The dragon’s jaw drops, and Solet cries, “Fire!”
The dragon’s face jerks to the side, a bolt buried in its tongue. Flames spurt from the corners of its mouth. It blasts over the deck, and that’s when it sees the mast and yard. It bucks, trying to heave itself over them, but its shoulder strikes them where they meet, and catches. For half a heartbeat, the mast bends, lines groan, and the prow rears up as this great fly tries to escape the ship’s web, then the top of the mast snaps off and the dragon hurdles the stern deck. The wind from its wings crumples Jeryon and folds Livion over the steering oar, which levers its blade into the air.
On the rowers’ deck, Tuse hears Solet call out, “No wasted shots!” and he calls out himself, “You hear that? Pull harder! Ram her down its throat!”
Bearclaw screams, and the other prisoners take up the cry, an ululation born of exhaustion and blood fevered with powder. The brothers, as one, suck in a huge breath and let out their own barbaric yawp. Tuse, caught up in the moment, himself hollers. Somehow, through this, he hears Livion piping, and yells, “Quiet! Larboard! Hard! Hard!!” The rowers recover themselves and dig in. The Comber turns, then the dragon’s shadow swamps the rowers’ deck. When it smacks the mast, Tuse is flung over the drummer. The ship is wrenched to a stop.
Half a heartbeat later Tuse hears a snapping as horrible as a skull being crushed. The top half of the mast crashes through the open deck onto the rowers in the larboard quarter. One man kicks as his legs refuse to admit his torso has been crushed.
On the stern deck Jeryon looks up as the top of the mast falls into the rowers’ deck, dragging the yard behind it and toward him like a cleaver. It slices into the stern deck, grinding to a stop just before it reaches his head. He spits splinters off his lips.
The dragon is rising away. Jeryon gets up and yells to Solet, “Reload!” He looks down at the carnage in the rowers’ deck. He hears the moans of pain. “Tuse!” No answer.
Bearclaw cranes his head from under the walkway and says, “Captain. Hey. Your whipper’s conked out on the deck.” A hand emerges from the shadows and slaps Bearclaw’s bloody face. Tuse follows, the top of his head sticking out of the deck.
“We have to maneuver,” Jeryon says.
Tuse makes a quick accounting. “We’ve lost a dozen oars. Don’t know how many men. I have at least another dozen, though, to larboard. We’ll make do.”
The starboard quarter oars rise out of the water to keep the boat balanced. He’ll use them to make sharper turns when the time comes, Jeryon thinks. Smart.
“It’s coming around,” Livion says.
“Same as before,” Jeryon says. “To start.”
He stamps on the stern deck and yells, “Poth! Poth!” Her cabin door rattles, wedged shut. Jeryon calls again. The door bursts open, and Everlyn tumbles out. Jeryon says, “The medicine?”
“Good,” she says. “Me too.”
“They need you below,” Jeryon says. He points to where the mast fell.
She looks into the rowers’ deck. “I’ll get my supplies,” she says.
“And the saw,” Jeryon says.
The prow traces the dragon’s trail across the sky. It’s flying much higher now. Two hundred yards, three, four. It comes around west and heads north. Jeryon pulls in his gaze to look over the galley. “This is going to cost us another hour,” he says, “but we can make it up.”
Livion pipes an accidental note of shock.
“Never forget your schedule, Livion. Any idiot can captain a ship. It takes a real captain to bring her home on time.”
The dragon turns toward the sun and tightens the circle. Jeryon signals to Solet. Solet nods and confers with Beale and the crossbowmen. Jeryon sees Solet laugh. He’s either very confident we’re going to win or very confident we’re going to die spectacularly. That’s Ynessi.
The dragon curls in closer and closer until it’s nearly above the galley. The captain gives Livion alternate orders and has him keep the Comber in a slow larboard pivot. He watches Solet give up trying to raise the cannon high enough to target the dragon and grab a stray crossbow. That should even up the odds, Jeryon thinks.
With that the dragon tips forward, stiffens its wings, and dives.
5
* * *
The poth leaves her cabin with the crate of medicinal packets to find the dragon plunging directly at her. She clenches her butt to hold her pee, looks at the ladder, looks at the dragon, and jumps into the rowing deck.
When the dragon is three hundred yards above the galley, Jeryon says, “Now.”
Livion pipes. The galley backrows to starboard and out from under the dragon. The dragon adjusts, bearing down on the foredeck.