Help! Help us!”
No response.
“Over here!” His shouts faded as he ran out of breath. “Here!”
Still nothing.
The groaning of the ship became fainter, then vanished entirely. The frenzied orders of the sailors became whispers, drifting off into nothingness. Long minutes passed, and Dhamon finally stopped shouting. He was certain the ship had sailed away, and he was equally certain Fiona was dead. Though she was a formidable warrior, the sea was a brutal, unfamiliar foe.
He struck out in the direction he thought the ship had gone, though he couldn’t be sure his strokes were actually making any progress. After several minutes something brushed against him, and he instinctively reached for it, hoping it was wooden debris fallen loose from the ship that would help him stay afloat. Instead, his fingers closed on scaly flesh.
“Ragh?”
The draconian coughed a reply and thrust something at him.
“Fiona!” Dhamon said. “By all of the gods of…”
“She’s alive,” Ragh returned, gulping air before sinking, then rising slowly again. “Barely. I can’t hold her up anymore.”
“How is she?” Dhamon felt her face. She was breathing irregularly, and a flash of lightning revealed a deep, swollen cut on her forehead and bad scarring from the spawn’s acid.
“She’s tough, for a human,” Ragh said. “Not the type to give up. I held onto her all the way down, never let her go. But the fall knocked her unconscious.” Ragh went under again.
Dhamon cupped the back of Fiona’s head, doing his best to keep her mouth and nose above the waves. He put his arm around her and pulled her away from Ragh.
He could tell that the draconian was struggling worse than him. His ungainly body was not made for swimming.
“Probably good for her she’s unconscious. Won’t feel anything. We’re going to die here anyway, you realize,” the draconian gasped, surfacing again. “We will die, and Nura Bint-Drax will go on living.”
“I heard a ship!” Dhamon shouted.
Ragh sank below the waves again, and this time it took him much longer to push his way back up. “I heard it, too. Can’t see it, though, and it can’t see us.”
“It can’t have gone too far!” Dhamon insisted. He grabbed Ragh with his free hand and used his great strength to swim and keep them all afloat. He blinked to clear his eyes, trying to see something other than night-dark water. “Ragh, if we can get to the ship, together we might be able do something to attract its attention….”
A wave slammed the draconian hard against him. “No ship could survive this!” Another wave crashed against them, loosening Dhamon’s grip. The draconian sank again.
“We’re not giving up!” Dhamon said. He started tugging Fiona toward what he guessed was a northerly direction. If at all possible he would find the ship.
“Ragh! Follow us!” He saw the draconian break the surface again and begin to swim, struggling to catch up.
Long minutes passed. Dhamon strained to hear the creaking of the masts and the bark of sailors, and he prayed that he might spot some trace of the ship when the lightning next arced overhead. “By all the gods of Krynn,” he breathed, finally spotting the ship, or rather a part of it. A section of the vessel floated on a wave in front of him, jagged-looking as though it had been dashed against a reef. The ship had been wrecked.
He struck out for the wooden section, just as the water rose like a mountain beneath him and another fist-like wave surged above him and pushed Fiona and him under the sea. Fighting to the surface, he flailed about with his free hand, grabbing onto the edge of the wooden section before it could float out of range and pulling Fiona and him toward it. He strained to raise her up out of the water and lay her across the makeshift raft. Then he scanned the violent waves in search of the draconian.
“Ragh!”
The thunder boomed, and the wind offered a shrill retort.
Exhausted, Dhamon called out only a few more times before he pulled himself partially onto the wood, his hips and legs still dangling in the water. He didn’t want to risk capsizing the thing by climbing on board, so he wedged his fingers into a crack between two boards and held on. When the lightning next flashed he saw that the draconian had somehow found the raft, too, and was holding fast to the opposite side.
“Solid ground, Dhamon,” Ragh muttered weakly. “I told you we should have fought the spawn on the ground.”
The draconian said something else, but Dhamon didn’t try to make out the words. He closed his eyes and despite the chaos that surrounded him, he gave in to his fatigue. The world faded to gray, and he drifted between sleep and wakefulness, his aching fingers clinging to the wood. He regained full awareness just as a large wave pushed the raft onto a sandy shore.
The storm had finally ended. Stars winked down from between gaps in the thinning clouds. The wind was still strong, but nothing compared to what it had been earlier. From the color of the sky, Dhamon could tell dawn wasn’t terribly far away.
Ragh crawled on his hands and knees until he was farther up on the beach. Finally satisfied he was beyond the wash of the tide, the draconian lay down on his side and retched, then flopped onto his back.
“Drowning wouldn’t’ve hurt as much as this,” he said. One clawed hand held his side. “Solid ground, Dhamon Grimwulf.”
Dhamon managed to push himself to his feet, then bent down and grabbed Fiona and carried her to the draconian. He set her down, carefully prodding the wound on her head. It was probably infected, but at the moment he had nothing to treat it with. He carefully felt her ribs and stomach, satisfying himself that there were no more serious injuries.
“Wonder where we are,” Ragh said.
“Certainly not where we were headed,” Dhamon answered.
“So this isn’t Southern Ergoth.”
“It isn’t the Qualinesti forest either.” Dhamon turned to gaze out to sea, wondering if any of the sailors from the ship had made it through the storm.
The draconian propped himself up on his elbows. “You have no idea where we are, do you?”
Dhamon brushed the sand off what was left of his trousers and studied the beach. Coarse white sand littered with pea-size pebbles stretched as far to the north and south as he could see. To the west was a high, rocky ridge. He could see no trees, no sign of other people, not even a hint of wildlife, no other wreckage washed up from the ship. Dhamon took a few steps away from Ragh and Fiona and shook out his arms.
“Dhamon!” Ragh called. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Dhamon shrugged. “For a start, I’m going to try to find out where we are, see if I can find a stream, some source of drinkable water. I’ll be along after a while. Keep an eye on her, won’t you? If she wakes up, don’t let her go anywhere.”
The cool air had dried Dhamon by the time he crested the ridge and discovered a wide trail on the other side. The trail paralleled the ridge, running almost straight north until it curved west at the edge of his vision. From its width and the shallow ruts, he could tell wagons used to travel this way, but that was some time ago, as the path was covered with scabrous grass and seedlings. He knelt to examine the ground more closely, wishing it was daylight so he could see better. Maybe he could spot some footprints.
He guessed it was more than a few years since a wagon came this way. He stood and stretched and worked a kink out of his neck. He should still be tired, after their strenuous ordeal. He should want to rest with Fiona and Ragh, should ache from the battering he’d taken. Instead he felt curiously strong, as if he’d just arisen from a full night’s sleep.
He scanned the horizon, visible now in the dim light of predawn. There were no signs of anything except a few long-dead trees. The distant cawing of a crow gave him a little hope—there was some life here… wherever here was.