Vargoth Ember's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

The falcon slept on its perch inside the cave mouth. Vargoth watched the sky darken and knew the bird had bought him nothing but a clear picture of his death. Two dragons could not hold this cave against a war party. He needed fighters, and he had none. Ember stood beside him, tail flicking, ready to swing his claws at anything that moved. Courage was not the same as numbers. "We fight," Ember said. "We killed them at the door before." "A dozen men, not a hundred," Vargoth said. "Sit and think for once." He turned the problem over. He had no kin to call. No war-band owed him a debt. But the water below the cave was full of creatures he had already asked for help. Marina climbed the slabs from the channel. Her blue hair clung wet to her shoulders. She had taught Vargoth to read the tides, and she read his silence now. "You're counting a battle you can't win," she said. "Stop counting soldiers. Count the water." "The water can't hold a spear." "No. But the water can drown a man who tries to climb." She crouched and pressed her palm to the wet stone. "You sealed this channel. Every night it rises inside the cave. Break the seal at the right hour and the tide floods back out fast. Straight through the shallows where their ladders would stand." Vargoth saw it. The mercenaries would bring wagons and ladders across the flats below the cliffs. Those flats went underwater at high tide. If he timed the flood to their crossing, the channel would do his fighting. "I need more than a flood," he said. "I need it to strike when they're in the open." Marina looked at the dark water. "Then you need something down there to watch and warn you. Something fast." Vargoth thought of the long blue serpent that had carried the poison flask for him once. It knew these currents. It owed him nothing, but it had come before for fresh meat and a fair word. He fed it that night from the rocks, and it rose, luminous eyes bright in the black water. He asked it to guard the channel mouth and signal when men entered the shallows. By dawn the plan held together. Marina marked the tide hour on the stone. Ember would hold the wall as bait. The serpent would watch the flats. And Vargoth would break his own seal at the exact moment the war party crossed, sending the trapped tide roaring out to sweep their ladders and wagons into the deep channel. He had no army. He had the sea. Vargoth pressed his claw against the fused pillar he had sealed with fire. One good strike at the right tide would open it. "They march tomorrow," he said. "Let them come to the water." The blocker was gone. He would not fight the war party with soldiers. He would fight it with the bay itself.