Cold Hearted Son of a Witch (Dragoneers Saga) (5 page)

“Put the bow up, Rikky,” Zah sighed. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but a sticky dream of Jenka lingered in the back of her mind, leaving her irritated. “We don’t need to hunt. We have food. You can’t get around in the rocks.”

“We have meat that I already hunted, if you’d wipe the sleep from your stupid eyes,” Rikky growled. When she looked at what was lumped on a fresh skin by the fire she understood her mistake.

There on the cavern floor was the fully dressed carcass of some mid-sized goatish-looking creature Rikky had already killed and cleaned while she slept.

She decided she’d better quit underestimating him. It was hard to think that he lost his leg to hungry goblins and lived to tell about it. She reached into her magical place and retrieved two gourd nuts from the tree that grew there. She tapped a hole in the top of one with her dagger and gave it to Rikky. Then she used her blade to cut a chunk of the meat and roasted it in the hissing blue flames.

When they were finished eating, they unpacked the lanterns and other items Rikky removed from Silva’s pack. A bundle of arrows with poisoned tips was carefully undone. Rikky looked pleased to see that all of the shafts were the well-crafted ones from Three Forks. He was deadly with them on the ground, but even in flight he was getting good at hitting his intended target.

“We should fly high over the bay a few times while the sun is in the sky,” said Zahrellion. “I want to get a good look. When I get off of Crystal down there, to get what we came for, I want to have some sense of my surroundings.

“Good idea,” Rikky agreed.

The eventless afternoon ended up dragging by. The dragons returned with bellies full of fish. They, too, were eager to explore, but they had to nap away their gluttony first. It ended up being late afternoon before the wyrms carried them over the ridge to look.

What they saw was as amazing as it was confusing.

The bay that had been full of water when they approached was now just a flat expanse of barren sand with the decaying remains of an old ship resting in its middle.

Chapter 5

“We should go down there and look,” Rikky called out. “Mysterian and the historians would want anything we can get.”

What if it’s swallowing sand?
Zahrellion knew the value of anything they could retrieve from the ship. The ever curious druids of Dou would want to study anything they salvaged as well. Her restrained nature, though, wouldn’t allow her to just rush in.

Have Crystal freeze the footing before we land
, Rikky suggested.
If we hurry we can search the ship before the tide comes back in.

Zah couldn’t argue with the idea, and once again she chided herself for looking down on Rikky. She remembered Jenka telling her that Rikky was the best of Master Kember’s hunters. She urged Crystal lower and the dragon made a slow pass by the ship. The huge white wyrm let loose a spraying jet of glacial breath as she went.

***

In a flash, Silva landed on the frozen sand. Rikky had his dragon ease up close to the ship. It was all rotted and caked in barnacles and moss. He decided that whatever was inside was probably as rotten as the rest of it. What amazed him was the height at which the mast was sticking up into the air. The old iron crow’s nest basket was still in place. It was at least thirty feet above the sand his dragon was standing on, though. It hadn’t been visible at all when they’d flown over that first day. Or maybe they just hadn’t been able to see it amid the rolling waves. The tides were a thing he didn’t comprehend, but a tide that rose thirty feet, he knew, wasn’t normal.

Rikky noticed a tattered leather satchel hanging from the rail of the crow’s nest, but just then the sand shifted beneath Silva. Rikky was nearly tossed.

The tide’s coming in fast, Rikky,
Zahrellion called to him across the ether.

Silva leapt into flight just as the first swell came washing over the softening sand. Suddenly the bay was two feet deep with water. Rikky’s dragon powered them clear of the next wave, and by the time they were circling overhead with Zahrellion, the bay was almost over the hull of the ship again. The sun was getting low and already the moon could be seen
peeking
its gray-green, pocked face above the distant horizon.

Come on,
Zahrellion urged.
Let’s explore the shoreline. Maybe we can spot an area where... where... you know.

An area where there’s moonlit serpent shit,
Rikky laughed.
That’s what we’re after.

***

It’s awful,
Zahrellion confessed. The idea of it disturbed her.

It all washes off, save for the memory,
Rikky said in a fairly good ‘mental voice’ imitation of Master Kember. Zahrellion had only known the man briefly, but she knew that was who Rikky was imitating. She didn’t comment. Seeing the ocean rush in on Rikky and Silva unsettled her. His flippancy only made it worse.

I’ll go along the shore this way,
Rikky pointed and Silva banked them away from Crystal.
You take the other.

I’d rather us not get too far apart, Rikky,
she said, but it was too late. Rikky and the quick pewter-colored dragon were already speeding away.

Zahrellion searched the area between the high tide line and the stunted vegetation that grew on the sloping face that rose up and away from the beach, but she found nothing resembling a refuse-laden area. She saw a few pocks on the sand that she thought might be mushrooms, but turned out to be mossy boulders, and in one instance a slow-crawling turtle. It started getting dark then, the sun sinking faster than the moon was rising. She urged Crystal up into the sky to circle over the island.

After they had slain Gravelbone, Mysterian and the Crown gave each of the three Royal Dragoneers a gift. Zahrellion’s was a thin staff with a small witch’s crystal affixed as its head.
 
She had considerable knowledge and ability working with druidic magic, but witch magic was another thing altogether. The staff worked by commands. With Mysterian’s help she’d mastered the ones that they agreed might come in handy on this quest. ‘Owl sight’ was what she was after at the moment, but the spoken word needed to apply the effect wouldn’t find her tongue. It was just as well. Rikky was coming in close and talking out loud, breathlessly fast. Soon the moon would be fully above the horizon.

Talk in the ethereal,
Zahrellion ordered Rikky.
I haven’t heard a word you just said.

I found it. I found the serpent’s dung field.
Even Rikky’s mental voice sounded out of breath.
There’s a whole stretch of beach covered with shit piles, and they’re all covered in rotting mushrooms.

They heard a splash then
—
a large one. It sounded like a wagon-sized boulder being hurled into the bay.

They decided to find a place to land on the ridge, where they could look down at the beach. Zahrellion explained earlier that they really wanted mushrooms from fresh dung piles, but any moonlit caps would be retrieved, even if they sprouted out of the old refuse.

I saw something hanging in the lookout basket on the ship
, Rikky told her after they landed.
It looked like someone went to the top and tied it there, hoping the water wasn’t that deep.

It will be there in the daylight tomorrow, when the tide is out,
Zah started, but her train of thought was interrupted. She was drawn to the long, sinuous form of the serpent snaking across the surface of the moonlit bay. It was so big that its wake displaced the natural roll and flow of the ocean’s surface. She guessed it to be a hundred feet long.

“Wow, it’s a huge bastard,” Rikky said aloud. They were still mounted, and their dragons were sitting on their haunches very near each other. Zahrellion had no trouble hearing him. Whether it was the rush of excited energy that was suddenly filling her veins, or the fact that he had spoken aloud to her, Zahrellion answered in her physical voice.

“It is.”

“She speaks,” Rikky teased. “I was beginning to wonder if you remembered how to use your cords.”

“Not funny,” she smirked. “The moon is getting up.”

“The serpent is moving toward the beach,” Rikky redirected her attention.

“It is,” she answered again, and laughed at herself. She was a little afraid. She found she wished Jenka was there. He wouldn’t hesitate to go down there and get the mushrooms. She glanced at Rikky. His eager expression showed he wouldn’t hesitate either. She steeled herself then. She couldn’t let him do it, and not because she didn’t think him capable. She had to do it because it was her duty.

“After it goes, and gets back in the water, Crystal will take me down to the tree line.” Zah pointed at where she meant. “I want you to be in the sky, well above the bay, watching the water around the dung field.”

“I have your back, Zahrellion,” Rikky said firmly enough that she drew confidence from him.
 
“If the serpent comes, I’ll distract it so you can get what we have to get. I don’t want to stay here until the next full moon.”

“Me neither,” Zahrellion smiled confidently then. “It won’t be long now.”

“That’s what the cat said,” Rikky deadpanned.

“What cat?” Zah was lost.

“The cat that got its tail sheared off by the outhouse door.”

“What are you talking
—?
Oh, ha,” she chuckled genuinely. “Either your jokes are getting better, or I’m delirious, because, that was actually funny.”

Chapter 6

The serpent took its time worming and snaking around the beach. It slithered and hunched and rolled for a good portion of the night. Finally, as the moon was getting low in the sky, it relieved itself on the sand and slid back into the water. Zahrellion remembered the command to activate the staff’s magic and zoomed her owl sight in on the dung piles. To her amazement, she watched several little stalks push forth while their umbrella-like heads spread out over them. They weren’t bathed in moonlight, they were basking in it. After the serpent had been gone for some time, she decided to get down there.

“I’m going, Rikky,” she whispered. “Keep an eye out.”

“Don’t forget the nut sack,” he said. Mysterian had given them a special bag made from a goat scrotum in which to carry the caps home. “It’ll be hard for me to see you, though.” Rikky studied the sky. “The clouds are rolling in.”

I won’t be long.
Zah urged Crystal into flight.
I can see them well enough.

I’m watching, and Crystal will be right there with you,
Rikky reassured as he followed her into the air and began circling slowly.

Zahrellion was tense as Crystal came down, but she kept her heartbeat steady while she slid to the sand. She was surprised at how well it was going until she was close enough to smell the serpent dung. She retched and heaved, and finally vomited when she had to step into a huge pile of the warm fetid stuff to reach one of the mushrooms. She plucked seven full caps from the dung; over twice as much as Mysterian said she needed.