War of the Wisps

Jarnvaror had climbed to the top of the cliff overlooking the cavern while they waited for Andrew and Anna. Peter leaned back in the saddle and yawned. He’d loosened the straps on his legs to stretch a bit, only for a dull throb to pulse through them again. So, grunting, he retightened them. Then he lay forward, resting his head on the saddle bow.

“So is this what it’s normally like while you’re waiting on us?” Peter asked. The dragon replied with a contented rumble, his eyes still fixed on the water bellow. “Still? Even when we’re out traveling?” Another low rumble. It always baffled Peter how Jarnvaror could be so laid back. The ability to fly, to breath fire, to see for hundreds and hundreds of miles. Why ever stop moving?

The dragon had always preferred the calm and the quiet. He wondered how many of the people in the city would believe that of a predator the size of a building. He was sure they wouldn’t believe him about it. He was pretty sure the people back home only did because the dragons started leaving their herds alone when he’d asked.

“Well, Jarn, how is the water looking?” he asked. The dragon grunted again. “Receading?” Peter repeated, trying to look over the dragon’s shoulder to see down the cliff. He couldn’t, not from Jarnvaror’s back, but he trusted the dragon and smiled. “Good to know it won’t be flooding them for a while, then,” he said. He sat back up and stretched his back. “Assuming they don’t stay in there for hours and hours,” he added. He wondered if the cave would even be deep enough for that. Then he shrugged. There was nothing he could do about it now, especially since he couldn’t really go in after—

Something off on the horizon caught his eye, and Peter frowned, loosing track of his thoughts. It was a little too far away for him to make out details, but it didn’t look natural. It hadn’t been there before, he was certain. Squinting, he realized it was two somethings. “Hey, Jarn, what are those?” he asked. The dragon lifted his head and grunted a reply.

Boats. Neither Peter nor Jarnvaror knew enough of ships to say what kind either of them were. Peter had the general sense that very small ships would probably be fishing boats, though he wasn’t certain. Jarnvaror new even less, and didn’t bother trying to work out what sort they were for Peter. Still, as Peter watched the boats some instinct wouldn’t let them go. As he blinked, it came to him. “They’re coming this way, aren’t they?”

The dragon didn’t even look up to confirm. With his eyes, he’d probably noticed the moment he saw them. “Hey, Jarn. We should check it out.” Now the dragon turned his head around to look at Peter, asking a question. “Cause what if they’re pirates?... Well, the towns people said they don’t use these caves, right?... No! Don’t just lay down to wait! What if they are Pirates and they try going into the caves after the others? We should stop them first…. I guess I can’t do too much like this, no. But still. Come on!”

Jarnvaror groaned, but rose to his feet anyway. The ships were close enough now that Peter could tell they were large ships with several sails apiece. More than that, though, he couldn’t make out. But as the dragon leapt into the sky, gliding low over the water, the distance closed in moments.

Jarnvaror called back to Peter, asking what he should do about landing. People on the ships were clearly able to hear it over the wind. They’d obviously seen the dragon take off coming toward them, and as he roared, they began scrambling around on deck. Enough that Peter could make out their movement at least. “Just try landing on one of the figureheads or something. The tip… the, uh, nose of the ship?... Yeah, there.”

The dragon stretched out his claws and gripped the ships prow. The force pushed the boat back in the water, the whole thing creaking and moaning, then tilting up under the dragon’s weight. Jarnvaror stretched his wings forward to grip more of the ship but coiled his neck back, away from the panicking crew of the ship. He hissed a message to them, but Peter was pretty sure that “don’t touch me,” was one of the few lines he’d never need to translate. It seemed pretty universal to him.

Glancing around the deck, Peter still wasn’t sure if this was a pirate ship or not. He’d heard of ships with black flags, but this ship flew no flag. The men were all armed though, and dressed in a sort of rag tag miss match that made it clear they weren’t soldiers. So, he decided to just ask. “You guys pirates?”

It seemed like a lot of the crew noticed him for the first time, then. One still looked at the dragon, as if Jarnvaror had asked the question. Another looked up at him, face white with terror and asked, “What do you want with us?”

“To know if you’re pirates,” Peter said. “Oh, and to know if you’ve got any Wisps on board.”

“No, no Wisps,” the man answered.

“So you are pirates,” Peter replied. The man hesitated, then shook his head. Peter grinned, though, seeing several of the other crewmates nod to confirm his question before realizing the mistake and shaking their heads vigorously. “What are you doing out here then?”

“We’re fishermen,” the man said.

Peter looked around the deck. He was pretty sure hadn’t seen any nets, but he wanted to be sure. “Hey, Jarn? Smell any fish… No, I mean on board… Right, guess it would be hard to tell the difference… Oh. That is interesting.”

“You talk to the beast?” one of the men, who Peter was convinced were pirates, asked.

Peter nodded. “Turns out its hard to tell if a boat smells like fish cause its just in the water with them or because it’s caried them. But! He does say that you guys smell like blood. Just get out of a fight, huh?”

Peter watched the men stammer, trying to come up with something else to say. He noted, seeing out of the corner of his eye, that the other ship had turned and was heading back out to sea. He wondered if they would need to do anything about that.

“No,” the first man was saying. “We’re not pirates! We… We were just attacked by pirates ourselves!”

Peter refocused on the man. “What did they take?” he asked, not sure if he should believe the claim. He scanned the crew again, catching how few of the men seemed to be following what their companion was saying. Most were still just terrified of the dragon. Others, though, seemed confused by what their de-facto representative was saying. The man himself seemed to struggle to come up with anything else to say. “Nice try,” Peter said. “But if you don’t start being honest with me, I’m going to have my friend here burn the ship down.”

Jarnvaror bared his teeth in a growl, sending cries of alarm up from the men on deck. They didn’t hear Peter reply, “No, not really…. Well, maybe some damage would be good.” The face of the pirate speaking for the others became even whiter as Peter refocused on him. “So. Where’s your hide out?”

“Sharktooth,” the man mentioned, pointing west out to sea. “Island of Sharktooth. That’s where most of the crews go to restock.”

“Just pirates?” Peter asked.

“Pirates, smugglers,” the man managed.

“People with Wisps?”

The man didn’t answer right away.

“Jarn, I think it might be time to burn something.”

“Yes, there’s a mage who helps supply Wisps to some of the richer crews!” the man said, falling to his knees. “We and our partners have ours watching our coin in the caves along the coast since we don’t have a mage! Please, don’t burn us!”

“Was that so hard?” Peter asked. The man babbled a wordless reply. Peter tried to think of something else to ask. He was sure there were more things he could ask, but he couldn’t think of them. Worse, he realized, now he had to decide what to do with the two ships. From what the man had said, both were definitely pirate ships. He had a feeling no one at the capitol would care if he had Jarn burn them both. He imagined the people in Prohr would probably thank him for it.

He doubted that after so many years of asking the dragons to be nice to humans he could connive Jarnvaror to destroy the two ships outright. Even if he could though, he didn’t think he wanted to. But he really didn’t want them getting back to this Shark Tooth Island, either. He didn’t think it would be good for whoever this mage was to have advanced warning of Jarnvaror.

Peter frowned down at the Pirates. “Can you guys swim?” he asked. Only then did he catch one of the Pirates had krept close to Jarnvaror’s wing. He lifted his sword to strike. “Jarn!” he shouted, pointing. The dragon’s eyes turned, and the man by the wing swung down on the thin fingers at the tip of the dragon’s wings.

The blade scraped across Jarnvaror’s scales as if they were metal. Still, Jarnvaror grunted with pain as the fragile wing bones were struck. He rose up a little, beating his wings and causing the boat to shake. He complained back to Peter, insisting that he’d been very nice to these suspicious humans, and they deserved what was coming. The pirates were drawing weapons now, ready to fight Jarnvaror. “Well, I guess they asked for it, then,” Peter told the dragon.

Jarnvaror let loose a jet of flame into the ship, flooding the decks with light and heat. Screams rose up as Jarnvaror pushed off. The prow of the ship cracked under the dragon’s weight. Men cried out and threw themselves into the water to get away from the flames as Jarnvaror spiraled into the sky overhead. “Well, guess they won’t be going back to the island,” he said.

Jarnvaror rumbled a question over his shoulder. Peter started shaking his head before realizing the dragon wasn’t watching. “No. They attacked you first. Though, uh, we probably want to try and keep the other ship from going back to their island, too. Think you could do that without breaking… all of it?”

The dragon snorted and began diving toward the other ship. Several of the pirates on board began readying bows, but a roar from Jarnvaror sent them scurrying away. Only one tried to fire, and the arrow flew wide. Peter realized just in time that Jarnvaror wasn’t slowing down as he approached the ship. He braced himself, but he still jolted as the dragon slammed into the mast of the ship. His legs wrenched in the straps holding him down, and he let out an involuntary cry. A thunderous crunching crack split the air as the mast of the ship splintered. Ropes snapped as the huge pole fell into the sea.

“Don’t go back to your pirate island!” Peter called down at them as Jarnvaror began to fly away again. He listened, but he couldn’t make out anything from the deck of the second ship. Ahead of him, he saw that the first ship was more than half sunk. Men were bobbing on wreckage in the water. A few were swimming, making either for land or for the other boat.

An image popped into Peter’s head of Andrew and Anna coming out of the cave, only to find half a dozen soggy, angry pirates had pilled up on the beach. “We should probably get back,” he muttered to Jarnvaror. The dragon wheeled around, noting that he didn’t think the flight was very productive.

“What?” Peter asked. “No, I got plenty of information! They’ve got the one mage on that Shark Tooth Island who’s in charge of everyone’s Wisps, even if other crews have their own mages. That’s something.” The dragon continued to disagree. “We’ll let Andrew know and see what he thinks,” he decided.

Jarnvaror huffed at that, and Peter looked back at the little beach. Two figures, one taller, the other shorter with red hair, were waiting there. He grinned and waved to them. “Hey!” he called to them. “Did you find the Wisps?”

“We found some,” Andrew said, arms crossed. “But they are under a sort of enchantment. Never mind that, though, what were you doing?”

“Oh, well,” Peter began. “Seemed like some Pirates were on their way here to check on their treasure, so we flew out to turn them away.”

Andrew’s eyes bulged as he tried to peer around Jarnvaror, but between the dragon and the rocks, he couldn’t see out over the water. His eyes darted back up to his brother. “Tell us what happened.”