The Legend of Vanx Malic: Book 02 - Dragon Isle (2 page)

The prince turned to Vanx then, the excitement of the story showing vividly on his lamplit face. “Father had to hunt the captain down, but it wasn’t hard. Rumors of Peg’s injuries had spread and the king’s guard rounded them up.”

“Aye,” Captain Willie grinned through his huge beard. “Saved Peg’s life, that stint in the royal dungeons did. Your father found the tale as intriguing as you do, my prince. The fact that Harthgarians were smuggling untaxed Parydon goods out of the kingdom through Coldport gave the king just enough reason to confiscate all that booty.”

“The captain here smooth-talked my father into giving him a position on a ship, and after he took over the Royal Falcon in a typhoon when Captain Morgan was swept overboard, he was given the
Sea Hawk
to command.”

“I thought the
Sea Hawk
was your ship?” Vanx asked the prince curiously. He glanced at Captain Willie and then up at Peg in the lines above and had no trouble picturing them as pirates. In fact, they seemed more like pirates now than any sort of royal sailors.

“I get to decide where we are going and sometimes who comes along,” Prince Russet said. “But make no mistake, when we are at sea the captain here is in command. Even over me.”

“Who’s going to be in command when we venture onto Dragon Isle?” Vanx asked, and immediately regretted the question. A murmur of unease and even a groan of despair came from those who heard it.

“Well, that cat’s out of the sack now.” The captain shook his head. “All you eavesdroppers heard it right. After we leave Zyth we’re headed to Dragon Isle. Once we are there, about a third of the crew will go ashore with these men. What we are after is the only thing that can save Gallarael Martin, the Princess of Highlake.”

The crew erupted all at once.

“I’ll not set foot…”

“I hope I don’t get the short straw.”

“That island is cursed—plumb full of dragons, too.”

It was Prince Russet’s voice that rose over them. Another, even the captain’s, might not have been enough to silence them. “I will be going ashore with those of you who come. There will be healthy compensation if we succeed in this. I’m certain Vanx will lead us well; he’s half Zythian. Zyths have a way with the dragons, or so I’ve read.”

Vanx gave the prince a look of shocked disbelief. Did he just say that Zythians have a way with dragons? The grin on Prince Russet’s face was devilish and full of delight. When he caught Vanx’s glare, he only shrugged, reached out and gave him a confident pat on the back.

That night Vanx dreamt of a cavern full of molten rock and a red-scaled beast with sword-slitted eyes the size of wagon wheels: a creature whose only desire was to char him with its fiery breath before consuming him in its hungry maw. In his dream he was terrified of such a thing, and even when he woke, that feeling didn’t change.

Out among the swelling sea

At mercy to the waves

I wonder of the men

who are buried in this grave.

– A sailors song

V
anx had never seen Little Haven from the sea. The enormity of the steep, jagged bluffs that met the ocean was staggering. From horizon to horizon, cold gray stone rose up out of the water like a fortress wall. Vanx remembered standing at the top of the wall as a boy. He’d been with his mother as she tossed wreaths of petal hearts and tear blooms to Nepton each year on the day of his father’s death. From that vantage the cliffs seemed like a sheer free-fall to the sea and nothing more. He peered over the edge on his first visit and remembered the dizziness that came over him. As he grew older, the view became less and less daunting. He would have guessed the drop to be about forty or fifty paces down from the windblown scrub plain above. Looking up from the swift-rolling surface of the water, it seemed like thrice that height. Perspective, he decided, was something to be always considered.

Lavern, as this place was called in the Zythian tongue, meant “breach” or “break.” Over the years the name was distorted by humans and the quills of the mapmakers. Lil’ Lavern was now known across the realm as Little Haven. In truth, beyond the narrow gap in the cliff wall was a haven from the brunt of the open sea, so the mistake was understandable. The Zythian name, however, described the hidden bay more properly. It was a breach in the rockface that cut back into the island. On the maps it looked like a crooked finger poked into the land, but from the sea it was all but undetectable.

As the
Sea Hawk
slid down a trough into the opening, the stony cliff sides engulfed them. Sheer, jagged walls rose up on either side of the spectacular cut. The opening wasn’t wide—barely five hundred feet across—and it narrowed gradually. Horizontal lines rich with coral growth rimmed the water’s surface and marked the seasonal tide lines. Farther up, thick bands of coppery-colored sediment and sparkling gray granite uniformly striped the faces of the cliffs.

From a previously hidden perch, high overhead, a red-and-black banner began waving on a pole and a horn blew three short blasts of welcome. A plethora of squawking gulls and long-beaked divers were startled from their haunts. In a wheeling cacophony, they circled around for a curious look, and then lazily landed again.

Captain Willie ordered the plain Parydon banner run up the mast and Yandi gave a long, slow, bellowing return blast, followed by five short blasts. Vanx was told that their response signaled that they wished to dock and would pay with hard coin for the space.

Here in the channel the sea still rose and fell with a rhythmic, yet unpredictable, force. But as they turned the crook in the finger, the waters calmed to a stillness that was such a contrast to the swells behind them that he had to reconsider which name described the harbor best. If this place was anything, it was a little haven from the sea.

The sun was still high overhead and most of the fishing vessels were out filling their nets; the harbor was mostly empty. A small longboat, manned by several young yellow-haired, golden-eyed boys, towed a rope out to the ship. The end of it was hauled aboard and as the men pulled it taut, Vanx saw that it was connected to a mooring post that was separated from the bulk of the docks by a corner of stone which, judging by its coppery color, appeared to have fallen from the wall above. Only a portion of the stone rose above the surface, but Vanx could tell that it was massive. Seeing it caused him to look up and try to locate any suspect overhangs or fractures above them.

“It fell a few hundred years ago,” Captain Willie chuckled, seeing Vanx’s distress. “You come from this land; you should know as much.”

“Maybe I should.” Vanx grinned at his own foolishness. “I’ve been here—well, up there,” he pointed to the top of the long switchback stairway carved into the cliff, “at least twenty times, but I’ve never been down here. My father died at sea and…” Why he stopped speaking, why he had even said that much about his private life, he didn’t know.

“You’ve the salt of Nepton in your blood, it’s plain,” the captain observed. Captain Willie turned away suddenly and shouted. “Pull! Pull, you fargin maidens! We’ll be trying to moor while the fishermen are laughing at us from their cups at this rate!”

“Heave,” Peg called out. “Heave.” Gradually a rhythm set in to the crew’s efforts so that the
Sea Hawk
began a slow but steady course toward the mooring pillar.

“We are too small a ship for an oar deck, and there’s no wind in here,” Captain Willie explained before changing the subject completely.

“They have the best honey fire a man’s ever drunk up at the Treasure Chest Inn, and the girls…” He stopped.

Vanx knew why Captain Willie bit his tongue. Throughout the years, several of his own folk had assumed that his mother was a sailor’s whore, so the notion wasn’t new to him.

“She wasn’t,” Vanx said, glad that he could say so without it being a lie. “She met him in Parydon proper and sailed with him on his galley,
Foamfollower
, at least until I was conceived. It was during my father’s first run from Flotsam to Coldport without her aboard that an icy storm weighed them down and laid her over.” Vanx shrugged and decided that he would take a small amount of time for himself and throw a wreath for his father in his mother’s name. “At least that’s the story I was told.”

Captain Willie was shocked, for he’d heard of Marin Saint Elm, the captain of the infamous
Foamfollower
. As he remembered the stories his grandfather told him, he knew the young maverick had kept a young heathen woman aboard with him. They’d called her the ship witch.

Several of the
Foamfollower
’s crew, half-frozen and nearly starved, had made it to Coldport in a longboat. They told the harbor master there that Captain Saint Elm could have joined them, but chose to honor those of his crew who had drowned by leading them through Nepton’s deep himself.

“I forgot how long-lived your folk are,” Captain Willie said after a few moments. “I’ve heard the tale of the
Foamfollower
and I reckon that makes you a bit older than me. I would have never guessed as much. They say Captain Saint Elm was a true sea mage. My gran said he was born of a witch himself.”

Just then the
Sea Hawk
banged into the unforgiving mooring pillar with a deep thump and the captain’s eyes flared with rage.

“By the fargin barnacles clinging to my arse, you saggy-titted niddies are going to scrub the deck down to the splinters for that. Yandi, Peg, what in the name of…?”

Vanx grinned as the old sea dog laid into his men. He wanted to hear more of Captain Willie’s tales of his father, but there would be time for that later. The bump of the hull against the pillar must have drawn the attention of Trevin and Darbon, for both of them came poking their heads out of the portal like curious prairie dogs. The prince came up behind the two peeping men and forced them out on the deck. Captain Willie’s curses were still causing the crew members to duck their heads.

“Well, Vanx,” Prince Russet said with a strange look about him. He seemed uncertain, even a bit angry. “Trevin here has finally told me the rest of it, and we have little time to dally. If he’d spoken sooner I think you’d agree that we shouldn’t have diverted our course.”

“What do you mean?” Vanx asked.

“We can only obtain our remedy…” Prince Russet met his eyes and was clearly trying to avoid mentioning to the suspicious crew that they had to take the blood of a fire wyrm. “According to Quazar’s calculations, the stars will align with Aur only three nights from now. We must fill our vial on that night or our prize will not have the potency required to save Gallarael.”

Trevin started to say something but Prince Russet stopped him with a glare. After a sigh he pinched the bridge of his nose and then went on. “I know you love her, Trevin, and I’m not angry with you. If anything, I’m angry at Quazar for not explaining this before we left Dyntalla. I’m even more angry with Duchess Gallarain and Duke Martin for setting all of this into motion. We are yet two days from Dragon Isle. Had we not stopped we could have been there on the morrow.”

Vanx blushed with embarrassment for not only had he brought them out of the way, he had a large part in starting this mess, too.