They had tracked the bandits that had killed Solman to a small cottage in a lightly-wooded valley. It was a good distance from the clay pits, but in the same general area. They were watching now from a rocky precipice above the tree line, as the Goblin King sat atop his dragon before the shake-roofed cottage. With a series of barking growls, the Goblin King ordered a pair of orc. They, in turn, called out orders, and a pack of trolls began to decimate the place. The dragon helped by belching forth a long, thick jet of flame that started the roof blazing. Men came running out with swords and crossbows, but they were quickly set upon.
Even though those murderous bandits had killed Solman, and had probably robbed a half a hundred caravans, Master Kember still felt sickened when the trolls bore down on them. Though they were bad men, they were still human. He wished greatly that the horses weren’t so far away; they had left them about a mile back by a pond near an orchard. He didn’t want to be where he was any longer.
Rikky, on the other hand, was urging the trolls silently on as they tore apart, and then fed on the flesh of the men who had killed Sol. He was concerned about the strange scale-less dragon, though. It was as big as the one that had swooped on Jenka and Zah, and Rikky wanted no part of it, nor of the evil thing riding it. Now that Sol’s revenge was being dealt, he found that he really didn’t care about sticking around. Still, he held strong and did as Master Kember ordered him to do. To Rikky, it wasn’t about what he wanted any more, it was about pleasing the man who sometimes called him son.
A scouting troll saw them huddled there, peering raptly down at the scene. It eased up behind them with relative ease. It was as startled as Rikky was when he turned and saw it. Both of them screamed out instinctually, but it was Master Kember who took the blow from the heavy stone the big dog-eared beast had thrown. Rikky heard the sickening crunch of bone beside him, and turned away from the troll to see Master Kember’s head cracked wide open like a grayish-yellow egg. The crippled old hunter's good leg began thumping hard in the dirt, as if it were trying to run somewhere on its own. But there was no light left in his eyes. A rage came over Rikky then. He loosed a bolt from the crossbow he was carrying, just before he threw it aside and charged. His dagger came out, as the troll grabbed at the fletching protruding from its chest. It couldn’t defend itself when Rikky came slashing in, low at its groin and thighs. The troll bellowed out loudly to warn its pack mates, and Rikky heard the thumping of the dragon’s huge wings as it took flight to investigate.
Rikky didn’t hesitate. He ducked away from the mortally-wounded troll and started running for what little cover was available to him. He wanted to head toward the horses, but he was afraid that the dragon might see them from above and kill them before he could get there. He couldn’t believe that Master Kember had died like that, and hot, salty tears were threatening to blur his vision because of it. It was surreal. But he knew what he had seen. The image would be burned in his head for however long he survived this madness, which at the moment seemed like it might only be minutes. He had seen a good deal of the stuff that was supposed to be filling Master Kember’s gourd lying on the man’s shoulder, and a pinkish-gray lump of what was left of his forehead dangling over his face by a piece of hairy skin. The whole crown of his skull had been smashed back into the boulder behind him.
Had he not been fleeing for his very life, Rikky would have been curled up, heaving vomit from his guts, but his instinct to flee and survive was driving him now, and there was no time for that.
Behind him, he heard something, most likely a troll, crashing through the sparsely-spread forest after him. He didn’t turn back, and he didn’t run toward the horses, but he ran. He ran as fast as his young legs could carry him through the denser copses, and he shot like a fleeing lizard across the revealing spaces that opened up between them. He heard trolls coming at him from the side, like they were trying to flank him, but he cut the other way and was just starting to think he had thrown them off when the dragon roared out above him.
Rikky looked up to see the Goblin King looking at him through the branches. The mighty black dragon was gliding around to make another pass. He tried to run left, but immediately changed direction when a troll came loping out of the trees ahead of him. He turned the other way and ran smack into a smaller, gray-skinned creature that had stepped out from behind the trees. It was a goblin, or maybe a young orc. Rikky had seen neither creature before so he couldn’t say for certain. Whatever it was, its snarling mouth, full of needle-sharp teeth, was snapping at Rikky’s crotch as its razor-sharp claws began tearing savagely into his arms and chest. Beyond the little creature that was determined to shred him to ribbons, Rikky saw two tall lanky trolls; one with its bright, pink tongue lolling out the side of its mouth as it came charging in at him. He tried to turn and flee the other way, but he fell hard to the ground. The wind was knocked from his heaving chest. He felt claws and teeth tearing into his legs and spine as the haze of oxygen deprivation began to cloud his brain. The last thing he remembered, before blackness completely engulfed him. was his body jerking and wracking, trying to gasp in one last breath of air.
Chapter Nine
Zahrellion led Jenka beyond the limits of the city at a brisk, steady trot. She had studied a map of where she intended to go and went about getting there with confidence. Jenka had no idea that she was as nervous as he was. They rode south and left the main road, moving west, riding out past most of the outlying ranches and huts on a rutted dirt track, similar to the one they had taken out of Crag.
At the moment, they were moving through a stretch of marshy, overgrown field that lay just north of the first of the three river forks that gave the town its name. The moon was a sliver of silver, low in the cobalt sky, and the stars were out in abundance. The earlier rain had freshened the cool air, but the precipitation had left the ground soggy and soft. It was slow going for the horses. They were also out in the open, and that had Jenka nervous. At least once, he thought he had seen part of the sky being eclipsed by something gigantic flying swiftly overhead.
Zah explained that a smaller bird or bat flying lower in the sky would have the same visual effect, and Jenka dubiously contemplated that concept while they rode.
About half a mile away, on a rise to the south, a caravan or a wagon-train was encamped by the river fork. The banter and song from the great distance, and the lights from their bonfires only served to make the area around their destination; the huge, whitish-gray up thrust of rock that Zah was leading them toward, seemed that much more dark and secluded. Which turned out to be a good thing, for it was no lump of rock that they were approaching. The thing was suddenly moving, causing Jenka to tremble with both awe and fear. Millions of shimmering scales reflected the starlight from the sky. It was like watching a slithering mound of diamonds shifting and worming on a black silk cloth. The slithery creature’s scales were a pearlescent white, each the size of a small child’s palm. The dragon was as big as a barn, and its great, toothy maw came looming in at Zahrellion so fast that Jenka’s horse nearly threw him, as it tried to shake its bridle and flee.
“It’s all right!” Zah called over the dragon’s heavy intake of breath. Her own words came out of her mouth in a cloud of steam, for the dragon’s breath was as frigid as the high mountain air. “This is Crystal. She is my friend. She is the one that told me of your bonding. That’s the reason why I offered the King’s Rangers my services the night the rangers killed that young mudge. It was so that I could meet you.”
Whether it was just a natural sound that a dragon sometimes makes, or a reaction to the term mudge, Jenka couldn’t say, but after Zah had spoken the word, Crystal hissed like a scalded cat and withdrew her head. She rose up high, fluttering her wings wide into a more dominant posturing. Her leathery wings were a shimmering grayish-white. Jenka could imagine them wrapped around her body, blending her perfectly into a snow-capped peak like some long-frozen stone.
Jenka’s horse was trembling violently beneath him. He wasn’t s
ure he would be able to keep it from bolting much longer. Nor was he sure he wanted to, because as beautiful as Crystal was, she could still snatch them both in a single bite.
“I see that you have mastered the Summoning,” Crystal said, more into Zah and Jenka’s mind than aloud. Her voice was low, but decidedly feminine, which went well with her big, glacial-blue, vertically-slitted eyes. “You must teach it to the boy. Not so long from now, his bondling will be ready to leave its nest and join us. But for now, it cannot.”
“I will,” Zah sighed to clear her mind, and tried to gather herself. Though she had spoken like this to Crystal several times, and had even ridden her once, being this close to the mighty creature still thrilled her to the core. She had to concentrate to keep from forgetting the questions she needed to ask. “Is there really a Goblin King riding around on a big black mudge?”
“Yessss,” Crystal hissed. “It is the evil force I told you about before, but it is no goblinkin, and it is no mudged dracus that it rides either. It is the demon Gravelbone who has come, and the hellborn beast he commands is not a dragon, but a nightshade. They are weak now, but they are gaining strength with every bit of fear and anguish they instill. Gravelbone has returned for vengeance. He is not the only dark thing that has awakened, but for the time being he is the one who concerns us.”
Crystal slithered down into a curled position, where her head came to rest on her foreclaws. “Gravelbone will lead the goblinkin and the mudge against you. The mountains are infested with the lesser of the vermin, and they number beyond count. Worse, they are simple-minded and easily riled into action. The goblin hordes, when they come, will charge, blindly and willingly, headlong into death, for Gravelbone. They will try to consume everything in their path that their bodies will digest. The orc think a little more, but are twice as terrible. They will fight with their kin against you. Without our help, man will not survive here.” She flicked her purple tongue forth and tasted her surroundings. Her breath wafted across the humans like a gust of frigid air. “Thisss demon won’t stop at the mainland, either. If he succeeds in driving you that far back, then he will attempt to vanquish your islands as well.”
“You said, 'without our help,'” Jenka asked the dragon cautiously. “Whose help, exactly?”
Zah was drawn toward Jenka’s boldness. It was no easy thing to speak to a dragon. Jenka had done so directly. She weighed his question and judged it not too ignorant or offensive. She realized then that it was a very good question. She listened intently to Crystal for her answer.
“There should be five when the Time of Confliction is upon us, and five of you as well, but that terrible dilemma will never come to pass if we let Gravelbone keep his head. Here, in this land, at this time, there are only three High Dracus that have felt the calling. One of us is too infantile yet to be of much help. The other has bonded with the hope of your people’s future, but the strength of that tie is tenuous at best. You will meet him very soon, but his drake has bade me not to expose his identity, and I know that is for the best.”
“Are we still supposed to try and get King Blanchard to unite with you? I don’t understand.” Zah looked a bit let down. “I thought that there were hundreds of you that were going to help us, dozens at least. King Blanchard will not make a pact with just three dragons, will he?”
“Ahh, my full-hearted girl! It isn’t whether you succeed in convincing him to join us, but that you convince him that the possibility of peace between man and dragon exists. We are all pawns in a fairly grand design, and don’t be surprised if you have to pay a price for your convictions. Remember what we have discussed before, yesssss? Faith, yesss? Trussst and faith in one another, and the hope that we can forge a peace for the future.”
Jenka got the feeling that the glorious dragon was manipulating Zahrellion more than just a little bit. Sort of like how she sometimes manipulated him. The circumstances took on a new light, and doubt about Zah’s assessment of the situation began to creep into Jenka’s mind.
The dragon must have sensed Jenka’s uncertainty, for it loomed its big head over and captured him in that deep, liquid-blue gaze. Veins of scarlet and gold pulsed and throbbed like lightning flashes in a tempest through the dragon’s glacial orbs. They were as big around as pumpkins, and inside their depths, slitted pupils focused down to a sliver. Above the eyes, terrifying brow plates, as long as a man’s arm, narrowed under milky, clear, icicle-like spiked horns. The big snow wyrm’s breath was freezing cold, and Jenka began to shiver, as did his horse.
“Jade will wean himself soon, clever boy. Then you will have your hands full, I assure you. When time gifts you in abundance, which I think it soon will, do not waste it. Learn from Zahrellion, find your magic, and soon your bonding, and ours, will be completed.”
Jenka’s doubt evaporated, as visions of soaring through the skies riding Jade’s sleek turquoise and emerald scaled back filled his mind’s eye. Beside him, Zah, on Crystal, and another unidentifiable person riding a richly colored blue wyrm, banked and curved through the sky as they flew toward the shimmering, orange evening horizon. Ahead of them, Jenka saw the silhouette of an impossibly tall castle thrusting up out of the sharp mountain peaks. He knew that it was his future home that he was looking at, and that fact simply made the vision all the more compelling. When would this come to pass? He wondered to himself, Is it really my future to live this?
“Yessss, Jenka De Swasso,” Crystal hissed out loud her response to the question Jenka had asked solely within his mind. She then rose to her haunches and leapt into the starry sky. She threw out her wings with a snap, and a few deep thumping wing beats later, she was gone.
Rikky felt the claws and teeth that had been tearing at him turn loose, and he half-crawled half-hopped as fast and far away from the little goblin as he could, which wasn’t very far. His left leg felt horribly wrong. Suddenly, men were thundering in from everywhere on horseback with flaming brands held high. They were shooting arrows with bows and crossbows, and calling out to one another urgently. A few of them wore the blue star of the King’s Rangers, others the red shield of the Walguard. Some sported the Kingsmen’s spread-winged hawk. Rikky didn’t care who they were. He was just glad they were there, and that he was no longer being torn apart. The wounds he had taken began to burn intensely. Afraid to look down at himself, he gauged the eyes of one of the Kingsmen as they rode past and looked at him. Not seeing any shock or disgust in the man’s face, he chanced a glace and immediately wished that he hadn’t. The lower portion of his left leg was virtually meatless, leaving his shin bone completely exposed. Shock overtook him then, and everything disappeared from his mind completely.
He woke after a while and opened his eyes to find that he was tied like a grain sack over someone’s horse. For a moment, there was no sensation other than the jarring and bouncing of the galloping animal, and the sound of terrified calls of hardened men tactfully fleeing from something. Then the pain came again. Everything went blood red in Rikky’s mind, and it seemed like he might actually die from the raw agony he was feeling. An explosion of hot, sticky gore burst from his guts up through his throat, splattering down across the rump of the animal he was tied to. After that, unconsciousness mercifully took him under again.
Later, Rikky opened his eyes to find that it was morning. He was lying down under a wild-limbed oak tree beside a pair of curious looking Kingsmen.
“I think he’s coming out of it,” one of the two men said to the other.
“Ask him, then,” the darker-haired man urged his companion. “Ask him if he seen it, too.”
“Did you see it?” the other man asked stupidly. “Did you see the horn-headed troll on the dragon?”
“Aye, I did,” Rikky rasped. “I’m gonna kill that bastard.”
“Ha!” the darker-headed man laughed. “Kill that, will ya? I doubt you’ll survive the night, boy. And even if ya do, there’s no doubt you’ll lose that leg.” Then to his companion, “I told you we wasn’t seeing things. Lets�
� try and keep him alive till we get back to Three Forks so that Commander Corda can hear his bit of the tale, too. He was one of the ones we was sent after, I think.”
“Wasn’t you riding with that crippled ranger? Kember?” the lighter-haired Kingsman asked.
“Aye,” Rikky grunted. The pain was becoming too intense to bear, but he gritted it back and went on. “A troll bashed his head in. It snuck up on us while we was watching that big black Wyrm.”
Rikky wanted to get to Three Forks badly. He had to tell Jenka about what had happened to Master Kember. He was fever-stricken, and he wanted to scream out in agony and cry until his tears ran dry over the loss of Master Kember, but he wouldn’t show his emotion to these men he didn’t know. He was afraid. He didn’t have any kin save for his mother. He didn’t want to lose his leg, and he wanted the pain that gripped his body like an ever-tightening vice to go away. But more than any of that, he wanted to survive. He had to survive. How else could he avenge Master Kember’s death and kill the Goblin King?
Chapter Ten
By the time Zahrellion and Jenka made it back into Three Forks Stronghold, it was nearly time for the group to rise and prepare for the day’s journey. No one had questioned their absence during the evening, save for Herald, who had readily believed the tale Linux had told him. Jenka had just shut his eyes when Herald tapped on the door to Linux' room to wake them.
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