I close in on the tents, sweat pouring from my skin as excitement fills me.
That’s when I hear the scream.
Carried on the wind, the cry is ragged and throat-burning.
I stab one of my dark boots in the ground, skid to a stop, breathing heavy, swiveling my head around to locate the bearer of the yell. My breath catches when I see it: a ship, moving swiftly along the coast, the wind at its back filling its white sails, propelling it forward as it cuts through the waves.
A boisterous cheer rises up from the ship, and I exhale, forcing out a breath before sucking another one in. The Soakers are here!
Instinctively, my gaze draws away from the ship, following the coastline, easily picking out the other white triangles cutting into the base of the scarlet horizon. More ships—at least a dozen. The entire Soaker fleet.
I’ve got to warn the camp.
I take off, pushing my legs to fly, fly fly, muttering encouragement under my breath. Before I reach the camp, however, a cry goes up from one of the lookouts, Hazard, a huge man with the blackest skin I’ve ever seen, even blacker than a cloudy, starless night. He yells once, a warning, and soon the camp is full of noise. Commands to rush to arms, to secure the children, to ready the horses are spouted from the mouth of the war leader, who I can just make out between the tents.
His name is Gard, and if Hazard is huge, then he’s a giant, as tall and as wide as the tents. He’s already on his horse, Thunder, which is the largest in the herd, the only one strong enough to carry our war leader’s weight. Gard and Thunder turn away as one to the south, where the other horses are tied.
I dart between the first two tents I come to, slip inside the camp, and narrowly avoid getting trampled by a dozen men and women warriors charging to follow Gard. The Riders. Trained from birth to be warriors, to defend my people from the Soakers, they ride the Escariot, the black horses that have served my people in peace and war for every generation since the Great Rock landed on earth.
Trained like me, by fire and the sword.
“Sadie!” I hear someone yell.
I turn, see my father beckoning to me, his face neutral but serious. Hesitating, my eyes flick to where the warriors are disappearing behind the tents, soon to emerge as Riders, their steeds snorting and stomping in preparation for war. All I want is to watch them go, to see my mother flash past on Shadow, her face full of the stoic confidence I’ve seen on the rare occasions she’s been called to arms.
Unbidden, my legs carry me toward my father, who graces me with a grim smile, his dark skin vibrant under the morning sunlight. His thin arms and legs look even thinner after seeing Hazard and Gard.
“Come inside,” he says.
“I want to watch,” I admit.
“I know,” he says. “Come inside.”
Of course he knows. He knows everything. But I follow him into our tent anyway.
Even when my father seals the flaps at the entrance, the thin-skinned walls do little to block out the rally cries of the Riders as they organize themselves.
When my father, the Man of Wisdom, turns to look at me, I say, “I’m almost sixteen, Father.”
“You’re not yet,” he says patiently, motioning for me to sit.
I ignore the offer. “I need to see this,” I say.
Father sighs, sits cross-legged, his bony knees protruding from the skirts of his thin white robe. “You do not need to see this.” Who am I to argue with the wisest man in the village?
“I’m not your little girl anymore,” I say, pleading now. I kneel in front of him, my hands clasped. “Just let me watch.”
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!