The Last Stormlord by Larke Glenda

Author:Larke, Glenda [Larke, Glenda]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: FIC009000
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2010-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Scarpen Quarter

From Scarcleft mother cistern to Scarcleft City

“Are you sandcrazy?” Taquar hissed, his temper only just under control.

He had closed the door to the outside cavern, where Shale and the Reduner pedeman were busy with the pedes, but he used the Reduner tongue just in case Shale could hear.

Davim looked around, frowned at the table and chairs, and settled for a bed instead, where he sat crossslegged. “You have played with me long enough, Taquar,” he replied in the same tongue. “I came to see the lad myself. I want to see his power. I want to be sure you really have a stormlord as you claim, because I have seen none of your promised rain.”

“If he recognises you, he will never cooperate with me again. You’re sun-fried to come here like this—your visit taints me in his eyes! Have you any idea how much he hates Reduners? You wiped his settle off the face of the Gibber!”

Davim shrugged. “He won’t recognise me. He saw me only in the cold light of dawn with the sun behind me and my face swaddled. He won’t recognise my chalaman out there, either—the boy was drugged out of his senses. Anyway, it was almost four years ago. Besides, as planned, we have the means to persuade him should he prove reluctant to help our cause. I have his brother still.”

“We would have his sister as well, if you hadn’t been so damned set on teaching him a lesson. She shared his blood and might even have been a stormlord. You jeopardised everything I’ve been working towards.”

“She was too young to be bothered with, and he needed to know my nature in case we ever need to threaten him. You are the one who jeopardised our agreement. You were to supply me with water until such time as all the tribes were behind me. Instead of their willing cooperation, I have had to fight some of them because I had nothing to offer them!”

Taquar’s eyes gleamed at the opportunity to ridicule the sandmaster. “I’ve heard rumours there’s active rebellion against your leadership. I hear Makdim’s wife leads it from one of the northern dunes. An old woman!”

“Vara Redmane is a shrivelled bag of bones, no more danger than a sand-leech,” he snapped. “Do you think we drovers fear a wrinkled old hag with no more children in her womb?”

“If she’s so harmless, why haven’t you killed her and her followers?”

“That is dune business, none of yours!”

Taquar did not bother to hide his smile.

“The lad. Tell me about the lad! When does he begin to cloudshift?”

“Shortly. He must be eighteen soon, and that’s when most stormlords begin to shift.” He forbore to say that previous stormlords had always been able to extract vapour from salted water at a much younger age.

“If I don’t see evidence of it within another year, then I will use other methods to bring water to the dunes. We don’t get enough random rain yet because Granthon is still stealing many of the natural-born clouds.

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