Guardian of the Storm

by Kaitlyn O’Connor

  Tipping a few drops onto the sand, Tempest rose, turned and strode after Kiran, but she made no attempt to catch up to him, trailing several yards behind him and glancing back now and then to see what the grat would do.

  When she’d moved away, it surged forward, sniffing the ground where she’d dropped the water, digging at it a little frantically. Finally, giving up, it followed, keeping its distance, but never dropping far behind. Tempest waited an hour before trying again. When she saw Kiran topping another rise, she stopped, waiting until he disappeared over the top. She squatted then, holding the vessel out once more.

  She wasn’t particularly thrilled about the idea of having to drink after the grat, but she had nothing else to offer water. If she poured it out, it would just soak into the sand. She sipped it while she waited for the grat to make up its mind whether to approach or not. Finally, thirst got the better of it and the small beast crept forward, its head lifted, its nose twitching as it caught the scent of the water. Lowering the vessel, Tempest held it out.

  The grat stared at her for several moments. Finally, it startled her by surging forward and slapping the vessel from her hand. Tempest jumped back, lost her balance, and landed on her butt in the sand. She glared at the grat indignantly as it quickly lapped up the little water left in the vessel. “Serves you right! If you weren’t so suspicious, you’d have gotten a lot more.”

  It growled at her when she went to retrieve her vessel. She stomped her foot. “That’s mine, you little shit!” she snapped, scooping up a handful of sand and throwing it at the grat. The grat scurried away. Tempest retrieved her vessel, glared at the grat for several moments and finally turned and stalked off. So much for making friends!

  Kiran gave her a disapproving look when she caught up to him. “We will not reach the next watering place before dark if you do not keep pace.”

  “It’d be easier,” Tempest groused, “if I had legs as long as yours.”

  Kiran slid a look down at her that examined her from head to toe. “You would find it easier if you did not stop every few minutes,” he pointed out, not unreasonably.

  It was on the tip of her tongue to remind him that she wasn’t nearly as strong as him, wasn’t Niahian, which made the air and pressure of his world more difficult for her, and that she wasn’t used to walking all day. It occurred to her, however, that that would be an admission that she’d had no business even trying to follow him. Before she could think of any comment to make, Kiran stiffened.

  “Mer-cay!” he snapped.

  Chapter Five

  Tempest didn’t understand the word, but the way he’d said it and his stance indicated alarm. “What?”

  Grasping her, he shoved her down into the sand and sprawled on top of her, nearly crushing her. “What is it?” she managed to grunt.

  “Quiet!” Kiran said in a harsh whisper.

  Tempest obediently went quiet, but she found it almost impossible to draw a decent breath of air with his broad chest baring down upon her. Then, too, his size was such that her face was also crushed against his chest. She wiggled until she managed to turn her head to one side, but it was still a struggle to breathe. After what seemed like a very long time, some of the tension left him. He eased away slightly, but it was more a lessening of pressure than anything else, for he was still sprawled heavily atop her. Tempest began trying to wriggle away.

  “What are you doing?” he asked through clenched teeth.

  “Something is digging into my ribs!” Tempest growled back at him.

  “Mer-cay,” he spat irritably, rolling off of her abruptly.

  Before either of them could say anything else, a whirling dervish landed in the middle of his chest, all four feet splayed, its claws digging into his flesh. Both Kiran and Tempest gaped at the snarling grat.

  “Bad girl!” Tempest snapped, recovering first. “Down!”

  The grat, responding either to her tone or her waving hand as she shooed at it, leapt from Kiran’s chest and trotted off a short distance, then dropped to the sand, glaring balefully at both of them.

  Kiran glanced irritably from the grat to Tempest and sat up slowly, rubbing at the perforated flesh from the grat’s claws.

  “What’s a Mer-cay, anyway?” Tempest asked, as much to distract him as because of curiosity.

  Kiran glanced at her sharply, obviously torn between amusement and embarrassment. “Excrement.”

  Tempest bit her lip as that sank in. “Kind of like, oh shit!, huh?”

  Kiran looked at her curiously a moment. “This means same thing?”

  “I’m guessing … so what was it all about?”

  “Mordune. They are enemies of my people.”

  “And your people are?”

  He frowned irritably. “Zoeans.... Children of the life giver, the Great One, Zoe.”

  He said it as if she should have known without him having to tell her. She had studied the mythologies of her own world, but only briefly. She did know though that, basically, all religions had one thing in common. It was the way the ancients had explained their world, come to an understanding about it that comforted them and, to some extent at least, soothed their fears about their mortality. She frowned. “If Zoe is the life giver, wouldn’t the Mordune be her children, too?”

  “Yes, but they do not acknowledge her.”

  “So…. That’s why the Mordune and the Zoeans are enemies?”

  “No.”

  “Well, why?”

  Kiran frowned. “I do not know. It has always been this way,” he said impatiently, getting to his feet and brushing off the sand.

  Tempest rose, too, brushing absently at the sand that coated her. “So … you, the Zoeans, are enemies because of something that happened so long ago nobody even remembers what it was?”

  “The Keepers know.”

  “Keepers?”

  “The Keepers of the Memory.” Gathering his pack, he set off again. “They are gone now. We must hurry. We still have far to go to reach the watering place.”

  Tempest grabbed up the things she’d been carrying and hurried after him. “I’m just trying to understand.”

  “You are Earthling. You do not believe and you scoff at anything that is different from your own beliefs.”

  Tempest glared at his back. “Niahians, of course, are above that.”

  He threw her an irritated glance over one shoulder. “Yes,” he said haughtily.

  “Right!”

  He didn’t look back that time, but she could tell from the set of his shoulders that her parting shot had hit home.

  Darkness fell before they reached the oasis Kiran was seeking. He stopped at last, scanned the darkness ahead of them and finally sat down. “We will wait here until Talore rises to light the way.”

  Tempest took that to mean the great red moon, which was far brighter than its tiny blue sibling and always crested the horizon first. She settled, grateful for a chance to rest, if only briefly. Her stomach rumbled.

  She thought Kiran hadn’t noticed but realized in the next moment that it was a vain hope.

  “We would have food if you had not fed it to that beast.”

  “Did I complain?”

  “Your belly complains for you … mine also,” he said testily.

  Tempest shot to her feet and stalked away, settling again with her back to him when she’d put some distance between them. Her heart skipped a beat when she caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye, but she realized almost at once that it was the grat. Poor thing. It was probably hungry, too. She held out her hand. “Sorry, no food.”

  To her surprise, the grat eased up close enough to sniff her fingers. In the next instant, it bit down on one of her fingers. Tempest yelped and popped it on top of the head. “You can’t eat me, you little shit!” she snapped as it scurried away. After a moment, she thought about the water skin. Slipping the strap down her arm, she opened it and took a few gulps of water directly from the spout, then filled her drinking vessel and held it
out. The grat reappeared, sniffed loudly, but made no attempt to approach her. “If you want it, you’ll have to come get it.”

  The grat eyed her distrustfully for some time, but finally began inching a little closer. When it poked its snout into the vessel and began lapping the water, she reached over with her free hand and stroked its head. It jumped back at once, studying her suspiciously. Finally, the draw of the water became too much for it and it eased forward again. Again, Tempest stroked it, examining its fur with her hands. To her surprise, much of the fur was soft against her fingertips. There were stiffer hairs, more like tines, along its back and she realized that it was the tines that lifted when the grat felt threatened, not the soft fur that covered the rest of its body.

  It jerked beneath her touch, but ignored her until it had finished off the water. When it had lapped up the last drop, it scurried off again, though it did not go far before it lay down, staring at her. “I should name you,” Tempest murmured thoughtfully. “What do you think?”

  It merely blinked at her, glanced toward where Kiran sat and then looked at her again.

  “Kiran Junior, you think?” Tempest offered with a giggle, thinking that it would irritate the hell out of Kiran. “You’re a pretty girl, though. I think I’ll just call you Kirry.”

  The grat lifted its head, looking at something just over her shoulder and Tempest glanced around to find that Kiran had risen. “It is unwise to waste water.”

  Tempest’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll drink less.”

  “We will all drink less,” Kiran said coolly. “The water skin was for me alone. I had not expected to travel with anyone.”

  There wasn’t much she could say about that and she glanced away guiltily. “If I’d known you would be reminding me every few minutes that I was in your way, I’d have stayed where I was,” she muttered angrily when he turned away once more.

  “I should not have to remind you,” he retorted, grabbing up his pack angrily and slinging it over his shoulder again.

  “You don’t have to remind me,” she shot back at him, “but, apparently, you just can’t help being an asshole.”

  He stopped, dropped his pack and turned to face her, planting his hands on his hips. “This is an insult?”

  “It’s not a compliment!”

  His eyes narrowed as he fought a round with his temper. “I know you do not understand, but I must reach the sacred Temple of Zoe before the Great Darkness falls upon us or many generations will pass before we again have the chance to make Niah green as it once was. I cannot afford to be turned from my Hymria … or slowed.

  “I tire of wandering! I want that which has been promised, fruitfulness for my world so that I can leave a better world for my young.”

  Tempest gaped at him, feeling her belly tighten uncomfortably. “You have children?”

  Kiran gritted his teeth in frustration, thrusting his fingers through his tousled hair. “I have no young. I have no mate. I can not seek them until I have taken the sacred journey and completed my task!”

  Surprised by his vehemence, Tempest took a step back. Kirry immediately leapt to her feet, growling low in her chest. Kiran turned to glare at the animal for a moment and finally turned away, snatched his pack from the ground, and stalked off.

  After a moment, Tempest followed him.

  Neither of them spoke, focused upon their own thoughts as they made their way across the desert and came at last, after several hour’s walk, to the watering hole. The grat, no doubt sensing it would find both food and water in the oasis, raced ahead of them once it spotted the telltale jumble of rocks. When they’d found a spot Kiran approved--a tiny, rocky, but slightly flattened area surrounded by large boulders—Kiran directed her to build a fire while he hunted for food. Shrugging as he left without another word, Tempest spread the bedding out and climbed back down to the desert floor to dig for niahten. When she decided she’d collected enough to build a fire, she gathered it in a bundle in her arms, climbed back up the rocks with an effort, and arranged a small pile.

  Pulling her ignitor from her pocket, she flicked it patiently over and over until it finally produced a flame big enough to start the fire. As soon as the niahten caught, she shoved the ignitor back into her pocket and began piling small pieces around the tiny fire she’d started and finally sat back to watch as the fire spread slowly and grew.

  She sighed. Either her ignitor was worn out or it was almost out of fuel. Except for the rags she was wearing and her memories, it was all that she had left of the colony. Before long, she would have nothing but memories, and even those were fading.

  Try though she might, she couldn’t summon the image of those she’d loved, not clearly anyway. When she thought about her parents, her younger brother, her best friend, Georgia, she could remember things they’d done together, things they’d said, but she couldn’t really visualize their features, couldn’t remember what their voices had sounded like.

  She wondered if anything remained of the colony or if it had been plundered by the natives of Niah, or destroyed by the windstorms and the endless dust. She was torn between a yearning to return, to find something familiar, and a fear of the same—fear that the disease might still linger and strike her down—fear that she would find nothing at all remained and would have to accept that, not only everyone, but everything that was familiar to her was lost forever.

  Chapter Six

  Kirry landed beside her so abruptly it startled a squeak of fright from her. It was several moments before she even realized it was the little grat, for it was carrying the carcass of a dead animal in its jaws and looked like something out of her worst nightmares. A rumbling sound that reminded her of incessant snoring issued from the small animal’s chest as it dropped the limp carcass at her feet, sauntered over to a rock and leapt up on it, then sat and began to lathe its forefeet with its tongue.

  Tempest stared at the animal in puzzlement for several moments, then looked down at the carcass. A faint smile curled her lips as it occurred to her that it was an offering. “You brought me food?”

  Kirry, naturally enough, only stared at her. Finally, she blinked and returned her attention to her grooming.

  Tempest chuckled, but reached for the carcass cautiously. When Kirry continued to ignore her, she got up and looked around until she found a chip of stone with a sharp edge and went to work cleaning it.

  Kiran had thought it best not to make their campsite too close to the pool of water, and he’d taken the skins to fill them, so she had no water either to clean the food, or her hands. When she’d finished, she laid the meat carefully on a stone and shoved it into the edge of the fire, then cleaned her hands the best she could by scooping up sand and rubbing it between her hands.

  To her relief, Kiran returned shortly, carrying the skins and a small animal. “We will not have much from this, but it is late. The animals had already come to drink and scattered.”

  Tempest smiled. “Kirry brought something, too.”

  Kiran gave her a curious look, then glanced at the grat before moving toward the fire to place his own kill on a stone to cook. When he saw there was already meat cooking, he turned to look at Tempest, who was busy washing her hands. “There is meat here.”

  Tempest let out a gurgle of laughter, so pleased that Kirry had proven herself useful that she felt almost dizzy with it. So much for his disapproval! “You didn’t believe me?”

  Kiran frowned, glanced from Tempest to the grat and back again. Tempest could tell from his expression that he thought it was some sort of trick she was playing on him.

  “The grat killed this? Then brought it to you?”

  Tempest chuckled. “She did! Dropped it right at my feet.” She glanced at the grat. “She’s such a clever girl. Aren’t you, Kirry?”

  Kiran didn’t look at all pleased when she glanced at him again and Tempest frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head slowly, still frowning, but finally dismissed it. “The Mordune were here. I do not believ
e they will come back, but I think it best if we kill the fire once we’ve eaten.”

  Tempest felt a shiver of dread. “What will happen if we meet up with them?”

  “We will not meet them if we are careful.”

  That wasn’t terribly reassuring. “What if we’re careful and we still meet up with them?”

  Kiran frowned. “I will protect you.”

  That wasn’t really very reassuring either. She had no doubt that he was a competent warrior, maybe even much more than just competent, but she had a feeling that there had been a number of Mordune, too many for one man to have a chance against. Not that she wouldn’t do her best to help, but realistically, she knew she couldn’t be much of a deterrent. Unlike Kiran, she had no weapons. One laser pistol—if she’d had the forethought to take one with her when she’d left the colony and not disposed of it as she had pretty much everything else—could have evened the odds considerably, but there wasn’t much point in thinking about it. She had no idea how Kiran’s archaic-looking weapons were even used, and she was fairly certain they had been designed for the size and strength of a Niahian man in any case.

  “The Zoeans war with the Mordune?” she asked hesitantly.

  Kiran shrugged. “At times we clash.”

  “But nobody knows why?”

  Again, he shrugged. “It was long ago—before the growing things died and Niah became desert.”

  Tempest’s eyebrows rose. “You think it might have had something to do with the change in the planet? Like a great war, I mean, that killed everything off?”

  “Even the Keepers of the Memory do not know.”

  “How do you know they don’t know?”

  “They have never said.”

  “That doesn’t mean they don’t know, only that they’re not telling if they do know,” Tempest pointed out.