The Hand of the Storm

by Iain Lindsay

  With the other airship behind me now. She thought. If any of the guards on that one decided to take a look at their fellow – it wouldn’t be long before they spotted her. She lifted her head in degrees, peering between the cracks of one shutter.

  A large, dingy room, with tables and chairs. This had to be the crew’s area, where meals were dished out, but her vantage only provided her with a narrow view of the room, moving quickly, she moved to the next.

  Ah, yes. She could see the tall barrels of water in the corner, the stove tables, and more benches – at least two of them with the stretched out, blanketed forms of sailors sleeping. How many men do the Blue Princes have? Lura gritted her small, pointed teeth. She pressed her head to the side of the wood, eyes searching as far as the thin crack in the wood would allow.

  There was something large and box-like in the corner of the room, behind the door. Iron bars, its top covered with canvas wraps. She couldn’t see what was inside, but it looked to Lura like an animal enclosure. Staring at them over their slops? It had to be the Princess.

  Lura clung on with her feet and one hand as she fiddled in her belt for her small, sharp knife. It wasn’t the first time that the Captain had asked her to use her natural reflexes and silent agility in this manner. She started prodding and levering the edge of the shutter, sliding the blade up until she felt resistance.

  Gotcha. A couple of delicate shoves, and the wooden latch on the inside lifted, and the shutters swung outwards, almost pushing her back, before she swapped her grip as fast as a darting cat. The smell of sweat, onions, and stale beer leeched out to her, making her wrinkle her nose as she swung herself inside.

  There were indeed two sleeping humans in here, big fellows, with their cudgels next to their benches. They must be the girl’s guards, Lura quietly stepped down, moving first to the door of the crew’s area to very slowly, very quietly, lower the wooden bar across it’s inside. It was a stout door. It would take an axe to get through that, by which time…

  “Here, who the sodding ‘ell are you?” one of the guards was pushing himself up from the bench, reaching for his cudgel.

  Lura turned, throwing the small knife with all the skill of her circus training. “Urk!”

  “Rargh!” The second guard was already rolling off the bench, seizing his cudgel as he backed towards the cage. “GUARDS!” He managed to holler as Lura drew her scimitar.

  Sacred Mothers. Lura hissed, jumping onto the nearest table to sweep low at the man.

  “GUARDS!” He bellowed again, batting off her attack, before kicking the edge of the table, causing it to shake and slide. Lura swiveled, jumping in the air to the next as tramping feet could be heard running down the corridor.

  “Moyson!? What’s going on in there?” A thud as someone shoved at the barred door.

  “You’re dead, tyl,” the guard sneered, picking up his boot to stamp at this table under the tylaethi’s feet as well.

  “You first, Moyson,” a voice snipped from the darkness under the canvas, and two grubby but pale hands reached through the bars to seize the back of the smugglers shirt, pulling him against the bars. Lura didn’t hesitate as she jumped forward, reversing her grip on her scimitar to shove it into the guard’s body. The man gasped and fell, and Lura was looking at the terrified, pale face of a girl no older than sixteen or seventeen.

  Her auburn-golden locks had long since become disheveled and frazzled, and her powder blue dress was torn and dirty. Dirt smeared her face and clothes, and there was an ugly bruise over one of her crystal-green eyes.

  “Have you come to rescue me?” the Princess Eliset said in a small voice.

  “You almost rescued yourself,” Lura was searching through the dead man’s pockets as his blood soaked into the decking, finding a set of keys and opening the cage.

  Thump. Thud. A crack appeared in the door. They weren’t slow about getting axes, then… Lura grabbed the Princess’s wrist and ran for the window.

  “What? How can we escape that way?” she gasped.

  “We climb. Or not,” Lura was half out of the window, looking down at the sands below. How far was it – two story’s? Three? It was a jump she could make, but she was a tylaethi. One that had trained in the tumbler’s arts.

  Thud. Crack! A splinter of wood burst out from the thundering door as an axeblade emerged.

  “Princess, take my hand.” Lura snapped, as one of the smugglers was cursing as they tried to wrench the wedged blade back out again. The girl looked at her in confusion, but she did as she was asked.

  “I’m going to lower you as far as I can, but then I am going to let go. Do you understand?”

  Chop! A victorious shout as the axe head was freed, and now there were the suggestion of faces, beards, and eyes through the gap.

  “Hey you! Stop her!”

  Eliset nodded, and stepped up to the sill as Lura climbed out, taking the girl’s hand and leaning backwards, one hand holding onto the window with feet braced, the other shoulder starting to grind in agony as the Princess climbed, then hung.

  Where is Gulbrand when you need him… she managed to think, seeing Eliset’s terrified face below her, before letting go. The Princess fell like a strange desert moth – the ragged blue skirts flapping and fluttering around her as she thumped into a plume of dark sand. I hope I haven’t just killed her.

  Chop! Thud! The axe went clean through the door, knocking out a panel of the wood as dirty, scarred hands reached for the bar on the inside.

  Lura swung herself out the window, not jumping down to the Princess herself, but instead crabbing as fast as her narrow limbs would take her back to the bowsprit – and the foreword anchor rope. Lura could hear the muffled thuds and shouts as the Blue Prince’s men ran in to find the bodies. Lura pulled another of her wickedly sharp knives and slashed at the thick hemp rope as fast as she could.

  Twang! The threads started to snap and unwind, the boat shuddered.

  “Where is she? Can you see her?” The thugs were at the window.

  Snap. The foreword anchor rope snapped, and the boat suddenly lurched backwards, throwing the guards in the room to the floor as it tipped to a forty-five-degree angle, striking its adjacent boat to the heavy thunder of smashing wood and screams.

  Lura somersaulted backwards from the bowsprit, rolling over and over in the night air before hitting the sand in a spray and tumbling down the small dune to land in a heap at the bottom.

  “Ugh…” she groaned, finding her pain echoed in a heap of blue-silk dress and golden hair a little way off. The Princess Eliset had survived, but she was hunched over her ankle with a look of agony.

  33. Distractions & Crossbows

  “You fools! What did you do?” Jala jumped to her feet as the crashing, grinding sound of timber on timber continued, now joined with disturbed shouts and screams.

  “I guess that’s our sign, Father,” Talin said, both on their feet and turning to the commotion. There were silhouettes of people running back and forth on the still as-yet unfelled airship, and a widening circle of smugglers staggering to wakefulness and looking in alarm at the accident.

  “Now is your chance. For the pride of your people. Help us or stay out of our way, Jala,” Father Kef held up his staff, all trace of the infirm old man forgotten. Talin heard the Nhkari guides behind him hiss and start to whisper fiercely at each other.

  “Father? What do we do – how do we find the Princess?” Talin breathed as he followed the older man on his zigzagging path towards the boats.

  “We don’t Talin, we have to trust that your Master Rigger knows what she is doing.” His voice was terse in the darkness.

  “She does, I’m sure of it.”

  “Then we distract. Create as much confusion for her getaway.” The older man had approached a stack of crates and barrels that sat on the sand, with an awning tied across one end. “Now…” the old man moved around the boxes. “There must be something flammable…”

  “Would this do?” Talin had pushed the cov
er from one of the crates, revealing a small stack of storm lanterns next to their pouches of lamp oil. With a pleased noise, Father Kef instructed Talin to throw as much of the flammable fabrics (spare rope, leathers, bags of food stuffs) around the crate as he unstopped the pouches and the air filled with the bitter tang of lamp oil.

  “Stand back!” the older ordered fiercely, taking the tinder box from his pack and proceeding to strike once, twice,

  Wooosh! A sheet of flame flared over the pile, lapping hungrily at the tarpaulin in moments.

  “Run!” Father Kef indicated towards the nearest airship as the orange glare behind them became a crackling yellow blaze.

  “Fire! We’re under attack!” Shouts from the smugglers in the sand.

  “Where are they? Crossbows!”

  The pair had almost covered the distance to the shadows of the still-moored ship when, looming out of the darkness came one of the smugglers. He was broad, with his hair matted into one thick braid. In one hand he held a cutlass, and the other what looked like a small horn. His eyes widened for a fraction of a moment, before he quickly set the horn to his lips, and blew a warning call. Talin thought that there was no mistaking that sound, it cut through the commotion like a knife, seconds before Father Kef savagely shoved his staff into the man’s belly.

  “Ouff!” The larger smuggler swiped with his cutlass, and Kef grunted in pain.

  Had he been struck? Talin felt his limbs trembling – but he couldn’t tell if it was fear or a queasy sort of energy. One that he could use. The youth jumped forward, ducking low over the wild swing of a cutlass to slash at the man’s legs.

  “Attackers – over there!” others were shouting, their voices coming closer.

  But their one opponent was proving hard to kill. He had staggered back, hopping on bleeding shins as he swiped wildly with the cutlass in front of him. “Help!” He screamed in a loud voice, as Kef darted forward on one side, and Talin on the other.

  Like hunting wolves. Degu. Talin had a moment of crystal-clear thought before they finished off the large man with short, ugly blows. A part of him felt sick at their butchery, but it was washed away by the thunder in his heart.

  “Talin – you must cut the ropes – and then run.” Father Kef was gasping beside him. He had indeed earned a cut across his chest, and his rope was tattering around him, making him look like an injured bat.

  “Father!” Talin saw the older man wrench his face into a grimace, turning to crouch defensively as large shadows of angry men with lanterns, swords, and crossbows were running in their direction over the sand.

  “Go!” Kef snapped, and the anger in his voice made the youth turn, plunging into the deep shadow beside the airship, heading for the nearest anchor-line.

  “Gah!” Behind him he could hear the horrid little sounds of desperate fighting, and the whistle of bolts been loosed. There were shouts all around now, from above the youth on the airship, and from across the desert rocks.

  In front of him sat a gigantic iron shape embedded on the sand. Curving prongs each as big as he was, and from its head, the strong hemp rope as thick as his arm. Talin swung his blade. It didn’t cleave straight through, but strands exploded and curled back onto themselves, further unravelling under the tension.

  It will only take a few moments to snap, Talin staggered back, feeling disorientated, hearing shouts and screams in the dark. What should he do? Flee back to the Captain as Kef had told him to?

  That wasn’t an option. How many more people have to pay for my life with theirs? He couldn’t let Kef die alone, he thought as he ran back the way he had come.

  34. Old Enemies

  “What by the Holy Waters is she doing!?” Tremaine watched as the second airship lurched to its side after the first. Flames glared the eye from one of the raging store tents, illuminating the planked bellies of the collapsed airships. Shouts and screams rose in the desert air, as the sharp rapport of crossbows and warning horns sounded.

  “She’s a pirate, Captain – not an assassin,” Gulbrand was standing up, shaking the life back into his tree-trunk limbs.

  “I know that, but still, is a little finesse too much to ask?” Tremaine cursed as he checked his pistol charge, wishing that he could see anything more than shadows, “I’ll probably end up putting a ball of shot straight through the bloody Princess at this rate…” he muttered.

  “No one said this was going to be easy,” Gulbrand was, the Captain considered, nothing if not pragmatic as he set off at a jog down the slope.

  “Balls.” Tremaine drew his sword, pistol in his other hand, and raced after him. The duo had barely got five steps before they heard a high keening sound like the wail of a bird, piercing the sound of battle below. “What is that?” A shiver of trepidation as some animal impulse made both Tremaine and the heimr’s steps slow, and lift their head to the southern horizon.

  Something was approaching.

  It was still night – but only barely. The sky was purpling to the east, but there were hard pinpricks of stars across the sky. Dark shapes cut across them, flying low out of the south and growing larger by the moment.

  “Is that…?” The Captain felt suddenly cold.

  Sharp shadows fanned out across the night sky. How many were there? Seven? Ten? Airships – but unlike any other airship that either the Quartermaster or Tremaine had ever seen before. Hard to see the details, they were schooner – of a sort. Narrow boats with some of their prows ending in jags of blackened wood like shark’s teeth. Their low, triangle-lateen sails were a ghostly-pale, ragged, torn and filthy. But they were fast. The glows of the fires showed hulls that appeared twisted like roots and knot-wood, black and lacquered, and from their cavalcade came that unearthly keening sound.

  “The Volt are here.” Tremaine said through gritted teeth. “Find the others.” The pair raced towards the scenes of mayhem.

  The Volt cut across the sky like spilled ink, like they were going to stop the dawn from approaching, and everywhere before them came their terrible keening.

  Talin – Duck! Holder’s voice drove the Nhkari youth to his knees just in time to avoid the wild swing of one of the smugglers. He didn’t have time to question how the ship-beast could sense the attackers around him, but she did, and she breathed her warnings into his head seconds before they were needed.

  Talin grunted, striking out with his long knife to feel it hit something solid but soft at the same time. The smuggler fell backwards, but two more were replacing him. At the youths back wobbled Father Kef, trading blows with a further two of the smugglers with the longer reach of his staff, but lurching and gasping in pain as he did so.

  Pheet! A dark bolt shot through the air just past Talin’s ear, too fast for even Holder’s psychic senses to perceive. Crossbows. They were going to die out here in the desert dust.

  “Ach!” Father Kef hissed in pain and staggered backwards. One of the smugglers had managed to break even his whisper-quick defenses. The snarling, sweaty smugglers converged around the remaining youth.

  “Hold! Hold your fire!” A voice that shouldn’t be there called in the night, eliciting hisses and snarls from the surrounding fighters.

  Shadows. A taint in the water. Holder raged through Talin like boiling water, and the youth got the sudden dreadful impression of something wrong striding towards them out of the dark – but it wasn’t the Volt.

  “Nhka!” The voice of the Overseer Jekkers greeted him.

  No! fear clutched at Talin’s belly.

  The Overseer looked different, he moved different, he felt different to the ship’s senses that sang through Talin’s own. He still wore his battered storm cloak, but the small head that emerged from its depths was blotchy and discolored like the greying sheen of necrotic flesh. Black lines spread up from his neck to trace their way under his skin.

  And then there was his eyes. Twin, full-black orbs. He moved not with the ageing, taut movements of the cruel and human he had been, but with the languorous step of a predator.
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br />   “You have been so very difficult to track down, little Nhka. I am going to take great pleasure in punishing you.” The Overseer grinned, and his teeth appeared to be rows upon rows of sharp, yellowed teeth.

  “Mnemoth.” Father Kef curled his lip, wheezing with pain as he staggered to the youth’s side. “You cannot have him. He is under an Ekun’s protection.”

  “Bah!” Jekkers giggled; a high-pitched, burbling sort of sound. “Your old gods are dead or dying, old man, or haven’t you heard? Garn!” the Overseer nodded as a large northerner joined him, and Talin saw that it was the same one that had attacked him in the fire.

  “What do you want from me!” Talin raised his blade, ridiculous against the double-headed battleax.

  “Me? I just want you to suffer, Nhka. But it’s not me who wants you. It’s the Lords of the Reach.” Jekkers inclined his head thoughtfully. “Maybe they won’t need all of you, though.”

  “Hyargh!” Father Kef charged forward, using his staff as a lance to punch the barbarian in his chest. A grunt as he fell back, sweeping up his axe in a snap-blow. With a splintering sound, Kef’s staff was snapped in half and flung to the floor.

  “Can I kill this one, at least?” Garn grunted, gently prodding the place on his thrall harness where the old man’s blow had struck.

  “The old one, I don’t need…” Jekkers conceded.

  “No” Talin shouted, and in that moment of anger and anguish, his voice joined with that of the ship-beast that rode his mind.

  No! Holder raged through him, and Talin felt the rage of boiling blue waters. The Ship’s Medallion at his hip felt like a chip of ice, so cold as to instantly numb.