“Why not share your demands for pay now?”
Tom jutted his chin to indicate a tiny spot in the sky far behind. “Because your friend is coming back.”
Gareth felt his heart almost stop. He quickly gathered the tarp and pulled it over himself. “Let me know if she comes too close.”
“Don’t know what you’re planning to do if she does, but I’ll be watchin’ and tellin’ you. And sailing this boat as far from her as I can.”
In the dimly lit space under the tarp, it smelled old, and of rotted raw fish, like most of the rest of the boat, only more so. The rocking movement of the boat soothed Gareth. After missing sleep when he and Faring climbed the mountain to the nest the night before, his eyes felt heavy, despite the approaching danger.
“Hold still, boy,” the old sailor said. “She’s coming fast from astern. Got her eyes centered on us.”
The fear he detected in the hushed voice of the fisherman scared Gareth and jolted him fully awake. He fought the urge to pull the edge of the tarp and peek out but knew that if the stories about dragon-sight were only half true, the beast would see the tiny movement, and that might be enough to trigger an attack. He tried to breathe slower and shallower. Even the smallest of movements might alert the dragon. He heard the steady flap of her wings as she passed over and screeched one ear-piercing call as if warning Tom.
“She’s circling around and coming in for a closer look, or maybe searching for your smell. This is the time to play dead, no matter what happens. You hear me?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
Curled up under the heavy tarp he couldn’t see anything but the barest hint of light poking through a few small holes. His ears listened to the splashes of waves breaking against the bow, and the hiss of water rushing along the wood hull. The sail fluttered, indicating Tom was probably watching the dragon instead of tending the sails and tiller. That meant she was very close.
The harsh rustle of wings sounded.
“You move, and we die,” Tom said, not even bothering to lower his voice.
The beat of the leather-like wings grew stronger. Then they increased in speed as she flew past the boat, probably examining every detail while searching for her missing egg. With a wild screech, she gained altitude and spun around, heading directly for the bow of the boat. Gareth heard the increasing beat of wings flapping as she neared, again.
“Hold fast,” Tom called. “I think she’s going to attack.”
Tom’s footsteps pounded as he rushed about the boat, and his muttered curses clearly heard as he readied the boat. The beat of wings sounded closer and closer. Gareth heard the snort of the dragon spitting.
Tom yelled, sounding in pain. The boat suddenly lurched to one side. The sail flapped lifelessly in the breeze.
Gareth remained still, huddled in the dark under the tarp.
Several minutes of listening to Tom scurry about the boat passed before Tom finally called, “Come out and give me a hand, boy. Be quick about it.”
Gareth threw the tarp back and saw the old fisherman leaning over the side of the boat, holding one arm deep into the water as he furiously scrubbed it with seawater, his face contorted in pain. Above, three holes large enough to put his fist through showed in the sail. Smaller ones showed here and there. A single fist-sized mass of black slime lay on the floorboards in the stern, sizzling softly.
Gareth looked to the sky and verified it empty, then at Tom. “She spit on you?”
“A little wad of that stuff got me on the arm. Water’s helping some, but it burns like a hot coal.”
“Got any soda powder?”
After a confused expression, he said, “No.”
Gareth quickly searched the boat for more dragon spit, but only saw the one large, black pool, bigger than his hand, on the floorboards. The rest must have missed the boat and hit the ocean after burning through the sail. His imagination told him the likely outcome if he didn’t get the substance cleaned up from the bottom of the boat, fast. A hole in the hull big enough to put his leg into would sink it in no time.
Seeing nothing handy to gather the slime into, he quickly stripped off his shirt and wadded it so several layers of cloth protected his hands. In one motion, he fell to his knees and scooped most of it up in the folds of the shirt. He tossed the shirt over the side of the boat, and it floated away, hissing and smoking, as if angry at being discarded. Tiny wisps of smoke still rose from the damp spot on the floorboards. A hollow depression in the wood was clearly visible.
“What’re you doing?” Tom called from the back of the boat, still scrubbing his arm in the sea and looking at Gareth over his shoulder.
“She spit in the bottom of your boat.” Gareth pulled his knife and started scraping the surface of the indention as fast as possible with the edge of the blade. “There’ll be a hole here, soon.”
Tom quickly knelt beside him, pouring water from a mug onto the spot. “Didn’t know it’d do that or I’d have let my arm rot. Water might help thin it out, some.”
Gareth scraped the area as fast as he could, tearing splinters and layers of spit-darkened wood free. The water combined with the wood shavings turned it into a pulp of dragon spit, a foul combination. Small splashes stung and burned Gareth’s hands and arms, but he kept on. Finally, seeing nothing else handy, he stood and pulled his pants down, using a trouser leg to soak up more of the acid mix, then he used the other leg to wipe the depression clean and dry. He tossed the pair of pants overboard.
“You did good, son,” Tom said, inspecting the hollow in the oak and then the rest of the boat for any more black blobs of acid. “Seems I owe you, now.”
“How’s your arm?”
“Red. Hurts like I stuck it in a stove, but I think I got it all washed off. Why’d you ask me about soda?”
“It makes the dragon spit . . . innocent.”
“That’s how you did it, right? You covered yourself with soda to get close enough to the nest to steal the egg?”
Gareth stood naked and chilly while nodding.
“Smart. Guess I should carry some of it with me, just to make sure when dragons attack me. That was a joke, but if’n it wasn’t for you, my boat would soon be on the bottom, and I’d be swimming, and that is no joke.”
Gareth grinned and duplicated Tom’s manner of speech. “If’n not for me, that dragon wouldn’t be lookin’ for her egg and spittin’ on fishing boats.”
The fisherman grinned. “I’m thinkin’ both of us are speaking some of the truth. I have a foul weather slicker in that locker on the port side.” At Gareth’s hesitation, Tom pointed.
Gareth pulled out a cloak made of heavy, stained canvas soaked in rancid fish oil. Rain and water wouldn’t penetrate it. It felt odd in the stiffness of the joints each time he moved, and the fish-smell would drop a strong man to his knees. Still, he was grateful. “What about those holes in your sails?”
“We’ll take it easy so they don’t tear out. A rip will have us mending them at sea. When we get to Priest’s Point, I’ll drop the sails and sew some new patches over the old ones. Those sails are getting to be more patch than sail. These days’ fishermen learn to sew almost as much as they fish. You have family, boy?”
Gareth objected to continually being called a boy, but without a beard, many considered him younger than his true age. “I don’t know of any family. Probably not. Just me for as long as I remember.”
Tom kept wary eyes on the sky, which thankfully remained flat blue and empty. No clouds floated above that a flying dragon could hide behind, but once a far-off seabird made him do a double-take. A low strip of blue ahead of the boat evolved into land. Late in the day, a piece of land jutted from the rocky shore. Several houses and outbuildings stood in a clump near the water’s edge.