Stormlord’s Exile

by Glenda Larke

  “You’d never be ambushed if I was with you,” she persisted. “I may be a lousy rainlord, but I can still give warning of people sneaking up on you. And I can suck the water out of ziggers. That’s all the edge you need.”

  “Ry, to have both Kedri’s parents riding out would mean he could end up an orphan. Besides, you’re still breastfeeding.”

  “I can wean him. And I’m not going to be sidetracked. Kaneth, think about what you’ve been achieving here, and what you’ve not achieved. Your forays have kept Ravard so busy he has fewer men to spare to raid the White and Gibber Quarters and he’s not getting supplies in the form of stolen weapons and other useful stuff. That’s a big plus. But you’re not causing him real harm, either. And now he’s just pulled off a huge raid, designed as much to insult you as anything else.”

  She hated herself for the look that flitted across his features just then. She’d heard wind-whispers about how Dune Watergatherer warriors laughed and boasted that their sandmaster had fucked the wife of the rainlord. There were even whispers that Kedri was his son, not Kaneth’s, and that was why he had a Reduner name. She didn’t know if it was Ravard who’d promoted those rumours, or whether they’d just taken on a life of their own. It didn’t matter. What mattered was how each whisper, each mocking word of ridicule, sliced into Kaneth’s heart, leaving a trace of pain behind, visible to her in his eyes, etched into the lines of his face.

  He never blamed her, not by his words or his actions. When he smiled at her, his abiding love was there for all to see. When he touched her, she felt his yearning, his desire, his admiration. But she knew his hatred for Ravard grew. She knew a sliver of jealousy had splintered somewhere deep inside him. He wanted her to hate Ravard with an all encompassing fury and didn’t understand how she could feel sorry for this Reduner sandmaster—because he had once been a settle lad called Mica Flint.

  She said gently, “I can give you the edge.”

  “In time, I promise.”

  His tone told her she wasn’t going to win this argument. Not yet. Nonetheless, she gave him a look intended to tell him the final decision was only deferred, not decided.

  Please don’t let it be too late.

  Kaneth left the next morning with a band of twenty men and fifteen water-laden pedes. At least he took Cleve with him, which pleased her. The young man was a water sensitive, which gave them some protection against ambush.

  Fifteen days later he was back with the whole of Gilmar’s tribe, and the following few days were hectic as men, women and children had to be settled in. Ryka was so busy that it was two days before she heard about a young lad called Guyden.

  It was Robena who told her.

  “Poor boy,” she said, “the only one of his tribe left alive, and now the injury he got while escaping is infected. They say you’re skilled with such things. Could you come and take a look?”

  She was no healer, but she’d always had an interest in medicinal possets and poultices, and she’d gained a reputation around the valley for her minor successes with cuts and wounds. “Who is he?” she asked as Robena showed her which tent the lad was in.

  “You know what happened to Dune Scarmaker, years back?” Robena asked.

  “Vara’s dune? Yes, of course. Davim made an example of it. He killed the sandmaster, then wiped out most of the dune’s warriors. The women and children were given the choice of death or submitting to his authority. Vara Redmane escaped, but most changed their allegiance.”

  And Ravard, a youth trying to prove himself, must have taken part in the massacre.

  “Well, this lad, name of Guyden, was one of Bejamin’s tribe.”

  She thought back. Tribemaster Bejamin had been Vara’s brother-in-law. His tribe had chosen to die and to kill their children with them, down to their smallest babies. The deaths had been unfortunate for Davim, because when the news leaked out, many young men of other tribes had been enraged and ridden off to join Vara.

  “How did Guyden escape the suicide?” she asked.

  “He hid in the dunes,” Robena said. “Came back to find them all dead. Kher Davim made him a slave and by all reports used him badly, even though he was still a child.” She clucked, shaking her head at the idea. “As usual, when he was old enough, Davim gave him the opportunity to be a warrior, or to remain a slave. And he chose to be a slave.”

  “Brave lad. So how come he’s here with Gilmar’s tribe?”

  “The Watergatherer drovers often carry their slaves with them on raids, to groom the pedes, do the cooking, fetch and carry. This time he escaped. They speared him in the leg as he ran, but he managed to hide in the dark and made his way to Gilmar’s tribe.”

  She was taken inside to one of the inner rooms and Robena introduced them. His look of quick interest told Ryka he had heard of her. He was still a youth but already had the look of a warrior, even though his hair was unbraided. He was nearly as tall as she was, broad across the shoulder and muscular, doubtless from his slave labour. “I’m told you were speared. May I see the wound?”

  He was bare-chested, and when he rolled over onto his stomach to show her the injury to his calf, she saw his back was a mass of bruises, the mark of a beating.

  Oh Sunlord, she thought in disgust. Have you come to this, Ravard?

  The leg wound itself looked nasty, but not yet dangerous.

  “You are Lord Ryka who was the slave Garnet?” he asked. His tone was neutral.

  “Yes,” she said. “I don’t remember ever seeing you in Ravard’s camp.”

  “No. I never went there,” he said. “Can you do something for the wound?”

  “Yes. It’s not too bad. I shall have to clean out the foulness first though, which will hurt.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve been through worse.”

  I’ll bet, she thought.

  She tried to chat with him while she worked. He seemed indifferent to the pain, but his replies, although polite, were monosyllabic. His main aim, as far as she could tell, was to be braided as a warrior and start fighting for Uthardim. When she asked him why he wanted to be a warrior, he replied without hesitation, “Revenge. Why else? My father would expect it, were he alive.” The rage in him was hot and passionate, yet also very much under control.

  “Kher Vara will see to it that you are braided,” she said. “Tell her what your bead preference is, and if they are obtainable, she will supply them.”

  “Ice crystals,” he said, without hesitation.

  She thought it an odd choice. The white polished sides of such crystals caught the sunlight; it wasn’t the selection of someone who wanted to be inconspicuous.

  Leaving the tent some time later, she was unsettled. War, she thought. It does things that never go away while memory lasts. We will pay for Davim’s ambition for a generation or more. It wasn’t the way things should be, but it would be so. People found it hard to let go of the past when it seared their remembrance.

  Shrivelled hells, Kaneth, I hope you can let loose the spindevils in your head before Kedri grows up. I want peace for him, not this.

  Outside she bumped into Vara. The old woman was chewing a wad of keproot, the same stuff people smoked in Scarpen snuggeries. It stained her remaining teeth brown. “So,” she said, “you’ve met Guyden.”

  “Yes. You remember him?”

  “The child? Yes. I knew his parents well enough. But he’s no child now. This one’s a man, bitter. Even looks different. He’s a warrior, just like his father, Dorwith.” She sighed. “We’re all that’s left of our dune, Ryka. Him and me and people like us. An old woman who chews keproot to forget, and a lad already older than his years, possessing a heart brimming with hate. That’s Dune Scarmaker. Our legacy.” She plodded away, in Ryka’s eyes suddenly no longer a battler but a tragic figure.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  White Quarter

  Samphire

  “This is it.”

  Elmar craned his neck to look up at the top of the gate to Samphire and said the words with fl
at certainty.

  Dibble nodded in agreement. “You’re right. I feel… lighter.”

  Glancing at Dibble, Elmar raised an eyebrow. “Ah. I suppose it’s true we’ve been a mite hungry lately.”

  When they were crossing the Borderlands back into Alabaster, they’d had no food at all. Across the Whiteout, they’d had only what they could find in the abandoned mine towns: mostly dried samphire and strips of pede meat jerky.

  Dibble snorted and regarded the huge gates. “Y’know what I mean. Lighter in… spirit. This must be where she painted us, standing in front of the gates to Samphire. Now we’re free to go back.” He shook his head sadly. “I’ve hated feeling I had to go somewhere when I really didn’t want to.”

  “Like being rent in two,” Elmar said with a nod. “And that’s the way Terelle has been torn for years. What Russet did to her was horrible. I had no idea.” He looked at the space between them, a gap large enough for another man, and gestured with his hand. “She painted him here, too. Feroze. I can almost feel him. Almost.” An oddness, as if the magic was trying to make something true, but couldn’t and never would be able to do so. Terelle had done the painting to save them all, not knowing that Feroze was already dead. He’d probably been dead even before Elmar had left her. He glanced to where their four Alabaster companions were still seated on their pedes, regarding them with varying degrees of impatience. “I think we’d better go.”

  Saltlip, wearing a long face, asked, “Have ye two finished with your sightseeing then? Can we now proceed into the city, perhaps?”

  “Sorry. Just something we had to do.” He and Dibble scrambled onto their pede.

  “I’ll drop ye off at the same townhouse as ye were in last time,” Briass said. “Then I’ll talk to my overman ’bout ye meeting the Bastion. He’ll fix it for ye. The Bastion—he’ll take the deaths hard, I’m thinking. Feroze especially.”

  Briass was as good as his word. That evening Elmar and Dibble were escorted up to the first level, then passed to a servant who took them to see the Bastion.

  Terelle had once mentioned that Alabasters were not bothered by protocol, but the lack of security and the absence of formality surprised Elmar nonetheless. The room he and Dibble were ushered into was small and stark, with few decorations. The only other person there was Messenjer, once the manager of Mine Emery and now apparently the Bastion’s aide, who greeted Dibble as if he was a friend and nodded to Elmar whom he had met briefly in Qanatend.

  No guards anywhere. Sun-fried ’Basters, he thought, don’t they give their ruler any protection? The Bastion indicated they should be seated, but they were both uneasy about sitting in the presence of a ruler and exchanged an embarrassed glance.

  “Or stand if ye prefer,” added the Bastion with a sad smile. “So, I’ve been informed by Briass that Feroze Khorash didn’t return with ye, and neither did several of the guards. That they’re dead. I want your account of what happened.”

  “Feroze and the others were murdered, my lord.” Waterless hells, is that how I should address him? I forgot to ask! “Cold-bloodedly murdered. Feroze and six guards, taken by surprise. The only reason Dibble and I got to escape was because Terelle Grey painted us out of there. On the way we rescued those Alabasters still alive. I feel sure she painted Feroze as well, but she was too late. He was dead when I found him.”

  He was angry just thinking about it and was about to give voice to his opinion of Khromatians in general and the Verdigris family in particular, when he realised the Bastion was weeping. Appalled, he watched as a trickle ran down the man’s wrinkled cheek. He looked away, moved. He’d heard about people who could cry tears of grief, but he’d never seen it before.

  “I’ve known Feroze since the day he was born,” the Bastion said softly. “Ye saw his body? There can be no doubt?”

  All Elmar’s belligerence leaked away. “None,” he said. “I’m sorry. I think he was murdered by Lord Bice Verdigris and his three sons. Bice is the Commander of the Southern Marches. I gather that he both rules the ward and commands the guards there.”

  “I’ve heard of the man. The Alabasters working in the Marches bring back news from time to time.”

  Elmar thought peevishly that they could have done with that information before they’d entered Khromatis. What fools these folk can be. They put more store by the restrictions of the past than the safety of their people. It’s ridiculous!

  “Start at the beginning,” the Bastion said. “And tell me everything ye remember.”

  With the occasional contribution from Dibble, Elmar related the events from the moment they’d set foot on the other side of the Borderlands. When he tried to skimp on the details, the Bastion demanded a more precise account. As he described his discovery of Feroze’s body, the Bastion listened with his head bowed, his hands gripping tight to the arms of his chair.

  It was two runs of a sandglass before the tale was finished, and Elmar was wishing he had taken up the offer to sit.

  “So then ye rode back. No problems with the rest of the journey?” It was Messenjer who asked.

  “No. As far as we could tell, we weren’t followed. We were short of supplies until we reached Mine Sylvine. We raided the stores there.”

  The Bastion stirred, as if his back was hurting him. “And what do ye want to do now?”

  “Go back and get Terelle,” he said promptly.

  “Ye’ll have our aid.”

  Messenjer looked shocked. “My lord! Who are we to interfere in the affairs of the Khromatians? We’ve no rights in their land. Our involvement in this affair to date must have been deeply offensive to them.”

  Elmar flushed in anger. “I hope you’re not saying that the murder was justified because someone was offended by Feroze’s presence?” He held himself rigid. It was either that or bury a fist in the man’s self-righteous expression.

  The Bastion made a calming gesture with his hand. When he spoke his voice was firm but conciliatory, and it was to Messenjer that he addressed his remarks. “It’s not us who’ve behaved badly. This Lord Bice Verdigris has committed a crime of the most despicable nature. He’s killed one of our own, the most honest of men, as well as some of our guards, and he’s done it to be maintaining his position as heir, even when he was assured no one had designs on his claim. He’d have killed Terelle, too, if he’d had the means to be doing it. Messenjer, can ye doubt that Feroze Khorash would never initiate a fight against his host, in his host’s home? Feroze? If ever there was a man who put conciliation before violence, it was Feroze.”

  Messenjer stirred uncomfortably, abashed. “Yes, that’s true. But we don’t know for sure what happened. Neither of these men actually saw how Feroze died.”

  “No, we didn’t,” Elmar agreed, his voice harsh with fury. “But I heard Bice say it was lucky he was dead. I saw them—Bice and his two eldest sons—leave the room where I found Feroze with a Khromatian dagger in his back. He’d barely stopped bleeding! And I know what your own men, our Alabaster guards, told me about how they were attacked without provocation in the barracks. Some of them died before they could even rise from their beds.”

  This time Messenjer could not meet his gaze.

  Dibble shot a look at Elmar and then addressed the Bastion. “My lord, at least we know what not to do now. And we have an idea of where Terelle will be taken. We won’t take Alabasters with us this time. We want to blend in.”

  “Ye don’t speak the language,” Messenjer said.

  “We’ve been working at it,” Elmar told him. “Hard. The guards have been helpful. On the way back they wouldn’t speak to us in the Quartern tongue. Dibble’s better than me; he sounds right. I may say the right words, but it sounds horribly wrong. Maybe—maybe I could pose as someone with a speech impediment.”

  The Bastion nodded. “I’ll send a teacher to work with ye both for as long as ye’re here. In the meantime, what would ye need? We’ll do everything in our power to help. Messenjer?”

  Messenjer cleared his throat
and said unhappily, “We can supply guards and guides and pedes to the other side of the Borderlands bog. Whatever supplies ye want.”

  “Their money tokens are different from ours,” the Bastion added. “We have a lot in the treasury. Ye can take as much as ye need.”

  Messenjer’s still didn’t look happy, but said nothing.

  “We need paints,” Dibble said. “For Terelle. They confiscated hers.”

  Messenjer looked even more displeased, and this time he spoke up. “Now that is difficult. We don’t have waterpainters here. The paint-powders they use are special. Perhaps ye can buy them already made in Khromatis, if ye know what to ask for.”

  “Sounds risky,” the Bastion said. “I’ll give it some thought. When do ye want to be leaving?”

  “As soon as we can,” Elmar said. “But we also want to be as prepared as we can. Do you have maps of Khromatis?”

  Once again it was Messenjer who answered. “Not that I know of. None of our people ever leave the Southern Marches, ye know.”

  “I’ll have the library searched,” the Bastion said. “And I tell ye what else we can do, Mez. Call all the Alabasters who have worked in Khromatis lately for a meeting.” He turned to Elmar and Dibble. “I’ll tell them they must answer whatever questions ye ask.”

  Messenjer’s appalled expression was a statement by itself.

  The Bastion continued to address Elmar, but his next words were probably more for Messenjer’s benefit. “We’ve spent generations working for the Southern Marches, making their goods there, mining their needs here in the White Quarter. We’ve guarded their borders. We’ve kept their secrets because they asked it of us. We’ve exiled ourselves because they demanded it of us. We’ve held ourselves in readiness to be returning because they said one day it’d be possible. But now the covenant between us is deeply and irrevocably shaken.” He turned his faded pale blue eyes on Messenjer. “I want to be calling a council meeting. There are decisions to be made and they cannot be mine alone.”

  “Which council?” Messenjer asked.