Gathering Storm (The Salvation of Tempestria Book 2) - Gary Stringer (read e book TXT) 📗

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Daelen declared, beaming with pride.

Testing Daelen’s sympathic sensitivity, Cat projected the impression of boys and their toys. Then on sudden impulse, she added a rather rude comment, connecting a grown man’s need for oversized toys as compensation for a lack in other departments. She couldn’t be sure if he got the message since the link was one way, but she was almost certain she saw him blush slightly. She found that gave her a rather perverse sense of satisfaction.

Meanwhile, Mandalee’s lips twitched with suppressed laughter and tears formed in her eyes. “You can’t possibly be serious!” she blurted out.

Daelen looked hurt. “What’s the matter with you?”

Mandalee’s laughter was like a dam bursting. She just couldn’t hold back the tide any longer.

“Loving the low profile!” she laughed. “You sail in that, nobody’s going to suspect a thing!”

Cat, making a supreme effort not to tease him any further, looked up at the shadow warrior who clearly still did not see the problem. She sighed and tried to be as diplomatic as possible.

“Oh, Daelen,” she sighed, “this is precisely what I’ve been trying to tell you. Your power leads you to make basic mistakes. Your problem is, you’re not used to thinking strategically. You’ve never needed to. You just go into a situation at full power and blast your enemy. Look, your ship is magnificent, and I would be proud to sail in her, but as Mandalee says, it’s not ‘low profile’ is it?”

“But StormChaser is the only ship that can get us to my secret island base, due to the perception filter.”

Cat shook her head. “Ah, you see, it’s not,” she disputed. “It’s the only crew that can get us to your secret island base.”

“Wait!” Mandalee exclaimed, turning to Daelen with a stunned expression. “You have a secret base on an island?”

“Nope,” he replied, with a grin. “I have a secret island with a base on it.”

The assassin rolled her eyes. “Figures.”

Ignoring the exchange, Cat fished out her notebook and pen, opened it to a blank page and with a look of concentration on her face, sketched a diagram, occasionally crossing out a line and drawing a new one.

At last, she declared, “It’s fine, it’s no problem. I can work with this, use it to our advantage. Here’s the plan.”

She walked them through her idea, using her diagram as an aid. When she finished, she asked, “What do you think?”

“I think it’s the least ridiculous radical plan I’ve ever heard from you,” Mandalee answered. “I’m disappointed.”

Cat raised an eyebrow. “Mandalee, I’m crossing the ocean to a continent I’ve never seen before and travelling to a desert I know nothing about, to go up against the most powerful and dangerous being in the world that I’ve no clue how to stop and his growing army that I have no way to fight.”

Mandalee considered that for a moment before replying, “Well, that’s a relief.”

Daelen was incredulous. “How is that a relief?”

“Her ridiculous radical plans have a way of always working out in the end,” she explained, “but if she starts trying to use serious ones, that’s when I worry.”

“I’m always serious about what I do,” Cat disputed. “Just not necessarily the way I do it.”

*****

My mother’s plan, gentle reader, went like this: Daelen had considerable resources to his name, with an entire ship and crew at his beck and call. He could easily afford to charter a second one. A small, nondescript one. One that wouldn’t be noticed. He gave Mandalee the money to do the transaction entirely in her name. That way there was nothing to connect it to him.

Meanwhile, Daelen and Cat found a dark, secluded alleyway in which to change. Daelen dropped his disguise and Cat became a rat. She’d never shapeshifted into something that small before, and it hurt like hell, but as ever, she did not let that stop her. As for Pyrah, she’d just have to put up with being in a pocket dimension for a short while. Daelen picked up the rat and put her safely in his pocket. Then he put on a show, appearing over the docks with his usual accompanying storm, making sure there were plenty of witnesses.

He flew down from the sky to land on the StormChaser, where he was greeted by the captain, whom he immediately ordered below decks for a private word. He retrieved the rat from his pocket, and she swiftly changed back to her natural form. If the captain was surprised, he didn’t show it. Daelen told him that Catriona’s presence must remain a secret and he needed to split his team, running StormChaser with a skeleton crew.

When Catriona quipped that she’d heard there was a ship out there, somewhere, run by a crew of actual skeletons, the captain simply agreed that he’d seen it. She was never sure whether he was joking or not.

The rest of his crew would handle the other vessel: the Dolphin. This part of the ocean was often home to a pod of the creatures. The assassin had chosen it both because it fitted the bill of having virtually no distinguishing features, and because it was a simple name to transmit sympathically.

The crew transferred in ones and twos, taking different routes, so as not to appear suspicious. Everything was designed to minimise any chance of a connection between the two ships. Once ready, the StormChaser set sail for Daelen’s secret island, which he called StormClaw. A few minutes later, after two or three other ships had departed, the Dolphin got underway on a very different heading, as if they were going to Esca, which they were…just not right away.

Far away from the harbour, the Dolphin slowly, gradually changed its heading. It wasn’t a direct course for StormClaw, but rather it looked like it was merely a pleasure cruise that happened to be going in that general direction. Happened all the time. In fact, Mandalee and the crew even waved to the