Douglas Niles - Goddess Worldweaver

“As you wish,” the dragon replied. “Though I do not like to let these others advance unmolested.”

“I share that reluctance, old friend,” Natac said. “Get us a look up high, and then we will dive back to our work.”

Willingly, the serpent flexed his wings and bore them along, above the first rank of the death ships. Natac was appalled at the vast ranks of dark hulls, line after line of them, extending out to sea as far as his eye could discern. Brown wakes trailed behind the ships, and the smoky sails billowed with unnatural, fetid wind. They were already inside the reefs, and within the next hour or less the first of the invaders’ vessels would reach the shore.

Only where the druid boats attacked was the armada in disarray. The flyers passed above a hundred ships that burned from stem to stern, sails ragged and masts toppling. Others had capsized, the dark hulls looking like long, slick whales as they bobbed and twisted in the swells. Everywhere the sea was a mass of smoke and debris, and there was no order to the enemy ranks; indeed, dozens of the death ships had become tangled together, masts and rigging fouled as frantic maneuvers forced them into collisions.

And still the little boats pressed on. Here and there they saw white sails draped across the water, and several of the narrow decks teemed with black specks, ghost warriors who had boarded and slaughtered the crews, but that had no effect on the tide as a whole. The silver batteries flashed, launching their arrowlike harpoons from a distance or firing barrages of the metal spheres that burst into flame as soon as they contacted the target. Each propelled by its private wind, the little vessels ducked and weaved and dodged among the leviathans of the death ships, and more and more of the latter burst into flame.

Natac could see that Crazy Horse was extending his flank along the front of the armada, trying to interpose his boats and crews between the invaders and the shore. But he was cautious enough to keep his line intact, preventing a massive envelopment such as had annihilated Fritzi’s wing on the previous day. As a counterpart, however, the defenders were not numerous enough to block the front of the enemy fleet, and hundreds of black-hulled warships surged forward, their route to the beach unimpeded by Nayvian action.

“Let’s break up that line,” Natac suggested, and Regillix readily agreed.

The serpent tucked his wings, and the pair swept into a blistering dive, pulling up just as they passed the farthest extent of Crazy Horse’s boats. The dragon roared and spat a boiling inferno of oily fire, a blast that encompassed three or four ships at once. As his great steed inhaled for another attack, Natac lobbed more of his bombs, dropping the incendiary missiles with lethal accuracy onto the decks of one after another of the leading death ships.

He paused only when Regillix spewed another fireball, rendering a pair of side-by-side vessels into an instant inferno. Immediately after, Natac started throwing again, not even taking the time to wonder at the spectacular eruptions following each of his tosses. They continued along the line, flying, roaring, bombing, making a wreckage of the entire first line of the armada, leaving sixty, eighty, even a hundred ships flaming and sinking and dying.

But still they hadn’t reached the end of that massive fleet, and by then the warrior was out of bombs, and the dragon was laboring, wearily, just to stay aloft. When Natac cast a glance over his shoulder, he was not surprised but he was filled with despair for, as he had expected, the next rank of the armada had merely passed through the first, and a new set of hulls, keen and undamaged, made its way unimpeded toward the green shore. Already they crested the breakers, sliding into the shallows. A hundred yards beyond, the beach of Nayve lay white and smooth and inviting, for the first time in all existence awaiting the touch of an invader’s boot.

Darann gave up resisting as soon as she figured out that the guards were taking her to the Royal Tower. Not that she could have escaped the strong hands grasping like clamps to each of her arms, but she found some little cause for optimism in the realization that her captors were marching her directly to the place that had been her original destination. She marched along in step with the royal guardsmen, having wrested her arms out of their grasp. As they neared the king’s hail she looked for her father, hoping to intercept him on his way to his audience.

That hope was dashed as they approached the lift station in the base of the tower and found a scene of chaos and destruction. Dwarves in guardsmen’s tunics were pulling desperately at the wreckage of steel bars that lay tangled at the base of the long chute. King Lightbringer himself had descended by a secondary lift to examine the scene, and he noticed Darann as soon as the guards brought her through the outer doors.

“A terrible accident!” he exclaimed, rushing forward with outstretched arms. In that instant Darann’s heart turned to stone and her knees gave out; she would have collapsed if not for the two guards quickly grasping her arms again.

The dwarfmaid drew a ragged breath, burying her face in the king’s embrace, vaguely aware of many others gathered around, silent and tentative. “He felt no pain, I can assure you,” the king was saying. “It was all over in an instant… The cable broke, and the lift came down. The brakes should have locked on, but they failed… My dear, it is so tragic. Axial has lost a man who will be missed, sorely missed…”

The words seemed vague and distant, as if they bore no relevancy to her life, to this strange situation. Through her shock she tried to make sense, and to make decisions. What should she do? The answer was beyond her right now… but there were things that she felt, that she understood on an instinctive level.

Slowly, determinedly, she broke from the monarch’s embrace and looked into his eyes, then past to the many guards and Lord Nayfal, who were all gathered in the cavernous anteroom at the base of the vast pillar.

Her eyes were dry, though as she drew a breath it took all of her willpower to keep the tears from exploding. But instead she studied the ruler of her people, saw his ashen complexion, the redness that smeared his own eyes with grief. King Lightbringer choked back a sob but freed the dwarfmaid from his embrace as she took a slow step backward. His grief, she concluded, was real.

Next she looked at Nayfal. His face was a mask, and when her gaze fell on him he turned away, barked a few unnecessary orders at the guards who were still trying to untangle the wreckage of the lift.

“A terrible, unhappy coincidence… nothing like this has happened here, not in all my reign,” the king was saying to nobody in particular. “To have the cable snapped-and the brakes fail at the same time! Why, it’s unthinkable, tragic!”

It was not an accident. Darann wanted to bark the statement loudly, to throw it in Nayfal’s face just to see his reaction. But a small voice, coming from a place below her grief and through her shock, counseled her that this would be madness. No, such an accusation-now, with no evidence, barely a moment after hearing the news-would only play into the lord’s hands and make her look like a vengeful and irrational child. There would come a time for accusations and for vengeance, Darann vowed, but she would act with great care. And she would choose her moment, take advantage of careful planning and preparation. Oddly enough, it was her crystallizing fury that seemed to give her a measure of self-control.