Shimmer howled and tried to pull away, but Tanalish shook her head and sank her teeth further into his shoulder. They writhed together amid the storm, thunder crashing all around.
Ula felt as though she would be shaken to pieces in the lady dragon’s claw. Closing her mind to the crushing pain in her guts and spine, she wormed her left hand toward the hilt of the dagger at her waist. Her fingertips brushed the pommel, and hope sprang anew in her heart. Slowly, she wrapped her fingers around it and pulled the knife from its sheath.
Shimanloreth bellowed in pain as bits of flesh and blood splattered out of his wounded shoulder and wing. He smashed the side of his head against Tanalish’s face. They were falling now, her wings barely holding them aloft. She didn’t seem to care if they crashed into the raging sea far below.
He snapped at her eyes. The brass dragon blinked and loosened her grip momentarily. Shimmer rammed Tanalish with his nose, and her jaws ripped free from his shoulder. She spat out his flesh and turned to attack once more.
Shimmer opened his mouth and flashing white energy leaped from his maw into Tanalish’s startled face. The lady dragon screamed, writhing in pain. Her talons flailed wildly as every muscle in her huge body spasmed.
Tanalish’s claw jerked open. Before Ula could grab hold or lash out with her dagger, she fell, plummeting toward the storm-tossed ocean far below.
“Hard to port!” Mik yelled. “Hard to port!”
“Do it!” Jerick bellowed at his startled helmsman.
The mate spun the wheel frantically with all his might.
The brass-armored trireme lunged toward them over the heaving waves. A flash of lightning revealed Lord Kell standing by the triarch’s chair in the stem, his gray eyes gleaming in triumph.
Red Wake responded slowly, fighting against the pull of waves and wind. She veered left, her gunwale nearly dipping into the water as the raging surf threatened to roll her over.
Another flash of lightning. The trireme drove in on them, its brass-headed ram aimed for the galley’s starboard flank. A huge wave surged over Red Wake’s side, dashing seamen to the rail; many barely avoided being swept overboard.
Mik and Trip kept their feet amid the chaos. The sailor grabbed a boat hook and tossed it to Jerick, then retrieved two more for himself and Trip. “If the angle is shallow enough,” he shouted, “we can turn them away!”
“Man the boat hooks!” Jerick cried. “Prepare to repel attack!” But only a few crewmen reached the rail with boathooks in their hands. Mik and the rest braced themselves as the trireme swept forward.
The rhythm of Lord Kell’s drumchanter rose above the voice of the storm. The trireme’s triple banks of oars cut through the crashing waves. Standing in the stern, Kell shouted orders to his helmsmen.
Red Wake kept turning ever so slowly, the waves surging against her sides. She swung nearly parallel to the trireme’s course, presenting a difficult target for Kell’s brass ram.
“It’s going to miss us!” Trip cried.
“Not without our help it won’t!” Mik said. “Ready on the boathooks! Heave!”
They stabbed the long poles over the side and pushed with all their might. The iron heads of the hooks lanced into the trireme’s sides, each minutely altering the enemy ship’s course. The impact nearly knocked Mik and the others from their feet.
They held on and watched triumphantly as the brass warship swung alongside. The crew of Red Wake cheered, but Jerick barked, “It’s not over yet!”
The trireme shipped oars to avoid having them sheared off in the collision. The two ships groaned as their hulls met, side to side.
“Now!” Lord Kell called.
A company of brass-armored warriors threw grappling ropes onto Red Wake, catching her rail and tangling her rigging. The brass mariners hauled on the lines, lashing the ships into close contact.
Mik hefted his boathook like a spear and took careful aim. As the brass galley settled alongside, he heaved the weapon toward Lord Kell. Kell didn’t see the makeshift spear coming; it flew straight toward his unarmored neck.
In the next moment, though, a huge wave rocked the two ships. The boathook sailed past Kell’s left ear and stuck in the triarch’s seat behind him.
The lord of the Order of Brass whirled toward Mik, murder flashing in his eyes. His deep voice thundered over the raging storm. “Take them!” he called to his warriors. “But leave Vardan for me!”
In response, three dozen brass-armored seamen swarmed across the ropes binding the two ships together.
Jerick’s crew responded quickly, drawing their weapons and snatching up belaying pins, boathooks, and anything else that might serve to fend off the invaders.
But just as the two forces were about to meet, Jerick called, “Hold! Lay down your weapons!”
“What?” Mik and Trip asked simultaneously.
“Lay down your weapons!” Jerick repeated. “We surrender.”
Cold, swirling winds buffeted Ula as she fell. The wicked rain lashed against her body. Above her, Tanalish writhed in agony, the she-dragon’s brass-armored head charred and blistered.
The joined key at Ula’s waist blazed brightly. An image of a huge diamond formed in her mind-but she pushed it aside. Red Wake looked so tiny below. And was that another boat alongside it?
“What a stupid way to die,” she thought. “Dozens of enemies howling for my blood, and I’m going to be killed in a fall.”
Though she knew hitting the water would undoubtedly kill her, she twisted her body and arced into a diving position. She ignored the aches of her flesh, the screaming of the wind, and the lashing of the rain, and focused on the surface of the sea far below.
“Key to a fortune at my waist, and I’ll never get to see it,” she thought.
A dark-winged shadow flitted overhead.
Suddenly, she stopped falling.
Shimmer screamed in agony as he swept Ula into his arms. The wind turned the spray of blood from his mangled shoulder into a clinging red mist. As he gazed at the sea elf, his face and form became slightly more human.
Ula smiled at him. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down,” she said.
“I’m not sure… I can save us,” he gasped.
“At least you tried.”
Something hard smashed into them, and the world went black.
“How can we surrender?” Mik asked angrily.
“Use your head, lad,” Jerick replied. “We’re outnumbered and out-armed. A storm is no place to be fighting. We’ll need all our strength and wits just to pull through this.”
“What makes you think they’ll let us live?” Mik asked.
One of the brass warriors near him charged. The sailor spun and clouted him on the back of the head with the pommel of his scimitar. The man crashed to the deck with a soggy thud.
“Call off your dogs, Kell,” Mik barked. “I won’t be so kind to the next one.”
“Hold!” Lord Kell cried. “Hold!”
“Any of my crew who fights,” Jerick bellowed, “will be answerin’ to me!”
The crews of the two ships cautiously backed away from each other, leaving Kell, Jerick, Mik, and Trip standing alone in the middle of Red Wake’s quarterdeck.
Mik and Trip glanced at each other, neither willing to put down his weapons just yet.
Jerick threw his arms wide. “What is this, Lord Kell?” he said. “We’ve no need to fight I’ve no quarrel with either you or the Order of Brass. If you’d asked us to heave to, we would have. Gladly.”
“I doubt some of your passengers would comply so willingly,” Kell said.
“I gave your man no more than he deserved,” Mik replied. “Have you taken up piracy now, Lord Kell, or are you still out to avenge some imagined slight to your honor?”
“Look out!” Trip cried, pushing Mik aside. As the-sailor and the kender fell, a huge shape crashed onto the deck beside them.
The crew gasped as part of the battered and bloody form moved. It was a half-dragon, half-human creature, slightly larger than a minotaur, and covered with bronze armor.
“Shimmer!” Mik said.
Shimanloreth rose slowly to his knees as Mik and Trip knelt by the prostrate form of Ula, lying on the deck beside him. The sea elf was covered with blood, though how much of it was her own Mik could not tell. The bejeweled key at her waist glowed faintly.
“Take them!” Lord Kell barked, pointing at the group. “Alive, if you can, but take them!”
“Stop!” Jerick said. “We have no quarrel!”
“Stay out of this,” Kell replied. “Do as I say! Now!”
Kell’s brass warriors surged forward. As they did, Shimmer opened his half-human mouth. A huge cloud of greenish black gas belched forth. Shapes writhed within the roiling cloud-hideous shapes culled from the nightmares of each warrior.
The seamen stopped and retreated. Some dropped their weapons and fled back to their own ship. Others cowered in the corners of Red Wake’s deck-keeping as far away from the bronze dragon as possible.
“Must I do everything myself?” Kell asked, striding forward. He lowered the tip of his coral lance.
Mik rose to meet him, standing between the lord and his wounded comrades.
“Ula! Are you all right?” Trip whispered frantically. “Wake up! We’re in a real jam here!
“She’s alive,” Mik said to Trip, though his gaze remained fixed on the brass lord. “Though not for much longer if Kell here has his way.”
Just then, Karista Meinor clambered aboard the Red Wake. “The key, milord,” she said. “Vardan, the kender, and the elf aren’t important. We came for the key. Remember?”
A thundering scream rent the air. All eyes turned skyward as Tanalish, burnt and bloody, swooped down toward the ship. Her body melted and changed, adopting both human and dragon characteristics until she resembled a hideous, bat-winged harpy.
“Let me destroy them, Benthor Kell!” she bellowed as she approached. “The sea elf and her hound are no match for me!” The dragon dove through the rigging toward Shimmer and Ula.
Mik stooped down and ripped the bejeweled key from Ula’s waist. Before anyone could react, he rose and sprinted to the rail.
“Stop her!” he commanded Lord Kell, dangling the artifact over the crashing waves. “Call your dragon off, or you’ll never see the key again!”