Edge of the Storm

In Westmark, the Practical Magicians wonder what scheme Hobnail and his pirates will try next.

21.

Edge of the Storm

 

The rain kept falling the next morning as the airships continued the westward trip home.   It was late afternoon before Muld and Syndi emerged from their chamber, looking rested but still rather weary.    They learned the news about Lord Deryck with shock and dismay.    But that news was countered by a more recent message from Reverend Zeatt that Rick and Shel had married late the following evening.

"Married?   Without waiting for us?"   Muld had exclaimed.

"Mother said that none of your guild was present -- just Alvis and the King and Queen,"   Sophia explained from where she sat smoking near one of the cabin's windows.

"Quick and easy,"   Syndi had commented, glancing at her mother, who frowned just as she had expected.

 

There was no further news of Hobnail or his pirates and those on the airship spent another boring day watching it rain and talking amongst themselves.    Aloea and her son -- which she had named Nazzic-- sat with them much of the time and listened to their endless debates on what Hobnail and his pirates would do and when it would occur.

 

Darkness fell early and the rains stayed with them, so everyone retired to bed except for the airship crews which were working in shifts continually recharging the vacuum engines through the night.

Muld and Syndi lay in bed discussing Rick and Shel and wondering about their own wedding.

"Mother was relieved that we haven't 'consummated' our relationship yet,"  Syndi told him with a laugh at her mother's carefully chosen phrase.

"Well, I'm feeling more alive tonight thanks to the long sleep we had earlier, but something about this weather takes the spark out of romance."

"Yeah, I noticed that too.    It's damp and cool and all I want to do is snuggle up someplace warm and sleep, even though we should be rested up."

"So do we wait until after the crisis with Hobnail is over before we get married?"

"I don't want to wait too long.    I have no intention on going back to Albyia again."

Muld hugged her close to him, "It might be a nice place without Calarom there."

"Someone will just take his place."

"Maybe -- of course the battle with the Southern Empire will change things on the island."

"I am so sick of pirates, Muld!"  Syndi said with a sigh, "I just know he'll try something awful.   Who knows?   Maybe he is sending out false rumors and will attack Losahome instead.    All the airships would be patrolling Westmark and so it would be an easy raid."

"I think he'll focus on Westmark.   He wants revenge on us and he will attempt to pick up Deryck and Jain."

Syndi snorted, "He wouldn't be above leaving them."

"True, but then if he thought that we got them, he'd probably worry about us extracting information from them.    He doesn't know we already have Jain."

"I'm surprised he didn't try to take back Windhaven before it reached Westmark."

"I thought he'd try that too.   It is probably too slow to escape with, so he has given up on it."

"So he just lets us have it.   That doesn't sound like him.    I'd think he'd destroy it somehow if he could."

Muld jumped slightly as if an idea had just come to him.

"What is it?"   Syndi asked.

"What you just said about him destroying it.   What if he tried to use the floating city as a weapon?   It's over Westmark now, Zeatt told Sophia.    It is large enough to cause considerable damage if it fell on the city."

"But it has levitation magic holding it up."

"Yes, but if he could dispel that."

"That would take a lot of magic to do."

Muld conceded this, "If he found a way to do it though; wow, what a terrible thing to fall upon Westmark."

They fell silent, trying to clear their heads of the thought of how destructive it would be, but unable to shake a  feeling of uneasiness about it.

 

***

 

In Westmark, Rick and Shel had not had much time to enjoy their new life as a married couple.   The next day they had to go back to work.   Shel returned to Flapjacks, where she was surprised to find that everyone knew about her wedding even before she showed them her golden ring.

Rick was chastised by Tadd for not inviting them to the event but he was thrilled for him.    Jevon and Mutt were equally as happy to hear it, but they all had to quickly see to orders that had backlogged over the last week and the continual rain did not make their jobs any easier.

Ant came in during their lunch break and told them that some of the Bitter Dregs had found Deryck's camp in the forest earlier that morning, but he was gone.

"Probably due to the rain,"  The Changeling told them, "He's either in some cave in the forest or back in Westmark, holed up at a cheap hotel."

"What's our next move?"   Jevon asked her.

"Just waiting, I guess.   There isn't much we can do.    The rain is probably keeping Hobnail away, but it is also grounding most of the royal airships from patrolling the area."

"I just wish it was all over,"   Mutt commented, thinking of his girlfriend, Vellie Umberburn, who he had asked to marry him.

"It will be over soon,"  Rick said as he sat thinking about his wife and praying that she would be safe when the attack did come.

 

***

 

When night fell on Westmark, the rain began to let up in intensity, but a strong, cold wind out of the northwest began to blow which chilled everyone.

Rick and Shel laid in bed late into the night, listening to the howl of the wind, unable to sleep even after an intense round of making love.

"Surely no airship could sail out in that wind,"   He told his new wife as she nibbled on his ear playfully with her tiny Orc tusks.

"Everyone is a nervous wreck; I can tell you that.   I don't know how the news spreads so fast, but that was all that the breakfast crowd talked about today at Flapjacks."

"I'm sure that damned dwarf will try something devious.   That's why I'm uneasy about tonight.   This would be the least expected time that he'd show up and so that might just be when he attacks."

"I'd think he'd want to try something that would cause the most damage and destruction.    Some people were speculating today that he might try crashing an airship into the palace -- or the Practical Magician's Guild."

"Maybe, but pirates value ships greatly.    Would it be enough damage to justify losing a ship?   Something larger would be better."

The idea came to them at the exact same instant and they exclaimed together, "Windhaven!"

 "Could he achieve that?"  Shel asked, sitting up in bed excitedly, "Wouldn't that floating city have a lot of protective magic to keep it levitating?"

"Yes, there are probably a hundred levitation spells cast on it to get it to float, so he'd have to cast the same number of dispel magic spells to bring it down."

"Is there any other way to cancel the magic or at least neutralize it temporarily?" 

"Well, a magnetize spell cast on the ground under the floating city would draw it toward the ground, but I don't think the spell could counter the multiple levitation spells."

"Would he have to dispel all of the levitation spells for Windhaven to fall?"

"No, he'd just have to dispel enough so that the weight of the floating city would max out the weight limitation of the levitation spell.     The spells we cast at the guild can each lift a ton.    I have no idea how heavy Windhaven is, but more than likely, they cast some extra Levitation spells upon it just so a handful of dispel magic spells couldn't destroy it."

"I'll bet that if anyone knew how to dispel them, Hobnail would."

"He'd need a small army of wizards to cast the Dispel Magic spells at the same time."

"How close would the wizards have to get to dispel it?"

"They'd have to touch it…I think.   There may be some Dispel Magic spells that don’t require touching, but even those would have to be very close for it to work.."

"So he'd have to have an airship pull along side Windhaven for the wizards to touch it, or at least be very close to it."

"Yes, and when it fell, it would take out the Royal shipyards and half of the city as well.    It would be a perfect weapon."

Shel looked at him anxiously, "Maybe we should tell someone about this."

Rick agreed, but before either one of them was dressed to share it, over the howl of the winds came the blasts of horns from the walls.

Shel froze, her eyes wide, "Rick?"

"The attack has begun!"   He replied, and they raced to finish dressing.

 

***

 

It was four o'clock in the morning when Hobnail began his plan.   Three wind-driven airships were carried by the strong gusts quickly toward the east gates of Westmark.   At first the guards on the parapets thought they were merchant ships being carried along by the wind.   Perhaps they had lost their anchors, the guards said to each other, for surely someone wouldn't try an aerial attack in such a powerful breeze.

But as they closed in on the wall and the guards called out the challenge to them,  they were answered by several volleys of catapult shot.   

Immediately the sergeant of the guard in charge of the eastern gate ordered the alarm sounded.  

Over the walls of Westmark they passed, flinging rocks and burning hay bales from the catapults on each side of the ships.

 

The city erupted in chaos as several days of apprehension of just such an attack brought the residents into a state of full panic almost immediately.

Guards raced in all directions and several of the moored merchant airships at the shipyards began to prepare for battle.    

On top of the Tower of Sorcery, Alleania and her husband Drake stood in the gusty winds, their eyes glowing red in the dark as they chanted the same spell in union, while watching the first airship approaching.

It was nearly upon them, flinging stones and catapults in every direction, when they completed their joined spell.   Twin balls of green lightning appeared in their hands and were flung like stones, onto the deck of the approaching airship.

At once there were flashes of green light as their Chain Lightning spells branched out across the deck from pirate to pirate.    As the airship -- now out of control-- passed the top of the tower, they could see the crew of the ship jerking and jumping as if dancing some insane jig while the chain lightning electrocuted them.    The airship was carried by the strong wind out of the city and over the Faesidhe forest, where it began to catch fire from the lightning.

"That was a great idea!"   Alleania told her husband with a grin.

"Well, it worked, but it was a bit of overkill; there weren't but about 10 pirates on that airship.    That's not enough to attack a city and man the ship.    And that ship!    It looked like it would have fallen apart on its own in a short while."

"So you think Hobnail's up to something?"

"It seemed to me as if that one was a decoy.    There are two others left and if they have no more crew than this one did, clearly something is amiss."

Alleania nodded, brushing her long white hair away from her face, "I think we had better contact Sophia and tell them that the attack has began, then see if we can figure out what Hobnail is up to."

"I agree, let's hurry!"   The two Drow magic users rushed back into the tower of Sorcery, not wasting any time watching the airship that they had defeated, quickly be consumed by flames.