Booms came from one of the warships—the one Wreylith had denuded of a few of its officers.
“I guess that one isn’t going to join us,” Syla muttered.
Maybe none of them would.
“Your Majesty!” came Fel’s voice from the deck. The dinghies had arrived, and he was the first to surge over the railing and hurry to the wheelhouse. “As your bodyguard, I forbid you from charging toward mannedcannonsagain.”
“We flew at them more than we charged,” Syla said.
Face red, Fel pointed at her. “If they’d had the presence of mind to shoot atyouinstead of your dragon, you’d be dead.”
“The flight wasn’t my idea. Just the speech.”
A cannonball splashed into the water two feet from the side of theFanged Whale.
“Which wasclearlyeffective.” Fel glared at Wreylith, as if all this were her fault.
Her golden eyes glowing, she lowered her neck so she could effectively glare back at Fel. A testament to his frustration, he bared his teeth at the dragon instead of running away. Syla placed what she hoped was a calming hand on Wreylith’s backin case she was thinking of tossing him overboard to see howhefared with the sharks.
Major Hixun dared to jog up, though he stayed back from the glaring match. “Everyone is on board, Your Majesty.”
He looked toward the vessels barricading the cove. Not all of them were firing—indeed, only the warship they’d visited was—but none of them had moved in invitation for theFanged Whaleto depart.
“It’s time to secure the shielder and sail away, Major,” Syla said.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to come down here and man the weapons platform.” Hixun waved to it in invitation.
“If it’s necessary, I will.” Again, Syla frowned at the thought of attacking ships in her own fleet, but they had to get to Harvest Island one way or another. The effort it had taken Wreylith to fly to the cove with the shielder gripped in her talons ensured she wouldn’t be able to carry it all the way to another island.
“Good.” Hixun nodded, then jogged off to give his crew orders to depart.
Syla slid off Wreylith’s back and hopped down from the wheelhouse. Tibby and Teyla, looking harried, with their hair falling out of their buns, waited for her. The Royal Protectors, their blue uniforms rumpled, also looked frazzled. Surprisingly, Celena had also come along, and she peered around the ship with wide eyes. Maybe it made sense that she hadn’t wanted to stick around in Lyvor when the fleet had been invading the town. Syla hoped Tabuvar wouldn’t get in trouble for helping them.
“Do you know how much magical energy remains in the weapons platform?” Tibby asked quietly.
“No.” They’d been linked together when Syla had first received an image from the gods-crafted device that suggested it had a reservoir of the energy it used to fire its projectiles and that it was being further depleted with each battle. Syla hopedthe weapons platform had a way to recharge itself when it wasn’t used for a while, but that was possibly wishful thinking. “We can try to check on the way to Harvest Island.”
“Better to know than not to know,” Tibby said. “And to not use more than is required.”
“I agree.” Nobly, Syla refrained from pointing out that Tibby needn’t have fired atVorikback at Bogberry Island, but he’d survived that attack, so she didn’t mention it.
She hoped he would be as lucky in surviving thenextattack that came his way and couldn’t help but look off to the west, in the direction of Froha and the stormer camp. Had he arrived yet? Was he dealing with his people even as she dealt with hers?
A cannonball slammed into the hull of the ship next to theirs, and Syla yanked her thoughts back to her own predicament.
“I don’t suppose the shielder could be activated to protect our little fleet?” she asked Tibby.
“I thought of that, but I had to embed the dimensions of Harvest Island into the sentience of the artifact while I was crafting it. Per the instructions in the scrolls we recovered. Nothing suggested the dimensions could be easily changed, and since the shielder creates such a large barrier, it would include our enemies as well as our fleet if we activated it here. I’m also not sure what would happen if you created a barrierwithina barrier.” Tibby waved upward to indicate the shield around Castle Island. “It could result in a minor bumping of magical energies. It could result in something catastrophic.”
“Ah. We’ll do without then.”
Wreylith sprang off the wheelhouse and headed again toward the warship firing upon them.More tried-and-true methods are sometimes called for.
Feeling compelled to keep the dragon from utterly destroying the vessel, Syla jogged to the railing to call through themegaphone again. “Stand down, or you will not survive your next encounter with my dragon ally!”
Fel came to her side and glowered at her. “Can you not stand behind cover when you yell at armed enemies?”
“I suppose if you want to move in front of me, I could.”
