‘With dragons to command?’ Velindre let him see her scepticism.
,ast year it was just howling savages throwing spears and handfuls of fire.’ Dev was suddenly all seriousness. Which, as you can appreciate, was remarkably effective against these Archipelagans who pride themselves on staying free of filthy sorcery. Kheda here had the sense to find me to put paid to the wild wizards and plain steel cut their followers down nicely enough after that. We thought we’d come and mop up the stragglers and soon be on our way home for wine and cakes, but a dragon’s turned up and it’s eating anyone it reckons looks tasty. We must have let one of their mages slip through our net,’ he concluded with savage bitterness.
‘You think this wizard summoned the dragon? Why now?’ Velindre demanded. ‘Why not summon it when you attacked him and his allies with your magic? What exactly did you do?’
Never mind,’ said Dev impatiently. ‘What I need to know more about is dragons and just how they’re summoned. Maybe this mage has simply lucked into the trick of it.’
‘I don’t think it’s something you stumble on by accident,’ retorted Velindre. ‘Otrick was the only mage in Hadrumal who had the knack of summoning a dragon and he was the finest Cloud Master inside the last ten generations. And I’m sony, Dev, haven’t you heard? He’s dead.’ The usual dull grief gnawed beneath her breastbone.
‘I know that, and I know you were his longest-standing pupil and closest to him in every sense.’ Even in his intensity, Dev couldn’t restrain a lascivious smile. ‘Come on, Velle, didn’t he let something slip by way of pillow talk?’
‘Otrick didn’t need to boast about his magical prowess to convince any girl to slip between the sheets with him,’ Velindre said pointedly.
‘It was always worth your while bedding me, don’t pretend differently.’ Dev grinned, unrepentant. ‘There must be something—in Otrick’s journals, in his records. He was a secretive old bastard but he knew what he owed to wizardry as Cloud Master. There must be some clue.’ His voice gained an edge. ‘If one of these wild mages is still alive and he’s learned how to summon a dragon, there’s nothing to stop him between here and Hadrumal. I’ve seen these bastards let loose and I wouldn’t give—’
Dev clapped his hands to his ears as the girl’s piercing scream startled him. In the same instant, the Aldabreshin warlord began shouting, a torrent of words that rang with horror. The ship rocked madly from side to side, all three of them staggering. The girl would have lost her footing but for the warlord’s strong arm catching her.
‘Ah, shit!’ The bespeaking dissolved on Dev’s raw yell of fear and fury.
‘What is it?’Velindre shouted impotently at the empty air. Dev!’
The only reply was a faint ringing struck from the crystal water jug.
Velindre sprang to her feet, the chair falling away behind her. She ran to a cupboard beside the fireplace and flung it open. Pulling out a shallow silver dish, she sent pewter plates bowling noisily across the floorboards. Ignoring them, she reached up to a neatly ordered row of stoppered and sealed bottles. Her hand hesitated, then, biting her lip, she snatched at one, leaving the cupboard door swinging as she hurried back to the table by the window.
She emptied the crystal jug of well water into the silver bowl and, hands trembling, tried to unstopper the little bottle. Her fingers slid on the wax, bitten fingernails giving no purchase. Velindre slammed the bottle down on the table before taking a deep, calming breath and then carefully working the stopper free of the neck. She let a few drops of dark-green oil fall into the water, the piercing aroma of volatile herbs stinging her eyes for an instant. Ramming the stopper home, she set the bottle aside and placed her hands on either side of the bowl.
‘If you can bespeak me over that kind of distance, Dev, you bilge rat, I can sure as curses scry back to you.’ She stared into the water with grim intensity.
The drops of oil spread into an infinitesimal rainbow lustre on the surface of the water. Emerald fire flared in the depths of the bowl, reflections striking back from the curved silver sides. The radiance shimmered against the oily sheen, fluttering, darting back to the bottom of the bowl before striking up again only to meet the same bather. The light doubled and redoubled, still confined within the bowl. Velindre stood motionless, hazel gaze fixed on her spell. Only when the captive brilliance rivalled the lightning now flickering in the clouds beyond her window did the magewoman release the magic.
In a flash, the surface of the water reflected the distant scene she sought. Velindre flinched, then froze, poised over the bowl, mouth open on an incredulous gasp. All she could see was some portion of a massive scaly back and the flexing of a great leathery wing. The scales were dark crimson, thick and uneven along the creature’s spine, the wing a lighter red, more vivid, almost waxy with the sun shining off the ridges of the bones.
A dragon born of fire, mused some dispassionate corner of her mind even as the rest of her wits went begging for some explanation.
She slid one palm around the side of the bowl. The vision shimmered for an instant and then shifted, as if Velindre was now some bird, like one of the great white wanderers that drifted on the winds of the southern oceans. She flew high above the dragon on the wings of her spell to get a better look at it. Now she could see what the beast was about. A chill went through her that had nothing to do with the wintry storm now enveloping Hadrumal.
The dragon was circling the ship she’d seen Dev on. Twisting in the sky with startling agility for such a mighty beast, it bated like some enormous hawk before darting around in the other direction. The downdraught from its wings tossed the vessel this way and that like a child’s nutshell boat on a puddle. The little ship’s sail hung in rags from its ropes. Velindre held her breath as Dev’s boat rolled over on to its beam ends, wallowing for an agonised breath before hauling itself back upright once more.
Where was Dev? Where were the other two? Velindre searched the deck. There was nowhere for them to hide and no one to be seen. Had they gone below?
The dragon obscured her view, diving closer to scour the deck with a sheet of flame from its gaping razor-toothed maw. The wood blistered and charred, remnants of canvas and rigging flaring to blow away as ash on the wind. The dragon drew a tight circle around the ship and lashed at the single mast with its sturdy tail. The pine cracked and splintered, crashing down on to the deck
Velindre’s spell brought her no noise of the distant destructioin. The only sound in her dim study was her own breathing, harsh with helpless distress. The dragon smashed its tail down on the burned decking, making surprisingly little impression. Mouth wide in a soundless snarl, it shot up into the air, wings beating strongly. Tumbling over itself, it dived straight down towards the crippled ship.
Velindre whispered, disbelieving. Surely a dragon born of fire couldn’t risk diving into the sea? At the last instant, the dragon pulled out of the stoop, swinging its hind legs forward to pound the scorched deck into broken splinters even as it clawed at the sky with its forelegs. Wings beating, it dragged itself away from the murderous embrace of the ocean, climbing back into the sky.
There was no escape for the boat. The weight of the dragon, even for that fleeting moment, had pushed the shattered deck below the surface of the ocean. White seas roiling with the downdraught of the dragon’s passing flooded across bow and stern and poured through the cracked and broken planks. The ship floundered helplessly as more and more water cascaded into the hold, relentlessly forcing the hull beneath the waves. In a final convulsion, the vessel’s bow came up, stern disappearing into the blue depths. The sharp prow slid down, vanishing in a flurry of foam. The dragon swooped low one last time, circling the hidden grave of the little ship. It flapped its wings and flared a crest of scales around its head in what looked uncomfortably like triumph.