“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.
“Faster,” Rowan mutters.
Flames burst below. Patches of deck darken. The dragon rears its head.
Tuse jams the harpoon home, stops, and scans the galley. Rowan follows his eyes.
The mast is burning like a candle. The sail is about to collapse. The oars are flopping uselessly. Tuse looks at Rowan. He smiles grimly, then hangs the firing rod on its hook, turns to face the dragon, and puts his arms out.
Rowan yells, “What are you doing? Shoot it! Shoot the rider!” Rowan races forward.
Bearclaw says, “Come back, boy!”
He’s small, and the captain is huge, but Rowan knows how to tackle. He’ll save the captain from his madness and get the key. He runs through the dragon’s shadow. Tuse watches it come. The dragon doesn’t enflame him, though. Instead, it flips its back legs forward and snatches Tuse off the deck. The captain screams, the dragon lifts and whirls, and they head south.
Rowan leaps onto the foredeck. He quickly finishes loading. He raises the harpoon as high as it will go. The dragon is a hundred yards away and bobbing each time Tuse kicks. Rowan points the cannon more than he aims. A wave lifts the bow and gives him the extra distance he needs. He takes up the firing rod and stabs the touch hole.
The charge sizzles, and the iron bloops into the falling wave.
“Why didn’t he fight?” Rowan says. “Why did he leave me?” Then he spots something shiny hanging on the firing rod hook. It’s the key. The captain did fight, Rowan realizes, by surrendering himself.
A half-mile away the dragon dives and just above the water drops the tiny speck that is the captain. Rowan is about to yell for someone to get the galley’s dinghy so they can save him when the dragon circles, dives again, and plucks Tuse from the water before continuing south.
The fight isn’t over, though. Rowan runs to the hatch with the key. He’ll free the rowers, even that weasel Bearclaw. They’ll help put out the fires. Then he’ll persuade Edral to follow the rider. The rest can have the dragon. He wants his captain.
3
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