Chapter 42: Pirates at the End
Stella tried to hold back the encroaching weather with her magic, but it was a doomed endeavor. The storm crashing down upon them was the size of a mountain and it was all her magic could do to blunt the force of the gale. A solid sheet of water lashed at the Grace of the Mists, and Nathan had to hold onto the railing to avoid being swept away.
The wind rose to a howl, but Khachi’s voice boomed clear and certain through it. “I stand as a rock in the tide. No storm will bend me, and no magic will break me.” A dome of light materialized around the entire ship and the wind cut out in an instant. Huge waves battered against Khachi’s shield and slid off without finding purchase.
It wasn’t like their enemies had regained control of the storm, since Nathan had cut all of the links between the enemy ship and the rest of the storm. But the enemy mage had set the entire storm up to fall on the Grace of the Winds, and now that was playing out without their oversight. Doubtless they’d had a follow-up plan to ensure the Heirs' death, but now their magic drifted aimlessly, the spell unravelling without direct control.
Nathan reeled in the extraneous parts of his aura to reduce the Stamina drain and thicken the tendrils of antimagic connecting him to the enemy ship. He started tearing at the powerful enchantments woven into the hull. The Maelstrom ship bobbed in midair like a cork before falling out of the sky. His antimagic chased it downwards, ripping apart magical sails and denying every attempt to steer the weather and soften their landing.
Hah! Let’s see how you deal with falling a few thousand feet.
Khachi was gritting his teeth under the strain of holding back the entire storm. He looked back to Eolinne for a cue, and at her gesture he dropped his shield. They were once more exposed to the turmoil of the storm. But the raging intensity of the initial moments had passed and between Eolinne’s expert piloting and Stella creating a circling shield of wind their ship wasn't immediately crushed by the weight of the storm.
Nathan spared a glance upwards to see both Aarl and Sarah still clinging onto the top of the mast. He wasn’t sure how they’d held on against the storm, but they’d managed it.
I’m just not sure it’ll be necessary. The enemies are going to splat right about…
Some kind of emergency enchantment flared deep in the enemy ship’s hull and it decelerated quickly before landing heavily in the water about a mile distant. At this range it was hard to determine details, but that crash seemed eminently survivable. He glanced at his Stamina - just above 25000. He’d burned nearly fifty thousand points of the resource over the last few minutes expanding his aura wide enough to combat the storm. It had worked, but it was an order of magnitude more than he’d ever spent on anything before.