The dragon isles, p.28
The Dragon Isles, page 28
Jerick pulled them aboard. “Ready to work?” he asked, smiling broadly. “We need some new hands.” Then peering over the side, he said, “By the lost gods, what’s this now?”
Mik and Ula turned and saw a shape moving just below the waves headed toward the ship. It was about the size of a redtip shark, but no telltale fin broke the surface. A moment later, Trip’s smiling face poked up out of the surf.
“Did I miss anything?” he asked. “The dragon really knocked me silly. Where’d she go, by the way?”
“To the abyss, I hope,” Mik replied.
“Great,” Trip said. “I didn’t like her anyway. Could you give me a hand? I don’t think I can haul Shimmer up by myself. You wouldn’t believe the trouble I had dragging him here.”
Instantly, Ula jumped over the side and helped Trip push the bronze knight onto the galley’s listing deck. She climbed back aboard and knelt at her friend’s side.
Shimmer’s left shoulder looked as though it had nearly been torn off, and he bled from more than a dozen wounds, but he was alive.
“Hey,” Trip said, “did you see? The volcano blew up. How did that happen, by the way?”
Mik leaned back and closed his eyes. “When Tempest fell into the crater, the volcano erupted.”
Shimmer’s orange eyes flickered open.
“You’re alive!” Ula said.
“Barely,” he replied. “But I think… I will heal.”
“I wish,” Mik said, “that everyone who began this journey could say the same.”
They all fell silent for a moment, remembering their lost friends and crewmates. Jerick’s healer, sporting a nasty cut across her forehead, came to the bronze knight’s side and began tending his injuries.
“Look!” said Trip, pointing toward the clouds.
A brass dragon arced high overhead, flying just below the receding storm. It circled the ship twice and then winged off to the west.
Mik shook his head and sighed. “Now the Order of Brass shows up,” he said.
“Don’t stop to help or anything, you accursed metal beastie!” Jerick called, shaking his fist at the far-off wyrm.
“I’m sure they’ll send someone out to check on Kell’s men,” Ula said, “and the fate of their lord.”
“He died… trying to save the isles,” Shimmer gasped.
“So the temple is gone,” Jerick said. “But what about the treasure? Did you ever find it?”
Mik looked at Ula, Trip, and the wounded dragon. “Oh yes,” he said, “we found the treasure.” The four survivors nodded wearily at each other.
Jerick frowned, his bushy red eyebrows nearly meeting over his hawkish nose. “So, where’s my share? The key? The diamond?”
“Gone,” Mik replied, “in the service of the isles.”
“The service of the isles… !” Jerick sputtered. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone do-gooder on me, Mik me boy. Next thing I know you’ll be wantin’ a job aboard Red Wake!”
Mikal Vardan laughed, and put his arm around his friend’s shoulder. “This old scow?” the sailor asked jovially. “Not likely. Not while there’s a fresh wind at my back and an open sea before me. Not while there’s a coin of treasure left to be found somewhere in the Dragon Isles.”
The Dragon Isles: abandoned home of the good dragons, land of amazing adventure and legendary treasure. The trouble is, no one knows how to get there.
Now Mikal Vardan and his crew have found the hidden route, but they’re not the only ones interested in the isles. A beautiful sea elf scavenger thinks the wealth of a lost civilization might be worth killing for, and a menacing sea dragon is determined to bring a reign of terror to the peaceful archipelago.
Stephen D. Sullivan, The Dragon Isles
