26. Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Keera
Distant chaos jerked me awake. I lifted my head, searching for Erix. The bond in my belly told me he was near, but my heart leapt into my throat. Sitting up quickly, I found his dark silhouette a ways away standing where I thought the ocean had been when I went to sleep.
I stood, walking to him quickly. The camp around me appeared to be quiet, but the strong breeze carried shouts and sounds of activity. It came from the direction of…
“General Warrick?” I asked as I approached Erix.
His face was equal parts confused and concerned. I understood the sentiment.
“Yes.”
“If that duplicitous snake attacks—”
“No.” Erix cut me off with a shake of his head. “It looks like he and his men are… retreating?”
“They’re setting sail? So soon?”
“They’re heading into the desert.” He pointed toward their encampment. Indeed, men scurried this way and that like fire ants on hot logs, grabbing belongings and hurrying toward the dunes.
I shook my head. “They won’t make it far without mounts. Why would they do that?”
A figure broke away from the hubbub and started running toward us. A gleam of moonlight on copper hair signaled that it was General Warrick himself. “Run! Get away from the ocean!” he shouted as he ran through the tents. He seemed to spot Erix and I, veering toward the beach where we stood.
I reached for a weapon but stayed my hand when I saw that Warrick kept his axe sheathed across his back.
“Wake your people,” he panted as he skidded to a stop before us. “We need to retreat away from the beach.”
“Why?” I demanded. My skin prickled with a sense of danger, but whether it was a sign that Warrick played tricks on us, or that something more sinister was afoot, a did not know. “We don’t even appear to be very close to the ocean anymore. Why is it retreating?”
Indeed, a few hours ago, the spot where I stood would have been knee deep in water, but the tide was nowhere near us.
“I don’t know what caused it, but stories say that it is a sign. It tells that a great wave is coming,” Warrick warned.
“A great wave?”
“I have never seen it myself, but tales say that the ocean retreats when preparing to unleash her fury.” He nodded grimly. “Legends say it’s a wall of water, enough to wash away this entire encampment.”
“How do we know this isn’t some trick?” Erix demanded.
Warrick huffed impatiently. “We can traverse the seas, but even I cannot command the ocean. This is no normal tide.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and the prickling on the back of my neck intensified. Calix had told me how his people used to command the ocean, but the power had been lost. Perhaps it was a lie—perhaps they were in league with each other.
Warrick threw up his hands in frustration. “If watching your people die is the only way I can convince you I do not lie, then so be it. But my men and I are moving, and you should tell your people to as well if you truly wish to protect them.”
Without waiting for us to respond, he ran back toward his men. Already, the camp was broken down, and they were hauling their beached boats up the sand and away from the water. Erix and I exchanged a glance, and matching pulses of resolve echoed down the tether between us.
We had endured too much of the fury of nature to take this threat idly.
Hurriedly, we gathered up our belongings and ran toward the center of the encampment where the lords tents were circled.
“Izumi, Dhara!” I shouted as we sprinted into the circle and stopped next to the vacant tent erected for us. “Lords of the Clans!”
Tent flaps rustled as they emerged, responding to the urgency in my voice.
“We must move the encampment immediately,” I demanded as soon as they appeared. Notably, Nathaira was the last to appear, folding her arms and looking quizzical.
“Why?” Izumi questioned, not hostile but seemingly confused.
“The ocean…” I drifted off, trying to explain what was happening when I hardly understood it myself. Sandstorms and monsters and lightning, I understood, but the power of so much water was foreign to me. And so, I was forced to trust the word of a man who had betrayed me in the past.
“A great wave is coming,” Erix declared. “Warrick and his men have seen it before, and they said it could destroy all of us. He and his forces are already retreating.”
Izumi’s brows shot up. “You don’t trust Warrick.”
“I’m not willing to gamble the lives of our people on that distrust,” I admitted.
A bare moment of silence stretched, each of the lords teetering on the edge of action.
This afternoon, they had pledged to follow us, but this was the first test—the first time Erix and I asked them to follow us.
Lords of the Ballan Desert did not often take orders.
“Wake the riders,” Izumi broke the silence and barked at Badha, who had appeared at her side. “Loose the horses and heard them up the beach. Have everybody grab as many supplies as they can and follow the men from Doran away from the ocean. Leave behind anything they cannot carry.”
All at once, the other lords sprang into action.
With no people of their own to command, Elion and Dhara jumped in and began untying knots that would disassemble tents.
I didn’t miss the way Nathaira waited a few moments before stalking off with a few whispered words to her warlord.
I didn’t have time to give it much thought as the encampment erupted into a flurry of activity.
As lively and crowded as the better parts of five clans camped together had been, the city of canvas began collapsing around us at breakneck speed.
The clans had adapted to the ever-changing landscape by making their lives equally transient and portable.
Home was wherever their horses took them, and it could be disassembled in the blink of an eye.
The thought of horses had my spine straightening. “Help the riders retreat into the dunes,” I told Erix. “I’ll go help with the horse enclosures nearest the ocean.”
He nodded. For the barest moment, his fingers intertwined with mine and he squeezed. I clutched him back, and I knew he understood. We would both do whatever it took to save the people of the desert.
Then he was off, his voice loud and sure as he directed people in the cacophony. After all, he had been a warlord in a large clan for many years.
I turned and dashed toward the horse enclosures at the outskirts of the encampment, close to the edge of the sea—the ones where we had left Daiti and Alza with bunches of dried arrowgrass.
Already, several riders were beginning to pull down the fences and tried to usher the horses out, encouraging them to retreat up the hill.
Many of them resisted though, unnerved by the sudden quiet after the incessant crashing of waves—unnerved by the strange smell that filled the air as sand that was usually the bottom of the ocean was revealed.
As I reached the panels of moveable fence that ringed the paddock, ready to help, a silhouette on the beach caught my eye.
My stomach turned to lead.
Nathaira.
I approached her with hurried steps. “You must order your people to retreat.”
She looked over her shoulder at me. “I see no reason to turn and run. I have weathered many storms with my people.”
The bitter taste of frustration mixed with fear coated my tongue. “This is a storm we don’t understand and can’t fight,” I insisted.
She leaned in close and hissed in a voice that her clansmen, attempting to wrangle the horses nearby, could not hear.
“I have fought against powers I myself do not wield, and I have never lost. The key to lasting strength is never being perceived as weak. I will not surrender to you twice in one day.”
“You agreed to follow Erix and me if I bested you, and you only live because I do not waste the blood of a warrior when battle looms on the horizon.” I did not quiet my voice, speaking loudly enough that any of the people nearby could hear.
“Winning a duel does not mean you know everything. We have weathered many storms, and we do not need to abandon scarce supplies based on your fears.” Now, Nathaira’s voice projected with all the confident assurance of one used to being obeyed.
She gestured behind her, and I followed where she pointed.
Members of the other clans hurriedly grabbed what they could from the supply tents on the fringes of the encampment, but they were only able to carry lighter bags of food.
The heavy water barrels would be left behind—and fresh water was nearly more valuable than blood in the desert.
I dug in my heels. “I will not let the people and the horses of your clan be washed away because you are too stubborn to retreat.”
“This wave may not wash you away, but the sands of the desert will wear you down to nothing if you don’t learn to stand firm,” Nathaira declared, looking back out at the ocean and folding her arms.
Lightning crackled beneath my skin. I wanted to rage at her—to force her to help me lead her people in retreat and bend to my decisions—but there was no time.
If I stayed to argue with her, I would not be able to help those who struggled to retreat, and their lives were more important than my pride.
With a muffled growl of frustration, I turned and ran down the beach toward the horse enclosure.
While the horse masters of two separate clans were trying valiantly to shoo the beasts out of their paddock and away from the ocean, they dug in their hooves, stubborn as any warrior of the desert.
Many had their ears pulled back and stamped in panic, spooked by the sudden disappearance of the ocean and the flurry of activity as the majority of the clansmen broke down their camp and fled into the dunes.