Blood of Dragons

by Jack Campbell

  The stars didn’t answer, but then they never did.

  She lowered her gaze and let the feel of the sea run through her. Had she always felt this way about the great waters of the world, or had she gotten sea water into her blood during her and Jason’s time as members of the crew of The Son of Taris? The sea rolled by beneath Kira’s boat, immensely powerful and cloaked in mystery, yet somehow comforting and familiar. Kira breathed deep the salt-scented air, feeling as if she had always belonged here on the water like this, her boat moving with the endless rhythm of the restless seas.

  She had grown up knowing that her mother was the daughter of Jules, descended from the legendary pirate and explorer, founder of Julesport and hero of the Bakre Confederation. Kira’s mother had never been comfortable in the role, admitting that Mages could see it in her but insisting that no one really knew who the descendents of Jules were. At times like this, with her body feeling at one with the sea, Kira could feel a connection to the old pirate who was very likely her many-times-removed grandmother and had once sailed these same waters.

  The timeless seas made her wonder what Jules would think of Kira if somehow those waters could for a few moments close the gap between now and then. Suppose Jules’ ship loomed out of the dark and challenged this boat? Heave to and be boarded! And Kira would be brought before the pirate queen and look her in the eyes and see if she recognized what was in them. And the pirate queen would look at Kira and see who her daughters would be. They would yell at each other, because that was what women in her family did, and then they would embrace and promise to fight side by side forever, because that was also what her family did. And then time would heal itself and Kira’s boat would be alone on the sea again, Jason sleeping unaware of the adventure he had missed, Jules once more only a legend of the past but one that still lived in Kira and her mother.

  The last part of the night wore away, Kira letting daydreams and the sea’s glamour fill her for a while and drive away fears of what the day might bring.

  As dawn began to lighten the sky to the east on the sixth day, Kira gazed intently ahead to the north. Was she imagining things?

  Jason yawned and sat up, smacking his mouth and grimacing. “It tastes like I’ve eaten two raw fish and an eyeball.”

  “Me, too,” Kira said. “Maybe we should put off our morning kiss. Look.” She pointed ahead.

  Jason stood up, steadying himself by holding onto the mast as the boat rolled over another swell. “Are those mountains?”

  “Yes,” Kira said, grinning. “I’m sure of it now. It’s the Northern Ramparts. The dawn sun is lighting up their peaks. Safety is in sight, Jason.”

  He turned toward her, grinning as well, then his smile went away as Jason stared past Kira. “So is something else.”

  She turned to look south, her heart sinking. Four columns of smoke rose into the air, no longer masked by night but instead illuminated by the growing light, each column widely separated from the next. “They’ll be sailing just far enough apart to see the top of the mast of the next closest ship. That way they can cover as much of the sea as possible while looking for us.”

  Jason swung his gaze from one column of smoke to the next. “If we turned and ran straight east we might get past the farthest ship on that side. But then we’d be so far east we wouldn’t have a chance of landing in Free Cities territory, right?”

  “Right. It would just be another way of getting caught.” Kira looked ahead, where the peaks of the Northern Ramparts glowed golden in the light of the new day, then back again at the columns of smoke. “I wonder how far off the ships are? They’re still under the horizon, but that might mean they’re just under it or a long ways from it.”

  “Do you think we can make it?” Jason asked, still standing and holding onto the mast as he looked south.

  “I don’t know. It depends on how far off those Imperial ships still are, and how close the coast is. We’re seeing the highest peaks of the Ramparts, which are a ways inland. I just don’t know, Jason. What do you think?”

  “The same,” he said. “I was hoping that you’d have a more optimistic assessment than I did.”

  “We’ll have to make the best time we can,” Kira said. “If we can stay away from them until night falls, it’ll give us a chance.”

  Jason shook his head. “Can they be that far off? I’d think they’ll be on us by sometime this afternoon at least.”

  “Probably,” Kira said.

  He stayed silent for a while, and so did she, not knowing what to say.

  “Kira, that thing you said about escaping or dying,” Jason finally said in an unnaturally calm voice, “is that still true?”

  She gazed back at him, not trying to hide her unease. “Yes.”

  “Then here’s what we’ll do. We’ll swap jackets. They know what yours looks like. We’ll stay huddled down in the boat, and if the Imperial ships are going to overtake us before we reach the coast I’ll jump out and they’ll stop to pick me up thinking I’m you and you’ll have enough time to—”

  “No,” Kira said. “They’d kill you, Jason. They’d kill you and then come on after me.”

  “Kira, it’s the only chance you have.”

  “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do, Jason,” Kira said, trying to keep her own voice calm. “They want me alive a lot more than they want you dead. If I jump out of the boat, they will stop to pick me up. I have my pistol. I’ll be able to fight them off for a little while. That’ll give you more time.” She had to swallow before continuing. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

  “How could you be fine?” Jason demanded. “You said you’d die rather than be taken to the Empire.”

  “I can fight to the death,” Kira said, hearing the quaver in her voice on the last word. “With my pistol and my knives I can keep fighting until—”

  “No!” He stared at her in disbelief and denial.

  “Jason—”

  “No!”

  “Jason, they want me!” Kira cried. “Me! If they overtake us before we’re near the coast there is only one way that one of us could possibly survive!”

  “Then it’s going to be you!”

  “I will not let you die to save me! I won’t be the cause of your death!”

  “I don’t care!” Jason shouted. “I won’t let you die!”

  “How can you be so selfish?” Kira demanded, wondering why Jason had to make something this hard even harder.

  “Selfish? Because I won’t let you kill yourself to save me?”

  “Yes! They want me! If you have any real feelings for me, you will let me do this!” She stopped to catch her breath, knowing how strained her voice sounded. “So I wouldn’t have the guilt of living knowing that it was my fault you died. And because wherever I end up after I leave this life, I will know that you are all right. That you have found an…another…girl, and she’s…she’s…made you happy…and…”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Jason shouted. “You still don’t get it! How can you be so smart and not get it?”

  “Get what?” she yelled back.

  “There is no other girl! Not anywhere! Not in the entire universe! There’s only you!”

  “Jason, this is no time for your delusions!”

  “This is the perfect time for my delusions! Because I will not accept a reality without you in it!”

  “Well, I won’t accept a reality in which you die to save me!” Kira shouted at him.

  “You’re not going to die to save me!” Jason yelled.

  “Fine! Then I guess we’ll both have to live!” Kira glared at him. “Promise.”

  “I promise I’ll live,” Jason said. “You, too.”

  “I promise. Now take over steering. You’re a lot better than I am at getting the best speed out of this boat. I’ll see if I can adjust the sail to eke out a little more push with this wind.”

  “Okay,” Jason said.

  “And kiss me. My breath is probably beyond awful, though, so keep it quick.”r />
  As Kira worked on the sail, she paused to look at him. “Jason? That time at Dorcastle, my parents thought they were going to die.”

  “Which time at Dorcastle?”

  “The first time. And I guess the second time. And there have been other times since then. Dorcastle is kind of a place of mixed emotions for my parents. Anyway, my point is, Mother told me they were standing on that barge, a dragon charging them, and my father wouldn’t leave her even though she told him to. She told me she had never thought that she’d find someone like that, who would face death beside her and not waver.” Kira paused again, looking over the stern at the four columns of smoke. “And then she thought she had to give him up, to keep him safe. She thought she’d never find another guy like that. And she didn’t. She found Father again, and they never separated after that.”

  Kira looked at Jason once more. “I never thought I could find a guy like that, who would stand with me in the face of that kind of danger. I was wrong. I have found him.”

  Jason smiled at her, embarrassed by her words. “I never thought I’d find a girl like that, who would stand by me with death coming at us. We were both wrong. See, you’re not always right.”

  She smiled back at him but her eyes remained solemn. “You promised, Jason. You can’t die.”

  “So did you.”

  Behind them, the four columns of smoke rose into the sky like fingers of a far-off hand.

  Chapter Eight

  They had drunk the last of their water, stowed in their pockets what little hardtack remained, and made sure the knife from the boat’s survival chest was secured in Jason’s belt. There wasn’t much else to do but wait as the sun climbed toward noon, and the coastline to the north drew closer at a rate that felt far too slow, and the smoke columns to the south approached at a rate that felt far too fast.

  “Can you think of anything to talk about that isn’t whether or not they’ll catch us before we reach the coast?” Jason asked as he adjusted course slightly again to try to catch a little more wind in the sail.

  Kira leaned against the mast, gazing south where the Imperial ships still hadn’t come over the horizon. She had checked her pistol, readied it, and left her jacket open so she could draw the weapon quickly. “You don’t talk much about the people you knew on Urth. You had classmates, right? Because you got to go to a normal school? And teachers?”

  “Sort of,” Jason said. “A normal school on Earth has a lot of virtual components. But, yeah.”

  “And?”

  Jason shrugged. “Um, well, first of all, it’s funny but I always have to remember that because of the relativistic effects of the trip out here, they’ve all aged almost ten years from when I knew them. What seemed like two months to me was ten years to them.”

  “That’s strange to think about,” Kira said, watching the columns of smoke behind them, which had grown steadily thicker as the Imperial ships drew closer. “Imagine going away and then coming back and everyone you knew was ten years older.”

  “So, everybody who knew me probably doesn’t even really remember me, and if they do they’re remembering the jerk that I was back then.”

  “What’s our agreement about the jerk thing, Jason?”

  “I’m talking about before I met you! I didn’t know the thing about not calling myself a jerk was retroactive.” Jason smiled slightly in memory. “There were a couple of teachers I really liked, and who I thought liked me. If they remember me now it’s probably just because I was the kid who got pulled out of school to go on an interstellar flight. Same for the guys and girls I used to do games with.”

  “Did you know the librarians at Altis have reported back to Urth on you, using the Feynman unit?” Kira asked.

  He bent a worried look her way. “What have they said?”

  “Mother showed me a transcript. Stuff about what you were doing, and you being healthy and all, and Mother and Father being your legal guardians here. That got Urth pretty interested. Didn’t anybody ever tell you? Urth was all like, he’s the adopted son of Lady Master Mechanic Mari and Sir Master of Mages Alain? Because like you told me, Urth is all excited about the daughter of Jules and what Mother did to free our world and all. And the librarians said my parents hadn’t exactly adopted you, and…” She rolled her eyes. “The librarians told Urth that you and I were dating.”

  “People on Earth know that Lady Kira is my girlfriend?” Jason said, staring at her.

  “Oh, do not do that,” Kira warned him. “Dating me does not make you look special.”

  “You do realize that you’re the only person on at least two worlds who thinks that, right?”

  She gave him another eye roll. “If I thought that was why you were dating me I’d probably toss you over the side right now and let the Imperials get you. Anyway, what do you think those old friends of yours would say if they could see you now? In a boat, being chased by ships, a knife at your belt, me standing at the mast…”

  “They’d think it must be the best virtual reality game ever,” Jason said. “No way would they think it could be real.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the me they knew wouldn’t be doing this. Not for real. And not with someone like you!”

  “I guess they didn’t know you, then,” Kira said, her eyes on the horizon. Was there something appearing at the base of one of the columns of smoke?

  “I didn’t know me then,” Jason said. “Or I was a different me. You didn't exactly like me the first time you met me, remember? Are you seeing something?”

  “I think so. That smoke column closest to being right behind us. There’s a darker dot where it meets the horizon.” Kira breathed in slowly. “It must be the highest part of the ship’s mast. It won’t be much longer before enough of the ship is over the horizon for the lookouts to spot us.”

  She turned to look ahead. The mountains rose into the sky, lit by the sun high overhead so that every detail stood out clearly, but down toward the water details were lost in a grayish-white mist. “I’m still not sure how close we are to the coast. That haze could be mist off the water or surf hitting rocks. We’ll have to get nearer before we can see.”

  “We’d be able to see Marida by now if we were anywhere near it, right?” Jason asked, raising himself a little to look at the mountains visible off the bow.

  Kira nodded reluctantly. “If we were anywhere close, we’d have seen Marida. And all of the shipping near Marida, ships and fishing boats and everything else. I didn’t think we had much chance of bearing far enough northwest to reach Marida, but hopefully we’re not a long ways east of the city.”

  “Okay. Are we sure that the land ahead of us belongs to the Free Cities?”

  “It’s definitely Free Cities territory. Their lands start at the edge of the Northern Ramparts, which end abruptly on their eastern side. That’s why they’re called the Ramparts. Father fought here, and says they’re like a mighty wall across the northern part of the continent. If we were off of Imperial territory, we’d see rocky beaches and the high plains around Umburan where my parents almost died in a blizzard.”

  “Do you or your family ever go places just to sightsee?” Jason asked. “You know, on vacations rather than to fight battles or duel with Imperial kidnappers and assassins and stuff?”

  “Go somewhere to relax?” Kira asked. “What a weird idea.”

  “Is there any water left?”

  “No,” Kira said, tasting the salt on her lips from the sea spray, “sorry. ‘What need have I for food and water when I have you beside me to feed my soul and quench my sorrow?’”

  “Is that a quote?” Jason asked.

  “It’s from a pretty famous poem,” she explained. ” ‘A Sailor’s Homecoming.' A sailor gets shipwrecked, and while he’s adrift at sea without food and water he has these hallucinations about the girl he loves, and the last lines are about him seeing her again in his mind as he dies. See, he believes that he’s home with her when he dies, so he’s happy.”

&nbs
p; “As uplifting and inspiring as that poem sounds,” Jason remarked, “I’m not sure I wanted to hear about it under these circumstances.”

  Kira smiled at him. “Captain Banda explained it to me. Part of it is that sailors go to so many places but always hold home in their hearts even if they never get back there. And part of it is about how people can find comfort under the worst of circumstances. And another part is about how love can transcend death and distance. The sailor died at home, in his girl’s arms, because he believed he did. They were together.”

  Jason frowned at the coastline still too far ahead of them. “Girls think that stories about people dying are romantic, don’t they? I mean, as long as they die because they’re in love. See, I like the stories where the people in love have some adventures that they survive and then they live long and happy lives.”

  Kira nodded to him. “If you like that kind of story, that’s the story you and I will have to live. It won’t be as romantic, of course, because a love story requires somebody to die, but I’m willing to accept that for you.”

  He grinned at her. “Maybe Maxim could be the one who dies.”

  “That’s a good idea.” The top portions of all of the Imperial ships were visible by now, the one most directly astern showing parts of the upper superstructure. But at least being able to see the ships directly gave her a much better feel for how fast they were overtaking their own boat.

  Kira turned to look forward, seeing details of the coast finally beginning to emerge amid a welter of spray from the waves crashing against the rocky coast, then gazed back at the oncoming Imperial ships. “Jason, I think we’ll make it. Not by much, but I think we’ve got enough of a lead.”

  After so long with only a vague sense of how close they were to the coast and how far behind the ships were trailing, the situation was now easily visible. Kira kept swiveling her head, switching her gaze from the looming shoreline ahead to the growing shapes of the ships behind. The entire superstructure of the nearest Imperial ship was now above the horizon. “Keep it up, Jason. If we can maintain this speed we’ll get to the coast before they catch us. I’m sure of it.”