Tales of Runeterra: Grappling With A Storm

Tales of Runeterra

Chapter 5:

Grappling With A Storm

The desert wind whistled, and Taliyah decided that it was a better day than normal. The desert was a decidedly poor conversationalist, and any moment it wasn’t roaring sediments into your face or threatening to shave off your skin, was a day to be celebrated. With a slight smile on her face, she adjusted her cloak, pulling the hem above her nose, and continued walking.

Normally, she would be riding the waves of rock buried just below the shifting sands of her home country. Her passage would be as loud and as exciting as an avalanche. Right now, however, she was escorting a small merchant tribe. Or rather, they were escorting her.

“How are you holding up, little lady?” the wife of the caravan leader asked. As was typical of her people, the woman’s words were obtuse and direct. Her eyes had crow’s feet at the edges— lines which creased when she smiled, as she was doing now. Her gray, straw-thin hair framed her face, casting thin shadows on her bronzed skin. “Do you need more water?”

Taliyah smiled, but she shook her head regardless. She wasn’t thirsty—the hot Shuriman sun never bothered her— and she couldn’t impose more than she already was. She pushed the canteen back, and the caravan wife shuffled it under the odds and ends that littered the inside of her cart.

“You don’t need to be shy,” she said. The churning of the wheels as they rutted through the ever-churning sands was a constant, thumping melody that broke the silence between words. Shurimans usually didn’t talk much while traveling during the day, too wasteful, but the old woman seemed to find it necessary. Taliyah made sure to pay attention as she talked. You didn’t live to grow gray hair unless you were doing something right. “We have much more water.”

Taliyah smiled, and in that smile was a request. A request to be left alone? Not quite. Just a plea for privacy. It was a smile that didn’t reach all the way to her cheeks. It was a smile that stayed separate from her eyes. The old woman, wizened by her years, knew it upon sight. She hummed, before turning back to the front.

“Girls with secrets aren’t a rarity nowadays,” the old woman said. She pulled her own cloak tighter around her shoulders. She leaned, spying a glance at the driver of her caravan, before turning back to Taliyah. She shuffled, getting a little closer to the back where the young girl was walking. When next she spoke, it was but a whisper. “I don’t have much of an issue with it, just make sure not to cause any racket, you hear?”

Her words cracked like wood in a fire, and Taliyah had to liken it to the sound of the elders in her own village. The old, genial nature of the leader’s wife brought memories and longing, and the young stone weaver had to nod before the ache of missing her tribe overtook her face.

The old woman, who Taliyah heard was called Misha, nodded, and her smile actually did reach her eyes. She shuffled in her seat on the back of her wagon, before settling down. Taliyah watched as the old woman’s eyes drifted shut and marveled at how this was the only moment where the elder was without fire.

It was nice, seeing the strong defiance of her people. Different tribes had different standards, but there was one thing that every Shuriman had: strength. Strength to defy the beating sun and roaring sands. Strength to oppose the monsters that roamed beneath the dunes and in the shadows of sandstorms. Taliyah loved that strength and loved to see the unyielding backs of her people as they toiled their living.

She clenched her fist. Under her feet, she could feel the resolute stone move to her command.

She would not let some Emperor break the backs of such a proud people.

The caravan paused as the leader contemplated their route. This wasn’t unusual in Shurima, where waypoints could shift with the sun in the sky. Taliyah paid no heed to it, until she heard shouting. She moved from her place near the rear all the way to the front, only to see the Misha’s husband being yelled at while looking at a map.

“I do not advise this,” Misha’s husband, Ar’kal, said. His own hair was graying, just like his wife’s, and his skin was tanned just as hers. Where Misha had a burning fire in her eyes, however, Ar’kal had a calm pool. He was not the kind to rage or argue, but instead supply fact and logic. As the two merchants screamed at him, he regarded them as if he would regard anyone else: with a calm smile and a steady gaze. “The sands ahead are frequented by creatures. It would take only slightly longer to go around.”

The first merchant, a man who wore lavish silk robes, sneered at Ar’kal as he talked. His bushy brown mustache was the only thing of substance about him. The rest of him was thin and reedy, and the dry desert winds sent his clothing flapping wildly around his twig-like frame.

“Unacceptable,” he said. Taliyah thought his voice sounded vaguely Noxian; it was so curt and demanding. “You promised me a timely escort to Velnauth. This detour will cost us days.”

The second merchant, a woman, was much more filled out than her counterpart. Her silk robes, glowing green and blue in the sunlight, hugged her figure well. Jewelry hung off every finger and even her neck, and Taliyah had to wonder how she managed to move in it.

“I assure you,” Ar’kal said. He pointed again to his map, and Taliyah could see the red line that plotted their route. It wasn’t that much of a detour, honestly. With a good pace, they could make it in a day. There was another line, however, one marked in black that encircled a large area. That circle was filled in by a skull and crossbones. “We are just avoiding the hunting grounds of a predator. A day’s journey is surely not a large price to pay for your life?”

The first merchant huffed. He placed his hands on his hips. “I thought we were paying you for guidance and protection. Are you saying that you cannot protect us?”

Al’kal looked at the man, and for a second Taliyah thought she saw a wave in his normally docile pool. Instead of rage, however, he just sighed.

“We can protect you,” he said. “But a part of that protection is not allowing you to find trouble that could easily be avoided. It is a day’s detour, maybe less. Surely that isn’t too much?”

The man huffed, and in his language that was definitely tinged with Noxian, he pointed ahead.

“I have an appointment,” he said. “We are going straight. I will not pay you for any extra time.”

Ar’kal looked as if he wanted to scowl. Taliyah could see the way that his bushy mustache twitched. He was must’ve been used to such behavior, however, because he simply closed his eyes and waited.

Taliyah took this time to act.

“Perhaps we can compromise,” she said. She approached from behind, hands up and empty, palms showing. A concealed hand was one that could pose a threat, so Taliyah made sure that she brought no extra hostility to this conflict. “Instead of going directly through the Beastlands, perhaps we can go a little around it, and venture through a thinner part. We still save time, and we spend as little time as possible in danger.”

Ar’kal still seemed as if he opposed, but he was grateful to the idea of spending any smaller amount of time in those treacherous sands. The merchant, however, looked less willing.

“We would still be wasting money,” he said. He waved his hand, sending the silk-like robes flapping in the dry desert air. “Will you compensate us for the money we would lose?”

“You would lose a lot more otherwise and—”

Ar’kal’s hand came down on Taliyah’s shoulder, and a firm squeeze cut off whatever she was to say. She looked to the man, only to see the old sand-farer staring resolutely ahead.

“Of course,” he said. “We will compensate you in full once we reach the city of Velnauth.”

The merchant looked pleased, happy that he was being paid for this. Personally, Taliyah felt like he didn’t deserve it. Was he aware of what existed out in that part of the desert? Of the horrors that roamed those lands?

If he did, he wouldn’t be so dogmatic about traveling through it.

“Rest, young one,” Ar’kal said. His voice was deep, and it reminded Taliyah of the elder of her tribe. “All things will come in time.”

All things will come in time. Taliyah nodded. The caravan continued, the carriages of the Noxian merchant pulled along by fancy hextech machinery, while the Shuriman natives trusted in the steady footsteps of the Shuriman beast of burden: the Arcamel. The great, humped creatures trudged through the sands, their large hooves sinking only slightly into the sands as bands of mana kept them afloat.

They continued as this until they reached the designated point. The Noxian merchant yelled out the side of his cart.

“No more! I will not continue this detour any longer. Lead me towards Velnauth.”

The Shurimans hesitated, their eyes meeting one another as the call was given. More than one of the natives guiding the Arcamels looked towards Ar’kal, and the leader of the procession seemed to be mulling over the decision.

Eventually, he nodded, and a wave of panic seemed to come over the group. Not a second after the Noxian retreated back into his cart, did the Shurimans look amongst one another.

There was something there, Taliyah decided. Something in those glances that she was not getting.

The caravan turned, heading in a straight line towards the trade city of Velnauth. It wasn’t long, however, until the Arcamels stopped. They bayed and stamped their large hooves into the sands. They disengaged the mana they were using to float their hooves above the ever-changing dunes and anchored themselves where they were.

“What is happening?” the Noxian called. He turned to see that most of the Shuriman carts, and therefore most of his product, were being stalled. “Have those blasted beasts gone mad?”

Ar’kal made his way back to the front. His frown was set as he approached. “The beasts have a good conscience,” he said. He brought a hand up to the Arcamel leading his own cart and ran his hand along its flank. The beast stopped thrashing, but it did not move. Its hooves were still embedded deeply into the sand, and the electricity that typically jumped from one hump to the next instead sparked wildly. “They will not move further into these lands without good reason to do so. It is very dangerous here; we still have time to—”

“I am not paying you to needlessly worry,” the merchant said. Taliyah thought he looked akin to azakana—tormented spirits of pain and malice. “Give those beasts reason to move. Every second you waste here is more money that you owe.”

Taliyah frowned as she walked forward. The nerve of that man! She wasn’t the type to steal and rob like other clans in Shurima, but it would be laughably easy to do so. There were a few warriors that weren’t of the Shuriman caravan— they wore red and black armor and sneers the size of voltfruits— but they weren’t nearly enough to match the entire family that guided them.

Her fingers shifted, curling in and out. She breathed calmly; it was what her master taught her. The stone beneath the dunes, usually so willful, responded to her call. If she wanted, she could easily bury them under tons of sand and—

“Very well,” Ar’kal said. He reached into the pouch around his waist and retrieved an old piece of grass. Its color was green, but only so much as there were very few green things to be seen in Shurima. Had it been anywhere else, Taliyah would have likened the color more closely to brown. As it was, the grass was green.

Having grown up around Arcamels for most of her life, she was well aware what it was.

The lead Arcamel, a monstrous beast that was big even for his kind, whinnied in a way that was well-suited for a lightning storm. The electricity arcing along its humps jumped in intensity for but a second before calming. It turned to Ar’kal, enormous teeth bared, as it tried to bite at the Daysus Grass the old man held.

Ar’kal didn’t bother to pretend. He yanked the beast’s delicacy away before trudging deeper into the Beastland. The Arcamel hesitated as it watched him go. Its instincts told it clearly that following was a poor endeavor. In the end, however, hunger won out. Mana flooded back into its feet, and the beast was once again pulling along its cargo into forbidden lands.

Beholden to the whims of their leader, the rest of the Arcamels followed. Taliyah sighed, but followed as well.

And so, the caravans continued.

XxX

To be honest, Taliyah was surprised that they lasted as long as they did. A lone traveler was well fated to make it through the Beastlands on foot. For an entire caravan of people, complete with carts and loud hextech machinery, to make it several minutes into the cursed place was nothing short of a miracle.

Taliyah was feeling good about it, all things considered. With that kind of luck, she might be able to topple the Emperor with little more than a stroke of good fortune. Perhaps he would trip and fall on his own staff?

Either way, the screech that bellowed from beneath the dunes was both cathartic and paralyzing. It was cathartic because she no longer had to be on edge. If the beasts were finally attacking now, then that meant that she would no longer have to worry about the possibility.

It was paralyzing, however, because that meant that the beasts were attacking now.

It wasn’t the first time that Taliyah had heard the hunting cry of the Xer’sai. They were confined mainly to the Beastlands, but that wasn’t to say that they couldn’t hunt elsewhere. While Taliyah’s tribe typically situated themselves well away from the dangers of this area, it wasn’t uncommon for smaller beasts to roam well beyond their nesting grounds.

The day that her tribe’s hunters returned, bloody and battered but victorious, with the corpse of a snarling purple beast was a day that Taliyah was sure to never forget. The beast, with chitin-like scales and feet like a scorpion’s, was almost bigger than the cart that they wheeled it back on. Its maw, held open by gravity, had endless rows of razer-sharp teeth.

A primal fear settled in Taliyah’s heart that day. The hunters told stories of how they barely survived. Ashkar, their youngest, had lost part of his torso. The beast, just barely alive, let out one last dying screech before flopping dead against the cart.

That screech rattled Taliyah’s bones much like this one was doing now.

Without waiting, Ar’kal reached for his pistol. His finger wrapped around the hilt with the ease of a man who had done the action enough times to commit it to memory. In one smooth motion, his pistol shot into the air. The Arcamels were startled, but no more so than they were by the Xer’sai’s scream.

Rather, it seemed that the shot was intended for a different audience.

“Retreat!” the leader of another cart yelled. Horns sang out as the various drivers whipped at their beasts of burden. The procession turned much quicker than it had any right to, and Taliyah marveled at the way they moved so efficiently and without verbal command.

The only way that they could have done such a thing was if…

“You planned this,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. That didn’t stop Ar’kal, who was less than a few feet from her, from hearing it, however.

“Of course,” he said. His eyes were not on her, rather, they were on the lumps that appeared in the sands not more than a hundred meters from then. They were moving rapidly, covering the distance between them much faster than the Arcamels could run. Something told Taliyah that the caravan had no need to outrun them. “We wanted to guide them properly, but our services were only to lead and protect. If our client pushes us into danger, then we will look after our own.”

The monsters had covered half the distance by now. The merchant had stuck his head out of the window, but his words were lost to the rapid movements of the caravan. Seeing that no one was answering him, he turned to his driver and ordered their own retreat.

The sand, however, seemed to have a different idea. Arcamels, strong and stubborn, would pull a cart behind them no matter how entrenched the wheels were; and that was to say nothing of the Shuriman engineering that allowed their wheels to stay above the ever-shifting dunes. For the hextech cars, however, that propelled themselves solely on the merit of their own engines?

The merchants found themselves going nowhere fast. Taliyah’s hand twitched, and the earth twitched with it. She could save them. She had more than enough time to pull them out of the sand and fight off the beasts. While she wasn’t her master, she had confidence in her ability. If she really tried, she could more than likely hold the beasts off.

Decision made; Taliyah made to raise her arm. She could conjure a wall of earth from the desert floor that would, if not stop the beasts, at least keep them at bay. Before she could bring it up, however, a firm arm gripped her wrist. She turned, eyes wide, to see the stern gaze of the caravan leader.

“You have your secrets, child,” he said. This close to him, Taliyah could finally see his lips from underneath his bushy facial hair. They were brought down into a frown as rigid as his stance. “I will not ask you to begrudge them. But all the same as I will not force upon you my ideals, I ask that you allow us the same. I do not care what you think of us, cowardly or backstabbing, but the death of those men is essential for us to live. Surely you can understand this?”

Taliyah frowned. But she could save them. Her rocks were more than strong enough to hold them back and—

“If we fight them, they will call for their brethren.” Ar’kal’s words were as serious as the grave, but all Taliyah could focus on was the sound of the burrowing sand that was steadily growing louder. “You look like you could fight one of these creatures, but could you fight two? Or perhaps three? How about the entire swarm of them, breaking from beneath the dunes?”

Taliyah’s teeth grinded. She turned back to the merchant. His face was panicked, his eyes wild and frantic. He yelled at the driver, then his wife, but nothing that he did seemed to be working. Eventually he turned to Taliyah, his dark red eyes desperate, and yelled.

“You!” he yelled. “Desert girl! Please, help me! You must!”

Taliyah heard his words, but the only thing she could focus on was how different his face looked when he was asking for something, rather than demanding. The sneer was gone, replaced by an open-mouthed gape that could catch so much sand. His eyes, which were so pompous and piercing, were wild and afraid.

“It will be hard,” Ar’kal said. “Letting a life end is not a decision made easily. But know that by allowing this, you will be saving many more.”

Taliyah turned, her eyes finding the swiftly fleeing caravan. She thought of Misha, who offered her water and kind words. She thought of the caravan kids, who made her a bracelet of desert flowers. She thought of the cute boy her age, who snuck her some Garve Berry wine in secret and laughed into the night with her. She thought of the group of mothers who braided her hair and the fathers who checked in on her occasionally and exchanged little more than a few words and a grunt for their efforts.

These were the people she came here to protect. To do so, however, would she always be sacrificing another? Would she always be sacrificing a part of herself?

“Girl,” Ar’kal called. Taliyah shook her head. The beast was far too close now. She could hear it’s warbles even through the sand. “We must go.”

Taliyah didn’t think about it. To do so would make the situation so much harder. She nodded and let the old caravan leader pull her away. The carts weren’t too far ahead. If they ran with all their might, they could reach the procession before they really kicked into gear.

Still, Taliyah could help but turn back as she ran. The merchant had his arm outstretched, his hopes likely dying with every step she took away from him. In a last-ditch effort, he seemed to try to leave his car as well, but the door was jammed. Its gears were likely jammed by the sand.

“Do not think on them, Taliyah,” he said. “They were horrid people. All things will come in time.”

Taliyah nodded, but she could not tear her eyes away. The beast was nearly upon them, and there was little the merchant could do. Still, if she could just…

Her finger twitched. The earth responded. The merchant’s car jumped as it was pushed out of its rut. The tires screeched against the stone and, now that they had traction, the car sped away.

It was far too late for that, as the creature was already upon them, but at least she had tried. It wouldn’t do much to assuage the guilt, but…

“All things will come in time,” she whispered. The last thing she saw before making her way towards the caravan was the was the creature lunging from beneath the sands. It was small for her kind, but it was still larger than the hextech vehicle.

The crunch of the metal as it bore into the car rang in her ears.

All things will come in time.