Milla snorted, a sound that Tal knew meant she didn't think much of his local knowledge. He continued to look out at the sky, trying to remember everything he'd been taught about storms in Aenir. Dim memories of the Lectorium came into his head, mostly of Lector Norval droning on.
All he could remember was a story about Storm Shepherds, strange creatures that looked like human-shaped clouds, ten or twelve stretches tall, which were thought to be harmless if left alone. This didn't seem very useful.
Neither did Tal's memories of previous visits to Aenir with his family. They had always stayed close to the Chosen Enclave, though his father had traveled farther afield.
The trees continued to move away, and before long Tal and Milla could see a continuous line of dark clouds on the horizon. Flashes of lightning also became visible, forking down from the black sky. Tal looked at Milla, and saw her staring at the lightning, totally entranced. Then she shook her head and said, "It is not dishonorable to seek shelter from a storm. We should follow the trees."
"I'm not sure," replied Tal nervously. He looked at the rapidly retreating forest heading toward what he thought was probably south, then at the low line of barren, rocky hills to the east and west, and then at the clouds again. "Maybe we should go that way."
He pointed at the closer hills.
"Why?" asked Milla.
Tal gulped and said, "Because I think that storm is going to turn this whole place into a lake." "A what?" asked Milla.
"Look at the darkness under the clouds!" Tal said urgently. "Look around! We're in a basin, and the clouds are dumping rain. This whole area's going to fill up. It's going to flood, turn into a lake. A small sea!"
Milla needed no further explanation. She took one calculating look at the encroaching clouds and then started to run to the closest hill. Tal was right behind her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
They were barely halfway to the hill when Tal had to stop to regain his breath. Milla stopped, too. Even though she wasn't breathing hard, Tal noticed she held two fingers to her side, where she'd been wounded by the Merwin. It must be hurting.
Tal looked back at the storm front, and saw that not only was it much closer, it had already dumped so much rain that a small flood was running ahead of the clouds. Muddy water was rushing over the ground where the forest had stood, eddying into the tree root holes before flowing ever onward.
The thunder and lightning were fading, much to Tal's relief. Though it was probably only because the clouds were so full of rain. So the chance of being struck by lightning had decreased, but they were still in imminent danger of drowning.
"We'll make it," said Milla, as they started to run again. There was water under their feet now, and the first raindrops were falling around them. But the hill was close.
They made it with a few minutes to spare. Panting, they watched the front of the floodwater strike the high ground and be turned back in a flurry of ripples. The hill wasn't very large, only a hundred or so stretches tall, but Tal hoped the water would not rise that high.
"It is strange," said Milla, holding out her palm to catch several heavy raindrops that splashed off her fingers. "Like snow, but warmer and… more free."
"Not that much warmer," grumbled Tal. "We'd better find some shelter."
The hillside was rapidly turning into mud, but they managed to clamber up to the crest. Tal stopped to look back down, but Milla started down the other side.
Tal couldn't see very far because of the rain, but where the forest had been was now just a swirling mass of dirty water. If he hadn't seen the trees there before, he would never have believed it wasn't a muddy lake.
"Tal."
Tal looked away and hurried down after Milla. She sounded like she'd found shelter.
She had. She was standing outside the mouth of a cave, with her Merwin-horn sword in her hand, holding it up so its light shone in the entrance.
Something reflected back, something red and shiny, deep inside. Tal saw it and instantly an image flashed into his head. A Beastmaker card, with two red eyes that were not eyes shining in a cave entrance.
The Cavernmouth card.
"Milla! Trap!" he screamed, thrusting out his hand with the Sunstone ring, thoughts focusing on its power.
Milla reacted instantly to his warning, throwing herself to one side. She felt the rush of air but didn't see the two enormous jaws that shot out from the cave long jaws of dark bone and still darker teeth hundreds and hundreds of teeth, crooked and shambling, like helter-skelter rows of thorns.
The jaws closed with a clash, exactly where Milla had been standing a split second before. As they opened again for another snatch, Tal sent a wide spray of white-hot sparks straight down the open gullet of the beast.
A hideous bellow echoed from inside the hill, and the jaws snapped back inside. Then the whole Cavernmouth retreated deeper into its burrow, dragging earth and stone down behind it as a last-ditch defense.
Tal lowered his hand, his whole arm shaking. The Sunstone on his finger still shone brightly, small sparks fizzing out to blacken his knuckles. Tal looked at the stone and brought it back under control.
Milla had crawled away, circling back up and around the crest, ready to counterattack. She came down the hill and looked at the pile of raw earth where the Cavernmouth's decoy hole had been.
"What was that?" she asked. Tal didn't notice that she had to moisten her mouth before she could speak.
"Cavernmouth," said Tal. "All jaws and stomach. I should have told you about them before."
Milla shrugged. "I did not tell you about everything that lives on the Ice. But I will be more careful. I must live to bring a Sunstone back to the Far Raiders."
"Well, we need to find the Codex before we can go back," Tal muttered. He raised his arm and watched the water run off it. "Though finding somewhere dry would do for now."
Milla gazed into the distance, then shook her head in disbelief. "You can see so far here! But the forest is already out of sight, and look! That hill is moving, too, like a dying Selski of earth and stone. I know it is not a dream, and yet I doubt my senses. It is too light. Soon it will be dark, like home. The sun is falling down."
She pointed at the red light that was spreading over the hills. Sure enough, the sun was beginning to set.
"It'll come up again," said Tal, as much to reassure himself as anything. "I guess we'll have to camp here, somehow."
It wasn't an attractive option. They only had their dirty, disheveled furs and Milla's stinking armor. No sleeping furs, or cooking stove, or anything. Just a muddy hillside and continuous, beating rain.
They sat down together and glumly looked down on the rising waters of the new lake. It was still filling up, or flowing elsewhere, because there was quite a strong current heading south, carrying all the debris left by the fleeing forest.
Tal looked at one particularly large leaf floating past. It had curled up in the middle, and its stalk was like the prow of a proud ship. That started him thinking. If only they had a ship themselves, or at least a raft, they could let the current take them somewhere. Anywhere had to be better than this.
But they didn't have anything to make a raft with.
Except light, Tal suddenly thought. He could use the solid light spell, the one he'd learned in order to make the stairway leading out of the pit. If he could make a stairway, he could make a raft. With two of them to concentrate on it, it would be easier to maintain as well.
"We can make a boat!" he exclaimed, jumping up. "A boat of light."
Then he sighed and sat down again, even as Milla got up.
"I forgot you aren't a Chosen," he said. "I wouldn't be able to keep it going by myself, and you don't know how to use your Sunstone properly."
"Teach me," Milla said. It almost came out as an order, but there was a faint question there, too, a hopefulness that Tal wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't spent so much time with Milla.
Tal looked up at her. Could he teach her? The basics of
concentration and reinforcement weren't that hard. He would make the boat, and Milla would only need to concentrate on color and intensity to reinforce his Sunstone with her own.
But should he teach her? She was an Icecarl. Maybe an enemy. He still thought she might try to kill him once she was free of the Crone's Quest. She might regret killing him, but she'd do it because she'd said she would.
If Tal taught her Light magic, he'd be handing her a weapon.
On the other hand, there were plenty more dangers in Aenir, and he might be the one who needed help next time.
"All right," he said finally. "I'll teach you about Sunstones. What you need to know, anyway."
"And I will teach you to fight," replied Milla.
She held out her hand and turned her wrist up, pushing back her wet and now even worse-smelling Selski-hide armor. Before Tal could groan, she'd reopened the triple cuts on her wrist.
The rain washed the blood away almost instantly, but Milla clenched her fist and waited till Tal hesitantly held out his wrist.
Milla cut as swiftly as the Crone, and just as accurately. Tal flinched as the barest point of her knife cut the skin, imagining as always something worse. He didn't understand why the Icecarls cut at the wrist. Why not just prick their fingers with a flame-sterilized pin?
"Blood of the clan and bone of the ship," chanted Milla, wiping her wrist across Tal's, then placing the flat of the bone knife against both of them. She looked fiercely at Tal, till he repeated the words.
"Master and Student under the Sunstone," she continued, then she reversed the bone knife, still holding it between their wrists. "Student and Master under the Sword. By blood of the clan and bone of the ship. This we swear, with blood to the wind"
She flicked both their wrists out, sending blood flying, though there was very little wind to take it. "And bloodto the "
She hesitated and looked around, for here she would normally have said "Ice."
"Rain," said Tal, turning his wrist up to the sky. "Blood to the rain."
"Blood to the rain," confirmed Milla, following his gesture.