by Ted Neill
“Hey! Hey! Over here!” She picked up a stone and flung it, only to have it bounce off the creature’s hide. Gabriella might as well have thrown the rock at a stone wall for all the difference it made. She picked up another stone and ran towards the wyvern’s back foot. Just minutes ago Gabriella would have been petrified to be so close. Now she was striking at the beast’s very flesh, which was as hard as armor. The stone chipped in her hand as she struck at the scales.
Adamantus still lay motionless. The wyvern paused. Like a horse batting at flies, the wyvern shifted her weight, flung her tail, and struck Gabriella aside.
She braced herself for another painful impact. This time the stinging aches were nothing in comparison to the agonizing stab in her side. As she came to a stop on the ground, Gabriella felt her ribs to see if she had been impaled. Although she was bruised and scraped raw, her guts were not spilling out in a hot gooey mess as she had feared. The creature moved towards the elk. Gabriella tried to get up again, but her elbow bent beneath her, and she fell backwards, striking her head.
She would not lose consciousness. She would not. She focused on something, anything, to remain awake. There was a sensation on her face. Something had fallen there. She grabbed it. The whistle . . . it had been knocked loose again. She remembered that Omanuju had said Adamantus would always respond to its call. She lifted it to her lips and blew a faint toot. She took deeper gulps of air and blew again. This time, she produced a powerful blast in proportion to her desperation. The wyvern jerked, her huge body writhing as if a hot iron had been placed on her back. She roared and hissed, but her own voice was now drowned out by the note of the whistle. The wind died, the sea calmed all around them, and the clouds stopped in place. The whole island reverberated and trembled at the sound. Adamantus lifted his head.
The wyvern again descended towards her prey, but Gabriella took another deep breath and blew a third time, directing the sound at the wyvern like a powerful spell. The beast staggered and howled, flapping her wings. This time, her motions had lost their grace. These were panicked, retreating wingbeats, like a bird that had just been swatted by a cat’s paw.
Adamantus stood, his legs shaking. Gabriella blew yet again. The wyvern screeched even louder. Gabriella tottered as the ground split beneath her feet. Visions of the island cracking open to its foundation and the sea rushing up to swallow her flashed in her mind. But as soon as the whistle stopped, the chasm ceased to widen and the wind returned. Rocks and stone slabs jostled and shook as they settled into place. Adamantus limped up beside her while the wyvern took to the air.
“Clever girl!” He took her by her collar, threw her onto his back, and made a direct dash to the far side of the island.
“Where do we go now?” Gabriella asked, squeezing tight onto his fur.
“I’m not sure,” the elk said, his gallop noticeably slower and uneven. This time, when he dodged a stream of fire, he slipped. The wyvern came in for another assault, but Gabriella blew the whistle once more, causing the beast to back away. Adamantus stopped. “This was not here before,” he said, looking down at a great fissure before them.
“I had no idea the whistle would split the stone. How could something so small do so much?”
“Its power comes in proportion to the need of the player. You were obviously powerfully desperate.”
“You were about to die.”
“We both are. Hold on!” Adamantus shot forward as the wyvern swooped down at them with her claws. He darted left only to see another fissure, trapping them between the two. It was as if a hammer had fallen on the anvil of the island, and the anvil had broken. The fissures were too wide to jump. With the dragon approaching from behind, they could only go forward.
And the land was running out.
This was just what the wyvern wanted. She sent a gush of fire towards them, forcing them towards the cliff edge. She moved slowly now, building a wall of fire they could not slip around. Gabriella’s face was slick with sweat. Adamantus stopped before the cliff’s edge. Waves curled and hissed below. The wyvern struck at the ground beneath her talons and worked a large slab free of the ground.
“She will throw it and knock us off!” Gabriella cried.
The wyvern had the slab in her teeth. Adamantus’ body tensed, ready to spring aside. The dragon swung her head back to throw. At that instant a staccato tapping, like a hammer on a chisel, cut through the wind. It was not as loud as the whistle, but the wyvern heard it and she dropped the boulder with a crash. A sail appeared over the edge of the cliff as the Elawn came into view. Mortimer stood astride the mid-deck, the sails full around him, the rigging pulled taut. In his arms, he held a dark green, oblong object about the size of a watermelon. Its surface was mottled like a stone covered with lichens.
The noise cutting through the wind was the sound of Mortimer’s sword tapping the egg’s top. His head was thrown back, his shoulders square, and he raised his sword high over his head. He was the victorious hunter, with his greatest prize yet: a dragon’s egg.
The wyvern went from fearless beast to anguished mother, flapping her wings, twisting her neck, roaring and snapping in impotent rage. The beast charged the Elawn but stopped shy of it, another bluff. Mortimer placed the egg on the deck and put the point of the sword over it—a warlock, poised to sacrifice a baby. His eyes were blazing with power, and Gabriella felt an unexpected wave of disgust pass over her.
Mortimer spoke between clenched teeth. “They will write songs about me yet! Mortimer the Great!”
The wyvern floated backwards, her cries unceasing. Mortimer had angled the ship towards them so that it passed just beyond the edge of the cliff, and Adamantus wasted no time. He took a running start, and they landed with a clatter on the deck that made the Elawn rock. Despite her pain, Gabriella ran to the wheel and steered them eastward.
The wind moved the ship quickly, but it was still not fast enough for Gabriella. The wyvern howled in protest. It landed on the island, paced back and forth, then lifted off into the air to follow them at a distance. Gabriella marveled at the transformation in the creature. She wished the mother’s face was less expressive, the distress less obvious. Gabriella remembered puppies being taken away from their neighbor’s bitch and seeing the same expression of panic and loss.
So human.
Gabriella had not expected this feeling of guilt, especially after just escaping from certain death at the claws of the same beast. She felt no different than a pirate and, being a Harkenite, she knew no scoundrel was worse than a buccaneer.
Chapter 6
The Nested Narrows
“No time to rest,” Adamantus said as Gabriella caught her breath on the Elawn’s deck. The mother wyvern followed them, roaring and trumpeting. She scooped the air with her wings and then disappeared beneath the ship. Mortimer raced to the starboard rail and peered over.
“She’s going to crash into us!”
The wide, leathery wings rose on either side of the Elawn. Gabriella seized the wheel just as the ship bucked upwards and forward. The sails bellied out backwards. As the ship settled, planks toppled free of the mid-deck and clattered onto the main deck. Mortimer barely had opportunity to right himself and cry out a second warning before the mother crashed into them again. The ship wobbled, the sails twisting. Wood was splintering and groaning. Horrified, Gabriella watched the boards bend and shake. Without Ghede, there was no way to replace them.
Thoughts of a terrified Dameon in the sleeping quarters flashed into her mind, and she leapt down the companion ladder just as a third collision shook the ship. The attack slammed Gabriella into the cabin doorframe. Dameon, white-faced, was curled in a ball, hiding in the corner of a bunk.
“It’s all right,” Gabriella said, out of breath, lying. A fourth crash sent jars and boxes to the floor, adding to the mess of broken crockery and jumbled furniture. Adamantus and Mortimer were both calling her now. Gabriella realized there was little she could do for her brother. He would be safer below. She ran u
p to the deck.
Gabriella braced for another collision, but the wyvern hovered over the ship, no longer attacking. Mortimer sat cross-legged, braced against the cabin wall as he cradled the egg between his thighs, his sword poised above the dragon’s greatest treasure. The wyvern hissed, a red hot iron dropping in water. She snapped her jaws at Mortimer, but her snout remained safely away from the ship.
Mortimer wore a strange expression. His lips were pressed so tightly that they were white against his skin, which was red with exertion. His eyes carried cruel exhilaration mixed with fear as he waited for the wyvern’s next move.
For now, a stalemate, as the rocky face of another island loomed over the railing of the port bow. The Elawn’s wheel turned aimlessly. Gabriella seized it and looked ahead into the sky. A plume of smoke rose from the island signaling another wyvern nest. Gabriella swung the ship so the island was off the port beam. Straight ahead was yet another island with its own cone of smoke.
“It’s a gauntlet no matter where I steer,” she said.
“Let’s hope our guardian is up to the task,” Adamantus said.
“Let’s hope our ship is.”
The water in the channel between the islands was streaked with color: dark blue, turquoise, brown, revealing that different currents fought against one another below them. Gabriella knew this also signaled battling winds, and she pulled the Elawn upwards, hoping to find a steady breeze from the west. As she studied the way the smoke columns bent, she guessed there was a good breeze two hundred feet overhead. Through a gap in the railing, she could see a flock of sea vultures perched on an island below. The birds were picking and tearing at the carcass of a rotting beluga whale. In an instant, the vultures scattered.
Adamantus cocked his head and galloped to Gabriella’s side. “Wyvern, off to port.”
A second wyvern slithered through the air, twisting its serpentine body as it traced a long circular path around the Elawn. Its coloring was that of the earth, brown and copper, like stones of a riverbed. This newcomer’s coat of scales was noticeably brighter—a younger dragon. Her youth also showed in the vigor of her quick wingbeats. Her voice was shrill and high as she neared the Elawn and sounded her call.
But their mother wyvern would not let her any nearer to the ship. The mother swooped into the interloper’s path, and they dove at each other, wings arched backwards, talons outstretched. Their bodies collided with the sound of armor slamming together. Talon strikes were sword swipes on mail. Both wyverns fell behind the Elawn’s stern.
Gabriella checked their course just as Adamantus called out, “Another one, off the starboard bow.”
The body of the ship blocked Gabriella’s view of this dragon. She leaned over, out of her seat. The new wyvern was smaller and silver-blue, not unlike a fish as it darted quickly, left to right, beneath them, a few lengths shorter than the Elawn.
Praying that this wyvern would leave them alone, Gabriella dug her nails into the wood of the wheel while she waited for an impact. None came. Adamantus stalked up the port side of the ship. Mortimer was on the starboard, clutching the egg to his chest, shuffling through some of the fallen boards. Gabriella could see the ocean through some of the gaps near Mortimer’s feet. Suddenly one of the gaps flashed with silver.
“Mr. Creedly, watch out!”
Mortimer turned and ducked just as the new wyvern’s tail swung up over the railing. It missed his head and instead pulled a mess of rigging into a tangle. Gabriella did not think twice. As the wyvern twisted up around the railing of the ship to discover just what had snagged her tail, Gabriella swung the ship hard to starboard, sending the sail frame swinging over the starboard quarter. The boom hit the wyvern’s shoulder, sending her tumbling into the sea.
Adamantus was sprawled over the port deck, thrown off balance by the sudden change in course. Mortimer was braced against the cabin, his chest heaving as if he had just run a race. The Elawn floated adrift for a moment before Gabriella could pull the rigging taut and secure the sails. Below them, the silver wyvern recovered and resumed her pursuit. The mother wyvern was still swooping and dancing with the first attacker. Jaws snapped, teeth gleamed, like dogs in a fight. Gabriella angled the ship into a steeper climb. She heard more glass jars smashing, pots tumbling.
Hold on down there, Dameon.
The silver wyvern adjusted, climbing into the sky with quick, aggressive wingbeats. Gabriella glanced at the battle to their stern. The mother and her opponent continued to frustrate each other’s attacks. Here the older dragon showed her cunning: where the younger wyvern kept her tail arched backwards for balance, the older one swung hers upwards, concealing it behind her wing until the last moment then striking the younger beast in the head.
The younger wyvern yelped weakly as she began to fall, dazed, her wings lax. The older dragon wasted no time. She turned and spread her wings to catch up with the Elawn. She soared up beneath the Elawn, emerging just in front of the bow like a gargantuan figurehead. Gabriella felt a frisson of pride, for this was their champion.
The silver wyvern swooped backwards, sounding like a broken trumpet. She seemed hesitant to continue. Maybe, thought Gabriella, the silver dragon would turn back and the day would be won, but it was not to be. The first interloper, recovered from the strike to her head, came sliding downward from above, as if on a greased chute, and crashed into the back of the Elawn’s mother protector. Both wyverns tumbled downward. The silver newcomer spiraled down in their wake like a barracuda in pursuit.
The mother sliced at the others with her tail. The silver wyvern took the side of her fellow younger attacker and swiped at the mother beast with her talons, screeching and hissing with her high-pitched trumpet voice. Blood geysered out of the melee and spread out into red clouds. Amid so much mauling and dodging, there was no opportunity for flying, and all three plummeted towards the ocean.
“Gabriella, a fourth one, from the south!” Adamantus said.
“Demon’s feet!” Mortimer exclaimed. “We’re lost.”
The wyvern was upon them, his legs lowered over the mid-deck, his talons outstretched. Mortimer screamed obscenities. This wyvern, covered in black scales with yellow spikes running down from neck to tail, looked like a hornet with a deadly stinger. Amidst her fear, Gabriella felt a spark of hope: this wyvern was smaller than the others, a juvenile, the height of a man and the length of three. Perhaps it would not be as brazen—or clever. Gabriella wondered if the three of them might mount a defense of the ship until the mother came to their aid.
The black wyvern’s teeth shone dully, the white of polished bone. The black wings turned red as they opened up blocking out the light of the sky, a massive network of throbbing arteries and veins. The Elawn listed hard to starboard as the dragon landed on deck. Adamantus reacted first, charging the length of the ship, sliding under a gout of flame, and swinging his antlers at the beast.
The black wyvern snapped his wings and swept aside loosened boards with his feet and tail as he danced backwards towards the bow. He brought his tail down, but Adamantus caught the blow with his antlers, and for a moment each strained against the other, an impasse.
Mortimer leapt down from the mid-deck, the egg cradled in his left arm, his sword in his right. He swung the blade into the wyvern’s head, but the old tales were true—the horns and scales of dragons were far too tough for any ordinary sword. The blade glanced off in a shower of sparks, and the wyvern turned and blasted a jet of flame in Mortimer’s direction. He rolled aside unhurt, his clothes smoking, but the wall of the forward cabin had caught fire.
Gabriella’s first thought was of Dameon, and she raced to the mid-deck, sawed through a line holding the water barrels in place, and tipped three of the barrels over into the flames. She watched as their precious water spilled over the deck, but the worst of the flames were quenched.
“Mr. Creedly, be careful of the egg!” she shouted. Mortimer readjusted his grip around the egg, holding himself in a ready stance on the edge of the fight
between elk and dragon. Gabriella knew they could not risk the egg again, nor could they allow the wyvern to remain on the ship.
She stumbled back to the wheel well and searched for the lever she had seen Ghede pull before—the one topped off by a black knob carved in the ominous shape of a skull. She wrapped her fist around it and cried out a warning to the others as she pulled. The mechanisms groaned beneath the deck. She pictured wheels spinning, cables moving, all to the turn the joists that held the stone in the heart of the ship in place. As she expected, deep inside the Elawn, the magnetic stone flipped, and all at once, they lost all power of flight.
Unlike when Ghede had flipped the stone, she had forgotten to adjust the sails into a wing, and the Elawn dropped the way a ship in the air would. The sails snapped in the rushing air. She heard Dameon scream from inside the cabin. Mortimer grabbed a ratline as he levitated over the deck. Gabriella floated in freefall, too. But most importantly, the wyvern, startled by the suddenness of the drop, beat the air with his wings and pulled free of the ship.
Now she only needed to stop their falling.
Gabriella grabbed hold of the lever again, but floating in the air gave her no leverage to push. Her effort sent her spinning over the bank of levers and away from the wheel well. She caught herself on the line she had fastened to hold up the rain canopy, but the wind soon caught in the canvass and the line was ripped out of her hands.
Now she panicked. The ship was falling, the sea rushing up, and she was floating away from the lever. She pictured herself as a pelican, going into a dive to snatch a fish from the ocean, its wings folded, its head down. She tucked her arms into her side and felt herself move closer to the deck. When she was close enough, she reached out, curled a single finger, then a second around the black knob. With an effort that burned in her forearm, she pulled herself close to the lever. This time she swung her feet downward, planted them on the deck, and, using her entire body, pulled the lever into its original position.