"Why are they called Mangled Islands?" Jasper whispered to no one in particular, peering out at the small pieces of land before them. The largest was in the shape of a stout mountain, its center concaved, the entire thing covered in pale vegetation. A few tiny islands speckled around it, but with one glance Rib could see that there was no dragon on them.
Wycker must be there, he knew, staring at the ocean surrounded mount ahead.
Gavin stroked Hesper on the head, his other monigon curled up beside him. Everyone waited as Damara prepared herself in the belly of the boat.
Rib looked to see how she was doing. They'd already agreed that he and Damara should go get Wycker alone, since they could be swift and not have to worry about anyone else's safety. The plan was simple, bewitch Wycker and take him on the ship, but Rib still felt uneasy.
Damara's cut hand had already begun to bleed through the new bandage she wrapped around it that morning. But she didn't even wince, using it to hang a coil of rope over her head and one arm like a sash. Tied to her waist was the sack of bewitchment powder. Other than that, she had little on her person. She looked down at herself, clearly displeased.
"Here," Gavin said, handing her his knife sheathed with a strap to go across her chest. "I don't know what a dagger could do for you against a dragon, but still."
Damara smirked a little as she took it from him. "Thank you." She turned to Rib and hoisted herself up into the saddle, saying, "We shouldn't take long."
Rib glanced around at Gavin, Mortaug, and Jasper. Spryte had gone to scout out the island, in hopes of leaving for Crageria as soon as possible.
"Remember to hold your breath, Rib," Gavin told him with a grin. "It'd be a shame to waste powder on you."
Rib smiled nervously. "I will."
With that, he took off from the boat and flew for the island. It felt like the time he took Tyrone to cure Lynx of the firesap, except this was worse.
We're actually going to bewitch someone, he processed the thought. Just like Zheal does to my sister.
But this is to save Wystil?and we'll give Wycker the cure right after.
"Hey," Spryte startled him as she suddenly came zipping around his head, "you'll want to see this. Come on."
"What is it?" Rib asked, but the fae dragon sped away towards the island and he struggled to keep his eyes on her as he followed.
When he reached the concave mountain, he gazed around, wary of Wycker.
Maybe Spryte found him, he thought and pressed on harder to reach her. But wouldn't she have said so?
The foliage below was short but thick, a whitish green color. Soaring all the way to the other side of the island, Rib at last got to where Spryte circled as a fly would around something on the black beach.
Is that him?! Rib was appalled, landing a short distance away from the corpse of a stocky, midnight blue dragon curled up like a dead spider. He didn't want to go any closer, but Damara leapt from his back and rushed forward.
With one close look at the dragon, she cursed out loud and kicked the dark sand.
No. Rib stared in shock. He was our last chance.
What are we going to do now?
"Must have been a fight," Spryte said, now hovering about his head. "My guess is the Huskhns."
Forcing himself to draw nearer, Rib saw that the fae dragon was right. The ground was scuffed, plants were uprooted and burnt, and caught on one of the dragon's foreclaws were the scorched remnants of a net. The head of a broken battle axe lay nearby.
Oriole thought the Huskhns would come for the firebreather here, Rib recalled. But why would they kill him?
Deeply disturbed, he ran his eyes over Wycker's corpse. Surprisingly, the only damage that could be seen was on the dragon's wings, where his membrane was slashed to the point of no recovery. However, the shreds were far from raw, the rough edges scarred over as though inflicted on Wycker before his fight with the Huskhns.
Taking a quick look through his inner eyelids, he saw that the magics inside Wycker had all stilled. They appeared to be slowly leaking out of him as thin vapors, dissipating into the air.
What happened here? Rib couldn't wrap his mind around it. It looks as though he just fell over and died. As though the Huskhns didn't even touch him.
His heart jolted as he thought of Memory. Did she have to fight him? Is she alright?
Should I stay here in case she comes back?
Rib watched as Damara paced the beach where water washed up to her feet.
What is she going to do? This is all she came on the journey for.
She could try taking a flame from Brock's dragon fire to Wystil?
No, that would never work.
He remembered the Huskhns that tried taking Jasper so Rib would breathe a flame for them. That crew seemed to have had the same plan to take bare dragon fire overseas.
It sounds like an absurd idea, Rib knew. But now that we're desperate?
He straightened when he saw the young woman stalking towards him. "Let's return to the ship," she growled, mounting the saddle on his back.
"Shouldn't we bury Wycker?"
"There's no time."
"But why? What are we doing?"
"We're going back to Crageria."
"Yes!" Spryte butted in. "Finally."
"What?!" Rib exclaimed. "Griffith's probably got people looking everywhere for us there."
"I don't care," Damara said. "Oriole's the last firebreather there is and she's coming with us."
"No!" Spryte protested. Rib felt her alight on his head to face the young woman. "She's going to take the firesap cure."
"She can do that afterward!" Damara snapped. "Rib, the ship."
"Why don't we just find the ingredients and bring them back for Brock to make the cure here?" Rib asked, perking up.
Then I'd have another chance to find Memory.
"We don't have time for all that," Damara shot his idea down. "Now, the ship!"
Alright, alright. Rib could still hear the two females arguing behind him as he left Wycker's body and flew back over the small island. But I don't know what Mortaug will say to this?
When they reached the Merry May, it surprised Rib to see Mortaug, Jasper, and Gavin all looking the other way, out over the sea. There, he saw a large mysterious ship drawing nearer.
"What is that?" he asked, landing on the deck.
Gavin turned to him, eyebrows raised. "You didn't find him?"
"He's dead," Damara stated flatly, sliding off Rib's back.
"What?" Jasper spun on his heel. "How?"
Rib stayed quiet as Damara told them what they'd found, but interrupted before she could propose her new plan.
"What ship is that?" he repeated his question.
Gavin peered back at it. "We're not sure. But it looks as though it's headed straight for us."
Rib squinted his eyes at it. There were too many sails for it to be Huskhn craft, he thought, but strange shapes moved along it and his heart fluttered with hope.
Could Memory be there?
"I'll take a look," he said, opening his wings. As he left the boat, he heard Spryte strike up her argument with Damara again, this time getting the others involved.
Approaching the mysterious ship, Rib glanced through his inner eyelids and saw that it was positively thriving with magics.
Oh no.
Rib gawked, finally able to discern the crew. Not Huskhns, or even humans stood on board, but warriors of half-man, half-beast. Men with bull heads, others with horse bodies, more still with wildcat forearms.
Griffith's soldiers! They found us!
I have to warn the others!
He began to wheel around, but something took to the air from the ship's sails and sped towards him- a hag with boney wings, shrieking, "You have Lord Griffith's book! Give it back! Give it back!"
"No, I don't!" Rib cried, ducking his head as the horrid woman batted around him, clawing at his scales and getting in his face. "Get off of me!"
In effort to escape her, he swi
ped with his foreclaw, appalled when his talons tore into her side and made her scream.
"I'm sorry!" he gasped, then, ripping himself away from the flying hag, raced for the boat. He could hear the woman screeching behind him in pursuit.
"Griffith sent freaks after us!" he blurted out, landing on the deck. "They want the book!"
Immediately, Damara snatched the potion book and jumped on Rib's back. "We'll lead them away," she told Mortaug. "Get to safety."
"But the hag!" Rib exclaimed; the flying woman was getting closer. "What about the hag?"
"Kill her," Damara snarled.
"What?!" Rib took to the air. "No!"
Just then, something orange and spiny broke the surface, causing waves to violently rock the boat as the sea serpent from earlier arose with a deathly hiss. Rib stared up at it in horror. Water ran from the beast's chin like a waterfall down on him and Damara.
Spreading its frills, the huge serpent screeched ear-piercingly at them. Rib fought the urge to plunge into the water just to escape the painful sound.
Griffith sent a sea serpent after us? he panicked.
But the moment the beast silenced, he saw the hag flee, calling to her ship, "Go back! Go back!"
"Rib!" Damara yelled at him. "Distract it!"
Distract it?!
Rib saw the serpent flick its eyes from him to their boat, where Gavin and the others rushed to catch the wind in their sail. As it stretched its jaws and came crashing down, Rib swooped, throwing Gavin and Jasper overboard before the beast clamped down on the vessel.
"Mortaug!" Rib cried when the serpent lifted the Merry May up high, but the man had already taken a dive, followed by the monigons. Spryte zipped past, clutching her potion flask.
Their boat looked like a mere toy in the sea serpent's mouth as it thrashed its head from side to side before letting go. With broken mast and billowing sail, the little ship flew through the air, smashing onto the beach of the mountain island.
"No!" Damara's voice rang out over the churning waves.
What do we do now?
Rib froze up when the serpent fastened its gaze on him and lunged.
The moment he dodged, a giant powder cloud blew up in the sea serpent's face, sucked in as the great beast inhaled. Then, the serpent paused, eyes glossing over, mouth softly closing.
With a calm turn of its head, it gazed in Rib's direction, perfectly docile.
Damara bewitched it! Rib realized, peering through his magic lenses to see the magic clouding inside its head. The powder works on sea serpents!
"Hey!" Jasper sputtered from below. At once, Rib swept the boy up in his talons and brought him to shore, unnerved as the sea serpent's head followed him after him expectantly.
"Let me off!" Damara demanded, jumping down from Rib's back and running for the ship wreck farther inland. The sea serpent drew as close to the coast as it could, staring after her like a loyal dog.
"What is going on?" Jasper asked as he gaped at the great water beast, but Rib rushed to help the others. When Gavin, Mortaug, and both monigons had all gotten to the beach, unharmed but shaken, they headed for where Damara stood alone before the grounded ship.
It's been smashed to splinters! Rib thought, seeing how the boat's ribbed sides were snapped where the serpent had bitten it. The bottom was broken in by the jutting rock it had landed on. The mast leaned like a felled tree.
Jasper stood up on it and swore loudly. Mortaug's face darkened. Gavin sat down and wrestled Hesper in his arms, while Spryte was nowhere to be seen.
"How bad is it?" Damara whispered, her voice dry.
Mortaug shook his head, giving a few dispirited hand motions.
"It would take months to repair," Gavin translated, quiet. "And we don't have the men or the trees to do it."
"So we're stranded."
Damara's statement hung over their silence.
Stranded. Rib turned the word over in his head. In one way, it relieved him. Now he could only wait in expectation of Memory.
But at the same time, Damara's hollow tone awoke in him the reality of their situation. It was the same tone that'd urged Rib to tell her of this trip in the first place. They were back where they started.
The Wystilians will only continue to die.
We have no plan of saving them.
Rib strived to think of some solution, some way to at least give Damara hope. He looked back and saw that the sea serpent still waited on the young woman and thought of Clyde on the Great She-Serpent of the Sea.
"We aren't stranded, Damara," he told her. "The sea serpent can take you to Crageria and you can get Oriole, just like you wanted."
Damara did not even look at him, but moved up the slope. Rib watched her trembling form disappear over the ledge of the concave mountain, muddled.
"Why doesn't she want to?"
"Witless idea," muttered Jasper, kicking a plank of wood.
"Didn't you see Spryte leave for that ship of freaks?" Gavin asked Rib without facing him. He traced the flat rounded scales on Hesper's face. "She stowed away with the firesap cure. Oriole will be an icebreather before any of us could hope to reach Crageria."
Oh no?Rib stared back at the ocean to see that the ship was, indeed, gone from sight.
"B-but," he stammered, "I could get Damara on that ship."
Gavin snorted.
"Yeah, and hide?" Jasper's voice was laced with sarcasm. "Or fight them like you did that hag?"
Rib recalled how the flying woman screamed in pain when his talons accidentally ripped into her flesh. I don't want to fight anyone?
He stared down at himself, the size of a horse and just as muscular. But I can't hide away on a ship, either.
If we rode the sea serpent to get ingredients at the ports, then we could still bring them back to Brock. But who knows how long that bewitchment powder will last? It would kill us the moment it wore off.
Rib closed his eyes drearily.
Damara's right?They're all right.
We can't get the cure for Wystil.
It's hopeless.
"What now?" he groaned.
"Well," Gavin could be heard standing up, "what else to do but return to the Islanders? I guess I'll be fulfilling my promise to my sisters sooner than I thought."
And Memory might come back here, Rib remembered, hope sparking inside of him.
"Father thinks we should leave immediately," Jasper said. "Since we lost all our food and drinking water."
It should be a long walk?
"I'll get Damara," Rib sighed, looking to where she'd disappeared.
"Hmm." Gavin stepped to his side. "Maybe I should go with you."
Together, they trekked up the way Damara had gone, then froze at the top.
What? Rib couldn't believe his eyes. Who is that?!
Below, Damara was embracing a deep red dragon with wings nearly stripped to the frame. The stranger leaned into the young woman familiarly, as though reunited with her at long last.
"Rib," Gavin uttered. "Firebreather?"
Rib peered through his inner eyelids and saw a magic, bright and energetic, held within the dragon's body.
Firesap. He couldn't imagine it was anything else.
"Yes," he breathed. "Damara found a firebreather."
Chapter 19