“The child’s presence is not required,” said Lieutenant Staff. “We haven’t scouted the area yet. We don’t know how safe it is.”

“She is going.” Zurfina stood up and walked toward the passageway that led to the other side of the ship. Senta followed at her heels with the steel dragon around her shoulders.

On the port side of the vessel a launch was already in the water. Captain Dechantagne, Lieutenant Dechantagne, or Augie as Senta thought of him, and Lieutenant Baxter sat waiting along with a dozen soldiers in khaki uniforms with rifles slung over their back, and a dozen sailors dressed in white to man the oars. A temporary staircase had been erected on the side of the ship, which led from the upper deck, down six flights, with landings at the four lower hatchways, and terminating just above the waves. Once Zurfina and Senta had descended the stairs and stepped into the launch, the boat was pushed away from the ship, and the sailors lowered their oars into the water. The sorceress and her apprentice were the only females in the party.

The bay was calm and the water was still, reflecting the many clouds in the sky like a picture. Even the oar strokes of the sailors did not disturb the smooth surface for long. None of the men spoke, and the honking of the iguanodons could be heard in the distance, along with an occasional loud bellowing roar.

“Gawp,” said the dragon.

It didn’t take long for the boat to reach the shore, a twenty foot wide band of rocks and gravel separating the water from the thick redwood forest. The sailors raised their oars straight up and Captain Dechantagne and several of the soldiers jumped out and pulled the boat up onto the gravel. Then everyone else climbed onto the land.

“What do you think Baxter?” asked Augie. “This looks like a good place for a dock right here. We can use the wood growing all around, build the dock and extend it straight out into the water thirty or forty feet, and build a couple of warehouses right up here.

“We’ll have to check the depth, but it seems fine,” replied Baxter.

Leaving six of the sailors with the boat, the rest of the party moved past the shore and into the woods. The redwoods were enormous. Some of them were twenty feet or more in diameter at the base. Senta thought it would be ace if one could be hollowed out and made into a house. There were plenty of small plants growing beneath the massive trees, but not so many that it was impossible to tramp through. Once away from the shoreline, the land rose up quickly.

“It’s hard to tell with all these trees, but it looks as though the initial survey was right on,” said Augie. “This ridge runs right out on the peninsula. We can build the lighthouse at the tip, and the fort on that hill to the right.”

“The peninsula is what, about four miles long and a mile wide?” asked Terrence.

“Yes, though there is a narrow spot in the middle of the peninsula, where it’s only as wide as the ridge, maybe a half a mile.”

“How far is the river?”

“About six miles east.”

“Why not build closer to the river,” wondered Lieutenant Baxter.

“The Manzanian isn’t like the Tiss or the Green River in Mallontah. It’s not navigable even around the mouth. Twelve miles upstream you find the first of a half dozen known cataracts. In the short term at least, this little bay will be much more valuable to the colony than the river would be. There are several small streams around here for water and we can pipe in more as needed.”

When they had walked up a few hundred feet, the land flattened out and opened into a clearing. Here was another great group of iguanodons, with several members of another species of dinosaur meandering along with them. This was a low, heavily built, mottled brown creature about twenty feet long, covered with thick plates of boney armor. Its beaked head resembled a horned lizard, with short, thick horns arranged around its face. At the end of its long tail, it sported an enormous two-lobed club.

“I wonder what the Mormont called this one,” wondered Captain Dechantagne. “Clubadon?”

“It’s called an ankylosaurus,” said Augie.

His brother looked at him in surprise.

“I’ve been here before, remember? I wonder if it could be domesticated? I’ll bet that thing could pull a pretty heavily laden wagon.”

Captain Dechantagne shrugged, then stopped and pointed.

At the far end of the clearing, the foliage parted and a massive red face pushed its way into the open. It was followed by the rest of a large blocky head, twenty five feet above the ground. Slowly the entire creature emerged from the woods. Two tiny forearms dangled uselessly, but two giant, clawed hind feet carried the beast, a great black body, balanced at one end by the enormous head and at the other end by a long, sweeping tail. It gave an awful roar and rushed forward to take a horrendous bite out of the back of the closest iguanodon. The iguanodon honked balefully and ran several steps, but it was wounded so grievously that it sank to the ground from shock and blood loss. The reptilian tyrant strode over to its victim and administered a killing bite.

“Bloody hell,” said Augie.

The steel dragon suddenly launched itself into the air. The chain attaching it to Senta pulled taut and jerked her off her feet. As she fell to the ground on her knees, a weak link in the chain parted, sending the dragon flying up toward the trees in the general direction from which they had come. Senta jumped to her feet and took off running after her wayward charge.

“Come back here!” she called.

The little dragon paid no attention to her as it flapped its way through the redwood branches. Senta ran as fast as she could, but was soon outpaced. She ran down the embankment which they had walked up earlier, but then turned as the dragon flew parallel to the shore. With a flash of steel, he shot up into the canopy and she lost sight of him. Stopping, she looked around.

“Come here boy!” she called.

She waited but there was no reply. She called again.

“Squawk!” The noise came from her left and she turned to view its source, but it wasn’t the dragon. It was some kind of bird, just a little bit too short to look Senta in the eye. It was covered with hairy feathers, yellow near its small arms, green everywhere else. Its tail stretched straight out almost five feet behind it. Each of its two feet had a five inch claw, curving upward, totally useless for locomotion, but frightening. Its long, flat, very unbirdlike snout was filled with large, widely spaced teeth. Senta had never seen a bird with teeth before. It looked rather like a killer turkey. The beast cocked its head to one side and regarded her with a large black eye.

“Squawk!” it cried again.

“Squawk!” came an answer. Senta turned and saw another bird to her right. Then she heard rustling behind her and turned and saw a third and fourth bird. The second bird hopped toward her and snapped its jaws. The first bird hopped closer too. It perched on a large rock and the big claws on either foot clicked against the stone as if it were testing them or sharpening them. She didn’t hear them, but Senta thought that the other two were probably moving closer as well.

“Uuthanum!” she shouted, pointing her finger at the first bird.

At the same moment she cast her spell, the creature and its closest companion both launched themselves at her. A cone of frost spread from Senta’s fingertip spraying the first small creature, covering it with ice and knocking it to the ground near her feet. The second beast was knocked out of mid-air by a metallic streak shooting from the sky. The steel dragon latched onto the bird’s neck with its needle sharp teeth, sending them both tumbling across the ground.

Senta looked down at the half-frozen bird by her feet and the one struggling to free itself from the grasp of the dragon, now holding onto it with all four feet in addition to its jaws. She completely forgot about the other two behind her until she felt a weight on her shoulders and sharp claws digging into her skin. She expected at any moment to feel the mouthful of teeth or the big upward curving claw. Instead, a flurry of gunshots rang out through the redwoods.

The bird let go of her shoulders and fell to the ground dead. Senta turned to see the Dechantagne brothers and two riflemen. They had shot the bird off her shoulders. They had also shot the other bird behind her and the half frozen bird that had just been able to stand up before it was killed. They hadn’t needed to shoot the beast fighting with the dragon. It was already dead

“Gawp!” said the dragon, licking the blood from its whiskers with a long forked tongue.

Captain Dechantagne rushed forward and scooped Senta up into his arms. He looked at the tears in her dress and the tears in her skin beneath.

“These don’t seem too bad,” he said. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Senta shook her head.

“Looks like we got here just in time,” said one of the riflemen.

“Velociraptors,” said Augie.

Zurfina stepped out from behind a tree, walked over and picked up the dragon, which wrapped itself around her shoulders just as it had Senta’s before. Captain Dechantagne sat Senta down and faced the sorceress.

“You’re this little girl’s guardian,” he said angrily. “She shouldn’t have been brought ashore.”

Zurfina stepped toward him and placed her forefinger on his chin.

“Guardian,” she said derisively. “My dear Terrence, we’re going to be living here. Children are going to be eaten.”

It was chilly and wisps of mist hung in the air. On the distant shore, beyond the wall formed by impossibly tall redwood trees, large spruces, massive maple and bay trees, filled in between by thick huckleberry and azalea bushes and wave upon wave of rhododendron, some giant and no doubt frightening monster roared out a challenge. From its tiny animal carrier on deck, the little dragon answered.
“Gawp!”

Senta stepped onto the deck and knelt down by the box. Zurfina had dressed her in another weird outfit, this one a floor length black dress with a white collar. A black ceramic rose right in the front of her neck that made it difficult to look down at the high-heeled black sandals on her feet. Of course Zurfina had on a matching dress, and cut a striking figure standing along the railing of the forward deck with the Captain, Miss Dechantagne, the Dechantagne brothers, and other notables, all of whom were dressed in light summer clothing, as they surveyed the coastline.

“Pet!” said the dragon.

“Yep, it’s me,” said Senta. “I’m going to take you out, but you have to have your leash on.”

The dragon hissed. She opened the door of the carrier and the dragon climbed out onto the top. He turned his head and pointedly looked the other direction as she snapped the little chain onto the ring around his ankle. Once the little clip had snapped shut, Senta attached the other end of the chain to a bracelet on her right wrist.

“See there. We’re both chained by the wrist. Nobody’s the boss.”

“Gawp,” said the dragon, and then spreading its wings to balance, it climbed up her arm and onto her shoulder. It slithered down to lie across her shoulders, one hand and one foot holding onto her dress and one hand and one foot holding onto her hair. Senta stood up. The little dragon was now over four feet long from nose to tip of tail, but he was only about six inches thick across the belly and he was surprisingly light.

“What do you want to do?”

“Gawp.”

“Me too. This is sooo boring.”

The ship had been sailing parallel to the coast for the past four days and Senta was getting tired of it. What was the point of sailing all the way to Mallon, if you didn’t get out and walk around on it? Twenty days was more than enough time to explore every square inch of the largest battleship and Senta had spent more than three times that length of time on the Minotaur. Not even murders, gunfights, and drinking wine until you threw up could take away the boredom forever.

“Fina,” said the dragon.

“Alright.”

Senta walked toward the front of the ship. She had gone only about halfway to where Zurfina and the others stood watching the coastline roll past, when a figure stepped out of the shadows. A freckled face and striped shirt quickly identified the shady figure.

“Hey Graham,” said Senta.

“Hi Senta. What’ya doing?”

“Nothing. He wants to go up by the grown-ups.” She indicated the dragon with her thumb.

“Can I come?”

“Sure. Just don’t get too close, ‘cause he’ll bite you.”

“I thought he was tame.”

“You can’t tame a dragon. Zurfina says you can’t tame anything that’s smarter than you are.”

“Who says he’s smarter than me?” Graham was indignant.

“Not just you, stupid. Dragons are super smart. When he gets big, he’ll be able to talk and do magic and all kinds of cool stuff.”

“Brill,” said the boy.

Senta and Graham walked forward, the boy keeping several paces behind her at all times, until they reached the group of adults. Miss Dechantage was wearing a yellow dress with lots of lace and a matching hat, tied below her chin with a lace ribbon. Her dress was almost the same color as the suit Professor Calliere was wearing. It made him look like a very large banana. Mr. Korlann was much more dignified. His grey suit was so light that it would have seemed white, had he not been standing next to Miss Lusk in her white day dress. Senta saw Miss Lusk reach over discretely and touch Mr. Korlann’s hand. Wizard Labrith was wearing a light brown suit and Wizard Kesi, for once not in colorful silks, was dressed the same. They both stood near the back of the group, all four of their eyes boring holes into the back of Zurfina’s black dress. The two Dechantagne brothers were both wearing khaki safari clothes and pith helmets. The older brother looked like he was sick. Finally Father Ian had eschewed his traditional robes for a more modern suit with a clerical collar.

“This is it just ahead,” said Lieutenant Dechantagne, pointing. “You see the bay just here, and this land just beyond is the peninsula.”

“I’ll send word up to the Captain,” said the older Dechantagne brother.

“Children are limited to the aft deck of the ship,” said Miss Dechantagne, noticing Senta and Graham for the first time and looking down her nose at them.

“Children with dragons may go wherever they wish,” said Zurfina, without turning around.

Miss Dechantagne made a clicking sound with her tongue. Miss Lusk gave Senta a wink. Senta and Graham walked to the side, out of the way of the adults and looked at the forest moving past.

“Would you look at that!” shouted Father Ian.

A monstrous creature had stepped out of the trees and onto the shore. It was reptilian, and looked to be more than thirty feet long from its strange beak-like snout to the tip of its long thick, waving tail. It had a bulky body and though it walked on two stocky back legs, only sometimes using its lighter forelegs, it did so completely hunched over, using the long tail for balance. It was an olive color overall, but had yellowish vertical stripes down its back. No sooner had the creature presented itself than another and then another of the beasts stepped from the forest to walk along the beach. Soon an entire herd of nearly fifty of the monsters was tramping across the rocks and gravel. Most were as large as the original, but some were smaller and some were only half as big.

“What the devil are those?” asked Mr. Korlann

“They are a type of reptile common in Mallon,” said Professor Calliere. “They’re called dinosaurs.”

“They’re quite large,” said Miss Lusk.

“I’ve seen bigger,” said Lieutenant Dechantagne.

“There are hundreds of varieties,” continued Calliere. “They are related to dragons, in the same way that lemurs and monkeys are related to human beings.”

Both Father Ian and Zurfina made the same derisive sound.

Getting up, he grabbed a white towel from a stack on a shelf nearby and pressed it to his face. It was quickly turning red. It was the only bit of color in the room of white and grey. Still holding the towel to his bleeding nose, he opened the supply closet door and peered out into the hall in both directions. There wasn’t a person in sight. He stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind him. He moved quickly away from his hiding place. He had to take the towel away from his nose in order to climb a ladder up to the next deck. The blood began to drip quickly again as he climbed.

On the next deck, he pinched his nose with the towel to try and slow the blood flow, but winced in pain. He looked around for a moment and then realized where he had to go. He stepped quickly along forward, but had to stop after a moment and lean against the wall because he was feeling lightheaded. He took a few deep breaths and continued on. At last he came to the cabin door he needed, and knocked. The door popped wide open and the broad body, big stomach, and round rosy face of Father Ian appeared.

“Good to see you, Captain Dechantagne!” boomed Father Ian’s voice. “Don’t stand out in the hallway. Come in. Come in. Good gracious, what has happened to you?”

“I cut myself shaving,” said Terrence, pulling the towel away from his face. “I was hoping that you could help.”

“I should say you have!” Father Ian let out a long whistle. “Sit down. As a matter of fact, I have just the help you need right here. Sister Auni here is just the person to set you right again.”

In the corner of the room, unnoticed by Terrence until this moment was a very thin woman in the long white robes of a church acolyte. Her jet black hair was cut straight across her forehead, and hung down low in back. She had deep set grey eyes and prominent cheek bones. She stood up from her seat and was several inches taller than Terrence, though only about half as wide at the shoulder. When she spoke, it was in breathy tones.

“I’m very please to make your acquaintance, Captain Dechantagne. May I take a look at your nose please?”

She placed long thin hands on either side of his face and tilted his head upward so that she could look at his injury.

“Razor slice,” she said. “I would expect to see an injury like this in a tavern brawl.”

“Sorry. No taverns available,” said Terrence.

“In the name of the Holy Father I see your pain,” she said. “In the name of the Holy Savior I heal your wounds.”

Terrence felt life flowing from her hands. Not only did his nose stop stinging, but the pain in the back of his head and in his shoulders that he hadn’t even noticed before went away. The residual stinging in his eyes also went away. He was sure that any redness caused by the White Opthalium was gone now. Sister Auni pulled her hands away from his face and smiled.

“I knew I came to the right place,” Terrence said.

“Of course you did, my boy,” said Father Ian. “Perfect timing, too. The sister and I had just finished our prayer session. You are just in time to see her back to her cabin.

“You couldn’t be in any safer hands,” he said to Sister Auni.

“Oh indeed,” she said. “I know that already.”

Shrugging, Terrence offered his arm to the acolyte and led her out of the room.

“Good night to both of you!” Father Ian called out in his thundering voice, and then he closed the cabin door behind them.

Walking through the narrow halls of the ship, Terrence usually found it difficult to escort a lady and had to walk in a sort of shuffling sidestep to make room, and if the woman was wearing an evening gown, it was pretty much impossible to walk side by side in any case. This was not so with Sister Auni. Not only did her clerical robes flow straight from her shoulders to the floor, her entire form was scarcely as wide as his two hands splayed out side by side. Her shoulders seemed almost too narrow to hold up her normal sized head.

“Sister Auni!” A young woman Terrence didn’t know came running down the hall toward them. “Sister Auni! Mrs. Duplessis is having her baby, and the doctor wants you there as quickly as possible.”

“Lead the way, child,” said the acolyte.

The three of them made their way through a series of hatches and corridors until they came to a closed cabin door. A group of several women and girls were standing outside in the hallway. The door was quickly opened and the young woman who had fetched her, led Sister Auni inside. As she turned to close the door after her, she looked into Terrence’s face.

“Thank you, Captain Dechantagne,” she said in her breathy voice. “But I think I shall go on from here alone. Have a pleasant evening, and watch out when you are shaving.”

Terrence stood thinking for a moment. Then he gradually noticed that he was being watched from all sides by the six or seven females around him. He felt as though he had stumbled onto a stage without a script, or stepped into the middle of some savage ritual whose codex he didn’t understand.

“Ladies,” he said, and slowly backed out of the hallway, and then turned and made his way up to the topside of the ship and out onto deck.