He grimaces, as if in pain, and I wonder how I came from him. My mother makes sense. She’s strong, like me, like Gard, like the other Riders. But my father is so…weak. Not just physically either. I know he’s wise and all that, but I swear he’s scared of his own shadow sometimes.
“Please,” I say again.
He shakes his head. “It’s not your time,” he says.
“When will be my time?” I say, slumping back on my heels.
“Soon enough.”
Not soon enough for me. It’s not like I’m asking to fight, although Mother Earth knows I want to do that too. I want to see what the Riders do, for real, not some training exercise. I want to see my mother fight, to kill, to knock back the Soakers to their Earth-forsaken ships.
I’ve got nothing else to say to the great Man of Wisdom sitting before me, so I don’t say anything, keep my head down, study the dirt beneath my fingernails.
The cries outside the tent die down, dwindling to a whisper as the clop of the horses’ hooves melt into the distance. The world goes silent, and all I can hear is my father’s breathing. My heart beats in my head. Weird.
I look up and his eyes are closed, his hands out, his forearms resting on his knees. Meditating. Like I’ve seen him do a million times before, his lips murmuring silent prayers. In other words, doing nothing. Nothing to help anyway. Meditating won’t stop the Soakers from killing the Riders, from barging into our camp and slaughtering us all like the frightened weaklings that we are, hiding in our tents.
Slowly, slowly, slowly, I rise and move toward the tent flaps, careful not to scuff my boots on the floor.
I creep past my father, and then he’s behind me and my hand’s on the flap, and I’m about to open it, and then—
—his hand flashes out and grabs my ankle, his grip much—much—firmer than I expected, holding me in place, hurting me a little.
“Nice try,” he says, and I almost smile.
When I start to backtrack he releases me. Dramatically, I throw myself to the ground and curl up on a blanket, sighing heavily.
“There’s nothing to watch anyway,” he says in The Voice. Not his normal, everyday speaking voice, but the one that sounds deeper and more solid, like it comes from a place deep within his gut, almost like it’s spoken by someone else who lives inside of him. A man greater than himself, full of power, barrel-chested and well-muscled—like Gard, a warrior.
The Voice.
When people hear The Voice, they listen.
Even I do. Well, usually. Because The Voice is never wrong.
I set my elbow on the ground and prop my head on the heel of my hand. “Why not?” I ask, suddenly interested in everything my father has to say—because he’s not my father anymore. He’s the Man of Wisdom.
Maybe the meditation wasn’t him doing nothing after all.
His cheeks bulge, as if the words are right there, trying to force their way out. But when he blows out, it’s just air, nothing more. Then he says, “Listen.”
I cock my head, train my ear in the air, hear only the silence of a camp in hiding.
Silence.
Silence.
And then—
—the chatter of horses’ hooves across the plains, getting louder, approaching a rumble, then becoming the distant growl of thunder.
“Now you can go,” Father says in his normal voice, but I’m already on my feet, bursting from the tent opening, running for the edge of the camp while other Stormers are emerging from hiding.
I charge out of the camp and onto the plains, my footsteps drowned out by the grumble of the horses galloping toward me. Gard’s in the front, leading, and he flies past me like I’m not even there. Another few Riders pass in similar fashion before I see her.
My mother, astride Shadow, her skin and robe so dark she almost looks like she’s a part of her horse, a strange human-animal creature, fast and dangerous and ready.
She stops in front of me, perfect balanced, her sword in her hand.
“What happened?” I say.
She motions with her sword behind her, where, with the sun shimmering across the water, the white ships are sailing off into the distance, barely visible now.
“They’re gone,” I murmur.
Water & Storm Country by David Estes, coming June 7, 2013!
David Estes, Ice Country
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends