THE YNGLING AND THE CIRCLE OF POWER by John Dalmas

For several days they saw not even a cloud. Then one morning they did see clouds, a few, and the air felt less dry then it had. Ahead of them a rain cloud began to form and build with remarkable speed. After a little they stopped on a hilltop, sitting their horses almost knee to knee to watch it. In the eerie speed of its development, it reminded Baver of time-lapse photography he d seen in college, of the birth and growth of a thunderhead. His scalp crawled watching it.

Before long it was complete, with an anvil top begin­ning to form in the stratospheric wind. It was closer now, and black rain curtains joined it to the ground.

“A spirit cloud,” Achikh muttered in his own language. “We’d better get off this hill.”

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Baver caught all of what he said, word and meaning; he was doing better. They rode down into a broad basin, each of them keeping an eye on the approaching storm. At the bottom they hobbled their horses, then Achikh picketed his as well, warning the others to do the same. He must expect the storm to frighten them, Baver thought. Even a hobbled horse, he’d discovered, can make itself hard to catch.

They staked them well apart, so a single lightning strike wouldn’t kill more than one. Then the horses se­cured, they stood watching the storm approach. Light­ning darted from its skirts; more was no doubt hidden by the rain curtain. Baver glanced at Achikh. The horse barbarian had donned his long leather raincape, his face looking conspicuously unhappy. The others donned theirs too, and Baver put his poncho on. The storm was near enough now that they heard its thunders muttering. Then, as it moved toward them, its top cut off the sun, and the muttering became rumbling, then a constant roll­ing boom that grew louder. Achikh threw himself on the ground and covered his head with his cape. A wall of rain raced toward them. Cold wind struck. Dust blew, and sand. Random raindrops spattered, large and cold, and bangs punctuated the booming.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!!! Baver too pulled his head inside his poncho, and flattened himself. He’d been in thunderstorms before, but somehow this felt different. The raindrops quickened, thickened, splatting the pon­cho he hid beneath. A thunderclap slammed so near, his heart nearly stopped. Then, through the booming and banging, he heard a sound like all the horses in the uni­verse stampeding, and peeked out in alarm from beneath his poncho.

Hans was also on the ground; Baver found that some­how reassuring. Nils sat on his heels watching, and that was reassuring too. Then he looked where Nils looked, saw what made the noise, and his reassurance fled. Crossing the steppe was a wall of hail, less than a kilome­ter away and rushing toward them, preceded by bouncing

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white hailstones that, to be individually visible at that distance, had to be bigger than the Northman’s fists. They were the million hooves! Now the sound changed to a loud and swelling growl. Baver’s poncho threatened to whip free of his hands. He gripped it more tightly and hid his face again.

The growl became a grinding deafening roar that seemed to overwhelm even the thunder. The wind be­came a gale, and the rain a furious beating. Baver saw no way they could survive the bombardment that charged down on them, but held tight to his poncho nonetheless. The grinding roar went on, and on … and after a long minute he peered out again.

The hail was passing them to one side. Struck dumb, he watched it, the edge no more than sixty meters off. Nils still squatted; if he was watching in his uncanny, eyeless way, he did not trouble facing it. After more long minutes the hail was past, its roar changing back to a growl, the growl diminishing. The wind still swirled, the rain still slashed. Icy water soaked Baver’s exposed legs; though they were on a mild slope, he lay in an unending shallow flow of it, for the ground couldn’t soak it up fast enough.

Soon the downpour slacked too, became merely a hard rain that continued. At length Baver sat up, and Bans. They could get no wetter. Only Achikh still lay prostrate; he stayed on the ground till the rain was only sprinkles and the thunder distant rumbling.