by Ann Gimpel
Kon chopped a hand downward. Fiery contrails shot from his fingertips. “We do not have any more time. We must work with what we have.” He turned his attention back to Ylon. “Absent aid from Earth, do you still want us to bring the serpents to you?”
“If the land refuses to help us, our immobilization spell will be of limited use. We can snare them but not hold them without a continuous infusion of magic. How many serpents are we talking about?”
“A lot.” Kon and Katya said in one breath.
“If we cannot dissuade the serpents with dragonfire,” Konstantin said, “then we will direct heat to break a path through the ice and free the ship.”
“What if there are not enough humans left to pilot it?” Johan asked.
“I have no idea. Shift. We leave as soon as everyone has wings.”
His beast had been champing at the bit ever since it was clear Kon’s attempts to communicate with the land were a waste of magic. When he opened the channel to his shift ability, the black dragon formed quickly.
Dragons and flying dinosaurs and birds took shape all around him. The dinosaurs and birds came in many variations. He was certain they all had species and genus names, but he wasn’t familiar with them. Erin and Johan might be better versed than he was. Maybe later, he could ask them quietly so as not to offend the non-dragon shifters he knew painfully little about.
“Protect yourselves. Protect each other. Be creative. We must win this battle, or the serpents will never take us seriously.”
He leapt skyward amid honks, squawks, bugles, fire, and smoke. Ash rained down from many dragon mouths. He switched to telepathy to make certain to reach everyone. If a serpent or two listened in, so be it.
“Your natural tendency will be to stick with your own kind. Shelve it. We are stronger deploying mixed magic. Form clusters that include dragons, dinosaurs, and birds. Fight from those groups.”
He twisted midair to make certain everyone had heeded his instructions. For the most part they had, and new clusters were still forming. Good. He banked and flew as fast as he could straight for where they’d left the ship.
He smelled blood and entrails before the vessel came into sight. The boom of large bore rifles told him the humans weren’t done fighting back. It also meant at least some of them remained. His group of shifters hadn’t shown up too late despite his beast’s gloom-and-doom predictions.
Fire shot from his mouth in a steady stream as soon as he was close enough to hit the thick tide of serpents covering every visible deck surface. Thank Y Ddraigh Goch there were no dragons. None visible, anyway. The reality of dragons joining with serpents smote him, made him ashamed for all dragonkind.
What had happened that they’d sunk so far?
He flew low enough to paint a ribbon of fire across three serpents. He was being foolish and overly sentimental about the dragon traitors. They didn’t need compassion. They needed to die. Right along with the fucking serpents. Groups of shifters wheeled around him, each selecting and attacking a different portion of the beleaguered ship.
At first, bullets whizzed past them. But it didn’t take the humans long to figure out that he and his shifters were on their side. Konstantin offered them points for being quick on the uptake.
Knowing death was stalking you had that effect. Serpent stench rose in a nauseating miasma from the ship. Rot and layers of decay from fresh to well-aged. If any serpents were left in the water, he couldn’t pick them out. Decomposing brine mixed with decayed flesh coated his nostrils and tongue until he wished he could plunge into the sea to cleanse the taint.
The ice around the ship had broken up to some extent where the serpents punched through its surface. Intent on determining the extent of the icy barrier, he sent a thread of power streaking downward. Elation speared him. The ice was only about a meter thick. It didn’t have the feel of serpent sorcery, so the land was making an attempt—albeit a feeble one—to protect herself.
Why had she been so loathe to acknowledge his presence. He could help. If the land would let him. Together, they’d be ever so much stronger.
His bondmate banked hard right, fire shooting from his jaws. Below them, a serpent bellowed as dragonfire scorched through its scales. The damage wasn’t extensive, nor did it last long, but it gave him an idea.
The air was filled with ash and smoke and fiery contrails. Lacking fire, the birds and dinosaurs swooped through the ashy muck to peck with their sharp beaks. So far, the dragons had managed not to hit any of their allies. The dinosaurs were probably immune to dragonfire, but the birds wouldn’t be.
Erin flew near, executed a midair flip, and splattered a destructive path along the upper deck. Serpents scrambled to get out of the way of her fire. “None of them are dead yet. We need to do something different.” She tried for shielded mind speech. The result was garbled but understandable.
Konstantin bugled, hoping the others would understand without him using words. What he had in mind required split-second timing and stealth, so the serpents didn’t sabotage it.
The dragons knew to come to him. Seeing them flying in a tight circle around him, the dinosaurs joined them. The birds came last. Several had singed feathers. Dragons’ balls, but the damned serpents were a scourge.
“Open your magic to me,” he commanded without offering a reason.
“What are you going to do?” Yle asked and snapped his pterodactyl jaws together.
“Best if you don’t know.”
Konstantin held his breath, or he would have if his beast weren’t persisting in shooting fire at the serpents bellowing a challenge below. All about him, magic flashed and flared, some stronger than others, but all of it freely offered. He worked fast, weaving power into what he hoped would be unbreakable nets. Once he had three, he spoke words that should move the ship back in time. He aimed for a few days, but these castings were never precise. He could be off by as much as a month, which wouldn’t be the end of the world.
It would mean, however, some of them would be forced to show up on the ship and warn whoever was captain what lay in their future. Not having lived through today’s debacle, the humans would likely view them as deranged, but they had to try.
He was getting ahead of himself. Step one hadn’t yet been accomplished. If he couldn’t nudge the ship into a time warp, his current strategy would be a bust.
The air smoked around him, developing a definite burned smell. Ozone wafted through the scorched parts with its sharply chemical overnotes. A whumping noise was followed by a maelstrom that formed out of the diverse magics he commanded. He tossed two of the nets over the boat and the whole mess into the swirling tumult of magic.
Another net sat in abeyance in case what he’d done wasn’t enough.
Breath puffed past his jaws from the effort of commanding so much power. It had a mind of its own and nearly got away from his guidance multiple times.
The roaring intensified; everything around him turned black. He felt the pull of the vortex and fanned his wings hard to avoid being sucked into it. Lights blinked, looking for all the world like stars and galaxies. For long moments, he hung suspended in an airless void, much like the space between worlds when he was catapulting through it.
The vacuum gave him hope what he’d done was sufficient.
Alarm radiated through the bond he had with each shifter. He did his best to quell their panic. He understood completely. Their magic wasn’t theirs to command, and, in the absence of air, they lacked the strength to reclaim it. Trust was a fragile commodity. They’d gifted him with theirs, and he would not let them down.
More time passed than he would have liked. Within, his beast was a steadying force. It knew what he’d attempted. Despite treading the edges of the impossible with his time warp spell, the dragon still cheered him on. His lungs were burning from lack of air, seizing every time he took a reflexive breath. Next to him, Erin’s wingbeats were slowing. She wasn’t as strong as him. He flew beneath the shimmery outline of her magic to offer a c
ushion. If they fell out of the sky, though, they might not hit the Southern Ocean.
He wasn’t at all sure where they’d come out.
The maelstrom slowed. Unremitting black yielded to a silvery gray around him. He released everyone’s magic, blinked to clear his vision, and forced himself to look down. Triumphant bugles shot from his throat. The ship was gone. His daring gambit had worked.
“Thank you for protecting us, but we are all right.” Erin’s red dragon spoke with dignity and flew off to one side.
“What did you do?” Johan’s green dragon flew near. “Where is the ship?”
Kon forced his spinning eyes to slow enough for him to truly examine the water beneath him. Water, not ice. How far back in time had he taken them?
“You employed a time alteration casting,” Yle cawed. “Nicely done, but we must locate the ship. Humans aboard will have no memory of a future that has not yet presented itself to them.”
“If the ship is where it was a day or two ago, what happened to the serpents?” Erin asked in the dragons’ tongue.
“None of us knows exactly where the ship is,” Yle answered. “It might not be a day or two. It could be much more.”
Konstantin’s dragon was ecstatic, flying figure eights and banking and swooping. He brought it to heel with difficulty. “I tried to capture as many serpents as possible in the time warp,” he told everyone. “I sent them to a different spot than the ship. That part may or may not have worked. It’s not a thing I’ve ever attempted before. Not that they cannot return, but at least they’ll have to work to get back here.”
He maneuvered his dragon to a position where he faced the others. “Thank you for trusting me. I couldn’t tell you what I had planned. If the serpents had discovered my idea—”
“They’d have made certain it went to hell,” Nikolai bugled. Leader of a flight they’d found stranded on the third world in the Fleisher borderworld system, he had copper-gold scales.
More delighted bugling and trumpeting and happy cawing and dinosaur cries drowned him out.
“Let’s hunt for the ship,” Erin said, sounding hopeful.
“Not that many spots it could be,” Johan pointed out. His mastery of dragonspeak was better than Erin’s.
“What do you mean?” Kon asked him.
“The ship was headed north through the Drake Passage on its way back to Argentina. It is a larger ship, so it would be limited in terms of where it could travel. My guess is it went to spots along the Palmer Peninsula or to the South Shetlands, and then turned and headed for home.”
“What if we don’t find it?” Erin asked.
“Then it will be in Ushuaia Harbor, not having yet left port,” Johan replied.
“If we are more than a couple of weeks in the past,” she countered, “it may not have reached Ushuaia yet.”
“We fly south,” Konstantin told the shifters to short-circuit the pointless logistics discussion unfolding between Johan and Erin. “Any of you who wish to return to my home may do so.”
He set a course for the Antarctic landmass, keeping sharp eyes on the water. It didn’t take long to run into ice floes that gave way to sheets of ice. So they weren’t all that far in the past. If they had been, none of the ocean would have been frozen over.
All the shifters were strung out behind him. He was deeply pleased none of them had left. There’d been a few uncertain moments, but their faith in him and his leadership had paid off when his gambit worked. Nothing like success to breed confidence.
As he flew, he told Ylon what had happened, so the dinosaurs wouldn’t be milling about expecting serpents who’d never arrive. At least, not today. When they’d exhausted the nearest portion of Antarctica’s landmass, they split into groups to explore the islands that lay off the peninsula.
“Found it,” blared through his mind after he’d nearly given up and chalked the ship off as having cloaking magic of its own.
Kon winged his way toward the voice, which turned out to belong to a raven. Noted for his keen distance eyesight, the bird had located the errant ship. Ice eddied about its prow, but it was doggedly chugging through it.
“I will do my best to talk them out of the folly of the Drake Passage,” Johan said.
“Maybe I should come with you.” Erin swooped close.
“Good idea,” Johan said.
“We shall accompany them,” Konstantin’s beast instructed.
Kon overruled him. He had to show Erin he believed in her judgment. What better way than to not pull rank or make it appear he didn’t trust her on her own.
“Katya will go along,” Konstantin told them. “In case there’s trouble, a seasoned magic wielder might come in handy.”
His twin dipped a wing in acknowledgement and headed toward the distant ship with Erin and Johan flanking her.
If he hadn’t already been in his dragon body, the beast would have given him a run for control. As it was, the dragon pitched and blew fire until the air around them heated to molten.
“We should be with them!” the dragon shrieked.
“Do you want her to be our mate or not?” Konstantin used his sternest tone. The one designed to bring errant dragons to heel.
“The two have nothing to do with each other.”
“Ah, but I believe they do.”
Bugling a summons, he led the flight of mixed shifters back toward the headlands where they’d begun. He’d have another go at opening a communication channel with the land. She must have witnessed what just happened. Perhaps his intervention would make a difference, and she’d be more open to joining forces.
If not, he’d have to proceed without her. It would be a blow, but he couldn’t afford to squander any more time or magic on a losing cause.
Johan
As I flew toward the ship, the logistics of shifting seemed daunting. Humans milled about on deck, and I was certain a few of the ships’ officers were peering through the many windows lining the bridge. It appeared to be on the uppermost deck, but most of these bloated cruise ships had at least one additional command center much lower in the vessel where personnel tracked a duplicate set of electronics.
Erin apparently shared my concerns about how we’d manage things because she asked, “How will we shift?”
Smoke trailed from my open jaws. Shifting was only one portion of the problem. Part two was we’d be naked. While I was almost used to not wearing clothing, the ship’s crew would have a far harder time taking us seriously.
Katya circled around us, fanning her wings to hold her steady in the air. We were still far enough away, it was unlikely anyone would have spotted us. I rolled my mental eyes. The absence of gunfire was a sure giveaway. The moment someone noticed us in the skies, they’d haul out the automatic weapons.
Most of these ships plied polar waters seasonally. While they had no need for guns big enough to stop a polar bear in its tracks in the Antarctic, such firearms were a necessity in Arctic waters.
“We must think this through,” Katya said in dragonspeak, keeping her words soft. “Neither of you are skilled enough yet to shift midair and land on that nice open deck toward the back of the ship.”
“Even if we could, it is not a good idea. We will need clothes,” I said.
Katya turned her spinning gaze on me. “Why?”
“We will be delivering a serious message,” I replied.
“Indeed,” Erin chimed in. “We’ll be telling them they have to change course and maybe aim for Chile or Buenos Aires rather than the Drake Passage.”
Katya’s scales rattled as she shrugged her shoulders. “If they don’t listen, it’s not our fault. We will have tried.”
“Yes, but if we don’t present ourselves as professional and trustworthy from the gate, they’ll never hear us out. We may as well not bother,” Erin said.
“I agree with her.” I blew a stream of smoky ash in front of me. What had I been thinking when I’d blithely said we had to warn the ship? Probably that I’d show up in my resear
ch duds from the Darya, be accepted as a scientific investigator, and say my piece. I hadn’t gotten around to how I’d make it palatable for them.
Telling them we were dragon shifters was the wrong approach. I may as well say we were faeries from the Scottish Highlands and dance a jig while I was at it. I narrowed my eyes. It seemed as if the ship had stopped moving. Closer inspection told me it was in the bay off King George Island.
“We might have gotten lucky,” I said.
“Do you think they’re stopping for the tourists to check out Arctowski Station?” Erin asked.
“No. The ship is too large, but they may be in trouble from all the ice. This is the only outpost in the region where they might secure assistance. Plus, Admiralty Bay is deep enough to accommodate even a ship of that size.”
“Regardless,” Katya cut in. “We can land, shift, and hunt for something to cover ourselves with. This is the Polish base, correct? The one you originally wished us to transport you to.”
“Correct,” I told her.
If it was either earlier or later in the year, we would have waited until it got dark, but what passed for darkness this far south wouldn’t happen until toward the middle of the night. I wanted to be gone from here as soon as we’d discharged our duty and warned the ship what lay in wait for it.
I still wasn’t certain quite which tack I’d take, but I knew many of the scientific staff at Arctowski. Because we were acquainted, perhaps it would lend me the credibility I needed to pull this off. Erin had been here, but she’d kept a much lower profile than me.
Konstantin had said something about trapping the sea-serpents in a time warp. If he’d been successful, maybe the ship might have safe passage, unless it became mired in ice once again.
Ice! That was the ticket. I’d tell them the ice was going to do nothing but get worse and they needed to avoid the Drake, a narrow strip of the Southern Ocean.
“We will do this.” Katya’s words broke into my train of thought. “Ward yourselves. The mountains a kilometer or so behind those buildings should be perfect to conceal us. We will land there. Surely, an installation such as this Polish base will have clothing lockers. I will conceal myself once I’m human and fetch garments for all of us.”