76 The Dyscovera
Rising up from the waves, the black-and-gold serpent blasted spray from its blowhole. Its jagged fins sawed like notched sword blades through the waves as it warily circled the Dyscovera. The creature looked exactly like the one that had attacked Criston in the wreckage of the Luminara, devoured poor Prester Jerard, and dragged the rickety raft for leagues across the uncharted sea.
He raced across the deck, yelling, “Damn you and your kind!” He kept a white-knuckled grip on his dagger, ready to stab the monster if it should snatch him from the deck. “Grab your bows and harpoons! When it gets closer, aim for the soft flesh inside its maw!”
“I don't want to see the inside of its mouth,” Kjelnar growled as he knocked off the lock to the weapons storage chest.
Sailors scrambled to grab bows and arrows as the first mate handed them around. Without any sort of military precision, the men strung the bows, nocked arrows, and let fly even as the sea serpent threw out another challenge. The shafts bounced off the ebony scales, provoking the creature to rush closer in a froth of splashing foam.
At a run, Prester Hannes bolted past Criston to the bow, his countenance ablaze with fervent purpose. The wind flapped his clothes, and he clenched his fishhook pendant. “By the power of Aiden, I command thee begone!” From memory, he shouted out verses from the Book of Aiden that included stern invocations against evil.
The creature lurched toward the Dyscovera like a serpentine spear. Seeing the telltale lash of its head, Criston yelled, “Brace yourselves! It'll charge.” The archers loosed another volley; this time one of the shafts struck inside the monster's mouth, which only enraged it further.
But as it drew close, the sea serpent thrashed and hesitated, raising its long and supple body high out of the water. It stopped its charge, as if it had run up against an unseen barrier.
Kjelnar pointed wildly toward the Dyscovera's bow. “The horn! Look at Raathgir's horn!” The milky, knurled shaft shone with a cold blue luminescence.
The monster thrashed from side to side, intimidated. It was close enough that Criston could see runnels of water pouring from its black-and-gold scales, but it could not cause any damage. The beast opened its mouth, as if its jaw had come unhinged. Its forked tongue flailed back and forth like a whip, but it refused to come closer to the glowing horn.
Etched with verses from the Book of Aiden, the relic was connected through sympathetic magic to its counterpart on the altar in the main kirk in Calay. Until now, Criston had not entirely believed Iborian tales of the ice dragon's magic, but the power came from somewhere—protecting the ship from the sea serpent.
Criston stood at the side of the ship, staring it down, looking right into the slit of its reptilian eye. He had seen an eye like that, much too close, just before a similar beast had killed kindly old Prester Jerard. Criston did not waver now.
The monster strained against the invisible barrier, but could not attack as the Dyscovera sailed on. Defeated, the thwarted serpent snorted an indignant burst from its blowhole and dropped its head into the water again, cutting a path in the opposite direction as it sank slowly.
Laughing, the Iborian shipwright hammered his chest with one fist. “Raathgir has protected us!”
Prester Hannes looked patiently at the first mate and gave a slow shake of his head. “It wasn't your superstition about the horn but my prayers that drove the monster away.”
Criston intervened before the two could argue. “We are protected by the grace of Ondun, whatever form it may take. What matters is that the Dyscovera is safe, and we can continue our voyage.”