Bard: Chapter 11

The Gust came from out of nowhere.

Liam stood outside the warehouse door with Travis, huddled against the winds that were as bitter as they’d been for weeks, and listening to a Crier from the city council make a call for volunteers to go north and investigate the winds.

Then the Gust hit, so hard that Liam was thrown into the wall behind him. People in the street slid forward on the icy stones and fell, crashing into each other and crying out. Loose carts rattled and skidded from where they were stopped, some of them tipping and spilling their wares in the street. On the water, ships that hadn’t tied up their sails tipped dangerously, the splintering of wood cracking through the wind even as the bay burst into glittering shards.

It all happened at once. In one moment the bay was a choppy gray, and the next it was a vicious maze of ice, the sharp points piercing through the hulls of the ships it trapped. Liam heard screams from across the harbor as workers found themselves trapped or speared by the sudden shards.

“What in the hells?” Liam muttered, pushing away from the wall and trying to assess the damage done.

Travis had his sword drawn, and mass panic was breaking out in the street. Those who had fallen scrambled to their feet, rushing in terror from the cursed ice that continued to jut from the water and had begun climbing the docks, shattering the planks and breaking through the stones that lined each moorage. A fleeing merchant slammed into Liam, knocking him backwards over a loose crate. He hit the walkway, slid over new ice, was kicked to the side by another person screaming up the road away from the bay. He tried to push himself up and hissed as his hand met with an ice shard as sharp as glass.

“Up you get,” Travis grunted, grabbing Liam by the back of his coat and hauling him to his feet. They backed up against the warehouse door together. “You’re liable to get trampled.”

As people rushed past, the ice continued to climb out of the water, crawling and growing over the walk like a living thing. It pressed forward, and the ice on the bay surged upwards, knocking broken ships together like marbles. Liam heard a sickening crack, and the mast on the nearest ship gave way, falling for the walk in front of the warehouse. He grabbed Travis by the arm and pulled him inside, as the mast and its sails crashed to the ground where they had stood a moment before.

Liam could hear his heart pounding in his chest. His hand smarted, and Liam found a rag to tie across his palm for the time being. Travis stood at the door, watching the commotion outside with wide-eyed confusion.

“What’s happened?” he said.

“Not anything natural,” Liam responded. He wondered if Trista would have an idea, and hoped the rest of the city hadn’t been hit has hard.

“It’s slowing down,” Travis noted grimly, keeping an eye outside.

“Good.” Liam joined him on the other side of the door. The entryway was effectively blocked by the broken mast. Shuddering cracks of growing ice still sounded outside, but they were indeed growing quieter. “I’m thinking that expedition they were announcing is a good idea.”

“Agreed.”

“Everyone all right in here?” their manager, Ben, called from the back of the warehouse.

“We’re still here!” Travis called back.

“Lock it up!” Ben called back. “They’re about to sound an alarm, you should head home if you can.”

“Got it!” Liam called. Travis shoved the door closed and dropped the bar across it. They made a quick check of the interior of the warehouse, double-checking window latches and closing up shutters and all the outside doors.

The street was quiet when they stepped outside, the glittering ice standing like a forest of broken glass all along the harbor and the walks that surrounded it. Liam shivered, grasped the warming hilt of his knife with his uninjured hand, and made his way towards the center of the city. Alarm bells sounded in the distance.

The library was already locked up when he passed by, and the various halls of the bard’s college were dark and quiet. Here and there were signs of the gust—a broken window, or a downed tree. Carts and shop stands had been overturned and hastily pushed out of the street so people could still walk. There was no ice beyond the frozen puddles and slick paving stones that had been there for weeks though.

Liam hurried home, pushing down a gnawing sense of dread at the sudden silence that had fallen over the city as people fled indoors and the alarm bells ceased their ringing. The wind continued to cut through everything, even the knife didn’t properly block the chill anymore. His free hand throbbed, and he clutched his fingers around the rag. The bleeding had stopped, at least.

Trista met him at the door of their flat.

“You’re hurt,” she noted. Liam shrugged it off.

“It’s fine.”

“What happened?” Laura asked as Liam stepped in and closed the door. “Everyone is acting like there’s been an invasion.”

Liam tried his best to explain what had happened, and found there wasn’t an easy way to do it. There hadn’t been a storm or a quake, or—though it sounded like the easiest explanation—any kind of attack.

“There was just…suddenly ice. A lot of it,” he told them as they huddled near the stove. “It was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. Broke the hull of one of the ships and sent up spikes that splintered half the docks. It was malicious, like it was alive and trying to climb up into the city.” His hand throbbed and he pressed harder against the rag. He was going to need to bandage it properly.

Trista picked up her violin and started plucking quietly, her eyes fixed on the floor at Liam’s feet. Laura was watching him intently, her eyebrow cocked.

“Did you see what might have caused it?” she asked. “Was there a creature, or a-a-mage or something?”

“It came with the wind,” Liam replied. “There was nothing to see. We got hit with a big gust and suddenly the bay was breaking into shards.”

“There were messengers from the city council putting up fliers at the library today,” Laura said. “They’re recruiting for an expedition up north, to see what’s causing the winds.”

“There was an announcement at the docks today, too,” Liam said. “I was considering it.”

“You are not,” Laura snapped. Liam met her challenging gaze with one of his own.

“I’d rather find out what’s going on than wait here and freeze to death,” he said. Or wait for the ice to engulf the city and drive them all out. Laura narrowed her eyes dangerously and Trista twanged one of her violin strings, grimacing.

“Are you alright?” Liam asked, and Trista looked up from her plucking, blinking slowly.

“I was—I was trying to see if I could do something about your hand,” she explained.

“It’s fine,” he assured her. Laura sat up closer to him.

“What happened to your hand?”

“I cut it on the ice,” he explained. “It’s fine.”

“You cut it on the ice?”

“I told you, it grew up so fast, and it was sharp as knives in places.”

“Damn it, Liam. You’re not going out into that,” Laura hissed.

“What exactly is the alternative?” Liam shot back. “The entire city is shut down, the harbor is all but destroyed, and there’s no telling if this weird cold snap is going to stop here!”

Laura glared, let out a resigned sigh, checked the stove.

“I’m going downstairs for more charcoal,” she said tightly, pushing herself to her feet. “Be back.”

Liam watched her go, then turned back to Trista, who had curled in on herself, her tail going around her feet.

“Your hand,” she said softly.

“It’s fine, really.”

“It’s really not,” she said, and Liam realized she was probably right. He hadn’t gotten a good look at it before he’d covered it with the rag, and the way the pain radiated into his fingers and up his arm made it feel like it might be a deeper cut than he’d like.

“Can you feel it?” he asked her. She had told them she could sense things like fear, was pain the same way? Trista nodded, and he leaned away from her. “Is it hurting you?”

“No, nothing like that,” she assured him. “It’s just…distracting.”

“And you think you can magic it away?”

“Maybe,” Trista said. “May I give it a try?”

“Of course,” Liam said, and held out his wrapped hand to her.

Trista raised her violin and started to play, eyes closed. The melody started smooth and slow. It was a pretty song, one he didn’t recognize, and for a moment that’s all it was. Then, with a sudden tugging sensation on the palm of his hand, the pain winked out like it had never been there. He gasped in surprise and Trista stopped playing, looking up at him anxiously.

“Did I hurt you?” she asked.

“No,” Liam said quickly, unwrapping the rag he’d bound over the cut. His palm was unblemished, not even a scar marked where the cut had been. “Not even a little bit.”

“It worked?” Trista breathed, hugging her violin to her chest. “Does it feel alright?”

“It feels fine. Good as new.”

“You gasped.”

“It felt…strange, but it didn’t hurt,” Liam said, flexing his fingers. He met her eyes and smiled. “Thank you.”

Laura slipped back through the door, shutting it quickly to keep what little heat they had inside. She let out a frustrated sigh.

“There’s no more fuel downstairs,” she said. “It’s going to be a cold night.”

“All the more reason to find out what’s going on,” Liam said pointedly. Laura let out a huff of exasperation and sat down across from him, pulling a blanket around her shoulders and glaring. “I’ll come back. I’m not going to do anything stupidly gallant.”

“I’ll make sure you come back,” Laura sniffed. “If you’re going, I’m going.”

“Laura…” Liam groaned inwardly. The last thing he’d wanted to do was goad his sister into coming along on a possibly dangerous excursion. “You don’t have to do that. You have work even with the bay frozen over.”

“What difference does it make if the whole city freezes,” Laura said blithely. “You’ve got a point there.”

“I’ll go too,” Trista said quietly. “Since both of you are going.”

Liam saw Laura’s shoulders relax, and felt a surge of relief. If there was some sort of ice monster lurking north of the city, having someone with them who could do magic—who could specifically make people warm and heal wounds, was the best possible option.

“Thank you,” he said, and Trista shrugged.

“I want to help.”

“So, all of us then?” Laura said.

“All of us,” Liam agreed.