The Queen of Death

39

Kandler led the others back to the bridge where Sallah stood at the wheel. He saw sweat breaking out on her brow.

“The fire elemental doesn’t want to go this way,” she said. She never took her eyes from the horizon in front of her, right where the mountains grew taller by the second.

“Can you point out that straying from the wake of that dragon in front of us will probably result in the ship’s destruction?” Xalt said.

“It wants to be destroyed,” Monja said in a far too chipper tone. “Remember?”

“Destroyed is one thing,” Te’oma said. “Being devoured by a pair of angry dragons is a whole new kind of awful.”

“Just keep the ship on course,” Kandler said, placing a hand on the lady knight’s arm. “I know you can do it.”

“Would you say you have faith in me?” Sallah said, a small smile on her lips.

Kandler grunted. “I don’t have faith in much more than my family and friends. I have faith in you.”

Sallah’s smile widened, but she didn’t say a word. She adjusted her grasp on the airship’s wheel, and her shoulders relaxed.

Kandler patted her on the back then stared out past the dragon high above their bow. There on the horizon, the mountains had grown larger and strung out wider across the edge of the sea. In the area closest to the airship, Kandler saw a strip of white sand. This wrapped around the island as far as he could see in either direction.

As they scudded through the sky, a bay appeared in the island, a sheltered natural harbor from which a clearing ran back from the beach. In the clearing stood a handful of low huts made of some kind of grass or bamboo that had turned silver in the harsh rays of the sun.

The lead dragon came in toward the huts hard and fast. Kandler looked at Sallah, who shrugged at him. With a dragon before and behind, she had little choice but to follow along.

For a moment, Kandler wondered if this might be some sort of trap. Then he realized how pointless it would be for the dragons to try to trap someone they could just as easily incinerate. The creatures might have something other than a simple death in mind for the people aboard the Phoenix, but whatever their fate was to be, he would have to be patient.

The dragon to the rear put on a burst of speed and zoomed past the airship. It flew on ahead and reached the tiny hamlet on the beach long before the airship and the dragon still escorting her would arrive.

Kandler suppressed an urge to attack the dragons. The soldier in him wanted to get the hostilities out in the open and dealt with as soon as possible. Had he not been entirely sure that this would result in instant doom for everyone else aboard the Phoenix, he might have given it a try.

Sallah urged the airship along and brought her to a halt over the beach. The dragon that had raced before them kept flying away, not even looking back. When Kandler glanced behind the Phoenix, the dragon that had been to her aft was no longer there.

“We must be here,” he said.

Kandler moved to the port rail and looked down at the land below. A trio of dragon-headed longboats sat on the shore, right in the safest part of the harbor’s gentle arc. They had been painted silver long ago, although the colors had worn badly below their waterlines. Sets of long oars lay stashed in each boat. None of them bore sails.

Beyond the huts stood a wooden palisade. A carved dragon’s head topped each of the tall poles, bristling with teeth and spikes. Each shone in a different color, some glinting metallic, others not.

Human-sized skeletons, strung together with strips of leather hung from several of the poles, especially the ones nearest the gate, which stood closed. The hot sun had long since bleached the bones as white as Te’oma’s skin. The skulls bore holes and missing teeth, and the arms and legs were broken in many places.

There were no people on the beach, and the village beyond seemed empty as well.

“Should we just drop in on them?” Burch asked.

Kandler jumped at the shifter’s voice then turned on him, mad. “I thought I told you to stay below.” As he spoke, he glared at Esprë too, who stood behind the shifter.

Burch grinned. “We re here, aren’t we? Let’s get to it.”

“The place is empty, but there’s no sign of battle,” Kandler said as Sallah strode up. Past her, he saw Monja take the wheel. The halfling waved at him with a grin.

Although the path ahead lay filled with treachery and horrors, Kandler could see that the others were just as ready to move on as he. Spending nearly two weeks cooped on the Phoenix together had not been easy. There were few private spaces on the ship, and with the stress everyone was under they each had struggled to keep their tempers in check—everyone except Xalt, who didn’t seem to have one.

“Doesn’t that seem like a trap?” Sallah said.

“Of course it’s a trap,” Burch said. “We just have to walk into it to see what kind it is.”

“I’m coming with you,” Esprë said.

Kandler grimaced. “No.” When she started to protest, he added. “No arguing this one.”

Esprë clamped her lips shut and glared at Kandler. It surprised him that she had folded so easily, but perhaps this was part of the new maturity she wanted so desperately to display. In any case, he wasn’t about to argue with her about agreeing with him, no matter how much she might resent it.

Kandler pointed at Burch and Sallah. “You two are with me. Monja has the wheel. Xalt, you watch over Esprë.”

He looked to the changeling and hesitated. He didn’t want to trust her, but he didn’t have much choice. She could be too useful to ignore. Besides, if she’d meant to betray them, she could have done so long before now—or so he hoped.

“I want you for air support. If we’re in trouble, you take to the skies and give us cover. There’s an extra crossbow and plenty of bolts in the hold. Use them.”

Te’oma turned on her heel and went for the hold without a word.

“I’ll go first, then Sallah,” Kandler said to Burch and Sallah. “Burch, you cover us until we’re on the sand, then follow fast. Got it?’

They both nodded.

Kandler strode for starboard gunwale and dropped a rope ladder over the side. A moment later, he clambered down it and dropped the last few feet to the hot, white sand.

The crashing of the surf behind him pounded in his ears, as did the strong, salty scent of the sea air. Walking along the dry sand reminded him of tramping through the ashes that had once filled the crater in which he had helped found Mardakine. While he’d hated the ashes, though, he had to fight the urge to throw himself down on the beach and embrace it.

The sun seemed hotter here in the thick, steamy air. Years living in the shadow of the Mournland had robbed his complexion of much of its color. The weeks aboard the Phoenix had bronzed his skin, protecting him now from the sun’s strong southern rays.

Strange, unseen creatures called in the distance, either welcoming the newcomers or warning them away. Bright, colorful birds—splashes of primary colors in a sunbleached land—flitted through the fronds of the tall, thin, branchless trees that lined the beach’s edge then disappeared in the thick tangle of a jungle beyond. A family of indigo-shelled crabs scattered at his arrival and scuttled away in a serpentine line.

A vermillion lizard darted out at them from its hiding hole in the sand, moving along on a dozen tentacles rather than legs. Before it could snatch one of the crabs up and make off with its meal, though, it spotted Kandler. The lizard stared at him for a moment with its bulging, green eyes then scampered off to the safety of the jungle instead.

Kandler raised his face toward the sky for a moment and basked in the sun. The breeze swirled about, cooling him and carrying the scent of roasting meat and exotic spices from past the palisades.

Up in the airship, the altitude had separated him from the surface world, insulating him. Here, setting foot on this strange, new beach, felt like stepping down on to another world—one bursting with life.

Sallah landed next to him. She made to draw her sword, but he put his hand on hers to stop her.

“If we wanted a fight, I’d have had Monja put the ship right over the town. We could have dropped down behind the palisades and killed everyone that came our way.”

“Why didn’t we do that?” Sallah asked.

“It’s rude,” Kandler said with a wry smile.

Looking up at the palisades that towered over the inland edge of the beach, though, Kandler wondered if he’d made a mistake. The bravado he’d shown Sallah had been designed to allay her nerves, although he suspected it had just irritated her instead. Still, he wasn’t ready to plunge into the heart of an unknown village without so much as a hello.

Perhaps he could have sent Te’oma out to scout the area from the air, but that might have invited the dragons back. Also, he preferred to not show the natives their full hand until they had to.

Burch landed behind the other two. “So,” he said, “who’s going over the wall first?” Kandler could tell his old friend truly enjoyed this. Burch was never so alive as he was just before a fight.

Sallah frowned at the shifter, but before she could respond, a loud thumping of war drums emanated from the other side of the palisades.

“I think they’re coming to us instead,” said Kandler. He put his hand on Sallah’s hilt again, to keep her from drawing her sword.

“Don’t you think we should stand ready to defend ourselves?” she asked.

“That’ll just make them think we’re enemies.”

“We’re not?”

“Not yet.”

“Those drums are setting my teeth on edge.”

“They’re supposed to make you nervous, goad you into doing something rash.”

“Well, they’re working.”

CHAPTER