Philippa Ballantine - Geist

This was death, then. Sorcha threw her arms around Shedryi. Long in the tooth. Perhaps that was true, but both of them deserved to die in a better place. With her breath coming in broken gasps, the Deacon leaned down to the stallion.

“ Kysotu , my love,” she whispered into his dark ear.

The ship shifted under them, finally succumbing to the crushing pressure of the monster. Only moments remained. Only heartbeats. The stallion, true to his training, remained steadfast. With a shake of his arched neck, he leapt bravely forward into the waves, his mare following after.

The water was freezing cold, and yet it boiled like a cauldron. She couldn’t see Merrick on Melochi. The ocean was full of wreckage and howling sailors. Underneath her, Shedryi was swimming as hard as he could, almost an underwater gallop. His head stretched forward, nostrils flaring. He had no saddle on, only a bridle. Sorcha felt herself sliding off his slick back, and wrapped her arm around his neck.

The waves surged and she let out a scream into the storm as everything tilted. She caught a glimpse of a tangled mass of rigging and mast swinging toward them. There was nothing she could do. Everything crumpled away into darkness and waves.

The discovery of Corsair had destroyed morale, making every crew member shiver. After Aachon and Raed returned, they cast off from the crippled warship and never said a word about what they had seen there. Silence descended on Dominion . Snook, the thin little strip of a woman who was their navigator, had tried to keep the others back from the railing, but the smell of death and the pool of scarlet on the deck had been witnessed by everyone. They were not fools; they too would know that nothing human had wreaked that vengeance on the Imperial Navy. Raed was not the only one to realize the implications of what had happened.

Aachon kept hold of his weirstone, not putting it away as he usually did, as if to reassure himself and the rest of the crew that it was still alive.

“She’s a hazard,” the Young Pretender whispered to him, jerking his head sideways at the limping warship.

The first mate nodded, understanding immediately. He turned to the gun crew. “Two shots into her, below the water line, if you please, Mr. Eastan.”

The report of the cannons made Raed flinch. He didn’t turn around to watch the battered ship sink under the waves, though he heard many of his crew rush to the railing to do so. He couldn’t blame them for muttering among themselves. It wasn’t every day that a blood-soaked Imperial warship went down to the bottom.

He heard Aachon talking to Byrd. “We will send word to the Imperial Navy when we get to Ulrich. Their families should know.” It was a small danger, yet the right thing to do.

Raed swallowed hard. Those relatives would be better off without the knowledge of what had happened to their loved ones. The image of the desiccated Captain, reaching for his dead weirstone, was burned on the Pretender’s brain. He glanced up where the Rossin flag fluttered over Dominion . The mer-lion was hanging over him, just like in the ancient Curse.

Every assumption of his life had been blown out of the water, as conclusively as Corsair had been, and Raed needed time to pull himself together. He started toward his cabin.

“My prince”—Aachon intercepted him before he could reach the safety of his quarters—“I was thinking . . .” He paused to glance down at the swirling weirstone that he’d still not put away. He cleared his throat. “We need to be away from this area immediately and without delay.”

Dominion had been fast once—the fastest in the Northern Sea. Now, with so many barnacles on her hull and with all their running repairs, she wallowed in her native environment. Once a swift runner, she now could barely walk the course. Raed was about to open his mouth to make some quip, yet when he saw the serious look in his first mate’s eye, he knew what he was suggesting.

The Pretender glanced down at the weirstone for a moment; then he nodded. “When all the cards turn against you, it is time to stack the deck.”

Aachon grinned bleakly and spun about on the deck. “Prepare to run before the wind.”

Most of the crew scrambled up into the rigging, but Byrd, as always, was the one to speak his mind. He turned his sun-browned face into the slight breeze. “But sir, we’re nearly becalmed.”

“My wind, Byrd,” Aachon growled and raised the weirstone to his eye line. “Trim the sheets and batten down those hatches!”

As with every Sensitive, there was a touch of Active within the stern first mate. He seldom used it, but they had witnessed exceptional circumstances this day. Raed would normally have been cautious of any use of the Otherside near him, but he was filled with the desire to be away from this part of the sea. Besides, if a geist could cross the ocean, then maybe he needed to reconsider his options.

As Raed threw his oilskin over his frock coat, he turned and looked to stern. The air was coming alive. He preferred to watch the storm, rather than watch his friend create it. Aachon’s slack, white-eyed look was more than disconcerting; it was positively unnerving. To the south, the clouds were already pulling together and darkening. The sunny day slipped into grayness, and the tang in his nostrils filled Raed with heady delight. Despite the nature of the coming storm, he couldn’t help but revel in its power.

It had been an unholy day, so it seemed fitting to end it with an almighty thunderstorm. Lightning cracked within the clouds and the crew cheered. It seemed a strange reaction, but Raed understood. After having felt so rudderless for the last few months, it was invigorating to be in control of something.

Naturally, it was a different story once the storm was summoned. The winds began to howl and the reduced sails of Dominion whipped in response. Raed turned around to catch Aachon. The tall first mate staggered a step back, his dark complexion pale. There was a decided tremble in his hands as he replaced the weirstone into his pocket. They both looked to stern, into the wind and the clouds that were now coiling on themselves.

“Let’s see that thing catch us now,” Raed yelled in Aachon’s ear. The storm would follow the weirstone that had cast it.

Despite her barnacle-cased hull, Dominion leapt away as if she had only been waiting for the signal. Even with her reduced sail, the storm filled her, sending her flying like an ungainly dancer through the waves. It was not quite as dangerous as a natural storm, but still there was hazard in it. Crew scrambled to clear the decks, until only a few held the essential posts.

Raed, however, would not go below. He wanted to experience the storm and to keep an eye on his ship. Aachon, naturally, was at his side, perhaps not quite as excited by what he had wrought; his Deacon training ran very deep indeed.

In the steel gray light, they ran before the clouds for many hours through the night, with only the occasional glimpse of stars and moon to guide them. Wind and water lashed him, but Raed smiled back into it. For this moment, they had control, and it seemed his ship was reveling in it as much as he was. Surely not even a curse could catch them at such a speed. For those blissful hours, storm-tossed and hectic, the Young Pretender was happy again.

The feeling was, however, broken the next day. Aleck, still up the crow’s nest, began yelling something, waving his hands before pointing to port. Raed strained his ears to catch the look-out’s screams above the roar of the storm. He pulled his spyglass out from underneath his oilskin, and after a moment’s difficulty he managed to train it in the direction Aleck was pointing.