Glenda Larke: Stormlord rising

As he tied off the ends, he said, "When you get a chance, wash the wound 'n' put a clean cloth 'bout it. Even a small cut like that can kill you if it gets dirty."

Perhaps that would be best, anyway, she thought. To die.

The thought must have been reflected on her face, because he said harshly, "Listen t'me, you water-soft city groveler. Living's what counts, understand? Your man's dead. Probably your whole withering family's been snuffed. Your city's fallen. Your rainlords are rotting in the sun. Soon there'll be no more water in your skyless city. Take your chance with us. We've not got rainlords, but our sandmasters and tribemasters can sense water on the wind. Our dune gods protect us." He pointed to her abdomen. "That young 'un of yours? It can grow up Reduner, a warrior or a woman of the tribe. Reduners don't make no difference 'tween folk. Out there on the dunes, we're all red soon enough. Being alive, that's all that matters. That's all."

She stood facing him. Wasn't there more to life than that? Yes, of course there was-but you had to be alive to achieve it. Sandblast it, she thought, despairing. How did we Breccians ever come to this?

She nodded to the man. "Yes," she said. "You are right."

"Now, get going, Garnet. I don't have time t'waste on you."

Kaneth, I will be strong. I promise, for the sake of our son. You're on your own, wherever you are. And so, damn it, am I.

And then, just a whisper in her mind, to a man who was probably dead: I love you.

Scarpen Quarter Breccia City Breccia Hall, Level 2 Ravard handed Ryka over to a Reduner bladesman guarding the double doors of Breccia Hall's public reception room. The man pushed her roughly inside and closed the doors behind her.

Though the area was large, it was crowded. And noisy with crying. Her heart sank as she looked around and absorbed the significance of what she was seeing. Women. No men. Women, yet no small children. Every head turned her way to see who had entered, eyes fearful. And she was standing in a patch of half-dried blood on the floor.

Waterless hells.

There was a gasp from a group sitting on the floor, and a figure came flying to grab her in a tight embrace, sobbing, gasping, shuddering, pouring out her woe. Beryll, but not her pretty, carefree tease of a little sister. Not anymore.

"Beryll," she whispered, "quietly, quietly. I can't understand what you are saying! Calm down."

"Ryka, oh, Ryka! Mother! They killed Mother! They didn't give her a chance. She-she-"

Ryka had been expecting it, but still the stab of grief pierced deep, then twisted painfully with the bitter rage that followed it.

Her eyes swollen, her chest heaving, Beryll wailed between gulping sobs, "I wanted us to escape with the others down the underground passageway, but she said she'd wait until Father came back. He never came. Then we heard he was dead, but she still wouldn't go. And I couldn't leave her, could I? Anyway, there was the Lady Ethelva and the ceremony of the taking of the Cloudmaster's water and Mother thought we ought to be there, so we went to the House of the Dead and we couldn't come back safely because of the ziggers until Lord Gold brought us with the Lady Ethelva afterward. Oh, Ryka, it was awful. Lady Ethelva seemed so-so old, all of a sudden. Like she'd all shriveled up. It was so horrid. And we didn't know whether you were all right, or if Papa really was dead, and then the Reduners broke through…" Her face went white just with the remembering.

Ryka led her away from the door to a more private spot near the wall. Her sandals left sticky footprints on the floor.

"But Mother really is dead? Are you sure?" She was having trouble absorbing the reality behind the words.

"They-they slit her throat. Like they were slaughtering an animal."

Oh, sweet water save us. "You saw it?"

Beryll's frame shuddered in her arms as she nodded. "Her and the Lady Ethelva. Oh, Ryka, they killed so many! The guards and the men first, in the fighting when they broke in through the gates. Then they rounded up the women, servants and all. They took the older ones out and-and just killed them. Just like that. They said it was because Stormlord Jasper didn't surrender himself. There were so many dead. So many of the older ones had thought they'd have a better chance if they didn't go down the tunnel. There wasn't room for everyone, anyway…" Her voice trailed away in misery.

Ryka tried not to change words into images. The words were bad enough. Blindly, she patted her sister on the back; aching, she kissed the top of her head.

When Beryll had calmed, she changed the subject. "Listen, you mustn't call me Ryka. If the Reduners know they have a rainlord, I'm dead. Our only chance of getting out of this alive is to hide who I am. Call me Garnet."

Beryll lifted her puzzled gaze to look at her sister's face. "What? Garnet? Why?"

"Just in case they know there is a rainlord called Ryka Feldspar."

"Oh. Would they know that?"

"I doubt it, but I don't want to take the risk." There was also a slight risk a Reduner warrior might see her and recognize her as a woman who'd fought in the waterhall, but she didn't think there was much of a danger of that, either. Those still alive were under the impression she had died; certainly none of them knew she was a rainlord. To make herself less recognizable, she untied her hair, shaking it loose over her shoulders and around her face.

She looked around short-sightedly, seeking familiar faces, neighbors from her level perhaps, anyone who might give away her identity, but saw no one she knew. "Is there anyone here who will recognize me?"

Beryll shook her head. "I don't think so. I don't know these people. They were from the other levels. They took refuge here when the city was attacked."

As far as Ryka could tell, no one was looking at her with recognition. Dirty, sweaty, bloodied and dressed as she was, she was not surprised. She hardly looked like an upleveler rainlord. Besides, she was not well known, not like Kaneth or the Cloudmaster's family, the Almandines. She was a scholar who fulfilled her duties as a rainlord by teaching at Breccia Academy and taking her turn to check on the mother wells and patrol the water tunnel between the city and the Warthago Range.

"We are going to be slaves, aren't we?" Beryll whispered.

"Beryll, I'm a rainlord, remember? We just have to wait for the right time, for when I am strong again and can get us out of here."

"Can't you do it now? I don't want to stay here! They-they murdered children, Ryka. Children. All the really young ones."

And left the older ones and the young women, Ryka thought, but she didn't give voice to the words. Instead, she said, "I don't have any power left. I haven't eaten in so long. Or slept. Is there any food here? If I had something to eat…"

"I don't think so. After the Reduners herded us in here, they seemed to forget all about us. No one has brought us any food. But then, they killed the servants. Except for the pretty ones. Ethelva sent them down the tunnel before the Reduners came." She brushed hair out of her eyes with a trembling hand. "I wish-I wish I had gone, too."

"Where is everyone from our level? Why aren't they here?"

"Most of them went down the tunnel. Level Three and Four people had first choice. Maybe they're still hidden there. Where's Kaneth?"

"He was injured. I don't know what happened to him."

"Oh." Beryll started to cry again, in juddering sobs. Helplessly, Ryka patted her on the back. Oh, Beryll, she thought, things could get a lot worse even than this.

Miserably, she looked around. Nealrith had brought as many of the city folk into the protection of the level's walls as he could, but it had been an illusory safety. The city's two top levels, where the waterhall and the Cloudmaster's residence were located, had lasted longer than the stepped levels of the lower city, but in the end it had made little difference. We rainlords failed these people.