It didn’t take him long to choose and he didn’t even bother with taking anything with him as he waded through the fog and then dove into the sea.
“Hello?” the voice in the longboat called again and again. “Heeelllooo!”
“Ahhhhgggg,” one of the men hollered as Richard’s wet, bushy-haired head splashed up out of the sea alongside the small craft.
“Ahhhggg,” Richard mimicked the man’s fearful yell, causing two of the other three in the boat to laugh at their startled mate.
The third man scowled down at Richard, and, before he could dive away, grabbed a hold of his hair and hauled him into the boat.
CHAPTER FOUR
Rikky was as bored as Prince Jericho looked.
King Jenka De Swasso stood tall beside Queen Zahrellion. His long, brown locks were combed neatly and hung straight to his shoulders. He kept his eyes lidded so their lime green color didn’t cause unease in the crowd. Zahrellion’s hair was as white as snow. At Jenka’s right, ten-year-old Prince Jericho was fidgeting and restless, just as any boy would be when forced to dress up and stay still for so long. At Zah’s left, holding her mother’s hand to stay standing, was three-year-old Amelia De Swasso. Her silver-colored hair was pulled tightly against her round face in a ponytail, contrasting with her deeply set, dark green eyes and her alabaster skin.
Rikky shivered as he thought about the girl. Jenka had passed some of the alien essence to his daughter, and she seemed to be in a daze most of the time, just like her father.
The four De Swassos were covered in layer upon layer of fineries, but not one of them, save for Zahrellion herself, seemed pleased about it.
“When can we go?” Jericho asked his father for the seventh or eighth time. “I’m hungry.”
Jenka blinked, his eyelids moving unnaturally slowly. His eyes were unnerving to Rikky. In fact, Jenka seemed as if he were in a whole other plane of existence than the rest of them. The dour that had flowed through him had scorched him so much that Rikky hardly knew him anymore.
“It is almost over.” Jenka’s words were quiet and spaced.
“Why is Marcherion going away, anyway?” the boy asked.
Jenka might have scolded him, but Jericho’s question sounded genuine, and Rikky thought his expression was sad.
“Because he—” Jenka started.
“Because he is an overstuffed dimbuss in search of a giboon to take as a mate,” Rikky whispered as he stepped over. “You’re the fargin’ king, Jenk. Make this drawn-out fiasco end.”
Jenka made a gesture with his face toward Zahrellion, who was just turning to share her scowl with Rikky. Rikky stuck his tongue out at her, and Jericho laughed loud enough to cause the crier to falter his words.
“…and so…and so…and so we, as a collective people, send our beloved Dragoneer on his way, and we hope his journey home is safely traveled and his return to us is swift. Thank you, Marcherion Weston, for coming so far to fight for us. We can never repay you, but we can honor you by retelling your deeds in our verses, and with these meager gifts of our gratitude.”
Marcherion eased from his place and started saying his official farewells. He stopped before Aikira first, who was farther to Zah’s left. She looked like some ancient goddess, her dark skin accenting her golden helmet and gown perfectly. She kissed March on the cheek and pinned something to his breast. March gave her a genuine smile and a light hug in return.
Rikky wondered why her husband and child hadn’t come. After March’s comment earlier, he was thinking about taking on Pascal and Jericho. At least he wouldn’t be bored.
March moved before Zahrellion and Amelia then. The queen lifted her daughter up and helped her place a necklace around March’s neck.
Jenka looked at Rikky and shook his head.
Don’t do anything foolish, the look said.
March said goodbye to Jenka quickly and then dropped to a knee before the prince of the realm.
“Keep loosing at the targets in the yard, like I showed you.” March handed the boy a small bundle of something.
“What is it?”
“There are three steel arrowheads in there.” March glanced up at Rikky. “Have your father, or this lump, help you mount them on your best shafts and take you hunting. You’ve gotten good enough with the bow to go hunt the Keep now.”
March stood and faced Rikky then.
Rikky wiped at an imaginary tear. When March was before him, he grinned ear to ear and casually reached down and smacked the older Dragoneer right in the nards with the back of his hand. When March reflexively started to double over, Rikky caught him in a hug, and the whole crowd cheered, for their friendship had grown legendary, and no one, save for those on the dais, could have seen what Rikky did.
“I’ll get you, Rik,” Marcherion promised in a voice an octave higher than normal.
Rikky laughed and shook his head. “You can get me back when you come home, tubby.” He pushed March away from him and held him at arm’s length by the shoulders. “Right now, you have to stand here while ten thousand people stream by and give you trinkets.”
The look of sheer frustration, anger and love that contorted on March’s face as Rikky escorted Jericho from the dais was one Rikky would never forget.
Richard stared at the reflection in the mirror mounted in the captain’s cabin, where he’d been quartered. He hadn’t been at sea for some time and he was having difficulty keeping his footing when the ship would slide down the sizable waves they were traversing in the open ocean. He’d seen himself before he’d been shaved and thought he was seeing some strange, filthy, lion-headed creature that walked on legs as skinny as sticks. Now, whisker free and scrubbed, he looked a lot like Jenka. As hard as he had tried over the years, he couldn’t hate Jenka. Jenka was the only reason he wasn’t a head shorter and in a box. Beside that, Jenka was his brother, for whatever that was worth.
It was worth his head, he laughed. And now a king’s daughter, it seemed.
During the Confliction, after Gravelbone was dead, and Richard had regained some of his mind, he remembered almost hiring assassins to kill his brother and the other dragons. He only stopped the plan because he kept hearing his father’s voice reminding him that he should embrace his brother. That was then, though. Now he didn’t think he would have a choice in the matter. As long as Rikky Camille was angry over Herald’s death, Richard understood he would be a wanted man in the New World. The New World sounded so strange to say since he was born there. The Old World was the new one to him.
He decided to try to stay focused. These were no pirates who had “liberated” him. He really was being treated like the king he’d once been. An older man named Baru, who was educated in some form of healing arcanery, had been attending him. These people were more than a little cautious and concerned about his emaciated physical condition, and luckily Baru spoke the king’s tongue, if crudely.
As if the thought had somehow summoned him, Baru knocked, then entered. He was thick, stout, and as bald as a babe. He wore robes that Richard thought were far too heavy for the tropical climate through which they were traveling. Baru was clearly not one who had spent a lifetime at sea. He was carrying a big mug of something steamy, and fighting to keep from spilling it as he stumbled about with the roll of the ship. Richard knew it was more of the brothy stew they’d been giving him. He was glad for it. His body was craving sustenance like it never had before. When he drank the stuff, he could feel the nutrients, as Baru called them, soaking into his bones and replenishing him.
“Where are they taking me?” Richard asked, as he took the offered food.
“To Vikaria,” Baru answered. “To marry one of King Chad’s daughters and unite the lines of the Old World and New.”
“Just like that?”
“Huh?”
“Exactly.” Richard took a deep sip of the broth and savored it. He had no idea what was in store for him. Having once ruled over the whole kingdom, and then just the islands, he knew a king never show
ed his true intentions. He doubted he was being taken to bed a princess. He’d learned some things from his father, his dragon, the Nightshade, and Gravelbone over the years. One of them was that, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Being taken from his banishment directly back into the lap of luxury just so he could marry and mate with a beaut…
“Baru, what does she look like?” Richard’s voice came out raspy, so he sipped again and waited patiently for an answer.
“They.” The healer smiled and nodded with raised eyebrows. “They will not disappoint you, King Richard. They are dark of hair and round in all the right places.”
“You say ‘they’?” Richard shrugged.
“There are five daughters of an age to bear children, and two that will be soon enough. I think one of them will choose you, no matter what you decide. It matters not, though, for they are all the same, and just like the queen.”
“What happens after we’ve a child? I mean, what happens to me?”
“King Chad will have you brought back to your island and leave you, of course.”
Richard looked at Baru. His blood went cold, and his mind flashed back to a moment when he was a prisoner deep in the grottoes and Gravelbone was slicing pieces off of a man while the daughter begged for mercy that would never come. The feeling was chilling and Richard felt his blood begin to tingle as his mind’s eye played out the slow, gruesome scene and excited his darker senses.
Then Richard’s mind shifted. Suddenly, it was Baru under the Goblin King’s blade, and Gravelbone was asking him which piece to cut off next.
Something on Richard’s face must have given away his thoughts, for Baru’s face went pale, and he began to tremble.
“It was a jest,” the big healer said as he eased to the door. “You and your new princess will live out your lives in luxury in a stronghold all your own, I’m certain.”
Baru opened the door and backed through, but stopped before he closed it. “I was jesting, King Richard. Please, I meant no offense.”
Richard finished off the broth in one long pull, and chuckled. “Did you hear that, Royal? He meant no offense.”
Part II
ALONG CAME CLOVER
CHAPTER FIVE
Rikky was sad. He couldn’t remember not having someone with whom to hunt and scout. Before he became a Dragoneer, he and Solmon roamed the woods around Crag together. For a time, before the Confliction, it was he and Jenka who did those things. When Marcherion Weston came along, though, the two of them made one challenge after another and hadn’t stopped pushing each other until Blaze carried March into the distant sky.
After Marcherion left for home, spring came and went. It was a good thing, too, for the snow in the mountains beyond Clover’s castle was finally melting away. Jenka and Aikira were both busy dealing with new languages, established guilds, and pirates and thieves of all sorts. With all the trade, and the influx of foreign goods coming into the harbors, protecting the interests of the kingdom was turning into a job for scholars, scribes, and footmen, not dragon-riding heroes.
Rikky hated the long, spiral stair that led from the dragons’ area down to the main floor. He hated it even more now that he was at the bottom and would have to climb it in the morning before he singled out those going farther into the peaks, and those who would stay or return to the Keep.
When they’d first found this place, his leg hadn’t been missing that long. It was only grit and determination that had allowed him to go up and down such a taxing path, and even after all the years, the descent had taken its toll. He hated to concede to pain, but he would have to cast a healing on himself later, probably both before he made the climb up, and after he got to the top, as well. Then he chuckled and caused Zahrellion to sit up and smile curiously at him.
Rikky had taken on Prince Jericho and Pascal’s training and was pleased with the way they both took to the bow and the woods around Kingsman’s Keep. It was time for them to stop loosing at targets and slow-moving varmints, but since the herds were finished munching spring buds in the lower valleys, they would have to trek deeper into the peaks to find a worthy kill.
“He is the prince, Zahrellion, and Pascal is the son of a Dragoneer,” Rikky argued. The two Dragoneers were in the gathering hall off of the great rotunda in Clover’s grand abode. “Their first real hunt cannot be for a straggling doe. The bucks have moved into the thick, and the challenges those two need to face can’t be found in any village.”
“He is too young, Rikky. Pascal is a year younger,” Zahrellion replied, but Rikky could tell she was thinking of allowing them the adventure. “You will take two of Jenka’s rangers an--”
“They are my rangers, Zah,” Rikky cut her off. “Jenka is in a dour daze most of the time. I don’t know why you let him alone. I’m not asking the queen about this hunt. I am asking my sister Dragoneer. And I am telling you that until Jericho finds himself without any of the bells and whistles his privileged station allows him, he will not ever find himself as a man. Pascal is just as bad. He is the only Dragoneer’s child in all of the Outlands, and his mother is the ambassador. These boys need an adventure that tests them. Hell, I need an adventure.”
“You’ll take two rangers and two foresters.” Zahrellion smirked and gave him her best ‘Yes, I’m still your friend’ look. “Have them travel a half day behind, if you must, but handpick them. Remember what Anka Vera tried. I couldn’t take another--”
Rikky remembered seeing Zahrellion curled in the floor screaming out her anguish while Jericho was a captive of the power-crazed witch. “Don’t worry, Zah,” Rikky spoke over her softly. He leaned forward in his chair and took her into a sitting hug. “That one lost her head for the attempt, remember? Silva will be there, above us, or nearby.”
“Take a few men, Rikky.” Her tone was not that of a commanding queen, but a pleading friend.
“We will,” Rikky nodded.
Crystal and Silva were lazing and conversing on their individual roof-pads above. The boys, and a score of others, were outside the castle with Linux, Zahrellion’s mentor, and a few of the ogres that kept the place up. A small troop of rangers and foresters from the Keep had traveled there by horseback with Rikky and his charges as an honorary escort for the prince. The journey was more to give experience than to actually protect anyone, though.
There was a time, not so long ago, when their whole group wouldn’t have made it this far into the peaks, but the threats of the past had all been driven to the deepest parts of the Orich Mountains. Letting their guard down wasn’t part of the Rangers’ agenda, though, so the group had traveled as if there were still scores of Sarax loose in the woods.
Zahrellion’s concerns were justified, Rikky knew. Out beyond the reaches of the castle’s magic, there was naught but an unforgiving range of mountains that didn’t need a beast, or a reason, to end you. There were steep cliffs and jagged rocks, as well as deep ravines and boulder slides that could come down on you while you were on a ledge and wipe you off of a mountain.
Rikky’s body regretted his decision to ride to the Keep with the men instead of on Silva’s back, but it had to be done. He was the High Commander and had trained more than a few of the newer captains. He remembered the story of how Jenka’s father died saving Prince Richard from trolls on such an outing and decided to keep that memory to himself. They hadn’t had dragons to watch over them back then, and no trolls had been seen up there in a handful of years.
“The stairs here,” Rikky said. “…I bet March would have to stop and catch his breath twice between top and bottom.”
Zahrellion laughed back at him. “The last time I saw him here, he cast a simple levitation spell and floated up as smoothly as you please.”
Rikky could cast a levitation spell, and suddenly felt stupid for not doing so. Zah must have seen this, for she was grinning at him even more widely.
“At least I don’t have to dread the climb up now,” he chuckled with her.
He wasn’t laughing on t
he inside. On the inside, he felt like a dimbuss. With the power of his dragon tear, he could probably just teleport up and appear at the top.
He relaxed his mind and allowed some of the powerful magic contained in his teardrop to seep into his blood. The pain he’d been suffering dissipated, and a slight rush carried his mind farther away from his body.
He’d spent several years studying human anatomy and healing. Using dour magic and the proper herbs, he could cure almost anything now. The problem was that Rikky had spent enough time with Jenka to understand he didn’t want to scorch his brain. Jenka made good decisions, but seemed to be somewhere else. Speaking with him was maddening, for he answered minutes after you asked, not seconds, and his luminous blue-green eyes were unsettling.
Rikky swore off using the dragon tear unless it was necessary. Of course, he used it when healing others. But it had been so long since he needed it at all that the idea of using dour magic to circumvent stairs or ease his arse in the saddle hadn’t even come to his mind until now.
Rise Of The Dragon King (Book 5) Page 2
