The Dragon Round (Dragon #1)(59)

“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.”

“So what’s he waiting for?” Jos says.

“Night,” Solet says. Ah is barely above the horizon and Med is lost again. “Mylla, flash the Pyg.”