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.
Had it not been slowing to snatch Solet, the dragon might have been seriously injured. Had the rider not been strapped to his saddle, he might have been thrown. Instead, the dragon thrashes and rolls while the rider tries to calm it and avoid being crushed. Sailors rush forward with rope and lash different parts of the net together. As the net tightens around the dragon it pulls in its wings and lays still.
Bodger and Gibbery come up to check their work and help Solet to his feet. Relieved he’s alive, Solet gives the harpooners immense hugs. The Hanoshi do not hug. Bodger and Gibbery are too impressed with themselves to care.
Mulcent appears. He watched the action from the door of his cabin and slid to shore once it was over. He gives the harpooners a curt nod that says he’ll remember their shots when their monthlies are remitted.
Solet turns to the rider, who glares at the toes of his boots, then up at him through the netting. “I don’t know what’s more shocking,” Solet says. “That you’re alive, or that you’re bearded.”
Mulcent says, “Who is he?”
“My former captain.”
“It can’t be,” Mulcent says, peering at him. “He’s dead.”
“Yes,” Solet says. “You have the Comber render as proof.” Jeryon gives Mulcent a long look at this.
The Pyg’s deck collapses and the flames expand. Smoke blots out the stars. Fortunately the fire in the woods is burning inland, thanks to a breeze, and doing so slowly, thanks to a recent storm.