Sixteen

Two silver coins glinted up from the dark stump where the old mast had been. One came from Spain, the other from England, but Erik suspected they’d both serve their purpose just as well, even if his MacAlasdair side scoffed at the notion of good luck coming from anything with Edward Longshanks’s crowned head on it. Silver was silver for magical purposes. Surely it would be so for more abstract luck as well.

God knew they needed it. The week wasn’t half over, but he’d seen no other signs of the Templars, much less their treasure. Flying over the island revealed little, as the trees were too thick to see through, and he could only hack his way through the forest for so long before coming to the end of his strength. Duty required him not to exhaust himself completely, lest another storm or an unexpected attack require him to defend the men, or the Hawk’s repairs require more might.

He knew Toinette would expect as much too, although she didn’t say it to him. As strained as affairs might be between the two of them, she trusted him to know his work, much as Erik had faith that she looked diligently for the Templars on her days in the forest and put her back into clearing a path. They might not talk often, but they were both old enough to recognize the need for cooperation despite that, and to manage it.

Erik did miss her joking, her sidelong smiles, and the occasional glance that recognized their mutual heritage and background, the things that set them a little apart from the others. Since the argument, she’d been a woman purely of business with him, reporting the day’s tasks and results, asking necessary questions, and otherwise keeping her silence. He couldn’t have called it sulking, as she was cordial enough when they did need to speak, but he felt the difference and was himself inclined to resent it.

He tried to be understanding: if she didn’t understand a man’s duty to his lord and kin, well, she’d never had either, nor a country and a people to guard against conquerors. Still, when she stood on the Hawk’s deck and cast her eyes quickly over him, just as she might have done one of her men—or a part of her ship—Erik nodded once in reply and thought I can be as distant as you, my lady.

God would doubtless hold him to account for such petty spite someday, but God would hold him to account for any number of other sins first.

Erik shifted easily, like swirling a cloak around his shoulders. The mast lay in front of him, now as well-shaped and worked as the crew’s efforts and tools could make it. None were experts in shipbuilding, yet most had learned enough through the years. He took hold of it gently, for one in his form, held it in his foreclaws, and made the necessary adjustments so that the weight balanced.

Strength wasn’t everything. He’d learned that in his youth. Misjudging weight could break rather than transport, and could leave even a dragon injured.

He was just as careful when he took flight, making certain that the wind from his wings would harm neither the assembled sailors nor the Hawk. Even at their fiercest, dragons weren’t as strong as a storm, but they were much more focused. Artair had explained many ways to use flight itself as a weapon; in time, Erik had employed a few of them and seen the results. They didn’t stand out in his memory with quite the grisly detail as others, especially those of flame, but he would much prefer to avoid creating them again, particularly on men who were his allies.

Slowly he circled around the Hawk’s deck, righting the mast and bringing it closer until it fit into the top of the stump, covering the silver coins there. Then Erik hovered in midair above the ship, holding both himself and the mast steady. He did have to beat his wings rapidly to manage that. On the deck, Toinette’s hair escaped its bindings and streamed copper into the blue sky, while the shorter crops of the men only ruffled, as did the water below.

Marcus put a hand on the mast and felt the joining, then stepped back and assessed the angle. “Good,” he said to Toinette and Erik alike.

Toinette nodded, then turned to the men. “Ropes and pegs now. Quick as we can. He can’t hold that for very long.”

The man’s pride in Erik bridled. Yet the dragon was foremost: it was a creature of instinct and fact, with no thought for pride or shame in human eyes. What Toinette said was true. Already his muscles were aching from the effort of hovering in the air, so that his weight might not break or swamp the ship. The sooner he could stop, the happier he’d be, and so he was more grateful to Toinette than annoyed with her for mentioning it.

She was in action alongside her men too, catching and tossing coils of rope, tying huge, firm knots in the complicated configurations of line that would bind the new mast to the deck, and not hesitating for a heartbeat about any of it. The remnants of her blue skirt danced around her slim legs in the wind, as if they wished to become part of the sky they so resembled.

Within the dragon, Erik the man watched and, despite his irritation, couldn’t help but admire her. Her legs surely caught the eye, but her unhesitating competence drew the mind and the heart to attention.

Despite the physical relief, it was almost a pity when Marcus stepped back, eyed the rigging, and declared the process done—for now. “Let go,” he added to Erik, “but make ready to catch the thing in case we’ve fouled up somewhere.”

“Your faith is inspiring,” said Toinette, flashing the grin of a woman who knew she had nothing to fear from the results of her work.

And indeed, when Erik gingerly loosed his hold and backwinged a little, the mast stayed well in place. The ropes rippled a little, adjusting to the new weight, but held firm.

“Good!” Toinette said, and clapped her hands once together. “Get the crew aboard. The tide’s with us. We’ll go once ’round the island, and see how she does with the open air and the current. Stay in your shape, if you would,” she added to Erik, with a more friendly countenance than she’d shown for a while. As he remembered, joy at success made her forget her resentments. “We may need your aid yet.”

As the crew climbed onto the Hawk and made ready to cast off, Erik took the chance to rest on the beach, catching his breath and stretching out the muscles of his back and wings. The sand was warm and pleasantly rough against his scales; the sun beat on his shoulders while a fresh breeze blew from the east. If not for the possible task near at hand, he could have easily fallen asleep.

He did close his eyes, intending only to rest them for a short time, while the noises of the men casting off went on around him. They fell into a rhythm, irregular but there and soothing after its own fashion. It was pleasant to hear work when his was complete for the time being.

The splashing of the boat in the water and the snap of the sail came next, then an unexpected groan from many throats. Distant, but audible to one in dragon’s form, he heard Toinette’s voice: “Wind’s shifted. Bad luck, but we’ve had worse. Shift sail, and we’ll tack into it.”

Odd, Erik thought, muddled though his mind was by both sleep and form. He hadn’t felt any change in the wind. The sea could be strange like that.

A shout went up from the ship: despair, not triumph. Erik opened his eyes, afraid that the mast had snapped—though he thought he’d have heard that—or that the wood covering the holes had come off. What he saw instead was the Hawk sitting only a few yards out to sea, its sail pinned back against the mast by a wind going precisely the wrong direction. Men stood with their heads turned upward, staring at the sail and babbling, until Toinette raised her hands and yelled for quiet.

This time, the wind carried off many of her words, but Erik could see her gesture. The men went to work accordingly, hauling on ropes and turning wheels. The Hawk shifted in the water, the sail angled to catch the wind, and she began making headway toward the open sea—

And then, abruptly, the wind reversed itself, pushing the ship back toward the island.

Erik heard oaths in many languages. Some were angry. Most were scared. He caught a glimpse of Marcus facing down one of the other men, and of Toinette shaking her head, shoulders stiff. “…God-cursed breeze keep us here,” he heard her say, and then she raised her voice to call him.

Even if she hadn’t, he’d have known what she was about when she jumped over the rail and transformed.

After the restful warmth of the beach, the cold water was an unpleasant shock back to wakefulness. Erik hissed his displeasure, sending steam curling up above the waves, much to the apparent alarm of Raoul and John. The sooner you do this, the sooner you can be back ashore, he told himself, and swam out to the Hawk, taking a position on the opposite side from Toinette.

The men furled the sail, that the wind might not be a hindrance to the dragons’ efforts, and then Toinette and Erik began to push.

By rights, the undertaking should have been far easier than it had been on the night of the storm. For one thing, the tide was with them. For another, they were both in much better condition. Erik, for all he’d been doing that morning, hadn’t been struggling to rope down cargo in the midst of a storm, nor holding the ship steady through a gale. They’d had many nights of rest and many meals at least as good as they’d managed on shipboard. It shouldn’t have taken them much time at all to find a good angle for the wind, nor to push the Hawk out far enough to find a fair current.

Yet the island pulled.

Erik thought the feeling began as soon as he started pushing the Hawk, but thinking back, it might have happened earlier. Had the water honestly been that cold and unwelcoming, his muscles so resistant? Or had he explained the weighty feeling in his limbs using the first tools that came to hand? He couldn’t be certain.

Whichever the case was, the true situation quickly became clear. Force like a team of oxen, slow but stubborn, tugged Erik backward toward the island, growing greater the harder he struggled with legs, wings, and tail. That alone he might have broken through, but the island drew the ship backward as well, and the weight of it took him along. Panting, he raised his head to look around and found that they were no farther from land than they’d ever been.

Around him, the tide kept running carelessly out to sea. Neither the Hawk nor his body seemed to recognize that—nor, when he met her gaze around the ship’s hull, did Toinette’s frame. She was panting as much as him, her eyes glassy from the struggle.

The alarm on deck when the wind changed was nothing to the hubbub now. One of the men was screaming. One was simply uttering steady denials. Others were shouting suggestions, or perhaps only shouting. Erik couldn’t make out many words.

Eventually Marcus’s voice rose above the din. “Enough!” He strode to the railing and shouted over. “Take us back. No use in keeping on right now.”