Read Crossroads 04 - The Dragon Isles for Free Online

white
forms raced beside the ship or danced in front of the bow. Trip climbed down
from the rigging and leaned over the gunwale to watch them. As they closed in
on their goal, though, the dolphins disappeared back into the deep.
                 Very
little debris floated on the surface as they drew near the wreckage. A single,
wide swath of planking bobbed on the ocean’s green-gray surface. Strapped atop
the wreckage, lay the prostrate body of a slender, beautiful woman. She was
clothed only in soaked gossamer fabric and delicate jewelry. Her long platinum
hair lay arrayed around her head like a sunburst, some of the delicate locks
trailing into the water. Her skin was as blue as the evening sky. Whether alive
or dead, none aboard Kingfisher could
tell from this distance.
                 “That’s
no wreckage,” Mik said, eyeing the castaway’s strange conveyance. “It’s a
raft.”
                 “Not
a very sturdy one either,” Trip added. He squinted his
hazel eyes and peered at the strange sight. The raft appeared to have been
cobbled together quickly from stray bits of wood the ship’s carpenter had lying
around. Very little craftsmanship was evident in its plank and rope
construction. The waterlogged deck was barely sufficient to keep its passenger
above the surface. “And why do you suppose she’s tied down?”
                 “To
weather yesterday’s storm, perhaps,” Karista suggested.
                 “She
couldn’t have tied herself like that,” Mik said.
                 “Maybe
someone stranded her like that for good reason,” Bok offered.
                 “Aye,”
agreed Pamak. “It’s a bad omen. We should abandon her to her fate.”
                 Mik
frowned at them. “Lower the ship’s boat and meet me at the raft,” he called to
the crew. He grabbed a full skin from near the water barrel and dived over the
side.
                 “I’m
coming, too,” Trip said, bounding over the rail after his friend.
                 The
captain and the kender swam quickly to the makeshift raft as Kingfisher’s crew unlashed the boat from
amidships and lowered it over the side.
                 Mik
and Trip reached the castaway quickly, and tread water at the raft’s perimeter.
“Scramble aboard and cut her ropes,” Mik said. “This flotsam won’t take my
weight.”
                 “Aye,
captain,” Trip replied. He pulled himself onto the small raft and began
severing the woman’s bonds with one of his pearl-handled daggers.
                 Mik
swam around near her head, careful not to topple her into the deep as he
skirted the perimeter of the rickety platform. The woman’s eyes were closed
tight and crusted over with dried salt. She didn’t move at all or make any
sound, and, at first, the captain thought they’d come too late.
                 As
Mik watched, though, he saw that her chest rose in a slow, shallow rhythm, and
a faint pulse throbbed in her smooth neck. “She’s alive,” he said. “Though not
for much longer if we hadn’t found her.”
                 “Good
thing I spotted her, then,” Trip replied. He finished cutting the last of the
victim’s bonds and slipped back into the water.
                 Mik
unstoppered the waterskin and poured a little over the blue-skinned woman’s
face, gently cleaning off the salty residue. She still didn’t stir, so he
dribbled a little onto her pale blue lips. Her tongue darted out and licked up
the moisture and her eyes flickered behind her eyelids; she didn’t wake,
though.
                 Just
then, the ship’s boat pulled alongside.
                 “Lift
her aboard,” Mik said to Marlian, standing in the skiff’s bow. “Gently.”
                 “Aye,
captain,” Marlian replied.
                 Mik
and Trip helped the crew