Call the Rain (12 page)

“Someone is over there!” called a man waving his torch toward the banks below.”

Everyone looked where the man pointed. A slender figure knelt near the water, hands outstretched. The greenish water seemed to float upwards towards her Joral gasped as he recognized the silvery cast to her hair.
Illista
.

“The witch! I want her alive.” Within a shout, Mulavi's men were after her. They skirted the banks, weapons in hand.

Joral started forward but a strong hand held him back. He looked around into the blazing eyes of Rafil. “What do you know of this, lowlander?”

Joral shrugged him off and took another step forward. This time he was stopped by his mother. “Wait with us, son.” Her voice was soft, dangerous.

Illista saw the men coming far too late to get away. She seemed to release the glowing water she was controlling and splashed it at the two men-at-arms before sprinting for the weeds above her. They jumped out of the way and within a few steps tackled her to the ground. She screamed and kicked to no avail.

Joral stood, his heart pounding and his hands clenched, pinned between his mother and Rafil as the men dragged Illista back. She fought them every step so that they were forced to carry her to the group.

Mulavi grabbed her roughly by the chin and forced her face upwards. “I have been looking for you for a long time.”

Joral stared in shock at the woman.

It isn’t Illista
.
She had Illista's long silvery hair and similar features. But her jawline was more square and her cheekbones more pronounced. The turn of her nose. So close and yet so different.
Illista's
sister
.

In the torchlight, her eyes looked wild, crazed. She spat in Mulavi's eye. He cursed and backhanded her across the cheek.

“Enough.” Joral shouldered past the others. “Only a coward would beat a defenseless woman.”

Mulavi reached under his tunic and pulled out his conch shell necklace. “This one is far from defenseless. She murdered Zabewa's son with only a word. She called upon the sea to carry her away, and now she has poisoned the sacred waters of the Xan Segra. There is only one way to silence such a creature.”

The sound of ocean waves crashing on a shore washed over Joral. Quarie's flailing limbs paused. Not calmed or stilled, but stopped, mid-air like a statue.

Paralyzed, just like before.

He had to get that shell.

**
*

Illista ran as fast as her fat Waki feet could carry her, through the brush towards the Segra camp, her heart thundering in her chest. Her pack was too heavy, so she dropped it without a second thought. The cloak caught the wind like a flag, so she threw it off as well.

Mulavi has Quarie. Mulavi has Quarie. Get Zuke.

She found Zuke walking slowly towards the lake from the gathering tent and nearly bowled him over scrambling to a stop.

“Hurry. He has her.”

She didn't stop to explain herself, only turned and ran the other direction. She knew Zuke followed, his limping gait keeping time with her short legs.

The path taken by the elders was smoother than the grass and shrubs that Illista had climbed through and they made quick progress. As they crested the last rise before the descent to the water, Illista gasped. “No!”

Quarie hung lifeless between two of Mulavi's men in a circle of Segra warriors. The Ken and Xan had separated into sides and Chieftess held Joral's tunic by the back of the neckline like a lioness with her cub held by the scruff of his neck.

Illista started forward, but Zuke stopped her, grasping her wrist in his.

He closed his eyes muttered words she could not understand. He released her suddenly and she stumbled back. His face seemed to burn in the moonlight. Not the green of the lake, but a deeper reddish sort of fire that spoke of power. She wondered briefly if fire could speak to him the way the water spoke to her.

“Stay near me.” He took her arm and motioned for her to walk with him. He leaned more heavily on her than she expected, exaggerating his limp. It was all she could do not to pull away and run down the hill and...

It was that “and” that held her back and kept her by his side for the slow descent. She had no idea what she could do. Mulavi's men had swords. If they had been standing on the edge of the water, she could possibly call up a wave to knock them over, but the water cried so forlornly from the poison that she wasn't sure it would obey her. She wasn’t sure if it even could.

She had to clean it, to draw out the poison. But she would need to remove her bloodstone first. That was what Quarie had been trying to do. That was what Illista had begged her sister to do. She swallowed a sob. She was responsible for Quarie being captured.

There had to be a way to free her sister.

***

“Not every fight is won by confrontation.” Vituri's words were a low growl in Joral's ear.

“They have no right to take her.”

“This is not our crime to judge, son.”

Quarie moaned softly and began to stir. Joral could see her arms softening lightly.

With a snarl, Mulavi spun around. “Where is the lowland trickster. Where is Zuke?”

Joral scowled. “He does not walk as fast as the rest of us.”

“Release the woman, Mulavi.” Zuke's voice filled the air around them, echoing off the far cliff wall.

Joral and the rest of the men and women gathered turned to stare as Zuke descended the path. He walked stiffly leaning on a servant like the crippled old man he often pretended to be. But he carried an aura of power that Joral had seen only rarely. The green from the lake seemed to bend around him.

Joral frowned as he realized that the Waki at Zuke's side was Illista. Her face was impossible to read in the shadowy light. His throat twisted at the dueling thoughts.

She was all right. She was walking straight into Mulavi's path.

“Let the girl go, Mulavi. She belongs to me.” Zuke’s voice carried across the water.

“The witch belongs to the king, not the cripple.” Mulavi nearly spat the words.

Zuke lifted a hand and the two men holding Quarie's arms jumped back. She slumped to the ground and lifted her hands to her eyes as though to shield them from some sound no one could hear.

Before Mulavi could retort, Rafil rounded on Joral. He held a wickedly curved knife blade to Joral's throat, daring him to move. “You and Zuke have been hiding the witch. The Ken Segra have betrayed us.”

The rustle and swish of leather, the rattle of beads, and the slice of metal on metal filled the air as every Segra woman and man, drew a weapon and pointed it at the opposite clan. Joral held his breath as bows and spears took aim, held at the ready. Many were aimed at his own head.

Across a clearing only a handful of paces wide, Xan faced Ken Segra. Uncertainty echoed in everyone's eyes but Rafil's. Rafil's gaze held only malice with an undercurrent of something desperate.

“Your warrior Rafil threatens our alliance, Qitkan,” warned his mother from behind. “Make him stand down.”

“Is it true, Mulavi?” asked the Xan Segra chief with a quavering voice. “Did Joral aid the witch? Are the Ken Segra here to poison us?”

Joral kept his gaze on Rafil's, but he heard calculation in Mulavi's voice. “It would appear he is.”

The knife point pushed into Joral's throat, not quite cutting. Not yet.

“Rafil, please.” Shikan's words were shaky with fear. “There is no honor in killing an unarmed man.”

Rafil bared his teeth in a feral smile. “And there is honor in submitting to a marriage with this…this lowlander who would murder us all?”

Shikan walked behind the Xan Segra warrior and placed a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off.

Rafil stepped backward two paces. “Draw your sword, lowlander, or let your cowardice show us what kind of Chief you would be.”

***

Illista opened her mouth in a silent scream as Rafil charged Joral with a knife in one hand and a shortspear in the other. Joral dodged out of the way with a roll and Rafil stopped short before breaking through the circled line of Ken Segra.
Why does no one stop him?

Joral leaped to his feet several paces away, his sword already in hand.

All of the Segra had stepped back to allow the two men room to fight. Even Shikan, who twisted her hands around and around her bow.

“We must get your sister,” whispered Zuke in her ear.

Illista gave herself a shake and looked down to where Quarie huddled in the dirt. Mulavi was alone in ignoring the duel between the two men. Two of his men still lay on the ground where they had fallen earlier. Two more followed in the mercenary’s wake.

“Wait!” Illista ignored Zuke's cry as she ran down the rest of the path to Quarie.

With a cry, she flung herself over her sister protectively as Mulavi came at them with his fists. She covered her head and Quarie’s with her thick arms, deflecting the worst of the thrashing.

“Out of my way, flyspeck,” he snarled.

Men-at-arms grabbed Illista. She kicked and bit and clawed at them. One yanked her by the hair and another caught a fistful of her dress.

A roar went up from Joral and Rafil, but Illista could not see what happened. She kicked again and punched at the hands that held her hair, sobbing against the pain. Her own cries were nearly indistinguishable from the wails of the lake.

Mulavi shoved past the he men at arms who held Illista and charged toward Quarie, his blade drawn. Illista screamed again. Or she thought she did.

Just then the man holding her dress got hold of her bloodstone and tugged, attempting to choke her with its length. The cord snapped.

With a cry of surprise and pain and relief, Illista's form changed. Her limbs grew longer and more slender and she slipped through the shocked man's grasp.

A rumble of voices erupted around her like thunder. Below her, the water wailed for help. But the voices of the water weren’t just in the pond.

Mulavi kicked at her sister's head and Illista screamed again. Her voice sounded like a crack of fresh lightning and something burned between her fingers.

The chorus of the water changed in that moment. The plaintive wails turned into something hard. Louder than the battle cry of an entire army. Angrier than a wounded bear. It was the sound of a pack of wolf-mothers protecting their own.

Illista threw her voice into that sound. She threw herself into the sound.

A thousand-thousand horses at full gallop would sound like a whisper next to the storm that arrived. Lightning crackled in the air, striking the ground around her. Bolts more numerous than the blades of grass gathered over the lake. The wind growled. Thunder shook the ground.

And droplets of water laced with knife-edged ice cut through the night.

Nothing touched Illista. She controlled the storm.

She was
the storm.

She threw the force of it at Mulavi and his men, pinning them to the ground with the daggers of ice, with bludgeoning balls of ice. He tried to back away from Quarie's huddled form and Illista formed a circle of unbroken lightning around him and his men.

The Segra people fled before the storm, but Joral and Rafil remained, circling each other, barely noticing the tempest around them. Zuke didn't flee either. He knelt over Quarie, the rain hitting his back and sizzling. He checked her head, her arms, smoothed the hair from her face.

“Illista, get out of here,” shouted Joral, his breathing harsh as he dodged a wicked blow from Rafil.

“Lowland bastard. You do not deserve Shikan, and you have killed us all,” heaved Rafil.

Joral parried a blow, stopping it just short of his head. He deflected it, but didn't respond with an attack.

Joral's eyes flicked past Rafil to hold Illista's for half a second. The rain still fell but Illista's lightning illuminated the clearing like it was daylight. He mouthed the word “go” and charged.

Lightning singed her fingertips and the rain slicked her hair with its sweetness.

She shook her head. She would not leave him.

Rafil attacked with a flurry of blows like a hurricane pounding on the shore. Joral defended, deflecting the blows but losing ground. His sword took slivers out of Rafil's hardened wood spear, but did not break it.

Then Rafil's foot slipped in the mud. He lost his balance just for a moment. Joral stepped in and swung the flat of his sword against the man's head. Rafil fell to the ground with a wet splash.

Shikan ran to the downed warrior.

Joral stood back and rested the point of his sword into the mud.

“Witchcraft! Segra to arms! Kill the witch before she slaughters you, too. Zabewa’s, to Arms!” Mulavi screamed over the storm, his voice unnaturally loud and laced with fear and panic.

Illista's eyes flew to Zuke's, then to Joral. Something moved behind him and she called more lightning to brighten it. A dozen or more Xan Segra warriors, spears and bows in hand, streamed down from the camp towards the water.

“Run, Illista,” he said. “To the water. You will be safe there.” Joral turned and raised his sword, readying himself for an attack.