The Storm Witch

by Violette Malan

  “No bet,” he answered in the same voice.

  Anything louder than the nightwatch whisper might well have been heard, Parno thought, for the ship around them had now fallen ee rily silent. Even the children had ceased their fidgeting, and all that could be heard were the sounds of the stays creaking as the wind sang through them, a light slap as small wavelets touched against the hulls. A sail flapped once and was still. Suddenly the air seemed oppressively hot and damp, and the pressure shifted.

  Dhulyn nudged him with her elbow, pointing with her chin. Darlara and Malfin stood each with one hand on the rail, their free hands linked, their eyes open and fixed on the twin captains opposite them. They and all the crew that Parno could see had similar expressions. Not, he was glad to note, the empty-eyed look he’d seen once or twice before when people shared their mental spaces with other creatures, but more like the look of thoughtful concentration that he had seen on the faces of people using their Mark to Find or Mend.

  Now and again an emotion flickered across someone’s expression, shown by a frown here, a lifted eyebrow there. As the communication continued, there were fewer and fewer smiles.

  #Impatience# #Annoyance# #AngerFear#

  Parno didn’t flinch this time, though he felt himself frown in response to the momentarily glimpsed emotions.

  “They communicate simultaneously, all of them at once,” Dhulyn said, this time in a more normal voice, as if she felt the same need that he did to disturb the silence.

  “It’s certainly faster,” he replied, hoping that he’d kept the longing and eagerness out of his voice.

  She nodded, showing him the ghost of her smile. “Do you think there’s time for us to—no, here they come.”

  It was most obvious in the children. Everyone around them relaxed, and took deep breaths, though they hadn’t been noticeably tense. Some of the crew shrugged, and resumed whatever tasks the sighting of the Skydancer had interrupted, those on watch back to their posts, parents and minders hurrying to rejoin the younger children. There were looks exchanged, some frightened, some still frowning, a few speculative.

  Parno waited, and when Darlara turned from the rail, she looked, as he’d expected, to him. She smiled, but with a small twist to her mouth, as if her news were mixed.

  “No exchange?” he asked her, guessing what the main concern would be.

  “Oh, no. That’ll go as planned.”

  “And what won’t?” Dhulyn said.

  Darlara smoothed stray hairs back from her face and sighed. “Skydancers say the Mortaxa build their ship still, don’t wait for us as agreed.”

  “And there have been waterspouts in the spawning grounds,” Malfin added.

  “Though no deaths, thank the Caids, since it’s the wrong time of year.” Dar gave Parno a sidelong look.

  “Maybe warning us, showing us what they could do,” Malfin said.

  “Waterspouts?” Parno wasn’t sure he’d heard the word before.

  “Great swirling columns of water that rise up out of the ocean and then disappear again.”

  Parno turned to Dhulyn, watched her gray eyes go ice-cold as comprehension dawned. “Tornadoes,” she said, her voice hard. “At sea, the waters would rise,” she added. Her normally pale skin had whitened even further, and Parno wondered if she were actually about to faint.

  “Skydancers say the time to negotiate has passed,” Malfin said. He turned to put the sudden wind at his back. If possible, the air seemed even hotter than before.

  “Cursed Mortaxa never meant to negotiate in the first place,” Darlara said. “Sent us on an errand to keep us quiet and out of the way.”

  “Maybe so.” Malfin shrugged. “But this needs more thought. We’ve the Paledyn now, after all. Surely the Mortaxa’ll have to meet with us.”

  “Why? Heard what the Skydancers said. Cursed Mortaxa don’t care what happens to any of us.”

  But Dhulyn had drawn a little apart, no longer listening. “You don’t need us,” she said, her rough silk voice gone hollow. “We don’t have to be here.” She had that stone look again. She looked at Parno. “They didn’t need us.”

  “What of it? It’s a bother, no doubt, but we have to be somewhere, what difference where?” Was she still worrying about that hearing back in Lesonika? Or, he wondered as another idea took form, was she now worried about the consequences of his Pod sense?

  “You don’t understand.” She took him by the upper arms as if she were about to shake him. “We didn’t have to be here. We didn’t have to come!”

  It took Parno a second to realize the Dhulyn was shouting, the noise of the wind had risen so high.

  Then another voice was shouting, and everyone was looking up to Devin in the Racha’s nest, and looking to the east in response to his signal.

  There, on the horizon, a narrow band of white sky showed under the blackening cloud that stretched above it, hard-edged as a sword blade. Across that narrow band of whiteness, a thin black thread seemed to join the cloud to the sea.

  A bell began to ring on deck, loud enough even to be heard over the noise of the wind.

  “Get below.” Dhulyn didn’t wait for Parno to obey her, she took him by the arm and shoved him toward the nearest open hatch. She didn’t want him in the cabin; even that was too close to the rail for comfort. If there remained any way to avoid what she’d Seen coming, this would be her only chance.

  “I can help.”

  “You know nothing about sailing and less about storms at sea.” Her skin dimpled at the sudden drop in temperature as the air pressure plummeted.

  “The Crayx can help me.”

  “Gone,” Darlara was shouting into the terrible noise. “Can’t risk staying here. Even if the spout doesn’t get them, they could be smashed against the ships.”

  Just what Darlara had told her on that first day. The Crayx couldn’t help them in a bad storm.

  The main and top foresails were being hoisted, despite the force of the wind that threatened to split them, in an attempt to use that very wind to separate the two ships as quickly as possible.

  “No exchange after all,” Dhulyn said, though no one heard her.

  The thread of dark color between the roof of cloud and the sea was thicker now. The waterspout was changing its shape with every moment, like a tremendous snake joining sky and sea. It began to widen at the top where it met the cloud, and spread out at the bottom like the base of a candlestick.

  Now the same crew who had hoisted the foresails were reefing them—not tidily as they had always done before, but simply dumping them to the deck and shoving them out of the way. The ship had turned, and they would run with the sea.

  Dhulyn’s ears popped with the change of air pressure and suddenly she could hear the waterspout itself, a wild, shrill, rustling noise sweeping toward them, the gray waves white with foam under the twirling, swaying, monstrous pillar that came nearer and nearer, dancing across the troubled water.

  Out of the corner of her eye Dhulyn saw someone miss a toehold in the rigging and go overboard—between water and wind she could not see who it was. Parno had moved over to the hatch, but was only helping to fasten it down.

  A deafening CRACK to starboard, as two of the Skydancer masts broke off short, one after another. Almost in the same moment the waterspout was upon her, seeming at once to suck her up into itself as pieces fell.

  As the Wavetreader was flung up on her beam ends, Dhulyn fell sideways, grabbing as if by instinct at the rope that caught her across the face. She wrapped her arm around it, and, turning her face into the wind, looked for another place to anchor herself—or for someone else to grab on to.

  “Parno!” He could not possibly hear her, but he was looking her way, grinning like a madman. My soul, she mouthed.

  He began to make his way up the slanting deck toward her, half walking, half climbing. Dhulyn braced her feet, and stretched out her arm until her shoulder cracked, as he reached for her hand. He turned his foot on what looked like someone’s arm
sticking out from under a fold of sail, and was sliding away from her as the wave hit and swept him overboard.

  Dhulyn was screaming as she unwrapped her arm from the anchoring rope, screaming as she used it to swing herself over the rail and let go. Screaming as she hit the water and the breath was knocked from her lungs.

  In Battle and in Death.

  Seven

  POUNDING. STEADY, RHYTHMIC. Not a heartbeat. The heart didn’t pound so slowly. Not even with drugs. And it was softer than a heart, more distant. After a while, Dhulyn Wolfshead grew aware that movement had stopped. She tried to push that awareness away, to sink back into the black, but even that effort only helped her come more completely to herself.

  She lifted her head.

  Immediately, the world around her rose and fell, as if she still tossed on the waves of the Long Ocean. She turned her head to one side and was sick, the taste of salt water making her shudder as it tore itself out of her throat.

  She laid her head back on her outstretched arm, blinking, her lashes stuck together with salt. Her hand shook as she raised it to her mouth, her arm weighted with fatigue. She did not have enough saliva to spit on her fingers, realized that was a good thing when she remembered she’d just vomited, and rubbed at her lashes with the back of her wrist instead. No change. Was she blind, or was it just darkness? She felt the grit of sand moving under her shoulder, brushed some off her face. She pushed, inching herself backward with arms and legs so heavy they seemed to belong to someone else. Her weakness terrified her, but then the darkness drew her down once more.

  When Dhulyn woke again, the sun was just clearing the horizon, properly in the west, she noted, as her sense of direction, tortured by constant movement during the hours—days?—in the water, reasserted itself. She raised her head, pushed herself to sit upright, and looked down, frowning, as her hand touched something damp. Her nose wrinkled, and she scrubbed the hand as vigorously as she could—which wasn’t very—in a cleaner patch of sand. Apparently, she hadn’t pushed herself as far from the small pool of muck and seawater she’d vomited during the night as she’d thought.

  “If this is the afterlife, I’m not impressed.” Dhulyn winced and put her hand up to her throat, swallowed, and winced again. As swollen and rough as that time she’d had the fever in Medwain. And no sign of lemon or honey to soothe it.

  So much for calling for help. But it wasn’t help she wanted. Every muscle aching as though she’d had a beating, Dhulyn rolled over until she lay on her back, closed her eyes against the slanting light and took a deep breath in through her nose, letting it out through her mouth. On the third repetition she began to repeat the words of her personal Shora, the triggering phrase which would enhance her concentration, her ability to focus on the Shora she wanted to use.

  But it wouldn’t matter which one she used. She already knew what any of the Hunter Shoras would tell her. There was nothing near her. No animal, no bird, no human. Not her Partner. Not Parno.

  When the shaking stopped, the sun was already much higher in the sky. Still curled in a ball, her head still cradled in her arms. Why wasn’t she dead? Tradition among the Mercenary Brotherhood had always led them to believe that no one survived the death of her Partner, and Dhulyn had gone into the water with that thought uppermost in her mind.

  So why, then, was she still alive? For a moment, her heart bounded—but then she took herself in hand once more. Sense reasserted itself. She and Parno had gone into the water at almost the same moment. The Crayx were nowhere near. Had he been alive, and able to keep his head out of water, he should have washed up on the same Moon-and-Stars-cursed shore as she had. And he wasn’t here.

  Just as he hadn’t been in any of the futures she had Seen since stepping aboard the Wavetreader. No future with Parno in it. Before, she’d often Seen Visions of Parno older, sometimes alone, sometimes with herself. But those futures had all stopped once their feet were on the path that led to this one.

  She pushed those thoughts away, willing her mind to focus on anything rather than the yawning empty hole in the middle of her chest. How many Partnered Brothers did she know of, besides Parno and herself? There were many in the tales that made up the basis of the Common Rule. Glorious deaths. There was Dysmos Stareye and Palmond the Handless. Separated by the press of battle, they had nevertheless breathed their last breaths at the same moment. Or so the tale told.

  And a fine tale it is, Dhulyn thought. But I’m alive.

  Fanryn Bloodhand and Thionan Hawkmoon. They’d died together, if not exactly at the same moment. As the one Partner lay dying, the other stood over her, sword in hand until she was herself overrun. That was what being Partnered meant.

  Dhulyn sat up, blinking, and resisted the urge to scrub at her face and eyes with her salt-and-sand-encrusted hands. She must find fresh water and soon. Three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. The trilogy of the Common Rule. And one which still applied to her, no matter what she might wish for.

  “Mother Sun.” Her lips moved, but Dhulyn was careful not to speak aloud. Is it your doing that I am here? Dhulyn rarely questioned the distant gods of her people: Sun, Moon, and Stars. As a rule, her people didn’t pray much. Sun, Moon, and Stars were always with you, even when you couldn’t see them, her mother once said. They answered all prayers, but not always with the answer you wanted.

  “In Battle, or in Death.” The Mercenary salute. Was it that simple? Partners died together because most Mercenary Brothers died in battle? Because what was enough to overwhelm one would overwhelm both? Dysmos and Palmond died in battle. As had Fanryn and Thionan. Was Parno gone and she still here because there hadn’t been a battle? Must she then wait for her own death to join him once more?

  “In Battle and in Death.” The slightly modified salute between Partnered Mercenaries—and seldom used even by them. That would be where she met Parno again. So be it.

  She looked toward the sea. That pathway to death had failed her already. Clearly, something more was expected. Something more, presumably, than lying here until dehydration finished the job the sea had not done. Dhulyn pushed herself upright and began her Shora ritual again. She would search for water this time, fresh water. Then she’d see what Mother Sun and Father Moon brought to her path.

  The spot in the hills where the stream widened into a shallow, reed-edged pool not only provided fresh water, but a couple of the sleepier fish. They were bland eaten raw, with neither salt nor lemon to give flavor, but they were food, and something told Dhulyn that death by starvation would not serve her purpose any more than death by drowning.

  Ah! In Battle, or in Death. Surely, if she died in battle, it would be enough to reunite her with Parno. And she knew just what battle would suit her best. Mercenary Brothers did not leave each other unavenged—that was part of the Common Rule as well—and Dhulyn knew where the path to her vengeance lay.

  The Storm Witch.

  Dhulyn nodded, whistling silently as she began to stretch out each muscle in turn. First, the long muscles of her legs, arms, and back. Then, the shorter muscles of chest, abdomen, neck, hands, feet, and face. Parno had been killed by a waterspout where no such phenomenon should be—caused by that thrice-cursed snail spawn of a Witch. And when the Storm Witch was dead, Dhulyn herself could die and join her Partner.

  Dhulyn gave a sigh of contentment and stood up. Now that she was fed and watered, and had rinsed off all the sand and salt in the cool pond, she felt almost her normal self. A pang stabbed her, sharp and cold. She would never feel normal again. She pushed that thought away. Not now. She could not afford to indulge her grief, not now that she had plans to make, a goal to reach.

  She looked at the tips of her fingers and the pads of her feet. Wrinkled, but even now smoothing out. She could not have been very long in the sea, perhaps only overnight. There was no way to be sure, however, how far that frightening force of wind and wave had carried her. She felt the seams and pockets of her clothing. Sword and long knife
had been lost in the water. She felt at the back of her vest, and found the inner pocket torn open and empty. So, she drummed her fingers on her thigh. Except for the lack of shoes and weapons—other than those she was born with—she was in good condition.

  Dhulyn glanced up at the sun. Almost at its midday height. She picked up her vest, pulled out the laces, squatted once more at the edge of the water, and pushed the vest under the surface. She sat back on her heels, lifting the dripping vest onto her knees, refolded the sodden garment so it could be worn as a hood, and pulled it on over her head. Better sunburn than sunstroke, she thought. The layers of stitched-in and quilted-over cloth would hold water for a long time before drying out, keeping her head cool as well as protected from the sun. She leaned forward again, pushing her hands into the soft mud along the edge of the water. Some of that would help protect her skin.

  But first Dhulyn waded back into the water until she was knee-deep. She took a deep breath, felt herself relax into the Stalking Cat Shora, and composed herself in patience, waiting for the telltale shifting of shadows below the surface that would mean fish.

  When she’d captured four more of the small fish and cleaned them with the same rock she’d used before, she wrapped them in grass she soaked in the water. Finally, she pulled her linen trousers toward her, drew the waist string completely closed, forming a bag into which she pushed the fish. She set the bag to one side, along with the stone she’d used as a knife, and another, rounder stone that fit well into the palm of her hand. She examined the rocks and scrub grass around her. She had food, weapons, and a covering for her head. No way to carry water except inside her.

  Belly tight with liquid, mud liberally applied to shoulders and arms, Dhulyn rose once more to her feet and tied her trousers around her waist by the legs. She’d have to eat the fish fairly quickly as it was. They wouldn’t last long in this heat, and she’d want to eat them while they would still provide some moisture.