by Glenda Larke
A moment later Rubric’s pede drew up beside Chert. Rubric’s eyes were wide with amazement. “I’ll be blown flat!” he said. “I reckon Pa would like to get his hands on the secret of doing that trick.” He too was using a driver and had abandoned the other men sharing his pede. “What happened?”
“Kaneth happened.”
“I hope you’re joking.”
“I’m afraid not. Dibble, I think we can follow now. The beginning of this… road looks stable enough.” He wound his head cloth around his face, and Dibble urged the pede to shutter its eyes and rely on its feelers as dust whirled through the air.
In the distance, on the newly made road, Kaneth drove Burnish still, and the bow wave of sand rose on either side of his mount, curving up high above the level of the dune hills before cascading back to form steep, loose valley slopes on either side.
“He did mention driving a water tunnel under the dunes, to bring water from the Source to the other dunes,” Rubric shouted as they raced on towards the base of what was left of Koumwards. “I wondered how he was going to do that. Reckon I know now.”
“I don’t think he quite had this in mind,” Jasper shouted back.
“I suppose the dune god might be a tad, er, upset.”
“You know—I don’t think Kaneth bothered to ask.”
Rubric gave him an amused look. They rode on until they arrived at the beginning of the freshly made road. And there, they stopped. They could no longer see far ahead as dust silted through the air. A few moments later, more armsmen from Kaneth’s section began to arrive. They too halted, staid warriors trembling and white-faced with shock. Behind them a thousand more followed, scattered over the plains. Still further back, the clashes between the remnants of the two armies raged on.
We abandoned our men, Jasper thought. And we won’t know if what we did was right until we find out exactly what’s ahead of us.
He pointed at the nearest sub-overman he could find. “You. Get these men moving! Your homes and your families are in danger. Ride on to God’s Pellets!”
But just as Dibble was about to prod Chert, an unarmed man appeared out of the dust cloud, wading through loose sand up to his knees. His hair was gritty, his skin abraded and pinpointed with tiny blood pricks. He’d lost his mount, his armour and much of his clothing. Sand showered in rivulets of red from the rags he wore.
They stared at him in shock, uncertain of who he was or where he’d come from. He spat, hawking sand out of his mouth as he groped for the water skin still tied at his side. He drank and spat again. Blinking painfully, he looked up at Jasper through red-rimmed lids.
“Dryheads,” he rasped. He spoke as if his throat pained him. “Dryheads to think we could fight Kher Uthardim. The hero of the dunes has returned!” He shuddered and sank to his knees. Jasper wasn’t sure that the man even knew who he addressed, or cared.
He signalled to one of the waiting armsmen from God’s Pellets. “Help him,” he said. “I don’t care who he is. There have been enough deaths here today.”
Once again he had the odd feeling that had first plagued him when Taquar had told him he was a stormlord: the feeling that he was an impostor. A settle wash-rat, an illiterate boy with soles as hard as iron, matted hair and ragged clothes. And now here he was, using pompous language to pretend he could command others twice his age. Yet, when he looked at Dibble, the man was waiting for his orders, respect in his eyes.
“Let’s move,” he said, curbing a desire to sigh. “The day is not finished yet, not nearly.”
As they entered that unnaturally smooth road, sand slithered down the fresh-made slopes singing sweetly, softly. The sun was already low in the sky, the slanted beams filtering through the dust so the very air glowed red around them.
Ryka, he thought, so much depends on you. Mica, don’t hurt her, or Kedri. Remember Wash Drybone. Remember Citrine. Remember when we were boys, the only thing we had was the fact that we cared about each other. It was all that counted.
The trouble was, Mica had come a long way since then. Sweet water, it looked as if he’d stop at nothing now. Nothing.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Red Quarter
God’s Pellets
Once he’d realised Guyden’s treachery, Kaneth had altered all the times of the sentry changeovers, and even which knobs were to be used as sentry posts, with one exception. Because it had the best view, the Great Knob—the highest of all—was still in use. When the sun set on the day of the battle, Ryka was already at her post on the knob. This time there was no smoke or fog over Dune Koumwards, but there was a huge cloud of red dust smudging the air. Just the dust from the battle? Or dust from Kaneth moving sand? She had no idea.
“Any sign of the wild pedes?” she asked the man she was relieving.
“No, m’lord. Last I saw of them was early this morning. They disappeared around the back wall of the valley.” He nodded towards Koumwards. “Don’t you worry none. Your man will be home soon.” With those words, meant to be comforting but ultimately meaningless because he knew no more than she did, he left the knob.
The second sentry, who still had some hours to the end of his duty watch, was only fourteen, newly beaded but still too young to ride to war. His name was Wallus. While there was still light in the sky it was pleasant enough, and the two of them chatted and watched the evening skeins of birds as they bunched up or stretched thin, patterning the sky before they dropped to roost on the cliffs of God’s Pellets. Ryka checked the equipment and supplies: knives and swords in the unlikely event they were attacked; pitch-soaked torches and two tinder boxes to light them; water, food and blankets for warmth.
That done, she settled down to watch. To pass the time, she asked Wallus about Guyden, as the two lads were about the same age. “Kept himself to himself,” Wallus said. “Good fighter. Always practising. Hard worker, never complained, not even when Kher Uthardim banned him from dune patrols and he was stuck with sentry duty.”
“But you didn’t like him.”
He thought about that. “Wouldn’t say that, m’lord. Was more that he didn’t like us. Never mixed with us. Y’know, never fooled around, never teased. Aloof.” He thought about his own words. “Reckon it was ’cause he didn’t want to get close to us. Not if one day he’d have to fight us. Hard to kill a fellow you’ve had a game of chala with.” He shrugged. “Reckon he was brave after all, coming here like that, spying on us.”
“I reckon he was at that,” she agreed. Damn you, Ravard, sending him at all. A child…
The sun set and the night grew steadily colder. They lit a small fire of pede pellets, and warmed their hands. She kept her water-sense roving, especially towards Dune Koumwards, but found nothing. Nor could she see the glow of fires. The battle was probably over, won or lost, and there was nothing she could do about the outcome. She just wished her water-senses were better.
Closer at hand, within the valley, she could feel the water of a couple of pedes with drivers; a changeover of sentries, she assumed. When one stopped at the foot of the Great Knob, she told Wallus his replacement had arrived. He bade her goodnight and started on his way down. From his grin, she guessed he was already dreaming of a warm bed. Holding a burning brand, she lit his way through the pipe at the top; after that he lit his own smaller torch.
At the foot of the rock wall, another myriapede rode up, also with only the driver on its back. Idly she wondered why, but nothing seemed amiss. When disaster struck a few moments later, it happened so suddenly she wasn’t sure whether she’d imagined it or not. There had been two living men, then only one. She could feel the water of the other, but in that oddly changed way, the way that signalled a death.
She screamed then, shouting to Wallus to come back. And turned to thrust the torch straight into the unlit signal bonfire of oil-soaked fuel. The volatile mix burst into leaping flames to tell the camp guards and the watchers on the other lookouts that there was trouble. Dropping first a jabbing spear, and then the burning brand down the
pipe to light her way, she slipped on her small backpack and headed down. Not the measured descent she usually undertook, but half frantic scramble, half uncontrolled slither. Her sword banged at her side.
Inside the rock of the pipe she could feel nothing. Emerging at the base onto a ledge, she cast her water-senses wide. Wallus was still climbing down. Hadn’t he heard her? Further away she was aware of several other pedes with single riders. Ordinarily she would have assumed they were sentries riding between their posts and the encampment; now she was not so sure. She wished she could identify people by their water the way stormlords could, but she couldn’t even tell women from men.
She cried out to Wallus again, yelling for him to stop and wait for her. His puzzled voice floated back, telling her he was already at the base. And then, once again, that horrible change. Instantaneous. Living water to lifeless water, the snuffing out of a human spirit. A sob caught in the back of her throat. Wallus was gone. Someone was down there, killing the men of God’s Pellets.
How the wilted hells had they sneaked up to the valley?
Keeping low, she picked up the still-burning brand and heaved it over the edge. It fell, flaring brightly, and landed near the pedes where it continued to burn. The bodies of two men lay on the ground nearby, one of them on his stomach. A spear stuck up out of his back. She could feel the living water of the remaining man in among the tumble of rocks around the base of the knob, out of her line of sight. The murderer. She reached out to take his water.
And failed. It was like trying to suck water from a stone; he was a water sensitive. Fear settled into her gut. He must know exactly where she was. Gods, how many of them were there? Was he the only one? Had they been invaded? She glanced around, expecting to see other fires lit in answer to her own; there was only blackness on the knobs. Even the camp guards had not responded by lighting their fire. No point shouting to them; they were too far away to hear.
She slipped the jabbing spear into the straps of her backpack and scrambled down the steep slope of the path. In the dark and in her rush, she fell and then skidded on her back, out of control. As she veered off the track, an avalanche of stones fell with her, bouncing noisily over the rocks. She dug her palms and fingers in to halt her slide, scraping the skin and tearing the nails. It seemed an eternity before she secured a grip and ceased to slither downwards. Panting heavily in her shock, she realised that her lower legs were hanging over the edge of a cliff. She was still about three or four times her own height above the ground.
Carefully she edged back and knelt. Her warm clothing and backpack had protected her from worse scrapes, but she had broken the spearhead from the spear haft. She stared through the gloom to where she could sense the person standing waiting for her at the bottom of the narrow zigzagging trail. Her heart thumped. How the withering spit was she going to avoid him if he was a sensitive?
She looked to her left where she could make out the two pedes, one of them unhobbled, grazing side by side. They were close to the wall of the knob. If she could get to one of them before the murderer could… Eyeing the height, she contemplated jumping straight down. Possible, just. But also quite possible she’d break a leg or an ankle. The burning brand had sputtered and died in the damp grass. In the dark she couldn’t even be sure whether she’d land on rock or meadow.
“Garnet, is that you?”
She froze.
“Garnet? I know you’re there.”
Sweet water, I’m shrivelled. That’s Ravard!
No, wait… Ravard? Here? Surely not. He’d have led the Watergatherers into battle. He couldn’t have got here so fast…
But she knew that voice. She knew it so well. Ravard. Mica Flint. She stared down into the darkness but couldn’t see much more than his outline.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” he asked. “You’re the only rainlord in the valley and one of the folk back in the camp told me you’d be here.”
She remained silent, immobile, terrified.
Kedri is back in the camp. We’re withered. Her terror for her son was all-encompassing.
“Yes,” he said in answer to her unspoken words. “We got Khedrim. I’ve got the proof, right here.”
He held something up but she couldn’t make it out.
“Some sort of blanket. He was wrapped in it. ’Broidery all round the edge. Pebblemice, by the look of it.” He waved it at her.
Robena had sewn it…
Her knees wobbled and she almost fell. If you’ve touched one hair of his head, I’ll kill you, Mica…
“Come on, Garnet. I know it’s you. I’m not going t’hurt you. Look at you, I can feel you’re trembling like a leaf touched by a spindevil’s child. There’s no need.”
She glanced down at the pedes. Forced herself to think. Smiled without mirth as the seed of an idea took root. With deliberate slowness so he would not notice the movement of her water, she swung the pack from her back into her arms.
“How do I know you won’t kill me the moment I’m within reach of your blade?” she asked. She didn’t have to fake the breathless fear making her voice ragged. She dug into her pack for the food she had brought with her for a snack.
“My honour as a sandmaster. I just want t’talk t’you. I won’t hurt you so long as you don’t fight me. And Khedrim’ll be safe too. He’s with Islar at the moment, in your tent. Guyden, that is.”
With exquisite care and tiny, imperceptible movements, she edged over to the rim of the cliff, while her hands unwrapped the baked yam and held it out on her palm towards the pedes below. Both showed an immediate interest, their great heads craning upwards. The antennae of the unhobbled animal swung in search of the origin of the delectable smell.
Please don’t let Ravard feel the movement.
She didn’t think he would. His water skills were minimal. “How can I trust you?”
As she spoke the pede came closer and a feeler appeared over the rim of the cliff to touch the yam. Just the lightest of caresses, but it was enough to tempt the beast. And yet the food was out of reach of its mandibles.
“I don’t need t’hurt you. I’ve the means t’make you or your Lord Kaneth do what I want—I have Khedrim.”
Without hesitation, the pede scrabbled at the cliff, rising up on its back feet until its head was resting on the ledge. Ravard yelled, but she didn’t catch the words.
She didn’t hesitate either. She took a flying leap, using her water-senses more than her eyesight to plant one foot on the strong outer mandible and to vault from there onto the top of the head and hence to the saddle. She fumbled for the reins and pulled the beast around, forcing it to drop back down to the ground. Groping for the pede prod, she was relieved to find it where it should be, racked along the side. She seized it and jabbed it into the tough skin between head and body, and the animal leaped away in response.
In the gloom she glimpsed Ravard rounding the rocks towards her, and then he receded into the darkness. She knew what was at stake; she had to get to the tents first. A glance at the saddlecloth told her the pede she’d taken was one of theirs, and therefore an ageing beast, too old to go to battle. It was slow. Her hope that Ravard had stolen a similar beast was soon shattered; before she was halfway to the encampment, he had overtaken her on a packpede.
She saw him grin across at her as his beast drew level. “There’s nothing you can do, Garnet!”
But they were passing the Source, and there was one thing she could do. She dragged a block of water out of the pool and flung it at him. He felt it coming, and yanked his reins hard to dodge. His pede screamed its pain and snapped its antennae in annoyance. Ryka ducked, but too late. She had a glimpse of the black whip of chitin whipping through the air towards her, followed immediately by the shock of a blow slamming into her shoulder and neck. She tried to maintain her grip on the saddle handle, tried to manipulate the water, but the force of the impact ripped her from the saddle and hurtled her to the ground. Jagged pain, heart-stopping panic, all encased in the certain knowledge that t
here was nothing she could do to halt the calamity about to happen…
She released her hold on the water as she hit the ground and all the breath was driven from her body. Her last coherent thought was that if this was dying, then it was sandblasted agony…
Jasper figured that Kaneth’s roadway through Dune Koumwards more than halved the time of the journey from one side to the other. The consequences of his alteration of the landscape were sickeningly obvious.
A head or an arm or half a torso, sticking out of the slope bordering the road, like one of a series of macabre decorations from a murderous artist. A live pede, its long body three-quarters buried, its feelers and legs snapped, struggling to free itself from the sand. A group of men, lost and wandering, faces stark with horror, bleeding from their eyes and noses and ears. A strange toneless wail, uttered without end, from a large Reduner warrior standing on the roadway. As they rode by, he did not appear to see them. A meddle of confused and riderless pedes huddled together nearby, skittish, their antennae whipping this way and that in pointless frenzy. Jasper shuddered.
By the time he and Rubric reached the other side, ahead of the remaining armsmen because of their lighter loads, it was dusk. They still had to cross the plains in the deepening night, on weary, hungry pedes. Their return route was direct, but fatigue would add several more sandglass runs to the time it should have taken.
To Jasper’s mild surprise, Kaneth was waiting for them at the edge of the plains, resting his pede where his newly made road ended. Even in the fading light he looked terrible. His face was grey, his mouth pinched, his eyes sunken. He was still on his pede, drooping on the saddle as though he had doubled his age in a matter of hours.
Oh sandhells, Jasper thought. He’s expended far too much of his power. He’s killing himself.
Kaneth’s intense fear for his family was bridled tightly, but Jasper didn’t doubt it was still there. “I waited because I need you two stormlords. I don’t think I can do it without you. Water your pedes and let’s get going.” They had no water with them, so Jasper pulled as much as he could gather from the remains of the mist and cloud, much of which was now dampening the dune plants as evening dew, and Rubric gathered the water of the dead pedes and men who lay in the sand behind them. They hovered the water into a large block over the ground and the pedes drank deeply, unfazed by its lack of containment. Burnish dipped its feelers into the water and flung spray over his back to cool down.