Water & Storm Country

—hurt

—and anger

—and fear, too, but not as much asbefore.

His mouth opens and he screams, right at me,a cry of war.

I take a step back just before he charges,cheers rising up around me like sails on a summer wind.

Chapter Two

Sadie

The wind rushes overme and around me and through me, blasting my dark hair awayfrom my face and behind me, flattening my black robe against mychest.

I lengthen my strides, the dark skin of mylegs flashing from beneath my robe with each step. Muscles tight,heartbeat heavy, mind alive, I race across the storm countryplains, determined to surprise my mother with the speed of myarrival back at camp after my morning training run.

Lonely dark-trunked leafless trees force meto change my direction from time to time, their bare scragglybranches creaking and swaying in the wind like dancingskeletons.

I can already see the circle of tents in thedistance, smoke wafting in lazy curls from their midst, evidence ofthe morning cook fires. Although I left when it was still blackout, the sky is mixed now, streaked with shards of red slicingbetween the ever-present dark clouds.

With the camp in sight, I call on every bitof strength I have left, what I’ve been saving for my final sprint.I go faster and faster and faster still, unable to stop a smilefrom bending my lips.

I close in on the tents, sweat pouring frommy skin as excitement fills me.

That’s when I hear the scream.

Carried on the wind, the cry is ragged andthroat-burning.

I stab one of my dark boots in the ground,skid to a stop, breathing heavy, swiveling my head around to locatethe bearer of the yell. My breath catches when I see it: a ship,moving swiftly along the coast, the wind at its back filling itswhite wind-catchers, propelling it forward as it cuts through thewaves.

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 theship, following the coastline, easily picking out the other whitetriangles cutting into the base of the scarlet horizon. Moreships—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 manwith the blackest skin I’ve ever seen, even blacker than a cloudy,starless night. He yells once, a warning, and soon the camp is fullof noise. Commands to rush to arms, to secure the children, toready the horses, are spouted from the mouth of the war leader, whoI can just make out between the tents.

His name is Gard, and if Hazard is huge, thenhe’s a giant, as tall and wide as the tents. He’s already on hishorse, Thunder, which is the largest in the stables, the only onestrong enough to bear the war leader’s weight. Gard and Thunderturn 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 adozen men and women warriors charging to follow Gard. The Riders.Trained from birth to be warriors, to defend my people from theSoakers, they ride the Escariot, the black horses that have servedmy people in peace and war for every generation since the GreatRock landed on earth.

Trained like me, by fire and the sword.

“Sadie!” I hear someone yell.

I turn to see my father beckoning to me, hisface neutral but serious. Hesitating, my eyes flick to where thewarriors are disappearing behind the tents, soon to emerge asRiders, their steeds snorting and stomping in preparation for war.All I want is to watch them go, to see my mother flash past onShadow, her face full of the stoic confidence I’ve seen on the rareoccasions 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 themorning sunlight. His thin arms and legs look even thi

“Come inside,” he says.

“I want to watch,” I admit.

“I know,” he says. “Come inside.”

Of course he knows. He knowseverything. But I follow him into our tent anyway.

Even when my father seals the flaps at theentrance, the thin-ski

When my father, the Man of Wisdom, turns tolook 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,” Isay.

Father sighs, sits cross-legged, his bonyknees protruding from the skirts of his thin white robe. “You donot need to see this.” Who am I to argue with the wisest man in thevillage?

“I’m not your little girl anymore,” I say,pleading now. I kneel in front of him, my hands clasped. “Just letme watch.”

He grimaces, as if in pain, and I wonder howI came from him. My mother makes sense. She’s strong, like me, likeGard, like the other Riders. But my father is so…weak. Not justphysically either. I know he’s wise and all that, but I swear he’sscared of his own shadow sometimes.

“Please,” I say again.

He shakes his head. “It’s not your time,” hesays.

“When will be my time?” I say, slumping backon my heels.

“Soon enough.”

Not soon enough for me. It’s not like I’masking to fight, although Mother Earth knows I want to do that too.I want to see what the Riders do, for real, not some trainingexercise. I want to see my mother fight, to kill, to knock back theSoakers to their Earth-forsaken ships.

Many years have the Soakers threatened mypeople, for no other reason than they can. Their leader is hungryto conquer, to make slaves out of us, like he has with otherpeoples before us. Like snakes, their fleet of twelve ships patrolsthe waters just off the coast of storm country, attacking us fromtime to time, seemingly at the whims of the Soaker Admiral. Wefight for our land and our lives.

We could leave, seek more peaceful lands freeof the bloodthirsty Soakers, but my people can be a stubbornpeople, especially when it comes to our home. It’s been our homesince the time of the Great Rock, back when we crawled from ourhiding places like worms, finding a changed world. But for me, manygenerations later, it’s the only world I know. It’s like thelightning and thunder of the storms that so often rage across theplains have become a part of us, strengthening us. The storms callto us. We must stay to hear them.

We want but a small portion of storm countryto live off of, but the Soakers want it all, never content withsimply controlling the great waters and lands to the north andsouth of us. So we fight because we must.

I’ve got nothing else to say to the great Manof Wisdom sitting before me, so I don’t say anything, keep my headdown, 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 intothe distance. The world goes silent, and all I can hear is myfather’s breathing. My heart beats in my head. Weird.

I look up and his eyes are closed, his handsout, his forearms resting on his knees. Meditating. Like I’ve seenhim do a million times before, his lips murmuring silent prayers.In other words, doing nothing. Nothing to help anyway. Meditatingwon’t stop the Soakers from killing the Riders, from barging intoour camp and slaughtering us all like the frightened weaklings thatwe are, hiding in our tents.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, I rise and movetoward the tent flaps, careful not to scuff my boots on thefloor.