The Cerulean Storm

by Denning, Troy

  over!”

  Still pulling on the rope, the mul shuffled across Patch’s spine. Neeva did the same, and they crossed. The giant leaned back toward the cliff. They threw themselves over his collarbone and narrowly avoided being crushed as he slammed into the rock wall.

  Patch kept his back against the cliff, his rasping chokes echoing down the canyon. He raised one hand toward each of his tormenters.

  Rikus could not see what Neeva was doing, but the mul tried to draw his dagger. He found the hilt tied into place beneath his harness. The giant’s fingers encircled his body. Rikus grabbed the rope with both hands and pulled, kicking at the enormous hand with both feet. He almost slipped free, then Patch caught his legs. The titan squeezed, filling Rikus’s knees and hips with agony.

  The choking giant had already grown very weak, and the torment was not as bad as it might have been. None of Rikus’s thick mul bones cracked, and he did not even feel anything pop out of socket. Deciding he could bear the pain until Patch fell unconscious, the warrior braced himself against the titan’s thumb and index finger, concentrating his efforts on keeping himself from slipping deeper into the huge fist.

  The mul peered around the giant’s gullet and caught a glimpse of Neeva. Somehow, she had braced her feet against the back of the hand and had wrapped both her arms around the titan’s little finger. She was pulling it back against the joint, though Rikus suspected she had little chance of snapping it.

  A series of deep, racking coughs shook the giant’s torso. He tried to jerk Rikus and Neeva away from his throat. They were still connected to the rope, and he succeeded only in drawing it tighter. Patch began to sway, then dropped to his knees.

  Cheering madly, more than a dozen dwarves began hacking at the giant’s thighs.

  A long convulsion ran through Patch’s body, then his hands opened, and he pitched forward. His face slammed into the gorge wall, leaving his killers dangling from the rope around his neck.

  Rikus and Neeva pulled themselves up the rope to Patch’s collarbone, where they freed themselves from their harnesses. They tied the ends of the cord together so the garotte would not loosen before it had done its work completely, then they slid down the unconscious giant’s back. Their feet had barely touched the ground before Neeva was yelling for Sult to report.

  “Here, Commander.” A grizzled dwarf stepped forward, wading through a river of blood that was pouring from a wound in Patch’s thigh. He had a weather-lined face and a thin, crooked nose that looked as though it had been broken a dozen times. “Fifteen survivors for the Granite Company.”

  “Never mind that,” Neeva replied. “How many giants did you kill in this canyon?”

  “One, aside from this one,” the dwarf replied. “The fourth one stayed at the farm to fight the windsinger.”

  With a curse, Neeva turned and started down the dark gorge at a sprint.

  From his hiding place on the butte, Rkard saw Magnus run out of the faro orchard below Rasda’s Wall. The windsinger looked utterly exhausted, stumbling over rocks and flailing his massive arms as he tried to retain his balance. He veered away from the four giants who had died during the day and raced for the far end of the valley.

  A series of thudding footsteps echoed behind him. A single giant appeared from behind Rasda’s Wall, carrying a stone he had torn from the ridge. The titan looked as exhausted as Magnus. He had two jagged cuts on his brow, and his body was covered with huge bruises so dark Rkard could see them even in the pale light of the moons.

  The marks were evidence of the terrific brawl to which the young mul had been listening until just a few seconds ago. After the four surviving giants had followed Kled’s militia toward Pauper’s Hope, a terrible storm of whirling winds and rumbling thunder had erupted behind Rasda’s Wall. The din had been answered by the clatter of breaking stones and angry bellows. A moment later, most of the titans’ voices had begun to grow more distant and muffled, and Rkard had guessed they were chasing the militia into the mountains. One brute had stayed behind, however, and the sounds of battle had continued to rage for a long time.

  Now, it was finally clear who had won. As Rkard watched, the giant braced himself and hurled his stone. The rock glanced off the windsinger’s shoulder and tumbled away. Magnus dropped in midstride, tumbling head over heels for the length of a dozen strides. He finally came to a rest flat on his back, with his head toward his attacker.

  Rkard almost forgot himself and cried out, but at the last moment managed to choke his scream into a strangled croak, “Magnus!”

  The windsinger lay motionless for a moment, and Rkard worried that the stone had killed him. Then Magnus raised his head and, with a great deal of effort, pushed himself into a sitting position. The arm that had been hit by the boulder hung limply at his side, and he hardly seemed conscious of the giant’s heavy footsteps behind him.

  “Get up, Magnus,” Rkard whispered. He knew Magnus could sometimes hear messages carried on the wind. Since a gentle breeze was blowing down the butte, the boy hoped his words would reach the windsinger’s funny-looking ears. “The giant’s coming.”

  Magnus continued to sit motionless, and the titan stopped behind him. Rkard touched his fingers to the crimson sun on his forehead and felt a warm, tingly sensation running through his arm. Most people assumed the red disk to be a tattoo, but it was actually the sun-mark, a birthmark that served as his mystical connection to the sun during times of darkness.

  The windsinger suddenly pricked up his big ears and glanced toward the butte. He shook his head and rolled over onto his hands and knees. Rkard breathed a sigh of relief, thankful the windsinger had spared him the necessity of deciding whether or not to cast his spell. After Jo’orsh and Sa’ram had appeared to him, his father had told him that he must never risk his life, not even if it meant saving the entire militia—or his own parents. His father had said more than a few lives depended on his destiny, and that if he got himself killed, everyone on Athas would die with him.

  Rkard didn’t like what his father had said. And he thought his mother probably didn’t either, though she had not told him as much. After that nasty head—Wyan—had arrived with the Asticles signet, and everyone had decided that it was time to kill the Dragon, she had told him to think about his decisions very carefully. She had said he should never do anything dangerous unless he had a good chance of succeeding, and even then he had to think of a way to escape first.

  In the valley below, the giant kicked his foot into Magnus’s ribs. The windsinger arced out over the valley, crashing into a jumble of sharp stones thirty paces away. The impact would have killed a human, and probably even a mul, but not Magnus. He just rolled across the rocky ground and tried to pick himself up again.

  This time, he did not succeed.

  The giant grabbed a pointed stone as large as a kank. Rkard could not decide what to do. Neither of his parents would want him to cast his spell now. The worst thing he could do to the titan was blind him for a few moments, and then the brute would probably come to hunt him and Sadira down. But the thought of standing by while the giant smashed Magnus gave the boy a sick feeling in his stomach.

  The titan stepped toward Magnus.

  Rkard slipped behind his boulder and looked down at Sadira. The sorceress lay motionless on the ground, her amber hair glowing softly in the moonlight, and her almond-shaped eyes closed tight. Her chest heaved as though she were sobbing, and the way her fingers fluttered reminded the boy of how they moved when she cast a spell.

  Rkard kneeled at her side and shook her shoulder. “The giant’s going to kill Magnus,” he said. “Wake up!”

  The sorceress’s chest continued to heave, and she showed no sign of stirring.

  “What should I do?” he asked.

  Sadira’s head rolled to one side, but she did not answer.

  “Okay, I’ll decide myself,” the boy answered. “What would Rikus do?”

  Rkard knew instantly that his hero would not stand by while a giant killed a
friend. Rikus would do whatever he could, even if it meant he might die himself. That was why everybody liked him so much.

  The young mul stepped past Sadira and clambered to the top of the boulder. The giant was standing over Magnus, just raising the stone to slay the unconscious windsinger.

  “Hey, ugly!” he yelled.

  The breeze carried Rkard’s voice across the valley as though the boy were a giant himself, bouncing it off the rocky scarps on the other side. The titan pulled the heavy stone back to his chest and looked toward the echo first.

  “Who’s that?” he called, searching the barren slopes at the base of the Ringing Mountains.

  “Over here on the butte, you dumb hairy giant!” Rkard yelled.

  As he spoke, the young mul pressed his fingers to his sun-mark. Again, he felt a warm tingle descending through his arm. Had it been daylight, he would have pointed his hand toward the crimson sun instead of touching it to his forehead. The feeling in his arm would have been excruciatingly hot rather than merely warm, but he was far from glad to avoid that pain. His spell would have been much stronger during the day, perhaps strong enough to do more than merely distract the giant.

  After searching the slope of the butte for a few moments, the giant’s dark eyes finally settled on Rkard’s small form. “I’m not as dumb as you,” he said, squinting at the boy. “I know better than to make fun of—”

  Rkard pointed his hand at the giant’s face and spoke a mystic syllable.

  A crimson ball formed around the giant’s head. The titan screamed and dropped his stone, almost crushing his own foot. He raised his hands to his face and began stumbling about, screeching as though his flesh were melting.

  Rkard knew that the giant’s reaction was more fear than pain. While the crimson sphere might look fiery and even feel hot for a brief moment, it was far from a searing ball of flame. The spell consisted entirely of red light, shaped into a bright orb with flickering tails that looked like fire. His father had taught it to him so he could honor the sun on days when blowing sand obscured the real thing, and because it served as a good distress signal.

  Anticipating the giant’s reaction when he realized the true nature of the spell, Rkard jumped off his boulder and threw Sadira’s limp body over his shoulders. Though the sorceress was much larger than he was, he had no trouble carrying her up the steep slope. As a young mul, he was already as strong as most humans. Besides, she did not weigh much more than the huge water pails his mother made him fetch from the village well every day.

  By the time the young mul was halfway up the butte, the giant’s screams had ceased. Rkard paused to look back and saw his spell rising over the valley, casting an eerie orange glow onto the rocky ground. Once it was high enough, the sphere would stop and hang motionless in the sky, just like a miniature sun.

  Now that his head was no longer engulfed in the bright light, the giant had begun to stumble toward the butte. He was rubbing his eyes with one hand and holding the other out before him. The titan had left Magnus where he had fallen, motionless but out of danger for now.

  “Papa’s going to be angry when he sees this,” Rkard said, continuing his climb.

  The boy did not even consider trying to deceive his father, for he had grown up with the certain knowledge that the sun would always bring the truth to light.

  As Rkard reached the summit of the bluff, he heard stones clattering below as the giant clambered up the base. The young mul slipped behind the crest of the butte and onto a narrow ledge that overlooked the road to Tyr’s iron mine.

  “Come back, you little varl!” thundered the giant. “Don’t hide—it’ll only make me madder!”

  Rkard pushed Sadira into the deep crevice that he had selected earlier as a good hiding place, then quickly stacked boulders over the entrance to conceal it. By the time he finished, the giant was so close that his heavy steps were shaking rocks off the ridge overhead. Knowing that the angry titan could easily tear the top of the butte apart, the boy decided to lure his pursuer away from Sadira. He rushed along the ledge until it ended, then scrambled up a rift and onto the top of the butte.

  Rkard found himself standing at the giant’s feet. Wishing that he were strong enough to cast more than one spell a day, he swallowed and drew his weapon. The glow of his sun-spell sent glimmers of red light twinkling along the edge of his sword’s obsidian blade.

  “What are you going to do with that thorn?” demanded the giant. “Stick me in the toe when I step on you?”

  Rkard stepped forward, raising his weapon. He focused all his attention on keeping his blade from shaking and craned his neck upward to meet the giant’s gaze. His mother had always told him that a show of confidence would do more than ten blows to defeat a powerful enemy, and if ever there had been a time he hoped she was right, it was now.

  “Leave me alone—and Magnus, too,” Rkard said, imagining that it was Rikus and not himself speaking. Without taking his eyes off the giant, he pointed his sword toward the edge of the cliff. “Go away, or I’ll cut off your foot and push you over the cliff.”

  The giant’s big belly shook with laughter—until he looked toward the edge of the cliff, where Rkard was pointing. Then the titan’s huge mouth fell open and his eyes widened in surprise.

  “You?” the brute gasped.

  “Yes, me,” Rkard replied. He stepped forward and poked the giant’s yellow-nailed toe with his sword.

  “Now, listen,” the boy ordered. “What you want isn’t in Tyr—and even if it was, you couldn’t have it.” Rkard pointed his sword down the hill, then added, “Now go home and tell all the other giants what I said.”

  The giant looked toward the cliff edge again, then licked his lips as if uncertain of what to do. “I can’t go back without the Oracle,” he said, his tone more pleading than insistent. “We need its magic to make us smart again! Patch is the smartest one of us left, and he’s getting dumber all the time!”

  Rkard considered this. Even at his young age, he understood that without a smart leader, any community would collapse into disorder. “Maybe you can have the Dark Lens back after we’re through with it,” the boy suggested.

  Some of the tension drained from the giant’s huge face, and he looked directly at Rkard again. “How long will you keep our Oracle?”

  The boy paused before answering. In his short life, the only journey he had ever made was from Kled to Tyr, and he could not imagine how much farther away the village of Samarah must be. “We’ll be gone a long time—a hundred years,” he answered. Having lived all his life among dwarves, who commonly lived three times that long, the guess did not seem unreasonable to the young mul. “Maybe even longer.”

  The giant shook his head stubbornly. “No! We’ll be dumber than kanks by then!”

  Rkard raised his sword, expecting the brute to stomp him, and tried to look confident. The attack never came. Instead, a deep voice behind him said, “Then you will learn to live like kanks!”

  Rkard spun around and found two giant-sized heads peering over the top of the cliff—though it may have been an exaggeration to call them heads. One had a hideous, misshapen skull with a sloped brow and gnarled cheekbones, while the other one’s neck ended in a knobby stump just above the shoulders. Regardless of whether they had skulls or not, pairs of orange embers burned where their eyes should have been, and coarse masses of tangled beard dangled from where their chins had once hung.

  Though Rkard could not see the bodies hidden beneath the cliff edge, he knew they were little more than huge skeletal lumps, warped into shapes scarcely recognizable as manlike. The legs were gnarled masses with knotted balls for feet, and the thighs, knees, and calves were all curled together.

  “Jo’orsh! Sa’ram!” Rkard gasped. They were the last dwarven knights, who had become banshees after they had disavowed their life focus and had died without killing Borys. The young mul had not seen the pair since they had returned his namesake’s belt and crown to him, then told him that he would slay the Dragon.
“You’ve come back!”

  “We never left,” said the one with the lumpy skull, Jo’orsh.

  The other banshee focused his floating eyes on the giant. We have let you giants use the Dark Lens for too long. Rkard heard the words inside his head, as if a mindbender were speaking them. You have all grown weak and foolish. It is time you learned to live without it.

  The giant gasped, and a rancid-smelling wind washed over Rkard. “We can’t!” the brute cried.

  “You can and you must,” retorted Jo’orsh.

  Do as the boy commanded, added Sa’ram. Return to Mytilene and tell the others to think of the Dark Lens no more. We have taken it back, and you must learn to live without it—or perish.

  Rkard looked back up at the giant. The brute had a stunned and dismal expression on his face, as if he had just been cast out of his home village.

  “And know for every giant your tribe sends to seek the Lens, the tribe shall suffer a century of barbarism,” said Jo’orsh. “Now go!”

  The banshee’s voice broke over the giant like a thunderclap, sending him stumbling down the hill backward. He took five huge steps before he turned around and scurried into the valley, giving Magnus a wide berth.

  Once the giant was gone, Rkard’s arms and legs started to tremble. He tried to sheathe his sword, discovered he couldn’t hold it steady enough, and gave up.

  “Thanks for saving me.” He could not bring himself to face the banshees again, not when he felt so frightened and foolish. “Are you as angry as my father will be?”

  Why should we be angry—or your father, for that matter? Sa’ram asked.

  “Because I disobeyed him.” Rkard kept his eyes fixed on the ground. “I nearly got killed.”

  “You saved a friend,” countered Jo’orsh. “That was very brave, and your father won’t punish you for it.”

  Rkard shook his head. “I took a foolish chance,” he said. “And when I did that, I risked all of Athas.”

  Before you can save Athas, you will have to risk it, said Sa’ram. You mustn’t be afraid to do that—just as you weren’t afraid to endanger yourself to save your friend.