by Dan Koboldt
He cut off as a crackling noise echoed in the chill night air. They could see the fracture down its midline. The creature within struggled for another couple of minutes. All Quinn could do was watch. At last, the two halves of the shell broke apart, revealing the curled reptilian form of an infant wyvern.
By a stroke of luck, both patrols had wandered to the far end of the encampment when the egg hatched. No one seemed to have noticed. The wyvern unfolded itself into a crouch and took a couple of shaky steps. It scanned left and right, taking in its surroundings. Then it lifted its snout to the sky and crooned two sharp, staccato notes somewhere between a grunt and a gull-cry. The lanterns of the two patrols went still. They must have heard.
The wyvern crooned again, louder this time. The sound echoed up and back from the mountain peaks. Now the patrols’ lanterns began bobbing in its direction. It crooned again. They picked up their pace.
Quinn looked up at the dark sky, but saw nothing. “Come on, mama wyvern,” he muttered.
The nearest two-man patrol came within about twenty yards of the snowdrift and halted, their hands on sword-hilts. A brief debate ensued, which Quinn couldn’t make out, but he guessed the gist of it might have been what the hell is that thing and I have no fricking idea. The wyvern hunkered down in the snow among its egg fragments, watching them. Its tiny pink tongue flicked in and out. The second patrol ran up, bringing the number of confused bystanders to four.
The wyvern crooned again, a single drawn-out note that started low and ended with a sort of high-pitched whistle. A whine, perhaps. It was a pitiful little sound, really. The mercenaries let go of their sword-hilts and approached it from two sides. Like dogcatchers approaching a nervous stray.
The wyvern let them come within a couple of paces. Then it reared up and snapped at the nearest man, nearly catching his arm. They retreated a few steps, muttering to each other. The hands went back to the sword-hilts. The wyvern snapped again, and now the swords came out of the scabbards.
“I think playtime is over,” Moric said.
“No kidding.”
A hissing scream shattered the chill night air from above. It had the sound of an eagle’s cry, and made Quinn duck his body protectively to the ground. Sheer instinct, that. He froze against the snow and prayed the mother wyvern wouldn’t see him. Light bloomed in dozens of tents as the mercenaries roused to this new sound, and small wonder. The next scream sounded lower, and louder, and when it faded, the whump-whump of massive wings sounded above the din.
“Sweet gods,” Moric whispered.
Maybe he was still looking. Quinn had already buried his face in the snow. The current of air buffeted him like a sudden tempest as something massive heaved past them. Only then did he chance a look over the ridge. The dark outline of the winged beast blotted out most of the encampment lights below. Mercenaries boiled out of tents, many of them armed, and took up defensive formations in between the tents, eight or ten soldiers to each one. Distant clack-thrums marked the firing of the first crossbow volley. The bolts slammed against the wyvern’s flanks—they could hardly miss at this range—but rained back down in shattered pieces to the valley floor. Then the wyvern swept down low across the tent-tops, ranking down men and tents with the claws of her hind feet.
She glided up past the gateway cave and turned for another pass. This time, the soldiers only got off a few crossbow bolts. Most of them hit the ground as she rushed past. Someone began shouting orders, trying to bring some structure to this chaos. Lanterns bobbed and wove toward the far corner of the vale.
“They’re going for the siege equipment,” Quinn said.
“I should think so.”
They buried their faces in the snow as she shot right past the ridge, showering them with snow. She dove again, screaming. The ground shook as she landed. Quinn felt the impact and stole another glance. The wyvern had landed right near where he’d dropped the egg. Eight or ten mercenaries advanced on her in a wedge formation, spears bristling. She swung her tail like a mace, swatting them aside.
The hatchling lifted its little head and crooned at her. She nuzzled it, tenderly. Everything moved in slow motion for that moment. It’s kind of beautiful.
An alarm Klaxon rang within the cave on the cliffs above. Soldiers poured out of the entrance, their swords glinting in the moonlight. Boots pounded down the hardpacked snow path from the mouth of the cave into the vale. A distant clack-thrum sounded. They’d gotten a ballista into position. The massive spear shattered against a boulder well short of the wyverns, but it sure got the mother’s attention. She screeched so loud that Quinn had to cover his ears, then nudged her hatchling to get it moving. It walked on shaky feet, heading south.
Crap. It’s coming right at us.
“I think that’s our cue,” Quinn said. “Let’s get out of here.”
No one answered him. He tore his gaze away from the carnage, and didn’t see the man. Where is he? “Moric?”
He scrambled to his feet. Looked around. Nothing.
A crash of timber and the screams of animals drew his gaze back to the valley. The wyvern had smashed open the horse pens. The horses scattered and fled off into the snow. The hatchling had started climbing up the ridge. It couldn’t be more than thirty yards down. Distantly, he became aware that the mother wyvern had gone still. She was staring right at him.
“Oh God.” He backed up a step, then another. Not again.
She reared back and spread her wings.
“Shit!”
Suddenly Moric was beside him again. “I believe that’s our cue.”
“I already said that—run for it!”
They fled down the ridge, stumbling in the thick snow. Quinn’s legs burned with the effort.
“Where’d you go?” he panted.
“I had to take a look at something.”
“You could have told me!”
The mules had edged away from the vale. Maybe they smelled the wyvern, maybe they heard its screams. Either way, the whites of their eyes were showing. Another distant clack-thrum sounded from the other side of the ridge. The wyvern trumpeted her fury.
Quinn threw himself on top of his mule. “Can we go now?”
“With pleasure.” Moric grasped his hand and took them away.
Chapter 20
Cold Assessment
“Good people will be cheated, just as good horses will be ridden.”
—Kestani proverb
Port Morgan proved just like Ralf described it: a sleepy fishing village on a small but deep harbor. No serious ships in port, only a few skiffs and fishing dories. Logan relaxed a little on seeing that. No ships meant no puffed-up Valteroni captains hoping to catch up with a fellow countryman. It was isolated, too. Logan had to admit that. Natural cliffs encircled the harbor and hid the village from the wider ocean.
“Little smaller than I expected,” Logan said, as he and Mendez glassed the village from the wheeldeck.
“Never heard that before.”
Logan chuckled. “Good one.”
Mendez took the updates from Kiara with characteristic stoicism. He’d said so little, Logan almost worried he didn’t understand. Right up until he gave a single hand signal. Opportunity.
Exactly, Logan signaled back. “Harbor’s wide enough to turn around.”
“Looks deep, too. We can probably get right up to the dock.”
“Nah, we’ll take the skiff. I don’t want anyone poking around.”
They took the ship into harbor nice and slow, giving everyone time to spot them and get comfortable with the idea of a large Valteroni ship bearing down on their tiny village. A few hundred yards from the dock, Logan told them to reef sails and drop anchor.
Snicket dropped out of the rigging. “How about I stay aboard, keep an eye on things?”
“No. Get the skiff ready.”
Snicket sighed. “It’s already on the crane.”
They drew lots to see who worked the oars. Logan and Mendez ended up with both of the short stic
ks. Ralf had held them, which made Logan a little suspicious. He didn’t mind the work, though, and it was hardly the first time he and Mendez had taken on some hard manual labor together. They fell into a steady rhythm: the skiff, the swells, and the two men rowing.
Snicket elbowed Ralf. “Who do you think’s going to collapse first? My money’s on the boss.”
Mendez snickered between strokes.
Ralf cast a dubious eye over both Logan and Mendez. “I’ll take Rico.”
“Wager?”
“Half-silver.”
“Done.”
They spat and shook. Logan locked eyes with Mendez. Both of them began rowing a bit faster. The boat lurched down one swell and up another, kicking up a cloud of seawater that drenched Ralf and Snicket.
“Gods!”
“Damn, that’s cold!”
Logan laughed so hard that he did have to stop rowing.
“Told you, Ralf,” Snicket said. “Pay up!”
They pulled up alongside the dock, where a small fishing vessel had just disgorged its crew and a decent catch. Logan recognized the indigo cigar-shaped fish. A shallow-water predator with nasty teeth. Good eating, but heavy fighters. The fact that these parchment-ancient fellows had brought them in on hand lines spoke to the kind of fishing village Port Morgan probably was. Family trade and all that. Very The Old Man and the Sea.
They’d hardly tied up to the dock when a rangy fisherman with a gray-and-black beard ambled over. “That your ship out there?”
Snicket tossed him the bowline. “Who’s asking?”
The man guffawed. “Watery gods, is that Snicket?”
“In the flesh.”
“Thought you were dead.” Then the man pulled them in and tied off to an empty cleat. A perfect bowline, and he tied it one-handed.
Snicket hopped out onto the pier. “Hello, Jass.”
They stood face-to-face for a minute, sizing one another up.
“Thought you were your dad,” Snicket said.
“He’s been dead ten years.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Gods above, you picked up a new earring or six, didn’t you?”
Snicket cracked a smile. “This kind of beauty deserves embellishment.”
Logan chuckled to himself as he climbed out behind Mendez. That kind of talk only happened between old friends or family members.
“Looks like you brought some friends,” Jass said.
Snicket tilted his head at Mendez. “The quiet one’s Rico. This here’s the boss. Gentlemen, meet my uncle Jassup.”
Logan smiled and offered his hand. “You can call me Denzel.”
Mendez gave him a double take.
Logan winked at him. Play it cool, man. Play it cool.
“Well, Denzel and Rico. Welcome to Port Morgan,” Jass said.
“Nicest port you never heard of,” Snicket said.
“Hey now, mind your manners!”
“I said it was nice, didn’t I?”
Jass beckoned. “Bring your friends, and you can see how much better the place is with you gone.”
“We can’t stay long,” Logan said.
“My wife’s got a roast on the hearth. Should be done around sundown.”
Logan’s mouth watered at just the thought of roasted meat. “We wouldn’t want to impose.”
“There’s plenty to go around.”
Well, if you insist. “Very kind of you,” Logan said.
They set out down the docks.
Snicket glanced over at Jass. “Speaking of kindness, who’d you finally convince to marry you?”
“Your sister.”
“What? She’s your niece, man!”
Jass shrugged. “Only by marriage.”
They kept up the banter all the way into the town proper, which included about two dozen stone-sided houses with slate roofs. The boats and skiffs in the harbor outnumbered the houses at least two to one. Not a major ship among them, though. That, along with Snicket’s apparent notoriety, suggested that most of the people born here never left. Many called out to him from afar. Men and women both. Everyone wore a smile. None of them were armed, and they cast the occasional bemused glance at the swords Logan and Mendez wore on their belts.
Logan ignored them and gave the place a cold assessment. The harbor was deep, and had room enough for twenty ships like his. No wall or stockade between the coast and the settlement itself, but the cliffs behind it provided a natural shelter from elements and enemies both. That wide cylindrical building near the pier would be a granary, and the villagers themselves looked well fed.
A good place to land an army.
Mendez cast the occasional look around, but kept his expression neutral. He was sizing the place up, too, probably thinking along similar lines.
The next few hours offered a blissful respite from the monotony of life aboard ship. They also confirmed everything Logan had guessed about the village’s strategic value. There were only three passes in the landward cliffs that separated Port Morgan and its outlying farms from the rest of the mainland, and only two of them were wide enough to let a wagon through.
CASE Global could capture this village without even trying. The villagers were farmers and fishermen, not soldiers. With a few modifications, they could turn it into a virtual fortress.
Logan probably should have called it in and let the lieutenant know. But Port Morgan kept offering him reasons to put it off.
The first was supper at Jass’s house, where his wife had been slow-roasting an enormous haunch of meat since daybreak. He smelled it the moment they set foot on land, and his legs would have carried him there even without an invitation. Then there was a quiet offer from one of Jass’s boys to sample his latest batch of moonshine out back. It looked like motor oil and burned an eye-watering path down Logan’s throat and was exactly what he needed. The night sort of spiraled from that point onward. Logan allowed himself to unwind a bit, for the first time in what felt like a while. He had seconds on the moonshine, and thirds on the roasted meat.
Finally, he excused himself from the table and stepped outside to get some air. The harbor’s glasslike surface still held some light, but darkness cloaked most of the village proper. Warm light spilled from half a dozen windows. He took a few deep breaths, enjoying the calmness of this moment, this place. Then he activated his comm unit.
“Logan to HQ.”
“You’ve got Kiara. Go ahead.”
“I found you an LZ. It’s a place called Port Morgan. Deep harbor, good layout.”
“Defensible?”
“With some modifications.”
“Tell me about the village,” she said.
“It’s tiny. Probably less than eighty people. Nothing bigger than a fishing boat in the harbor.”
“Is there a militia?”
“Negative.”
“How many young men of age?”
“I don’t know, six? Most of them are out at sea.”
“Take them out before you leave.”
She couldn’t have just said that. “Can you repeat that, Lieutenant?”
“Take them out. Any man between eighteen and sixty years old.”
Her casual tone made him go cold in his belly. “You’re not serious.”
“Of course I’m serious. I don’t want any resistance when we arrive to make port.”
“Lieutenant—”
"This is not up for discussion, Logan. Get it done, set a beacon for us, and proceed to your main objective. Kiara out.”
Logan fumbled for his comm unit and switched it back to standby. He couldn’t move after that. Couldn’t believe what the lieutenant had just ordered him to do. Removing Holt was one thing. He’d made a conscious choice to go against the company. Odds were, he knew the risks. These villagers, though . . . they were innocent. Their only crime was living on a nice harbor within striking distance of Valteron.
The problem was, Logan couldn’t refuse, either. The company had his family. Mendez’s family. All of them ho
stages against their compliance. How many atrocities would Kiara put on his hands before this was over? He didn’t want to think about it.
I need another drink. He went back inside, already feeling numb. Snicket was entertaining the crowd with stories of his shipwrecking career, which had the feel of a local legend. There was even a quiet betting pool someone started on how long it would take for Logan’s ship to find its final hidden reef.
Logan found his chair again and forced a smile. “Can I get in on that action?”
Jass laughed. “Should you be betting against your own ship?”
“Come on, I’ll pay double.”
“Sorry, but we can’t have you filling a one-holed bucket on us.”
One-holed bucket? He’d never heard that one before, but it sounded like a no. “Fine, have it your way.”
“How about some consolation?” Jass offered him another slice of meat from the haunch.
Logan shook his head. “If I eat any more, I’ll regret it. But thanks.”
“Beats hardtack and dried fish, doesn’t it?”
“There’s no comparison. If I could eat only meat, I would.”
Jass barked a laugh. “You and me both, Denzel.” He lifted his glass of moonshine. “To meat eaters.”
“To meat eaters.” Logan touched it with his own.
Jass sighed with contentment. “You a hunter, by chance?”
“I guess you could say that.”
Jass leaned in like a conspirator. “We got a little day trip tomorrow, to hunt some goat up in the cliffs. You’re welcome to join.”
“I’m not sure we can stay that long.”
Jass’s eyebrows went up. “Leaving so soon?”
“We’re on a schedule.”
“Probably for the best.” Jass took a long pull of moonshine, and smacked his lips. “Those cliffside trails aren’t for the meek.”
What the— “Did you just call me ‘meek’ ?”
“It’s all right.” Jass patted his arm. “You don’t want to go, you don’t have to go.”
“How long is this little trip going to take?”
“A few hours. We’ll be back in time to fry some fish at midday.”
