by Watson Davis
“Oh,” Gartan said, chuckling, winking at Kalo, nodding to her. “That will do.”
Natham staggered toward Gartan, shaking his head. “What in all the hells was that?”
Gartan grinned. “I believe that was the end of the battle.”
Mian-on relaxed, sweat sparkling on his now pale and exhausted face, and he staggered back to his position behind his brazier. Nohel and Natham laughed, slapping each other’s hands.
Gartan squinted, and stared out over the waves, over the stone towers to either side of the entry to the port, the high gray walls, the warehouses hugging the wall. Something moved through the clouds, a single dark speck growing larger, like a bird with its wings beating.
“Something wrong?” Natham asked.
Gartan whispered, “What’s a fucking dragon doing this far south?”
Gal-nya's Dragon
The waves of the sea, bigger and more insistent than those within the harbor, battered at the broken remains of Agidius’ burning flagship. The general held on to what remained of the bottom of the mizzen mast, the top being dragged behind the ship by its rigging.
The ship’s sailors, the ones not terror-stricken or dead, worked to pull the ship’s dinghies out, the ones they could reach while the fires burning the ship threatened them. The deck beneath Agidius’ feet listed to the side, the ship’s captain yelling commands to crewmen no longer listening to him.
“What the hell is that?” the principal fire mage yelled, the last one still alive—the others’ lifeless bodies slid back and forth across the swaying deck—pointing up to the sky as he kneeled over the twisted corpse of their earth mage.
Agidius grabbed his wind mage’s shoulder, pulling him close, not letting him tumble to the deck. “Can you fly me to the promontories?”
The woman looked at him, but didn’t see him, panic clouding her mind and vision.
He shook her and shouted, “Can you fly me away from here?”
“That’s not—” She shook her head, her eyes blinking. “—no. That’s too far.”
He pushed her away.
“General, look,” the fire mage screamed, pointing.
A huge beast flew toward them, an immense dragon, the sunlight glinting off its green scales.
“Blast the damned thing!” General Agidius yelled.
The fire mage shrugged, saying, “But it’s not a northern dragon, it may not—”
“Blast it, damn you!”
The mage stumbled around, looking down at his feet, at his brazier lying on the deck, the embers strewn about. “But my equipment—”
“I will have you executed if you don’t blast that thing now!” Agidius bellowed.
The fire mage stamped his feet on the ground, chanting the words of a spell, his hands gyrating as sweat poured down his ashen face.
“I do not know what is wrong with you people,” Agidius said, shaking his head.
Two lifeboats now bobbed in the sea, sailors leaping from the railing, splashing into the water beside them. Agidius stumbled to the rail, his legs stiff as he tried to navigate the bucking deck to where he could commandeer a lifeboat.
The fire mage’s arms shot up, launching a ball of fire into the air. His power spent, the man collapsed to the deck, panting.
The fireball flew up and struck the dragon, the flames engulfing the creature, the fireball breaking apart as it hit. The impact knocked the dragon to the side, its wings beating wildly to regain its balance. It twisted in the air, fire clinging to its scales, and it plummeted down at Agidius’ flagship.
Agidius tried to sprint to the railing, but a wave hit the ship. The deck tilted. Agidius fell. He crawled and reached the railing.
The dragon’s jaws snapped closed on him.
# # #
“They’ve found me,” Dyuh Mon whispered, breaking off his chant, releasing the powers from the realm of Wind, allowing those tendrils of chaos to slip away. His hands fell to his sides as he stared at the speck in the sky growing larger, a green dragon flying toward him. He yanked his oracle bones from the pouch at his belt, tossed them into his open left hand, and read the signs.
“Why are we slowing down?” Kalo asked, twisting at the wheel to glare back toward Dyuh Mon and Mian-on.
“They’re here!” Dyuh Mon screamed, pointing at the dragon now only a short distance from the Shrian warship they were chasing. He shoved his oracle bones back into his pouch. “Turn the Kestrel around! We need to get back to the shore! I have to hide!”
Kalo stared at Dyuh Mon, squinting her eyes as though trying to comprehend his words. Her right hand rested on the wheel but did not turn it.
Behind Kalo, standing next to Mian-on, the barbarian chieftain backed away, his muscular body tensing, his gazed focused and intense. Mian-on stepped away from the barbarian, sliding between the braziers to Kalo’s side, saying, “That is a very large dragon.”
“Don’t you understand?” Dyuh Mon asked. “This is the Eternal Council. They’ve summoned a dragon to come kill me.”
“Why would the Eternal Council send a dragon after you?” Mian-on asked, looking back over his shoulder. “How do you know it wasn’t summoned by the Shrians?”
A fireball shot up from the deck of the listing Shrian ship, not arching toward the Dancing Kestrel, but up toward the dragon. The fireball struck the dragon in the side, knocking it sideways, and the dragon’s focus shifted from the Kestrel to the Shrian warship. The monster roared, veering in the air, turning and twisting, falling down upon the Shrian warship, smoke rising from its burning scales.
“Well, then,” Mian-on murmured. “I guess the Shrians didn’t summon it.”
“Fuck.” Kalo spun the wheel, putting the rudder hard against the side. “One of you idiots fill the damned sails. Quickly!”
Mian-on leapt back to his spot beside his brazier, speaking words of power, his hands and arms waving, focusing the wisps of magic coalescing around him.
“We won’t make it back to the shore,” Dyuh Mon said. Where would the safest place be? Not here.
Dyuh Mon sprinted past Kalo, down the steep steps to the main deck, stumbling and tripping in his haste. He darted through the open portal leading down into the lower decks, sliding down the wooden ladder. He pushed a Nayen sailor aside, yelling, “Out of my way, fool!”
He dodged around an off-duty Tesoran sailor who leapt out of Dyuh Mon’s path, and scuttled down the aisle between the sailors’ bunks and chests. He sat down in the largest space he could find. Hands shaking, he sketched out a crude circle around him in the darkness, beginning a new chant, an obscuring, removing his scent from this world and building a bubble of shielding around himself.
His breathing calmed and his back straightened, the tight muscles relaxing as his magic sparkled around him, lights flickering.
“Dyuh Mon?” Kalo leapt down the steps, landing on the deck, peering around for him. “Get your ass back to your post! Mian-on’s exhausted and we need you up there.”
The ship jerked, a sharp movement up and down.
Dyuh Mon’s breath caught, and his heartbeat raced anew. The dragon!
Unsecured bedding slid off the sailors’ bunks, tumbling to the deck. A chest sitting atop one of the beds slid down and bounced off the shield surrounding Dyuh Mon.
Kalo herself tumbled to the boards before Dyuh Mon, flipping over Dyuh Mon’s protective bubble and landing face first on the deck. Dyuh Mon did not stop his incantation.
“Librarian,” a voice not made for human speech growled from outside, so loud it rumbled in Dyuh Mon’s chest.
Dyuh Mon fed more of his strength into his spell, chanting faster, searching for the stillness in his mind.
Kalo twisted around on the deck before Dyuh Mon, her eyes searching for what she had tripped on, one hand holding onto a bunk fastened to the deck, the other reaching out gingerly, stopping when it touched Dyuh Mon’s bubble. She placed her palm on it, her brow furrowing, her face scrunching up in concentration, the scar rippling on her cheek
. Her mouth moved, forming the syllables of Dyuh Mon’s name.
Dyuh Mon shook his head, wishing he could say he was sorry, and he would have said he was sorry, except that he needed to keep his protective bubble up, and he needed to chant. His words fed his energy into the spell, the motion of his hands channeling all his power and strength into his shield. He could not fail now.
The Dancing Kestrel danced, tipping to the side, jerked up into the air, and crashed back down. Kalo was thrown up and down, long black hair flying around her face, her grip slipping off the bunk.
“Where is Dyuh Mon?” that horrible voice said once more.
The ship lifted up, flipping on its side, and Dyuh Mon’s bubble slid backward, rolling toward the front of the ship. The wooden planks of the hull separated, ripped apart board by board with light streaming through. The sky appeared, then the dock, and Dyuh Mon found himself peering down on burning ships, on humans, Onei and Shrian, and orcs from the Nine Hells.
The ground rushed toward Dyuh Mon, and his eyes grew huge. His chanting forgotten, he screamed, the bubble shimmering, rippling, bursting when the ship slammed into the ground.
For Dyuh Mon, everything went black.
# # #
Gartan swaggered over to Mian-on’s side and patted the man’s back, dirtying the clean, black silken robe with his bloody and burned right hand. He pointed with his left hand, intending to bring the dragon to the mage’s attention.
The other mage, Dyuh Mon, gasped, stopped casting the spell moving the ship, pulled some bones from the pouch at his belt, and rolled them in his hands. The winds died, the ship slowed. Kalo stared at him, but Dyuh Mon pointed toward the dragon, which was fast approaching, shrieked, and shoved the bones back into their pouch.
Kalo said something to the mage. Gartan stepped back, listening to them, wishing he had Tethan’s gift for languages, but he kept his gaze on that dragon while Mian-on, Kalo, and Dyuh Mon bickered between themselves.
A fireball zoomed up from the sinking Shrian warship and struck the dragon, knocking it to one side. The dragon twisted, changing course toward the Shrian ship they’d been chasing, and it plummeted from the sky, tendrils of smoke trailing from its shoulder and wings from where the Shrian fireball had struck it. Not a dragon like any Gartan had seen; not silver, blue, or white like the dragons of the Northern Wastes, but green, with white bony spikes along the spine, at the joint of its translucent wings, and from the back of its massive skull.
Mian-on hopped to his position at his brazier behind his captain and began his casting, moving his hands, his feet, in a kind of dance, chanting with a strong and clear voice. Kalo pulled on the wheel, bringing them around.
Dyuh Mon bolted, his eyes wide and wild with fear, his hands shaking, his cheeks quivering. He ran. His silk robes flowing around him, the spidery man rushed down the steps, not responding to Kalo’s orders.
“Clan Leader?” Natham said, his voice uncertain.
“The pointy-toothed mage has panicked,” Gartan said, not turning to look at his friend and clansman, but instead watching Kalo call for a Nayen sailor to take her place at the wheel.
The winds, spurred on by Mian-on’s spell, picked up, filling the sails, and the ship surged forward, tilting to the side as it turned, following the sailor’s control of the wheel. Kalo sprinted across the deck, following Dyuh Mon down to the main deck, down through a hatch into the lower decks beneath.
“Clan Leader,” Natham said, laying his hand on Gartan’s shoulder and pointing with his other back at the battle behind them.
The dragon hovered over the ship, its forepaws wrapping around the top of the mainmast, its wings beating the air with such force that the sea sprayed up into the air before it as its tail twisted and swished. It ripped the rigging from the spars, its head weaving back and forth. Some men clutched the railing, their feet thrashing on the bucking deck, while others screamed in terror in the water, clinging to the wreckage now bobbing in the sea. The dragon’s head darted into the chaos, flipping two men into the air, snapping its jaws closed on their spinning bodies.
The dragon lowered itself, resting its hind end on the deck of the ship still above water, its wings furling up on its back. It ripped into the middle of the ship, slipping its claws into the sides of the hold, extending its forelimbs outward, pulling the ship apart, the brute strength of the creature too much. The skeletal remains of the ship submerged, the dragon going under the waves with it.
Gartan squeezed the back railing of the ship with his bare hands, leaning out, eyes squinting, Natham and Nohel to his right, and Lethya, Tayna, and Henok to his left.
“Here it comes!” Tayna pointed to their right, to a spot where the water bubbled and surged up.
The dragon broke the water, sailing up into the air. The creature howled, a horrible sound, almost as if it were speaking. The dragon’s head turned toward their ship, howling once more, uttering more of those horrid sounds. Gartan made out two of those syllables: “Dyuh” and “Mon.”
“Everybody jump!” Gartan yelled, slapping Lethya and Nohel on their shoulders. “Swim to the docks, find Tethan, and regroup!”
His warriors didn’t question him, didn’t hesitate. They jumped.
Gartan wheeled around, rushing to Mian-on’s side. The mage working his magic and the sailor beside him steered the ship. Gartan snatched the two of them up, wrapping one arm around Mian-on, another around the sailor. He ran to the railing with both men struggling against him, hitting him with their fists, pushing at him, gibbering away in their language. He tossed them over to splash into the water, the winds Mian-on had summoned dissipating, the ship’s movement slowing. He threw open the top of the chest on the bridge, and snatched up a harpoon.
Then the ship tipped as the dragon landed on the deck, its body sweeping through the rigging. The lines snapped. Sailors leapt from the sides and plummeted from the slack lines, the lucky ones going into the water, the unlucky ones tumbling to the deck. The creature put its clawed foot onto the deck, splintering boards beneath it, its mighty claws gouging the wood, ripping the smooth planks out.
“Come on, you bastard!” Gartan steadied himself with one hand on the railing, a long harpoon in his right hand. He hurled it up at the creature, the point of the spear striking against the armored plates of the creature’s chest, bouncing off without leaving a scratch.
The dragon reached down, ripping the mast off, its back claws and front claws digging into the hull of the ship, its claws punching holes into the wood. Its wings beat down, straining, and the creature’s head reached up to the sky.
It lifted the ship out of the water, spinning it around. Gartan clung to the railing, his arms wrapped around the balusters, his feet lifting from the deck. The dragon hurled the ship away.
# # #
The soldiers of the Sissolan army lounged in the pews and on the cots set up along the walls in the aisles of the basilica. The hubbub of their speaking and laughing echoed, rising in volume until Hanno could barely hear. She bowed her head, searching in her heart for some semblance of peace, breathing in the smoky perfume of the incense burning throughout the temple, a reassuring scent reminding her of her years of training and subservience.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Dri-buj asked, speaking softly, resting his hand on her shoulder.
She glanced up and forced a smile to her lips, gesturing him forward. “Yes. But what about you?”
“Me?” Dri-buj stepped forward. “I don’t have to do anything but help.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she said, following him to the eastern aisle, to a drow, a humanoid summoned from an infernal realm, with skin of midnight blue and silver hair. “You went to Tuth-Yoo hoping to sign on as a ship’s mage.”
Dri-buj shrugged. “I guess the gods wanted me here.”
She patted his shoulder and turned to the drow, a beautiful man. “How can I serve you?”
“I got caught from the side by a halberdier.” He lifted his shirt, revealing ripplin
g muscles and a gash running down his ribs. “It’s not healing as it should.”
Hanno spoke some magical words, summoning healing forces from within herself, calling on gods of healing to supplement her magic as she moved her hands around the wound. A sudden sharp pain flashed in her hands and through her soul. She jerked back, eyes wide. “There’s something very wrong.”
Dri-buj reached out to her, concern on his face. “Are you well, mistress?”
She stared at the drow. “Are you cursed? Or do you carry a magical item of some sort?”
The drow’s eyebrows rose, and he smiled, slipping a sheathed dagger from his belt. “Of course. A gift from my family.”
Hanno passed her hand over the weapon. A foul black magic infused the blade. She shivered and bowed to the drow, asking, “Would it be satisfactory for my assistant to take this item a short distance away? It interferes with my healing.”
The drow frowned, holding the dagger close to his chest, and he glared at Dri-buj. “I don’t know.”
“He will not leave your sight,” Hanno said, looking at Dri-buj and nodding. “Only a few steps away.”
Dri-buj gulped, his eyes locked on the weapon, and slowly extended his hands. “If you say so.”
The drow glanced at his dagger, at Dri-buj, and back at Hanno, saying, “Are you sure this is necessary?”
“Yes.” She gestured to the blade. “The spells on the weapon impede healing and promote infection. I’m sure that’s all very well and good for a wound to your enemies, but not so good when you yourself are wounded.”
“I guess that makes sense,” he said, and then handed the blade to Dri-buj.
Dri-buj held the blade as far away from himself as his arms would extend and backed several steps away toward the statue of Gal-nya in the chancel.
Hanno took a deep breath to steady herself, and then began her casting once more, her spell revealing a nasty infection setting into his damaged muscles and skin, connected to the dagger—a connection she would have missed if she hadn’t known the relationship.
