The Dragon Round (Dragon #1)(49)

“Who’s riding it?” Rowan says.

“Riding?” Igen says.

Tuse drifts down the stairs, shadowed by Rowan, watching the dragon and its rider come around astern. Where did he come from? Is he Aydeni? Ynessi? A pirate? How is he staying on the dragon?

A voice pierces the deck. Bearclaw says, “I won’t go through it again! No!” Edral’s whip cracks. The voice stops. The oars keep moving.

We have to keep moving, Tuse thinks, and he realizes the rest of the crew has been gawking at the dragon rider too. His hand twitches as if he had his whip. “Dragon stations!”

The crew comes to. He’s trained them well, and they’ve repelled two attacks by Aydeni privateers in the last six months. The threat of defense, just putting up your fists, is often the best one. The shutters on the rowers’ deck are closed. A four-man fire team assembles to deal with the sail and the mast. Two crossbow teams take their weapons from under the foredeck. Igen reloads the larboard cannon, which he’ll man. Press should be coming to take the starboard cannon while another crewman takes the oar. Tuse peers through the smoke to find him, only to see his first mate’s head bouncing toward him. Tuse traps it with his foot.

While Press’s head stares up at Tuse in horror, he sees Press’s replacement stuck on the stern deck ladder, staring at something by the oar, then at the dragon diving astern. Training is one thing; reality, another. The crewman ducks and hugs the ladder, and Tuse realizes the rider’s plan.

The dragon’s glide path will take it along the water, using the stern deck as a shield, presumably to rake their oars, probably starboard. He’ll cripple them, test their aim, then come in for the kill.

Tuse tells Rowan, “Get to the hatch and tell Edral hard larboard, double-time.”

“On your mark?”

“Immediately. Then relay from there.” He pats Rowan on the back, and the boy springs away. Tuse picks up Press’s head, he can’t leave it on the deck, and after a second’s consideration puts it in the iron powder bin. He mounts the foredeck. “Igen, ten seconds to load that cannon. We’ll catch the rider as he comes amidships. We can use the stern deck for cover too.”

Igen sees the plan in his head as he wads and packs. If the rider is attacking from the stern, he may know their defenses, which means he may think the cannons can’t be fired back over the deck. Tuse, however, had the stays removed after the Shield refused his requisition for a stern deck cannon following the last privateer attack. The rider will be flying right down their barrels. Igen swivels the cannon to aim behind Tuse’s and says, “Three–one against.”

“Us?” Tuse says.

“Him.”

Tuse grunts with satisfaction and swings the starboard cannon around. He glances at the hatch. Rowan half dives into it. Edral yells. The drumming accelerates. The ship veers to larboard and the dragon appears, unable to make the turn with them. It floats away to starboard and the rider makes the mistake Tuse had hoped he would. Instead of curling away for another run, he tries to turn with the galley, unwilling to give up his prey and, as the dragon banks, making himself a better target for them.

Tuse says, “Fire!”

Igen’s harpoon nearly takes off an errant crewman’s head then gashes the dragon’s shoulder. Tuse’s harpoon, loosed a heartbeat later, unspools whale line behind it. The crewman, leaping for cover, almost has his head taken off again. The shot looks true and Tuse thinks they could winch the dragon in until the dragon jerks. His harpoon gashes its tail before sailing into the sea.

Now the rider peels away, cuts around the stern deck, and with a shout causes the dragon to enflame the larboard oars. As the oars go slack, the galley curls farther in that direction, and the dragon has to roar over the bow. It’s so low that the crossbow teams fling themselves down and Igen flings himself overboard to avoid Press’s fate.

Tuse and the rider glare at each other as they pass, and Tuse knows the rider more than he recognizes him. Jeryon doesn’t have a beard in his nightmares.

The rider turns the dragon’s head and yells, “Comber!” and the dragon enflames the forward oars on the starboard side.

Rowan, standing on the ladder beneath the hatch, watches the dragon fly nearly straight up. The dragon’s fire has crept up the oars and through the tholes and unshuttered ports on both sides of the galley to sear the rowers and burn the benches. Smoke fills the rowers’ deck. It’s laced with yellow tendrils from their last cargo, Dawn Lands sulfur. The hatch becomes a chimney, and Rowan has to lean out of the smoke. The sulfur burns his throat. Chains rattle as the rowers beg to be released, Bearclaw loudest of all.

“Help me, boy,” he says. “You’re a good boy. Be a good boy.”

He has to help the rowers. They’re men, whatever the captain says. And as the dragon pivots like a swimmer after a lap and floats high above the ship, he has a moment. What can he do, though? Tuse ordered him here. If the ship can’t steer, they’re a sitting duck.

“Boy! Are you listening?” Bearclaw says.

The captain wouldn’t let them die down there, would he? Rowan could break the chains, but the tools he’d need are in the carpenter’s box, which is stored too far away. Besides, that would take too long. He needs the key. The rowers could unlock themselves. The captain has it.

The dragon dives. The crossbowmen drop their weapons and crawl for cover. The fire team working on the sail brings it down just enough to hide behind it. And Tuse is still loading.