Трой Деннинг: The Veiled Dragon

Fowler’s face paled from green to yellow. “I was a fool to listen to you, Witch! To think a woman who’d take a slaver’s coin could know dragons—”

“Captain Fowler, wait.” Ruha wrapped an arm around the binnacle, then pointed at the wyrm. “The spell has only begun its work.”

The half-orc narrowed his eyes and turned back to the dragon, still being dragged along by the harpoon lines. The wyrm had curled into the shape of a horseshoe, with both its head and tail pointing away from the Storm Sprite . Its wings were fluttering so slowly and sporadically they could barely keep it aloft, while its serpentine body shuddered with erratic convulsions.

“My pebbles have not stopped moving,” Ruha explained. “They are flying about within the wyrm, tearing it apart from the inside.”

“A quick kill would’ve been better,” Fowler grunted.

The captain kept his gaze fixed on the dragon, as though he would not be satisfied until the thing dropped into the sea and sank out of sight. Behind the serpent, the battered caravel was lumbering away, rolling wildly from side-to-side as her crew struggled to bring her under control. Atop the stern, Ruha saw twenty men standing amidst the wreckage, some holding lanterns while the rest waved amulets and talismans at the Storm Sprite .

“That seems a strange custom, Captain Fowler.” Ruha pointed at the men on the caravel’s stern. “What does it mean?”

Fowler shrugged, barely glancing at the display. “Who can tell? She’s a foreign ship. They’re probably telling us to mind our own business.”

A tarnished scale fluttered off the dragon’s back, followed by the spiraling blue streak of a pebble. Ruha watched closely for more such flashes, as they indicated the tiny rocks had demolished the internal organs and were beginning to find their way out of the body. A second stone shot from the wyrm, then a third and a fourth, and still the serpent trembled and convulsed but somehow kept from falling into the sea.

Ruha scowled. Most victims were dead by the time four stones left their bodies.

Captain Fowler must have seen her brow furrow. “How long’s it going to take that wyrm to die?”

“It is a big dragon, Captain.”

Another pebble escaped the serpent’s body and spiraled away into the heavens, and Fowler cast an impatient glance toward the departing caravel.

“I’d like to catch her if we can,” he said. “A prize like that … If her captain’s a good man, he’ll reward us well.”

“Captain Fowler, what is this obsession of yours?” Ruha demanded. “Do you expect treasure for—”

Ruha’s question was interrupted when the dragon finally went limp and plummeted into the water, raising such a splash that buckets of dark sea rained down upon the Storm Sprite . The harpoon lines throbbed sharply, and the cog nosed into the water and heeled toward the wyrm. Fowler shoved the tiller to port, bringing his ship around so sharply she seemed to pivot on her bow.

“Loose the braces!” he boomed. He turned to Ruha and, more quietly, asked, “If you’d be kind enough to call off your wind, Lady Witch.”

Ruha uttered a single syllable, and the magic breeze died away. The crew loosed the brace lines, leaving the yardarms to swing free, and the sail snapped and popped as it flapped loose in the wind. The drag of the wyrm’s enormous body quickly brought the Storm Sprite to a halt. She swung around and began to roll wildly in the churning sea, still pitching toward the bow and listing toward the wyrm.

All at once, the crew broke into a tremendous cheer, many of them calling Umberlee’s favor upon the witch’s head. A great swell of pride filled Ruha’s breast, and for the first time since the debacle in Voonlar, she felt worthy to wear the pin of a Harper.

A loud, sonorous gurgle sounded just off the starboard side. Ruha looked over to see the dragon’s corpse sliding beneath the churning black waters. The Storm Sprite gave a long groan and listed even farther to starboard, the harpoon lines swinging toward her hull. Several of the crew lost their footing and would have fallen overboard had it not been for the quick hands of their comrades.

Ruha looked to Captain Fowler. “Why is the wyrm sinking? Shouldn’t it float?”

“Aye, it should.” A larcenous gleam filled the half-orc’s eyes, and he glanced toward the bobbing lanterns atop the stern of the departing caravel. “Unless its belly is filled with foreign gold!”

The Storm Sprite continued to heel, and Ruha shook her head emphatically. “No, Captain Fowler! Cut it free, or you’ll sink us!”

“Cut it free?” the half-orc scoffed. “My crew would mutiny!”

“They would prefer losing the treasure to dying, I am sure.”

“Don’t be,” Fowler said. “It takes a lot of gold to sink a dragon. And there’s the bounty to think of, too. Cormyr pays a thousand gold for each wyrm head brought to port, and every man gets his share.”

“All the gold in the Heartlands will not buy their lives back.”

“Aye, but men sell themselves for less every day.” Fowler lifted his chin toward the crew. “If you think they’ll forgo their chance to live like kings, you know less about men than you do about the Heartlands.”

Ruha studied the men. As Fowler had claimed, their expressions were more greedy than fearful, and despite the Storm Sprite ’s increasing list, not a single sailor was moving to cut the wyrm free. The cog continued to tip farther, until at last the harpoon lines ran vertically from the wales into the water. The heaving sea dunes crashed over the bow with thunderous force, and the decks sloped so steeply that it was impossible to stand without holding a halyard or shroud. Still, the crew made no move to free the ship.

“What’s all this standing about?” Fowler yelled. “Secure the lines to the anchor windlass and prepare to haul!”

An excited murmur filled the air as the crew leapt to the task with surprising agility, dangling monkeylike from lines and belaying pins. The sea continued to batter the Storm Sprite , spraying white foam over the decks and threatening to capsize her all too often, but it took only a few moments for the men to wrap the lines around the windlass and start winching. Their efficiency did little to soothe Ruha’s nerves. In the desert only fools tempted fate, especially for a prize as petty as gold.

“What of your reward, Captain Fowler?” The witch glanced toward the departing caravel. The lanterns atop its stern were still visible whenever the great ship crested a dune, but the gray outlines of the vessel itself were rapidly fading into the night. “I thought you wanted to catch the caravel?”

Fowler did not even look over his shoulder. “Not if the dragon pilfered all its gold.”

Several wails of surprise sounded from the windlass; then the Storm Sprite righted herself so suddenly that half a dozen men fell flat on the deck.

“What happened?” Fowler boomed. “Why are those lines slack?”

“It—it just happened,” came the reply. “The harpoons must have pulled free!”

A chorus of disappointed groans rumbled through the crew, but Fowler’s gray eyes shined with alarm. “All of them at once? Never.”

The sailors looked at each other with baffled expressions, as though they expected one of their number to confess to some mistake that explained the mystery. A babble sounded ahead of the Storm Sprite and to both sides of her bow. The little cog fell abruptly silent, and every head aboard swiveled toward the noises.

Ruha slipped a hand into her aba . “Perhaps the men should retrieve their weapons, Captain—”

A curtain of black wings rose from the sea ahead, eclipsing the moon’s reflection on the water and casting a shroud of murky darkness over the ship. The crew gasped in alarm and retreated toward the somercastle, giving no apparent thought to the spears and axes that lay stowed around the deck.