by Glenda Larke
When he still didn't let go, it slowed and flung its head up, clacking its irritation and flicking its feelers. He went with it, feet and body swinging outward, only to thunk down again. The breath whooshed out of his body. His arms felt torn from their sockets. One hand jerked loose when his fingers were nipped hard between one of the pede's mandibles and the chitin of its face.
He grunted in agony. The pede crashed its front end down to the ground and ran on. The driver, snarling at him, tried to pull the bridle free. When that didn't work, he drew his scimitar.
I recognize him. A bleeding slave. Ravard stretched out his mangled hand to grab the bottom mounting handle screwed into the first segment. Agony from his crushed fingers shot up his arm. He ignored it. Nothing was broken; pain was an irrelevance. He let go of the bridle to move his other hand up beside the first. His feet flailed and found the lowest of the mounting toe-slots. At last he could take the weight off his arms.
The bridle, suddenly freed of his weight, jerked up under the pull of the driver. The man lost his balance and the slash of his weapon at Ravard's hands went wide. His body slipped from the saddle and he was forced to drop the scimitar to grab for the saddle handle in front of him.
As the scimitar slithered past, Ravard made a desperate snatch at the blade. He cut his fingers but secured the weapon. He swapped his hand to the hilt. Dripping blood, he hauled himself one-handed up to the next mounting handle. The driver was now hanging from the saddle handle, his body dangling on the far side of the mount. He scrabbled to heave himself back on top. Ravard grinned at him over the curve of the pede's back. My friend, you are about to die.
He raised the scimitar in one hand to slash it sideways into the slave's neck.
But he had forgotten about the second man. He'd been well behind on one of the rear segments, obscured by the dust and darkness. The uneven jumps of the pede as it ploughed its way up the dune slopes and plunged downward into the hollows had kept the fellow off balance and slowed his progress forward, so Ravard had dismissed him as an immediate threat. Now he was within a sword's length-and armed.
By now, the pede had borne them away from the dust, and in the starlight he saw who it was. Uthardim.
Ravard's heart thumped, relishing the moment. He abandoned his idea of slashing the driver and swung at Uthardim. The blade didn't connect as the pede rocked and swayed. The driver leaped upward to grab the place on the top of the first segment. Ravard was quicker. He jammed one foot under the saddle handle for stability. The other foot he raised and smashed into the man's face. At the same time, he raised his scimitar to catch Uthardim's downward stroke. The driver grunted and fell. His body vanished into the darkness.
Ravard and Uthardim faced each other on the back of the lurching pede. Uthardim widened his stance and bent his knees, striving for balance. Even as the man lurched forward in a clumsy lunge, Ravard could not help thinking this was a ridiculous way to fight. It was hard to see in the dark what the other was doing. The pede was weaving, careening out of control. Both of them were more likely to fall and break their necks than run the other through with a blade.
He held the scimitar near to his body, his left hand against the blunt side of the blade to brace it when he parried. He hoped to entice Uthardim in close, then slip under his defenses, the move covered by his own body, the turn of his arm and the darkness.
He didn't get the chance. The man was good.
No mere metalworker, he realized, cursing as he accepted this was a fight he might not win. The man's a trained warrior. Garnet lied. The city-born bitch. I have to think of something else.
He disengaged his foot from the handle and attacked, driving Uthardim back in a ferocious series of slashes. Then, before the man could take advantage of his over-extension, he dropped to one knee, drew his dagger and stabbed the pede between the segments with his dagger. It wouldn't do much damage to the pede, but it would make the beast angry. Uthardim was starting his lunge as the pede feelers came whipping back. Ravard ducked. The pede trumpeted its pain. A feeler caught Uthardim across the arm and curled like a whip around his back. The sharp-edged spines and hooks ripped his clothing and tore his skin; the force of the blow sent him flying. He held onto his sword, but fell awkwardly. He clawed at a saddle handle, missed and disappeared over the side.
The pede faltered, but didn't stop.
Ravard let out the breath he'd been holding. It hurt. He was bruised over the ribs where he had been slammed into the carapace. His left hand, dripping blood, was a mass of pain and swelling fast. He returned to the first segment, sat down on the saddle cross-legged and grabbed up the reins. He slowed the beast and turned it. I want that bastard dead. God, how I want him dead.
He felt living water behind him. Close. Close enough to touch.
That was all the warning he had. Uthardim had made no sound, nothing. He had not fallen at all; he had been clinging to the side of the pede all along. Now he was back on the rear saddle once more. Ravard was aware of a hand already raised behind him. Probably about to lop off his head…
He did the only thing he could to save his life.
He threw himself off the pede.
As he plunged to the ground, rolling over and over, he saw the sword bite into the chitin of the carapace. Then pede, man, sword-all were swallowed up by the gloom.
They did not come back.
Shakily, Ravard climbed to his feet.
He was a Reduner warrior, tribemaster and the Master Son of Dune Watergatherer-yet all he wanted to do right then was weep with rage. As Ryka fell, as the sand vanished from under her feet, she felt no fear. It happened too quickly. She still clutched the cloak in both hands as she dropped, battered by sound and numbed by shock. What flashed through her head, woven through with disbelief, was a poignant appreciation of the moment. She had come to the red dunes to save Kaneth; and in the end he had killed her. He had killed his own son. I hope he never knows, she thought in the splinter of time it took for her to fall.
But she didn't die, not then.
After a fall of about twenty paces her arms were wrenched upward and her descent was abruptly halted. At the same time she was slammed sideways. Sand poured down, an avalanche battering her. Her arms, extended over her head, still gripped the cloak. It had snagged on something, and the folds blanketed her head, protecting her upper body from the barrage of sand that went on and on and on. Even so, the air thickened and she choked.
And then the rush stopped. She dangled, swaying slightly, gulping for breath. Her shoulders ached. Terror stopped her from moving for a long time; she knew she was hanging over emptiness. Her muscles protested. She tried to climb higher, hand over hand. She kicked with her legs and touched sand and plants somewhere to one side. A steep cliff of sand and plants. But that didn't make sense. There never had been a cliff; just a slope.
She couldn't see it. She couldn't see anything. She couldn't find a toehold. Her hands slipped, and the cloak started feeding through her fingers as she tried to hold on. Her feet flailed in empty air. She had no idea how far she would fall. Probing for water, she caught the feel of two people on top of the cliff, but they were moving away from the edge, fast. Elmar and Kaneth? She screamed then, calling them by name, begging them to help. The two moving bodies of water didn't even falter.
Horrified, she realized her voice was just one of many. Voices shouted and cried and screamed below her. Worse still, in the thick air, the sounds were muffled, indistinct, confused. No one was going to answer. No one was even going to hear. She saved her breath, concentrated on holding tight.
It was impossible. How long can I hold on like this?
She tried screaming again. No answer. She shouted for Kaneth, for Elmar. Nothing. She shouted in the Quartern tongue, in Reduner. No one answered. Just be glad they survived. Elmar saw what happened-they are coming down to look for you below, of course. Her fingers slipped still further, and her head emerged from the folds of her cloak. She looked down into darkness, unable to see how f
ar the ground was below. She stared at the wall at her side, just a few hand-spans away. In the starlight, it was a dark blanket with many tattered holes, the areas in between littered with tangles of threads and bits of plants. Every now and then, sand slithered and the dune god groaned.
She looked up. Her cloak was dangling from a small bush stuck on the blanket. It looked like the same bush the cloak had been hooked on next to the path. Except now it was growing out of a cliff. Nothing made sense. Had the world tilted?
Sunlord help me, she whispered, begging. I must not lose this child. I must keep him safe.
Something tore and she jerked down another half body length, only to be brought up short again. Her shoulders screamed their pain. Her front teeth went through her lip and she tasted blood. When she looked upward again, the black shape of the bush now hung upside down. Its network of spreading roots kept it precariously suspended. The cloak, hooked on its thorns and sinuous branches, was well snagged-but the bush was not. As she squinted, trying to see better, more roots ripped and everything shifted again, dropping her a little lower, showering her with sand.
She moaned, knowing time was running out. How long had she been like this? A tenth of a sand-run? Longer? Or did it just feel that long? She yelled some more. No reply.
Carefully she reached out with one hand and touched the tangled threads of the cliff. Not threads at all. Roots. Too fragile to offer a hold. Withdrawing her hand, she clutched at the cloak again.
She thought she knew what had happened. Kaneth had started a landslip. The land had become unstable at the base of the slope, starting a slide. But the top of the dune was a blanket of small plant life, connected just below the surface by intertwining roots. Those had kept the surface together as the dune was hollowed out beneath. The sand had broken through on the slope below her somewhere, to cascade down into the vale. Left hanging, the blanket of the slope surface had flopped vertically down, refusing to be ripped apart.
Forcing herself to look down again, she strained to see what she was going to land on if-no, when-she lost her grip. And that was her last thought as the bush split from its remaining deeper roots.
She fell without a sound.
Almost immediately, her feet hit a slope of sand so steep she was pitched forward onto her face. The cloak and the bush came down on top of her and she was tumbling, head down, feet up, feet down, head up, cloak tangling, branches scratching, sand moving in streams around her.
And then, at last, all was mercifully still. She was bruised, bloodied, shaken, half-buried-and still alive. The baby gave an indignant kick.
Fearing the rest of the sand cliff would slide again at any moment, she crawled and crawled her way out of the sand, then struggled to her feet. She had lost her cloak and her weapons. Staggering away, she put as much distance as she could between herself and the unstable cliff. Her feet sank into the loose sand, making her stumble. The dust began to clear and she could see better. People were now running to and fro carrying flaming torches, but she was disoriented; everything had changed. The dune looked as if it had been roughly sliced with a giant sword; the slope had flowed down into the valley, leaving the open cut exposed as a cliff, ending in a scree of debris. And there, the top one-third of the cut was still covered by the hanging plant life.
As far as she could make out in the darkness, one of the pede lines had vanished; so had some of the tents and fires belonging to Davim's men. Someone was organizing a rescue to dig out the tents. She had to circle around wide to avoid them, even hiding once or twice until guards had passed by. Kaneth and Elmar were nowhere to be seen. Limping, she headed to where their pede was hidden instead. In the dark, the hollow was difficult to find, especially when she had to dodge so many people and had no torch herself. When she did find the place, it was empty. The pede had gone.
Kaneth would have waited, she thought. I must have the wrong hollow.
She circled around, and returned to the same spot. Her heart plummeted. There, stuck in the sand, was the pede-tallow candle she had used for light when she had been packing the myriapede.
Someone must have found the pede, she thought. One of the other slaves, perhaps… Kaneth would never have left without waiting for me. Anyway, they need me to find water on the journey…
Then she began to wonder: maybe he had been killed in the landslip after all. Maybe Elmar had, too. Maybe it had been someone else she'd sensed.
Fear encroached, then overwhelmed her. She started shaking again. Sinking to her knees, she bent down and rocked, as if that would help the pain. Let him be alive, let him live, please let him come back for me.
She was tired of it, tired of always being scared for herself, for her child, for Kaneth, for the Quartern. Sandblast it, was there never to be an end to this horror? When she was calmer and quite sure neither Kaneth nor Elmar was coming, she trudged back to the encampment. By then, sunrise was staining the cloudless vault of the sky. The ruined section of Davim's camp had been largely dug out and the Reduners were reviewing the damage. She heard one of the women of Ravard's camp telling another there were ten men dead and fifteen still missing, and no one had any idea how many pedes were dead, how many had run off and how many had been stolen by the slaves.
Ryka tried to be inconspicuous as she surveyed the camp, looking for any sign of Kaneth. A group of slaves, about twenty or thirty men and women, sat on the ground guarded by several drovers with ziggers. Neither Kaneth nor Elmar was among them. Wondering what to do, she was still dithering when someone came up behind her and grabbed her arm. Ravard.
For a moment they stood staring at each other. He was just as battered as she was, she could see that much, and he was furiously angry, although he had himself under tight control.
"I thought you had gone with the rest," he said.
She thought it best to feign ignorance. "Gone where? The rest? What rest?"
"You knew about this!"
"About what?"
"About the slaves escaping!"
"The slaves? I thought you meant the landslip!"
"Don't play games, Garnet. When I woke up you weren't on my pallet. Where were you?"
She gambled. "I was in the privy when the dune god screamed. You know I can't sleep the night through, not with this baby-"
"Where have you been since then?" he shouted.
"Helping with-"
Fortunately for her ingenuity, just then Davim approached them, backed by ten or twelve of his own men. He strode up to Ravard, his expression wild with fury, an emotion matched by those with him. Without any other warning, he lashed out with a fist and hit Ravard on the cheek. Ryka scuttled out of range. The blow was savage enough to send the Master Son flying. He landed flat on his back, a dazed look on his face.
Ryka expected him to scramble to his feet and defend himself; instead, once he was upright again, he just stood before his adopted father, his arms dangling loosely by his sides. She continued to move away, slowly edging backward, step by step.
"This is your tribe," the sandmaster raged at him. "I came to pick up my new slaves and be on my way. And what do I find? An encampment riddled with a lack of discipline and carelessness! So lax that slaves escaped-riding our pedes, with our stores and our water! How could you let this happen?"
He struck out at Ravard again, the powerful open-handed blow catching him across the ear. Once again Ravard fell. This time he rose only to his knees, his head hanging in submission.
Davim waved one of his men forward. His next words, though, were still addressed to Ravard. "Your punishment is one hundred lashes. Fifty today, fifty when the first have healed." He turned to the man at his side. "Arvegir, I am going to leave you here to guide this idiot son of mine until he knows how to be a proper tribemaster. Your first task will be to see that he has the wisdom of a true warrior whipped into his outlander hide. Make a man of him!" And he walked away, calling for his other men to follow. They could, he said as he left, take any pede of Ravard's tribe they could find if they needed
to replace their own.
By this time, Ryka had retreated under the veranda of one of the tents where several of the tribal women and their children were grouped. Junial, the baker's wife from Breccia, was among them. None of them said a word, but Junial slipped a hand about her shoulders and squeezed.
Ryka stared at Arvegir as the light in the sky strengthened. He was an older man with a deeply lined face and scars on his arms and hands that spoke of past battles. The look he now gave Ravard was one of utter contempt and burning resentment.
Sand hells, Ryka thought, Ravard is in real trouble. And where does that leave me?
Arvegir snarled, "Your withering foolishness cost me my best pede and three slaves! Not to mention having to stay in your bleeding camp. You displeased the dune god and his anger has killed our dunesmen. Now I have to live under his sway because of you, sandblast your weeping hide. Get up and let's get this done, you salted bastard."
Ravard stood and walked toward the punishment stone. Within moments word of his sentence had spread through the tribe, and the tribesmen gravitated to the edge of the camp, the place where Kaneth had stood up to Ravard and prevented the cutting of a slave. Ryka stayed where she was with Junial.
"Have you seen Uthardim? Or Elmar?" she asked the older woman, desperate to know.
"They escaped."
"Are you positive?"
"Yes. One of the others saw them go. Kher Ravard tried to stop them, but later he came back walking, alone and without the pede, so the two of them must have made it."
Ryka drew in a deep breath that was nine parts relief and one part fury. Damn the two of them.
"Why didn't you escape?" Junial asked.
"I was caught up in the landslip. By the time I reached the meeting place, everyone had gone." Kaneth… how could you? "What about you?"
Junial shrugged. "The way the wind decides, I suppose. One of the redmen took me to his pallet. One of them fellows of Davim's, not our lot. The spitless bastard. First time it's happened and it had to be last night. I couldn't get away. My rotten bleeding luck, I suppose. At least I'll be here for your babe's birth. The wind blows both good and ill. What do you reckon they'll do with the slaves they nabbed trying to escape?"