Ready for the Storm

The next few days were disturbingly quiet. Crystal didn’t do anything that would attract attention. Ajiin vanished onboard the Ark, as he usually did when they made port. Grandmother Stormrider stopped harassing the twins and their mother even managed to remain quiet about her feelings concerning them being on Stormguard. Sabreur didn’t even blow anything up, a fact that was causing him mild depression. Oh, he would never admit it, but Langley could tell. There just wasn’t the glitter in his eyes and the half-grin that came only when calculating the physics behind the last explosion and how he could make the next one bigger and better.

The night watches on Stormguard were tolerable. For six hours of the night the twins sat out on Pinnacle, where the waves pounding on the cliffs swallowed any conversation. They brought lanterns and alternated between watching the skies and paying attention to whatever they brought to pass the time. Langley read. Sabreur wrote design specifications for voidbombs, back out of Langley’s direct eyeshot. And the hours passed and turned into days.

The Ark was scheduled to take a load of cargo to one of the outlaying islands within Alannis territory, when it arrived in Pinnacle Harbor via a land caravan. It was approximately a week away when the Ark landed. The twins were surviving by staying with their parents. Their crew was affording food and such from their wages, which were made possible by an advance to the twins from the Stormrider family. Having a wealthy background had its advantages.

Around mid-week, at midday, the bells on Pinnacle sounded. Sabreur was in the ‘mancy lab in the Ark, Langley was in the marketplace with her mother. The first one tolled and the hum of voices dwindled into nothingness around them. The second sounded. Then the third, and then a fourth time. Then silence.

As the last peal rolled out over the town the people resumed their bustle. This was different though. There was a sense of urgency in it as venders packed up their goods and shut down their stalls. Shopkeepers started pulling out sheets of wood to nail over the windows. And in the middle of the chaos Langley turned to her mother.

“I have to go,” she said softly, “Its midday. There’s going to be ships on the harbor.”

“There are other Stormguard,” Neria whispered.

“I’m a Stormrider. I have to go. It’s what we do.”

She glanced back at the sky. Already the clouds were visible, rolling in fast and the sea beneath them darkened to a sickly purple. Lightning trailed in the wake.

“Andriss-“

But Langley cut her off.

“It happens! Alright, it happens.” She took a deep breath. “Mother, I love you, you know this, but I can’t sit back and let someone else’s son or daughter race the storm when I should be doing the same.”

Neria stood straight and still. The emotion fled her face after a moment of visible effort.

“And you’re an adult now,” she said softly, “I seem to forget that.”

“I’ll be back.”

Langley tipped her hat, bowed, and turned and sprinted down the streets. As she ran, she called, “Stormrider! Move!” and the crowds parted for her, diving against the walls to get out of her way. She was needed at the docks along with her kin.

Sabreur was waiting for her. Crystal, Ajiin, and a few other crewmembers were as well.

“Not taking the Ark out, Captain?” one asked as she skidded to a stop on the wooden planks.

“Course not, it’s not near fast enough,” Langley replied and scanned the harbor.

Sabreur had already readied one of the Stormrider sloops. It was a small craft, an open-top vessel with two sails and no skimmer drive. The hull was covered with ‘mancy runes. Langley hopped aboard and took the wheel.

“Can I come?” Crystal asked, watching the storm.

“No, this is Stormrider business,” Sabreur replied, jumping onboard as well and seeing to the sails, “People die doing this.”

“Andriss did?”

Sabreur hesitated for only a moment.

“Yes,” he said, “He did.”

And they cast off. Two other sloops were already racing out towards the outskirts of the harbor, swinging wide around the fishing boats and other assorted craft that dotted it and the ocean beyond. They would circle around and sweep up behind the ships as they made their way to safety. If they all made it in before the storm hit, good, if not, they would be the guides and rescuers to those stranded in the maelstrom.

“Mihos says,” Crystal called but neither twin appeared to be listening and moving quickly out of earshot. The girl panted for breath, then said softly, “I’m supposed to tell you that Andriss is proud…”

Three sloops. Four Stormriders. The Stormguard watchman on the Pinnacle, ringing the bell again in a second iteration of the warning. And the storm, bearing in with a supernatural speed. This was what it was like on the northern coast of Alannis and why the Stormriders died young. The storms were fast, destructive, and the family was the guardian of the people.

“Think we can beat it?” Langley asked as the wind started to tussle with her hair.

“Wind is against us.”

“It always is.”

She reached up and pulled the feather from her hat. Twirled it. And the wind swirled about their craft, curved back around, and filled their sails. They fairly sprang across the waves, dancing from white top to white top.

“The elves say there is a sea god and that storms are drawn in the wake of his horses.”

Sabreur grunted in response. He was watching the harbor and the ships within. There were few out today and they would all make it back to safety in time. Save one. That fishing vessel there where the seas were starting to darken under the approaching storm.

“That other sloop is going to beat us,” Sabreur commented.

“We’re Langley and Sabreur!” she cried in response, “No cousin is going to outrace us in the face of a storm. Boost my ‘mancy.”

He nodded and closed his eyes in concentration. Most ‘mancers had to work a little harder to cooperate their efforts. A token of a person was usually required as well as a connection akin to a relay. But these were twins. Their very blood was the same.

Langley pulled hard on the wheel and the sloop groaned as it turned, dipping low towards the waves. They cut past their rival by mere feet and Langley took one hand off the wheel long enough to doff her hat and wave it with a crow of triumph.

“She’s ours!” she called, “Go chase home the others like a good sheepdog! We’ll be the greyhounds today.”

A derogatory exclamation about the nature of the twin’s parentage was their only response. Still laughing Langley straightened the ship out and headed directly for the shipping boat. She was struggling already, being a ship built for steady waters and not the fight of the high seas.

“Think we’ll get her home in time?” Sabreur asked.

“If not we’ll be quite cozy with their crew squashed on here.”

“Think we’ll get ourselves home in time?”

“If not,” Langley replied even softer, “We’ll be seeing the underworld firsthand. I say we camp in Mihos’s realm and annoy him.”

Up on Pinnacle the watchman crouched at the very edge, staring out at the approaching storm. It was going to be a nasty one. The purple sheen on it spoke of ‘mancy brewing deep within those black clouds. These things often carried their own currents with them, the raw energy of the storm swirling up ‘mancy in strange patterns and eventually feeding it into one vicious cycle. Hopefully it wouldn’t discharge over Pinnacle. Hopefully they’d have enough ‘mancers to redirect it if it did.

There were footsteps behind him. He turned to the woman walking up to stand beside him.

“Aunt Neria,” he said softly, “You really should be at the manor.”

“The manor can take care of itself,” she replied, “I am not needed.”

The watchman turned to see what she was staring at. A lone sloop, out past the boundary of the harbor, heading for a stranded vessel.

“Besides,” she said softly, “I want to watch over my children.”

He wanted to say that this was not something that would be good for her to watch. That there was nothing she could do for them now. But something in the paleness of her face and the way her eyes glittered told him that he should remain silent and allow her to stay. So he turned his attention back to the sloop, the ship, the storm, and the collision of the three.

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