Vargoth Ember's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

The mercenaries were gone, but the cave mouth still gaped too wide. Vargoth stared at the rusted cannon wedged across the entrance. It stopped nothing. Men had climbed over it, around it, above it. When the mercenaries came back with more blades, one iron barrel would not hold them. He needed a wall, not a bar. He had until they returned to build one. "That cannon won't do," Ember said. He climbed the broken slabs and kicked the rust. "They came over the top last time. They'll do it again." "Then we close the top," Vargoth said. He searched the rocks near the ruined lighthouse. Half buried in the sand lay a fallen pillar, thick as three men, carved with worn old marks. Stone, not iron. Heavy enough to seal the gap for good. He set his claws against it and heaved. It did not move. "You'll break your back," said a voice from the water. Marina stood in the shallows. She had blue hair down her back and bare feet on the wet stone. She was the sea nymph who once taught Vargoth to read the slack tide before dawn. She had guided him into the water. Now she watched him fight to stay out of it. "The pillar is too heavy," Vargoth said. "Not for the sea." Marina pointed to the channel beside the cave. "The tide climbs at dusk. Roll the pillar to the water's edge. Let the flood lift it, and float it to the mouth. Stone weighs less when the water carries it." Vargoth understood. He and Ember shoved the pillar down the slope, inch by inch, until it lay at the waterline. Then they waited. The tide rose. The channel swelled and pushed against the stone. Vargoth set his shoulder low and drove. Ember pried from the far side with his blade. The pillar shifted. The water took its weight, just as Marina said. It rolled loose and drifted, half floating, toward the cave. Vargoth guided it with his whole body. He wedged it into the mouth above the cannon, filling the gap where men had climbed. The tide fell. The stone settled into the rock and stuck fast. Vargoth breathed red fire along the seam. Salt steamed off, but the flame found the dry stone underneath and heated it until the edges fused to the slabs. He stepped back. One low door remained, wide enough for a single dragon. Everything above it was solid wall. He could burn anyone who tried the door and no one could climb over now. "That'll hold," Ember said. Marina waded closer and looked past the sealed mouth into the dark. "You built a wall around your gold," she said. "But you sealed the water inside with it. The channel still runs under the cave floor. And the tide there rises every night."