“Should we bail this water out?” he screamed.
“No!” Olton shouted back. “All we can do is ride it out.”
The sailor had finally gotten the sail untied. It was whipping wildly in the wind, snapping and popping as it was blown out across the deck. Once Olton had it wadded up he stuffed it down in between the railing and a bulkhead. Then he staggered back to Quinn. He took hold of the rudder but motioned for Quinn to stay with him. He had to shout to be heard over the wind and waves.
“We need to try and steer her so that we’re running with the waves, not against them.”
Now that the sail was down, the rudder seemed less inclined to fight against them, but helping Olton hold the steering oar gave Quinn something to focus on.
Olton steered on instinct. He had been on the water his whole life and could sense the direction they needed to go just by feeling the movement of the ship. Quinn followed the sailor’s lead, and occasionally lightning would give him a glimpse of what was happening. They were being blown out to sea, which was fortunate. The coast along the Walheta Mountains was rocky and dangerous. The waves grew larger and larger. When Quinn could see them during a flash of lighting he thought they looked as tall as trees.
Quinn soon found himself shaking from cold and fear. He was drenched in cold sea water and driving rain, his muscles tensed, and adrenaline coursed through his body. His teeth chattered and his eyes burned from the water, which he didn’t wipe away because he refused to let go of the rudder. The boat was alternately thrust up by the force of heaving water and then pulled down by gravity as they rose and fell over the huge waves. Quinn’s stomach flopped as they fell off the top of one wave, then his knees tried to buckle as they slammed into the next.
Eventually, the rain stopped. The waves were still large, although they didn’t seem as ferocious as before. The wind waned, the clouds broke apart, and the stars reappeared.
“Well, that was a close one,” Olton said.
“What do we do now?”
“There’s only one thing we can do. We wait for morning and try to figure out where we are.”
Chapter 7
Zollin and Brianna considered moving on, but they were both tired. The storm was closing in on them, so they took refuge in the cave that Rup had shown them. The space was small, but once their belongings were arranged they were both comfortable. Zollin missed the merry feeling of having a fire, but there simply wasn’t enough fuel to support one. Zollin used magic to warm the cave floor and also to cook the meat from the ram Brianna had brought down with her new bow. Soon after working his magic, he fell asleep.
Brianna watched as the rain fell and the temperature dropped. The dim afternoon turned into a dark night, and the rain turned to sleet and then snow. She was propped on her pack and shared a blanket with Zollin. She was tired but sleep was elusive. The night wore on as the wind whistled outside the cave. Brianna finally nodded off just before dawn, and, when she finally woke up, it was almost noon. The world outside the cave looked gray. The sky was filled with thick clouds, and the light that filtered through them seemed weak.
“Hey, good morning,” Zollin said.
“I didn’t mean to sleep so late,” Brianna replied.
“Well, it’s still miserable out there,” Zollin pointed out of the cave. “The snow has turned to sleet and I didn’t feel like hiking in wet clothes. I thought we were just as well off staying here.”
“Aren’t you tired of these mountains?” Brianna asked.
“Well, I miss having a fire at night, but to be honest, I kind of like the solitude.”
“Well, I don’t. I miss a lot of things, but mostly, I miss a soft mattress.”
“Me too,” Zollin said.
“You must be feeling better.”
“I am. I finally feel like I got enough rest. And I’ve been working on building a barrier around my magic. I think it’s working. I can still feel my magic, still control it, but it doesn’t seem to affect me as much as before.”
“That’s good,” Brianna said.
“You don’t seem very happy about it. I thought you would be, since it was your idea and all.”
“I never doubted you for a second,” Brianna said with a smile, but Zollin could tell she wasn’t sincere.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Come on, I know you better than that. I can tell something is bothering you.”
“I’m tired,” she admitted. “Not just physically, but I’m mentally exhausted. It seems like I’m bouncing between mind-numbing fear and paralyzing worry over you. I want things to get back to normal.”
“You mean hiding out somewhere and hoping the bad guys don’t find us.”
“Well, it seems better than hunting down a dragon.”
They both laughed.
“You know,” he said as he sat down next to Brianna, “we don’t have to hurry back. We can take our time. Rest. Just be together.”
“You didn’t slay the dragon,” Brianna said.
“No, but we wounded it. We know we can hurt it again. We just haven’t figured out how to kill the wretched beast.”
“I have an idea about that. I was thinking last night when I couldn’t sleep that maybe with my new bow I could hit it from far enough away that we would be safe. I mean, if we could ambush it somehow, maybe we could put enough arrows in it to bring it down.”
“It would have to be in a place where it couldn’t escape,” Zollin said contemplatively.
“Exactly, but it isn’t flying now. At least, it wasn’t flying yesterday. It was hurt. If it can’t fly away and we can stay ahead of it, perhaps we can find a place to ambush it.”
“That’s not a bad plan. I’m sure we could kill it if we just knew where to shoot it.”
“I was thinking about that, too. I hit it just beneath the wing. I was thinking that its wings were like forelegs and perhaps the heart was just under them. I also hit it in the leg. The arrows are penetrating, I’m just not sure if we’re hitting the right places or sinking the arrows in deep enough.”
“Well, the new bow should allow your arrows to penetrate deeper. That’s a good thing. We’ll just need to find the dragon again and stay ahead of it.”
They spent the rest of the day watching the sky outside and talking through their plans. The storm finally passed late in the afternoon, but they stayed in their cave. The terrain was covered in sleet, which wasn’t melting very fast, and neither of them were anxious to get back out into the damp cold. Brianna slept better that night, and the next morning they were greeted with sunshine.
“I feel better knowing we have a plan,” Zollin said. “You have a very strategic mind.”
“I do?” Brianna said, surprised at Zollin’s pronouncement.
“Yes. You made a very calculated decision about where to shoot the dragon. Now, you’ve come up with a plan to kill it. It’s much better than my plan. I was just hoping to find it and somehow expose it.”
“Well, I’ll take that compliment,” Brianna said cheerily.
They spent the day loafing in their small cave. The time passed quickly and both fell asleep soon after dark. The next day they were up early and ready to get moving. They had a light breakfast of even more mutton. They couldn’t make themselves eat very much. They choked down enough to curb their hunger and drank cold water from their canteens.
They both hefted their heavy packs. They were filled with dried mutton that Zollin had made from what they couldn’t eat of the ram. It wasn’t salted and had very little flavor, but at least they had food. Their canteens had been refilled with sleet the day before, which had melted overnight. They were ready to head south, but first Zollin needed to use his magic to see if he could sense the dragon anywhere nearby.