“No, thanks. Drinks with the habit of erasing memory don’t exactly entice me.”
“Ah, I see. Yes, you should relish every sober moment you can if you wish to catch up to the rest of us. Nevertheless, I’d say you already traveled and seen more than the vast majority of people ever will.”
“Another reason to drink, but I’m not there yet.”
“And I’m assuming you don’t care for a drink, young miss.”
“You assume correctly, Your High-, I mean, captain. I’ll only throw it back up if I take more than a sip.”
“That’s what happens when many humans drink this liquid candy as well. I for one realized long ago that I’m quite the lightweight. Leandra forbade me from ever drinking more than a glass of anything intoxicating or risk me embarrassing myself in front of guests and family. It doesn’t help that I become a short-tempered drunkard. I never wanted my girls to see me that way.”
“Uhh, so is it a good idea for you to have a whole bottle?” asked Clarissa.
He laughed. “I intend to share most of this sublime vintage. Your friend merely became my first stop when I was drawn to his flame like a moth. A drink might help loosen the nerves and mind during training, but if this isn’t the kind of aid you want, is there another way I may help?”
“Thanks again, but my dragon insists this is something I must accomplish on my own.”
“I suppose there’s no better master than the dragon himself. You are able to speak with him at any time?”
“Yes, he hears and sees what I do, at least as long as I have the sword.”
“I do not recall ever reading that dragon knights had this ability.”
“They didn’t. The sword links to his realm through something he describes as ‘a totem of silver and vlimphite.’ A piece of it is embedded somewhere in his scales. That link allows him to speak with me through the sword and send me spurts of his prana. Undertaking this feat required master enchanters from both species and Kyloth’s own flame, among other details Aranath was not privy to. It was a complicated and prana wasting effort that took years to perfect. By the time they did, only Aranath could take advantage of the link. But now he lies imprisoned within the very barrier meant to protect him.”
“It sounds as though Aranath needs the drink as much as you.”
“He agrees.”
“May I try manipulating his blaze? If nothing else, I can say I am the second person in five hundred years to link with dragon flame.”
I nodded at Clarissa, who went ahead and fashioned another ice bowl. I tossed a round stone inside and told Eudon to be ready. On “three” I made the fire burst forth. Regardless of Aranath matter-of-factly stating this was a bad idea, I got worried that the old-timer would demonstrate his mastery over the renowned power. My fear disappeared as fast as the fireball shattered the rock, making the vampire shriek out in surprise when a few flaming pieces hit her body. I dampened the scattered flames before they grew bigger.
“Gods! How fierce! I apologize, that was not my intent. I poured as little prana as possible.”
Feeling self-assured, I said, “One doesn’t use a light touch if you want to tame a bucking bronco, captain. At the same time, one can’t be brutish if its trust is to be gained. It’s a balance I’m barely getting a grips on myself, and that’s only because my corruption already gave me something similar to work with.”
Another swig. “I’ll let you get back to it, then. I want to see the faces of those Advent bastards when they realize the might of dragons is on our side!”
Chapter Four
The first two months of the voyage was a largely sympathetic affair. Winds blew favorably and no great storm endangered the well-ordered ships and crew. For different reasons, Clarissa and Ghevont were among the animal lovers who took the time to watch dolphins swimming by the ship’s bow and hearing the songs of far-off whales.
While not one to bequeath his admiration for the talents of other creatures, Aranath had no trouble one rainy evening declaring that of all the Orda sounds he appreciated the most, the song of the blind behemoth whale ranked the highest.
After asking what made it stand out for him, he answered, “Your seas are strong when their melodies are robust and abundant. Without them hunting their favorite prey, then kraken numbers will rise and unbalance Orda’s flooded realm in less than a human lifetime.”
“Why would a dragon care about what’s happening underwater on another world?”
“Balance, boy, we care about balance, here and on any world. A human might have a difficult time grasping the effects of a realm you cannot see, but only misery will follow such a drastic change in nature, both above and below. I am also certain kraken were not birthed from Orda, making them an alien invader to your waters. This in turn makes your blind behemoth a noble defender of its home. It’s no wonder why this whale is venerated by many island peoples, even if too many take it too far into worship territory.”
Aranath was not the only one mindful about a potential confrontation with a kraken. Every sailor cruising beyond a coastline would fear becoming another victim of the fabled beast’s mass of saw-toothed suckers and log-crunching beak. Attacks were too sporadic in time and location to determine what exactly provoked the belligerent move. Surely a handful of scrawny humans were not worth the effort of exposing parts of their spongy bodies out of the water. Did desperate hunger compel them to lash out on ships bulkier than they were? Or maybe a sickness overtook their minds? I knew how that felt.
Ghevont theorized kraken males clashed with each other in order to win prized females, inciting something akin to feeding frenzies in the losers. The fact that multiple kraken were seldom reported in one area (something he brought up himself) did not discourage him. As he put it, “Would an impending victim take the time to notice their surroundings if they were being confronted by a horde of tentacles fifty or sixty feet long?”
“But we once saw a kraken wreck a ship from a safe distance and didn’t see no others around,” said Menalcus.
“Ah, but you cannot see beneath the water’s surface, can you? And I suspect the remarkable attack absorbed most of your attention.”
“Nay! I was on full lookout for danger to our own vessel!”
“No you weren’t!” claimed Sophia. “You were up on the ratlines doing nothing but howling like an idiot at the sight. You kept yammering about how you wanted to arm wrestle one of its tentacles!”
Ghevont could no longer get a word in as the pirates once again started retelling their tale of catching the spectacle of a large kraken sinking an equally large cargo ship. They spoke among themselves at first, but their boisterous voices and infectious laughter always attracted a contingent of attentive listeners.
Getting closer to Kozuth had my father in particular imparting his past exploits on its seas, where a grouping of islands known as the Glims Archipelago stretched to the northwest. No sailor was surprised to learn that the cold seas off Somesh was where my father started his pirating career.
The Somesh Dominion officially controlled the waters and islands on its sun setting side, but anyone who understood the history of the region knew they were kidding themselves. The mishmash islanders living off of northwestern Kozuth remained a fiercely independent bunch. They weren’t the most well-organized or well-armed society, but for more than thirty-five hundred years they repelled attempts to be ruled by anything more than a name. Their ancestors even took credit for the downfall of the Degosal Empire.
Degosal armies had invaded and reigned over much of Kozuth for several hundred years, but strong resistance remained in the archipelago and parts of the mainland they maintained. They thus concluded that they were the main reason Degosal partook in the mysterious magical experiments that led to the Cataclysm. Few outside the archipelago agreed with the word “main,” but none of them were going to argue that judgment in the face of the islanders. Ghevont surely had a mind to, but I would step in to stop that bad idea if it came to that.
&nbs
p; We would get the chance to meet the locals when our ships docked for the first time since leaving Alslana. The Isle of Kylock Clay was chosen as our first resupply sojourn for its relative stability and ongoing connection with Alslana merchants. The island acted as the closest capital venue in Glims, acting as a neutral meeting place for island leaders and foreign dignitaries to discuss politics, commerce, and war. It was in these meetings over a century ago that Somesh and the islanders somehow managed to achieve the ever important balance the gods sought in their subjects.
War and usurpation among the islanders had once been as common as the corsairs that popped up out of sheer tradition in the region, but when a handful of island rulers decided to try and gain permanence beyond half a generation, they made a deal with Somesh. In exchange for protection, Somesh merchants would gain easier access to trade within the archipelago and, by extension, to the northern Iazali kingdoms. This agreement took a three year islander civil war to enact it, but this was also when Somesh delivered its promise to protect its new allies.
My father’s first home lied in an itty bitty fishing village not eighty miles south from Kylock Clay. His own mentally ailing father still lived there, taken care of by my younger uncle.
“I didn’t know you had a brother,” I said after he told me Thorvald’s living situation.
“Aye,” he said humorlessly. “He’s my half-brother, thirteen years my junior. Didn’t even learn of him ‘til I turned nineteen.”
“He’s a pompous ass,” said Lucetta.
“Aye,” said her husband. “Still, even if he despises the job, he earns some respect for taking care of pops in his last days. Not an easy watch.”
“He’s also ugly.”
“Aye.”
“And dumb?” I added.
“Now you’re getting it!” said Lucetta.
“All right, all right,” said Lorcan. “That’s enough. He’s still our family. The disparaging should be kept to a minimum when one is not here to defend themselves.”
Lucetta was about to say something to that point, but both pirates perceived a horizon hugging rumble I might have mistaken for a thud below deck. I looked behind me to spot a line of clouds a shade darker than the surrounding twilight.
“Storm,” said Lorcan.
“I doubt we can avoid this one.”
“How bad?” I asked.
“We have time to prepare.”
“I’ll order a reduction of sails. Pay close attention to how we prepare, Cyrus.”
I did, though it was getting dark pretty fast. Winds picked up and lightning flashes became more frequent. Phlox and her convoy changed to a southeasterly direction, but there was no avoiding the bulge of black clouds. Several casters tied themselves to the railings, preparing to cast wind and water spells that they hoped lessened the blows of incoming waves. Other casters were in charge of keeping up wards by the masts to make sure they didn’t snap from too strong a gust. Uniting our ships’ bulk with the expertise of trained professionals boded well for us, so my trio went to hunker down below deck.
I kept track of the storm’s swelling progress using Clarissa’s yelping squeals as my guide. She tried suppressing them, but seeing as any pitch or plunge could mean the ship was capsizing, her fear of being lost at sea was too great to control. The disarrayed beams of light that came from a little swinging lantern didn’t help the ambiance of the room.
I put an arm around the back of her shoulders to comfort her somewhat, though the act also abetted my own, less obvious, dread. Ghevont, as usual, used chatter to obscure whatever feelings churned within him. He expressed his desire to study the storm personally, but since I imagined he would only be in the way of more important work, I stopped him from going topside.
Then, as the ship rocked and rolled its worst yet, a different kind of tumult came from above us. The crew that had been in the lower levels with us ran to the higher decks, toward what sounded like muddled shouts and bird-like screeches. The three of us followed.
Answering our internal question, we entered the range of a drenched sailor yelling, “Harpies! We got a swarm of ‘em up there!”
A storm was an entity I could not defeat with sword, flame, or trickery, so having physical targets to aim for did more to erase my fear of drowning than if the ocean transmuted into stone. Likewise for Clarissa. Ghevont looked happy to get his chance not only to study the storm, but a new creature.
We reached a pouring darkness, the prevailing winds whipping my face with icy feelers. Runes etched on parts of the ship provided a few avenues for delicate white light to make the deck perceivable, but it was the unceasing lightning strokes that truly lit up our world. Between the booming howls of gust and thunder, the flashes revealed the origin of the shrieking squawks above. There looked to be forty winged beasts teeming over the ship. It was hard to get a good look at them, but I knew from illustrations that they looked like humanoid vultures. While some believed they belonged to a brood of escaped experiments involving man, bird, and corruption, the likelier explanation was that they had come from the corrupted realm, making them a species whose crude human shape was purely coincidental.
The harpies’ sturdy, stocky wings handled the sudden shifts in wind well. They also had a strategy. They circled just outside the accurate range of spell and arrow, swooping down at the same moment the ship slammed into a wave, forcing the ground based beings to brace for the impact. Still, the beasts had warriors to contend with, not the usual fare of merchants and powerless travelers. We could regain our balance in time to swat away most of their dives.
I tossed up my bigger explosive stones over our heads to scare them off. Clarissa’s job was to use a water barrier to defend our backs. With its original defenders busy avoiding and attacking the harpies, I told Ghevont to use his ward spell to brace the center mast.
It was difficult to pay much attention to anything else outside my immediate circle when squall, wave, and harpy could throw me on my ass at any time. However, after a few minutes of doing everything in our arsenal to repel the hostile flock, the sight of a small yellow lightning bolt coming from then stern of the ship expanded my sphere of focus. Faster than an arrow but slower than lightning whipped by the heavens, I was able to track the yellow bolt to its target harpy. The beast died at once, hitting the hull’s edge on its way down. Another electric expulsion gave me the chance to spot the caster of the bolt standing near the ship’s wheel.
The caster was none other than Eudon. His spark came from a longbow that stood five and a half feet tall and embellished with enough silver to make one think it was fashioned from the metal. I had never seen him carrying this weapon before, so it must have been summoned. I noticed something strange on his next shot. He pulled back the string without an arrow nocked. In fact, he didn’t even have a quiver nearby. When the string was pulled back to his chest, a thin golden line materialized where a real arrow would be. On finding his next mark, the former king released his enchanted projectile, once again felling a harpy.
“Eveck-su,” said Aranath.
“What?”
“The bow’s name. ‘Soul Stealer’ is how the shared tongue translates it. It has the power to convert the wielder’s prana into lightning. A troublesome weapon even when pitted against dragons. As with many enchanted items at the time, the bow had been declared lost near the end of the dragon war—a relief to my kind. I wonder how he came to attain it?”
My chance to wonder was not then. Even once the harpies decided we were not worth the trouble, the storm did not let up for another hour.
By morning, when the skies had cleared to become almost too blue, a total of seven sailors were unaccounted for in all four ships. Two came from Phlox, four from The Sycamore, and the last poor chap belonged to Barbette. The Sycamore’s quartet of lost men happened during the harpy attack. Their accounts made it apparent that the majority of the flock pounced on their ship, possibly reinforced by the harpies we had driven off. The harpy attack alone wouldn’t have done
much life-taking if it were not for the storm’s aid, which is something Ghevont assumed they had adapted to take advantage of.
The scholar was delighted to find that a harpy found its way on board, killed soon after someone cut through its wing as it tried knocking him over the edge. Ghevont—whose face and hands had gained a splash a tan to them and, in my opinion, looked a bit funny for it—was given permission to dissect the creature on the bow’s edge. A group of intrigued sailors encircled the scholar as he pieced apart the unsightly thing, putting the most curious organs in jars and draining its multicolored fluids into vials.
Clarissa was tempted to taste its greenish blood, but getting closer to its shitty stench convinced her otherwise. The rising sun also convinced her to head below deck and get some sleep.
As I watched the brainy red head from a distance, Eudon walked up to me and asked, “Found him in Gremly, right?”
“Aye.”
“Rathmore’s son, if I recall Odet’s words correctly.”
“Aye.”
“And you trust him?”
“I killed his sister and I still trust him. Not that he’s exactly happy that I killed her, but he’s nothing if not rational. He understands why a woman like her needed to die. Besides, I’m kinda fulfilling her dying wish.”
“Which was?”
“Avenging her parents by destroying the Advent.”
“Ah, so even the daughters of malicious men wish death upon them. It seems pissing off so many people on both sides of good and evil will come back to fuck them over.”
“Hopefully in time.”
“Until I see the skies sunder and hear the words of a god declare his resurrection fulfilled, then I suspect we have the time and the power to do the fucking ourselves.”
“That longbow of yours certainly has some power. Aranath was wondering how you attained it.”
“Is that so? Well, I technically did not come across it myself. It was a gift from Clarence.”
Flight of the Dragon Knight Page 4