by Watson Davis
“This may sting.” She severed the link, and the drow gasped, his hands grabbing the edge of the cot, the wood splintering in his grip.
“Sting?” he gasped. His body tensed, and he leaned forward, gagging.
She worked her magic to remove his nausea and cleaned out the dead tissue, the necrotic cells, the festering bits of flesh tainted by the magics.
“I’m not sure I want this one working on my captain,” a voice said behind her.
She jumped, whirling, her concentration broken and her magic slipping from her fingers.
Major Kov Branek stood behind her with his fists on his hips, Deacon Ka-myal at his side nodding.
“Yes, sir,” Ka-myal said. “I will have her reassigned so she only works on the foot soldiers.”
The drow rubbed at his wound. “She doesn’t have the lightest touch I’ve ever endured.”
Major Kov Branek turned away from her to face Ka-myal, “I don’t trust her to work on any of my soldiers. She’s barely fit to work on animals.”
Ka-myal’s eyes widened, his eyelids batting. “But, sir—”
“As a matter of fact,” Major Kov Branek said, chuckling, “assign her to the stables. Let her work on animals while I’m stationed here.”
Ka-myal bowed. “Of course.”
“What?” Hanno said, her heart thumping, her body shaking.
“Now, Captain,” Major Kov Branek said, looking at the drow, “as soon as you’re done here, I need you to return to Tuth-Yoo.”
The drow bowed his head and touched his chest. “Yes, sir.”
“You kill my husband and my father, but I’m the one not fit for human company?” Hanno said.
Dri-buj shifted the dagger to his right hand and placed his left arm before her, trying to push her back, away from the major.
Kov Branek glowered at her, his lip rising in disdain. “I would expect nothing less than this sort of behavior from the likes of you.”
Hanno reached across and snatched the dagger from Dri-buj’s hand, whipping it out of its sheath. She lunged toward Kov Branek, but the drow grabbed her wrist. He twisted her arm and removed the blade from her hand.
Kov Branek took her chin in his hand and smiled. “Perhaps some time in the dungeons would be best.”
Ka-myal stepped forward, bowing profusely. “She is a skilled healer, sir. Please, have mercy. She is, as she said, distraught over the recent deaths of two men very close to her.”
Kov Branek rolled his eyes and turned away from her. “To the stables with her, then. But do not let her near my men.”
# # #
Tethan slipped in the blood and gore covering the dock, the lifeblood of these new monstrous enemies drenching the planks of wood. He fell to his left knee, the axe in his left hand dragging him down, the blade wedged into the bone of one of the monster’s vertebrae.
Another one of the pig-nosed creatures lunged toward Tethan, the creature’s hands empty of weapons except for its black clawlike fingernails. Three arrows protruded from its thick shoulders, and a gash from one of Tethan’s own axes running across its chest through its thin, leather armor.
Tethan twisted, placing all his weight on his left knee, wedging it into the side of a monster he’d already slain as he turned the axe in his right hand around, striking up with it into the body of this still living beast. The pommel of the axe struck the monster’s breastplate, the creature engulfing Tethan like an avalanche. He tried to roll backward with its weight, twisting his body, his arm, driving the blade of his axe up into the creature’s soft underbelly.
Tethan crumpled beneath the weight of the thing, its fingers ripping at his head, his back, his arms. He pushed himself up with his legs, arching his back, lifting the creature’s bulk and wrapping his left hand around the axe handle near the blade. He pressed the axe up into the its belly, through the armor, through its thick hide, into its intestines. The creature howled in agony.
Tethan wriggled the axe to cause more damage, moving it around, trying to find the damned thing’s internal organs, all the while trying not to breathe in the creature’s stink of sweat and excrement as the weight of the thing mashed his face, until he shifted the creature off of him, now a limp lifeless shell.
Tethan slipped out and staggered to his feet covered in the creature’s juices, his hands squeezing the handle of his axe, searching for his next foe. Lirden sat on his knees, panting for breath, his legs resting on the chest of a dead creature the skull of which had been chopped in half. Brivat ripped his axe from the deck between a creature’s head and the rest of its body.
Peira skipped back from the edge of the pier, gliding over the rumpled and crumpled boards, bow raised, shooting arrow after arrow as she moved. Further down the pier, near the end, a mage waved his hands, controlling the winds to fling Peira’s arrows aside.
Snatching another axe from the deck, Tethan launched himself toward the mage with an axe in either hand, drifting to the outside edge to stay out of Peira’s aim as much as possible.
The mage’s eyes shifted from Peira to Tethan, his chanting changing, shifting, the flow of the movement of his hands modulating. The winds he controlled swirled with glittering bits of white, and the mage shouted and threw his palms out toward Tethan. The wind was now that of a blizzard—cold and with snow, and icy crystal shards.
Tethan tensed. The frigid wind embraced him like a long-lost lover he had prayed to reunite with, a blast of his homeland, a taste of the ice for which he was bred. Ice forming on his brow, Tethan laughed and sprinted into the face of that wind like he’d sprinted into stronger winds so many times in his life. The mage poured more and more of his power into the spell, driving the speed of the winds up higher and higher, the chunks of ice growing sharper and sharper, until an arrow struck the mage in the temple, followed by two more.
The mage toppled to the deck. The refreshing winds stopped, allowing the heat of Shria again to caress Tethan’s cheeks, his arms, his body like a boiling woolen blanket. Tethan touched the lifeless mage with the toe of his boot, looking back at Peira and the others, and he yelled, “I think he’s dead.”
Past Peira and Brivat, beyond Mitta who limped toward Tethan, at the junction of the pier to the main part of the dock, Davina jogged with her glowing staff in her right hand, her left hand waving in the air. She called out, “Tethan! Your father needs you!”
“What?” Tethan rushed toward her, running with all his strength and speed, hurtling over corpses and broken crates, slowing over the more fragile parts of the quay. Peira, Brivat, and the others hurried toward her, Mitta limping along with her bow in her hand. They surrounded Davina, who gasped for her breath.
“What’s happened to him?” Mitta asked.
“The dragon,” Davina said, nodding, her hand pointing toward a destroyed warehouse of some sort, littered with the shattered remains of a ship.
“Dragon?” Tethan looked at her. “What dragon?” He heard it then, the sound of crashing, of men screaming, of terror. Across the bay, the dragon ripped a ship apart, hurling half into the inside of the port wall, the other half into already tattered apartment buildings on the edge of the water. One building collapsed and slid beneath the waves. The dragon rumbled sounds not unlike words. “Oh. That dragon.”
Mitta patted him on his shoulder, saying, “You were busy.”
“Gartan’s in the wreckage of the Nayen ship over there,” Davina said. “I believe he still lives, but I can’t shift the wreckage enough to find him.”
Tethan exhaled, almost losing his grip on his axes, closing his eyes, saying, “Thank you, great Skybear.”
“Hurry, dig him out,” Davina said, the Onei following her command and running toward the wreckage. Tethan would have joined them, but she grabbed his arm. “The dragon could be a problem.”
Tethan stared out at the beast, its green scales glinting like polished steel in the sunlight. “That’s a problem I’d prefer to let someone else solve. Let’s rescue my father.” He grabbed her arm, pulli
ng her toward the warehouse. “Then we can leave this accursed city through one of the gates, abandoning the place to the damned beast.”
“This dragon seems to be searching for something,” Davina said as she jogged, still looking back at the creature.
“The way it’s going through ships, it will take time to reach us.” Tethan smiled. “Let’s be somewhere else as quickly as we can.”
Tethan and the Dragon
Gartan opened his eyes and saw nothing, just a blackness stretching out before him for an eternity. The burning on his right side, from his face, down his neck, his side, his legs, raised the thought he might be in one hell or another, but he smelled the sea, the salty tang stinging his nose.
He tensed his shoulders, shifting away from something sharp digging into his neck, tightening his forearms and wriggling his fingers, his efforts revealing three of his fingers had dislocated. He moved his feet in circles. Flat, hard surfaces pressed back against his him.
A beast howled, and hellish though that howl sounded, it returned him to his place, to his world. The gods-be-damned dragon.
Gartan growled.
“Gartan?” Davina called out from far away, her voice desperate, nervous, frightened. “Where are you? Be careful, Tethan! He could be under the plank you’re standing on.”
Gartan tried to yell, but only a whisper escaped his lips. He coughed, the cough taking hold, one cough after another, each a wracking pain shooting through him, his breath unable to bring him enough air to sustain him. He screamed, pushing all his will into it, into pushing all the contents of his lungs out through his mouth. “Here!”
Hot liquid bubbled from his mouth, over onto his chin, coppery liquid trickling up his nose, and the stinging brought tears to his eyes. He pushed one arm forward, out of the debris, the hot, moist air swirling around his hand, streams of light finding his eyes.
“There he is!” Mitta called out.
A weight pressed down on his chest, across him, pressing into his cheek and his chin.
Beneath him, far away, a woman’s voice whispered a word. Gartan thought about it, rolling the word around in his mind, a Shrian word. “Help.”
A board lifted from his face and the sun blazed into his eyes, blinding him. He squeezed his eyes shut.
“Dad!” Tethan said. “He’s been burned.”
Hands touched Gartan, sliding around his neck, his chest, pulling him up and out, cooler air rushing around him.
Gartan squinted at his son’s concerned face before him. His legs found their way beneath himself, and he pushed himself up on his own, his shoulders straightening, every part of him hurting. Gartan smiled at his son, wrapping his arms around him, hugging him and whispering, “I’m not gone yet.”
Davina stood at the edge of the debris, her head bowed, her hands clasped beneath her chin, murmuring a prayer to Enahu.
Tethan edged away from his father, staring solemnly into his eyes. “We’ve got to get everyone gathered up and out of here. Most of the longboats are smashed. We’ll have to go overland.”
Gartan looked back over the bay, out at the dragon now perched on the dock, tearing at the apartments and buildings closest to the water, howling in its rage. He nodded. “Yeah, let’s get out of here, but we’re not done yet. Help me.”
Gartan crouched in the wreckage of the Dancing Kestrel, pulling planks back, a shattered section of the balustrade, planks from the upper deck.
Tethan knelt beside his father and began removing planks. He called out, “Hey, guys. Give us a hand over here.” Then he leaned in to his father to ask, “What are we doing?”
“The Nayen captain,” Gartan said. “She’s down there.”
Gartan pulled a plank out, tossing it aside, to reveal fingers. “Here.”
With the others by his side, he hurried to remove the rubble and wreckage, uncovering a brown-skinned arm caked with dirt and blood, unearthing a torn silken robe, uncovering Kalo’s face, her ebon hair pulled back to expose the jagged scar down her forehead and her cheek.
“I’ve got her,” Tethan said, reaching down past Gartan.
Gartan stepped back, panting and leaning over with his hands on his knees.
“Let me help you.” Davina placed her right hand on Gartan’s cheek, her left on his side. Her hands warm, her warmth flowed into him, renewing his strength.
He hugged her and kissed her neck.
Tethan inserted his hands beneath Kalo’s arms to ease her out of the rubble, the debris falling away from her. She moaned.
Beneath her, something moved. Gartan stepped forward, sliding out of Davina’s grasp, his lips pulling back from his teeth as he snarled, “Dyuh Mon?”
The man’s eyes opened.
The dragon howled, “Dyuh Mon?”
Gartan whirled around. In the distance, the dragon paused in its destruction, aiming its head toward the wreckage of the Dancing Kestrel, rising up on its back legs, its wings beating furiously, exclaiming, “Dyuh Mon!”
# # #
“Shit.” Tethan turned back toward the bay to peer across the water, the debris from the Dancing Kestrel sliding under his feet as Kalo squirmed in his arms, murmuring something in Nayen, if not perhaps Shrian words he just didn’t understand.
The dragon, its green scales glinting like steel in the sunlight breaking through the thick clouds, its wings stretching out, translucent in the light, its veins showing through the green membranes that appeared too thin to propel such a monstrous beast, surged into the sky, shooting up, those thin wings beating furiously to lift it, stroke by stroke.
“It’s after Dyuh Mon,” Gartan said, reaching down into the wreckage, working his hands beneath the dazed Nayen magician. Head tilting back, gritting his teeth, his arm and leg muscles tensing, Gartan dragged the mage from beneath the rubble. Dyuh Mon moaned, whimpering in agony, almost crying.
“What are we going to do?” Tethan asked, taking a step toward his father, his arms tightening around Kalo to keep her from moving, from getting down.
“I’m not giving a human over to some summoned beast.” Gartan threw the mage over his shoulder. “I’ll think of something.”
Davina took a step toward Gartan, but he pushed her away, growling, “Go with Tethan! Get out of here.”
Gartan limped down the pile of wreckage, a mixture of the Dancing Kestrel and a building, hurrying deeper into the building, into the shadows.
“Come on!” Tethan leapt from the pile, back down onto the dock, Davina at his side. The dragon loomed larger with each beat of its wings, its mouth open, forked tongue hanging from the side, curling at the tip.
“What are we going to do?” Peira asked, bow in her hand and arrows between her fingers. Brivat and Lirden stood ready beside her, axes in their hands, their eyes attentive and focused.
Tethan tossed Kalo over to Brivat. “Get her out of danger.”
Brivat nodded.
Tethan, now with Peira and Lirden by his side, stopped before Davina, grabbing her shoulders. “Have any of you ever killed a dragon?”
“The Far Waste hunters say you have to stab them in the brain to kill them without using spellcraft,” Davina said, grabbing Tethan’s forearm with her left hand. Her thin fingers pressed into his skin, her staff clicking on the wood of the decking as she pulled him away from the wreckage, away from the building his father had retreated into.
“Spellcraft?” Tethan looked down at her. “Can you kill it?”
“I’m a healer, an illusionist, and a Godspeaker,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t have the kind of power needed to kill one of these monsters.”
Tethan stopped, yanking Davina up short, staring into her eyes. “Can you distract it? Can you keep it from seeing me? From feeling me?”
“I can distract it.” Davina’s eyes narrowed, and her head bobbed. “I’ve never tried a glamour on a dragon, but what are you planning on doing?”
The dragon landed on the wreckage, howling Dyuh Mon’s name, hurling pieces up into the air, slinging
bricks and bits of ship all around it, lifting the body of a Nayen sailor and flinging it away.
Davina pulled at the sack on her hip, squinting as she peered inside and rummaged through its contents, while Tethan crouched beside her. She shut her eyes, chanting some words in an ancient tongue, her right hand twisting, her hand glowing, her staff sparkling.
Peira touched Tethan’s arm. “And us? What are we supposed to do?”
“Get everyone away. Far away.” Tethan shrugged and ran toward the dragon, toward its rear haunches.
“Dyuh Mon?” The dragon’s head lowered, its nostrils flaring as air whistled in, its chest heaving like a monstrous bellows. Lights flashed around its head as Davina’s magic swirled and exploded there. The dragon blinked and shook its head. Sitting back on its haunches, the creature reached a claw into the building, knocking aside a wall though blind. It slid its head into the darkness, Davina’s lights following it.
Tethan sprinted to the dragon and leapt up on the creature’s thigh. His fingertips caught onto the hard scales, giving him purchase to pull himself up. The pointed tips of the scales cut the skin of his torso, tearing at the fabric of his pants, but he pulled himself up. Standing up, balancing unsteadily on the creature’s leg as the muscles beneath those scales flexed, he leapt once more, grabbing hold of the spines on the creature’s monstrous back, then hoisting himself up, the scales gouging more of his skin, tearing gaping holes in his pants.
Below him, Mitta limped through the debris, loosing arrow after arrow, shouting, “Over here, you scaly wyrm-get!”
Tethan scurried up the ridge of spikes along the creature’s back, his boots sliding with each step, and only his grip on the creature’s spines keeping him aloft. Up between its shoulders he ran, where its monstrous wings emanated, sure the beast would turn and swat him away, but it continued to tear down the buildings before it, knocking over walls, collapsing roofs, its head twitching, its eyelids blinking to break off the shafts of Mitta’s arrows that struck its eyes.
