Stephen Sullivan - The Dragon Isles

The air before them wavered, like heat above a rock on a blazing summer day. The captain felt suddenly hot. Looking around, he saw that the others were sweating as well-all save Ula, who looked as cool as ever. She stood with her arms folded across her chest, leaning calmly against the rail, the wind pulling at her long, platinum hair.

The crew working the decks below moved about agitatedly. The sailors grumbled, and some of them trembled. Mik ordered a ration of rum for everyone, and that seemed to calm things down for a while.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the Dragon Isles crept closer.

Karista Meinor paced across the short expanse of Kingfisher’s bow, wringing her slender fingers together, and occasionally stopping to mop the sweat from her brow with a silk handkerchief.

Behind her stood Bok, perspiration running down his body from the tip of his shaved head to his bare feet. He kept a wary eye on both his mistress and the approaching islands.

Trip clung to the rigging near the top of the mast, refusing to come down even as the rainstorm broke in earnest. He kept his hazel eyes fixed on the distant islands, hoping to catch a glimpse of flying dragons or something even more wondrous.

The wind howled like demons, and many crew members wrapped scarves around their heads, or covered their ears with their hands-as much as they could-while they worked.

Thunder crashed and, before they knew it, a sailor had leaped overboard into the surging waves. He screamed an incoherent warning as he went, but there was no trace of him by the time a rescue crew reached the rail.

“Turn back!” Pamak said.

“We can’t!” Mik replied. “Our only chance to survive the storm is to keep going!”

Thunderheads rolled up the sky behind Kingfisher , and lightning crashed into the ocean with frightening regularity. The seas mounted ever higher before the wind, and soon the water behind them looked like green-gray mountains. The storm’s breath whipped the tops of the waves into froth; white mist danced high into the air.

“Come down, Trip!” Mik shouted up to the kender. “Before you’re struck by lightning!”

“Aye, captain!” the kender called back. He swung around the mast and felt with his foot for the rigging. As he did, something in the breakers off the stem caught his attention. Trip put a hand over his eyes and peered into the storm.

“Crazy minnow!” Ula yelled up to him. “What are you waiting for?”

“I see something!”

“What?” asked Mik.

“Sharks! Sharks running before the storm! Hundreds, thousands of them!”

“He must mean porpoises,” Karista called from the bow. “Sharks do not run before storms-not on the surface anyway.”

“I mean sharks !” Trip called back, pointing. “Look for yourselves!”

The aristocrat and the captain peered in the direction the kender indicated. The wind whipped stinging spray into their eyes, and they had to blink away the brine to see.

The sea behind Kingfisher boiled angrily, and not just with wind and waves. Tall dorsal fins broke the whitecaps as schools of sharks swarmed forward: redtips, swordbeaks, manglers. Many leaped from the breakers, their toothy maws snapping at the salty air.

“What’s happening?” Karista called from the bow.

Astern on the bridge, Mik shrugged and shook his head. “Maybe they’re chasing something.”

“Or perhaps something is chasing them,” Ula suggested. Her green eyes went wide as she gazed at the foaming sea.

“What is it, girl?” Karista shouted.

“Can’t you feel it?” Ula called back. She turned her head from side to side, as though seeking the cause of the feeling.

“I feel it,” Mik replied. The sensation was like a large knot twisting within his stomach. He tightened his grip on the tiller; his brown eyes flashed, questing, across the whitecaps.

“I feel nothing!” Karista shouted, annoyed. “I…”

As she spoke, the waves behind them erupted, and the dragon burst from the deep.

Tempest exploded from the breakers like a blue green mountain. Boiling steam erupted from her massive jaws; her yellow eyes shone with the fury of the storm.

Hatred of the Dragon Isles and all those who sailed to them burned in her black heart. She would make sure that if she could not reach the archipelago, no one would.

The sea cascaded away from Tempest in huge waves. The sudden torrent crashed against Kingfisher , threatening to tip it on its side. High on the mast, Trip clung desperately to the rigging. Sharks, razorfish, and Turbidus leeches as thick as a man’s arm sped in a maelstrom circle around the tottering caravel.

The crew working Kingfisher’s deck toppled when the waves hit and screamed as the dragon-fear swept over them. Mik hung onto the tiller, but the backwash from the waves carried Ula toward the rail.

Mik stabbed his hand out, but Ula slipped away from him.

The sea elf slammed against the gunwale and regained her footing. A razorfish, carried high into the air by the swell, flashed past her face. Ula barely ducked aside in time. The fish flopped onto the deck, and she seized it in one slender hand. She dashed the fish’s brains out against the hull and threw the body back into the raging surf.

At the front of the ship, Marlian, Karista, and Bok froze as the dragon rose before them. Marlian pushed them all to the deck as the breaker hit. All three of them got wrapped up in the anchor chain, which kept them from heaving over the side in the backwash.

Poul wasn’t so lucky. The old man had been working amidships when the wave struck. The water seized his thin body and thrust him toward the bow. Marlian reached for him as he swept past, but her outstretched hand merely brushed his callused fingertips.

The tall sailor woman struggled out from under the tangled chains and lurched to her feet. Poul was hanging half over the rail, his feet dangling toward the raging water below. Marlian grabbed his right arm just as he went over.

“Help me!” she cried.

Bok lurched to his feet and toward the lanky woman sailor. Marlian’s fingers dug into the old man’s stringy flesh. Terror flashed across Poul’s ancient face.

“I won’t let go,” Marlian said. “Hold on!”

A glimmer of hope lit within Poul’s ancient eyes. The breakers clawed at his bare legs and feet as he tried to scramble aboard once more.

A huge mangier shark burst from the waves below the wizened mariner. The creature’s blue-gray sides glistened with foam. Seaweed and huge Turbidus leeches hung from its flanks. Jagged triangular teeth jutted from its gaping mouth. Poul’s legs disappeared into the fish’s maw; the shark bit down on the sailor’s midsection.

Poul gasped, and blood spurted from his mouth. Marlian screamed.

The shark lunged forward, clamping its jaws down over the old man’s head. A hideous crunching sound filled the air. The shark jerked its head to the side and dived back into the deep.

Marlian clung to the old man’s arm, but Poul was no longer attached to it. The momentum of the shark’s dive jerked her half-way over the rail. She flailed with her hands but found only rain, crashing water, and wind. Wide-eyed, she gazed into the deep. A dorsal fin cut through the water in front of her terrified face.

Strong hands grabbed Marlian’s ankles. “Karista, help!” the big bodyguard cried. He clamped his thick fingers tight, but Marlian’s legs were slippery with rain. Bok began to lose his grip.

Lady Meinor staggered forward, trying to keep her footing on the rocking deck. Kingfisher surged and she fell into the rail, almost going over herself.