Hammer of the Earth

by Susan Krinard

  “They have returned,” Nyx said, her voice ragged with relief.

  Rhenna disguised her own emotions, but her heart pounded as her Amazi mare raced down the hill and across the flat. Indistinct shapes, shimmering with waves of heat, became two long-legged sand horses with humans perched atop their steeply sloping backs. Rhenna had her waterskin in hand by the time she reached Cian and Tahvo.

  Her impatient questions died in her throat when she saw Tahvo’s drawn, exhausted face and the makeshift bandage tied around Cian’s forearm. She dismounted and thrust the waterskin at Tahvo, ignoring the irritable snap of the sand horse’s broad yellow teeth. Tahvo clutched the skin and drank, hands trembling.

  Nyx was at Cian’s side by the time Tahvo had finished. His mount sank to its knees with a groan, and Nyx helped him to the ground.

  “You’re injured,” she accused.

  Cian met Rhenna’s eyes over Nyx’s head. “Not badly,” he said. “But Tahvo is very tired. We must get her back to camp.”

  Madele arrived, along with several of her warriors. She addressed Nyx.

  “Madele asks how you received these injuries,” Nyx said. “And I ask why you left without a word of explanation.”

  Cian sighed and rubbed the dirt from his face. “The thing you must know now is that we are not alone in this desert. Our enemies have found us.”

  “Who?” Rhenna asked.

  “The High Priest’s soldiers. Two dozen attacked us, but there may be more.”

  Nyx translated for Madele, who spoke sharply to her followers. Two kicked their mounts into a run back to the City. The rest closed in around the sand horses, faces hard and javelins at the ready.

  Rhenna rode between Cian and Tahvo, her nose full of the heavy odors of beasts, dried blood and human sweat. “I am glad to see you survived,” she said dryly to Cian, handing him her waterskin. “How did you manage it?”

  He laughed. “With great difficulty.” He drained the skin. “And with the help of my ancestors.”

  Rhenna arched a brow but said no more until they had reached the Amazi encampment. Tribesmen, women and children paused in their work to stare and mutter. Warriors gathered in agitated clumps. The sand horses ambled as far as the elders’ tents at the center of the City, knelt to deposit their riders and set off at a swinging lope for the waterhole.

  The elder Zamra emerged from the central tent and bowed to Cian. Nyx conveyed her invitation to take refreshment, which Cian gratefully accepted. Madele ushered him inside, while Rhenna and Nyx supported Tahvo between them.

  Tahvo disregarded Rhenna’s advice that she rest and insisted on looking after Cian’s arm, asking the Imaziren for whatever herbs and medicines they used among themselves. A messenger ran off to fetch the tribal healer. Women brought fresh water in deep bronze bowls and built a malodorous fire of cattle dung outside the tent.

  Consulting with the healer, Tahvo prepared an acrid paste of dried desert plants and unwrapped Cian’s arm. His skin was raw and seeping, torn in a hundred places as if by countless tiny claws and teeth.

  Rhenna hissed in sympathy. “The soldiers did this?” she asked.

  Tahvo and Cian exchanged glances. “Not the soldiers,” he said. “We found the original prison of the Stone.”

  The tent fell into a strained silence as Cian related how he and Tahvo had let the sand horses carry them into the desert, how they had found the crater of bones and faced the Karchedonian troops in a desperate fight for their lives. Cian’s voice cracked when he described reaching into the ground to summon the powers of Earth and his Ailuri ancestors. Rhenna tried to imagine the bones rising to walk, lifting long-abandoned swords to do battle with men as fearless as the dead themselves.

  “After the soldiers had fallen,” Cian said, “the bone-warriors turned on us. We escaped, and the ground swallowed them all.”

  “Your doing?” Rhenna asked.

  “I don’t know. There is still much about this I do not understand.”

  “You saw no soldiers on your return?”

  “None, but the ones who attacked had obviously been following us without being detected.”

  “If there are others near the City,” Nyx said, “Madele’s warriors will find them.” She cast Cian a stern look. “You never told us why you went alone. It was most foolish, Watcher.”

  “The sand horses spoke to us,” Tahvo said, tying off Cian’s bandage. “They had purpose in showing us these things.”

  “Why should such creatures seek your deaths?”

  “They knew we would not die.” Tahvo felt for Nyx’s arm and patted it reassuringly. “Perhaps they saw that Cian’s power would come to him again.”

  The elder broke in, commanding Nyx’s attention. “Zamra says that no man or woman of the tribe has dared approach the place of bones since the Stone was taken,” Nyx translated. “The sand horses set the Guardian a test, and he has passed it. Every resource of the tribe will be put at his disposal.”

  Cian bowed to the elder. “Give her my thanks.”

  “Anything the Guardian wishes, he may have,” Nyx said. “Now the elders desire that the Guardian remain with them while he recovers from his ordeal. Zamra’s daughter, Madele, will serve him with her own hands.” She hesitated. “The Guardian’s companions should return to their tents to rest while food and fresh clothing are prepared.”

  Cian flushed as if he understood exactly what the Imaziren wanted of him in return for their devotion. Rhenna glanced at Madele. The Amazi warrior gazed at Cian with an intensity that made the hair bristle at the back of Rhenna’s neck.

  She pushed aside her anger and helped Tahvo up. Cian rose to follow. Madele held him back with a firm touch on his arm.

  “Rhenna,” Cian said.

  She paused at the tent entrance. “You’re in good hands,” she said roughly. “I’ll look after Tahvo.” She pushed the flap aside and guided Tahvo into the cool evening air. Nyx stepped out after her.

  “Do not let him stay with them,” she said.

  Rhenna struggled to keep all expression from her face. “If your claim on him is as strong as you believe, you have nothing to fear.”

  “And you?” Nyx demanded. “You would give him to Madele?”

  “Are you not the one who urged me to set Cian free?”

  “Not so that you could surrender him to these people.”

  “Cian will be of no use to anyone if he can’t make his own decisions. I trust he will make the right one.” Rhenna softened her voice. “We have more urgent matters to consider now, Nyx. The Stone God’s soldiers are on our trail, and I doubt a single defeat will stop them.”

  “What would you have me do?”

  “Find out how soon we can continue on our journey and what provisions the Imaziren have made to watch for our enemies.”

  “They already have patrols sweeping the area of the City,” Nyx said. “You can be sure they will send warriors to scout ahead of any escort that accompanies us across the Great Desert.”

  “I wish to ride with the scouts.”

  “And I,” Tahvo said, reminding Rhenna that she, too, had a will of her own. “I failed to sense the soldiers’ approach before, but I will not make the same mistake again.”

  Nyx kicked at the sand. “Very well,” she said. “I’ll make arrangements with the senior warriors.” She set off at a fast walk. Rhenna and Tahvo returned to their tent, and Rhenna attempted to sleep while the camp hummed with activity through the long night.

  Before dawn the Imaziren had nearly completed preparations for a significant journey, breaking down tents and packing goat hide sacks of supplies. Several teams of scouts were assembled to precede the main column of fifty warriors, servants and elders who were to escort the Guardian and his companions to Nyx’s homeland in the South. The strongest horses were selected from among the impressive herd, and Rhenna chose her previous war mount, Tislit-n-unzar, to carry her again.

  By the time the sun rose, she was far out in the desert with Tahvo and five other wa
rriors—the women Cabh’a and Tamallat, and the males Berkan, Immeghar and Mezwar—riding ahead on the route the escort would follow. Though she could have pushed herself to keep up with the experienced desert riders, she was grateful that the Imaziren had set a more modest pace for Tahvo’s sake.

  Rhenna distracted herself through the long hours of monotonous landscape, dry mouth and burned skin by learning something of the Amazi language and teaching Hellenish to the Imaziren. Tahvo revealed to the Imaziren her spirit-born gift of tongues and joined Nyx in acting as interpreter. They conveyed to Rhenna the tribal names of the hardy plants and beasts that survived in the seemingly barren land, and patiently translated Rhenna’s replies.

  Pretty, light-haired Cabh’a, and Immeghar, a giant of deceptive grace, proved to be willing teachers and eager pupils. Slender Tamallat and handsome Mezwar spent most of their time riding alone together, a young man and woman who could think of little but each other. Rhenna pretended not to notice.

  No sign of enemies appeared by light or darkness. It seemed that the Karchedonian soldiers had vanished. Rhenna didn’t allow herself to believe it. Each day, when the outriders found shade in a stand of thorn-trees or an isolated cluster of boulders, Immeghar displayed his prowess with the javelin and taught Rhenna how to hold the light spear to best effect. She practiced the Imaziren knife-fighting techniques with Berkan, carefully observing the maneuvers she had first encountered in her duel with Madele.

  She saw little of the warrior leader, Nyx or Cian. That was exactly how she wanted it. Occasionally one of the Imaziren would fall back to the main party to monitor their progress, but the scouts had little to report save that a small herd of sand horses were trailing behind the entourage, lending their blessing to the endeavor.

  On the seventh day Tamallat and Mezwar returned from their patrol with grim expressions and haunted eyes. Tahvo listened to their clipped conversation with their fellow Imaziren and dropped back to ride with Rhenna, her own face drawn with worry.

  “They say the water is gone,” she said.

  “What water, Tahvo?”

  “The amda they expected to find within a few hours’ ride. They say—” She broke off as Cabh’a joined them. The young woman spoke, and Tahvo nodded. “She says this should not be possible. It is a spring they have used for generations, always a reliable source of water and grazing for the animals. She asks us to come.” Tahvo kicked her pony into a trot, and Rhenna followed.

  Three hours later, as the sun began its afternoon descent, they reached the amda. There was no evidence that it had once been green, or that the darker depression in its center had been filled with cool water. A few brittle wisps of what might once have been grass blew around the horses’ feet, and the shriveled sticks of trees, bare of their fanlike sweeps of leaves, quivered in the hot breeze.

  Tahvo dismounted, walked to the edge of the darker sand and sat down, hands resting on crossed legs. The warriors stood in bleak silence with their thirsty horses.

  Rhenna crouched beside Tahvo. “What is it?”

  Tahvo rocked, muttering under her breath. “This was not meant to be,” she said. “It is unnatural. The work of evil.”

  “The Karchedonians,” Rhenna said.

  Tahvo took a handful of sand and squeezed it in her fingers. The last particles of moisture seeped into her palm. “Not soldiers,” she said. “Not priests. Someone else…”

  The vision took her without warning or constraint. She found herself walking in the forests of the North beside a rushing stream, her sight restored, listening to the chatter of birds as she had done a thousand times in her youth. She could see blue sky between the feathery branches of pine and fir, count each stone beneath the stream’s clear water. But the beauty of the Samah lands was distorted by a sense of wrongness, a haze of red that stretched from tree to tree like a veil of firelit fog.

  A man came out of the wood to walk beside her. He was nearly her height, and his hair, like hers, was silver.

  “Sister,” he said. “How long has it been?”

  Tahvo stopped, but the man caught her arm and forced her to continue. “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “Because I long to see my kin,” he said. “I must remember what was stolen from me.”

  “You are dead,” Tahvo whispered.

  “Am I?” He laughed. “Do the dead have names?”

  Tahvo shivered. “Who are you?”

  “I am your dear brother, Urho.” He swung her toward him and kissed her hard on the lips. The touch seemed to suck all the moisture from Tahvo’s mouth, coating her tongue with dust. She gasped as the stream went dry and the leaves and needles on every tree and bush shriveled to brown skeletons. Her own bones rattled inside the desiccated husk of her body.

  “I will not let you go,” Urho said. “Not until you give me what is mine.” He grabbed her arms and shook her, shook and shook until her clothing and then her skin fell away in brittle strips that clattered and crunched under her fleshless feet….

  Warm, firm hands snatched Tahvo free of the nightmare. Murmuring senseless words of admonishment and comfort, Rhenna cradled Tahvo’s head and helped her sit up.

  “A vision?” she demanded.

  Tahvo nodded.

  “Who is Urho?”

  Tahvo reached for the waterskin hung at her belt, fumbled with the plug and lifted it to her mouth with trembling hands. Rhenna steadied the skin until Tahvo had eased her terrible thirst.

  “Urho,” Tahvo said, tasting the horror of the name. “He is my brother.”

  “Your brother?”

  “He died when we were born. He came before me, but he did not survive his birth.”

  “You spoke to him as if he were alive.”

  “He came to me in dreams when I was young. He came again in Karchedon.” She rubbed at the grit trapped behind her eyelids. “I think he is real. I think he was here, in this place.”

  “How is this possible?”

  Tahvo tested the strength of her legs. “I do not know.”

  She heard the rustle of sand as one of the soft-footed Imaziren arrived. “We must report to the elders,” Cabh’a said, her voice thick with strain. “Berkan will ride back to warn them that the amda has gone dry and there is no water or grazing for the horses.” Tahvo felt the warrior’s curious stare. “Are you well, Healer?”

  “Yes. What would you have us do?”

  “There is another amda two days’ ride south of this one. If we are careful with our rations, we can reach it without endangering the horses. Would you come with us, or return with Berkan?”

  Tahvo passed the Amazi warrior’s question to Rhenna, who gave an unequivocal answer. Tahvo agreed. If the next amda was unaltered, Tahvo would have a means of comparing the dead with the living. But if the next spring had also been touched by magic…

  She quelled that unpleasant thought and let Rhenna help her mount again. The Imaziren rode quietly, uneasy and alert, no longer singing or exchanging jests as they had done before. Rhenna was equally tense. Tahvo breathed shallowly and listened for the distant clank of metal or the scrape of bones.

  Tahvo knew the second amda was dry before she heard Immeghar’s shout of anger and despair. The air was leached of moisture. Her pony came to a halt and nosed the sand as if he hoped to find some remnant of fodder.

  “We will remain here until the elders and the Guardian reach us,” Cabh’a said. “We cannot continue until we know what is to be done.”

  “This is the work of sorcery,” Immeghar said.

  Tahvo slid from the pony’s back and walked through the crackling stumps of dead grass to the smooth sand where water had stood. She felt the ground with the palms of her hands, and her fingers brushed a mark formed of several oval hollows, a single large one surrounded by five smaller depressions arranged in a familiar pattern.

  “A track,” Rhenna said behind her. “It looks like…like Cian’s.”

  The print of a great cat, here in the middle of the desert. “Cian is behind u
s,” Tahvo said. “The Imaziren have not seen another Ailu.”

  Rhenna knelt, her fingers touching Tahvo’s as she traced the print. “Perhaps Cian can tell us more when he comes. Rest, Tahvo. We may need your wisdom later.” She led Tahvo to the shade of a sand hill, spread a blanket and pressed a fistful of dried fruit into Tahvo’s hands.

  Tahvo dozed as the day’s heat waned and the shadows grew long. She, Rhenna and the four Imaziren huddled close in the night, enduring the plunge of temperature without the comfort of a fire. Halfway through the next morning, Tahvo heard the whoops of approaching warriors and smelled the scent of many people and horses.

  She and Rhenna were left alone as the scouts met with the elders. Cian and Nyx found their way to their friends and shared their half-empty waterskins. The feelings between Cian and Rhenna were almost thick enough for Tahvo to touch.

  “Do you know what has caused this drought, Tahvo?” Cian asked. “The Imaziren claim that it must be sorcery.”

  “I fear they are right.”

  “Stone priests traveling with the soldiers?”

  “Tahvo found something,” Rhenna said. “You should see it, Cian.”

  “I will try to learn what the elders are saying,” Nyx offered. The three of them left, and Tahvo listened to the sharp, anxious voices of the Imaziren as they speculated on the evil that had been done in the very heart of their land.

  Cian and Rhenna returned first. Cian sat down heavily beside Tahvo, and she could feel his agitation. Neither he nor Rhenna spoke of the cat print. An uncomfortable time later Nyx arrived with Madele.

  “The elders are troubled by these signs,” Madele said as Nyx translated. “Such a thing has never happened in living memory. Some of the warriors believe that our aid of the Guardian has brought some sorcerer’s wrath upon us, and that more wickedness will come if we do not turn back.”

  “We cannot go back,” Rhenna said. “Cian and I will speak to the elders—”

  “It is true,” Tahvo said. “Our enemies wish to hinder us and make our allies fear to help us.” She drew a shuddering breath. “This is the work of the Stone God’s servants.”

  “Then what are we to do?” Madele asked her. “We can kill their warriors, but we have no magic to counter sorcery.”