Water & Storm Country (31 page)

“Your mother was a hard woman. Disobedient.
Like that bilge rat girl of yours. You need someone who will do as
they’re told, obey you, support you in all things.”

“Don’t speak ill of my mother, or Jade,” I
say, feeling a sudden urge to lash out, to hit him, regardless of
the consequences. I hold my hands firmly against my hips, shocked
at my own impulses. I’ve never had thoughts like these before. I’m
changing…

But why? And do I want to?

I look away from him, wishing he’d
disappear.

His hand is on my throat in an instant,
squeezing hard enough to make breathing difficult, but not enough
to cut it off entirely. “From this point on, you will do as you’re
told. Until I die, I’m still the admiral of this fleet and your
commander. You
will
whip that girl, you
will
leave
this ship, and you
will
take a wife from ice country.”

He throws me to the deck and stomps away,
leaving me gasping and clutching at my neck, just as the sky begins
to turn pink on the horizon.

A
lthough I think we
all trust the foreigners—probably more than we should—they remain
tied in the tent as a matter of prudence, and so they don’t
frighten the rest of the camp. Only Riders are permitted to see
them. When the time comes to fight, they’ll be fitted with weapons
and, only then, set free.

I don’t know quite how I feel about it, but
I’m not dissatisfied with the result. Not when their appearance has
finally set in motion the future predicted by my father. My future,
my destiny—one that will give me the opportunity for vengeance.

Preparing for war isn’t difficult or time
consuming, not when you’ve waged war your entire life. The horses
are armored with thick skins. Swords and knives are sharpened.
Extra food rations are allotted to each Rider.

But are the new Rider’s ready? Are the horses
ready? Will Passion and Bolt and the other new horses run toward
violence when it’s asked of them? Or will they run away, back
toward safety?

We won’t truly know until the time comes,
when death stares us in the face in the form of the sword-wielding
Soakers. We can only hope the limited training has been enough and
that Mother Earth will protect us.

Until then, there’s nothing to do but
wait.

I hate waiting, because it means I have time
to think by the Big Fire. Far too much time.

I’m thankful when Remy drops in beside me,
his presence instantly calming my frayed nerves.

“Can you believe they thought Gard wanted
that guy’s sister to marry me?” he says, a smile playing on his
lips.

I smile back. “You only wish it were that
easy to find a wife,” I say.

He laughs. “True. The type of girl I’m
interested in is much more of a challenge.” His words are as light
as the air, but I find myself breathless, almost like when I first
spoke to him in the stables. It seems like so long ago. A lifetime.
No, three lifetimes: my mother’s and father’s, and his
cousin’s.

I gulp down a breath and say, “Really? Anyone
in particular in mind?”

His eyes dance with laughter, although he
keeps his lips straight. “Well, there
is
this Healer
apprentice on the east side of camp,” he says.

“Oh,” I say, unable to stop the word from
spilling out. I flush, turn away, try to hide the embarrassment
that surely stains my cheeks.

“I’m kidding,” Remy says, laughing with his
whole body. He touches my arm, his fingers burning into my skin.
“I’ve only ever thought of you in that way.”

~~~

After Remy’s mad and unexpected declaration,
I take my leave, making some excuse about having to water Passion,
even though I already watered her three times.

I walk alone, my mind spinning with Remy and
the foreigners and
war war war
! My heart beats with each
step as I squeeze my fists and push, first Remy, and then war, out
of my thoughts. The word
foreigners
, however, lingers like a
vapor in the air, and I find myself standing in front of the prison
tent.

The Rider on guard looks at me curiously.
“Sadie?” she says.

“I want to see the prisoners,” I say
unnecessarily, as she’s already moved aside.

I step inside, my eyes quickly adjusting to
the darker tent-filtered lighting within. Feve and Dazz stare at
me. The skinny girl and the smiley pale guy also turn to look. The
muscly girl and the unmarked guy are tied to the opposite side,
facing away.

“The one who would stab first and ask
questions later,” Dazz says, but it’s not an insult, just a
joke.

I allow myself a thin smile. “Says the one
who would walk into an enemy camp demanding answers.”

“We got them, didn’t we?”

Something tells me his cavalier attitude has
carried him this far and he won’t abandon it anytime soon. I stride
inside, allowing my robe to whirl around me the way my mother’s
always did.

I move past Feve, settle in front of the
skinny girl. “I’m Sadie. Your name?”

“Siena,” she says. “I’ll take a bundle of
pointers and a tight-strung bow.”

I laugh. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen. Old enough to have a kid but I’ll
skip that if it’s all the same to you.”

I almost choke on her words. Old enough for a
child? Having a family of my own is the last thing on my mind. I
say, “I’m nearly sixteen. And I’ll skip the kid for now too. You’ll
get your bow and arrows—I promise.”

“I’m Skye,” her sister says. “I’d shake yer
hand, but seein’ as how mine’s tied to a pole…”

“I’m not going to untie you,” I say. “Can you
fight?”

“Like nothing you ain’t ever seen,” Siena
says, answering for her.

“We’ll see about that,” I say. But inside I’m
thinking,
If not for the color of their skin, which is three
shades too light, these two could be my sisters.

Continuing around the prisoner circle, I come
to the unmarked brown-skinned guy. “And you are…” I say.

“Circ,” he says. Up close, I notice that Circ
is built like a Rider, tall and cut like stone.

“You’re a warrior?” I guess.

“We say Hunter,” he says.

“Can you ride?”

“Ride what?”

“A horse. A steed. A stallion.”

“Can tugs sprout wings and fly like searin’
angels?” Siena says from around the pole.

I think that’s a no, but I look to Circ for
confirmation. He flashes a smile and shakes his head. “She meant
no
, but rarely does Siena just come out and say something
directly. That’s one of the many reasons I love her.” His calm and
unquestionable declaration of love for the skinny girl on the other
side of the tent pole takes me by surprise. For better or worse, my
people don’t speak of love so easily.

Should love be declared as casually and
easily as plucking a flower from off a stem? Or is it something to
be held on to, like a gemstone, brought out only on the rarest and
most special occasions, whispered like a secret to only the most
deserving of ears?

Either way, I feel the truth of Circ’s words
and I envy him. Siena, too. They seem so sure of themselves;
whereas the only thing I’m sure of is my calling as a Rider.

I move on to the second pale-skinned person
in the room, the one sitting next to Dazz. He’s shorter and softer
around the edges than the other males. I open my lips to speak, but
he cuts me off.

“Buff,” he says. “That’s my name. And before
you ask whether I’d like to go with you to the campfire and sip on
’quiddy and nibble on bear fritters, or whatever it is you eat
around here, I have to decline, with regret. You see, I’ve got a
lovely lady waiting back in ice country for me. I’d hate to
disappoint her, even for a pretty little thing like you.”

I’m speechless. Has the whole world gone mad
and started saying every last thing on its mind? I try to collect
my thoughts, my cheeks on fire. “I wasn’t…I wasn’t going to ask you
any such thing,” I say.

“Weren’t you?” Buff says.

“No.”

“My mistake.” He shrugs, like it was nothing
more than a misunderstanding.

“And I’m spoken for,” I add quickly.

“You are?”

“I am.” Am I? Remy’s words burn in my ears.
I’ve only ever thought of you in that way.

I desperately want to divert the attention
away from me. “And what about you?” I say to Dazz.

“What about me
what
?” he asks. His
thin beard makes him look older than I suspect he is. Through the
layer of facial fur, there’s a youthful face, strangely without
color. Between him and Buff, they’re the first light-skinned people
I’ve been this close to. I almost want to reach out and touch him
to see if he breaks, shatters into a thousand pieces like
glass.

“Are you spoken for?” I ask, not because I
have any interest in him, but because it seems to be a popular
topic of conversation amongst the group.

“Who’s askin’?” Skye says, the answer in her
sharp tone.

“Oh, so you two are…I mean you’re…”

“Together,” Dazz says. “Yes, Skye and I are a
thing.”

“What do you mean
a thing
,” Skye says,
twisting her neck to shoot a glare at Dazz.

“Don’t get your pretty little lady-skivvies
all twisted up,” Dazz says. “It’s just something we say in ice
country when you’re exclusively with one girl.”

“That better be what yer sayin’,” Skye says.
“Or I’ll knock you out, just like I did when we first met.” I have
to raise a hand to hide my laugh at their banter. I can picture
Skye clocking Dazz, leaving a dark bruise on his cheek and his
ego.

I still can’t believe I’m talking to Heaters
and Icers. It’s like the earth has been raised on an angle, and all
the tribes of the earth have slid down, down, down, all the way to
the ocean.

The only one who hasn’t spoken since I
entered is Feve, the marked man. I stand in front of him now.
“Since you’re so curious about all of our personal lives, yes, I’m
spoken for. Married, with a family.” Although his words surprise
me—I didn’t think a man so serious and mysterious-looking would be
so…
settled
—it’s not what I was going to ask.

“What do your markings mean?” I ask, wishing
I could see them all. No one in my tribe marks themselves, probably
because our skin is already so dark we wouldn’t be able to see
it.

Feve’s eyes pierce my gaze, unflinching.
“Each straight marking is for someone I’ve saved,” he says, pausing
to look back at his exposed forearm, which has a straight arrow
sketched into it.

I admire the simple beauty of the drawing,
which is so lifelike, almost as if you could pluck it from off his
skin, string it, and shoot it high in the air, piercing the
gray-shrouded sky. Around the arrow are numerous curved markings: a
crescent moon, softly glowing; a metal chain; a coiled snake. There
are other curved markings too, ones that don’t take on any
particular form, like they were drawn hastily, in random designs.
They disappear under his shirt and reappear on his neck, arcing
behind his back. He must have hundreds of curved markings for every
straight one.

“And what do the curved markings represent?”
I ask, unable to wrest my eyes from the graceful shapes.

“Each curved marking is for someone I’ve
killed.”

~~~

We aren’t waiting for them to come to us. For
once, we’ll take the fight to the Soakers, to show them that the
tribes of the earth will not allow their evil to go unpunished.

The scouts are back and have located the
Soaker fleet, anchored just off the coast a few hours ride south of
us. Fatefully close.

I’m thankful the six foreigners will ride
with us today. Although they’re a strange mixture of jokes,
ferocity, and unabashed confidence, I can tell each one of them is
a fighter in their own right. Better with us then against us.

Each will sit behind a Rider, at least until
the battle begins. Then they’ll be free to drop down, to run away
if they choose. I suspect they’ll fight to the bloody end.

They’re untied and standing in a group under
close guard. Gard has allowed them to choose their weapons,
although they’ll be held by their assigned riding partner until we
reach the battle. Only then will they be handed over.

Siena, as requested, has already received her
bow, which she’s been flexing and playing with from the moment she
grasped it. It’s clear she knows how to use it. She’ll get the
arrows from me later. Skye selected a sword, almost as long as the
one chosen by Circ. There’s no doubt in my mind that she can handle
it every bit as well, too. Feve grunted at two medium-length curved
daggers that remind me of the graceful but deadly strokes of the
kill-counter markings on his skin. Buff chose two short
straight-daggers, polished to a shine, although he didn’t seem too
sure of the selection. Dazz was the only one who insisted he’d be
fine without a weapon, and it wasn’t until he saw the spiked clubs
wielded by some of the larger Riders that he agreed to carry
something.

Before I mount Passion, I stand in front of
her, touching her white butterfly. “We will see this through
together,” I whisper. She whinnies softly. “Your strength will be
my strength, and mine yours.” I feel her hot breath on my face, see
the understanding in her eyes. She’s no ordinary steed. We were
destined to be together, each one half of a storm country Rider.
Apart—nothing. Together—invincible.

Although I sense the dark presence nearby,
the Evil has not accosted me since the prison tent, when it urged
me to kill Dazz, to take my revenge for my mother’s death. I ignore
it. Will it disappear if I pretend it’s not there? Is it real or
imagined? Am I going crazy with unresolved grief?

I leap atop Passion’s back, relishing the
light feeling in my chest I always get before a ride. Earlier I
introduced Passion to Siena, who will ride behind me. I was worried
that Passion’s pride wouldn’t allow her to accept a second
passenger, but she took to Siena right away, so quickly I felt a
prick of jealousy after all I had to go through to win her
affections.