He was still anxious about finding his way back, afterwards. There were no landmarks upon the ocean, and it seemed easy to get turned round. But the next morning he woke and found everyone else had got up quietly before him, gone on a frenzy of fishing and both gorged themselves and scared away all the fish from the local waters. Now they were all pretending to be asleep again. It was a perfectly clear message, and with feelings somewhat injured, Céleste decided he did not care if he did not find his way back; he could do just as well on another island.
He set off, therefore, flying straight out over the open ocean. A pang struck him when he looked back, and the island had become the faintest line on the horizon, but he took a deep breath and kept going until it vanished entirely. But his courage was rewarded: not half an hour later, he spotted something large and silvery ahead just beneath the surface of the water. He decided he would not risk waiting for a closer look; he folded his wings and dived for it at a steep angle, and his claws sank into its flesh.
The fish was indeed enormous: he had never seen anything like it. It was so heavy he had a real struggle to lift it, the whole shape peculiarly round and flat and bulging. It did not wriggle, but flapped its fins with alarm until he bit it several times, and it finally went limp. He ate and ate, hovering, until he discovered he did not want to eat more: a sensation he had not previously experienced. There was indeed some of it remaining. After a bit of consideration, he decided he would go back; he felt rather in charity with the world at present, and ready to be forgiving, since Mikli had not lied to him.
He did manage to find his way; some instinct guided his head despite the featureless spread of the ocean, and had the pleasure of landing on the beach with the remnant of his catch to the great surprise and loud admiration of the others: even what was left of his fish was bigger than anything anyone could catch in the bay, and certainly none of them could have managed it themselves. “Yes,” he said, smugly, “you may eat it; I have already had my fill,” even though they did not really deserve it; but everyone was very appreciative.
“It eats very well,” Mikli said, “although it is not a kraken; those are even bigger.”
“I do not suppose that anyone could really want a bigger fish,” Céleste said coolly. “It would certainly go bad before it could be eaten up.”
But he kept growing. He found another of the round-faced fish two weeks later, just as big, and ate it down to the fins every scrap. In between he was out every day catching other big fish in the open ocean, as many as he could, and he could not help himself; he ate them all without bringing back a single bite.
However, no one made any remarks anymore. Indeed, they had all become really quite respectful and polite.
Nevertheless, he was delighted on the day when at last he did encounter one of Mikli’s whales. She nudged him awake that morning herself and said, “They are here! The whales are coming by, come and have a look.”
They were not very far from the island, and there were several of them traveling in company, of various sizes: some were even larger than himself, and he was surprised to realize that he had not seen anything bigger than he was for some time now. He considered taking one of the smaller ones, but then he looked over at the island and judged the distance; he said to Mikli, who had accompanied him, “Go and bring anyone else who would like a share, to help.” She had been circling overhead—the others did not seem to have the trick of hovering—and she dashed away at once, returning with a dozen of the others.
He picked out a large and sluggish member of the group at the end. “Go at the tail!” he called to the others, and they all latched onto the flukes in great excitement. Diving, he seized the base of the tail, closest to the body, and called, “Together now, pull!”
It took them nearly an hour, but they dragged the whale together back to the island and onto the shore.
It was so enormous they all feasted themselves to their swollen-bellied limits, and then Céleste permitted the rest of the dragons to come and have a share, even if they had not helped. “But next time,” he said sternly, “anyone who does not help shall not have a share, unless they are sick, or if they have done their part another day. And,” he added, “we will think of something to do with the leftovers.”
“We might try drying it,” Galant suggested. “I have seen men dry fish, and eat it again later.”
They sliced it up with their talons, and tried to hang it on trees; they did not have much luck, however, and four days later, it rained and all the meat began to stink so dreadfully no one wanted to try eating it anymore. But that was all right: they threw it in the waters a distance off the island, and so many fish came to eat it that they all took their fill, even Céleste. And when next they wanted a whale, everyone did come to help, anyway.
The days rolled away with placid sameness. Céleste’s appetite at last began to slacken; he still wanted a big meal every three days or so, but he was not so hungry all the time. “You have got your growth, I expect,” Galant said knowledgably, and everyone expressed their relief in loud congratulations.
Céleste was so big now he covered a considerable stretch of the beach at night. Galant was the largest otherwise, and Céleste could have spanned his entire back with the talons of one forefoot. A round dozen of the others slept on his back at night, and more curled up round his sides, all of them pleasantly warmer as a result.
But as his hunger faded, he began to feel increasingly restless. “No, I am not hungry; only, what is the use of just lying here all day?” he said, when the others asked why he was getting up, and whether he was going hunting again.
“I will go with you,” Mikli said. All of them had for once had enough to eat without having to work very hard for it, and with food grown easier to come by, several of the others were also willing to join him in exploring. They flew idly round the nearby islands, but found nothing much more exciting than a herd of iguanas disinclined to make room on their beach.
“You had better be glad not to have found any trouble,” Galant said. “Stay away from the bigger islands! You may be sure if you came on some men, they would straightaway try to put you to work. It would be ropes and chains and lectures, all day.” Céleste could not really muster up any fear: anyone who had lived in those little huts could not alarm him. But that was hardly a recommendation to seek out such rude people, either. He could not have named what he wanted, he only knew he was dissatisfied. He flew further and further each day out over the open ocean.
Three days later, he went whale-hunting again with his friends. They were all of them still well-fed and full of energy, dancing around the clouds, and it was such a lovely day for flying that even after they spotted the pod, they did not immediately pounce: they were far enough away from shore it would be a long flight to drag their prey home, and no one was in a rush, least of all Céleste. Instead they flew along, playing games of tag and fly-the-loop, and suddenly Galant said, “Ah! We should get our hunting done and get out of the way: look.”
A very peculiar thing had appeared on the horizon, something rather like a dragon lying on its side in the water with one wing sticking up, only it had many wings, all white, and they were not flapping but just belled out with the wind, and it was not a dragon. It did not look like anything Céleste had ever seen.
“What is it?”
“It is a ship,” Galant said. “And when they see us, they will certainly fire a gun to chase us off. Don’t get too close!”
Céleste was more interested than alarmed, and he turned aside from the whales and instead followed the ship. He could see it was made of wood, and when he peered closer he could see many little creatures swarming over it, which he supposed were men. He thought of going lower and tr
ying to say hello: according to Galant, they could speak, and if they had made this ship, they were surely very clever, and perhaps interesting. “Do you think they will know French?” he asked.
“I do not know, and I do not want to know,” Galant said decisively. “If we are not taking a whale, I am for going home.”
“Well, I will try, at least,” Céleste said, and he dipped from the clouds and dropped to hover before the ship, calling, “Bonjour!” as loudly as he could.
A great noise arose from the ship at once, but none of it sounded like an answer. Céleste winced. All the men were scurrying and running and shouting; some of them had brought out long things that shone silver in the sunlight and were waving them in the air. One of the men, with a magnificent and enormous growth upon the top of his head that made it larger than any of the others, shouted something over the rest of them. It did not sound quite like French at all, unfortunately, but Céleste saw that a great many of the other men were moving quickly in response, and pulling forward a large peculiar tube of black, housed in wood, to the front of the ship.
“I told you, I told you!” Galant cried from above, flying anxious circles. “It is a gun! Come away!”
Céleste was cautious enough to dart to one side when the thing made its loud roaring noise, and something came flying past him, so quickly he could not make it out or see where it went, except there was a terrific splash as it landed in the water, flinging spray so high it spattered him where he hovered.
The men had also brought out several long sticklike things and pointed them at him. These made loud popping noises not quite as unpleasant as the big gun, but something spattered hot and horribly unpleasant against Céleste’s leg from them, and he cried out and jerked back in surprised dismay and pain. All the men aboard began shouting again, in a jeering sort of way, and there was—there was blood, spilling from his leg, and in outrage and indignation Céleste drew a deep furious breath and roared.
He had never roared before; he had never felt impelled to do so. But it came quite naturally. The roar burst from his chest and the whole ship heaved back from him as if carried by it: the gun rolled backwards into the men trying to put another lump of metal inside it, and went flying down the length of the ship; the nearest of the tall spindly trunks shattered, and its huge white wings came sinking down upon the heads of the men with their popping sticks. Screams and yells rose up.
Other men began to fire more of the popping sticks at him from up in the other trunks. Céleste backed away, rather taken aback by the result, but Mikli had dived down roaring herself to his aid. She squalled as one of the men managed to hit her, too, directly in the shoulder, and she fell out of the sky onto the deck.
The men began to leap upon her with their silver things, and Céleste realized after one terrified cry from her that they were like claws; the men were cutting into her body. He roared furiously again and flung himself upon the ship: he seized upon the largest trunk and wrenched the whole thing bodily around until it cracked and came up from the deck, and then he flung it with all the men aboard into the ocean.
Lunging, he snatched more of them by handfuls and threw them off, knocking a dozen of them off Mikli with one swipe.
The other dragons poured down to help, grabbing men by the shoulders and carrying them off, and then the rest of the men were all leaping away overboard: they had a couple of smaller wooden hollow things, which they heaved into the water, and the men crammed themselves aboard these and began to use long sticks to push themselves away from the ship.
Céleste paused, hard of breath; the ship was creaking and wobbling beneath him. All the men had vanished, except for a last few diving off the back of the ship; he paid them no attention. “Are you all right?” he asked Mikli.
“No!” she said. She was making small miserable cries of pain, and when he tried to get her upon his back, she shrilled and refused to be moved. Finally Céleste gave up, and seized up all the ropes he could find lying about and dragged the ship through the water towards the island.
The others all took a rope and helped him, but it was still very hard going. But at last they reached the bay again, and Mikli was persuaded to crawl off the deck and onto the beach. She lay down with an air of martyrdom, and they all anxiously inspected her wounds: only to find nothing but a few superficial scratches already closed, and one small puncture in her shoulder, which was barely bleeding anymore.
“Well, it was very painful!” she said defensively, after they all upbraided her for giving them so much work and worry.
“And now we have nothing to eat, either,” Galant said. “Well, we may as well see what is inside the ship: they may have some kind of foodstuffs in there.”
Céleste pushed the ship over, and all together they pounded it up and down against the rocks until the hold cracked open, like a turtle shell. But no food fell out. Instead, with a rumbling clang, out spilled a
heap of small bars of some dazzling, brilliant stuff, blazing through the water in the sunlight, and as they all drew in a single united gasp of admiration, Galant said, “Gold!”
CAPTAIN LAURENCE let the last page drop to his small desk, frowning. He had read for the twentieth time through all fourteen separate accounts of the pirates with the enormous black dragon, from twelve separate incidents, and he remained dissatisfied with his intelligence. Though several reported being hailed in French, not a one offered the slightest description of ship or sail to guide him to his enemy. As far as anyone might have told, the dragon was appearing full-blown from the depths to punish greedy mortals for their sins, as the especially fanciful account of the Leander would have had it. The reports had almost all come from sailors on merchantmen, of course, whom Laurence did not entirely trust to provide a reliable account of a battle, but the captain of the ill-fated San Esteban had been a former Spanish naval officer, and a British privateer had also been among the victims.
Laurence looked down at the pages strewn across the wood and then with decision swept them into a drawer and stood up. He went out onto the deck of the Reliant: his first lieutenant Riley was on duty, and saluted as he came out. “A fair wind, sir,” he said. “I think we will make Bermuda by morning.”
“Good,” Laurence said. “You will oblige me by arranging a standing guard with pepper guns, henceforth, and we will bring up ten of the twenty-fours to the quarterdeck.” Riley looked dismayed, as well he might: more than half their guns. But there was no sense keeping themselves ready to meet a ship, when no one had yet managed to counter the dragon.
Laurence began to suspect the attacks no work of France after all, whatever the Admiralty thought.
He discounted the tales of the dragon’s immense size by a considerable margin: he had fought under aerial support three times in his career, and he was well aware that even a tidy light-weight combat beast easily gave the impression of hideous scale when it was flying directly overhead, roaring. The coloration, by contrast, seemed to him entirely likely to be fixed accurately in the mind, and the French did not have a solid black dragon breed. In any case, certainly it passed the bounds of credulity that a dragon transport could escape notice.
More likely some crew of outright pirates had by mischance managed to put their hands upon the egg of a fighting-dragon, or some larger breed native to the Americas. Their ship might well be a mere afterthought, a brig or something like, easily-overlooked in the confusion of battle and dismay. They would be making their home in some deserted cove or bay, near enough the site of the various attacks to put them in flying range.
He laid out his thoughts to his officers the following night over dinner, as they rode at anchor in Nassau harbor. The attacks made a relatively small knot of marks upon his map, which he had rolled out over the clo
th once the dishes were cleared. “I am not inclined to assume we will have an easy time of it, gentlemen,” he said. “I think we can trust the Quickly to have given them a respectable fight, and her twelve guns ought to have been enough to scare off any ordinary feral beast. We will double the watch in the tops, and furl our sails on any cloudy day.”
Three weeks crossing the Caribbean Sea back and forth was productive of nothing but the corruption of some of his crew, overcome by the easy availability of women and liquor from the bum-boats that swarmed them anytime they came near enough a harbor. In exasperation after having been forced to put in to Nassau again in order to deposit ashore not one but three separate ladies-of-pleasure who had been secreted aboard, one by an over-ambitious midshipman of thirteen years of age, Laurence ordered his ship to remain closer to the uninhabited islands further from any source of such irresistible delights.
The following morning he was rewarded by the shout of, “Wing three points to starboard!” while still at his breakfast. Laurence made himself finish the swallow of his tea before he rose and put on his sword and went out onto the deck, his steps quickening involuntarily. The watch officer was standing at the starboard rail with his glass and pointed Laurence to the sighting.
The dragon in the distance was however only one of the ordinary ferals, brightly colored and courier-size at best, sporting idly over the waves. Laurence lowered his glass and rested his fists against the rail, considering. The beast was already darting away into the distance, vanishing to the east.