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.”