Chapter 16
1812 Words
16
We leapt to our feet. The rising sun peeked over the horizon and bathed us in its bright light. Cayden and Spiros made their appearance from the cabin at the back of the ship.
“Ui Breasail has been sighted,” Cayden informed us as he nodded behind and to our left.
Xander and I turned around and beheld a green sight. The island of Ui Breasail was a long stretch of land covered in a thick green forest of tall trees. The canopy stretched two hundred feet into the air and draped the soil beneath it in deep shadows. The coast of the island was dotted with large gray rocks that stuck out of the water like jagged teeth on a sleeping giant.
“Where’s the cove?” I asked him.
“On the far side of the island. It is one of the many reasons no one has ever made a successful sea invasion,” he told me.
Our ship sailed around the southern tip some ten miles down and we traveled across the breadth of the island. The land stretched another ten miles before we reached the opposite shore. The island curved outward in an arc where the sides were dotted with the rocks. A narrow opening led into a cove of steep cliffs not unlike those of the Bay of Secrets.
A long wooden dock stretched from the shore and some hundred feet into the bay. Two long columns of marauders stood on the dock. They all wore the sheep skulls and held spears. At the head of the columns and the dock stood the leader of the raiding party, the man with the ram skull. Beside him was a more normal looking-and handsome-fellow who stood a head taller than the burly others. A sash was draped from his shoulder across his chest to his waist and behind him.
Xander tensed by my side. He hurried to the left side of the ship and stared intently at the men at the end of the dock. I joined him and looked from the dock to his tense face. “What’s wrong?”
He pressed his lips so tightly together the color drained from them. “That man out there.”
I looked back to the man beside ram-skull head. “What about him?”
Spiros came up on Xander’s other side and surveyed the welcome party. His eyebrows crashed down. “He has a red sash, Xander.”
I glanced from one to the other. “What’s that mean? Who is he?”
“His bearing shows he is not a human, and he wears the color of the Bestia Draconis,” Xander told me.
The tension aboard ship tightened as we approached this unwelcome party. Captain Kamban stood on the raised platform at the back of the ship and behind the wheel. His booming voice quailed the quivering of his crew. “Let up the sails! Lower the anchor!”
The men jumped at his barking commands. The sails were shut and the anchor lowered. The ship stopped at the mouth of the cove. The crew prepared two of the away-boats.
Xander half-turned to Spiros. “You will go with Miriam in a separate boat.” Spiros bowed his head.
I frowned. “What? Why can’t I go with you?”
“Because I cannot protect you against a dragon,” he pointed out.
Cayden and Xander piled into a separate away-boat than Spiros and I. The other spaces were taken up by the burliest of the ship’s crew. They carried with them a wide assortment of small weapons hidden inside the coats of their uniforms.
The boats sped through the waters of the calm bay, but stopped fifty feet from the tip of the dock. There was no place to dock without tossing the rope at the long line of armed men.
Cayden stood in his boat. “We come with open arms, human.”
“And weapons in your coats,” called back the ram-headed man.
“Surely you would not begrudge us some protection against the Dragon’s Bane,” Cayden argued.
The human looked over the burly men in the boats. His brief perusal paused on me. “Are there women now on your ships?”
Cayden gestured to me. “She is a sign that we mean no harm, and only wish to speak with you.”
The leader of the skull men deliberated for a moment before he glanced over his shoulder. He gave a nod, and the lines behind him turned and retreated from the dock. The human returned his attention to us. “You may come ashore, but be warned we will not hesitate to use what you call ‘Dragon’s Bane’ on you.”
Cayden bowed his head. “We are grateful for your invitation.”
Our boats were pulled on either side of the dock and the rope grabbed by a few of the humans. I stepped onto the dock and watched as the the tall gentleman beside the human stepped up before Xander. Xander stiffened and set his hand on the hilt of Bucephalus, but the man smiled and bowed his head. “It is an honor to meet Ferus Draco.”
Xander’s face darkened. “The honor is yours alone.”
A strange twinkle slipped into the stranger’s eyes. “I am sorry you feel that way, false Grand Dragon Lord.”
Xander unsheathed Bucephalus and took a step toward the other dragon. Cayden and Spiros grabbed either of his shoulders and held him back as the stranger backed away. When Xander spoke his voice was a hiss filled with venom. “The only false dragon is one who wears that sash.”
“Xander, mind yourself,” Spiros whispered to him.
The ram-headed man stepped up to the tense crowd and frowned as he looked between the two opposing groups. “I will not have dragons fight among themselves on my island. If you wish to kill each other, then do it elsewhere.”
Xander relaxed, and his two compatriots released him. My dragon lord sheathed his sword, turned to the human and bowed his head. “My apologies. I meant no disrespect to you.”
The human scoffed. “Likely not, but another mistake like that and I will have you thrown into the breakwaters that surround this island.” His eyes flickered to the red dragon. “That goes for both of you.”
The stranger smiled, but bowed his head. “I understand.”
“Then follow me,” the human commanded as he turned away from us.
A few sailors remained with the away-boats, but a dozen of us followed the ram-headed man down the dock and onto the island. The guards from the dock stood on either side of a rock-stepped path that led into the thick foliage of the island. Women, men without dead animal skulls, and children watched from behind the line of guards. Much of their clothing was created from light wool, and their tanned skin gave them a leathery appearance. They peered curiously at us as we traveled past. I was a half a head shorter than many of the guards, so I got a glimpse of arm hair and a few children who peeked out from between legs.
One viewer, however, caught my attention. The figure was a young girl of sixteen. She was hunched over on one of the high branches of a tall tree and watched us with open curiosity. Her attire was a short woolen dress as light as a floating cotton blossom. She wore her long brown hair down her back in a single braid, and her blue eyes stood out from among the other brown ones that stared at us.
We turned a bend in the path and I lost sight of her. The ram-headed man led us deep into the thick forest of maple-like trees and thick bushes with sharp thorns. The air was humid, but not enough to stifle my unprepared lungs.
After a mile the path widened and the rough rocks fell away to be replaced by square stones notched expertly together. We climbed a short hill and the trees parted to reveal a small valley below us. My eyes widened as I beheld a majestic city of stone nestled in the greenery of the valley.
The city was hewn from a white, glistening stone that seemed to sink into the valley. The layout of the metropolis was circular and divided into terraces. The outer terraces were the highest up the valley walls, and each successive interior terrace sat lower in the valley. Tall and short walls separated the terraces, and stone stairs connected them.
In the very center of the city arose a round domed building that stretched a hundred feet into the sky. A few smaller domed buildings dotted the outer rings of the city.
The ram-skull man led us down the hill along white stone steps to the top of the first terrace. I paused atop the hill and furrowed my brow. “Does that kind of look like a ball of wool?”
Cayden stepped up beside me and nodded. “They owe much of their prosperity to their sheep.”
We continued onward with the group and reached the outskirts of the city. It was a metropolis of some five thousand souls. Not on par with Alexandria, but larger than I expected the human habitation to be. Many of the homes were two floors, and green vines, flowers and trees decorated their white walls. The notches in the stone houses were like those of the streets. I pushed against a crumbling stone wall around a small yard. The stone didn’t give an inch.
We traveled down to the center of the city. The inhabitants gathered around the side streets to watch the procession of guards and we strangers. None of them had blue eyes like the girl.
The procession reached the last terrace with its domed building. A garden of colorful flowers surrounded its perimeter. The arched entranceway was covered by a portico, and inside was a wide hall with smaller offshoots. The ceiling rose above our heads some fifty feet and on the white surface was painted scenes of pastoral paradise. The columns on either side of us were topped with stone balls in the shape of wool, and little stone sheep played among them.
We headed straight and soon arrived in the center of the building. A pair of heavy wooden doors were opened for us, and beyond them was a circular room. In the center of the room was a throne atop a five-foot tall pedestal. On the woolen cushion of the throne sat a wreath made of gold.
The two columns of guards circled either side of the room and stood at attention facing the center. The red dragon walked over to stand close to the bottom of the pedestal.
The ram-skulled man strode up to the pedestal and walked the few steps up to the throne. The man turned to us and removed the skull. He was about fifty with brown hair grayed at the temples. His face was weathered by sun and time, but his eyes were as sharp as those of an eagle as he looked down at us. He set the skull on the floor by his feet and crowned himself with the wreath before he took a seat.
“Now what would you speak of with me, Cathal, high king of Ui Breasail?”
- Writer
