Dragonoak (5 page)

“Sorry.
I ought not lecture you, not on this,” Katja said quietly. “None of
that is of any concern to me. I simply miss having you as a friend,
Rowan.”

“...
we're still friends,” I grumbled, wondering how far I could throw a
bunch of grapes.

“Are we?
Because it seems to me as though you are quite intent on avoiding
me. I can't recall the last time you visited me at my apartment,
and I only wish I knew why it happened so abruptly. We used to be
so close, Rowan. We learnt Canthian together, found a way to
survive here side by side, and... I miss those days,
dear.”

I pulled
my feet up onto the pier, rested my chin on a knee and wondered why
I could never bring myself to say the things I wanted to her. Why I
always turned away from her instead of telling her what was
wrong.

She had
a point. We had been close. In the beginning, I'd been too scared
to wander freely amongst the pirates, and I thought we'd only ever
have each other.

“You
have to stop pushing me,” I said slowly, head aching as I ground my
teeth together. “Just because you'd use my powers in a different
way doesn't mean that I should have to... I can't do it, Katja. I
can't teach you how to be a necromancer, alright?”

Katja
hadn't taken what had happened to Kastelir well. None of us had,
and we all coped in our own ways. Katja's methods involved pushing
herself past exhaustion, taking on more than I ever had in my
village, until she was barely allowing herself a moment's sleep.
I'd tried to intervene, but she'd only said that she could feel
herself getting stronger; that she was about to break through the
limitations imposed upon her.

I'd seen
her crush bugs with her thumb, convinced she could bring them back
to life, if only she tried hard enough.

But it
was my fault. I'd humoured her. I'd helped her hone her powers, I'd
sat and told her how it felt to bring someone back to life; how it
felt to force death into a creature a thousand times bigger than I
was.

“I'm
sorry, Rowan,” Katja managed after a long pause. Glancing at her
from the corner of my eye, I moved the plate of fruit from between
us, and let her fall against my shoulder. “... I just want to go
home. No matter what has become of Kastelir, it cannot be worse
than what I have imagined. What I have endured within my dreams.
All I want is to return to my country and help rebuild it, no
matter what it takes.”

“Me
too,” I murmured, resting my chin atop her head.

When the
dragons came, I'd been fighting for Kastelir for a matter of weeks.
Katja had dedicated her entire life keeping her Kingdom together,
and I ought to have been more understanding. I ought to have
appreciated how hard it was on her.

We sat
like that for a time, watching the ships drift across the horizon,
fishing boats slowly heading back to port in time for the midday
lull. Two larger ships made port, a red-flagged vessel I recognised
as belonging to a crew from Ridgeth, along with one of the few
merchant ships that had yet to be scared off by Gavern's antics,
but there was a dark mark on the horizon I couldn't account
for.

I leant
forward, squinting, entertaining thoughts of Yin Zhou finally
playing Mahon a visit, and said, “Do you recognise that ship?” to
Katja.

“I
shouldn't say I do!” she said, barely bothering to pay it more than
a cursory glance. “You spend far more time at sea than I'm wont
to.”

Katja
had a point. In the months that we'd been in Canth, she had refused
to set foot on another ship. All the more reason for me to be
curious about the one approaching.

Once it
drew close enough for me to see the colours of its sails, dark
greens and navy blues, I bolted to my feet and called out,
“Reis!”

I
needn't have bothered. It'd been spotted down at the docks, too,
and a fraction of a second after I'd called out, a horn
sounded.

Now that
it was spotted, the ship didn't hold back. It hurtled towards the
town with a frightening speed, wind acting in its favour, and as it
rose over the swell of a wave, the whole world was muted in the
prelude to a cannonball hitting the docks. Even this far down the
beach, the noise thundered through me, and I seized hold of Katja's
arm, pulling her back towards the hut.

“Who the hell – who the
bloody
hell
– let that sod play around with gun
powder?” Reis sounded out through grit teeth. “One ship. One bloody
ship against a town. He's taking the piss.”

Akela
and Kouris rushed out of the hut after Reis, ready to charge into
town and onto whatever ships were headed out to face Gavern's, and
without letting go of Katja, I tried to ease her back into the
hut.

“Stay
here,” I said to her, certain I could be brave if I had someone to
look after.

Trembling with fear, Katja shook her head over and over,
saying, “N-no, I can help, Rowan. I must...”

It
wasn't the first time Port Mahon had been struck, but that did
nothing to stop my surroundings from warping. The ship became a
dragon, the cannonball its breath, and the ocean waves churned with
fire, rushing ever closer to us. Every thud and crash echoed on
between my ears, and the yells of pirates become the screams of
citizens begging for help.

I
gripped Katja's hand tight, stopping my own from trembling, and
together we sprinted across the beach after Akela and Kouris. A
band of pirates charged our way and ran straight past, heading for
Reis, asking them what they should do, and I heard Reis yell out,
“Fire back, you absolute morons!”

Port
Mahon had been hit by worse and would survive to see attacks more
coordinated than this one, but it was easy to be swept up in the
moment, as the other pirates were. Our cannons sounded from the
look-out towers at each end of the docks, hitting Gavern's ship as
hard as it had hit us, and though I saw more wreckage and rubble
than spreading frames, it was almost impossible to not be dragged
back into the past, deeper and deeper.

“Rowan!” Katja said, tugging me from the spot when I'd come
to an abrupt halt. “Rowan,
move.
We have to help these people.”

The
injuries were wide-spread, but far from grave. Part of the dock had
been smashed wide open, splintering a tower of crates along with
it, and the woman who kept a record of all the ships that came in
and out of Mahon had her legs trapped under a chunk of debris that
took five of us to lift. Katja knelt by her side, eyes closing as
she helped ease the woman's shattered bones back into place, not
staying for a second longer than it took to accept her
thanks.

A
handful of others were tending to gashes and broken bones, and they
hobbled over as another cannonball flew overhead, striking the
centre of town.

“Quickly,” I said, hooking my arm around Katja's the moment
she was done healing those around her, eyes already darkening, and
we set off through the streets, heads bowed low.

The
pirates were out in their masses, roaring for more of a fight than
they were being given. I heard one of our cannonballs punch through
the side of Gavern's ship, but we'd already turned too many corners
for me to see the ocean. At some point, Katja had taken the lead,
taking me the long way around to whatever buildings had been
reduced to rubble.

“Listen to me,” Katja said, stopping before she ought to
have, hands on my shoulders. “You have to help me, Rowan. There are
too many injured for me alone to handle, not without leaving them
in pain. You
have
to do this.”

“Katja...” I said, trying to shrug her hands off, but her
grasp was tight. “You're leaving them in pain now. Come on! Stop
messing around.”

“Messing
around?” The pitch of her voice rose and my stomach turned. “You
can do this, Rowan. You can help them. Please.”

I tried
to say something more, but her inky black eyes fixed on mine,
rendering me speechless. That old, familiar sickness rose up within
me and I realised she was doing it on purpose. Of course she was.
And after all that I'd just said to her, after I wanted her to be
the friend I'd first made so very much again. Why was she wasting
time? Why did she care more about pushing me than rushing to help
the others?

“... no,” I managed, pushing her arms away. She stepped
forward as I took a step back, not about to let me leave, so I
gripped the sides of her arms as tightly as I could and said, “No,
Katja. I can't. I can't help them, can't help
anyone
. Just heal them, alright? No
one's dead. I'll go—go help clear up. The ship's probably gone now,
and... and you can handle this. I know you can.”

I'd
started strong, voice raised to something that barely fell short of
a shout, but it'd taken me mere seconds to feel my mouth turn dry.
Katja didn't flinch. I hadn't frightened her, hadn't shocked her;
there was nothing but disappointment in her expression, in the way
she pried my fingers from her arms.

“You
could be so much more, Rowan,” was all that she said, leaving me
behind as she moved to help those I wouldn't.

The
uproar from the docks told me that Gavern's ship had been bested.
It was over as quickly as it had started. It was a warning, nothing
more. I supposed we ought to have been grateful that Gavern wanted
to rule Port Mahon, not destroy it.

Head
spinning, I wandered towards what felt like the direction of the
docks. I shouldn't have been so hard on Katja. She was taking on a
lot by herself, and I hadn't been able to prove myself when she'd
needed me. I'd apologise later. I'd tell her that she couldn't talk
to me like that, couldn't force my powers out of me, but I'd
apologise. We'd all let spite get the better of us at one point or
another, and I wasn't about to forget the kindness I knew because
of it.

Not a
single soul remained inside. Pirates flooded the streets to assess
the damage, and I went with the motion of the crowd, knocking into
one person and then the next. I'd long since learnt not to
apologise for bumping shoulders, but I stepped on someone's foot
and they grabbed me by the shoulders.

I looked
up, expecting to be issued a threat and warning all at once, but
found a familiar face looking down at me.

“Atthis!” I said, pulling him into a quick hug. “You're
alright! That last cannonball didn't hit too close to your place,
did it?”

“It was
a few streets off,” he said, placing a hand on my back and guiding
me through the crowd. “Gods. Can't we go a day without some sort of
ruckus? Either we're cutting off extremities or the sky's falling
down on us.”

“Heading
down to complain to Reis?” I asked.

Atthis
laughed dryly and said, “Not in a thousand years. They scare me as
much as I used to scare you.”

While
Atthis tended to keep to himself and often left Mahon for weeks at
a time as Kouris did, he always seemed to appear exactly when I
needed him to. Without the crown resting heavy on his head, I found
that he reminded me of my father, in quiet, unremarkable ways, and
I calmed myself by measures as we headed down to the docks
together.

The
people around us huffed in disappointment as they sheathed their
weapons, and once the streets widened and the dock was in sight, I
looked back on Mahon and realised that the damage wasn't as bad as
I'd imagined it to be. Not that the same could be said for Gavern's
ship, or what remained of it: only the top half of the mast was
above water, and the ships we'd sent out to attack it head-on
seemed unscathed.

Reis was
barking out orders across the dock and people were already starting
to move the debris, dragging pieces of shattered walls and paths
onto the beach. The work was made faster with Kouris' help, and I
pushed through the crowds, wanting to hear what Reis had to
say.

“A
skeleton crew!” Tae scoffed, kicking the uneven edge of the path
and wincing at the pain shooting through her toes. “What the fuck
kind of insult is that? He sends a fancy goddamn ship out, and he
don't put more than a dozen people on it!”

“Calm
down,” Reis said, clouting her around the back of the
head.

“Calm
down? I was ready for a fight! I was ready to show that lot what's
what, ready to make 'em really sorry for ever even thinking about
coming near Mahon, and the bastard doesn't even send enough people
for us all to have someone to stick a sword through,” Tae said,
drawing her sword and throwing it on the ground. “And here was me
thinking he called himself a pirate!”

Reis
leant heavily on their cane as they watched Tae's dramatics, and
the onlookers raised their brows, judging Tae to be as brave as she
was stupid.

“Shut
it, would you. Gavern's sending that ship to show off, to let us
know that he's got a dozen more like it, all of 'em disposable, all
of 'em with the same sort of firepower,” Reis said, “Take a look at
what one ship's managed to do. Aye, no one's dead, but this is
gonna take a while to repair, and we ain't going to be sending the
Queen as much as I'd like this week. How does that make me look?
How does that make Mahon look? You want people thinking we can't
hold our own?