by Den Patrick
‘It troubles you?’ said Maxim.
‘How do you mean?’ replied Kimi. The boy was so quiet she often didn’t notice he was there at all.
‘The arcane. Does it trouble you?’
‘I suppose it does. I don’t trust it. Bittervinge made the Ashen Torment with his powers.’
‘The father of dragons.’ Maxim paused to bite his lip, then looked at Kimi from the corner of his eye.
‘For decades the dragons came and went as they chose, eating whatever and whoever they liked.’
‘I’m glad I wasn’t alive back then,’ said Maxim.
‘But are things any better?’ asked Kimi. ‘The Empire makes people disappear just as surely as those dragons did. The Emperor is no better than Bittervinge.’
‘I’d never thought of it like that,’ replied the boy. He looked out to sea with a serious expression on his dark face.
‘And now something is troubling you,’ she replied. ‘What is it?’
‘Why did you ask Silverdust to release the dragons from Vladibogdan after we left?’
‘Can you imagine being chained up beneath the island?’ She frowned. ‘And starving to death in the darkness?’ Kimi shook her head. ‘I couldn’t have that on my conscience. Better they go free and find their way in the world. I’d rather they had a fighting chance than no chance at all.’
‘It certainly seems like they’ve found a fight,’ replied Maxim. Kimi stood up and looked port and starboard. The coast greeted her on one side as a distant blur of tan and white, while the dark blue ocean stretched away to the horizon on the other.
‘What are you talking about? What fight?’
The boy didn’t answer but swayed with the motion of the ship. For a moment Kimi thought the boy might pass out. She took him gently by the shoulders and saw his eyes had rolled back.
‘Kamalov!’ Kimi held the boy tightly to her chest and cast a desperate look over her shoulder. ‘I need you, Kamalov!’ The old woman hurried as best she could from the stern of the ship, aided by Kjellrunn, who glanced at Kimi with undisguised rancour. The Nordvlast girl hadn’t forgiven anyone for abandoning her family in Virag. Kimi couldn’t say she blamed her. She’d be no different under the same circumstances.
‘What is going on?’ said Mistress Kamalov sternly. ‘Is the boy sick?’
‘I don’t know.’ Kimi held him at arm’s length again, but his eyes showed only their whites. Somehow he remained standing, which unsettled her deeply.
‘They will come for us too,’ he muttered in a faraway voice.
‘He is having a vision,’ said Mistress Kamalov. ‘What did he say before this happened?’
‘We were talking about dragons,’ replied Kimi, ‘and then he became very quiet.’
‘I did not know he had come into his powers,’ said Mistress Kamalov as she pressed a hand against Maxim’s forehead. ‘I would have kept a closer eye on him.’
‘All hands on deck!’ shouted a woman’s voice from the crow’s nest. ‘All hands, damn you, Imperial ship sighted.’ Romola sauntered onto the deck from her cabin, her hair tousled. She squinted at everyone with bleary eyes. The captain shouted up to the crow’s nest.
‘This had better be good, Rylska, I was in the middle of a particularly good nap.’
‘You’d better see it for yourself, captain,’ the woman in the crow’s nest shouted back. ‘You’ll never believe me.’ Everyone on deck rushed to the prow, leaving Mistress Kamalov to take Maxim below. Romola shielded her eyes with the flat of her hand and stared out to sea.
‘If she’s been at the vodka again I’ll cut her wages for a month,’ said the captain as she approached the prow. Kimi followed her and the crew made space for them.
‘It looks like three large gulls are flying around that ship,’ said a pirate, peering into the distance. They were a good three miles away. ‘But why is the ship on fire?’
‘Because they aren’t gulls,’ said Kimi with a dreadful certainty. ‘They aren’t birds at all.’
‘And we’re heading straight for them,’ said Romola. Her face shot back to the crow’s nest. ‘Rylska! Get down from there.’ The captain looked towards the stern where three novices were dutifully summoning more winds for the sails.
‘Stop that right now!’ shouted Romola, but the novices couldn’t hear her over the sound of the arcane gales that sped the ship ever onward. Kimi broke into a flat run, her feet pounding the deck. She waved her arms at the novices imploring them to stop. The novices ceased their conjuring, but only after Kimi had scaled the steps to the poop deck.
‘I don’t take orders from you,’ said a young, dark-haired girl.
‘No,’ said Romola, coming up behind Kimi, ‘you take orders from me. Now get your scrawny arse below decks.’
Trine and her coterie of air witches slunk off, flipping the sign of the four powers at Kimi as they went.
‘I’m never having children,’ muttered Kimi.
‘That makes two of us,’ replied Romola.
‘I think one of the dragons has seen us, captain,’ shouted Rylska from the crow’s nest.
‘What do I do?’ said Kimi. Marozvolk had joined her and the feeling of rising panic was difficult to resist.
‘Not much you can do,’ replied Marozvolk.
‘Rylska, get down from there!’ shouted Romola. A dark, winged shape was growing steadily larger on the horizon, perhaps just two miles away. The Imperial ship behind it was marked by a column of dark grey smoke that coiled up into the skies. Kimi wanted to run, but where would she go?
‘Everyone who isn’t crew get below deck!’ shouted Romola from the ship’s wheel. ‘Fetch up the crossbows and bring plenty of bolts.’
‘We won’t stand a chance,’ whispered Marozvolk.
‘Stay here and keep an eye on Romola,’ replied Kimi.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’ve got an idea, but I’m going to need some help.’ Kimi scrambled down the steps and headed below deck just as the dragon flew overhead, a vast shadow above them.
‘It’s really fucking big!’ shouted Rylska from the crow’s nest.
‘Tell us something we don’t know,’ growled Kimi as she searched for Sundra. The priestess emerged from her cabin just as Kimi reached the door.
‘Is it true?’ asked Sundra.
‘Yes, and I need your help.’
The prow of the ship was on fire by the time Kimi escorted Sundra from below decks. A handful of pirates attended the flames with buckets of water and a great deal of harsh language. The dragon swept in towards the ship from the starboard side, great wings unfurled. The scales were all the colours of a forest in autumn: a profusion of brilliant reds and warm oranges, deepest browns and hints of green. The creature’s underside was a pale eggshell blue. It had transformed itself from the ragged and spent creature kept underneath the island. The creature flew low, just a dozen feet above the ocean, then pulled up just as Romola steered hard to port. The dragon clipped the top of the mast, and the crow’s nest disintegrated in a heartbeat.
‘Rylska!’ shouted Romola, clutching the ship’s wheel in fury. Of the tall red-haired woman there was no sign. The pirates aimed at the dragon with their crossbows, keen to avenge their crew mate.
‘Aim for the face,’ shouted one of the pirates.
‘Wait!’ shouted Kimi, turning to Sundra who stood alongside her at the burning prow. ‘Can you contact it? Like you did with Steiner?’
‘That was a very different set of circumstances,’ replied the high priestess, with an alarmed look on her slender face. In the distance the dragon wheeled around, turning to face the Watcher’s Wait once more.
‘Can you try?’ said Kimi. ‘This might be our only chance.’
‘I don’t see we have much choice,’ said Sundra, her eyes fixed on the dragon as it sped towards the ship once more. ‘But it’s not like sending a message. You have to think in images.’
‘Images,’ breathed Kimi. The dragon was almost upon the ship. ‘Send it
an image of me with a bucket of meat. Send it an image of me feeding them each day.’ She’d been on the island for five years, and every day she’d done what she could to keep the creatures alive.
‘I hope this works, Kimi.’ Sundra reached out with one hand and closed her eyes. The ship rocked as Romola changed course to try and avoid the dragon and Kimi wrapped an arm about the priestess’s shoulders to steady her. Waves crested the edge of the ship and broke across the deck in a fine spray.
‘We can’t outrun it,’ shouted Romola. ‘And we can’t outmanoeuvre it.’ The dragon slowed and turned side on to the ship, matching them in speed.
‘Hold your fire!’ shouted Kimi to the crew. ‘Don’t shoot it!’
‘Have you lost your mind?’ Romola shouted back from the stern. ‘This is our best chance.’
‘What’s happening?’ Kimi whispered to Sundra. The priestess looked more pale than usual and a fine sheen of perspiration covered her brow. ‘It … It seems to be sending back images of you. Images and sounds. You used to sing to them?’
For a brief second Kimi was transported back to the deepest parts of Vladibogdan, feeding the dragons, willing them to survive, crooning folk songs to them in the hope that anything would help. One prisoner reaching out to another.
‘I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this up,’ whispered Sundra, sounding tired and hoarse.
The crew had extinguished the fire at the front of the ship and Kimi headed to the blackened prow, her heart racing. The dragon surged ahead with beats of its huge wings, much wider than their main sail. The creature circled around in front of the red frigate then hung on the air, waiting for them.
‘Stow the sails!’ shouted Kimi, and to her surprise the sailors raced up the rigging to do just that.
‘It’s me,’ she shouted, feeling about as foolish and terrified as she ever had. ‘It’s me. From the island!’ The dragon was still two hundred feet away. Sundra appeared at her shoulder.
The ship slowed and the dragon remained ahead of them, hovering above the ocean with steady beats of its vast wings. The sailors stared with open fear on their faces and no one spoke.
‘I know you!’ shouted Kimi. ‘I fed you. I’m sorry you were kept in the darkness for so long.’
The dragon snorted a plume of smoke and altered its position, hovering lower, so it was closer still to the burned prow. The creature made a terrible sound, as if it were clearing its throat, then snorted another plume of smoke into the air.
‘You remember me.’ Gods, she hoped it remembered her. ‘We were both prisoners under the island.’
The dragon extended its sinuous neck and Kimi reached out until she could press her hand against the still-warm snout.
‘It knows you,’ whispered Sundra in awe. ‘It recognises you.’
Kimi balanced on the prow and pointed with her free hand at the Imperial ship. ‘Those people are your enemy. The people on this ship are with me. We are friends.’
The dragon flapped down hard with its wings and ascended a dozen feet, releasing a terrible sound – something between a growl and a roaring fire. Kimi stumbled back, certain she was about to be bitten in two.
‘Dragons don’t really understand the idea of friendship,’ said Sundra with a worried look on her face.
‘What do they understand?’
‘This one seems to understand your words,’ replied Sundra.
‘Yes, but how do they think?’
Sundra shook her head. ‘These dragons are infants, primal and angry. Appeal to their anger.’
‘We hunt the Emperor!’ shouted Kimi. The dragon beat its wings and flew away, circling the ship before heading off in the direction they had just sailed from. The dragon dived out of sight, disappearing underwater. Everyone aboard stared at Kimi with undisguised awe and no one spoke. Sundra sat down and cradled her head in one hand, exhausted and speechless.
‘I have never seen anything like this before,’ said Marozvolk. ‘I didn’t even know it was possible.’
‘It’s coming back!’ shouted Romola. Kimi ran from the prow of the ship and the crew made way for her. She arrived at the ship’s wheel just as the dragon appeared at the stern and dumped the bedraggled form of Rylska on the deck at Romola’s feet.
‘Frejna save us,’ whispered Romola. The dragon took off, heading towards its kin. Rylska looked up at Romola and Kimi and opened her mouth to speak but no words emerged. She waved her hands around, trying to explain that she’d just been saved from drowning by the same dragon who’d knocked her clean out of the crow’s nest.
‘Get this woman a very large vodka,’ said Romola. ‘Wait a moment.’ She sighed. ‘Get everyone a very large vodka.’ The captain shook her head and stared at Kimi for a long moment. ‘You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, your highness?’
Kimi stared after the dragon. ‘It remembered me.’
It was another week before the Watcher’s Wait made port in Dos Khor. The sun shone high in the sky and the ever-present damp of the north no longer troubled them. They had mercifully avoided any more encounters with dragons and Kimi spent her time thinking long on the majestic creatures.
‘Never in my whole life will I voyage again from Vladibogdan to Shanisrond in such remarkable time,’ said Romola from the docks of the desert port. They had all come ashore in small ships and the novices huddled around Mistress Kamalov obediently. The events of Virag lay heavy in everyone’s mind. Kjellrunn lingered behind the old woman, glowering at Romola with tight-lipped disgust.
‘I’ll miss you,’ Romola said to the novices. ‘If only for the fair wind in my sails, right.’ Trine was standing with them, scowling in much the same way she always did. ‘You I will not miss,’ admitted Romola.
Trine tossed her hair and sidled closer to Madam Kamalov. ‘And I won’t miss your horrible boat, or your stinking pirates.’
‘It’s a ship,’ said Romola. ‘And you’re lucky I didn’t make you swim.’ The captain walked away to attend to the supplies.
‘You are headed to Yamal?’ said Mistress Kamalov, turning to the princess, though it barely needed saying. Kimi nodded. Maxim pressed himself against her and threw his arms around her waist.
‘I have to warn my father that I’m no longer a political prisoner and we can no longer expect a truce with the Empire. Marozvolk will come with me.’
‘And the boy?’ said Mistress Kamalov.
‘His name is Maxim,’ said Kimi, looking down and frowning. ‘And that’s what you’ll call him. He’s not just a boy.’
‘I see,’ said Mistress Kamalov. ‘So he is to come with us?’
‘No,’ said Maxim. ‘I don’t want to go with them.’
‘It’s too dangerous where I’m going,’ said Kimi. She knelt down and stroked his cheek, rubbing the tears away with her thumb. ‘I have matters to attend to. When I’m done I’ll come back for you.’
‘No you won’t,’ said Maxim, his arms falling to his sides.
‘Steiner came back, didn’t he?’ said Kimi, dropping to one knee.
‘And where is he now?’ replied Maxim. ‘Everyone leaves.’
Sundra appeared out of the crowd of pirates and passengers on the docks, escorted by Tief and Taiga. The high priestess laid a hand on Maxim’s shoulder.
‘I’m staying in Dos Khor too,’ she said, her words heavy with sadness. ‘My sister and my brother are going with Kimi, so I will be all alone. And I will need a friend.’
Kimi stood and realised this might be the last time she ever saw Sundra. ‘Thank you. For everything you did for me on the island, and …’ A deep pang of sadness robbed her of speech.
‘Hush now, child,’ said Sundra. ‘I will see you again, in this life or the next. I will think of you often and send my prayers.’
‘I will come back,’ said Kimi, though she had no idea how. ‘For all of you,’ she added, looking at Maxim, though in truth she didn’t expect to survive the coming months. Maxim gave her one last hug, then took Sundra by the hand and walked awa
y from the docks. Kimi, Tief and Taiga watched the young boy and old woman leave the docks hand in hand until they were lost from view.
‘So you’re coming with me?’ said Kimi to Tief and Taiga. ‘I have to admit to being a little surprised.’
‘Pah! We’re with you until the end,’ said Tief. ‘You can bet your boots on it.’ He tested the edge of his knife with his thumb then looked up and grinned.
‘Marozvolk is coming too. She’s my bodyguard.’
Tief curled his lip and a frown chased the good mood off his face. ‘Why do you want to get yourself mixed up with a Vigilant? We just got rid of one.’ He gestured to the departing form of Mistress Kamalov.
‘She’s a former Vigilant, and more than that she’s from Yamal. She wants to go home.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Tief, though there was nothing fair about the look on his face or the tone he used.
‘We’d best get aboard the ship,’ said Taiga.
‘Romola has a habit of leaving people behind,’ said Tief.
‘No one is getting left behind,’ said Kimi.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Silverdust
The soldiers had begun marching inland, much to Silverdust’s disappointment. Are we not taking ship to Khlystburg? he asked as he emerged from the inn.
‘The dragons were set free during the uprising,’ said Father Orlov in a mournful tone. ‘Two Imperial ships have been lost to attacks from them in the last week.’
‘And there are rumours of four merchant vessels that suffered the same fate,’ added Envoy de Vries.
Silverdust knew all of this. Whispers had been set on the wind and he had listened for them in the long hours of the night. It was a cruel consequence that his act of kindness in releasing the beasts now hampered his journey across Vinterkveld.
‘Strange that the dragons didn’t escape until after Steiner had left,’ said Father Orlov, his implication painfully clear.
I simply brokered a peace with the Vartiainen boy so the remaining novices would not be slain. I did not free dragons.
