“They’re used to hauling blubber,” the captain said. “Us? We be light as a feather.”
Selena doubted that was true but the dogs seemed eager to run. Tunney stood at the year of the sled while Selena, Julian and Niven huddled beneath him. The captain’s whip cracked high above and the sound set the dogs to running. Once they found their momentum, they dragged the sled along the icy path that ran parallel to the beach with ease. The whale skinning and boiling of blubber was still going on in an endless stretch of smoking tryworks, bloody carcasses, and a cloud of stench that made Selena’s stomach clench.
Selena huddled deep into her seal coat and concentrated on what she saw around her, to distract from the biting cold within. On the right, the barrier of icebergs that created the bay around Isle Nanokar’s township looked like the lower jaw of some great beast. To the left, the township was bustling with people, and the smoke was the clean smoke of home fires. Beyond the township, a rise of dark green pine trees covered the landscape, brushed with snow in feathery strokes. Svoz was in there, somewhere, making a meal from the deer and elk Tunney told them inhabited the woods.
“The first snows haven’t come down yet,” the captain shouted from behind them. He stood, whip in hand, guiding the sled. “With good luck, it won’t fall ‘til the trading be done. The packets from the Lords sail in first, and that’s a sight that gladdens our hearts, I can tell you. We trade with all sorts o’ nations, but them’s our best customer and vicey-versy.”
Selena listened intently as Tunney described some of Nanokar’s history, its settlement some eight hundred years ago in the Age of Discovery, and the tight-knit bond of its inhabitants.
“We ain’t got no quarrel with no one,” he said. “The elements, they’s who we must respect and give our energies to. Ain’t no sense in fretting o’er nothing else.”
Niven craned around. “Don’t you worry about attack? It seems whale oil is lucrative. I would think a hostile island would be interested in a share of the spoils. Or pirates?”
Tunney laughed. He gestured to the ‘burning beach’ as Julian had called it.
“No easy business, that! Hunting a whale is a right good way to get yerself kilt. An’ if it don’t, there be the sharks, the cutting o’ the blubber, the boiling oil…Well, you saw yerself what happened to ole Boris. He got lucky on account on yer ladyship being here, but accidents like that happen a dozen times e’ry turn o’ the moon. Who wants that? Not pirates. They be a lazy lot,” he laughed again and then grew serious.
“We make a fine living, that’s true, but we come by it with hard work an’ sacrifice. We ain’t lost no man this season so far—bless the Shining face for its mercy—but that’s a rare season in which we don’t give a good man t’ the sea. E’ry ‘bloon is well-earned, I can assure you.”
“Oh, aye. Yes, absolutely. I believe you,” Niven said. “I just worried over your safety when I saw no signs of armed militia or the like.”
“Nah,” Tunney said. “Anyways, anyone mess with us an’ they be bringing down the wrath o’ the Isle o’ Lords and their mighty powerful armada.”
“They’re loyal friends,” Niven said.
The captain burst out laughing. “O they be loyal all right: to the ‘bloons we spend on foodstuffs an’ mead from their isles. An’ fer our oil a’course. See, we don’t do the distributing. The Lords does that…after a healthy mark-up on prices, you can be sure. We just want enough coin to live comfortable. We’re simple folk.”
“Not simple,” Selena said, her jaw tight with cold. “You have a rich history and you have a library. Only two other isles can boast the latter.”
The township’s buildings and shops tapered away to storage shacks and then gave way altogether to a sheer rock wall of pale stone. The cliff towered over them and extended down the length of the shore until it was lost to sight. Glyphs of rough whorls and letters in faded paint covered the lower portions of the cliff for more than half a league.
“What are these?” Niven asked. “They look very old. Are they historical?”
Tunney laughed. “They look old on account of the wind an’ the cold. These here are the markings of our townships youngin’s, an’ about as historical as last night’s dinner.”
“Oh. It’s…vandalism.”
Selena heard the chagrin in Niven’s voice, but Captain Tunney was a good man. “Iffen you want to see something good ‘an historical, me friend, just you wait.”
Selena hunched deeper into her coat. She hoped Tunney meant the library. The windpaint kept the worst of the cold off her face but she was beginning to wish she had bathed in it.
The sled slid along the snow-swept beach for another few minutes when Captain Tunney called a halt at a huge wooden door set into the stone wall. It stood ten spans high and was braced by huge iron hinges that were somehow locked into the cliff.
The dogs slowed to a jog and then lay down, tongues lolling. Steam chugged out of their open mouths as they panted for breath. The captain tossed each dog some dried meat from a satchel at his waist and bade them to remain put. Satisfied that that was enough to keep the dogs from running off with the sled, Tunney turned to the door. Grunting and straining, he managed to lift the latch up—it squealed on the icy hinge—and let it fall to the other side. The crash was deafening and Selena glanced up, sure that snow would come barreling down on them. The sound was torn away by the wind and the door swung open after Tunney gave it a hard tug. A cold, biting wind swirled out of the gap and Tunney jumped back as the gust slammed the heavy iron door open as if it were made of paper. Selena cringed as another thunderous clang resounded.
Tunney squinted hard against the wind and gestured for them to enter. “Welcome to Dragon’s Breath Canyon.”
They stepped through the door and into the cliff that Selena had thought was made of solid rock. Instead, a canyon spread out before them in long stretches of pathways, around and through immense pillars, caverns, and tunnels of pale stone. A fierce wind howled and whistled like a trapped spirit, swirling around the companions’ feet and stinging their eyes with gritty sand.
“How did the canyon get its name?” Niven asked, shouting to be heard.
Captain Tunney smiled. “I’m certain it’ll come to you, lad.”
Selena walked along the canyon floor and realized the immense bulging stone before her was not rounded by wind, but was carved in the likeness of a dragon’s belly, complete with scales and folded wings. And that the stony boulder she passed was not naturally smooth and then sharpened at the end, but a dragon’s talon.