The Defense of Glory

The Eye of the Storm

Storms are not forces to be laughed at but on that night, as the Silverflint crashed through the rushing waves and the sky seethed in hissing torrents of white flame and chilling thunder, Beck Vane threw back his head and laughed.

His first mate, a slimy man known as Slade, tightened his hold on the flimsy railing of the deck and resisted the urge to barf into the water. Every muscle in his body strained to run across the deck and throw himself down the ladder into the warmer, dryer, safer lower quarters.

Common sense told him to do it, too.

But after five years on Beck Vane's ship, Slade knew that common sense had no hold at sea. To run away from the storm like a rabbit with a fox on its tail was to draw Vane's eye to him, and to draw the pirate captain's eye was to wish for sudden death.

Lightning struck the waves and Beck cackled again, the sudden streak of fire lighting up his burning eyes. "Slade!" He yelled.

"Captain!"

"Do you feel the rain?" His voice, raised above the terrifying wind, was hoarse as always, like sandpaper rubbing on steel, yet exhilarated. His grin was fearsome.

And oh, how Slade wanted to run and hide.

"Yes, Captain!"

"And the thunder! The gods laugh at us tonight, Slade!"

"I'm sure, captain!"

"Slade!"

"Captain!"

"Do you see the lightning?"

"I couldn't miss it, captain!" His stomach heaved with nausea and a sudden tipping of the boat made him gasp and groan.

"Slade, are you seasick?" The pirate captain laughed.

"Captain, there is no one at the wheel!"

"I know! I told them that anyone who tried to steer us out of this storm would pay with their heads!"

"But, Captain--" Slade floundered. "But can't someone still steer?"

"And tempt this storm from driving us herself? No, Slade. Feel the waves! The wind! The currents! Have you ever seen such a devastating storm?" He stared at his first mate and grinned. 

Slade had never been so sure that Beck Vane wanted him dead in the most amusing way possible.

"Yes, Captain. The waves... the wind... the... currents..." He doubled over and vomited into the salt-spitting sea.

"That's the way, Slade! Get it all out!" And he howled with laughter.

Beck Vane had been called crazy many times before. Those people, he always maintained, were boring. That wasn't saying much. To Beck Vane, captain of the Silverflint, all people whose eyes did not snap with lightning, who could not stand in the way of waves and revel with thunder,  who could not find pleasure in the waves, the wind, the currents when they were most intent on insanity, those people were simply not worth his time.

Admiral Ridge was at least eighty-six kinds of idiotic for resting his hopes on Beck Vane's slim shoulders, but as Slade knelt on the deck and retched, as the ocean heaved and screamed, an ironwing painted with the crest of New Glory circled the Silverflint once and set its mechanical eyes on the young captain standing on its bow.