Chapter 3 - Smoke Over the Roost
""Run to the cavern!"" Rowan yelled, ushering Lumi and Zephyr toward the narrow fissure behind the roost where the dreadnought’s weapons could not reach. Sylva gathered the deep air in her lungs, her chest glowing with iridescent heat, and exhaled a blinding vortex of steam and pearl-white flame across the waters below. The blistering cloud swallowed the bay, momentarily blinding the ironclad ships and burning the trailing ropes of the ballista volleys into ash.
Yet the commanders of the Citadel were prepared for dragon breath. From the depths of the fleet, a mechanical hum resonated across the water. Bellows pumped black alchemical pitch onto catapult cradles, hurling pots of liquid shadow straight into the mist. When the canisters struck the cliffside, they burst not into flame, but into a suffocating, tar-like sludge that extinguished Sylva’s flame and hardened rapidly upon contact.
Sylva lashed her tail, smashing a shower of loose rock down onto the sea, but her left hind leg and wounded wing were caught beneath the rapidly congealing resin. Rowan snatched up an old iron pry-bar left behind by shipwreck salvagers, beating frantically against the hardened resin trapping her scales. ""I won't leave you! I won't let them take you!"" he sobbed, his small palms tearing against the sharp stone. Sylva nudged him toward the crack, but Rowan refused to budge. Beneath them, the sound of grappling hooks caught on the lip of the lower terrace, followed by the clanking of iron boots scaling the cliff.
