The Dragonstone

by Dennis L McKiernan

  “Nay, Egil,” said Arin. “I would come unto Jute on a ship of peace rather than a raider’s rig.”

  “The Jutlander queen’s court is in Königinstadt, along the coast. We could slip ashore at night.”

  Again Arin shook her head. “Rather would I come announced unto this mad monarch than to scurry ashore in the dark, for I would enter her court invited, not in secret.”

  “But they say she’s mad.”

  “Nevertheless, she is queen of a nation at peace with the High King. Hence, ’tis better we come in the open—and expected—than to be discovered skulking in the night.”

  Egil sighed and nodded. “As you wish, love. But tell me, my engel, how do you propose to garner an invitation?”

  Arin turned to him and smiled and shrugged. “On such a ship as that one below, we will have time to think of apian, neh?”

  Egil laughed. “Aye. That we will. And though I would rather slip over the wall and snatch away the mad monarch’s rutting peacock, there is much to say for your methods. Yet whatever plan we devise must succeed quickly, for I do not wish to spend a jot more time than necessary in any mad monarch’s view. Hence, if it were up to me, I would simply grab the peacock and run—it is the raiders’ way.”

  Arin laughed and then sobered. “One-eye in dark water. Mad monarch’s rutting peacock. I do hope we follow the correct path.”

  Egil pointed to his crimson patch. “Love, you have me, and so that line of the rede is now fulfilled.”

  Arin sighed. “Mayhap, Egil, mayhap. Yet deep in my soul I feel Alos may have a part to play.”

  Aiko, who had remained silent, muttered something under her breath, then turned to Arin. “He is an old man. He is a drunkard. He is a coward. He would do nought but hinder us. Nevertheless, Dara Flameseer, would you have me find him and ask him again to join the quest? He will just run away screaming.”

  “What does thy tiger say?”

  “On matters such as these, she is silent.”

  “I could talk to him,” rumbled Egil.

  Arin sighed. “We simply must find a way to convince him to come.”

  Egil puffed out air between his pursed lips and cast a glance at Aiko, then said, “Let us go down and see where next the carrack is bound. Perhaps indeed, it will bear us to Jute.”

  * * *

  The two-masted ship was the Gyllen Flyndre, out of the port of Ander in northern Rian along the Boreal Sea. Her master was Captain Holdar. He had sailed along Fjordland, making port in town after town, where he had traded ship’s goods for furs. Mørkfjord was the last Boreal Sea port he would call on, after which he was bound for the walled city of Chamer on the east coast of Gelen, where he would sell the furs for a handsome profit.

  Holdar rubbed his ruddy jaw, then said, “I’ll not stop in Jute, milady, but if you’ve a boat we’ll lade her aboard—or tow her ahind—and set you free in the waters nigh.”

  Arin glanced at Egil. “Is there a small craft we can purchase?”

  “I think I know of a ship,” answered Egil. “One I can handle alone, though ‘twould be better with a crew of two or three.”

  “Aiko and I can learn.”

  Aiko cocked an eyebrow, but Egil grinned and said, “Aye, that you can. But first let’s see if she’s still up for grabs for a coin or two.” He stood and stepped to the bar.

  Captain Holdar shook his head. “I’d not be going to Jute, Lady Arin, if I were you, and that’s my sound advice. The queen, they say she’s mad; just how, I don’t know.” He turned to Aiko. “But this I do know, yellow lady: if I were you, I’d steer clear of her court, for they say she likes to collect exotic things—birds, animals, creatures, whatever, people not the least—and I’ll wager she’s not seen the likes of you, what with your golden skin. Why, she’s like to throw you into a cage, I wouldn’t wonder. But, oi, I’ve no need to travel those ports, and of that I’m glad, yea, what with the furs along this coast and the good market in Gelen—and here’s to Chamer hats and muffs and coats and such.” Holdar hoisted his mug of ale, then took a great swallow.

  A short while later Egil returned. “Tryg says Orri still owns the sloop he doesn’t want, a small knockabout some thirty feet long—won it as a prize on a raid in Gothon.”

  Holdar hoisted his tankard again. “Then we’ll tow her ahind, laddie buck, yea, for she’s too long to lade…though I might say, a little sloop like that, she could be faster than my carrack. You might want to sail her instead, yes?…if your business in Jute be urgent, that is.”

  Egil shook his head. “I think not, Captain Holdar. The Boreal is no place for such a craft with an untrained crew. We’ll take the Flyndre instead, and drop off nigh Jute.”

  * * *

  Later that same day, Orri’s wife, Astrid, bartered the sloop to Arin for her horses, glad to be rid of the craft. “All we did was keep it up. ‘Twasn’t useful in Orri’s trade, him with his longship and all. The horses, now, we can use them to travel inland to see my kith, though Orri’s likely to balk a bit at visiting those he’d rather not.”

  The sloop bore the name Brise, a Gothonian word none there knew the meaning of.

  * * *

  The long summer twilight fell, then darkness, and the citizenry of Mørkfjord continued its celebration of the arrival of the Gyllen Flyndre, while Arin and Egil held hands and were the recipients of many a stare. At long last, Egil retired to his stone cottage. Late in the night, Arin lifted his latch and slipped into his bed.

  The next morning the new lovers awoke to find Aiko outside, resting on her tatami, her back against the door, her swords unsheathed and lying across her lap.

  * * *

  A week later the Gyllen Flyndre set sail towing the sloop behind, the small craft’s canvas furled, her hatches battened tightly, her hold filled with stores.

  Aboard the carrack, Arin, Egil, and Aiko leaned against the taffrail and looked down at her, the Brise bobbing aft on a long pair of ropes in the wake of the Flyndre.

  Through the long notch of the fjord, the carrack made her way toward the sea, riding outward on the morning wind and tide. Finally they came to the open waves, the Boreal calm on a summer’s morn, a splendid day for sailing, though with this ocean one could never tell, the Boreal perhaps the most fickle of waters in all the world.

  Southwesterly they turned, a mile or so out from land, following along the coast, the braw wind bearing them at a goodly clip through the slow rolling swells.

  Arin took a deep breath of the salt air, then said, “On our way at last, we three, toward the court of the mad queen. I only regret—”

  The remainder of her words fell unspoken, for in that same moment hoarse raw screams erupted from the cabins below. In a flash, Aiko’s swords were in her hands and she leapt down from the poop deck to the deck below, Egil on her heels, his Fjordlander axe at the ready, Arin coming last, her long-knife in its sheath.

  And the screams crescendoed upward in pitch, upward in horror, as unremitting terror gripped a tortured soul.

  CHAPTER 35

  As sailors on deck turned toward the sound of the screams, Aiko flung open the door to the aft quarters. In the dimness at the far end of the hallway, she saw a shadowy form scramble down a rear ladder toward the holds below, taking the shrieks with it. To the right, one of the cabin doors swayed to and fro, the tiny quarters empty.

  “’Ware!” called Egil, but, gripping her swords, Aiko plunged after, the pommels of the weapons clattering on the rungs as she clambered down. Egil followed, with Arin close after.

  They came into the crew’s quarters, and men, startled, were looking in the direction the yowling form had fled. Their heads swiveled around as Aiko darted past, then Egil and Arin. “Oi, naow, what’s all this—?” called out a crewman, but his words were left behind as down another ladder plunged the trio, chasing after the screamer.

  Now they came into a darkened hold, and among the bales of furs they could hear a blubbering and hissing, a voice sissing out in a loud whisper, “The b
ilge. The bilge. They’ll never look there. Never.” Then—“Eee! Eee! Trolls! They’re coming! They’re coming! They’re going to get me! Yaaaaa…!” and horrified shrieking filled the air once again.

  “Egil freed a hanging lantern from its short chain and used the striker to light it. Then holding it high in his left hand, his axe in his right, he followed Aiko toward the screams—which suddenly stopped, to be replaced by a sobbing and scrabbling sound.

  They rounded a pile of bales to find a man on all fours scratching at the deck planking and sobbing and babbling to himself, “The bilge, the bilge, get into the bilge.” He was a dirt-streaked, disheveled old man, who looked up at them with a blind white eye, his mouth stretched wide in fear, lips pulled back from brown-stained teeth.

  It was Alos.

  He shrieked and scrambled back from them, his arm outstretched to hold them at bay, all the while howling, “Trolls! Trolls! Eee…!”

  As sailors swarmed down the ladder behind, Arin, her long-knife now in hand, snapped, “Aiko, what says thy tiger?”

  Aiko shook her head. “Nothing,” she growled. “Nothing at all.” With a flip of her wrists, Aiko reversed her grips on the pommels and sheathed her swords, then stepped toward Alos.

  The old man’s eyes flew wide with terror. “Eeee—” he shrilled, then clapped both hands across his mouth to stifle his own screams, and squeaking and sissing he scuttled backward into the shadows and away, seeking refuge in the darkness among the bales.

  * * *

  “What d’ye think she be?”

  “I dunno, Cap’n,” replied thirty-year-old Alos, helmsman of the Solstråle, a merchant kravel out of the port of Havnstad in Thol. “Ne’er seen a thing like her.”

  Astern, a dark ship, long and slim and driven by both wind and oars, continued to draw closer, her black hull cleaving the waters and her dusky sails bellyed full.

  “She looks to be a two master, Cap’n,” added Alos, shading his eyes against the setting sun, bloodred on the horizon. “But her sails, wing-on-wing…huh, they both have the look of our mizzen.”

  Captain Borkson grunted and nodded. “Lateens, lad, both main and fore…like a ship o’ th’ southern seas. What a southern ship’d be doing in th’ Boreal…”

  Alos shook his head. “Southern may be her sails, Cap’n, but her oars, well now, I’d think they be northern—Fjordlander or Jute. D’ye reck’ she’s one o’ them, fitted up with new riggin’?”

  “Well, what e’er she be,” said Jarl, the Solstråle’s first bo’s’n, “she be o’ertakin’ us. A full eight candlemarks ago she stood on th’ rim, and now she be halfway here. I make it she be runnin’ near two knots faster than we.”

  “Aye, that she be,” replied Borkson, “an’ I nae like th’ look o’ her. Alos, fall off t’ th’ larboard, four points. We’ll see if she j’st hap’s t’ be on th’ same course or ‘stead be tryin’ t’ o’erhaul us. Jarl, pipe th’ riggin’ t’ make th’ most o’ th’ wind.”

  “Aye aye, Cap’n,” replied Alos, spinning the wheel as Jarl piped the signals to the crew.

  The Solstråle heeled over as the ship swung to larboard, and the crew trimmed the sails to catch the wind now quartered off the port stern.

  Moments later the black ship heeled over as well, her lateens now both set to starboard, her oars stroking the sea.

  “Jarl, run up th’ pennons askin’ her t’ identify hersel’.”

  Jarl piped the crew and signal flags were lofted. As the pennants ran skyward on the halyard, Alos said, “If she’s a southerner, Cap’n, she might not know the Boreal codes.”

  Borkson did not reply…and neither did the black ship, and the wind in her sails and beat of her oars did not slacken.

  “I think she still be o’erhaulin’, Cap’n. Four miles astern, I gauge,” said Jarl.

  “Run up our own colors, Jarl,” said Borkson.

  As the sun set, again Jarl piped the crew, and the blue-and-yellow flag was lofted into the gathering twilight.

  But still the black ship gave no indication of her identity, and her oars churned against the water.

  “She be haulin’ us in like a fish on a spindle, Cap’n, a fish t’ be gaffed, I might add,” said Jarl.

  “Jarl, pipe th’ officers t’ th’ poop, helmsmen, too.”

  Moments later, the bo’s’ns and mates and helmsmen gathered ’round the captain. Hearing the signal as well, other members of the crew drifted up to the main deck, where seamen on duty pointed out the dark ship astern, her dusky sails silhouetted against the lavender sky.

  After briefing the officers and helmsmen, Borkson said, “Here be my plan, gentlemen: we run on this course until full night falls, then we’ll bring th’ Solstråle hard astarboard to run a beam reach. In th’ dark th’ black one astern will nae be able t’ see our extreme course change. There being no moon this darktide, we should gi’e her th’ slip.”

  First Mate Sigurson glanced at the darkening sky, then raised his hand and, at a nod from the captain, said, “I judge it now be four candlemarks till full night. How close will she be when we make our turn?”

  “I judge a mile, more or less,” replied Borkson.

  “Let us hope it be more than less,” said Jarl, sotto voce, which brought chuckles to all lips.

  Smiling and confident, Borkson said, “Spread th’ word among th’ crew, and ha’e them douse all light, then stand by until we’re well away frae th’ dark ship aft. And tell ’em t’ be quiet as hold mice, for I’d nae ha’e rattle nor clack nor blather gi’e us away in th’ dark.”

  Looking aft, Alos, his heart pounding, watched the dusky sails against the ever darkening twilight sky, the helmsman no longer able to see the black ship’s hull against the waters of the Boreal Sea as she slowly drew closer. Some three candlemarks passed and stars glimmered ere he lost sight of her altogether, yet he could now hear the pulsing beat of a distant drum measuring out the strokes of her oars. Another candlemark passed and the drum grew louder, like the thud of an ominous heart, and lo! he espied luminous swirls in the water where the oars churned the brine.

  “Stand ready,” hissed the captain to bo’s’n and helmsman, and as Jarl, unthinking, raised his pipe to his lips, Borkson said, “Nay, Jarl, I’ll ha’e no pipes gi’e us away. Trim th’ sails by word o’ mouth, and in whispers at that.”

  Word was passed and the men stood by, and at last Captain Borkson gave the order “Hard over,” and when the crew felt the ship begin to heel to the tiller, they haled the lines and swung the yards on the mizzen, main, and foremasts to bring the ship ’round twelve full points to set the wind direct on the starboard beam and make the most of it.

  As the ship came to her new heading, Alos straightened the wheel and breathed a sigh of relief. But then, from aft, mingled with the drumbeat, he heard sinister laughter floating over the waves. Holding the wheel steady, Alos glanced rightward out over the sea toward the position of the dark pursuer, and of a sudden, a greenish glow enveloped the rigging of the black ship. Alos sucked air in through his teeth and gasped, “Adon!”

  “Witchfire,” sissed Sigurson, the first mate standing at hand. “Cap’n, she be burnin’ with witchfire.”

  “Th’ better for us t’ see—” began Borkson, but then he broke off.

  “Cap’n,” hissed Alos, “she’s turning on our—”

  Suddenly, the Solstråle’s own rigging flashed into witchfire flames, the ethereal luminance writhing over masts and yards, halyards, lanyards, ratlines, and the like. A collective wail from the crew of the Solstråle moaned up to the sky, and men covered their eyes to be shut of the sight of the ghastly glow.

  Harsh laughter sounded across the water, and the tempo of the drum increased, and the black ship, her oars churning, her rigging burning, haled closer with each stroke.

  “Cap’n, what’ll we do?” cried Alos, his voice tight with fear.

  “Sigurson, break out th’ weapons,” snapped Captain Borkson, “arm th’ men.”

  “But Capta
in,” protested Sigurson, gesturing at the rigging above and then aft, “the witchfire, the black ship, she’s got to have a Wizard aboard. How can we—?”

  “I said, arm th’ men,” snarled Borkson. “She’ll no take us wi’out a fight.”

  As the first mate scrambled down the ladder to obey, the captain turned and scanned the ship aft. “She’ll be on us in a candlemark or two, lads. Be prepared t’ swing her t’ larboard or starboard, Alos. Jarl, ha’e th’ men stand ready. We’ll gi’e her a run for it.”

  “Aye, Cap’n,” replied Jarl. Then, “Oh, Adon. Look. On th’ poop of th’ black ship.”

  Alos turned and looked as well, and his heart leapt into his throat and he groaned in fear, for there on the fantail of the ship stood a form flaming with witchfire, his dark robes burning blue-green. It looked to be a man…yet deep in his shuddering bones, Alos knew it had to be a Mage. And the drum pounded and oars slashed down and through and up and back to its pulsing beat.

  “Galley,” hissed the captain. “I now remember. I ha’e heard o’ these. Old ships, ancient ships, from realms far away—but I ne’er thought t’ see one.” He turned to Alos and Jarl. “We’ll ha’e t’ be nimble and stay off her bow, for ’tis told they bear rams.”

  “Rams?” Alos moaned.

  “Aye, lad. Great underwater beaks. They’ll hole our hull. Sink us down. We got t’ stay clear.”

  His frightened face illumined by the witchfire in the rigging above, a sailor bearing blades came clattering up the ladder. “Y’r sword, sir.” He handed the captain a saber, then falchions to Alos and Jarl.

  His breath whistling in and out through clenched teeth, his heart hammering wildly, Alos took the falchion and slipped it through his belt.

  Now the black ship, its rigging alight, was only three furlongs astern, drum pounding…then two furlongs, oars stroking…one furlong, laughter echoing across the waters…then directly astern.

  “Oh, Adon, Cap’n,” moaned Jarl, “they’re Rutcha. Th’ crew is Rutcha.”

  “And Drôkha,” added the captain, grinding his teeth. “’Tis a Foul Folk craft.”