The Last Stormlord (74 page)

The wounded man nodded.

“Are you ready, Highlord Nealrith of Breccia?” But as he spoke the words, he hesitated.
I can’t
.

And then, with his last strength, Nealrith gathered vapour from the air to form letters, as if this was his last defiance, his last action as a mover of water, his last benediction. Lighted by the flickering torches, the letters danced red in the air in front of the cage:
Farewell, Cloudmaster
. And his ravaged mouth smiled. It was a travesty, a rictus of blood, but he did it for Jasper.

Jasper braced himself against his own revulsion. “Goodbye, Rith,” he said. The huskiness of his voice made him sound old. He sought the comforting words of the funeral ritual the waterpriests had taught him: “Go back to the living water. Be at one with life.”

Nealrith indicated his readiness.

And Jasper thrust his sword into the cage and slit the rainlord’s throat. Nealrith fell forward against the bars. Blood pulsed, then slowed. A hand went into spasm, then was still.

The first man he had ever killed, and it had to be the man he had come to most honour, to most admire. A man he would have liked to call father. And he couldn’t even take his water in a final gesture of respect. He’d had to use his sword.

There was a sharp intake of breath from one of the Reduners, and the Gibberman doubled over, retching. All that was left of Nealrith hardly looked human any more. Jasper struggled to rise.

“I could kill you all now,” he told the guards from between gritted teeth. It was true; his revulsion at Nealrith’s death had banished all compassion. And they believed him. The Gibberman tried to speak, but Jasper slapped the water over his mouth, gagging him. He struggled to speak anyway. None of the sounds made any sense. The Reduner beside him glared. The Gibberman sagged to his knees, gesturing, grunting.

Jasper knew what he was trying to say: I am a Gibberman like you. Not one of them. The Reduner lashed out and sent the grovelling man sprawling in the dust. The tribesman glared at Jasper and folded his arms in defiance. The second Reduner moaned and huddled against the wall, trying to make himself look small. Jasper gagged both of them as well, but refrained from covering their noses this time. Then he stumbled away, sickened.

Just before reaching the street that led upwards, he turned back. The Gibberman scrambled up on his knees. They stared at each other across the space, and for a moment Jasper knew they were thinking the same thing: there had been a time when they were not much different. Grubby Gibber brats from a drywash town somewhere, eking out an existence as best they could.

“Did you ever meet a man called Mica?” Jasper asked him. “About the same age as me? From—”

He stopped. The man’s expression told Jasper he was torn, trying to decide whether a yes or a no would bring him most benefit.

There was no way to know if the answer was going to be honest. Jasper turned to walk away. A desperate grunting made him glance back over his shoulder. The man uttered a few more guttural sounds without opening his mouth, and then repeated them. Jasper stood, rooted, wanting to hear, wanting to believe. He decided to give the man a chance to speak. He allowed the water to peel away from the Gibberman’s mouth. But instead of speaking, he shrieked and dropped. Behind him, the defiant Reduner stood swaying: he’d jammed a knife into the hapless Gibberman’s ribs. Without thinking, Jasper expanded the water to cover the tribesman’s nose as well as his mouth.

Someone shouted from the top of the wall. Voices responded. A Reduner on the wall pointed in Jasper’s direction. Hurriedly, Jasper clutched the mist around himself once more, grabbed up his lantern and left at a shambling run. It was all he could manage.

By the time additional tribesmen arrived at the gate, he was no more than a white patch rolling upwards, misty gossamer in the dimness of starlight. The newcomers looked from the bloodied cage, to the dead Gibberman, to the guard dying as he gasped for air he could not find, to the other Reduner with water held, impossibly, over his mouth—and then to that unearthly shape.

Not one of them chose to follow in pursuit.

Jasper blundered on, hearing over and over the name he was sure the Gibberman had tried to utter:
Wash Drybone. Wash Drybone.

The man had known a man named Mica from Wash Drybone Settle.

Scarpen Quarter

Breccia City

“What happened?” Kaneth asked. His normal insouciance was gone; what had replaced it was hard-edged and angry.

“He insisted on going out alone. When he came back he was like this.” Laisa looked down at the sleeping form on the pallet. “Absolutely exhausted.”

“He almost drowned us all,” Senya said. It had happened hours before, but her words still crackled with indignation.

“He came stumbling through the door,” Laisa explained, “and collapsed where he is now. He let go of his hold on the water in the cistern, and if I hadn’t been quick, it would have come pouring in the door with the force of a rush down a Gibber wash.”

“And all he could say was that Nealrith was dead?”

“He said that much, and then he just wasn’t here any more. At first, I wasn’t sure if he was asleep or unconscious, but I think it’s just sleep.”

Kaneth knelt at the edge of the pallet and shook Jasper’s shoulder, hard.

Jasper stirred restlessly, muttering. “I killed him.” His head tossed from side to side. “I killed him.”

“Come on, Jasper, wake up.”

Jasper’s eyes flew open. For a long moment, he didn’t know where he was. For a moment, the horror of the dream seemed unreal; then he remembered. It wasn’t a dream. He had killed Nealrith.

“Kaneth…” he said, but couldn’t go on.

“Are you all right?” Kaneth asked.

Jasper sat up slowly and replied even more slowly. “Yes,” he said at last. “Tired. Very, very tired.”

“You should eat,” Kaneth reached out a hand and helped him heave himself to his feet. “You should eat a lot. You’ve been over-using your water-powers.”

“Oh, Kaneth,” he groaned, “I thought I could save Nealrith. But they had him in a cage that had no door. And they had—” He stopped, suddenly aware that he was also talking within the hearing of Nealrith’s wife and daughter. “I am sorry, Laisa, Senya. He died. I was holding his hand.”

Laisa raised an eyebrow. “You killed him?”

Senya’s eyes grew round. “You
killed
him? You killed my father?”

Jasper was silent.

“He asked you to?” Laisa suggested.

“He knew he did not have long to live, and no man would want to live another moment like that…” He trailed off. “It was his wish.”

Senya glared at him with righteous hatred, her chin quivering. Her mother stepped in, gripped her arm tightly, and said without expression, “I am sure you did what was best, Jasper.”

“
Best?
” Senya’s fury was about to explode, but Laisa tightened her hold in warning, and Senya took refuge in a storm of hysterical tearless weeping instead.

Jasper and Kaneth sat in awkward silence at the table. Jasper hunted for something to say, but it was Kaneth who spoke first. “That took courage. Would that we all could have such friends at the last. You will make a fine Cloudmaster, Jasper.”

Jasper winced. “Is that what makes a good ruler? The ability to kill when you need to? Anyway, I’m not even a stormlord. We all know that.” His stomach heaved. “What time of day is it?” he asked. Anything not to remember. Not to feel the grief swelling unasked in his throat.

“Midday.”

“What’s the situation?”

“Not much different. We are holding them off from Breccia Hall and the water hall still. The rest of the city is theirs. We have been in contact with the lower city, and many reeves have been killed, at least the ones they could find. The guards were wiped out, except for the one hundred or so men we have with us. Reduners have tried a few times to break in through the tunnels, without success so far. We haven’t lost any more rainlords, and we’ve managed to blind about another hundred of them. It’s not pretty.”

“How much longer can you hold out?”

“It depends on what they do. They could maintain a siege to spare their warriors an assault on the walls. We could last for half a cycle if they did that, but patience is not their strong point. I think they will try to persuade us to surrender by killing the townsfolk in front of our eyes instead. We could try to save as many ordinary citizens as possible by surrendering the city on agreed terms.”

“Could we trust a Reduner to hold to such an agreement?” Laisa asked.

“Probably not. If we don’t agree to their terms, then my feeling is they’ll gather everything they have and storm the walls and tunnels at the same time. As long as they don’t mind losing a lot of men, they will win in a day or two.” He went to one of the cupboards and took out a jar, broke the seal and poured some stewed grain and palm sugar into a bowl, which he set in front of Jasper. “You must eat.”

To his surprise, Jasper was suddenly ravenous. He ate, hardly bothering to note what it was. “How much do we know about what happened in Qanatend after they entered it?” he asked.

“Nothing. No one got through to us. Ryka says they have a past history of offering children from about eight to sixteen a choice between being made slaves, or becoming Reduner wives or whores or warriors. Adults are either killed or ignored.”

“Slavery is banned,” Senya pointed out. She had stopped crying; now her eyes just glowered at Jasper, smouldering in outrage.

Kaneth raised an eyebrow. “Do you seriously think a Quartern law is a barrier to Davim’s endorsement of slavery?”

When she didn’t reply, it was Jasper who explained, curbing his irritation. “The Reduners were always the ones who liked the end of slavery least. Tribal wars always ended with people of one tribe being slaves of another. Easy enough to return to old ways, if they shake off the rule of the Cloudmaster.”

“How can you possibly know all that?” Senya asked.

He ignored her scorn and said to Kaneth, “I had hoped I would be strong enough to—to do more.”

Kaneth shook his head. “You shouldn’t have gone, Jasper. You are too valuable to risk.” He gave a bitter laugh. “It is hardly your fault that you don’t have the strength to take on an armed force of thousands. Any change in your plan?”

Laisa raised an eyebrow. “Are we to let this untried youth suggest the strategy now, Kaneth?”

The two men ignored the comment. Jasper answered Kaneth, saying, “No. Sunset tonight, I will make it clear to the Reduners that Jasper Bloodstone is leaving the city.” He gave an agitated gesture with one hand. “Before they start killing the hostages, you must start to negotiate surrender terms. You and any other rainlords and reeves who are still alive must try to leave through the tunnels at the moment of surrender. And Lady Ethelva. She is still alive, I hope.”

“I heard she was in Breccia Hall. I haven’t seen her, though.” Kaneth took a deep breath. “We’ve talked about it, Jasper. All of us. And we’ve decided that no matter what, we rainlords must stay.”

Jasper stared at him in dismay. “But
why
? I need you. The Scarpen needs you. We need every rainlord we have—we need your children, even.”

“This is my city. I wasn’t born here, but I’ve been a rainlord here since I was much younger than you are now. How can I turn my back and walk away from the people of Breccia? It would be like saying they don’t mean anything to me. That my life is more important than theirs.”

“Kaneth,
it is
. Sandblast you, isn’t that what you have all been saying to me since I got here? Rainlords are valuable! Anyway, the ordinary citizens have a chance of getting through this alive. You don’t, unless you leave. That’s a fundamental difference.”

Kaneth shrugged. “Too bad. We are the rainlords of Breccia, and we must be seen to fight for the people of our city, or surrender with them. It is as simple as that.”

“They’ll kill you. They can’t afford to let a rainlord live!”

“Probably. Jasper, our guess is that they will offer no terms of surrender, certainly not one that includes a rainlord. Davim is a warrior, and he wants to take us by storm. Even if we handed you over, he would still storm our walls. That, to him, is glory.”

“And Ryka?”

Pain flitted across his face, and then was gone. “I cannot make decisions for her. We have argued about this, I will admit, but she won’t leave, either. She’s as stubborn as granite is hard, that woman.”

“If I order you, as your Cloudmaster?”

Kaneth gave a lopsided smile. “Ah, Jasper, I’d hate to think that the first time you gave me a direct order, I would disobey it.”

“You ask
me
to do what you will not do yourself: live for the Quartern rather than die for it.” Frustrated, he glared at the rainlord.

“Yes, I know. I was always fond of irony.”

“If we go back to a Time of Random Rain, the watersense of every rainlord will be needed. And what about Ethelva? She is not a rainlord.”

“Do you really imagine
she
would leave?” Kaneth asked gently. “None of us are desperate to die, you know. We will do our best to escape in the end, I promise you. And some of us doubtless will—we know the tunnels and water locks of this city as they do not. But in the meantime, we will fight until we have nothing more to give. The fall of Breccia will cost the Red Quarter more than they can spare. They will mourn more warriors than they ever dreamed of losing, and perhaps, just perhaps, those losses will stop them from attacking another city.”