The Rain Drummer

A patched hunting skiff hovers beneath a solitary raincloud in an otherwise clear sky. In her bow, an old lutrine hunter beats a cartwheel-sized hide drum in slow rhythm, summoning the rain.

"The great leviathan follows the rain," he calls across to you. "For forty years I've drummed it up from the deep clouds. I still have the drum to summon it—but I no longer have the guns to kill it."

Up close, the old hunter's skiff is held together by patches, and the harpoon mount on her bow sits empty.

"I had to sell my harpoon cannon two winters ago just to buy food," he admits. "I can call the beast up out of the clouds, but your ship will have to do the fighting—and be warned, it has sunk bigger hulls than yours."

As the old lutrine beats his drum, torrential rain pours from the cloud bank. Up from the depths rises a slate-gray sky-leviathan longer than the your ship, with a rusted iron harpoon jutting from its back like a mast. It fixes one massive eye on the skiff's drum, and then on your hull.

With the leviathan slain, the rain stops as the drum falls silent. The old hunter sits with his drumsticks across his knees.

"My forty-year hunt is over," he says. "I have no more need to summon rain—but your ship might."

The extracted harpoon lies on your deck, its rusted shaft stamped with the name of the old hunter's brother.

"He drove that iron in when he was twenty," the old lutrine says softly, running his thumb over the name. "For forty years I hated that beast for carrying it—and now the grudge is gone."