Dragon Choir

by Benjamin Descovich

  Hurn backed away while officers came tumbling out. One brave Jandan ran out holding a handkerchief to his face, sword at the ready. Once he took stock of Hurn looming over him and the rebels that surrounded him, he threw his sabre to the deck and surrendered. Most staggered or crawled out, retching as they went, gasping for untainted air. They were easy to disarm and restrain.

  Delik’s men lined up the captured Jandans.

  “Tikis,” called Delik. “Get your men to separate out the officers. We’ll need to get as much information as possible. Make them understand we are serious.”

  “Strange battle,” rumbled Hurn. “That all?”

  “We need a solid guard in the prison hold,” said Delik. “It will be full soon. Can you keep them in line down there?”

  Hurn grunted and stomped down through the hatch to the lower decks.

  “What about Minni?” Elrin pointed to the dissipating smoke and the bodies on the deck inside the cabin. “She hasn’t come out yet.”

  “Plenty of tricks to keep her busy. She’s probably stuffing her pockets while she’s in there. Don’t fret, she can hold more than her own, lad.”

  Elrin wasn’t convinced; the putrid gas would have overwhelmed her by now. How could they be so calm? Elrin fought the urge to run in to find her. He wouldn’t last long if he did. Even outside in the open he was near retching with the lull of the ship on the water and the residual gas hanging in the air. He resigned himself to trust Delik.

  Delik shouted into his loudhorn. “Hear this! If you serve the Council of Jando under duress or penalty, if you have no commission or office of merit, then you are free.”

  The captured sailors and marines weren’t sure if it was a trick or not. One man walked towards the gangplank.

  Delik presented his offer. “All those who wish to leave will be escorted from the ship to wait in a safe house until we have an understanding of your intent.

  “If you can’t bear the yoke of your Jandan masters, join us. If you’re sick of the Temple taking your flesh for sin; join us. If you want to see the Council bare their own bones instead of taking ours; join us. If you want a Jando that is just, a Jando that is free; join us.”

  An officer spat on the deck. “The Good Lord will burn you, body and soul!”

  “Ha! I’ll be earth for Ona before your ‘good’ lord gets his arse off that throne of bones.” Delik turned away from the officer, addressing the marines alone. “Make your choice now.”

  Half of them chose to leave. Before they were escorted from the ship onto the docks, the volunteers pointed out the officers hiding amongst them. Some of the veteran officers had removed their rank insignia during the fray. Some had cast off their entire uniform. Two officers had replaced their own uniforms with those taken from lower ranked sailors killed in the melee; bloodstains and all.

  Tikis pulled these two from the group, one hand wrapped around each neck. He dropped one of the officers to the deck and pinned him with a clawed foot, pushing the air from his chest. The other man was thrust into a headlock.

  With a twitching tail, Tikis cast his eyes over the Jandans lined up before him. “Officers will be questioned, one by one. Answers will be checked with others and us.” Tikis flexed his bulging bronze arms. The officer in the headlock squirmed, his face bright red with panic and exertion. “Clemency, if ones cooperate. If ones refuse to cooperate or ones deceive us, then ones die.”

  The drakkin brought his fist down upon the officer in the headlock, shattering his skull like an egg. The sickening wet impact splattered blood and brain matter upon the deck and on the man pinned below. It was too much for the other Jandans. One of them vomited, which prompted another to do the same, as Tikis pummelled the officer’s head again. He thrust his clawed hand through the broken shell of the man’s skull and drew out a fist full of brain. He threw his head back and swallowed it like an oyster.

  “Delicious.” Tikis reached in and drew forth another handful and slurped it into his maw before dropping the body to the deck with a limp thud. The officer stuck underfoot passed out while Tikis sucked the remnants of brain from his fingers.

  “This is how deceiver ones die.” Tikis stared at the officers, then over his rebel unit. The officers looked away, but his unit held their heads up unwavering.

  The lizardman lay the same intense examination on Elrin. The young Calimskan lifted his chin and held firm, though his instinct disagreed with that course of action. Tikis licked his mouth clean. Elrin had no idea how to read those hard eyes or his lizard face. Heat flushed his cheeks. Why was Tikis staring at him? He’d done nothing but help the rebels, probably to his own detriment.

  Tikis flicked his tongue out and Elrin blinked. The drakkin’s stone cold eyes squinted and he burst into chittering croaking laughter, releasing the young man from the standoff. Being humiliated by the drakkin was marginally better than being eaten. Elrin could accommodate the embarrassment.

  The Jandans who took the clemency were handed rations and shell as they were escorted off the ship. Once on the docks, they were loaded into wagons and carted away.

  The new volunteers were each coupled with a rebel crewman, as were the mutineer crew. They had no desire to return to Jando and end up in prison, or worse still, end up as poached parts for the redeemers. Jando would see them no mercy.

  The same applied to Elrin; he was an outlaw to both Calimska and Jando now. The rebels were all he had, unless he cleared his name.

  Minni emerged from the broken doorway carrying what appeared to be a large tome under her arm. She removed her mask with her free hand and stuffed it into her belt. Elrin wanted to hug her, though he couldn’t of course. She would embarrass him somehow. Besides; it wasn’t the proper thing to do. She wasn’t his wife or sister, he barely knew her.

  “What are you staring at me like that for?” Minni grinned. “Have the boys finished sorting their toys ou—”

  “Signal!” called down the spotter from the nest.

  An osprey perched on his arm, flapping its wings to balance against a fresh wind kicking up. He pulled a rolled up parchment from the sea eagle’s message container and relayed it down.

  “Two galleons approaching, at arms. Two galleons remain at sea. Request orders.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Code

  “Minni! Hurry up and open the damn codebook. There’s not much time left.” Delik clapped his hands as though that would speed her up. It didn’t of course; Minni being Minni slowed her inspection more, no doubt just to irk him. “Don’t bother looking for traps on the thing. Just get it open.”

  “Forgive me if I ignore that advice. I’m not so partial to death by poison.” Minni placed the book on the deck and knelt beside it. Delik and Elrin hung over her shoulder as she pulled out the seal and examined the tome, figuring out where to place the seal.

  “What is it exactly?” Elrin asked Delik.

  “It’s what the Council agents use to communicate. If you don’t know the code, you can’t understand what they are saying or how to return communications. We’ll use it to figure out what they are saying with those flashes of light.”

  “Are you sure it’s a codebook?” asked Elrin.

  The last thing Delik needed now was a nosy know-it-all Calimskan. “The codes are inside. Now shush and let her open the damn thing.”

  At first glance the book appeared like a large tome, perhaps a spell book or Jandan holy text. On closer inspection though, it was just a fancy wooden box. There were three tones of timber. One side was bone white with an embellished border in ebony and mahogany flowers. The other side was all ebony bordered with mahogany and white stars. Flaming rays beamed across the surface.

  “There is no place for the seal. Nothing matches.” Minni rubbed her hand softly over all of the surfaces and edges. “It’s smooth, one piece by feel.”

  “It can’t be, look at it.” Delik poked at it. “There are different colours and grains. Try pushing on the designs in the borders.”

  Witho
ut a reply signal, those two galleons would come round the headland and open fire. Delik knew this was where his plan could sink. Minni’s sabotage would have been less risky, but taking Pelegrin and Juniper was too good an opportunity to let pass. What a catch to ransom; Pelegrin’s father, the Lord’s High Admiral, would free four score rebels to get him back alive. The old bastard sat on the Council and had half of Jando in his pocket.

  While Minni did her best to access the codes, Delik’s mind raced toward the consequences of failure. If the Jandans thought Pelegrin was captured and the ship had mutinied, they wouldn’t hesitate to sink Juniper and level Rum Hill at the same time. They’d chop a leg at the knee to banish the rot from a toe, such was the Jandan cure for most things. Rum Hill couldn’t be sacrificed, they were not to be blamed for his strategy, it wasn’t an option.

  Without the codes the rest of his plan would be too difficult to pull off. Minni needed to work faster, but saying so wouldn’t help. She knew what was at stake and worked her fingers like adders, striking out all over the wood, even tracing the seal over top and bottom hoping something would trigger it to open.

  “Why are you doing that?” Elrin asked them.

  “Making sure Delik doesn’t catch a splinter.” Minni joked, but her eyes betrayed growing frustration. She wrapped her knuckles on the wood then shook it, listening for a rattle.

  “Open it Minni! You said you knew how!”

  “Oh no I didn’t, Scrambletoe. You said the seal would open it. You said I would have plenty of time. A lot of bollocks is what you said!”

  Elrin picked it up to examine the markings. “It doesn’t open.”

  Ignoring Elrin, Delik was determined to set Minni in line. “It was your contact that said the seal would open it. You dragged the Jandan scum to me!”

  “Who said you should trust him? Hell, I didn’t. Why do you think I killed him?”

  “This isn’t actually a book you know.” Elrin tried to get their attention.

  Delik gave him an incredulous look; annoyed by the persistent intrusions into things he knew nothing about. With Minni’s admission of murder Delik’s irritation grew all the more and he threw his hat to the deck. “You killed him? Why the hell did you do that? He was our best informant!”

  “Well, obviously not very accurate,” Minni casually turned her eyes to the headland. “In more ways than one.”

  Was she worried, or keen for more sport? Cool as ice that woman—and never to blame. Damn her to ash if anyone could figure out her game. “What is your bloody problem?” Delik raged.

  “With you or with the dead informant? He had a certain peccadillo that wasn’t to my taste. And you? To be honest, you’ve got more than a few traits I thi—”

  “It doesn’t open!” Elrin yelled at them.

  “We know!” Delik turned on Elrin in his frustration. “I thought you Calimskans were all brains. Haven’t you been listening?”

  “No, no. You misunderstand me. It doesn’t have to. Open, I mean. It doesn’t work like a book or a box. It’s a magical tablet. The seal doesn’t open anything. It just, sort of, unlocks the messages.”

  This was all too convenient for Delik’s liking. How did the boy figure that out so fast? Just when you start to trust a lad, he pulls a trick like this. If he wasn’t a Jandan agent, how did he know about this device?

  “Hand me the seal, Minni. I think I know how to work it.” Elrin put his hand out for the dragon seal.

  “Delik?” Minni made a curious face.

  Was that a splash of doubt in her eyes? A rare thing, that. Though, it was typical of her to leave off making the tough call herself. Delik knew he would have to let Elrin use the device. With the Jandan galleons on their way they didn’t have another option; Elrin was their only chance.

  Damn the informant for feeding them half-arsed information and damn the Jandans with their secret bloody messages.

  “Go on then, give it to him,” said Delik. “Show us what you can do, but if you screw us lad, by Ona, I’ll drop you where you stand.” He stood back and waited, his face red and arms crossed.

  Elrin set to work, speaking half to himself as he went. “One side of the tablet is for sending a message and the other is for receiving them. I think father called it the transcriber; it was so long ago since I played with one. Both it and the seal are needed; together they turn light into words and words into light. What do you want to say to the ships? Exactly.”

  Shaking his head in wonder, Delik was taken by the easy confidence Elrin had with the object the rebels had coveted for so long. Suspicion stole his words for a moment, running his thoughts on a tangent. The Calimskan was sharp; too sharp. If the lad was an agent for Jando or Calimska he was good, but he’d not be good enough for long enough. Time had a way of revealing the truth of things, the lad ought to be careful not to trip on a lie and take off his toes.

  Gathering his thoughts to the immediate task, Delik dictated a false message. “Request Assistance. Commodore Pelegrin injured. Critical. Black powder explosion. Taking water.”

  Elrin worked his finger upon the dark side of the tablet with the suns embellished around the borders. As he traced invisible words, they then appeared, trailing behind like the script was rising from oily water. The floral Calimskan text grew in confusing swirls and kicks, spreading its creeping tendrils of who knew what sinister plot across the magical device.

  “I can’t read that!” said Delik. “How do I know you’ve written what I said?”

  “You don’t, Delik,” said Minni. “Now is the time to trust him.”

  “It’s on your head then, just keep an eye on what he’s writing.”

  Elrin continued to write the message with Delik hovering over his shoulder.

  “How the hell do you know they can read your script?” Delik wasn’t ready to let this go. There was something suspicious going on; it made no sense.

  “The magic of the transcriber and seal interpret the intent of the words not the words themselves.”

  The young Calimskan traced the golden seal over the words and the dragon carving writhed about. The words lifted from the wooden blackness and were sucked into the miniature beast’s mouth. Elrin walked to the gunwale, twisted the seal and flipped the gilded dragon around, setting it within the tube shaped body of the device. Now that the seal was inside out, it revealed a series of lenses.

  “I hope you’re taking note of this, Minni.” Delik had no idea what the boy was doing.

  Directing the lenses to the headland, Elrin pressed the back of the seal and a buzz of magical energy coursed through it. The device clacked out a series of flashes, paused, then repeated the series twice more.

  High atop the Rum Hill cliffs the Jandan beacon pulsed the same pattern in all directions.

  Delik paced the deck watching the beacon, waiting for a response. The sea sloshed against the ship’s side. A fish jumped in the distance. A cormorant dried its wings in the sun.

  Nothing.

  With more patience than Delik thought the situation deserved, Elrin kept the device aimed at the beacon on the headland.

  “What’s gone wrong?” Delik stormed over to Elrin. “Why haven’t they responded?”

  “Give it time,” said Minni.

  Elrin kept his position, trying to ignore Delik’s complaints, tension knotting his dark brows.

  A cool breeze played across the harbour.

  Then the beacon sparked to life.

  The flashes were recognised by the seal and it buzzed with another magical charge. Elrin let it finish then twisted the seal and refitted it as before. He passed the golden dragonhead across the bone white side with the carved border of flowers.

  A message appeared in Calimskan.

  “What does it say?” asked Delik.

  Elrin read it without hesitation. “Templestone and Fearless on approach. Redeemers aboard. Deliverance and Lord’s Flame holding.”

  “Signal!” The spotter called as the osprey lighted on his arm.

  He
called down. “Guns stowed. Approaching at speed. Full sail.”

  Minni gave Elrin a hug and kissed him on the cheek. “You’ve saved our skin.”

  “Don’t think I’m done with you lad.” Delik slapped Elrin on the back and dashed a reluctant smile. “I’m expecting a good explanation on how the hell you knew what you were doing with that bloody contraption.”

  “I played with a set when I was a boy.”

  “I twiddled my thumbs when I was a boy.” Delik wasn’t going to be convinced by such a convenient intervention. He had a plan to test the lad’s steel. “I’ve got a special job for you, Elrin. Minni, he needs a promotion. Find a nice Jandan uniform. We have a new acting captain.”

  Delik left Elrin and Minni to work out their costumes in the great cabin. He walked to the wheel on the quarterdeck and put his whistle to his lips. With shrill precision and a worn voice, he directed his dockers. They hauled supplies from the docks up onto the starboard side hidden from the view of the approaching ships. They soon had Juniper leaning like a drunk, shifting all the cargo off centre.

  Uniforms of the captured Jandans were redistributed to those on the upper decks. All of the men in the open who couldn’t find a uniform were directed below deck and out of view. Delik had the men on the upper decks set to their normal duties and set uniformed guards to patrol as normal.

  Tikis bounded up to the quarterdeck and reported to Delik. “This and other ones are ready for work.”

  “Just as we planned, Tikis. It has to be quick and precise.” The first ship was peeking its bow around the headland, headed into the harbour. “Right then, disappear. They’ll have their spyglasses out.”

  Tikis ran across the deck and vaulted over the gunwale into the sea. That drakkin was a bloody good soldier. He’d never found a more versatile warrior since the rebellion began. He hoped more like him would rally to the cause; an army of drakkin would be a fine sight. If only all the tribes would stop fighting each other and see the real enemy.