Riders of the Storm

Chapter 3

THAT WAS…INTERESTING.

Aryl tiptoed along an edge to avoid a patch of loose stone. She came last, as usual, but now stayed with the rest of the exiles. If Enris needed help, she’d reach him faster going ahead, as they were. It shouldn’t be long before they met again.

Very interesting.

He’d effortlessly shared what he saw—along with his aversion to it, which she chose to ignore. No denying his Power or skill. Few Yena could send with such ease in sight of one another, let alone at any distance. She’d learned to use the other place to reach her mother. Yet Enris took his ability to contact her at will for granted. Perhaps all Tuana were as gifted. Though this time she had the impression he hadn’t realized what he was doing, that instinct, not concentration, had opened that path to his senses. Another new Talent?

At her turn, she jumped to the ledge below like the other exiles, arms out to balance her pack as she landed lightly. A few steps to the next. Another, longer drop. The eighteen moved almost as one, in a flow of confident quick steps.

Until they reached Rayna, there was no Council to dictate what they were to do, she mused, and no Adepts to enforce those dictates. A freedom she didn’t trust. Not that she…

Aryl focused on a tricky set of handholds as she climbed up, across a thrust of stone, then down.

…not that she agreed with Yena’s refusal to permit new Talents and change. What could possibly be wrong in Enris letting her see through his eyes? If Haxel could do the same, they’d know where they were going.

They had to be careful. Without Adepts, they had no one skilled in the consequences of Power. A mistake out here could be fatal to both the user and those too close.

She refused to think about the consequences of upsetting the Agreement. One good thing about this land of cold and bleak, lifeless rock—it kept the neighbors away.

The scuff of boot on stone was the only sound. Whenever possible, fingertips brushed as holds were exchanged, exchanges of reassurance and encouragement. Ziba and Seru stayed together, the child unusually attentive. Juo lagged despite her best efforts. The previous Harvest, she’d been one of their group of unChosen, quick and surefooted, hard to beat at any game. Joined with Gijs, filled with child, she’d become more careful, not more patient. Aryl smiled to herself when Husni deliberately slowed to make the pregnant Chosen do the same. A slow pace for Yena was still a good one, especially on this stretch, where exposed ledges of some dark, harder rock formed natural steps.

Veca and Gijs had picked a route to bring the exiles to the floor of the ravine before it opened wide to meet the valley. Not far, but…Aryl frowned as she studied the descent left for the leaders. The final portion would be the most complex, choked with piles of fallen rock. The cracks between were full of snow. Couldn’t be avoided without a long detour back the way they’d come; even then, there were few better choices.

Though the wind had died, at some point each of the Om’ray paused to stare at the wild shredded darkness looming above them. Something brewed in those clouds. She took Enris’ warning about the weather seriously; they all did. Whether more snow or rain, they’d best be off the rocky slope before it fell.

“Ow!” The loud cry came with a powerful flash of pain, quickly suppressed but enough to draw startled looks. Young Cader Sarc, climbing with his Kessa’at cousin. He gave a reassuring, if sheepish, wave, and she guessed he’d stubbed a toe. He was at that clumsy age.

“What?!” Another pained exclamation, this time from Morla’s Chosen, Lendin sud Kessa’at.

As more of the exiles shouted and crouched, looking in all directions for their unseen attacker, something landed with a thud in front of Aryl.

She picked up a fist-sized lump of ice.

Before she could look for who might have thrown it, something slammed against her pack, knocking her off-balance. Another lump rolled between her feet.

They were falling from the clouds!

The path no longer mattered. Aryl and the exiles scrambled to find cover as lumps struck all around them, but there was none. Chosen shielded the children with their bodies. Some of the lumps smashed apart on rock, sharp pieces spraying outward. Most stayed intact and bounced, too hard to break. They struck flesh with the same force. Aryl’s left arm was numbed by a glancing impact. She heard screams from others as they were hit. One, then another went down. She hurried toward the horribly limp forms, her feet sliding through loose stones and balls of ice, almost deafened by the clatter of ice against rock. She reached to know who…

Chaun sud Teerac was the one crumpled and motionless on a ledge. Myris—Aryl gasped with relief—her aunt was conscious and trying to sit up, though her face was dark with blood.

Weth!!! Fear drove the sending into her mind. Aryl staggered. Somehow she collected herself in time to catch Husni by the arms before she could rush past her. As gently as she could, she urged the older Chosen under the meager shelter of an overhanging ledge.

Stay. I’ll look after Chaun.

Cetto… Husni’s mindvoice wavered, but she didn’t resist.

Stay.

Others were looking after Myris, drawing her to her feet. Aryl hurried to where Cetto protected Chaun’s helpless body with his own, an act to save Weth, their granddaughter, as much as her Chosen. The loss of one would be the loss of both.

No one would die.

Aryl joined the elder Om’ray, laying herself over as much of Chaun as she could. He was so still. She reached through that contact and found…

PAIN! She winced, relieved by the strength of Chaun’s inner self. Impossible to be heard over the crash and thud of the ice lumps. They were piling around them like the snow, chilling the air. She pushed her shoulder against Cetto’s. He’s unconscious, but I don’t think badly hurt. For now, she despaired. How long could any of them endure this onslaught? Lumps continued to strike her. The long Grona coat and her pack took the brunt of it, but Aryl knew her head and neck were vulnerable. Cetto stoically endured blows she felt through their contact. Only bruises, she hoped.

The moment came when the thud and crash gave way to a high-pitched pinging, then a steady drone. Belatedly, Aryl realized lumps no longer fell. They were being hit by what felt like small hard seeds instead. She eased herself up, holding out her palm. Icedrops. Unlike lumps, they stung when they hit skin but didn’t break it. Unlike the dancing snowdrops, they fell in sheets, a heavy white curtain that made it impossible to see any distance.

Cetto’s relieved laugh was a deep rumble. “I see why Grona like their stone houses.”

Shelter they’d left to follow her. Aryl added that to the tally she’d begun to keep, the one that measured the value of one stubborn, strange Om’ray against all the precious lives in her care.

She would get them to safety. Haxel would find shelter and be waiting. Nothing less was acceptable.

Aryl got to her feet, adjusting her hood to protect her face. “We have to go.”

No one else moved from their crouch or hiding place. Were they afraid the lumps would start falling again? The icedrops bounced and pinged from the stone, collected in piles faster than the lumps. They’d make treacherous footing. She pushed aside her own anxiety, focused on confidence. I thought we left biters behind, she sent to everyone, making it a complaint.

A wave of startled amusement answered. Time to get off this hill. Agreement. Figures began to shift and straighten, icedrops slipping from the fabric of coats and packs.

Their strongest, Rorn and Gijs, would carry Chaun. As they prepared, Aryl checked on Myris, then made sure she touched every one of the exiles before they followed Veca, reaching through that touch as unobtrusively as she could to assess their state. All but the youngest bore bruises; all were shocked by the sudden violence of the storm. Morla’s wrist was broken, a discovery they could do nothing about here. Lendin was at her side, a wicked gash on his temple, ready to help his diminutive Chosen.

Aryl quietly asked Tilip to stay close to the older pair.

They were descending again before she reached for Enris, only to find his thoughts were already close to hers, as if he’d been waiting for her attention. Are you all right?

I hid under the pots. What about you?

Icedrops bounced against her coat and hood, as noisy as the canopy after a rain. She rubbed her left arm, keeping the pain to herself. At least it’s over.

No, it isn’t, he corrected, letting her feel his dread. Ice stones come before the storm, Aryl. Those were the biggest I’ve ever seen. Haxel better have found shelter. Forget walking. It’s time to run.

It was as well for their flight from the ridge that none of the Yena understood what lay in store. Aryl urged them to hurry, but didn’t explain why. It wasn’t as if she knew. But Enris had faced truenight and the swarm without the kind of fear she felt from him now.

They were steps from the ravine floor when the din of the icedrops abruptly ceased. Ears ringing in the silence, Aryl almost missed the start of the rain.

Rain they knew. Aryl felt the tension ease in those around her. Cold, sharp, and driving, hard enough to restrict visibility to those nearest, a vicious chatter against the rocks as they continued to climb down.

But just rain.

The dim light slowed them more. It wasn’t firstnight yet, when the sun disappeared from sight behind Grona, but the dark heavy clouds made it seem more like truenight, when the only light came from stars and the Makers, Cersi’s two moons. They had to go slower, touched one another as often as possible to share impressions of the next foot-or handhold. Ziba stayed close to her mother, Juo to Husni. Or the other way around. Aryl depended more and more on her inner sense to know where everyone was, seeing the slope, like the world, in terms of Om’ray life.

Until the first flash of lightning. Then she saw the rest.

Aghast, Aryl froze in place. STOP! she sent frantically.

The fierce white light had reflected from every surface. This wasn’t rain. It was liquid ice. Like the boulders in the river they couldn’t cross, the rocks all around them were already coated in a glistening layer. In the dark, in disbelief, she stretched out her hand to touch the slick chill of the nearest surface. Flakes of ice cracked from her sleeve to melt on her skin. Thunder shook the ground.

What kind of place was this?

Another flash. Another terrifying echo from the ice. The next roll of thunder seemed to never end.

She couldn’t move a muscle. One slip. One. She’d fall. Falling, she’d knock those below from their feet and they’d fall. All of Yena’s exiled children, falling on the ice-crusted rock, cracking open like lumps themselves, fragments dying alone in the cold….

Thought Yena could climb anything. Mockery, sharp and pitiless, lanced through her paralysis. Thought Yena didn’t fall.

Stung, Aryl took one breath, then another. Yena don’t fall. And what’s a flatlander know of climbing anyway?

More than you know about ice. Oh, now he was smug. Small steps, like a baby. I haven’t all day to wait for you.

Insufferable Tuana. She’d show him. Don’t get comfortable. We won’t be long.

Waiting for a pot of water to boil. The weary comfort before sleep claimed a tired body. The rest of their descent should have taken as little time; they were that close to the gorge bottom and safety. It should have been as easy, with only two wide ledges left.

But nothing was as it should be.

Anything flat and smooth was now an enemy, impossible to walk across. The exiles had to abandon the experience and training that worked in the canopy. The only way to move was to cling to one another, to form a living chain no safer than any one link. Without warning, feet would skid from underneath, taking the strength of all to hold and recover. It was terrifying.

Through it all, the unceasing rain. It built ice on their clothing and packs, adding weight. It melted and wicked through seams to add a chill misery to weary bodies.

Through it all, the blinding flashes. They alternated with a darkness akin to truenight in the canopy. Like the others, Aryl waited for each bolt of lightning, memorizing the few steps she dared take when the light was gone. Small steps, like a baby, as suggested by someone who did, after all, know something about ice. Tiring, painstaking movements.

How much worse for Gijs? They’d strapped Chaun’s limp form to the younger Chosen’s back. Rorn helped take some weight where he could, but most of the time Gijs had to manage alone. Aryl couldn’t imagine that burden. Veca’s wish for the stranger’s aircar haunted her; her own untested ability was a constant frustration.

But how could she push Chaun to somewhere safe, if she didn’t know where that could be?

All she could do was send encouragement to the rest.

Or was that all?

No, not all.

Her great-great-uncle, Yorl sud Sarc, had used her strength to heal himself. Stolen it. She’d been helpless for that draining, trapped until freed. A sensation she’d never forget.

Could she repeat it?

Aryl followed Gijs. She closed her hand on his arm and did her utmost to feel as she’d felt, to give strength to the weary, courageous Chosen. She thought she felt something drain from her, though he didn’t react. As they waited in the dark, the exiles linked hand to hand to cross the ice, she tried a second time, tried to extend the sensation to include everyone.

When the next flash came, and they moved forward as a group, Aryl staggered and had to catch herself. Had she helped at all? She hoped her sudden clumsiness was a sign.

The drop from this ledge to the last was barely twice an adult’s height, but jumping was impossible, too. One at a time, the Om’ray slipped over the edge and felt for holds that weren’t covered in ice. Aryl came last, waiting to be sure all below had found safe footing before joining the chain again.

The final stage was a nightmarish tumble of ice-slicked boulders. The only grace was that a slip here, and there were many, couldn’t send you farther than the next obstacle. No one would escape bruises, Aryl knew, feeling her own.

Easier ahead. An almost giddy relief spread with the message. Veca had reached the bank of the narrow mountain stream. Soon, they were all free of the boulders. Level ground, but its scattered pebbles were still slippery as Aryl discovered, landing on her backside with her first incautious stride.

Small steps here, too, she thought ruefully.

Despite the need for care, those ahead of her moved more quickly, and Aryl agreed with their haste, just as eager to be free of the rock and ice. The storm, having failed to stop the Yena, admitted defeat, its thunder fading to a discontented mutter. The horizon grew brighter, then light began to stream through breaks in the clouds. The ice-rain glittered as it fell; the ice-encased stone glistened with deadly beauty, like some scaled predator basking in the sun.

Still day? The heavy cloud had fooled her. Aryl measured the sun’s position against her sense of Grona’s—it wouldn’t be day for long.

Where was the sun through truenight? Before it woke the Pana and Amna Om’ray?

She shook her head, shaking ice and droplets from her hood. It didn’t matter where it went—the Tikitik had toyed with her, mocked her understanding of the world and its light. What mattered, Aryl thought grimly, was reaching shelter before the sun abandoned them.

As for that shelter…she reached for Haxel and found her, confirming by that identification what her inner sense knew, that the others were now stationary. They’d found something—or been stopped by a barrier like that impossible river in the next gorge. She preferred the something, imagining a roof and snug walls while she was at it. And heat. Decent, comfortable heat. Glows would be nice.

She couldn’t send to ask. It was beyond her range and theirs. Another reason to discover which of the exiles could be taught to access the other place. Distance didn’t seem to affect it the same way—

Splash! Aryl looked down, surprised to find her foot in a shallow puddle. Was the ice-rain becoming something normal at last? She couldn’t tell. Her fingers and toes were numb, as was the tip of her nose, but her body was damp with sweat as much as from seepage through her now-useless Grona coat.

What fell from the sky looked and sounded the same. It was the little river that had changed. The width of a stride a moment ago, it had swollen to three times that, in many places spilling over its rocky banks. Tendrils seeped along cracks and filled depressions.

Soon they were all splashing through puddles, a harmless nuisance to already wet feet, except when the puddle formed over ice. At least the ice was melting, adding its drips to the rain and rotting softly underfoot. Sheets of it slid from the rock walls in random smashes they quickly learned to ignore.

Harmless for how long? Aryl wondered, glancing back up the gorge. Its origin within the mountain ridge was masked by rain and mist. Fed by cloudbursts, the waters of the Lay Swamp could rise with terrible speed. And the Lay had all the groves to hold its flood, unlike this narrow, steep-walled gorge.

She wasn’t the only one concerned. Veca had already set a quicker, more dangerous pace. Aryl moved even faster, making her way up the line heedless of risk. The older Om’ray gave her a harried look once they were side by side. “What is it?”

“Haxel and the others must be waiting for us to join them. What if they’re on the other side of the river we couldn’t cross?” Aryl gestured to the puddles spreading across the gorge floor. “What if it’s flooding, too? We’ll be cut off.”

Veca shrugged. “There’ll be a bridge.”

Aryl raised her eyebrows. “A bridge?”

“Grona build them.” As if this settled it.

“What makes you think this is part of Grona?”

Another shrug. “Could be Rayna, for all I know. Can you tell?”

Aryl paused while they used a pair of boulders to cross a more ambitious tendril of escaping river. She hadn’t noticed any transition from Yena to Grona, not inwardly. She’d simply known they were in another Clan’s domain. How?

Proximity to the village? It couldn’t be that…not only that, she corrected herself. What defined a Clan’s influence? The location of Om’ray minds, their glow—that was what she sensed. But with no Om’ray nearby but the exiles—and Enris—what made this bit of Cersi feel like Grona and not Yena?

Besides the fact that no Yena would want this lifeless heave of stone?

Though now that she considered the question—Aryl waited to let Veca consider the best route around a wider-than-most puddle—she realized this place didn’t feel like Grona or Rayna or any other Clan. Not to her.

Were they nearing the edge of the world?

She felt no compulsion to stop, no dread of traveling too far from her kind despite being farther than she’d ever imagined. Yet from all accounts, the edge of the world revealed itself in that way—it was the limit of Om’ray existence, and Om’ray existence, after all, defined the world.

What of the world—the worlds—of the strangers? What of the world where Marcus Bowman had stood as a young Human, perhaps wondering such things, too?

Not, she reminded herself, that Humans were real in the way Om’ray were.

“We should wait for him.”

Preoccupied, Aryl almost had to puzzle which “him” Veca meant. “Enris?” She reached. He wasn’t far from them now. “He’ll be glad. We took most of the food.”

“He can help carry Chaun.”

Her fellow exiles had a distressing tendency to value the Tuana’s strength over any other of his virtues. Aryl hid a sympathetic wince.

The gorge opened without warning, its rocky walls plunged into the soil of the valley like longknives, its now-exuberant little river absorbed by a deeper, wider channel half choked with the stalks of some tall thin vegetation. Those stalks bent with the current, taming it, silencing it. On the shore, to either side, similar stalks lay broken and flattened to the ground by, Aryl assumed, falling lumps of ice. Why had she thought the valley would be spared?

The storm itself rumbled in the distance. Not done, but not immediate. The rocks and pebbles of the mountain ridge, like the river, disappeared beneath dirt, showing as scattered mounds in what was otherwise flat terrain. Flat terrain covered, away from the water, by a messy carpet of dead leaves and smaller stalks, none over knee height. The Grona spoke of winter as a time when their plants slept beneath the ground; spring as a time of regrowth.

She hoped they were right. It all looked dead to her.

Ziba left Seru to skip through the sodden leaves. The improvement in footing cheered them all. For once, Aryl admitted, she could appreciate what Enris saw in walking on flat, boring ground. Not that she’d tell him.

Thinking of the Tuana, she started to reach for his location, only to realize it was unnecessary. Instead, she let the others go ahead, to a slight rise Veca had indicated as a place to stop, and waited expectantly.

Enris appeared around the wall of the gorge a moment later, a distant figure her inner sense recognized. She thought he raised a hand in salute, as if he’d seen her, too.

We’ll wait for you, she sent.

Don’t. I’ll catch up. Despite the heavy pack she knew he carried, Enris was indeed approaching at a steady, distance-eating lope. We can’t be caught in the open, not with injuries. Who was hurt? How badly?

Aryl wondered how he’d known; she hadn’t thought Chaun’s flash of pain that strong. Myris. Morla. Chaun’s still unconscious.

And you? You don’t feel right.

Offended, she tightened her shields to be sure whatever the Tuana felt was what she intended to share and nothing more. There’s nothing wrong with me but having to walk on your dirt.

Knew you’d see sense one day. Beneath the amusement, real concern. Keep them moving, Aryl. The storm’s not done.

Thunder rolled down the valley, as if on cue.

No one argued, though the exiles delayed to let Veca and Rorn rig a sling for Chaun from ropes and a blanket. Gijs stretched out on his back while they worked, eyes closed. Like several of the others, Aryl forced herself to chew methodically on the Grona bread. Her aunt, who sat beside her, did not.

Aryl snapped off a piece, offering it to Myris. “Trust me. It tastes better now.”

“I couldn’t.” Myris tried to smile. She fussed with her prized Grona scarf, its bright blue and yellow—dyes being one of that Clan’s skills—now liberally stained with blood. The rain had washed most of it from her face, exposing a deep gash above her right brow. The eyelid below was horribly swollen and black. She was too pale, the darks of both eyes too large. Nothing they could help here, Aryl thought anxiously, refusing to believe it might be nothing they could help at all. “Stop worrying,” her aunt ordered, nothing wrong with her perception. “You’re as bad as Ael.”

She considered her aunt, struck by an idea. “He’s with Haxel. How much can you sense from him?”

Chosen were Joined. That permanent connection didn’t make them more able to send words to one another across distance, since sending was related to individual Power. But Costa had assured her—many times—that the link gave each a special insight into the state of the other regardless of distance. Her brother had claimed to know when his beloved Leri was lonely or sad or happy. Aryl remembered being convinced this was only so Costa had a ready excuse to leave her for his Chosen.

Then she’d found her way into the other place, where connection mattered more than distance. She believed now, after Costa was dead and Leri one of the mindless Lost. Aryl’s fingers sketched apology in her lap.

“You know perfectly well I can’t hear him,” Myris protested. “I’m not like you or—or Taisal.”

“Yes, but can you tell me how he feels—right now?” She felt the other’s puzzlement.

Seru, sitting nearby, leaned closer to catch the answer. Aryl smiled a welcome. Her cousin’s interest in anything about Choice and being a Chosen was reassuringly normal.

Myris didn’t appear to notice. Her hands clenched on her scarf, then she spoke in a whisper Aryl had to strain to hear. “Afraid. So afraid. He can hardly breathe.”

Seru scrambled back. “I told you we shouldn’t go this way.” Not quite a shout, but everyone looked their way. “I told you!” That was. She lurched to her feet and broke into a clumsy run, but didn’t go far, perhaps daunted by the glowering cloud and dead landscape on all sides. There she stood, back to her kind, head high and free of its hood; the freshening wind whipped desperate locks of her hair from its net, as expressive as any Chosen’s.

Though Aryl ached to go to her, she stayed with Myris. “We’re all afraid,” she told her aunt. “Do you feel anything more? Is he comfortable? Warm? Cold?” She had no idea what Chosen truly felt; she did know each Joining was unique. Myris might not have her sister’s Power—but she had her own sensitivities. “Is he anxious to be with you, or for you to be with him?”

“What an odd—” Myris blinked. “With him,” she stated, her eyes brightening. “Yes. Wherever Ael is, he wants me there. They’ve found a place for us, Aryl!”

Though Aryl smiled with relief, her gaze lingered on Seru.

What did she see, that no one else could?