Riders of the Storm (4 page)

The others had come to a halt where they were, hands outstretched to intercept their own snowdrops. It wasn't easy. Wind followed the snow, tossing it up, spinning it around.

Much more, she realized, and Enris would be right. It was already confusing to look through the falling stuff over any distance. If it became thicker and continued to swirl in their faces, they'd be in trouble. At that worry, Aryl
sent
to the rest.
Stay close together,
she sent, pouring strength into the warning.
If it gets worse, move slowly and with care.

Along with the sense of disquiet and firm agreement from all around, a wry amusement touched her mind.
Like me?

Busy licking a snowdrop from her lips, Aryl didn't answer.

Slow and careful didn't send the exiles to Enris' flatter ground. Instead of moving independently, they tightened their group so that a couple chose the safest path for all, the Yena way when traversing a dangerous section of canopy. Parents kept their children close; foot-and handholds, however secure in appearance, tested before trusted. The damp left by melting snow might be no worse than during a light rain, but rock was still new to Yena.

New and cold. Aryl's fingers grew numb, less sensitive to texture. She could see her breath now if she puffed, a phenomenon they'd experienced thus far in the early morning, not midday. She guessed at the time; the sky was heavy with cloud as well as snow, imparting a gloom close to firstnight on the landscape.

Enris.
She couldn't see him anymore.

Here.
Strong and sure, as always. Few Yena could match his ability to
send
mind-to-mind over distance. Unless Chosen, most required touch to keep that sending private.
Watch your step.

He was right. This wasn't a good place to be. She lowered her shields enough to
reach,
finding where the others were in line. Gijs sud Vendan had taken the lead now, doubtless concerned for his pregnant Chosen, though Juo was the better climber of the two. Gijs was paired with Veca Kessa'at, who was their best.

Other than Aryl herself. She came last, ready to help anyone ahead if they faltered. Or anyone behind. No doubting Enris' strength and will, but he had no better view of his footing than she did—and would have more trouble climbing out of a gully should he fall.

This part of the ridge was gouged away, its surface scarred by deep ravines, themselves cut by cracks. Loose material collected there, making them treacherous places to step. She noticed any snow that fell within these cavities or in deep shadow didn't melt, accumulating in deceptively soft piles, cold and dangerous.

To her inner sense, Haxel and her companions were
there,
farther up the valley and lower down: four warm, distant glows. Too distant. At least one would be coming back to meet them if they'd found or made shelter by now. Aryl began looking for a cave or overhang, something to house them all. She soon gave up.

There was no safety or protection here. They had to keep going.

Suddenly, a scream rent the air,
felt
as much as heard. Aryl recognized the source and threw herself forward.

“Seru!”

“W
E CAN'T GO THERE! WE can't! Don't—” the words dissolved into another scream.

The Om'ray clustered around the prone figure moved out of Aryl's way, letting her through. Seru lay on her back, hands pressed over her face, fingers tangled in strands of wet hair. She no longer screamed, but squirmed fitfully.

“Seru!” Aryl dropped to her knees. “Seru?” she repeated, gently. “Cousin.” No response. She looked up at the others. “What happened?”

“We don't know.” Taen held Ziba's shoulders, her face and voice grave. Murmurs of agreement from the other exiles, an ebb and flow of emotion that read to Aryl's inner sense as
concern
mixed with
pity
. “She was climbing with us, then she was down, screaming we had to stop. Why?”

“Seru's been talking to herself all day,” the young Om'ray offered, eyes wide. “She wouldn't listen to me.” This with profound distress.

“We're too exposed here.” Rorn sud Vendan, Haxel's Chosen, traded looks with Cetto. “I can carry her,” he offered. “She's little more than bone and clothing.”

“Wait.” Aryl pressed her hand lightly over Seru's, sending her cousin's name through that contact. No shields barred her way. No consciousness responded. How was that possible? Her eyes widened in shock.

Seru was sound asleep.

An unnatural sleep. Aryl eased Seru's hands away from her face, then stroked strands of hair from her pale forehead and cheeks. Her cousin's lips quivered and tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, but she didn't stir.

Like last truenight.

Aryl laid her palms along her cousin's cold cheeks and summoned her strength.
Wake up,
she coaxed, as if it were a normal morning, as if this were a day when a pair of giggly young unChosen might sneak away from chores and spy on those who did work.
Sleepy Seru. We'll be late. C'mon. It's me. Aryl.

A disgruntled huff of warm breath in her face.

Wake up. Lazy Seru. Wake up.
She hid her own fear, did her utmost to project only
anticipation
and
pleasure
. Her awareness of the other Om'ray faded as they tightened their mental shields. It helped her focus; the reason for it didn't. She shared their instinct for self-preservation. If Seru's mind was damaged, contact risked them both.

Snow swirled and danced in silence; chill wind snuck between the legs of those waiting and found its way down the neck of Aryl's hood. She didn't move, didn't stop sending.

At last, Seru's eyelids fluttered open. She blinked away snowdrops. Her green eyes, their gaze vague, strayed until they caught Aryl's. “Why are you taking us to Sona?” Her voice, though hoarse with the aftermath of screams, was disturbingly calm and reasonable. A bead of blood marked a crack on her lower lip. “We can't go there. Everyone's dead. Can't you hear them warn us away?”

With a gasp, Taen drew Ziba back into the crowd. The rest exchanged troubled glances and Aryl didn't blame them. Her hands trembled as they left Seru's face. “Wake up!” she insisted, this time aloud.

Another blink, then Seru's eyes snapped into focus. “Aryl?” Her brows knitted together as she noticed the others staring down at her. “What am I doing on the ground?” A look of dismay. She beckoned Aryl closer, then whispered urgently. “I didn't fall, did I?”

“Of course not.” What could she tell her? Don't worry, Seru? You've been climbing in your sleep? You've had another bad dream? You said things none of us understand? It didn't make sense, Aryl fussed to herself. She did know none of this would reassure those hovering anxiously around them. “It's the cold,” she improvised hastily. “You aren't used to it. You—fainted.”

With perfect timing, snow swept between them, the wind tugging at their clothes. Seru's shiver reached her teeth and she sat with Aryl's help. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

A touch on her shoulder that wasn't wind.
Aryl. We have to move.

“Let's get you on your feet, Cousin.” Aryl acknowledged Gijs' sending with a somber
I know
.

Husni, Cetto's Chosen, and Myris closed on Seru, chattering in anxious synchrony about the effects of such dreadful cold and how badly they felt, too. Seru, for her part, was unsettled by the attention of her elders; her cheeks flushed in spite of the cold.

How could she not remember shouting? How could she sleep while climbing in this difficult place—and not fall?

Only one thing was certain. It hadn't been the cold.

“Do you want me to stay—” Aryl began.

“We'll take care of her,” promised Myris. Seru averted her eyes and started climbing with the others.

Lip between her teeth, Aryl watched her go. Their only Parth. Their only Chooser. Seru was young and strong. She shouldn't be the first to falter—shouldn't falter at all during what was—what had been—easy travel for a Yena.

She felt someone's attention and glanced up. Through the haze of falling snowdrops, Ziba regarded her solemnly from the top of the rise, her hand tight in her mother's. As the two turned to take their place in the line of exiles, the child twisted to look back. “What killed Sona, Aryl?” she called out, loud and frightened. “Is it going to kill us, too?”

Taen's head bent over her daughter's. Reassurance, Aryl supposed, wishing she had some. Whether inspired from dream or something more, Seru's shouts had shaken everyone's confidence in this path. But they had no other option.

Followed by Juo and the others, the two disappeared down the other side, leaving Aryl alone.

Not entirely.
Slowing down, Yena?

Admiring the scenery.
Aryl smiled. The snow made it impossible to see any distance. The ridge itself had vanished into bands of gray and white, along with the valley floor. Didn't matter. With a flash of her inner sense, she knew exactly where Enris was: farther down the slope, but closer than before. He'd made up time while they'd stopped with Seru; possibly found a superior route.

If the Tuana outpaced her on the flat, he'd be insufferable for days.

She wiped drops from her face and climbed hurriedly after the others.

 

The storm eased to sullen misery for the rest of the afternoon. The snow became little more than an unpredictable nuisance, drops to splatter into an open eye or mouth, mounds to fill nooks and crannies, so already numb fingers must push into the cold wet stuff to find a sure hold. The wind fretted at them, poked through ill-fitting clothing, unerringly found whatever was damp.

The Yena exiles maintained their pace. No one called for a rest; no place offered shelter if they had. Aryl followed the trail left by the others, the shape of a booted foot pressed into melting snow, the dark stain of soil where someone had yanked free yet another tuft of vegetation in hopes of a warm, evening fire. These were the only traces held by rock and loose pebbles. She noted that, as she noted everything she could about this place. They had to learn to survive here.

They'd never last the journey to Rayna otherwise.

Gaining the high ground, Aryl paused to survey her surroundings before the plunge into the shadow of the next ravine. There were fewer such gashes in the mountain ridge this far up the valley; unfortunately, each was deeper and more treacherous to climb than the last. Aryl wasn't surprised to see those in the lead, already halfway up the other side, were angling downslope as well, to where the ravine walls weren't as rugged. At this rate, she thought ruefully, they might meet Enris after all.

The sun was a pale dot she could look at without pain, powerless against the cold that assailed her the instant she stopped moving. Her breath steamed from her mouth; the novelty had worn off. What interested Aryl lay ahead. She balanced the balls of her feet on the thin edge of rock and tried to make sense of the land before her.

Like the ravines cutting its sides, the valley itself narrowed and deepened as they moved toward its source, or rather the mountain ridge that was its far wall surged skyward here. Just as well they hadn't been forced along its jagged, shadowed face. No further sign of the disturbance caused by the Oud—a relief—but the valley's floor wasn't as smooth as where its mouth opened to the Lay Swamp. Traces of snow clung to the leesides of low, even hills, emphasizing the smallest wrinkle of ground.

No wonder Haxel had kept going. There was no shelter here.

Puzzled by a broad depression that wound its way up the middle of the valley, Aryl let her gaze follow its irregular edge. It looked like a giant version of the annoying small rivers they'd crossed, but held no gleam of water, only drifts of snow. Perhaps the Oud had made it. It curled out of sight behind the ridge.

At that curve, she spotted a cluster of straight and crisscrossed lines, stark against the muted brown-gray and whites of the landscape. Aryl's heart quickened. Only one thing she knew made that shape.

Nekis!

Too small to be the familiar giants that soared above all other growth in the groves. She refused to be disappointed. Possibly these were another kind of plant, or nekis stunted by the cold so high in the mountains. It didn't matter. Yena could work with wood of any kind.

Aryl shivered. Or burn it for heat.

Haxel would have found that grove, she told herself as she descended after the others, her steps eager and sure. Rather than retrace where the rest had climbed, she moved farther down the ravine to catch up, a more direct path. They'd be busy erecting a shelter for them…there was nothing Yena couldn't do with wood.

Distracted, Aryl almost stepped into a trap.

Almost. At the last instant, she glimpsed half-buried metal and flung herself away. She slid precipitously, grasping for handholds she'd marked as she jumped, missing the first…the second…There.

Hanging by one hand, Aryl froze in place, her feet suspended in midair. Pebbles continued to fall without her, pinging as they bounced off one another and the rock face. Before the last ping, she'd found a good hold for her other hand, a brace for one knee. A quick squirm and she was on her feet again.

She considered the piece of metal from a cautious distance, absently wiping blood and pebbles from her scraped palm on her coat. They needed to know the hazards here. Gingerly, ready to spring back, she crouched to brush snow, then dirt and small stones from around it, for the piece was set into a pile of such loose material. Some kind of snare, like those Yena hunters braided from wing threads. No. Something else.

Though the metal piece, a strap, did connect with others farther down, the whole was too fine and delicate to hold any prey worth catching.

Her fingers contacted something long and smooth to one side of the metal. She pulled it free, impatient for an answer.

Bone.

She laid it along her forearm, confirming her suspicion.

An Om'ray had died here.

“Some poor unChosen on Passage,” she decided aloud, but didn't rise at once. The hem of her long coat collected snow as she reached for the piece of metal.

It resisted. Determined, she used the arm bone as a tool, first to loosen the dirt, then to pry at the metal. With a sudden pop and spray of stone, up it came, complete with skull.

Aryl rocked back on her heels. “Not unChosen,” she whispered.

The skull was damaged, the jaw and back missing. The two deep cavities where eyes should be looked at her below a forehead-spanning strap of green metal. The ends of that met fine chain; more straps rose above it and fell behind, trailing down where a neck should be.

Only one type of Om'ray wore such an elaborate headdress. Only one type needed such restraint—designed to tame willful hair.

“You were Chosen.”

Saying it made it no easier to comprehend. Mother, grandmother, aunt…a mature Chosen shouldn't be wandering alone, shouldn't be in this wasteland of rock. She'd heard flat-landers disposed of the empty husk by burial, but this lay on a path, as if it were where the Chosen had died.

What had happened here?

Aryl freed the headdress, leaving the bones where they were. She rubbed the front of the strap, feeling a texture suggestive of carving or inlay. It would have to be cleaned and polished, perhaps repaired. Remarkably light, for all its parts. Enris might know which Clan did such work.

Opening her coat, she carefully tucked the headdress inside her tunic. The cold metal stole heat from her skin.

Whatever Seru had experienced…was experiencing…

It wasn't anything so innocent as a dream.

 

Perversely, her cousin appeared anything but afflicted by dreams or visions of death when Aryl rejoined the exiles. They'd stopped where a hollow made a welcome windbreak, a few standing, most sitting on packs. Husni leaned against Cetto, only her bright pale eyes showing past the layers of coats and wraps she'd bundled around her body and head. A small waterfall trickled listlessly to one side. Seru was helping Ziba refill water sacs, the two giggling as if the same age.

Aryl watched them as she accepted what Grona's Om'ray called “travel bread” from her aunt. “How's she been?”

Hesitantly, Myris touched her tongue to her own piece of the hard, bitter stuff. She gave a resigned shudder instead of taking a bite. “Terrified. Angry. Confused.” At Aryl's raised eyebrow, she colored. “I didn't pry, if that's what you think. Seru's emotions are—” a wince. “I'm not the only one avoiding her right now. No offense to the Parths, but I wish her shields were stronger.”

“Then she'd be able to hide whatever's wrong.” Aryl dutifully nibbled the bread, taking her own lack of appetite as a warning. “What if they aren't dreams, Myris? Some Om'ray can
taste
a coming change.” She happened to be one of them, though it was a thoroughly untrustworthy Talent. The metal headdress pressed against her waist, its mystery prompting her to press on. “Have you heard of anyone who could
taste
what happened before?”