Read Sands (Sharani Series Book 1) Online

Authors: Kevin L. Nielsen

Sands (Sharani Series Book 1) (7 page)

Marvi turned and exited the way she had entered, torn robes dragging along the grass. She waited until she had passed the borders of the camp to smile and chuckle silently to herself. Alarian thought he’d won a great victory today, a position of power where he could lord himself over a lesser clan. He would soon discover it was the other way around.

*              *              *

Jenthro met her halfway back to the territory controlled by the Sidena. He sat, legs crossed and eyes closed, and his hard-edged face formed an impassive mask as she approached.

Marvi couldn’t begin to understand how he could be comfortable sitting on such strange softness. Grass should be yellow, long, and tough, not green and springy.

“You haven’t the right to do what you did,” Jenthro said without opening his eyes. His arms lay outstretched, palms facing upward toward the sun, forearms exposed. Only a single scar graced his right wrist. Hers.

She raised an eyebrow at him, though he couldn’t see the gesture. “I did what had to be done to ensure our survival. If things had gone the way you had planned, we would already be dead now, assimilated into the Frierd or else too weak to ever make it back to the warren once the Migration is over.”

His eyes snapped open.

“Don’t you dare speak to me that way,” he hissed. “I am the Warlord. My word is law. I could have you killed for addressing me with such disregard. Even if you are my wife.” He said the last word as if it were akin to saying that she was just another of his many possessions, like an additional goat for his herds.

Marvi threw back her head and laughed, ignoring the threat completely. “Let’s not forget who put you there, Jenthro. Let’s not forget whose schemes and plots have kept you from being overthrown by the next upcoming usurper time and time again. It was not you who defeated them. They were dead before they ever reached for their swords. Let us not forget who really ensures that the people get fed, trade gets secured, and our survival maintained. You may be the Warlord, but you do not lead the clan.”

He sprang to his feet but did not approach her. His look was murderous, filled with hate. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. “I should never have consented to marry you. Treacherous snake. I am the Warlord. I
am
the clan.”

“An empty title, Jenthro. It always has been, even when my dear late father held it, and he was a much better man than you. Power isn’t something given to you. It is earned. Slowly, painstakingly, over the course of years. It is complete mental and emotional domination. If you have power you did not earn, it is because someone has earned it for you. And that, my dear, will always elude you.”

He raised a fist as if to strike her and then spun on his heels and stalked off into the trees, his every step proclaiming his rage. Marvi watched him go, not bothering to hide her calculating expression. It was not the face she presented to the rest of the clan. This was the face of the spider pulling at strands of web, knitting lives together or pulling them apart. This was the face of the master weaver of the clan’s life-web.

“In a way, I’m glad you chose him over me,” a deep voice said from behind her.

A true smile appeared on Marvi’s lips as Taren walked out of the trees, his bald pate glistening with sweat. She reached out and took his hand, squeezing it gently. He didn’t return the smile, but his eyes twinkled as they always did when he watched her humiliate Jenthro. There were times when she did it just to see that gleam in his eyes.

“I think it is time to rid ourselves of him,” Taren said as he turned to glance toward where Jenthro had disappeared. “He is becoming something of a nuisance. The blood of the Sidena who fell on our way here are on his hands. I think it’s time we give them the justice they deserve.”

Marvi’s smile widened and she slid her fingers up his arm slowly, caressing.

He shook off her hand. “You’re a married woman,” he said, his voice hard.

“And you’re a married man, full of spirit and vitality,” Marvi replied, pointedly flipping his hand over to show the multitude of scars that crossed his wrist. The most recent one was still fresh, the scabs just beginning to peel away.

There had been a chance, long ago, where she could have been that first scar, and she secretly resented the four women the scars represented, especially the most recent. But both she and Taren had chosen different paths. She had chosen Jenthro instead and coerced him along the path that led him to where he was now. But she had never loved him. Taren had always had her heart, not because of his looks, for he had none, but because of his ambition. He loved power and did what he had to do in order to get it. In that, they were kindred spirits, and that ran deeper than a pretty face.

“That whelp was left for the genesauri,” Taren said with a humorless snort. “She’s in a far hotter place now.”

Marvi nodded, acquiescing. Obediently she put her hands behind her back, waiting for Taren to repeat his earlier statement. She knew it would come. She’d know it for years, had paved the way for it little by little. She had Taren in the palm of her hand, the prize she’d always wanted. All he had to do was ask.

“Jenthro needs to step aside. His reign has ended.”

“Agreed. But are you ready to step in and lead?” She already knew the answer—she had been instrumental in making sure that all obstacles in Taren’s way, including her own sons, had been eliminated in one way or another.

Taren closed his eyes, breathed in a deep, earthy breath, and nodded.

*              *              *

When Jenthro had appeared in the meadow below him, it had taken all of Gavin’s will power to not drop from the tree and attack the man. Elvira’s grip on the other outcasts had started slackening the moment the man had brought out the three sickly goats as payment for their performance in the Sidena Warren. Gavin had always wrestled with his temper. But within only a few moments Marvi had appeared and then Taren. His grandmother would be proud that he had kept his cool. The clans were at each other’s throats. That boded well for the outcasts currently scattered throughout the Oasis.

Gavin slid down the trunk of the tree, one of his hands wrapped around one of coconuts that grew at the top of the palm. His grandmother loved the milk hidden within, and Gavin enjoyed chewing the meat. It was a good source of continued moisture, though it wasn’t much needed in the Oasis. There was water everywhere here.

He hit the ground with a soft thump. Brushing his hair out of his eyes, he slipped his tattered sandals onto his feet and tugged on a thin vest, glancing to where the three Sidena had retreated only once to make sure they were gone. His anger still stormed within him, but it was secondary now, cloaked in a blanket of pragmatism that bore his grandmother’s admonishing tone.

“Do not let your emotions rule you,” she would say. “Rule them. Emotions are a fuel for action, not the cause of them.”

It had been her admonishing voice that had granted him the will to remain in the tree when Jenthro had appeared. She often told him of how the Rahuli clans were an arrogant folk, always looking down their noses at everyone around them. And when one is looking down one’s nose, one never thinks to look up.

The smell of change was in the air. Only five of the seven clans had made it into the Oasis. The Heltorin and the Londik were still missing. The other clans spoke of it in hushed whispers, fear and disbelief keeping them from saying what Gavin had known to be true a month into the Migration. The genesauri had gotten them. And the rest of the clans were afraid. They had all lost people this time. The Sidena lost more than most, though no clan had escaped the devastation. And there were so few of the outcasts left, too. Only a handful of families remained, though that was not too unusual. Outcasts like Gavin didn’t generally live long on the sands without the protection of a warren’s walls around them. Exposure would kill them before almost anything else. His grandmother had done much to unite them into a semblance of a clan of their own by making them performers and pooling resources, but her hold, tenuous as it had been before, was slipping.

The ground sprang back under his feet as he jogged and pushed him onward. He loved the Oasis: loved the green, loved the life, loved the abundance of food and water. It was much better than sand. Sand was hot, enveloping, and invasive. It washed over everything and granted it the color and pallor of death.

Since he belonged to no clan, he had to skirt around the areas were their patrols passed, hugging the Oasis wall until he came to a shallow depression in the rock. He bent down and slipped into the cave.

His grandmother lay in the darkness, huddled in a thin blanket that rose and fell as she breathed. Her back was to him, but he could tell that she was still losing weight. His grandmother had always been small, but he could see the bones of her ribs even through the blanket. Her grey hair, once the brilliant orange of flame, was thinning and now bleached white by age. There was almost more skin showing on her scalp than hair now. The sight made him sick, shame and anger forming into a knot in the pit of his stomach. This early Migration, this hell, had brought his grandmother low.

He didn’t want to wake her, but he knew that she needed to eat. If she didn’t start putting on more weight, she would never survive when the rains forced them out of the Oasis. He gritted his teeth and placed a light touch on her arm.

She came awake instantly, turning over to gaze at him with bright, intense eyes.

Those eyes. Gavin had never known a moment when those eyes didn’t seem as if they were peering into his soul, stripping away all the extraneous bits of superficial personality and laying bare his very being. Even now with her body succumbing to decay and age, her gaze pierced him and filled him with strength.

“Nana,” he said, smiling, “I brought you some coconut.”

He pulled one of the fruit from his bag and dug around in the sand until he found the sharp rock he’d hidden there. With the rock, he bored two small holes in the large fruit, one slightly smaller than the other. Her hands shook as she took the fruit Gavin offered her and greedily gulped down the milk.

He smiled at her, though his heart despaired. She was dying, and there was nothing he could do about it. Even the news he carried paled in the face of those black tidings. Pride sustained her now. Pride and stubbornness.

“Enough of that look,” she rasped between mouthfuls of milk. “You could give storm clouds lessons on how to look ominous. Don’t soil that pretty face of yours on my account.”

Instead of cheering him up, the words only deepened his scowl.

“Tell me what news you’ve gathered then, little storm cloud.”

Despite himself, Gavin felt the corners of his mouth twitch. He told her what he’d seen.

She watched him intently as he spoke, eyes cool and penetrating, showing more life and fire than they had in several fortnights. It was as if, for a moment, the age vanished from them and he saw once again the woman who had spent years teaching him the ways of the sands and how to survive without the aid of clan. The coconut spilled from her hand as his account came to an end.

Before Gavin could protest, she seized him by his vest and pulled him down toward her with a strength that she had not had in years. Her eyes glistened with intensity and—Gavin was terrified to see— worry and no small amount of fear.

“This is your chance,” she said. Her voice was sharp and articulate, with none of the previous rasp. “Swear to me that you will complete your father’s task.”

“Nana,” he said, trying to tug free of her grip, “you know I don’t believe in the stories. It’s because of them that we’re outcasts. It’s because of them that
you
had to raise me instead.”

Her grip didn’t slacken. “Swear it to me, Gavin. By the stones and sands of the desert, swear it to me. If you love me, you will do as I say.”

“But—”

“Gavin,” she said, “our people, the outcasts, they will not survive this change if they don’t have someone to lead them. I’m dying, Gavin. I can’t hold them together anymore. They need a strong arm to rely on. Your arm.”

Gavin tried to pull away, but her arms held him. He wondered how her small frame could manage it. He was not a leader. She was, as his father had been. He didn’t want this; he’d never wanted this.

“Don’t talk like that,” he said.

“Swear it!”

“I swear it, Nana,” Gavin said, pulling at her wrists. “Now lay back down and rest. Drink your milk. Getting all worked up isn’t good for you.” He had hoped the news would give her the strength to move around again, come back to him, and not send her into another fit. She needed rest.

“By the sands and stones of the desert?”

“Yes, by the sands and stones of the desert I swear I will complete my father’s task.” He tried not to roll his eyes and added under his breath, “Or more likely die trying.”

“Remember the stories, little storm cloud,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Remember what I have taught you. Remember your oath. They will die without you.”

She smiled weakly and closed her eyes, drifting off to sleep.

Gavin adjusted the blanket over her frail form before turning to harvest the fruit from the rest of the coconut. His grandmother snored softly beside him, a single glistening tear trembling on her weathered cheek.

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