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back the way it came and then cooling and sinking, condensing out moisture.
It s a big, rolling ring, like a stationary smoke ring, except that Coriolis
forces weak as they are pull it around into a cyclone. Add the turbulence and
static of air passing through these mountains, and you ve got a real mess!
Indeed, the Blood Mountains are lower than the Sawtooth, but every bit as
jagged. This world simply hasn t had time to wear them down. And thanks to
grit and sleet and the occasional uprooted shrub, Bruno cansee the turbulence
they create: crack-the-whip sheets and rolls of whirling air snapping off
every peak, slicing through every valley. He hasn t seen lightning yet, but
the air is sharp with the tang of ozone.
Are we going to survive this? he asks casually, raising his voice above the
howling wind.
Most groups turn back around at this point, Radmer answers. Some vanish,
or return at half-strength. Some probably find their way in and then die of
starvation, rather than brave the tornadoes again. Only Zaleis the Wanderer
has been to the eye of the storm and back, and lived to tell the tale. And he
started with a group of five.
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Then, in a more personal tone, How are you holding up?
Well enough, Bruno says, not sure how else to answer.
Sore?
A barking half laugh. No! Victims of explosive decompression are sore. I m,
well, there isn t quite a word for it. The body hurts badly, but the real
wounds are in the soul.
I could ve told you not to try that, Radmer chides. Especially not before
a big push like this. People end up in Special Care from that shit. Some of
them permanently. You wouldn t blow out an airlock and call it training. You
wouldn t smash your treader into a wall and call it training. If you survive,
yes, you ll have learned a thing or two. But there are better ways.All
practice especially repetitive involves the brain stem. It has to!
He did all right, Natan says, with a bit of warning in his tone. I ve seen
better on the first try I ve seen a lot better but with years of practice he
could be one of us.
Bruno has lived long enough to recognize this as high praise indeed. But he
can also see the truth in Radmer s criticism; blindsight is a shortcut, for
people whose lives are miserably brief. The effect is real, yes: he can feel a
new strength, a new swiftness in his limbs. They have a mind of their own
now quicker and surer than his own, yet subordinate to him. With practice, he
could summon or dismiss it at will.
But with longer practice decades, centuries he could achieve a comparable
grace without the . . . side effects. A little slower, a little smarter, a lot
less damaged inside. Disfigured is the word that springs to mind, when his
mind considers its own sorry state. The drugs have done something to him,
something bad. Prolonged abuse of them would create . . . well, Dolceti.
Violence addicts. Affable men and women with a zest for life, but a strangely
sterile view of death and fear and pain, and no hope for a normal existence.
In their own way, the Dolceti are as different from human beings as the Olders
themselves. Bruno can appreciate that now. And fear it.
He ll be all right, Natan says.
Better than all right, Zuq echoes.
But their definition of all right clearly differs from Bruno s own. If he
were going to live forever he d probably feel a bit cheated, like he d lost a
finger and could never grow it back. As it is, with this sense of welcome doom
hanging over him, he ll simply accept the scar, and the costly insights that
come with it.
To Radmer he says, It s no wonder you wanted Dolceti for my bodyguards. Who
else would be brave and stupid enough to follow you into that? He nods toward
the pass ahead, where a trio of dust devils are whipping together into a
single large vortex.
Shit, answers Radmer.
The vortex whirls straight down the pass, straight toward the riders.
The dragon! someone calls out, in mingled worry and glee. The Shanru
Dragon! See the mark she leaves! The dragon s tail upon the ground!
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Get down! Radmer calls out. Get off, get into the ditch!
But the Dragon of Shanru is swift, and falls upon the treaders before all the
riders have dismounted and fled. One Dolceti is pulled right off his mount,
and another is whisked from the ground, and both are flung high into the air,
twirling and tumbling, and then dashed against the cliff wall high above.
Their bodies fall, limp and lifeless, against the cliff s sharp crags.
Bruno, who reached the ditch in time, feels the tornado pass right over him
with no worse effect than a sandblasting, a slam against the ground, a
breathless moment of popping ears and eyeballs bulging against tightly closed
lids. The Dragon s shriek and chuff are deafening, and then they re gone, and
for his fallen comrades Bruno momentarily feels only a deep contempt. Because
they brought it on themselves. Because they stopped to look at the vortex
bearing down on them, when they should have dropped and crawled.
Fools, he mutters under his breath. And only then thinks to feel ashamed.
Soon there is lightning crashing all around, andexcept for the occasional
errant gust, the shrieking wind is firmly at the riders backs. The Dolceti
are more careful on the Dragon s second visit, suffering no additional
casualties, but after the roadway s third scouring Radmer proclaims, in a
voice barely audible above the storm, These twisters are dropping down into
the pass from above! Bigger every time! Our luck won t hold; we ve got to seek
higher ground!
The treaders won t climb these walls! Bordi says. Too steep, too pointy!
I know; we ll have to leave them behind!
Are you insane? someone asks. But Radmer just looks around at the Dolceti,
his expression answering the question for him:No, just desperate.
This moment had to come! Sooner or later, we ll have to press forward on
foot. The question is, how many people do you want to lose before we try it?
Load up your packs, everyone! Food, water, bivvies, nothing else. Oh, and
weapons!
Well, obviously,Bruno mutters, in a voice even he cannot hear.
In another three minutes they re all scaling the canyon wall, following
Radmer single-file along the uphill slope of jagged basalt layers, like
arrowheads sprouting from spearheads sprouting from swords and fallen,
leaf-shaped monoliths. The points and edges have been sandblasted dull no one
seems in danger of cutting off a hand or foot but with even a minor fall the
jags are sufficient to snap a human spine, to stave in a skull, to shatter a
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