Dragon Round

by Stephen S. Power

Genres: Dark Fantasy; Epic Fantasy; Sea Adventures

Synopsis

For fans of Scott Lynch and Naomi Novik comes a high fantasy epic that blends swashbuckling adventure with a dark tale of vengeance--when a ship captain is stranded on a deserted island by his mutinous crew, he finds a rare dragon egg that just might be the key to his salvation and his revenge. He only wanted justice. Instead he got revenge. Jeryon has been the captain of the Comber for over a decade. He knows the rules. He follows the rules. He likes the rules. But not everyone on his ship agrees. When a monstrous dragon attacks the Comber, his surviving crew, vengeful and battle-worn, decide to take the ship for themselves and give Jeryon and his self-righteous apothecary “the captain’s chance:” a small boat with no rudder, no sails, and nothing but the shirts on their backs to survive. Marooned and fighting for their lives against the elements, Jeryon and his companion discover that the island they’ve landed on isn’t quite as deserted as they originally thought. They find a rare baby dragon that, if trained, just might be their ticket off the island. But as Jeryon and the dragon grow closer, he begins to realize that even if he makes it off the island, his life will never be the same again. In order for justice to be served, he’ll have to take it for himself.

Release date: July 19, 2016

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Print pages: 336

Sample

The Dragon Round




CHAPTER ONE

The Captain’s Chance

1

Just before dawn and still eight hours from Hanosh, the captain of the penteconter Comber feels the rowers start to flag. They’re pulling together, but behind the drummer’s beat, and if he lets them get away with it, they’ll fall apart. He can’t afford that. However exhausted they are, having rowed for seventeen hours, he brings his galleys in on time.

Jeryon’s about to leave his cabin and go below when a whip cracks and he hears his oarmaster, Tuse, call for twenty big ones. The galley lurches forward, and by the seventh heave the rowers are tight again.

Tuse has some promise. Jeryon likes that call. Not twenty for Hanosh. Not twenty to save the sick. Just twenty. Tuse focuses on the job he has, not the one he wants, unlike his other mates.

The first and second mates are on the stern deck above, two whispers through the wood. Jeryon closes his eyes to listen. So far they’ve only said what all mates say: to advance they have to earn another captain’s ship. They’re getting bolder, though. It’s a short trip from earn to take.

If Jeryon didn’t need them for the next eight hours, he’d put them off, maybe before they reached Hanosh. As it is, let them think he would sleep. Once the medicine’s unloaded, he’ll wake them to reality.

Livion, the first mate, soft-cheeked and slight, leans against the stern rail. Solet, the second, stands to starboard with the rudder trapped between his thick chest and hairy arm. They have the wind, which fills the galley’s sail and muffles the crack of Tuse’s whip.

“I wish she’d left the city,” Livion says over the wind.

“Why?” Solet says. “The flox was in the Harbor. It’d barely touched the Hill. Without some moon-eyed sailor to carry it all the way up to the Crest—”

“Plagues don’t care what lane you live on.”

“Apparently your woman doesn’t either.” Livion’s eyes narrow, but Solet ignores him and goes on. “And if her father cared before we set out, he won’t after we dock and save the city. A father might not want a sailor in his family, but what owner doesn’t want a hero in his business?”

“I’m not using her to get to him.”

Solet snorts, and Livion stiffens. Sometimes Solet oversteps himself. Hanoshi don’t discuss their private lives, which makes an Ynessi like Solet want to pry all the more. The first mate finds it easier to give in a bit and get it over with than to resist. It’s his fault, anyway, for trading a long look with Tristaban as they were casting off.

“I want him to find me worthy of command,” Livion says.

“Worthy?” Solet says. “You sound like the captain. You sound like my grandfather. There’s no worthy anymore, just worth.” Solet taps the rudder with the blade he wears in place of half his right forefinger. “Get your woman. Get your command. Get your fortune. That makes you worthy. Money is money to her father, to all the owners. You don’t want to end up like Jeryon, do you?” Solet taps the deck with his foot.

“I could do worse,” Livion says. “He’s been captain for years.”

“Decades,” Solet says, “which makes him—”

“Reliable?”

“Stalled. He doesn’t reach. He’s captain of a monoreme. Has been. Always will be. He might as well push a milk cart.”

“That milkman,” Livion says, “is the real person who’ll save the city.”

“And he’ll give the Trust all the credit for sending him. They’ll give him a pat on the head and a perk for being on time. There’s a whole city waiting to cheer us, the purest coin there is, and he won’t want any of it. Wouldn’t you want a taste of that? Wouldn’t your woman? She won’t settle for nothing, anyone can see that. You shouldn’t either.” He half closes his eyes. “We’ll have triremes.” His eyes shine. “What I could do with a trireme.”

Livion says, “I’m starting to understand the Ynessi reputation for piracy.”

“You wound me,” Solet says. “I’m no pirate. But I do need a ship to start, so once you have your woman, you could put a word in her father’s ear and see the captain rewarded with a desk while I get Comber. That I would settle for.”

Sunlight bubbles on the horizon, then erupts and flows along it. The sky is filled with blood and gold and the palest blue. The mates smile at each other.

The whip cracks again. “What about Tuse?” Livion says.

“He’ll get all the wine he can drink,” Solet says.

The portholes glow, and the cabin has gone from dark to dim. Jeryon can’t disagree with Solet. I am a plodder. I’m also fairly rewarded and content. In a city like Hanosh, where one eats well, four eat poorly, and five don’t eat at all, it’s better to be hardtack than an empty plate dreaming of steak.

He feels sorry for Livion. The boy had promise before he started listening to Solet, and probably this woman. If she’s as manipulative as Jeryon thinks, Livion will count himself lucky after the Trust learns of his plotting. He won’t get another Hanoshi ship, but he’ll be rid of her.

Solet will have to return to Yness, likely a little bruised, where he’ll be welcomed with open arms and, knowing the Ynessi, open legs. Jeryon doesn’t understand why the Trust puts up with them. A wild people. A wasteful people. At least the Aydeni on board has proven trustworthy.

The door to the adjacent cabin opens. He hears the Aydeni enter, slam the door, rattle through a box of phials and slam out again. He can imagine why she’s rattling and slamming. As an apothecary, in addition to making medicine, she has to treat the rowers, and she doesn’t approve of the Trust’s new tonic. So be it. She was only contracted for this trip. In eight hours she’ll be gone too.

As the oarmaster cracks his whip again, Everlyn climbs the aft ladder from the rowers’ deck to her cabin. Dawn does its best to cheer her, but fails. The captain won’t light the lamps, worried about Aydeni privateers, as if there were any. This makes for a gloomy ship and a gloomier rowers’ deck, however much moonlight comes through the half deck above. Gloominess suits the Hanoshi, though.

Theirs is a seafaring city that has largely traded its fishing fleet for trading galleys and its nets for coin purses, whereas Ayden has always trusted the endless bounty of its mountains: the stone and ore, the trees and game. Even the ancient shadows long to be shaped into stories featuring wondrous beasts and secret caves. Hanoshi stories are about the joy of riches and the pain of their loss. They would only shape the shadows on Comber if they could be boxed for sale.

Everlyn looks around her cabin. The small room is packed with barrels of golden shield, a curative herb they bought across the Tallan Sea. She’s spent every spare moment of the last three days turning it into medicine. The Hanoshi council will give it away for free to employed citizens. The Trust, which owns Comber, is charging the city just a nominal coin for the voyage, but this is not a selfless act. The Trust wants to become a ruling company, and ruling companies realize that if the city perishes of the plague, there will be no one left to rule or employ.

Everlyn lifts the lid of a pot simmering on the small iron stove at one end of her spattered worktable. She has spent so much of the past three days in here reducing the shield to medicine, she hardly smells it anymore. This disturbs her. Fresh, the shield smells like liver. As medicine, it smells like rotten liver. Oh, what she must smell like.

It’s a small sacrifice, though, compared to the effects of the flox, which bubbles the skin as if boiled from within, then cools into a cracking black crust. The luckiest die, and most are that lucky.

Everlyn rattles through a wooden box under the table, pulls out a clear bottle of fine red powder and pockets it. From a different box she removes a larger green bottle with a skull painted on the label and takes a long pull. She swallows a belch, chases it with another, longer pull, then puts the bottle back and goes below, slamming the door behind her. Let the privateers hear that.

Tuse stalks the alley between the rowers’ benches, so tall he shifts from hunching to squatting to both beneath the overhead. He coils and uncoils a white whip. “Fifty-seven strokes that took.”

“I’ll say it again: They’ve had too much,” Everlyn says.

“I haven’t,” one rower says, grinning wildly. A bear-claw brand glistens on his shoulder. A cut from Tuse’s lash bloodies his cheek.

“Especially you,” she says.

“You’re worried about my health?” Bearclaw says. He shakes his leg shackle. “I’m not one of them. I’ll die down here. Might as well be fired up.”

“I won’t have it,” the rower behind him says. “None of us will.” Having no shackles, he looks around. Unlike Bearclaw and the other five prisoners leased from the jail in Hanosh, the rest of the rowers wear a sodden armband with the crest of their guild, the Brothers of the Oar. “Brothers don’t cheat. Look to Hume.”

Hume is a silent mountain. His eyes are closed. He may be asleep. Yet he pulls true. The brothers have looked at him in admiration before. They aren’t as inspired now.

“I need some,” a brother says. “To get the job done.”

“And me,” another says.

“Oarmaster,” Bearclaw says, “I asked first.”

“You’ll die,” Everlyn says. “And I won’t give you the means. Or let anyone else.”

“It’s not your choice,” Tuse says. “Should I tell the Trust an Aydeni tried to sabotage the trip? How many more would you be risking then?”

Everlyn chokes on her fury. The math is easy. She’s done it with every dose of powder she’s administered: How many will she save in Hanosh for each rower she might doom on the Comber?

She takes out the bottle of red powder and a spoon. Everlyn starts aft with a prisoner, who shakes his head. Some brothers cheer until one of their own takes a huge snort.

“I said it’s to get the job done,” the brother says and stares at his oar.

Tuse grunts. Bearclaw laughs. Hume pumps the oar. The drum beats on.

Once she’s done, Everlyn tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear, holds her chin up, and says, “I have pots to tend.” Tuse ignores her. She marches past him, climbs the aft ladder, and sees the other mates staring abaft. They look concerned. Maybe there are privateers out here.

Livion eclipses the sun with his hand and peers around it. “Do you see that? On top of the mist.”

“Too high for a sail,” Solet says. “Oh.” He squeezes the rudder tighter. “Could we outrun it?”

“It might not see us,” Livion says.

“It won’t have to. The stench of the shield will lead it right to us.” Solet curses. “Why couldn’t Comber be a trireme? We’d have marines. More weapons. Better defenses. The same speed.”

“At ten times the expense,” Livion says. “I’ll wake the captain.”

Jeryon rubs his face awake. The mates weary him, and he needs a shave too. As a man’s chin goes, so goes the man, and his will be impeccable. He puts a small towel and clay pot of soap on a shelf beneath a porthole and takes his razor, a circular copper blade, from its ivory case. It would be a ridiculous indulgence if not so useful.

Maybe Livion is worth saving, he thinks, if he could shave away the bad influences. It would also be indulgent, but he should give his mate that chance. Why should someone suffer for another man’s wrongs?

Jeryon hears Solet say, “Oh.” Through the porthole, he sees it: a tiny shadow creeping on the verge of dawn. He holds his hand at arm’s length. The shadow’s a quarter-thumb wide, no bigger than a fire ant. His stomach churns. The math is easy. If the shadow reaches the Comber, it’ll cover the entire ship.

As Livion runs overhead to the stern deck ladder, Jeryon fits the razor into its case and pockets it.

2

Everlyn dodges Livion as he slides down the ladder from the stern deck and bangs on the captain’s door. He sticks his head in briefly, then walks past her onto the causeway over the rowers’ deck. He says to Tuse below, “Silent drumming, double-time.”

Tuse glances up. “Aye.”

“And shutter the ports,” Livion says.

Tuse nods to the drummer stationed by the mast, who plays a little roll to signal the change, then taps his heavy sticks to keep the beat.

The relative silence is astounding. Everlyn is almost dizzied by the absence of pounding, as if someone had pulled her feet out from under her. She grabs Livion’s arm and says, “What is it?”

Before he can answer her, Jeryon emerges from his cabin. His black jacket emphasizes his bony frame, his red three-quarter pants reveal it, and his yellow cotton blouse, regardless of the rank its color designates, does nothing good for his pallor. His clothes have been fiercely brushed and pressed, though. His only informality is a pair of old sandals cut square in the back, Hanoshi-style. Boots are encouraged for officers on Hanoshi ships, but in his mind only Aydeni wear boots.

Jeryon tells Livion, “Break out the crossbows. Eight men to fire, two to load, and I want all sixteen loaded to start. And get the harpooners on their guns.”

Livion says, “We’re not going to run?”

“We’re running already,” Jeryon says. “It won’t make any difference if we’re seen.”

Livion knows better than to say they can’t possibly win. Jeryon admires his restraint. “I have a plan,” he says. “I hope we don’t have to use it.”

Everlyn says, “Will you tell me—”

“You’ll be told what you need to be told, when you need to be told,” Jeryon says.

She screws up her mouth and nods. He sounds like one of the Hanoshi ladies on the Crest, with their “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me” and “I know what medicine’s best.”

“Livion, task two sailors with bringing an extra sailcloth to the poth’s cabin and a few casks of water. Now,” he turns to the poth, “cover the barrels and crates with the sailcloth and keep it drenched. If the Comber’s just a smoking hull when it reaches port, our cargo will still survive.”

“Might not be fire,” Livion says.

“Always prepare for the worst,” Jeryon says. “Makes all other outcomes seem less terrible.”

Jeryon climbs the stern deck ladder. When Everlyn turns to Livion, he’s already beyond the mast. Every word he says springs a sailor into action like a ball scattering skittles.

Everlyn scans the horizon. No privateers. Sailors pass her with the sailcloth. As they go into her cabin, she bends over the larboard rail to look past her cabin to stern. Except for a single far-off gull haunting their wake, they’re all alone.

On the stern deck Jeryon asks Solet, “Gliding or flapping?”

“Gliding. It dove a few times, then floated up again.”

“Good,” Jeryon says. “Flapping means it’s interested.”

He rubs his chin and considers the sail, a triangle the same yellow as his blouse, and the three banners dangling from the yard of the galley’s fore-and-aft rig: company, city, captain. Jeryon’s, striped blue and white, is the smallest. It’s also set at the bottom, the most easily replaced.

Jeryon says, “Steady as she goes.” He slides down the stern ladder and orders the sail and banners brought down, as he would before a storm. They’ll slow, but their profile will be smaller. Better to lose an hour from their schedule than to be seen and lose their schedule entirely.

Livion stands on the foredeck between the galley’s two harpoon cannons, bulbous iron vases mounted on steel tripods bolted to the deck. A dozen single-flue irons are stacked beside each, and a metal barrel with powder sits on the main deck, given some cover by the foredeck. Trust ships can whale if it won’t affect their schedules, which means Jeryon rarely allows it. But on this trip the cannons are meant only for defense.

When they’d set out, Livion told the crew that the Trust believed Aydeni privateers would attack them. The sailors had thought that far-fetched, regardless of the rumors spreading through the Harbor. None had imagined this alternative.

Beale, a harpooner with arms as thick as his weapon, says, “Will we fight?”

“If we do, we’ll be ready,” Livion says. “I’ll take the larboard cannon.” Beale nods.

Topp, a crossbow loader, says, “It would make a rich prize.”

“For one ship in a hundred,” Livion says. “And the one in a hundred men on it who survives. You know what happens to the other ninety-nine. Let’s not push our luck.” He heads for the stern deck.

Beale says, “I can’t think of a ship that’s done it.”

“So someone’s due, right?” Topp says. “One good shot, and you could get promoted to mate.”

“And I’d make you a harpooner so you can see how hard it is,” Beale says. “It would be an interesting shot though.” He swivels the starboard cannon, aiming over the horizon. “A whale’s a cow compared to that.” When Topp doesn’t respond, he realizes the captain is coming toward them. Topp is already pulling crossbows from compartments under the foredeck. Beale loads the cannon, but the captain takes no notice of either of them.

Solet and Livion watch Jeryon pace fore and aft to the beat of the oars. It’s maddening, his precision, but it’s better than watching the shadow slowly approach.

Solet says, “You’ve been through this before, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but not with one so big,” Livion says. “We still lost the ship.” He glances back. “Twenty-five minutes. Could be twenty.”

“If we could beat it, though,” Solet says, “would we render it? No one’s getting a share this trip. Only the captain gets a bonus. But we’d all get a taste of the render.”

“We can’t beat that,” Livion says.

“What if we did beat it?”

“We couldn’t render it,” Livion says. “Not with our schedule.”

“What’s a few extra hours?”

“The flox kills quickly. Maybe ten people the first hour, twenty the second, and so on.”

“Maybe so,” Solet says. “Maybe not. What’s a few people you’ve never met against a fortune you’ll never see again?” he says.

“I’d be happy just to keep my life,” Livion says. “Again.”

“And what’s your life now against what it could be?” He looks at Livion. “Stop thinking like him,” Solet says. “Think like the owners. The Trust would also get a share of the render. An immense share. The dragon’s share. Your woman’s father wouldn’t just bring you into the family business then. He’d give you a piece of it.”

“The only way to get it, though,” Livion says, “would be to betray the captain. And mutiny never pays out in the end.”

“Not mutiny,” Solet says. “Opportunity.”

Livion steps away. He should have Solet broken down to sailor. He would if what he said didn’t ring true. His monthly would never satisfy Trist, and to her father anyone below captain is a ship’s boy. And would the flox spread so quickly? People had been staying indoors. The city guard had been keeping the streets clear. Victims had been isolated. And all the tales he’s heard about the plague’s virulence, they could be just that, tales. Tristaban, though, she’s real.

Did he just see a flap? A grue clutches his spine.

While pacing, Jeryon keeps his head down and his eyes up so he can read Solet’s big mouth and expressive lips. He’ll deal with the second mate in a moment.

He enters the poth’s cabin. Drenched sailcloth cloaks the barrels and crates, many of which are under the table, and it’s anchored by the casks of water. He nods and notices the packets in a crate by the door. Another crate holds various tinctures and pills.

“Bandages,” Everlyn says. “I never travel without some. And medicine. I could prepare better if I knew what we were facing.”

Jeryon says, “Burns.”

She plucks some bottles from the table. “Salves.”

“And you’ll need a saw,” he says. “The carpenter will bring you one. And some cord and pins for tourniquets. Ever performed an amputation?”

Some color drains from her face. “No,” she says. “My skills are herblore and midwifery.”

Jeryon smirks. “It’s not hard. Except for the bone. And the screaming.”

Everlyn draws herself up. Color pumps into her cheeks. “I’ve pulled dead children from the living, and living ones from the dead. I’m not afraid of a little screaming.”

“We’ll see,” he says. “Stay here.”

“I think I could better serve the ship on deck.”

“How many lives have you saved while you were dead?” Jeryon says. “Stay here.”

He starts out, but turns in the doorway. He surveys the table and crates of cured shield. “All that you’ve done,” he says. “I won’t let it go to waste.” Then he leaves.

And that’s the limit of Hanoshi gratitude, she thinks. It’s not about you. It’s about what you’ve done for me.

Everlyn takes out the skull bottle and toasts the closed door. Wine shouldn’t go to waste either.

On the stern deck Jeryon says, “Where did it go?”

“Into the sun,” Livion says.

“Let’s give it a moment. You’re on the oar. If we’re seen, use your whistle to direct Tuse. It won’t matter how much noise we make at that point.”

“What about me?” Solet says.

“Larboard cannon,” Jeryon says. “A good commander leads from the front. If you want a ship of your own, you’ll need that experience.”

Jeryon sees fear flicker in Solet’s eyes. Good, Jeryon thinks, let him wonder why I’m putting him on the cannon. Solet has his faults, but everyone knows he’s better at the oar than Livion, who’s the better harpooner.

After Solet heads forward, Livion says, “Should I drop the rowers to regular time?”

“No,” Jeryon says. “That was the mistake your last captain made, thinking the danger had passed.”

Solet passes through the rows of crossbowmen lined up against the foredeck as he mounts to his cannon. They fidget. Their fingers flex. “Keep your fingers off the triggers,” Solet says. “I don’t want anyone shooting his own foot. Or mine.”

He looks past the stern deck. How long can it hide inside the glare of the sun? Could it be that smart? Or has it turned away?

Beale gestures at his cannon with his firing rod. The bent tip glows red. “Should we unload?” he says.

“You’ll know when it’s time.” Solet swivels his gun absently, its harpoon loaded and wadded well, and he thinks about how he’ll bring it down if he gets the chance. He has to get the chance. A dragon’s like a flying treasure ship. He takes his firing rod from a small steel cage containing a lump of burning charcoal to make sure it’s also fired, and he gets an idea.

As he puts the rod back in the brazier, he stabs a pebble of charcoal with his finger blade and hides it behind his wrist the way a street magician tucks away a coin. He steps over to Beale and says quietly, “Nervous?”

Beale says, “No.”

Instead, he’s terrified. They all are, but none will admit it.

Solet says, “Good. Turn around. Look at these men.” Beale does so. Solet puts an arm on the cannon behind him, and whispers, “They will look up to us when the time comes, just as we look to the captain.” He scrapes the pebble onto the touch hole of Beale’s cannon and says, “We have to be worthy, whatever comes. Are you with me?”

“Yes,” Beale says.

Solet steps to the edge of the foredeck to address the crossbowmen while waiting for the pebble to burn down. “The old man has a plan, and he sees his plans through, isn’t that right?” The crossbowmen nod. “He said we’d cross the sea in record time. And we did. He said we’d get what we needed quick. And we did. We’re nearly back in record time too”—he pauses for effect—“but for some possible unpleasantness.” The men actually grin. He’d be impressed with the captain too, if the captain were making this speech.

“We may be safe,” he says, “but if we fight, we will have a chance.” More nods. He pats Beale on the back and glances at the pebble. It’s shrunk enough to slip halfway into the touch hole. “And we will win, do you understand me?” he says. “We will bring this boat in on time, and we will complete our contract. The city needs us to.” The crossbows quiver less. “Let’s keep it down, so let me see your hands.” They pump their fists. “Let the captain.” They turn and salute him. “And if it’s still back there watching, let it too.”

The pebble burns down small enough so that when the bow smacks a large wave, it falls all the way into the touch hole. A boom roars across the waves, chased by the harpoon, which splashes uselessly into the sea.

Jeryon’s about to risk calling out from the stern deck when Solet turns on Beale. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

Beale looks from Solet to Topp to the crossbowmen and back to Topp. “I don’t know how it could have gone off,” he says. Topp’s look is especially withering. “Maybe it didn’t notice.”

They’re a hundred feet from the stern deck. Nevertheless, they all hear Livion yell, “Captain.”

The shadow rises over the sun, half a thumb wide, still so small, but coming on fast. Its wings reap the sky in twin arcs. Its sinuous neck pumps. Its claws and teeth glint like swords. Even at a mile and a half, its black scales shimmer red in the dawn.

Solet can’t see the dragon’s eyes, but it feels like the beast is staring at him.

Livion says, “Fifteen minutes, Captain. At most.”

3

Jeryon calls his mates into his cabin. They gather around a small slate-topped table. With chalk Jeryon draws an idiot’s map of the Comber: a long cigar, a triangle at one end for the foredeck, a square at the other for the sterncastle. In the center he draws a circle for the mast, surrounded by four long rectangles where the deck is open. From a shelf he grabs the only decorative thing in the otherwise sparsely furnished room: a whale tooth two hands long. It’s covered in a beautifully detailed, blue ink rendering of the