Hush (Dragon Apocalypse) by James Maxey Read Free Book Online Page A

Skellings. The only thing I really knew about them was that they were supposedly cannibals. Since their homeland was two-thousand miles away, it was doubtful they’d come this far looking for dinner.
    At first glance, it looked as if the Skellings were launching their assault on an empty ship, which had to make it all the more embarrassing for them that they were failing to get on board. Those climbing up ropes had the bad luck of having the knots slip free from their grappling hooks inches before they reached the railing. Those attempting to run up gangplanks were suddenly snatched from their feet by hurricane-force winds on a bay that was otherwise calm. The waters around the ships grew crowded with flailing bodies.
    One of the grapplers, however, had managed to leap for the railing as his rope broke, and I watched as he climbed aboard the all but empty deck. Suddenly, a child dropped out of the rigging, hands first, grabbing the warrior by his horned helmet. The Skelling staggered around, cursing, as the slender figure maintained a perfectly balanced handstand. As I drew closer, I saw that the mysterious gymnast was a girl, perhaps ten years old, with a very stern grimace on her face. Curly black locks spilled out from a wine-red beret that marked her as a member of the crew. Her agility at riding her unwilling mount was all the more remarkable for the fact that she was wearing a belt studded with lead sinkers that had to weigh at least fifty pounds.
    After balancing on the Skelling for a few seconds, she dismounted with a somersault. The second her fingers left the helmet, the confused warrior shot into the air as if he’d been launched from a catapult. He vanished into the night so swiftly that he was gone from sight before the girl’s feet even touched the deck. She bounced as if she had springs in her toes, with her hands stretched overhead. As if by magic, a rope swung toward her. She grabbed hold as it lifted her once more into the rigging.
    Perhaps the phrase ‘as if by magic’ is a bit too coy, since I knew damn well that every member of the Romer family that owned the Freewind had been given magical powers as a gift for rescuing the mer-king’s daughter. Though I normally avoided sea-travel, Infidel had done a stint aboard the Freewind not long ago as a sword-for-hire during the so-called Pirate Wars. The Romers were serious, hard-working people who neither drank, gambled, nor trafficked in stolen merchandise, which meant I didn’t know them personally. Luckily, thanks to Infidel’s tales, it wasn’t hard to piece together who was who.
    The girl had to be Poppy, the youngest Romer. The mermen had given her one of the stranger magical abilities I knew of. Basically, anything she pressed down on would spring into the air with a hundred times the force she’d applied to it. From what Infidel had told me, Poppy was ten years old, and something of a tomboy.
    The ropes were being cooperative with Poppy and uncooperative with the Skellings thanks, no doubt, to another family member – Rigger. He was only seventeen, and purportedly something of a worrywart. I’d likely find him at the wheel. I flew to the back of the boat and found what had to be him, along with two other family members. All had the same kinky black hair and red berets, along with sharp noses and blue eyes. Rigger had a narrow face adorned by an unflattering scraggle of a beard. With his slender limbs, he looked like a puppet, with a score of thick ropes wrapped around his arms and legs. He was drenched with sweat, his teeth clenched, as he drew upon his mer-gift, which was the ability to manipulate ropes with his mind. Ordinarily a ship the size of the Freewind would have required a crew of at least twenty, but Infidel told me that Rigger was capable of sailing the boat alone.
    He wasn’t alone in defending the boat, however. Standing beside him was a young woman holding a long spyglass pressed to her right eye. She was a bit younger than