The Dragon Round (Dragon #1)(60)

There’s no response. She flashes again. Solet reads the concern in her flashing. He doesn’t want Barad dead, but if he is, what a song this tragedy will make. Still no response.

“It was a long shot,” he tells her. “It might not be dark enough for them to see the flashing at this distance. Jos, as soon as the survivors are on board, get us to shore as fast as possible. I have a plan to deal with the rider there. I will have that gray. In the meantime anchor a buoy and attach it to the dragon so we can dredge it up later and render whatever the crabs don’t.”

Jos passes Mulcent at the top of the ladder. “Attack the rider,” the shipowner says. “I must have that dragon.”

Mylla sees the dragon look in Solet’s eyes as he takes the oar. “As you indicated, the operation’s at an end,” he says. “I assumed you were coming to relieve me now that the dragon’s been taken. Jos can return us to Hanosh once we’ve gathered the survivors.” He takes off his goggles and bandana.

“Conditions have changed,” Mulcent says. “It’s a fire-breather.”

“We aren’t equipped to capture so small a dragon alive,” Solet says. “Certainly not one that’s being ridden. The risks and costs are unpredictable.”

“Forget the risks!” Mulcent says. “Forget the costs!”

Sumpt appears on the ladder. “Did I just hear that?”

“Our arrangement,” Solet says, “calls for us to be paid in render or a percentage of its realized value. This dragon would be more useful ridden than as parts or a gland for milking. So where’s the profit in my capturing it?”

“We can reorganize our terms later,” Mulcent says, “when we have more time.”

“Ah, but I am Ynessi,” Solet says. “We live for the present. Do you know that the old Ynessi word for ‘now’ is the same as that for ‘forever’?”

No, it’s not, Mylla thinks.

“There’s paper and ink in your cabin,” Solet says. “Let’s draw up a new agreement quickly before we’re attacked again.”

Mulcent shivers with rage, and he leads Sumpt and Solet below.

Mylla is amused. Her cousin has learned to play the Hanoshi game very well. When he was younger, Solet would have simply tossed those men overboard, taken the ship, then claimed the dragon for his own. Of course, he still might, given how the owners have treated him. They haven’t learned to play the Ynessi game yet.

4



* * *



The trip to shore takes ten minutes and feels like ten hours. Time reasserts itself when a flashing comes from the beach. The Pyg made it. Barad made it. Kley has freed his remaining rowers, and hidden them and the surviving crew in the trees. A single archer guards them. Solet has Mylla tell Barad he’ll need a dozen men in the surf to unload some cargo quietly.

The wolf pack has been mooring on the beach all week to get fresh water from a nearby stream, hunt small game, and track the dragon, so they know where to land. The partially submerged, partially aflame hulk of the Pyg rests nearby.

The gray dragon is nowhere to be seen in the remains of the day. It can’t have left, Mylla thinks. It must be circling them or watching from a nearby roost. Although Solet often makes the best of a bad lot, this time Mylla can’t be as confident as the rest. Unlike most of the crew, she doesn’t remove her goggles and bandana.

As soon as the galley grabs sand, two large bundles wrapped in canvas are lowered off the bow into waiting arms, then several more bundles of various sizes, then Jos, who directs the party from the Pyg. Sailors and archers slide down after him and pull the Gamo farther onto shore. The whole operation lasts five minutes.

Solet retrieves a lantern from his cabin, runs to the bow, and throws one leg over the starboard rail to slide down a line to the beach. He says, “Stay on the Gamo, Mylla. Keep the owners in their cabins and the rowers at their benches. And be our eyes.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Something stupid.” He takes from a pocket a small roll of paper lumpy with a wax seal, and he hands it to her. “Hold on to this for me,” he says. “Just in case.”

On the beach Solet loads a drop of phlogiston into his lantern’s wick. It flames on touching the air and burns brighter and cleaner than any light Mylla has ever seen, illuminating the forty yards of beach between the Pyg and the Gamo. It gives the beach the warmth of dawn and touches the trees with spring. It shimmers on the galley’s wood. Circling the light, Solet seems to glow himself.

Solet calls out to the gray dragon’s rider in that voice only a captain has, “You want me. Here I am.”

A line of fire erupts thirty yards deep in the forest. Men hidden at the edge leap onto the beach as the trees catch. Mylla sees the dragon cruise above the flames before disappearing down the beach.

Solet turns to watch it. He continues calling, “Here I am. You want me. Here I am.”

At the edge of the dragonlight Mylla sees the gray racing back up the beach toward Solet. The Ynessi retreats past the lantern. The gray stretches out its claws. Solet holds out his arms, but when the dragon reaches the lantern, he falls backward. The Gamo’s harpoon cannons, planted in the sand at the tree line, fire simultaneously. Their irons spread a cargo net between them that tangles the dragon and rider and sends them crashing to the sand.