“Take your bearings now,” Gard said, his voice rough. “Once the sand is flying, you will only be able to see the stars.”
Raif and Namik conferred hurriedly, though young Zeki was watching Gard with awe in his eyes. Slowly, the walls of sand grew, moving outward until they stood in the eye of the storm, a circle of clear air as wide as one of Tarn’s wings. There was just enough space between them and the whirling sand that its roar seemed faintly dimmed, as if Tarn was half asleep.
Gard was still frowning, and Tarn wondered uneasily if he had the strength for this. Gard was still bound to a limited form, after all. Quietly Tarn moved his horse closer, intending to offer a little of his own fire to support Gard’s spell.
“If you disrupt the balance of this before it’s set,” Gard snarled, “I will hurt you.”
Chastened, Tarn dropped his hand and swallowed back the hint of fire he had called up. He stayed close to Gard, though, because Gard didn’t look entirely steady in his saddle.
The sky grew darker as the sand thickened, everything shaded strangely blue. Namik raised his hand and pointed out across the desert, and slowly they began to ride, the storm moving around them, the very air full of the noise of rasping sand.
Chapter 22: Roaming
GARD SEEMED to relax once they were moving, the sand turning in a steady curl around them. He rode by Namik, talking to him and Cayl, with young Raif interpreting, and left Tarn to chat to Aline and Zeki. Zeki seemed to find both of them intimidating in equal measure and soon reverted to riding behind them. It was good to use the hill tongue again, and Tarn discovered that Aline had been born only twenty years after he entered his sleep, and she remembered many of the people and places he had known.
“I even saw you once,” she admitted, laughing a little. “My old gran took me up the mountain to pay my respects. I was, oh, all of fourteen and thought I knew everything worth knowing about the world. Took one look at you and insisted that you weren’t a real dragon, just a statue of one, or that if you were real, you were dead.”
“As good as,” Tarn commented, fascinated despite himself. He had slept through so much.
“So Gran whups me round the ear for being a cheeky little madam, but the old general, Lord Killan, he’d come out to meet Gran, and he took my hand. He put it against your side, like this.” She held out her hand, putting on a face of world-weary exasperation that he recognized from every teenager in his hoard. “And you were warm, right through the scales, so that I felt it down to my bones. ‘There,’ he said. ‘His flames still burn. The dragon lives.’ And he smiled.” She shook her head, eyes soft. “I never forgot that. ‘The dragon lives,’ he said, and so you do.”
“Good Killan,” Tarn said. “Was he happy, when you saw him?”
She pursed her lips, frowning in memory. “Aye, I think he was. I didn’t pay much attention—I was young, and within five summers I’d earned my sword and gone adventuring, but he always seemed to be exactly where he was supposed to be. I didn’t have any respect for it then, but he was as content a man as I’ve ever seen.”
“Thank you,” Tarn said gravely and put the memories away as he saw Gard tense in front of them.
By the time he rode up, Gard’s shoulders had relaxed again, but he turned to say to Tarn, “Three of the dead, trying to reach us.”
“Are we in danger?”
Gard’s smile was vicious, toothy and a little too sharp, a reminder that he had been the caracal too, and the storm that almost destroyed them. “That wall of sand is dense and very fast. They will not be troubling any more travelers.”
“Good,” Tarn said and raised his hand, remembering what Killan had always said when they had cast down hoards of the dead. “Let their ashes fly and their memories not be tarnished. They lived once and were loved.”
Cayl lifted his hand in salute as well, approval on his face, but Gard said impatiently, “Their souls are long gone. There is no dishonor for them in how their bodies are used.”
“Call it a human quirk,” Cayl said. “Humans like to honor their dead.”
“I remember their names,” Gard said huffily, and Namik made a low ironic comment as Raif translated. Tarn left them to bicker and went back to find Zeki and demand a language lesson. It would no doubt have been more effective if the boy wasn’t stammering with nerves, but every bit of practice conversation helped.
Three times more before they camped for the night, Gard tensed. Twice though, Tarn spotted him casting puzzled glances at the sand. It happened again after they had stopped for the night, the sky growing dim and purple in the gap above their storm. Cayl was helping Aline put up tents, and the others were building a fire and settling the horses and camels. Tarn drew Gard aside and asked softly, “What’s wrong?”
“Something on the edge of the storm,” Gard said. “Something that keeps stumbling into the edge and retreating.”
“Not the dead?”
“They don’t retreat.”
“How many?”
“One. Small, as far as I can tell in this form.”
“If you drop the storm, how quickly can you raise it again?”
“Same as before. We’ve had no contact with the obvious dead for hours, though, so if there was a time….”
“Let me warn Cayl and Aline, in case we need their swords.”
Gard chewed his lip. “If it’s an animal, we’ll probably outrun it.”
“I don’t want any surprises on our flank,” Tarn said, and Gard nodded.
When the sandstorm collapsed, it was with a roar that made the horses buck and startle. On the other side of the falling sand, clearly silhouetted against the blazing sunset, Esen let out a startled shriek and fought to control her horse.
“This,” Cayl remarked, crossing his arms, “is the problem with storybook gambits.”
TARN BACKED away from the resulting argument once the yelling started. Esen was no kin of his, and she clearly resented him. He would win no favors scolding her. Let that fall to Gard, and to Aline, who seemed most put out of them all.
Namik wandered over to join him by the fire. The sand was flying again, though less neatly than before, and Namik paused to wipe his face before spitting into the fire and saying, in heavily accented trade tongue, “Other people’s children. Why scold them?” He tipped his head at Gard, who now seemed to be crosser with Aline than Esen, who was curled into the crook of his arm, her chin set stubbornly and her lip quivering.
“It never wins you anyone’s friendship,” Tarn agreed, but it looked like Namik had exhausted his store of trade tongue, because he just shrugged. Tarn hoped he was more fluent in his own tongue. Perhaps he merely wrote very succinct poetry.
Aline threw her hands up and stomped over to join them. “We can’t even take the silly chit back. Even allowing for exaggeration because she was scared, the dead are closing in on the court.” She pressed her lips together for a moment, lines showing around her mouth and eyes. “They’re besieged, and we can’t go back. The girl’s lucky to have made it to us in one piece.”
“How did she?” Cayl asked.
Aline gave a grudging smile. “She’s a damn good rider, even for a Selar, and her horse outran them. She’s taken some scrapes and bruises, but nothing worse. Under other circumstances, I’d throw her to a good combat trainer and see what we could make of her, but here and now, she’s a nuisance. I don’t know what she was thinking.”
“Her father is dead,” Tarn said. “Brutally so, and Gard is all she has left of him. She did not want him to ride out.”
“I think she’s brave,” Zeki said, suddenly very fierce. He was staring across at Esen with an all-too-familiar look in his eyes. He couldn’t have been more than a year older than her, Tarn realized, and she was pretty, brave, and vulnerable. A dangerous combination for any boy’s heart.
“At least she makes us look more like casual travelers,” Cayl said, with a sigh. “If the worst happens, we’ve still got some friendly trade contacts in the capital, and we c
an slip her some sleeping draught and leave her with them while we go after the Shadow.”
“That’s horrible,” Zeki protested.
Raif rolled his eyes. “We’ll do the same with you, if you don’t learn some sense between here and there.”
“You can try,” Zeki retorted, throwing his shoulders back and glaring. He then glanced over his shoulder toward Esen, who had bowed her head and was listening as Gard expostulated. She didn’t seem in the least aware of Zeki’s attention.
“Just remember that her current father figure can flay the flesh from your bones just by wishing for a wind,” Aline said cheerfully. “And he’s very protective.”
Zeki shot a second, slightly more cautious, look at Gard and Esen. Then she lifted her head, just as the last of the sun slanted down through the gap in the storm, golden and soft, and lit her face. Her tears shimmered, blue lights showed in her smooth hair, and even the stubborn set of her chin looked proud and strong until the light slid away again.
Zeki sighed.
“I tried my best,” Aline muttered and motioned Tarn and Cayl away. “Help me unload her bags. Let’s hope she brought a bedroll. Looks like I’ll be playing chaperone.”
“I can see that she’s shy of men at the moment, but we’re virtually all sparkly here, and only the boys are young enough to be interested,” Cayl pointed out, once they were out of Zeki’s hearing. “She could stay with Gard and feel perfectly safe.”
No, Tarn thought, fiercely and resentfully, and then reminded himself quietly that he was not the child in the party.
“Aye, and if young Zeki loses his head and starts singing love songs outside her tent, Gard will flay him, whereas I won’t do anything worse than give him a sore ear if he’s too vulgar. We need Namik and his boys when we get to Tiallat, and I’ve handled adolescent idiots before.” Aline chuckled, low and amused. “Gard’s too much of a civilian.”
“And how will you persuade him of that?” Tarn asked.
She grinned at him. “I’ll just tell him it’s Myrtilis’s rule. He respects her judgment.”
SURE ENOUGH, Gard came crawling into Tarn’s tent that night, looking weary and disgruntled. He scowled as Tarn sat up and smiled at him by the light of the small lantern by his pillow. “Don’t look so hopeful. Namik and Cayl have been talking about medieval poetry for the last hour and I’m so bored I could sleep anywhere. I thought Sethan was the book trader.”
“Cayl’s his partner,” Tarn said, moving aside obligingly, as Gard kicked his shoes off and punched his thin pillow into shape. “I’m sure he takes some interest. Do we need to take over a guard shift from them later?”
“The storm will stand,” Gard said, flopping down. “I’ve anchored it to the rock below us.”
“You’re tired,” Tarn murmured, sliding back down into his own bedding. Gard looked older than usual, as if he wore a body that actually was old enough to be Esen’s father.
“The storm doesn’t like to be leashed,” Gard admitted, rubbing his face against his pillow. He groped blindly for his blanket.
Tarn found it and brought it up around him, tucking it around his shoulders. “Do you want me to lend you power?”
“It’s not power,” Gard said, his shoulders relaxing. “It’s concentration, to carry it with us and stop it from engulfing us. It’s easy when we stop, but as we ride, the winds come in and… and the terrain changes and the sun….”
Tarn leaned over and kissed his cheek, very gently. “Go to sleep.”
“Don’t be nice to me. I’m too tired.”
“That just makes me want to be nice,” Tarn told him, amused.
“Too tired to argue with you,” Gard managed, and then his mouth went lax as his breathing slowed.
Tarn watched him for a while, by lamplight. It was so rare to see him still, and he wanted to savor the chance and study him, in case they never came home to the desert again. He almost reached out to trace the broad curve of Gard’s lip with his fingertip, nearly touched his high cheekbones, but didn’t want to wake him.
“I can feel you watching me,” Gard commented, voice slow. “Stop it and go to sleep.”
“If you want,” Tarn murmured and blew out the lantern before he settled onto his own pillow, listening to the slow rise and fall of Gard’s breathing in the dark.
WHEN TARN woke to the silver glow of dawn through the tent walls, Gard was tangled in his arms, his face tucked into Tarn’s neck. Outside, the sand was still roaring steadily, a sound that had crept through Tarn’s dreams as avalanches and lions stalking through the desert. Their legs were so entwined that Tarn couldn’t guess how they’d knotted together like this without waking. It was so warm and relaxed that Tarn couldn’t bring himself to move. Instead he closed his eyes again, pressing his lips against Gard’s ear, and fell asleep, dreaming that he was loved.
When he woke again, Gard was gone, and he could hear voices outside the tent.
IT WASN’T the last time Tarn woke in Gard’s arms. He came to treasure those mornings, because they were the only time he got Gard to himself.
The plodding camels dictated their speed, and it was hard to keep track of time. The sand hid the rest of the desert from them, and Tarn found himself yearning for the canyons and strange arches and pillars of rock he had barely noticed on the ride south to Istel.
As they rode each day, they tended to split into two groups. Esen clung to Gard’s side, scowling at Tarn when he ventured too close. Zeki rode with them, and usually Namik as well. Gard seemed to know them all well, and he chattered away lightly, although he sat lower in his saddle every day. Aline and Cayl rode with Tarn, and Raif drifted between the two groups. He was a better language teacher than his brother but insisted that Tarn learn Latai, the language of Tiallat, before he started on Selar. Aline and Cayl, who both spoke it, although neither fluently, joined in coaching him with great glee whenever he stumbled.
Within a day or two, he had surpassed them both, which left Cayl vaguely irritated and Aline resigned. “Dragons,” she said, with a mocking sigh. “What can you do?”
Ten days after they left the Court of Shells, they began to climb onto higher ground again. As they picked their way up a narrow, sloping canyon, Gard shifted the storm so it raged above them, roofing them in but never filling the canyon. No matter how tightly Gard controlled the storm, the air had been rough with sand, and it was good to breathe freely and wipe their faces clean.
They were all wind sore and weary, and Tarn nodded in agreement when Cayl said, “Is there anywhere we can rest up for a day? We can afford the time, and we need to be fresh when we cross the border.”
“We’re heading into the Alagard side of the Illiat Mountains,” Gard said. He looked worse than the rest of them, shadows under his eyes and lines around his mouth. Tarn, who knew how much power and focus it took to bind a storm, slipped his arm under Gard’s, taking some of his weight. He only got a mild glare, which worried him.
Namik spoke quickly, with Raif translating. “He says there’s an old Zoraia tower half a mile off the highest point of the pass. It’s not been inhabited for a while, but the walls still stand and there is a roof. If we can throw the dead off our trail, we could stop safely.”
“The dead aren’t anywhere near our trail,” Gard said, his voice heavy. “I can promise you that.”
“What does that mean?” Cayl asked, but Gard was already pulling himself into the saddle.
He turned to look down at them. “The summit of the pass is another day’s ride. I’m rather looking forward to a roof and a place to sleep where I’m not being constantly woken by Tarn’s elbows poking my ribs.”
“It’s not my elbows that poke you hardest,” Tarn said in the most stony voice he could manage, in the hope that he could make Gard laugh.
But Gard was already straining forward into the storm, and all they could do was follow.
Chapter 23: Resting
THEY REACHED the tower at sunset, emerging from the cloud of sand to skies st
ained pink and gold. The worn red stones of the tower gleamed warmly as it rose above them. There were carved lions at its foot, guarding the door, but their faces were dulled and softened by time, making their snarls gentler than their sculptor must have intended.
The floors and internal stairs were intact, though all there was for furnishing was a few rough shelves stacked on rocks. There was a boulder that could be rolled across the door, though, to keep the camels in and the dead out, and space enough to spread out their bedrolls across three rooms. There was a fair-sized hearth on the second floor, and the boys had collected enough wood and kindling as they rode to build a sizable fire. The ground floor contained a pump that still pulled fresh water up from some deeply buried spring.
They had hot food for the first time in days, a rough stew made from dried lamb, chickpeas, and spices. It was filling and warming, though Aline grimaced a little at the heat and washed every third mouthful down with water. She grinned at Tarn when she saw him watching, mopping her eyes, and said, “Ten centuries in the desert, and I still have the palate of a hill girl.”
“Shameful,” Gard remarked, helping himself to seconds. “You should strive to be more cosmopolitan.”
“Says the spirit who gets bored of towns after a week,” Aline retorted, and Gard laughed and shrugged.
“The wind calls me,” he said. “Why sit in one place when you could be everywhere?”
“A thousand years old with the concentration of a toddler,” Aline said, shaking her head sadly.
Gard grinned at her, his smile bright with affection. “Well, when I am as old as Tarn, I shall be just as staid and responsible. Until then, I shall be young at heart.”
“Staid?” Tarn protested.
“Can you deny it?”
Reawakening Page 17
