Before Lesva could spin toward the dragon and strike with her sword, Wreylith snapped her jaws around her. Lesva was fast enough to bring her sword up and jam the point into the roof of the dragon’s mouth, preventing the maw from closing, from crushing her to death.
Wreylith roared in pain but didn’t let go of the captain. With a flexing of her long neck, Wreylith pulled Lesva out of the suite. Twisting the sword, the captain tried to drive it higher into the vulnerable flesh at the top of the dragon’s mouth.
Syla winced in sympathy and lifted a hand, but there was nothing she could do.
Roaring again, Wreylith used her long neck like a whip and flung Lesva away from the palace. The captain flew over the courtyard wall and into the streets beyond, disappearing from view. Her sword went with her, but Wreylith roared again. It had probably hurt as much coming out as going in.
Thank you, and I’ll heal you as soon as I can,Syla promised.
Wreylith roared again and shook her head like a dog flinging water after coming in from the rain.
“Fel, are you all right? We have to go after Lesva.” Syla ran past him to the giant hole in the destroyed wall. “Make sure she doesn’t come back to—” Spotting smoke in the distance made her trail off, and she gaped, then swore, remembering Wreylith’s warning. “The fleet!”
The docked ships were burning, including the one carrying the weapons platform.
Syla swore again.
Climb on,Wreylith said.I will take you there.
Can you manage? How is your maw?
Dreadful, but dragons can survive many indignities.Wreylith lowered her head to the wall.
Syla rushed forward without hesitation.A sword in the roof of your mouth is more than an indignity.
“Your Majesty!” Fel blurted.
“Stay and protect the lord and lady!” As Syla climbed over Wreylith’s snout and past her horns to slide down her neck to her back, Fel tried to follow her.
“Youare my charge!” he bellowed, but Wreylith faced him and bared her fangs, denying him the same route to her back. He looked like he would try to follow Syla anyway, despite the fangs and the smoke wafting from the red dragon’s nostrils.
“Protect Abrya!” Syla repeated as Wreylith drew away from the palace and crouched to spring into the air. “Lesva is still alive, and Lady Abrya is moon-marked.”
Fel scowled but, as Wreylith flew away, turned back to guard the closet.
With the sounds of battle still raging in the palace, Syla hoped it would be enough. It waspossibleLesva had died or at least been incapacitated after that landing, but Syla doubted it. She’d seen the woman survive too much to dare believe that.
Indeed, when Wreylith flew over the palace wall, and they looked down to the area where Lesva should have landed, Syla didn’t spot the woman.
“Too bad she’s not crumpled in a pile, having fallen on something pointy,” Syla said.
Such as her own foul sword. The taste of my own blood fills my mouth.
“Don’t worry. I have an ointment for that.” Syla patted the dragon on the back.
Wreylith’s rumble sounded more suspicious than anticipatory.
As the dragon flew toward the docks, Syla couldn’t help but look back, afraid she was making a mistake by leaving the palace, that Fel and the other defenders would be overwhelmed and that Oyenar and Abrya would be taken. Or killed. But Aunt Tibby was on theStormslicer, and Syla couldn’t abandon her to the stormers. More, if the Kingdom lost their weapons platform, they lost their ability to take the fight to the stormers and defeat dragons. This might be the most important battle of the war.
17
For at least thetwentieth time, Vorik plunged below the water’s surface to hack and rip at the hull of the ship. As strong as his magical gargoyle-bone blades were, they were not adequate tools for carpentry. A trained saboteur, he was not, but when he thought of all the dragons that had died to the weapons platform—as well as riders he’d known his whole life—he found the wherewithal to keep going. Finally, he created a large enough hole in the side of the ship that he believed it would sink.
As he came up for air, it occurred to him to wonder how deep the river was in that spot. He imagined the vessel sinking only a couple of feet before landing in the silty ground below.
“We’re taking on water!” someone yelled.
Vorik pushed his hair out of his eyes, not surprised it had taken people time to notice. With the entire crew on deck, fighting his men, he’d had as good an opportunity for sabotage as he could have wanted.
