Sea of Death: Blade of the Flame - Book 3 (26 page)

I
t shouldn’t be long now.”

Nathifa stood at the prow of the
Zephyr
, her bloodless white hands gripping the ice-covered railing. She looked eastward into the darkness, toward Trebaz Sinara. Skarm sat in the pilot’s seat behind the glowing containment ring, keeping the air elemental active. The barghest, while possessing more stamina than a mortal creature, was on the brink of exhaustion. The magic that controlled the elemental was contained within the pilot’s chair itself, but wielding that magic still required the contribution of the pilot’s will. Someone trained in using the seat’s magic could do so with minimum effort, but Skarm had no such training. Thus the energy drain on the barghest was significant. Not that Nathifa cared what happened to Skarm. All that concerned her was reaching Trebaz Sinara and obtaining the last object she needed to realize her dark dreams—and those of her mistress, of course.

The lich sorceress sensed more than heard Makala approach her from behind. A moment later, the vampire joined Nathifa at the railing.

“Haaken is still sleeping. And before you ask, I didn’t take any of his blood … much as I might have wanted to.”

“I would’ve known if you’d tried. And I would’ve punished you.”

Makala smiled, as if to show that Nathifa’s threat didn’t impress her. The vampire was becoming far too bold, and the lich was beginning to regret accepting her as a servant. She reminded herself that Vol sent Makala to her, and that meant the vampire had an important role to play in fulfilling the queen’s plan. But Nathifa vowed to continue keeping close watch on the woman, for she had no doubt that Makala was going to attempt some manner of treachery, and sooner rather than later.

“Why does the man sleep so much?” Makala asked. “He’s no longer human, but he still seems to possess a human’s weaknesses.”

“He’s no longer
only
human,” Nathifa corrected. “He still requires rest, though less than a mortal needs. While you slumbered during the day, Haaken spent several hours practicing his new skills. He’s unused to transforming back and forth between his various forms, and he’s unaccustomed to the physical exertion of swimming so much.”

Letting Haaken swim meant deactivating the air elemental so that he could keep up with the
Zephyr
. Nathifa didn’t like slowing down and adding hours to their journey, but Haaken would be useless to her as a servant if he didn’t possess at least a minimal mastery of his lycanthropic skills. Nathifa forced herself to view the delay as an investment, though it wasn’t easy. She’d bided her time for a hundred years, but now that the culmination of everything she had worked for was finally at hand, she found herself becoming increasingly impatient, almost as if she were a mortal woman again.

She gazed up at the night sky. The cloud cover was light, and the Ring of Siberys was visible off to the south, a luminescent band of golden dragonshards that encircled the world high above the equator. A number of Eberron’s twelve moons could be seen as well, four of them full and bright.

Nathifa frowned. Something tickled at the edges of her memory … something about full moons and sailing on the Lhazaar. It was a memory from her living days, when she and her two brothers had raided throughout the Principalities. But she couldn’t quite—

The moons dimmed and winked out, followed closely by the Ring of Siberys. Nathifa was a lich, and thus couldn’t know fear, but
she felt something distantly akin to that emotion as she looked up at the black sky.

“The sky’s gone dark,” Makala said. “Is a storm coming?” The vampire didn’t sound afraid, merely curious.

Nathifa struggled to call on more memories from her life as a mortal woman. “It doesn’t
feel
like a storm. You can smell a storm coming, even when it’s still miles away.” Not that she could—her sense of smell had died with her mortal body a century ago. But the vampire’s senses were sharp, and Makala should be able to detect a change in the wind’s scent.

The wind began to kick up then, almost as if purposefully contradicting Nathifa’s words. It gathered strength quickly, and was soon blowing with gale force, the air so cold that even Nathifa’s undead flesh could feel it, and for the first time since she’d died, Nathifa shivered.

“It certainly feels like a storm to me!” Makala had to shout to be heard over the roaring of the wind.

“It’s worse than that!” Haaken shouted. “It’s a Ragestorm!”

The two undead creatures turned to see Haaken approaching. Though the newly reborn lycanthrope wore only the black trunks Nathifa had given him, he appeared unaffected by the wind’s icy blast. Nevertheless, the fear he felt was evident in the panicked expression on his face as he gazed up at the blackened sky.

It had been many years since Nathifa had sailed the Lhazaar as a living woman, but she was confident she’d never heard of anything called a Ragestorm. She was about to demand Haaken tell them what he knew, but the lycanthrope spun and headed aft.

“We have to deactivate the elemental!” he shouted over his shoulder as he made his way across the ice-covered deck toward the pilot’s seat. Skarm still sat, hand pressed palm down on the control arm of the chair, keeping the air elemental active.

Nathifa felt a surge of anger. Haaken was
her
servant, and she should be giving orders to him, not the other way around. But the man’s sailing experience was far more recent than hers, and she decided to trust that he knew what he was doing. She once again looked skyward to see what she might be able to discern about this Ragestorm.

Despite the absence of moon and starlight, Nathifa’s undead eyes could see well enough to make out an amorphous, shifting cloud hovering over the
Zephyr
. Some portions of swirling vapor seemed to form suggestions of eyes and mouths—dozens of them. The gale buffeting the sloop blasted down from the cloud, and Nathifa thought the creature—for she was certain the thing, whatever it was, was alive—resembled an air elemental. Or, more accurately, a number of air elementals that had joined together. She sensed malevolence in the cloud, a deep, fierce anger.

“Perhaps we should consider taking shelter in the cabin!” Makala shouted, her voice edged with terror. “Or better yet, the hold!” The vampire, despite her great strength, was having trouble withstanding the force of the Ragestorm. She held onto the handrail for support, gripping it so tight that her fingernails sank into the wood. No doubt she was terrified of being hurled overboard by the gale-force winds, since vampires were weakened by running water. A fast-flowing river was dangerous enough, but the Lhazaar Sea was another degree of peril entirely.

Still, Nathifa ignored Makala’s suggestion. The lich hadn’t been one to run away from a fight when she was alive, and death hadn’t changed that aspect of her personality.

Haaken came stumbling back toward the
Zephyr’s
prow, a terrified Skarm in tow.

“We deactivated the elemental, but I fear we were too late!” Haakan shouted. “The Ragestorm has our scent now, and it won’t let go of us until it gets what it wants!”

“And that is …?” Nathifa asked.

Haaken kept his eyes on the roiling cloud above them as he answered. “A Ragestorm is a group of air elementals that were once bound in containment rings on sailing vessels or airships. During the Last War, when elemental vessels were damaged in battle and their air elementals were released, sometimes they merged into a single creature. I’m not sure why—something to do with the release of the magic within the containment rings themselves. Once a Ragestorm is created, its only purpose is to seek out other bound elementals of its kind, free them, and absorb them into its mass, growing larger and
stronger. The Ragestorm sensed our air elemental and was drawn to our ship. But though we shut down our containment ring, the storm knows we have an air elemental onboard, and it won’t leave until it’s absorbed it!”

Nathifa looked back up at the Ragestorm with renewed interest and pondered what, if anything, her magic might be able to do to drive the creature off, if not destroy it altogether. Elementals of any stripe were notoriously hard to work with, and it required a high degree of mystic finesse and skill to deal with them. Nathifa had no training in the handling of elementals, and very little practical experience to drawn on. She wished she had Espial with her, but the obsidian skull that allowed her to hear her mistress’s voice was inside the cabin, and she feared there wasn’t time to retrieve it. She would’ve liked to consult her goddess on the best way to deal with the Ragestorm. But then, Vol preferred to help those who helped themselves.

The wind increased until it felt as if claws of ice raked their flesh. Nathifa could feel a column of air surround her, and a quick glance told her the others were experiencing the same thing. The Ragestorm was reaching out with invisible hands and grabbing hold of each of them. She felt air spinning rapidly around her, pressing inward with each revolution. The Ragestorm was attempting to crush them. Accompanying the sensation of increasing pressure was a feeling of movement, as if Nathifa were being lifted upward by the small whirlwind that had taken hold of her. But her feet remained on the
Zephyr’s
deck, as did the others’. She was puzzled for a moment until she realized that they
were
being lifted upward because the
ship
itself was rising. The Ragestorm had grasped the sloop within its winds and was bearing the craft aloft, most likely intending to dash the
Zephyr
back into the sea, cracking the ship open like an egg, destroying the containment ring, and releasing its trapped brother. Voices shrieked in the wind, screaming rage in a language Nathifa didn’t recognize, though she was able to divine the basic meaning from the tone.

You hunt us …

… capture us, enslave us …

Now it is
we
who hunt
you
…

You shall pay for what you’ve done to us, what you’ve done to our brother …

Nathifa knew that she had only seconds to act to prevent the Ragestorm from ruining everything she had worked so long and hard for, had sacrificed so much for …

She knew only a little about elementals, but from what Haaken had said, the release of mystic energy which occurred when the containment rings were destroyed acted as a binding agent of some sort, fusing the elementals and holding them together. But if a different sort of mystic energy were introduced into the mix, perhaps the binding agent could be disrupted.

You shall pay …

… pay, pay, pay!

The column of whirling air that pressed against her like the squeezing hand of an invisible giant prevented her from filling her lungs, and without enough air to speak, she couldn’t use any spells that required a spoken component. And since her arms were pinned to her sides by the Ragestorm, the same went for spells that needed mystic gestures. That severely limited her options. If only she held the Amahau … but no, she’d left it back in the cabin. For safekeeping, of all things.

PAY, PAY, PAY!

She felt her ribs beginning to crack under the pressure the Ragestorm applied, and though she experienced no pain, she didn’t relish the idea of being an undead ragdoll, her body crushed to the point of uselessness. With no time left, she chose to forego subtlety in favor of sheer power. She concentrated on gathering the necromantic energies at the core of her foul being—the dark power that dwelled where her mortal lifeforce once had—and using only the power of her will, she thrust the energy toward what she sensed was the heart of the elemental conglomerate that held them and their ship in its grasp.

A bolt of crackling ebon energy lanced forth from Nathifa’s forehead and streaked into what she judged was the center of the creature—though in truth, she had no idea if this thing even
had
a center. The voices of the Ragestorm raised in pitched and took on an
edge of desperation as the necromantic energy she’d released began to eat away at the ties binding the air elementals to one another.

No, you mustn’t!

Stop … please!

We beg you!

“You want me to stop? Fine!” Nathifa shouted into the wind. “Release us and be on your way! Otherwise, I’ll keep attacking, and you’ll be
forced
to let us go!”

The shrieking stopped and the wind’s anger abated somewhat, though it didn’t entirely vanish. The
Zephyr
remained aloft, though Nathifa had no idea how high above the sea she hovered. Nathifa had the impression the Ragestorm had paused in its attack and was trying to decide its next move.

They didn’t have long to wait.

The wind ceased, and the
Zephyr
—possessing all the aerodynamic properties of a large boulder—plunged to the waiting sea below. The sloop hit the water, sending up great plumes of seaspray. The whirling column of air that had held Nathifa withdrew, and when the
Zephyr
struck the surface, the lich was knocked off her feet. Before she could stand, a wave washed over the rail, engulfed her, and carried her away.