The Dragon's Banker

by Scott Warren

  “Seventeen knots,” shouted Jassem. It was official. Ur’s Gift was the fastest ship on the Borrean Sea. At least, the fastest without the aid of waterborne sorceries. This time, when the crew cheered, I cheered right along with them. But speed alone would not get us to Aedekki and Whadael in time to cut out the competition.

  Chapter 21 – Riding the Hammer

  The true test of Ur’s Gift would be whether it had the ability to navigate the treacherous confines of the Kraken’s Teeth, an ability that would give us an unprecedented advantage over the other merchant fleets in Borreos. The Kraken’s Teeth were an extension of the Redfangs that ran underwater two or three hundred miles south of the coast and curved east, creating a barrier between Borreos and the lands to our west and south.

  Their peaks formed a series of cracks and canyons of razor-sharp rock wherein the sea was two feet higher on the west side than the east. The currents were almost insurmountable, and wind within the crevices was unpredictable and treacherous. Possibly even more dangerous were the peaks that remained underwater, invisible and ready to tear a hole in any hull with a draft deeper than a few feet. Men had been trying to find ways to sail through them for as long as men had been sailing. Their successes could be counted on the fingers of one hand, and to date the Teeth had never even been properly charted.

  For freight cargo, it was simply not worth the attempt when deep draft vessels could take a month to sail around them instead. But I wanted high-value and time-sensitive cargo, like alchemical reagents with short half-lives, which were rare in volume but high in value. Components like that might have a shelf-life shorter than the transit of a deep draft merchant before going inert, and alchemists along the west coast would pay premium prices for them now the groundwork had been laid by Jess and myself.

  The trial run would not be in the Teeth themselves, but in a rocky channel southwest of Borreos called Andil’s Hammer, named for its length and tapered end. Also for what it did to vessels that tried to navigate its confines. It offered a reasonable approximation of the dangerous canyons and currents, if less severe, of the Kraken’s Teeth. Mariners who sought to conquer the teeth started at the Hammer, and the few whose ships survived went on to try the real thing. That trial was set for after lunch, and the crew once again drew down the sails and took a respite.

  This time, I took my meal alone, underneath the shade of the fore sail, or “jib” as I’m given to understand it’s called. Simple flatbread once again with a mix of spring and summer greens wrapped inside. It tasted of grass and wild onions, and I reviewed my notes as I ate until I felt a presence above me.

  Looking up, I saw one of Jassem’s youngest crewmembers hanging upside down by her knees, an elf girl who had spent the day atop the mast and rigging making crucial adjustments after each trial. But the light-amber glow of her eyes and the way the tips of her ears blocked the light made me realize that they weren’t the pointed tips of an elf’s ears at all, but white-gold caps that swept backward like the horns of…

  “Leera?” I asked. “Arkeleera?”

  The dragon’s youngest daughter laughed and dropped down beside me without a whisper on the deck beneath her feet. To my utter surprise, she tackled me in a hug that sent us both tumbling to the deck in a tangle of limbs. I noticed that, like her brother and sister, Leera had her own natural perfume. Hers was of lemongrass instead of spice or mint, though it was faint. She quickly extricated herself and jumped up atop the bowsprit, hanging off a line and allowing her fingers to dip in the cool sea. By the time I managed to regain my feet, she had scrambled up the ratlines and sat upon a taut rope.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Sailing!” she said and raised her hands. “The elves want to go everywhere and see everything. I love them, and I love the sea. The mountains are so boring. They never move anymore.”

  I was tempted to ask when the mountains had ever moved, but I decided I might not like the answer. Instead, I asked, “Does Arkelai know you’re here?”

  “Of course not,” said Leera. She grinned. “You won’t tell her, will you? I don’t think she’d like to find out how you’ve snuck me away from the mountain. Do you?”

  I sputtered. “How I’ve snuck you away from the mountain?”

  She giggled and dropped back on the deck, walking a slow circle around me with her hands clasped behind the small of her back. “You gave Jassem what he needed to sail. I’ve been watching him a long time.”

  Things began to come together. “It was no coincidence that Jassem sought me out when he did.”

  Leera giggled. “Sometimes people need a little push,” she said, folding her hands in front of her chest and pretending to push someone. “Besides, I couldn’t let my brother and sister have all the fun. But he’ll need more than skill and craft to find a route through the Kraken’s Teeth. And you’ll need my eyes to find the path. You need to show me that you deserve them.”

  “Deserve them? This ship is only floating because of my investment.”

  “Trinkets. Easily sacrificed and just as easily replaced,” said Leera with a dismissive wave. “What about you, Sailor? What are you willing to risk?”

  I didn’t think it would help to bring up the fact that I was less easily replaced. I recalled my chance encounter with Lord Brackwaldt and the faint smell of spearmint from Barron Dancin’s office. Leera was the youngest of the dragon’s daughters, and though on the surface she acted her perceived age, it was clear she was no stranger to schemes, conspiracy, and subterfuge. I wasn’t certain if she was on my side, or if she even had a side. But I found that I liked her very much. Before I could answer her, I was interrupted from behind.

  “It’s time, Sailor.”

  I turned at Jassem’s voice and glanced back to find Leera vanished once more into the rigging with an echo of laughter. Jassem had approached, ducking under the jib and emerging with a length of cord in his hand. A similar length was tied about his waist, and it wasn’t difficult to puzzle out what they were for.

  The elf captain looped one end of the loose cord around me and cinched it tight in an elaborate knot that left a tail.

  “This is called a cheater, Sailor,” he said, lifting the tail. “If we capsize, pulling this will release you from your lanyard. I’ll secure the other end to the deck.”

  Once he was finished, we traversed back to the aft section of the boat where his tiller assembly would give him the most critical position on board. As we passed, his first mate was inspecting the lanyards on the rest of the crew, who had secured their lengths to sturdy joists or the gaps in the anchor reel. Every loose item on deck had been stowed below lest it become a trip hazard or be cast overboard. My own lanyard was tight enough that the coarse rope cut into me, but as I was absent any desire to tread the waters of the Borrean Bay, I did not complain.

  Once the mate reported all hands secured (though I wondered at Leera up in the rigging), Jassem gave the order to unfurl the aft sails and swung the tiller to catch the wind across the beam. Ur’s Gift picked up speed, and soon the wind was as much in our face as to our side.

  I could see the entrance to the gauntlet of Andil’s Hammer, rising from the water in two black, jagged formations the size of the Queen’s palace. Between them flowed a current of breakwater: white, churning froth that bespoke a hundred shattered keels and as many drowned crews. Looking at that belching flow was like staring through the open maw of one of the Six Gates into the Shadow Hells. Nevertheless, we sailed on toward that looming opening at a dead sprint.

  “Shouldn’t we slow down?” I shouted, looking to the sails still in full trim.

  “The current in the Kraken’s Teeth will be even faster and require full sails,” Jassem answered. “We must test the limits of my design. Do you see those valleys in the water?” he asked, pointing at depressions in the water just outside the Hammer.

  I did. They were curious things, like a wave, but standing still. Like a bow wake without a bow. They looked harmless enough, but
something told me they were not so innocuous.

  “Those are stillwaves. The flow is passing over a rock just below the surface. We must ride them in straight on to have any hope of success. If our course falters, we’ll twist about and capsize.”

  Jassem swung his tiller, and our nose pointed into that outflow. The deck began to rock beneath my feet in the turbulent water, and our pace slowed as we fought the current. I was certain our speed would not be enough, but we climbed over the top of one standing wave and slid down to the next with a lurch. The bow kept trying to deviate, but Jassem swung his tiller to and fro, heading off his ship’s attempts to buck the trial to come. The strained sails fought with the current and snapped against the wind, but the elf captain brought us closer and closer to Andil’s Hammer.

  With a final gust that blew us nearly over, we lunged over the last and largest of the churning stillwaves and shot into the opening. The first mate blew a whistle, and the grenndrake brothers launched into action, rearranging the rigging on the forward two sails to put them at right angles to each other. I have seen similar arrangements on Grenn mercenary vessels designed for boarding, though I don’t know the specifics of their function. Once inside the walls, I expected the wind to abate. But it turned into a raging howl, and we accelerated despite the new configuration of the jibs. It seemed they were designed to catch at least some of the wind, no matter the direction from which it came, to continue bestowing Ur’s Gift with forward momentum against the current.

  Jassem worked the tiller with both hands as his first mate barked orders at the crew. The captain alternated between looking ahead and looking up, and I followed his gaze to the top of the mast where Leera communicated upcoming hazards via semaphore flags, carving a path through the rocks in front of us. Every sway felt on deck must have been tenfold at the end of that mast. Even on the deck, I gripped the rail so hard my knuckles hurt. Two of the crewmen in my view lost their meager lunches on the deck as they worked, no time to visit the siderail. I suddenly longed for the badlands, where the ground stood still and the rocks didn’t leap at me at fifteen knots.

  We took a bad turn, the wind almost whipping us sidelong toward a spearhead of stone that would have impaled the ship, but Jassem pulled the rudder hard, bringing us all the way about and grazing the formation so closely that I would have bet good coin the name was no longer painted on that side of the hull where it scraped the sheer wall. For several minutes, we drifted from close call to close call, but Jassem pulled us through each one thanks to his engineering and the unguent that allowed us to skate across the water as though we were floating above it. Briefly, I caught a glimpse of open sea and realized that we were almost through the Hammer. Soon we would be among the ocean waves again, nothing crashing into the side of the hull but water.

  The snap of parting line brought me back to the present. I looked up and saw that several of the cables securing the end of the boom just forward of the helm had begun to fray and at least one had failed. Jassem could not take his hands from the tiller to address the problem if he even noticed. And worse, the words I had been fearing more than any others took breath.

  “Sailor, secure that sheet line!”

  I am no more a man of the sea than am I a man of the land. If anything, I’m a man of shaded carriages and cool drinks and morning tea with candied squash and the day’s news. But should that spar come loose and swing free, I doubted I would ever enjoy any of those things again. There was only one problem: my lanyard was too short to reach the cables.

  I stretched at the end of its length, reaching for the boom so hard my joints popped. We took another bad turn, and I was thrown to the deck, rolling to my back in time to see another of the lines part. Only two remained, and the boom seemed dangerously loose. I looked down at the rope encircling my waist and at the little cheater line that led out of the knot. I grit my teeth and yanked that line as hard as I could.

  The knot seemed to melt away like some ephemeral enchantment, and I was keenly aware that I had just severed my only physical connection to the ship. I scrambled to put my feet beneath me, even more aware of every buck and rock underneath the deck. I don’t know why the Twin Mothers decided to bless a banker with sea legs, but I managed to hold my footing as I approached the boom and pulled a coil of cord from its leather binding. I heaved and threw it over the boom. I pulled the other side down and ran it through a metal loop on the deck, bracing a leg against it and pulling it as taut as I could before looping it over the boom a second time.

  The wind shifted, buffeting me from behind so hard I toppled over, and the boom strained against the remaining cables. I groped for the loose end and pulled it taut again, securing it with the first knot that came to mind. It was a simple bow, as might be tied over a gift. But it was holding, and when the wind shifted again, the boom snapped against my patch job and did not move.

  I, however, did.

  The wind caught the sail like a lever turning about a fulcrum, and we took an angle so steep that, sea legs or not, I could not keep my footing. I tumbled end over end toward the side rail. And then I was over it.

  Chapter 22 – The Queen’s Grace

  I sputtered and coughed as I struggled to exhale the seawater I had drawn in before I could right myself. I fully expected to be dashed upon the rocks of the Hammer, but as fortune held, the last change in wind was that of our egress from that deadly gauntlet, and I contended only with staying afloat and finding my way back to the ship.

  Upon spotting it, my first thought was that perspective made the little vessel seem much bigger from the water line. The second was that the lettering on the starboard side should have been scraped off. The third was that the should-have-been-scraped-off lettering definitely should not have said Queen’s Grace and that I was actually looking at the jewel of the Borrean Navy. While the Bastayne might be the largest ship in the fleet, the Queen’s Grace was the hunter-killer, famed for chasing down the most elusive pirates and smugglers.

  There was a splash behind me, and Jassem appeared a moment later with a rope. He looped it around us both, and the crew heaved us out of the frigid water near the ship and back onto the deck of Ur’s Gift. I marveled briefly how it was so cold closer to the ship before Jassem Bol helped me to my feet and attempted to pat dry my shirt to little effect. I waved him off and looked again at the Queen’s Grace. A pair of small boats were being lowered from her deck, but they would take a few minutes to reach us.

  “There was no need for you to jump over just for her, eh?” asked Jassem.

  “I didn’t jump,” I protested. “I fell overboard trying to secure the end of the sail pole like your first mate ordered.”

  Jassem’s first mate said something to him, and the elf captain and most of the others within earshot laughed. “He says he did not mean you,” said Jassem. “He was talking to another sailor. But good thing you listened, eh? Even if you need to learn better knots. I’m amazed it held!”

  I leaned back against the deck rail and laughed along with Jassem’s crew. I had risked my life for them, albeit foolishly, and so contributed more than money to their transit through Andil’s Hammer. I was still as useful as a knife with no handle, but now they looked at me as something more than just a money man.

  “So,” I asked as the small boats pulled up alongside us. “You didn’t consider running?”

  Jassem shrugged. “It’s the Queen’s Grace, and her sails are rigged for a sorcerer’s wind. We have nowhere to run except the Teeth, and the ship is too damaged to survive them. I will not destroy my creation trying to escape when I have done nothing wrong.”

  I feared it might be impounded in the next few moments, anyway. Which would be as good as destroyed. But I might be able to prevent that. By the time the small boat party pulled up alongside us and boarded with two squads of Borrean marines, I had all the necessary documentation from the ship’s strongbox. I was met on deck by a sergeant; the red rank stripes (instead of the usual gold) on his sleeves marked him for an elite
unit of the Queen’s Guard. His presence here indicated a person of great importance aboard the Queen’s Grace, someone vital to the Crown.

  “Captain. By order of the Queen’s Navy, you are required to submit to inspection,” he said to me.

  “We’ve no cargo for you to inspect,” said Jassem, startling the sergeant. “I’ve a small hold below, but there’s naught for you in it.”

  I held back a snicker at the sergeant’s surprise. “What I think the captain means,” I said, “is that this isn’t a cargo run. It’s a sea trial. But search if you must.” In truth, this was poor timing. We had hoped to keep the existence of Ur’s Gift—not to mention its unique abilities—a secret as long as possible. After the turmoil of the Hammer though, I can admit the sergeant didn’t intimidate me as much as he otherwise might have.

  “Your presence is also required onboard the Queen’s Grace,” he said. And that was slightly intimidating. He gestured to the small boat, and Jassem looked at me.

  “Sailor…” he said.

  “Don’t worry. I’m going with you,” I replied.

  Jassem didn’t offer thanks. It wasn’t the elven way to show gratitude. Instead, he and I climbed down the side ladder to the waiting vessel below while the sergeant took two men underneath the weather deck to inspect the cargo. The rest remained topside to keep a watch on the crew. I looked up in the rigging for the telltale sign of Arkeleera but saw nothing.

  It took several minutes to make the crossing to the Borrean flagship, and Jassem glowered the whole time while I perused the ship’s documents. Once we were across, a rope ladder lowered, and I slung the watertight satchel over my shoulder for the climb up. The sun had already dried my clothes, but I shook regardless as the adrenaline from my excursion began to wear off. It garnered a few funny looks from the sailors aboard the Queen’s Grace to see me quivering so, but we were led back to the captain’s stateroom at the aft of the ship.