“We have with us,” Syla continued, calling out to all in the cove and trying to will her innate power to help her, to add magical influence to her words, “the weapons platform that was made by the gods themselves and is capable of defeating—of even killing—enemy dragons.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Syla glimpsed her comrades arriving on the beach and willed them to hurry to row the dinghies out to theFanged Whale. She had no idea if her speech would result in anything, so they needed to be prepared to fight their way out of the cove—ideally before anymore warships arrived.
“But many enemies—many dragons—linger on Harvest Island,” Syla continued, heartened that nobody was trying to drown her out. At least not yet. On one of the warships, an officer strode toward a cannon, pointing for crewmen to load it. “Weneed your help to drive away the dragons and restore a shielder to protect the island and to make our kingdom whole again!”
A few people cheered on her own vessel, but on the warships blocking the way out of the cove… Syla couldn’t tell if the men were doing more than looking at her with skepticism. The officer at the cannon barked an order, and his crewman ignited the fuse.
Wreylith surprised her by springing from the wheelhouse. Syla almost dropped the megaphone as she hurried to anchor herself to the dragon’s back. As the cannon boomed, Wreylith flew over the cannonball’s arc. It had been heading straight toward her and sailed over the wheelhouse, splashing down on the other side of the ship.
Good job dodging that.Syla looked back and caught Hixun’s men loading their cannons to return fire.
There will be others.Instead of flying away, Wreylith arrowedtowardthe warships. Actually, she was flying straight toward the officer who’d given the order to shoot.
“Don’t fire yet!” Syla called back to Hixun and held up a finger.
Wreylith crossed the cove so quickly that the officer, seeing his danger, didn’t have time to run far. More cannons boomed on his ship, forcing Wreylith to zigzag and fly up and down to avoid them, but she managed to reach the deck and pluck up the officer before he reached the door to the hold.
“Shoot!” someone cried, and archers fired at Wreylith.
The arrows bounced off her scales, but Syla, who had no scales, flattened herself to the dragon’s back and tried to make herself as small a target as possible. Wreylith sank her fangs into the officer deeply enough to make him scream. Syla winced. Wreylith didn’t snap the man in half but hurled him over the railing and far out into the sea beyond the cove.
Before leaving the area, she flew about, plucking up men at the cannons with her talons. She also tossed them into the sea.
An arrow glanced off Wreylith’s scales only a few inches from Syla’s leg.
Let’s go back to our ship, please,she said.
Wreylith roared, sounding like she wasenjoyinghurling their enemies into the water, but she did bank to fly back to the other ships. Syla risked turning and raising the megaphone. Again, she called to her magic, needing her power to help with what she’d had little practice doing before—leading people.Coercingpeople into following.
This time, as she spoke, the back of her hand warmed, and her moon-mark glowed silver. “We will sail out of the cove, and you won’t try to stop us unless you want to irk my winged friend, but I implore you to consider what I said. Ignore the lying usurper whothinkshe’s taken my throne—I assure you I will return shortly for it—and joinus in taking back Harvest Island. Let the history books remember you as heroes who helped drive out the stormers and their dragons, not as puppets who obeyed someone who was never the rightful heir.”
You are garrulous with your enemies,Wreylith observed as she landed again on the wheelhouse.
Hixun as well as a number of his crewmen were gaping at them.
I’m trying to remind them that they’re not our enemies. They should be our allies.
I sought to do the same.
You almost bit that officer in half before flinging him out into shark-infested waters.
Thus to convince him that it would be smarter to align with you than defy us.
I’m sure he’ll be thinking loving thoughts of alliances while the sharks are eating him alive.
If he cannot out-swim a few puny sharks, he is not a worthy ally.
The whale sharks around our islands can be sixty feet long.
But they eat plankton. It is the great blacks and razor-finned, both species which were tinkered with by the storm god, that one must be wary of. Andtheyare rarely larger than twenty feet long.
So, they’re basically puny.
Compared to a dragon, certainly. I’ve eaten great blacks, though their flesh is not particularly delicious.
Not compared to horn hogs.
Oh, certainly not.
