A tall man appeared on the deck of a large boat twenty yards away.
“Oi!” he shouted to the assembled men. “Get back to work. We’re behind schedule already.”
The gray-bearded man shouted back, “Girl here says Albekizan’s killing people. I reckon this means we can take the rest of the day off.”
The crowd of men laughed.
Then, as one, the men turned pale and sucked in their breath, their eyes fixed behind Jandra.
Jandra turned.
Albekizan dropped from the sky, only a few steps away. As his shadow fell over her she suddenly felt very, very small.
Albekizan landed, his weight on his hind claws, his enormous wings spread for balance, the tip of his tail swaying like a cat’s with prey in sight. His red scales glistened as if wet from blood. His eyes smoldered with hatred.
“You mock me?” he roared. “I’ll kill the lot of you!”
Suddenly, the dock shuddered and banged with the panicked dance of a hundred feet. The men behind Jandra fled, some leaping into the river, others racing for the narrow alleys of Richmond. Inside of thirty seconds she faced Albekizan alone.
She swallowed.
Albekizan lowered his serpentine neck, bringing his face close to hers. His head was bigger than a horse’s, the long jaws capable of opening wide enough to close around her torso with a single chomp. His white teeth glistened with saliva. The pale wisps of feathers around the king’s nostrils swayed with each breath. Yet… she didn’t feel the breath, though his face was now inches from her own. And the perfumes the sun-dragons soaked themselves in… There was no smell.
“Ven?” she asked.
“That would be a lucky break for you, yes?” Albekizan said in her mentor’s voice.
“I can’t believe you’d frighten me like this,” she said.
“More important, I frightened the townsfolk.” The image of Albekizan fell away in a shower of sparks revealing her master at the center. “You’ve got your wish. They are warned.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I suppose they are. Let’s steal a boat and get out of here.”
“An excellent suggestion,” said Vendevorex. “I wish I’d thought of it myself.”
CHAPTER SIX: SPARKS
Tulk and Cron had barely spoken to one another on their daylong flight along the riverbank. Tulk felt there should be a bond between them; they had been, literally, in the same boat earlier, drifting downriver until the dawn made travel by water too risky.
Yet Cron barely looked back as he raced through the woods. He showed no willingness to slow his pace or assist Tulk who lacked his companion’s youth and stamina. It was all Tulk could do to keep up.
At last, Cron paused at the forest’s edge, allowing Tulk to catch up. Tulk looked out at a large, reddish blob in the distance. He had no idea what he was looking at.
“Where are we?” Tulk asked between gasps for breath.
“That ship down there,” said Cron. “It’s Stench’s place.”
Tulk was confused. His eyesight wasn’t great but he certainly wasn’t overlooking the river. They were facing dry land. “What ship?”
“You really are blind, aren’t you, old man?” Cron said.
“I see you well enough to knock in your teeth, boy,” said Tulk.
“That big rusting thing down there… It’s a ship. It’s ancient. It’s on land now but centuries ago they say the river flowed through here.”
“Is it Stench’s place?” Tulk asked. He’d heard of the tavern many times, but having spent most of his life in captivity, had never had the pleasure of drinking an ale there. “I’ve heard that it was made of iron. I never believed the stories.”
“It’s true,” said Cron. “A priest of Kamon told me it was once a ship that could sail the oceans, built by humans before they angered the gods and fell from grace.”
Tulk felt as if he’d been slapped.
Cron, apparently sensing the offense, said, “What?”
“You spoke the blasphemous name.”
“Oh,” said Cron. “You’re one of them.”
“You’re a Kamonite?” Tulk spat after saying the name to remove its evil from his tongue.
“I’m not saying,” said Cron. “I take it you are a follower of Ragnar that you find such offense in his name?”
“Kamon is an abomination,” said Tulk, spitting again. “His lies have corrupted thousands. He turns people from the true path and preaches that dragons are divine things, the offspring of angels. He wants us to be inferior and subservient to dragons.”
“True. And you followers of Ragnar believe that we’re to fight the dragons at every turn,” said Cron. “We see how well that philosophy is working out. Men are inferior and subservient to dragons. The world will be a better place for everyone once we swallow that.”
“You mock Ragnar’s teachings?” said Tulk. “Speak truthfully. You know Kamon’s-” Tulk abruptly stopped speaking in order to spit, “-heretical philosophies, but of course, so do I. I will not condemn you for mere knowledge. But to practice his teachings is beyond all decency. Are you, or are you not, a follower of that foul prophet?”
Cron sighed. “I don’t think it’s any of your business. Besides, we have other things on our minds than a discussion of philosophy.”
“I am duty bound to slay followers of Kamon,” said Tulk, stopping to spit once more. He clenched his fists. He had to know the truth. Traveling further in the company of a Kamonite could risk his very soul. “We travel no further until you answer my question. Ragnar himself would slit my throat if he knew I’d traveled this far in the company of one of the fallen. Do you follow Kamon’s teachings?” He spit once more.
“If you keep spitting,” Cron said, “you’re going to turn to dust.”
“I’d sooner be dust than the companion of a heretic.”
“I don’t see any guards around Stench’s place,” said Cron, turning away from Tulk. “I’m making a run for it.”
The young man sprinted off. Tulk followed, afraid of being stranded. They dashed across the open ground that led to the red, boxy blob. As Tulk got within a few dozen of it, he could see that Cron had spoken the truth. Stench’s place was shaped like a ship, a hundred feet long, lying on its side. Could such an enormous structure have ever floated on the water? If it had been seaworthy once, it was no longer. Age had rendered most of the ship into a mound of rust. Holes gaped in what had once been solid plates of iron. The rear of the ship had collapsed under its own weight at some point. What had once been a hatch in the deck now served as a door, reachable via rickety wooden stairs.
“Stench!” Cron cried out as he vanished into the dark reaches of the hold.
“I’ll be damned,” echoed a reply from the darkness. “Cron! Is it really you?”
Tulk carefully made his way up the stairs and poked his head into the dark doorway. The first thing he noticed was, unsurprisingly, the stench. Swamp water saturated with the bloated corpses of skunks was the only odor he could compare it to. No wonder dragons steered clear of this place. He’d heard their sensitivity to smell was more developed than that of humans.
What had once been a hold of the giant ship had been converted into a bar. The room was long and thin; a wooden ladder led down to the floor, which at one time, Tulk assumed, had been a wall. A half dozen patrons sat around, too drunk to move, slumped against the wall on low couches. A wooden plank at the end of the room served as the bar itself. Behind the bar was a metal barrel full of some sort of flaming liquid. The smoke rising from the blue-green fire carried the horrible odor that permeated the place. A bald, withered man stood next to it, smiling a toothless grin.
“I see you brought a friend,” the old man said. “Tulk, I’m guessing. I heard you both escaped.”
“Word travels fast,” Cron said. “Is there a price on our heads yet?”
“Could be,” said the man who Tulk guessed to be Stench.