Fantasy Magazine Issue 54 by unknow
Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: fantasy magazine, Fantasy, Short Story, Short Stories
ISBN: 9781607013174
Publisher: Prime Books
Published: 2011-09-01T04:00:00+00:00
The wind cut through the strait like daggers, and the Nymph had it behind them. They raced to the Iron Teeth, too fast, too many sails unfurled, and the crew shouting in outrage. Even locked in the hold, the screams echoed topside.
Alan had grinned. “I feel bad, really I do. But it’s better this way.”
“Aye,” Lark had said with a sigh.
Alan kept tight hold of the wheel and steered them true.
The rocks towered, rough and dark, shining with damp. They cast wide swathes of shadows, so that the strait was always in twilight.
Then, the pinnacle of a tower of rock moved. The shadow spread, and two great wings made a canopy over the water. Some of the rock wasn’t rock, but scales, which sparkled when the light struck them. A snake-like neck stretched up to a dagger-shaped head, and wide jaws gaped open. The silver teeth inside were like the jagged strait itself. Both would happily swallow anything that crossed their paths. The Iron Teeth and the dragon were the same.
The Nymph’s captain and first mate gazed up at those teeth and felt not fear but wonder.
“Are you ready, Grace?” the captain called, and this time the first mate’s answer was joyous.
“Aye!”
She yanked her kerchief off her neck and pulled apart the buttons of her shirt.
“You’re beautiful!” Alan shouted over the wind.
“You’re a maniac!” she shouted back, laughing.
Running away from him, across the deck to the ship’s prow, she pulled the bandages off her chest, left them trailing on the wind and tangled in rigging.
The dragon groaned, a guttural sound that made the water tremble and pressed around the ship like a weight. The great, wicked head looked down on the Nymph. The wings flapped once, and the ship rocked back. Then the beast jumped to a lower perch, and he was in front of them, staring them down, and they were racing into his jaws.
Standing at the railing, leaning over the water, bare chested, breasts freed, Lark raised her arms to the dragon. Wind and sea spray lashed her.
When the beast sighed, hot breath washed over her. Its wings folded back, and its scaled eyelids drooped.
“A lovely vision,” the dragon said in a deep voice that sounded like crunching gravel. “Why don’t I see more of you? Why does your kind not sail?”
“I don’t know,” she’d said, taken aback by the question, because before the monster the usual reasons scattered like dust. “I really don’t know.”
The dragon let them pass.
He flew overhead, guiding them through the rocks and shoals. All the while Lark spoke to it, told stories and sang songs, though many of the songs he asked for were ancient, and she didn’t know them. When they’d cleared the last of the rocks, the dragon bade them farewell and returned to his lonely perch.
When Captain Alan released the crew, the Iron Teeth were behind them, and he and Mister Lark never revealed how they’d done the impossible.
Download
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
Ready Player One by Cline Ernest(14030)
Warriors (9781101621189) by Young Tom(10338)
A Girl in a Million by Betty Neels(8402)
Red Rising by Pierce Brown(8284)
Naruto 522 by Masashi Kishimoto(6829)
The Institute by Stephen King(6808)
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood(6524)
05 Trials of Death by Darren Shan(6250)
The Last Wish (The Witcher Book 1) by Andrzej Sapkowski(5226)
Bleach 486 by Tite Kubo(5169)
Dresden Files 01 - Storm Front by Jim Butcher(4948)
Spare by Prince Harry The Duke of Sussex(4802)
Enders Game 5 - Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card(4362)
Naruto 459 by Masashi Kishimoto(4158)
Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K Hamilton(4126)
A Game Of Chance by Linda Howard(4107)
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson(4037)
A Game of Thrones 1 by George R R Martin(3989)
The Dresden Files Omnibus (1-15) by Jim Butcher(3918)
