Excerpt: Mother of Storm

Reina made her way out on deck and the crew fell silent. Each man and woman aboard bowed his or her head and those with a free hand raised it in a gesture of blessing. A sharp command from Genea sent everyone back to work. She belted out orders, and exhorted Graynge to keep working on the wind, determined to outrun the storms. Reina was grateful for her effort, but did not allow herself to hope. She brought out the ritual tar paint, ochre red from the blood of a sacrificial harbor seal that had been used to make it, and drew a circle on an open section of the main deck, just aft of the mainmast, where a metal ring was set into the planks. The tarpaint would hold up against rain and wave, and would mark Reina’s position out to the spectral sight of the Hungry Ones. Reina used the slack ends of the silver-laced hemp cord that bound her robe to tie herself to the metal ring in the deck, so that she could hold this position once the storms were upon them and the ship was tossed like a child’s toy among the great waves.

From where she sat Reina could not see the weather watchers sitting on the upper rear deck, but she could hear their chant faltering. She heard Graynge coughing and wheezing, heard one of his apprentices falter in her chant and felt the change in the wind as their weaving came unraveled. The storm clouds were all but upon them, strangely concentrated masses of dark mist laced with lightning closing in on either side, not more than twenty ship lengths off now.

“Genea,” Reina called up to the deck. The first mate appeared at the rail, looking down at her.

“Good gods of home and hearth,” Genea swore, “You’re really going to do it,”

“Tell Graynge to rest now; it’s too late.”

“If we can just get to Ilaean waters,” Genea protested, but they both knew the archipelago was at least a day’s sail away, even if they could keep up this unnatural speed. There was no telling whether they'd find safety there in any case; the renowned magical protection around the islands might keep a cursed storm from forming in their waters, but Reina wondered if even that would be enough to stop the Hungry Ones in the midst of their hunt.

“Prepare the ship to ride out a squall, and have all nonessential crew secure themselves below.”

Genea muttered and cursed, but did as she was told. The crew busied themselves at her commands, and Reina sat still in the midst of it all. The sailors gave her a wide berth. She closed her eyes and turned her focus inward. She could feel the storms approaching, a kind of static electricity prickling all over her body. She tried to make the center of her being like the eye of a storm. She tried to let her terror and rage and despair spiral through the edges of her mind, while allowing an empty space to open in her core. She caught glimpses of that calm center, but kept losing it. The priests had told her to practice the meditations in preparation for this day, but she’d found them interminably boring and had only practiced at the ceremonies held on holy festival days. Now that she faced the near certain annihilation of her soul, she realized this was probably not the best time to discover her inner calm. She only hoped that what she could manage would be good enough for the Hungry Ones.

When Reina opened her eyes the cursed storm was upon them. Rain pelted across the deck, beating down on the wooden planks with a military marching drum’s beat, and stabbing into her exposed skin like a volley of darts. Unlike an ordinary storm, the clouds were not just dark by virtue of blocking sunlight; they were dark like smoke. Tendrils of black mist curled around the rails, dancing across the deck. The crew shied from their touch, but it was no use. Within minutes the dark mist had enveloped the entire ship. Lightning flickered high above, and spectral webs of blue, green and purple fire danced along the masts. The swells were coming hard and fast, though not nearly so bad as she’d expected. Genea aimed the ship headlong into the South, which seemed to be the stronger system, and the Boundless took the waves well; only a few crashed across the foredeck.

Reina had always heard that the Hungry Ones howled like wolves, but she heard only wind, wave, the crackle of lightning, the crash of thunder and the furtive voices of her crew. Still, they had to be near. It was time. She cleared her throat and began to speak, wavering at first.

“I offer my womb to you, mighty ones! Let me bear your seed, only spare my ship!”

She repeated the words again, louder, and then it was time to try and say it in the old tongue. She had memorized the phrase long ago, and had read the phonetic pronunciation in her cabin only minutes before, but in a panic she realized she had forgotten them entirely. She closed her eyes and kept saying it in modern language until the ancient words came to her. When she spoke those words, they felt utterly foreign and she assumed she was mispronouncing them horribly. The syllables just didn’t seem to fit in her mouth, and their sounds wriggled like worms through her mind. Still, she kept at it, alternating between modern and ancient versions at the top of her lungs until she felt her voice going hoarse.

Dimly, she was aware of Genea, the watch officer, and the bosun relaying sightings and commands to each other, but when the watch officer called out “Sails off the port bow!” Reina’s eyes snapped open and she saw for herself a lateen rigged sail emerging out of the mist, just off the port side.

The watch officer called out again, “Sails off the starboard bow!” Another vessel, this one square-rigged, appeared out of the clouds. All at once, the rain stopped and the winds died down. After a dizzying moment of confusion, it all came together. The Hungry Ones were not upon them, but their stormcursed children were. She jumped to her feet, or tried to, but she had tied herself to the deck ring and ended up crashing to her knees in mid jump.

“Pirates!” She shouted, fumbling at the knot she’d tied. “Prepare to repel boarders! All hands on deck!” She gave up on the knot and slid out of her ritual robe, ran into her cabin and grabbed her bow. Almost as an afterthought she covered herself with her nightdress, rather than face the pirates in the nude.