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!
