by Deck Davis
A pirate on the mast rigging, with one muscly arm wrapped around the ropes being the only thing separating him from a fall, shouted down to the others. On the deck, four pirates operating a cannon looked, saw Charlie’s ice wall, and they tried to pivot the cannon to face it, but it couldn’t move beyond a fixed point.
Mia looked inexplicably cool, and the only thing she did as her ship smashed into the ice was to duck away and behind the decking in a slow, relaxed motion.
Wood crunched against ice. It was louder than Charlie expected, almost like a firework exploding, but drawn out and aching, a groan of smashed decking and ice.
The bow pierced through the wall. Chunks of ice popped along the decking, chips of it whizzed out, forcing the pirates to duck. Even so, the galleon looked unscathed. The smile painted on the front was wet, a few pirates nursed cuts from errant shards of ice, but it hadn’t been enough to stop the ship.
Charlie searched his mind for something else, for another way to stop it, but there was none. No spells, and nothing he could do or use.
Then he realized three things. One, he might not have stopped Mia’s ship entirely, but he’d slowed it. Two, pissed-off dragons could fly faster than you’d expect, given their size. Three, fire was very, very effective against wood.
Tw dragons rushed close, their heads pointed down to cut through the air better, their spikes standing firm in the rushing gale. One of them was beautiful; its scales shone blue and had gold edges, as if they’d drunk from sunlight and held it in. The other was a picture of fury, burning red eyes, and a hideous scar across its torso.
When they reached Mia’s ship they hovered above it. Gold Scales opened his mouth first, then Scar, and their twin plumes of hell fire met in the air and barrelled at the ship, twisting tornadoes of yellow and orange and red that made a rushing sound.
The four pirates left their cannon, as did the other cannon crew. A pirate tried to climb from his mast rigging but got stuck, panicked, and lost his grip, but his foot caught in the ropes and he dangled twenty feet above the ship and flailed his arms as the twin streams of fire lashed over him.
The sound was inhumane. Charlie had never seen a man cooked alive before, and the screams were incomprehensible, more of a screech than a shout. He couldn’t even watch, but the sight wouldn’t leave his peripherals, and the man was a blur in the corner of his eyes, his foot trapped in the rigging, flames engulfing his skin. A medley of burning smells drifted from the ship; flames licking wood, masts catching on fire, human meat already scorched beyond all recognition.
That wasn’t the end of it, either. In the distance, other dragons flew toward them, their spiky bodies casting silhouettes over the dangerous grass plains. A formation of spikes and fire and death.
Mia reacted now. She stood on the edge of the deck so her men could see her. She held onto the rigging for support. She shouted something, but nobody reacted because her men were caught in states of terror at the onslaught of flames.
She shouted again, but nobody answered. She hopped off the decking, and as one panicked pirate fled past her, her held out her arm and clotheslined him.
The others paid attention now, and they listened to orders that Charlie couldn’t hear, and then got to work, this time laboring systematically instead of letting their fear drive them. As they pulled together as a unit, Charlie began to see what the orders were. The ship descended to land on the tower, on the same level above Charlie.
He crouched behind a mound of dragonstone, out of sight but still within eyeshot of them if he lifted his head. He didn’t have long to think about it, but he needed to focus. A rushed plan would end with a pirate sword in his belly or a dragon sautéing his skin.
A few things stood out. One, this would have been a wonderful time to try and leave the planet; the dragons were in chaos, Serpens was nowhere to be seen, and the pirates were a little busy. The problem was, even if the timing was great, their location couldn’t have been any worse. It was only the utter mayhem of pirate and dragons that made it a great time to risk it in the first place, but unfortunately, the mayhem was centred around them, too close to Crosseyes’s ship.
What choice did they have? A full-on fight was the worst option, since they were outnumbered by pirates and dragons, but an attempt to flee seemed to end with them being charred beyond recognition.
What a thought to have. Right about now, back home, he’d have been sipping on a coffee at his desk. Simpler times.
They were just going to have to make a break for it. Risk everything, and hope they somehow made it through the swarm of dragons, and prayed that Serpens, whenever he arrived, was still too caught up in the chaos to pay attention to him.
As he turned to go back down the tower to find the others, he got a shock. They were behind him.
Flink held her spear vertically, and the pointed tip shined with a red sheen, no doubt from some kind of alchemical potion. Longtooth held his bow, Crosseyes his guns, while Gully sat on Apollo’s back, his mage robe glowing. Larynk, meanwhile, nursed his sphere, but the shimmers and cracks on it were weak – it was out of power.
“What are you guys doing?” he said.
“Think we’d just leave you?” said Flink.
“We need to go. This is our only chance.”
“Go where?”
“To the ship and then off the planet. We’ve gotta risk it.”
Just as he said the words, there was a great whoosh of air above him, a gust of wind so hard it rocked him, and he had to hold onto the rock to keep steady.
Serpens’ dragon had landed on the plateau again now, its body so intimidating it seemed bigger than the dragon tower itself, mists of green swirling from between the cracks in its scales, its hot breath gushing out every time its nostrils flared.
A thought rattled in Charlie’s head. Could he try again? Could he tame it this time?
Impossible. It was clear now that his taming relied on empathy, and he felt no empathy for this creature, just fear. Just a gut wrenching, soul squeezing terror, one that heightened every time it opened its mouth to breath and bared those gigantic teeth.
The dragon snapped its head at Mia and five of her pirates, who’d left the ship now and were crossing the plateau, moving toward the dragon instead of away from it.
What the hell were they doing?
The dragon opened its mouth and Charlie saw the true size of its jaws now, endlessly cavernous with rows of glinting, yellowed teeth. At the back, in its throat, a burning ball of flames gathered.
It breathed out, spreading fire over Mia and the pirates. The stream seemed never-ending, and even from across the plateau Charlie felt it lash against his skin, singeing his beard before he ducked behind the rock.
Now, he listened. He waited for the rush of flames to end, and when it did, he risked a look.
They weren’t dead. Mia and the pirates strode on, unaffected by the fire. That was when he noticed the aura around them; it was a kind of shimmer, a slight warping of the air. Was it some kind of barrier? A magic or alchemical flame shield?
Mia gave orders, and the five pirates spread out. They held what Charlie had taken to be shotguns of some sort, but when they fired them, streams of silver cables spun out, crossing in arcs over the dragon and then thudding into the ground, fixed in place in the dragon stone.
The dragon thrashed. It opened its mouth to show another burning ball in its throat, and it sent it out, a scorching stream like a flame thrower but impossibly hotter. The waves of orange and red scorched the pirates again, but the air warped around them, repelling the flames back.
They reloaded their weapons, and again arcs of cable swirled over the beast, before thudding into the stone. It had ten cables around it now, and when it thrashed it did so pathetically. Despite its size, it could hardly move. Every time it tried, blue lifted buzzed over the coils spread across its back, and it roared in pain.
As the pirates reloaded, Crosseyes charged forward across the plateau, his twin guns in front of hi
m, the muzzles flaring orange, casings falling around him. Each pull of the triggers made them boom.
One bullet struck a pirate on the wrist, digging through bone. The pirate dropped his gun and fell, clutching his bloody stump of a hand. This bullet was a stray, it seemed; the rest were aimed at Mia, but the pirate held her giant sword in front of her. It was so big that it covered her entirely, and the bullets dinked against the metal.
Charlie straitened up. One thing occurred to him – the pirates’ shield was good for fire, but it hadn’t worked against bullets. It wouldn’t work against blades, either.
This as it. This was his chance. He couldn’t tame the dragon; he’d be foolish to try it again. But he could get the sphere, and there’d never be a better opportunity. As giant as the monster was, it could hardly move under the criss-cross of silver cables digging into its back.
Ahead of them, Crosseyes had reached Mia now, and he put his guns away and drew his twin katanas. Mia held her bullet-dented sword horizontally, controlling the hulking weapon with a strength that seemed impossible.
Her pirates drew their own swords now. They crowded around Crosseyes, but Mia addressed them.
“Stick to the plan. Get the sphere,” she said.
So that was it. That was why they’d enraged the dragons and why they’d landed after hitting Charlie’s ice barrier, even though he hadn’t damaged their ship enough to force a crash. They wanted Serpens’ sphere.
“We have to get it before them,” said Charlie, turning to the others.
“Get what?”
“The sphere,” said Larynk, catching on. “They want Serpens’ sphere.”
“Can you guys keep the pirates busy?” said Charlie.
Flink nodded. Longtooth backed away a step. He looked behind him, just as he had in the forest when Charlie had given him the choice to leave. His rat eyes were wide and bloodshot, and Charlie saw that he held his bow so tight his paws were shaking.
Gully urged Apollo forward a step so his was level with the rat. He put his arm on his shoulders. “You’re scared, lad,” he said. “No man or rat in his right mind wouldn’t be. But fear is only what you make if it. Let it control you now, and you’ll be its slave forever.”
The words didn’t have the desired effect, because Longtooth turned and ran down the winding path, onto the plateau below, leaving the four of them behind.
Flink went to go after him, but Charlie grabbed her. “Leave him. This is the only chance we’ll get. We either get the sphere before they do, or we’re never leaving.”
“Where the hell is Serpens, anyway?” said Larynk.
“I don’t know. He can’t have missed this; he must know what’s happening.”
“Forget it,” said Larynk. “Charlie, you get the sphere, and we’ll keep the pirates occupied.”
Ahead of them, metal clashed against metal as Mia and Crosseyes circled each other in a duel, sizing each other up before Crosseyes parried forward and Mia answered, and the sing of metal was almost drowned by the cries of the dragons overhead.
“It’s now or never. Let’s go,” said Charlie.
Flink, Larynk, Apollo and Gully rushed forward across the plateau and headed toward the pirates. When they met them, metal flashed in the sun, and clangs and bangs resounded as spears crashed against swords, and a pirate screamed as Apollo leapt on him, the chimera bearing his bulk down on the helpless man.
The sky dragons circled ahead now, dozens of wings flapping to create dozens of little gusts. They were of two kinds, Charlie realized now. Some had glows in the cracks of their scales, like Serpens’ dragon, whilst others had smooth bodies. The glowing dragons opened their mouths, and they rained fire down on the plateau, some as flame thrower-like streams, others as balls of flame.
His heart dislodged as he watched the fire balls crash into the pirates and his friends. It created an impenetrable haze of fire, a fiery mist lashing around them.
They were dead. They couldn’t have survived. He felt weak, and he staggered to a knee.
But the flames cleared, and he saw that his friends were fine; dazed, but fine, protected by the pirates’ flame barrier. Their fight began anew, Flink grunting and ramming her spear forward into a pirate’s armpit.
Charlie gathered himself. He eyed the great dragon, who lashed and struggled under his silver bonds, each movement making the metal rattle.
He charged forward. He rounded the dragon so he was behind it, and then he climbed a series of rocks, struggling to the top until he was level with the beast, twenty feet high.
Then he jumped.
He landed on the dragon’s back. It tried to shrug him off, and even its limited movement made him lose his balance, and he thought he was going to plummet. He dug his hands around a giant scale and clung on, and he held his breath as he rode the movement out.
Inch by inch, he climbed across the dragon’s back until he reached its head. Below him, Crosseyes fought Mia, and Flink and the others battled the pirates, and the dragons above him circled and swirled, and they unleashed streams of fire but to no effect.
It was chaos. A calamity of noises, of dragon roars and the rush of fire, of cries of pain, of metal glancing off metal. It made his pulse pound to an impossible rhythm, so much he thought his veins would just combust.
He clung onto the dragon’s head now. He held onto a great spike that jutted off its skull, and he crouched to keep balance. He leaned forward until he could see its eye socket and the orange god sphere resting inside it.
With a stretch, he could grab it. He could wrench it free, and they’d run and take to the skies in Crosseyes’s ship, and hope that without his sphere, Serpens couldn’t stop them.
Below him, he saw Mia parry at Crosseyes, heaving her hulking sword at him. The demi-god was too quick, and he rolled under the blow and returned one of his own, swiping his katana at a frightening speed. The blade cut across Mai’s chest, slicing a great gash across her, ending in an arc that cut through her swinging pony tail.
She fell on her back. Crosseyes stood over her for a second. He raised his katana high, the blade pointed downwards and aimed at her neck.
And then he ran. He turned and ran behind him at first, aiming toward Larynk. Instead of stopping, he shoulder-barged into the god, catching him unaware. Then he drew his guns and fired four shots into Larynk’s marble face, sending chips of the stone flying up.
He wrenched Larynk’s god sphere from his grasp. Holding it, he darted to the left, sprinting to the edge of the plateau before leaping down and crashing onto the level below, where he darted toward his ship. He grabbed a rope and clambered onto the deck within seconds, and soon he stood behind the wheel, and the galleon began to rock side to side, and then hovered in the air.
He was leaving them. He was taking advantage of the chaos and leaving them, the bastard, and he’d taken Larynk’s sphere…which meant he’d taken Charlie’s powers along with it.
No time to worry about the traitorous bastard. There was still another ship on the plateau, and they could take it and hope that Larynk could fly it. But they needed Serpens’ sphere.
Clinging to the dragon’s spike, he leaned over so his head and upper torso hung over his face. He reached to the dragon’s eyeball and grasped the sphere, and then with one tug, he wrenched it free.
Balancing himself back on its head, he held the spike with on hand and the sphere with the other. His heart thudded, and sounds of fire and pain begged his attention, and in his peripheral vision he saw Crosseyes’s ship soar into the sky.
And then, the dragon roared. With one almighty effort it wrenched upwards, and the silver chains snapped one by one, each lashing out with such force that one caught a pirate on his neck, decapitating him.
The dragon took to the air with Charlie clinging onto it. Wind rushed at him, the force of it so great it opened the wound on his nose and he felt the sting of pain and the drip of blood, and he tasted iron on his lips.
He was fifty feet above the tower now, dizzyi
ngly high, and his armed burned. He couldn’t hold on much longer with only one hand, but he couldn’t drop the sphere.
The dragon removed his choice. It soared vertically, taking such a steep incline that Charlie instinctively dropped the sphere so he could grip the spike with both hands, and the god sphere plummeted back toward the tower.
The dragon straightened again. Charlie looked at the tower below, where he saw that the sphere had fallen to the uppermost plateau, where it rested. Across from it, on the other end of the plateau, was Serpens.
If Serpens got his sphere back, that was the end for them. Charlie had to get it back, but how? He was fifty feet high, clinging to a dragon that wanted to shrug him off. How could he get down?
Tame it. He had to tame the dragon. Forget empathy, forget forming a mental bond, maybe he could brute force his way into its skull, to batter its mental defences and conquer its consciousness.