“It held fo’ a while,” he said to cheer her up. “Keep at it. You’ll make it wuk. I know you will.”
“There’s an additional force when you walk. I need to account for the forward motion and the additional weight when your other leg is raised.” She slapped the side of her head several times, eyes flinching with each blow. “I should have realized that. I should have. How could I not?”
He instinctively grabbed her wrist to prevent additional blows. “Don’t do—”
Roan screamed and jerked away, drawing back in terror. When she’d recovered, they exchanged embarrassed looks, mirroring each other. The moment dragged unpleasantly until Gifford forced a smile. He didn’t feel like smiling. He wanted to crawl into a hole and weep. But he donned the expression the same way he forced himself to get up each morning and greet a world that wasn’t meant for him.
The smile wasn’t one of his best, but it was the best he could manage and, whether Roan knew it or not, he offered it out of love.
To ease past the uncomfortable pause, he picked up their conversation where it had left off. Pretending that nothing had happened. “How could you know something that’s not been done befoe, Woan?”
She blinked at him twice, then shifted her focus. She wasn’t looking at anything in particular; she was thinking. Sometimes Roan thought so intensely that he could almost hear it. She blinked again and emerged from the stupor. Roan walked over to Gifford’s craft table and picked up one of his cups. The awkward moment had vanished as if it had never existed.
“This design is new, isn’t it?” she asked. “Do you think it could hold its shape at a much larger size? If we could find a way to—”
Gifford’s smile turned genuine. “Has anyone told you yew a genius, Woan?”
She nodded, her little rooster crest whipping. “You have.”
“Because it’s twue,” he said.
She looked embarrassed again, the way she always did when he complimented her, the way she looked when anyone said something nice, but it was a familiar unease. Her eyes shifted back to the brace and she sighed. “I need something stronger. Can’t make it out of stone; can’t make it out of wood.”
“I wouldn’t suggest clay,” he said, pushing his luck by trying to be funny. “Though I would have made you a beautiful hinge.”
“I know you would,” she said in complete seriousness.
Roan wasn’t one for jokes. Much of humor arose from the unexpected or absurd—like making a hinge out of clay. But Roan’s mind didn’t work that way. To Roan nothing was too absurd, and no idea was too crazy.
“I’ll just have to think of something,” she said, and started unbuckling the brace. “Some way to strengthen the metal. There’s always a better way. That’s what Padera said, and she’s always right.”
The wind gusted and blew Gifford’s cloths from the crafting table. Two cups fell over with a delicate clink. Thick voluminous clouds rolled in, blotting out the blue and blanketing the sun. Around the dahl people urgently trotted toward their homes.
“Get the wash in! Get the wash in!” Viv Baker yelled at her daughter.
The Killian boys raced after chickens, and Bergin rushed to shut down his new batch of beer, cursing as he did. “Perfect blessed day a minute ago,” he grumbled, peering up at the sky as if it could hear him.
Roan glanced at the cups and bowls scattered around the craft table. Gifford had been having a productive day before Roan stopped by, but he was grateful for the distraction.
“You need to get your work inside.” She redoubled her efforts to remove the brace, but was having trouble with one of the buckles. “Made this one too tight.”
The wind grew stronger. The banners on the lodge were cracking with sharp reports. The fire braziers near the well struggled to stay lit, but lost their battle. Both were snuffed out.
“That’s not good,” Gifford said. “I’ve only seen them blown out once. That was when the top came off the lodge.”
Another gust made his whole set of cups ring together. Two more toppled, rolling on their sides and making half circles on the tabletop. The thatch on his little house rustled. Still on the ground, Gifford felt dirt and grass hitting his face and arms.
Roan, frustrated with the buckle, reached into one of her two new pockets. She pulled out her snips and cut the leather straps, freeing him. “There, now we can—”
Lightning struck the lodge.
Splinters, sparks, and a plume of white smoke were followed by a clap so loud that Gifford felt it pass through him. Thunder rolled like an angry growl. One section of the lodge’s roof had sheered off, giant logs split, and the thatch had caught fire.
“Did you see—” Gifford started to say when another bolt of lightning struck the other side of the lodge. “Whoa!”
He and Roan stared in shock as a third and then a fourth bolt pelted the log building. Cobb and Bergin were the first to react, and the two ran for the well, picking up water gourds on their way. Then another clap of lightning hit the well’s windlass, bursting the pole in a cloud of splinters. Both men hit the ground.
More bolts of lightning rained down, both inside and outside the dahl. With each blast came screams, fire, and smoke. All around them people ran to their homes. The Galantians, Fhrey warriors who had been welcomed to the dahl when exiled, came out of their tents and stared up at the sky. They looked just as scared as everyone else, which was as disturbing as the cataclysmic storm. Until recently, Rhunes had thought Fhrey were indestructible gods.
Gelston the shepherd ran past. While making his way between the new woodpile and the patch of near-ripe beans in the Killians’ garden, he became struck. Gifford didn’t see much, just a snaking, blinding brilliance. When his sight returned, Gelston was on the ground, his hair on fire.
Gifford shouted to Roan, “We need to get to the sto’age pits. Wight now!”
He pushed himself up with his crutch and started hopping toward the storehouses.
“Roan! Gifford!” Raithe and Malcolm ran up. Raithe still carried his two swords, the broken copper slung on his back and the Fhrey blade hanging naked from his belt. Malcolm held his spear with both hands. “Do you know where Persephone is?”
Gifford shook his head. “But we need to get to the pits!”
Raithe nodded. “I’ll spread the word. Malcolm, help them.”
Malcolm moved to Gifford’s side and put his shoulder under the potter’s arm. He mostly carried Gifford to the big storage pit, while Roan followed close behind. With the first harvest still more than a month away, the pits were nearly empty. Lined in mud brick, the hole retained the smell of musty vegetables, grain, and straw. Other members of the dahl were already there. The Bakers and their two boys and one daughter huddled against the back wall, eyes wide. Engleton and Farmer Wedon peered out the open door at the violence of the storm. Brin, the dahl’s newly appointed Keeper of Ways, was there as well, but she seemed to be on her way out.
“Have you seen my parents?” Brin shouted the moment she saw them.
“No,” Roan replied.
Outside the thunder cracked and rolled continually. Gifford could only imagine the lightning strikes that accompanied them. Being down in the pit, he couldn’t see the yard, just a small square of sky.