An Oath of Brothers

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Erec stood at the bow of the ship, hands on his hips, studying the sight before him in awe. There, rising up from the seas, were two ancient rock formations—the Dragon’s Spine—serrated rocks that rose in a jagged formation, a hundred feet high, with rocky shores sprawled alongside them, forcing all ships to travel between them. Erec looked up at it looming before them as they sailed closer and closer, mouth agape at their immensity. He’d never seen anything quite like it. Two sets of red cliffs, rocks sharp, shaped to points, in rows, like the curved spine of a dragon. The currents raged, getting stronger with each moment, and they sucked the ship toward the center, like an angry beast sucking prey for its open mouth.

Making matters worse, the waves and tides were vicious here, growing ever more intense the closer they got, the winds stronger, the clouds darker. In the middle of the Spine, Erec could see, the waves rolled a good thirty feet high, then crashed down against the jagged rocks on either side, the entire channel between the spines like a violent whirlpool in a bathtub. It seemed like a sure death.

The Dragon’s Spine lived up to its reputation; indeed, as they neared it, their ship bobbing wildly, Erec could begin to see the remains of dozens of other ships, washed up on its rocks, pieces of them still clinging to boulders as if clinging to life, a vestige of what once was. Those pieces, Erec knew, represented countless sailors’ deaths. Even now, in death, waves crashed mercilessly against them, pounding the fragments to ever smaller pieces. It was a fierce testament to all the ships that had tried foolishly to broach the Spine.

Erec gripped the rail, his stomach dropping as their ship suddenly dropped twenty feet in a wave, and clung to Alistair’s waist on his other side, to make sure she was okay. On his other side stood Strom, his face wet from the spray, slipping on the deck but hanging onto the rail.

“Did I not tell you to go below?” Erec pleaded with Alistair again, yelling over the wind to be heard.

Alistair shook her head, gripping the rail.

“I go where you go,” she replied.

Erec looked back and saw his fleet behind him, and looked over and saw Krov’s all-black ships sailing alongside him, flying the black flag of the Bouldermen. He spotted Krov, hands on his hips, standing at the bow, looking over at him, clearly unhappy. Krov, though, somehow managed to stand with steady legs, balancing on his boat even with the waves crashing all around him, looking unfazed, as if it were just another sunny day at sea.

He shook his head at Erec.

“You couldn’t go around, could you?” he yelled out, annoyed.

Erec turned and looked straight ahead at the looming waves and rocks. He turned back and saw many of his men going below the decks.

He turned again to Alistair.

“Get down below,” he said. “I beg you.”

She shook her head.

“I shall not,” she insisted. “Not for anything.”

Erec turned and looked at Strom, who shrugged back as if to say: I can’t control her.

“She is a wife fit for a King,” Strom said. “What do you expect?”

A towering wave suddenly crashed over the deck, knocking them all back off their feet, sliding across it. Erec, his nose filling with salt water, was momentarily blinded, as the bow went entirely underwater, submerged.

Just as quickly the boat straightened, and they stopped sliding, each of them banging their backs into the rail.

“All the ships single file behind us!” Erec commanded, rushing to his feet. “NOW!”

Several of his soldiers rushed to do his bidding, shouting the orders up and down the ranks. Erec heard a horn sounding, and he looked back to see his fleet gathering single file. Erec knew this was their only chance of all making it, of threading the needle of the Dragon’s Spine comfortably.

“STEER FOR THE MIDDLE!” Erec yelled. “Stay as far from the rocks as possible! The current’s pulling left, so steer compensate right. Lower the sails, and get ready to drop anchors if need be!”

Men rushed about in every direction executing his commands, and Erec had barely finished giving the orders when he turned and looked up. He braced himself as he saw another immense wave crashing down.

Erec grabbed Alistair’s wrist, hanging on to her as their boat was thrown left and right, rocking as well as plummeting. Alistair reached out and grabbed a thick rope, and as Erec slipped, it was she who held onto him, wrapping the rope around his wrist just before he fell overboard and another wave subsumed them. Because of that rope, he remained on board, in her grip.

They straightened and Erec, so grateful to Alistair, looked all about. They were now in the midst of the Spine, right between the two huge rocks, and their boat was being jerked in every direction. It veered suddenly as a strong current took it and almost smashed into a sharp rock on their left. At the last second, the current jerked the other way and somehow, by the grace of God, pulled them back away from disaster. But not unscathed: as they grazed the jagged shoreline, Erec heard a cracking noise that put a pit in his stomach and he looked over to watch half the rail of his ship taken out, swiped by the rocks. He swallowed hard, realizing what a close call it was, how they had been spared from far worse damage.

Halfway through the Dragon’s Spine, Erec knew there was no turning back. The raging currents drove them through it, and up ahead in the distance, he could see the light. He saw where the Dragon’s Spine ended. It was incredible. Perhaps two hundred yards before them, as one emerged from the Dragon’s Spine, the ocean was perfectly calm, still, the sun shining, a perfectly beautiful day. It was surreal, like passing through a door.

All they had to do was make it the next two hundred yards. Yet, Erec realized, that was probably what dozens of other sailors, their ships smashed, lining the rocks, had thought too as they had tried to make it through.

Please, God, Erec thought. Just two hundred yards.

No sooner had he prayed than Erec heard a horrific noise, as if his prayer had been answered by a demon. He heard it rise up, even over the raging wind and crashing waves, and as his ship rose on a high wave, he looked up and was horrified to see the source of the noise.

There, rising up from the waters, guarding the exit to the Dragon’s Spine, was an immense, primordial monster. With a neck longer than his ship, with fins and scales, and arms and legs, claws at the end of each of them, and a jaw larger than a dragon’s, it was a green vision of death.

It turned right for his ship and opened its jaws and roared so loud, it split Erec’s mast. Erec raised his hands to his ears, trying to drown out the noise, as the beast lifted his head high and began to bring it down low. It opened wide its jaw as if to swallow his ship in one bite, his face so wide it blocked out the sun, and Erec knew it was too late.

He knew, without a doubt, that this was how he was going to die.