Stephen Deas: Dragon Queen

‘We all weep for what we've lost,’ he said when he caught Bellepheros looking. ‘My brothers were the best warriors the world has ever seen. I will never find their like again.’ He clenched his fists and screwed up his face. ‘I was made to kill dragons! Not for this.’

‘Men are more terrible than dragons,’ said Bellepheros, although he knew it wasn't true.

‘Men are more cruel, but not more terrible.’ Tuuran slammed a fist against the wall. ‘If there was a way, if it would serve a purpose, I'd smash this ship apart.’

‘Patience, Tuuran. I will change their minds yet.’ His magic was coming back, slowly and in fits and starts. He was fairly sure he knew what the Elemental Man had used to poison him now. Could have done something about it too if he'd had his travel chest with him, but that was gone. They'd taken everything. No matter. It would come back, and then he'd be far from helpless.

‘We'll cross the storm-dark soon. After that, there's no hope.’

‘The storm-dark?’

‘You'll see.’ Tuuran puffed his cheeks and let out a long sigh and held his head in his hands for a moment. ‘It's hard,’ he said, not looking up. ‘I've been a slave on their ships for so long I'd forgotten what it was to be anything else. Now I wish it had stayed that way.’ With an effort and another deep sigh he straightened. ‘But it didn't. What words did you write of us in your journals, Lord Alchemist?’

Bellepheros peered out through the cabin window. The view was always the same now. Grey seas, grey skies, the horizon swaying back and forth between them. ‘That Narammed created your order as he created mine. That you followed him without question. That. .’ He chuckled and stopped. ‘You know your own stories, Tuuran. Watersgate. Samir's Crossing. On those days you were as terrible as any dragon.’ Then he shook his head. ‘My words don't do you justice. Vishmir's dragon-killers. He armed you with weapons bought from the Taiytakei. Did you know that? Better than any steel forged in the nine kingdoms. Far better. Was Vale Tassan the Night Watchman when you were taken?’

Tuuran nodded. ‘Giant and ruthless but always fair. Never asked anything he wouldn't give himself. There were few of us who could match him. What happened to him?’

‘He still commands the guard.’

A rare smile flirted with the corners of Tuuran's lips. ‘If a man could stop a dragon by glaring at it, Vale would be that man.’

‘He has little love for alchemists but he does what needs to be done. Always.’ Bellepheros looked out of the little window across the sea. The sun was low in the sky. He thought back to the Picker and frowned, remembering the things he'd said when the two of them had been alone on the road. ‘You must know the legend of the Speaker's Spear? That Narammed slew a dragon with it?’

Tuuran snorted his derision.

‘You don't believe it then? I think the Taiytakei do.’

‘They believe in nothing. Godless creatures. But either way, men don't slay dragons with steel.’

‘ Is it steel? I don't know what it is. But I think the Taiytakei greatly desire to own it.’ He was talking to himself, he realised. Voicing his secret thoughts.

‘It's just a spear.’ Tuuran shrugged and stood up and drew out the cabin key from under his shirt. He opened the door. ‘There's going to be a storm soon. We'll come on it after nightfall. The storm-dark. It's no natural thing but the Taiytakei must cross it to reach their home. They'll shutter and bar your window, my Lord Alchemist. You'll think it'll be the end of us. Everyone does, the first time they cross, but don't fear it. Like the wrath of the Great Flame and the Silver King and the old gods themselves all rolled together, but it ends and by some miracle the ship remains whole.’

The sun set not long after Tuuran left him. The sky darkened and the clouds grew thick and ugly. The ship lurched and heaved while the waves rose and wore white caps of foam. The wind snapped and snarled, the decks creaked and groaned and the stars winked out one by one as the storm clouds devoured them. Outside someone closed the shutters on his window, and when Bellepheros tried to open them again he found they were barred. He lay on his bed, breathing hard. His stomach clenched into a knot. The air smelled strange. Unnatural. He'd tasted air like this once before, deep in the bowels of the Pinnacles amid the creations of the Silver King. The pitching of the ship grew worse. Abruptly he threw up into the bucket beside his bed, retching until there was nothing left, then groaned and lay back and closed his eyes; and so he almost didn't notice when the cabin door opened again and Tuuran slipped back in. The Adamantine Man sat beside him and the first Bellepheros knew of it was a cup of something hot and bitter pressed into his hand.

‘For the sickness,’ Tuuran said. Bellepheros forced himself up. As he did, a sudden sway of the ship banged the cabin wall against him.

‘Great Flame!’ He sniffed the cup and groaned again and then laughed despite himself. ‘I could tell you everything that went into this just from the smell. I know better remedies but it will do.’

He drank. Tuuran pushed at the shutters but they didn't give. ‘They keep us slaves away from the storm-dark, locked up in the hold. Every crossing.’ He bared his teeth, a carnivore's grin. ‘I told them you might die of fright if you didn't have someone to hold your hand so they let me come up to look after you, but I know you don't need me, Master Lord Alchemist. I did this for me, not for you. I want to see it. I've heard more stories about it than I've heard of Vishmir and Narammed put together. I want to see if they're true.’

Bellepheros resisted the temptation to lie down again and try to fall asleep. Tuuran's potion was working, at least a little, although with his travel chest he could have made something far better. ‘They want me to make an eyrie for them,’ he mumbled.

‘Yes, I know. It's obvious, isn't it?’ Tuuran pushed at the window again. ‘I've crossed the storm-dark a dozen times. I might never find a way home again, but I'll see the damn thing before I die.’ When the window didn't give, he punched it, then lay on the bed and kicked it, blow after blow until something cracked and then on until the shutters flew open.

The sky flashed purple.

Bellepheros forgot the snakes writhing in his belly. The night was black as pitch, the stars and moon all gone and swallowed up by the tide of darkness. The sea glistened, a faint blue-green phosphorescence lighting up the churning waves. The wind howled and swirled and then another bolt of purple light split the sea and the sky, jagged and blinding bright, lighting up the waves like the midday sun.

‘Lightning,’ hissed Tuuran. ‘The lightning. So that much is true.’

Another flash and then another and the wind sucked them deeper into the storm. Even the sea seemed to rush towards it, the waves crashing and climbing over one another, pushing them on. The gale caught the broken shutters and smashed them against the hull, over and over. It screamed and whistled through the ropes and the rigging somewhere above. Banshee wails ripped the air, rising and fading. The ship rolled and heaved and pitched and the purple lightning flashed and flamed and danced through the sky. The storm drew Bellepheros in, wrapped him up and held him like a dragon's stare until the ship bucked mightily, tipping him and Tuuran onto the floor together. The Adamantine Man was laughing. ‘Imagine this deep in the hold, Master Alchemist, among the rats and the bilge water! Imagine it! Men falling over, tumbling into each other in the pitch black! Can you see why they piss themselves? Death stares at you there but I didn't fear it, not once, not ever, for I am Adamantine, made to face dragons!’