Chapter 13 #2
I casually grab one massive, clawed hand and put it on my thigh. “You’re a very spectacular and majestic dragon. I’m very impressed by all you have told me. Thank you for trusting me.”
“Hmm,” he growls.
In the silence I try to figure out how I feel.
And the answer is… comfortable. Somewhere along the way I've become accustomed to Vyrathion's endless confidence and bizarre priorities. There was a time when every move he made scared me and I was walking on pins and needles to not offend him. Now, I think I’ve figured that he’s obviously deadly and the most dangerous thing on the planet. But maybe not to me.
That realization lingers longer than it should. I try to blame the storm. The shelter is small. We're trapped together. There's nowhere else to look and nobody else to talk to. Under those circumstances, it's natural to become more interested in the person sharing your circumstances.
The explanation sounds reasonable. The fact that I keep repeating it to myself probably isn't a great sign.
Is this how Astrid felt with Praxigor? Did she start to feel comfortable with him?
Outside, thunder rolls across the sky again.
The sound is so constant now that I've mostly stopped noticing it.
Rain continues hammering the roof overhead.
Water drips steadily through several weak points in the shelter.
The puddle in the corner has grown considerably larger and appears to be winning its ongoing battle against Vyrathion's engineering.
I'm about to mention that when the entire island lurches beneath us. The movement isn't dramatic at first. It feels almost like a ship moving beneath its passengers. Then the shelter creaks violently, and a shower of mud and leaves rains down from the ceiling.
Clyde stiffens and waddles outside.
I'm already moving toward the entrance when Vyrathion stands.
The transformation in his posture is immediate. Moments earlier he'd been lounging against the wall, complaining about crystal deserts and discussing the importance of proper hoard management. Now every trace of relaxation has vanished.
Something is wrong. Very wrong.
I follow him outside.
The rain hits my face hard enough to sting. For a moment visibility is almost nonexistent. Then I look toward the edge of the island and understand.
A huge section of shoreline is gone.
Fresh earth tumbles into the floodwater below. Several trees lean at dangerous angles where the ground beneath them has disappeared. The river churns with mud and broken roots, carrying pieces of the island downstream.
My stomach tightens. The island wasn't very large to begin with, but now it's noticeably smaller.
"What happened?" I ask.
Even as the words leave my mouth, I think I know the answer. The river boils several yards offshore. A ridged back emerges briefly through the floodwater before vanishing again.
The monster.
For a few seconds I simply stare. During its earlier attack, the creature tried to come directly onto the island. Vyrathion beat it back so easily that I almost stopped taking it seriously.
That was a mistake. The monster has adapted.
It isn't trying to climb onto the island anymore. It's trying to remove the island entirely.
The implications arrive one after another. The shelter. The remaining trees. The small amount of dry ground we still possess. If the creature keeps attacking like this, we won't need to lose a fight. The river will simply swallow us.
"It's undermining the shoreline," I say.
Vyrathion doesn't answer immediately. His gaze remains fixed on the water, and something about his expression makes me uneasy.
I've seen him irritated countless times. I've seen him insulted, offended, annoyed, dismissive, and occasionally furious when somebody threatens his treasure. What I see now feels different.
The monster surfaces again.
Its massive head rises from the floodwater like a moving island. Yellow eyes lock onto us through the rain. For a long moment neither creature moves.
Then the monster slams sideways into the shore. The impact shakes the ground beneath my feet and more earth collapses into the river. One of the trees tips completely over and vanishes into the current.
The creature disappears beneath the surface again.
Vyrathion takes a single step toward the shoreline and stops there, staring out through the rain.
The movement itself is insignificant, yet something about him seems to change.
A moment earlier he merely looks annoyed.
Now he looks focused in a way that makes me uneasy.
Water streams down his hair and shoulders while he watches the river, and when he finally speaks, his voice is quiet enough that I almost miss it beneath the storm.
"Enough."
The word isn't loud, but it carries a certainty that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
As I look from him to the river monster circling offshore, I suddenly understand that the creature has made a mistake.
This isn't about territory anymore, and it certainly isn't about pride.
The monster has threatened something Vyrathion considers his responsibility, and that responsibility appears to include me.
I swear his gold lines flash for a moment, as if current is running down them.
Whatever prevents him from assuming his full dragon form still remains, but the glimpse is enough to remind me what stands beside me.
Spending days traveling with Vyrathion sometimes makes it easy to forget.
He argues, complains, tries to hoard, and occasionally behaves like an overgrown child.
Yet underneath all of that is a creature older and more dangerous than anything I've ever encountered.
He isn't a man with dragon traits. He's a dragon temporarily forced into the shape of a man.
The monster surges from the river again, sending water exploding in every direction as it slams toward the shore.
This time Vyrathion meets it head-on. He launches himself forward with startling speed, and the collision disappears beneath a curtain of spray so thick that I lose sight of both of them. The river churns violently.
The creature roars. A wave crashes across the remaining shoreline hard enough to soak my legs, and for several long seconds I can do nothing except watch and hope that the dragon who has repeatedly demonstrated impossible levels of competence remains as impossible as I've begun to believe.
When the water finally settles enough for me to see again, the outcome is obvious.
The monster has resurfaced farther downstream, its head tilted slightly to one side as it stares back toward the island. Vyrathion stands waist-deep in the floodwater watching it, looking completely unconcerned. Neither moves.
Rain continues hammering down between them while the river rushes past, and eventually the creature submerges and vanishes into the darkness. Only after several more seconds pass without any sign of its return does Vyrathion climb back onto the island.
As he approaches, I find myself looking around at the damage instead of at him. Large sections of shoreline are simply gone. The island isn't dramatically smaller than it was an hour earlier, yet I can feel the difference.
Earlier, the shrinking was an abstract concern.
Now I can point to specific places where ground existed and no longer does.
Somehow that makes the situation feel worse.
A sudden catastrophe gives you very little time to think.
Watching a disaster arrive piece by piece leaves plenty of opportunity to imagine where the process ends.
“Hopefully it will stay away now,” Vyrathion says, flicking a speck of dirt off his pants with obvious disgust.
Back inside the shelter, the atmosphere feels completely different. The stories about distant worlds are over, and even the memory of them seems strangely far away now.
Rain roars steadily overhead while the three of us settle back into our previous places. Clyde eventually curls up nearby, although I notice that he keeps glancing toward the entrance as if he expects the monster to come crashing through at any moment.
For several minutes nobody speaks. I find myself studying the shelter with new appreciation.
Earlier it seemed crude, cramped, and entirely ridiculous.
Now I'm painfully aware that it represents our entire survival strategy.
We have one shelter, one rapidly shrinking island, and one enormous predator waiting in the river beyond.
Looking at the situation that way does very little to improve my mood.
"What if we're trapped here for days?" I finally ask.
Vyrathion doesn't answer immediately. He sits staring at the shelter wall while rain patters against the roof overhead, and the length of the silence makes me wonder whether he's trying to formulate a reassuring lie. When he finally speaks, his voice lacks its usual confidence.
"You’ll be trapped. I won’t."
I don’t want to check too carefully what he means.
It could mean that he will just leave if he gets bored.
That’s the most likely outcome here. But it could, if I twist my mind just a little, mean that he will be able to leave the island and come back with, say, clean water and berries and fruits for me.
Vyrathion prefers solving problems through overwhelming force, overwhelming confidence, or some combination of the two. Hearing him acknowledge uncertainty makes the situation feel more serious than the collapsing shoreline ever did.
Unfortunately, I can't disagree with him.
The storm shows no sign of ending. The river remains impossible to cross.
The monster is still somewhere out there in the darkness.
For the first time since reaching the island, I begin considering the possibility that I might be stranded here much longer than either of us wants.