Robert Vardeman - Istu awakened

Don't use that stick to beat yourself, the voice said. That is the most human trait of all.

Moriana smiled briefly. Ziore of Athalau had spent her entire long life cloistered in a convent devoted to the ascetic teachings of Erimenes the Ethical. Like Erimenes, the nun had survived the death of her body, living out long, dusty centuries as a cloud of mist contained within the enchanted red clay of an Athalar spirit jar. Moriana had found the genie while stumbling in a haze of exhaustion and self-hatred through the streets of the glacier-entombed Athalau. Though Ziore's existence had been remote from human experience, the spirit was wise with a wisdom as deep and placid as a sheltered pool. Her soothing presence and loving words had been all that enabled Moriana to keep her tenuous grip on sanity through the brutal trials and disappointments of the last few months.

'Thank you,' Moriana whispered, feeling an immediate answering caress in her mind.

Arrow nocked but undrawn, the Princess of the City in the Sky moved up the slope. She placed her feet carefully to avoid slipping and falling headlong on the slippery mulch of fallen leaves underfoot. The anhak trees grew right to the crest where the soft black earth fell steeply to a broad flood plain. Here and there she saw great raw gaps in the terrain where the spring flood had undercut the bank and toppled a hunchbacked anhak. None was recent. Winter had been too brief for the melting snowpack in the far-off Thail Mountains to engorge the Marchant till it overflowed its banks.

She dropped to her belly. Nothing in the act struck the princess as incongruous. In years past when an heir apparent to the Beryl Throne and not an outcast, she had trained as a bird rider of the elite Sky Guard, a course designed to break all but the fiercest, most determined and toughest in mind and body.

Moriana had passed without the slightest favor being accorded her due to her station. Under the command of the youthful leader of the Guard, her cousin Rann, she had leda flight of Sky Guardsmen into battle against the Northern Barbarians. Now Rann was head of all Sky City soldiery, and Moriana's sworn enemy. But Moriana had not forgotten the hard lessons she'd learned from him. Not the least among them was that survival never took second place to dignity in the field.

With bits of sodden leaf and rich black loam clinging to her belly, she snaked to the crest of the slope. Above her and to the left grew an oval-leafed urylla bush. The short shrub sported no flowers and would not blossom until the white sun of high summer glowered down from overhead, but it provided excellent cover. The princess knew not to silhouette her head against the sky.

Noiselessly she wriggled to the bush, raised her head to peer through the branches. To her left the Chanobit made its final dash to meet and merge with the Marchant. Man-high rushes marked the banks of the river. She scanned them carefully. If the Sky City forces wished to mount a final ambush on the ground, this would be an ideal place to do it.

For ten long minutes she lay staring intently from between the leaves of the bush, eyes scanning the river, the mile-broad plain, the sky. The surface of the river rippled strangely clear. This time of year it usually clogged with flotsam, branches, barrels, scraps of cloth. The decaying corpses of trees, animals and feckless men were often carried downstream on the spring torrent, too. As she completed her thorough reconnaissance, Moriana pondered the shortness of the winter. Though it lengthened the growing season for the groundling farmers, a magnificent boon in the cool Sundered Realm where the planet's three-hundred-day year rendered the fertile time between frosts precariously brief, she found only ominous portent in it. Powers were afoot that interfered with the very order of the universe.

'And I'm about to unleash still more powers,' she said to herself, 'and fell ones indeed, unless the legends lie.'

Nothing moved on the plain, and Moriana saw no movement among the reeds other than the restless scurrying of a southwesterly breeze. High piled clouds rolled across the sky, but Moriana's practiced eye placed them many miles away. If the fluffy cumulus contained the wheeling shapes of war eagles, the birds would be too distant for her to see. Finally, as satisfied as she could be with an inherently risky situation, she nodded to herself and slid back down from the crest-line.

She rolled onto her back to descend the hill and instantly froze. Reflex drew the bowstring halfway to her ear before Moriana recognized the tall, broad-shouldered form who had stolen up to stand a handful of yards behind her.

'Walk warily, Stormcloud,' she said throatily. 'I might have let fly without thinking had I not heard you approach.'

The man smiled. His face was that of a fallen angel surrounded by a nimbus of curly golden hair. There was a decidedly not cherubic light in the cat-green depths of his eyes, but he nodded and courteously refrained from pointing out that the princess hadn't heard him.

'I trust your capabilities, Bright Lady,' he said. In spite of herself, Moriana smiled back and smoothed a wisp of sweat-lank hair from her eyes. 'I'm glad somebody in this party does.'

'Oh, but all admire you, Your Highness. The way you rallied us together after the slaughter at the creek is commendable. No man could have done better.'

Moriana frowned. Was this some implied criticism of Darl? She saw no sign of guile on that open face. But then she suspected that latic Stormcloud could plot foul murder and continue to beam like a seraph in a religious mural.

Still, she had no firm reason to mistrust him and many to be grateful. It was the young mercenary, Stormcloud, who had led the reserves in turning back a flank attack that by rights should have been the final desperate thrust of the Sky City army. Had a war dog not panicked at the smell and upset the brazier Moriana used for her weather magic, the princess would have been able to maintain the ground-hugging clouds that kept eagles from the sky, and handsome latic Stormcloud would have taken his place beside Darl Rhadaman as architect of a great victory.

In spite of a lingering unease about the young mercenary, Moriana had been happy when she and Darl had encountered Stormcloud and ten survivors in the woods a few miles from the battlefield. Alone of the Northblooded officers of her army, he had taken her military abilities seriously. He had proved invaluable in persuading the other survivors of the rout that she knew what she was doing and that her commands should be heeded. And with Darl lost in a fog of melancholy, unable to cope with this first shattering defeat of his career, Moriana had found herself relying more and more on latic Stormcloud's air of authority and calm counsel.

Moriana became aware of the way her truncated skirt had ridden up her hips, baring pale skin. She wore nothing beneath the soiled, faded garment. Moriana's fine silk undergarment had chafed her unbearably as she rode, so she had dispensed with it. Deliberately, she drew the ragged hem of her skirt down to cover herself better.

'As far as I can tell, the crossing is clear,' she said, relaxing the bow, clamping the broadhead arrow to the staff with her thumb while pushing herself to her feet with her other hand. 'There's no knowing whether bird riders wait above the woods for someone to venture out on the open flats.' She paused, considering. "I'll scout. Stay here and cover me.' latic frowned. 'My lady, is it wise for you to risk your…' 'Down! Get down!'

The shrill warning sang from the satchel at Moriana's hip. Without hesitation, Moriana cast herself forward, rolling down the slope into a clump of tai near Stormcloud. The mercenary hesitated, looking dumbfounded by the sudden voice from nowhere, but quickly recovered and threw himself into the scrub.