He saw how some tukhtaashes on the boats began to turn into dragons. "Tarragorad, take them all!" Edelmer cursed mentally, and aloud he just screamed.
Edelmer flew up to one boat and grabbed it with his claws, and then lifted it to a small height and dropped it, some tukhtaashes tried to cut his clawed paw with a sword, but they failed, and they fell into the water, the boat flipped over. Suddenly, one of the tukhtaash transformed to a dragon belched fire and lightly burned the feathers on Edelmer's tail, they burst into flames, but the northerner-argiphone instantly dipped part of his tail into the water, and then quickly gained altitude and flew up to assess the situation. Dragons took off from the ships too. And everyone flew towards him; he counted sixteen. All dragons were black, only with different stripes, white, orange, blue, red, purple and others. The dragons were slower than him and slightly smaller.
Edelmer realized that it was better to start with the ships, he flew to one ship and damaged the port side with his claws, breaking through the hull. And then he took off sharply, seeing a dragon on his tail, which did not dare to spew fire at his kin.
"That's right! Drown, bastards!" the northerner rejoiced. He could not forget Chathi and her death. The young woman had helped him in the Itskel-taash courtroom, and he felt guilty that he could not save her.
The snow-white, slightly scorched argiphone gained altitude again, but then one of the dragons, which flew behind a small cloud, now blazed from above with fire, that the argiphone barely managed to dodge. But Eder flew down onto another ship, and this time broke the mast first, dodged some of the fireballs and arrows and spears were thrown by the tukhtaashes. But one fireball scorched his feathers on the wing, and the feathers flashed slightly and for some reason immediately went out, leaving a dark spot. Eder tore the deck of the ship apart with his claws, and then flew off and pierced the side of the ship. At this moment, the dragon with orange stripes blazed with fire, but Eder dodged, and the fire hit the ship, and it went down.
Eder looked up into the sky and saw a dozen dragons waiting for his next run, and he decided to fly low over the water, toward the other ship. Three dragons were chasing him. Flying low was "clearly a bad idea" Argiphone maneuvered to avoid the streams of fire. Dragons hit the water and the water wetted Eder's plumage.
He decided to try a new type of attack and, with his eyes closed, went with his beak forward to the ship and crashed into the starboard side. The beak went headlong into the hold and Eder almost got stuck, he could not flap his wings at such a height, they sank under the water with a flap, and together with the ship, the argiphone began to sink. At this point, he began to transform back into a man. The wrecked ship flipped over. Eder transformed completely and was able to swim. Tukhtaashes swam nearby, clinging to the planks.
"Shatshay takshe ashnut," someone shouted and Eder saw that he was noticed, but he managed to dive when the fireball crashed into the water. He swam towards the shore. Dragons chased him.
"Come on, become a bird again!" The rather clear water of the ocean did not help him to remain unnoticed even at relative depth, and he knew that he can be killed easily. He remembered Chathi and concentrated, and he thought about his daughter and decided to go to the bottom so that he was less visible. And suddenly he felt a transformation when there was almost no air left, and at that moment five dragons were pouring fire, creating powerful splashes of water, into the area where he was a few seconds ago.
And after a few more seconds, a snow-white argiphone with a screech flew out of the water and rushed to the west. Five dragons followed him but soon gave up their pursuit.
He flew as fast as he could, realizing that he was risking his life alone enough because he has a daughter, a wife and a sister! Although he understood that maybe she was not his sister, but he feel affection for Lisandra.
He flew near the cold mountains, observing their greatness, and remembered how he had foolishly abandoned his family to try to find the missing inhabitants of his town, to learn some secrets of the Belt of Twilight, to stop the war... But the secret was in himself, he is a big snowy argiphone!