The Last Stormlord

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Scarpen Quarter Breccia City Past noon, and the reeve at the Cistern Chambers on Level Six was still alive and still on duty. He unlocked the door to the main water tunnel for Lord Kaneth and fifteen exhausted, wounded men.

"They are killing reeves," Kaneth said as the man lit a candle lantern for them to use in the tunnel. "Level by level. Come with us to Breccia Hall. If you stay here at the waterhall, you'll die."

"It's hard to walk away from your duty," the reeve replied, shaking his head. "My father was the reeve here before me. And his father before him. I grew up here." He sighed. "I shall probably die here. What else is there for me?"

Kaneth looked away. Honour, he thought, comes at a terrible price. He had seen too many good men die this day. Aloud he resorted to ritual words. "May the Sunlord send you solace."

"Take care, my lord."

Kaneth urged his small group of guards uplevel. Tired as they were, bleeding and bruised and limping, they found it a tough dimb. Worse, there were grilles blocking the tunnel on every level, each with a water lock to be opened and closed, which meant Kaneth had to find power somewhere inside himself to manipulate them. He had never been so close to dropping with exhaustion. Blighted eyes, but he was tired!

He had used up most of his power on the walls hours before, just after dawn. The drums had told him to expect the worst, and the worst had come with the forced opening of the gates-by Reduners already on the inside. Since then, Kaneth had been fighting in the streets. No more ziggers, though, thank the Sunlord. Or maybe thank the Reduner reluctance to risk dying in the frenzy from their own bastard weapons. Still, men died, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of chalamen and bladesmen. They'd had to flee and regroup.

He'd known they were doomed. Known he was a dead man refusing to give up. It made no difference to his decisions. He had rallied as many guards as he could find, and they'd held off the invaders for a time on Level Ten. He and Elmar had fought side by side, two men sealing a long camaraderie with a deeper bond of two warriors who believed they were about to die. As the day wore on, more and more men dropped. Elmar saved Kaneth several times; Kaneth returned the favour, flashing a smile at the pikeman. For a while, they seemed charmed, a duo that could hold death at bay.

On Level Eight, their small group made another stand and held their position with the aid of an ageing waterpriest rainlord who had not yet used up all his power. In the end, the man died, speared from behind, and the group splintered as they were charged by Reduner warriors. Kaneth led those who stuck with him to the Level Six Cistern Chambers. He knew it was time to abandon the streets to the Reduners.

When he scanned the men remaining with him, Elmar was no longer among them. He spared a moment to grieve. They arrived at the Breccia Hall entrance almost a sandglass run later, and a water reeve opened the door for them. Kaneth continued up to the waterhall on Level One, leaving the guards behind at the hall.

He emerged straight into chaos. The defensive wall that had been erected across the tunnel leading from the mother cistern had been partially torn down. Everywhere he looked there were bodies of the dead or dying. At one end of the hall, half a dozen guards and a reeve were fighting still, close to being overwhelmed by eight or nine Reduners. At first glance, Kaneth couldn't see Ryka, and his heart clenched with the unthinkable fear that she was dead. Then he saw her, lying against the wall, out of the way of the fighting.

Not dead, but wounded. Her thigh was roughly bandaged; blood showed through the cloth. She faced the skirmishing, propping herself up on an elbow. From the intensity of her stare, he guessed she was using her water-powers. He raced across the room, sword drawn, reaching for the dregs of his power as he ran. Halfway across, he sucked water from the nearest Reduner. The man collapsed, shrieking. Entering the fray, Kaneth trod on the man's face. The next man he ran through with his blade. The impact almost wrenched his sword out of his hand.

Kaneth came up behind a warrior advancing on Ryka and tossed him face first into the nearest cistern. He pushed the man's head under the water. A younger warrior leaped at Kaneth with a roar of rage and a swinging scimitar. Kaneth ducked, parried-and blinded his attacker without losing his hold on the drowning man. He released his grip only when the Reduner stilled under his hand.

Panting, Kaneth resorted to water-power again and blinded two more Reduners before they realised their danger. Another turned to flee towards the exit tunnel, only to have Ryka snatch up a sword and swing it into the back of his knees. He collapsed. She finished him off by extracting the water from his throat. He died opening and closing his mouth in silence, like a fish out of water.

Kaneth looked around for someone else to kill, but the remaining Reduners were already dead. He lowered his sword and turned to the Breccian guards. They were all wounded, but still upright. "Good work," he said with a satisfied nod. "Check all the bodies to make sure they are dead. If not, kill them. And get that dead fellow out of our drinking water. Then start to block the entrance to the tunnel again before the next lot come."

The men obeyed wordlessly. One of them plunged his head into the open cistern. When he lifted it out again, dripping, he drank deeply from his cupped hands. To Kaneth, it was an action that said more than anything else; in a single day, something that once would have been a crime had ceased to mean anything at all.

He looked at Ryka. She was on her feet, bloodied, dirty, weary, her sword slipping from her grasp. And he was certain, as never before, what was important-and how stupid he had been not to have seen it years earlier. How ironic, he thought, his heart aching. It took a war.

"How badly are you hurt?" he asked, striding to her side.

"Shallow cut. Bloody, but nothing serious."

"Your father?"

"I heard he died up on the walls."

The pain in her eyes unmanned him. He couldn't speak. It was she who came to him, standing up and reaching out in answer to what she read in his eyes. "I thought you might be dead, too," she whispered. "I thought I'd lost you."

He enfolded her in his embrace, clutched her tight, buried his face in her hair. They stood like that, momentarily shut off from the world, while the men dealt out death around them. When he did speak, he said the first thing that came into his head.

"There haven't been any hussies. Or snuggery jades. Not since the day we married. Not even once." Oh shit, he thought. Did I really have to mention that now?

Her arms tightened around him. "Not even since I left your bed?" she asked.

"Not even then. I didn't want them any more, not after you." He eased his hold so that he could see her face, meet her eyes. When he spoke, there was pain behind every word he uttered, and he neither tried nor wanted to hide it. "Ryka, the truth is you have to come through this alive. Because without you, I won't have a reason to live. It's taken me half a lifetime to see that you are all that matters, all I want, all I need. I'm so sorry you were forced into a marriage you didn't want. So very, very sorry."

She sighed as if he had said something excessively stupid. "You are the only man I ever wanted to marry since I was fourteen years old, you dryhead."

He tried to make sense of that, but it was too difficult. Emotion uncurled inside him, but he couldn't untangle the strands: love, hope and shining joy entwined with dark knots of despair and grief.

"There's no need to say it," she said gently and laid a finger to his lips. "I've already heard the only thing I needed to hear. I love you, Kaneth Carnelian, and I always have. Always." The day passed unbearably slowly down in the hidden room on the thirtieth level. They measured time by the run of a sandglass and the faint light that entered through the ventilator from the outside. The day had, in fact, begun for them before dawn, when they had heard the distant drumbeats that signalled an attack on the walls. The level's reeve had spoken to them then, using the other ventilator shaft, his voice echoing strangely. He had told them he would go out into the streets to find out what was happening and they were not to move until he came back.

He had not returned yet.

Senya slept most of the time; Laisa paced; Jasper tried to read by lantern light. He'd opened the pack he had been given, to find that it contained the tables and maps he had studied with Cloudmaster Granthon. They detailed all the areas throughout the Quartern where rain was supposed to fall, and when, and how to get it there. Some of this Jasper had already learned in a practical sense from Granthon. Granthon and Nealrith had done their best to pour as much knowledge into him in the time they'd had, but it had not been enough. Here, in written form, was all he needed to know, if he ever had the chance to study it. If ever he grew enough in power to apply it. The size of the task was monumental.

Those papers weren't the only things in the pack: there were food supplies, a blanket, a palmubra hat and water skins, as yet empty. All things he would need on a journey.

He looked up, watching Laisa's shadow on the wall as she paced with unending restlessness. What drives her? he wondered. Not love, he was sure of that. He looked away from the shadow to her face, to the reality. Her brows were drawn together into a deep furrow, and the lines around her lips were tight with irritation.

We are all about to lose the lives we have led, he thought. And then, brightening slightly, Never mind. Maybe I can search for Terelle at last. Maybe I can find Mica.

But though he tried to find hope in that, he was thinking of a land without rain. Of a Quartern that was about to die because he couldn't bring it water, because he was the last stormlord and couldn't make a storm cloud.

Terelle. Maybe she could help with her painting. That was another reason to find her.

As if I needed another one! I must find her. We have to find a way.

We must. The reeve did not return to speak to them again.

Some time after midnight, Kaneth came, but a different Kaneth to the well-groomed man Jasper knew. He was dirty, tired, unshaven. There was blood on his clothing, and he reeked of sweat and crushed ziggers and death. He was so exhausted, Jasper had to hold back the water while he entered or they would all have been inundated.

Senya wrinkled her nose and said, "You stink, Lord Kaneth!"

They all ignored her. Laisa asked, her voice unusually rough, "What's the news?"

Jasper poured him a drink of amber as the rainlord replied: "The worst. They're in the city. In fact, I expected to find you gone. I thought I had better check, just to be sure you'd got out."

"The reeve never told us anything. We haven't heard from him since before dawn, just after the drums started," Laisa said.

"Ah. He was one of the casualties, I expect. And if there was a backup plan in case something went wrong, that also failed you. You should have gone just before dawn. That's when they entered the city."

"They've taken Breccia?" Jasper asked.

"We still hold the waterhall and Breccia Hall. Level One and Level Two. Mix some water with that, Jasper-I don't want to lose my edge. And get me some food. I need to build up my power." He sat down with a sigh. "There are so many Breccian dead. The guard is shattered. Lord Gold is dead. Other rainlords died. Merqual and the waterpriest Foqat for sure. I haven't seen Lord Selbat or Lord Meridan or Lord Porfrey or Lord Tourmaline, and nor has anyone else, so they are missing, too."

He took the mug and looked at Laisa. She read the look and said calmly, "He's dead?"

"Not-not yet. That I know of. But they do have him. He did a brilliant job, you know," Kaneth said.

"Who are you talking about?" Senya asked petulantly. "Who's captured?"

"They paraded him under the walls of Breccia Hall," Kaneth said. "He was, um, still alive. I'm sorry."

For the first time, Jasper saw Laisa lose her composure. Her face whitened. He understood then the double meaning in Kaneth's words and had to turn away to hide the dry heave that rose through him.

"You mean Papa?" Senya asked. "But he's a rainlord! They couldn't take him prisoner. He'd just suck the water out of them!"

No one said anything. Senya looked from one to another, then started to cry. For once, Laisa showed some compassion for her daughter. She reached out and gently pulled the girl to her, burying Senya's face in her shoulder.

"How many people do we have safe in Breccia Hall and the waterhall?" she asked after a pause. To Jasper's ears, she sounded inhumanly calm.

"About five or six thousand adults. It's packed up there. Too many are not fighters. There are so many children. It was hard to turn anyone away. We can hold out for a while. With a smaller area to defend, the rainlords still alive have a better chance."

"What's happening in the rest of the city?" Jasper asked, bringing a selection of food to Kaneth.

"The Reduners are telling people to stay indoors. If they don't, they are killed. They are slaughtering all reeves as soon as they identify them. And any Breccian guards, of course." He helped himself to some flat cakes stuffed with bab fruit.

Laisa tapped her fingernails impatiently on Senya's back. "There's something else you are not saying, Kaneth," she said.

"I'm getting to that. We had a message from Davim. He says that he will spare the city, leave entirely, even give us back Nealrith… if we give him Jasper."

"Oh!" Senya exclaimed, tears forgotten. "Then we can do that! What does it matter? Jasper can go with the Reduners. They need a stormlord, so they won't hurt him. And he can still bring us rain."

Jasper shot her a look, then turned away. Neither Laisa nor Kaneth spoke. Kaneth doggedly continued eating. The silence dragged on.

Finally Jasper asked, "And if I don't go to him?"

"Nealrith dies, and Davim starts bringing out the city folk, ten at a time, to feed the ziggers. Ten people every hour."

"Did he give a deadline for the decision?"

"Sunset tomorrow. I've no idea why he gave us so long."

"He's probably smart enough to realise that it's something that would require some debate," Laisa said. "And by then he will have shown you in other ways that you can't win."

"He'll have his answer tomorrow," Jasper added tightly.

"No!" Senya cried. "It's not your decision, Jasper! It's ours! We can give you up if we like."

Jasper whipped around to face her. He said coldly, "With the death of your grandfather, I am now Cloudmaster, and you will not treat me with disrespect. Do I make myself clear?" His voice sounded confident and calm to his ears, but inside, both his resolution and his courage trembled. The blood burned in his cheeks.

Who am I trying to fool?

She stared at him, defiant. "You may be a stormlord, but Grandfather didn't appoint you as his heir. You're not the Cloudmaster, Shale Flint! Taquar was to be the high ruler, not you. You're just a dirty Gibber rat!"

"Taquar's claim to the position was revoked at the Gratitudes festival," he said.

"But Grandfather died without naming anyone else," she pointed out triumphantly. "And Mama said that means it could revert to the last named heir-Taquar."

Her words gored him. Whatever had given him his moment of strength, of resolution, was ripped apart by her words. He turned to Laisa and Kaneth, unwilling to believe. "Is that true?"

Laisa nodded. Kaneth demurred. "Only if the Council of Rainlords agrees," he said.

Jasper went taut, every part of him strained with anger and betrayal, as if there was something inside him that was too big to be contained.

The look Laisa gave him was one of pity. "Jasper, Granthon had a point. You are very young to rule. And to be the Quartern's one and only stormlord at the same time?" She shrugged. "You know how tiring it is." He heard her unspoken taunt. How inadequate you are.

He was silent.

She continued, "You will have Taquar's power to back you. You may be able to call up storms with his help. You will be the most revered of the Quartern's citizens, its stormshifter. There won't be any question this time of Taquar keeping you imprisoned in some mother cistern somewhere."

He was silent long enough to control his rage, to be able to say quietly, "I doubt that Davim has included Taquar in his present plans. For myself, I don't care too much about whether I rule as Cloudmaster, but I will not take orders from Taquar or Davim. Not ever. And until such time as Davim takes power in Breccia City, I will make the decisions here, at least the ones that concern me and the ones that concern water." He looked back at Senya. "And my name is Jasper Bloodstone."

For a moment, he thought she was going to defy him. Then all her bravado drained away, and he was reminded that she was, after all, just a spoiled girl whose world was breaking up around her, who had just been told that her father was a hostage to a desert warrior not known for his compassion. She nodded, subdued and sulky.

Wonderful, he thought. The first thing you do with your authority is lord it over a silly half-grown girl.

He looked at Laisa. "Rainlord?"

She shrugged indifferently. "As you wish."

"Kaneth?"

The rainlord gave an ironical bow. The curve of his lips, the knowing smile, told Jasper that he wasn't fooling the man. Kaneth knew exactly how he quaked inside, how inadequate he felt. How inadequate he was.

Jasper said, "I need to know everything from now on, no matter what."

His mouth full, Kaneth waved a half-eaten flat cake indicating his acquiescence. He swallowed and said, "You can't surrender yourself to Davim, anyway. He could kill you, and then we'd be as good as gutted."

"I am aware of that," Jasper said. He was ashamed of his relief. Struggling to hide it, he added, "My death would be the best way to ensure another era of random rain and a new age of the nomad."

Laisa made an exasperated noise. "Watergiver's heart! None of that matters much now. What we have to do is decide when to leave."

"Best wait until tomorrow," Kaneth said. "At sunset. Davim will be at the gates of the Hall, and so will most of his men. They will have fewer guards on the periphery then, and you'll have a better chance of escape. We'll prolong the discussion, try to bargain with him. Then we'll tell him you've already gone-a fact you will have to make obvious to the guards in the groves as you leave."

Jasper turned and went to stand by the fireplace. He kicked at a still-glowing coal that had rolled onto the hearth. Six thousand people. Plus who knows how many children. People like Ryka. City folk, ten at a time, to feed the ziggers. And who had the chance to walk away from all this? Jasper Bloodstone. Not to mention Laisa and Senya.

When he turned back to face the three of them, he felt old, as ancient and as harshly sculptured as Wash Drybone. He said, "Yes, I agree. Come back here tomorrow to tell us if there's any change."

Kaneth nodded. There was pity in the rainlord's eyes as he turned towards the door.

"I'll open it," Jasper said. "You conserve your strength." He walked Kaneth to the bottom of the ladder. "About Rith," he said softly. "Where did they take him? Is there any chance he'll live?"

"He was in-in poor shape. Tortured. Someone must have told them that a weakened man can't renew his power. Even if they gave him back to us, I don't think he'd live. I heard from one of the reeves who came through the tunnel later that they put him in some kind of cage and strung it up over the South Gate."

They exchanged a glance, sharing their grief. He's known Rith since they were children, Jasper thought. His closest friend. The pain of his loss, the agony of knowing there was no way of going back-it was written there on his face.

"Cloudmaster," Kaneth said and inclined his head; and because he was Kaneth, there was raillery mixed with the respect. Jasper smiled slightly and watched as the rainlord climbed to the manhole above.

When he returned to the room, Laisa said, "You've come a long way, Jasper Bloodstone, late of Wash Drybone Settle. It was kind of Kaneth not to mention your lack of cloudmaking abilities." The eyes were beautiful, but the look she gave him was hard. "And apart from that, you're only, what, eighteen maybe? Nineteen at the outside. What do you know of ruling? Of war? Of the affairs of men?" She was patronising him still, but she was wary of him now, in a way she had never been before.

"More than some learn in a lifetime, Laisa. Believe me, I have learned fast of late."

"If you die, my lord, so does a land. That is quite a responsibility."

"I know."

Dear Watergiver, I know.