The Last Stormlord

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

From the Gibber Quarter to the Scarpen Quarter Shale was in pain and the pain was everywhere.

He welcomed it. Pain kept him from thinking, and thinking would have been a worse agony.

He had been flung, stomach down, across the back of a myriapede. His hands were tied with hemp to one side of the beast, his legs anchored to the other side. The flexible multiple legs of the pede made for a smooth ride, but just being bent over in the middle for so long created tangled knots of agony in his sinews and cramp in his muscles. The black chitin of the pede heated up beneath him and the sun beat down on his back.

Every hour or two his captors stopped for a short rest. There were only two of them: two pedes, two men, still with their faces wrapped in their red cloths.

Why only two? Where were the rest?

Still killing a settle.

A whole settle.

Stop thinking.

Citrine…

Stop thinking.

Mica. They hadn't killed Mica. Or he hadn't seen them do so.

They had herded everyone who was still alive, including Mica, in one direction and taken Shale the opposite way, to load him onto the pede. But so many had died before that. He saw their deaths still. He remembered their screams.

Stop thinking, you sand-leech! Concentrate on the pain. On the aching muscles. On the heat. On your thirst. On anything.

Two men on pedes. Heading up the wash towards the next settle. With him tied up like a sack of salt. His head bumped on the saddle cloth. It was thickly embroidered with patterns and swirls. The kind of thing his mother had stitched.

She was dead. He had seen the spear in her stomach. She'd actually tried to attack the man who'd snatched Citrine. Who would have thought she would be so brave? She'd always cowered from Galen. She'd never made the slightest attempt to defend Shale from his father.

They had singled him out. They had known his name. That man, the leader, had been looking for him. But not to kill him. To take him away. To the Red Quarter?

I didn't tell anyone, Lord Taquar. I didn't tell anyone about knowing water!

So how then had the sandmaster known his name?

He stared at the carvings on the pede segment near his cheek. They showed some early event in the life of the pede: apparently he had fallen into a sinkhole and Reduners had pulled him out. And that was how he had been caught and tamed. Shale wondered about how the Reduners made the carvings. Did it hurt the pede? Did they use a knife? Did the owner do it himself, or did he employ a special person to do it for him?

Stupid questions when his sister's blood was drying on his clothes. He'd felt the stickiness of it on his skin, before they tied him down.

Citrine.

Don't think about it.

If they were going to kill him, why hadn't they done it back at Wash Drybone Settle?

And Mica. Blast the withering bastards, what were they going to do to Mica? They stopped at nightfall. They untied him and gave him food to eat, a blanket from their packs to sleep in, a water skin. He asked them where they were going, what they were going to do with him, and they didn't reply. When they spoke to each other, they muttered in their own tongue. Even when he heard, he didn't understand much. He ate, even as he thought his hunger was a betrayal of those who had died that day. They tied his legs together then and pointed to the blanket. He wrapped it around himself and went to sleep. He thought he wouldn't be able to; he thought oblivion would be banned to him for the rest of his life; he believed that last scream of Citrine's would keep him awake forever. And yet he slept, fitful sleep studded with the spikes of tortured dreams, impaired sleep that left him weary and sick.

When he woke in the morning, he vomited; he had the worst headache he had ever had in his life. He didn't want to eat, so they gave him water. The next thing he knew, it was hours later and he was lying lengthwise on the back of a pede, a packpede this time. He was tied to a baggage pallet like a sack of bab fruit. Two Reduners rode the beast, one at the head, the other at the back. They had not bothered to wrap their faces. He didn't think these were the same men who had guarded him the day before. The myriapedes those first men had been riding had vanished, and now there was more baggage than there had been.

He tried to make sense of what had happened, but drowsiness overcame his senses.

After that, his conscious moments blurred into a series of vague images as confused as any dream. Sometimes he was in a camp, wrapped in a blanket; sometimes he was lying on the baggage pallet, and they were moving. During other half-lucid moments, aware of the agony of aching muscles and a bruised body, he ate, drank, relieved himself. Most of the time, though, he just slept. Every time he struggled awake, when he thought he was beginning to make sense of what was happening, the clarity would slip away once more. He tried to ask where they were taking him, but the men just laughed and said things he couldn't understand.

Several days passed before he made the connection between the water they gave him and his inability to stay awake. He tried to refuse to drink, but they forced it down his throat and he couldn't remember what happened next. Hours later, he woke on the back of the pede, muscles screaming.

Then one night, after accepting the food and water they gave him, he felt better, not worse. More alert, for the first time in days. When he slept, it was in snatches, lightly. He wondered if they had run out of whatever it was they had been putting in the water, and began to feel hope.

He was dreaming. Someone was shouting, but he couldn't see them. "What happened to the brother?" a voice growled, irate. "Where is he? Mica? Where is the one called Mica?"

Someone replied, but he didn't hear what they said.

Then, "Yes, I know she died! But there was a brother. Tell me, or-"

Something knocked against him. He woke, terrified. People were fighting around him. He struggled up, entangled in his blanket. He kicked himself free and scrambled to his feet, heart thudding in the suddenness of his terror. Two men, just dark shapes in the starlight, rolled past him. They were grunting, punching, wrestling. He didn't know why, and he didn't care. All it meant to him was an opportunity to escape.

He grabbed for what he thought was one of the packs-he would need food and untainted water if he was going to head off into the desert alone-but his hand closed around an ankle instead. In shock, he stumbled and thumped down on his backside next to a body. One of his captors, semi-conscious, groaning. Who was the second man in the fight, then? He looked, just in time to see one of the fighters hit the other with a blow that lifted him off his feet.

The victor looked around, saw him, and said, "Shale?"

He was too stunned to answer.

"It's Highlord Taquar. Come on, quick, let's get out of here."

"How-how-" he began, but his mind wouldn't think. No, couldn't think.

"Later. My pede is this way." A hand closed over Shale's and pulled him around a rocky outcrop to where a myriapede waited. "Quick, up you get."

"But-"

"Later." The voice gave every indication the owner of it would not tolerate further delay, so Shale stretched, hopping awkwardly, to shove his foot into the mounting slot and heave himself up. He settled cross-legged on the padded cushion-saddle. Experienced riders might be able to balance themselves without holding on, but Shale had no illusions. People could die falling off a pede. He held tight to the handle.

Taquar mounted in front of him and swung the pede away from the prostrate figures. Shale tried to sort out what had happened. How had Taquar known where to find him?

"Are you all right, lad? Hold on tight. I want to get out of here fast. Crouch down low."

He did as he was told and felt the pede lift up underneath him as it quickened. The ground blurred; the wind rushed by. He gripped so hard his fingers ached.

When the beast tired and slowed, Taquar settled it down into a steady pace, then twisted around in the saddle to look at Shale. "Don't worry, they won't find us even if they do wake up. The ground is hard here-there'll be no trail to follow."

"How did you find me?"

"Come now, people like you and me don't need marks on the ground to know a pede passed by. We can sense the trace of water ahead of us. I'm sorry it took so long, though." He patted Shale's arm. "And I'm so very, very sorry about what happened back there, in your settle."

"I didn't tell no one!"

"I fear it may have been my fault. I thought-never mind that now. I was coming to fetch you, but I was just a day too late."

Memory flashed, unwelcome. "They s-spitted m'sister and Ma and then Pa. I saw that. My brother-they didn't k-kill him. Mica and some of the older'uns-they were still alive when I left." He started shaking and wasn't able to stop. They had played a game with Citrine. And she hadn't died until the third player had passed her back to the sandmaster and he had gutted her on his chala spear. Her blood had sprayed…

His stomach heaved.

For a moment Taquar was silent. Then he said, "Sometimes they take boys and youths back to the Red Quarter. Girls and the prettier women, too."

Shale's shudders went on. "As slaves?"

"No. Converts, more like."

"Don't unnerstand."

"They take them to make warriors out of them. Tribe members. Tribal women. To become Reduner. It's not a bad life."

His revulsion and denial were instant. "Mica'd never be one of them spitless bastards!"

"You'd better hope he's bright enough not to tell them that, then. Otherwise, he's already dead. I asked the Reduners about him, back at the settle, and just then, too, but no one could tell me anything. I did hear about your sister. I'm sorry." He fumbled in the saddlebag and then turned once more to press something into Shale's hand. "I found this," he said. "Your piece of jasper. It was lying on the ground near your hut."

Shale's hand closed around the stone, feeling its familiar shape. Citrine had held it in her hand and smiled. He was silent, grieving.

"I fear Mica will have to make his own choices. There's nothing you or I can do about what happened in your settle, Shale. At least not yet. Put your mind to other things."

He thought that over, and although it made sense, it just wasn't possible. How could he rip out the pictures in his head of Citrine dying? Of so many bloody deaths? The splitting-shrill-begging scream of dying. The blood-vomit-shit stench of it. Citrine turning in the air, her little hands opening and closing as if she wanted to clutch something, anything, the jasper spinning away to be trampled underfoot, unnoticed by the Reduners, forgotten by him until now.

He tried to swallow away his terror. His grief. He slipped the jasper into the seam of his tunic and held on to the segment handle tight to stop the shaking of his hands. "W-where you takin' me?"

"Somewhere safe. Very safe. I can't trust anyone. But we have a long ride tonight to get there. We'll be there sometime tomorrow morning. Now let me concentrate on guiding the pede-it's dark and it's not an easy ride at night."

He turned to pay attention to the way ahead. Shale huddled behind him and tried not to think too much. By the time they reached their destination, the sun was blazing and the sand-dancers were blurring the horizon. It was more a cave than a building, a cavern carved into a steep hillside, just where the slope eased off to become an undulating rocky plain. Shale didn't understand the land. It looked as if it had been folded and pleated and torn by a giant hand, or crushed in the grip of a maniac god. Used to the flatness of the Gibber, that intrigued him-but what overwhelmed him was the smell, the feel, the presence of water.

Taquar halted the pede in front of the entrance and slipped down. Shale was so tired, so stiff, that he fell rather than dismounted. The rainlord had to grab his arm to stop him crashing to the ground.

"Take a good look, Shale. This is going to be your home for quite a while. Can you feel the water?"

He nodded.

"What do you think this place is?"

He thought about that. "It's got a cistern. A big 'un. There's water comin' into it all the time-and goin' out, too."

Taquar smiled in satisfaction. "It's the mother cistern for one of the Scarpen cities. A tunnel takes water from here to my city, Scarcleft."

Shale looked blank. "Tunhill?"

"Tunnel. Like an underground slot. A slot big enough to walk through."

"Like a mine adit?" Shale asked, brightening. "I seen those. There's lots of old mines near the settle."

"Exactly. Except our tunnels are round."

The rainlord unstrapped his pack and the two cages of ziggers from the back of his mount, passing the latter to Shale to carry. "You know what these are, what they can do?"

He nodded.

"Then be careful." The rainlord turned and walked to the entrance. There was no door, just a large grille across the opening. Taquar stood in front of it for a long while, not moving.

He is concentrating, Shale guessed, vaguely aware of water moving, but against a background of so much water, he could not be sure what was happening. He was astonished to see the grille rise, apparently by itself, and disappear up into the rock. It grumbled as it went, slowly, in spasmodic shifts. When it was fully open, Taquar walked inside and gestured for Shale to do the same. "Leave the ziggers on the floor near the wall," he said. He strode across the flat floor of the cavern, the pede ambling after him, to where there were several troughs. He unplugged a spigot on the cavern wall and Shale blinked as water streamed out. He stepped back uneasily. It seemed a careless way to deal with water. The pede dropped its head to drink.

"While we are here, the care of my pede is one of your chores," Taquar said. "Do you know how to groom one?"

He nodded again, still wide-eyed. Such odd jobs had earned him and his brother tokens from Reduner caravans.

"What about cupping blood from a pede for the ziggers?"

Shale nodded yet again. It was easier than talking.

"You've done it before?"

"For Reduners. They all have ziggers."

"Good. Come with me into the inner rooms." Taquar closed the spigot and went to open a door on the far side of the cavern. Shale put the ziggers down carefully and followed him through the doorway into a smaller cave.

Light filtered in from a long thin crack high overhead. Shale looked around: several raised platforms with folded-up bedding, four chairs, a table and a pot-belly stove-more items than in most homes of Wash Drybone Settle. Taquar took out his flint and tinderbox to get a flame going.

"Those are beds," Taquar said when he saw Shale staring at the platforms, "to sleep on. It's better than a pallet on the floor." He indicated a recess in the wall. "That's the deep-earth privy. You'd probably call it an outhouse."

Shale nodded, but he had a hard time containing his astonishment. All the hovels along the top of the Drybone wash had shared a single outhouse, and privies in the settle were always built outside, in the garden, not inside the house. He sniffed cautiously, but couldn't smell anything. Still, he thought it stupid to put an outhouse in the room you wanted to live in.

"When you use it," Taquar said, pausing to apply the flame to the wick of a lamp on the table, "wash properly afterwards."

Shale's eyes widened further. Wash?

Taquar didn't notice his amazement. He continued, "The door on the left opens to the storeroom. This one here"-he picked up the lamp and walked to another door on the right-"goes to the waterhall." He stepped through, beckoning Shale to follow. The sense of water was suffocating.

At first Shale couldn't see anything in the dark. Then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he saw that they were in another huge underground cavern. He'd seen such things before, below the surface of the Gibber. There was no direct opening to the outside world, and beyond the feeble light of the lamp and the light that entered through the door, there was only darkness. Close to where they stood, he could see the edge of an underground expanse of water, the surface of which was as smooth and as black as a starless sky. He gaped, overwhelmed.

Taquar gave a faint smile. "You'll get used to it, in time. Water flows into this lake from the mother wells, which are deep in the Warthago Range. The inlet pipe is over there."

He pointed. Shale could not see it in the dark, but he felt the flow.

"Over there"-Taquar pointed to the opposite side-"there's another pipe, through which water is siphoned off, to the tunnel that runs to Scarcleft. There's an overflow pipe there, too, which also runs down to the tunnel, just in case the lake level rises too high. Not that that happens these days," he added in disgust. "We in Scarcleft do our utmost to conserve water, yet are treated the same way as those cities that squander their water-wealth! I've had to adjust the siphon several times over the past year because the water entering has lessened."

"Scarcleft's a settle?" Shale asked, struggling to understand.

"Of sorts. If you were to walk to Scarcleft from here-without stopping from sunup to sundown-it would take you six days or more. And it is a very large settle, called a city." Taquar's tone implied he expected Shale to retain all this information because he wouldn't be told again. Then the rainlord reached into the darkness behind him and picked up a bucket, which he filled to the brim from the lake.

"One thing I will not tolerate, Shale, is filth. And you are a filthy child. You are going to wash, using soap, and I am going to shave your head. Then I am going to burn that smock of yours. I have several sets of clean clothes for you. You will wear them, and you will keep them clean. You will brush your hair-once it grows again-every day. You will clean your teeth every day. Every day you will use a bucket of clean water for washing. When you have finished with the water, you will pour it into the pede trough. Those are orders. Understand me?"

Shale stared at the rainlord in amazement, one part of him horrified. "Use w-water for washin' m'body?" he asked. "Every day?"

"That's right." Taquar's voice was as hard as iron, making it clear there was to be no argument. Without pausing, he went on, "Right now, you will wash, dress in clean clothes, then you will eat, and only then can you go and rest. This evening, after you have napped, we will begin work."

Shale did not dare ask what kind of work.

The twist of fear inside made him feel as if his father was still there, haunting him.