Dragons' Fall by James Calbraith

Author:James Calbraith [Calbraith, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy, Short Stories
Published: 2014-09-07T22:00:00+00:00

It looked like a peak of a triangular wave at first, bobbing on the horizon; dark grey and crested with white, except, it didn’t move with any current, but across them, closing in on the boat in a steady, winding spiral. Birki stopped rowing and slid the paddle into the holster.

“Hand me the bomb-lance,” he commanded Ennaki.

The boy swallowed. “Are you… are you sure that’s him?”

“Son, there is no other fish like it in the entire ocean. Now hurry. We only have once chance.”

Ennaki reached into the long driftwood chest at his feet and took out the weapon wrapped in oiled skin. It was a tube, made from smooth black iron, two feet long, open at one end and finished at the other with an expanding brass collar. It was carved with symbols of powerful magic. A copper ring and an iron hook were attached to the tube on one side. Truly, he thought, if ever there was a weapon capable of killing the Orphan Maker, it had to be this mysterious device, which Birki had brought home from his travels among the Iron Seekers.

He handed it to his father with reverence, along with a small leather bag of magic black powder, and a thick, hollow arrowhead. Birki assembled the harpoon in a hurry, but with great precision. Not a grain of the magic powder slipped his fingers — all of it ended up inside the iron tube. He tied the tether to the copper circle, and slid the shaft of the harpoon into the tube.

The killer shark was now circling the boat less than a hundred feet away, wary of the two men, but still drawn near to the blood pooling around the bait drifting behind the umiak. Ennaki shook his rope a few times to make the fish seem more alive; his hands petrified in fear. The shark’s fin jumped to the left and right. As it drew closer, the boy got a clear view of the famous scar cut deep by the spear of Old Gaktu; his great-grandfather was the last hunter who camegot close enough to the Orphan Maker to hurt it.

The fish was even greater than he had imagined. The dorsal fin stood as tall as a grown man, and the distance between it and the tail fin poking out of the waves was longer than their entire boat.

The legends were true, he thought, it could swallow me whole…

“Steady now, boy,” said Birki. “Hold on to the sides. This will give us a fair shake.”

He raised the tube to his eye, grasped the iron hook with two fingers and aimed the weapon at the great fin.

“Let go,” he ordered.

Ennaki dropped the rope, and the bait began to drift away from the boat. The shark charged at the dead fish at full speed, its back rising slightly from the water. Birki waited… and waited… and when Ennaki almost thought it was too late, he pulled on the hook.

The weapon exploded with a deafening blast, louder than an avalanche, and a bright flame spewed out of the open end.

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