Call the Rain (7 page)

Zuke leaned over and checked Quarie’s sleeping form. She was still breathing, still so eerily motionless.

Joral stilled as he scanned the contents of the back of the wagon. “Where is Illista?”

Zuke shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Joral’s chest constricted as he pictured the body of the small servant girl trampled on the side of the road. Or shot with an arrow. “I have to find her.”

Joral tucked his blades back into their sheath and swung his legs up and into the saddle. “Can you drive? Ride ahead and try to catch the caravan. I am going back to look for Illista.”

“Which of us got hit on the head? Surely you don’t plan to ride back into an ambush.” But Zuke was already heaving himself into the wagon seat and collecting the reins.

“Sumik and Hascek were back there too. When you reach the caravan, send help. I will be careful.”

In the silence of the grass, Illista heard water. Not the teasing crystal of the elusive rain. This was the gurgling, rushing noise of a great river. A very great river.

From what she knew of the landscape of the plains, there was no such thing as a great river. A few tiny creeks, some barely more than trickles of water, fed the smattering of ponds that served as holy ground to the Segra people. This was a veritable desert when the rains were poor.

But somewhere there was a river. She was sure of it. It sounded close. Closer than the lake they left behind. It was not possible for such a large body of water as a river to go unnoticed. Not possible for it to be a secret from the Ken Segra.

She curled into a tighter ball, drawing her legs and arms close around herself for warmth. The tall mass of grass where she sat broke most of the winter wind, but it could not warm her freezing legs and chattering teeth. Only her bloodstone seemed to burn.

The caravan would never wait for a lost Waki. Would they even notice her absence? Every passing breath that she waited hiding in the grass was step the tribe would take. Another step away from her. She had to move.

She had to rest. The Waki were not built for running. The bloodstone throbbed in her palm. Her true self had longer legs. Her true self was light and spry and could swim for miles without tiring.

Her true self was being hunted by Mulavi.

She could stay along the fringes of the path, bloodstone ready to put back on if someone approached.

She could stay here, hidden among the grass, forgotten and alone until Mulavi found her.

Illista shot to her feet and blistering pain shot up from the soles of her feet to her shins and her thighs, still shaky from her waddling sprint.

She closed her eyes, focused on that tantalizing hint of a river and pulled the cord up and off her head. Her limbs flashed hot and black spots swam before her eyes, blacking out the sun for a moment.

Illista drew in a steadying breath and opened her eyes. It was done. The bloodstone lay in her fingers, a cold inert rock tethered by a humble rope. Her fingers. Long and slim with creamy pale skin. She stared at her amulet. It had been her protection for so long. Both shield and leash.

What if she were to hurl it into the brush? What if she were to discard it, here, now, and walk away. To claim her own identity again.

What if she never saw her sister again?

The loud rush of water sang and chanted, calling to her. The sound was louder now, so much louder that she was nearly overwhelmed by the noise. So many voices. So much water. So very nearby. What would the Segra people do to find so much water?

Illista glared at the pendant as though it could feel her accusation, but it was just a dead rock in her hand. She wrapped the bloodstone around her wrist, looping the cord through itself so that it could not drop.

She had to find the Ken Segra. She had to find Quarie. Together, perhaps, they could hunt for the river.

“I am sorry,” she whispered. Out loud, to herself. Or to the river. She was brainsick to think that an invisible river could hear her words, and yet the chanting and calling and singing calmed at her words as though it were placated.

She began to walk. Awkwardly at first as she accustomed herself to her height and stride. The last time she had taken off her bloodstone, she spent almost no time on dry land. She kept brushing into the grass with her elbows and the tall branches tore at her hair. It seemed longer than what she remembered, nearly down to her waist as though it had been growing unchecked these past years. Lacking even a spare length of cord or leather, she twisted it back with her hands and tucked the ends into the neckline of her dress. Her shoes, she soon discovered, were nearly useless on her real feet. They were too wide, too loose. They slipped and knocked about with every step she took. Finally she took them off.

Sticking to the edges of the pathway left by the Ken Segra, Illista hurried. Her legs felt light but cold, as her Waki-sized dress exposed more of her ankles than it was intended for, and her stockings hung loosely around her knees.

Every moan of the wind, every tap of the tall, wood-like grass made her jump. But even still, she pressed onward. By late afternoon, the bulk of the tribe would camp for the night. Surely she would catch up with them by then.

***

Joral kept his horse to an easy trot as he retraced the morning’s trail, though he felt anything but easy. There was no sign of Sumik and Hascek and the ground had been trampled by too many feet and carts and horses to distinguish their trail from the rest.

A slight swish of the tall grass caught his eye and he reined in his horse. He was exposed on all sides. If his attackers lay in wait, then he was a dead man. He waited and the grass stilled. And nothing happened.

Just the wind.

As if on cue, the wind howled through the tall grasses again, rattling the fringed brown tips that towered just above eyelevel. Strange wind that could rattle just a branch or two at a time. He slid down from the horse and drew his sword.

It was not just the wind.

He studied the prints along the ground. Most of it was muck and dirt and nonsense. But here was a faint trail of footsteps. The prints were garbled, but he recognized the length of a young man’s stride. Or a woman’s. Not the boots of a Segra warrior. They disappeared into the brush.

His assassin was alone.

Joral lost the tracks in the shadowy cover of the grass, but he found a broken stem here, a wayward clump of dirt there. His heart pounded in his chest as he closed in on whoever this was. He walked silently, slowly, his hunter’s instincts fully alert. His nose detected something just out of the ordinary. A faint trace of incense and smoke.

He deliberately rustled a stand of grass as he passed hoping for a reaction from his prey. He got it in the form of a gasp and a wild shaking of ground as a small figure darted through the bush some thirty paces away from him.

The figure darted toward the road.

Joral sprinted after her. It was a girl or a woman, her skirts catching on the branches as she passed, her hands fumbling with something in front of her, distracting her from her wild dash. He pounded through the grasses after her, heedless of the branches slapping his face. If she freed a knife or a dart or even a whistle to call her companions, he would be dead.

With long strides, he caught up with her and pounced, bringing her crashing to the ground underneath him, wrapping one of his arms around her head and the other around her shoulders to imprison her arms. They hit the dirt hard and rolled.

The woman bucked and kicked and clawed at something on the ground. Joral wrestled her until she lay on her back, her hands pinned above her head and the weight of his legs keeping hers still.

Her long silvery black hair had come loose and tangled around her head, full of dirt and broken grass. Gray eyes stared up at him above a set of delicate cheekbones, and pink lips parted as she breathed heavily from the run and the tussle. He stared for a long moment at those lips.

He knew those lips.

He wrapped his free hand around the curve of her jaw, just above her soft, vulnerable neck. Her image didn’t blur this time. But then, he had no poison in his system today. The skin of her cheek was smooth, flawless. Her wrists were slim enough to fit in one of his hands, and her shoulders, though nicely shaped, were far from the squat powerhouses that the Waki possessed.

“Who are you?” he growled.

She shook her head, still staring at him.

“What are you really?” She squirmed underneath him and he was suddenly, painfully aware that the rest of her body was as feminine and human as her hands and her eyes.

Her eyes darted around, searching for something, but he held his hand motionless, unwilling to let her turn her head. “Please let me go. I dropped something—“

“A knife for my back? Or poison for my wine? Do you think I would give you back your weapon, Illista?” Her pupils dilated with the realization that he recognized her.

She blanched. “I didn’t…it’s not…please, Joral. It’s not a weapon. I dropped my necklace, that’s all. You are hurting me.”

Joral released her chin and drew back. He was not accustomed to hurting women. He was not accustomed to assassination attempts either. “Who are you, really?”

Her eyes darted around as though looking for an escape. Her gaze rested on something beyond her shoulder for a half second before returning to meet his. She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I am a servant of the Chieftess. Nothing more.”

With a fluid motion, Joral released her hands. She reacted immediately, rolling and grabbing for the thin cord tangled in the grass a few feet away, but he was quicker.

He jumped to his feet and dangled the necklace—just a lumpy rock on a cord—above his head. She followed him to her feet and jumped for it, but he held it just out of her reach. “What kind of magic does it possess?”

She kicked him in the shin and winced as her bare foot contacted his stiff boots. Illista clawed at his arm, pulling on his shirt. He only lifted it higher. “Enough. If you want this back, you need to talk to me, not fight me.”

With a small sound that reminded him of a housecat’s growl, she pulled away from him, wrapping her arms around her thin shoulders. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Why are you trying to kill me?”

She whirled, her eyes flashing. “Are all of the Southern lords so thick?”

He raised one eyebrow and gave the necklace a small shake so that the stone tic-tocked back and forth. Her eyes followed it with an expression that seemed part longing part loathing.

She growled again in a show of feminine frustration that was almost endearing. “I am NOT trying to kill you, you rock head. If I had wanted you dead I would have left you in that lake to drown.”

He balled the necklace into his fist and lowered his arm, tucking it tight against his chest. “That
was
you.”

She glared, her jaw clenched tight. “Gods help the Segra people with someone as slow as you in command.”

“Tell me what it is that I'm missing. Someone has tried to kill me twice, and here you stand, a changeling, hiding in the same grass from which I was attacked. Why should I return your magic to you?”

Illista harrumphed and hugged herself tighter. She shifted her weight from foot to foot. Preparing to flee, perhaps. And then she stilled.

Her voice was a hoarse whisper. “Are you so certain the assassins were after you? An arrow struck the wagon less than a hands width from my head. The stone in your hand is the only protection I have from Mulavi and Zabewa.”

“And the other Waki. Quarie?”

Illista shot him a guarded look. The dappled sunlight filtering through the tall grasses reflected in her orbs and danced through her dark silvery hair. “My sister wears the same sort of bloodstone. They change our appearance. That is all.”

Something made the hair on the back of Joral's neck prickle and he froze, his senses on full alert. He held up a finger to Illista, urging her to quiet. Her pupils widened with fear as she heard it too.

Voices. Far enough away that he could not make out the words, but the cadence was foreign. Too quick, too rhythmic to be Segra. Mulavi’s men, perhaps. He heard a bark of laughter. They seemed unaware of Joral and Illista. That might be their only salvation.

Without a word, Joral thrust the necklace at Illista. She stared as if surprised to find it in her hands again, but she didn't put it on immediately.

“Quickly,” he hissed.

She shook her head. “I am too slow like that.”

Joral snatched it from her fingers and dropped the cord around her neck. He blinked as the willowy form melted into the familiar Waki. He grabbed her by the arm and steered her towards where he had left his horse.

***

Illista felt irrationally like crying as she padded along after Joral through the grass. Her Waki feet were still blistered, her muscles burning, her chest constricting. It was as though she had not rested at all. Her Waki body had not rested, she supposed.

She stepped on a rough patch of ground and hissed at the pain. Even if they made it to the clearing, she knew she could never keep up with his long strides. The shadows here were disorienting. With every shift of the grass, the sunlight moved, blinding her for one instant and then going dark the next.