Free Battledragon by Christopher Rowley Page A

reached the meridian between two worlds and breathed deeply of the scent of the ocean. He pressed on, his feet slipping through the foam, feeling the delightful coolness of it as it splashed above his ankles.
    This was seawater, and thus it was forbidden. Men feared that wyverns could not withstand the lure of the sea and that, once affected, they would leave and never return. Bazil had swum in the sea as a youngster, however, breaking the prohibition many times, and although he knew the pull of the sea he did not desire it above all things. And in his service in the legions, he had swum both lakes and rivers. Of course, freshwater was not the same; it had no echo in the heart for wyvern dragons, who were natural predators of the shore and the shallows.
    The water came up to his belly, and then he was off his feet and swimming. It was cold, which he enjoyed. As a wyvern dragon, he burned at a higher temperature than men. He slid into it gratefully and inhaled the scent of ocean.
    All at once a great orchestra struck a chord in the back of his mind, and he felt as he had never felt before. He swam in the natural way for wyverns, breathing several times quickly to fill his lungs and then keeping his head below the surface as his great tail thrust him along, with steering provided by his legs and torso.
    Memories awoke from his youngest days in Blue Stone. Days when he had chased tuna over the offshore banks. Deep feelings moved inside him like whales working in the depths, inchoate things, never voiced before.
    This was how to live, wild and free, swimming in the sea, the way the wild one had been when his wings were strong and he roamed the northern skies, pouncing on whatever he saw that he desired to eat. This was where a wyvern dragon belonged, where he ruled the shallow waters and the beach lands.
    He surfaced to breathe, sucking down long deep breaths and expelling them loudly, supercharging his lungs. Then he lowered his head into the water, enjoying the feel of it, tasting ocean and her silky vastness, her distant shores and enormous reaches. He swam, sampling the water, seeking the trace odors of potential prey.
    He noticed at once that there was a considerable stench coming from the True Bay on the other side of the headland. Marneri treated most of its sewage, but from the ships that docked and occasional spills from storm sewers, enough pollution reached the small, tight True Bay to make it stink to a nose as sensitive as his. He turned away from it and swam eastward, against the current, into clean water, keeping about half a mile from the land.
    He sensed a school of mackerel ahead of him that took fright and fled out of the bay into deeper water. The sardines that the mackerel had been pursuing escaped down the coast inshore of him, and he chuckled to himself and wished the small fish well.
    He crossed the Sequile shoals and detected a big eight-arms, intent on a crab until the wyvern was quite close. The octopus sensed him when he was right overhead and fled in a jet of black ink. Bazil lifted his head from the water and laughed from the sheer pleasure of it. This was the life, ruling the margin of the sea.
    Why should he ever go back?
    The question rose suddenly into his mind. Why return at all? Let them forget Bazil Broketail, he would become what he was meant to be, a great predator of the coasts, hunting for seals and bears on land and for whatever he could catch in the water. He would swim the surf from one end of the continent to the other and feast on the fish and the animals. No man would rule him, no one would make him wear man's things, the clothing and equipment that marked one as being the property of the legions. It was a dangerous life being a battledragon, why should he die for man?
    Men, destiny, flashing thoughts struck through him, visions of the legions and their organized life.
    He refused the call of these visions. Instead he would go free. He would taste the life of a wild wyvern.
    He