Storm Unbound

by Leo Hull

“You heard the foreman at the docks.” Tristan placed a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Drop me and the chest on the starboard side then you lot can do whatever you want.”

  The head rower swallowed, then nodded. When they maneuvered the boat closer, an angry guard yelled down and brandished a bow until Tristan moved aside and gestured at the chest. By the time the boat was tied up next to the Horizon, a small crew had gathered and was working to lower netting.

  “No, we have this from here,” one of them yelled when Tristan made to grab the webbing, the chest hefted on one shoulder. He kept his head down and didn’t budge.

  “Tomas said to put it on the deck myself,” Tristan yelled back, then turned to the rowers. “Tell them.”

  “Aye, Gregory said so too.”

  There was muted discussion above him, then Tristan suppressed a grinned as the crew hauled on the webbing and he inched upwards. As he crested the edge of the ship, Tristan found himself staring at a crew of eight, working together and cursing as they pulled him and the chest upwards. He gripped the ship’s rail and had one foot swung over when he locked eyes with Talek, the man’s bulk filling the door under the ship’s quarterdeck.

  For one brief instant, they locked eyes like two predators circling a fresh kill.

  “Stop him!” Talek shrieked as Tristan heaved the chest at the closest of Talek’s men, fully opening himself to his Bolstered Gift. This wasn’t the time to hold anything back.

  The throw was weak, but it didn’t matter much given the weight of the chest. It crashed into the men, spinning the first around as a corner opened his cheek from mouth to ear. Those behind fared little better. Their screams filled the air, the bulky projectile snapping limbs and pinning one to the deck.

  There was the strangest moment of calm, like the seconds between the flash of lightning and the resulting crash of thunder. The crew gaped at him and Tristan glowered right back. The port side crane had a bundle of barrels, and it swung with the ship’s rolling as the crew abandoned the freight to confront him.

  Violence hung in the air.

  Everyone know what was coming.

  Tristan smiled and cracked his neck, welcoming the confrontation. Talek had nowhere left to run.

  Tristan took a step forward but paused when he felt Nessa pull at him. He gave her everything she wanted.

  The docks erupted in a burst of light so powerful it nearly blinded Tristan despite it being daylight. Lightning crawled over men, cargo, and the tangle of half-loaded boats, even arcing to a few ships halfway into the harbor.

  Something caught in the tangled mess and a plume of water soared into the air as high as the acropolis along with wreckage of a dozen ships. A shockwave sped across the harbor, a rippling ever-expanding wave of invisible force. When it hit the Horizon, the vessel rocked violently, even the experienced seamen struggling to keep their feet.

  Tristan’s ears rang as he surged forward, more of a controlled fall than he would have liked, but still enough to close the gap with Talek. He could feel Nessa’s surprise from whatever she had touched off. But there was nothing he could do for Nessa from here.

  The crew seemed shell-shocked into inaction, but Talek’s desperate high-pitched yowling shook the cobwebs from their heads.

  Half-way across the deck, Tristan crashed into the guards.

  He twisted between their hastily drawn swords, scattering them across the deck with his charge. He ripped his own sword free, growling in frustration at the delay in his vengeance. He chopped down savagely, content to batter the guards using strength to try and end this quickly.

  His ferocity pushed them back at first, but soon they pressed around him and Tristan had to fight with more purpose.

  He grabbed the arm of a thrusting guard, helping the man’s sword along into a compatriot’s rather surprised belly. He rolled with the ship, tumbling beneath a wild swing and into the legs of two advancing guards. One clattered to the deck, Tristan driving his short sword upwards through the man’s chin. The other stumbled backwards into the path of the crane’s swinging cargo and was carried free of the deck.

  Tristan ripped his blade free and rolled to the side, regaining his feet in a surprising bubble of space. The guards formed a semicircle around him using the ship’s rail to keep him hemmed in. None made to advance on him.

  Tristan swallowed as he saw the reason why. On the quarterdeck stood a man and two women with silver-flecked hair.

  Tristan felt the Ground probing, forming a connection between him and the two Sparks. It felt a bit like someone pressing at him, but far weaker than when Perran had deflected Nessa’s lightning. Tristan pushed back and provided an alternative path, redirecting the Ground’s attempted connection as the Sparks sent energy coursing towards him.

  Tristan wasn’t sure who was more surprised at the lightning’s diversion. The opposing Ground hadn’t been expecting Tristan to defend himself, but Talek’s crew bore the brunt of the shocking change in events.

  Tristan turned the lightning on Talek’s guards, opening holes in the circle of steel around him.

  The Ground severed the connection as the first of Talek’s guards twitched, but Tristan grabbed hold and was surprised to see the two Sparks smiling as they poured their energy into Talek’s men.

  Combined, these two Sparks seemed to channel only a small fraction of what Nessa could, but it was still enough. The clatter of men dropping and twitching on the wooden deck filled the air as Tristan wiped out half of Talek’s guards in the blink of an eye.

  Tristan didn’t give the rest a chance to regroup.

  He stalked forward, quickly dispatching two trying to climb to their feet. When he heard the sound of boots on the deck, Tristan turned to face the remaining guards.

  Despite their dwindling numbers, Talek’s men remained disciplined. A guard jumped at Tristan, his sword raised for a vicious two-handed chop that likely would have split Tristan to his navel if he’d stayed to receive it.

  Instead, Tristan helped the man over the railing where he bounced off the edge of a barge then disappeared beneath the churn of water between the swarm of boats. The move left Tristan open, and a sword bit into his thigh then tangled in the expensive fabric.

  Deep in the fog of battle and his Bolstered Gift, the wound felt like the sting of a bug and Tristan swatted the attacker away with a backhand that rearranged the man’s grin into a bloody hole.

  Tristan slid the sword out of his pant leg, sighing as his Gift raged out of control.

  He was invincible, these men as capable of stopping him as a ship stopping a storm.

  He threw himself at the half-dozen or so standing guards, batting aside blades of terrified foes like gnats before splitting one from hip to groin as casually as slicing an apple.

  Tristan stumbled on the blood-slickened deck, just enough to pause his advance. Talek’s guards fled, abandoning the fight and the ship as if Tristan were a leviathan emerged from the depths rather than a single man.

  Guards lay dead or dying, scattered across the bloodied deck and crying for water and mothers and mercy.

  The Ground lay slumped on the Quarterdeck, the two Sparks clambering down the webbing Tristan had come up on.

  The door Talek had stood in was empty, beckoning to him.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Tristan rushed through the doorway with one sword pointed, ready to impale Talek if the man charged with supernatural speed as he had done in the first rescue attempt.

  Only darkness greeted him.

  And the strangest ship Tristan had ever heard of.

  Unlike the wooden deck, the interior of the ship was solid metal, the walls, ceiling, and floor the smooth grey shade of the Fallen’s vessels. Stairs disappeared downwards, each step textured for grip even if wet.

  Tristan’s boots rang loudly as he descended, and he felt his concentrated fury slip at the odd interior. Something more was going on here than just a local crime lord fleeing. The same unnatural lights that lit the Fallen stairs and halls cast
their colorless glow here.

  A woman’s cry echoed upwards, and Tristan hastened his passage, ducking through a hatch at the bottom into a narrow hallway. Ahead a door stood open, warm, flickering lamp light spilling outwards. Tristan almost rushed towards it, but as his rage dimmed, his training resurfaced.

  Talek was dangerous and capable of killing him, even with the injured foot slowing him.

  Talek wouldn’t have relied on just the measures Tristan had already fought his way through.

  He paused, his patience rewarded when a bald old man with a trimmed grey beard popped his head through the distant door. He said nothing, but his eyes were wide with warning and he pointedly jerked his head towards a cracked door just a few steps from Tristan before vanishing and sealing himself away.

  The thuds of barges and boats against the Horizon’s hull drowned out all else.

  Tristan veered to the door, pushing it open slowly with one sword ready to stab forwards. The room was dark, but a sliver of light from the hall fell upon a gaunt corpse suspended in a dark metal chamber about the size of a bed on end.

  Bands ran across legs, arms, and neck, each so loose it looked as if she could have slipped from her restraints had she not so clearly died of starvation or some wasting disease. Her skin was pale to the point of translucence, her veins visible even in death.

  Rot hadn’t set in yet and the torment the woman had endured before death was frozen in a permanent baring of her teeth from where she had chewed away her lips in pain. Never had Tristan seen such a picture of suffering and never did he want to again.

  Yet he couldn’t look away.

  Tristan’s gorge rose as he stepped into the room, every instinct within him screaming in protest at the sight of the tortured body.

  The woman was tall, her thin hair patchy and missing. Could it be Annik? She had the height, but her skin was stretched tightly, and her body was so distorted by suffering that he couldn’t be sure. Tristan stepped closer, his stomach a pit at the possibility he was too late.

  The corpse’s head snapped up and issued forth a weak wheeze that took every bit of her exhausted being.

  Tristan startled, jumping backwards and bringing his swords up reflexively just in time to avoid the brunt of Talek’s reckless assault. The sword in Tristan’s left hand cut into Talek, the man’s own charge doing most of the work, while his right deflected a blade he hadn’t even seen.

  It wasn’t much of a victory.

  Tristan was spun across the room, one sword stuck in Talek and the other knocked from his hand when he smashed into the ground. He quickly pulled on his Gift, ignoring blossoming pain as he rolled to the side just in time for Talek to thunder past him like a stampeding bull.

  Talek’s speed should be impossible.

  When Tristan had last fought him, Talek had balanced precariously on one leg, his other foot and ankle mangled by kicking Tristan. None but a skilled Bolstered could recover from an injury like that so quickly, and Talek’s Gift provided a very different power. Talek must have access to something that healed in this strange vessel.

  The method behind Talek’s healed ankle didn’t matter right now, only that he seemed to be at full strength.

  Tristan pushed himself up and drew a knife that likely wasn’t long enough to even pierce the layer of fat that Talek wore like armor. His sword stuck out of Talek’s shoulder, and Tristan watched in horror as Talek pulled it free, the wound closing faster than even he could manage.

  To the side, a woman screamed with far more strength than the corpse-like figure could manage, her ragged voice racked with anguished suffering.

  Annik hung in an identical contraption, naked and straining against her bonds. The chords of her tendons stood out, until she sagged and collapsed. Her muscles strained against sunken, paper-thin skin, the first sign of whatever ate away at her.

  Soon, she would look like her corpse-like companion.

  Rage and helplessness swirled through Tristan. She was alive, but barely.

  “Work with me,” Talek offered. “I don’t have to kill you.”

  “Kill me?” Tristan repeated, turning back to confront his monstrous enemy.

  In answer Talek raced forwards accompanied by another wheeze from the hanging corpse, a sword darting out faster than Tristan could follow to trace a line of pain across his chest and arm.

  The wound wasn’t deep, but the message was clear. Tristan hadn’t even had time to attempt a parry and Talek could have separated his head from his shoulders if he had wanted to.

  Talek grinned at him.

  Tristan couldn’t win in a head to head fight. He tried not to let the realization show on his face. Talek could apparently heal, and his speed was too much for Tristan. If Nessa were here, her lightning could match his quickness and give them a chance.

  But Nessa wasn’t here.

  “Come west with me. There is so much more out there than this small backwater or whatever land you came from. You can bring the girl, Nessa, with you. There is much we still don’t understand, but with your help we can know a bit more. You’re a Ground, in addition to whatever she is.” Talek gestured at Annik. “That shouldn’t be possible, so come help us and we can help each other.”

  “We?” Tristan asked, though he didn’t care about the answer. He could feel Nessa opening herself to him, offering her power to aid him.

  “The Risen.” Talek smiled and opened his arms. “Come with—”

  Tristan focused his awareness on Talek as he had done with Nessa.

  His reality seemed to split as if he were reaching towards himself in a mirror, but the connection did nothing when he made it.

  No lightning flowed from him like it did Nessa, but he felt the crackling power around his fist desperate to escape.

  Tristan’s arm shot forward, his dagger lancing across the room, tethered to his arm by a tendril of blue-white current. It slammed into Talek and his fat rippled with convulsions from the burst of lightning.

  Annik began screaming off to the side, her voice ragged with pain.

  Talek stumbled but managed to keep his feet. His hair burned away, and blisters covered his body, but somehow, he was still alive. Talek ripped the dagger free and Annik’s screams continued as the spiderweb of singed flesh and blisters healed.

  Talek was stealing Annik’s Gift, Tristan realized with sudden clarity.

  Which meant the wheezing gasps from the other woman had to be where he got his speed.

  Tristan didn’t hesitate.

  The woman was practically a corpse and doomed to a life of endless torture as long as Talek lived. Even if she was freed, her life would be one of suffering and nightmares.

  Talek lifted his sword, a snarl on his face, but as he rushed forwards, Tristan lashed out with another charged knife, this time at the gaunt woman collared to the strange contraption. The hilt of the dagger thumped against her chest, but the loaded lightning coursed into her in that brief instant, a merciful end to her tortured undeath.

  Talek’s sprint turned into a stumble, his arms waving helplessly as the livestock-sized man suddenly found his bulk a hinderance to locomotion.

  Tristan would have laughed at the spectacle of Talek’s sudden gracelessness if not for momentum, which carried Talek’s stumbling mass straight into him. The wind rushed from Tristan’s lungs as he was pinned beneath Talek.

  “What have you done?” Talek raged, spit flying from his mouth. He flailed on Tristan, his uncoordinated assault still dangerous if only from the weight behind each blow. The crushing mass made each breath a struggle.

  Tristan absorbed them, hoping Serana had fueled his Bolstered Gift enough to hold. Tristan’s remaining knives were hidden beneath Talek, but he still had Nessa’s lightning.

  Tristan called and Nessa answered with everything she had left.

  Lightning crackled along his hands. He drove his thumbs into Talek’s eyes, his fingers wrapping around the sides of Talek’s pudgy head. Talek screamed, Annik’s voice rising to meet his
.

  Tristan ignored Annik’s pained cries. Her suffering would end quickest with Talek’s death. Energy flowed from him, the bond with Nessa surging to the point that he felt nothing but her raw force.

  She was the Fallen’s power and it poured through him into Talek’s skull.

  Talek’s head popped in a fountain of blood and brain that silenced both his and Annik’s screams.

  Tristan retched as blood poured from Talek onto him, but he was helpless beneath the weight. He struggled, trying to push or twist his way free, but Talek’s mass pinned him so effectively he might as well be paralyzed.

  Only his and Annik’s breathing filled the room. She hung their limply, as helpless as he was. When he called to her, she didn’t react, but the fact that she breathed was enough for now. He could feel Nessa, Lydia, and Serana moving closer and he could only hope they would reach him before any of Talek’s men returned to the scene.

  He also hoped they would be able to move Talek together, something he wasn’t convinced they would be able to do.

  Despite his predicament, relief flooded him.

  Talek was dead and Annik was still alive.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Tristan’s fears of dying while trapped under Talek’s body were short-lived.

  The ship’s only remaining inhabitant, the elderly man that had pointed Tristan in Talek’s direction, appeared shortly after Talek’s demise. The Steward, surprisingly hale despite his age, insisted on being called by his title. When the girls arrived later, however, they named him Stewart and he’d given up his grumbled protestations after only a few hours. He had been so overjoyed when he found Tristan pinned beneath Talek’s corpse that Tristan thought he might collapse from excitement.

  Stewart had evidently discovered the Horizon years ago before having the misfortune of seeking backing from Talek’s organization, the Risen, to study it. He hastily explained how he’d been confined to the ship, forbidden from leaving lest he spill its secrets. His gratitude over Talek’s end seemed boundless. Decades had passed since he’d last left the ship, and Stewart wanted nothing more than to study it freely and share his knowledge. He offered the ship and his services to Tristan before Talek’s bulk had even been moved.