beside his dragon with the drum thumping and Dragon Leader Wiliger calling out the step.
Down the hill they went, past curious groups of men standing outside the taverns and clubs.
At the dockside they embarked on lighters that bore them across the bay to the side of the
Barley
. There they clambered up the ship's side on specially designed rope ladders made of number-ten cable that could bear the weight of dragons.
By the third hour before midnight they were all aboard, along with a thousand legionaries. The galleys produced an evening meal of the usual legion fare and ale to wash it down.
On the tide, the ship pulled up her anchors and stood out into the sound and began the run down to the open waters of the Bright Sea.
CHAPTER TEN
The white ships of Cunfshon were the ultimate expression of the power and resourcefulness of the Empire of the Rose. The largest, swiftest vessels in the world, they had carried trade and diplomacy to every harbor and every nation. In extremis they had ferried legions to Ourdh and more recently from Cunfshon to the Argonath during the frantic days of the invasion.
Now they carried a small but powerful army halfway across the world on a desperate bid to snuff out the greatest danger the world Ryetelth had ever known.
Day after day, through a brisk northwest gale the great ships plowed south, keeping the land well sunk to the west. At this time of the year the captains were keenly aware that the gale could swiftly swing about to the northeast and thus turn that western wall of land into a dreaded lee shore upon which any ship might be driven if the gales grew too furious.
As it was they were being driven many leagues to the east, well out of their course, which was south, south and west, directly to Cape Hazard at the southern tip of the continent.
The seas were sharp, short but high, a common and unpleasant aspect of winter sailing in the Bright Sea. Even the
Barley
, at three thousand tons, was behaving wickedly, shoving her nose deep into the troughs and jerking upward on the short swells with a distinctly nervous energy, like that of a startled horse.
The results were predictable. In her holds and all through the lower decks the ship was filled with seasick men.
On her decks were her crew, constantly at work trimming the few sails that they could set, and those were largely furled up themselves. But the wind was variable, always fierce, but prone to sudden changes, and therefore the sails could not be left alone for a moment. Captain Olinas and her first and second mates had been on the quarterdeck all night and all day with three crewmen hauling on the wheel as they ordered shifts in sails. The captain was a weather-beaten woman, at sea since she was eight years old and a full captain in the empire's service for nigh on twenty years. Her face was drawn, but steady, and her eyes flicked constantly to the barometer, checking its steady fall.
Down in the holds with all the seasick men of the Marneri and Kadein legions were thirty dragons without the least hint of sickness. Dragons were amphibious beasts, bred for the ocean, but that was not what protected them, for they were no more evolved to ride in this jerky, leaping fashion across the waves than were men. Instead, it was simply their oddly evolved organs of hearing that employed pads of a stiff jelly. Since men's sense of balance is governed by fluid in the inner ear, the rhythmic shifts of the sea produced the nausea of seasickness. By contrast, dragons balance themselves by the action of stiff hairs growing on the inside of a sinusoidal process at the base of their large brains. They possess no fluid to slosh about and disorient their systems. Thus they remained cheerful and vigorous of appetite no matter what the motions of the ship.
This made life for dragonboys harder than ever. Stifling nausea while fetching cauldrons of hot steaming food was a grim task.
For the fortunate few who were immune to seasickness, there was a
Down the hill they went, past curious groups of men standing outside the taverns and clubs.
At the dockside they embarked on lighters that bore them across the bay to the side of the
Barley
. There they clambered up the ship's side on specially designed rope ladders made of number-ten cable that could bear the weight of dragons.
By the third hour before midnight they were all aboard, along with a thousand legionaries. The galleys produced an evening meal of the usual legion fare and ale to wash it down.
On the tide, the ship pulled up her anchors and stood out into the sound and began the run down to the open waters of the Bright Sea.
CHAPTER TEN
The white ships of Cunfshon were the ultimate expression of the power and resourcefulness of the Empire of the Rose. The largest, swiftest vessels in the world, they had carried trade and diplomacy to every harbor and every nation. In extremis they had ferried legions to Ourdh and more recently from Cunfshon to the Argonath during the frantic days of the invasion.
Now they carried a small but powerful army halfway across the world on a desperate bid to snuff out the greatest danger the world Ryetelth had ever known.
Day after day, through a brisk northwest gale the great ships plowed south, keeping the land well sunk to the west. At this time of the year the captains were keenly aware that the gale could swiftly swing about to the northeast and thus turn that western wall of land into a dreaded lee shore upon which any ship might be driven if the gales grew too furious.
As it was they were being driven many leagues to the east, well out of their course, which was south, south and west, directly to Cape Hazard at the southern tip of the continent.
The seas were sharp, short but high, a common and unpleasant aspect of winter sailing in the Bright Sea. Even the
Barley
, at three thousand tons, was behaving wickedly, shoving her nose deep into the troughs and jerking upward on the short swells with a distinctly nervous energy, like that of a startled horse.
The results were predictable. In her holds and all through the lower decks the ship was filled with seasick men.
On her decks were her crew, constantly at work trimming the few sails that they could set, and those were largely furled up themselves. But the wind was variable, always fierce, but prone to sudden changes, and therefore the sails could not be left alone for a moment. Captain Olinas and her first and second mates had been on the quarterdeck all night and all day with three crewmen hauling on the wheel as they ordered shifts in sails. The captain was a weather-beaten woman, at sea since she was eight years old and a full captain in the empire's service for nigh on twenty years. Her face was drawn, but steady, and her eyes flicked constantly to the barometer, checking its steady fall.
Down in the holds with all the seasick men of the Marneri and Kadein legions were thirty dragons without the least hint of sickness. Dragons were amphibious beasts, bred for the ocean, but that was not what protected them, for they were no more evolved to ride in this jerky, leaping fashion across the waves than were men. Instead, it was simply their oddly evolved organs of hearing that employed pads of a stiff jelly. Since men's sense of balance is governed by fluid in the inner ear, the rhythmic shifts of the sea produced the nausea of seasickness. By contrast, dragons balance themselves by the action of stiff hairs growing on the inside of a sinusoidal process at the base of their large brains. They possess no fluid to slosh about and disorient their systems. Thus they remained cheerful and vigorous of appetite no matter what the motions of the ship.
This made life for dragonboys harder than ever. Stifling nausea while fetching cauldrons of hot steaming food was a grim task.
For the fortunate few who were immune to seasickness, there was a
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