Free Fire and Sword by Simon Brown Page A

were doing out here by yourself, especially on a night like this.”
    “I like nights like this,” he said.
    She looked around, and Lynan could see the pleasure in her face as she
gazed
out over the Oceans of Grass, the same pleasure he felt.
    “I like them, too,” she admitted. “They are wild, and somehow free of all humankind. It’s as if our race did not exist at all. Have you ever felt that?”
    Her words sent a shiver down his back; he remembered his dreams of Silona, and imagined she must have existed long before humanity ever did.
    “Only out here,” Lynan answered quickly. “In the east you cannot ignore the existence of civilization.”
    “This
is
your home, isn’t it?”
    Lynan nodded. “I feel it is so.”
    Korigan bowed her head in thought for a moment, and then said: “I am sorry I came between you and Kumul.”
    “We did not need you to come between us. He still thinks I am nothing but an overweened, somewhat irresponsible child.”
    “You are not that.”
    “Not anymore.”
    “He loves you.”
    “I know, and I love him. He has been my father for as long as I can remember.”
    “Have you told him that?”
    Lynan blinked. “No. It is not something he needs to hear.”
    Korigan shrugged. “But I need to hear something from you. Did you choose to go to the High Sooq because you thought it was the best course, or because it would cross Kumul?”
    “Both, probably. I find it hard to remember what I was thinking that night; I just remember the anger.”
    “He was angry that night as well.”
    Lynan snorted. “He thought I would always follow him.”
    “Well, now that you are coming into your own, I think you will find he will always follow you.”
    There was a gust of wind. Snowflakes fell onto Lynan’s hand and instantly melted.
    “The Sleeping Storms,” Lynan muttered. Korigan’s expression showed her surprise. “Gudon told me that these cold autumn southerlies almost always brought snow, and that it marked the time when many animals start their hibernation.”
    “You have been spending a great deal of time with Gudon learning about the Oceans of Grass and we who live on it. That is good. But it is not the hibernating animals that give the storms their name.”
    “No?”
    “I remember a late autumn when I was campaigning with my father against a rebel Chett clan. We got caught by one these storms. The next day we found two of our outriders had frozen to death. They fell asleep and never woke up. That is why we call them the Sleeping Storms.” More snow flurried around them. “We should go back.”
    “I will not fall asleep,” Lynan said.
    “But your horse may.”

    “There is a storm coming,” Ager said.
    “It’s just a breeze,” Kumul replied. He was using a whetstone on his sword and was barely conscious of the wind starting to howl around the tent they were in.
    “I can feel it in my bones. Ever since my back was sliced open by an ax, I’ve been sensitive to storms. They make my muscles ache.”
    “Rubbish,” Kumul grunted.
    “I have heard similar stories from others with serious wounds,” Jenrosa said reasonably, restraining the urge to snap at Kumul; she was getting tired of his abrupt manner. She knew he worried constantly about Lynan and the changes that had been wrought in him—partly through her own intervention when she saved his life—but she and Ager were also concerned. Lynan was their friend as well, after all.
    Kumul wiped the blade clean with a corner of his poncho, then licked his thumb and ran it along the flat near the sharp edge. The edge started to pull on his skin and he knew it was sharp enough. He now quickly sliced the whetstone along the edge at contrary angles, slightly serrating it, then repeated the test with his thumb. He nicked it twice.
    The tent’s flap snapped open and waved furiously in a sudden gust.
    “God’s death!” Kumul cursed and reached across to retie the flap. A whirl of snow blew in before he could finish.
    “I told