Tempest

Chapter One

Many revs in the future, on the planet Skea.

A silent scream shattered Kore's tranquility. Ricocheting and repeating inside his head, the soundless petition reminded him once again he was not like the others of his clan.

At first, he ignored the disruptive mind-noise. After baiting two more hooks with animal viscera, he dropped the weighted gut-line over the side of his small grendoak boat. The surrounding waters splashed, alive with predatory gothia. Cinnabar in hue, cannibalistic in eating habit, the fish were his for the catching. Cut the gut-line, pull them in, and he would fill his empty belly.

Kore unsheathed his blade.

And the mute cry for help grew more insistent.

He hunched his shoulders against the summons then, warded off the keening in his thoughts.

Be gone, demon!

Why would the husky voice not leave him alone?

When finally she sobbed, a distraught wail that tore at his innards, Kore gave up all pretense of fishing. Defeated, he narrowed his sharp gaze on the horizon.

Where are you?

A strange vessel bobbed off in the distance, its awkward keel telling Kore the hull was taking on water. His meal forgotten, he severed his baited hooks, dropped his precious knife, and shoved off. Flexing his arms on the oars, he sliced through ink-black waves.

[He must reach her before the ship sank.

The vessel was listing when he arrived. After tying his small fishing boat to the side of the odd craft, Kore stumbled aboard.

Hold on! I am coming to you.

The deck glowed. Heat, unnatural and vibrating, blasted his face, melted the soles of his hide boots, and singed his feet. No matter. He continued onward along the topside of the vessel, casting aside twisted metal plates that resembled a warrior's armor and burned white-hot.

He would do what he must to get to her.

There was steam. Clouds of scorching steam. Rushing headlong through the dense cloud of vapor, he squeezed sideways through a crumbled portal. He felt her presence then. To get his bearings, he briefly halted his mad charge to peer down below.

Where are you?

The semi-submerged shell of the vessel gave off whirring noises, the like of which he had never heard before. Eerie blue lights blinked from cracked silvery panels. An assortment of charred wreckage shimmered: broken radiant levers; ruptured shiny objects; fractured reflective devices...

Bodies. Twisted remains. Tangled corpses, all seemingly lit from within. They floated like flickering torches, soon to be snuffed out, amid the stew of debris. What manner of being were they?

So much carnage. So many lost lives! And all carried the exotic look of her, the one who lived, the one who had called to him.

The sole survivor, a sprite slight of frame and pale of complexion, remained strapped in her seat. The tilt of her head revealed a long and graceful throat. And her hair! The long tendrils fanned the encroaching waters like seaweed. Deeper in shade than gothia fish, but lighter than the rusty blood that surrounded her, the vermillion-hued strands had him gasping in awe.

He could hardly breathe in want of her.

A series of steps led down into the ruined hulk, sunken well below the waterline now. In his haste to reach her, he bypassed these stairs and dropped smoking feet first into the flooded chamber, wading waist-deep in scalding sea water to her.

"Be not afraid," he said by way of reassurance. "I mean you no harm."

Once he had freed her from the confining belt that restrained her shoulders and waist, Kore scooped the sprite into her arms. With his blistered hands, he held her fast.

No hardship to carry her. The female weighed less than a grendle feather, even with her strange garb. Neither cloth nor fur, the tight scaly skin of her outer garments sluiced off the water and clung to her shape like the silvery husk of a seed. Above the upright collar of her mantle, her face shone bright - almost as bright as the third moon, Khalia.

Clearly, she belonged to a breed apart. Who was this luminous creature? Whence did she hail?

He had no way to know. The deep sleep of the mortally wounded held her in sway. Barely holding onto a slender thread of life, she could tell him naught. But, if perchance she could hear him, he told her something of himself: "I am Kore, leader of the Hunters. Upon my Keht oath, I am here to help you. I heard you call to me."

A long speech for him. To collect himself afterwards, he inhaled, and her scent, that illusive quality no two beings shared, drifted up to his nostrils.

Mine.

The thought beat in him true and steady, as true and steady as his heart.

The sprite's heart beat a less robust refrain.

Not a trice to spare, Kore forded back through the seething caldron of encroaching sea water for the stairs with the injured female clutched high against his chest, her red seaweed hair dangling over his arm. He was bounding up the treads four at a time when a thunderous boom originating from the ship's bowels shook the vessel. Another violent clap and a firestorm burst forth. Crackling and sizzling, the conflagration leapt at his face. A hot tongue seared his jaw and neck, its fiery kiss rippling his flesh.

Gnashing his teeth against the pain, Kore rounded over his charge. Protecting her body with his, he raced through the yawning hole that had once been the portal for the outer deck. Fire lapping at his heels, he plunged into the ocean, with the sprite locked under an arm. Neither fire nor water would rip them apart. Neither man nor beast would come between them. Naught would ever separate them again.

The strange vessel went down in a surge of frothy surf that took his small fishing boat with it, and Kore struck out for shore, kicking hard with his powerful legs to keep the sprite's head above the currents.

Upon reaching dry land, he fell to his knees, straightaway checking for her pulse of life.

Weak, so very weak. Her waning spirit hovered at the edge of the void. Without healing attention, she would cross over to the other side.

The Sald possessed knowledge of herbs and such. Using their unguents and poultices and splints, they could mend her ripped flesh, set her broken bones, make her all of one piece again. Kore asked favor of no one, but he would go to the coastal towers and beg the Sald Elder to save the sprite's life.

Dots danced before his eyes when he attempted to rise. A rumbling fit of coughing seized him. The fiery rescue had taxed his strength. The arduous swim had sapped what reserves remained.

To save the sprite, he must relinquish her. There was no other way. He would never make the journey otherwise.

Placing her gently aside, Kore forced himself to straighten. Allowing himself only one last look at his beloved, he staggered off alone for the Sald coastal towers.

Halfway there, a fit of bilious retching doubled him over. His chest rattled and burned. His throat was constricted as if by a birthing caul. Weaving on his feet, he continued, fighting to remain alert.

In a field of tall-growing gris, just short of his destination, he lost his battle.

The moons brightened the night sky when he reawakened.

The sprite!

On his hands and knees part of the way, reeling the rest, Kore returned to the spot where he had left her.

Not even a shallow imprint of her form remained in the ivory sands. The incoming tides must have swept the sprite back out to sea...

If ever she had existed at all.