The Hand of the Storm

by Iain Lindsay

  Talin was dragged, still on the chair, kicking, struggling, and shouting from the office by Olander and Vestas (who didn’t hold back on their own stolen pinches and prods on the way down). The light on the Eastern Dock’s was descending into gloaming, save for the bright oil lanterns at the end of the piers and over the warehouse doors. Everywhere Talin looked, he saw the wide, white eyes of the other youths as he was carried to the center of the dock and set before the Overseer.

  “Think I would settle at a few Ducats fine, Nhka?” Jekkers said in a soft voice like a readying snake. In his hand was the largest of his home-made whips, all black leather and wicked studs, swaying in the breeze like windweed. With a small amount of pride, Talin saw there was an ugly red cut on the man’s temple where he had managed to strike him.

  The other slaves had pressed back to form a large circle around the pair, and everywhere Talin turned his head, he could find no sympathetic eyes, no sign of Jotni.

  This is it. He’ll kill me before everyone, and no one will care because I’m just another lazy Nhka. Talin gripped the chair with all the strength that he had, willing his muscles to break it, to do something, anything.

  “I found him in my office,” Jekkers stepped out of sight of the youth, behind him. Swish, he heard of the whip and flinched. “He was seeking to steal from me,” Swish, Jekkers reappeared on his left side. “Is that the gratitude you give to your masters?” Swish.

  The crowd was silent, a fact which seemed to cause some concern from the Overseer, who cracked his whip suddenly to his side.

  “No master, no…no” the voices muttered.

  “Whip him!” Another one called out, which Talin was sure must be Kenrath. “Teach the dirty Nhka a lesson!”

  “Quiet!” The Overseer spat, and, once again the tense silence spread through the assembled.

  Where was Jotni? Talin looked. At least he got away, he thought. At least he doesn’t share my fate.

  “Tell me, Talin, do you now know your place in the order of things?” The Overseer’s face was suddenly close, sibilant, victorious.

  Never say you deserve a beating from that man, that was what his mother had told him. His proud mother. “I’m glad” Talin croaked, one of his teeth felt loose, “that I got you a good cut on that ugly head of yours first!” He spat blood and saliva at the old man.

  “Ach!” The Overseer hissed, springing back and raising his arm to its full extent, the black whip poised...

  “I’d hold that thought if I were you, dock master,” a clear voice rang out across the Docks. A man had pushed his way through the crowd, a pale Protectorate-born Airshipper from the looks of him. Long brown hair and a cream linen shirt with wide lapels splaying over his form-fitting buckled vest. Tan breeches and long, shiny black boots that spread almost all the way to the knee. He also had in his hand a curving blade that shone like a mirror. “You see, my friend behind me has never been partial to beatings.” The man gestured with the sword at Jekkers, as the largest heimr that Talin had ever seen followed the Airshipper, and in his hands was a mace almost the size of the boy atop his chair.

  The heimr wore a similar linen shirt, rolled to his shoulders and baggy canvas trousers. No boots for him, as his kind had the scaled talons that could weather almost any discomfort. The giant was frowning.

  “This is none of your concern, Airshipper,” Jekkers spat.

  “Captain Tremaine, to you. Or you could just call me sir.” The Captain smiled genially. “Now, I am sure that we can all come to an amicable arrangement here. No need for a fuss, right? How much for the young man?” The Captain said, his tone turning suddenly serious. “What’s his ticket standing at? I can take him now, you’ll never see him again, and no harm comes to anyone, fair?”

  “Bah!” Jekkers was vibrating with outrage. “He’s not for sale. You know the custom, Captain Tremaine” Jekkers sneered the title. “Your authority ends at the dock’s edge. This is my domain. Here I am king!”

  Tremaine’s fine features looked troubled. “Ah, you see there we are going to have another problem. I have never been very good with kings or beatings either…”

  Pheet! Jekkers had raised to his lips a small tin whistle, the sort that all the Overseers and Counters had. The sort that summoned help when needed. Pheet! He blew several sharp notes, and his rallying cry was carried by other shrieks of tinny alarm further in the Reach, until-

  THUM-THUM-THUM! The Eastern Dock bells sounded, being hit by distant work teams at the behest of their own Overseers.

  “Soon, this place will fill up with stout Reach guards with Reach crossbows, Captain. They’ll see you and your boat off my dock in one way or another. You’ll never have a landing here at Breaker’s Reach again!” Jekkers snarled.

  “The food here sounds terrible anyway,” The Captain shrugged, raising his fine blade.

  THUM-THUM-THUM! The Dock Bells rang, the whistles grew closer and louder, accompanied by the sound of running feet.

  “Can I break his arms now, boss? Just the right one?” The largest heimr grunted, hefting the mace between his hands.

  “Well – in for a penny, in for a Ducat, right Quartermaster?” The captain looked irritated as flicked his sword in a practiced swish, just as noise and shouting exploded onto the Eastern Docks.

  “Jekkers!” It was a woman’s voice under the clang of the bells. Mother? The seated Talin turned his head as much as he could, to see the crowd of his accusers stumbling and being pushed aside by the long limbs not only Serin of the Nhkari, but at her side was also thick-haired Meda, and old Bdui with his scalp now dusted with white. In their hands they had the long two-pronged wind-scraper poles that the dock teams used to detach the windweed from hard-to-reach joists.

  “Traitors!” The Overseer hissed and turned, as Tal saw his mother, so recently ill and inform but now transfigured by her rage as she stepped into the ring.

  “Leave my son alone,” she drew back her hand, her long limbs with all the grace of a hunter as she threw the pole as if it were her lost hunting spear.

  The wind-scraper was no kubaya, it was just two nobs of blunted and rounded metal on a long staff – they would never give the workers such dangerous tools as a spear, but it arched through the air gracefully, catching the Overseer with its two prongs on either side of his neck and knocked to the ground.

  “Urk!” Jekkers coughed, clutching at his throat and writhed in agony as the wind-scraper clattered to the floor beside him. In an instant, Talin’s mother had crossed the distance between them, seizing up the wind-scraper and jabbed it ferociously at the man who had tormented her son. “No more, Jekkers. No more will you look at my son and my people as weak, lazy, or cowardly.” She coughed suddenly, the mask of her strength slipping for a fraction of a moment, “I will teach you what the Nhkari are made of.” She pulled back the wind-scraper, as Jekkers screamed like a pig, scrabbling away from her.

  “Tal!” There were hands at his bonds, and the youth tore his attention away to see that it was Jotni, his cracked claws ripping the rag bonds that held him to the chair. “Get up. You have to go.” He hissed. “I got your mother, and she roused what Nhka would follow her.” The heimr’s eyes were wide.

  “Nhkari, heimr,” muttered Meda on the other side of him, holding her own goad-like spear defensively as old man Bdui did the same beside her. “Nhka is what they call us. Nhkari is what we call ourselves.” Meda growled the words, and, for the first time in Talin’s life he saw the heimr look ashamed.

  THUM-THUM-THUM!

  “Captain, the lifts.” The largest-ever-heimr was pointing with the mace towards the chain lifts on the other side of the crowd, that were starting to raise to the level of the docks, bearing men and women in padded armour, and carrying heavy crossbows.

  “Outstanding.” Tremaine groaned, before hollering. “ODESTIN! Loose the moorings! Prepare to fly!”

  Before them, Talin was wobbling to his legs and rubbing his wrists, unsure of what to do. “Mother?” he saw that she had once a
gain pinned the Overseer to the decking, this time leaning with all her weight against the dull prongs that dug into the man’s vest. Jekkers struggled and grabbed at the prongs, coughing and gasping.

  “Help me, children. Help!” He wheezed.

  “Get your gold, Tal.” Jotni swung his attention around the assembled work team. Many of them looked frightened, some of them looked enraged at what the Nhkari were doing, but none of them moved to help the Overseer.

  “Don’t you move,” Serin said, her face twisted with effort as she held the Overseer down. Tal darted in to pull at Jekker’s chest pocket, drawing out the gold medallion that the man had returned there, and slipping it behind his belt.

  “Come on!” Talin said to his mother, “we can go! We have enough money now…”

  THUM-THUM-THUM! The Reach guards were piled onto the Eastern docks, running towards them from between the warehouses. The youths started screaming, running first one way and then the next.

  “No, Cumu.” Serin’s shoulders shook with a sudden repressed spasm. Her rage was failing her, and so too was her strength. “Go. Flee.”

  “Mother? No…” Talin made to move forward, but before he could, powerful hands seized the back of his canvas shirt and dragged him backwards.

  “No sense everyone dying today, human,” thundered the voice of the Quartermaster, edging backwards as he held the struggling young man against him as easily as if he were a rag.

  “Mother!” Talin screamed.

  In front of the panicked crowd the Reacher’s, never overly concerned with the lives of their slaves, raised their crossbows and started to fire. Black, ugly quarrels hit and bodies started falling to the floor, and shouts turned into screams. But Tal’s eyes were fixed only on the woman who had marched across the entire Susha with her toddler strapped to her back, holding the Overseer down as they escaped. Her arms and her legs shook, but she did not fail as around her coalesced Meda and Bdui, their wind-scrapers raised to throw.

  “Let me go!” Talin was kicking the giant, but it did no good as they ran down the pier towards the wobbling Airship, the man called Tremaine already leaping onto his deck and bawling commands.

  “Lura! Main sails! Odestin – air-fans!” He kicked the chocks from the wheel for it to start spinning lazily, and the boat start to bob. “Sweet Airs, we’re going to get a hide full of bolts before we’re clear,” his face was tight with concentration.

  Through Talin’s tears he saw that there was one other figure racing after them. It was Jotni, his brow furrowed as he seized one of the wind-scrapers affixed to the dock. A sudden lurch in the youth’s stomach as the Quartermaster’s grip tightened on him before he jumped, landing heavy enough on the deck of the Storm to make the entire boat wobble.

  “You remember what I said, Talin!” Jotni was shouting to the Airship as he reached with the wind-scraper and started pushing out against the hull. The heimr was small, but his kind was strong. The boat, already unmoored, started to slip from the eastern Docks.

  What? No. “What is he doing?” Talin whispered in horror. Why wasn’t Jotni jumping on board the boat too? Why hadn’t his mother joined him either?

  “He’s saving your life human, that’s what he’s doing.” The Quartermaster shoved the youth to the deck with a thump, moving to pull at the ropes to release the sails.

  “I been a slave all my life, Tal,” Jotni shouted as he heaved once more, creating a channel of clear air between the Storm and the pier. “And I’m a lot better at fighting than you are!” Jotni even managed a grin, as behind him the screams continued as the Reach guards fought their way through to the defiant Nhkari, who were fighting back.

  No… Tal stood in shock as his friend pushed and prodded the boat out of the shelter of the pier, the plains winds plucked and caught its sails.

  “Remember what I told you, Nhkari!” Jotni shouted as the Storm finally found it’s current, picking up speed, and leaving the torment of Breaker’s Reach behind.

  The Susha

  9. The Storm

  Home, Tal dreamt. He imagined that he was floating through tides of endless blue, turning and falling through the air, following currents that pushed and pulled at him. But it led home, the youth knew, as he heard the crack of rope.

  I am dreaming, his mind fluttering towards consciousness. Talin heard the sigh of winds and the creak of wood. Home. He thought for a moment, before remembering no, I have none. It was shadowed where he lay, but he was warm, covered by a thick woven blanket on a wooden bed wedged against the side of the inner hull. Beside him was a stack of crates and a heap of old tarpaulin canvas.

  His mother was gone. His friend was gone. Everything that he had ever known, was gone. All for what? The round circle of metal still sat in his belt, digging into his hip. For no other reason that he had nothing else left of the world where he had once lived, he drew out the gold medallion. It was the size of his palm, a flat lattice of golden lines in curving geometric shapes. He had never seen such fine workmanship, not even in the broaches and necklaces that the Counters had sometimes worn.

  It was also heavy, and warm to the touch. Not quite gold, he thought, as it sparkled strangely in the light. When he turned it in the gloom, he saw that it was shot through with fine mica flecks, and felt smooth.

  It was undoubtedly expensive, that was for sure. More than the seventeen ducat ticket price he had over his head at the Reach. Rich enough to pay the Captain if he had to. Rich enough to start a new life somewhere.

  But it wasn’t worth losing my mother for, an angry tear fell from his eye, as a wave of loss and longing billowed in him.

  “Dratted thing.” He threw it hard against the door. The medallion hit with a heavy thump, but did not clatter to the floor. Tal’s eyes grew round as he saw that the object had dropped back to the decking, but instead of landing, it just wobbled where it floated, a few finger breadth’s above.

  At first the young man didn’t believe it. He thought that he must still be dreaming, despite the fact that he was on an Airship – itself an object that swam through the skies. A hundred questions. Is this why Jekkers valued it so highly? What sort of magic was it? Why didn’t it do anything before?

  Talin crept out of bed, noticing that he was wearing the same clothes as on the Reach (although a new set sat folded by the door), to crouch by the floating medallion. Gingerly, and very carefully, he prodded it.

  Clang! The gold fell to the plank with a heavy thud, gravity restored.

  “No, I don’t think Jekkers knew it would do this,” Tal reasoned to himself. “Otherwise he would never have left it in his room.” The Overseer hadn’t seemed to be a clever man but he was a devious one, and the Nhkari thought it more likely that the Overseer Jekkers had thought the disk would turn a pretty profit, not hold mysteries instead.

  Very carefully this time, Talin retrieved the medallion once more to find it just the same heavy, warm, goldish metal that it had been. He opened his hand-

  Clang! Whatever magical property had been pregnant within it was gone, and despite two more attempts to make it float, it still stubbornly resisted.

  “You in there!” Grunted a deep voice from outside the door. The Quartermaster. The biggest heimr he had ever seen. “I hear you banging about. Get dressed and come out.” The troll’s heavy footsteps retreated, leaving Tal to do as he had been commanded.

  He had never had a linen shirt before. It was too big for him, but he found that if he folded back the sleeves and tucked the ends of the shirt into the tan breeches supplied, then it was passable. He slipped on his hide and leather boots when he was done, brushing away the fine layer of sand that his old clothes had brought with them.

  Sand from the storm. The storm my mother had probably died in. The thoughts were insistent and unstoppable. He had no way of knowing if she still lived, but even he knew the likelihood was that the Reacher’s had killed her, as well as fierce Meda, old Bdui, and Jotni too.

  “But they would want me to be strong, like they were stron
g.” Talin whispered to himself. He tucked the gold medallion into the wide leather belt against his hip, opened the door of his cabin, and stepped outside.

  “Welcome to the Storm!” Said a voice with none of the sand-scoured gravel of the voices of the Reach. “I am the Captain Tremaine, and you are welcome here…until we can figure out what to do with you, that is.”

  The Captain was standing in the middle of the lower deck, in a square of dappled grey light. Confused, Tal looked up to see that the light was coming from the open slats of the large trapdoors above.

  “We lower the cargo from the main deck up there, and if we have enough of it, we stack it down here, or roll into the hold below,” Tremaine said helpfully, pointing to a more solid set of trapdoor doors, currently closed beside his feet. “Where you’ve come from, that’s the Forward of the ship. We call your room the powder locker,” he nodded back down the wooden hallway where Tal’s narrow door stood. On either side of the hallway where other doors, from at least one of which came the sound of snoring.

  “The powder locker is where we keep the spare ammunition,” Tremaine said cheerily, “so you can see why Gulbrand was a little tetchy about you banging about in there.”

  Those crates are full of gunpowder? Talin thought in alarm, before looking around him at his new surroundings. The lower deck was a large space, with the body of the mainmast descending through the ceiling of the deck above, before another door. There was a tidy stack of grain sacks, even some chairs stacked and tied against one wall. Storm lanterns swung unlit from the support posts.

  And guns, Talin paused. On either side of the main gallery room, box-like alcoves had been built through to the outer hull, big enough to hold the small tubes of black iron, fixed to their triangular seats. A narrow bench sat on one side of each of the tiny cannons, big enough for a person to squeeze themselves into if they didn’t mind the deafening roar of gunshot in their face.