The Veiled Dragon h-12

by Troy Denning

  Fowler did not even look over his shoulder. "Not if the dragon pilfered all its gold."

  Several wails of surprise sounded from the windlass; then the Storm Sprite righted herself so suddenly that half a dozen men fell flat on the deck.

  "What happened?" Fowler boomed. "Why are those lines slack?"

  "It-it just happened," came the reply. "The harpoons must have pulled free!"

  A chorus of disappointed groans rumbled through the crew, but Fowler's gray eyes shined with alarm. "All of them at once? Never."

  The sailors looked at each other with baffled expres- sions, as though they expected one of their number to confess to some mistake that explained the mystery. A babble sounded ahead of the Storm Sprite and to both sides of her bow. The little cog fell abruptly silent, and every head aboard swiveled toward the noises.

  Ruha slipped a hand into her aba. "Perhaps the men should retrieve their weapons, Captain-"

  A curtain of black wings rose from the sea ahead, eclipsing the moon's reflection on the water and casting a shroud of murky darkness over the ship. The crew gasped in alarm and retreated toward the somercastle, giving no apparent thought to the spears and axes that lay stowed around the deck.

  "What's the matter?" Fowler demanded. As he spoke, a pair of ebony talons shot from the water on both sides of the bow. There was no hide over the gnarled fingers, and even the wrists exhibited bare patches of gray, weathered bone. The claws dug into the wales, and the little cog's bow dipped into the sea. The half-ore released the tiller and stepped forward. "Cowards! Stand and fight!"

  For the first time since Ruha had boarded, the cap- tain's words seemed to have no effect on his crew. The bravest of them watched over their shoulders as they opened a hatch or door, but most simply screamed in ter- ror and hurled themselves through the nearest opening.

  Their panic surprised the witch, for until now they had exhibited the unwavering discipline of men who knew their lives depended upon working together. She pulled a small crystal of quartz from her pocket, at the same time catching Fowler's arm with her free hand.

  "Your men are braver than this," she said. "It is only the dragon's magic frightening them."

  "Only?" the half-ore scoffed. "It will be enough to sink us!"

  Ruha pointed her crystal over the ship's bow. "I am not frightened."

  The dragon's head rose into view and, despite her claim, the witch was so shocked she could not keep the syllables other incantation from fleeing her mind. She found herself staring not into the slit pupils of a wyrm's diabolic eyes, but into the vastly more sinister void of two black, empty sockets. Though a thin layer of shriveled black scales still clung to the beast's brow and cheeks, its snout was a fleshless blade of cracked bone and cav- ernous nostrils. Even the creature's curved horns, once as sturdy and long as horse lances, were mere splintered stumps of their ancient magnificence.

  "Umberlee have mercy!" Fowler ripped a golden ring from his ear and hurled it overboard, a piece of bloody lobe still dangling from the clasp. "Save us!"

  The dragon's empty-eyed gaze followed the arc of the glimmering earring as it plunged into the sea, then snapped back to Fowler.

  "If you wish mercy, do not throw your gold to Umber- lee." The dragon spoke in a voice as raspy as it was loud, and the mere sound of it made Ruha's legs shake so that she could hardly keep her feet. "Give it to me, and per- haps your death shall be quick!"

  When Fowler made no move to produce more gold, the dragon opened its jaws, revealing a hundred broken fangs and a scabrous white tongue, and the Storm

  Sprite^s sail billowed toward its mouth. A loud rasp rustled down the length of the ship, and Ruha realized the serpent was gorging itself with air. She squeezed the quartz crystal between her thumb and forefinger, at the same time summoning her spell back to mind.

  The rasping ceased, and wisps of dark fog rose from the dragon's nostrils. Ruha called out the words of a wind spell. The quartz crystal evaporated in a searing flash, and a bolt of white lightning leapt from her hand. It struck the wyrm's head with a thunderous bang, hurling desiccated scales and shards of gray bone high into the air. The creature's neck snapped back, and from its shat- tered maw shot a plume of boiling, turbid vapor.

  The dragon roared in pain, shaking the Storm Sprite from stem to stem, and the sea sputtered with the sound of its torn flesh dropping into the water, but the beast did not slip beneath the surging dunes. Instead, it dug its ebony talons deep into the ship's wales, then laid its neck over the bow to display the smoking, mangled crater that had once been its face.

  "Who would do this to me?" the dragon rumbled. "Cast yourself to Umberlee, or you shall wish you had."

  Captain Fowler glanced back at Ruha. His lips were as white as the moon. "Well, Harper, c-can you k-keep your promise?"

  Ruha thrust her shaking hands into her aba and, fear- ing her efforts would come to naught, fumbled through her pockets. Live wyrms could be killed, but what could she-or anyone-do against this dead beast?

  The turbid vapor that had spilled from the dragon's maw earlier began to settle over the front part of the ship. As soon as the dark fog touched the rigging, lines started to snap and fall, hissing and smoking as though they were on fire. The sail broke free of the yardarms and fluttered to the deck, as sheer and full of holes as old lace. The mast, and then all the wood from midships for- ward, began to sizzle and fume.

  Fowler sank to his knees. "Wretched witch! What have you done to my ship?"

  The dragon turned its shattered face toward the cap- tain. "Did she give the order to interfere with me? Or was it you, thinking of Cormyr's filthy bounty?"

  With that, the wyrm withdrew its head and slipped beneath the sea's dark surface. Ruha stepped to the taffrail and saw the shadow of one huge wing gliding through the water toward her.

  "Captain, did I not promise that the Harpers would buy you another ship?" She stepped toward the half-ore.

  "How can they do that if we perish with this one?"

  Fowler looked at Ruha with disbelieving eyes. "You think we've a choice in the matter? If you could destroy the dragon, you'd have done it by now."

  The yardarms broke free and crashed down upon the deck. The thick planks gave way as though they had been rotting for a hundred years, and the spars struck several barrels stowed below decks. One of the casks split in two, spilling a viscous liquid that filled the air with a bitter, caustic stench. The babble of swirling water sounded behind the Storm Sprite.

  Without glancing back, Ruha pointed into the hold.

  "What is in those casks?"

  The half-ore looked puzzled, as though he found it a strange time for Ruha to question the cargo. "Lamp oil

  We've got to have ballast, and it might as well pay-"

  A sharp crack sounded from the rear of the deck. Ruha glimpsed the tiller disappearing through its housing, then three black talons rose into sight and hooked them- selves over the taffrail. The witch grabbed Fowler's arm and jerked him off the poop deck, pushing him toward a boarding axe down on the main deck.

  "I cannot save your ship, Captain, but I can save us. Go and smash those oil casks."

  The half-ore jumped down and retrieved the weapon, then leapt into the hold. Ruha ducked down beside the somercastle and emptied her pockets of all the brimstoni powder she possessed, piling it upon the deck before her.

  A sharp crack sounded from the stern of the ship, thei the Storm Sprite pitched to her rear. The witch shape‹ the heap of yellow powder into the figure of a tiny bird and uttered a wind spell.

  The brimstone vanished in a brief flash of yellow, and in its place appeared the diaphanous form of a yellow canary. Ruha pointed toward the ship's hold, where Cap- tain Fowler was busy smashing oil casks, and made a quick sweeping motion. The little bird flitted off to circle the area she had indicated.

  A tremendous crackling sounded from the poop deck, and Ruha peered over the edge to see the dragon's claws ripping into the stern of the ship. She withdrew anot
her quartz crystal from her aba, then jumped onto the ladder and pointed it at the creature's pulverized face, yelling a series of nonsensical syllables that she hoped the beast would mistake for those she had used to cast her first lightning bolt.

  The dragon's head swiveled toward Ruha. She felt oil- laden air swirling past her head and heard the unmis- takable rasp of the creature filling its chest. The beast sucked the diaphanous yellow bird she had created ear- lier into its throat. The witch dropped behind the somer- castle, squeezing the quartz crystal and uttering the incantation of a fire spell.

  A fiery spark shot from the tip of the crystal, igniting the stream of air being sucked into the dragon's throat.

  Ruha threw herself through the somercastle door. She felt a jolting crash; then there was a searing fulguration, the smell of wood ash, and finally the cool bite of saltwater.

  Two

  Once the numb ringing inside Ruha's skull abated and it occurred to her that she was still alive, her first thought was not that she would choke on the saltwater she had swallowed, nor that the weight of her sodden aba would drag her beneath the dark waters, nor even that she might bleed to death from her many lacerations. When the witch opened her eyes and saw the sea heaving all around her, her first thought was that she would never be found.

  The dunes loomed as high as mountains, with rolling, moonlit faces that blocked Ruha's sight in every direc- tion, making her feel immeasurably alone and insignifi- cant in the stormy vastness of the Dragonmere. They were maddeningly inconstant, now lifting her toward the stars, now dropping her into the abyssal gloom, now car- rying her along on steep, tumbling slopes of water. The witch knew she could not let the sea have its way with her. She had to free herself of its capricious grasp or die, but her chest was pumping water from her lungs in rack- ing coughs, and she could barely keep her head above the surface, much less hold herself steady on the crest of a surging dune long enough to… do what, Ruha did not know.

  In all likelihood, she was not the only one to survive the disintegration of the Storm Sprite, but there had been no time to put the little shore boat into the water.

  The others would be in the same predicament as Ruha, and no doubt anxious to blame her for their troubles.

  The caravel crew would have every reason to treat the witch more kindly-providing they came back. Certainly, they had witnessed the explosion that destroyed the dragon, but would they realize what had happened to the Storm Sprite? Was their captain an honest man who would turn back to help those who had helped him?

  Ruha could only allow herself to believe that the answer to both questions was yes; to assume anything else was to lose hope, and to lose hope in Umberlee's domain was to die.

  Still, the caravel would not arrive soon. It would take time for the great vessel to come around, then she would have to beat her way against the wind-using only one of the three masts she had once carried, and probably rely- ing upon a tiller half splintered by the dragon attack. By the time she arrived, the Storm Sprite's wreckage would be strewn across a square mile of heaving sea, and Ruha knew better than to think any lookout would spy her dark head bobbing amongst all the oil casks, splintered timbers, and shreds of dragon floating upon the surging waters.

  A large, curved timber appeared atop a nearby dune, its end briefly jutting over the crest like a great scimitar.

  Ruha fixed her eye on the beam. As it glided down the watery slope, she started to swim, reaching forward and kicking her legs in the fashion Storm Silverhand had taught her. The witch's shawl and veil had vanished, but her aba remained securely wrapped about her shoulders, and she had to struggle against both its clumsy cut and sodden weight to make headway. Nevertheless, she did not even consider slipping out of the garment. Its pockets were loaded with exotic dirts and rocks useful for her stone magic. More importantly, all of her spells were sewn into the interior lining. In the desert, paper and ink were precious commodities, but there was always plenty of thread to spare for embroidery.

  By the time Ruha reached the timber, she could do no more than throw her arms over the top and hang there gasping. Though she had not realized it until the exercise had warmed her body, the water was deceptively cool.

  Her joints began to stiffen, and she recalled Fowler's sto- ries of pulling his sailors aboard, blue and dead after only minutes in the water. But that had been in northern seas, and the Dragonmere was in the south. The temper- ature here could not be so dangerous-or so the witch hoped.

  Ruha fought back her growing panic, reminding herself that the sea was not so different from the desert: it was vast and empty and lonely, with most of the life lying hidden beneath the surface. True, the dunes moved faster and they were made of water, but not water that one could drink. That was as precious here as it was in the sandy wastes. And there was one other similarity, one the witch did not want to consider: the sea, like Anauroch, was hospitable to those who knew its ways-and merciless to those who did not.

  Ruha contemplated her growing chill and decided it probably would not kill her. She was not shivering, she still felt her toes and fingers, and her teeth were not chattering. All in all, the witch had spent more frigid nights in the desert, and she suspected that the cool water was keeping her from bleeding to death. There were dozens of cuts on her body, some both long and deep, but all stinging bitterly from the salt. The witch could feel her blood swirling about her, warm and viscous against her skin, but she could not tell how much she had lost. Had she been on dry land, she would have examined her cuts and bandaged them all, starting with the worst one first. But in the dark, heaving sea, she had to content herself with running her fingers over each wound in turn, feeling for a heavy flow that suggested a severed vein or artery.

  Ruha found no rushing streams or pulsing tides, but she could count her inspection only a partial success. The swirling saltwater made it difficult to distinguish an ooz- ing flow from a gushing one. In the end, she decided the mere fact that she did not feel light-headed was proof enough that she was not bleeding to death. And she thought of at least one good thing about being adrift: in the desert, some hungry jackal or lion would smell her blood and come running, but such a thing could not hap- pen at sea. No creature she knew could follow a scent through water.

  Having convinced herself she would not be dead by the time the caravel returned, Ruha turned her thoughts to making certain she would be found. Her own people, the

  Bedine, used large, curled horns called amarats for such purposes. The witch did not have an amarat, since only the men were allowed to use them, but she did have wind magic.

  Ruha drew a deep breath. Then, speaking from her belly, she uttered a wind spell. Within her chest, she felt a tremendous sensation of expansion, as though her torso were growing as large and round as an oil cask. She tipped her chin back and cupped a hand around her mouth.

  "I am here!" The voice that came from her lips sounded like that of a giant, deep and resonant. It was so loud that it made the water reverberate like a drum. "Come and help me!"

  Ruha pulled her hand away from her mouth and silently counted to a hundred, then repeated the mes- sage. As before, her voice was that of a giant. The witch counted again, then fell into a regular pattern of silence and calling. She was always careful to keep constant both the strength of her voice and the duration between her cries, hoping that would help the caravel captain deter- mine whether he was moving closer to her, or farther away.

  Ten calls later, Ruha's cries became thunderous croaks, for her throat had begun to ache from the sheer power of her booming voice. Nevertheless, she continued to shout, determined not to vary her routine until her windpipes burst-though she was starting to fear the cold would kill her first. Goose bumps were rising all over her body, and she felt a cold numbness creeping into the marrow of her bones. To make matters worse, the flotsam from the

  Storm Sprite was drifting apart faster than she had expected. She could see nothing close by except a handful of splintered deck planks, an oil cask ridi
ng low in the water, and several slabs of rotten dragon flesh.

  As Ruha watched, one of the scaly chunks vanished beneath the sea. The slab did not slip gently under the surface, as though the meat had become too waterlogged to float. It plunged downward with a sharp swish, leav- ing nothing on the surface except a small circle of swirling water.

  Ruha was not entirely puzzled. She had seen fish take insects swimming on the surface of oasis ponds, but the slab of dragon meat had been as large as her head. The witch could not even imagine the fish big enough to swal- low such a morsel. She thought other bloody legs dan- gling in the water and wished for a larger piece of timber-one onto which she could crawl entirely. Ruha pulled herjambiya from its sheath and prayed it would not slip from her grasp. The long, curved dagger was not particularly valuable, but it had once belonged to a man to whom she had been married for two days. He had died fighting a band of brutal invaders, and thejambiya was all she had to remember him by.

  The time to call came again. "Please hurry! Something is under the water!"

  Ruha forced herself not to think about her dangling legs and tried to study the sea around her, watching to see if the dragon meat continued to disappear. The task was an impossible one, for no sooner would she glimpse a slab than a dune would heave up in front of her. When the water subsided, the scaly chunk was as likely as not to be gone. The witch never glimpsed any telltale circles to indicate the morsel had been taken by a fish, but she knew better than to assume she would in such dark, rough water.

  Ruha felt herself rise on a dune, then something bumped into her knee and rubbed past her thigh. Her scream filled the sky with a cry that boomed like thun- der. She thrust herjambiya into the water and sliced into a sinuous body, her knuckles brushing along a gritty hide. A huge tail fin slapped her arm, and the creature flitted away.