by Hylton, PT
In the stories, these unworthy sailors always returned to Holdgate and spent the rest of their lives on dry land, living quiet, shameful existences as butchers or clerks at the dry goods shop.
Felix had sworn that wouldn’t be him. And yet here he was, on his first voyage on a real Holdgate trading ship, throwing up over the side.
He’d been fine for the first three days of the journey, but then this storm had caught them. It had built slowly, and he’d seen the concern growing in Captain Herrik’s eyes as the black clouds had rolled in and the waves swelled to an unbelievable size, tossing their small ship like a child might toss a ball.
Despite Felix’s concern, none of the other sailors seemed to be paying him much mind. They were too busy clutching the rail themselves, holding on for dear life.
That was when Felix realized he might have a whole lot more to fear than just embarrassment over losing his lunch. If these hardened sailors were worried, this was not a normal storm.
Felix closed his eyes and said a silent prayer to the sea.
It had never been his ambition as a boy to earn a place on one of the stormships like his friends all wanted. They had dreamed of working on a ship like Undertow or even Thunderclap, but all Felix wanted was to make his name on a trading ship and make a boatload of money. If he accumulated enough wealth, he could buy status, and maybe his son or daughter would one day win a spot on a stormship.
Of course, all of that assumed he survived his maiden voyage on The Passing Fancy, which was beginning to look less and less likely.
The sailors had been in a foul mood almost since the moment they’d left port. They’d worried that the weather was unnatural for this time of year. They didn’t like change, but things were changing quickly in Holdgate.
Two weeks ago, the magistrate had made a proclamation declaring Tor, Dahlia, and the crew of Thunderclap enemies of Holdgate. He’d said they were Storm Raiders who attacked cities and villages up and down the coast, teaming up with the Barskall to destroy these places after removing all valuables.
The idea seemed ludicrous, but a few days after the proclamation, Thunderclap had attacked Holdgate. Many died in that battle, including six Storm Callers who had reportedly been murdered by Tor himself before he was finally brought down by the Arcadian blacksmith’s daughter, of all people. Only Dahlia, Thunderclap’s Storm Caller, had managed to escape, but without her ship and her crew, she couldn’t be much of a danger.
Still, despite the clear evidence that Tor and his crew had been Storm Raiders, there had been some grumbling among the crew since leaving port. Things had been good for the trading ships over the past decade or so. It was hard to argue that they had not been blessed by the sea. Was it possible that the sea approved of Storm Raiding? And if so, how would it react to the death of Tor, its most favored son?
And now, it seemed the sea was going to claim The Passing Fancy to appease its anger.
The sailors on the deck cried out in fear, and Felix forced himself to open his eyes. Rain pelted down on him, and it wasn’t possible to see very far. But he spotted something up ahead: a massive wave, the likes of which Felix had never seen, was rolling toward them. Its watery form stretched higher than the tallest building in Holdgate. He didn’t know how they’d survive.
Then, just before it got to them, the wave diminished, as if it were being sucked back into the sea. By the time it reached them it was no bigger than the other waves that had been tossing them for hours.
Felix looked to the east, the direction the waves were coming from, and his breath caught in his throat. A shaft of sunlight cut through the storm clouds, illuminating a massive ship.
The ship raced toward them, bringing with it clearing skies and a calmer sea. The men and women aboard The Passing Fancy talked excitedly as the storm died down and the ship grew nearer.
It was a stormship; everyone agreed on that. After all, one of the primary duties of the stormships was to calm rough seas for trading ships. As the ship drew closer, the sailors’ excitement grew. This wasn’t just any stormship.
What started as a suspicion quickly grew into certainty. By the time the stormship reached them, the sailors were cheering and chanting its name. The sea hadn’t abandoned The Passing Fancy, and neither had the flagship of the Holdgate fleet.
Felix pushed his way through the crowd of sailors on the main deck to get a look at the great stormship as it drew near. It was strange seeing a man standing at the bow instead of a woman, but the iconic ship was familiar enough that he was able to put that aside. Besides, he recognized the ship’s new Storm Caller.
He thought of the many times as a child he’d watched this ship pull into port in Holdgate. Now he was doing more than watching. He was an active participant.
Thunderclap had saved him. Dustin had saved him.
* * *
“If we find the son of a bitch who’s doing this,” Syd said, “I’m going to string him up by his eyebrows.”
“Eyebrows?” Abbey asked. “That’s awfully generous of you. I was going to aim a bit lower.”
Captain Roy let out a soft chuckle. “Eyebrows…or whatever, we’re going to have to find him first.”
“We will,” Syd growled. She ran a hand across her bald head as she spoke.
Abbey couldn’t disagree with her friend’s assertion, and she understood the frustration. They were all feeling it, even Captain Roy, though he was a bit better at hiding it than the rest of them.
This was their maiden voyage as the new crew of Thunderclap. With Captain Tor, Dahlia, and the Storm Raiders who had previously manned the vessel all either dead or rotting in the Holdgate prison, there had been no one left to sail Holdgate’s flagship. The magistrate and the council of Storm Captains had agreed that the prize should go to Captain Roy and the crew of The Foggy Day, who’d proven their trustworthiness by taking a stand against Tor. Now it was The Foggy Day that sat unused in port.
Everyone had been delighted at the promotion to the better vessel. Dustin’s dream of stormcalling on Thunderclap had come true, and a lot sooner than he’d anticipated. Syd and most of the crew were thrilled to be working aboard the larger craft, and Abbey, who’d accepted a position aboard only days before, had been no less excited to learn that her first real voyage would be on the great ship. After spending her first nineteen years primarily in her father’s blacksmith shop, she’d be sailing on the most famous ship in the Holdgate fleet.
The only one who hadn’t been pleased was Captain Roy. He’d accepted the new commission reluctantly and with an uncharacteristic seriousness. When Abbey had asked him why, he’d said, “We’ll be on the best ship in the fleet. That means we’ll be sent to the biggest battles and the most dangerous places. I don’t mind fighting if I have to, but I don’t like watching my people die.”
Now, on the last day of their first voyage, Abbey had to admit that it hadn’t exactly gone smoothly.
Since Thunderclap required roughly twice the crew of The Foggy Day, Captain Roy had needed to bring on nearly fifty new crew members. The other Storm Captains had reluctantly allowed a few experienced sailors to transfer to the famous ship, but the majority of them were fresh recruits who had never been on anything more than a pleasure cruise. As first mate, it was Syd’s job to whip this new crew into shape, and the monumental task was making her even crankier than usual.
Training new crew members was always challenging, but training this many at once was like herding mountain goats. Abbey did her best not to cause her friend any undue stress, but she was a new sailor too, and she bumbled as much as the rest of them.
Captain Roy and Dustin were having just as much trouble. This had been planned as a one-week voyage to test the crew on open water. It should have been an easy journey: swing down around the south horn of the Kaldfell Peninsula to ensure the trade routes were clear of storms. This time of year, the seas should have been fairly calm. They expected to encounter one or two storms at the most. What they’d experienced had been quite
different.
They’d encountered storm after storm, each on a trade route, and each too vicious and localized to have been natural. There was a Storm Caller working in these waters, causing havoc for Holdgate’s ships.
The obvious theory was that Dahlia was calling the storms, trying to exact payback for what had been done to her captain and her shipmates. But the problem with Dahlia—or any other Storm Caller—creating these storms was that in order to call and maintain such disturbances, the Storm Caller would need to be within sight. But Thunderclap had yet to see another stormship, so whoever was doing this was somehow doing it from a distance.
Abbey left the captain and first mate and headed toward the bow of the ship.
Dustin was working night and day to quell the storms, and Abbey could tell it was taking its toll. She wasn’t sure which was wearing on him more: calming the storms, or the mystery of how the storms were being created in the first place.
The current storm was all but gone now, and Dustin had his eyes open, looking at the gently rolling sea and the trade ship on their starboard side. The crew of the trade ship was cheering and waving wildly as Thunderclap sailed past.
“Nice job,” Abbey remarked as she approached Dustin.
Dustin glanced at her, then turned back to the sea. “Thanks. For all the good it will do. Whoever’s creating these storms could be calling another one fifty miles behind us for all we know.”
Abbey nodded toward the trade ship. “Well, they’re grateful. Besides, we’ll figure it out. We’ll find them and give them the whupping they deserve. It’s what we do.” She paused, then continued, “It’s gotta be Dahlia behind this, right?” She almost scoffed as she said the name. Just the thought of that woman—and the fact that they’d failed to capture her—haunted Abbey.
“Probably.” He was quiet for a minute as he gazed out at the sea. “It’s just so frustrating. There’s so much we don’t know about stormcalling. First, I learn that casting is possible without seawater, and now…whatever this is.”
Abbey heard a familiar voice behind her, interrupting their conversation. “You call that tying a line? Man, if Syd sees that, you’ll be swabbing the deck all night. Let me show you how it’s done.”
Olaf snatched a rope out of another sailor’s hand.
Abbey chuckled and shook her head. It hadn’t been that long ago that she’d kicked his ass in her father’s shop. Now he was a sailor aboard Thunderclap, just like her. And to Abbey’s annoyance, he was learning the things Syd taught more quickly than any of the other newbies, which only added to his already impressive cockiness. Syd grudgingly admitted the young man knew his knots better than most sailors with six months’ experience.
The whole thing had made Olaf even more insufferable, but Abbey had to admit his brash confidence always brought a smile to her face. She turned back to Dustin.
“You were the first one to crack storm magic without seawater, and you’ll crack this mystery, too. Give yourself a break.”
Dustin looked at her with a half-smile. “I guess you’re right.”
“Of course I am,” she said with a grin. “Now get us home. There’s a mug of mead waiting with my name on it.”
“Dustin!” a man called from the crow’s nest. “To the east!”
He sighed as he looked east and saw unnaturally dark skies. “I think we both deserve a drink, but first we have work to do.”
Chapter Two
Dustin sat at the large stone table in the magistrate’s new office, looking at the dour faces of the men and women around him. He’d spent many hours at this table in the weeks following Thunderclap’s attack on Holdgate, coming to know the Storm Captains and Storm Callers even as they cycled in and out—some leaving for new assignments, and others returning to port. The council was ever-changing.
As the days passed, Dustin had also grown more confident about voicing his opinions. He might be the youngest Storm Caller at the table, but that didn’t matter now. They were shorthanded with the loss of three of their best stormships and the six Storm Callers, and they needed everyone to give their all.
A cloud of worry seemed to hang over the magistrate that morning, and the deep lines on his beardless face stood out even more prominently than usual. He’d just heard Captain Roy’s report on Thunderclap’s journey.
The magistrate’s voice was a low growl when he spoke. “So not only do we have an impossible number of Barskall somehow slipping through the Storm Wall and harassing the northern villages, but we also have a mystery Storm Caller plaguing our ships to the south.”
“One who’s apparently able to strike from a great distance,” Captain Stephen said. He helmed the Breaker, a mid-sized stormship that regularly worked the fishing channels to the south. If anyone at the table knew the weather patterns on the southern portion of the Kaldfell Peninsula, it was he.
Dustin shook his head. “I’m not sure what’s happening, but I do know that when we cleared the storms, there wasn’t another ship in sight. A Storm Caller who can cast out of sight is—”
“It’s impossible,” Ellen finished. She was Breaker’s Storm Caller. “And if it weren’t, just randomly calling up storms when you can’t even see if there are ships in the area? What would be the point?”
Captain Roy scratched his beard a moment, then offered, “Unless he knows the trade routes well. In which case, if he sees a ship passing, he knows where it’s headed. He could send a storm to cut it off.”
Ellen let out a short laugh. “That’s not really how stormcalling works.”
Dustin met her eye. “Maybe it’s time we admit we don’t know as much about stormcalling and its limits as we’d like to think.”
A contemplative silence fell over the room.
Dustin still hadn’t told anyone other than Syd and Abbey about his ability to use his powers without contact with seawater. It wasn’t that he wanted to keep the knowledge to himself, exactly, but so many things were in flux already. As soon as he shared the information, the world of stormcalling would change. At that point, Dustin knew it wouldn’t be long before every Storm Caller gained his ability. Once people were shown that something was possible, it became a lot more likely they would dedicate themselves to mastering it.
And after the betrayals of Tor and Dahlia, Dustin was still uncertain who could be trusted.
“Inexplicable storms to the south and Barskall to the north,” the magistrate muttered. “Anything else?”
“Yes, actually.” The voice came from Yates, the captain of Typhoon, the largest ship currently in port other than Thunderclap.
The magistrate looked at him impatiently. “Well, let’s hear it then.”
Yates paused for a moment. He clearly didn’t want to say whatever it was that he was about to reveal. “I lost three more.”
The other Storm Captains exchanged nervous glances.
“You’re sure?” Captain Stephen asked.
Captain Yates nodded. “They’ve been gone three days. I checked with their families, and it turns out one of them owned an old fishing boat. That’s gone, too.”
“Wonderful,” the magistrate grumbled. “Headed north, I’d imagine?”
“I don’t know, but one would assume so.”
Sailors had been abandoning their posts and heading north all too frequently over the past few weeks. No one talked about the reason for the desertions out loud, but everyone knew. It was widely believed that Dahlia had fled north, and even after her attack on Holdgate many of the sailors still held her in high regard. It would appear that many of them were choosing to follow her over loyalty to their city.
There was a long silence, then Captain Roy spoke. “There’s nothing we can do to keep people here against their will. We can only try to keep morale high so that they don’t want to leave. We’ll deal with these traitors if and when we meet them on the open sea.”
The words made Dustin sit up a little straighter. If the usually jovial Captain Roy was talking like that, things had to be bad.
“Agreed,” the magistrate said. “Just as importantly, we need more sailors. We can rush some of the apprentice Storm Callers through the Testing to get them on ships if need be, but we still need crew. We’ve carried the weight of protecting the Kaldfell Peninsula for too long. It’s time to talk to Algon.”
The room fell silent again. Algon was the largest city on the Peninsula. It was located on the southern tip, far away from Barskall harassment, and they’d never been eager to aid in the Peninsula’s defense.
“And who are we going to send to talk to them?” Captain Stephen asked.
Everyone in the room knew who would have been selected for the job only a month ago—Tor. The respect he had commanded from every corner of the Peninsula would have made him perfect for the job.
Captain Roy leaned forward. “If I may make a suggestion, it seems we have two problems to sort out. Someone has to go to the Storm Wall to figure out how the hell so many Barskall are slipping through. I’d like to volunteer Thunderclap for that task. I have a bit of a history there, after all. And we have the best damn Storm Caller in the fleet.”
Dustin resisted the urge to dispute the comment. He had gone toe-to-toe with Dahlia, which was more than anyone else could say.
The magistrate nodded. “Fine. But that still leaves Algon. We need someone to travel south and convince those bastards to lend us a hand. And we need to figure out what’s up with those mystery storms while we’re at it.”
Captain Roy smiled. “I have a suggestion for that as well.”
* * *
Abbey stuck to the path, her eyes scanning the green foliage around her as she walked. She clutched her sword and crept silently along. They were nearing their target; she was sure of it.