The Dragon Round

by Stephen S. Power

  In the poth’s cabin, she and Solet wrestle the drenched sailcloth off the tumbled crates and barrels. It’s no easy thing to drag it forward, and two firemen help. They unfold it so two can take the starboard walk and two can take the middle. When the shadow of the sailcloth passes over the rowers, they snap their heads up, worried.

  The heat is tremendous, and the stench of burning oil grates at the corners of their eyes. They flap the cloth atop the flames, driving out more smoke. The sailcloth sizzles. Two more firemen bring water casks. Solet tells them to pour it over the cloth, not the flames; it’ll be easier to smother them. The flames on the walk are soon out. They hang the cloth over the gunwales, and the waves catch the end and help beat out the flames. Solet listens to the ship. He feels it through his feet. The hull still seems sound.

  The poth says, “Where’s the captain?” One of the sailors points out toward the harpoon line, then to the dragon.

  Solet says, “Has he forgotten his precious book?”

  The poth says, “You have to help him. You can swim.”

  “I lied,” Solet says. “Can’t swim a stroke. I worked my way along the side to the ladder.”

  The poth looks at him in disbelief.

  “What can I say?” he says. “I wanted to impress you.”

  She should push him overboard, but that would only compound their problems. She grew up on a lake. She can swim well. But she knows she can’t go in after the captain. If she were lost in the water, too many aboard would die without her healing.

  “He’s going to tie them to the line,” the poth says. “We’ll haul them in.”

  Solet follows her and the firemen to the foredeck. The dragon won’t last much longer, he thinks. Nor will the captain. He needs to keep the former from sinking.

  Jeryon considers which sailor to save first. The waves decide for him. They drift Beale and Topp farther away while pushing together the other two. As their hands touch, instead of holding on to each other, each tries to get onto the other’s shoulders. One goes under, then the next. Their backs and flailing arms appear. It’s unclear whose is whose. They disappear again. A moment later Jeryon swims through the spot. He ducks his face into the water. He only sees the murk and matter of the sea. He swims on.

  Jeryon reaches Topp first. He tries to talk to him, but waves flood his mouth. Topp doesn’t respond anyway. Warily, Jeryon swims behind the sailor, a fist at the ready, then he grabs Topp around his chest. He puts up no resistance, and with a few scissor kicks Jeryon drags him to the line. He slips it under Topp’s arm. This Topp understands, and he comes to, as if from sleep.

  “Go,” Jeryon says. “Climb to safety.”

  “No. Beale. I have to save him.”

  “Then haul us in,” Jeryon says.

  Topp says “Aye,” and he pulls for the ship. A cheer goes up on board.

  Jeryon swims to where the block is nearly submerged by the weight of the harpoon. Beale is ten yards away. His flailing is getting more frantic. He’ll pull me under if I get close, Jeryon thinks.

  Livion watches the dragon beat toward the Comber. It either has no fire left, or it’s so intent on swimming that it can’t muster a breath. With only starboard oars, any attempt to go forward will carry the Comber dangerously close to the dragon. But, if he backrows any farther, Jeryon’s lifeline will get pulled away. Company policy dictates: Never risk the ship for a sailor. But he can’t let the captain die. And he doesn’t have to use all his oars. He pipes for just the forward three to pull, steers to larboard, and the Comber, balanced, edges toward the men in the water.

  The harpoon line folds before the prow. Everlyn and the sailors, relieved that the ship is moving, take up the slack. With the dragon closing in, Solet hears Livion pipe “to arms.” But, instead of gathering the scattered crossbows and men to wield them he runs to the stern deck. Livion pipes again. Solet won’t be deterred.

  Jeryon holds his hands out as best he can, trying to calm Beale. “I’m going to push you to the rope,” he says, circling the harpooner. “Don’t do anything. Look at the rope.” Beale’s eyes follow him, though. He spots the dragon beyond Jeryon, and all the fire goes out of him. He pulls in his arms, exhales, and sinks.

  Saving him for a flogging, Jeryon thinks. He dives.

  While Topp is being lifted onto the galley Livion searches the water for the captain. He hasn’t emerged.

  Solet climbs to the stern deck. Livion says, “I have the ship, and I gave you an order!”

  “Then I am acting first officer,” Solet says, “and it’s my duty to remind you—”

  “I know the book,” Livion says.

  “And I know the captain would have ordered you to stay away from the dragon,” Solet says.

  Livion stares at him coldly. “You want him dead. Then you’ll want the dragon as a prize.”

  Solet has the audacity to appear surprised. He says, “The captain and Beale may already be gone. We aren’t.”

  Jeryon still hasn’t emerged. The poth, Topp, and the firemen hold the line, waiting. A few other sailors have taken up crossbows to shoot the dragon. Two bolts stick in its face. The dragon isn’t discouraged.

  “Crossbows aren’t going to kill that thing,” Solet says. “We have to back water. We can watch it die from a distance. It can’t have long.”

  Livion has to agree, however insolent and manipulative Solet is. Even if the captain emerges, by the time they could reel him in, the dragon would be climbing over the rail. He pipes again. The remaining rowers lift as one and pull the ship away from the dragon. The harpoon line is dragged through the water. The poth throws the slack out, leaps up, and looks pleadingly at Livion. She points at the line. There’s nothing there.

  Livion tells Solet, “I want a report on the damage below in five minutes and one on the wounded in ten.”

  6

  * * *

  As the Comber accelerates, the block at the end of the harpoon line rises to the surface. Water streams over it, more than there should be, creating a bright wake. The poth yells, “There!” A head breaks through the overflow, and another. Jeryon holds the block, and Beale holds him. The poth says, “Help me,” to two sailors nearby. Topp is already heaving at the line. The others join in. The drag is considerable, though, with the ship moving. They make little progress. And the Comber is turning, drawing the line directly across the path of the dragon.

  Livion pipes double-time to get them clear. He hopes the captain and Beale can hang on. They look like bait.

  Solet sees what he must do. As two more sailors take hold of the line, he sprints to the cannon. The galley is turning into the dragon’s field of fire. He grabs a powder packet from its metal storage chest, stuffs it in, tamps it down, and pulls an iron out from under the feet of the poth and Topp. As they move aside, he slams the harpoon home, grabs the firing rod, and sights, conveniently, straight down the harpoon line.

  The dragon is only ten yards behind Beale, its head just above the water, its body largely submerged, which doesn’t give Solet much of an angle. For a moment he finds the harpoon aimed straight at Jeryon. No one could blame me, he thinks. It’d be like a hunting accident. Jeryon looks Solet in the eye, clearly thinking the same thing. Solet feels for the touch hole with the rod. Then Beale, exhausted, lets go of the line.

  Jeryon rolls over and reaches out to grasp him, but the lightened line is easier to pull in, and Jeryon is jerked forward by the poth and the sailors. He almost loses his own grip and rolls back to dig his fingers into the block. The dragon’s head rears and its jaw drops, not for a breath, but for a big downward bite. Beale scrambles in the water. The dragon’s wings throw spray over him. It’s one stroke away from the men.

  Solet has a clear shot. Topp says, “What are you waiting for?” The dragon’s head comes down. Solet fires.

  The harpoon narrowly clears Beale’s head and sinks deep into the dragon�
�s neck. Its head snaps aside. Its neck thrashes in agony, blood spewing from its mouth. The dragon makes one last heave, glides forward, and covers Beale with its wing, trapping him under water.

  Livion pipes. The oars drag the Comber to a stop. The harpoon line is pulled in and Jeryon is lifted onto the foredeck. He spits water and rolls onto his shoulder to consider the dragon. “Dead?” Jeryon says.

  Solet says, “I think so.”

  “Beale?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The dragon’s head rolls on its side, its eye open to the sun. Waves fan over the wings. A hand shoots through one of the rents in the membrane made by a bolt. Topp yells, “Beale!” The hand slips under the waves. Topp yells again, “Beale!” Now fingers appear on either side of the rent. They push it apart.

  Solet says, “I cannot be seeing this.”

  Beale’s head crowns then pops through. He turns and says to Topp, “What?”

  Jeryon stands by the mast, sandals on again, and confers with Tuse on the rowers’ deck. The oarmaster is bruised and burned, and he’s lost a large clump of dirty, matted hair.

  “All but one of our larboard rowers are dead or too injured to row,” Tuse says. “And if it weren’t for the poth—” he flicks his eyes forward to where she’s treating someone and he lowers his voice, “we’d be much worse off. Once the rigging and casualties are removed half the benches should be usable, which matches the number of oars we have left. I’ll put twelve on a side and we can get underway.”

  Jeryon notices Tuse’s expression and asks, “Anything else?”

  Tuse glances forward again. “More powder won’t get another stroke out of these men,” he says. “We might manage regular time, nothing more.”

  Jeryon says, “We’ll spell them with sailors.”

  “The guild would object,” Tuse says, “and the brothers.”

  “Then they can keep their seats,” Jeryon says. “And if they can’t pull, I’ll object to the guild. But we’ll be underway in half an hour.”

  “Half an hour!” Tuse says.

  “We have a schedule,” Jeryon says.

  Solet, who is overseeing the removal of the yard, overhears. As do several sailors watching the school of hammerheads return to attack the dragon. Its hide is tough, and they haven’t been able to do much damage, but each bite feels like a full purse gone and they still hope Jeryon will let them take it. That its wings have kept it afloat and the waves have kept it near the galley encourages them.

  Jeryon considers addressing the crew on the matter and decides against it. Instead he bets himself that Solet will run to Livion as soon as the yard clears the deck. He’ll give Solet this: the second mate knows how to complain up the chain of command. And he’s smart enough not to harpoon someone in front of the crew. Fortunately, Livion is weak, but not feebleminded. He thinks like Jeryon. Livion will push Solet off, maybe relieve him. A good test of his quality.

  Jeryon doesn’t know which galls him more: that he’s lost four hours from his schedule or that he needs Solet so he doesn’t lose any more.

  Then again, maybe he doesn’t need Solet that much. He can’t get the image of the harpoon pointed at his head out of his mind. A different employment for Solet occurs to him.

  Solet feels Jeryon’s eyes on him. He knows, he thinks. He has to know what Livion and I have been talking about. But he can’t do anything until we get to port.

  On the stern deck he tells Livion, “He’s not going to render the dragon.” From up here he can see just how many sharks are roiling the water and banging against the hull. “That’d pay for all this damage ten times over. A hundred times.”

  “We have to get back to Hanosh,” Livion says. “Shall I relieve you of your post? Your insolence—”

  “My insolence?” Solet says. “You’re the one who left the captain to die.”

  Livion struggles to keep his jaw from dropping. “You said—”

  “Here’s how it will sound to the Trust at the inquiry. First, you took the ship into danger against orders, then you saw a way to confirm your new command. Who else would get the Comber but the man who brought her valuable cargo in after the ship was damaged and the captain died?”

  “I’ll tell you what will go in my report,” Livion says. “How you tried to undermine the captain—”

  “The captain who disobeyed the Trust’s clear rules?” Solet says. “Who attacked the dragon, who left his post to save a couple of sailors, and who risked its cargo? That’s the definition of unfit.”

  “They’ll understand,” Livion says. “The city will understand.”

  Solet laughs. “You’re as foolish as him, trusting up. That attitude will ruin you. We’ll all be heroes whenever we get in, however many die in the meantime, but to let a fortune slide off the rail into the sea: the Trust won’t consider that heroic. Poor judgment, they’ll say. Hardly command material, they’ll say. What would your woman’s father think?”

  Livion says through grinding teeth, “Your sailors are waiting for you to remove the mast.”

  “Tristaban will think you threw her away along with your career.”

  Jeryon mounts the stern deck. Behind him are two sailors. He says, “This conference has gone on long enough. Solet, the rowers are exhausted. If we’re going to get in as soon as possible, the sailors will have to take a turn at the oars. As a good example, you will lead them.”

  Solet says, “But I’m a mate.”

  Jeryon says, “Then I won’t need to chain you to a bench.” He tells the sailors, “Take Solet to his new station.”

  Solet says, “Livion.”

  Whining, Livion thinks, is not Ynessi. Deception, though, is very Hanoshi. Has the captain overheard them? Has he divined Solet’s scheming? It would surely leave its stench on him. And it’s better to fire a maid, Trist once said, before the jewelry’s gone. If Solet is put in chains once he’s below, how long until I am too? If we don’t hang together now, we could hang separately later.

  “Livion,” Solet says.

  Livion curses Jeryon under his breath. “Belay that order,” Livion says to the sailors. “As first mate I am declaring the captain unfit for command: for disobeying the rules of engagement, for endangering the ship and her cargo, for putting us behind schedule, for abandoning his post, for doing so during an emergency, and for failing to seek reliable profit by not rendering the dragon.”

  “As second mate,” Solet says, “I concur.”

  “Ha!” Jeryon says. “Using the book against me. The Trust will see through that.”

  “Lock him in the hold,” Livion says.

  “You can’t hold me,” Jeryon says as two sailors grab his arms.

  “Wait,” Solet says. He pushes out Jeryon’s arms and runs his hands over his torso and hips. Solet smiles, digs out the razor case from the captain’s pocket, and flips it into the sea. “Now we can hold you,” he says.

  Whatever confusion and anger the sailors feel as the captain is dragged below is quickly replaced with the joy of avarice and potential advancement as Solet gathers a rendering crew. An Ynessi could expect nothing less from a Hanoshi crew.

  “This is wrong,” Beale says. “He saved us. They’re relieving him because he saved us.”

  “What could we do?” Topp says. “We just float on the waves. The mates, they are the waves.”

  “At least the shares will buy us a better boat,” Beale says.

  Tuse says, “Your charges are true. Your motives are nonsense. This is mutiny, plain and simple.”

  Livion says, “So you’ll oppose us.”

  “Yes,” Tuse says. He tightens a seeping bandage. “You can’t deal me into a game I won’t play. I won’t have him killed.”

  “No one said anything about—” Livion said.

  “Are you soft-hearted or soft-headed?” Tuse says, holding up a burned hand. “Do y
ou think you can just take him to Hanosh and make your case at the inquiry? Sort this whole thing out? Have everything be normal?”

  Livion says, “We’re going by the book.”

  “You’re holding it upside down,” Tuse says. “Let me explain something to you: When you punch a man, you put him down. Otherwise, he’ll put you down.” He jerks his thumb at Solet. “He’d agree with me.”

  Solet guides the half-completed rendering. The dragon has been tied to the galley, and, not having a cutting stage, sailors work on it from the starboard rail and the ship’s dinghy. Its head, feet, and wing claws have been hacked off with axes, wrapped in canvas, and put in the captain’s cabin. The dragon’s body is tied to the starboard rail, and is being spun so the skin can be stripped off in great sheets. This work is easier. The trick was flaking some vertebrae into blades, attaching them to handles, and using these shards, incredibly sharp and difficult to dull, to cut the skin and flay it from the meat.

  Meanwhile the sharks work on the meat, exposing more bone, which they’ll harvest next.

  Livion wishes he had more spit in his mouth. He says, “If we have to kill him, Tuse, we have to kill you. He’d agree with that too.”

  “You don’t have the stones,” Tuse says.

  “I don’t need them. See that bolt of skin?” Livion says. A sailor carries one to the captain’s cabin. “It’s worth more than the Comber. You don’t think that sailor would flay you as well if you do something to take it away?”

  “You’re a good man, Livion,” Tuse says. “I like serving under you. But what you’re doing here, it’ll destroy you. The rot’s already setting in.”

  Livion keeps all expression from his face. He wants to admit he’s only saying what he imagines Solet would say, but that would prove Tuse’s point. Instead he says, “Are you with us? Or him?”

  Tuse slumps into his rowers’ deck posture. “My chances are better with you. But here’s my price: We give him the captain’s chance. We let the sea decide.”

  “And confirm this was a mutiny,” Livion says, “not a legal action.”