"Morning sir!" One of the crew men pat Eret ,who had apparently fallen asleep, on the shoulder."Ahh!" He jumped up and shoved the man away."Don't ever do that again!...Where are we?" Eret pulled himself out of his sleeping bag and leaned over the boat. It was almost sun rise and the stars were beginning to fade out.
"Well you fell asleep and since we didn't really have much time to stop the ship that we'd keep searching while you slept." Eret sighed. They really didn't have anytime at all. If they didn't find the dragon boy tomorrow then they might not even be able to return to Drago." That was probably a smart idea but I still need to see where we are." Eret instructed the first mate who brought him the map." Alright. Here's where we were last night so...we should be about, hmm, here." He looked up at the stars and back at the map." Are there any nearby islands?!" Eret shouted up to the crows nest.
"No sir! Just ocean!" Eret growled to himself." If we speed up a bit more we might reach Aegir's current by noon. It leads through an entire archipelago. The boy might be on one of the islands." The young man leaned against the catapult and crossed his arms." But the wind isn't strong enough."
An hour passed and they were still nowhere near the current. Most of the crew were just sitting around now. The wind was even slower now. Eret sat on the front of the ship and watched the waves crash against the ship. Eret's eyes widened. "What is that?" The waves were getting bigger. One was bad enough to get the attention of the crew. "What is it?" The first mate asked Eret. "Shh!" He covered the mans mouth with his hand.
A turquoise mass glided beneath the ship. Suddenly the mass turned upwards and jumps up into the air. "Sculdron! " Eret had only seen one other Sculdron and it was one of the hardest dragons to wrangle. But they had to track it down. Why did this one attack first? One of the crewmen rolled a catapult out onto the deck. Eret grabbed the catapult and aimed it at the Sculdron's head. But before he could shoot the massive creature hauled itself onto the ship tipping the entire boat forwards. The catapult began to roll away. The Sculdron scooped the weapon up in it's jaws and tossed it into the sea. Eret grabbed onto the mast to keep his footing. "Oh great." The Sculdron reared back it's head and scalding water poured out of the creatures throat. Eret hid behind the mast to avoid the spray.
The Sculdron leaned down and began sniffing the air. Eret peeked around the mast and smirked drawing his sword. The Sculdron's head whipped up upon seeing Eret. The dragon growled and snapped at Eret but instead of biting him the Sculdron got a slice from the sword across her eye. She screeched in pain and began to slip back into the water, but managed to stay on board. She closed one eye and tried to find Eret again. Eret climbed up the mast to the rope hanging from a hook half way up. Once he had the rope he tossed it onto the dragons head. The rope tangled around the dragons horn. She slipped all the way back into the water. "Oh no you don't!" Eret grabbed the end of the rope and tied it around the mast before the Sculdron could drag the whole length of the rope along with it.
The Sculdron still wouldn't stop trying to escape. She tried to dive but the boat wouldn't come down with her. She decided to swim straight as fast as she could and hoped the rope would break of the crew men pulled a poisin dart they got when they were last at the armada out of his pocket. Eret realized what the man was about to do and knocked the dart out of his hands."Don't! It's going in the direction of the current. It's more useful to us this way than if we took it back to Drago.
So they all went along with Eret's plan. If the dragon would start to turn they'd shoot an arrow into the water to get it to turn. Soon they began to slow down. The Sculdron was nearly out of energy. Eret sighed and cut the rope."We're close enough to the current to get there on our own now." The Sculdron shook her head realizing she was free. She turned around and snarled and snorted at Eret. Eret started to pull what was left of the rope onto the ship." Why do you reckon she attacked us in the first place?" He asked to nobody in particular. Then he heard a series of clicks coming from behind the ship. He dropped the rope and hurried to see what it was.
The Sculdron continued clicking. She floated in the water for a moment waiting for a response. Then a baby Sculdron poked his head out of the water and swam for his mother. Eret gasped." I should have known she was protecting her baby." The crew all looked to him for orders. "Let's keep going. The currents just up ahead."
I wanted to get a little more into Eret's character here. I don't think he just always yells at his crew or anything. He's just annoyed by them when they're idiots. Which is pretty often. But here they actually made a smart choice so he didn't really have any reason to be mad at them. I also wanted to write him as a bit more clever. He kind of has to be clever in his profession and I wanted to write it in here a little bit more. I really want to write more chapters with Eret in them. Actually the next chapter will have Eret in it too. Thanks for reading and please review!
