Free Crossroads 04 - The Dragon Isles by Stephen D (v1.1) Sullivan

down for a
while.
                 Slowly,
ever so slowly, the Dragon Isles crept closer.
                 Karista
Meinor paced across the short expanse of Kingfisher’s bow, wringing her slender fingers together, and occasionally stopping to mop
the sweat from her brow with a silk handkerchief.
                 Behind
her stood Bok, perspiration running down his body from the tip of his shaved
head to his bare feet. He kept a wary eye on both his mistress and the
approaching islands.
                 Trip
clung to the rigging near the top of the mast, refusing to come down even as
the rainstorm broke in earnest. He kept his hazel eyes fixed on the distant
islands, hoping to catch a glimpse of flying dragons or something even more
wondrous.
                 The
wind howled like demons, and many crew members wrapped scarves around their
heads, or covered their ears with their hands—as much as they could—while they
worked.
                 Thunder
crashed and, before they knew it, a sailor had leaped overboard into the
surging waves. He screamed an incoherent warning as he went, but there was no
trace of him by the time a rescue crew reached the rail.
                 “Turn
back!” Pamak said.
                 “We
can’t!” Mik replied. “Our only chance to survive the storm is to keep going!”
                 Thunderheads
rolled up the sky behind Kingfisher ,
and lightning crashed into the ocean with frightening regularity. The seas
mounted ever higher before the wind, and soon the water behind them looked like
green-gray mountains. The storm’s breath whipped the tops of the waves into
froth; white mist danced high into the air.
                 “Come
down, Trip!” Mik shouted up to the kender. “Before you’re
struck by lightning!”
                 “Aye,
captain!” the kender called back. He swung around the mast and felt with his
foot for the rigging. As he did, something in the breakers off the stem caught
his attention. Trip put a hand over his eyes and peered into the storm.
                 “Crazy minnow!” Ula yelled up to him. “What are you waiting
for?”
                 “I
see something!”
                 “What?”
asked Mik.
                 “Sharks! Sharks running before the storm! Hundreds,
thousands of them!”
                 “He
must mean porpoises,” Karista called from the bow. “Sharks do not run before storms—not on the surface
anyway.”
                 “I
mean sharks!” Trip called back,
pointing. “Look for yourselves!”
                 The
aristocrat and the captain peered in the direction the kender indicated. The
wind whipped stinging spray into their eyes, and they had to blink away the
brine to see.
                 The
sea behind Kingfisher boiled angrily,
and not just with wind and waves. Tall dorsal fins broke the whitecaps as
schools of sharks swarmed forward: redtips, swordbeaks, manglers .
Many leaped from the breakers, their toothy maws snapping at the salty air.
                 “What’s
happening?” Karista called from the bow.
                 Astern
on the bridge, Mik shrugged and shook his head. “Maybe they’re chasing
something.”
                 “Or
perhaps something is chasing them,” Ula suggested. Her green eyes went wide as
she gazed at the foaming sea.
                 “What
is it, girl?” Karista shouted.
                 “Can’t
you feel it?” Ula called back. She
turned her head from side to side, as though seeking the cause of the feeling.
                 “I
feel it,” Mik replied. The sensation was like a large knot twisting within his
stomach. He tightened his grip on the tiller; his brown eyes flashed, questing,
across the whitecaps.
                 “I
feel nothing!” Karista shouted,