The luxury of being with them didn’t last long, for the Dragoneers were not done with the wizard just yet.
“Watch them well, Linux,” Zahrellion said as she buckled her ivory breast plate over her shoulders and took up her staff. “Jenka, you should stay. Clover and I will handle this, and Rikky will give us cover.”
“How about Rikky handles this and the rest of you stay here and eat cheese and drink wine.”
“How many times do I have to tell you to never underestimate a wizard, Rikky.” This came from Clover. Who was always dressed for battle.
“Do you think they are far enough away?” Jenka asked. He had no intention of staying behind for this one. He was as eager as the others, but he didn’t want them to be hasty.
“Far enough,” Rikky said.
“I agree,” Zahrellion added.
“Well let’s be done with him then.”
The wizard heard the men in the rigging calling out their warnings but wasn’t alarmed. He had expected such a feeble trick as for them to pour the cure into the lake and attack his group at sea.
“Foolish is as foolish does.” He laughed aloud when he saw them coming.
In an attempt to avoid losing any of his treasure, he cast his enlarging illusion so that the approaching dragons and their riders could see and hear him well.
“Until I speak the word,” the wizard’s huge visage boomed, “the word that completes the spell I cast on the curative waters, it will not activate.” He stroked his tangled beard and chuckled. “Even now, your people will start to feel the sickness. Soon it will show with pocks and festers on their skin.”
He crossed his arms across his chest smugly. “If you stop my ships, your people will never be cured.”
“Our people never drank the poison, dimbuss,” Rikky shot back.
And for the first time, the wizard wondered if he was still the one in control of the situation.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Richard left King Chad enough pride to rule his people, but he made it clear that he was the new power. In the months to come, he rode the Nightshade and made maps and battle plans while the Nightshade gathered his army. He wasn’t sure when he would attempt to take back his rightful throne, or how he would get all the mudged across the sea, but he knew it wouldn’t be long.
His new wife made it clear that she loved him even more for putting her father in his place. She took a firm hold over the political situations that Richard had no time to deal with, and she began to rule the kingdom that was once her father’s. She was as eager as he was to reclaim the New World for their own and she tactfully started gearing the entire populace toward preparing for Richard’s war.
Bruiser wasn’t cast aside. He often flew alongside Richard and the Nightshade and would only allow Richard to mount. Bruiser turned out to be stronger and wiser than Richard expected and keeping the wyrm around gave him a sense of security, for if the Nightshade disappeared again, he wouldn’t be without a wyrm to ride.
Richard gave Baru, Dinaqu, and Kovin wyrms, but no one else was allowed to ride. He gave his three henchmen collars and amulets, for they didn’t have the control he did through the Nightshade, and he sent them to gather information and to purchase spells and artifacts that would help them win the coming war. Richard was no fool. He knew the Dragoneers were capable, but he also knew they wouldn’t be expecting him.
The rise of the Dragon King was complete and all that was needed now was the proper kingdom to reign over.
I told you to never underestimate a wizard, Clover told Rikky, Zahrellion, and Jenka, who were flying toward the wizard’s enlarged form in a loose formation.
Doubtful, Silva told him in a way that kept him from getting his hopes up.
Say the word Jenk, Rikky said. Let Aikira loose.
Sssavesss the treasuress shipsss, Crimzon roared into their heads. Do not let it sink.
Just then, Jenka sang out the word Aikira had taught him.
“What do you mean your people didn’t drink the poison?” The wizard growled, his expression showing his sudden unease. The look on his face went even wilder when the ship he was standing on came bursting apart under his feet. What was just a slow rolling wooden structure was now an undulating golden scaled creature with an ebon-skinned rider on its back.
The wizard stopped his enlargement spell instantly and was standing on the deck of the ship that held his two colossals. He sent a ray of arcane force up at the Dragoneers and it grew in size as it threatened to envelop them.
The Dragoneers and Clover broke their formation then, all of them going in separate directions. And then each of them, save for Crimzon and Clover, attacked the wizard’s chosen vessel all at once.
Rikky let Silva spew forth her molten pewter breath and watched as Crimzon banked around and started a long slow glide just over the wave tops.
When they had devised the plan to give the wizard the treasure and sneak Aikira and her wyrm aboard his ship as a miniature statue, they had picked the ships specifically for what was about to happen.
Had the wizard allowed Golden’s statue to be loaded on the treasure ship it would have floundered, and they knew the colossals weighed as much as all the gold. His was the only ship that could carry it. But it was the treasure ship that had been handpicked by Clover and her giant wyrm.
Rikky marveled at the way the Grimweilders aboard the treasure ship started knifing the wizard’s underlings as they watched in awe. Then the sails fell and two huge ropes were pulled taught from the bow and stern up to the mainmast. When Crimzon came skimming over it, he latched his claws onto the ropes and was almost forced head first into the sea, for the ship was so heavy.
A cloud of steam erupted where the water touched the fire wyrm’s scales and the great red dragon let out a roar.
Silva was forced to dodge a streaking scarlet burst of energy coming from one of the lesser wizards below, but Rikky looked down to see, first Golden, and then Aikira sweep over the craft, and then Jenka and Jade followed.
The wizard disappeared and that ship started breaking apart, too. The colossals were going mad and, within minutes, they were free of the wreckage they had created and swimming off in the same direction.
Rikky looked back at Crimzon then, and was elated to see that Crimzon had lifted the ship out of the water and was starting to fly toward home.
Where did he go? Aikira asked into the ethereal.
I didn’t see, Rikky had to admit, but he is gone and I’d bet he won’t return.
I will say it one more time, Rikky Camille, Clover said. Never underestimate a wizard. Any wizard. Ever.
Jenka, Zahrellion, and Aikira all left for the Leif Repline fountain by way of Aikira’s portal spells. But Rikky and Clover stayed behind.
Clover allowed him to see Crimzon’s full hoard and help return it all to order. Then she proceeded to remove any trace of his desire for Zahrellion with all her relentless vigor. It worked, too, because by the time the other Dragoneers returned, Rikky found he was smitten with the younger looking, but older minded woman.
Clover, in turn, delighted that Rikky might be faster than the rest of them on his dragon, but in her bed, he was never in a hurry.
Jenka felt the power of the fountain’s water try and erase the taint of the alien that had made him so much more powerful than the rest of humanity, but it couldn’t because that had become a part of him. The wizard’s poison was cleansed from him and Jade though, and he learned a great deal from the ghost of a talkative drunken dwarf, but more importantly, he had found Zahrellion’s heart again, and he was determined not to lose it this time.
About the Author
There are few writers in the genre of fantasy that can equal the creative mind of M.R. Mathias – now acknowledged as a master in this genre of dragons and dwarves, and magic, and spells, and all aspects of fantasy. — Top 100, Hall of Fame, Vine Voice, Book Reviewer, Grady Harp
M. R. Mathias is the multiple award winning author of the huge, #1 Bestsel
ling, epic, The Wardstone Trilogy, as well as the #1 Bestselling Dragoneer Saga, the #1 Bestselling The Legend of Vanx Malic fantasy adventure series, and the #1 Bestselling Crimzon & Clover Short Short Series.
You can find M. R. Mathias at DragonCon every year. Just look for the #Wardstone Dragon Car. Book signings, and booth appearances will be listed in advance, on the blog.
Use these series hashtags on twitter to find maps, cover art, sales, giveaways, book reviews, upcoming releases, and contest information:
#Wardstone – #DragoneerSaga – #VanxMalic – #MRMathias
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
About the Author
Rise of the Dragon King (Book two of the Royalty Trilogy): 2017 Modernized Format (Dragoneers Saga 5) Page 12
