Dragons on the Sea of Night Read Free

Chaos forces are using to help them gain a foothold in our world.’
    â€˜Have you a name?’
    â€˜Yes.’ Now, to Ojime’s astonishment, the Rosh’hi actually appeared to quail beneath the burden of his message. In the face of his cowardice, Ojime spoke.
    â€˜The bones of the snow-hare were cast and there can be no mistake,’ he said quickly, before he, too, lost his nerve. ‘The agent, the traitor, Dai-San, is your bond-brother, Moichi Annai-Nin.’

PART ONE
    I SKAEL

ONE
    S EA -C HANGE
    The ship heeled over and Moichi Annai-Nin shouted, ‘Haul away! By the Oruboros, haul away now, lads!’
    All the sheets were being struck, coming down in fluted columns as the howling wind tore at them in great clawing gusts. But the mainsail, larger than the others and therefore more vulnerable, was caught out of position. The carefully tied rigging gave way beneath the violent storm’s startlingly sudden fist. It tore the fittings like corks out of a line of bottles: pop! pop! pop!, the highest end of the triangular sail a serpentine banner, slapping wetly against the rain-slick mast before shredding into ragged tongues.
    Moichi, his great brawny dusky-skinned body fighting aft toward the terrified tillerman, felt rather than saw the heightened agitation of the sea. The diamond set into the flesh of his right nostril flashed blue light as he drew in the sharp, charged scents of the storm, and he thought, damn this Bujun vessel and its delicate construction – unless I can straighten our course we’ll go under for sure. He unsheathed one of the pair of copper-handled dirks that were his trademark, cutting through ratlines that had broken free and were whipping about the halyard.
    Outwardly, he grinned hugely as he urged his men on with his immense confidence. But inwardly he cursed each and every one of their grimy souls, for he recognized the panic that had gripped them all on the Tsubasa’s decks at the storm’s initial onslaught. Well, he told himself resignedly as he went from group to group, hauling hawsers here, lashing down wildly swinging spars there, what can you expect from a crew dredged up from Sha’angh’sei’s bituminous waterfront dens but drunken ex-sailors and drugged-out petty criminals whose dreams had been faded by time and evil incidence? He should never have allowed himself to cobble together such a crew, but the urge to return to his native Iskael with his love, Aufeya Seguillas y Oriwara, had been too much for him. He had been on dry land far too long.
    This morning, six-and-a-half weeks out from Sha’angh’sei, the principal port on the southern face of the continent of man, he had been belowdeck with Aufeya, having already tested the wind thrice during the cormorant watch and learning nothing for his efforts. Or else he had been distracted by Aufeya. He had asked her to marry him when they reached his home in Iskael and she had accepted, her joy igniting the copper of her eyes.
    A gray-green wave, opaque in its turbulence, sprang over the taffrail, soaking Moichi where he labored with a tangle of loose and shattered tackle. On his knees, he shouted a warning to those down below as the water roared across the mid-deck. It was then that Moichi felt the underlying power of the storm, and he knew that this was no ordinary tempest that periodically whirled through the eastern stretches of the Iskael Sea. For an instant, his mind seemed aware of something beyond the storm, yet quite a part of it, almost – and this was almost laughable – a kind of malevolent presence, as if the typhoon itself were alive. But that was quite impossible, he told himself, and went on with his frantic duties.
    To make matters worse, the Tsubasa was no ordinary ship on which he had learned the art of navigation and sailing; it was a Bujun vessel – a gift from Moichi’s bond-brother, the legendary Dai-San, who had saved the world of man from the