The Dragon Round

by Stephen S. Power

  Everlyn scans the horizon. No privateers. Sailors pass her with the sailcloth. As they go into her cabin, she bends over the larboard rail to look past her cabin to stern. Except for a single far-off gull haunting their wake, they’re all alone.

  On the stern deck Jeryon asks Solet, “Gliding or flapping?”

  “Gliding. It dove a few times, then floated up again.”

  “Good,” Jeryon says. “Flapping means it’s interested.”

  He rubs his chin and considers the sail, a triangle the same yellow as his blouse, and the three banners dangling from the yard of the galley’s fore-and-aft rig: company, city, captain. Jeryon’s, striped blue and white, is the smallest. It’s also set at the bottom, the most easily replaced.

  Jeryon says, “Steady as she goes.” He slides down the stern ladder and orders the sail and banners brought down, as he would before a storm. They’ll slow, but their profile will be smaller. Better to lose an hour from their schedule than to be seen and lose their schedule entirely.

  Livion stands on the foredeck between the galley’s two harpoon cannons, bulbous iron vases mounted on steel tripods bolted to the deck. A dozen single-flue irons are stacked beside each, and a metal barrel with powder sits on the main deck, given some cover by the foredeck. Trust ships can whale if it won’t affect their schedules, which means Jeryon rarely allows it. But on this trip the cannons are meant only for defense.

  When they’d set out, Livion told the crew that the Trust believed Aydeni privateers would attack them. The sailors had thought that far-fetched, regardless of the rumors spreading through the Harbor. None had imagined this alternative.

  Beale, a harpooner with arms as thick as his weapon, says, “Will we fight?”

  “If we do, we’ll be ready,” Livion says. “I’ll take the larboard cannon.” Beale nods.

  Topp, a crossbow loader, says, “It would make a rich prize.”

  “For one ship in a hundred,” Livion says. “And the one in a hundred men on it who survives. You know what happens to the other ninety-nine. Let’s not push our luck.” He heads for the stern deck.

  Beale says, “I can’t think of a ship that’s done it.”

  “So someone’s due, right?” Topp says. “One good shot, and you could get promoted to mate.”

  “And I’d make you a harpooner so you can see how hard it is,” Beale says. “It would be an interesting shot though.” He swivels the starboard cannon, aiming over the horizon. “A whale’s a cow compared to that.” When Topp doesn’t respond, he realizes the captain is coming toward them. Topp is already pulling crossbows from compartments under the foredeck. Beale loads the cannon, but the captain takes no notice of either of them.

  Solet and Livion watch Jeryon pace fore and aft to the beat of the oars. It’s maddening, his precision, but it’s better than watching the shadow slowly approach.

  Solet says, “You’ve been through this before, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, but not with one so big,” Livion says. “We still lost the ship.” He glances back. “Twenty-five minutes. Could be twenty.”

  “If we could beat it, though,” Solet says, “would we render it? No one’s getting a share this trip. Only the captain gets a bonus. But we’d all get a taste of the render.”

  “We can’t beat that,” Livion says.

  “What if we did beat it?”

  “We couldn’t render it,” Livion says. “Not with our schedule.”

  “What’s a few extra hours?”

  “The flox kills quickly. Maybe ten people the first hour, twenty the second, and so on.”

  “Maybe so,” Solet says. “Maybe not. What’s a few people you’ve never met against a fortune you’ll never see again?” he says.

  “I’d be happy just to keep my life,” Livion says. “Again.”

  “And what’s your life now against what it could be?” He looks at Livion. “Stop thinking like him,” Solet says. “Think like the owners. The Trust would also get a share of the render. An immense share. The dragon’s share. Your woman’s father wouldn’t just bring you into the family business then. He’d give you a piece of it.”

  “The only way to get it, though,” Livion says, “would be to betray the captain. And mutiny never pays out in the end.”

  “Not mutiny,” Solet says. “Opportunity.”

  Livion steps away. He should have Solet broken down to sailor. He would if what he said didn’t ring true. His monthly would never satisfy Trist, and to her father anyone below captain is a ship’s boy. And would the flox spread so quickly? People had been staying indoors. The city guard had been keeping the streets clear. Victims had been isolated. And all the tales he’s heard about the plague’s virulence, they could be just that, tales. Tristaban, though, she’s real.

  Did he just see a flap? A grue clutches his spine.

  While pacing, Jeryon keeps his head down and his eyes up so he can read Solet’s big mouth and expressive lips. He’ll deal with the second mate in a moment.

  He enters the poth’s cabin. Drenched sailcloth cloaks the barrels and crates, many of which are under the table, and it’s anchored by the casks of water. He nods and notices the packets in a crate by the door. Another crate holds various tinctures and pills.

  “Bandages,” Everlyn says. “I never travel without some. And medicine. I could prepare better if I knew what we were facing.”

  Jeryon says, “Burns.”

  She plucks some bottles from the table. “Salves.”

  “And you’ll need a saw,” he says. “The carpenter will bring you one. And some cord and pins for tourniquets. Ever performed an amputation?”

  Some color drains from her face. “No,” she says. “My skills are herblore and midwifery.”

  Jeryon smirks. “It’s not hard. Except for the bone. And the screaming.”

  Everlyn draws herself up. Color pumps into her cheeks. “I’ve pulled dead children from the living, and living ones from the dead. I’m not afraid of a little screaming.”

  “We’ll see,” he says. “Stay here.”

  “I think I could better serve the ship on deck.”

  “How many lives have you saved while you were dead?” Jeryon says. “Stay here.”

  He starts out, but turns in the doorway. He surveys the table and crates of cured shield. “All that you’ve done,” he says. “I won’t let it go to waste.” Then he leaves.

  And that’s the limit of Hanoshi gratitude, she thinks. It’s not about you. It’s about what you’ve done for me.

  Everlyn takes out the skull bottle and toasts the closed door. Wine shouldn’t go to waste either.

  On the stern deck Jeryon says, “Where did it go?”

  “Into the sun,” Livion says.

  “Let’s give it a moment. You’re on the oar. If we’re seen, use your whistle to direct Tuse. It won’t matter how much noise we make at that point.”

  “What about me?” Solet says.

  “Larboard cannon,” Jeryon says. “A good commander leads from the front. If you want a ship of your own, you’ll need that experience.”

  Jeryon sees fear flicker in Solet’s eyes. Good, Jeryon thinks, let him wonder why I’m putting him on the cannon. Solet has his faults, but everyone knows he’s better at the oar than Livion, who’s the better harpooner.

  After Solet heads forward, Livion says, “Should I drop the rowers to regular time?”

  “No,” Jeryon says. “That was the mistake your last captain made, thinking the danger had passed.”

  Solet passes through the rows of crossbowmen lined up against the foredeck as he mounts to his cannon. They fidget. Their fingers flex. “Keep your fingers off the triggers,” Solet says. “I don’t want anyone shooting his own foot. Or mine.”

  He looks past the stern deck. How long can it hide inside the glare of the sun? Could it be that smart? Or
has it turned away?

  Beale gestures at his cannon with his firing rod. The bent tip glows red. “Should we unload?” he says.

  “You’ll know when it’s time.” Solet swivels his gun absently, its harpoon loaded and wadded well, and he thinks about how he’ll bring it down if he gets the chance. He has to get the chance. A dragon’s like a flying treasure ship. He takes his firing rod from a small steel cage containing a lump of burning charcoal to make sure it’s also fired, and he gets an idea.

  As he puts the rod back in the brazier, he stabs a pebble of charcoal with his finger blade and hides it behind his wrist the way a street magician tucks away a coin. He steps over to Beale and says quietly, “Nervous?”

  Beale says, “No.”

  Instead, he’s terrified. They all are, but none will admit it.

  Solet says, “Good. Turn around. Look at these men.” Beale does so. Solet puts an arm on the cannon behind him, and whispers, “They will look up to us when the time comes, just as we look to the captain.” He scrapes the pebble onto the touch hole of Beale’s cannon and says, “We have to be worthy, whatever comes. Are you with me?”

  “Yes,” Beale says.

  Solet steps to the edge of the foredeck to address the crossbowmen while waiting for the pebble to burn down. “The old man has a plan, and he sees his plans through, isn’t that right?” The crossbowmen nod. “He said we’d cross the sea in record time. And we did. He said we’d get what we needed quick. And we did. We’re nearly back in record time too”—he pauses for effect—“but for some possible unpleasantness.” The men actually grin. He’d be impressed with the captain too, if the captain were making this speech.

  “We may be safe,” he says, “but if we fight, we will have a chance.” More nods. He pats Beale on the back and glances at the pebble. It’s shrunk enough to slip halfway into the touch hole. “And we will win, do you understand me?” he says. “We will bring this boat in on time, and we will complete our contract. The city needs us to.” The crossbows quiver less. “Let’s keep it down, so let me see your hands.” They pump their fists. “Let the captain.” They turn and salute him. “And if it’s still back there watching, let it too.”

  The pebble burns down small enough so that when the bow smacks a large wave, it falls all the way into the touch hole. A boom roars across the waves, chased by the harpoon, which splashes uselessly into the sea.

  Jeryon’s about to risk calling out from the stern deck when Solet turns on Beale. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

  Beale looks from Solet to Topp to the crossbowmen and back to Topp. “I don’t know how it could have gone off,” he says. Topp’s look is especially withering. “Maybe it didn’t notice.”

  They’re a hundred feet from the stern deck. Nevertheless, they all hear Livion yell, “Captain.”

  The shadow rises over the sun, half a thumb wide, still so small, but coming on fast. Its wings reap the sky in twin arcs. Its sinuous neck pumps. Its claws and teeth glint like swords. Even at a mile and a half, its black scales shimmer red in the dawn.

  Solet can’t see the dragon’s eyes, but it feels like the beast is staring at him.

  Livion says, “Fifteen minutes, Captain. At most.”

  3

  * * *

  Jeryon calls his mates into his cabin. They gather around a small slate-topped table. With chalk Jeryon draws an idiot’s map of the Comber: a long cigar, a triangle at one end for the foredeck, a square at the other for the sterncastle. In the center he draws a circle for the mast, surrounded by four long rectangles where the deck is open. From a shelf he grabs the only decorative thing in the otherwise sparsely furnished room: a whale tooth two hands long. It’s covered in a beautifully detailed, blue ink rendering of the Comber. Jeryon holds it behind the stern deck and says, “This is the dragon.”

  Handsome piece, Solet thinks.

  “It won’t attack immediately,” Jeryon says. “It’ll pass us first and maybe circle us.” He runs the tooth around the picture. “If it doesn’t find us interesting, it’ll fly away. If it stays”—he sets the tooth behind the stern deck—“we have to make it uninterested. We’ll strike first.”

  “Punch it in the nose,” Tuse says. “Like a shark. I’ve used that strategy in bars.” He flexes his scarred fingers.

  “Yes, but the shark punch is a myth. They’ll just eat your fist. Dragons, though—I’ve read more than a dozen reports on dragon attacks from the last decade. In the few cases in which ships have struck first, most of the time the dragons left them alone.”

  “How many is ‘most’?” Solet says.

  “Two out of three,” Jeryon says.

  “That’s about my record in the bars,” Tuse says.

  “As first mate,” Livion says, “I must remind you—”

  Of course you must, Solet thinks.

  “That in the event of a dragon attack at sea, company policy dictates that a galley run or otherwise avoid a fight. The insurers won’t pay out if we fight. The attack, in their eyes, would become a confrontation, not an act of nature.”

  “Shall I remind you what’s happened to every ship that’s waited to fight?” Jeryon says. “Or would you care to present the report you wrote about your previous ship?”

  Centered in the porthole, the dragon is as wide as Livion’s thumb. It’s diving to the wavetops to pick up speed then soaring up.

  “No,” Livion says.

  “How many survived?” Jeryon says.

  “Eighteen, not counting me.”

  “Right,” Jeryon says. “You know that I do things by the book. I trust the book. I trust the people who wrote the book. And I expect my crew to abide by the book. In this one case, though, the book is wrong. We will have to rewrite it.”

  “The Trust will not be pleased,” Livion says.

  “Their ship will be afloat,” Jeryon says. “Their cargo will be safe. Their city will survive. Here’s what we’ll do.” He holds the tooth a few feet over the table and flies it athwart the larboard side. “As the dragon passes, we will veer across its path.” Jeryon kicks a table leg so the table slides and the mates jump. “And startle it.”

  Solet says, “Show it our side?”

  “We’re not being rammed,” Jeryon says. “We want it to think we’re tough to catch. Just like a rabbit veers. Unlike a rabbit, though, when the dragon’s momentum carries it over us, we will bite its belly with a load of crossbow bolts.”

  Solet smiles. “This is Ynessi.” It’s his highest compliment. Perhaps the captain can reach.

  “What happens if it doesn’t lose interest?” Livion says.

  “Then we turn and face it head on.”

  Solet’s smile disappears. He’ll be on the foredeck, the galley’s face.

  “We won’t get another shot at its belly,” Jeryon says. “The soft flesh of its face is its next most vulnerable region. The eyes. The mouth. The nostrils. Besides, there’s no room for it to land on the foredeck.”

  On Livion’s last ship, a bireme called Wanderlust, a great yellow dragon lit on her stern deck and levered the prow out of the water. He remembers his captain hacking at its foot with an axe, screaming, “To me! To me!” and the creature biting him in two. His legs remained standing before the dragon licked them up, then tore the ship to pieces.

  “Livion,” Jeryon says, “tell the sailors without crossbows that they’re on fire duty. They should have buckets of water and sand at the ready. Put some on each rail and some on the rowers’ deck. Then get on the oar again. Solet, you have the foredeck. Tuse, put us at regular time. We’ll conserve what energy the rowers have left. And keep the turns sharp. Quickly now.” He nods to dismiss them.

  As they’re leaving, he grabs Solet’s arm. The door closes. Jeryon says, “Who fired that cannon?”

  “Beale,” Solet says. “Poor gun maintenance.” He doesn’t say that he’s over
heard Topp trying to get Beale to stand out so they’ll get promoted. A captain doesn’t play all his cards at once.

  “And poor supervision,” Jeryon says. “A pity. I was going to report to the Trust that he could be a mate someday. And you could be a captain.” He pats Solet on the shoulder blade. “We may have to celebrate our survival with some floggings.” He nudges Solet to the door.

  Jeryon checks the porthole and does some quick calculating. The dragon’s only a mile away.

  Topp says, “They have the right idea.”

  Scores of fins, an enormous school of hammerhead sharks, flow around the galley and past the bow.

  “Wish I could swim that fast,” Beale says.

  “Thanks to you, we might have to try,” Topp says.

  “I didn’t do anything, Topp. Or nothing. And if I did, I don’t know how I did it.”

  Topp shakes his head. His look softens. “You do know how to use that cannon, Beale,” he says. “Make it up to us. Make your shots count.”

  The drumbeats drop by half and the ship slows to what feels like a dead stop. The dragon springs toward them.

  On the stern deck Jeryon can smell the dragon now: old earth thrown on a fire to smother it. And he can hear its wings snap. A sail could only dream of such command over the wind. The Comber feels like a piece of driftwood.

  He watches the sailors perform their various tasks and those who have completed them are checking their buckets, their weapons, even their oars. Simply having a plan, he thinks, is sometimes the best plan. It lets people concentrate on the present instead of dwelling on the future.

  Livion, having nothing to check except his grip on the oar and whether his silver whistle is still hanging around his neck, makes awkward conversation. “How do you know so much about dragons?” he says.

  “I read your report after you were assigned to the Comber,” Jeryon says, “which pointed me to others. I was impressed with how detailed yours was, although you didn’t elaborate on what you’d done.”

  “I just led the survivors back to shore, but everyone did their part. I couldn’t take credit for it all.”