The half-ore narrowed his eyes and turned back to the dragon, still being dragged along by the harpoon lines.

The wyrm had curled into the shape of a horseshoe, with both its head and tail pointing away from the Storm

Sprite. Its wings were fluttering so slowly and sporadi- cally they could barely keep it aloft, while its serpentine body shuddered with erratic convulsions.

"My pebbles have not stopped moving," Ruha explained. "They are flying about within the wyrm, tear- ing it apart from the inside."

"A quick kill would've been better," Fowler grunted.

The captain kept his gaze fixed on the dragon, as though he would not be satisfied until the thing dropped into the sea and sank out of sight. Behind the serpent, the battered caravel was lumbering away, rolling wildly from side-to-side as her crew struggled to bring her under control. Atop the stern, Ruha saw twenty men standing amidst the wreckage, some holding lanterns while the rest waved amulets and talismans at the Storm Sprite.

"That seems a strange custom. Captain Fowler." Ruha pointed at the men on the caravel's stern. "What does it mean?"

Fowler shrugged, barely glancing at the display. "Who can tell? She's a foreign ship. They're probably telling us to mind our own business."

A tarnished scale fluttered off the dragon's back, fol- lowed by the spiraling blue streak of a pebble. Ruha watched closely for more such flashes, as they indicated the tiny rocks had demolished the internal organs and were beginning to find their way out of the body. A sec- ond stone shot from the wyrm, then a third and a fourth, and still the serpent trembled and convulsed but some- how kept from falling into the sea.

Ruha scowled. Most victims were dead by the time four stones left their bodies.

Captain Fowler must have seen her brow furrow. "How long's it going to take that wyrm to die?"

"It is a big dragon. Captain."

Another pebble escaped the serpent's body and sph- raled away into the heavens, and Fowler cast an impa- tient glance toward the departing caravel.