The Dragon Round (24 page)

“The profit is in the phlogiston,” Mulcent says. “Hide and bone won't recoup the repair costs you will inevitably incur. Cut it loose.”

“It's too late for that,” Solet says. “This isn't some gamefish. It's a
dragon. It'll swallow you whole if we let it go.” The dragon lunges again to make his point, throwing them off balance.

“Cut it loose,” Mulcent says, regaining himself, “so we can cut our losses.”

“I'm captain of this ship,” Solet says. “Mylla, two more harpoons.”

“And I own these ships,” Mulcent says. “You're just a foreman in fancy pants.”

Jos's eyes widen. This is too much for Solet. Before he does anything rash, he shouts down the ladder to two firemen, “Put this man in his cabin. If he tries to leave, put him in a barrel and nail the lid down.”

The men scramble up and grab Mulcent, who tries to shake them off. As they pull him down the ladder, he says, “That's the end of the operation. And you.”

“Only a fool leaves an Ynessi with nothing to lose,” Solet says. This worries Jos even more than Mulcent's comment.

Meanwhile, the dragon turns its head all the way around and peers at Mylla. Its eyes remind her of Solet's when he's up to something.

The dragon's belly heaves again, its
head whips around and another gob flies at the
Pyg
. The whip action gives the gob more momentum; it clears the bow and foredeck and breaks on the archers. They're knocked back by its weight, and it spreads over their skin. The
Pyg
's harpooners dance around the deck to avoid the fumes.

Firemen with pails move in to douse the injured with water, thinking the acid some strange liquid fire, but the water makes their skin boil and spit. Those with shovels scoop up the sand spread on the deck to remove the acid and toss it overboard. The deck is turning black, and all understand if the acid burns through, it'll kill the rowers, then go through the hull and kill the ship.

One shoveler named Blass notices a clump has landed on the powder barrel. It reminds him of a jellyfish stranded on a beach after
a tide. He and his sister used to poke them to see if they would move. They never did. Then the clump bubbles and drops through the steel lid.

In the dragon's lee Solet sees
a flash make the dragon's wings translucent. He watches shards of wood and metal, bone and Blass, pierce the wings' membranes and rain across the
Gamo
, chased by an immense boom, men's screams, the dragon's roar, the snap of chains, and the groaning of a ship going down by its bow. Somehow above them all he hears a long sharp whistle from the
Kolos
.

Through a rent in the dragon's wing, Mylla sees Barad flash the strangest thing: “He's coming.”

3

Bodger, the
Gamo
's larboard harpooner, reloads. He barely feels the shrapnel embedded in his skin, he's so furious that his first shot went through the wing. After an engagement, the captain, mates, and harpooners discuss every shot, and a miss will cost him part of his monthly. Worse, Gibbery, the starboard harpooner, is offering him smug suggestions for improvement. Gibbery could care less if he hits nor does he care about money, which he gambles away. He loves the hunt, and he'd be just as happy with a shortbow in the woods, waiting for a turkey to waddle by. Bodger doesn't have that luxury. He has family, most too young or too injured to work. He decides he'll shoot the dragon's rump. A cheap shot, but at this point they just have to hold it.

“What is that?” Gibbery says. A thick gray line waves in the sky.

“Another dragon,” Bodger says. This one's much smaller than the green, but he bets it will circle around the green and give him a perfect
target. He pivots the cannon and readies the firing rod. This prize is all his. And the bonus for taking it.

Mulcent stalks to the porthole, which
gives a view of the darkening sea, the dismal shore, and the first glimpses of the southern constellations. The Crow. The Cup. The Water Snake. His brother had known them all. From the time they were boys, all his brother had dreamed about was sailing the world like their grandfather and father. He'd made a list of the cities he would visit, creatures he would see, and tastes and smells he would experience. Mulcent, though, knew the real adventures were in the counting books, plus they offered no chance of drowning the way his brother eventually did.

He puts his goggled eye to the spyhole in the door as an explosion lights up the dragon's wings, then debris shreds them. The
Gamo
jerks back, and Mulcent's nose is mashed against the door. Blood trickles over his top lip. He has to put a stop to this misadventure. He figured Solet's reports underplayed the risks he took, but not by this much.

Sumpt staggers into view, his bottle near empty, debris fluttering around him, pepper getting into his unprotected eyes. Mulcent's guards try to corral him, and Mulcent takes the opportunity to slip out.

“Magnificent!” Sumpt says to the air as Mulcent passes them. “What a creature. I will have its foot for a wastebasket.”

Mulcent runs to the foredeck where he sees Bodger bent over his cannon, firing rod in hand.
No more chains
, Mulcent thinks. He rushes the harpooner and grabs his arm.

The harpooner, shorter than him, but solid as an iron, wheels around in confusion, then pushes Mulcent forward. They fall together off the foredeck. Mulcent feels every breath he's ever taken crushed from his body. Over the man's ham of a shoulder he sees a small gray dragon rip past the bow and up the larboard rail. Was someone riding it? This harpooner just saved his life. He should be rewarded in some
way. Fortunately Mulcent travels with a sleeve of commemorative coins for just such an occasion.

With the
Pyg
's chains broken by
the explosion, the
Gamo
heaves toward shore, and the green dragon twists between it and the
Kolos
. The
Pyg
emerges from behind the dragon's wing, backrowing and turning sharply in order to drag its shattered bow to shore before the galley goes under.

Mylla flashes Barad, “Who is ‘he'?” He doesn't respond with his candlebox. Instead he points behind her.

She turns as the dragon tears over the stern deck. She yells, “Someone's riding it!” It isn't possible. The tales she read often featured people riding dragons, but no one ever had, at least not for long. She would do anything to ride a dragon. She notes the saddle, the packs, the spears, the bearded man in his strange black outfit, the object he drops to the stern deck, before everything speeds up again and the gray heads for the
Pyg.

“Barad!” Mylla yells, as if the boy could hear her, then flashes, “Look out!”

The gray dragon swathes the
Pyg
's stern deck with flames. Her captain leaps over the side, nearly incinerated by the time he splashes into the water. Her steersman disappears altogether. Barad leaps to the main deck, but she can't tell if the flames caught him. “No!” she whispers and immediately hopes Solet and Jos didn't hear that.

The
Pyg
's oarmaster, Kley, unaware of the casualties on the stern deck and not hearing any piping to straighten out the galley, lets the rowers continue turning until the galley's stern is aimed at the
Gamo
and they are headed right for each other. Before Solet can open his mouth, Jos pipes “all stop” as loud as he can, over and over, until both the
Gamo
and the
Pyg
drag oars. The
Pyg
pulls up twenty yards from the
Gamo
's larboard side.

Solet claps Jos on the back. He doesn't know what he'll say to his
sisters, but one of them will have this man. He may not be of the sea, but he certainly owns it.

Through the smoke and confusion Mylla sees flashing from the
Pyg
's waist: “You all right?” She sighs with relief.

Solet sees the flashing and the sigh.
Well played, Barad
.

One of the
Pyg
's stern shutters flips up. A face appears: the powder boy. Solet yells, “Kley is captain. And first mate. You're his eyes. Get to shore.” The powder boy relays the message to the oarmaster. The
Pyg
pivots and heads inland double-time.
They might actually make it
, Solet thinks,
and I am going to salvage this day
.

“Mylla, flash the
Kolos
. Kill the green. And the rider. I want the gray.” Mylla smiles and leans over the rail to flash past the dragon.

With only the
Kolos
pulling, though, the dragon regains some lift, maneuverability, and, worse, heart. It shortens its wings to minimize the effects of the damage they've taken and lunges at the
Kolos
. The chains between them slacken. Its head drops to its chest.

Gibbery pulls Bodger off Mulcent. The
harpooner is immediately filled with buyer's remorse. Forget the bonus Mulcent stole from him. Forget his job. He'll be lucky to escape the gibbet for touching an owner. Who will feed his family then?

The gray dragon circles behind the green, heading around the
Kolos
.

“Shoot that little gray,” Gibbery whispers to Bodger, “and the owner will forget everything.”

“No,” Mulcent says. He stands up and adjusts his goggles. “Shoot the rider, and your reward will be even greater. I want that dragon.”

Greater?
Bodger thinks.

Solet orders, “Backrow, larboard!” Jos pipes.
The
Gamo
responds instantly, jerking the dragon. Its gob of acid flies wide right of the
Kolos
, only splattering a few oars and sending up a caustic spray.

A cheer from the other monoreme is cut short when the green sees the gray flying behind her. It loses all sense of itself. It roars and digs through the air toward the gray, dragging the
Gamo
so hard its oars get disordered. The
Kolos
backrows, trying to keep its distance, and its harpooners blast two irons into its belly, but the dragon won't be dissuaded. It lands on the foredeck, crushing the cannons, and crawls down the galley as if it were a bridge, dragging its chains and crushing men and deck with every step.

Solet stamps at the deck of the
Gamo
with his heel and orders again, “Backrow, double-time.” Jos pipes. With every step the dragon takes, the
Gamo
is pulled closer to the
Kolos
, which is so low in the water it will act like a ram.

Archers flee to the
Kolos
's
stern deck, and her captain orders them to shoot the rider, but the gray is darting too quickly and the galley is rocking too severely for them to hit it.

The
Gamo
's aft oars organize themselves and pull. The dragon's foot slips off the side of the
Kolos
and snaps some dangling forward oars, their rowers crushed beneath the smashed deck. Its eyes never leave the gray.

Jos says, “The little one must be in heat.”

“We'll cool it down,” Solet says. “Bring us wide of the
Kolos
. We'll pull it off her. Mylla, tell the harpooners to kill the dragon. Tell the archers to shoot the rider.”

The green grabs onto the
Kolos
's mast to regain its balance, and a horrible cracking comes from deep within the galley. Her hull has snapped beneath the dragon's weight. Water rushes into the rowers' deck, from beneath, then every side. Dozens of voices cry out in terror and are suddenly silenced.

The dragon tries to escape the sinking ship, but the chains connecting it to the
Kolos
are tangled in wreckage on the deck and it can't get free. It roars in frustration and launches itself over the side, tangling the chains farther on the mast. The galley rolls sidewise. Timbers shatter throughout the ship.

Solet sees Mulcent by the foredeck. He has no idea why he's there or when or how he got there, but it makes his next order all the more painful. “Cut the dragon loose,” he says, “before we're pulled under also.”

Mylla flashes. The winches are disengaged. Chains unspool and clatter over the side. Mulcent looks at Solet with a miserable smirk and shakes his head.

Freed, the
Gamo
slides into a safer position off the
Kolos
's starboard beam. Bodger and Gibbery have already undone the chains from their irons. Gibbery fires at the dragon's head, but it moves at the last second, trying to get itself back on deck, and the iron misses. Bodger fires. His iron flies true and catches the dragon in the cheek. Its head collapses on deck. Its wings spread over the water. The
Kolos
settles and somehow stays afloat, now a raft.

Solet says, “Great shot. Mylla, tell the
Kolos
to use the dinghy to bring her survivors to us. Then we'll use it to pick up those in the water. Let's see if they complain now about having to learn to swim. Jos, bring us astern so we can cover them better.”

Mylla isn't paying attention, though. She's looking at what the rider dropped onto the stern deck. She holds it up for the others to see: a dragonskin boot.

Jos says, “Looks like one of yours.”

Solet sniffs the inside of the boot. “Tuse's,” he says. “That's one way to throw down the gauntlet.”

Jos says. “He's saving you for last.”

Mylla finishes flashing. “Why? Who is it? How did he get the boot?” she asks, and then laughs. “How did he get a
dragon
?”

“No idea,” Solet says. “Plenty of people resented Tuse and me jumping up to our commands. Having a dragon would certainly jump him over us, so why bother with all this?” They watch the gray fly in a broad circle. It's becoming more of a ghost with every minute the dusk deepens. “He knows his business: how we're armed, how long our reach is, that we're ready for him. And he didn't cut us from the herd; he used the green to cut the herd away from us.”