Warp World (11 page)

They stood just outside the station, sipping cups of greshk purchased from a vendor cart. Manatu shadowed close enough for safety but far enough to allow the men privacy. Seg kept his eyes fixed on the external Storm monitor while he spoke.

“Fifty armed men need their own space. So do I. And what you said last night is true. We need to move again, expand and contest the World, not hide from it.”

“I was pretty drunk last night, but you’re doing good so far.” Fismar gestured for him to continue.

Seg said: “Julewa.”

Fismar’s eyes widened. The corner of his lip curled up.

“Fifty men to take Julewa Keep? Maybe you don’t know the history of the place, but four times that number in actual trained raiders, with rider support, tried to take the place from Etiphar in the way back when. House Etiphar were bastards and deserved to get blacked and pushed out of civilization, but the ones who made it to Julewa were the hardest and nastiest of the bunch. Fanatics and killers. Three separate attacks were launched to dig Etiphar out of that piece of wasteland rock. They all failed. Wiped out the13th Charter Air/Ground to the last trooper, hung ’em off the walls of the Keep and let the Storm take the bones.”

“And those remnants of House Etiphar have been sitting in that Keep for over a hundred years now, rotting uncontested in their prison. If necessary, I’ll leverage additional troops and materials. We’ve got a technological edge on them now, and this time they won’t see it coming.”

Fismar looked thoughtful. He turned away to stare at the alert signal and took another drink. “It could be done. Or it could go Storm-damned wrong and get everyone killed.”

“Is getting out there and confronting the World ever safe?”

Fismar laughed and finished his drink, then tossed the cup into a nearby recycler chute. “Karg it, you’re right.” The signal changed to a welcoming blue and Fismar nodded. “Let’s go meet the new troops.”

“Nen’s death.”

The five men and Ama all stood, unmoving, transfixed by the sight before them. They touched their index fingers to their left eyes, quickly, the Kenda gesture to ward off evil.

The excursion had not taken them far. There wasn’t much of interest outside the warehouse. Abandoned stone structures, some whole, some mere piles of rubble, flanked the street. There were no people to be seen, no animals, no birds, no trees, and most notably, no sky. Far above their heads, the shield wavered and glowed an unnatural copper. It was loud, too, filling the air with a discordant vibration. Loud, and not as solid as she remembered from her time in Cathind.

What had caught their eye, and held them entranced now, was that wall of copper sloping from sky to ground. They had walked toward it silently until they had reached a wide, dusty scar in the earth. It looked to Ama like a deep river that had been robbed of its water. On the other side of the scar, the thrum of the shield was even more intense and the wall of copper shimmered unreliably.

This alone was enough to render even Viren speechless, but there was more.

Beyond the copper glow, something roared, a black shadow that filled the air with fine dust and battered against the shield.

“What is it?” asked Swinson, a lean man with gray eyes that always seemed to be looking to some distant horizon. Eyes now locked on the shield

“It’s the Storm,” Ama said. “The shield protects them from it.”

“
The
storm? Not
a
storm?” Viren stepped up next to her. All the men had moved closer, as if her limited knowledge of this world might protect them from its evils.

“It’s not like the storms on our world. I don’t know much about it, only that it eats. It feeds on something called
vita
. Seg’s people put the vita into a well and then send it up into the Storm to keep it pacified, to stop it from growing and becoming stronger. Then they use the shields to keep the Storm out of the cities. The vita is very hard to find and I don’t think they have much left on their world.”

Keer, the largest Kenda of the fifty, with arms as thick as most men’s thighs and a head that joined to his shoulders without a neck, crouched at the crumbling precipice and looked down. “Dead,” he said. “Water flowed here, but it’s dead now. Magic’s killed this land.”

Ama nodded. “Dead, I know.”

“Can’t they leave?” Swinson asked.

“I asked that once,” Ama said.

“And?” Prow said.

“It takes a lot of vita to make those gates open. They have enough for some of their people to escape but, without vita, the Storm would kill any left behind.”

“So their world’s a prison, then?” Swinson said.

“Don’t ever say that aloud to any of Seg’s people. They’re very proud. But, yes, in a sense it is.”

Keer tossed a clod of dirt down into the riverbed. It shattered below as he looked to Viren. “You sure about this man Eraranat, brother?”

Viren reached up and placed a hand on Keer’s shoulder, which, against the bulk, looked like a child’s hand. “To all points of the compass.” He looked to Ama. “And what’s outside that shield, aside from the Storm?”

“I don’t know. But his people would no more cross to that other side than ours would cross the Rift.”

“It’s best to have a care when speaking of the Rift.”

All heads turned to see Cerd standing to one side. They had been so entranced by the shield that a herd of greshers could have snuck up on them.

Ama thought of the stories her father had told her about captains on their first voyage to the Spires up north. At some times during the year, the moonlight reflecting off the ice created an illusion of dancing ghosts on the water. More than one captain, dazzled by the phenomenon, had driven his boat into an ice shelf. And here she was, mesmerized and losing sight of her duties, exactly as she had been taught not to do.

“You’ve come to frighten us with your tales of the Rift, Cerd?” Viren said.

“No, I’ve come to persuade you to return to the building and await Eraranat’s return,” Cerd said. He stared out at the shield, as captivated by the sight as the others had been.

“Actually,” Viren said, placing his hands on his hips and taking a good look around, “we’ve only just started our walk. Fresh air, good for the constitution, as I’m sure our healer friend,
I’ll-harm
, would agree.”

The other men snickered at Viren’s nickname for Elarn.

“If the healer’s what we can expect from the people of this world, then we shouldn’t be roaming aimlessly out here,” Cerd said. He turned to Viren and folded his arms. “But there’s no point asking you to be reasonable, is there?”

“That all depends on who’s doing the asking.” Viren took a step closer. “Run along, Cerd. I won’t be able to enjoy my stroll knowing you’re lurking on my stern.”

“I assumed it would be that way.” Cerd looked past Viren’s shoulder. A half dozen of the older men who had fallen in with him were approaching. “There are a few different courses we can plot from here.”

“I see only one if your face remains within fair reach of my fist.”

“Just you and me, then? I win this, you come back; you win and you can go your way, and get you and yours killed all you like.” Cerd pulled off his shirt.

Ama wedged herself between the two men. “That’s enough! You two can kill each other some other time. We’ve all been out here too long. Viren?”

“Step aside, Captain.” He emphasized his words with a steely stare. “The
pirate
and I have business.”

She whipped her head around to Cerd, but he was focused only on Viren.

“Is this how you both keep your word to Brin? To Seg?” She shouted but neither man would listen. Viren moved to one side, to distance himself from Ama. Cerd raised his fists. The crowd circled.

“I won’t let you do this out here!” Ama looked to the other men, but none stepped up to help her; some even shouted words of encouragement to their chosen opponent. Viren lunged forward.

“I SPEAK THE NAME OF MY ANCESTORS!” Ama bellowed. Viren halted mid-stride, Cerd lowered his fists, the crowd fell silent. “I, Amadahy, claim the right of First Honor in the name of my father, Odrell, and his father, and all those of Kalder blood!”

It was a bold move, which showed clearly on the faces of the men around her. Claiming First Honor was an old Kenda tradition, a means of settling feuds without letting them degenerate into all-out wars. It also meant that she had just declared herself a combatant.

“You’re a woman,” Cerd said.

“I’m your Captain.” Ama stepped forward until she was inches from Cerd’s face. “Unless you doubt Seg’s word?”

“Not I …
Captain
,” Cerd said. “Why don’t you ask your pal, Viren?”

Ama’s eyes narrowed; she added more steel to her tone. “You want to fight each other? Fine. But my claim has been issued. I have the right to honor.” She turned to address all the men. “You fight me first or you don’t fight at all.”

Cerd’s eyes flicked to Viren, then away. Viren spread his hands to acquiesce, with obvious dissatisfaction; the surrounding men grumbled and muttered as they stared at Ama. The immediate problem had been dealt with but it was clear the intervention had only fed the growing animosity, the tension now was confined and compressed into black stares and unspoken threats.

And then, as if Nen himself had intervened, a boyish shout broke through the discord.

“HEY! HEY!”

Everyone stopped in place at the sound of young Tirnich’s voice. The men parted to let him into the circle. Slopper trotted behind him, all bug eyes and jutting teeth.

“Look! Look what we found!” Tirnich was all but jumping up and down, oblivious to the two men who had been about to go war with each other. He held out a long coil of rope and a ball.

“This isn’t the time,” Cerd said.

“Yoth!” Tirnich said, undeterred. “We can set up a court. There’s some metal rings, too, that we can use as hoops. I found a compartment in the floor, there’s a bunch of stuff like this in there.”

Ama seized on the moment. “Tirnich, that’s a great idea. Isn’t that a great idea, Viren? A nice friendly game of Yoth to work out our frustrations?”

Viren didn’t answer at first, but then he nodded, considering. “Cerd?”

Cerd reached for his discarded shirt. “I think we already know the teams.”

Ama didn’t care if they killed each other once they were out of sight. As much as she hated to admit it, Cerd was correct, they were risking everyone’s safety being out here. They had been lucky to avoid Seg’s people up until now, but luck had a bad habit of running out when you needed it most.

“Good. Back to the warehouse. We’ll set up the court and vote on a referee,” Ama said.

The men, now distracted by a familiar pleasure, shuffled away. Viren tipped an imaginary hat to her as he departed. “Well played, Captain.”

“What’s that?” Tirnich asked, his eyes finally drawn to the shield wall, and the black mass outside of it.

“It’s nothing,” Ama said, and shivered. “Just the Storm.”

Nothing
. But for just a moment, standing at the shield, watching the Storm, she swore she had heard voices.

Ama jogged up the improvised court in the warehouse, one eye on the players, one on Prow, her fellow roper. Her shoulder, though healed, was stiff and painful. She wasn’t playing at her best but this was no ordinary game of Yoth.

The rope wasn’t made of the praffa she was used to and the ball was no more than some kind of sticky material wound into a ball and wrapped in cloth. The men had fashioned goal hoops out of metal scraps—one on each end of the playing field, inside the warehouse. The first few plays were a bit of a wash. The hard floor did not respond like grass or sand, and the rope was not heavy enough for long passes but the men adapted and soon the shouts and tackles were as raucous as any game on Kenda soil.

Yoth was a game of agility as well as brute strength, devised by seafarers to keep them nimble while on land. Each team had seven players on the field at any given time—one goal keeper, four passers and two ropers. It was the job of the ropers to trip up, bind, or block the opposing team by tossing lengths of rope across the court to each other, while allowing their own players to move freely. The passers not only had to avoid the other players as they moved the ball across the field, but also the ropes that appeared around them at any given time.