Chapter 2 #2
Vorik lifted an apologetic hand. The joke had been in poor taste, especially when he remembered the explosives that her team had thrown in the mine—and what they’d done to people. Syla probably didn’t have the stomach for more carnage.
“We’ll gently light portions of their ships on fire that aren’t currently occupied,” Vorik said.
Dragons do not know how to gently light things on fire, Agrevlari said.
It’s time to learn. Precision is valuable.
“Look.” At Syla’s skeptical expression, Vorik pointed toward the lead vessel. “That one has a figurehead that thrusts far out, practically inviting a lightning strike. Or a gout of dragon fire.”
“That’s a depiction of the sun god spreading his brilliant rays from a precipice,” Syla said. “You can’t light it on fire. That’s blasphemous.”
“Those ships will be within firing range soon,” the captain said—the major had jogged off and was ordering the cannon crews to make ready.
“Cannonballs knocking it off wouldn’t be less blasphemous.
Or if you have to jump onto that thing.” Vorik couldn’t keep the distaste from his voice as he pointed at the weapons platform.
The memories of how many dragons had died to it—some taking their riders to the depths of the sea with them—would haunt him for the rest of his life.
“I know. You’re right.” Syla nodded at him.
“Scare them away if you can, Vorik. Even if we run… we’ll have to do something to keep them from following.
If they see us sailing into the freight harbor, the fleet will sail down the coastline to deal with us there.
And we don’t want a battle in those waters.
Destroying the harvest as well as our ships…
” She shook her head again. “This is all loathsome.”
“Yes.” Vorik stepped toward Agrevlari as the dragon hopped down to the deck, causing the crew to scatter. “Do you want to come with me, Syla? We can scout your harbor afterward.”
“No,” Fel said as the captain rocked back.
Major Hixun had been jogging about, giving orders, but he must have caught that because he stopped so fast that he almost tipped over. “You can’t fly off alone with our prisoner, Your Majesty.”
“I can if his dragon plucks me up,” Syla said. “I will go with you, Vorik, to guide the gentleness of Agrevlari’s fire.”
How does she intend to do that? Agrevlari wondered.
I don’t know, but her having a dragon bond in addition to her gods-mark gives her some interesting power.
I might call it alarming, rather than interesting. And if you attempt to engage in a mating session while on my back—
We won’t. I know your feelings on that.
Which doesn’t keep you from—
Please don’t say anything about sex orifices.
Agrevlari issued a noise between a growl and a harrumph.
Syla arched her eyebrows.
“He’s eager to be guided by your divinely blessed touch,” Vorik translated, then hopped onto the dragon’s back and offered her a hand.
“Your Majesty.” Fel stepped forward to stop her.
But Syla moved quickly these days, a byproduct of her bond with Wreylith, and slipped away from his reach and grasped Vorik’s hand.
“This won’t take long,” she said as he pulled her onto Agrevlari’s back behind him.
Fel drew his mace as if he might smash the dragon on the flank to keep him from taking off with his charge, but Agrevlari gave him a baleful look and growled fiercely, no hint of a harrumph mixed in.
“What am I supposed to do?” Fel spun toward Aunt Tibby as Agrevlari sprang into the air.
“Solve problems with tools other than a mace?” she suggested.
“You don’t think a mace is the appropriate tool to use when a dragon is kidnapping your queen?”
“Gargoyle-bone blades are more effective,” Vorik called to the bodyguard as Agrevlari flew over the railing.
Fel turned his back to Aunt Tibby before making an obscene gesture toward Vorik.
“Your bodyguard hasn’t warmed up to me yet,” Vorik observed.
Syla settled behind him, her arms wrapped around his waist. “Not many of my allies have. Until recently, you’ve been determined to work with the enemy.”
“They are my people.”
“I know.” She squeezed him, then adjusted her spectacles and rested her cheek against the back of his shoulder.
Vorik hadn’t expected her to hop onto Agrevlari with him and wished they could fly off in such an embrace for a long, leisurely flight followed by a picnic somewhere, but the three ships were firing range-finding shots with their cannons.
Sighing, Vorik touched Agrevlari’s shoulder, though the dragon didn’t need any guidance—except perhaps when it came to gentleness.
Dodging cannon fire, Agrevlari flew toward the lead ship. Vorik wished he had his bow, but he’d lost it during one of the battles and had only his sword. He drew it in case Agrevlari dove close enough for him to use it, but, with Syla behind him, he planned to let the dragon handle the attack.
And Agrevlari gleefully whipped, banked, rolled, and dove, biting and slashing with fangs and talons whenever he flew close enough.
“Aim for the hull, please,” Syla called. “Not people! I know you have good aim, Agrevlari.”
Vorik looked over his shoulder, curious about what she referenced.
“Well, I assume he’s the one who, uhm, impregnated Wreylith. If your guess is right and she is… with egg? Is that what you would say?”
“With eggs, yes, you could say that. I’m not sure that act is quite the same as loosing arrows at a target on an archery range.”
“So, aim wasn’t required?”
“I suppose I’ve not had the exact experience so shouldn’t attempt to speak with authority.”
What Agrevlari thought of the conversation, Vorik didn’t know, but the dragon did dive low and target the hulls of the ship with great bites that tore into the wood.
He could easily have streamed gouts of fire onto the decks, but he refrained.
Unfortunately, the crewmen didn’t refrain from targeting him.
In addition to cannonballs, arrows and crossbow quarrels launched from the ships. Syla tensed behind Vorik.
Using his sword, he deflected an arrow, glad for the magic that made such an act possible, since he didn’t have another way to defend Syla.
Interestingly, the projectiles focused more on Agrevlari than on his riders.
As they flew from ship to ship, the dragon biting to leave holes in hulls and snap masts in half, not all of the crew raised the weapons they held.
Several were whispering to each other and pointing at Syla, despite officers running around, ordering all hands to fire and, “Bring that dragon down!”
“This may not have been wise,” Syla said as Vorik deflected another arrow, one that had been streaking toward her head.
Not all of the crew were hesitating to fire at her.
“Your bodyguard did imply that,” Vorik said. “I may be a bad influence on you.”
“You’re a scandalously bad influence.”
“And yet, your arms are tighter than ever about me.”
“I’m trying to mold myself to your back to use you for a shield.”
“Stop firing, men!” someone called. “That’s the queen!”
“But she’s dead!” someone else called.
“I thought she was kidnapped!”
“No, the newspapers said dead!”
“Your people aren’t that filled in on what’s happening,” Vorik observed as Agrevlari ripped the previously discussed sun-god figurehead off its mount and flung it to the deck before arrowing away, just avoiding two cannonballs blasting toward him.
“I may not be that filled in either,” Syla said.
Cannons boomed from her small fleet, and her aunt stood on the weapons platform, hands on the marble posts.
Alarm quickened Vorik’s heartbeat. Unlike with cannonballs, a dragon couldn’t dodge the awful magical projectiles that thing fired.
The memory of the time Tibby had launched one of them at him surged into his mind.
“Turn back,” an officer on one of the enemy ships called. “Get us back under the shield!”
Agrevlari flapped his wings and gained altitude, allowing the vessels to change course. There was a smug sashay to his tail that reminded Vorik of the young orange dragon, Igliana.
The cannons stopped firing, and Vorik found it encouraging for Syla that her people weren’t all eager to kill her. If she could find and deal with the usurper, maybe she could reclaim the throne without starting a civil war.
Only two of the three ships made it back under the shield. The third, with gaping holes in the hull, listed to the side as it took on water.
Agrevlari could have finished it off, but he flew higher without guidance. Vorik gave him a pat, glad the dragon had gotten the gist of the mission. While his attacks hadn’t been gentle, he hadn’t carelessly killed people.
Good work, Vorik said.
My work is always excellent. I will head to the freight harbor that your mate desires us to scout. Agrevlari flew high enough to soar above the Castle Island shield as he turned inland.
“Thank you, Vorik and Agrevlari.” Syla loosened her grip enough to brush the side of Vorik’s neck with her fingers, then pat the dragon on the scales. “As soon as I’m able, I’ll reward you both.”
“With blackberry cobbler?” Vorik asked.
With horn-hog cobbler? Agrevlari asked. Wreylith has spoken of that creature’s sumptuousness and availability on your Castle Island.
“I think blackberry season is over,” Syla said, “and any recipes involving baking horn hogs would be for casserole or possibly pot pie rather than cobbler, but I can find suitable food rewards for you both. It’s interesting that you’re motivated by the same desires.”
“We’re simple souls,” Vorik said.
As they flew over the center of the island, he spotted a wagon of Kingdom soldiers traveling along the main highway.
Though they were too far away to represent a threat, they peered up at the dragon, not missing their passing.
It might not be safe for Syla anywhere on her island.
Her goals wouldn’t be easy to accomplish.
Vorik didn’t know how much help he could offer, but he would give it.
With her arms still wrapped around him, it was easy to squeeze her hand, then let his fingers linger, offering support.
With the warmth of her body and her soft curves pressed into his back, he thought of offering even more, but he was so numb from his brother’s passing and all the colleagues he’d lost that sex wasn’t prominent in his mind.
Not that he hadn’t been able to rouse himself in the cabin of her ship the night before. He smiled at the memory.
When Agrevlari reached the northern coast, he flew west along it, away from the capital.
They passed a couple of coves, and Syla murmured to herself and pointed to ones that didn’t have any ships anchored in them.
They would be possible places for her small fleet to sail into long enough to let her disembark.
“There’s Lyvoran Freight Harbor.” Syla pointed between Agrevlari’s horns toward a town around a larger cove with a couple of docks.
Numerous large ships were moored, but they were, as she’d mentioned earlier, cargo vessels.
“And the two warships that Hixun correctly said would be there. But I don’t see any more of the fleet. ”
“If you don’t want a confrontation of any sort, one of the empty coves would be a better place to put ashore.”
“Yes, but Aunt Tibby needs to visit the glassworks in Lyvor. And I think… I don’t think we’re going to anchor five ships anywhere around the island without them being swiftly discovered.”
Syla said more, but something in the distance caught Vorik’s attention, and he peered out across the Sea of Storms. A dark-gray dragon was flying parallel to the island with a rider on its back.
Can you tell who that is? Vorik asked Agrevlari.
They were too far in the distance for him to identify by sight, but dragons could sense and identify magical beings from farther away than eyes could see.
That is Lieutenant Wise riding Tonasketal.
Ah. Vorik didn’t ask Agrevlari to reach out to the other dragon.
He’d been told to remain in the stormer camp, not visit Bogberry Island, and certainly not descend into the mine, kill his brother, and help the Kingdom queen escape.
Even though he would have to one day deal with his people and accept the responsibility for his choices, he dreaded that.
I now sense many stormer-allied dragons in the area, Agrevlari said.
I believe your people are trying to figure out what happened at the Island of Bogs.
From what I gathered, few escaped the chaos and reported back, and we dragons could never fly close to see details.
Of course, we could see the sinkhole that the lake turned into from above the barrier, but even I do not know what happened underground.
One of Agrevlari’s silver eyes turned back toward Vorik.
Nothing good, my friend. Nothing good.
Sooner or later, his people would figure out exactly what had happened.
The chiefs might exile Vorik. Or… for taking down the leader of the Sixteen Talons, they might decide he should be killed.
And Agrevlari, as he was well aware, couldn’t fly through the barriers around the Kingdom islands.
There would be no protection for either of them if Vorik’s people decided to hunt him down.