Rikky took Zahrellion’s wet hand as they watched Crystal and Golden lay Jenka’s form across the higher field. Clover watched them, hoping to see some sign of hope light forth on their faces, but there was none. Clover saw that Linux was watching the poisoned water as it raced away toward the people of the kingdom. Not only had the dam failed, but they had failed, too. Clover sighed as she teleported to Jenka’s side.
Crimzon roared out in anger and Clover had her powerful teardrop in her hand and was using it to probe the terrible looking thing laying still before her. She had to choke back tears because, at that moment, she would have wagered that Jenka was dead, and she never lost a bet.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Rikky heard Linux, Zahrellion, and Aikira all at once. Aikira’s sad song separated itself from the jumble, and then the masculinity of Linux faded as well. “Go to the castle and get all the gold in that vault!” Zah was screaming. “Go, Rikky. Now! Take Crystal and Golden and get it all to Port.”
“I’ll go.” Linux shoved past Rikky and started toward Golden.
“I will give him cover, Zah.” Aikira said sadly. “I’m not fit for much else.”
“Ride Crystal then, Dou Master,” Zahrellion offered with a slight bow of respect that reminded Rikky that Linux was the one who’d trained her.
She looked at Rikky and tears welled in her lavender eyes. Instead of the embrace he half-expected, she turned and climbed up onto the shelf where Clover was attending Jenka.
Rikky let out a frustrated yell, summoned Silva, and then leapt out over open air where there had just been a huge lake. His fall only lasted a moment for his speedy wyrm was right there beneath him undulating her body downstream toward the swell of poisoned water. He could see the beginnings of the lake beyond it, and his heart shifted into his throat. Not only would he not be able to get there before the tainted flow, he had no idea how to stop it if he could.
He looked back to find Crimzon flying right above and behind him. The huge fire dragon had his eyes locked on something in front of them. Rikky looked ahead, following that line of sight, and then Silva was suddenly pulling up so hard that everything went fuzzy and Rikky’s head began to swim. He felt his dragon graze some field of force that felt as solid as a stone wall when they brushed against it.
Silva had to twist over backwards and dive away and gather her own wits to avoid the head-on collision.
Crimzon stalled his glide with two powerful wing strokes and hovered there.
Rikky saw that the water wasn’t flowing anymore. It was held back by an invisible wall he was still trying to wrap his mind around.
Watch thisss, Crimzon hissed, looking over his shoulder and indicating an area back upriver.
Rikky watched as the earth crumpled inward in a slowly moving line about three hundred paces west of the Strom River’s course. He’d seen such a thing before, when the elementals helped them destroy the alien shapeshifter in the Confliction, and he now understood the nature of the wall they had almost crashed into.
The gorge being forced into the ground was deep. It looked like some invisible ship was sailing across the land leaving a wake that that never flowed back together. Only a few dozen yards behind the head of the cut was the Strom River’s flow.
Rikky could only assume that the water was coming from a point upriver from where the poison had been introduced. He figured it out as the cut moved past the wall and entered the lake’s main body a good distance west of them. He realized then that the flow of the Strom was suddenly restored and the tainted water sectioned off.
Rikky wasn’t surprised when the earth behind the invisible wall began to build up into a substantial dam of rock and mud and boulders.
Knowing that they had saved the people eased his mind enough for him to remember that Jenka needed him, and Silva was already flying back in that direction.
He didn’t hesitate to snatch Clover’s teardrop right from her hands when he ran up and started his dive into Jenka’s anatomical essence.
The days turned into weeks as Richard spent his time flying over the mountains in the norther part of Vikaria. He relished the feeling of it, and when he first introduced Bruiser to elk meat, the wyrm, and his small pack of cronies, went crazy for it. Bruiser had never eaten anything but cave rats and other mudged, but the wyrms thoughts told Richard, in no articulate way, that it would serve him forever as long as he helped the dragon hunt for fresh red meat. In turn, Richard filled Bruiser’s mind with images of massive herds thundering through the valleys of the Mainland, and of the great feasts of moose and tungler bear that both Royal and the Nightshade had taken part in.
It wasn’t long before Richard started thinking about his new wife and the few nights they’d shared before his adventure began. He wanted to see her. After being alone so long, her touch had struck him deeply.
He had taken the vows, and as one of royal blood, one always kept them. Even in strange situations like this one.
His father had once said, “Honor, not relation, is what really separates royalty from the rest of the people. A butcher can live like a king if he has honor and so a king can live like a fool if he has none.”
“But you told me the other day that honor can be purchased. Are you saying that a position of royalty can be purchased, too?” Richard remembered asking the question as if it were just yesterday.
“If your Great Uncle Sholvig hadn’t given me those three ships last year, he would not be the Lord of Cut, but he has some honor, more than most.”
For a while, while Bruiser lazed in the sun digesting his latest meal, Richard stayed lost in that youthful era. As always, his mind took him back to Royal.
What is beyond the Confliction is unknown, the old blue dragon said into Richard’s mind. But there is something here not from this world and it must be removed. That is what the Confliction is ultimately about. After you have succeeded, you will have to make your own future, as will the other dragon riders who will come and fight with you.
You talk as if you know you won’t survive it. Richard formed his question as a statement, but Royal already knew his answer.
I will not survive it. I may not survive the wait for the others if you don’t quit making so much noise when you sneak back in at night.
Bruiser let loose a long slow fart that stunk so bad Richard had to get up and jog up wind before it left him unconscious. He took a few deep breaths and cleared the foul air and sat back down.
Was he honorable? Rikky Camille didn’t think so, for he’d killed Herald, but in Richard’s mind, he was avenging the death of Royal’s twin when he did the deed. Admittedly, it was coming a few decades late, but it was justice just the same.
Or was it?
Had he done such a thing out of spite, or jealousy, or just plain rage?
He decided he didn’t care.
“Honor to one man is treachery to another,” he recited a saying he’d read somewhere. After his father and mother had shown their lack of honor over how they treated his brother Jenka, he knew it to be true.
If he were Jenka, he would still be angry at having to grow up in a hut in the foothills while his real family ate roast pig with gold utensils on plates hand carved from coral.
Ssmores, Bruiser managed one of the only words he knew. The sated wyrm didn’t even budge or bat an eyelid as he thought about more food.
No, Bruiser, we are going to visit my wife and her father and see what kind of mess we can stir up, Richard sent the thoughts even though he knew the dragon didn’t understand them. It wasn’t Bruiser he was speaking to, though, it was a bright blue high dracus that was about to sacrifice his existence to save the same lot of humanity that chopped off his twin brothers head in a fighting pit.
To Richard, that was honor.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Clover left Rikky and called her dragon. The water sectioned out of the river’s course was now making a new stream that flowed shallow across the plains. Crimzon came back-flapping down, sending her s
trawberry hair across her teary-eyed face as she sniffled.
Zahrellion was there now, sobbing her love for her husband. Clover saw how this almost cost Rikky his concentration, and an understanding dawned on her then. She wondered about Jenka’s children and jealousy struck her like a whip crack. Jericho and Amelia would grow up with their mother, and her son had not. It only stung until Rikky brought his and Clover’s teardrops together and used them to locate Jenka’s dragon tear.
Right then, a deep green ray began to form between the teardrops, then the ray spread wide and enveloped Rikky, Jenka, and Zahrellion in a bright explosion of raw, lime colored Dour magic.
When Clover cleared her eyes and saw that Rikky had turned Jenka back into his natural form, she had to choke back a sob, for he was broken as bad as Aikira had been, if not worse. Then there was Jade. The young green scaled wyrm was conscious, but barely. Crimzon looked him over and nudged a place here and there, sending bright scarlet bursts of his powerful Dour into the broken emerald wyrm. Clover watched as Rikky gently pushed Zahrellion back and started bending and twisting his friend’s limbs and neck back into their normal position.
Rikky then hovered over his friend for a long while. A light yellow radiance was emanating from his hand as he worked his healing magic. Clover realized then that she had no real feelings for Jenka as a lover for they’d never done the deed.
Rikky loved Zahrellion, though, and once this was all finished, Clover decided she would help him get over his tormenting emotions. After all, Rikky wasn’t married and probably needed a lesson or two in love.
Only when Jenka heaved in a breath and Rikky stood and stumbled toward her, did Clover feel relief. The look on Rikky’s face showed that Jenka would live, but the youngest Dragoneer’s visage was one of pure rage and frustration.
“Let us find this wizard and give him his gold,” Rikky growled as he limped past her. His peg-leg looked to be paining him as much as his heart. “Jenka is poisoned and he will die without the full cure.”
“We should find Aikira and Linux and make a plan then.” Clover gave Zahrellion and Jenka one last look over her shoulder as she followed Rikky.
Zahrellion’s love for her husband was plain and Clover knew that Rikky was feeling it, too. She was relieved, but unsure why her instinct had been wrong about Jenka’s life.
“My teardrop,” she said before Rikky could get too far away. “The wizard has one, too.”
“I saw it dangling at his neck.” Rikky tossed her Dour laden jewel back to her and started climbing awkwardly onto his wyrm. “But where are we going to get a hundred chests of gold?”
“Let us worry about that, Rikky.” Clover shook her head. Crimzon raised up and turned to look at her. “A hundred chests of gold is not so much as you think,” she said as she started silently easing Crimzon’s sudden concern over his vast hoard.
Richard had designs to just fly Bruiser over King Chad’s castle and land his wyrm in one of the baileys, but he found a wyrm was there, and it didn’t look like the one the king had collared. Had they collared more than one wyrm? It also looked as if a new expedition was being outfitted near the front gates.
He saw a stack of dragon collars on the back of a wagon, maybe five of them, and was suddenly a little uneasy. There was a group of fit-looking men, and a crowd of others behind them, too. King Chad was speaking to them from the back of his wyrm. The others were just observing.
What was King Chad trying to do?
He thought about what he was seeing and decided that the man was going to try and collar a bunch of wyrms. There were already two he’d seen and maybe more.
Richard had another feeling, a feeling of a familiar power getting closer to him. His skin started tingling, his hair stood on end, and his mind told him that he needed to end King Chad’s rise before he gained too much power.
As Richard started diving his wyrm toward the other dragon in the baily, warning blasts sounded from the wall top. Richard wasn’t worried because he was far too high up to be hit with an arrow, and he doubted the king would harm him anyway, at least not in the open. He was the man’s son now.
Richard took a deep breath for he knew there was about to be a battle. The feeling he was getting was lifting his ire and pushing him to the point of rage. He could hear Gravelbone whispering encouragements in the back of his mind, and he wanted to do worse things than were being suggested. He still didn’t know why he was feeling such hatred for a man who had liberated him and given him his daughter, but he was.
Before the king and the group he was speaking to had a chance to react, Richard brought Bruiser down right on top of the crowd, leaving the men being spoken to between he and the king’s wyrm. He marveled at how much more powerful Bruiser looked than the king’s dragon. He wasn’t that much bigger, but he was clearly less mudged and nowhere near as stunted.
“...and here is my daughter’s love now, adding himself to our growing force.” The king said, welcoming Richard with open arms. “If you ride with me, you will feel the glory of victory over and over again!” King Chad’s voice rose as he spoke, and the uncertain men he was speaking to responded with nods and even a few cheers of agreement.
“Together, we will catch and collar as many dragons as we can.” The king paused for the voices of agreement that followed. “I will make my riders lords, once and for all! Then together, we will conquer the world! The Old World and the New!” The king met Richard’s eyes then, and he grinned manically, causing his dragon to roar. The gatherers stepped back again, but only until Bruiser let out a warning growl.
Richard was feeling that feeling again. It was like a storm was coming and it was going to be deliciously bloody. Then Bruiser sensed something in the sky and managed to pull Richard’s attention to it just long enough to stop his thought.
You’ve founds yourself agains. A voice as recognizable as any he’d ever heard spoke into his mind and he saw what Bruiser was seeing.
It was the Nightshade, and it was as thirsty for revenge as he was.
“There is a problem with your plan, King Chad.” Richard turned his attention back to the king.
The king’s eyes narrowed and he scowled. “What is it then?” The men between them grew nervous, for the tone in both of the kings’ voices was laced with venom.
“Your collars are no longer necessary, and you don’t have a dragon anymore.”
“What? He is right here you—”
Bruiser shot his long neck forward, right over the men between them, and snapped at the king’s mount behind the slower mudge’s head. The king’s wyrm tried to leap away and only managed to throw his rider to the ground, where he landed with a hard thump. King Chad’s wyrm fell limp beside him, and then the shadow of something big enough to chomp bruiser in half, and more evil than any of them save for Richard, came sliding over them all.
With the Nightshade, King Richard didn’t need collars to control all the mudged he’d discovered in the mountains. He didn’t even need riders. Richard laughed out triumphantly for the sky behind his old hell born mount was already filling with them.
The dragon king had risen and the Dragoneers were soon to pay for leaving him alone for so very long.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The strange wizard looked to be gloating as he stood atop three barrels of his cure on the deck of his ship. He was watching the Dragoneers and their dragons carry in chest after chest of gold and dump them into one of the three ships he had been granted by the frigid queen.
There were gold coins, jeweled necklaces and broaches, as well as platters, statues, and trinkets galore. But even all of that wasn’t the prize he was most fond of. The male collosal was in the hold of the third ship, and the remaining spell born female was in the hold of the ship he was on. It wouldn’t be long before he could breed an army of them. And with the artifacts he could purchase in Kar now, he would be able to speed up the process and modify the offspring to suit his needs.
“Or maybe to suit my greed,” he
said to himself with a chuckle.
They had delivered eighty-seven chests of valuables. Then the frost wyrm, with its even frostier rider, argued with his man while hovering over the treasure ship. Word came to the wizard that a statue worth easily thirteen chests full was having to be carried on sling ropes by all three of the dragons doing the work.
This intrigued the wizard, for something so heavy made from solid gold had to be amazing to behold. Since the other two ships were already heavily loaded, and he was a firm believer in not putting all the treasure on one ship, he had the dock men roll the three barrels full of cure ashore to make room for it.
It was a long while before the dragons were spotted flying in an awkwardly close formation carrying his glittering prize.
He began to salivate. It was a wondrous statue of a dragon, done in miniature. Only miniature to a dragon was still massive in size. When they tried to set it on the treasure ship, they were waved away. That was when the wizard saw that the dragon statue had a child sized rider on its back. She was fierce looking and he decided he would set this before his podium in the great hall of his order as a symbol of their victory here.
Soon, the hatches were open and the hold cleared so that the precious piece of art could be lowered in. Once the ropes were cut and the statue lashed firmly in place, the wizard waved up at the dragon riders and pointed to the barrels full of cure.
“Until we meet again,” he offered with a bow.
No one knew how long the sickness would take to manifest, but after having Jenka drink most of a barrel of the cure, he seemed fine. That is, beyond the normal aches and pains of having shapeshifted and been broken so badly. He took some time to spend with his wife and children and marveled at how different the two of them were. Amelia was super intelligent, but skittish, while Jericho was almost exactly how he had imagined his father when growing up without him.
Rise of the Dragon King (Book two of the Royalty Trilogy): 2017 Modernized Format (Dragoneers Saga 5) Page 11
