The Last Dragon: Book Four

CHAPTER THIRTY

Kendra’s dragon laying an egg. No, it was already sitting on one according to Anna. Would it be fertile and hatch? Would it be a new source of magic? If so, who would know about the birth of a new dragon? Could they, meaning the Young Mage, sense it from a distance? Would he try to kill it?

Another thought interrupted my thinking. If we managed to delay replacing the egg in the Waystone, or Waystones, near Kaon, would the Young Mage’s power begin to fade? I sat beside Elizabeth on the stern of the military ship and watched the sun get lower in the sky without either of us speaking. My stomach was ready to turn, and it had nothing to do with the movement of the ship.

She finally said, “Got it all figured out?”

“There are more questions in my mind now than there were.”

“Same here.”

Bran joined us, his normal excited demeanor changed like a sharp knife that had been used to cut bone. He was dull, chipped, and not very pretty to look at. “I’m sick,” he groaned.

A sailor nearby laughed and called, “Don’t eat the greasy pork they’re serving tonight.”

Bran’s face paled even more.

“Crackers,” I said quickly. “Eat crackers and stay up here where there is fresh air.” I was thinking any mess he made might go over the side instead of having to clean it in the berth, and all of us smelling it. From the looks of him, it was only a matter of time.

He took my seat after casting a look that should have been a warning to the sailor that he’d made one too many jokes. If I was that sailor, I’d stay out of his way. If Bran felt better, he’d have taken a swing at the man.

The night air was warm, too warm to be comfortable sleeping. A sheen of sweat covered us all. In Dire, the air cooled as the sun set. I wished for that again.

Sleeping outside on the deck was a consideration if allowed. The sailors didn’t, but the confined space and old boots smell of the room where hammocks hung didn’t appeal. Bran would feel the same, only more so.

I went to the galley and grabbed a fist-sized loaf of hard bread, a few salted crackers, and sat in one of the four chairs bolted to the floor to keep them in place in heavy weather.

*Anna?*

One of the good things about talking with my mind is that I could still chew while doing so.

*Hello.*

*Are you camped at the base of the mountain?*

*Yes. Near the river. We have a path up to the dragon.*

*Our captain thinks we can sail up the river, at least, part of the way.*

She paused before answering, then said, *The river is low. There is a place where it is too shallow for any ship, but it is about halfway up the river and easily spotted. There is hardly any current.*

*Anything else?*

She giggled, which is funny when done mentally. I found myself grinning, and a sailor that entered the room looked at me warily. I must have seemed silly or daft. He took his food and departed with a backward glance as he reached the ladder.

I quizzed her on the letters, and she knew them all. I gave her three more. Yes, that was excessive maybe, but she had been doing so well and had the time to study.

I’d expected Anna to tell me more about what was happening with Kendra and the dragon. She had been quiet, too quiet. But if there was trouble, she would have shared that with me. I went into the sleeping room, which I called that because I didn’t know the correct name for it.

The smell of the sleeping compartment was not overpowering, but pervasive and unpleasant. Each breath gathered the accumulated smells born by people living in a small space. Instead of complaining, there were other things to try. First, I produced a faint fog, or mist, not much but enough to cool the room slightly.

To the fog, I subtly manipulated a few odors and made them friendly scents. I understood that even with magic, nothing is ever really created or destroyed. It is changed. A few scents were easy to make stronger, overpowering those I didn’t like. Others were reduced, a few eliminated, and even a few added, such as the scent of pine I’d been thinking about earlier. I sniffed and approved.

I went to the bow of the compartment, as far away from the exit ladder as possible, and strung a hammock for myself. The tricky part was getting in, but once that had been accomplished, I decided to let my mind wander again. There was something I missed, something my mind insisted on telling me. I refused to listen. That had been a routine for solving problems for years. Never think about it directly, but the mind will decide.

The mind decided it was time for me to sleep again. Instead of the restless, fitful sleep on the deck, this sleep was deep and dreamless. I heard others moving about the sleeping cabin a few times but managed to ignore them.

A sailor woke me. “The captain would like to speak with you, sir. He’s in the wheelhouse.”

The sun was up. I fought off the brilliant rays and followed the young man to the captain. He stood in the wheelhouse, at a table chest high, a chart unrolled in front of him.

A glance ahead revealed land. I looked down at the chart and found two tiny islands and a river inland. The chart gave depths of the water, even in the river.

He said, “Rivers are tricky. The bottoms change with time, or after storms. This one looks deep enough to sail you near your destination.”

Without thinking, I stupidly said what Anna had told me the night before, “The river is low. About halfway to the mountain is a shallow place you cannot sail past. You should let us off before that.”

His eyes told me of his anger, but I didn’t know why. I asked, “Is something wrong?”

“I do not condone liars.”

The heat in his words took me back. I said firmly, “If you’re talking about me, I do not lie.”

He balled his fists. “Do not take me for a fool. When we last spoke, you knew nothing of the area, not even where to find it on a chart. Now, you know the level of the river and the depth of the water, as well that there are rapids at the half-way mark. Yet, you claim you have not lied. Explain how that can be.”

He was correct in what he said. I didn’t feel like explaining I could “speak” over large distances just using my mind. I said, “Sir, there are things I cannot tell you, but I have not lied.”

He swung a backhand at me, not intending to strike me but to display his disbelief and disgust. No doubt, he’d treat me and those with me with less respect, and his tales would spread. There are times when a man, even the captain of a ship, needs to be gut-punched.

I smiled, which irritated him more. His mug was sitting in a ring cut in the wood to keep it from spilling or sliding in a storm. It gave me an idea.

I said, “As I said, there are things I cannot share with you. However, it appears you are almost out of drinking water.” I nodded at his mug. “May I?”

My finger lingered as he furrowed his eyebrows, trying to figure out what I meant. When his eyes drifted to the mug again, I let the water flow.”

He grabbed my finger, completely unexpectedly, and startled me. The water shot out of the end and struck him in the face before I could shut it off.

He examined my hand, fingers, tips of my fingers, and finally released me. “What sort of trick is this?”

“I cannot share what is happening and have no explanation to offer you, only that I have not lied and there are things I cannot share with you. Believe me or not. Just do as your king commanded and deliver my group and depart. And keep your tales of us to yourself.” I spun and strode away, feeling the eyes of him and the helmsman on my back.

Rumors would fly. By both of them.

I didn’t really care. We would get off the ship in the morning and there would be no rumors of me lying—but there would be wilder even some unbelievable stories. Whoever heard of water flowing from a finger? I wondered if the Captain would drink it? If the situation was reversed, I wouldn’t.

The day was already getting warm when the two islands appeared on either side of the ship. The river mouth was directly ahead. There were two of them, as Anna had told me, and we sailed directly for the one on the right.

Thinking of Anna might have triggered her to call me because she entered my mind. *Damon?*

*We are at the mouth of the river.*

*I will wait on the shore and wave where you can get off and the ship can turn around.*

*What about Kendra?*

She paused, as she always did when she didn’t want to tell me something. *She climbed the mountain to be with the dragon.*

*Is that safe? Alone?*

*She thinks so.*

I could tell from her answer that she didn’t agree with Kendra. *We’ll be there as soon as possible.*

I walked some of the kinks out, using the rear of the ship to walk in a square circle of five steps in each direction. Bran came outside so I asked, “Feeling better?”

“Much. Did you do something to cure the stink of the ship?”

“I improved it.” There seemed nothing to add.

“Thank you. The rolling of the ship and the smell combined to make me sick. Do you think the captain knows we are about to leave the sea and sail up a river?”

“I hope so,” I laughed. “Have we told you anything about Kendra and Anna?”

“I thought we were just waiting for the army to assemble here so we can either sail or march to Dagger.”

“Kendra is my sister. Anna is—well, we haven’t exactly defined her role, but like you, she is one of us. She’s twelve, thirteen, maybe more. We don’t know.”

“They’re here alone?”

“Not exactly,” I hedged. Explaining to him should have been easier than to the captain, but there are times words fail. Having to explain a dragon that adores my sister is one of them.

Elizabeth ventured onto the deck and saved me for the time being. She sat beside us and shook a finger at me while grinning like a donkey. “You made the ship smell better.”

“I confess.”

“A new trick?”

“Yes. There may be more. I forget to consider using magic until there is a problem—and even then, I don’t realize what magic can do.” I noticed Bran hung on our every word. But as much as I thought him a thief, braggart, and conceited carriage driver, he’d warmed on me.

I noticed Elizabeth also spent time looking at him when he didn’t know it. Once, he had been busy with something that had his back turned, and I happened to peek at her. She looked at him, her face set. Then it melted and she smiled the same smile she used for puppies.

We sailed into the mouth of the river without a tree in sight. There were a few shrubs, cattails, and reeds at the shoreline on both sides, but no trees. It was either too hot or more likely the river flooded in the spring and ripped them from the ground.

The Captain refused to turn and look at us. His attention was on where the boat was going, but there was a stiffness in him that was not there yesterday. It was not how he looked at us. It was how he did not. As if he didn’t want to know any more about us.

Oh, he’d do the job assigned to him by his king, but he didn’t have to like it. It shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. I was not out to make a friend of him, would probably never see him again, but his attitude was a warning of sorts. People who couldn’t perform magic didn’t like those who could. It was a fact of life as true as young girls grow into women.

What it meant to me was that I needed to conceal my powers, yet at the same time, I needed to use them in front of normal people. It only took one person to spread a tale or two about me before everyone knew. However, while the captain turned his back to me, Bran knew something of my powers, he knew they had saved his life in the castle, and he seemed more curious than judgmental.

The shores on both sides slipped past without a single house, shed, or plowed field. The bareness of the land was like what it had been after we’d crossed the lake. I snorted inwardly because it was exactly the same—only farther south.

Elizabeth said, “How long to reach them?”

“It’s a short, wide river and we can only travel half way, Anna said.”

“They’ll be waiting for us?”

“Anna will,” I agreed without mentioning my sister was with her dragon. But I understood the trepidation in her tone. I missed them too.

Bran went for food and brought back hard bread and three empty mugs. That’s all the captain had set out for us. I appreciated his lack of words in not having a water barrel handy and didn’t believe it was an accident. I casually gathered moisture from the river and filled the mugs to the brims. Instead of water from the surface, I reached to the bottom where it was coolest. He didn’t have to turn around to know.

Elizabeth said she’d go below and gather our things. They were soon placed on the deck, out of the way, and she paced, tapped her left foot, and pursed her lips. Her eyes were on the river bank ahead.

Near midmorning, a small figure on the shore waved and shouted. The captain turned the ship to where she stood. A small boat was lowered, a crewman helped load our things inside, and we climbed a rope ladder down a few steps.

I looked back more than once. The ship held its place due to the rudder and effective use of the sails. I suppose the captain was too busy to look our way. Hopefully, if we needed another ship, it wouldn’t be that one.

Anna was hopping from foot to foot, and as the rowboat got closer, she called our names and finally couldn’t contain herself. She ran into the shallow water and grabbed the boat and pulled it to her.

We got out, hugged while standing in water ankle-deep, and carried our things to shore. I turned to thank the crewman, but he was busy rowing for his ship, the boat almost skimming the top of the water from his regular strokes. I raised and hand in salute.

Nobody returned it.