Reavers of the Tempest

by J M D Reid

  “Such a waste of time,” Guts muttered. “None of us were stuck by lightning. Right? None of you saw nothing strange?”

  “I observed nothing unusual, though it was such a chaotic mess,” Estan said. “Which is what I told the investigator.”

  “I saw nothing but men dying,” Vay said. “Only reason I’m even alive is ‘cause one of our Windwarden’s died. The Cyclone rocked the Spirituous so violently, the Stormrider ‘bout to kill me was pitched over the gunwale instead.”

  “I was hit in the head by some dumb sailor’s crossbow,” Zeirie said, staring at her boot nudging a rock in the grass. “I turned around just in time for his wild flailing to catch me in the face. I was out like a light. Woke up with a headache and discovered we’d won and most of my detachment was dead.”

  “I had the misfortune of a Stormrider falling on me thanks to our illustrious sergeant’s unconventional tactics.”

  “Sorry, Estan,” Ary said, hands gripped tight behind his back. He felt his marines’ eyes on him.

  “It’s of no matter. Battle is such a chaotic event. I’ve read so many treaties on them, but the reality was far more . . .”

  “Terrifying?” Guts suggested.

  “Messy.” Estan’s voice grew tight. “So much blood . . .”

  Captain Vebrin returned for the third time. “Able Sailor Grogen, Scout Huarm, Chief Hurhen, Corporal Huson, Sergeant Jayne, Warrant Officer Jayne, Lieutenant Jhoch, Able Sailor Lroff, Able Sailor Luth, and Able Sailor Mayen.”

  Ary stepped forward, the corporal falling in at his side. Chaylene and Velegrin strode towards them, joined by the medical officer and the sailors named. Captain Vebrin marched them in silence through camp.

  The buzzing in his stomach grew worse. How am I going to fool a griffin?

  Captain Vebrin delivered them to the administration building foyers. They crowded around the clerk’s desk. The gulf in the march vanished as Chaylene leaned against the wall beside him, her hand finding his. Corporal Huson’s lips tightened whenever she glanced at them. She stood at parade rest in the center of the room, back straight.

  No one else did.

  Blessedly for Ary, the interviews were all short, lasting only a few minutes each. The waiting gnawed at him. He hated fear chewing at his soul. He would march in there and . . . he didn’t want to think about the and.

  No sooner had Corporal Huson trooped upstairs than she was marching back down. She glanced at Ary. “Sergeant, you’re next.”

  Chaylene gave his hand a brief squeeze, murmuring, “Fair winds.”

  Not trusting his ability to speak without his voice cracking, he only nodded. Bracing himself, he warred to keep his face calm as he marched up the narrow stairs. His boots thudded, the boards creaking. His boots grew heavier with every step, transmuting from leather to wood to stone until he lumbered to the door. He stared at the portal separating himself from the investigator. He focused on a splinter jutting up from the rough surface. He had his final chance to flee.

  I’m a shark, not a guppy.

  He knocked hard.

  “Enter,” a cool woman’s voice commanded.

  Ary seized the bone handle, twisted, and thrust the door open. The investigator sat at the desk, a careful stack of papers rested to the right of her, the top sheet covered in a tight, black scrawl. She trimmed the tip of a quill with her knife as she studied him. A crystal pot of ink rested before her beside a clean sheet of parchment.

  “Sergeant Briaris Jayne?” she asked, glancing at a list beside her. “Any relation to the warrant officer I’m interviewing next?”

  He cleared his throat. Calm thoughts. “My wife, um . . .”

  “Investigator Thugris,” she supplied. “You may sit, Sergeant.”

  “Thank you, Investigator.” Ary clung to the formality of his training. It provide structure, support. He strode forward, the chair’s legs screeching across the wooden floor as he drew it back.

  She dipped her ink in the pot. An acrid whiff filled Ary’s nose as she scratched on her paper. “Your accent. You’re from the south. Oname?”

  “Close. Vesche.”

  She made a note. “A farmer, yes? You didn’t live in the city. You have a touch of country in your voice.”

  “The village of Isfe.”

  She looked up, eyes sharp. “So this wasn’t your first Cyclone?”

  Ary’s jaw clenched. “No.” His fear swelled in him, threatening to split him open like a rotten melon on a warm day. His breathing quickened. He couldn’t panic. He grappled to keep it back, but it swelled in him. He could hear the drums sounding from Aldeyn Watch. He stood on the ruined watchtower, a trembling boy staring out at the Cyclone swallowing the horizon.

  The winds screaming at him. Trying to kill him. The Intrepid battling the winds, the ship surrounded by the Stormriders. How he cried out for Riasruo to save them. The hairs on his arms had stood up.

  They were standing up now.

  Theisseg focused on him. Right before She touched him. He felt it, the quivering in the air before the lightning bolt crackled out of the sky and struck him. Before the Storm Goddess cursed him with Her touch.

  Not a curse. It’s not. It saved my life. Chaylene doesn’t hate me.

  He became aware of the investigator staring at him. He had to say something, make her understand his panic. Why terror coursed through his body. He opened his mouth, tongue dried-stuck to the roof of his mouth. “I . . . I can still . . . hear it . . . and . . .” He swallowed. “I hid . . . in Master Xogrly’s basement with Lena. The house . . . it ripped apart the house . . . I thought it would reach down into the cellar and . . .”

  “Then you had to fight one,” she said, shaking her head as she peered at him. Her eyes were narrow. “You had to answer the trumpet blast.”

  “I was . . . petrified.” The words croaked out of him. He didn’t mean to speak it. But . . . he was back at the morning last week hearing the horns to resound, announcing a Cyclone coming to destroy. To kill. His pa had died . . .

  Because of him. He survived and his pa didn’t. Neither did Ahneil or the Sergeant-Major or Ailsuimnae or Corporal Xoarene. Twenty-six people he’d known and trained with were ripped away by the cruel winds and slashing swords.

  “I was a marine once.”

  Her words shocked him out of his trembling. He looked up at her with red eyes, raw and burning.

  “I served during the Zzuk Aggression Wars.” She looked up, her pale eyes focusing on him. “I was never more terrified than when I faced one of those hulking brutes. That’s why I limp. I gutted the warrior. As she fell, her clawed hand seized my leg. Tore me to ribbons.”

  Ary cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to hear that, Investigator.”

  She studied him. “But to fight a Cyclone . . . Thank the Goddess Above I have never had to face that horror.”

  Horror . . . Ary could think of no other word to describe it. Memories howled through his mind, besetting him. His chest tightened as the tempest raged around him, dark clouds streaking past. Arrows hissed through the air, a deadly rain crashing against the hull of the Dauntless. Riders charged across boiling skies, lightning flashing from their mounts’ eyes. Gleaming swords flashed, blood spurting in their wake. Ahneil’s eyes closing in death.

  A sudden sweat drenched Ary’s face. It poured down his neck to soak his coat. His shirt clung to his shoulders. Would these images haunt him for the rest of his life? He could see the arrow sprouting from the Sergeant-Major’s throat. Feel the impact of his sabre piercing Stormrider flesh.

  “Are you all right, Sergeant?”

  “Just . . . remembering the battle,” he said, his voice croaking. He couldn’t afford this now. He battered it back, his soul numbing. He needed his wits to hide his secret from her. He couldn’t lose control. He had to master himself. Stuff it all back into his soul.

  But how could he? It was all so much.

  “I had nightmares for years after . . .” She shook her head. “Well, we’re not here to talk
about that. Cyclones are very dangerous. They brim with power drawn from the Storm Below. From Theisseg herself.”

  Please! Free me! Theisseg’s words screamed through his mind. End my pain! Have I not given enough? Why did you betray me, Iiwroa?

  “Iiwroa?” Ary whispered. The name he had been struggling to remember since telling Chaylene about his dreams reverberated through his skull.

  It was like she was in the room with him, peering through his eyes. The scar on his side prickled, the physical proof that the Storm Goddess had touched him. He fought the urge to touch it, to press his hand against it.

  The investigator’s eyes focused on him. “What was that, Sergeant?”

  “Nothing, Investigator. Just . . . I don’t like thinking about the Cyclone.”

  “It’s hard losing friends,” she nodded, writing on her paper. “Now, did you say ‘ear roar’?”

  “Ear roar?” Ary’s thoughts blew to the right and the left. Why did I say that cursed name out loud? What if she knows the significance? More sweat poured down his face. His lungs fought against a crushing weight. He fumbled through names, and . . . “Ahneil.” It was close enough, right? It wasn’t, but . . . “I witnessed Ahneil getting . . . she . . . she . . .”

  The investigator had to see the lie. It was so transparent. He couldn’t fight gasping inhalations now. His scar prickled. Theisseg sang her pain in his mind. He braced himself for exposure. The investigator’s eyes pierced through him. Flayed him. She had to see the lie.

  She knows. His hand drifted towards his belt.

  Then she gave a nod. One of . . . understanding. Her brow didn’t tighten in realization. Her eyes didn’t harden. They . . . softened. Her lower lip trembled for a moment. She swallowed. The hand holding her quill shook. She dipped it into the pot, held it there.

  “Losing friends is always painful.” She cleared her throat and shifted in her seat. She blinked rapidly for a moment. That softening vanished, melting away, retreating back into . . .

  The formality of training, Ary realized.

  “Anyways, Sergeant, the point of this inquest is to determine if Theisseg made contact with anybody serving on the Dauntless.” Her words were crisp, precise. Deliberate. “If someone was struck by a lightning bolt, they are tainted. A threat.”

  Tainted . . . He hated that word. His ma cut him with it so many times. Off-balance, anger surging, he spat out. “Why does that make them a threat?”

  A clammy wave rippled across his skin. She went still as she stared at him. Why did you say that? he castigated himself. Downyheaded fool. Who would ask that? Everyone knows Theisseg’s touch taints! She has to see it!

  “I mean . . .” He floundered, panic thrusting him onto the offensive. Marines always attack. “They fought the Cyclone. They serve in the Navy. They suffered, Investigator. How can they be threats? Tainted? You said you served. You fought. Don’t you understand why that’s wrong?”

  “I understand. You lost friends in the fight,” she said. “But not all of them died.”

  “Not all of them,” Ary answered. “But . . . I watched . . .”

  Ahneil’s lips moving, struggling to speak her life, spilled across the decking. Ary battered at the Rider who’d cut her down. Killed him. Ary fought. He almost died. He didn’t help the Stormriders. He wanted to scream at the investigator: How am I a threat? Because a lightning bolt touched me? Because I witness Theisseg’s pain?

  “Sergeant . . .” she said, her voice tight. Her hand reached across the table. It rested light on his. “Did you see someone get struck by lightning?”

  “No!” he growled, his head shaking with vehemence. “It’s just . . . I . . . I . . .”

  Her hand squeezed his. “You don’t want to think of your friends as tainted. As enemies to the Autonomy. Not after the Cyclone. Fighting with others, sharing death, does something to you both. It . . . melds you together in ways few things can. You witness so much horror. You do acts you never thought yourself capable of, acts that, in the moment, seemed like the only thing you could do.” Something in her eyes changed. She didn’t open them wider, and yet they felt larger to Ary. Yet also remote, distant. “You share those acts with them. They understand. They don’t judge you, Sergeant, because they did the same things, too. And now . . . I’m asking you to judge them. It’s cruel of me.”

  Ary’s nostrils quivered. The snot built there, about to spill out along with his tears.

  “But necessary. Because Theisseg touched them.” She stared at him, eyes direct but watery. “We can’t know how that will change them. Maybe in subtle ways. In ways they don’t understand at all. But . . . She can guide them to do horrible things. She sends Her Cyclones for a reason. Do you want Les to fall out of the sky like Swuopii? Can you take that risk, Sergeant? With your wife’s life? With your family’s back at your home?”

  “No, Investigator,” Ary said, his mouth dry, his words croaking. He wanted to scream at her that she was wrong. He wasn’t a threat. Right? He would never hurt his people. Didn’t he just fight for them? Didn’t he watch friends die? Didn’t he kill for them?

  Wasn’t that proof?

  “I can’t either.” She gave his hand a final squeeze before she leaned back, sitting straight, remote. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be doing this duty. Just like you didn’t want to sail against the Cyclone. I just need help. To make sure Ahneil didn’t die for no reason. That Theisseg didn’t slip something in with a final attack that could hurt our people.”

  Words cracking, he answered, “No. I didn’t see anyone struck by lightning.”

  She peered at him for a long moment. Then she picked up her quill. She held it over the ink pot, letting the excess drip off the tip. She scratched a few more notes. She didn’t say anything. Her face changed like she’d drawn a mask over it.

  He shook as he sat there, struggling to master his emotions. Did she . . . did she not see Theisseg peering out of his eyes? Did she not hear the Storm Goddess crying out in his mind? He inhaled deeply, sucking in cloying snot.

  Finally, she spoke. “Thank you for your time, Sergeant. Send your wife up.”

  “Investigator.”

  Ary held his breath. He wanted to dart for the door. He thought it was so plain on his face, what he was asking, why her words affected him so much. He might as well have screamed the truth and yet . . .

  He controlled himself as he rose and walked to the door. He fought that impulse to run. He kept his back straight, a marine marching with precision. The skin over his shoulders writhed. He kept expecting her to change her mind. He opened the door, fighting a cringe as he braced himself for her to—

  “Sergeant.”

  Her voice poured ice through his veins. His hand trembled as it lowered for the hilt of his sabre. “Yes, Investigator?”

  “Thank you for your service.”

  He exhaled, the pressure bleeding out of him. “Y-you’re welcome.”

  *

  Chaylene’s palm burned. Her tightly clenched fist dug fingernails into her skin. She stared at the stairs, waiting. Fears beset her from all sides. Every breath grew tighter. Trembling waves washed through her until she thought—

  Ary marched down the stairs.

  Her breath exploded from her lungs. Her hands uncurled, fingers stiff and knuckles throbbing. He stared at her, his face flushed, the whites of his eyes reddened. He stalked to her, appearing shaken, the tip of his nose swollen.

  “How did it go?” she asked.

  He shook his head and croaked. “Don’t know.” He took her hand. “You’re up next.”

  Chaylene nodded, her stomach twisting.

  He leaned in as if to kiss her on the cheek. Instead, he whispered, “If she asks, tell her I was with you in the root cellar during the Cylone.”

  Chaylene’s heart hammered faster as Ary’s dry lips brushed her cheek.

  “I will,” she whispered back, breaking away from her husband, her thoughts struggling to parse what he meant. Root cellar . . . ?
A coldness gripped her heart. Her eyebrows widened, asking what she couldn’t voice.

  He nodded.

  Was the investigator hunting Ary? Was this only a farce? Had Wriavia told the Autonomy? She wanted to curl up into a ball instead of face the investigator. Her mouth went dry. She ached for a drink, something to drown the clammy dread playing with her guts. She struggled to think, to wonder how she could protect her husband. She’d promised his sister she’d bring him home.

  She. Would.

  She marched up the stairs.

  “Enter,” the investigator called after Chaylene knocked on the door.

  Chaylene put on a tight smile and slipped into the room, terror assaulting her body from all directions. The investigator sat behind a desk, a handkerchief sitting beside a stack of papers. Another piece of parchment rested before her, covered in notes.

  “Have a seat, Warrant Officer.”

  Chaylene took her seat with alacrity. Her shoulders hunched, wanting to flinch from the investigator’s gaze. The woman’s eyes roamed up and down her, stripping her, making her feel like an ostrich about to be butchered.

  “Are you also from Isfe like your husband?”

  Chaylene nodded quickly.

  “So this was the second Cyclone you’ve experienced?”

  Chaylene’s throat tightened. She swallowed and nodded again.

  The investigator shook her head, peering down at her notes. “What an ill wind to experience that twice in your life.”

  “Yes,” Chaylene croaked. “Ary and I were playing that day with . . .” She almost said Vel, but stopped herself. She couldn’t trust that liar. “With another friend. When the Cyclone came, we fled to a nearby farm and hid in Master Xogrly’s root cellar.”

  The investigator made a note. What if she realizes Vel’s from Isfe, too?

  “It’s okay if you need a moment to comport yourself,” the investigator said. “I didn’t press your husband, but . . . someone close to him died during the Isfe Cyclone?”