Glenda Larke: Stormlord rising

She'd kill him. Then, common sense prevailing: This is not the time to try, Ryka. Not yet. Oh, Watergiver have mercy. Beryll!

"Find me a pretty young woman, Ravard," Davim was saying. "Young, the way I like them. And kill the stringy meat. She does not please me."

Terror ripped through her. I've run out of time. She flicked a glance to the row of Reduner warriors. The nearest, one of those bearing a burning brand to light the room, had propped his chala spear against the wall. I'm dead, but maybe I can take Davim with me, she thought, eyeing the spear. If Davim dies, maybe the Scarpen has a chance… She tensed herself for a leap past the sandmaster to the weapon.

Ravard laughed easily. "That's because you have experience and can teach the young to please you. Me, I need the stringy old ones to teach me how to be pleased!" He stared at Ryka in open appraisal, halting her intention to move. "Kill her? Certainly, if that is your wish, but I'd rather sharpen my, er, sword on her experience."

Davim frowned and stared hard at Ryka. She dropped her gaze submissively, still pretending she did not understand their conversation. He shrugged. "As you wish. If she gives you any trouble, hand her over to the chalamen. They can use her for target practice for their spears."

The Reduner warriors chuckled, leaving Ryka in no doubt that the double meanings were intended.

Ravard nodded, grinning. "Take her to my rooms," he told one of the warriors, "and lock her in."

Scarpen Quarter Scarcleft City Scarcleft Hall, Level 2 Lord Taquar Sardonyx looked up from his desk, frowning. It was late, it was cold, and he had been about to go to bed. In fact, he'd been wondering whether to ask his steward to fetch him a woman. That pretty new servant girl, for example. Eighteen, wistfully innocent and adoring-she would do. And yet… he glanced at the painting he had mounted on the wall. Terelle's painting. A waterpainting once, until the earthquake had separated the paint from the water. Now it lacked a little of the life it must have once had, but still the figure leaped at him out of the paint.

Taquar, Highlord of Scarcleft, driving a pede.

She had captured everything he liked to think he possessed: the aura of power, the ruthlessness, the strength, the commanding stature, and of course the sensuality. But more than that, she had painted something of herself into the work: her fear of him, her fear of her attraction to him. Every time he looked at it, he cursed the earthquake that had enabled her to escape. Watergiver, what a lover she would have made! All she'd needed was the awakening, and he could have stirred her senses so easily. Stupidly, he had thought her not ready. And now, whenever he took another woman to bed, he thought of what he had missed, and cursed again. Innocence and the promise of initiating a maiden's sexual awakening-it intrigued him every time, and rarely disappointed. A victim either learned to match his passion or shivered in fear. Either way, he enjoyed the result.

He'd sent people out looking for her, of course, once he realized she had escaped. Unfortunately it had been a day before they had cleared away enough of the rubble along the passage to her room to see that she was not dead or trapped, but missing. Even then, he'd assumed she was still in the city. Now, five days later and thanks to his seneschal's investigations, he knew better.

It was infuriating. How would he ever entice Shale Flint-or Jasper Bloodstone as the wretched lad was called now-back to Scarcleft City if he found out Terelle had fled?

Scarcleft was a wounded city still, and it riled Taquar that the most serious damage was to his own hall on Level Two. He was tired of the noise and dust of cleaning up and the preparations for rebuilding. He was infuriated by the grumblings of discontent from Level Thirty-six, the lowest level, where the waterless lived. How dare they protest the slow reaction to their plight! As if they had any rights at all. He would have killed the lot of them long ago, if some of the merchants and tradesmen and artisans had not made it clear they needed the labor of the waterless from time to time.

Definitely, he needed a little solace in his bed. He was reaching to ring for his steward when a knock sounded at the door.

The visitor the servant ushered in a moment later took Taquar by surprise. He rose to his feet, trying to conceal the extent of his astonishment. "Laisa? My dear, this is a surprise! A pleasure of course, but… unexpected." Even as he spoke he was taking in her grubby appearance, the fatigue about her eyes, the tension around her mouth. Her long blond hair was dusty and tumbled out of its jeweled clips, her skin bare of any artificial powders or paints. She was still beautiful, of course. She had the kind of looks that weren't ruined by a little grime or lack of sleep; a brilliant, cool beauty that improved rather than diminished with age. Looks that suited a harsh land and matched a nature that reveled in luxury. Laisa was a sensual woman, yet pitiless.

And he had never seen her so disheveled. What the salted damn had happened?

"What brings you here? And looking like this?" he asked, keeping his tone carefully neutral.

"Don't pretend you don't know what happened to Breccia City," she said. "You can't really be unaware that the desert beast has slipped the leash you tried to put around his neck!"

"I don't know what you mean." And he didn't, but he could guess, and the guess left him cold. Davim. That spitless sand-louse of a Reduner. He must have moved his forces from Qanatend to Breccia City. Why couldn't he have waited for things to fall into place of their own accord?

The answer came all too soon. He must have found out I don't have Shale.

Aloud, he said, "Suppose you tell me, my dear." He nodded to the servant. "Bring us some of the best imported wine and sweetmeats, man." When they were alone again, he waved at a chair in front of the fire. "Sit down, Laisa."

She flung herself into the chair, saying, "What the sandblasted hell happened here, Taquar? Why is part of your city in ruins and much of the lowest level burned? Did Davim attack Scarcleft, too?"

He shook his head, and went to stand with his back to the fire. "Hardly! No, it was the earthquake. You didn't hear? I sent word. It happened a few days after Gratitudes."

"We have been otherwise occupied," she said, her voice brittle with irritation. "We were attacked five days after Gratitudes. Nealrith sent word immediately."

"I see. None of your messengers arrived, and neither did mine to you, apparently. Davim's to blame for that, I suppose. He must have Breccia ringed. You were lucky to get through yourself."

The look she gave him was scathing. "I did not take the road, and anyway give me some credit. I do have enough water-sense to dodge men out looking for people escaping the city. So what was this earthquake? I've never heard of one doing this much damage."

"The damage was fairly localized, fortunately. Some damage to the hall. And a fire on the thirty-sixth level, but that place is no great loss. Far from it, in fact. Gave me an excuse to clean out some of the water-wasters. But tell me about Breccia's troubles."

"Troubles?" She shot him a look of scornful fury as she warmed her hands at the fire. "Is that what you'd call it? The city has fallen, you withering sand-brain! Nealrith is dead. So is Granthon. And doubtless most of our rainlords as well: Ryka and Merquel Feldspar, Kaneth Carnelian, Lord Gold and most of the rainlord priests, for a start. The Scarpen is without a competent stormlord."

Baldly, concisely and without histrionics, she told him all that she knew about the siege and how she had escaped with her daughter and Shale Flint. Except, he was quick to realize, the most important fact: the exact whereabouts of Shale. The tale didn't take her long; she finished just as the servant came in and left the tray of refreshments.