The Saint of Dragons

by Jason Hightman

  “Stay where you are,” said Aldric nervously, searching around the ship.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” answered Simon, his hands frozen to the rail.

  The wind had died completely. No other ships could be seen on the waters. Only icebergs drifted about, great and small. It was a lonely picture.

  “We’re dead in the water,” said Alaythia. “We’ve got to get the ship moving again. Let me tend to the rigging.” Before Aldric could say a word, Alaythia was climbing to the sails. But she had no time left.

  Suddenly the ship was struck again. Burring through the moonlit sea was an ice-blue shape that looked something like a shark. As it scraped along the side of the ship, Simon realized that it was not the real thing, but an ice carving that looked and moved like a shark.

  Its angry, sculpted face swam past them and sunk below water.

  “What is it?” wondered Simon.

  “Dragon magic,” Aldric said.

  More of the sharks began swimming toward the ship. Simon still couldn’t move. He watched with fascination, but as the sharks battered the side of the ship, cracking and splintering off part of their bodies, Simon was nearly hit by flying shards of ice.

  “Wretched magic!” cried Aldric. He loaded up his crossbow.

  The icebergs nearby squealed with a frightful noise, as ice calved off the frigid masses. As the ice hit the water, it formed into new sharks. Soon the ocean was dotted with fast-moving ice sharks attacking the boat.

  Again and again they rammed the ship, coming from every angle. Some of the ice sharks hit so hard they shattered completely, and tiny ice sharks were formed from the remnants of the bigger ones. The tiny sharks joined the larger in pummeling the Ship with No Name.

  Aldric fired arrows but kept missing. The sharks were too fast.

  “Get us going!” bellowed Aldric.

  Alaythia swayed from the mast, trying to unfurl a sail as the ship shuddered from the attacks. “I’m trying!” she called.

  “I can’t do this alone!” Aldric yelled. “Simon, what the devil are you doing?”

  Simon was trying not to lose his life. His hands wouldn’t pull free from the rail. The sharks were leaping up out of the water, snapping at him. Every time the sharks hit the ship, ice splinters, sharp and savage, would cascade over the deck, cutting Simon’s face.

  “Simon, get below!” yelled Aldric from the other side of the ship. “It’s too dangerous up here!!”

  One of Aldric’s arrows found its mark—and an ice shark was split in two! Now that same shark became two sharks, which swerved angrily for Aldric.

  Simon had pulled one arm free, tearing the skin of his hand. He couldn’t do that again. Quickly he pulled an arrow from the quiver at his side and held it to one of the torches mounted on the ship’s railing. Then he moved the flaming arrow, to burn away the ice that held his hand.

  Just at that moment, the two infuriated ice sharks leapt at Aldric’s face. The first came within an inch of him. Before its nasty ice teeth could crush him, Simon fired his crossbow into the shark’s nose. Its face shattered, and the force of the blow sent it reeling back into the water.

  Simon had saved his father’s life. But the joy of this vanished like vapor.

  The second shark had hit the deck—shattering into dozens of tiny ice sharks snapping their icy jaws. They flopped about on deck, trying to get to Aldric’s legs.

  Simon stabbed at them with his sword. He batted them off the deck, smashing them into the water. One of the little fish-monsters sunk its teeth into his ankle. It was like getting caught in a vise grip studded with needles! The icy jaws clamped onto Simon’s leg, forcing him to pull it free, painfully.

  Above him he could see Alaythia fighting to free the sails and get them into position. Everything had gone wrong with the magic that ran the ship. Rigging was fouled up, machinery failed, and the wind had grown weak.

  Simon kicked loose the vicious little ice-shark, but in doing so he slipped, sliding across the tilting deck to plunge directly into the ocean. He screamed from the cold.

  Below him a huge ice-shark was just pulling itself out of the sea. He grabbed hold of its dorsal fin so it couldn’t get its jaws around him. Now the shark was thrashing, trying to get at Simon.

  Aldric was yelling for Simon to grab hold of a line he was throwing out. The rope missed Simon—and the boy went speeding through the water on the back of the shark, hanging on for dear life.

  “Help me!” he shouted—but in the midst of his panic he felt a thrill, an exhilaration. He was holding on to a shark!

  Other sharks were closing in around him. Simon gripped the icy fin. Then, just as the shark he was riding on swooped past the ship again, Simon leapt away, snatching onto Aldric’s rope.

  Aldric yanked him aboard as three sharks at once snapped at Simon’s heels.

  Simon laughed out of pure fear—tumbling onto the deck, into Aldric’s arms. He could feel his father’s heart beating in terror for him. Aldric looked into his eyes, made sure he was all right. Then he pulled loose and rushed for the rail to fight off the relentless sharks, who were still battering the ship.

  High up on the mast, Alaythia closed her eyes, deep in concentration, and reached out to let loose the sails. She whispered to herself, a kind of prayer, a wish, a mantra, all in one.

  Below her Simon lay on the icy wood, rubbing his freezing body. “Somebody do something!” he cried. “Can’t this pathetic ship go faster?!”

  And then it did.

  The sails Alaythia struggled with now opened. The wind swept over the ocean and fell into the canvas like a stampede of horses. The deck lurched under Simon.

  The ship gathered up all its strength and charged forward, shooting through the swarms of ice sharks up ahead and blasting past the ones beneath it. Soon it had put them all behind. It was speeding over the ocean like never before.

  Simon was awed. Aldric moved in to check the shark bite on Simon’s ankle. He waved his father off. “I’m all right.”

  “You’ll have to be, for now.” He called to Alaythia, still high in the rigging.

  Her eyes remain closed, her body fixed to the mast like a wooden sculpture. She was nearly in a sleep state, terrified to open her eyes. “Are we through it?” she said. “I’m afraid to move.”

  “Yes. We’re through it,” called Aldric.

  “We were grinding right through them,” gasped Simon. “I think I saved your life back there.”

  Aldric raised an eyebrow. “That’s your view of things, is it?”

  “I saved your life,” Simon said, resentfully. “You can’t take this away from me.”

  “You endangered yourself,” said Aldric. “You put yourself at unnecessary risk. You have a duty to stay alive. You have a duty to follow my lead. I can take care of myself.”

  Simon was speechless—furious at his father for ignoring what he’d done.

  “And we’re not through this yet,” said Aldric, turning to the horizon. “We’re moving too fast. We’re out of control.”

  It was true. The ship was cutting the ocean like scissors through silk. With incredible speed, it was rushing for land—a jagged ice formation up ahead.

  Simon reached to brace himself.

  Aldric shook his head with worry. “I was wrong. We are close to that godforsaken place. The ship’s gone mad.”

  Simon reacted without a word. The ship’s magic was beyond his understanding.

  “We’ve got to get her down,” said Aldric, heading for Alaythia.

  “I don’t need help,” she said, hurrying down the ice-coated mast.

  Simon felt a rush of fear for her as the ship tilted. Her feet slipped. She grabbed for a hold on the mast, barely escaping a fall.

  Simon’s heart shook. “Help her,” he told his father.

  Aldric started up, but Simon knew it was too late. The ship was rushing for the glacial territory, and in the next breath it had slammed into the icy coastline.

  Everyone rocked from the impac
t. The ship rammed into the ice, spitting off the frost in its sails, canvas clattering with windy rage. Simon was thrown sideways, away from his father. He slid across the deck, sweeping painfully over the ice, to hit the cabin door. It struck like a boxer’s punch at his back.

  Knocked breathless, he saw his father tumble over the railing. Alaythia fell from the mast, grabbing it again just before she would have hit the ground. Her scream shot across the snowy land.

  Everything on the ship creaked and groaned, and then was silent.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  GRAVEYARD OF DRAGONS

  THE WIND DIED DOWN, whispering around the ship, taunting the survivors.

  They had run aground.

  Simon stood up weakly. The ship seemed mostly undamaged, from what he could see. His eyes met Alaythia’s. She put her hand up, as if to say, Don’t worry, I’m okay, and Simon moved to the side of the ship, looking for Aldric.

  He was lying in the snow, just now lifting his head. He seemed to be all right.

  Simon yelled down to him, rattled. “What do we do now?”

  Tense with worry, Aldric gestured behind him. “Ransack the graveyard,” he answered.

  Simon and Alaythia looked up, surprised. On the coast was a blight of dead trees and a trail of skeletal remains, human-sized Dragons, each one encircled in a little tornado of ashes and embers, still burning.

  They had found the graveyard of Dragons.

  Aldric headed back to board the ship. It was lodged just out of the water. Now the damage could be seen clearly.

  “We’ve got ourselves a wreck,” Aldric complained as he boarded. Parts of the ship’s deck had been cracked. The top of one mast had fallen.

  “It could be worse,” said Alaythia.

  “You should’ve cut sail when you saw we were going too fast,” said Aldric.

  Alaythia looked at him sharply. “You can’t possibly blame this on me. I was doing all I could.”

  “It’s all I have left of her,” Aldric answered, not meeting Alaythia’s gaze.

  Simon could feel the tension between Aldric and Alaythia, and decided to focus on the next step: “What do we do now? We haven’t got a ship.”

  “The wood will heal itself,” said Aldric, “but it could take a very long time.”

  Fenwick came out of hiding, running up and down the deck, highly disturbed.

  “I know, I know,” Aldric said, calling to the fox. “Quit complaining—I’m not happy about it, either. Put the cabin in order, and take care of Valsephany. We have other things to worry about now.”

  Simon looked at the landscape. “Looks almost peaceful,” he said. “Just dead. Maybe the legends were wrong.”

  They would find out for themselves. They changed into dry clothes and gathered gear for an expedition. Alaythia stayed behind clearing debris and keeping watch, while Simon and Aldric forged into the icy region. As dawn broke, they discovered that the trail of Dragon bones led to a stone ruin. As Simon reached the top of a hill, he stared in awe at what lay hidden in the dim light: A castle in the snow. It had clearly been through some terrible times. Little was left of its crumbling towers. Ice had formed into unearthly shapes atop its decrepit walls.

  In the courtyard, Aldric found a sword in the ice, marked with the Dragonhunter symbol. Simon and Aldric began digging there, searching for the Lost Book of Saint George.

  They uncovered the armor and weapons of many Knights, but there was no trace of the people who lived in the fortress. “They were burned away,” concluded Aldric. “The battle was here. The Dragon got through the outer defenses, and they resisted him ’til there was no one left to fight.”

  He pointed to a Serpentine form near a tower, the burned bones of the Daggerblood Dragon.

  Aldric theorized the other dragon bones they’d seen had come from later visitors here. But there was something else bothering Simon. “I want to know about Alaythia, but you keep changing the subject—she went up in the mast, she did something, and the wind came out of nowhere. I mean, how do you explain that?”

  “Let’s get this done,” said his father, as Alaythia came from the ship, bringing more digging tools.

  “I’m not waiting out there alone,” she said. “The animals are fine, and you don’t have to worry, I got all my artwork put away.”

  Aldric kept digging. “Good. I was worried sick. You can help us now. I want to get out of here as fast as possible.” But his shovel had just hit something hard.

  Simon leaned down with Aldric. It was a grim treasure they had found. A human skeleton in armor stared out at them.

  “Fioth St. George,” said Aldric.

  Alaythia came closer, intrigued. “How do you know?” she whispered.

  Aldric cleared away more ice. “He carries the book.”

  In the arms of the skeletal Knight lay the Lost Book of Saint George. Aldric gingerly pulled the very old, leatherbound volume from his ancestor’s clutches. It was slightly larger than an average Bible, and Aldric treated it with great care.

  “Sorry, old fellow,” said Aldric. Several Dragon-daggers lay embedded in the Knight’s skull, still burning faintly with red dragonfire.

  “That is hate.” Simon stared somberly. “Why didn’t the Dragon just burn the book after doing this?”

  “The books can’t be destroyed,” said Aldric, moving away from the fallen Knight. “And the curse did its work: The Dragon never got out alive.”

  Simon watched as Aldric turned the pages. It was a white book, not the black one Simon was used to calling the Book of Saint George.

  “There’s a lesson to all this,” muttered Aldric. “Back in the late medieval ages, there were two groups of Dragonhunters, those that followed Arthur St. George and those that followed Fioth St. George. They kept their work secret from the other so that if one group was destroyed, the other could fight on and not be discovered. But there were too many secrets. It would seem they worked from two different spellbooks. We didn’t even know this book existed.”

  “Is it going to help us?” asked Alaythia.

  “They’re in here,” Aldric said, satisfied. “The deathspells are in here.”

  And then he realized what he said, and his face fell into sadness.

  Simon moved near him to see better. “No, this is—this is impossible,” Simon stammered. His eyes ran down the long list of Serpents.

  “Hundreds,” said Aldric, his voice catching. It was like finding a new ocean after having just crossed one. “God help us. How many are still out there to this day?”

  The wind and the shock froze out any more words for a moment. The Venice Dragon now seemed to be only the start of their worries. A spark in a vast bonfire. The danger before them was so infinite they could hardly bear to talk about it.

  “What is…Whose deathspell is this?”

  Simon pointed. At the bottom of the list was a group of words, fancily written in the human magician language. Like all magic writing, it was partly in Dragontongue, but the words did not match up with any particular Dragon.

  “Not sure what that means,” said Aldric. “Some old warning, perhaps. The important thing is, the book is undamaged. Let’s just get it out of here.”

  “Why?” said Simon, his shoulders falling. “We can’t get them all, just the three of us.”

  Aldric pocketed the book, looking at him. “We must.”

  It was the lowest they had ever been.

  The threat of the Dead Coast was nothing compared to its secret.

  With a sad fury, Aldric picked up the torch of blue dragonfire they had been using to light their work and tipped his arrow with it. He lit another with the dark red fire from the Dragon-daggers. Simon wondered what he was doing.

  Angrily, he fired the first arrow into the body of the Daggerblood Dragon.

  “I’m too late to kill you,” snarled Aldric, and Simon was amazed at his wrath. “But I can burn you until there’s no trace of you on this earth.”

  With a cry of desperation, he shot the r
ed-fire arrow into the same spot on the Dragon’s skeleton.

  The two flames on the arrows came together and blew up with a calamitous blast. The skeleton was blown to bits. The exploded parts came down in pieces of burning bone. But immediately the fire turned into a quick, screaming inferno, and they were forced to run from it. Simon ran hard toward the ship, looking back to see the flames reaching across the winterscape.

  Simon, Aldric, and Alaythia ran until they crossed a fallen fortress gate, and stopped to look back. The fire was still crawling toward them.

  “When the fire of two Dragons crosses,” Aldric said, breathing hard, “it unleashes immense power. I didn’t know how bad it would be.”

  The flames would reach them soon. But Simon and Alaythia were already exhausted.

  “Well, I promised you near-death experiences,” said Aldric.

  Alaythia groaned. “Feel free to break your promises.”

  They fled the fire, seeking safety. They found instead a wall of fog.

  In the growing daylight, Simon watched, disturbed, as the fog expanded and blotted out the view of the ship, of the fire, of the dead fortress, and soon all traces of the landscape.

  “Of course the Dragons left the book here,” said Aldric. “No one ever comes here; no one ever leaves.”

  Simon and Aldric felt themselves grow dizzy. Alaythia said she felt it as well, a nausea taking over so strongly that she couldn’t go far without help.

  She stuck close to them, but it was clear no one knew which direction they were headed. There was nothing to guide them. They hiked in the snow for a long time, hearing horrible sounds in the fog, like wild predators killing their prey, snapping and tearing. Later they heard the cries and clanging of an old battle of Knights and Serpents, like an echo in history. Voices in the mist called out for them to run. They heeded the warning.

  At last Aldric found the way to the waterline, and they followed it, heading back to the ship, but their path along the edge of the coast was now broken up by cracking ice. Simon looked down to see the white ground breaking up beneath him—and hundreds of snapping, piranha-like creatures furiously churning the water between the cracks. All Simon could see were their sharp, tiny, glittering jaws.