Page 110 of Suffer No Fools
"You will be," she said. "You'll all pay for what you've done. Now, I've got to undo it." She turned on her heel and walked away. As she passed the undead army, they charged, their blank faces twisting into enraged scowls as they ran.
"Well, that went better than I'd expected," Vadim said from off to their right.
"We're cut off from the ship." Stan pointed to the dock, now overrun with Coryn's abominations. Efren was back at the helm, and Roy and Ray were throwing all their air into the sails to pull away from the dock and the undead launching themselves toward the rope ladder.
"Not for long." Hugo grinned. "Everyone hold on to me."
#
Tovey
In a rush of air past his ears and a sense of queasiness that reminded him of seasickness, they were back aboard the rolling deck ofStarlight Specter.All of them, even Yvette, who wasn't a member of the crew, and five weavers Vadim had drained.
"It's all right," Hugo reassured Vadim, who blanched at the sight of the unconscious sailors on deck. "You didn't know they were bonded to me."
"Now, Klaus!" Vadim stepped up to the bow where Klaus waited, still staring toward the tree, whose top was beginning to glow with the first light of dawn.
"Where did you come from?" he asked. "You were over there." He pointed to the tree in the distance.
"Aye."
"And now you're here."
"Aye. And we're going to be boarded by an army of wet and slimy undead if you don't use your power."
"Right." Klaus blushed and turned back to the prow. A sheet of purple glistened below the water, and a wave of it washed up on shore, winding around each undead creature and then dissipating as they fell to the ground, once more lifeless.
"I can see it," Hugo said. "Klaus's power."
"Your bond with the empire is getting stronger." Stan pulled Hugo into a hug and tugged Tovey along, too. Tovey had hated hugs after he and Stan had broken up, but now, he couldn't get enough of Stan's arms around him, even if they crushed Hugo between them.
"Everyone who's not sailing needs to get off my navigation deck," Efren called. "Eat breakfast in the mess and then get some sleep. We'll be in Hearthstone in four hours."
"Do you know what Coryn's sailing?" Hugo asked.
"I've never seen anything like it," Roy said. "One moment the ship was here, and then it was gone. I can't tell if it turned invisible or if it vanished."
"Vanished. She used the same weave I used to bring us aboard the ship. It's the same weave her spectral weaver must have cast to take the scales to her across the ice." Hugo sighed. "Coryn can transport her entire ship that way a few hundred feet at a time. There's still a chance we'll find her dashed on some rocks, if she's not careful, but if we don't, we can assume she's had at least an hour in Hearthstone ahead of us."
"She can use it without her spectral weaver?" Stan asked.
"It's ..." Hugo glanced at Tovey and grinned. "It's a simple air weave. The size of the ship makes it harder to travel long distances, but it doesn't take much power."
The world seemed to gray around the edges as Hugo shared the new knowledge with him. It was deceptively simple, a way to fold the fabric of the air and tear through it, moving from one place to another rapidly.
"Coryn's known this spell a long time,"Hugo shared.
"How do you know it now?"
Hugo grinned."The person who taught her is one of the unconscious weavers in the hold."
After they ate, Tovey's nerves wouldn't let him sleep. He climbed into the true hold to see how the unconscious folks were progressing. Vadim and Yvette were there, monitoring their progress.
"Even with healing, we can't undo what Vadim has done," Yvette said. "We have to wait for them to regain consciousness."
"Why didn't Coryn drain us?" Tovey wondered aloud.
"She must not have brought her death weaver," Vadim said. "That, or they refused to come when they learned I would be here." Yvette was the strongest healer in the land, but Vadim was damn close to her power. He was the strongest death weaver in all Embertide, possibly in the world. He and Fanidra had been testing their power against each other, stopping short of killing her outright. They had a deal that he would put her soul back if he accidentally killed her, but neither of them wanted to test it.
