Crossroads 04 - The Dragon Isles by Stephen D (v1.1) Sullivan Page B

           The
dragon rose from the raging deep.
                 The
aristocrat gazed at the handkerchief, horror overwhelming her heart Two whispered words escaped her lips.
                 “The kender!”

 

     
Ten
     
    Perils of tbe Deep
     
                Mik
Vardan knew he was about to die. Wet ropes and canvas knotted themselves around
his body, chaining him to the iron-shod mast of the doomed Kingfisher. He’d seen the rigging falling, but he and Trip couldn’t
get out of the way in time.
                 They’d
struggled for a moment, then something big hit the ship and the water surged up
around them. They were sinking now, and Mik was about to drown.
                 In
his mind’s eye, he saw his enchanted fish necklace. He saw himself in his
cabin, putting the necklace in his sea chest, next to his copy of the Prophecy.
The Prophecy had never mentioned this .
                 Mik
pulled hard and ripped the canvas away from his face. In the glow from the
lightning above, he saw Kingfisher sinking
around him. The mast had splintered from the deck and sank by itself in the
middle of the wreckage.
                 Through
the gloomy water, at the edge of his vision, he could barely make out the shape
of the captain’s cabin and the bridge. His possible salvation—the fish
necklace—lay within, but he would never reach it. The cabin was too far away,
even if he weren’t ensnared in the rigging.
                 He
looked up and saw Trip, tangled in ropes and canvas, further up the mast,
struggling to free himself.
                 Something
slammed into the mast just above his head. He saw the tail fin of a shark slice
away into the darkness. Struggling, he managed to pull his dagger from the
sheath at his belt, then wondered if it was worth the
effort.
                 Mikal
Vardan could hold his breath a long time. He was an excellent diver—one of the
best—and he’d gotten a good lungful of air before he went down, but he couldn’t
last forever. He didn’t think he could hold his breath long enough to cut away
all the canvas and rigging binding him. Pamak’s last reading said the water was
forty fathoms deep—a difficult dive for anyone, even a pearl diver, without
magical aid. If he sank all the way to the bottom, he would likely never
resurface anyway. Was it worth fighting sharks just to drown?
                 His
boat was dead. His crew was dead. Perhaps he should die as well.
                 As
the shark bore in again, Mik cast off his doubts and guilt. He would not die here, alone, fishfood for some
predator. The ropes tangling the sailor gave him litde freedom of movement, so
he knew he’d have to time his strike just right.
                 The
shark sliced effortlessly through the lightning- dappled water, its blunt head
swaying from side to side as it homed in on its prey. The blue and gray
mottling along its side marked it as a mangier shark—bane of shipwrecked
sailors. Its jaws opened wide as it attacked.
                 Mik
ducked to one side as the mangier came in, and stabbed up with his knife. The
shark missed Mik’s face by inches, its teeth ripping through the swirling
canvas just beside his right cheek. The captain’s blade hit home and opened a
small gash in the mangler’s belly.
                 The
fish jerked aside, almost taking Mik’s dagger with it. It turned slowly and
came in again, trailing a streamer of dark blood. This time, it aimed for the
sailor’s gut. Mik knew he couldn’t stop it; he braced himself to die.
                 Just
before the shark struck, though, a dark shape flashed down on it from above.
The two shadows struggled for a moment, the small shape rolling through the
turbulent water with the much larger mangier. A cloud of blood sprayed into the
brine and the mangier sank away into the depths. A