blast. The bolt had struck Weatherlight’s hull where the figurehead should have been. It had torn a wide gash
through seven inches of solid magnigoth wood and had
vaporized the first forecastle rib. In the hold beyond, the energies had hit an ensign’s pack and burned it and its contents away to nothing. If not for that pack, the bolt might have ripped on through a bulkhead and into the
crew’s berths. Even so, the damage was severe.
Multani did not peer at the hull breach as would a mere man but felt it from the inside, for he was a nature spirit.
He had no true body outside of plant life. He took his form from wood grain. Cellulose fibers were his muscles,
heartwood his bones, sap his blood. His true home was the forest of Yavimaya, where he lived in the endless
magnigoth trees. That homeland had won its battles, so
Multani had taken up residence in the living hull of
Weatherlight. Her battles were only beginning.
Multani moved through the wood. The laceration
seemed a wound in his own flesh. It brought pain, of
course, but it also empowered him to heal the ship.
Charcoal sloughed from the edges of the breach. Sap
