The Lost Star's Sea

by C. Litka

  05

  'See, it wasn't a snake, but a serpent dragon,' I said to Naylea, pointing to the dragon's relatively small legs. 'I'm innocent.'

  She laughed, 'I stand corrected. But I still hold you responsible. It's your weird charisma that attracted it, snake or serpent dragon.'

  The serpent dragon was still coiled around the twisted wreck of the boat, hidden in its massive coils. It had to have been at least five times the length of our boat long. It was covered with shiny, hard emerald green feathers, the size of dinner plates. They were more scale-like than feather-like, but they were attached to the body by their leading edge so they could be fluffed out, and perhaps used to provide traction when moving through the vine jungle. Naylea had blown its head apart with a 5mm dart, so there wasn't much left to it, but from what I saw of it when alive, it had a very wide mouth, likely used for swallowing its crushed victims whole.

  With the serpent's blood in the air, we worked fast - fearing that its smell would attract creatures we wanted to avoid meeting. We collected our remaining food and water and wrapped them tight in one of the sails that we had pulled free from the wreck. We made the package as sleek as possible and lashed it between the two spars, rigging them with lines fore and aft so that we could drag it behind us as we made our way through the vines. We chose to wear our kits as knapsacks, not wishing to put all our eggs in the one large basket - one that might have to be hastily abandoned.

  There was some salve in the medicine chest of the boat that Py and Naylea assured me would do wonders for my scalded hand, so they plastered it up and wrapped it in strips of canvas. It throbbed and ached, but as long as it didn't get infected, I'd not complain. I was still alive against all odds.

  Less than half an hour later, we were floating in the little clearing alongside the headless remains of the great serpent, ready to set out. Py and Naylea would take the lead, hauling the cache behind them. Me, with my rather useless hand would man the trailing line to steer the cache from the rear. The two dragons?

  'Right. It looks like we're set to go. Hissi, Siss, you guys take the lead and scout for us.'

  They both gave me a hard glare and a low warning hiss. Neither of them moved.

  'Oh, don't be a Tiny Timid Dragon Timmy! Your job is to lead us and deal with any? Any little thing that you might run across.'

  They gave me a deeper growl and shook their heads "no".

  I glared at them. 'Right. If that's the way you want to be, fall in behind me?'

  They barked their agreement and started drifting back.

  'And be sure to give a loud warning bark when the serpent's mate slithers up and takes its first bite out of you. Your job is to warn us before the second bite.'

  They stopped and gave me another low growl, showing a bit more of their teeth.

  I glared at them. I was in no mood for these games of theirs. 'Right. Naylea, you deal with these two useless feather dusters,' I snapped.

  ''Oh, quit teasing grumpy ol'Litang. His hand hurts and he's not in the mood,' she laughed, and then added softly, 'Siss, Hissi.'

  They growled their protest.

  She said nothing, but just glared at them.

  They growled again, but slowly swam forward to take the lead. Clearly, the tiger in Naylea had not changed all of her stripes?

  'It's now your job to give us a loud warning yell, Litang, before the next big snake swallows you completely,' she added as we got underway. The dragons, ahead, got a good, barking laugh out of that.