For the next three or four candlemarks, there were howls and thumps and sloshings and cursings from behind the old man's locked cabin door.
"Surely there's something to drink aboard," whined Alos, slipping into his clean though wrinkled breeks, the clothes freshly scrubbed and sun-dried and faintly smelling of salt.
Aiko shook her head and held out to Alos another chewing stick.
"But my gums are sore from all this rubbing of teeth," wailed the oldster, fumbling with the tail of his shirt.
"They'll be even more painful if it is I who scrub at them again," she growled.
Reluctantly, Alos took the stick and gnawed on the end. "If I had a drink, this would be much easier."
Aiko cocked an eyebrow.
"All right, all right," mumbled the oldster, and he looked at the well-chewed end of the stick and, satisfied that it now was soft enough, he began brushing away at his brownish-green teeth.
For the next several days did the Gyllen Flyndre fare westerly, and under Aiko's watchful eye, Alos continued to scrub at his teeth and keep his clothes and body clean.
Yet the oldster took every chance he got to ask any and all of the sailors if there was aught to drink aboard. The answer from the crewmen was "Aye. The cap'n's got a keg or two o' brandy, but he keeps it locked up tight." Alos soon discovered that Captain Holdar's quarters were always locked as well. And some dastard had instructed the captain to withhold all liquors from the old man. Alos figured that he knew which one of his companions had done such a deed, yet he only glared at Aiko when her back was turned. And so, Alos, frustrated, spent the time moaning to himself and scratching his seemingly itching skin, and sniffing his apparently running nose-why he was being afflicted with such, he did not know. All he knew was that his whole body yearned and nought he did seemed to assuage the craving. Too, monstrous Trolls and Mages burning with witchfire stalked across his dreams and, like Egil, he woke up nightly screaming in terror, and but half awake, Alos blundered about his cabin, searching, though he could find no drink to soothe his tortured soul.
On the seventh day out, the Gyllen Flyndre swung southerly, still following along the coast, now sliding past two or three miles to the east.
And in early morn of the eighth day, the lookout atop the main mast called down, "Gronfangs, ho! Dragons' Roost ahead!"
On this day, Arin, Egil, and Aiko all stood on the upper deck larboard, near the stern, and Alos sat on a hatch cover nearby, his head in his hands.
Captain Holdar on the poop deck shaded his eyes, peering southerly. After a moment-"Ulf," he barked, "quarter to the steerboard. Agli, pipe the sails about."
The bo's'n trilled his pipe and called out orders, and the crew set to, haling the yards 'round and trimming the sails as Ulf spun the helm, and the ship angled out to sea.
Egil pointed toward the south, and low on the horizon Arin and Aiko could see what appeared to be great white talons clutching at the sky, marching out of the east and south and down to the water.
" 'Tis the Gronfangs." Egil's voice was grim. "They reach down into the sea, passing from sight, plunging into the cold depths. Have you heard of them?"
Arin nodded but Aiko shook her head.
From behind, Alos looked up and said, "Some say the mountains stride 'neath the ocean on to the west, with islands standing where their peaks jut out of the water."
"Aye," answered Egil, turning to the oldster. "I've heard that, too. And the Seabanes fall where the mountains would be if they were to continue marching westward across the floor of the abyss. Tall stone crags, they are, and nothing lives thereon."
Aiko looked southward at the snowcapped peaks. "Why do we veer out to sea?"
" 'Tis the Seabanes we avoid," Captain Holdar called down from the poop. "Dangerous waters, cold and deadly they be, 'specially 'tween the Fang and the Banes, for there swirls the Great Maelstrom, a monstrous sucking hole in the ocean haunted by dreadful Krakens lurking within that twisting churn-" Captain Holdar broke off what he was saying and glanced up at the aft pennon. "The wind, she be shifting, Agli. Trim her up again. Hold our course to west-sou'west, Ulf."
Aiko turned to Egil. "What are these things he named Krakens?"
Egil took a deep breath. "I've never seen one myself, but they say Krakens are hideous monsters, with great ropy arms and clutching suckers, glaring eyes, and a terrible claw beak. They are supposed to be huge, big as a Dragon, it's told, with the strength to match."
"Dragons' mates, they say," added Alos from behind.
Egil called over his shoulder, "Dragons' mates, aye, Alos, that is the legend. 'Tis told among my folk that down through the ages, at rare times, Dragons gather on yon headland there." Egil stretched out his arm and pointed at a distant mount, just now discernible on the horizon. "There lies Dragons' Roost, last of the Gronfangs. Did not the Mages at Black Mountain speak of that place?"
Arin shook her head, but said, "Nevertheless, I have heard of it."
Aiko glanced at Arin. "What have you heard, Dara?"
"Rumors, in the main," replied Ann, taking Egil's hand. "But these are Egil's waters. Let him say what he knows, and if I have aught to add, I will do so."
Egil grinned and squeezed Ann's hand. "My knowledge is mostly sailors' yarns, too, but I'll tell you what they say." Egil looked at the distant headland. "Although it doesn't look it from here, Dragons' Roost is a mighty mountain, reaching up above the clouds, and its peak is forever covered with ice and snow, even in the heart of summer. Jagged it is, though near its base, its sides are sheer and fall plumb into the icy waters, a thousand feet or more. But above that fall and all the way to the ice-clad crest it is said that Dragons' lairs riddle the steeps- temporary dens when they forgather for the time of the mating. And on those cragged slopes there are many ledges where lie the lovelorn Wyrms, awaiting the call of their lovers from the sea. It is also said that from that aerie you can peer down into the Maelstrom itself, though no one I know has ever claimed that he stood there and looked. And anyone would be a fool to do so when the Drakes are about, for legends say that Dragons can somehow sense when strangers step into their domains.
"Be that as it may, the Drakes forgather, waiting, now and again raising their great brazen voices to bellow at the sky. And once in a great while, it seems, they do combat, one with another, though it is said that for the most part they know who is strongest and yield the higher places to them, the most powerful on the topmost ledge, and so on down to the least of them."
Arin nodded. "That agrees with what Arilla said when she told us the tale of the Dragons coming to Black Mountain."
Egil leaned forward against the top rail. "Aye, and at that time Black Kalgalath must have sat atop the highest perch."
"Indeed," agreed Arin, "though Daagor disputed his right to that place."
Captain Holdar, who had been listening, called down, "Ebonskaith, Skail, Redclaw, Sleeth, Silverscale: I would think they would all contest the topmost perch." Holdar's eyes widened. " Tis a good thing they themselves know who should sit above whom, else the whole w'rld would shake if they ever fought it out. But, ach, who knows the ways of Dragons? Not I."
They fell to silence, the quiet broken only by the hull shsshing through the brine and the canvas and ropes creaking in the wind. Aiko peered long at the headland, and at last said, "Is that the whole of the tale?"
Egil put an arm about Arin. "There's not much more to the legends. The Drakes perch there night after night and bellow from dusk to dawn. And after many nights of this thunderous din, in the darktide, driven by the urge to mate or by lust or love-who knows?-one by one, Krakens come to the call, the greatest first, the least last, each burning with the green glowing daemonfire of the deeps, spinning in the vast roaring churn of the dreadful Maelstrom."