User:Luciano/Source/Hhenkiwlur-dw and the Sea Dragon

The Episode in which the Monarch Hhenkiwlur confronted the Sea Dragon and showed great equanimity

The sun's disk was like an icon of bronze in the yellow-grey sky.

The monarch's retinue gathered on the deck of the great long boat, and even the slaves abandoned their oars to peer out at the horizon. A great cry went up from several children, clutching at the cloaks of their parents. A tiny islet of rock lay to the boat's windward side, about 5 boat-lengths distant. This was not the cause of the children's surprise.

Nor was the cause of their amazement the unusually tall and gnarled red pine that perched on the island's summit precariously, like a hunting falcon about to take flight. The island, actually, was a familiar landmark, and it conveyed to the travelers that they had reached the mid-point of their journey along the treacherous coast from the channel at Tirello to the harbor at Hallapahhwnasatek, where Holobuseten, Monarch of Lyr, no doubt awaited them impatiently with her famous, intended betrayal churning in her breast.

Earlier, squalls of rain and wind had rocked the boat, and forced the sailors to lower the sail and resort to the slow progress with the oars.

A child, the young offspring of the royal Pommanuset, cried out again. "Something moves, there," she gasped.

Several soldiers, with their short, sturdy bows half-at-ready, stooped closer to the boat's railing and peered at the islet, with its brooding, angular tree.

"Tis just the wind," the captain of the guard muttered, showing her uncertainty with a frown.

Then suddenly, they all saw it.

The island's rock itself seemed to unfurl like a tattered battle-banner lifted in defiance by a mortally wounded enemy.

People screamed. Soldiers lifted their bows uncertainly, but loosed no arrows.

The Monarch Hhenkiwlur did not flinch. "Ah, tis more than wind," she said, coldly.

The sea dragon was not small, as some bards would sing for a thousand years hence.

The sea dragon's movement rasped and echoed across the suddenly smooth sea, like the whispering of angry old people. The soldiery's armor clinked loudly, as a quietness fell across the boat.

The sea dragon's great, many-horned head, green and purple like a field of flowering radishes in sping sun, rose up until it was above the tree on the island. Its long neck swayed like a lanyard in stiff wind.

The Monarch Hhenkiwlur's sword rested comfortably in her cool hand, at ready. She faced the sea dragon.

... more to be posted later ...