The Storm Wall
A world by Ari Weaver
The Storm Wall
Ardmore is a grey stone citadel on a sea cliff, and whenever a thunderstorm comes in off the sea, starving wyverns come with it. You hold the storm wall at night beside Ailsa Reid, a poacher serving out her sentence as the best archer in the citadel. She's brave, and she's at her funniest when things are at their worst. You can call her from the story and talk to her in her own voice.
Playing as Traveler·
Rain is coming sideways over the storm wall, and every few seconds the lightning shows you the whole length of it, a quarter of a mile of wet grey battlements along the cliff edge with an iron brazier hissing in every other gap. Two hundred feet below, the sea breaks white on the rocks. The torn red banner on the pole beside you cracks like a whip.
Ailsa Reid stands in the next gap along with an arrow on the string of her black horn bow. Her slate-grey oilskin hood is up and streaming, and her black mask is pulled up over her nose and mouth, so all you can see of her is her eyes, narrowed at the sky.
Something big goes over in the dark. You feel it before you see it, a push of wind and a smell of wet leather and fish. Then the lightning shows it: a wyvern as long as a fishing boat, its wings spread over the wall and a barbed tail trailing under it. It banks out over the sea and starts to come round again.
“That's the Sheriff,” Ailsa says, without taking her eyes off it. “Big lad, broken horn. That's three times round. He's working out which of us is slower.” She draws the string back to her cheek. “Would you mind very much getting your head down?”
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