Sons of Ironstorm - Book 4: Griffon's Stand

The House of Jun'tek

Duncan was on watch when a shout came from the tiny raven's nest high on the sloop's main mast three days later. Running to the bow, the Mamran leaned against the railing to peer into the mists that cloaked the horizon. Was that a shape appearing in the distance?

As he leaned forward, eyes narrowed, he became aware of Stylles' grim presence at his elbow.

"Land?" the powerful general rumbled.

"Aye, it appears that way, general," Duncan said, glancing over at the big Talemonese. "We'll know for sure when the mist clears a bit."

Stylles grimaced.

"Shards and bony bits, it's about bloody time." The big man reached down to give the hilt of his sword a tug to loosen the blade in its sheath. "I've just about forgotten how to swing this damn thing."

Duncan grinned and turned back to peering at the mists ahead. And in doing so, nearly missed the shifting in the water beside the slow moving sloop, the captain having dropped the main sail for safety in the mists. Catching the motion out of the corner of his eye, Duncan turned his head towards it with a frown.

"What in the name of MaKalech is that?" he asked softly, mostly to himself.

It looked like a bubble, a huge, glossy bubble of soap the size of a man's head, drifting by itself on the surface of the unsettled grey water of the western sea. Except, if the Tobald Airna captain was any judge of current, and as the son of a mamran fleet captain, he was, whatever that bubble was, it wasn't drifting with the current. In fact, it was moving against it in the most unnatural fashion.

"And what in the burning hell is that?" Stylles rasped in curious echo to the mamran's own husked astonishment as he leaned against the bow rail beside Duncan, his craggy face hard and his eyes narrowed as he too stared at the strange bubble.

Before the highlander could reply, the bubble was abruptly joined by dozens more, some moving quickly to the side to avoid going under the hull with the sloop's forward motion, yet, as a group, they easily kept pace with the ship's momentum with unseen propulsion moving each quickly and silently through the waves. Then the one Duncan first saw, shifted and a plate set into the side of the bubble facing him, swung out to let out a sudden gush of water.

"If you breee-ack would be so kind, we need churr-eek to speak with the Lord Wielder, please," a voice issuing from the fist-sized opening chirped, its Taren heavily inflected.

"I'd wager a gold mark he'd want to speak to you too, stranger," Stylles wryly replied and, with a nod to Duncan, he turned to fetch the eldest Ironstorm prince from below decks.

By the time Lawrence had raced up on deck, hastily summoned by Stylles' news of their strange visitors, the sloop had been slowed to a halt by her captain and they were completely surrounded by a veritable flotilla of the shimmering bubbles.

"Ah, Lord Wielder!" the speaker greeted Lawrence as he stepped to the railing in the sloop's bow. "It is the greatest of pleasures to churr-eek meet you, after reading so much kee-kee-kee about you and your brothers."

Lawrence slowly inclined his head, both in greeting and acknowledgment, his surprise at not only finding piceans facing him but one who apparently knew who and what he was quickly replaced by a look of consideration.

"Thank you, friend picean," he carefully replied, his naming of the stranger's race eliciting low murmurs of amazement and wonder among his companions. "Legends come to life!" Stylles was heard to rumble while, beside him, a head-shaking Duncan husked quietly; "I thought I'd never live to see the day the lost race reappeared."