Crossroads 04 - The Dragon Isles

by Sullivan, Stephen D (v1. 1)

  Mik ordered a ration of rum for everyone, and that seemed to calm things down for a while.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, the Dragon Isles crept closer.

  Karista Meinor paced across the short expanse of Kingfisher’s bow, wringing her slender fingers together, and occasionally stopping to mop the sweat from her brow with a silk handkerchief.

  Behind her stood Bok, perspiration running down his body from the tip of his shaved head to his bare feet. He kept a wary eye on both his mistress and the approaching islands.

  Trip clung to the rigging near the top of the mast, refusing to come down even as the rainstorm broke in earnest. He kept his hazel eyes fixed on the distant islands, hoping to catch a glimpse of flying dragons or something even more wondrous.

  The wind howled like demons, and many crew members wrapped scarves around their heads, or covered their ears with their hands—as much as they could—while they worked.

  Thunder crashed and, before they knew it, a sailor had leaped overboard into the surging waves. He screamed an incoherent warning as he went, but there was no trace of him by the time a rescue crew reached the rail.

  “Turn back!” Pamak said.

  “We can’t!” Mik replied. “Our only chance to survive the storm is to keep going!”

  Thunderheads rolled up the sky behind Kingfisher, and lightning crashed into the ocean with frightening regularity. The seas mounted ever higher before the wind, and soon the water behind them looked like green-gray mountains. The storm’s breath whipped the tops of the waves into froth; white mist danced high into the air.

  “Come down, Trip!” Mik shouted up to the kender. “Before you’re struck by lightning!”

  “Aye, captain!” the kender called back. He swung around the mast and felt with his foot for the rigging. As he did, something in the breakers off the stem caught his attention. Trip put a hand over his eyes and peered into the storm.

  “Crazy minnow!” Ula yelled up to him. “What are you waiting for?”

  “I see something!”

  “What?” asked Mik.

  “Sharks! Sharks running before the storm! Hundreds, thousands of them!”

  “He must mean porpoises,” Karista called from the bow. “Sharks do not run before storms—not on the surface anyway.”

  “I mean sharks!” Trip called back, pointing. “Look for yourselves!”

  The aristocrat and the captain peered in the direction the kender indicated. The wind whipped stinging spray into their eyes, and they had to blink away the brine to see.

  The sea behind Kingfisher boiled angrily, and not just with wind and waves. Tall dorsal fins broke the whitecaps as schools of sharks swarmed forward: redtips, swordbeaks, manglers. Many leaped from the breakers, their toothy maws snapping at the salty air.

  “What’s happening?” Karista called from the bow.

  Astern on the bridge, Mik shrugged and shook his head. “Maybe they’re chasing something.”

  “Or perhaps something is chasing them,” Ula suggested. Her green eyes went wide as she gazed at the foaming sea.

  “What is it, girl?” Karista shouted.

  “Can’t you feel it?” Ula called back. She turned her head from side to side, as though seeking the cause of the feeling.

  “I feel it,” Mik replied. The sensation was like a large knot twisting within his stomach. He tightened his grip on the tiller; his brown eyes flashed, questing, across the whitecaps.

  “I feel nothing!” Karista shouted, annoyed. “I...”

  As she spoke, the waves behind them erupted, and the dragon burst from the deep.

  Nine

  Tempest's Fury

  Tempest exploded from the breakers like a blue green mountain. Boiling steam erupted from her massive jaws; her yellow eyes shone with the fury of the storm.

  Hatred of the Dragon Isles and all those who sailed to them burned in her black heart. She would make sure that if she could not reach the archipelago, no one would.

  The sea cascaded away from Tempest in huge waves. The sudden torrent crashed against Kingfisher, threatening to tip it on its side. High on the mast, Trip clung desperately to the rigging. Sharks, razorfish, and Turbidus leeches as thick as a man’s arm sped in a maelstrom circle around the tottering caravel.

  The crew working Kingfisher’s deck toppled when the waves hit and screamed as the dragon-fear swept over them. Mik hung onto the tiller, but the backwash from the waves carried Ula toward the rail.

  Mik stabbed his hand out, but Ula slipped away from him.

  The sea elf slammed against the gunwale and regained her footing. A razorfish, carried high into the air by the swell, flashed past her face. Ula barely ducked aside in time. The fish flopped onto the deck, and she seized it in one slender hand. She dashed the fish’s brains out against the hull and threw the body back into the raging surf.

  At the front of the ship, Marlian, Karista, and Bok froze as the dragon rose before them. Marlian pushed them all to the deck as the breaker hit. All three of them got wrapped up in the anchor chain, which kept them from heaving over the side in the backwash.

  Poul wasn’t so lucky. The old man had been working amidships when the wave struck. The water seized his thin body and thrust him toward the bow. Marlian reached for him as he swept past, but her outstretched hand merely brushed his callused fingertips.

  The tall sailor woman struggled out from under the tangled chains and lurched to her feet. Poul was hanging half over the rail, his feet dangling toward the raging water below. Marlian grabbed his right arm just as he went over.

  “Help me!” she cried.

  Bok lurched to his feet and toward the lanky woman sailor. Marlian’s fingers dug into the old man’s stringy flesh. Terror flashed across Poul’s ancient face.

  “I won’t let go,” Marlian said. “Hold on!”

  A glimmer of hope lit within Poul’s ancient eyes. The breakers clawed at his bare legs and feet as he tried to scramble aboard once more.

  A huge mangier shark burst from the waves below the wizened mariner. The creature’s blue-gray sides glistened with foam. Seaweed and huge Turbidus leeches hung from its flanks. Jagged triangular teeth jutted from its gaping mouth. Poul’s legs disappeared into the fish’s maw; the shark bit down on the sailor’s midsection.

  Poul gasped, and blood spurted from his mouth. Marlian screamed.

  The shark lunged forward, clamping its jaws down over the old man’s head. A hideous crunching sound filled the air. The shark jerked its head to the side and dived back into the deep.

  Marlian clung to the old man’s arm, but Poul was no longer attached to it. The momentum of the shark’s dive jerked her half-way over the rail. She flailed with her hands but found only rain, crashing water, and wind. Wide-eyed, she gazed into the deep. A dorsal fin cut through the water in front of her terrified face.

  Strong hands grabbed Marlian’s ankles. “Karista, help!” the big bodyguard cried. He clamped his thick fingers tight, but Marlian’s legs were slippery with rain. Bok began to lose his grip.

  Lady Meinor staggered forward, trying to keep her footing on the rocking deck. Kingfisher surged and she fell into the rail, almost going over herself.

  Bok grabbed her and lost his hold on Marlian.

  Marlian screamed as she disappeared into the brine. Razorfish swarmed in her wake and stained the ocean red with blood.

  * * * * *

  Trip clasped his fingers tight around the rope atop the masthead. He watched in fascination as the dragon dived past the ship on the starboard side. Several deckhands threw themselves off the ship in a frenzy of terror. What Trip felt was more of a thrill. He’d never seen a dragon before and was determined not to miss a moment of the experience, even if it killed him.

  Lightning flashed through the sky, narrowly missing the mast. As quickly as he could, Trip scrambled down the rigging toward the deck.

  Another dragon-spawned wave struck Kingfisher’s side. The boat pitched wildly, and Trip found himself hanging in
the air, holding onto a rain-soaked rope by only his fingertips.

  “Wheel” he squealed as his hands slipped free. The feeling of soaring unfettered through the air was one the kender knew he would treasure for the rest of his life—even if that life was about to end. Trip smiled at his friends on the madly bobbing ship below as the waves rushed up to meet him. “Will I hit the deck, or the water?” he wondered. “Will it hurt much?”

  *****

  Karista grabbed Bok’s shoulder and clung to him as he pulled her away from the rail.

  “Lower the boat!” Karista cried, staggering toward the skiff, stowed amidships. “If we lower the boat, we could get away!”

  “Away to where?” Bok replied, gazing frantically around the surging seas, trying to find the islands.

  Dragon-fear held the crew firmly in its terrifying grip. Most of the hired hands dashed madly about the deck, or dived for cover through the hatch and into the hold. Following Karista’s suggestion, several sailors began to unlash the ship’s boat and push it toward the rail.

  “Belay that, you fools!” Mik shouted from the bridge, but the crew wasn’t listening. The captain cursed as the heaving seas threatened to yank the tiller from his hand. Kingfisher bobbed and swerved wildly, nearly heaving onto its side.

  Ula staggered from the rail to help Mik. As she skidded across the teetering bridge, the sea elf looked up and saw a kender flying through the air toward her. She held out her arms, and Trip fell hard into them. The two of them thudded to the rain-soaked deck. “So kender fly now?” Ula asked.

  “I wish!” Trip replied. The two of them struggled to their feet once more and lurched to the tiller.

  “Hold onto this,” Mik said, slapping the diamond artifact into Trip’s small hand. “I don’t want to lose it in this wash.”

  Trip nodded, and tucked the object into one of the many pouches on his lizard-skin vest.

  “The dragon’s submerged! I can’t see it!” Bok cried. The big bodyguard looked around frantically.

  “Maybe it’s gone,” said Pamak, trying to launch the boat.

  “It could be anywhere!” replied a woman helping him. The two kept pushing die skiff toward the rail. A crowd of sailors had formed around them, but no one seemed to have a clear plan for accomplishing their task; the crowd hindered as much as helped the efforts to launch the smaller boat.

  Meinor and Bok pushed up to the milling crowd. “Let us through!” the aristocrat bellowed. “I must get on that boat!”

  “Turn the ship into the wind, or we’ll be swamped!” Mik said to Ula as the two of them struggled with the tiller.

  The sea elf nodded. Trip came to help them, wrapping his small arms around the steering board. A huge wave cascaded over the side of Kingfisher. The crew on deck were scattered like ninepins, and the ship’s boat crashed through the rail and over the side. Bok went with it, but Karista got pinned against the gunwale, her foot caught in one of the scuppers meant to drain the deck.

  A second wave crashed over the bridge. The impact jarred Trip’s fingers loose from the tiller. The kender tumbled down the stairs, skidding helplessly toward the rail.

  Karista reached out and Trip grabbed her hand.

  “Thanks!” Trip gasped. They clung to each other and staggered away from the side, but Kingfisher lurched and threw them hard against the main mast. They grabbed a tangle of lines at the mast’s base and barely avoided being sucked overboard in the backwash.

  Thunder crashed and lighting splintered the ship’s bowsprit. Karista and Trip staggered to their feet once more.

  They all gazed out into the raging sea. Four lengths off the starboard side, the ship’s boat floundered in the crashing waves. Bok and several other sailors had managed to pull themselves aboard the tiny vessel. They clung to the sides as the gale spun them about like a toy in an angry child’s bathtub.

  The skiff suddenly surged upward on a huge column of black water. The crew screamed as the water fell away and a lightning flash revealed the dragon beneath. Tempest held the tiny boat between her immense rows of teeth for a moment. Then her jaws snapped shut, and the boat flew into splinters.

  The people manning the skiff disappeared into her gigantic maw—all but Bok, who had been flung out as the boat disintegrated. The bodyguard clung desperately to one of the huge Turbidus leeches hanging from the dragon’s upper jaw. He screamed wildly as he tried to scrabble up the dragon’s face to the imagined safety of her brow.

  Tempest flicked her head, like a monstrous dog flipping a hone into the air. Bok lost his grip and flew up into the storm. Tempest caught him in her titanic fangs and crushed him into a bloody pulp. Sharks, razorfish, and Turbidus leeches swarmed forward to gobble up the crimson leavings.

  Karista’s eyes went wide with horror as the dragon surged toward Kingfisher. She screamed—a piercing, high- pitched wail from the center of her soul.

  “Move!” Trip shouted, hauling on Karista’s hand. “We have to move!” He tried to drag her toward the bridge, and finally her legs began to move. They scrambled frantically over the wet, slimy deck toward the aft stairway. On the bridge, Mik and Ula struggled with the tiller, trying in vain to bring the ship around.

  The dragon’s snout snapped the top off the main mast as Tempest crashed down on the bow of the ship. Kingfisher heaved forward, and Mik lost his grip on the tiller. He tumbled down the stairs onto the water-drenched quarterdeck, smashing into Trip. The kender lost his grip on Karista. She tried to grab them again, but they skidded out of her reach and crashed into the base of the shattered mast

  The captain and the kender barely had time to look up before an avalanche of rigging and tangled sails buried them.

  * * *

  The dragon whipped her head toward the bridge. Karista, soaked and shivering, clung to the stairs just below where Ula held fast to the tiller.

  The sea elf shouted a defiant curse. She let go of the steering pole and seized a boathook from a rack near the rail. With all her strength, she threw the iron-tipped spear at the dragon.

  The weapon’s forward lance pierced the dragon’s cheek, and the trailing hook caught in her lower eyelid. Tempest roared in pain and surprise. She reared back her head and belched scalding steam over the deck of the kingfisher.

  Karista ducked as the boiling cloud thundered over her head. Ula screamed as the blistering steam hit her. She turned and dived over the side, disappearing into the swirling deep.

  Tempest reared up, raising nearly all of her massive form out of the surging seas. Then she crashed back into the ocean, head first, smashing into Kingfisher as she came.

  Kingfisher's spine broke in half as the dragon surged into the depths. In an instant the hold filled with water, smothering the cries of the crew still struggling below deck.

  The center of the ship sank first, and with it the broken mast, the rigging, and the shroud-like sails that had smothered Mik and Trip.

  Karista screamed until there was no air left in her lungs. She scrambled up the stairs to the bridge, knowing that doing so would only buy her a few more moments of life.

  Thunder boomed in her ears. Sharks, Turbidus leeches, and razorfish swam through the heaving waves, picking through the bodies of Kingfisher's crew. The wails of the dying mingled with the howl of the wind, the echoes of the thunder, and the deafening crash of the waves.

  Wreckage from the ship dotted the ocean all around. Some pieces of Kingfisher were burning, though Karista couldn’t imagine how they’d caught fire. The aristocrat scrambled to the aft end of the bridge, near the tiller, as waves greedily devoured the rest of the ship.

  Terror threatened to overwhelm her mind, but her body remained determined to stay alive as long as possible. She had to try, had to fight! Then she remembered: Her magical seaweed! She always carried some in the pouch at her waistband.

  Chewing on the seaweed allowed her to breath underwater—when the magic worked, which wasn’t always. Underwater, perhaps she could avoid the dragon and the frenzied predators. She
could hide beneath the waves until the danger had passed. It was a slender chance, but far better than she had on the surface.

  The water to starboard began to bubble and roil, the waves crashing higher every moment.

  The dragon!

  The dragon was coming back!

  Karista’s hands fumbled across her waistband, faying to find the needed pouch. Her nails caught in the water-soaked crevices of the sash at her waist. Her fingers got knotted in the fabric.

  Nearby, the long fins atop the dragon’s head broke through the surf. Tempest’s yellow eyes lit the waves, like huge lanterns lurking just below the chaotic surface of the sea.

  Sweat poured from Karista’s brow. Her body shook and shivered in the driving rain. The surging waves lapped over her feet as the last of Kingfisher's deck submerged. She lurched forward, pulling her fingers free and grabbing onto the rail just in time. She stabbed her right hand toward her pouches, all the while clinging to the wreckage with her left.

  She found the pouch and tore it open, thrusting her hand inside. Frantically, she pulled out the contents.

  A sudden flash of lightning lit the crumpled-up handkerchief in her palm.

  Not the magical seaweed, just a ratty handkerchief— like nothing Karista Meinor had ever owned.

  The dragon rose from the raging deep.

  The aristocrat gazed at the handkerchief, horror overwhelming her heart Two whispered words escaped her lips.

  “The kender!”

  Ten

  Perils of tbe Deep

  Mik Vardan knew he was about to die. Wet ropes and canvas knotted themselves around his body, chaining him to the iron-shod mast of the doomed Kingfisher. He’d seen the rigging falling, but he and Trip couldn’t get out of the way in time.

  They’d struggled for a moment, then something big hit the ship and the water surged up around them. They were sinking now, and Mik was about to drown.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw his enchanted fish necklace. He saw himself in his cabin, putting the necklace in his sea chest, next to his copy of the Prophecy. The Prophecy had never mentioned this.