Storms (Sharani Series Book 2) (7 page)

“What’s going on?” Gavin demanded, shouting to be heard over the jibes and jeers lobbied by both sides.

One of the onlookers glanced at Gavin and then snorted. “This isn’t any of your business, outcast. Keep on walking.”

The Heltorin man parried a blow from the dagger-wielder, then stepped away, taking up a defensive posture. Dagger-wielder grinned and followed the man.

Gavin pushed forward, intending to step between the two men, but two of the watchers grabbed him by the arms before he could get by them. Gavin struggled, but their grips were firm. If there’d only been one of them, Gavin could have—but there were two and he didn’t want to start a second fight while trying to stop a first.

Dagger-wielder batted aside a parry with his sword and struck the Heltorin man a glancing block across the chest with a quick follow-through strike with the dagger. The Heltorin man growled and continued to back up, but was stopped by the ring of men.

Dagger-wielder grinned wickedly. “You’re not nearly so tough when you’re not hiding away while the rest of us die, are you, Heltorin?”

The Heltorin spat at his feet.

Dagger-wielder’s face scrunched together in a mask of fury. This was going to turn into a bloodbath and quickly. The Heltorin man was clearly outmatched and none of his companions were going to step in to defend him. They wouldn’t impugn his honor. They would avenge him if—no,
when
he fell—but they wouldn’t step in before.

This wasn’t the first conflict between the Heltorin and Londik and the other clans, but this was the first that had escalated to this level. Normally Gavin’s reputation from the Oasis was enough to calm a situation, but not anymore. He didn’t have time to consider the implications of that.

Gavin had to do something. Acting on instinct, Gavin reach out into the walls and sandy floor and pulled. He felt the energy gathering, like thousands of ants. The two holding his arms yelped as white energy crackled up Gavin’s arms. They released him and jumped away and Gavin rushed forward, grabbing Dagger-wielder by the back of his shirt and hauling him backward before he could land a blow on the Heltorin. Caught unaware, Dagger-wielder stumbled and Gavin was able to step in front of him, between the two men.

The energy faded.

For a moment, everything was still. Dagger-wielder stared up at him in confusion and anger, the onlookers equally as stunned, some even with looks of fear at the overt display of magic. Then, Gavin felt a sword-tip placed against the side of his neck.

Gavin turned slowly until he faced the Heltorin man, who held his sword to Gavin’s neck. Gavin almost smiled at the irony of having saved this man’s life only to have him threaten Gavin’s own, but smiling would only make him even angrier.

“Wrong move, friend,” the man said, his voice as cold as the blade at Gavin’s neck.

“There’s no need for this,” Gavin said, carefully. “If the two of you need to fight it out, you can just as easily use fists as blades. You’ll still both know who’s the stronger.”

The man sneered and, behind Gavin, Dagger-wielder snorted.

“You’re an outcast. You know nothing of honor,” the Heltorin man said. “The only way you beat Taren at all in the end was because of trickery. You’re in league with the Roterralar devils. You’re one of their mystic pets.”

Gavin swallowed, forming his words carefully. The ring of men closed in around him, united suddenly in their dislike of him. Gavin licked his lips, wondering how he’d managed to get in this situation.

“Enough of us died in the Oasis. Can we really afford any more deaths?”

It was the wrong thing to say. Gavin saw it in the set of the man’s jaw, the sudden change of posture. Gavin reached out to the walls around him, consciously attempting to replicate his act of only a few moments before. Nothing happened. In that moment, Gavin felt his mouth dry with fear. He tried again as the pressure increased on his neck, the blade cutting into flesh. Again, nothing happened. The energy remained elusive.

“I really wouldn’t kill him,” a passionless voice said.

Gavin turned his head to look toward the speaker. His face was lined and his hair was greying, though his frame held the muscles and power of a much younger man. His arms were bigger around than most men’s legs, his chest a barrel of corded muscle straining against a thick, leather vest. He held a number of scrolls under one arm. And there was something about his skin. Was it covered with metal flecks?

“None of you know how to mind your own business, do you?” one of the onlookers said.

The man grunted and made an odd gesture with one hand. The sword at Gavin’s neck lifted and flew out of its owner’s hand. The Heltorin man yelped softly as the weapon flew away from him and came to rest in the air in front of the well-muscled stranger.

The man reached up and wrapped a hand around the sword’s hilt. “As I said, I really wouldn’t kill him.” He put the sword’s point against the ground and leaned on it like a cane. “Don’t try it.”

The last was directed at Dagger-wielder, who had shifted as if he were going to try something. His weapons flew free of his grip as well and came to rest at the older man’s feet. All was quiet for a few moments, even more silent than when Gavin had interrupted earlier. Then the onlookers and two combatants turned to leave.

“Some day you won’t have another of your devil friends to protect you,” the Heltorin man hissed at Gavin, then he followed his companions down the hall and out of sight.

Gavin clenched and unclenched his hands as moisture returned to his mouth. He suppressed the soft tremble which threatened to make his legs lose stability and turned to look at the mysterious man.

“Thanks for that.”

The man grunted. “Try not to die.” He started walking, dropping the sword he’d been holding onto the floor with the others. Gavin noticed the limp with interest.

“Wait,” Gavin said, holding out a hand. “Who are you?”

“Beryl.” He kept on walking.

“Wait. Thank you. I’m Gavin.” Gavin hurried after the man.

“I know,” Beryl said. “Learn to fight. Now leave me alone.”

Gavin stopped in his tracks. What had he done to deserve that?

Beryl continued walking, limping down the hall until he was lost from sight. Gavin pursed his lips and absently ran a hand over the spot on his neck where the sword had rested.

Farah was right. He needed to learn more about his powers.

Almost an hour later, Gavin strode into the greatroom of the Roterralar Warren and—not for the first time—felt a slight sense of awe at the grandeur and sheer size of the place. Khari constantly complained that the warren couldn’t house the entire population of the Rahuli people. Gavin disagreed. Even with the remaining clans each claiming their own tier of rooms, there was plenty of evidence to show that this place was built for far more people than it currently housed. The issues, as Khari always pointed out, were feeding, clothing, and maintaining a civil relationship between the five hundred current inhabitants. Even housing segregation wasn’t proving an effective measure to maintaining that civility.

He drew a few stares as he entered, but Gavin ignored them for the most part. Several of the clans looked at him with awe after his defeat of Taren at the Oasis. Gavin was slightly uncomfortable under the weight of that understanding, but he knew he needed the notoriety if he was to lead this people.

He turned to the right and climbed the steep, winding switchbacks up the side of the massive room. The outcasts, all six of them that had survived, kept to themselves at the very top tier of rooms. As much as Gavin idealistically
wanted
the clans to unify as one Rahuli people, it was simply wasn’t happening, as he had witnessed firsthand earlier that day. He put a hand to his neck absently, rubbing it along one side.

As Gavin walked, the families stuck out to him, as always. He tried to not notice how many families were devoid of one parent or another. The battle at the Oasis had been costly. They’d paid a terrible price, but—hopefully—the genesauri were gone. It had been worth it. The children running around or getting scolded would have the chance to grow up in a world free from the yearly terror of a Migration. There was that glittering hope shining at the end of the long tunnel of despair.

Gavin made it up the last few steps on the highest switchback, narrowing his eyes against the glare of the sun gleaming down through the massive opening in the cavern’s mouth. He’d only taken a few steps onto the landing when one of the thick wooden doors opened and Shallee poked her head out the door.

“Gavin.” She stepped out onto the landing with one hand on her swollen belly. “What brings you here?”

Gavin smiled. Despite having her husband killed before her eyes, despite the turmoil and stress and destruction of the last battle of the Oasis, Shallee had survived. And even in the face of all that, she still managed to smile.

“I just wanted to check in on you and the baby.”

Shallee gave him a flat look, though it was softened by her small smile. Perhaps a decade Gavin’s senior, Shallee was a short, squat woman with a mane of deep brown hair and discerning brown eyes. His grandmother had always spoken highly of her, and Gavin, in the weeks that had followed the fall of the Oasis, had come to rely on her insight and opinion.

“What do you really need, Gavin?” she asked.

Gavin scratched at his chin and didn’t meet her gaze.

“Everything feels like it’s slipping away,” Gavin said. “I know we’re all safe and we assume, from what Khari has told us, that the genesauri are gone. We should be happy, we should be rejoicing in our survival, but . . .” He let the sentence fade and hang there between them.

“But we don’t seem happy,” Shallee said, leaning back against the stone wall. Her gaze turned toward the greatroom floor, where women worked and children played, though each in their own little groups. Only the children intermingled and even they didn’t get away without a good scolding for doing so.

Gavin nodded.

“We are, though,” Shallee said. “Each in our own way. I’m eternally grateful that I am safe and my baby will be able to face life without the genesauri. We outcasts, we have shelter and food.”

“They still hate us, though.”

Shallee shrugged. “They don’t know us, yet. Look at you. Half the clans look at you like some sort of a savior.”

“And the other half like some sort of demon,” Gavin said with a rueful smile.

“Only because you defend those they disagree with. There is always hope, Gavin. Always. Elvira gathered us together as a people based upon only that, a simple hope. Don’t ever doubt the strength of a solitary flame.”

Gavin smiled. For some reason, despite the stress and the problems of the day, he felt better.

He turned to go. “I’ll bring you and the others some food later,” he said, speaking over one shoulder. “May death’s shadow tread lightly by you.”

“Always,” Shallee said.

“These three first tier Iterations are the honors of the Rahuli people, the smaller of the two races of men that populate this world.”

—From
Commentary on the
Schema, Volume I

Lhaurel existed in memory, experiencing once more the deaths of the genesauri, the poor men and women who had fueled her helpless release of power, and the terrible fear and sense of ecstasy that had coursed through her at the time. It had seized her, pushed onward indiscriminately. Makin Qays died a thousand times in Lhaurel’s dreams. The old woman had her last moments of breath stolen a thousand times again. It was a black, soulless place—a hell greater than any of the seven levels. And she knew she deserved it. She was a monster.

Lhaurel came awake with a scream tearing from her lips like the sound of a sailfin’s keening. She sat upright, immediately feeling the terrible disorientation of the blood rushing from her head and the pain of sore, tight, and damaged muscles. She sensed the water gurgling in the spring near her, though it was a peripheral thing now, no longer the powerful weight to which she had grown accustomed. Instead, the sense of another’s sentient presence overwhelmed her.

Lhaurel spun toward the other person in the room, reaching out to her powers by instinct, to the reservoirs of blood within her own veins to fuel her magic. A chill ran through her, freezing the blood in her veins.

Khari stood near the doorway, hand on her sword hilt. The woman’s stern face was a careful mask, face expressionless, though rigid and hard.

Lhaurel let go of the magic with an effort, feeling somehow soiled for the use of it. Khari’s presence faded, though it did not vanish completely. Lhaurel could still sense her, but more like an incessant gnat at her ear than the roar of a sandtiger it had been.

“Khari,” Lhaurel croaked. She held a hand to her head, massaging her throbbing temples. A headache swelled behind her eyes and threatened to dwarf the pain of her aching muscles.

Khari edged forward.

Lhaurel knew something was off about the woman’s behavior, but she couldn’t place it. The headache swelled.

“How are you feeling?” Khari asked.

Lhaurel didn’t know what to say. Instead she simply shook her head.

“Do you . . .” Khari hesitated, which cut through part of the confusion caused by Lhaurel’s headache.

Khari cleared her throat and continued in a much firmer voice. “Do you remember what happened in the Oasis?”

Death. Death born from blood stolen by a murderer. Lhaurel had killed them. She’d called Kaiden a monster then, but she’d been wrong.
She
was the real monster. Lhaurel squeezed her eyes shut against the tears and pain. No, she wasn’t a monster, was she?

Khari must have noticed Lhaurel’s reaction because Lhaurel heard her step forward and place a hand on Lhaurel’s back. The touch was soft.

“Did you do it, Lhaurel? Did you destroy the genesauri?”

Within her pain, within her misery, Lhaurel heard the question and nodded. Of that, at least, she was sure. The genesauri were dead. Lhaurel tried to reach out, as she had in the Oasis, tried to feel the sands of the Sharani Desert and comb them for life, but the pain only intensified and she cried out softly. It was a weak sound, the sound of a newborn lamb seeking suck from its mother.

“So much blood,” Lhaurel whispered. “Blood and pain and death. Genesauri dead—all dead. People too. I felt them, felt them all.”

Tears ran down Lhaurel’s cheeks and she found Khari’s arms around her in that moment. For all the hesitation, for all the trepidation Khari had exhibited earlier, Lhaurel basked in the comfort of those arms.

“Lhaurel,” Khari said gently. “You saved us, saved us all. I don’t know how, but you did. But Lhaurel . . .”

Lhaurel tried to look up, but she simply couldn’t muster the strength. When had she gotten so weak? Her thoughts were growing more and more clouded by the moment, her headache more and more intense.

“Saralhn?” Lhaurel asked, blinking away her fatigue and focusing on Khari’s drawn, lined face. “What about Saralhn? Is she here?”

Khari’s licked her lips and Lhaurel knew the answer even before the woman spoke. “She wasn’t among the survivors. I asked about her. She died well, a true warrior. You would have been proud of her.”

Lhaurel barely felt the pain beneath the fatigue. She’d thought Saralhn dead once before. This time though, she didn’t doubt Khari’s word.

“I thought you could burn a
shufari
for her, when you’re up to it.” Khari’s voice sounded hesitant, as if she were worried she’d say the wrong thing. “We didn’t have a chance to mourn everyone individually, not with so many dead. But I know how important she was to you . . .” Khari trailed off.

Lhaurel nodded numbly, licking her lips. She blinked away the blurriness in her eyes. Khari cleared her throat a few times and Lhaurel focused on her, though it was growing hard to focus on anything.

“You’re not a wetta at all, are you?”

Khari’s question seemed to come from a long ways off, like the echo of someone shouting from the other side of a hallway. But despite the softness of the sound, it was piercing.

Lhaurel struggled to form an answer. “No,” she said, words slurring together slightly. “I consume blood.”

Khari began a response, but Lhaurel slid back into darkness, wrapped in the comfort of Khari’s arms.

Khari placed Lhaurel back onto the cot with gentle arms, though her mind was deeply troubled. Since her discovery with the blood a few days before, Khari had kept a silent vigil over Lhaurel, trying to figure out what to do when—no
if—
Lhaurel awoke, to the neglect of all her other duties.

The girl was far more powerful than anyone Khari had experienced, except for maybe Beryl, but the strange smith was nowhere to be found. Khari had sent everyone available to find the man, but to no avail. For only the second time in Khari’s life, she was at a complete loss at what to do, and that thought made her extremely uncomfortable.

Lhaurel stirred in her sleep, mumbling something under her breath. Khari leaned in close, trying to hear, but the words were unintelligible. Still, Khari found she was glad Lhaurel had finally come around.

Khari and Makin had never been blessed with children, though they had tried for years. One of Khari’s biggest regrets in life, now that Makin was gone, was that his legacy would not live on in their children. Yes, Khari had seen all of the Roterralar she’d trained as surrogate children and the aevians over which she held herself responsible were an extension of that surrogacy, but they hadn’t ever really been hers.

But Lhaurel was different. Lhaurel hadn’t just been one of the Roterralar she’d trained with the sword. Lhaurel was the first and only mystic Khari had ever trained. In the few short months the girl had been a part of the Roterralar, Khari had developed a bond with her that went beyond simple teacher and student. In a way, Khari had started to look at Lhaurel as the daughter she’d never had. And that was dangerous.

How was Khari to make the decisions that were best for the Roterralar when she put the needs of a single individual over the needs of the clan? Lhaurel was clearly dangerous. She was an unknown, with impossible powers. But with Makin gone, Khari couldn’t just let Lhaurel go as well. Not if she could help it.

With a resolved expression, Khari pulled a dagger from her belt and carefully cut into one of her fingers. Most of them had small wounds from where she’d already done this a half dozen times before. A small trickle of blood ran from the wound and, within moments, Lhaurel had consumed it. Khari was careful to squeeze out a little more from her finger, to be consumed as well, but left it at that. Lhaurel’s tossing and turning subsided and she fell into a deep sleep.

With a sigh, Khari got to her feet and checked the sword at her belt. She’d taken to carrying it around with her inside the warren ever since news of Gavin’s encounter with the Heltorin man had reached her.
She
at least, would not be taken so unawares.

With one last look at Lhaurel, Khari headed for the door. She was a wetta after all, and that came with certain abilities. She would find Beryl herself. She had questions that needed answers.

She reached out, using the spring in the room behind her to fuel her search. Her range was normally limited by the water she had within herself, but with an ample source so close, she could draw upon it to increase her range. It was nothing like what Lhaurel said she could do, sensing everyone, but she could sense the other mystics around her, each type with a different feel.

Lhaurel, in the room behind her, felt different now, a darker, more shadowy feeling than the simple elusive vastness that had marked her before.

Khari continued to push outward, straining against the confines of her normal range. She had only attempted something like this once before, a long time ago when she had first been broken and was newly experiencing her powers.

She felt a half dozen others throughout the passages, but none of them felt like Beryl. Khari had been surprised at how many potential mystics had come with survivors. Most of them showed the initial signs of a breaking—how could they not after the ordeal of the Oasis—but Khari had not had the time to meet with them all or even to discuss their abilities with any of the other surviving mystics.

She knew she should have, but other priorities kept arising and there was enough tension going around concerning the ordinary Roterralar that adding to it wasn’t necessarily a good idea right now. Besides, that wasn’t Khari’s responsibility—that was the job of the head of the mystics and Khari hadn’t appointed one yet.

Well, she
had
let Farah know that Gavin was a relampago. As the only other surviving member of that order, Farah was the only one with the capacity to train him, and
he,
with the way he was acting and the drive he was showing to unite the clans, he
had
to learn. It wasn’t something she could let slide.

There.

Khari sensed Beryl then, deep within the bowels of the warren, in the ancient abandoned passageways beneath the main part of the warren.

What was he doing there?

Khari felt a small flash of annoyance. No wonder none of the people she’d sent had been able to find him.

Khari ran a hand through her short hair. It was unlike Beryl to leave his forge at all, but it had been dormant for days. Now he was down in the bowels of the warren itself, most likely alone. If she hadn’t already been looking for him, that fact alone would have made her try and find him. He was up to something.

Lhaurel dreamed.

She was aware of the fact that she was dreaming, unlike the fitful nightmares she’d been trapped in before, but she saw it through the eyes of someone else. She was an observer in the dream only, unable to speak or act, but could only watch through eyes of another phantom woman.

In the dream, she strode through a long corridor lined with torches. The corridor sloped upward to a large set of steps which lead up to a massive stone door. She strode up, noticing then the second set of echoing footsteps along with her own.

The doorway swung open of its own accord, letting in a blazing burst of sunlight.

“Thank you, Beryl.” The voice came as if from Lhaurel’s mouth, though Lhaurel herself did not think or say the words. She felt the surprise though, which was noteworthy in itself. Though she couldn’t control what was happening, she was still herself, could still feel and think autonomously.