Blood Storm: The Second Book of Lharmell (14 page)

‘Good. I’ll break in my new bow.’

‘No, you won’t.’

‘Why not? I’m dying to shoot something.’

‘I’d rather avoid it, if it’s all the same to you. There’s no guarantee that we’ll kill them all, and
the last thing we need is to announce our presence while we’re stuck in the middle of the desert with no yelbar. I’d like to get back to Pergamia in one piece.’

‘But what if we’re attacked?’

‘Then we defend ourselves. Just don’t go starting any fights.’

I sighed. ‘Fine.’

‘That’s not all. Your cloaking is shabby.’

I turned on him, eyes flashing. ‘That’s not true!’

‘Yes it is. Remember the harming in Ercan?’

‘He could have picked up on either of us.’

‘Then why did he end up in your room? And in Pol, I knew there was a harming following me that day. If I’d bothered to check I would have realised it was you.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘Because I thought you were one of Servilock’s minions and that I was on the right track. You were lucky I didn’t stab you in some dark alleyway.’

‘I kept us safe –’ My voice hitched. ‘I kept us safe those days and nights when we were lost at sea and you were unconscious.’

‘Probably a sheer fluke,’ he replied. ‘And last night . . .’

I glared at him. ‘What about last night?’

He hesitated. ‘In the wagon. You were very . . . audible.’

Embarrassment flared red in my cheeks. ‘I
meant
to be,’ I hissed.

‘Oh.’ It was Rodden’s turn to look away. ‘Well, despite your other talents, such as wind-drawing, you have trouble concealing your thoughts. So be careful at the Jarbin village, all right?’

‘I’m always careful,’ I insisted, though it was a lie. I hadn’t made a conscious effort to guard my thoughts since we left Pol. But I could do it now. I was certain. As long as I concentrated.

‘If you say so.’

We rode in silence after that. Sometime in the early afternoon I saw dark shapes circling in the sky, and remarked, ‘The buzzards are following us again.’

The first sign that we were approaching the end of our journey was a faint strip of green on the horizon. A ripple of excitement went through the Jarbin. Horses pricked their ears up and strained against their harnesses.

Rodden leaned forward in the saddle. ‘We’re almost there.’

I shifted restlessly. There were still many miles of sand stretching between us and that hint of vegetation. ‘What is that up ahead, anyway? A lake?’

‘Used to be. Now it’s an oasis.’

‘What happened?’

‘Time. Hundreds of years ago this whole area for miles around was a vast floodplain, and the oasis was Lake Keole. It was fed by a river that began as run-off from the mountains to the north-west, and swelled by monsoon rains. The monsoon still comes, most years, but the mountains are ice-locked all the year round now. There’s not enough melt to feed the river, so it dried up. It flows when the rains come, and then the oasis floods, but not nearly to the extent it used to.’

‘Why did the mountains freeze?’

‘They just did. Weather patterns change. Temperatures drop.’

‘The Lharmellins attempted to freeze Amentia so no one could mine the yelinate,’ I pointed out. ‘Couldn’t they have done the same thing with the mountains? If the oasis dried up completely, could anyone live here to harvest the bennium?’

‘No, they couldn’t. This is the only waterhole for miles in any direction, and the only place where bennium is found. It’s an interesting theory, and possible, I suppose.’ He looked worried all of a
sudden. ‘In fact, you could be right. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me.’

Soon our horses trod sparse, low-lying grass instead of sand. Undulating dunes gave way to flat gravel. Smoke from cooking fires rose against a setting sun. Beyond thick reeds I spotted a thin line of silver that must have been the oasis, and a collection of squat huts on the far side. The temperature dropped, muggy but pleasant. I unwound my white outer layers and relished the fresh air against my skin. Instantly I was surrounded by a cloud of whining midges.

‘What the – look at these things!’ I flapped my scarf at the insects.

Rodden called out to one of the women and she rode back with a jar in her hand.

‘What’s that?’ I asked, as he began rubbing the salve onto his bare arms.

‘Mosquito repellent. It’s made from natron, the mineral the Jarbin collect and sell in Pol. Here.’ He tossed it to me. ‘Keep it with you after dark. The mosquitoes carry a nasty fever.’

I rubbed the grainy white cream on my arms and ankles and the midges dissipated. ‘Rotten bloodsuckers,’ I muttered, and Rodden snorted with amusement.

A ululation filled the evening air, a greeting from the villagers. The Jarbin in our wagon train threw back their heads and sang out in reply. A few riders broke free of the train and cantered to meet the rest of the tribe, who were now emerging from their huts.

Unable to bear being in the saddle a moment longer I dismounted and slid to the ground. Rodden did the same and we led our tired, dusty horses into the Jarbin village. Dozens of men, women and children came forward, deeply tanned with unruly curls. They greeted the travellers with shouts and hugs, and began pulling supplies from the wagons. Several small children, holding fistfuls of their mothers’ skirts, stared up at us with large liquid eyes. I smiled at them and they ducked out of sight.

A woman with the longest hair I’d ever seen, past her waist, ran to Uwin, who was just dismounting his horse. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. He murmured to her for a moment, and they were an island of stillness among the mayhem. Watching them, I felt a flash of envy.

Uwin led the young woman over to where Rodden and I stood, hovering at the edge of this mass of jabbering people. He made the introductions. I couldn’t catch her name but murmured hello, wishing I knew the right word in Jarbin.

The woman turned her eyes on me, and I saw that they were green, not brown like the eyes of the other Jarbin we had travelled with. ‘Your Highness, I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance,’ she said, dropping into a curtsey so graceful we could have been in the Pergamian court. It was incongruous in this dusty landscape, her barefoot and in trousers. I must have been standing there with my mouth hanging open as Rodden nudged me.

‘This is where you say “how do you do”. I do apologise, Oilif,’ he said, turning to the woman. ‘We’ve been travelling for weeks and it seems the princess has forgotten her manners.’

I scowled at him. ‘Rot. I’m tired, that’s all, and I haven’t understood any voice but yours in forever.’ I turned to the woman. ‘Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.’

‘Oilif,’ said the woman, smiling and glancing from Rodden to me with evident amusement.

She spoke perfect Brivoran, but in an accent I couldn’t place. ‘Where are you from?’

‘Lippa. On the western coast.’

‘I know it – south-west of Amentia, is that right?’

‘Yes. It’s been so long since I’ve seen anyone from home. I want to ask you a thousand questions,
but you have had a long journey. Can I offer you a bath?’

I was emphatic. ‘You certainly can.’

She led me away from Rodden and Uwin to a hut enclosing a well and a flagged floor. In the dim light, Oilif helped me strip off my filthy travelling clothes and then poured ladle after ladle of very cold water over me while I scrubbed myself with rough white soap. When I was clean she wrapped thick white sheets around me.

‘Better?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘Come outside and I will comb your hair,’ she offered.

We sat on a stone wall facing the sunset, and Oilif pulled the snarls from my hair.

‘How did you get here?’ I asked.

I heard her snort of amusement. ‘How did you? If you don’t mind me asking, Your Highness.’

‘I asked first. And don’t call me that.’

‘Very well. I ran away.’

‘Oh?’ My interest was piqued. I liked the sound of those words.
Run away
.
A runaway
.

‘You’re a runaway too, of sorts. Aren’t you?’

I turned my head to look at her in surprise. ‘Yes, I suppose I am. Of sorts.’ I sighed. ‘But I have to go back.’

‘You don’t want to?’

‘Not really. But I must.’

‘Why?’

Because either my mother or a horde of blood-sucking monsters will hunt me down and kill me if I don’t.
‘Oh . . .’ I said, giving a blustery sigh. ‘It’s complicated.’

‘It usually is,’ she mused. ‘Do you love this man?’

‘Who, Rodden? We’re not – I’m not . . .’ I sighed again.

‘Ah. It’s complicated too?’

‘Yes.’

‘Maybe you have not run far enough yet.’

‘There’s nowhere to run. They’ll find us.’

‘Your mother and father will never find you in a place like this.’ Her voice was dry. ‘Trust me, I am living proof.’

‘My father’s dead, and it’s not my mother I fear will find me. Not who I fear the most, at any rate.’

Oilif’s hands stilled in my hair. I could feel the question on her lips, but instead she said, ‘There are many reasons to run away. Some of them very good reasons. If you have the right reason, when you run you may find happiness. Or you may just run forever, lost.’

I thought of Rodden, running from Servilock for all the right reasons but still unable to find happiness, his demons following him wherever he went.

‘But if you run for the wrong reasons,’ she continued, ‘you will only find misery. There will be no going back, no hope for tomorrow. But either way, right reason or wrong, there will be loneliness, perhaps regret. But if it is truly what you want, or need, you’ll have as good a chance as any.’

I frowned. Running away from my mother and my duty to Amentia had never crossed my mind. But once the Lharmellins were defeated . . .

The question was, would he run with me? Why would he, if he didn’t love me?

‘How did you know I want to run away?’

‘You have the look of one who is chased.’

I sighed. ‘It’s all conjecture. I can’t run away, not properly. He doesn’t love me back.’

‘Oh, yes.’

I could hear the amused disbelief in her voice, and it grated. What did she know?

The temperature was dropping and I wrapped the damp sheets tighter around me. I gazed out over the oasis, at the silhouettes of birds as they flew low across the water, black against a darkening sky.

I pushed Oilif’s words out of my mind. Rodden
and I would have no peace while the tors still sheltered the Lharmellins. I wanted revenge for what the Lharmellins had done to me, to Rodden, to countless other people before us. I wanted to kill every last one of them. I would do it, too. Or I would die trying.

But then? a small voice asked. If you do kill them all, what then?

If they were all dead, and I was free . . .

Would I go home to mother, to marriage? Would I willingly surrender myself?

Or would I run?

I didn’t know. I couldn’t see beyond the tors and those that resided within. I didn’t want to see.

My eyes were closing of their own accord. Oilif put me to bed, where I slept like the dead.

ELEVEN

I
woke to find the village quiet and empty. A cup of water and a bread roll had been placed next to my pallet, and a pile of neatly folded clothes. They weren’t my clothes, but rather the rough-woven shirts and trousers that I’d seen some of the village women wearing. I drank the water and dressed, and went looking for everyone, chewing the roll. A few hundred yards from the village I spotted a group of people labouring over the flats. The heat rising from the desert blurred the horizon in the distance. As I made my way to the group, the low-growing grass underfoot gave way to white-crusted dried mud. I shielded my eyes. In the glare reflected off the ground, I almost didn’t see Rodden.

‘Hello, sleeping beauty.’ Rodden wiped the sweat
from his brow with the back of his hand, smearing white crystals over his forehead. ‘Come to see what the peasants are up to?’

‘I was tired,’ I said, my voice tart. ‘What
are
you up to?’

‘Harvesting natron. Are you here to work?’ he asked, nodding at my clothes.

I nodded. ‘Why not? What do I do?’

He passed me the flat metal object he held in his hand. ‘Bend and scrape, Your Highness.’

I took it, biting back an irritated retort.

Rodden went to find another scraper and I watched the other workers for a moment. There didn’t seem to be much to it: scrape the white crust from the ground and deposit it in one of the clay trays that were scattered about. The villagers seemed to be avoiding the areas streaked with yellow and grey, so I did too.

After a few minutes of scraping, the natron began to sting the tiny cuts and scratches on my hands worse than salt in a wound.

‘What’s so good about this stuff, anyway?’ I grumbled when Rodden returned. We worked side by side, prising the white crust from the floodplain, avoiding the veins of grey and yellow.

‘I’ll never understand the ruling classes. You’re surrounded by beautiful things every day and you
don’t think to question where they came from or how they were made.’

I clenched the scraper in my hand. ‘Do stop going on about it, Rodden. Every time I start feeling just like any other person, you have to go reminding me I’m not.’

‘I don’t forget so easily,’ he muttered.

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Do you really want to know about natron?’

‘Yes.’ It was something to take my mind off the baking hot sun.

‘The blue of the Pergamian standard,’ Rodden began, bent double with the scraper in his hand, ‘is the blue my father used to make. Verapinian blue.’

I glanced at him, wondering if this was bringing up painful memories, but his face was impassive.

‘It’s a mixture of copper, lime, sand and natron, crushed together and heated in a furnace.’

I leaned on the tip of my scraper. ‘This stuff, plus metal and sand, makes blue?’ I shook my head. ‘I’m astonished, but . . .’

‘But what?’

‘Doesn’t it seem an awful lot of bother, transporting natron all that way just to make some blue cloth?’

‘Can you see kings and queens – and princesses – dressing themselves in the drab colours of peasants?’

I thought back to my own clothes over the years: scarlets and yellows and purples, the delicate blues and pinks of Lilith’s gowns. I hadn’t spared one thought for where the cloth had come from. It was just . . . there.

‘And it’s not just for dye. Natron is used for all sorts of things.’

‘Like what?’

‘Insect repellent, as you know. Soap, lamp oil, teeth cleanser, wound cleanser. It’s used to tan leather, preserve meat. My mother used it to bleach fabric. The glassblowers use it to make coloured glass and the potters in their ceramics. It’s also used in the rites for the dead.’

‘Really? How?’

‘It desiccates bodies and preserves them.’

‘Why would anyone want to do that?’

‘In Brivora you might bury your dead, or cremate them, but in some cultures that’s horribly disrespectful, as bad as leaving the bodies to wild animals.’

‘What do they do instead?’

‘Wrap them in cloth and entomb them.’

I shuddered. ‘Sounds lonely.’ I wiped my stinging
hands on my trousers. ‘Much more of this and you’ll be able to entomb me, no rites necessary. Would you look at that?’ I held out my reddened hand to Rodden.

‘Careful!’ He grabbed me before I could plant my foot in the middle of a vein of grey and yellow natron. ‘Those impurities in the natron. That’s bennium.’

‘Is it dangerous?’

‘No, but if you stand in it you’ll get it mixed in with the sand.’

I looked at the dirty crust on the ground. This was what we’d almost killed ourselves for: a patch of grey and yellow crystals. They seemed so insignificant.

‘But this is what we’ve come all this way for. Why aren’t we harvesting it right now?’

‘Because that would be rude to our hosts. We do a day’s labour. Then we collect the bennium.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Tonight. Before the sun sets and the dew falls. It’s best to harvest it at the end of the day.’

I couldn’t help grinning at him. ‘The glass. The bennium. There’s just the yelinate to collect at the mines and we’ll be ready.’ I stood, arching my back. ‘It’s a good feeling, Rodden. It’s like we’re finally getting somewhere.’

He gave me a sardonic smile. ‘Well, you’re not
getting anywhere fast. Back to work. Did you think this was a holiday, Your –’ He caught himself. ‘Zeraphina?’

I arched my eyebrow at him. ‘Thank you. And no, I was never under the impression that this was a holiday. The sleeping rough, living in constant fear, going unwashed for days, almost dying on several occasions. I figured it out.’ Sweat trickled down my forehead and into my eyes. I wiped my brow on my shoulder, not daring to touch my face with my hands.

‘We can have a holiday tomorrow, if you like. Do whatever you want. A sort of celebration for getting this far.’

‘Really? You wouldn’t rather we level a mountain or paint the sky pink?’

He smiled. ‘We could perhaps sweep the desert of sand in the afternoon if we got bored.’

‘What I want,’ I said, staring at the dirt under my fingernails, ‘is to spend all day swimming in the oasis.’

‘Your wish is my command.’ He bowed, as if we were in court and I was in one of my finest dresses. ‘Now get back to work, princess.’

I stayed by the oasis all day, lying on the banks, getting back in the water as I dried off and grew hot again. The water was deliciously cool with soft, squishy mud at the bottom, waist-deep near the edges and seemingly bottomless in the middle. Oilif had given me a linen bathing wrap. Weeks at sea and in Verapine had taken their toll on my skin: I’d tanned right through my clothes on the trek through the desert and was now a warm brown all over. What would Mother say? I lay on the grassy bank, squinting up at the sky and smiling to myself.

The bennium was safely in our saddle bags: five small sacks of it, a dark crystalline substance. It would be enough to makes hundreds of arrow points once we had the yelinate.

It was odd, this sense of accomplishment. I wasn’t used to it. Still smiling, I gazed at the dragonflies that hovered over the glassy surface of the oasis. Grasshoppers creaked and rustled in the reeds. On the far shore stood white cranes, their long black legs descending into the water, thin as twigs. Their heads bobbed this way and that on elegant necks as they scanned the water for titbits.

I could almost pretend I didn’t have a care in the world.

There was a mighty roar, and something large
and dark flashed overhead before plunging into the water. The cranes leapt into the sky, honking. I snatched up my bow and had an arrow notched before the last bird had cleared the water.

Rodden’s head and torso broke the surface. He shook the water from his hair and grinned at me.

I sagged with relief. ‘I could have shot you,’ I called, putting my weapon down.

‘Well, I would have died happy in the knowledge that I’d impressed some battle-readiness on you.’

I grabbed the bow again. ‘I can still shoot you – you’re a sitting duck right now,’ I threatened.

He laughed and dived under the water. I watched him swim laps. The cranes watched him too, wary of this noisy, splashy intruder.

Eventually Rodden emerged, dripping, and sat beside me on the grass. He pushed the water off his arms and legs as we had no towels. He wore trunks, but I hadn’t been this close to him when he’d been wearing so little and I didn’t quite know where to look. ‘When must we leave?’ I asked, sneaking glances at him. He had very long, brown limbs, lightly muscled. I longed to trace with my fingers the silvery scar that ran down his left thigh.

Rodden cleared his throat with a strangled cough.

Horrified, I realised I wasn’t concealing my thoughts, and my eyes snapped back to the oasis.

‘Tomorrow. The next day at the latest. I’ve hired us a guide who will escort us to Rilla, south of Pol, where we can get passage to Varlint and then on to Amentia.’

I sighed. ‘Another sea-crossing.’

‘Yes.’ Rodden lay down and covered his eyes in the crook of his elbow.

‘Try not to kill yourself vomiting this time.’

‘Yes, Your Highness.’

I elbowed him in the ribs.

‘Thank you, Your Highness.’

‘Oh, shut up.’ But I couldn’t keep the smile from my voice.

I sat back on my elbows. The only thing that spoils this afternoon, I thought, staring at the sky, are those damned buzzards.

There were five of them, forever circling, as if waiting for something to drop dead. They’d been with us on and off all the way from Pol . . .

I sat up, peering at the sky. ‘Rodden,’ I whispered.

‘Hmm?’

‘Do you notice anything strange about those birds?’

‘What birds?’

‘The birds right above us.’

Rodden let his arm fall back from his face and squinted up at the sky. Then he sat up. ‘Piss and blood,’ he swore. ‘Do you think they’re brants?’

‘They’ve followed us from Pol, I’m sure of it.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

‘I did. I said, “Oh look, the buzzards are back”. That’s what I thought they were. But look at their wingspan. They’re huge. Buzzards aren’t normally that big.’

‘How’s your cloaking?’

‘Fine,’ I said, and mentally thickened the walls around my mind. ‘Do you think they have riders?’

‘Undoubtedly. Let’s stop staring at them.’

We looked at each other instead. Rodden’s jaw clenched. Harmings, here. My skin crawled as I imagined them looking down on us.

‘What now?’

‘We go back to the village. Slowly. Don’t look up.’

Fighting the urge to run or at least notch an arrow in my bow, we walked back to the huts.

‘Why haven’t they attacked yet?’ I hissed. ‘What are they waiting for?’

‘Put them out of your mind.’

‘But what do we do now?’ We had no yelbar. Only my bow and a crossbow Rodden had bought himself in Pol to defend ourselves with. We stared round at the Jarbin village: the flimsy reed and mud structures; the children playing tag among the bushes; the old women crouched in doorways, sewing. What had we brought to this peaceful place?

Rodden looked grim. ‘We find Uwin.’

We sat in our soggy bathing clothes on a reed mat. Oilif offered us tea and cordial, but Rodden shook his head, tight-lipped.

Uwin regarded us with solemn eyes as Rodden explained what we’d seen. For once there was no glimmer of amusement on his face. I began to shiver in my damp clothes, though not from cold.

Rodden reached the end of his short speech, and said one word over and over. ‘
Lika
.’

‘What’s
lika
?’ I asked.

‘“I’m sorry”,’ murmured Oilif, draping a blanket round my shoulders.

I turned to Uwin, pressing a hand to my breast. ‘
Lika
.’ I felt wretched that we’d put the villagers in danger.

Uwin shook his head and began to talk, addressing both Rodden and I though I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. The conversation went back and forth between the pair and I clenched my thumbs in my fists to prevent myself from crying out in frustration.

Finally, Rodden turned to me. ‘He says once we’re alone in the desert with our guide, the harmings will attack. So he won’t give us a guide.’