Mother of Storms (Star Requiem Book 1) by Adrian Cole

Author:Adrian Cole [Cole, Adrian]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2014-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

14

DISTANT POWERS

Aru was stretched out on a bed of leaves. Ussemitus was wiping her brow with a strip of shirt soaked in a nearby stream. They had been travelling away from the hill where the gliderboat had crashed for over an hour and in that time there had been no signs of pursuit. Here in this open glade they rested, Armestor and Fomond keeping a close watch on the surrounding forest.

‘Aru,’ whispered Ussemitus. They had had to carry her, as she had not regained consciousness, and they all marvelled that she had not been killed or seriously injured in her fall. The trees must have cushioned it, and they took this to be a good omen, a sign that the forest had looked on her with favour, as it had them.

The girl stirred at last and Fomond handed Ussemitus some broth he had been cooking on a small fire. The group was wary of using fire, but the girl needed something inside her. She opened her eyes dazedly, but was able to take some of the broth. In a while she sat, arms crossed over her knees, huddled up now like a child, a contrast to the commanding woman that they had first met at the foot of the mountains.

‘The gliderboat,’ she murmured.

‘If you mean your craft,’ said Ussemitus, ‘it is no more.’

She looked at him, closing her eyes and shuddering. I had no time to share its pain, she thought. Though its terror at the end had been almost overwhelming.

Ussemitus felt a sudden urge to put an arm around her, to comfort her, but he glanced up at Fomond guiltily.

His friend grinned hugely. ‘Kuraal would not approve,’ he said with a wink.

Ussemitus did not respond. But he was pleased that neither Fomond nor Armestor had objected to his bringing the girl with them.

She opened her eyes again. ‘I’ll have some more of that broth,’ she said. ‘It’s good.’ Once she had started on it, she ate avidly, and Fomond handed her some dried strips of meat.

‘It’s no banquet,’ he said. ‘But you’ll have to get used to it.’ He could see, however, that she was glad of the food, and bit into it as any Innasmornian girl of the forests would have.

‘Where are we?’ she said, chewing.

‘In the forest lands,’ Ussemitus told her. ‘My companions and I owe you our lives. The bone warriors had taken us.’

‘They were about to eat us, I suspect,’ said Fomond.

‘I saw the hill,’ Aru recalled. ‘And many painted men.’

‘Your craft sent them to their bellies,’ said Ussemitus. ‘You came on the wind. They thought you its servant.’

She laughed gently, and it seemed to put strength into her. Ussemitus saw again the warrior. ‘Goddess of the wind! But it was the wind that brought me down. It was like a wild thing, tearing at me. I could not control the gliderboat. I lost contact with it. You must have seen –’

‘Contact?’ said Fomond suspiciously.

Aru looked saddened. ‘Yes. A Controller speaks to his or her craft.

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