Assassin’s Fate

The planks of the dock complained under their weight as the dragons came toward us, turning their gleaming heads on their serpentine necks and snuffing the air near Beloved. Their eyes spun like twirling silver buttons. The blue opened his mouth, the better to test the air near him.

‘Tell me what they say,’ Per breathed beside me.

‘They have said nothing yet,’ I replied. He took my hand in his, and I wondered if he sought to give me courage or borrow mine. It did not matter: I welcomed it. Small dragons were still very large creatures, and they were very close to us but even in my fear and sorrow, their beauty made me smile.

‘We have come for him,’ the blue one said, and I repeated that softly to Per.

Beloved turned back toward us. ‘The dragons that were once Paragon the ship have come to claim the body of Kennitsson.’

I saw the uneasiness that went through all the others. The tattooed woman who had rowed the boat for us asked, ‘To do what?’

Beloved looked down at the body and then around at the gathered crew. ‘They will eat his body. To keep his memories among their own.’ At the looks of horror that his words awoke, he said, ‘The dragons consider doing that an honour.’

‘Is this a fitting end for the Prince of the Pirate Isles?’ Two men stepped forward to stand beside her. Tears tracked wet on one man’s face but he held a knife in his hand and faced a dragon.

There would be trouble.

Beloved spoke. ‘Is it so different to how Paragon took Kennit’s memories, when he died on the ship’s deck? Kennitsson goes where his father’s and great-grandfather’s ship has gone. And that is a fitting end for any pirate.’

Only Beloved seemed resigned that these dragons would eat the body of one who had been a companion to so many of them. But when he motioned to all of us to step back, everyone moved aside to let the dragons pass. The dock creaked and swayed on its pilings as the dragons halted by the body and looked down at it. I had thought there would be some ceremony, some decorous sharing, but no.

Eager to be first, both green and blue dragon darted their heads down to the corpse. We’d had only a piece of scorched sail canvas to cover him with, so nothing shielded us from the sight of the blue dragon seizing Kennitsson by the head and tugging the corpse upright as the green’s head snaked in to shear off the bottom half of his body. Before anyone could gasp, the blue had lifted the head half with its now unravelling entrails and gulped it in.

Bits of Kennitsson’s guts littered the dock. One of his sailors turned and harshly vomited into the harbour. Ant had lifted her hands to cover her eyes. Boy-O clung to his father like a child and Brashen’s face was white. Spark gripped my other hand and swayed slightly.

‘It is done,’ Beloved said, as if that somehow made what we had seen better. As if the gory bits littering the planks would disappear.

‘His memories will be within me,’ the blue dragon announced.

‘And in me,’ the green said, almost argumentatively.

‘I will sleep now,’ the blue announced. He turned carefully but his tail still swept dangerously close. A step he took, and then he halted. He lowered his head and his eyes whirled as he snuffed Brashen’s chest. He turned his head sideways, and regarded Boy-O. ‘They burned us,’ he thrummed, as if he recalled something from long ago. He made a low sound, like an immense cauldron coming to a boil. ‘They have paid,’ he said. A longer time he stared. ‘Boy-O. I give you the honour of my name. Karrig.’ He lifted his head. ‘And I take part of yours. Karrigvestrit I shall be. I will remember you.’

Head up, the small dragon moved ponderously down the dock and toward the shore.

The green surveyed us silently. She drew breath and then reared up on her hind legs. She opened her mouth wide, and in the scarlet-and-orange striped maw she displayed, I saw death. Everyone crowded back and one man fell from the dock to the water as she hissed without venom. She closed her jaws and looked down on us. ‘I was ever a dragon,’ she said disdainfully. The dock swayed from her impetus and I feared it would collapse and spill all of us into the water as she sprang into the air. We cowered like rabbits as the wind of her wings swept us. A few moments later, the blue took flight and we were left as we had been. Ant was weeping with terror. She shot to Brashen’s side and he put a sheltering arm around the young deckhand.

Per scanned the skies. ‘I don’t see or hear any of the other dragons.’

‘They are likely gone to sleep off their … gorging,’ Beloved spoke reluctantly as if he did not wish to remind us of what they had gorged on. But no one was deceived, and an uneasy silence followed his words.