"What of your reward, Captain Fowler?" The witch glanced toward the departing caravel. The lanterns atop its stern were still visible whenever the great ship crested a dune, but the gray outlines of the vessel itself were rapidly fading into the night. "I thought you wanted to catch the caravel?"
Fowler did not even look over his shoulder. "Not if the dragon pilfered all its gold."
Several wails of surprise sounded from the windlass;
then the Storm Sprite righted herself so suddenly that half a dozen men fell flat on the deck.
"What happened?" Fowler boomed. "Why are those lines slack?"
"It-it just happened," came the reply. "The harpoons must have pulled free!"
A chorus of disappointed groans rumbled through the crew, but Fowler's gray eyes shined with alarm. "All of them at once? Never."
The sailors looked at each other with baffled expres- sions, as though they expected one of their number to confess to some mistake that explained the mystery. A
babble sounded ahead of the Storm Sprite and to both
sides of her bow. The little cog fell abruptly silent, and every head aboard swiveled toward the noises.
Ruha slipped a hand into her aba. "Perhaps the men should retrieve their weapons, Captain-"
A curtain of black wings rose from the sea ahead, eclipsing the moon's reflection on the water and casting a shroud of murky darkness over the ship. The crew gasped in alarm and retreated toward the somercastle, giving no apparent thought to the spears and axes that lay stowed around the deck.
"What's the matter?" Fowler demanded. As he spoke, a pair of ebony talons shot from the water on both sides of the bow. There was no hide over the gnarled fingers, and even the wrists exhibited bare patches of gray, weathered bone. The claws dug into the wales, and the little cog's bow dipped into the sea. The half-ore released the tiller and stepped forward. "Cowards! Stand and fight!"
For the first time since Ruha had boarded, the cap- tain's words seemed to have no effect on his crew. The bravest of them watched over their shoulders as they opened a hatch or door, but most simply screamed in ter- ror and hurled themselves through the nearest opening.
Their panic surprised the witch, for until now they had exhibited the unwavering discipline of men who knew their lives depended upon working together. She pulled a small crystal of quartz from her pocket, at the same time catching Fowler's arm with her free hand.
"Your men are braver than this," she said. "It is only the dragon's magic frightening them."
"Only?" the half-ore scoffed. "It will be enough to sink us!"
Ruha pointed her crystal over the ship's bow. "I am not frightened."
The dragon's head rose into view and, despite her claim, the witch was so shocked she could not keep the syllables other incantation from fleeing her mind. She found herself staring not into the slit pupils of a wyrm's diabolic eyes, but into the vastly more sinister void of two
black, empty sockets. Though a thin layer of shriveled black scales still clung to the beast's brow and cheeks, its snout was a fleshless blade of cracked bone and cav- ernous nostrils. Even the creature's curved horns, once as sturdy and long as horse lances, were mere splintered stumps of their ancient magnificence.
"Umberlee have mercy!" Fowler ripped a golden ring from his ear and hurled it overboard, a piece of bloody lobe still dangling from the clasp. "Save us!"
The dragon's empty-eyed gaze followed the arc of the glimmering earring as it plunged into the sea, then snapped back to Fowler.
"If you wish mercy, do not throw your gold to Umber- lee." The dragon spoke in a voice as raspy as it was loud, and the mere sound of it made Ruha's legs shake so that she could hardly keep her feet. "Give it to me, and per- haps your death shall be quick!"
When Fowler made no move to produce more gold, the dragon opened its jaws, revealing a hundred broken fangs and a scabrous white tongue, and the Storm
Sprite^s sail billowed toward its mouth. A loud rasp rustled down the length of the ship, and Ruha realized the serpent was gorging itself with air. She squeezed the quartz crystal between her thumb and forefinger, at the same time summoning her spell back to mind.
The rasping ceased, and wisps of dark fog rose from the dragon's nostrils. Ruha called out the words of a wind spell. The quartz crystal evaporated in a searing flash, and a bolt of white lightning leapt from her hand. It struck the wyrm's head with a thunderous bang, hurling desiccated scales and shards of gray bone high into the air. The creature's neck snapped back, and from its shat- tered maw shot a plume of boiling, turbid vapor.
The dragon roared in pain, shaking the Storm Sprite from stem to stem, and the sea sputtered with the sound of its torn flesh dropping into the water, but the beast did not slip beneath the surging dunes. Instead, it dug its ebony talons deep into the ship's wales, then laid its neck
over the bow to display the smoking, mangled crater that had once been its face.
"Who would do this to me?" the dragon rumbled. "Cast yourself to Umberlee, or you shall wish you had."
Captain Fowler glanced back at Ruha. His lips were as white as the moon. "Well, Harper, c-can you k-keep your promise?"
Ruha thrust her shaking hands into her aba and, fear- ing her efforts would come to naught, fumbled through her pockets. Live wyrms could be killed, but what could she-or anyone-do against this dead beast?
The turbid vapor that had spilled from the dragon's maw earlier began to settle over the front part of the ship. As soon as the dark fog touched the rigging, lines started to snap and fall, hissing and smoking as though they were on fire. The sail broke free of the yardarms and fluttered to the deck, as sheer and full of holes as old lace. The mast, and then all the wood from midships for- ward, began to sizzle and fume.
Fowler sank to his knees. "Wretched witch! What have you done to my ship?"
The dragon turned its shattered face toward the cap- tain. "Did she give the order to interfere with me? Or was it you, thinking of Cormyr's filthy bounty?"
With that, the wyrm withdrew its head and slipped beneath the sea's dark surface. Ruha stepped to the taffrail and saw the shadow of one huge wing gliding through the water toward her.
"Captain, did I not promise that the Harpers would buy you another ship?" She stepped toward the half-ore.
"How can they do that if we perish with this one?"
Fowler looked at Ruha with disbelieving eyes. "You think we've a choice in the matter? If you could destroy the dragon, you'd have done it by now."
The yardarms broke free and crashed down upon the deck. The thick planks gave way as though they had been rotting for a hundred years, and the spars struck several barrels stowed below decks. One of the casks split in two,
spilling a viscous liquid that filled the air with a bitter, caustic stench. The babble of swirling water sounded behind the Storm Sprite.