“Perhaps Pith should not add so much whey to her skillet of eggs,” I countered, making my way to the round table bolted to the floor. Simon laughed softly. “Do not tell her I said that or she will spit in my oatmeal on the morrow.”
“My lips is sealed, Captain,” the only young hand we had on this idiotic trip replied. Given the state of his upper lip, I doubted his lips would ever truly be sealed, but the boy was a good one all in all. He scurried over to pour my coffee while I forked a fat, greasy sausage from my plate. The rich scent of sage and pepper hit my nose as I lifted the link to my lips. Just as I was set to take a bite, a ruckus outside pulled my attention from my meal. One of my hands, a lanky elf called Kilter, ran into the open door of my quarters, howling like a horny ice walrus, his hand over his left buttock.
“Captain! It bit me! Right on my arse!” Kilter shouted then spun as Beiro raced into my room, uninvited, with Hyla on his heels. “Tore a right chunk out of me arse! Look!” Kilter spun about to show me the rend in his trousers. Blood seeped froma bite mark on his left buttock. I glanced from the wound to my first mate who pointed at Beiro. The scout appeared to be rather flustered, his red hair akimbo, his green eyes round as a cask lid.
“Did you bite my crew member on his arse?” I asked, Simon standing at my side, coffee urn in hand, watching the chaos unfold. Surely it was not asking too much to have a cup of coffee before the day’s work began, was it? The royal scout’s eyes grew even rounder.
“No! I would…I have a love whose arse I would bite if the urge overtook me!” Beiro exclaimed. Several hands were gathering outside my door. My coffee, lovely dark beauty that she was, sat on the table in a delicate cup passed down from my father to me, as he too had enjoyed his coffee.
“Captain,” Hyla interjected, stepping around the scout and my poor, sore arsed hand, her odd, heavy gait bringing her to the other side of my table. “It was the dragonling residing in the crow’s nest that bit Kilter on his skinny arse.”
“My arse ain’t skinny! It’s toned!” Kilter shouted at Hyla, who, with a stern look I knew well from my childhood, silenced the sailor. “Sorry for raising me voice, ma’am, but me arse is torn open, and the pain is making me crankish.”
My sight moved from Hyla to Beiro. “The dragonling bit someone. On the arse.” He opened his mouth to reply with what I was sure was his standard reply about the wyrm. I lifted a hand, the sun winking off the gold signet ring that once graced my father’s thumb as it now graced mine. I did not recall ever hearing him say he had this kind of nonsense on his ship. Lucky me. “No, do not tell me he is a dragon. This we know. What I wish to hear is why the beast bit one of my crew.”
“On me arse!” Kilter wailed.
“Take him to Pith to have that wound salted and stitched.” The man was leaking ass blood all over the fine round rug under my table. Simon rushed to do that, leaving the carafe of coffeeon the table next to my rapidly chilling watery eggs. “Now, Beiro, explain matters.”
“Jaculi was reacting as any dragon who was startled while resting on their hoard would react. The man leapt over the side of the bucket thing—”
“The crow’s nest,” Hyla corrected.
“Yes, the nest, and stepped on Jaculi’s tail. He reacted in fear, and also to protect his treasures.”
I glanced up to see the offender was nowhere to be seen. “My treasures,” I pointed out and got a timid nod from the ginger-haired outrider.
“Yes, well, uhm…he thinks them to be his now, Captain. He did express a bit of an apology for the deep bite.”
“Oh, so taking a hunk from the arse of my crewman gets a modicum of apology?” I asked and got a smirk from Hyla. I smiled back even though I was still angry with her.
“Yes, well, heisa dragon. They rarely apologize at all.” Beiro ran a hand through his hair, which only made the cinnamon mass more unruly. “He has expressed a desire to not have to bite anyone coming to steal his hoard again. He is agreeable to having you pay him one copper per day to allow your hands in proximity to his hoard.”
Beiro hoisted his trousers up, his shirt hanging off one shoulder as I gaped openly. “To ensure that I understand this offer. Your dragon wishes me to pay him to not snip the cocks off my men.”
“Or the tuppies, Captain,” Hyla commented. “We have more than one aboard.”
“Yes, of course, the cocks or tuppies of my crew will remain unnipped if I give the wyrmling a copper a day. Is that the offer the dragonling has put forth to parlay?”
“It is. It’s a fair offer.”
“For him. Beiro…” I rubbed at my brow as I wondered if this morning could get any worse. “I wish for you to tell that light-fingered beast that—”
The ship slowed to nearly a dead stop just as one of my crew bellowed, “Dark sargassum!” to which all manner of bedlam erupted on deck.
“Fukkate,” I snarled, jumping to my feet as the coffee urn went to its side at the unexpected stoppage. “All hands to deck!” I roared, stripping off my robe to dress at breakneck speed. There was no time to delay, for a bed of free-floating dark sargassum meant we had sailed into sure destruction.
“What is it?” Beiro yelled to be heard over the shouts of the crew. Hyla threw me a dagger from the wall display before she ran out of my quarters. I caught it then hauled a pair of blue trousers up over my bare arse.
“Chainjaw lampreys,” I spat out as if the words were bitter. In truth, they were. None sailed the sea that did not fear running into the breeding beds of the massive lampreys. “They latch onto the hull and anchors and will drag a ship slowly to the bottom of the sea. They’re feared more than flaming ballista by any seaman.” I skipped donning boots or even a shirt. I knew what was coming and what needed to be done. “Generally, we avoid the large clumps of seaweed they linger in by sighting the masses from the crow’s nest.” I shot the red-headed elf a dark, dark look. Much gloomier than the seaweed we were now woefully entangled in.
“Oh, I am…he didn’t…heisa dragon.”
I rolled my eyes and then darted out onto the deck. Asdren was just picking himself up off the floorboards, looking about in confusion, while my crew, what there was of them, were tying themselves to the rails, swords and daggers clenched between their teeth. There was only one way to remove chainjaw lampreys from the underbelly of a ship. That was to leap intothe icy cold water, stab the huge bastards, and pry them from the hull before they chewed through. The large fish had mouths that suctioned to the wood, or in the case of the huge-breeding females, the chain of the anchor itself. They then sawed through the chain as they pulled downward, their long tails secured around the floating bed of dark seaweed.
“Take care! Avoid the freed ones’ mouths until you can dispatch the fuckers and keep a sharp eye out for the breeding bitches for they will bite you in half with ease,” I yelled while thudding across the ship to leap over the side, dagger in hand, into the gray seas. The impact with the cold water was jarring, but the thrum in my blood of being embraced by the sea flooded me with warmth. Turning about, I saw we had two jobs. One was to remove the big eels gnawing on the hull. Second would be to free the ship from the weeds that held us so tightly in place. There were two in front of me, big eels, charcoal gray, perhaps the length of a human man, young ones. I swam to them, for they were attached to the ship side by side. My dagger sank into the head of one and then the other, the water turning a murky reddish-brown as their blood spread in the tide. Using my dagger after I freed it from their skulls, I planted my bare feet on the hull to pry the dead lampreys free. It took all my strength to do so. After the second one was pried off with the blade of my dagger, I looked about. The underbelly of the ship was coated with the fuckers. This would take time. Rising to inhale would waste time we did not have. If the ship went down with all hands…well, that was not on my agenda for the day.
Grandmothers of the sea, Sisters Three, blessed be your calling, imbue me with the gifts of air and sea, for my job here shall be a lengthy—
