Stormlord’s Exile

by Glenda Larke

  “They’ll be dropping dead under us if we push them too hard,” Jasper warned Kaneth as Dibble and Rubric’s driver dismounted and inspected the pedes for damaged feet and nicked segments.

  In the dying light of dusk, Kaneth’s eyes were wild with grief, begging Jasper not to tear him in two. “Better that than Ryka and Kedri die, or that the Source falls into the hands of a man who will use his possession of it as a weapon to control the dunes. He’s in the valley, Jasper. I know it.”

  “From what I can see, none of Ravard’s army are riding to God’s Pellets any more,” Jasper said dryly. “I suspect we only have a handful of men to worry about in the valley.” One of whom is doubtless Mica… sweet water save me.

  “I killed some of his army ahead of me, but there’s still the remainder behind us.”

  Some? Jasper blinked. Did Kaneth not know what he had done? “I suspect they decided they didn’t want to mix with Kher Uthardim; not when he throws a dune around as if it was a bucketful of sand cast in the path of a spin-devil. Those that could, rode away. Headed home, I guess. Have you no idea how spectacular what you did was?” Or how many men died in there?

  “I didn’t think about it,” he confessed. “I just had to prevent them getting to God’s Pellets, and they were ahead of me. And I wanted to cross the dune as quickly as possible, without taxing Burnish with the steep hills. Poor fellow is so tired.”

  “The pedes all should rest.” Chert was plunging its whole head into the water in obvious relief.

  Kaneth gave Jasper a look then that he knew he would never forget. The lines of his face were cut so deep with such raw pain that Jasper wondered if he might not collapse under the enormity of it. His words were no more than a whisper. “Getting there fast may mean the difference between life and death for Ryka and Kedri and those we left in the valley.” The agony in his tone was so intense it took Jasper’s breath away. “Don’t you understand? If he has taken them hostages, I will have to make a choice. Think, Jasper. The Source and the future of the dunes—or the lives of my family? Ravard is confident he knows which way my choice will fall—and he could be wrong!”

  The dread in Kaneth’s voice was wrenching. He glanced to where the Pellets were, now no more than dark shapes in the falling night. “I think we’re already too late. You may not be able to feel their water through the rock, but this—this I feel: he’s there somewhere. In that direction.”

  Jasper swallowed, realising the full horror of the words. Kaneth thought he may have to let his family die—in order to save the dunes.

  “Lighten your load,” Kaneth ordered, his voice harsh. “Leave your drivers behind.”

  Rubric gave a grimace. He had handled a pede on the way to God’s Pellets, but he was hardly experienced.

  Jasper glanced across at him. “Can you do it?”

  “I think so. My animal will doubtless just follow yours anyway.” With a gesture of resignation, he edged forward onto the saddle vacated by his driver.

  “Dibble, I’ll leave the water here for the armsmen behind us,” Jasper said, “but tell them not to linger. We need them at God’s Pellets as soon as possible.”

  They were still a full run of a sandglass away from the Pellets, and dawn had not yet begun to edge into the eastern sky. The pedes were labouring, so Kaneth—his reluctance overridden by necessity—slowed Burnish down to a gentle run. Jasper and Rubric, their pedes one on either side of Kaneth, followed his example.

  “Trouble,” Jasper called across to him. “There were supposed to be two sentries on each knob, right?”

  “Yes.” The tightness in his chest grew worse. What now?

  “I can’t sense through the rock, but when the sentries were in the open, I could feel them. Then they disappeared. I thought they were just being relieved, but no one has replaced them. The tallest knob has one person. Ryka.”

  “You can tell that much from here?” Of course he could. He was a stormlord, wasn’t he? Kaneth glanced up in the direction of the Great Knob, and as he did, flames leaped up from its peak. A signal fire. The valley’s wall had been breached.

  “Sunlord save her.” He signalled Burnish to quicken the pace, and reluctantly the beast obliged. “We’ll assume Watergatherer men control the valley,” he shouted over his shoulder as the other two mounts struggled to keep up. “Ravard and Guyden and an unknown number more.” His voice sounded coldly calm to his ears. It lied.

  In reply, Jasper yelled, “And then what?”

  “We’ll loose our pedes at the entrance to the open canyon. They know their way in and will go straight through. Any normal water sensitive won’t know the difference between a pede with a rider and one without. While they are chasing pedes to find out, we’ll sneak in through the narrower canyon just to the east, close to the camp.”

  “Is it guarded?”

  “It was, inside, yes. And we set a trap on the outer side too, a deadfall, but I know how to circumvent that.”

  They rode on in silence, but a bare quarter of a sandrun later, Kaneth gasped as he felt Ryka himself. Not her usual self, but a woman in terror. Those little pieces of her, all panicked. Pieces racing, rushing, nothing calm. No more than that, but it was enough. He had never felt her that way before. She was in terrible danger, and she knew it.

  He jabbed his prod deep. Burnish, gasping, plunged forward. Concentrating on Ryka, only on Ryka, Kaneth hunched low to the carapace for the least wind resistance as the animal raised itself to fast mode and sped off into the night. He didn’t look behind to see if the other two could keep up. All he cared about was getting there, to be with her and Kedri.

  And killing Ravard. He cared about that as he had never cared before about the death of anyone. Especially when the little of pieces of Ryka vanished from his consciousness.

  When they emerged on foot from the narrow winding of the canyon, they found the guard dead at the other end. He’d been knifed. Rubric turned him over. God have mercy, he was an old man.

  “Gundi Hurdle,” Kaneth said, kneeling at his side and touching the old man’s face. “I’d recognise his nose anywhere, even in the dark.”

  God’s voice, the man’s reeling, Rubric thought. He can barely stand. He’s used too much of this strange power of his… He doubted Kaneth would live through the night unless he rested, and the thought disturbed him. He was part of them now, these Quartern folk. He’d fought alongside them, for a cause. And yes, he’d killed, although he’d once shrunk from it. There are things worth fighting for, he thought. And dying for, too. Ironic that he had found that out in a land far from his own.

  Kaneth looked across at Jasper. “What can you sense? Where’s Ryka? I know she’s alive, though I think—I think—” But he couldn’t complete the sentence.

  Oh, God be voiceless, he’s trying to say he thinks she’s dying.

  “Ryka’s in your tent with Kedri. With Mica,” Jasper said quietly.

  The rage in Kaneth was momentarily a physical emanation, which Rubric felt like a physical blow in his chest, just before the man strode off towards the encampment. Rubric glanced at Jasper’s face, sheened by starlight, and knew he too had felt the rage.

  Jasper grabbed Rubric’s arm and pulled him along after Kaneth, whispering, “Help me bring some water out of the Source.”

  “But—”

  “We’ll try not to use it to kill anyone, but I’ll make my own decisions.”

  “Agreed.”

  “How do you figure this? I don’t know who’s friendly and who’s not.”

  “Small groups fleeing in twenty directions, most with children. Thirty or so dead bodies, scattered. One of which is in Kaneth’s tent.”

  “I know. That’s Cleve’s mother. She was looking after Kedri. There’s four men in the camp moving around purposefully. Can you feel them? Searching the tents and herding people together and sitting them down near the main fireplace. Some of those I recognise. I think the fighting’s over and I think they are the only ones we have to concern ourselves with at t
he moment. Could you deal with them, while I help Kaneth? He’ll need it. Mica has help there and Kaneth is exhausted.”

  He began to pull water out of the Source. “I can try.” Inwardly, he smiled even as his heart pounded. Jasper was confident he could handle four of Ravard’s men? On his own?

  “If any of them are sensitives, you can’t take their water and they’ll feel you coming. If worse comes to worst, dump a lot of water on them.”

  Fear and excitement mingled, heightening his awareness.

  They covered the last fifty paces in silence. At the first tent they split up, Jasper gripping his shoulder in a gesture of comradeship. Rubric turned in the direction of the group of people huddled together. All but two of them were seated. He figured he need not worry about the seated ones; they would be the prisoners. Carefully, he familiarised himself with the two who were standing. When he was sure he would recognise their water again, he homed in on the other two, who were still walking around. They were not together; one was on the northern edge of the encampment; the other appeared to be walking back to where the prisoners were. He would pass close by.

  How good were Reduner water sensitives? Jasper had told him once that their skills were elementary, usually not much use in areas where there was plenty of water about, like a camp. Water in pots and people and food and pedes tended to overwhelm and confuse the best of sensitives anyway. Just as people stopped hearing the individual sounds in a noisy environment, a water sensitive stopped noticing the movement of water. He hoped so, because there was a block of water hovering directly over his head, high up, that he didn’t want anyone to wonder about. Maybe they’ll think it’s a cloud…

  He shivered, suddenly less excited. He could die if he made a mistake. And so could innocent people. Remember all the dead bodies out there scattered around the valley. These are killers. He crouched behind a family jar of water under the veranda of a tent and waited for the man to come by.

  Then he carefully dumped the block of water on the man from about twenty paces up. It flattened him. Rubric strolled over and put a foot onto the small of the man’s back and a sword point to his neck even as he was gathering the water together again. “Hello there,” he said softly. “I’m Lord Rubric, a stormlord, working for the Cloudmaster. Just in case we haven’t met. Ye want to be friendly, or shall I take your water? Ye know, as in kill ye?”

  The man made up in bravery for what he lacked in brains. Spluttering, he raised himself up onto his elbows, then made a wild grab at Rubric’s knees. Rubric cursed, stepped back and tripped over a guy rope. On his way down, his sword scored the man’s neck, but didn’t kill him. Pedeshit.

  He pulled at the man’s water. Nothing happened. Unaffected, the fellow was already scrabbling to his feet, knife in hand. Rubric jammed water into his face instead. While his assailant tried to cope with that, he slit his throat.

  Blood pumped out, and Rubric’s stomach heaved. He wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve and scrambled to his feet with a sigh. I’ll never get used to killing people. Why, oh why, wasn’t I born a waterpainter?

  “Sand-brain,” he told the corpse as he evaporated the water from the blood on his blade and shook the powdered remnants to the ground. “That really wasn’t necessary.” He cast around for the man on the far side of the encampment, to find him herding several women his way. After cutting a piece of guy rope loose, Rubric waited until they appeared. The women, clutching one another, were silent and scared. The man foolishly carried a burning brand, which may have helped him to pick his way over the tent ropes, but which also made him night-blind.

  Rubric carefully dropped a packet of water on his head, avoiding the women. Neatly done, he congratulated himself. The women squealed and ran. This time Rubric took no chances. He had the man roped up like a deer for gutting, then gagged before the fellow had worked out what was going on. Almost too easy, he thought. No wonder the armed forces in Khromatis had such strict rules about using water-power. With so many stormlords, it would be a madhouse if waterlords used it in every skirmish.

  He made for where the other hostages were being held. A burning torch lit the area. Peeping between two tents, he saw fifty or sixty prisoners sitting on the ground, mostly women and children. Some of the children were sound asleep and he envied them. His last sleep seemed a long time ago. The two men guarding them were armed with both knives and scimitars, the latter weapons sheathed. Rubric’s lip curled. Scimitars were not the best weapon for a fight on foot.

  One of them must have sensed him because he stared, frowning, into the darkness between the tents. “Who the waterless hells are you?” he asked. At least, that was what Rubric thought he might have said. The words were incomprehensible. There was no mistaking the tone, though. Or the drawn scimitar.

  “Lord Rubric,” he said politely, stepping forward into the light. “Stormlord. Ye know, the person who can leave ye looking like a bit of dried-up lizard that’s been dead for a least half a cycle.”

  The man looked blank, and so did his equally well-armed companion.

  Rubric heaved an obvious sigh and addressed the prisoners. “Maybe one of ye good people could translate what I just said to these two dryheads? And ye had better tell them that their two friends are already taken care of, Lord Jasper and Kher Uthardim are dealing with Ravard right now, and the rest of our forces will enter the valley any minute.”

  One of the women seated on the ground obliged with a translation, grinning. Rubric recognised her as a Scarperwoman and ex-slave he’d met before.

  The two Watergatherers were badly rattled, but the braver of the two advanced on Rubric anyway, his weapons at the ready, saying, “We’re water sensitives. You couldn’t take our water if you tried.”

  The woman continued to translate.

  “He’s lying anyway,” the other man said. “There’s only one withering stormlord and this is not him.”

  “I can prove it, if ye like,” Rubric said cheerfully.

  “Go ahead,” one of the men said, grinning when he heard the translation. The two of them approached him, one from the left, one from the right.

  “Sure,” said Rubric and tossed a ball of water from behind his left shoulder straight into the first man’s face. He followed up with a second block of water dropped from above on the other. Expecting he would then be in the middle of a fight for his life, Rubric tensed for attack.

  It never came. One of the younger women flung herself at the back of the knees of the first man. He fell over her body, crashing onto his back, where several of the other prisoners promptly sat on him and a third disarmed him. His companion, torn between attacking Rubric alone or helping his companion in the face of a number of irate women, dithered. A girl flung a blanket over his head from behind and in an instant he too was on the ground, squashed under a hugely pregnant woman.

  “I suggest ye tie them up,” Rubric said to her, impressed, “and stay here until we get all this mess sorted out.”

  “What happened to the others?” someone asked, fearful. “We’re not all here. Most of the folk ran.”

  He prevaricated, not wanting to mention the dead. “I’m not sure. There are people scattering everywhere. Do you know how many of these Watergatherers there were?”

  Someone began to sob quietly.

  “We don’t know,” the woman doing the translating said. “What about the army?”

  “Well, we won the fight. The Watergatherers were routed.” He hoped he was right about that. There was no jubilation at the news. They all knew there would be plenty to make them weep.

  Rubric left them and went to find Jasper.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Red Quarter

  God’s Pellets

  So much pain. She couldn’t be dead. Anyone who was dead wouldn’t feel all this, surely.

  She couldn’t decide which was worse: the splitting, throbbing headache or the appalling pain in the front of her shoulder. And that was just the start. Her whole body was shrieking for her attention.
Her stomach was telling her to throw up. The agony in her shoulder radiated into her neck with every step. Or maybe the stabbing jabs into her neck were something separate?

  Steps. Not her steps. Someone was carrying her, but for a moment she couldn’t think who it might be, or even what had happened. She wanted to open her eyes, but couldn’t seem to part the eyelids. Pain was blocking out coherent thought. Ryka Feldspar, think. What happened?

  Sliver by sliver, she began to collect her last memories. She’d been on a pede.

  Another pede had slashed her across the neck with the serrated edge of its feeler. Ah, that explains the neck. She’d fallen. And that explained the pain just about everywhere else. She’d be one big bruise after a tumble like that. The shoulder: she couldn’t move her arm without terrible pain. She hazarded a guess: a broken clavicle. Anything else?

  And then it all came rushing back. Ravard.

  Her eyes flew open.

  He was carrying her. It was still dark and she was looking up at the underside of his chin. A wave of awful dizziness drowned her. She moved her head slightly and vomited.

  “Welcome back,” he said.

  And then he was ducking his head to enter a tent and lay her down on the central carpet. Her tent.

  Kedri!

  She looked around, ignoring the agony every move caused her. The tent was lit with the oil lamp and the first thing she saw was Robena, lying on the floor facing her. The woman’s eyes stared lifelessly. A bloody tear had been ripped through her throat and the front of her clothing was drenched with blood. Blood soaked into the carpet, so much it looked almost black. Sticky.