Lorellia (Everlasting Legends, Book 1)

Ch. 26 - Friends in the Fog

Ardaik 11th - Central Ocean

The day was shaping up to be another long one, in Flann's opinion. Artus had been more reserved than ever, and the weather seemed obliged to match the Lorellian prince's mood.

The thick fog returned late in the morning. Muting the world around them. Making it difficult to see the position of the sun and hard to discern exactly how long Flann and Edna had been moving about the top deck, conversing quietly amongst themselves.

"I'm tellin' ya, they've no sense. Havin' those dead aboard after everythin' that's happened," she commented under her breath. "How do they know they won't just sit up an take over the ship?"

The hair on Flann's arms rose at the thought, but as he made to reply, a single white crow landed on the railing beside him, startling them both.

Edna gasped at the ghostly bird. "Another ill omen?" she wondered.

Flann immediately shook his head.

"A friend!" he exclaimed, stepping toward the creature just before a sailor's cry cut through the dense air.

"DRAGON!"

The dreaded word was shouted across the misty deck of the ship, sending the entire weary crew into a frenzy of motion.

"There's another!" a second man shouted, pulling more attention to the fog-wrapped skies as they strained to spot the beasts' silhouettes.

"Harpoons first if we can, gentlemen!" Kelber barked as he leaped down the steps between the helm and the quarter-deck. "Angle the cannons!"

Flann's eyes widened in horror. "Wait!" he belted, rushing past his guard to grab the attention of the admiral. "Wait! Don't fire on 'em! Wait!"

Paniel's brow pinched, and he twisted around to see the Serellian prince. "Stay our course," he ordered the helmsman before calling, "Mr. Kelber! Ready the guns below, but hold the shot!"

"Yes, sir!"

Just as Kelber retreated below to the lower gun deck, four dragons emerged from the fog. Each of them appeared formidable in their own right, though none were as large as Kamuhr or Auganull.

They circled the small fleet until Ornath swooped down on the galleon, touching the deck just long enough to allow King Liam to slide off his back.

As brief as the contact was, the creature's weight still caused the port side of the Retribution to dip toward the sea.

Artus scrambled to get above deck when the ship righted herself, and Sebastien's tight grip on his arm nearly pulled him from the steps.

"Artus!" Sebastien chided as the two emerged from the hatch. The cold air hit them both, and Artus's eyes locked onto the crowd of sailors and soldiers bunched loosely around something near where he could only assume the dragon had briefly landed. "Saints above! How many more have been brought onto us?" the advisor added, drawing Artus's attention upward.

He caught glimpses of the hovering creatures between the masts, rigging, and blanketing fog. But there were no booming cracks of gunfire nor clouds of angry, black smoke. Why?

Artus slipped free from his coat—and subsequently, Sebastian's grasp—shouldering his way through the crew to the inner edge of the half circle that they'd formed. There, he found a towering mountain of a man standing next to Flann and Admiral Paniel.

"King O'Conor?" Artus's astonishment was evident in his voice, despite his controlled expression and rigidly dignified posture. "...How?"

"The thanks should be directed toward Lord Cullach," Liam replied as he cast a pointed finger toward the marquis, who was dismounting Folian's dragon in a manner that required the guard captain's intervention so that he did not collapse onto the deck of the ship or get hit by a beating wing.