Geist (12 page)

Over all the noise, Sorcha could hear the neighs of Shedryi and his mare. They were all going to die—that much was obvious as the writhing coils started their downward strike onto the doomed ship—but she was damned if the Breed were going to die in the dimness of a ship’s hold.

Gasping and pushing her sodden hair out of her eyes, Sorcha leapt out of the way of sliding ropes and barrels as the ship lurched to starboard. Briefly, her racing mind considered using Voishem, but the rune of phase was one of the most draining; though it would confer on her the ability to walk through walls, it would not help the horses escape this sudden madness.

Again Sorcha could hear her stallion’s neighs, sounding more demanding than terrified. Merrick had called Shedryi long in the tooth, and had assumed that he was merely a horse to her. Such attachment to a creature could be considered a weakness. Well, he’d know she cared, once she did this.

Opening herself to the Otherside, Sorcha activated Chityre in her Gauntlets. Bracing herself against the bucking and dying vessel, she raised both hands in the direction of the hold where the horses were trapped. The ship was already being ripped apart; one more hole was not going to make any difference. Her Gauntlets lit up like sparkling fireworks as the explosion ripped from her spread fingers. The rune opened a tiny and split-second gap into the Otherside, a blink-of-an-eye moment that would have been an impressive display at any other time, but at this moment was barely noticeable amid the absolute chaos around her. Chityre blew apart the wood of the hatch and the side of the swaying vessel. Nails and debris flew through the air like blades of grass and disappeared through the momentary rift into the Otherside.

Clenching her fist closed about the rune, Sorcha glanced back. Merrick and the girl were following, drenched and pale but somehow still on their feet despite the thrashing monster and the dying ship.

“Yrikhodit,”
Sorcha screamed at the Breed. Both of the horses’ heads snapped up at the command, and the proud, noble creatures did indeed come. With a surge, both stallion and mare leapt over the remains of the hatch, skidding and sliding on their hooves on the pitching deck. Sorcha scrambled onto the stallion while Merrick pulled Nynnia up behind him on the mare.

“Horace!” the young Deacon howled, but the pack mule was lost in the maelstrom of the sinking ship. The great, seaweed-encrusted head of the monster was dropping down toward them. Its mouth, as large as two rowboats, ripped into the remaining mast.

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.

It was another ship, some sort of trading vessel by the look of her; not as fast as
Dominion
, even in her current condition, and she was in the clear air, so they were pulling away from her. Whatever she was, she was not an Imperial Man-o’-War. A large collection of seabirds seemed to be circling the vessel. It was certainly curious, but not dangerous. He was losing interest, unsure what Aleck was so concerned about, and Raed was about to look away when he saw something else odd—something he’d seen only once before in his time on the sea. The water all around the other vessel began to churn as if it were boiling. He could see huge clumps of seaweed bubble to the surface, and white foam and bubbles gathered around the other ship’s hull.

Every sailor knew that there were creatures in the depths, but they were seldom seen, only whispered about. Raed pulled Aachon around and handed him the spyglass, just to make sure that his eyes weren’t deceiving him. They both gaped as the beast, easily twice the size of the boat it preyed upon, wrapped its coils over the masts before bringing them crashing down. The monster had a huge, wedge-shaped head that hung malevolently over the wreck. It reminded Raed of a man crushing a nut in his fist. Dimly, they could make out tiny forms leaping into the ocean in desperation to escape.

It was the law of the sea:
Dominion
’s crew could not sail past such a disaster. Raed squeezed Aachon’s shoulder, leaning in closely to bellow his decision. “Dismiss the storm. We’ve got to help.”

Aachon merely nodded. Raising the weirstone once more, he turned to take back the power that was driving the storm. The cobalt blue stone flashed white, but to no immediate effect. Once summoned, a storm was not so easy to dismiss. The first mate braced himself on the deck, prepared for the drain on his strength.

“All hands,” Raed bellowed, and Laython leapt forward to ring the bell with incredible vigor. The crew boiled out from below with almost military quickness. “Hard to port,” he called, spinning the wheel as nimble hands unfurled the sails. Luckily, the wind was dying a little at his back, or they would have been torn to shreds.

Riding the last of the storm’s strength, they tacked toward the thrashing monster and the dying vessel. “Have you got a plan?” Aachon was almost staggering from side to side with weariness. Dismissing a storm was at the very edge of his power.

Raed grinned. He knew a thing or two about sea monsters. “They can’t last long at the surface, those scaly demons,” he shouted back. “Ripping that ship apart should have exhausted the thing.”

“Should?” His first mate shook his head. “You don’t sound exactly certain . . .”

“Think of it as an experiment. We’ll be able to sell the results to any number of interested scholars.”

“And if your supposition is not correct?”

“Then we will at least die with the knowledge that we have been part of the scientific process!” Raed turned the wheel as they came about.

The smell of rotten seaweed and salt was almost overwhelming. As
Dominion
swung around, the other ship’s back broke with an almighty crack, the few remaining masts crashing into the water as the monster’s coils contracted in a last deadly embrace. The wreckage bobbed on the water for a few seconds, wood entangled with the twisting and scaled form, and then began to slip gradually under.

Raed shot Aachon a satisfied grin as the creature sank out of view. His first mate raised a pointed finger. “Not just yet, my prince.”

The Pretender knew better than to tempt fate; somewhere down there, the monster was probably finishing off what it had taken for its enemy. Creatures of the deep were not known for their intelligence.

He dashed to the side and helped to cast out ropes. The water was full of flotsam and jetsam. Barrels and chests bobbed around in the churning waves.
Dominion
’s crew set about pulling people in as quickly as possible. Those they pulled free of the sea were weak and stunned, and they slumped down on the deck. Traders traveled with few crew, as few as they could get away with; every extra person cut into profits, after all. However, when Raed asked the shaking survivors, it seemed that the Captain had gone down with his ship.