. She was the focus of the unrelenting blaze of his stare, but the words were for Kaneth as well because he added, “Until both of you lie dead at my feet.” He snapped an order to one of the men on the ground and the men lowered their spears and sheathed their scimitars.
Ryka felt her power drain away. The water splashed on the roadway. She was shaking, trembling in reaction.
Ravard turned his mount away from the gate, and the column began to follow. Under the watching eyes of the men on the walls, they started to circle the city to the east in order to head toward the dunes. In front of the gate, no one moved until Ravard and those at the head of the column were out of sight.
Then Kaneth, still seated on his mount, leaned toward Elmar. He swung his pede prod and struck the pikeman with a blow that would have sent Elmar sprawling to the ground if he hadn’t saved himself by grabbing for the segment handle. He swayed and righted himself, but made no move to retaliate.
Ryka blinked, bewildered. Watergiver’s heart! What was all that about?
Kaneth moved then. He urged his mount forward to her side and slipped down to the ground. Ryka didn’t move. She wasn’t sure she could.
His hair had grown, covering the worst of his head scars, and the burn on his face was fading. With a hesitant hand, he reached out to part the coverlet she had wrapped loosely around Khedrim to protect him from the sun. He touched the tiny chin with a fingertip. Then he looked back at her.
“Ryka,” he said. “Oh, Ryka.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Scarpen Quarter
Warthago Range, foothills
How long had he been there? He was no longer sure. Already he had lost track. Watergiver help him, how would he be able to tolerate this? To tolerate the powerlessness of it! No one to command or respect him. No one in fear of him. No one anticipating his whims.
Just endless days of boredom, stretching out ahead… Eight years! And no guarantee he would be freed even then. Using his crutch, he paced the floor, dragging his injured leg. Up and down, up and down.
When he read, the books only reminded him of what he had lost. When he slept, he dreamed of women now out of reach. When he dreamed of Terelle, of her body, he could never carry the dream to fruition. Frustrated, roiling with anger—yet with nothing to vent it on. If he shouted at the world, there was no one to hear.
He’d locked Shale up like this. The Gibber brat hadn’t gone sandcrazy. But then, the mother cistern had been luxury to a dirty Gibber urchin. He, on the other hand—he was a rainlord!
But Shale had escaped… There must be a way for me to do the same…
Davim. He had to rely on Davim. Davim would come, Shale would be punished, and he would be released… That Gibber brat would never be clever enough to bring down the sandmaster, the idea was laughable. Davim would come. And if he didn’t, Laisa would. Senya would make sure of that.
Senya, of course. She must be his hope. The sand-brained brat was in love with him; she’d made that clear enough.
It was just a matter of time. Of patience. And he had always been a patient man. He had prided himself on his patience. Besides, he still had one more arrow already fitted to his bow. One more way to control Shale. All he needed was to get out of here.
When he sensed water approaching, he rushed to the grille. Visitors… He didn’t care who it was. His desperation to see someone, anyone, was overwhelming. And it could be Davim and his men. Hope rushed into his throat spasming, choking him with anticipation.
But it was the last person he wanted to see.
Iani rode over the hill alone. He approached the grille, then sat watching Taquar impassively from the back of his pede. “I have a present for you,” he said. He took a parcel wrapped in bab matting and threw it onto the ground so it rolled up against the grille. And then he turned his mount and prodded it back the way he had come.
“No!” Taquar called. “No—wait!” He gripped the bars of the grille. “Iani—please, come back—”
Iani did not even bother to glance over his shoulder.
Taquar took a deep breath. How could he lose control like that? He was the Highlord of Scarcleft. He would be strong. He was strong. He would not beg.
He stood erect, his hands clutching the grille, a spider caught in an iron web not of his own making, and watched the man ride away.
He knelt at the grille and tried to pull the parcel inside. It was just too large to fit through the squares of the grille, so he put his hands through and started to unwrap it. As the last wrapping fell away, he sat down on the ground with a thump, his heartbeat skidding violently in his despair. A stench of rotting meat tainted the air.
“No,” he moaned. “Nooooo—”
Davim’s head stared back at him, mouth grinning wide to mock the man behind the bars.
GLOSSARY OF CHARACTERS AND TERMS
(Note: Characters and terms introduced for the first time in this book are not included.)
ALABASTER: The name given to the White Quarter by its inhabitants. Also the name given to the white-skinned, white-haired people who live there. The Reduners call the Alabasters “the Forbidden People.”
ALMANDINE FAMILY: See Granthon, Nealrith, Laisa and Senya.
AMETHYST, Arta: Dancer and friend to Terelle. Killed by Taquar after aiding Shale’s escape from Scarcleft.
ARTA (f) or ARTISMAN (m): Title given to professional artists (dancers, painters, singers and musicians).
ASH GRIDELIN: The Watergiver’s real name.
BAB PALM: A palm tree grown extensively in the Scarpen and Gibber; also found in small numbers around waterholes in the Red Quarter. The trunk is the main source of wood for the Quartern; the fruit, shoots and roots are edible; the leaves are used for thatch and weaving baskets and mats.
BASALT, Lord: Rainlord and High Waterpriest of the Quartern, second only to Lord Gold in the religious hierarchy.
’BASTER: Derogatory shortening of Alabaster.
BERYLL FELDSPAR: Ryka’s younger sister; water-blind.
BLOODSTONE: See MARTYR’S STONE
BRECCIA CITY: The Scarpen city which is the traditional seat of the Cloudmaster.
BURNISH: Name of Sandmaster Davim’s myriapede.
CHALAMEN: Spear-carrying Reduner warriors.
CHERT: One of the sons of Rishan the palmier, the head of Wash Drybone Settle.
CITRINE FLINT: Shale’s baby sister. Murdered by Sandmaster Davim.
CLOUDMASTER, The: A stormlord who also rules the Quartern through his fellow stormlords and a Council of Rainlords. The temporal power of a Cloudmaster is limited largely to water matters, maintenance of trade routes and taxation, achieved through consensus with his or her water-sensitive peers.
DAVIM, Sandmaster: Sandmaster of Dune Watergatherer and acknowledged leader of the Red Quarter by virtue of his charismatic leadership and armed campaigns.
DAYJAR: A container which holds exactly the amount of water gifted as a free daily ration to those entitled to such an allowance.
DROVER: Colloquial term for a Reduner, originating in their herding of pede meddles.
DROVER SON, The: Title given to the sandmaster’s pedemaster; not necessarily a blood son of the sandmaster.
DUNE GOD: Each dune of the Red Quarter is believed to have a god who lives at the heart of the dune.
ELMAR WAGGONER: A pikeman, friend and battle comrade of Lord Kaneth Carnelian.
ERITH GREY: Terelle’s father, killed by Russet Kermes before she was born.
ETHELVA, Lady: Water-blind wife of Cloudmaster Granthon Almandine, mother of Highlord Nealrith, grandmother of Rainlord Senya.
FEROZE KHORASH: An Alabaster salt trader who also acts as a spy for the Bastion of the White Quarter. Escaped death by the Scarpen Enforcers thanks to the interve
ntion of Shale Flint.
GALEN FLINT, also known as GALEN THE SOT: Shale, Mica and Citrine Flint’s Gibber-born father, husband of Marisal the stitcher; killed by Reduners in Wash Drybone Settle.
GIBBER QUARTER: One of the four quarters of the Quartern. Gibber folk live mainly in settles in the drywashes, eking out a living from bab palm cultivation and fossicking.
GOLD, Lord: Title given to the Sunpriest, the most senior of the Quartern’s priests; always at least a rainlord.
GRANTHON ALMANDINE, Cloudmaster: Highlord Nealrith’s father; recently dead of apoplexy and exhaustion suffered when Breccia was attacked by Reduners.
GRATITUDES, The: Yearly religious festival of thanksgiving in the Scarpen Quarter.
HANDMAIDEN: A female sex worker in a snuggery.
HARKEL TALLYMAN, Seneschal: Seneschal of Scarcleft Hall and head of Highlord Taquar’s Scarcleft Enforcers.
HIGHLORD: A rainlord or stormlord who rules one of the eight cities of the Scarpen Quarter.
HOUSE OF THE DEAD: Religious building where water is extracted from the dead for re-use, as part of the funeral service.
IANI POTCH, Rainlord: Husband of Highlord Moiqa, father of Lyneth; partially paralyzed by apoplexy and somewhat deranged by grief and guilt at the disappearance of his daughter.
JASPER BLOODSTONE: Name used by Shale Flint after his arrival in Breccia.
KANETH CARNELIAN, Rainlord: Bladesman, close friend of Highlord Nealrith, husband to Ryka Feldspar, comrade of Elmar Waggoner.
LAISA DRAYMAN, Rainlord: Widow of Nealrith Almandine, mother of Senya Almandine.
LORD GOLD, The: See GOLD, Lord
MARISAL THE STITCHER: Shale Flint’s mother; killed by Sandmaster Davim while she was defending her daughter Citrine.
MARTYR’S STONE (also known as BLOODSTONE): Name given to a type of green jasper flecked with red droplets; particularly valued by the priesthood, as it is supposed to have been stained with the blood of the Watergiver when he was attacked by nonbelievers in the Gibber.
