Riders of the Storm (8 page)

A few more steps, another blink, and the indistinct shadows re-formed. Aryl slowed and stopped as she understood.

This wasn't a grove.

Others passed her, packs coated in white, eager for shelter. Aryl let them.

Thick drops of snow slipped and danced around her, playing hide/seek. She scuffed her toe through what lay on the ground to find a pavement of flat, well-fitted stone, then looked up again. What rose beside her weren't leaning stalks.

Though it was wood.

Huge splintered beams—some heaved upright and tangled, like sticks tossed by a child and let fall, others protruding from mounds—bordered this road. For road it was. Making this a place—a built place—before its destruction. Home to the forgotten Chosen whose headdress pressed against her skin.

Sona.

Only one word, but sent with a certainty she shared. Enris was right. This had been the home of a Clan. But what did it mean? What had happened? Were they safe or now in danger from more than the storm?

There, with the last group of exiles, came the only Om'ray who might have answers. How Seru Parth knew anything about this dead place, Aryl couldn't imagine, but she no longer doubted. She took a step to intercept her cousin, then hesitated.

Seru was chatting happily to Ziba, pointing ahead to the welcome light, laughing as if they'd been out for an afternoon's visit instead of a march across ice and rock.

As if she'd never left her body empty on the road.

“Come,” Enris said softly. “Answers can wait for a roof.”

 

Haxel had indeed found them a roof: the remains of a building with a few roof beams askew overhead. Stone and black wood rose as walls to shoulder height on three sides, barring the cold fingers of wind. The First Scout and the others had moved loose rubble to clear a flat, if not level, area within, in so doing discovering the remains of a stone hearth. It held a crackling fire for the first time in—none of them bothered to speculate how long this place had been a ruin. Om'ray lived in the known and the now; for the first time, Aryl understood the comfort that could give. A shame she couldn't bring herself to feel it.

Their carefully gathered twists of dry grass were put aside for the future; there were abundant splinters of dark, wide-grained wood to burn. Splinters. As if the split and shattered remains of beams and floorboards were anything so harmless. Those still framing the door and inner walls were deeply inset with carvings, images of growing things twined around complex, unfamiliar symbols. They'd had meaning, once. The others ignored them, after commenting on the quality of work. Such always outlived its maker. They were comforted by that, too.

Aryl leaned in a shadow against the tallest portion of surviving wall and tried not to frown.

The rest of Yena's exiles sat shoulder to shoulder, chapped faces rosy in the light of the flames. Some opened their coats to coax what warmth the fire offered; others snuggled together under blankets. Close quarters for twenty-three, but no one complained. They were together.

Packs hung from the straightest beam to keep them out of the way. That, and because Husni fussed about crawlers spoiling what food remained. Despite seeing no other life for days, canopy habits persisted. Their assortment of mismatched pots, packed with snow, nestled near glowing coals. A trick from Grona. Before their arrival, Syb and Weth had made a soup from the bread they'd carried, letting it simmer and thicken while they'd waited for the rest of the Om'ray. The result had no taste but, Aryl decided, fishing the inevitable gritty bit from between her teeth, the hot moist stuff might have been fresh dresel by the speed with which the first offering disappeared. Their largest pot was stewing a second batch—Myris had volunteered her entire packet.

Their elders smiled wearily at one another. Ziba was snugged under Seru's arm, both with their eyes more closed than open.

She wouldn't disturb this hard-won peace, Aryl decided. Plenty of time to talk to her cousin in the morning.

At the thought of spending the night, she wrinkled her nose. The place reeked of wet boots and burning wood. The air glittered, firelight caught by the fine, acrid dust they'd kicked up on arriving, yet to settle. Shelter, indeed. How quickly she'd grown used to sleeping outside. She resolved to be grateful—and look for better tomorrow.

Enris propped himself against the wall beside her. He shoved a lock of dusty black hair from his forehead, leaving a streak. His eyes, bright and dark, surveyed the room. “Yena don't build like this,” he stated. “Not from what I saw in the canopy.”

So she wasn't the only one restless. “The Tikitik built our village,” Aryl explained, pitching her voice to his ears. “Yena Om'ray—” she paused to choose her words, “—made homes.”

The Cloisters held records: names and Joinings, births and deaths—collected and understood by Adepts. All ordinary Yena knew of their past was the echo of those gone before held in the beautiful cunning of their woodcraft: cupboards and furnishings, forgotten hiding places, sturdy bridgework. Homes where Om'ray feet polished floors to gleaming, themselves works of art. Homes entrusted to the First Chosen of each generation, to be lovingly maintained for the next.

Homes. Ashes falling like black snowdrops into the Lay Swamp, scorched remains abandoned in the canopy to be overgrown by vines and thickles. To rot and be erased.

Stone was better. Aryl pressed her shoulder blades against the wall for comfort. Stone, or beams like these, she thought, following a dark line with her eye. They must have been made from entire, full grown stalks, cut to lie flat atop one another or fit end on end. Too heavy for a Yena home, carried high on the living fronds of a rastis, but their thickness promised endurance and protection from the cold.

“You're right, though,” she mused. “This doesn't look like their work.” The Tikitik coaxed living stalks to their bidding. She'd seen it for herself. Yena homes owed their structure to assembled pieces already in their final, useful shape, ready for gauze-on-frame windows and dresel pod roofs. These beams? Their initial shaping bore tool marks like those Yena woodworkers left on the planks they trimmed to replace wear on bridges or ladders. “Do you see the carving? That's not Tikitik.”

Enris made a pleased sound. “No? Then I've something else to show you—tomorrow, when we've decent light.”

“Tomorrow,” she agreed, trying not to yawn. She ran her hand along the stone. “Is this at all like Tuana? Oud work?”

“Oud dig holes,” he snapped, as if insulted. “Tuana Om'ray build for ourselves. But not—” said more thoughtfully, “—not like this. We'd never waste wood on supports. It doesn't grow on the plains. All we have comes from the Oud—scraps from disused tunnels.”

Aryl wrinkled her nose again. These dry lifeless mountains were bad enough. If there were no nekis or rastis, she didn't care for Tuana's plains either. Not that her preference mattered. “Where do the Oud get it?”

“No one knows.” With a “who cares?” shrug.

So Tuana shared Yena's lack of curiosity about the not-
real
beings who lived on Cersi. She shouldn't be surprised; it was an Om'ray trait. One they couldn't afford, she fumed to herself. The exiles had to learn everything they could to survive.

“The Oud know,” she challenged. “We should.”

“I never wondered before,” he admitted. “Maybe they trade with your Tikitik for pieces.”

Tired as she was, Aryl straightened to stare up at Enris. “Oud and Tikitik?” He might have redrawn the world. “Together?”

That wide grin. “Hardly together. Trade's one thing. Getting along's another. From all I've heard, they like each other even less than they like us. Without the Agreement, who knows which of them we'd still have?”

“How do you know we'd still be here?”

Enris gave her a very strange look. “We are the world.” As if she'd somehow forgotten who and what she was.

“Are we?” Aryl murmured. When he would have protested, she gestured apology, her hand heavy. “We're all tired,” she said. “We've a place to sleep. Be glad of that.”

“After going how far the wrong way?” A grumble like the storm outside. Fingers brushed the back of her hand.
Oud re-shaped this place once.
Enris held back something more. She sensed its troubled edge.

Her people were safe and content, she fumed. Was it too much to ask to savor that victory?
Maybe Sona deserved it.
With a mental
snap
she instantly regretted.

Enris gave no sign she'd struck at him.
Did you?
he sent almost gently.
Do they?
This with an unnecessary nod at the Yena exiles sitting in front of them.

Though busy with pots and embers, Haxel looked up, the beginning of a question on her face. Aryl made herself smile back. “You're making people nervous,” she said. Not quite a whisper.

“As they should be,” he countered the same way. “Don't let them stay too long, Aryl. You can't trust the Oud.”

“I'm not a fool.” She might not have met one, but every Om'ray understood their world. Only Om'ray cared about Om'ray. “We can't leave until Chaun and Myris can travel. There are others hurt. Let alone Juo. We don't need her giving birth mid-journey. We'll use the time to find food…get some rest. All of which, I'm thankful to say, can wait for morning.” With a yawn, Aryl leaned against the Tuana's comfortingly solid arm as she contemplated where to sleep. “Anyway,” she continued idly, “what's this ‘don't let
them
stay?' It's not as if you'd leave without us.”

She'd meant to lighten the mood; instead, the words fell into silence, like a treasure let drop in the black waters of the Lay. Despite their physical contact, her inner sense gave her nothing beyond the
who
and
where
of him. She drew back and twisted to look at him. His face, smudged by exhaustion and dirt, was shadowed more than revealed by the flickers of firelight. Reflections like tiny flames danced deep in his dark eyes as he returned her gaze.

Then, predictably, the corner of his wide mouth crooked up, creasing a dimple. “I'm the one who's seen an ice storm before, remember?” he said lightly. “Delay too long and no one's going anywhere. Even Grona warned against travel late in the cold season. You've had a taste of it.” Before she could respond, the Tuana pushed himself from the wall and her. “Speaking of taste—” a too-quick laugh, “—looks like there's more ready.”

Aryl watched Enris squat beside Gijs, as if he had nothing on his mind but a still-empty stomach. The other Om'ray made room with a laugh and some comment she didn't catch.

She took her lower lip between her teeth, not hungry at all.

Enris hadn't said he'd leave them.

He hadn't said he'd stay either.

“Tomorrow,” she said out loud. “Everything looks better in daylight.”

“Which implies sleeping first.” Haxel replaced Enris, her lean form taking much less space. Unlike the Tuana, her emotions—satisfaction, pride, determination—were easy to read. Deliberately so.

Aryl tightened her shields to keep in her own. The First Scout had a right to her pride: she'd found safety for truenight. No need to share her own foreboding—or Enris'. “I'll help keep watch outside.”

“Leave it to those who've had some rest. You led well today, Aryl Sarc.” A stronger flash of pride. “As I expected.”

Before Aryl could utter a word, the other Om'ray was on the move through the firelight and shadow, touching shoulders, helping arrange blankets as more and more of the exiles stretched out near the fire. Haxel finally settled beside Weth, who'd managed to spoon some liquid between Chaun's slack lips before donning her blindfold. The conflict between her Chosen as she remembered him and his pale strange face must have become too much for her Talent to reconcile.

Led well?

If she'd hadn't led them at all, Aryl reminded herself bitterly, Weth and Chaun would be sitting across a table, supping by the light of glows, not a fretful fire. He'd tell her one of his stories and she'd laugh—or they'd fall silent, as Chosen were prone to do, and gaze into one another's eyes, fingertips just touching, thoughts and selves mingled in a haven of their own.

Lie down before you fall down.

Her look of affront was wasted. Enris had his broad back to her, busy slurping his share of bread-broth with gusto. Aryl yawned involuntarily until her jaw ached and her eyes watered. Tempting to stay where she was. And prove what? Hardly a good example in someone who led. However unwillingly.

With a sigh, she went in search of room on the floor for her bed.

 

Before it left, the storm wandered the ruins. Snow curled around the base of stone, dusted askew beams to lines of white. Fingers of wind explored emptiness and rustled withered stems. A last chill breath guttered the fire that held back the dark, stirring the hair of those who slept like the dead.

On some level, Aryl heard the storm, shivered in the chill, but these were distant, unimportant things. The
other
pressed against her like a lover in the night, seeking entry, whispering seduction.

She resisted with all her strength, not knowing if she struggled to push the wild
darkness
away or to pull herself free of it, only that if she let it claim her, what she was would be lost.

As she fought, whispers became voices, clamoring to be heard. She refused to listen, heard herself moan and came half awake at the sound.

They—
something
—tried to speak to her through her mouth. She
pushed
harder and…

…was awake.

Aryl froze in place, her hand hard against her lips. When no further sound came out, she lowered her hand and eased herself up on an elbow.