Dave Gross - Lord of Stormweather

"Not all of it," agreed Tamlin. "Once we've finished unearthing this gate, I will have Magdon figure out how to activate the thing."

"In the meantime," said Thamalon, "I must find your mother and Cale."

"No," said Tamlin, "first we'll get you back here, then we'll look for them together."

"You might be the temporary head of the household, but I am still your father, and I say…" Thamalon's voice was building to the familiar crescendo of irrefutable orders before it trailed off uncharacteristically. "Well, dark and damnation. I say you are right."

"What?" said Tamlin.

"I said, 'You are right.'"

"Careful," said Tamlin, "if we keep agreeing people will think we're both imposters."

"By the same coin, you must promise me that you will place the safety of the household above my rescue."

"Very well, but-"

"Including your brother's."

"Now you're just trying to vex me…" said Tamlin, "but I agree. I shall see to Stormweather first. It's settled then. Can you stay safely where you are?"

"Not for long, I fear," said Thamalon, "but perhaps I can return. My host should be back from his hunt soon. I expect hell go out again in the morning."

"Judging from what you've told me, you've been away for only eight days?"

Thamalon agreed it was so.

"Fourteen have passed here since you vanished."

It was Thamalon's turn to whistle appreciatively.

"Why could you never pay such careful attention during our trade conferences?" he asked.

"Such dull stuff, don't you know," said Tamlin. "Actually," he continued in a more serious tone, "I suspect I have a knack for this magic business after all."

"As well you might," said a third voice-a voice that sounded very much like Tamlin's, "but I am not prepared to relinquish my legacy just yet."

The passage shook, and Tamlin almost fell to the floor. He held onto the wall for support as thunder rolled through the secret passage. A flash of white light blinded him for an instant, and he heard his father shout a curse that disintegrated into a scream of agony.

"Father! What's happening there? I just saw-"

"You were such a timid boy," boomed the other Tamlin's voice. "From your brother I might have expected such willful abuse of my hospitality, but from you, Thamalon, you bookworm, you coin counter-" the man's laughter was full of mock admiration- "I expected much less."

For a moment, Tamlin thought the patronizing voice was addressing him, then Thamalon spoke again.

"Father! How did you…?" the Old Owl managed to say before his voice failed.

Tamlin had only seen the flashing light, but he feared his father had felt its full power.

"Whoever you are, release my father at once!" demanded Tamlin. He gripped his sword, wishing he could thrust its point through the worlds and into the heart of the villain who tormented his sire. "Return him now, or suffer the wrath of the Uskevren."

"Brave boy!" the man's laughter boomed even louder. "I am the wrath of the Uskevren."

Then, with a shock of thunder and another blinding flash, the stranger severed whatever tenuous link had held the two houses together.

"Here they come!" shouted Muenda.

Cale watched the southern horizon. A dark wedge of clouds swept toward them like a vanguard. Lightning flashed deep within its roiling mass.

He looked to either side, where the other skwalos soared beside their own. Their line stretched from east to west in a graceful arc, each within range of the next one's archers for mutual defense.

In the days since they'd joined the elves, more of the gargantuan creatures had joined their southward trek. Cale noticed the first at dawn after their first night upon the skwalos. Throughout that morning, one or two more appeared each hour. By noon, they began combining with larger groups until they formed an armada over one hundred strong.

Before long, Cale realized that the skwalos they'd "boarded"-he couldn't avoid sailing terms when describing the creatures-was a small specimen. Whole villages, and even thorny fortifications hung from the trees, sprawled on the backs of the greater skwalos. From aeries in the immense dorsal ridges of the largest skwalos flew elves on the backs of fantastic creatures that might have seemed gigantic if seen apart from their enormous hosts. Some were winged reptiles with great horns upon their skulls. Others looked more like bats the size of a mainsail, except for their many eyes and their three beaked mouths. One that glided down to perch upon a distant skwalos could only be a blue dragon.

"Do you see anything?" asked Shamur.

The willowy Lady Uskevren had tied her ash-blond hair in a tail that whipped behind her head like a war banner. The shreds of her skirts flew back as well, revealing strong legs that would have made a woman half her age envious. She gripped an elven bow with an arrow already nocked, and she wore a quiver of long arrows on her hip.

The elves had trusted them with weapons in return for their oath that they would defend the skwalos so long as they remained aboard. Cale had accepted a bow and arrows as well as a long, sharp spear. He would have preferred a sword, in case the attackers managed to board the skwalos.

"There," said Cale, pointing to a spot above the storm front. A line of nine flyers in wedge formation emerged from the obscuring clouds. Aquiline heads, talons, and wings merged with muscular leonine bodies: griffons. Had they not been arrayed in an attacking force, Cale might have been glad to see a creature more familiar to the lands he knew.

The griffons were uniformly huge, even larger than the pair Cale had glimpsed at the Talendar stables a year before. Each bore two riders clad in bright armor and scarlet cloaks. One of each pair held the reins in one hand and a long needle of a lance under the other arm. The second perched atop a higher seat in the saddle and wielded a recurved bow.

The elves sang to each other from the backs of their skwalos. Their ululating calls passed from east to west, then back again. Cale translated the salient portions for Shamur.

"The Vermilion Guard," he said. "Elite soldiers."

Even as he spoke, four more groups emerged from the nearby clouds. Shamur's gaze never left the approaching griffons.

"I have an idea," she said.

When she relayed it to Cale, he could only groan.

"Even if we can gull them," he said, "what makes you think we could control one?"

"Trust me," she said.

"My Lady…"

"Call me Shamur," she said, turning a confident grin on him. It didn't assuage his concern, but its determined beauty had a stifling charm on his protest. "At least until we return to Stormweather."

Cale sighed and said, "Yes, my lady Shamur."

"Come on," she said. "We might not have chosen this adventure, but we can at least enjoy it."

"We should wait to see what the elders do," said Cale.

He strongly suspected that Rukiya, Kamaria, and Akil were powerful wizards. The old elves had spent the morning preparing harnesses of mystic tokens and materials for their spells. A few of the younger elves had done the same, but they'd intoned songs of flight and flown to the other skwalos hours earlier, leaving the defense of their home to Muenda and the other scouts.

Cale realized that Shamur might not be the only one who intended to lure the Vermilion Guard into assaulting their skwalos. The gambit was already working, for the first squad began diving toward them.

A flight of arrows heralded their arrival. None of the missiles found an elf target, and if they pricked the skwalos to irritation, the great beast displayed no ire. As the bowmen reached for their second volley, the griffons swooped low across the surface of the skwalos. The lancers raked the elders' tent, which immediately blossomed into a fountain of flame.