He saw the flash of an eye blink here, and a glimmer of scale there, but he knew there were more dragons than he could see. He didn’t care. Dying here was not much worse than dying on an island alone. In fact, it was a better end, and even though he probably could have played the coward and spent his life making children with his new wife, he was choosing to face his fate, to either rise or die, right here among the very beasts who ruined his humanity by making a simple life no longer worthy as an existence. Richard was a dragon rider, and he would ride again or he would die right here trying.
Just then, a blast of fire breath, far more potent than the mudged that attacked the king’s men, revealed that Richard was in a shaft that was lined with sleeping mudged. They were mostly horse-sized, but those were the ones that would pick a man apart. They were everywhere on the walls and ceiling, all hunkered down in their leathery wings.
The wyrm that had let loose the flames was watching him now. It could see his heat, he knew, and he could see its every scale with the monochromic gray-tinted sort of sight his spell allowed him. It was twice the size as the dragon King Chad was collaring that very moment, but it was not one, for it was as black as pitch.
A bit of illumination flickered ahead of him again. It wasn’t from any wavering flame either. It was lightning he saw, and his heart raced into an excited rhythm because of it. He glared at the half-attentive mudge projecting his will to be left alone, until it looked away. Only then did he move toward the lightning flash. It didn’t take long after that to find what he was looking for. The wyrm he wanted was in the process of eating another wyrm while defending its kill from a handful of smaller dragons.
Richard’s skin prickled when he saw the bright blue speckles down the dragon’s spinal line, and he was even more pleased at how deftly it took a bite of its meal and chugged it down while clawing and batting its competition away with its tail. Between bits, it blasted at any that got through with quick streaks of its liquid lightning breath.
Richard watched it and settled into a place between two rocky nubs. His wyrm would be sated soon, and he would sleep deeply. That is when he would make his move. Until then, he would lay there and be invisible and dream of what carnage was about to come.
Rikky was not having an easy time of it. He and Linux were afraid of doing anything that would cover or pin Jenka’s transformed body between their spell and the sides of the ravine he was blocking. The dam Jenka had created was holding back the Strom though, and the upriver side was getting deeper and deeper against their friend’s side.
“We have one more full day at best,” Linux observed after casting a spell that held firm support in the middle of the green-scaled span where the water was causing it to bulge. “After that, the river will find a way past us.”
We need to relieve the flow in the north, Zahrellion’s voice carried through the ethereal to them. Golden, go get your rider. She is too stubborn to stay put, and for undoing this mess, we will need her.
Yesss, the old gold scaled wyrm hissed with a bit of excitement in her tone.
But first, come help me, Zah said.
You’re here? Rikky’s heart raced. What do you need?
I need Golden and Silva to help Crystal place these boulders so we can make another dam above you. That should slow the flow and relieve the pressure against him.
You were always my best student. Linux nodded as he imagined what she was intending. Clever, clever girl. It never crossed my mind to use the dragons in such a way.
The dragons leapt into flight, leaving Rikky and Linux there.
“What will we do about the poisoned water?” Rikky asked. “We don’t have a hundred chests of gold.”
“If we can obtain some of the wizard’s inoculation, I think we can replicate it.” Linux made to stroke at his long thin beard. When his hand grasped air and found the stubble faced, beardless jaw of the guardsman whose body he had stolen, he shook his head and huffed in frustration. “But the water coming from the mountains is clean, and the water already in Demon Lake is clean as well. It is all this water we have to remove.”
Has it lessened any? Zahrellion asked them.
Rikky scanned the sky to the north of their position looking for any sign of Crystal’s white scales.
It is impossible to say, Linux answered as he looked intently at the reservoir building up north of Jenka. Wait, the water level isn’t rising nearly as quickly now. Look Rikky, are you seeing this?
It was true. They had made marks in the rocks on the water side of the dam and the river wasn’t rising nearly as quickly as it had been.
We only slowed the flow, Zahrellion said dejectedly. I hope Clover does whatever it is she is doing soon.
Rikky’s heart swelled when he saw them gliding along the newly created shoreline. Zahrellion was in her ivory battle armor and looked as beautiful and fierce as she ever had.
Oh no, Linux sighed beside him. Look.
The druid was pointing at a stream of water that had found a way through the lower part of Jenka’s selfmade structure.
Rikky didn’t know what to do. He looked back to Zahrellion and this time she was close enough for him to see that her expression was pained and he wondered where the rascals and baby Amelia were. Then Linux went to the leak and began casting a spell that would hopefully clog it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
King Chad lost six of his men, a dozen if you count his litter-men, to the big black dragon. He had it collared, though, and was wrestling its defiant will with all the inner strength he could muster. He hadn’t expected to share the dragon’s thoughts through the collar, and he was most relieved to find that the intensity of that sensation subsided somewhat when he wasn’t trying to stay mounted on the angry wyrm.
And the wyrm was angry. Blacky, as the king had started calling his prize, didn’t like losing her free will. She didn’t know what free will was, but not having it was causing her to shudder, and snarl, and lash out at people with her tail.
There came a point when King Chad had enough and he summoned the willpower to force the dragon’s head down. He suffered the intense conscious sharing, settled himself tight against its neck, and forced his wyrm to take flight. Once they were in the air, the dragon was too preoccupied to rebel against his thought commands. Soon, the wyrm was finding the human king’s curiosity a curiosity in itself. When the king urged the dragon to swoop low over a village and spit melon-sized fire balls at the thatch of a barn, the dragon began to respond with a bit more eagerness. Watching the yellow barrel keg sized balls of flame churn and slowly spin as they flew toward their target made King Chad’s blood tingle with excitement. Seeing the terror in the eyes of the people scrambling below made the dragon’s heart beat faster, too. Before long, they began to understand each other.
King Chad was pleased beyond words. He had expected to be trying to control some super intelligent thing that was more powerful than he, but this wyrm was starting to be compliant, eager even. When they sped across the rowed field of one crop or another, and she snatched a farmer right out of his plow wagon, the king let loose a roar. His mouth salivated as she landed, ripped apart her treat, and chugged it down in two separate pieces. He could taste the sweet blood and smell its coppery stench. He could feel the stuff sliding down his long gullet. As his guts began digesting the farmer, he felt tingles reaching down his long spine and out through his wings. A deep need for slumber came on.
“No!” King Chad yelled. “We’ve a bit more to do, Blacky, my love. Then we can sate your urge to feed and let you laze on the warm rocks near home.”
The dragon didn’t articulate a response. Chad wasn’t sure if he’d just nabbed a stupid wyrm, or if King Richard had been stretching the truth of it. He decided the latter was the case, for he’d never heard of dragons doing more than killing cows and attacking caravaneers and such.
What of King Richard, anyway? he thought. He no longer needed the boy. The kingdoms were forever tied by way of his daughter, who was, in fact
, the true Queen of the New World. Having that thought while Blacky lowered him into the very rocky pit he’d lured her out of, he decided that maybe he could create his own legion of Dragonites and put her on her throne properly.
Since he saw no sign of Richard, only a bloody stain a few dozen paces into the cave, he decided that it was his duty now to do so. Richard could be alive in there somewhere, but no one was going in after him to check.
With a confident smirk, King Chad urged his wyrm back up. The Gods were smiling on him this day. Not only had he collared a dragon, in one great imagining of a future, he had become the Dragon King. And he would buy enough dragon collars to outfit an army and take his daughter to the land of Dragoneers, relieve them of their station, and seat his daughter on her rightful throne.
Rikky couldn’t believe how well Aikira was healing. She was no longer swollen and her limbs were straight and bending in all the right places. The Outlander was moving stiffly and using a walking stick for support, but the staff went with her high-collared wizard cloak perfectly. Under the cloak, Rikky saw golden plate mail and knew she was struggling to function with the added weight strapped to her.
The two of them, along with Zahrellion and Linux, were standing below the dam Jenka and Jade formed, all wondering what they could do to strengthen the span or relieve their fellow Dragoneer and his wyrm. Golden, Silva, and Crystal were making a new boulder pile even further upriver, but the flow wasn’t subsiding. It was slowing a bit, but there was already so much water pressing against Jenka’s obstruction that they feared it would tear away from its anchors and fill Demon’s Lake with poisoned water.
Rikky wasn’t wearing armor, in fact, Rikky’s only suit of armor was ceremonial. He didn’t think it mattered much. Against trolls and goblins and antler-headed demons, protective clothing was necessary. Against dragons and wizards and beasts that could swallow you whole, it didn’t amount to much.
“Even if we somehow keep holding this back, we will have to buy some of the inoculation,” Zahrellion said. “The seepage alone,” she pointed at the trickle stream running between the base of the dam into the now muddy river bottom, “might pollute the lake.”
“I think Blaze or Crimzon could evaporate most of that,” Rikky said. He almost said that he wished March was there, but Aikira said it for him in a voice so small it was barely audible.
Rikky was overcome with unease, and even a little shame, over the jealous feelings he got when Zahrellion went and pressed her face against Jenka’s form. She spoke softly and soothingly, and it was clear to Rikky she still loved her husband. In that moment Rikky understood the wrongness of loving Zahrellion.
He dropped his head and looked at his scuffed up boots. He’d almost told her his feelings earlier, and he was now suddenly glad he hadn’t found the courage before.
Just then a loud cracking came from the edge of Jenka’s dam. Water erupted from a fist-sized hole, then another, then a crack crawled upward around where Jenka met the rock face.
“I can only hold it back for so long,” Linux screamed. “Do something to fortify it.”
“What do we do?” Rikky had no idea, but he knew that if the dam gave way, they would be washed away by poison. He put his arm around Aikira and helped her stay steady as they levitated up and out from behind the lake Jenka had formed.
Then rocks on the far side started cracking and coming loose. It was all Zahrellion could do to drag Linux out of the danger as the upper levels of water came pouring over the places where the rock was giving way.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Richard eased up on the sleeping mudge as if he were the shadow of a shadow. He had done this sort of thing before, back on the island, hunting for food. There were times when had to stand statue still and move so slow the fish couldn’t detect him. He didn’t rush, and he was rewarded for it.
The dragon rolled over and extended its long neck as if it were stretching in its sleep and Richard casually threw the collar from his shoulder to the dragon. His movement went from a crawl to a rush in a flash and he was fastening the buckle and giving commands before the wyrm was even fully awake.
He was thinking he would ride this wyrm deeper into the cavern and use it to find a purer blooded dracus, but this one turned out to have enough sense to balk when he tried. It was a lot bigger than he first estimated, too, and not nearly as crazed as some of the other mudged wyrms he’d encountered. He decided the gods had favored him with this one and climbed right onto its shoulders
He wanted to get into the air and feel the rush of the wind against him. His blood was electric with excitement. He had little trouble gaining the wyrm’s attention and subduing its will for he was experienced in dealing with mudged wyrms. It came as a surprise, though, when a few other, smaller, mudged followed them and responded with almost full compliance when he had his new mount order them around.
Dawn was breaking but no sun was shining down into the bottom of the cave pit yet. As Richard’s new dragon lifted them up into the glorious morning, he marveled over how long he had lived thinking these feelings of freedom and power were forever lost to him. He was feeling them now, and the dragon’s frustration and excitement over having been collared as well.
King Chad and his men had left him, but that was just as well.
Richard saw that his wyrm was less black than he’d first thought. It was a brownish-purple color, splattered with darker spots and splotches down its spine. The wyrm was ultimately the color of a flesh bruise, it even had areas of green and orange mixed with the brighter turquoise and the darker shades. Its wing membranes were so thin Richard could see through them.
Bruise, is a good enough name for you then. Richard said. What do you think, Royal? He looks like a Bruiser, right? The question is, is he royalty like us?
They shot up into the crisp sky and Richard found that the less he urged Bruiser, the more the wyrm responded. Soon, the dragon was but an extension of him. It knew his thoughts as he thought them and Richard’s experienced mind translated those thoughts for his mudged so that it didn’t have to think much on its own. Richard’s teeth were clenched and his mind raced with ideas of all the mayhem he could cause here in the New World, and even better, the mayhem he could cause back home. He wasn’t that sure this wyrm could make such a flight, though, and he didn’t know the teleportation spells that Golden and Aikira had mastered for those aggravating Dragoneers.
The thought of home reminded him that King Chad’s sorcerers were planning something shifty there. He didn’t know exactly what it was because King Chad was smart enough to keep most of his dealings secret, but he knew a trick or trap was being set, and that his brother and Zahrellion were predictable enough that they would probably fall for it.
Richard grinned at one of the lesser mudged that was following them, a yellow speckled wyrm about the size of a horse, as it swept by. The other henchwyrms were dog-sized and albinoish. They had a natural pale color that shimmered like dull gold in the sun.
The larger one looked as if someone had slung fresh scarlet blood down its spinal line. To confirm its tainted lineage, a puff of smoke shot forth and swept back past its head as the wyrm curved and flew around them curiously.
Richard spent most of the morning just enjoying the sky and the world. He was scheming in the back of his mind, but the moment was too powerful to be set aside. He was free again. He was a dragon rider again, and the mudged he had collared was strong and compliant enough to serve him well. He would decide what to do when the thrill of newfound freedom wore off. Until then, he was going to absorb the world and know that, even with all the delicious pain and agony he felt, there was still room for something so base and primal as elation.
Crimzon and Clover were worn to the ends of their frayed sanity. They had gone deep into the earth so that Crimzon could summon aid. It had been no easy trek, for the deep cavern was narrow in places, and the huge dragon was forced to shimmy through. This was a deed that only he could do, though, and Clover chose to g
o with him.
It is nice feeling young again, Clover said at one point. I wonder if the water from that fountain would maintain its power in a jug?
The story I wasss told, that caused me to take you theresss, was of a birdss that carried the waterss to a wizard.
Hmmm.
Once they found the place the fire drake was looking, Clover stayed in her saddle and didn’t say a word.
Crimzon called out for what may have been only hours, but might have been a full day, for once his chant gained its rhythm, the world around them began to swim. Then a presence of power so potent that it made Clover’s skin prickle and her hair stand on end, eased into their proximity.
The conversation was beyond her, but the response was to Crimzon’s liking. Now, they were racing to the dam site, Clover on Crimzon’s back, the elementals straight through the earth. As they passed through the narrower sections this time, they opened wide enough on their own and the dragon never had to slow.
When Clover saw what was transpiring near the river, how the dam was giving way, her heart fell. Jenka’s new form was being twisted and folded in on itself as water poured over the top. Even as they swooped down to help Zahrellion and Linux up to the higher ground Rikky and Aikira had found, the whole of Jenka’s dam came loose and the tainted water went rushing through the gulch toward the lake’s now dwindling, headwaters.
Clover had Crimzon set Zahrellion and Linux down and saw that Golden and Crystal were already latching onto what was once their beloved Jenka. There were bloody places, tears and breaks, and even elongated protrusions of bone and tendon visible where the force of all that water had broken him. Clover nor her wyrm could find his head or mouth and the dragons carrying him didn’t want to lay him across the ground wrong and suffocate him. Then the idea that he might have long been drowned assailed Clover, and that part of her that loved him deeply, the part of her that longed for him, went into a panic.
Rise of the Dragon King (Book two of the Royalty Trilogy): 2017 Modernized Format (Dragoneers Saga 5) Page 10
