Blood of Dragons

by Jack Campbell

  “The wind isn’t steady,” Jason said, licking his lips nervously.

  “Do the best you can. Oh, blazes. The closest ship just gave off a big cloud of stack smoke. They’re feeding the boiler to increase speed.” She looked at the other three Imperial ships. “So are the others. We’ve definitely been seen.”

  “Kira, is that coastline as ugly as it looks from here?”

  She nodded, trying to keep her breathing calm and steady as the boat rocked more in the rougher waters as they drew closer to the coast. “Yeah. I told you it was bad. It’s all broken cliffs with a carpet of fallen boulders and rocks in front of them.”

  “There isn’t any hidden but convenient sheltered cove for me to run this boat into?” Jason demanded. “There’s always something like that in a game. What kind of lousy story is this?”

  “The one we’re stuck with,” Kira said. “There’s a good part. The Imperials can’t keep charging at us or they’ll hit the rocks. They’ll need to slow down as they get closer to the coast.”

  “So will we.” Jason gave her a worried look. “Won’t we? You have a plan, don’t you? This is like that jumping-off-the-train stuff where you don’t tell me until the last moment so I won’t freak out, isn’t it?”

  “Jason, you’re good at steering and the feel of the boat. Better than I am. Aim for a place where we can ram this boat onto the rocks. We need it to hang on at least a little so we’ll have time to jump off onto the rocks before the boat sinks or gets battered to pieces by the waves.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No.” Kira looked ahead at the coastline, where it was now easy to see white spray being flung high as waves pounded into the boulders littering the sea in front of the broken cliffs. “The rocks are wet, so make sure you don’t slip off, especially when more waves hit while we’re trying to get up onto drier ground.”

  “Make sure I don’t slip off,” Jason repeated. “This time we’re jumping off a boat onto rocks.” He stole a glance back at the Imperial ships, the hull of the closest one now visible, a bone in its teeth as the ship sliced through the water kicking up a wide, white bow wave . “Okay. Let’s do it.”

  She grinned at him, her face and hair getting wetter as the rougher waters and ever-closer spray flung water into the air. “That’s my hero.” Kira studied the approaching coast again. The cliffs on shore rose up like unyielding walls, but the sea had been pounding away at them for countless years. There were numerous breaks near the water, where channels and canyons and rifts and crevices ran jagged tracks through the rock. The boulders torn from the cliffs as the sea waged endless war on them ranged from monsters the size of buildings to smaller ones not much bigger than their sailboat. Another wave thundered in as she watched, smashing into the rocks and hurling out great gouts of spray. “Jason, you won’t be able to tie the tiller before we hit,” she said, her smile fading.

  Jason nodded, his expression grim and determined. “No. It’s too turbulent close in. If we want to hit a good spot instead of crashing into a big rock head-on, I’ll have to steer us in all the way. Not that there actually are any good spots. But some are a lot worse.”

  “All right. If you don’t make it off the boat, if you get stuck back there when the boat wrecks, I’ll come back for you.”

  “No, you won’t,” Jason objected. “If I’m stuck back here the boat’s going to be getting pounded to pieces against the rocks and—”

  She shook her head. “Jules would never forgive me if I left my man behind.”

  “I'm your man?” Jason asked, grinning despite the worry in his eyes as he scanned the coast ahead.

  “Sure are. That tells others how close we are, even more than buying jewelry for each other. So you just hang on if you get stuck when we hit. I’ll come for you.” She paused to snap her holster shut, then closed her jacket. Getting off of those rocks might require some serious physical work. Kneeling by the survival chest, she pulled out some of the empty water bottles and stuffed them inside her jacket, where hopefully they would stay through whatever happened next.

  Kira went forward, crouching in the bow. The Imperial ship just behind them was growing in size rapidly now, charging to intercept the sailboat before it could reach the coast. The wind was pummeling them, carrying salt spray with it, and the boat rocked heavily in the backwash from the waves crashing against the coast.

  The sound of a rifle shot echoed from the cliffs ahead. Then another and another. Kira looked back and saw figures lining the rail at the bow of the closest Imperial ship, steadying rifles and firing. Had Prince Maxim decided that he preferred her dead to having her escape yet again?

  Kira looked at Jason in the stern, realizing that he was likely the one the Imperials were aiming at. “Keep your head down!” she yelled.

  Jason shook his head stubbornly, both hands on the tiller now as he fought the turbulent waters. “I have to see where to aim for!”

  Most of the rifle shots seemed to be going wide, but Kira heard a few thunks and felt the boat vibrate in time to hits. Small holes appeared in the sail.

  A loud roar sounded behind them as one of the forward gun mounts on the Imperial ship fired. Kira heard the shell tear past overhead, seeing it explode before her just short of the nearest rocks, sending a geyser fountaining skyward. Were they trying to sink the boat, or just trying to scare her and Jason into turning?

  Kira looked back again. Jason’s face was frozen into a mask of concentration, focused on the violent surf ahead. The Imperial ship dead astern seemed practically on top of them, looming high against the sky, the big white bow wave in its teeth hurling spray to either side. Imperial rifles cracked again and again, bullets raining down close alongside, hurling up small spurts of water. But the sailboat was bouncing around so unpredictably in the surf that most of the shots were clean misses.

  Not all of them, though. Kira saw splinters fly up not far from where her hand gripped the bow as a bullet struck there.

  “Hold on!” Jason yelled over the crash of the rifles and the thunder of the surf. “We’re going in!”

  The sailboat rocked upward as it caught a swell rising to hammer the rocks. Kira grabbed on tighter, rapidly switching her gaze between the jagged rocks ahead and the sharp bow of the Imperial ship behind. The Imperials would have to turn soon.

  Jason swung the tiller one way, then back, the sailboat weaving across the top of the swell and down the other side, the force of the building wave now at its back, pushing the sailboat ahead faster and faster, Kira’s heart pounding so hard that her pulse filled her ears in a counterpart to the rumble of the surf.

  The Imperial ship behind them had finally begun turning away, but now it shuddered and jerked to one side, heeling hard to starboard. Kira caught a brief glimpse of a large gash below the waterline to port where an underwater rock had ripped through the ship’s hull. The ship wallowed as it swung parallel to the surf, trying to turn away even as its own momentum and the force of the waves combined to try to push it onto the rocks before it could get its head around.

  “Kira!” Jason shouted.

  She swung her attention forward again, just in time. The massive salt-sprayed rocks were close, the sailboat rushing toward them with terrifying speed as it rode the wave. Kira could see the spot Jason must be aiming for, a small gap where the sailboat might be able to wedge itself, and braced herself to jump onto the lower of the two rocks framing the gap as chill seawater flung upwards by the pounding waves splashed back on her. The gap was right before them and then it was there and the sailboat screamed as its sides rammed into the space between the rocks.

  The collision broke her hold but Kira had already launched herself up. She hit the rock she’d aimed for and scrabbled for a grip, blessing her experience with hanging on in the rigging of a sailing ship as she slid on the wet, slick surface, and grateful that none of the empty bottles in her jacket had broken. As one of her hands seized an outcropping and held, Kira twisted back to check on Jason.

 
The mast had snapped and fallen forward when they hit. Jason was scrambling over the sail while the boat wrenched and jolted beneath him as more waves came in and broke over the boat’s stern. Kira reached out and down as Jason got to the bow and jumped without pausing, hitting heavily and sliding on the slippery rock, but Kira seized his arm and hung on even though his weight momentarily threatened to pull her other hand loose from its grip.

  Everything seemed to pause for a moment like that, Kira gritting her teeth with the effort of holding on to the rock despite the weight of Jason tugging at her other arm, another big wave coming behind as the last retreated. Kira pulled at Jason as he tried to get a hold on the rock, yanking him upwards with a strength she hadn’t known she had.

  He was beside her, he had a grip on the rock, and Kira looked back and stared with horror at the sight of the side of the Imperial ship hurtling toward them, a wall of metal rising above her and to either side, out of control under the enormous force of the surf, sailors on the deck racing around in panic.

  “Run!” Kira screamed at Jason, and without wasting time to ask why, Jason followed as she pulled herself to her feet and leaped recklessly to the next rock and onward faster than anyone not fleeing certain death would have risked on the slippery boulders.

  A tremendous grinding roar marked the collision of the Imperial ship with the rocks. Kira felt the shock of the impact through her hands and her boots, heard screams and shouts, and came to a stop to look back, seeing the tall side of the ship rearing over the coast, rocking under the impacts of waves as it hit the rocks, bounced off, then was hurled onto them again. Sailors were falling off from the force of the blows or making futile efforts to launch boats that would never survive the surf this close in. Kira and Jason’s sailboat had disappeared, crushed to splinters by the impact of the Imperial ship.

  “Come on!” Jason yelled at her, and she followed his tug as they jumped and grabbed and slipped and pulled their way over the broken rocks toward a cleft leading upward through the cliff before them.

  Reaching that place of relative safety, though still lashed by spray, Kira paused to catch her breath and look back again. “Our boat is gone!” she yelled to Jason.

  “That’s what you’re worried about?” Jason yelled back, incredulous.

  “It was a good, faithful boat!” Kira stared at the Imperial sailors struggling in the water, the waves smashing them against the rocks as their ship continued to be battered helplessly.

  Jason put his face, dripping with spray, close to hers. “This break in the cliff seems to lead all the way to the top. Come on! We can’t help them! Even if we didn’t die trying, they’d just kill us or take us prisoner!”

  “I know.” Kira turned her back on the doomed sailors, feeling sick, and followed Jason up the cleft.

  Despite her experience in climbing rigging, it was a difficult ascent, especially since they didn’t dare take it slowly and carefully. Kira paused again about halfway up the cleft to catch her breath and look back. Some of the sailors had made it onto the relative safety of the rocks. Their ship had dropped lower in the water having sunk onto the rocks offshore, but the part remaining was still shuddering in time to the pounding of the waves which would eventually reduce it to a pile of debris. Behind the wreck, far enough out to avoid the fate of their sister ship, Kira could see the other three Imperial ships lowering boats.

  “At least they’re going to rescue the survivors,” Jason gasped where he hung in the cleft beside her, also breathing heavily from their exertions.

  Kira shook her head. “The sailors going down into those boats have rifles slung on their backs. They wouldn’t need those for a rescue.”

  Jason shook his head, laughing in short, pained gusts. “They’re not giving up.”

  “No,” Kira said. “They’re not giving up. They’re going to come ashore and keep chasing us.” She felt her muscles quivering from tiredness, her stomach knotted with tension. Looking upward, Kira could see the wandering path of the cleft ending in a notch in the face of the cliff where it met the top. That notch still seemed way too high above them. “Let’s see if we can get to the top of this cleft before I throw up.”

  “If we do,” Jason said, “I’m going to throw up when we get there.”

  They started climbing again.

  * * *

  By the time Kira painfully pulled herself out of the cleft to sprawl on her back on the top of the cliff, her vision was hazing from exhaustion. Jason crawled next to her and fell onto his stomach, breathing so loudly it almost masked the sound of the surf below.

  After a few minutes, Kira rolled her head enough to look about them. The edge of the cliff was still too close for her comfort. From that edge a long, steep slope covered in tough grass and a few bushes led upward toward the nearest mountains. She tried to measure the effort it would take to scale that slope and shuddered.

  “Are we having fun yet?” Jason gasped.

  “Don’t look up,” Kira wheezed in reply.

  He did, wincing at the sight of the long slope. “I should have listened to you.”

  “You’ll learn someday.” Kira grimaced with effort as she forced herself to her hands and knees and cautiously looked back down the cleft and outward.

  She could see the stranded ship, even lower in the water now, waves washing across the deck as the wreck rocked under each successive blow from the sea. Some sailors were moving around on the ship, clambering through the superstructure, acting with purpose instead of panic. Others had gathered on the rocks, where some lay and others stood on the uncertain footing. Kira tried to judge their numbers and wondered how many had drowned or been smashed against the rocks. She felt guilt strike her again, wondering why people had to die because of her.

  “It’s not your fault,” Jason said from where he lay looking at her.

  Kira looked back at him. “How did you know what I was seeing?”

  “I didn’t. But I know the expression you get when you’re thinking you’re responsible for someone getting hurt or in trouble. Kira, all you were trying to do was escape from being kidnapped. They were trying to stop you, to kidnap you again, and they were trying to shoot us. All of which means it’s not your fault.”

  “Why does it have to happen?”

  “What does your father say?” Jason asked.

  She looked back at the wreck and the survivors. “He says that destiny gives us choices. The options we have may be predetermined by someone or something, but we have the choice of which one to take. And each choice we make impacts on the next set of choices. Because each person is responsible for the choices they make and whatever results from those choices.”

  “Could you have made any choices other than the ones you did?”

  “No,” Kira said. She edged over a little to see more. “The longboats are still offshore. I think they’re looking for places to land their people that won’t destroy the boats.”

  “They definitely have rifles?”

  “Yeah. I can see the barrels sticking up and the sun glinting on the metal. They all seem to be crew from the ships though. I don’t see any legion uniforms.”

  “That’s good?” Jason asked.

  “That’s good,” Kira said, crawling back to drop down beside him. “We don’t want to have to mess with legionaries. The legions are tough.” She stared up at the sky. “Should we stand and fight here?”

  “Is that a serious question?”

  “Yes. They have to scale the cliffs. I have my pistol, but even your knife would be effective as they try to climb up over the edge. They’ll be tired from the climb. We could take them out as they came up until they stopped trying.”

  Jason didn’t answer for a long moment. “You’re talking about a last stand, Kira. There are other ways up these cliffs and a lot more Imperial sailors than the two of us. Sooner or later some of them would get up here, probably on both sides of us, and we’d be trapped.”

  “I’m tired of running.”

  “Is that
a good reason to trap ourselves?”

  She glared at the sky. “You sound like my father.”

  “Is that good or bad?” Jason asked.

  Kira sighed, closing her eyes to think. “It’s good. What I really am is mad, Jason, as well as tired, mad that they’ve chased us this far and mad that they’re still chasing us. Everybody I ever knew has told me not to make decisions when I’m mad. Why aren’t you mad?”

  “I’m too tired to be mad.”

  “Thanks for not being too tired to think.” She raised herself up a little and looked to the west, toward where Marida lay somewhere along the coast. A few hundred lances in that direction, the open slope they were on was riven by a wide fissure that narrowed as it ran upward to merge with the flank of a mountain. Beyond it, more mountains sloped directly into the sea, merging with the cliffs. “We can’t walk west along the coast. It’s impassable. We’ll have to go inland a ways, then cut west when we can.”

  “Inland.” Jason looked up the slope behind them. “Kira? Have you ever noticed that whenever we’re being chased, it’s always uphill?”

  She frowned as she thought. “Yeah. It is always uphill. Why is that?”

  “Did that happen to your parents?”

  “I don’t think so. They’ve never mentioned it. I need to ask Mother about that,” Kira said. “The next time I see her. Don’t let me forget.”

  “I won’t. I hope this isn’t one those family things that your dad is always warning me about,” Jason said.

  “I don’t think so,” Kira repeated. “Wait. What exactly has my father been warning you about?”

  “Huh? Oh…uh…nothing. Nothing…important.”

  “Yeah. I was going to let us rest another few minutes, but if you have enough breath to make bad jokes, you have breath to walk. Let’s go.” She and Jason got to their feet, looking up the slope.

  “One step at a time?” Jason said.

  “One step at a time. Let’s hold on to each other. And if we fall, let’s make sure we fall forward so we don’t lose even a little ground.”