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They couldn’t simply run the storm here though. They had to breach it, reach its core. So they’d follow the storm in a loop around Akinah, slowly edging inward, ever inching toward the center. And they had to keep ahead of the waves, which meant sometimes colliding with other ones in front. They’d need to “head” those waves: keep the ship going straight at them, breaking them across the bow. The oars would help keep them positioned for that.
It felt downright heroic to meet these winds with only one small stormsail maintained by a few valiant sailors. The rest were below, either at the oars or maintaining the fabrials. Lopen didn’t see how the sail wouldn’t just blow them all over the place, but they all said it would work. They’d also tied bags of oil over the side of the ship too, with punctures to leak—which they said would keep the water from spraying so much on the deck.
The captain stood firm and shouted her orders into the wind, sending them straight into the gullet of the beast. And by the Halls themselves, if the sailors didn’t take it with determination and grit.
The wind picked up further, blowing sprays of water across Lopen’s face. Huio hadn’t wanted to come up above, had said Lopen was crazy for insisting on being on deck. And yes, cold water began to seep through his unders to prickle his skin. But storms, it was an incredible view. The lightning made the water seem to spark, transparent, and huge froths of it surged into the air. A storm on land was a sight to behold, sure, but a storm on the waters . . . this was majestic. Also horrifying.
“This is amazing!” Lopen said, pulling himself along the railing so he was closer to Vlxim, the day’s helmsman. Three other men stood at the ready to help Vlxim wrestle the wheel to control the rudder. That was common on ordinary ships, but this one had some kind of mechanism to help the helmsman, and so it might not be needed.
“You haven’t seen anything!” Vlxim shouted. He was bald like Huio, which made his eyebrows look extra amusing to Lopen—particularly wet as they were. But he played a mean mouth harp. “We’ve trained to sail into highstorms on this ship if we have to! I’ve actually been through one! Waves as high as mountains, Lopen!”
“Ha!” Lopen said. “You haven’t seen anything. I was once in a place where Everstorm and highstorm met, and in that, the rock flowed like water and—sure—entire chunks broke like waves against one another. I had to run up one side, then slide down the other. Ruined my storming trousers!”
“Enough!” the captain yelled over the wind. “I don’t have time for you two to compare sizes. Vlxim, one point to port!”
The captain eyed Lopen, and he gave her a salute—because they were on her ship, and here she outranked even the people who outranked her. But he got the feeling that the captain was the kind of person who had been born an officer, coming right on out of her mom with a hat on and everything. People like that didn’t understand; bragging wasn’t about making yourself look good, but about convincing the other guy you weren’t afraid, which was completely different.
A wave surged over the deck, and Lopen lost his footing, but clung onto the ship’s aft rail and grinned—sopping wet—at Vlxim when he glanced over. Lopen righted himself with effort, and thought about Vlxim’s words. How could waves get bigger than these? They sailed up the side of one that Lopen could have sworn was too steep to ride. Then they went crashing through the top, like Punio through a crowd on his way to the privy after a night of drinking.
Lopen whooped as they teetered, then came rushing down the wave’s other side. Rua swirled about him as a ribbon of light, excited, dancing with the wavespren—who went splashing high into the air as different waves met. This was the best time they’d had in ages.
Then Turlm—the fellow who had passed Lopen with the rope earlier—got caught in an unexpected wave and washed clean off the deck. Into the drink, the dark abyss, to be claimed by the seas and strangled with water.
Well, couldn’t have that.
Lopen burst alight and leaped over the rail, Lashing himself toward the water. He hit with his own crash, pulling in so much Stormlight he glowed brightly in the dark water—revealing a struggling figure being swept away in the currents. Well, Lopen had spent a few days practicing this while out on the ocean, doing scouting runs. Lashings worked fine underwater. And hey, who needed to breathe when you had Stormlight?
He Lashed himself toward the dark figure—Rua guiding the way—and blasted through the ocean like some kind of underwater creature built to move through it easily and swiftly. Or, well, like a fish. They called those fish, didn’t they?
Lopen grabbed hold of the struggling form by his clothing, then Lashed both of them upward. Rua pointed the way—it could be surprisingly difficult to tell directions in the darkness underwater. Lopen exploded from the ocean a moment later, carrying a sputtering Turlm.
Rua darted ahead, leading him toward the ship—which was good, because in the dark tempest, details were about as easy for Lopen to make out as his own backside. Lopen hauled Turlm over the rail and hit the deck with a thump, then Lashed the man in place so he wouldn’t go sliding off again.
“Storms!” Fimkn said, stumbling over to help the other sailor. Fimkn had a medic background, and he and Lopen had bonded over the fact that both had been told too many storming times to boil bandages. “How did you . . . Lopen, you saved him!”
“It’s kind of our thing,” Lopen said.
Turlm sputtered, then started laughing uncontrollably. Joyspren like little blue leaves spun around him, then swirled into the air. He gripped Lopen’s hand in thanks. The old one. His Bridge Four hand, not his Knight Radiant hand. Fimkn sent Turlm belowdecks—a replacement had already come up to take his post—so Lopen un-Lashed him. Storms, that replacement had shown up quickly. They were expecting to lose people. Or at least they were prepared for it.
Well, not on Lopen’s watch. You didn’t let your friends drown in nameless oceans during a frigid storm. That was, sure, basic friendship rules right there.
He marched back up onto the quarterdeck. The captain and the others here had ropes to hold them in place, but those had to be short, and didn’t generally work for the other sailors, who needed a lot of freedom of movement. A long rope on a man who got swept overboard in this kind of storm broke necks and smashed sailors into the hull. The chances were better, though still slim, without ropes.
Lopen figured he should be extra careful with the captain anyway. With her permission, he stuck one of her feet to the deck, so she could move a little—but had one really steady foot to rely upon.
“You could have done that all along?” the captain asked. “I saw you struggling to keep upright earlier! You were sliding about with the waves. Why didn’t you stick yourself down?”
“Didn’t seem sporting!” Lopen called over the increasingly loud sounds of the storm. “You keep us going straight, Captain. I’ll watch the crew!”
She nodded, and turned to her task. Running with the winds, but—best they could—on their own terms. He had to trust she was keeping the ship on its spiral heading, moving steadily inward. Because he couldn’t make any sense of this. The sea seemed to be Damnation itself, incarnate as furious waves.
Lopen kept an eye on the sailors, but he had Rua watching something else. Eventually—after splashing through wave after wave—the little honorspren came zipping up to Lopen in the shape of a skyeel with an extremely long tail.
