Glenda Larke: Stormlord rising

It was pleasant traveling in the cool of the night; at least at first. Later the slight breeze they generated with their passing chilled her skin like slivers of ice. She drifted off, dozing on the saddle, but roused with a start when he spoke.

"We camp now."

His voice sounded small and thin in the silence of the night, as friable as ancient sun-bleached rock. She reined in, dismounted and went back to help him. Even so, he fell out of the saddle rather than climbed down, and then collapsed, unable to stand.

"Give me my pack and be fixing a meal," he said, and there was still enough authority in his tone to have her obey without protest. If he did not ask for help, she knew it would only anger him to offer it. She stifled a sigh.

By the time he was wrapped in his blanket, she had a fire alight, using dry twigs and leaves for fuel. The salt coating the soil and plants spat in the flames with green and blue sparks, the sound animating the quiet of a salt-encrusted world. She made some soup out of the shredded dried meat and bab root she had obtained at the caravansary. She had to wake him when it was ready, but he ate gladly enough, then slept again. After she'd had some of the soup herself, she went to groom the pede. It was eating the low plants with enthusiasm and took no notice as she followed it around brushing out its segment joints. When she'd finished, she hobbled the animal by linking its antennae together. No pede moved far or fast when it didn't have the free use of its feelers.

Just before she turned in herself, she felt the pull of her journey as sharp as a knife beneath her ribs. The pull of the future Russet had painted for her.

My mother could resist, she thought. Why can't I? And she remembered once again the offhand words Vivie had uttered about Sienna: she was always ill.

Resistance came with a price.

Scarpen Quarter Breccia City Breccia Hall, Level 2 Beryll.

She was dead. One moment Ryka had been so relieved to find her little sister alive and unhurt-and then she was gone. Those blue eyes had lost their light like a candle suddenly snuffed.

Ryka's stomach heaved in rebellion. No. She clamped a hand across her mouth. Not Beryll. She was so young.

She swallowed the bile in her throat. Sweet Sunlord, why? Beryll, you could have recovered from rape, but there's no coming back from death… Why, oh why couldn't you see that?

She mustn't think about it. Mustn't dwell on it, or she'd lose her edge. Beryll was dead; accept it. But Kaneth? She had to believe he was still alive. His son moved within her body, and him she must keep safe, no matter what it took. She inhaled, a deep calming breath to push away the paralyzing grief. Think, woman. Start planning. You are Ryka, rainlord.

She glanced about Ravard's quarters. Watergiver damn, I recognize this. It's Nealrith's private reception room. Her next astonished thought was tinged with fear. Who the sunblast is this Ravard fellow that he warrants the Breccian highlord's quarters?

Davim, obviously, would be quartered in the Cloudmaster's rooms, if he wanted them. She'd already known Ravard must be important from the way he dressed and the way he had bantered with Davim, even defying his orders to kill her. But to be assigned the highlord's apartment?

Davim's son? No, not possible, surely. Ravard must have been twenty or so, and Davim didn't look much older than Ryka herself. His sons, if he had any, would still be children.

She shivered and wrapped her arms around her upper body. Night had fallen and the rooms were cold. The shutters had been left open, and no one had brought fuel for the night braziers. Limping because the wound in her leg pained her, she stepped out onto the balcony and looked over the balustrade for a way to escape. Her distance vision was blurred, but the burning torches helped her recognize where she was. Below was the open forecourt in front of the main doors of the hall. Now there were guards camped there and fires burned on the paving. The smell of cooked meat wafted upward. She wasn't surprised. She knew many Reduners hated the idea of sleeping within solid buildings.

Oh, the smell of that food… Sunlord, but she was hungry!

Quelling all thought of eating to concentrate on her escape, she raised her eyes to the defensive wall surrounding the first and second levels. It was patrolled by Davim's men; she could see their shapes against the sky. If she tried to escape via the balcony, she would just be climbing down into an ants' nest of Reduner warriors-and still be on the wrong side of the wall. There was no freedom for her that way. For a moment despair overwhelmed her.

Her father, her mother, Beryll. All gone. Her friends, her city, her whole way of life; too much, too soon. It numbed her, and she couldn't afford to be numb. Watergiver's heart, she had to fight. For Kaneth. For their son. For their land.

Closing the shutters behind her to keep out the cold of night, she stepped back inside and examined the apartment with more care by the light of the single tiny oil lamp they had left for her. If the mess was any indication, the place had been searched and looted. No, more than that: it had been the scene of a fight. The head of a Scarpen-made spear was buried in a cupboard door, the shaft missing. The tip of a sword blade lay on the floor. The rest of the weapon was nowhere to be seen. A chair was smashed, the pieces lying where they had fallen.

She tried the door she had entered by, only to find it firmly barred from the outside. When she crossed to one of the other two doors, she found it led to Nealrith's private study. The floor and desk there were strewn with parchment and scrolls. A dark splash of blood had sprayed across the wall and then dribbled downward in parallel lines.

The second door opened into Nealrith's bedroom. The bed was unmade, and a Reduner cloak had been flung carelessly over the end. The wardrobe and a trunk made of bab wood had been emptied, although some of the contents seemed to have been discarded on the floor. The entrance to a small water-room was hidden behind a carved screen. There was another door as well, bolted top and bottom. She opened the bolts, only to find it was somehow locked or barred on the other side as well. She guessed Laisa's bedroom lay beyond.

Ryka wanted to sit down and give in to despair. Instead, she began to search methodically, looking for anything that could be helpful. In the study she salvaged some paper and a graphite stick for writing, a piece of twine, a tinderbox, flint and steel. In the water-room she drank deeply from the dayjar; in the reception room she examined the broken sword point. It was, she decided, too short to be of any use to her as a weapon. She considered digging out the spearhead, decided Ravard might notice it had gone and reluctantly left it where it was, a symbol of a battle lost. Her gaze alighted on the wood of the broken chair with more hope. The shards were long and sharp; the wood hard. She found a number of pieces that might have potential as makeshift daggers, and secreted them in various places around the rooms, tucking one under the pallet of the bed.

In the bedroom she picked through what was left of the clothes to find something clean and small enough for her to wear, finally selecting a tunic and a pair of trousers probably dating back to Nealrith's adolescent years. In the water-room she used the water closet, then eyed with interest the porphyry bathtub big enough to sit in, the full copper, the seaweed briquettes in the fireplace underneath, and the soap. She hadn't had a proper bath in over a star cycle. She and Kaneth had done their best to cut water consumption, wiping themselves clean with wet cloths-but right now she couldn't think of any material thing she wanted more than a soaking hot bath. And why conserve water, anyway? Whatever there was would only go to the city's conquerors.