The pebble burns down small enough so that when the bow smacks a large wave, it falls all the way into the touch hole. A boom roars across the waves, chased by the harpoon, which splashes uselessly into the sea.
Jeryon’s about to risk calling out from the stern deck when Solet turns on Beale. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
Beale looks from Solet to Topp to the crossbowmen and back to Topp. “I don’t know how it could have gone off,” he says. Topp’s look is especially withering. “Maybe it didn’t notice.”
They’re a hundred feet from the stern deck. Nevertheless, they all hear Livion yell, “Captain.”
The shadow rises over the sun, half a thumb wide, still so small, but coming on fast. Its wings reap the sky in twin arcs. Its sinuous neck pumps. Its claws and teeth glint like swords. Even at a mile and a half, its black scales shimmer red in the dawn.
Solet can’t see the dragon’s eyes, but it feels like the beast is staring at him.
Livion says, “Fifteen minutes, Captain. At most.”
3
* * *
Jeryon calls his mates into his cabin. They gather around a small slate-topped table. With chalk Jeryon draws an idiot’s map of the Comber: a long cigar, a triangle at one end for the foredeck, a square at the other for the sterncastle. In the center he draws a circle for the mast, surrounded by four long rectangles where the deck is open. From a shelf he grabs the only decorative thing in the otherwise sparsely furnished room: a whale tooth two hands long. It’s covered in a beautifully detailed, blue ink rendering of the Comber. Jeryon holds it behind the stern deck and says, “This is the dragon.”
Handsome piece, Solet thinks.
“It won’t attack immediately,” Jeryon says. “It’ll pass us first and maybe circle us.” He runs the tooth around the picture. “If it doesn’t find us interesting, it’ll fly away. If it stays”—he sets the tooth behind the stern deck—“we have to make it uninterested. We’ll strike first.”
“Punch it in the nose,” Tuse says. “Like a shark. I’ve used that strategy in bars.” He flexes his scarred fingers.
“Yes, but the shark punch is a myth. They’ll just eat your fist. Dragons, though—I’ve read more than a dozen reports on dragon attacks from the last decade. In the few cases in which ships have struck first, most of the time the dragons left them alone.”
“How many is ‘most’?” Solet says.
“Two out of three,” Jeryon says.
“That’s about my record in the bars,” Tuse says.
“As first mate,” Livion says, “I must remind you—”
Of course you must, Solet thinks.
“That in the event of a dragon attack at sea, company policy dictates that a galley run or otherwise avoid a fight. The insurers won’t pay out if we fight. The attack, in their eyes, would become a confrontation, not an act of nature.”
“Shall I remind you what’s happened to every ship that’s waited to fight?” Jeryon says. “Or would you care to present the report you wrote about your previous ship?”
Centered in the porthole, the dragon is as wide as Livion’s thumb. It’s diving to the wavetops to pick up speed then soaring up.
“No,” Livion says.
“How many survived?” Jeryon says.
“Eighteen, not counting me.”
“Right,” Jeryon says. “You know that I do things by the book. I trust the book. I trust the people who wrote the book. And I expect my crew to abide by the book. In this one case, though, the book is wrong. We will have to rewrite it.”
“The Trust will not be pleased,” Livion says.
“Their ship will be afloat,” Jeryon says. “Their cargo will be safe. Their city will survive. Here’s what we’ll do.” He holds the tooth a few feet over the table and flies it athwart the larboard side. “As the dragon passes, we will veer across its path.” Jeryon kicks a table leg so the table slides and the mates jump. “And startle it.”
Solet says, “Show it our side?”
“We’re not being rammed,” Jeryon says. “We want it to think we’re tough to catch. Just like a rabbit veers. Unlike a rabbit, though, when the dragon’s momentum carries it over us, we will bite its belly with a load of crossbow bolts.”
Solet smiles. “This is Ynessi.” It’s his highest compliment. Perhaps the captain can reach.
“What happens if it doesn’t lose interest?” Livion says.
“Then we turn and face it head on.”
Solet’s smile disappears. He’ll be on the foredeck, the galley’s face.
“We won’t get another shot at its belly,” Jeryon says. “The soft flesh of its face is its next most vulnerable region. The eyes. The mouth. The nostrils. Besides, there’s no room for it to land on the foredeck.”