"Larboard, larboard," cried Arin above the roar of the hammering waves and above Alos's screams. Again Egil hauled on the tiller, and the Brise responded, and moments later Arin called out, "Now swing starboard a point and square up."
As the ship flew along its course through fangs and thunder and spray, they could hear loud shouts aft from the scudding dhow, but what the Rovers cried out, none aboard the sloop knew.
"Steady as she goes," called Arin, as whimpering Alos scrambled on hands and knees back into the cabin.
Past her fangs, past her rocks, past her booming surf, out from the mouth of the serpent they sailed, the Brise battered but seaworthy still. And as they came into clear water at last, dawn broke on the horizon east.
"Bend on all sail but the square," commanded Egil. "The Rover likely will come after us."
As the crew restored the jib and gaff topsails and the fore staysail, Arin said, "Dost thou think we can outrun them, chier?”
Egil looked aft, but the mouth of the cove was now beyond sight 'round a shoulder of land behind. "I know not, love, yet we must try."
In the dawn light the captain of the dhow swung his ship into the cove, then brought her about through the eye of the wind, heading her back toward the Serpent's Fangs to pursue the intruder. He glanced at the rocks and then at the growing light of day, and set aside the potion that briefly allowed him to see by starlight alone. He would not need it for this pass. Besides, he did not wish to risk losing his sight altogether.
Once more he commanded his grumbling crew to set the sails for the run, then true northeast he tacked, his ship picking up speed as he trimmed for the striated rock.
Just as the dhow entered the fangs, something hideous and large and skrawing came swooping from the sky. Men shrieked in fear and cowed down against the deck, and some leapt overboard. And with her crew in panic, the dhow veered and crashed in among the rocks, where the waves battered and bashed her to wreckage against the Serpent's Fangs.
In moments she sank from sight.
And on great dark wings the monstrous thing flapped away into the dawn sky above.
CHAPTER 6 7
“I tell you, Alos, old man, if she hadn't swept your feet out from under you, you would be dead, bashed overboard by the swinging boom to drown among the rocks."
Alos glared at Delon, then stuck his nose in the air and sniffed loudly. "Nevertheless, she owes me an apology."
"Ha!" snapped Ferret. "Apology, my left foot! Instead, you owe her a big thanks for saving your worthless hide."
"Thanks for nearly breaking my elbow?" Alos ruefully and belatedly rubbed his left arm. "And another thing: I'm not worthless. There's no better helmsman aboard."
"Yes, but for how long?" said Delon. "You declared in Sarain that you'd leave us for good once we got free of the cove. Well, now we're free."
Alos glared at the bard. "I'm going to leave you when… when"-Alos paused, something deep in his memory nagging at his thoughts, as of a whisper commanding. Alos shook his head, then said, "Unlike before, I'll not desert my shipmates in their time of need."
Delon glanced at Ferret, then back to Alos. "Are you earnest?"
"Of course I am," snapped Alos.
"Then you'll remain until we get the treasure?" asked Ferret.
Delon cocked an eyebrow at his love. "The time of need will not be past until the Dragonstone is safely delivered to the Mages."
Ferret looked out to sea and did not reply, and nought but indigo waters met her gaze.
Kistan lay beyond the horizon some thirty nautical miles to the west, the Brise having sailed directly east and away from the isle for a quarter of a day before turning to run due north on a beam reach. It was now midafternoon, and Alos, Delon, and Ferret crewed, while Egil and Arin and Aiko and Burel slept below. Their plan was to stay well out to sea and away from the isle and its shipping lanes and run parallel to the eastern marge, hoping to avoid any Rovers, Rovers who ordinarily lurked in the straits far to the north and south and running to the west. Once the Brise was free of Kistan some six hundred miles hence, they would head her across the strait, aiming for the coastal waters along the shores of Vancha. From there they would sail to the Weston Ocean, and around Gelen to the Northern Sea, and thence unto the Boreal, for it was on the bounds of those waters where lay their goaclass="underline" Dragons' Roost. Their journey would cover nearly nine thousand miles altogether, though tacking and hauling as they must, it would be nearly half again as far. There was, of course, a shorter route, one through the channel 'tween Gelen and Jute, but given what Aiko had done to Queen Gudrun the Comely, the waters near Jute were too hostile to fare, and so they avoided that risk by choosing the longer route. And given fair winds and tolerable seas, they would come to Dragons' Roost sometime in the month of May.
It was not until the change of shifts at the dawn of the following day that they began to consider how they would obtain the Dragonstone.
"Here is what we know," said Arin. "The stone is in a cavern in a silver chest chained to rock by a pool."
"The Kraken Pool," appended Egil.
"Do you suppose that means the treasure is guarded by a Kraken?" asked Ferret.
Egil shrugged. "It would be one Hel of a warder."
"Better than a dog," said Delon, laughing.
"This is no laughing matter," said Aiko, her tone flat.
Delon raised his hands in surrender, then said, "Indeed not. Besides, the 'dog' is on the ledge, guarding the door."
"Dog?"
"Dragon."
Aiko shook her head and sighed.
"There is another door," said Ferret. "The one underwater."
"But the scroll said you can't swim against the current, powered as it is by the Great Maelstrom," said Egil.
"Perhaps Burel could," said Ferret. "He's strong."
Burel shook his head. "I cannot swim. Living in the stone canyons of the labyrinth, I never learned how."
Arin held up a hand. "Let us assume the scroll speaks true. If so, then the only way to reach the pool is to go past the Dragon."
"Ha!" barked Alos. "Not likely. He'd snap us up like morsels before you could say thimblerig."
"We could slip past," said Ferret.
"No you can't," declared Alos. "Dragons know when someone is in their domain."
"Why do you say that?"
"Why, it's common knowledge," replied Alos, glaring at Ferret. "Everybody knows that."
"I didn't know," rumbled Burel.
Arin held up her hands. "Peace, my friends. Let us not get into an argument over the powers of Drakes." She glanced from one to the other, and then said, "Even so, if we do have to win past the Dragon, let us review all we know of them. Mayhap therein we will find an answer to our dilemma."
Alos sniffed and jutted out his chin.
Arin sighed, then said, "This I know of Drakes: they ward the ledge at Dragons' Roost; they sleep four thousand seasons and wake for eight thousand; they are terrible when they raid, though their forays for the most part are to take livestock on which they feed; because of their foraging needs, they live isolated and far from one another and seldom gather but for the time of the mating with Krakens in the Great Maelstrom once every three millennia; the get of these matings are Sea Serpents, which, when their time comes, go to the deeps and enshell in chrysalides, which, when hatched, become Drakes or Krakes, depending upon their gender; Dragons seem to enjoy all that glitters, hence they value treasure, though some claim that Drakes draw power from gold and gems and precious metals, yet how that can be I know not; from the scroll and from the tale told by Arilla at Black Mountain, Dragons come from another Plane, from a world known as Kelgor, and the in-between crossing point would seem to be the ledge upon Dragons' Roost, which they guard jealously; Dragons are virtually unkillable, and but for myths I've never heard of a person slaying one, though it is said that they die at times in battle with other Drakes."