Riders of Fire Complete Series Box Set books 1-6: YA Epic Fantasy Dragon Rider Adventures

by Eileen Mueller

  “We must get to Master Giddi,” Ezaara said. “He needs our help.”

  “We’ve scouted the area,” Jael replied. “There were too many tharuks for us to get past, but with four of us we might have a chance.”

  Roberto gave a grim nod. “It’s risky, but we don’t have much choice.” He took her hand firmly.

  “Master Giddi’s trapped by Zens,” Fenni replied. “They say he’s working against us.”

  “We’ll find that out when we get to him,” Ezaara answered. “If you can help me battle through the tharuks, I’ll sneak up wearing my mage cloak, so Zens can’t see me helping Giddi.” Below the copse on the hillside, screams and roars rang out as tharuks and people fought.

  Master Jael cocked his head. “Even though you’d be invisible, you could still get hurt. We’re coming with you.”

  Ezaara nodded. “Once we’re in the clearing, I’ll need to go deep inside myself to give Master Giddi mental aid to fight the methimium. I’ll be vulnerable.”

  Master Jael thumped his hand on his chest. “It’ll be our pleasure to protect you.”

  “My honored Queen’s Rider.” Fenni bowed. “Let the fight begin.”

  “Begin?” Jael raised an eyebrow. “Where have you been?”

  Ezaara had to smile.

  Roberto addressed Jael and Fenni. “Do you mind giving us a few moments alone?”

  Jael glanced at Fenni and shrugged. “Sure. We’ll wait just down there.” He pointed down the slope, then he and Fenni disappeared into the trees.

  Roberto placed his hands on Ezaara’s shoulders, his ebony eyes burning through her. “There’s a risk in all of this. Zens might sense us via Giddi and control us. With our powers and Giddi’s combined, there’s no doubt he’d be able to command all of our dragons and destroy Dragons’ Realm.”

  Ezaara studied Roberto’s beautiful soot-smudged face and trailed a finger along his cheekbone. “I know.” She took a deep breath and smoothed back a lock of his hair. “But if Giddi really is in Zens’ thrall, and we don’t help him, then Zens already has the power to destroy us all.”

  Roberto pulled her against his chest, cradling her head in his hand and wrapping his other arm around her waist. “I don’t want you hurt. And I don’t want to lose you,” he murmured against her hair. “Don’t go up against Zens alone.”

  Ezaara leaned into him, wishing they had hours instead of moments. She gazed at him. “I’ve withstood Zens before. I’m stronger now.”

  Above, dragons were waging battle as dusk began to creep across the sky.

  Roberto nodded. “I agree, you are stronger, but not as strong as Zens. Although it’s risky and I could lose you, having you meld with Giddi is our best hope—but I’m staying melded with you the whole way. You don’t get to do this on your own.”

  Ezaara’s breath caught in her throat. “But you won’t be focused on fighting if you’re mind-melding with me. You could get killed.”

  “So could you,” he murmured. His hands slid to her cheeks. Suddenly, his lips were upon hers, his dark-blue-and-silver-flecked sathir wrapping around hers, intertwining with her many hues and creating a warm comforting blanket that sheltered them from the snarls of the tharuks below, the groans of dying men and the roaring dragons blazing fire in the sky.

  It all faded. Right now, there was only them, arms around each other, desperately kissing each other for what could be their last time.

  “Ezaara, you’re the best part of me. You’ve given me the strength to face my past and become a better man.”

  “And I would’ve been nothing without you.”

  “No, you’re everything, even without me.” He squeezed her to him. “But we’ll face this together,” he whispered, “and then build our future.”

  A future neither of them might see. Or only one of them. “I’ll never forget you,” she said fiercely. “Ever. No matter what—”

  “Ssh.” He put a finger to her lips. Then kissed them. Softly, one last time. “Together.”

  They closed their eyes and stood, nose to nose, breath mingling.

  “Stay melded with me, Ezaara. Whatever happens, don’t let go.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  A flash of green lit up behind Ezaara’s eyelids. She and Roberto pulled apart, spinning. Down the hill, green mage flame lit up the trees. Roars cut off. The stench of burning fur and flesh wafted up the hillside.

  Roberto grasped Ezaara’s hand and they ran, half sliding through slushy patches, gouging trails down the hillside until they reached Fenni and Jael among the strongwoods.

  A tharuk lay at Fenni’s feet, a smoking hole in its chest. Another was slumped against a tree with its neck bent at an odd angle and mage fire licking up its side. More tharuks were strewn on the ground, still smoking. The stench of mage fire, burning flesh and charred fur hung between the trees.

  Jael bent for a moment, resting his hands on his knees to catch his breath.

  “You all right?” Roberto asked.

  Straightening, Jael flicked out his hands. The fires quenched. He turned. “About time you two showed up.”

  “I suggest we get going,” Fenni said. “Our mage fire is bound to attract the tharuks.”

  Zaarusha melded, “I saw the mage fire. Are you all right?”

  “Yes, but perhaps we should all stay melded, so you and Erob can see what’s going on,” Ezaara suggested. “Despite the screams of those infernal beasts.”

  Snarls echoed through the bushes. They slipped quietly through the trees in the opposite direction, angling down the hillside toward the clearing.

  Tharuks darted out of the undergrowth, swarming up the hill at them. Mage flame sprang from Jael’s fingers, blowing off the head of the nearest tharuk, a spray of dark blood staining the snow.

  Fenni flung out his arms and whirled, sweeping fire at the approaching beasts. Five went down in a blaze of flame. Above, Zaarusha roared. Roberto ducked as a tharuk swiped at him with its claws. Ezaara ran full tilt, ramming her sword into the belly of another.

  “Follow me,” yelled Jael.

  He took off to the left, thundering through the trees, Ezaara, Roberto, and Fenni close on his heels. An arrow zipped through the air. Ezaara ducked. It narrowly missed her, thudding into the trunk of a tree. Roberto grabbed her hand and tugged her forward.

  They ran and slid down the hill, joining warriors who were fighting ten deep against the troops of tharuks guarding the clearing.

  “There’s Giant John,” Ezaara cried, pointing to a huge figure battling three tharuks. Two men with broadswords were fighting at his side, a wedge of warriors driving their way through the beasts. Further along the line, warriors were falling, the clash of swords against claws echoing among snarling tharuks and the cries of dying men and women.

  Roberto melded. “Giant John will be our best chance of getting through.”

  “To Giant John,” Ezaara yelled.

  Jael and Fenni surged forward. Fenni lobbed an arc of fire over Giant John’s head and hit two of the beasts John was fighting. Giant John swiped his sword through the neck of the other. The men beside him dispatched the remaining tharuks with a blow to one’s head and a slash to the other’s belly.

  Bellowing, more tharuks flooded in to replace them. Ezaara parried a tharuk’s claws with her sword and then jabbed it under the armpit. The beast roared and lunged. She ducked and Jael finished it off with a fireball to the chest. The scents of smoke, blood and cooked meat clawed their way up Ezaara’s nostrils. She stomped over the body of a dead tharuk to face another.

  She thrust her sword, but the tharuk spun, slashing at Roberto. He parried the blow, but only just.

  “That was close,” he melded.

  “Too close. Oh, shards!”

  A methimium arrow shot through the air. Ezaara ducked, but the arrow embedded itself in Giant John’s upper arm.

  “Take it out. Now!” Ezaara yelled and leaped over a body to Giant John. Jamming her bloodstained sword into its sheath, she snatch
ed a dagger from her belt.

  Giant John’s eyes widened in surprise as she grabbed his arm and dug her knife in under the methimium arrowhead. “That’ll burrow into your flesh and turn you faster than a dragon can backwing.”

  She flicked out the arrowhead, made of yellow crystal with wriggling metal feelers, and ground it into the mud with her boot heel. Ezaara tore a strip from the archers’ cloak she was still wearing under her invisibility cloak and bound Giant John’s wound.

  “Thank you.” Giant John gestured with his sword at the two well-muscled warriors fighting with him. “My honored Queen’s Rider, meet Benno and Mickel, two of our most valiant warriors from Horseshoe Bend.”

  “So you got my messenger raven.” Ezaara tied off the makeshift bandage. “Please thank them for coming to our aid.”

  Giant John raised an eyebrow. “Why? This is not just your battle. We’re fighting for our homes too.”

  A tharuk lunged at Giant John and he spun, smiting off its arm.

  Another beast plunged its claws at a young man who fell to the ground, a gaping rent in his belly. Giant John bellowed and sprang to dispatch the tharuk.

  “Follow us,” Jael called. He and Fenni pushed past Giant John and Ezaara and stood side-by-side with their arms out. A wall of fire sprang up in front of them, pushing the tharuks back.

  Limplocked arrows flew at them. Zens had seen the mage fire and decided to counter them.

  “That mage flame’s not exactly subtle,” Roberto said, slipping his hand into Ezaara’s.

  Green fire licked through the tharuks in front of them, killing them in a haze of stinking smoke.

  “Now,” Roberto yelled above the din of the battle. “Get your cloak on, Ezaara. I’m taking you through.”

  As Ezaara tugged her cloak around her and pulled the hood over her face, Giant John gave a belly laugh. “The disappearing Queen’s Rider. Quite a party trick. Do you want a hand?” He jerked his head toward the clearing. “Giddi is an old friend of mine. I guess that’s where you’re going. I’d gladly give my life to rescue him.”

  “You may well do,” Roberto said, sandwiching Ezaara between his side and Giant John’s.

  Fenni and Jael parted the wall of fire, creating a narrow tunnel through the middle and blasting their flames out sideways to engulf tharuks. On either side of the passage, Zaarusha and Erob blasted fire, killing more of the beasts and opening up a channel in the monsters’ defensive wall.

  Giant John and Roberto charged through the mage fire tunnel with Ezaara pressed between them. A tharuk leaped through the flames, swiping at Roberto’s belly, but Roberto’s sword drove it back into the tongues of mage fire. The beast screamed and writhed, burning on the ground.

  “Troops, charge!” Giant John bellowed and rushed forward, sweeping his sword ahead of him, aiming for the tharuks waiting at the end of the tunnel.

  Warriors surged behind them.

  “Quick, Roberto, come!” Ezaara raced behind Giant John.

  Roberto shot past her. And with the thundering feet of a hundred warriors behind her, Ezaara burst into the clearing to hundreds of bloodthirsty tharuks.

  §

  “Open the portal. Now.” Zens’ voice cracked like a whip through Giddi’s mind.

  Giddi flinched.

  “Do it now, my friend,” Zens’ sinuous voice wound through his head, cloying and sweet, lulling Giddi into a sense of wellbeing.

  “Yes, Commander.” But Giddi had worked for days, gradually managing to wrest back control of a tiny corner of his consciousness without Zens noticing, keeping it barricaded from Zens.

  “I’m here, helping you,” Mazyka melded. “I won’t let Zens claim that part back.” Her face shimmered before him.

  Giddi’s body was still under Zens’ control. His arms flung out, green flame licking its way up the shaft of golden light that pierced the sky.

  Dark shadows danced at the corners of Giddi’s vision and drifted across the clearing. Fire blazed a channel through the ranks of the tharuks fighting on the clearing’s perimeter, then warriors flooded through the blazing gap. Tharuks surged to fight the warriors, riders, and mages—his people. But with his will still locked to Zens’ command, Giddi was powerless to help them.

  Silent Witness

  Oh gods, he’d lost Ezaara. Roberto floundered around, afraid to wave his sword in case he struck her. “Ezaara, where are you? How can I protect you if I don’t know where you are?”

  “I’m right behind you. Just keep going.”

  “Good. I was hoping you’d—” Roberto broke off as a small wiry tharuk dived at him, grabbing his legs and sinking its talons deep into his thigh. He crashed to the ground. Ezaara’s sword appeared in midair and hacked off the beast’s head. With a spray of dark blood and a gurgle, the tharuk slumped on top of Roberto. He kicked its body off and scrambled to his feet. “Thank you. Quick, put your sword away before someone sees it.”

  It vanished.

  “That’s better. Now, hold my hand,” he said.

  “I can’t,” she said. “We’re both right-handed. If I hold your hand, only one of us can wield a sword.”

  “Stay behind me, then. I’ll make my way to Giddi.” Thigh throbbing, Roberto ran.

  In the center of the clearing, Giddi was standing, arms outstretched to the heavens, plumes of green mage fire licking from his fingertips up the yellow ray of light.

  “What’s he doing?” Ezaara asked.

  Roberto dodged out of the way as a tharuk aimed its claws at him. “It’s a methimium ray. It holds the realm gates open. That’s how we got so many people and dragons back to Dragons’ Hold from Death Valley.”

  “By the mighty dragon gods! Zens must be opening the world gate.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” Roberto answered.

  A group of tharuks charged at him. Shards, he was wounded and outnumbered. But Ezaara had to get to Giddi. “Ezaara, run. I’ll join you when I can.”

  Roberto swung his sword at the biggest beast, but its claws glanced off the shoulder of his sword arm, gashing it. Gods, that hurt. If only he could see where Ezaara was. He was terrified of hitting her by accident.

  “I told you to focus on fighting. I’ll take care of myself.”

  It was uncanny hearing her, but not being able to see her. He whirled his sword, slashing through fur, doing what he could for the realm—for the people he loved. Around him, mages and warriors fought, blood—black and red—staining the clearing. A huge tharuk rushed at him, four others flanking it. Two rushed his right side. He swung his sword, but they grabbed it. Not caring about the slices he left in their hands, they yanked his sword, wrenching his shoulders. He let go and they stumbled backward. Roberto drew his dagger.

  The enormous tharuk slashed at him with its claws. He jumped back, but a tharuk had sneaked up behind him. It jabbed his back. The large tharuk lunged and grabbed his neck. It raised its arms, lifting him off the ground. Roberto kicked and slashed at the tharuk’s face with his dagger, but his reach was too short.

  This was it. He didn’t dare send Ezaara one last message of love or he might distract her. If Giddi melded with all the dragons or opened the world gate and let an army in, Dragons’ Realm could come crashing down around them. Shielding his thoughts from Ezaara, Roberto prepared himself for his end as the tharuk’s hands tightened around his throat.

  The tharuk laughed, its stinking breath wafting over Roberto’s face. It mind-melded with him, “So we meet again, Roberto.”

  In horror, Roberto saw 000 emblazoned inside its wrist. This was Zens’ prized creation, the tharuk Roberto had threatened to kill in Death Valley to blackmail Zens into setting Ezaara and Adelina free.

  “My, how you’ve grown,” Roberto melded back.

  “How small you are,” 000 growled, its tusks dripping with dark saliva. “I’ll enjoy pulling you apart. Stripping the flesh from your hide and crunching your puny bones beneath my boots.”

  “Very poetic,” Roberto stalled. Shards, how was
he going to get out of this?

  000 looked perplexed. “Poetic?” it repeated.

  Roberto scoffed, “No matter how you pretend, you’ll never be enough for Zens. After all, you’re only his minion. You’re just like the rest of his slaves, obeying his every command, never thinking for yourself. How long until he tires of you and kills you too?”

  With an enraged roar, 000’s hands tightened around Roberto’s throat, constricting his windpipe. Roberto gurgled, clutching at his throat and the monster’s hands. Oh, why had he let his mouth run away on him? It was going to get him killed.

  Spots danced before Roberto’s eyes.

  Then heat swept over him as the side of 000’s face was set aflame with green mage fire.

  The beast dropped Roberto, clutching at its face. Roberto sprawled on the ground.

  Jael and Fenni ran toward them, shooting fireballs to clear a path between Roberto and Master Giddi.

  Roberto snatched up his sword and swung. “Ezaara, where are you?” He ran. “Ezaara?” he called again. There was no answer, and of course, she was nowhere to be seen.

  §

  Luckily, no one had noticed the dark drops of blood dripping from Ezaara’s sword hidden under her cloak, or the footprints she’d left in the churned up mud as she raced across the clearing toward Giddi and Commander Zens. Before she reached them, she slowed to quiet her breathing. Ezaara stepped over a dead tharuk and made her way around a troop fighting with warriors and mages.

  There was only one place to take shelter so tharuks wouldn’t stumble into her. She ducked down behind the metal box that was streaming yellow light into the sky. She peeked around the edge.

  Commander Zens stood near Master Giddi, no doubt controlling the entire battle with his mind and his methimium implants. Around them, a wall of tharuks stood, fur bristling and claws out. Giddi’s arms were thrust skyward as green flames from his fingertips climbed up the beam of light. He was trying to open the world gate. She was sure of it.

  As long as Zens didn’t detect her, she’d be safe. But the moment he suspected something…

  She swallowed, her mouth drying at the thought. Roberto had taught her how to be a silent witness, to slip into someone’s mind and listen to their thoughts without leaving a trace. But the dragon mage, the most powerful wizard in Dragons’ Realm, knew more about mental faculties than most—except Master Roberto and Commander Zens themselves.