Cold Hearted Son of a Witch (Dragoneers Saga)

by M. R. Mathias

  “You and you, go out there and fetch the witch,” Lanxe ordered a pair of the blue-robed druids who were waiting in the opulent chamber they’d just entered. A few of the other blue-robes moved plush chairs around a small golden altar and then seated Lanxe and his twin directly facing each other in the middle.

  “Why am I facing you? I thought I was the one being illusionated.” King Blanchard was starting to sense something, Lanxe feared, but the king’s eagerness to look like himself again turned out to be stronger than the alarm.

  “None of us have ever seen how you look, Majesty,” Lanxe said, with just enough reverence in his tone to be convincing. “I must search your mind and see how you saw yourself. You’ve looked into a glass before?”

  The king nodded.

  “All I need is to see a memory of that moment, but moreover I can get a feel for your demeanor and the subtleties that made you feel like you.”

  “Very well then,” King Blanchard agreed. All around him candles were being lit and a strange coppery smell filled the air.

  His head was then gently pulled back into the headrest by a man standing behind him. Lanxe began chanting, as did several of the other druids, who were now sitting in a circle around them. After only a few verses of the repetitive mantra, the king’s head lolled to the side.

  King Blanchard felt Lanxe enter his consciousness; he also felt his wrists and ankles being strapped to the chair he was in. He tried to struggle but his body wouldn’t respond.

  Lanxe began examining King Blanchard in the most intimate of ways, from the inside of his mind. Soon, he would know all there was to know about the man.

  It didn’t take long for the king to understand what was happening. Why? He asked with the voice inside his head.

  Because I can, replied Lanxe. Because I can.

  Chapter 23

  Herald had to wrestle Mysterian into the deep ocher forest south of the Temple of Dou. It was clear that the beast attacking the druids was some sort of winged and upright trollish thing that did terrible damage to the mostly defenseless men it chose to kill. A grinding, buzzing sound that was barely audible, yet surprisingly irritating, filled his head. Herald saw that two blue-robed druids were stalking fearlessly through the carnage, ignoring the pleas of their dying brethren around them. They weren’t clutching at their ears like many of the others so close to the beast were, either. They were searching for someone, Herald decided, and he was fairly certain it was him and the Eldest of the Hazeltine.

  “Come, Mysty,” he whispered. He pulled her into a thicket, rolled them under some trees, and hugged her close to his chest while cupping a hand over her mouth. He let her breathe, but her every attempt to speak was averted with a sharp press of his palm, her every wiggle smothered in an urgent hug.

  They huddled like that for several hours, as the sky slowly darkened, and autumn’s chill gathered bite. For the first few hours they heard the screams of the dying. The huge beast was eating people alive. It galled Herald to leave them be, but he did it. He knew that King Blanchard was in a fix. His instinct was to get to the keep and rally the rangers. What to rally them around was a question he would have to soon answer.

  Once he was certain that the creature had moved on, Herald led Mysterian slowly up a sloped wooded area and didn’t stop when they topped the ridge. It was freezing and the sweat of their laborious climb had their breath escaping in huge, bilious clouds.

  When they stopped once, Mysterian actually cackled out a laugh because steam was rising from Herald’s grizzled head. Her wits were returning to her. The idea that Prince Richard was fully corrupted by Gravelbone’s taint had set in, and she no longer grieved for his soul. Linux, she missed, but only marginally. The beast affecting the ethereal was only one of the concerns that was suddenly churning through her old witchy brain.

  “How far are we going in this cold?” Mysterian asked just before the sun started to lighten the sky.

  Herald was so cold he’d forgotten he was cold. “Two days if we rest little,” he mumbled.

  “Are we going to Kingsmen’s Keep?” she asked.

  Through his shivering he nodded. She spoke a word he didn’t know, then stepped up and hugged him close. After a bright, stark white flash filled his mind like a thunderclap, he found he was still standing against Mysterian, but in the open yard outside the keep. Two men with bows fully drawn were looking at them wide-eyed from their post outside the heavy wooden door.

  “’Tis Master Herald and the witch,” the voice of an unseen ranger called down from a lookout in the trees. The rangers guarding the entry relaxed.

  “Some evil beast has attacked the temple, but I think they are aligned with the druids somehow. Them druids have King Blanchard, too.” Herald chattered to the men. He was still hugging Mysterian and she was thankful for what little warmth his body provided her. Fortunately they were ushered into the keep and fortified with warm stew in front of a roaring fire in the kitchens.

  “I must return to King’s Isle, Herald, then Mainsted. I have to warn my sisters of this madness.” Mysterian didn’t want to part from the man she had come to care for so much, but she knew she had to go. “If what you say is true, if the druids are in league with that creature and are working to harm the kingdom, then—”

  “I be not making it up, lass,” Herald spoke harshly, but his anger was over her needing to leave. It wasn’t directed at her. “Them blue-robed bastards walked right around the thing while it scooped up one of their fellows and took a bite. They showed no fear of it, them two. They weren’t hearing that infernal whine, neither. They knew it wouldn’t harm them aforehand or they’d have filled their britches and run. And that demon Lanxe gave me the look of the Destroyer himself when he said he was going to illusionate King Blanchard to look right again.” He paused to shake his head.

  Hearing this, Mysterian pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “I’ll be off then, love.” She rose from her seat and kissed his hairy face. “Tell that boy Rikky, you see him, to keep that peg on.” She started to cast her spell then, but stopped herself. “Tell that De Swasso boy, and them other Dragoneers to end that terrible thing, Herald. It’s not of this world. It will destroy us.” With that she kissed him again and swirled away into a cloud of silvery sparkles.

  Herald knew he would miss her company, but he was no less glad that she was gone. Now he could at least start reasoning this mess into order.

  ***

  “We go to the Outlands!” Aikira said firmly.

  After seeing that they were too late to save the people of the Temple of Dou, Zahrellion was anguished. Her head was still hugely swollen and her sense of balance off-kilter. Not a soul moved in the blood-soaked gardens and orchards below. Sickly sensations of revulsion and sorrow churned in her gut like a flu.

  They landed away from the carnage to let the dragons go feed. The other Dragoneers were arguing over whether the Sarax would go to Kingsmen’s Keep, or the Outlands next. Zahrellion just wanted to vomit.

  Marcherion didn’t seem to care. He’d been hungry to find and see one of the Sarax firsthand, but after seeing what the creatures left of the temple dwellers, he couldn’t act as certain anymore. Zah found she wasn’t as attracted to him as she first thought she was. She didn’t have room for that sort of emotion anyway. She still refused to think about Jenka, but he interjected himself into her thoughts anyway.

  “There’s help at the keep,” Jenka argued. “Experienced frontiersmen, not deserters and pirates.”

  “There are thousands and thousands of people in the city of Indale alone,” the golden-helmeted girl shot right back. “None of them are pirates, I assure you, Jenk.”

  “We could split up and cover both,” March offered.

  More than one of the Dragoneers made a sharp, “No” at that.

  “We have to stick together, like Crimzon said.” Jenka wouldn’t argue that part of it.

  “The rangers can wait, Jenk,” Rikky tried to settle it. “They can hole up deep if th
ey need to.”

  “All right,” Jenka finally conceded. “After the dragons feed and sleep we go to the Outlands, but we are hunting Sarax. If the trail leads us elsewhere, we must follow.”

  “Agreed,” Rikky and Aikira said in unison.

  “I agree, too,” Marcherion added.

  “And I,” Zahrellion’s voice was soft and thick with emotion. She was not only grieving the loss of so many of her white-robed peers, people she’d known and lived with for most of her life, she was wondering why none of the Order of Dou’s blue or red-robed druids were lying tattered in the blood-soaked valley. Besides the few ogres, and numerous workers, she only remembered seeing white, brown, and black-robed corpses littering the temple grounds.

  She half wanted to go back and take a closer look at the temple itself. There was a hidden way in, and underground rooms leading to the inner sanctum where the elders worshipped. Surely people were hiding inside. She wanted to do something, but she was so dizzy now that she could do little more than loll against Rikky and slurp the broth he’d made for her. Soon she was deeply asleep. There were no unicorns or fairy mounds in her dreams, though. Her slumber was realized in a slew of dismembered childhood friends all floating in a sludge of blood and bone.

  She woke and barely raised her head before her stomach emptied. Rikky and Jenka were at her side in a heartbeat, but Aikira shooed them away and sang them all back to sleep. After that, Zah’s dreams were as empty as the ethereal.

  Chapter 24

  “Summon the Nightshade to me or one of you will die!” would-be King Richard ordered the three witches of the Hazeltine before him. He’d had them rousted from their homes and brought to the throne room at Mainsted. They were not pleased, but they were sworn to serve the Crown. There was little they could do.

  “We will all die eventually,” one of them said calmly. “As will you one day, my Prince.”

  “I am king now! And didn’t your eldest just bring me back from the dead?” Richard looked to his mother, who was also a witch of the Hazeltine, for help. “The Confliction is upon us. Tell them.”

  “We feel it too,” one of the witches responded.

  “We’ve lost our ethereal voices,” added another. “We couldn’t summon that vile thing if we wanted to.”

  “Bah!” Richard whirled around with savage quickness. His sword sliced cleanly through the neck of the oldest witch of the three. His queen mother gagged, and then vomited, as the head and body hit the floor and began spilling blood in thick, pulsing gushes.

  The two remaining witches stepped back and huddled together, but not in fear as Richard hoped. One of them was holding a shielding spell before them while the other mustered the courage to cast an offensive spell.

  “You’ve just broken the pact,” Queen Alvazina pulled herself up from her knees and, after wiping the tears from her face on the hem of her sleeve, sat back in her hickory throne. “The Hazeltine are no longer bound to serve the kingdom.”

  “What pact do you speak of? It will matter not who they serve, lest the Nightshade comes to do my bidding!”

  “You’ve disappointed me,” Mysterian’s voice growled as she appeared in the throne room in a dramatic hissing of sparkles and pops. “You need reminding.” A blast of translucent yellow energy pulsed forth from her hand and knocked Richard to the floor. To her obvious surprise he took the magical blow well. Before she could voice another spell he had his sword at the youngest of the witches’ neck.

  “Oh, Richard, no,” his mother sobbed. “Stop it. What has become of you?”

  “Wait,” Mysterian said in a resigned voice that made Richard smile triumphantly. Richard knew her well. She could do what he wanted her to do. She’d just given it away.

  “Mysterian, summon the Nightshade.” Richard puffed out his chest and teased the blade of his sword across the terrified witch’s throat. “Pretend you believe in me again. Summon the Nightshade, then take my mother and the rest of your crazy coven and get out of my kingdom.”

  ***

  King Richard’s expression was one of sheer malice, and Mysterian knew that she should just do what he wanted so she could get the others away. It was what she had come for in any case. Knowing what she did about the other troubles brewing, she doubted the Nightshade and Richard would last long. “All right, I’ll do it,” she finally agreed.

  “Do it now!”

  Blood was running freely down the terrified woman’s neck. Mysterian reached into the bag of things she’d retrieved from her rooms before coming to the throne room. She pulled out a perfect sphere of black onyx the size of a child’s head and held it before her eyes.

  “I’ll need some blood.” She snarled her distaste for what she was about to do.

  “There’s a lake of it at your feet,” King Richard shot back.

  “I need your blood, fool!” She spat at him. “If you want that hell-born thing bound to you, I do.”

  “Bah!” He nicked his thumb on his blade without moving it away from the woman’s neck. Then he pulled the girl by the sleeve of her robe as he inched over to Mysterian. He squeezed a few drops onto the onyx orb when Mysterian indicated for him to do so.

  “Come, my sister,” Mysterian said to the queen. “Your husband needs you. This thing is no longer your son.”

  The queen did as she was told by the superior of her coven.

  “My father needs to disappear,” Richard snapped. “No one will believe the druids. Not after I expose them for what they really are. Now, call the Nightshade to me!”

  “Very well,” Mysterian snarled. “But the druids care not what you, or the people of the kingdom believe. They have an agenda of their own.” She tilted her face down and started chanting then. She knew that this type of radiant magic would most likely draw the attention of the huge freakish creature Herald had saved her from at the temple.

  It seemed like nothing was happening, but then all of a sudden the orb in her hands took on a deep cherry glow. Mysterian said a few words to direct her sending to the one of hellish descent. Then she bound the creature by name and blood to the prince when it responded to the mysterious call.

  “It is done,” the eldest witch of the Hazeltine crumpled with the weight and fatigue of the powerful casting.

  “I know you are no liar,” Richard spoke down to her. “When will it come?”

  “It is coming even now,” she grunted, and with the help of the mortified queen she regained her feet. “No more than a day, I would guess. Now let her go.”

  “Take my mother and the rest of your brood and get as far away from this kingdom as you can.” Richard’s intense gaze only softened when his eyes landed briefly on his mother. For the others, those blood-red orbs held little more than contempt. After the witches were gone, he had a man bring out his new armor. Once he was suited in the dull blackened steel, he went to the top of Mainsted’s central tower and sat on a parapet sharpening his sword.

  ***

  Herald had just finished breaking his fast and was emerging into the daylight to find Commander Stark when two ogres came loping out of the trees outside Kingsmen’s Keep. One of them narrowly dodged an arrow that a startled ranger fired. Several captains, and the new commander himself, called out to hold their bowstrings. Three more ogres eased into the open yard then.

  While the hulking green-skinned creatures tried to bark and grunt out something to the rangers, one of the Sarax attacked them all. It came sweeping over the treetops on extended wings and then dipped into the clearing, hitting an ogre in the head and chest with its terrible razor-sharp claws. In a matter of heartbeats half the yard was saturated in blood.

  Herald crumpled under a deep vibrating claxon sounding off in his brain. This wasn’t the dull groan that had irritated him while the thing attacked the temple. This was a powerful sound that twanged the old ranger’s tendons and bones. He looked up to see one of the ogres swing a solid haymaker that staggered the huge creature. It was bashed to the side and forgotten as the monster leaned down a
nd snapped its jaws shut on an archer. Legs kicked and spasmed, then fell away from the creature as they were gnashed until they separated from the man’s body.

  As tall as three men, with arms the size of branches and legs as big as stumps, the Sarax caught its balance with a snap of its wings. It opened its big, toothy maw and let out a gut-shaking roar. Then it proceeded to kill and consume everything it could get hold of while arrows bounced harmlessly from its thick, hardened skin.

  With every passing moment the sound the creature was emitting grew in intensity. Herald tried to run for the keep, but his muscles responded like water. All around him there was chaos. Rangers were trying to close up the keep, but others wanted to save the men outside. Herald could barely think. There was blood everywhere. Then the thing loomed its head near him to snatch up a morsel of ogre flesh it had missed. The King’s Ranger held his breath and felt his blood freeze in his veins when the fiery amber slits in those dead black eyes narrowed on him. After that, he clenched his eyes shut and waited to feel the terrible teeth that were about to tear him apart. It was all he was able to do.

  Chapter 25

  “What if they went in three different directions?” Rikky called out to Jenka over the rush of the wind. They were flying west at a brisk clip. The wind was sweeping down off of the mountains behind them. The dragons were gladly riding the gales in a swift, soaring glide. Rikky was tired of flying and wondering. When he concentrated on his new dragon tear, its power gave him a certain confidence. He and the Dragoneers were going to kill the three Sarax. He knew this as if it were chiseled in stone. Whether they would have to fight a thousand more of them was up to the dragon, Crimzon. Rikky hoped the fire wyrm had made it to the crater and was reinforcing the encasement. Then he wondered how Crimzon would get there. This had him convinced that he wanted to learn how to vanish away like the Hazeltines and some of the druids could. He was restless and fidgety, but in truth all he wanted to do was find a Sarax and try to kill it, just to know that they could.