The Dragon Round (23 page)

“We?” Mulcent says and sips some smoke. “Wouldn't you be putting yourself out of a job?”

“I think a man who can capture a dragon would be in great demand,” Solet says, “if relieved from his position or undercompensated. Markets do thrive when there's competition.”

Sumpt sorts. Smoke drifts up from his nose.

Solet doesn't add that his position is already endangered. How many more dragons can there be that his pack could kill easily?

Mulcent is not amused. “How do you plan on accomplishing this?” he says. “Our ships have already incurred significant repair costs from previous excursions, which have diminished expected returns.”

“The ships are outfitted with a number of new devices,” Solet says, “as you're aware from having paid for them. The
Pyg
has pots that will blast a cloud of pepper into a dragon's face to disorient and possibly blind it. Our harpoons have weighted heads for greater penetration—”

“Much like my own,” Sumpt says, waving his snifter to be refilled.

“Plus the harpoons will be attached to chains,” Solet says, “and the chains to winches so we can hold the dragon, keep it from flying, and, once it falls into the water, drag it into a position to subdue it.”

“How will you do that?” Mulcent says.

“We'll stretch it between the boats, then fire a harpoon through its snout. This iron will have a flange near the end so the dragon can't work it out. It won't be able to open its mouth, saving more phlogiston for us.”

“I know some foremen who need that treatment,” Sumpt says, and takes a long draft of the burnt wine.

Mulcent holds his hand to his ear. “Curious,” he says, “I don't hear the laughter you think you hear.”

Sumpt scowls and blows smoke at Mulcent.

A long sharp whistle comes from the
Kolos
. The watches on the foredecks of the
Pyg
and the
Gamo
blow theirs. Sumpt sits up. He points off the
Pyg
's bow, where a green-blue dragon with broad wings
has lifted into the dusk above the black backdrop of the cliffs. It has an enormous red stag in its claws.

“It must be as big as our ship,” Sumpt says.

Solet gives a hand signal to the stern deck. A whistle is returned. The
Gamo
's drum replies with a soft, slow beat, and the oars gently pivot the galley to face the
Pyg
. Another whistle stops them.

“It must be as big as our ship,” Sumpt says again.

“Not quite,” Solet says. “The one I took on the
Comber
was longer. It'll be no trouble. Now,” he motions to stern, “if you'll take your places in your cabins.”

“Do they always fly like that?” Mulcent says. The dragon darts and drifts as it flies. It looks agitated, but not in the way a dragon gets when it's considering an attack. “Is it looking for something?”

“Must be the weight of the stag,” Solet says, “and the wind against it, throwing it off.” He holds out his arm. “Your cabins. We only have a few moments.”

A passing crewman, misunderstanding, hands Solet a pair of leather goggles with glass lenses and a bandana to cover his nose and mouth.

Sumpt jiggles to his feet and polishes off his wine, but Mulcent stays in his seat and says, “I've changed my mind. I will remain on deck.” He gestures for the valets to clear the table and take it away.

Sumpt grabs the bottle before his valet can and says, “We must get out of the crew's way. The portholes will afford us excellent views.” He takes two encouraging steps toward the cabin.

Mulcent sniffs his wine and waves away the valet's tray. “No,” he says, “I'm here to observe. I wish to see that none of these devices are merely for show. I may be able to suggest some additional efficiencies. For instance, fewer ships.”

Solet half expects Mulcent to demand that he make the decisive blow as well, the way other owners are guided through a wood, handed a loaded crossbow, and told when to fire so they can later call themselves hunters.

The dragon closes. Sumpt drinks straight from the bottle. Mulcent looks at him stonily. Sumpt decides. With his puffy cheeks held as firmly as possible, he follows the valets and their loads of tableware and linen to the cabin that once was Solet's.

Mulcent takes his glass to the mast and says, “I will stay here.”

Solet says, “As you wish.” He smiles again and gives Mulcent his goggles and bandana. “Because of the pepper,” he says.

A sailor gives Solet a replacement pair of goggles as he mounts the stern deck. He hears Sumpt bar the cabin door, as if a four-inch iron peg will protect him. Solet laughs. Sumpt is too scared to act stupid. Mulcent is too stupid to be scared. And if he and his efficiencies are swept overboard in the confusion, there is a precedent for such a tragedy.

2

The first mate, Jos, has the oar. An old bone pipe hangs from his bottom lip like the stump of a cigar. Others might be bothered by that, waiting for the pipe to fall, but Solet finds it amusing. He appreciates insolence when carried off well. Jos would make an excellent match for one of his sisters, but he's from Duva, and they wouldn't have one not truly of the sea. Pity.

Mylla, Solet's cousin and former ship's boy, rests her candlebox on the rail as she reads messages from the other two ships. “The
Kolos
has concerns about the dragon,” she says. “Barad's nervous.”

Barad, the
Kolos
's lamp, is always nervous around her, Solet thinks, even when he lets them flash chat during their downtime. Poor kid likes her, and he has zero chance. She keeps her black hair tied up and back. If she liked Barad, she'd grow her bangs long to hide behind them.

Mylla is still on the scrawny side, but carries herself as far larger. Although an obscure regulation would let her wear, as a female, a
fustanella, which she would prefer, she nonetheless wears plain blue uniform pants with the white one-button shirt befitting her rank. Solet got his uniformed personnel exempted from wearing the uniform hat—by throwing them all away during their first voyage, then claiming they were lost in the fighting—but she doesn't mind the blue vest, which her own study of the regulations revealed she could cut short and have made of any fabric she wanted. She chose a thick cotton and made a pocket inside for her knife. Trapped in his boots, he envies her sandals, which she despises. They catch on her toe rings.

After her predecessor was devoured, she proved such a quick study with the candlebox that she can identify other lamps by how they flash. He'd be concerned that her expertise would get her transferred to another ship if he didn't know how much the Shield hated girls being aboard in the first place.

“The
Kolos
may be right,” Jos says. “That dragon looks rabid.”

“Could be injured,” Mylla says, “or distressed or diseased.”

Solet hates to read, and he hated schooling even more; when did math keep a boy from being incinerated? Fortunately, Mylla loves it, another thing that recommended her to him, and she happily traded her cheap broadsheets full of fanciful tales about dragons for stolid reports about actual ones.

“We might want to give it a wide berth,” Jos says. “Or watch it for a bit.”

“We can't afford that,” Solet says. The dragon jerks and flies a hundred yards south before jerking east again. “Mylla, see if anyone can spot a second dragon. Maybe it's caught the scent of one.”

The girl flashes the other two galleys. The
Kolos
responds, then, a moment later, the
Pyg
. “No,” Mylla says. “I also told Barad to ask the trackers if they found spoor from more than one dragon, and they said no.”

“Good,” Solet says.

“Besides, a dragon thinks either food or enemy,” Mylla says.

Solet has an idea. “Tell the
Pyg
if the dragon passes without
dropping the stag, she should send up some bolts to get its attention.” Mylla flashes. “We may have to improvise a bit with this one.” That might not be a bad thing. After two successful attacks, then the dry season, the crews may have gotten complacent or bored.
What could happen?
they might be thinking. How many ways could a dragon and a galley fight? If they lost interest, they could lose focus, then real problems would arise.

Solet says, “Oh, and tell them, ‘Good luck.' ”

Mylla flashes.

Barad responds, “You too, Mylla.”

She scowls at Solet. “You're a bad man,” Mylla says as he and Jos grin.

By the time the dragon flies
over the rocky shore, the crews are prepared: goggles and bandanas on, weapons ready, decks sanded, pails of water and sand at hand. The dragon glides toward them, a hundred yards high, to investigate. Solet stands at the front of the stern deck and says to Jos, “Let's begin.”

Jos blows three shrill notes. Mylla flashes. The
Pyg
and the
Kolos
acknowledge. As the
Pyg
backrows, the monoremes row forward, creating a pocket between the ships.

When the dragon reaches the edge of the pocket, the
Pyg
blasts two large packets of pepper into the air. The spicers have charged them well: the packets explode in front of the dragon, and the pepper washes across the beast's face. It chokes and drops, catches itself, and flings the stag, which bounces down the
Pyg
's deck.

The
Pyg
's crew comes alive, to Solet's satisfaction.

The dragon swerves down and out of the cloud and straight into a harpoon fired from the
Kolos
. The iron finds the hollow beneath the dragon's left shoulder, and the dragon swerves toward the
Pyg
. The harpoon chain, painted bright red, clatters as it unspools. When the paint changes to white a sailor locks the winch. A harpooner on the
Pyg
buries an iron in its right thigh. Again red chain unspools as
the dragon retreats from the pocket, turning the
Kolos
's bow. The white chain appears, the winch is locked, and the
Pyg
's deck strains. The galleys backrow at right angles to each other, stretching the dragon between them and too far away for its breath to reach either. Perfect.

The dragon's wings, bigger than sails, gulp huge bowls of air and drag the galleys toward shore. Solet didn't think that was possible. It has to tire soon.

The deck around the winches puckers. The galleys are drawn closer together. Harpooners on each galley fire, landing shots in its left leg and right side, enraging the dragon and holding it more securely. The winches settle. The steersmen lean on their oars and pipe for the galleys to row back and away, which spreads the dragon out again. The galleys are still moving toward shore, though.

Now archers, who aren't sailors doubling as crossbowmen and who can fire more frequently and accurately, move up and shoot at the dragon's eyes. Arrows whisker its snout. The
Pyg
's pepper pot gives it another whiff.

Mylla winces as the harpoons pull out the dragon's hide, and the creature gags on the pepper. Its roars are horrible. She thinks she hears words, threats promising the worst sort of death. Its head and neck twist wildly. It heaves more furiously and to her horror the bows of the galleys lift a bit and the crews brace themselves. She has to be like Solet, though: However impressive dragons are, and in the old books she's read dragons are spell-weaving, mysterious, and wise, in reality they are just big cows waiting to be slaughtered.

Solet says, “Jos, take us behind it. Mylla, tell our harpooners, on my signal, to pin its wings.”
It can't stay up with three galleys on it
, he thinks,
not with three
. Jos pipes and the galley glides around the struggling dragon. Solet raises his fist, and the harpooners raise their firing rods.

When the dragon flings out its wings, he hammers the rail. One
iron bursts through the right wing and falls into the water. The dangling chain widens the hole in the membrane with each flap. The second iron catches in the thicker membrane near the dragon's left elbow. Solet orders, “Backrow halftime.” The chain unspools. When it turns white, the winch is locked, and the galley pulls the wing back until the dragon can barely stay aloft.

This is almost too easy
, Solet thinks.
The shipowners have to be impressed
.

The dragon, desperate for lift, changes tactics and lunges, pulling the
Gamo
and causing the
Pyg
and the
Kolos
to lurch. The
Pyg
's rowers lose their coordination for a moment, the dragon lunges again, and the chains connecting them slacken considerably. As the
Pyg
's oars find the water together again, the dragon's head lowers against its chest, its belly heaves, and its head flips up. A huge, yolky gob flies from its mouth and splashes just ahead of the
Pyg
's bow.

The yolk doesn't splatter. It spreads. Waves sloshing over it burst, and the spray wafts over the harpooners, who frantically rub their hands and faces.

Peering beneath the dragon's wings, Mylla says, “What was that?”

Solet shakes his head. “Vomit?”

“Acid,” Jos says. “Same idea, though.”

Mulcent says, “Why is it not breathing fire?”

How long he has been standing beside them on the stern deck, still as a piling, Solet doesn't know, but this is no place for him. “To the mast,” he says, “or to your cabin.”

“We sell phlogiston,” Mulcent says. “What use is . . . regurgitation?”

Solet's hand is waving to larboard as Jos maneuvers them directly behind the dragon so they can pull it away from the
Pyg
. He says, “This is hardly—it still has hide and bone.”