Catcher
Chapter 16; A Dragon's Battle
Sea Dragon
"The sails cant take this strain for much longer sir!" called the Sea Dragon's Bosun. As if on cue the foremast's largest sail spilt down the middle, the ship lurched at the sudden loss of speed.
"We have no idea what that ship will do if it catches up to us, we have to get to Atlanta before it reaches us. This is our only choice." Alandria said to the Captain.
"Respectfully, if we destroy all our sails then we cant run anywhere!" The captain responded even as the crew jumped into replacing the torn sail with the spare under the directions of the Bosun.
Alandria turned to Valice, "Have the elementals ease up on the winds, save their strength so they can continue longer," she watched the other ship for a while, its ghostly form making it difficult to see. "It doesn't seem to be speeding up like it should if it wanted to catch us up." She spoke this time to the Captain.
He moved next to her and looked through his spyglass. The image of a ship could be seen but not her details, the ghostly image scared many of his crew. "She's big, I can tell you that, and that normally means slow, but she isn't as slow as you would expect for a ship that size. She was catching up on us before we resorted to changing the winds." He sighed, "Without cheating the elements, she is both bigger and faster than us, we cant afford for her to catch us up if she is hostile. She managed to close from the horizon to the three-quarter mark without being noticed and must have followed us, which would have taken a very skilled captain and crew. We could do with a better look."
"I think I can help there, captain," Valice spoke for the first time in a while, he stepped up to the desk on the quarterdeck and pulled his wand. Closing his eyes to concentrate on what he wanted he enunciated the spell carefully.
"Imagus Distelle!"
The language was not often used and lost, the meaning wasn't known to many. But the purpose was obvious when smoke appeared to swirl around the table in a tight vortex before forming into a shape, that of a ships hull and then the deck formed and then the shape of four tall masts. Then the detail was added in, quickly the sails were formed then the gun holes and deck guns could be seen. The last touch was the addition of several crew members but for some reason only two appeared on the deck before the image flashed and the men disappeared. The ship itself remaining for show. She tossed about on the top of the waves identically to the one that sat astern of the Sea Dragon.
The captains only response to the sight in front of him was a low whistle of appreciation.
"What do you think Captain?" Valice asked the Captain, showing his ignorance to the structures and strength of ship types.
"The Sea Dragon is thought to be one of the strongest ships to have ever sailed in these waters and is the strongest I have seen since a skirmish in Kristoshia almost ten years ago. But looking at this ship chasing us I wonder." He bent closer to the smoky form almost identical in all but size to the original. "She has 18lb culverines by the looks of it, best guns to have in a fight but slower to reload over our own 16 pounders. But that's assuming she needs to reload in a fight before she wins. She's equipped with one hundred guns, so that's a very nasty broadside." He was almost talking to himself, but the order members nearby were all listening intently.
"What do you think of our chances in a fight?" Asked Alandria who couldn't help but figure they would end up in one.
"In a straight up fight, I honestly think we will end up as little more then a few splinters. But maybe if we had the wind advantage and could get off a few broadsides onto her without presenting ourselves as targets for her own broadside we may at least put up a fight."
"What's the chances of that being the case?" Alandria kept up the questioning, wanting to know exactly what they were facing.
"With our elementals we can gain the wind advantage, they don't seem to be using elementals to catch up so I don't think that they have any. But chances are that if she manages to catch us up, and if we tire out the elementals now then she will before we reach Atlanta, then she will turn as soon as possible and sink us before she is in range of our own guns."
"What do you suggest then, Tom?"
"We need to just keep going faster than her for now, try to avoid a fight for as long as we can."
"Then we do that! Captain, just make sure that we stay slightly faster then them, use as little of the elementals power as possible."
"Aye sir!"
Burning Wind
A lookout's call echoed down to the deck.
"The Sea Dragon has slowed! She's still gaining distance on us though!"
"She's going to try to keep the distance till Atlanta then," decided the Captain. "We need her to Heave To, she has to surrender, we only have four hours till she sights Atlanta and then she can use its own weather controls to outrun us and slow us down."
Harry turned to Matt, "Your turn then mate, scare them good!" He laughed as he thought of Valice and Alandria facing what they were about to
Matt pulled his staff out and grasped it with both hands so that he could use Harry's reserves to strengthen his Dragons, knowing full well that they would face a barrage of spells from the Sea Dragon. Even if the ships canons were all but useless against flying creatures.
Slowly, Matt begun to hum, slowly getting louder till stopping abruptly, he began to glow a red, green and blue as he summoned his three dragons to him. In all there was ten dragons all a different colour, as the summoner, in this case Matt became more powerful through experience he would face the next dragon up the ladder. There were Blue, Green, Red, Brown, Grey, Bronze, Silver, Black, Gold and White Dragons, going up in power in that order. Matt had been judged worthy by the Blue, Green and Red Dragons in turn since meeting Harry and had yet to summon the Red one more then twice, and never in conflict.
Three flashes of colour rippled through the clouds above and the Dragons had appeared. Harry who had always loved Dragons watched in awe as they dropped like rocks only to open their mighty wings to hover just over the masts. Before flying towards the Sea Dragon.
Sea Dragon
The few order members and the Captain still stared at the image projected in front of them, but jumped back as, in the image, three blurs appeared and then disappeared. Valice and Alandria, along with the Captain and a few of the crew and Order members spun around to see three shapes flying towards them at great speed.
They couldn't work out what they were for sure but the Lookouts on the Aft Mast were faster to work it out.
"Three Dragons dead aft!"
"What type?" shouted back the Captain.
"I cant tell!"
The captain turned to ask Valice to try to recognise them, but he ran out of time, just as he opened his mouth to speak, the three forms flew overhead, just clearing the masts. The downdraft from their wings flapping the sails briefly as they circled once.
"Impossible!" Breathed Valice, being the mythology expert he had an idea what they were.
"What are they Valice?" Asked Alandria.
"If I'm right they are the deceased races of the most powerful dragons to ever roam the realms. They died out just after the Order was founded but were rare before that as they were hunted. Legend suggests that the very last and most powerful of each colour sacrificed their bodies at the very end in order to preserve their minds and powers and one day return to the worlds to fight. They were called the Prism Dragons."
As he spoke the three Dragons, now discernable as being Blue, Green and Red Dragons, slightly smaller but faster than Earth's normal Dragon species, had completed their tight circle and were now hovering around the ship beating their immense wings to stay in the air without the aid of thermal currents. The elementals struggled to keep the air currents in one direction against the down drafts that wrapped the sails around the masts. When the Captain realised it was pointless to keep trying he called for the elementals to stop, to conserve their power.
The ship, now devoid of the extra boost lurched as it slowed with the Dragon's drafts cancelling out the natural wind.
The Dragons just seemed to hover in the air, the Red Dragon, noticeably the most powerful of the three present sat just above and in front of the Forecastle, with the Green and Blue Dragon hovering to either side of the Beam.
"They're not attacking, what do you think?" Alandria asked Valice, knowing that he had faced dragons before in the past.
"I don't know, we could try a volley of stunners and see what they do." Suggested Valice.
To say that was pointless is an understatement, over sixty 'stupefy's leaped into the air, approximately twenty at each. Most were blocked by the Scaly surface of the Dragons but a few hit the Dragons with effect. The dragons roared with the effort to overcome the blasting but only fell a few metres before recovering themselves and climbing again to their own places.
Valice yelled to everyone aboard to concentrate fire on the Red Dragon. With a resounding 'Stupefy' almost eighty stunners, including some from the regular crew, impacted with the single foremost Dragons.
It cried out in anger as it was struck but remained conscious. Only possible because of the additions of Matt and Harry's magical essence around it. But it couldn't maintain its flight and fell slowly to the deck. The forecastle rapidly cleared of crew as the creature landed. Its wings flapping once before its claws scratched into the wooden deck. It reared its head back and with a loud and ferocious roar it blew an infernal of flames into the air above it.
There was nothing much that Valice and Alandria could think to do, it was obvious by the Dragon's reactions that they wanted the Sea Dragon to surrender.
"We have no choice Captain, order for a 'heave to,' and dip the ensign."
"Aye Sir's" It was obvious that he wasn't entirely happy with Alandria's order and wouldn't normally take it but he didn't want his ship to be torched either.
The ships sails were quickly stricken, slower than was usual for the well seasoned crew but with three dragons watching their every move they couldn't help being slower than was normal.
The Navigator turned to the Captain, "The chasing ship is now only half an hour till it meets us sir."
In the confusion noone had kept an eye on the ship following them, but in the time it took to lose against the Dragons it had caught them up rapidly. They past the last minutes by watching as the ship caught them up. It was easily fifty per cent larger then them and as it got within canon shot it was obvious that they couldn't win a fight against her. To prove the point one of the unknown ships canons through a round shot across the back of the Sea Dragon in warning.
As if on cue, the three Dragons beat their wings a few times before retreating to the other ship where they settled gently on the widened railings around the Quarter deck.
As the ship pulled up off the Sea Dragons beam it heaved to and gently settled into the water fifty feet to the Sea Dragons Port side. Valice stared at the carving of the ship and the sight of the water on the other side as the illusion worked. He couldn't help but think that he should recognise the elaborate carvings but couldn't put his finger on it. As he was pondering this, he registered movement on the ghost ships deck and then pulled himself back to reality as he felt a strange magic searching around him. Again he thought that he should recognise the strange touch.
Two figures suddenly leapt across the fifty foot gap and as their cloaked figures landed with the thumps of heavy boots, fifty or so men swung across the gap from the other ships rigging to land almost everywhere around the Sea Dragon. In a couple of seconds most of the crew and almost all of the order had found themselves without their wands. A few of the fastest or a few that came running from below found themselves in very brief fights but always ending with an arrow or knife pressed to their throats.
On the quarter deck there was a brief struggle as five of these intruders disarmed all but Valice, Alandria and the Captain. The two figures had their undivided attention and another surge of magic from one hit Valice's fine tuned mental sensors and suddenly Valice knew who one of these figures were. Even with the hood over the face he was sure of it, and was both shocked and relieved. These actions weren't that of the crazed lunatic running around and he also had worked out the carvings were that of Elves and the men invading his ship were also Elves.
"Harry?" He managed to whisper, Alandria and Tom's heads both snapped to the slightly taller of the two cloaked figures before the aforementioned man lowered his hood to show the grinning features of their lost comrade.
Before he could be greeted however Alandria rushed forwards to hug her trainee and then as Harry relaxed into it, Alandria stepped back and a resounding crack echoed across the deck as she slapped him hard across the face.