I looked up at my flying army of harpies. I had them flying in formation in a slow circle, spinning lazily around the ship. It was a magnificent sight, and every few minutes they would block out the sun over the ship completely, throwing us into deep shadow.
“What about the dragon bones?” Yumo-Rezu asked, looking somewhat anxious. Over the course of the voyage, she’d become very attached to the dragon skeleton, almost as if it was a living creature, and seemed to be very worried about being separated from the bones.
“I’ll get a few harpies to pick up the bones one by one and fly them up onto land.”
“These harpies are strong, I know, but are they able to carry something as heavy as dragon bones? Even your undead Jotunn had trouble carrying the heavier bones, and these harpies aren’t half as strong as the Frost Giants.”
“I do have a few hundred harpies, Yumo-Rezu. I’m sure between all of them there’s enough strength to lift a few old bones.”
A glint of anger flashed across her gorgeous face. “Those ‘old bones’ are the key to defeating the Blood God and his Demogorgon, Vance. Don’t take them for granted, because without a dragon, the Blood God wins, no matter how strong you are.”
“I meant no disrespect, Yumo-Rezu,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’ll come up with a watertight plan to get the entire skeleton onto land from here.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, Cap’n Vance,” Percy said, interrupting our conversation, “but may I present my opinion this topic?”
“Go ahead,” I said.
“Here, by Castle Island, you’re roughly halfway between Brakith and Luminescent Spires. Now, you’re going to need this dragon when you’re much closer to Luminescent Spires, are ye not? I expect that’s where the final battle with the Blood God will play out, seeing as that’s where the Blood Pyramid is. Even if you get the skeleton up onto the clifftops, how are ye going to get it to Luminescent Spires? I expect you’ll need your Jotunn to carry it, and they’re strong bastards, aye, but they stick out like a sore bloody thumb, don’t they, being twenty foot tall and all that?”
“You’re right,” I said, seeing where Percy was going with this. “Elandriel’s got eyes up and down the entire length of the coast, and he’s surely got thousands of spies stationed all over Prand. He probably knows by now that I’ve got the Dragon Gauntlets, and he also knows that we took an intact dragon skeleton out of the mountains in Yeng. If he gets word that the skeleton is being transported across Prand toward Luminescent Spires, he’s going to do his damndest to either capture or destroy the skeleton. But on the other hand, if you keep the skeleton here on the ship, a few miles off the coast, and head quietly down to the region of Luminescent Spires…”
“No!” Yumo-Rezu yelled. “We can’t just leave the skeleton behind! It’s the key to everything!”
“Last I checked, Yumo-Rezu,” I said coolly, “it wasn’t you who was in charge.”
Anger continued to simmer in her eyes, but she backed down. “I apologize for that uncalled-for outburst,” she murmured, staring sullenly at the ground.
“I know that you don’t want to be separated from the dragon skeleton, and believe me, I know how important it is for my quest, but I think it’ll be safer out here on the ship than it would be if we tried to transport it across land, where Elandriel has eyes and ears everywhere. The sea, on the other hand, has been virtually depopulated of ships. If Percy takes the ship in a wide arc across the open sea to the region of Luminescent Spires, the dragon skeleton will be right there when I need it, and Elandriel, who no longer has a navy, won’t be able to get his greasy hands on it.”
Yumo-Rezu’s shoulders slumped, and she looked like was on the verge of tears, but she nonetheless acquiesced to what I’d proposed. “Fine,” she muttered, her eyes still locked on the ground in a forlorn gaze. “Keep it here … but if anything happens to those bones,” she snarled, spinning on her heel to face Percy with a look of icy fury on her face, “I’ll peel your ugly face off your skull, pirate. Slowly.”
“Don’t you worry, Dragon Goddess, I’ll guard them bones with my life, you have my word on that,” Percy said, grinning nervously.
“I’ll leave a harpy with the ship,” I said to Yumo-Rezu to offer her some reassurance. “Perched right up there on top of the mast. I’ll have eyes on the ship at all times, and you know how fast and far these creatures can fly. If I even catch a hint of a speck of an enemy presence on the horizon, I’ll be able to take action.”
She folded her arms across her chest and scowled. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you if anything happens to the skeleton,” she muttered before spinning on her heel and storming off in a huff.
Percy shook his head and chuckled. “Women eh, Cap’n Chauzec? From the lowliest tavern whore to this Dragon Goddess, sometimes ye just can’t reason with ‘em.”
“Nod and smile, Percy, nod and smile,” I said, grinning. “Sometimes that’s all you can do.”
I didn’t have time to stand around idly chatting to Percy about the problems we so often encountered with the opposite sex, though. At this very moment an enormous Church army, perhaps the largest ever assembled on Prand, could be laying siege to Brakith, while on the other side of the continent, Elandriel was probably slitting virgins’ throats and conjuring up something truly hellish in the bowels of the Blood Pyramid which would, if I let him go on with this madness unchecked, present the greatest existential threat to all life in the world since the birth of the first ancient gods.
I needed to get on with things, and the first order of business was to scout over the tops
