Dragon Raider

by Ava Richardson

  “Who do you work for? Havick?” the chief’s wife said fiercely, looking down the blade of the carving knife at me.

  “Yes, tell us!” The chief stepped up beside his wife, scimitar raised.

  “Mother, Father – no!” Lila shouted. “I know him. Kind of.”

  “Sire?” Voices came from behind me as I was seized and banged up against the wall. There were suddenly lots and lots of very angry bearded faces being pushed into my own, cutlasses, daggers, and knives in their strong, work-scarred hands.

  “Hold him steady, boys,” the chief growled, and my handlers stepped aside (but still held my arms and legs) as the chief took his wife’s place, drawing back his arm…

  “Father – stop! In the name of your firstborn – stop!” Lila shrieked, and I saw the Chief falter in front of me, turning to frown at Lila.

  “You would call on Ruck?” the chief said, his face a picture of upset and anger.

  “I would.” Lila nodded. “I would because I have to. I know this boy. And even though he is mad, and I do not know how much we can trust him – he said that he could talk to dragons. That is how we win this war,” she said, clearly and directly. The way a queen would state things. Not challenging, just talking.

  The chief rounded on me again. “Well, can you? You look barely able to walk in a straight line!”

  I nodded. “It is the magic, it always has a cost.” I found myself looking at Lila as I said this. I had told her that was true, and now, surely, even she could see it. “How did I sneak into your harbor? Get past all of the other Raiders, without magic?” I pointed out as I winced from the headache.

  “S’true, sire, none of my men have said anything about someone new coming in. No stranger’s boats,” said the red-haired, one-eyed Raider who held me.

  “Hm.” The chief lowered his blade a little, but his upset look was now replaced with one that I equally feared: disgust. “Speak, witch,” he said, his lip curling.

  I told them my tale. Of being trained as an adept by the West Witches to be the first ever mage in over a hundred years. I had come to ensure that the prophecy of Roskilde was fulfilled. “And I believe that the prophecy is referring to her.” I nodded at Lila.

  “My daughter?” said the other woman in the room, a stocky, older woman who stepped up beside the chief, whom I took to be his wife and Pirate Queen. “Then you must be wrong, clearly, adept.” She was frowning at me.

  Could I have got it so wrong? What if Lila really is the natural-born child of these Raiders.

  “Seventeen years ago,” I began.

  “I was born,” Lila said quietly, “on Roskilde.”

  “You knew?” Lila’s mother gasped as she looked at her child in shock.

  I watched as the young woman shrugged. “You can’t keep secrets long in a Raider’s community, or on a ship.” Her gaze swung to the Raider who was holding me, the red-haired, one-eyed one.

  “Captain Lasarn?” the chief barked reproachfully at him, and the man smiled sheepishly.

  “I figured it was right that she knew, Chief. That she came from a raid, and that Pela there had just lost her son Ruck, and so…” Lasarn looked sorrowful. “It was better for her to be with us, and to a mother who would care for her, than to be all alone with dead parents, don’t you think?” Lasarn asked the room, as if for forgiveness.

  For myself, I think what the Raiders had done had probably saved her life, as it wasn’t long after that the usurper Havick had taken the throne for himself, and set about exiling or killing all of the old captains and generals loyal to the old Roskilde royal line.

  “So yes, Father, I’ve known for years that I was from Roskilde. That I wasn’t your natural child,” Lila said with a sad smile. “Although I wish you both were my parents.”

  “Hmph.” The chief looked deflated. “I have only ever tried to do right by you, Lila.”

  “And that is why I must try to tame these dragons. To protect all of us…” the young woman said.

  “You cannot tame a dragon, Lila,” I said. “Not even in Torvald do they tame dragons…”

  The young woman’s eyes narrowed as she glared at me. “Then how do they ride them then? Good wishes?”

  “Yes,” I said. “There is a very old, and very rare thing called a dragon bond that happens if both human and dragon give their heart freely to each other. It is a type of magic,” I said. The strongest of magic occurs between friends, I heard Chabon breathe in my memory. “That bond is forged for life, and with it, you could ride a dragon.”

  “Then that is what we have to do!” the woman said tartly. “We will travel to the dragon atoll, and you, adept, will talk to this brood mother on my behalf, and offer her my bond or whatever it is that you have to do.”

  “It’s not that easy, Lila…” I winced. And besides, I’m here to restore you to the throne of Roskilde, not create possibly the most dangerous fighting force in the world outside of Torvald!

  “If you speak for me with the brood mother, I will help you find out more about this ridiculous prophecy of yours,” Lila bargained with me. “Trade for trade. That’s the Raider way.”

  The absurdity of using Raider customs to secure her destiny as the eventual enemy of the Raiders was not lost on me. But it was the best offer that I had on front of me.

  “Fine.” I nodded. “When do we go?”

  “No!” The chief stamped his feet, looking hurt and confused. I didn’t blame him, as he was watching the breakup of his family if my plan went accordingly. But the prophecy must be fulfilled, I gritted my teeth against the wave of sympathy I had for the proud old man.

  “No, Lila. I may not be able to stop you running off into the oceans with a boat on your mad schemes – but I can ask you this one thing. For me. As the only father that you have known,” he said heavily, and I watched as his wife put a gentle hand on the big man’s arm tenderly.

  “Don’t do anything with this young man until we have tested his mettle. My father always told me, never trust someone you haven’t sailed with, and I ask you to do the same. Allow me to have one raid with my daughter on the Ariel, and with this witch,” the chief snarled – he clearly had no love for the West Witches – “as a hand. If he proves himself worthy, then I will wholeheartedly support my daughter in her plan to create the Dragon Raiders.”

  Beside him his wife nodded. “That is a fair deal, Lila,” she said warningly.

  “Deal.” Lila nodded with a grin.

  Now all I had to do was to prove to the second-most-fearsome people on the waves that I was a worthy companion. Great.

  Chapter 7

  Lila and the Ariel

  Hold her steady!” my father shouted from the foredeck, letting Kal, our bald, heavy-set sailing master have the hard work of turning the ship’s wheel. My father liked to be out front when we left and entered port, as “there have to be some perks to being captain, right?”

  It was a bright day, and a perfect one for sailing. We had a full complement of Raiders, and I would be acting as first mate, second only to Kal and Father. It was a lot of responsibility for me, and I could feel the weight of it in my stomach.

  I had to get this right. I had to show Father that I could make a good leader. But it wasn’t just my father, of course, that I had to worry about. There was the crew. All fifteen of us altogether, all men and women I had sailed with before – but never in charge of.

  A good captain is only as good as her crew, I repeated another favorite maxim of Father’s, and saw just how great a captain my father was. The crew loved him. Even when the seas were calm, and the pickings were low, he had a way to spur them to action or set a fire in their bellies. Did I have that?

  I leaned on the rail as the walled harbor of Malata slide past, and with it the cheering and whoops of the other Raiders who had to stay behind. Every excursion out into the Western Seas was an adventure and a challenge, and you never knew how many people come back – if we came back at all.

  “First mate Lila!” my father co
mmanded, stalking back down from the foredeck at a jog. “How’s the ship?”

  I had seen him ask this question of other shipmates before. It was a general all-accounting, that he would expect his first mate to know. “A little low on provisions for a week, fa-captain,” I said. “But I expect we’ll make that up in fishing. Crew able-bodied and well. Eager for a chance to get out there, sir,” I said.

  “All shipshape and sail-ready then.” I watched my father grin. “Good. Make sure the mates get the fishing nets deployed this evening, and see to it that they pull ‘em up before morning.”

  “Aye-aye, cap’n!” I nodded. It might only be a small overseeing job, but it was a start. “Where we headed?”

  “North,” my father grunted, and then lifted his head up to bellow the news at the rest of the crew. “We head north, ladies and gents! Up into the Western Isles. Let’s find some fat-bellied merchant!”

  There was a rousing chorus of cheers and roars. Those words were music to a Raider’s ears. I, however, was a little less enthusiastic. North? That will take us straight towards the shipping lanes patrolled by Havick’s Roskilde fleet. Was Father trying to do a lightning-fast raid? Or was he itching for a fight against our enemy with only fifteen crew?

  Hm. Not that he would see it that way, I knew. ‘One pirate is worth ten of Havick’s land-loving cabbages!’ my father would have declared. I looked at the broad back of my father, and wondering at the way that he could change as soon as he stepped off of dry land. Out here he was no longer simply my father. He was the feared Captain Kasian, Chief of the Raiders, daring and fierce and as slippery as an eel.

  As I surveyed the Ariel, I saw Danu the “mage-in-training” (or so he claimed) over on the other side of the deck. I narrowed my eyes as I studied him. I didn’t like him, but he was a necessity to my plans. I didn’t like how, from the first moment we had met, he had been trying to tell me what I needed to do, for myself and the grand future of the Western Isles. Like I was just a pawn in his schemes, or like I couldn’t make a choice for myself. And the notion that he was a mage at all – a sort of person like the Dark King himself, or like the Dragon Monks of old, I found to be laughable. He looked as though he had grown up around the docks and jetties here at Malata; a young-looking kid more at home picking cockles than reading scrolls!

  I didn’t have any intention of believing him or becoming his ‘Queen of Roskilde’ that he was so certain about. Even if it was true, I had a family here, now, with these sailors, and it was the only family that I cared about.

  But he doesn’t have to know that, I permitted myself to have a small grin.

  “But I sure do hope he isn’t lying about being able to talk to dragons…” I muttered to myself. All of my plans hinged on it. I would have to corner him when I got the chance to try and see if what he said was really true, or just a boast?

  He was coiling a rope at the moment, under the careful eye of one of the other hands – and, I was surprised to see, he wasn’t making a complete hash out of it.

  We’ll see what you’re made of, fish-boy.

  As it turned out, Danu was made of quite good fishing stock. Even Father noted it on the second day, when Kal mentioned that it had been Danu who had told them to light lanterns over the sides of the ship when we dropped nets in the middle of the night.

  “You’ll get more that way” he said. “The West Witches rely on fish stocks for food, so we do a lot out there…” He shrugged a little self-consciously. “It’s not all scrolls and meditation, you know.”

  Still, I didn’t like the fact that the crew were now thanking him as he worked to supply them with enough fresh food. That was my job, it was my special task given to me by the captain! Danu was just supposed to be proving his sea-worthiness.

  I was grumbling to myself as I pulled on the ropes of the mainsail, along with the Brothers as we called them, two hands who had been born on the same ship to the same mother, but were as different as they could be when you talked to each. It was the second day of our voyage, and, with bellies full, the crew were still happy and enthusiastic, despite our direct northwards drive.

  “One, two, heave!” I shouted, throwing my weight down at the last moment, and the pole that attached the bottom of the sail climbed up to where another of the sailors – a rigger this time – was ready to lash it down.

  “What’s going on here?” my father called down as he clambered up from below decks.

  “Wind picking up from the north-west, captain,” I said proudly. “She would have hit us side on and cut our speed in half, if we didn’t raise the mainsail.”

  “Which will lessen our speed anyway, right, First Mate Lila?” The captain frowned.

  “Uh, of course, sir.” I bobbed my head. I knew what I had done was right. I had heard and seen my father do exactly the same thing a thousand times before!

  “You tied off?” He cast a look above, to receive a wave and a thumb’s up from the rigger above.

  “Yes, sir.” I nodded, feeling stupid.

  “Good. Then come with me.” He nodded at the brothers that they were dismissed as I fell into step beside him. He walked me slowly up to the foredeck, where we climbed the ladder to the small area of raised platform and rails just above the bowsprit.

  “Lila, you need to ask the captain and the sailing master before you start messing about with the mainsail!” my father said urgently but under his breath. He didn’t make a big show of saying it, but stood with his hands behind his back as if we were both looking out to sea.

  “Of course, I know that, Father – it’s just, you said that I was first mate, and you wanted me to take the initiative...” I pointed out.

  “It’s not for me, Lila.” My father sounded annoyed, before nodding over his shoulder. “It’s for them. They need to see you obeying the chain of command. That means they can trust you, that means they can follow you.” He frowned. “I’m trying to give you a future here, Lila,” he added.

  I was silent for a moment, my eyes scanning the horizon. Maybe I would make a terrible captain. And a terrible queen, if Danu had his way.

  “Lila…” My father cleared his throat awkwardly. “Listen to me now. Whatever that boy tells you, whatever he might show you, you need to know one thing: that we love you very much, and that we regard you as family.” The big man’s voice was gruff and uneven, and he fiddled with the hoops on his wide belt nervously.

  “I’m not leaving, Dad,” I said in just as awkward a tone.

  “But, the adept said that you belonged on the throne…” my father grumbled. “Riches that we Raiders have only ever dreamed of!”

  “Well, there’s already a man sitting on that throne, as far as I know.” I laughed. “And I don’t think that Havick is going to give it up any time soon – not that I believe Danu when he says that I’m a queen.”

  “But your deal with him…?” My father stroked his long beard.

  “Just wait, Father. I need him to talk to the dragons. After that?” I shrugged. I hadn’t thought the details out entirely. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I was sure that we could give him a boat and send him back to the Witches of Sebol. What was he going to do, enchant the entire free islands of the Raiders?

  “Ha. Spoken like a true Raider.” My father clapped his hands together and laughed. “He’s not a bad sailor, mind. He has good instincts, even if he has clearly spent too long behind a writing desk than out on the waves!”

  “Hmph.” I pulled a face. “He’s no Raider though, Dad,” I pointed out.

  “No. He’s not that. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens when he sets his eyes on the first Havick war galleon.” My father laughed mischievously, and I had a sudden, terrible feeling that this might be something that the slippery and daring Captain Kasian of the Sea Raiders had been planning all along.

  “Father?” I asked lightly. “Uh… Why are we heading due north, exactly?”

  His mustache twitched. His mustache always twitched when he was about to lie. “You k
now as well as I do that the Western Archipelago is due north. There’s a lot of trade going back and forth up there…”

  “But that means there are also a lot of Roskilde patrol boats…” I pointed out.

  “Are you questioning me as my daughter, or as my first mate, Lila?” My father was suddenly serious as he half turned towards me.

  I gambled. “Both?”

  “Then I, as your father, would tell you to trust me, and as captain, I would remind you that if you have concerns about my leadership of this vessel, you had better take it up with the sailing master.” He said the words calmly, but there was no denying the authority that was behind them. It was Captain Kasian who ruled this ship, not my father, and if I planned to question him on any aspect of his rule; from where we were going or when to reef a sail, I had better be prepared to go all the way to get the crew and the sailing master to back me up. In other words, I would have to dare a mutiny.

  “Aye-aye, sir.” I nodded. “Am I dismissed?”

  A perfunctory nod, and I left him on the foredeck to his schemes and his plans. I was keenly aware of the stares of the other crew members. Did they think that we had just argued? What did that mean for the crew if the first mate and the captain do?

  With a worried grimace, I returned to my jobs, but was pleased to notice all the same that, when the north-wester came in, the Ariel hardly slowed down at all thanks to my quick work on the mainsail.

  On the third day out, we started to hear the sounds of distant seagulls and the harsh cries of cliff birds. It hadn’t taken us long to get this far, almost as if the sea itself had been helping us.

  “Rise and shine, boys and girls!” Kal was already banging the ship’s bell on deck as I groaned in my hammock. It was a little before first light – and generally, unless there was something the matter, you would let the crew at least wait until sun-up before you got them to work. It was that kind of eager behavior that made the crew grumble and mumble.

  My father must be planning something, I thought as I climbed the ladder out of the hold where we had strung out hammocks. As we only had food and water on board – no cargo or booty – we had room to stretch out, and, as everyone knows, a sailor will take every opportunity to rest that comes to them. Sailing was hard, physical, backbreaking, hand-scarring, and sun-burning work. I didn’t blame the other hands as they grumbled at the early hour, rubbing eyes and yawning.