Dawnshard (The Stormlight Archive, #3.5)(37)
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.
“What is it, naco?” Lopen asked.
Rua pointed at the water nearby, and Lopen saw a shape in the depths—or at least a dark shadow. Size was difficult to judge because he didn’t know how deep the thing was, but Rua was insistent. It was one of them. The things that had feasted on Stormlight, draining the Windrunners who had tried to investigate the storm before.
“It’s swimming?” Lopen asked, wiping rainwater from his eyes. “How can you be certain that’s one of them, naco?”
Rua simply was. And Lopen trusted him. He figured, sure, Rua would know about this sort of thing, same as Lopen knew about one-armed Herdazian jokes.
Leyten and the others hadn’t been able to report much about the things. They thought they were alive, not spren, but couldn’t be certain. The things had needed to get close to them though, so it probably couldn’t affect Lopen up here on the deck. Leyten said they’d hovered out in the clouds, indistinct, until he turned—then they’d come in from behind and drained him.