Dragonoak Page 2

  Sleeping from midday and through the afternoon meant that Mahon was never more alive than it was at night, once the day's work on the sea and at the docks was done with, and I wasn't about to fall asleep any time soon. Not after witnessing a scene of the sorts. With a shrug, I said, “We didn't get to finish dinner. I bet Soeta will cook us up something good, if you ask.”

  The promise of something rich in flavour was enough to twist Reis' arm. Delighted, Tae led us to Charybdis, a restaurant opposite the tavern, where the pirates who'd already sat down to dinner quickly rose to their feet, giving us the best table in the place. Charybdis spilt out onto the street with low, padded seats surrounding a ring of a table with a low burning grill in the centre.

  Soeta, a woman well into her seventies, brought us pitchers of ale and fruit juice in every colour, and Tae sat next to Reis, while I settled down opposite them. Skewers of meat and vegetables were laid out across the grill, and though no one in Mahon expected Reis to pay for anything, they always made sure to tip far more than was necessary.

  “Gods,” Tae exclaimed through a mouthful of meat, “I'm starved. Nothing builds up your appetite like that.”

  “What are you on about?” Reis asked, eating no less enthusiastically. “You ran twenty feet and hacked off a hand. You didn't even break out into a sweat.”

  “You're missing the point, Cap! It's the adrenaline! Not every day we get to cut of some bastard's hand to defend your honour.”

  “It's Mahon you should be defending,” Reis pointed out. “If I let you guys screw the port up, Yin Zhou's gonna take my other leg.”

  Tae and Reis continued to bicker playfully as I filled myself up with dragon fruit juice, idly picking at a skewer as I watched a woman I'd helped haul in nets of fish that morning seize another in a headlock, and throw her to the tavern floor. The Canthians called this part of the year the months of Ash. The temperature dipped low enough to be considered tolerable, and the days clung to the heat left over from the months of Rebirth. Since arriving, I'd barely been able to go half an hour without downing a glass of something or another, though I no longer felt as though I was going to boil from the inside.

  “Alright, Felheim!” a voice called out from behind me. Arms wrapped around my shoulders and Tizo's head appeared next to mine. Captain Tizo, that was; three months ago, her captain had been involved in an entirely avoidable accident (whiskey, gunpowder) and Tizo had shot through the ranks. She hadn't stopped smiling since. “Listen here. What with Gavern sinking so many merchant vessels, no one's wanting to risk coming to these parts any more. Which means we're stuck picking up the goods for ourselves. Fancy a trip down to Eloa tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” I said as Tizo bit a chunk of meat off my skewer. “What are we picking up?”

  “The usual exciting stuff. Half a dozen crates of spices, a few barrels of spirits, bunch of livestock. That kinda thing,” she said, mussing my hair as she stood up, nodding her head at Reis and winking at Tae. “Alright, Captain. Sorry I missed the big show. Didn't make port until half an hour ago. Any chance of a repeat performance?”

  “If Tae don't stop stuffing all the food in her face the moment it's brought over, aye,” Reis said, and Tae leant back from the grill so sharply that ale sloshed around her glass and spilt into her lap. “Going to Eloa, are you? Got some letters you can take. They've been a couple of barrels short on their last deliveries, but I reckon we can sort this out like civilised adults.”

  “It'd be an honour,” Tizo said, and fell into one of the empty seats when Reis jerked a thumb towards it.

  We ate far more than we needed to – building up energy for tomorrow, as Tizo put it – and chatted around the grill, faces lit up by the low flames. We watched fights break out in the tavern, followed by people desperately trying to apologise when they realised they were scuffling in front of Reis. Reis never wasted an opportunity to glower at anyone who was digging themselves deeper, and dismissed them with a sharp tilt of their head, rolling their eyes once they scampered off.

  I'd barely touched any of the alcohol but my body was buzzing pleasantly, and I slouched in my seat, listening to the ceaseless buzz of Mahon around me, like a thousand insects in the long grass. Glasses came together, pirates shouted and sung and swore, and I smiled to myself, glad I'd found somewhere I belonged, even if I'd had to cross an ocean for it.

  Port Mahon was home to those who'd had to leave theirs, for one reason or another, and no one ever asked more questions than they needed to. The people there had taken me on as one of their own; I shared meals with them, as well as a language; I worked for them, worked beside them, and they paid me well for all I did; and not once did they tell me that I didn't belong out at sea, that I ought to stay out of the way and find some other, quieter way to help.

  Port Mahon was more of a home to me than anywhere else had ever been, and yet every time I closed my eyes, no matter how content I was, I saw Asar. I saw the ocean of flame we'd been forced to flee.

  I was on the verge of being lulled to sleep by food and drink and good company when someone down the street called out “Dragon-born!”

  There weren't any pane in Canth other than Kouris, not that I'd seen. The pane were well regarded there, in the same way phoenixes were; as something from the past, slowly passing out of history and into mythology. Strangers would often greet Kouris with fear and resistance, but only because they didn't know, until that moment, what a pane was supposed to look like.

  In Mahon and the surrounding cities, she was treated with respect, and not simply because she was Reis' oldest friend. She was the town's good-luck charm. People were glad when she visited the temple, serving as an example of Isjin's creation.

  “Kouris!” I called out, wide-awake once more. She lumbered over, draped in her leathers, never bothered by the heat, and I held back a smile in favour of a scowl. “You're late. I was starting to think Gavern had stuck your horns on his bowsprit.”

  Kouris feigned offence, covered her chest with her hand, and Tae snorted out a laugh from Reis' side. Leaning down, Kouris kissed my forehead, and I tugged on her horn, guiding her into the seat next to mine. The chair gave a creak, but she more or less fit into it, stretching out her legs and closing her eyes, exhaustion pleasantly chipping away at her, now that she was home.

  “That's the problem with people owing you favours, yrval,” she said, opening one eye and taking the drink I'd poured out for her, “You've gotta spend days tracking 'em down to make them follow through on their word.”

  “Any luck... ?” I asked, and Kouris hesitated, finishing her drink off in a few gulps, tongue slipping into the glass to claim the last few drops.

  “Let's talk about it once we're home, alright?”

  “That means no,” I said, frowning at myself for daring to get my hopes up. If she'd managed to find what she'd set out in search of, she wouldn't wander back without a grin on her face; she wouldn't be able to sit down and keep it to herself. It was just like the last four times she'd been gone.

  “Oi,” Tae called from across the table, throwing a cold chunk of meat at my forehead to get my attention. “The hell do you wanna go back to that place, anyway? It's all ashes, Fel. And that's if it's stopped burning! Couldn't pay me enough to go up there.”

  “She's got a point, you know,” Tizo said, lending Tae her support for what must've been the first time ever, judging from the way Reis glanced between the two of them. “The only morons still heading up north are getting turned right back around. Hear one ship ended up at the bottom of the ocean, and all 'cause the Felheimish didn't like the look of their sails.”

  I'd heard it a dozen times before. Nobody in Port Mahon understood why anyone would want to leave, and had I left my village and headed straight for Canth, neither would I. There was nothing for me in Asar, in Kastelir. I repeated that over and over every night before I fell asleep, every morning when I awoke, but I needed to see for myself. Needed to see what was left, once the fires died out.

  We were
only meant to be in Canth for a week. For a month. We'd no choice but to head south as the dragons did, but once we'd crossed the ocean, there was no turning back.

  Seeing that I had no reply strong enough to pass my lips, Reis grumbled, “Would you two knock it off for half a second?”

  Tizo held out both hands apologetically and Tae slumped back in her seat, lips sealed.

  The fire between us had burnt to embers, and though Soeta reappeared with more skewed meat, she didn't tend to the grill. She handed it over to Kouris, who pulled off each chunk with her tongue, and we sat in silence until she finished, sucking in a breath between her fangs.

  “... so. Hear you caused quite the commotion earlier, Reis,” Kouris said, for the sake of getting the conversation rolling again.

  “Gods,” Reis said, throwing up their hands. “Why's it always my fault? I ain't touched a sword in years.”

  Kouris chuckled, and slowly, our group came back to life around the table. People came and went, the faces around us changed, but it never quieted down. I doubted I'd be able to sleep, if I lived in the heart of Mahon. There wasn't a moment of silence in the hut, and I liked it that way. The waves rushed back and forth, but that was rhythmic; there were no bottles unexpectedly smashing, no one screaming out, no jeers rising from taverns and brothels alike.

  Kouris told us how her travels to track down a merchant who she'd once plucked out of the sea and saved from drowning had been fruitless. Business had been bad, these past few years, and he'd lost all but his smaller ships. This, in turn, reminded Tizo of a market she'd happened across weeks ago, where a man, offended by the lack of variety on offer, had stuck a knife in the back of a spice merchant's hand and thrown a fistful of cinnamon in his face. Never one to be outdone, Tae retaliated with a story of her own, and they both went on and on, until the drunks in Siren Song wouldn't have believed a word of what they were saying.

  “Feel like calling it a night?” Kouris asked, no longer able to endure their absurd boasts.

  With a nod, I stood and stretched, and Tizo said, “We're heading out at dawn, Felheim. If you ain't there then you ain't getting another invite,” and waved pleasantly at us.

  “I'll join you later,” Reis said, and Kouris and I headed off, walking side-by-side in silence, until we pulled away from the town.

  I balanced along the edge of the road winding out of Mahon, where the path abruptly dropped down a few feet to the beach below, arms spread out. Walking on the sand put Kouris at my level. We'd got into the habit of heading home like that, over the months.

  “Sorry to be disappointing you like that,” Kouris murmured, and I darted a few steps ahead, trying to find the point where the sea met the sky in the darkness. “I'm doing my best to get us out of here. We're all trying, yrval.”

  I kept moving ahead at my own speed. I didn't want to pull away from Kouris, but I didn't want to take my frustrations out on her, either. Through everything, she'd stuck by my side. She'd ensured we had a place in Port Mahon, and she'd never stayed still for long, not when there was someone she could track down, someone from her distant past who might help us out.

  Abruptly stopping, I sat down on the raised path, and once she caught up to me, Kouris sat in the sand, barely having to look up at me.

  “It's not so bad here, is it?” Kouris asked, tusks gleaming in the moonlight.

  “It's not bad!” I replied instantly, and it took all the breath out of me. “It's not bad at all. I like it here. I love it. I love getting to work on the boats, getting to fish, helping out Reis. I've made friends here. People like me, I've learnt so much, and I get to be useful...”

  I slid off the edge as I trailed off, toes curling in the warm sand.

  “But?” Kouris asked.

  I circled her, full of as much restless energy as there were grains of sand on the beach, threw my hands up and brought them down, defeated before I'd even said anything. But I had to learn to force the things I was thinking out, otherwise they'd fester in the dark corners of my mind. Whenever it was too hard to say anything, I thought back to the eight weeks it'd taken to cross over to Canth; the eight weeks I'd spent in silence, huddled beneath the deck, pretending seasickness alone had turned me so pale.

  “But I keep getting so angry, Kouris. I just...” I started, refusing to let my jaw tense up. “I want to believe that we're going to get out of here. I do believe it, but I can't stand waiting. Every time you set out, I have so much hope that this is it, we're finally being given a way back, but you always come back empty-handed. I know how hard you're trying, but I just get so angry at myself for having hoped that much, when it's all useless.”

  Kouris didn't take her eyes off me as I paced, trying to stomp the frustration out against the sand. She held out a hand but I didn't take it. I didn't want to be close to her, not with this heat.

  “It's tough, yrval. Tough on all of us, but sometimes, staying still is the hardest thing you can do.”

  “You'd know,” I muttered under my breath, wincing the moment the words were out of my mouth.

  My back was turned to Kouris and the waves were drawing close, but she couldn't have missed what I'd said. My shoulders rose, and without turning to her, I could see the look cut across her features against the clear night sky.

  “I'm sorry.” I span on my heels and clutched her shoulders. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I did, but I meant, I meant that you'd dealt with this before, and... that wasn't fair. I'm sorry, Kouris.”

  Kouris stared and she stared right through me, and my stomach sank like a ship in a storm. I couldn't lose her. Not after all we'd been through. My hands shook and my teeth ground together, and I scolded myself, wanting to know why I couldn't accept the way things were. Why I couldn't move my thoughts to the present and control what rushed through my mind, out of my mouth.

  “No, it wasn't,” Kouris said slowly, “But none of this is. Come on, yrval. We're both tired.”

  The silence we walked through was more stagnant than before, and the sounds of Mahon no longer clawed their way across the beach towards us. I glanced back once and it was all lights glinting in the distance, making the hut seem a million miles away.

  I pulled myself onto the pier and Kouris took a single step up and pushed the front door open as I ducked under her arm. The candles had long since burnt out and neither of us thought of relighting them. The moonlight that spilt in through open windows was more than enough to find our way across the living area by, and Kouris followed me to my room, as she so often did.

  The bed was more than big enough for the two of us, and my room was hardly bare. I'd collected brightly coloured shells from the beach, bought trinkets from passing merchants and red phoenixes carved from candle wax from the temple's Priests, and arranged them across my dresser and shelves, along with oddly shaped glass bottles and the wooden wolf Reis had carved me for my twenty-fifth birthday.

  Yet sometimes, I still expected to open the door and walk into my farmhouse; to open the door and see a four-poster bed, blocking the view of Isin from the window.

  I laid on one side of the bed, blanketed by the stifling heat, wishing that there was any adapting to it. I could get used to the language and the food, the customs of the locals, but even those who'd spent half a century in Canth ended up drenched in sweat before midday.

  Everyone except for Kouris, that was. She hadn't once been tempted to hack off her long hair.

  “... I love it here, but I could do without the heat,” I said, eyes fixed on her as she curled up next to me. I felt the ache in my chest ease when I caught her smiling, and said in a whisper, “I don't want to leave forever. But I need to know. You went back to Kastelir for a reason, didn't you? You wanted to help the pane, to help everyone, and it's worse for them now than it ever has been. That's why I wanted to go back. Even if...”

  I pressed my face into the pillow and Kouris placed a hand against my back, pulling me close. I let her draw me to her chest, not believing it could get any hotter until I'd co
mmitted myself to being plastered against her.

  “I know, I know,” she said softly. “We'll be there and back again before you know it, yrval. You'll see."

  CHAPTER II

  Tizo had inherited three ships upon becoming a captain, but only one of them matched up with my old expectations of pirate ships. The other two were more suited to hauling cargo, and we set out on one of those at dawn, sailing west as the sun rose with a crew of twenty.

  “Akela not with you?” one of Tizo's regular crew asked, once the sails were tended to and Mahon was fading in the distance.

  “We're just picking up goods. I doubt we're going to run into much trouble,” I said, leaning on the railing and watching the waves. “Besides, I haven't seen her in a few days. I think she's off on a job at the moment.”

  The woman shrugged, supposing we could do without Akela, and headed below deck to pretend to make herself useful. Even amongst pirates, Akela stood out as particularly intimidating, when she wanted to be, and she had no shortage of offers from people needing someone to stand behind them, arms folded across their chest while threats were issued, or to act as a bodyguard. I often went along with her to help translate, for few in Mahon spoke Mesomium, and Akela hadn't picked up the language as quickly as I had.

  Eloa took less than an hour to reach with the favourable winds we'd been granted. It was easily twice the size of Mahon and boasted that those within all earnt an honest living, but the port thought far too much of itself for a town that openly traded with pirates. The docks were swarmed with fishing boats that hadn't yet set out for the day, and the Eloans had been expecting us; everything we were there to collect was waiting for us, and a space to make port had been left clear.

  It was in their best interest that they get the exchange over and done with as quickly as possible, lest we tar their reputation.

  “Seems to me that we ought to be getting a discount,” Tizo announced as she strode across the gangplank. The merchant who'd been sent to make the trade cleared his throat nervously and placed a hand atop one of the crates, as though that'd stop us from pulling them from under him. “Seeing as how you lot are no longer making the deliveries, that is. Time is money, and you've cost us a hell of a lot of it. A whole morning wasted on services you should be providing!”