The Dragon Round (Dragon #1)(48)

Tuse’s face reddens. “That one’s had enough. If he flags, fix him an old-fashioned ration.”

The oarmaster uncoils his whip.

Tuse closes the hatch. Since the Comber, he’s preferred a covered deck. The rowers get hot, but they need so much water as it is, what’s a little more? Let them burn. There’s more where they came from.

He tries to close the hatch on his memory of the poth too, but it won’t stay battened.

When Rowan reaches the stern deck, the first mate, a man as dour as he is sallow, is already clenching his whistle in his teeth.

“The captain will exercise his privilege?” Press says.

“Yes,” Rowan says.

Press’s lips curdle. He blows the call for whaling.

Many in the crew leave off their duties to prepare the galley for rendering. The second harpooner, a lank-limbed man with lankier hair named Igen, runs to the foredeck to load the cannons. While the captain is looking into the hatch, Igen holds two fingers downward, then six fingers upward.

The crew looks at Press. Press peers at the whales, considers the distance and roll of the sea, and raises his arm with three fingers down. Igen nods. Other crewmen out of the captain’s sight show one or two fingers held downward as well. Igen marks these with a nod, then a disappointed shake of his head. He holds eight fingers up. No one raises an arm. He holds up ten fingers. Still no takers.

Press chuckles. “He’s going to take a bath.”

“You shouldn’t bet on the captain to miss,” Rowan says.

“You shouldn’t still be standing here.” The boy leaves. Who is he to talk to a mate? The captain favors him too much, perhaps because only the boy favors the captain. Some of the old-fashioned ration would bring him down a peg.

Press watches Tuse go forward and bend over a cannon. Press should be the one to shoot, not man the oar. He’s far more accurate. So’s Edral, probably so’s the boy, and neither’s ever shot before. Captain Boots says he doesn’t need a third mate because two can do the work of three, something the company appreciates, but Press has heard the rumors that something curious happened on the Comber. Maybe he thinks he can only control two mates. The joke on the galley is that Boots is in fact the third mate impersonating a captain.

When he gets his galley, he won’t run it like Boots. He’ll have the proper three mates and two fearful boys, not one little bootlicker. He’ll dress the way a captain should. And he won’t allow gambling.

Tuse swivels the cannon. The motion relaxes him, like picturing a punch before you throw it. Others are better shots, especially Press, but he has to take any opportunity to prove himself worthy of his shirt. He knows they call him Boots. Maybe a little whale meat for dinner will placate them. And if he can show the other captains that sea foraging will lessen the ration expense, maybe they’ll stop calling him “the oarmaster” for skipping first and second mate.

“Do you want me on the other?” Igen says.

“We won’t need it,” Tuse says.

“Aye.” Igen smiles, cautiously optimistic.

On the foredeck stairs, Rowan holds ten fingers upward against his chest.

Igen gives him a look: Where would you get—

Rowan clinks the pouch tucked inside his short pants. Igen, with the grin of a man just pulled from the sea, nods. Rowan goes to stand beside Tuse.

Tuse mutters, “It’s nice to get at least one vote of confidence.”

“It’s your money,” Rowan says.

“Not all of it. I only gave you eight pennies to bet.”

Rowan says, “ ‘Bet on the man who bets on himself,’ my father says. Besides, you’re going to hit the whale.”

Tuse suppresses a smile.

Press kicks himself. He should have bet five pennies. If the kid is betting, he must know something. Stupid to miss such an easy opportunity. Press makes a mental note: Vigilance! You’ll never be captain if you won’t take a chance.

The first mate hears a strange whooshing astern then something hits him square in the back of the head.

2



* * *



The galley closes on the whale pods, which are merging in a great eddy. They’re razorbacks, enormous, fast and easy to spook when they’re alone, but being in such a large group gives them confidence, and they ignore the galley. It’s like a family reunion. Some bob together like old men chatting. Calves jump and race. A few imperious matrons slap them down.

Tuse finds a tubby little calf dead ahead. The other calves swim away from it, and it wallows as it watches them go. Tuse digs in his heels. Other men get dragons. He gets the saddest whale. It figures. He knew kids like that when he was growing up. They didn’t last long. He might have been one had he not learned to use his fists.

Tuse considers the range and wind. The calf flops around to look at him with wide, empty eyes. “This’ll be a mercy,” he says, and he brings the firing rod to the touch hole.

The sail explodes behind him. Heat roars over the foredeck. The sound of lines snapping and the sail whipping loose is lost in the groan and shudder of the galley pulling up short. Tuse, startled, pushes the cannon down and fires the harpoon into the sea. He watches it drag down the whale line. His first thought is, I’ll have to make it up to the boy.

His next are: Is that a dragon rising away? Where did it come from? Why didn’t it make an exploratory pass?