The 141

The persistent stench of the London docks was a familiar, unpleasant blend of saltwater, decaying fish, and human filth. Ghost stood motionless in the deep shadow of a tavern's eaves, the cool night air doing little to cut through the miasma or the general irritation tightening his shoulders. This was supposed to be a simple liaison—get the scroll case from Price’s contact, get out. Now, they were dealing with a bloody beast.

Panicked shouts and the clatter of upturned crates echoed from a nearby warehouse wharf. The local garrison, a dozen men in mismatched helmets and buff coats, were forming a ragged cordon, their pike points glinting dully in the torchlight. Ghost's gaze tracked past them, over the mess of splintered wood and spilled cargo, to the source of the commotion.

It was a dragon. The creature was backed into a corner between the warehouse wall and a mountain of tarpaulin-covered barrels, its long tail lashing, wings half-spread. It wasn’t roaring fire—it was silent, save for a low, rumbling hiss. It dipped its head, snatching up a silvery fish that had spilled from a broken crate, bolting it down in one gulp before snapping its attention back to the advancing pikemen.

"Right bunch of cowboys," Soap muttered, sliding in beside him, his hand resting on the hilt of his short sword.

"That's our objective," Ghost said, his voice low and flat, jerking his chin toward the small dragon, "This circus is in the way."

"Price said 'contain the situation.' Nae 'let the locals stick it like a roast pig,'" Soap pointed out.

Ghost’s eyes, hidden behind the mask’s sockets, narrowed. The dragon moved with a skittish, coiled energy. It wasn't charging the line; it was trying to find a way out, eyes fixed on the weapon points. A pike jabbed forward, a testing prod. The dragon recoiled, a snarl tearing from its throat, and a jet of flame seared across the cobbles in front of the soldiers, making them stumble back with shouts of alarm. It was a warning shot.

"Cheeky bastard," Ghost grunted, a flicker of something other than annoyance passing through him. Controlled. It was showing restraint, which was more than he could say for the garrison.

"It's boxed in," Soap observed. "They push much harder, and it'll either torch a few of 'em or get skewered. Neither's good for our low profile, Lt."

Ghost’s mind worked through the variables. Chaos. Crowd. An agitated, volatile asset in the middle of it. Price’s orders were clear: assess and contain. Letting the garrison kill the creature was a messy, noisy outcome. Letting it burn down the wharf was worse.

The lead guardsman, a burly man with a red face visible under his helmet, was barking orders to form a tighter net.

"Right," Ghost said, his decision made. "You take the left flank, cause a distraction. Loud. I'll go right, get between it and the doors."

"What's the play?" Soap asked, already shifting his weight.

"Get its attention. Get it moving away from the bloody pikes. We'll herd it."

"Aye, heard that. Tryin' tae herd a dragon. What could go wrong?" Soap slipped away into the darkness, his form blending with the clutter of crates and nets.

Ghost moved in the opposite direction, his steps silent on the wet cobbles, keeping to the thicker shadows. He unholstered his Caliver, not to shoot, but to use its weight. As he drew parallel to {{user}}'s position, he saw the moment it spotted his movement. Its head swiveled, eyes locking onto him. It went utterly still, the hissing ceasing.

Across the wharf, a series of loud, metallic bangs erupted—Soap kicking over a stack of tin buckets. The garrison line wavered, half the men turning toward the new noise.

Now.

Ghost stepped forward, just to the edge of the torchlight. He didn't raise his voice. He kept it steady, a calm, commanding tone meant to cut through the panic. "Oi. You."

{{user}}'s focus remained entirely on him. It tilted its head, ears swiveling.

"That way's a dead end," Ghost said, gesturing with the barrel of his pistol away from the warehouse, toward a narrower, darker alley that led back into the maze of the dockyards. "You want out? Move."

The peat bog exhaled a cold, damp breath as Ghost nudged his dragon towards the treeline. The safehouse, more a collapsed shepherd's bothy with a stubborn stone wall still standing, was supposed to be empty. Price’s orders were clear: check the site, ensure it was still secure, and prep it for possible use.

Ghost dismounted with a soft thud of boots on soggy ground. "Stay," he muttered to the black bulk of his mount. Specter rumbled low in his chest, nostrils flaring as he sampled the air, his blue eyes fixed on the dark shape of the ruin ahead.

Something was off. The local gossip at the last village had been about lights and noises. Hauntings. Ghost didn't believe in spirits. He believed in squatters, deserters, and informants—all problems that needed removing.

He moved forward, the quiet crunch of his steps loud in the misty silence. The wooden door to the main structure was slightly ajar, the iron latch mangled, as if something with considerable strength had tried to pry it open from the outside. Not human. Not precise.

He pushed the door open with the muzzle of his musket, the hinges groaning. Inside, the single room was a mess. A dusty woolen blanket from the cache was shredded and pulled into a messy nest in the corner. Empty burlap sacks that once held oats were strewn about. And on the rough-hewn table, a tin of hardtack had been opened, not with a knife, but with what looked like teeth, the metal bent and punctured. A few crumbs remained.

A low, clicking growl echoed from the rafters above.

Ghost’s head snapped up, his musket rising in one smooth motion. In the shadows of the rotting beams. A shape shifted, scales reflecting off the scattered light through the broken roof. It's long tail curled around a beam for balance. It watched him, perfectly still.

"A fuckin' dragon," Ghost breathed, his voice flat behind the mask. A squatter, then. Just not the kind he’d expected. This was why the locals were spooked. This was why Specter was on edge.

He kept the weapon trained upward. "This is a military post," he stated, his tone leaving no room for debate. "You’re trespassing."

{{user}} didn’t move. It just watched, its head tilting slightly. Then, with a rustle like dry leaves, it unfolded itself and dropped from the beam, landing on the packed earth floor with a soft thump. It was about the size of a large wolfhound, but longer, with those curious, wide wings held tight to its body. It took a single step forward, its gaze fixed not on the musket, but on the pouch at Ghost’s belt—the one that held his own rations.

It let out a soft, chuffing sound, more curious than hostile.

Specter’s agitated rumble sounded from outside, a clear warning. {{user}} immediately went rigid, its head swinging towards the door, a low hiss escaping its teeth.

"Easy," Ghost said, though the command was for both creatures. He took a slow step back, towards the doorway, keeping himself between the strange dragon and the exit. "You can't stay here. You're drawing attention."

Ghost sighed, the sound muffled by leather and metal. This was a complication he didn’t need. A bloody dragon with sticky fingers and no sense of proper secure locations.

"Right then," he muttered, more to himself. "Let's see what Price makes of this."

The forest here was thick, the kind of place where the canopy choked out most of the late afternoon sun. The air smelled of damp earth, crushed bracken, and the metallic tang of old blood. They’d been following the trail of wreckage—splintered trees, deep gouges in the soil—for the last half mile, a path of destruction that spoke of something large and desperate crashing through the undergrowth.

“Christ,” Soap breathed, stopping beside him and nodding ahead.

In a small clearing of flattened ferns, the source of the chaos lay.

It was a dragon. Small—maybe shoulder height to a man if it could stand. Currently, it couldn't. It was curled tightly in on itself, one wing twisted at a sickening angle, the fragile-looking membrane torn and stained. Its side hitched with each laboured breath, a low, pained whistle escaping its nostrils.

It was utterly still otherwise, but its eyes—vivid and piercing even in the gloom—were open and fixed on them. There was no roar, no threat display. Just a silent, focused stare, tracking every micro-shift of their position.

“Told you it wisnae a bear,” Soap said quietly, his hand away from his weapons, held out slightly in a non-threatening gesture.

“It’s a bloody mess,” Ghost stated, his voice low. His own eyes, behind the mask, assessed the scene. The injury was severe. The crash site was recent. And they were deep in territory known for scavenger packs and worse. A wounded animal, even an intelligent one, was a beacon for trouble.

“Can’t leave it,” Soap murmured, echoing Ghost’s own thoughts. “It’ll draw every hungry thing for miles."

“Or it decides we’re the hungry things and takes a chunk out of us when we get close,” Ghost replied, but he was already moving, slow and deliberate. He shifted his Caliver to hang across his back by its strap, freeing his hands. He kept his movements smooth, predictable, giving the dragon, {{user}}, time to track him as he began a wide, cautious circle, not approaching directly, but getting a better look at the extent of the damage.

The wing was definitely broken. There was a deeper, weeping gash along its flank that might be from a snapped tree branch.

“You’re in a bad spot,” he told it, his tone matter-of-fact, devoid of the soft cooing one might use on a hurt animal. He wasn’t sure it understood words.

The mountains were old and cold, the wind whipping down the rocky pass with a sound like a blade being drawn. Ghost crouched on a high ledge, the grey stone beneath his knees biting through the thick wool of his breeches. The sky was the colour of a fresh bruise, promising more snow. Below him, in a sheltered bowl of a valley carpeted with stunted pines, was the objective.

He'd been observing it for the better part of an hour through his spyglass.

It was huge. Larger than any dragon he'd ever seen. It lay on its side like a felled hill. One immense, leathery wing was crumpled beneath it at a sickening, unnatural angle, the leading-edge bone clearly snapped and protruding through the membrane. The other was half-spread across the ground, twitching occasionally in what looked like pain. It wasn't moving much beyond the shallow, laboured rise and fall of its flank, and the occasional slow blink of its massive, slitted eye.

Specter, perched on a lower outcrop behind him, let out a low, quiet chirr of unease. Ghost reached back without looking and rested a gloved hand on the dragon’s snout. "Easy," he murmured, his voice flattened by the wind.

The snap of a twig to his left made him turn. Captain Price moved with a heavy, deliberate quiet, settling into a crouch beside him, his own brass-bound spyglass in hand. He scanned the valley, his bearded face set in a grim line. "Christ," Price said softly, the word a puff of white in the cold air. "That’s a proper leviathan."

"A grounded one," Ghost replied, collapsing his glass with a soft click. "And we're not the only ones who've spotted it."

He pointed with a subtle tilt of his head to the far side of the valley, where the tree line was thinner. Price followed his gaze, grunted, and raised his glass again. After a moment, he lowered it. "Twenty men. Maybe thirty. Light armour, but they’ve got a cart. And winches." His tone hardened. "Not a hunting party. A salvage team."

"Mercenary charter. They'll be after the bones for cannon-stock, the scales for armour, the organs for their apothecaries." Ghost's voice was devoid of pity, just a cold statement of commercial fact.

Price’s jaw worked. "Orders haven't changed. We assess and contain. That dragon isn't a threat in its current state, but letting that lot carve it up for spare parts creates one hell of a different problem. Could be allied to a friendly power. Could be the only thing keeping something nastier out of these mountains." He handed Ghost a sealed scroll case. "Official writ from the Crown. We have authority to commandeer the situation and expel the charter from Crown territory. They won't like it."

"They can fuck right off," Ghost said, taking the case and securing it inside his coat.

"Our job is to make them see it that way. Peacefully, if possible." Price didn't sound hopeful. "Gaz and Soap are working their way around the northern ridge to flank them. We make contact with the creature first. See if it's lucid. See if it understands it's in danger."

Ghost looked back down at the massive, broken form. It looked less like a legendary beast and more like a piece of the landscape that was slowly dying. "And if it doesn't? Or if it decides we're just another set of pests with pikes?"

"Then we secure the perimeter and keep the scavengers at bay until it decides otherwise, or until it dies. Either way, that group doesn't get a single scale." Price stood, his knees cracking in the cold. "Come on. Let's get down there before they get brave."

Ghost pushed himself to his feet, giving Specter a quiet signal to stay and watch. The smaller black dragon tucked its wings in and settled, its blue eyes fixed on the mercenaries across the valley. Ghost checked the load in his wheellock pistol and the edge of his main-gauche dagger. He wasn't planning on a fight, but he was rarely disappointed when one started.

He and Price picked their way down the treacherous scree slope, moving with the silent, careful speed of men used to bad terrain. The air grew stiller in the valley bowl, the scent of pine sap and cold stone mixing with something else—a deep, musky smell, and beneath it, the faint, coppery hint of old blood.

They emerged from the tree line about a hundred yards from the dragon’s head. Up close, its size was staggering. The snapped wing bone was a jagged, ivory spike against the darker flesh. As they approached, the great head shifted slightly, a movement that displaced small stones. One enormous eye, clouded with pain, rotated to focus on them. A low, grinding rumble emanated from its chest, not a roar, but a vibration that Ghost felt in his boots. A warning, feeble but clear.

Ghost stopped, holding his hands away from his weapons, palms open. Price did the same beside him. "Easy now," Price called out, his voice calm and carrying. "We're not with the others. We're here to help."

Rain, thick and cold as a widow's tears, sheeted down on the muddy expanse before Traitor's Gate Fortress. The siege was a week old, a grinding, miserable affair of trebuchets, siege towers, and nightly sallies that stained the churned earth red. Ghost watched from a forward trench, water dripping from the brim of his helmet and the edge of his mask. The fortress, a hulking stone beast of the previous century, still held, but its banners were tattered and its walls scarred by fire and shot.

"Stalemate," Price growled, crouched beside him in the trench, his own face a map of grim lines. "Makarov's mercenaries have the numbers. We've the position. Bloody meat grinder."

"Cheery," Ghost murmured, his eyes scanning the enemy lines through the downpour. The Mercenary Guild—'Makarov's Wolves'—had dug in opposite them. Their camp was a disorderly sprawl of tents and temporary forges, but disciplined enough. They were waiting for something. A crack. A weakness.

A sudden, panicked horn blast tore from the mercenary camp, followed by another, then a chorus of them. Not the measured calls for assembly, but raw alarm. Across the field, figures began scrambling. A section of their western picket line—a tall palisade of sharpened logs—erupted inward in an explosion of splinters and shrieking timber.

"What in God's name…?" Price rose slightly, spyglass to his eye.

Soap and Gaz slithered into the trench beside them, mud coating their leathers. "They're nae attackin' us," Soap said, confusion clear in his voice. "They're formin' up away from the fort. Like somethin's hit their rear."

Ghost followed the line of the chaos. Through the rain and the veil of kicked-up mud and debris, he saw it. A shape, vast and dark, moving with a terrible, deliberate speed through the mercenary camp. It wasn't lumbering; it was carving a path. Tents were flattened not by weight, but by the sweeping force of a colossal tail. The distant screams were swallowed by a sound that wasn't a roar, but a deep, resonant thrum that Ghost felt in his ribs more than heard.

A ballista bolt, fired from a mercenary defensive platform, soared toward the shape. There was a flash—fire perhaps? Lightning? Hard to say from this distance.

"Bloody hell," Gaz breathed.

The mercenaries were reorienting with a frantic, disciplined fury. Trebuchets groaned as teams hurried to pivot them. Crossbowmen in heavier armor formed shield walls, aiming not at the fortress, but at the colossal new variable in their midst.

It was a dragon. A massive one whose form was currently tucked under a camouflaged awning.

Price lowered his spyglass, his expression unreadable. "Right. Change of plans. That thing just became the primary objective for everyone on this field. Makarov wants it dead. We need to know what it is, what it wants, and who it's going to side with." He looked at Ghost. "Take Soap. Get closer. Observe. Do not engage it. Do not engage the Wolves unless you have to. I want to know if that's a natural disaster or a potential ally."

Ghost gave a single, sharp nod. The calculations were already running. The dragon was a force of nature, currently dispensing its wrath on their enemies. That was good. But forces of nature were indiscriminate. It could turn on the fortress next. Or it could simply leave, rendering the momentary advantage pointless.

He looked at Soap. "You heard the man. Stay low, stay quiet. We're going for a walk in the park."

Soap grinned, a flash of white in his muddy face. "Aye, Lt. Just a wee stroll through a few hundred pissed-off sellswords and one very big, very angry lizard. Nae bother."

Ghost ignored the comment, his attention fixed on the distant, titanic form as it swung its head, demolishing a mercenary artillery emplacement with a single, devastating motion.

The air on the Sea-Wraith was perpetually wet, a clinging, salt-laden mist that seeped into leather and rusted steel. Ghost stood at the starboard rail, gloved hands resting on the worn wood as he stared into the unnatural calm. The Bristol Channel should have been a churning grey sprawl. Instead, it lay flat and dark as polished slate under a low, bruised sky. Unnaturally still. For the third day in a row, not a single sail broke the horizon.

Behind him, the ship was a hive of tense, quiet activity. Gaz and a few of the ship’s hands were checking the lines on the two small, reinforced longboats they’d brought. Soap was up near the bow with the ship’s master, the pair of them peering through a long glass at something on the water’s surface.

“Anything?” Ghost called out, his voice carrying easily in the dead air.

Soap lowered the glass and turned, his expression grim. “More wreckage. Cargo casks an’ splinters. Still no bodies. Still no sign o’ fire or cannon shot.”

That was the pattern. Ships entered this stretch of water and vanished. No storms. No battle debris. Just… silence, and then flotsam. The trade routes were strangled. Ports were starving. And Price had gotten the call.

Their Captain emerged from the companionway, his expression set in its usual weathered lines. He joined Ghost at the rail, following his lieutenant’s gaze into the gloom. “Gets to you, doesn’t it?” Price said quietly, lighting his pipe. The scent of tobacco was a welcome assault on the scent of damp and fear.

“It’s quiet,” Ghost replied, his tone flat.

“Too quiet,” Price agreed, exhaling a plume of smoke. “This isn’t piracy. It’s culling. Or territory marking.”

Gaz walked over, wiping his hands on a rag. “Longboats are ready, Captain. But if whatever’s down there can take a carrack, those’ll be kindling.”

“We’re not here to fight it, Sergeant,” Price said. “We’re here to talk. The Crown’s wizards are convinced it’s a guardian. A deepwater one. Takes issue with something the ships are carrying, or the routes they’re using.”

“So we just ask it nicely tae stop?” Soap said, joining the circle, his arms crossed.

“We ascertain its nature. Its intelligence. And we negotiate,” Price stated, his tone brooking no argument. “Ghost, you’re with me in the first boat. Soap, Gaz, you follow in the second. Maintain visual distance. No sudden movements. No weapons readied unless I give the order. This is a recon and parley. Understood?”

A chorus of “Aye, Captain,” and “Yes, sir,” answered him.

Ghost gave a single, sharp nod. A parley with a creature that could sink a ship without leaving a trace. He looked back at the dark water. It wasn’t the potential violence that set his teeth on edge—he knew how to deal with that. It was the unknown. The sheer, silent scale of what was beneath them, watching, waiting. It was a tactical nightmare.

“Let’s get this over with,” he muttered, pushing off the rail and heading toward the longboats where the crew was already beginning to lower them into the eerily placid sea.

The dip of the oars was the only sound, the rhythmic creak of wood and the soft splash breaking the oppressive silence. Ghost sat in the stern of the lead longboat, Price in the bow, the two of them flanking the ship's helmsman who held the rudder. The water was dark, deep, and clear enough that Ghost could see shapes drifting far below—pale, twisted things that might have been sunken timbers or the ribs of long-dead ships.

He kept his hands loose on his knees, but his eyes were constantly moving, scanning the surface, the horizon, the depths. His Caliver was within reach. The weight of his short sword was a familiar pressure against his hip.

"Steady as she goes," Price said, his voice low. He wasn't looking at the helmsman, but at a fixed point ahead where the water seemed even darker, a deep indigo pool against the slate grey.

Behind them, at a distance of about fifty yards, the second longboat followed. Ghost could make out Soap's mohawk and Gaz's focused posture. They were watching the flanks.

"Captain," he said, his voice a low rumble.

"I see it."

A shadow detached itself from the deeper gloom below. It was vast, sinuous, and moving with a liquid grace that belied its size. It wasn't surfacing directly under them, but gliding parallel, maybe twenty feet down.