THE DRAGONS

Amberhill stood in the crow’s nest, exulting in the wind that streamed through his hair and filled the sails into billowing clouds beneath his feet. He felt he walked in the sky. The horizon tilted around him as the Ice Lady plowed through the waves of the Northern Sea, the green cluster of islands that was his goal discernible in the distance.

In Midhaven, he and Yap had disembarked from Ullem Queen to take passage on Ice Lady, a sealing vessel headed for the arctic ice, a course that took them near the archipelago. They’d not lingered on land for long before they found Ice Lady, but Amberhill had taken what little time they had to climb the Seamount Lady Estora had once so lovingly described, and he found the vistas not wanting. It seemed years, and worlds away, that day he’d sat with her and Zachary talking of Coutre Province and his plans to take a voyage.

His initial seasickness after leaving Corsa Harbor, too, was a dim memory, for he’d flourished at sea, his cheeks burnished bronze with the sun, and he felt alive in the salt air as he’d only felt when inviting danger as the Raven Mask. He’d taken to climbing to the crow’s nest and along the yardarms to maintain his trim and challenge his balance. His training as the Raven Mask made him as nimble as any sailor, if not more so. Captain Irvine had invited him to join the crew of Ullem Queen, and he’d only been half-jesting.

Amberhill also exercised with his rapier, repeating lessons once drilled into him by Morry. Yap was pulled into these sessions as an awkward sparring mate, using a practice sword carved for the purpose by the ship’s carpenter, and a lid of a pot as a buckler. The crew was much amused.

As for Yap, he was permitted to assist the crew, but Amberhill made sure he did not revert to his pirate ways, ordering him to maintain daily ablutions and to launder his clothes as frequently as he did Amberhill’s. The sealing vessel was far from luxurious, but Amberhill had personal standards that must be maintained.

When gray-blue clouds intruded on the horizon and the sails slapped fitfully against line and timber, Amberhill climbed down from his perch and sought out Captain Malvern on the bridge. She gazed through her spyglass to the north, then turned east toward the building clouds. The captain was a small woman, but no less imposing for it. She kept her dark hair, peppered with gray, shorn short, and she looked at him with eyes that seemed creased in a perpetual squint from too many years of sun. She was another of those uncanny women, like Beryl Spencer, or the G’ladheon woman, that made him uneasy. Like the others of this ilk, she did not fall for his charms. Not that he’d tried to charm her, but he was well-aware of his own natural attributes, which were, he thought with a smile, enough to attract women like ants to spilled sugar.

“We’ve a storm bearing down on us,” she said. “Can see it, smell it, and my aching bones confirm it.”

“Will you take shelter then? The archipelago is ahead.”

“Nah. That’d be a trap. The currents around the islands would tear up the Lady. We’ll ride it out at sea, but it means we go now.”

“Now?”

“Aye. Ready yourself and Mister Yap, or prepare for a season of seal hunting with the Ice Lady.”

Amberhill did not doubt the captain’s weather sense—she’d not been wrong once since leaving Midhaven, but the plan had been to leave him and Yap closer to the islands. She had refused to take him into the archipelago itself, citing the perilous currents and the more superstitious clap-trap about witches and bad luck. Now he’d have to rely on Yap’s experience as a seaman to get them there. Amberhill had picked up a thing or two along their voyage, but little in the way of practical knowledge. He had left the sailing to the sailors.

“Mister Yap!” he cried. “Prepare the gig!”

“Aye, sir!”

When Amberhill had sought passage from Midhaven to the archipelago, it had proven clear that no captain desired to venture among the islands, not even for a large purse, claiming them too far off course, or the currents too hazardous, but underlying all these excuses, like those of Captain Malvern’s, was superstition.

So Amberhill took matters into his own hands, purchasing a sloop that had been the gig of a merchanteer captain. The small vessel, Yap said, would sail well around the reefs and currents of the islands. Captain Malvern had not argued about hoisting the gig up alongside Ice Lady when Amberhill paid extra. Her voyage was proving profitable even before she reached the sealing grounds.

Odd, Amberhill thought as he watched Yap and crew secure their supplies in the gig, that others should be so repelled by the very islands that lured him. He was drawn to them like he was coming home. His true home. His ring sent a pulse of warmth through him.

Captain Malvern joined him at the rail. “Remember to steer clear of the Dragons—that’s where the currents are the worst—and we’ll look for you on our return from the ice. Otherwise, Spring Harbor is your closest port in Arey.”

Amberhill nodded. He’d pored over charts with Yap. Now that it was coming to it, he felt a little apprehensive, a little queasy, like his seasickness was coming back, but thankfully it was fleeting.

“Ready, Mister Yap?” the mate called.

“Ready!” Yap clambered back over the rail from the gig to the ship, and it was lowered to the waves below. It looked small down there, tossing like a piece of driftwood.

“Luck,” Captain Malvern said as Amberhill followed Yap over the side of Ice Lady onto the rope ladder.

“And to you,” he replied before scrambling down along the barnacle-studded hull. When he reached the bottom of the ladder, he stepped carefully into the gig. It bucked like a wild horse and only Amberhill’s excellent balance prevented him from falling into the water.