Yandi dropped the unloaded crossbow and drew out a dagger. The terrified seaman began stabbing the beast frantically, slinging bright blood with every stroke.
“It’s dead,” Vanx said as he knelt down to check Sir Earlin’s condition.
“Just making sure,” Yandi said after jabbing one more hole in the thing.
“The other one is dead, too,” Zeezle informed them.
Vanx saw that Sir Earlin’s head hadn’t been split, but by the melon-sized lump swelling out below his ear, it was obvious that his jaw had been broken. The knight’s eyes were opening and shutting tightly, then fluttering as he fought to stay conscious.
“I think your mandible is cracked,” said Vanx.
The knight shook his head. “Mno it’s me jaw.” Tears were streaming from the corners of his eyes from the effort.
“That’s what a mandible is, Sir Earlin,” Vanx said, trying to distract the man from his pain.
“Why’d them tree orcs only attack him?” Yandi asked.
It was a good question. Vanx saw Sir Earlin pat at his chest nervously and then relax.
“Zee, go on as you were,” Vanx ordered. “I’m going to help Sir Earlin back to where our supplies are. With the trail you’re leaving I’ll have no problem catching up.”
“You’d better be back by morning because once we’re on the rocks it’ll be a lot harder to find us.”
“I could track this bunch across water in the dark,” Vanx replied. “But I’ll try to be there by dawn.”
“If you’re not there we can’t wait for you,” Trevin told him. “You understand?”
“Yep, I understand.” Vanx nodded. “Now go. You’re wasting time here.”
“Reen will stay and help you,” Yandi said. “You’ll need cover if they come again. And the knight’ll need someone to look after him and mash his food and such.”
“You just want someone to get that wine from the boat so that Bernald will get drunk and you’ll win my silver,” Reen jested.
“Bernald won’t get drunk if you don’t give him no wine, man. Now help the heathen get Sir Earlin to his feet,” said Yandi.
“Aye aye, Yandi,” Reen said with relief showing plainly on his face. It was clear that he didn’t want to go anywhere near the dragons.
It was a short trek back to the tree line where the remainder of their supplies were. Sir Earlin was in a great deal of pain, but with Vanx and Reen helping, he managed to keep his feet. Vanx was disappointed to find that there were still a handful of dragons circling in the sky. He wanted to get the knight the bottle of laudanum they’d brought, and some of the wine and stout, and maybe even a tent so that they could keep the weather off while they waited.
After careful consideration of the distance between the tree line and the longboat, Vanx decided he would try it. It was nowhere near dusk and he would be easily spotted from above, but he could move quickly and wouldn’t dally. He knew just where the jug was and the bundle with the tents and tarps was near the top of the pile. He also wanted to haul the boat’s iron anchor up shore so that, if a storm came, their boat wouldn’t wash away. It would be a close thing, Vanx knew, but he would abandon the work and flee for the tree line if he had to.
“Move all of that stuff back a dozen paces at least, Reen,” Vanx instructed. “A smaller dragon could get a few yards further in and get at you here.”
Once Reen understood what Vanx was saying, he set Sir Earlin against a tree and hurried to comply. Vanx moved to the edge of the tree line and silently prayed to the Goddess to lend him speed and make him seem unappetizing to the dragons. He waited until one of the smaller dragons dove down at the sea after a fish. He hoped the others were watching it as he bolted from the trees like a startled deer.
He nearly stumbled and fell in the loose sand but he managed to keep himself upright by churning his legs.
As soon as he gained the side of the boat he scanned the sky. The dragons were interested in the floundering catch their sleek, green-scaled cousin held in its claws. Vanx didn’t hesitate. He picked up the anchor and ran a good seven paces up the beach, dropped it, and charged back to get the rest of what he was after. The instant he hooked his finger in the loop at the top of the laudanum jug, one of the dragons came swooping. Vanx dove into the boat. When he looked up he expected to see a huge, fanged maw coming in at him, or a set of claws, but he found that his attacker had only been a shadow. The dragon had apparently spotted him, though. It roared out to its companions and made a tight, descending circle.
Vanx, with the jug in one hand, snatched up the top bundle on the pile. He fell more than climbed out of the boat and was forced to waste precious moments getting to his feet. When he looked up to where he’d last seen the dragon, he knew he was in trouble. He started running as fast as he could toward the trees, knowing that he had very little chance to make the cover. Already the larger blue-scaled wyrm was streaking along the sand at breakneck speed. Vanx could see his death approaching and all he could do was run.
Suddenly a blast of crackling yellow fluid sprayed toward him. The dragon then threw open its wings and went into a stall. Vanx had no choice but to dive into the sand to get under the dragon’s breath. He hit face first and his eyes and mouth were filled with grit. He started to look up but his vision was blurred and filled with a bright yellow light. He smelled his hair singeing and felt the intense heat of the energy contained in the dragon spew. He had never been so terrified in his life. He was helpless and at the mercy of a winged creature that was bigger than a cottage. He felt the dragon’s wings thump air to keep it in its hover. He imagined claws grasping at him to carry him away just as the young green dragon had clutched its fish. The lightning breath stopped and the dragon let out a terrible roar. It was all Vanx could do to keep from crying out from the pain the sound caused in his supersensitive ears. In the brief silence that followed the dragon’s call, there was a grunt from somewhere, and then the thrum of a bow string. This was immediately followed by an even louder roar and a double thump of huge, sand-blasting wings. As he was scoured by the abrasive gusts, Vanx’s world went blank. Not dark and fading, as if he were passing from consciousness, but just blank.
After a moment, Vanx felt himself being dragged across the sand.
“Come on, come on,” a voice urged frantically. It was Reen, but Reen wasn’t the only one who was pulling at him.
Vanx, still clutching the jug and the bundle of gear in his hands, looked up to see a blurry vision of sparkling chain mail topped by an even blurrier pumpkin-shaped head.
Sir Earlin.
Vanx rode a burst of adrenaline then, and got himself to his feet. He let Darbon lead him into the trees and collapsed there. It was a good thing, too, because another jet of crackling lightning breath erupted behind him and consumed the exposed knight.
Reen had gotten behind a tree, too, and the wide trunk did well to protect him.
Vanx smelled Sir Earlin’s flesh as it was electrified on the bone. There was no sound other than the dragon’s roaring exhalation. He caught a glimpse of the brave man’s form as it toppled to the sand. Vanx would never forget the sight, as blurry as it was. The knight’s chain armor was glowing as red as if it had just been pulled from a forge fire, and his skin, every shuddering inch of it, was a greasy black char.
The angry dragon withdrew its long neck when another crossbow bolt thumped into its hide.
Bernald, the fled seaman, had fired the bolt. Reen grabbed the pack and helped Vanx get deeper into the tree line, and there they gathered themselves. To their relief the dragon backed away from the trees and left them.
There were two tents in the supply pack and several waterskins, along with a lantern and some oil. After inspecting himself and washing the grit from his mouth and face, Vanx decided that he would be all right to track down the others. His ass was blistered a bit, and half his hair was burned into a hard clump that he reluctantly cut off with a dagger. He was alive, though, and whole.
Reen was
scarred from his left shoulder down to his hand. His sleeve had caught fire and the material appeared to have melted into his flesh. The burns were deep and the meat on his arm was cooked hard in some places. The sailor didn’t complain, though. He downed three sips from the jug of laudanum and then bit down on a stick as Bernald tended his wounds.
Vanx didn’t relish what he had to do, but he did it. He ventured to the edge of the trees and peeled open the neck of Sir Earlin’s armor. He reached into the still hot opening and fought to hold down his guts. He found what he was after with relative ease. The Blood Stone was as hot as the flesh melted around it. It pulled free with a wet, sucking pop.
After taking two of the waterskins and a tarp, Vanx left the two sailors and Sir Earlin’s corpse and went after the others. His mind hadn’t had a chance to process what had just happened and why, and he wasted no time thinking on it as he went. He had a strong urge to find his friends before nightfall.
Underneath the willow
my Molly kissed me there.
She said she’d kiss me more and more
If my coppers I did share.
– Parydon Cobbles
Sometime in the middle of the night Vanx found them. Darbon nearly put an arrow through his chest as he came in close.
“You smell like my uncle’s smithery after a holiday feast,” Darbon said curiously. “What happened to your hair?”
“Are your eyes as keen as all that?” Vanx asked, trying to avoid repeating the horror of Sir Earlin’s death more than once. While sloshing through the marsh for the last few hours he decided that he would tell them all together on the morrow. At the moment all he wanted was to get his mud-caked britches off and let the cool night breeze blow across his sand-chafed ass. He was as exhausted as he’d ever been.
“I’ve been on watch since we camped,” Darbon boasted proudly. “I was supposed to wake Trevin a while ago but decided to let him sleep. My eyes have adjusted to the moonlight.”
“Wake him up, Darbon,” Vanx said flatly as he unrolled his blanket. “You’ll do us no good if you’re falling down asleep on the hike tomorrow. Besides, you didn’t see me until I was already on you. Think about that as you drift off to sleep.”
Vanx hadn’t meant to be so stern, but the truth was that most beasts could see better at night than he, or a full-blooded Zyth. Darbon probably wouldn’t even be able to warn them if more tree orcs came charging in at them. Vanx started to apologize but decided to let his words sink into the young man’s head. He also felt that he was forgetting something, but couldn’t quite figure out what it was. What he did tell Darbon was, “Help Trevin stoke that fire after you wake him. That blaze alone will ward off more creatures than all of our steel combined.” Vanx remembered those very words coming from one of the lesson masters of his youth, but before he could put a face to the voice, he fell asleep.
“Up up up!” Trevin yelled. “Something’s out there, a lot of somethings!”
“What is it?” Yandi asked as he fumbled out of his bedroll.
“I’m up. I’m trying,” Darbon managed before falling to the ground when his boots caught in his blanket.
“Where?” Zeezle hissed, trying to quiet them. “Point to where you see it.” Trevin did so. Zeezle let out a low whistle of amazement. “Start building up that fire, quickly now,” he ordered. Vanx was still sleeping and the Zythian was sure he could see a lot more than Trevin was seeing. He didn’t want to scare them.
“Why does Vanx have his ass exposed like that?” Yandi asked.
Zeezle ventured a glance at his longtime friend. “It’s a heathen thing,” he jested, but there was no mirth in his voice. Where Trevin saw a few pairs of eyes, he was seeing scores of them.
“I’ve seen four of the creatures moving around out there,” Trevin said. “They’re low to the ground. I thought they were varmints at first, but they’re too big. They haven’t come any closer, but I hear them moving about.”
“There’s a lot more than four of them,” Zeezle said. He could see at least two dozen sets of eyes. “They aren’t braving the fire, and I can’t quite tell what they are.”
“They’re too low to the ground to be wolves, but that’s how they move,” Yandi commented.
“What does a seaman know about wolves?” Trevin asked.
“I was born to a shepherd in lower Harthgar,” Yandi informed them. “I know as much about wolves as I know about the sea.”
“Then why aren’t they attacking?” This came from Darbon in a whisper.
“Because our voices are scaring them, lad,” Yandi said loudly. “Quit whispering or they’ll attack us.”
“Oh, I understand!” Darbon yelled, causing a few of the creatures to blink and dart away. Yandi burst out laughing.
“They do move like wolves,” Zeezle agreed. “Or maybe wild dogs.”
“That would explain why they are so low to the ground,” Trevin agreed. “Probably wild dogs.”
“Give me some of that dried meat,” Zeezle ordered Darbon. The boy gave him a piece and he tossed it out of the fire’s light to a point that was still within the limits of his vision. Sure enough a dog slunk in and snatched up the morsel. “They are dogs,” Zeezle confirmed. “But they aren’t barking or frisking around, or doing what most dogs do.”
“Barking probably attracts the tree orcs,” Trevin said.
“Or the dragons,” added Darbon.
“Why is Vanx’s arse exposed like that?” Yandi asked again.
“Enough about Vanx,” Zeezle snapped. “I’ve heard about what you seamen do after you have been out for too long.”
“Ewww,” Darbon groaned.
“Well I’ve never done such a thing,” Yandi protested. “I just wanna know why he has his ass up in the air.”
“Then why are you still staring at it?” Trevin asked from the other side of the camp.
“I’m not.”
Only Vanx and Darbon could sleep after that. The others were kept awake by nervousness and Yandi’s continuous protests that he hadn’t been staring at Vanx’s arse.
Not long before dawn the curious sets of eyes slowly disappeared, and by sunrise the companions were alone in the small, rocky clearing.
“It’s been burned to blistering.” Zeezle shook his head.
“There’s some salve in one of the packs, Yandi,” said Trevin. “He might let you apply it.”
Vanx heard all of this in a half daze, and though his legs still burned with the exertion he’d put forth sloshing through the miles of knee-deep muck, and though he wanted to do nothing more than sleep the exhaustion away, the idea of Yandi touching his arse brought him fully awake. With all the energy he could muster he rolled over and covered himself with his blanket. He found Zeezle standing over him and the others looking at him curiously.
“You’re supposed to piss on a fire to put it out,” Zeezle deadpanned. “Not take a dump on it.”
This brought a deep laugh from Yandi and a giggle from Darbon. Trevin was ignoring the conversation and was already packing up the gear.
“Yandi’s been watching your bum,” Darbon said. “What happened to it?”
“I always heard that seamen can get a little too lonely.” Vanx glared at Yandi. Apparently the seaman was learning the futility of denial, so he just shook his head and walked away.
Pulling his britches up, Vanx winced and nearly let a tear fall when the rough fabric pressed against his burns. It hurt, but not as bad as he feared it would. As soon as he had his britches laced he said, “Sir Earlin is dead.”
Zeezle nodded and went to help Trevin pack the gear. “I thought I smelled dragon’s breath.”
Darbon and Yandi weren’t nearly as perceptive and they started asking questions at the same time.
“It doesn’t matter!” Trevin screamed over them. “We’ve a job to do, and we’d best be about it.”
Vanx saw the glimmer of the tear that escaped Trevin’s eye. He couldn’t tell if they were tears of anger, or of worry for his love.
Either way, Vanx decided that Trevin was only half right.
“Yes, we have a task to complete here,” Vanx said in the silence. “But you’ll hear how Sir Earlin died, because knowing how he did might save one of you lumps on this lunatic quest.” Vanx’s tone lightened a bit as he went on. “Besides that, the man died saving my life and I’ll not cheapen the deed by keeping it to myself.”
A short time later the group was silent and following Zeezle up a slope full of boulders and shrubs. It steepened and grew more treacherous as they went. The scrub turned to patches of grass and lichenous growth, and the rocks turned to jagged outcroppings full of crags and cracks deep enough to keep them wary of each and every step.
A low cloud cover kept the sky dreary and gray, but didn’t obscure completely the occasional winged hunter overhead. The clouds didn’t hide the breathtaking view of the sea either. There were no trees to protect their passage now, but there were plenty of spaces to squeeze into if trouble came swooping down out of the sky.
Late in the morning they were approaching one such place, a scallop of a cavern, maybe twelve feet tall and as many deep. An evening fog had appeared and the humans were complaining that they couldn’t see more than a stone’s throw around them. Vanx could see a good deal farther than that, but Zeezle’s full-blooded Zythian vision could see as good as a human’s on a clear day. Zeezle, however, didn’t see the huge devil-horned goat coming bounding at the procession from out of nowhere. It hit Darbon full on, taking him off of his feet and sending him into a hard tumble over the edge of the outcropping on which they stood.
The ram was porcupined with arrows even before Darbon’s scream ended in its hard, breathy whoosh.
Vanx ran to the edge and looked over. The young man was sprawled and convulsing, struggling to regain the breath that had been knocked out of him. He was only maybe twenty feet down. He’d landed in a tumble of scree collected like a reservoir against a tangle of broken limbs and mud-caked rock.
“Are you broken anywhere?” Vanx asked. He waited patiently for Darbon to get air back into his lungs. When the boy was breathing he calmed enough to check his extremities.
The Legend of Vanx Malic: Book 02 - Dragon Isle Page 5