He sighed, because another realization hit him. There were still more mudged following Richard than they’d killed, and they hadn’t been able to end even one of the mudged-riders who were controlling them.
Like a flock of birds being startled from a tree, the mudged feeding in the city all leapt into flight and fled south at the sound of Zahrellion’s blasts. Then March saw Richard and one of his mudged-riders in the distance, leading them away.
He wondered if they were going straight to Three Forks, or if they would even bother with it. If he were trying to take over this land with Richard’s army, he would burn all the ships in the harbors and eliminate the need to even bother with the islands. For without goods and produce from the Mainland, those people wouldn’t have the option to resist.
Chapter Twenty
The teleportal opened over a deep blue sea. Jenka and Jade were high above the surface, and hopefully a few minutes ahead of the Nightshade and its new rider. Jenka pondered the Nightshade for a while. Had it come here with the vessel, or was it a demon like Mysterian and all the others had told them? Could it have come with the vessel?
No, Jenka decided. It knew this world far too well and thrived off the suffering of humanity. It had probably been here all along, and Jenka regretted granting Richard the thing’s life when the Dragoneers banished him to the island. He wondered how the Nightshade had healed itself, for one of its wings had been almost torn off. It would have had to regenerate the limb, for he knew enough about healing to know it had been ruined beyond repair.
Maybe it knew of the Leif Repline fountain, too? Maybe it really was some hellborn demon with enough power to regrow a wing? His alien knowledge showed him a handful of possibilities, but he could be sure of none of them. He thought of Richard, the Prince Richard he’d seen before a joust in a stadium on King’s Isle. That Richard had been as good a man as ever there was, but Gravelbone, and then extending Royal’s life with the power of his teardrop, ruined his mind. His dragon, Royal, had been awesome to behold, for there was nothing like watching a pure-blooded blue wyrm in the sky. He then remembered Richard’s message to Rikky.
It didn’t surprise Jenka when he learned that it was Herald who’d beheaded Royal’s twin. Herald had never liked being around the dragons. Ever. Not even after he was carried on one of them and even healed by their magic. Hell, Herald had hated magic, too, but Jenka’s mind went back to something then.
Royal had been a twin. This might not even be the same Nightshade they’d fought before. Couldn’t there be more than one of them? Of course there could. His alien thinking told him there could be colonies of them, hidden in the nooks and crannies of the planet, or just a few. Jenka decided, if that were the case, the eldest dragons would know of them. Then he saw the Nightshade he was about to kill, and the terrifying Sarsaraxus riding so perfectly on its back.
Jenka knew somehow they were meant to be together. Maybe they were someone’s willborn? Or maybe it wasn’t like that at all. Maybe the Sarsaraxus had just shapeshifted as the other alien was able to do. After all, the thing had been in a crate for a few hundred years. From Amelia’s memory, he felt the slippery thing. To her, it had registered as some sort of slug, but Jenka had once had to cut the tongues out of the stags Master Kember was dressing. To his senses, that’s what it felt like. The idea that he could feel in his mind what his daughter’s hand had touched almost caused him to drift away again, but Jade didn’t let him.
The Nightshade and the Sarsaraxus were nearly under them, and it was clear they didn’t know he was waiting.
When Blaze approached Clover’s castle, his ire spiked enough to give Marcherion pause. There were two dragons lazing on the ground near the base of the structure, and they were both clearly pure-blooded and old. One was a few shades of green darker than Jade, and the other a lighter shade of blue. March thought that on a clear day, it might blend so perfectly with the sky as to render the mighty wyrm impossible to see from the ground. It looked as if Silva was being cautious, too, but Golden spoke to them soothingly.
They’ve felt Errion Spightre’s call. Golden’s ethereal voice was sort of sung, just like her rider’s. The yellow-scaled dragon was clearly relieved that Pascal was there. March could sense it. March hoped Aikira was recovering, for he understood just how spell-weary one could get. He was that way now. There are more High Draci coming.
How many more? March asked hopefully.
What the hell is Errion Spightre? Rikky asked at the same time. Then, You’re alive? Rikky almost broke his own neck trying to look back at March.
His grin was so wide, Marcherion saw it from across half a mile of sky. I hoped you’d find a way out of that nasty swarm.
Come, Uncle Rikky. Amelia’s voice sounded her age, but her tone and the way she continued spoke of the confidence the child felt and of her strangeness. Lord Commander, please come and let us heal your wounds. They are worse than you think. After I try to reach my father, I will meet you all at the table. There, I will explain everything.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jenka watched the unsuspecting pair of sleek, black-skinned, creatures as they soared toward him in hyper-speed. Since he was in hyper-speed, too, the ocean below them seemed like a slab of deep cobalt marble. The surface was moving so slowly as to be almost imperceptible to his eyes. The big, rolling waves were like sparkling hills. He even saw a bird suspended over a darker area of water where swam a school of baitfish. It was probably hunting them, frozen in a dive with its beak slightly open as if it had its target fully in its eyes. For a moment, he felt as if he were in a painting.
This had turned into a coffin chore, for seeing the bird told him they’d come near the islands. The Sarsaraxus’s pollen might already be reaching the Mainland on the wind. This had to be done here and now. He was no longer thinking about the complexity of the waves or lost in thought.
He called out to his daughter, for she was the only one who could speed herself up enough to hear him. Once she was responding, he told her what to tell Rikky and March. Then he told her he loved her and her brother dearly.
He was glad she seemed to understand. He let her, and everything else go then, and thought about how he’d killed that mad priest’s great minataurian creature when he was trying to save Clover from her imprisonment. He was certain these dark creatures were warded from any typical magic attack. He decided he would just sacrifice himself and let the natural forces of the planet and inertia end these two. It was the only way he knew he could get past their defenses. He wasn’t foolish enough not to ward himself and Jade as best as he could beforehand, but he was doubtful it would do any good. This was going to be a nasty mess if he pulled it off. None of them would survive.
He watched and calculated in his alien mind, trying to estimate how time and space would affect his move, then he flashed away.
He teleported himself to a point he judged to be right inside the bodies of both the Nightshade and its rider, just before dropping back into real time.
Jenka misjudged by just a few feet and appeared right in front of the big creatures. The Nightshade hit Jade’s side headfirst at a rate of immeasurable speed, nearly tearing itself in two as its body was suddenly twisted around Jade’s by its own momentum. The impact was so intense that Jade was knocked unconscious immediately by the Sarsaraxus’s knee when it was thrown over them. As Jenka fell from his saddle, spitting out the pieces of teeth that broke in the crash, he saw that the thing he had tried to kill had been launched over them, headlong at hyper-speed. It was taken out of that mode by the crash just as he was, though, and it was now slowly becoming visible and falling closer to the sea as it went.
Jenka was falling, too, but he saw that, even though the Sarsaraxus didn’t have wings like the smaller Sarax, it had skin that ran from its hip to its elbows, and now it was stretching its arms wide, gliding swiftly toward a speck of land in the distance.
Jenka thought it might be Serpent’s Isle, or even Gull’s Reach, but it didn’t matter; th
e Sarsaraxus looked as if it would make it.
Jenka hit the water then, and after a few moments of gathering himself and shaking off the shock of the cool liquid, he focused his attention on his dragon. Using his alien knowledge and the dour from his dragon tear, he brought Jade around fast enough for the green dragon to start paddling in the water. The young dragon looked like a big green duck.
Jenka started swimming toward his bondmate, glad that they were alive. He didn’t see the Nightshade. He thought it had sunk into the sea, which was good, for even though the Sarsaraxus had glided all the way to that land mass, he didn’t think it could leave there, not of its own accord.
He was almost to Jade’s side and about to grab onto his saddle straps when he felt sharp pain in his legs. The water around him clouded red with his blood, and it was all he could do to gulp in a breath of air before he was yanked underwater by whatever had hold of him.
Amelia stood there looking at Marcherion’s wounds, thinking they were all her fault. Each bite and tear had happened because she hadn’t killed the thing in the box. Deep inside, she knew that wasn’t the case because her uncle’s swarm of mudged had caused these wounds.
March was sitting there with his eyes closed, thinking about the girl he left back in Copperton Valley. Amelia just knew these things, and sometimes felt guilty, even embarrassed by what the people around her were thinking. She could read the thoughts of everyone save for Linux, her brother and mother, and her father, though sometimes her father’s thoughts were her own.
Rikky was still in love with their mother deep down, but he’d long since given up on her ever loving him back. He was still in love with Clover, too, even though he’d never admit it, or try to be with her again.
Clover saw everyone as prey, especially the boys. Whether for carnal desire, treasure for Crimzon’s horde, or just for food, she was always on the hunt.
Aikira just wanted to forget the wizardry and raise her son with her husband, but she loved Golden so much, and was dedicated to Clover’s cause because Clover’s son had been her teacher. Amelia was as glad as Aikira that her brother and Pascal were both in hiding now, with Linux and the ogres. All of them were pleased that the igniting of the sword’s magic had drawn several High Dracus to the castle, who were willing to defend the land against King Richard’s mudged.
“So, the sword is ancient, and Zahrellion’s great, great grandfather was King Phen III, part elven and a descendent of Pavreal himself.” This was from Rikky, who was the only one paying attention to what Amelia had learned from the high dracus.
“Even though King Phen III was a terrible man, the first king named Phen was a great king. His child was half-elven, and his hair as white as snow, just like my mother’s,” Amelia went on.
“Once we’ve gathered ourselves, we will have to make a better plan,” Clover said as she joined them. “We need Jenka to dismiss his insanity and come join the battle.”
My father will be here when he can, Clover. Amelia gave the older woman a sharp, knowing look but didn’t respond out loud.
“Rest and heal, for in just a few hours, we will have to go fight again,” Rikky said.
Amelia was suddenly being drawn into hyper-mode by her father’s calling. No one around her was able to see her crying after he ended the conversation because she gathered her wits before she let herself back into real time. Then she told them all what her father had just told her, that the real enemy wasn’t Richard at all, but the giant Sarsaraxus that was now riding the Nightshade, bringing with it the end of humanity on the Mainland.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Marcherion and Blaze, so sore from their half-healed injuries that they could barely stand the pain, appeared over Gull’s Reach. The men on the tower nearest them suddenly cheered. The other men on the walls followed suit when they saw.
It isn’t here, Marcherion voiced to the other Dragoneers.
He gave the men a wave of encouragement, surprised that so many had stayed, even after they’d been told to flee to Freeman’s Reach.
The idea that this whole population and all the folks on the Mainland were the descendants of the survivors of a shipwreck was pretty incredible. What had him worried as he cast the teleportation spell that would take him to Serpent’s Isle, was the sword.
The dragon tear mounted on the medallion he wore was tied to the legendary blade’s destiny. He knew this because both items were with the one man’s skeleton he and Brendly Tuck had found in that cave so long ago.
He’d cut his palms and his scalp wide open while killing a wyvern with Errion Spightre. As incredible as that was, he knew its magic wasn’t meant for him. Only Zahrellion, Amelia, and Jericho shared the blood line. Since Zahrellion hadn’t known her parents, there could be others out there, but it would be Jericho’s blade. Jericho would be a great king. March knew from the young man’s gait, the way he made his decisions, the way he minded his tongue and spoke commandingly. Then he realized something else about that sword, his medallion, and dragon tears in general, but it would have to wait, for even as he heard Rikky calling to him through the ethereal, he saw the Sarsaraxus standing there glaring at him from where it stood on the beach. Its toes were in the surf and crackling bright blue, but it wasn’t in pain or dying from the seawater’s touch.
March remembered seeing the Sarax as they hit the sea and crackled over with the same sort of blue energy he was seeing now, but it killed them. To confirm this assessment even further, the thing stepped knee-deep as it conjured some alien spell and threw its arms toward him.
I’ve found Jenka. Rikky’s voice was panicked. March, Zah, Aikira, I need you now! The beast is on Serpent’s Isle like Jenka guessed, but Jade’s underbelly is opened, and Jenka’s legs are shredded.
Part of March wanted to go help Rikky, for he saw them now, in the distance. Silva was floating beside a barely visible mass of green scales with Jade’s head draped across the silver wyrm’s back as if to keep it afloat. The part of March that knew he could do little to help Rikky took over then. He was the least proficient at healing anything, even himself, of them all. The anger that this thing had apparently killed Jenka, and maybe even Jade, caused him to vomit forth a hot, cherry blast of dour at it.
March’s anger only grew as Blaze twitched his wing and dropped a few dozen feet so that the Sarsaraxus’s blast went right over them. When the blast March spat back displaced around an invisible field right before the huge, spike-covered, shark-mawed bastard, it made him even madder.
Then Marcherion was falling, his dragon so startled by something that he was falling, too. March saw the Nightshade, its scarlet eyes full of joy as it pulled Blaze into the sea like an anchor.
The hellborn wyrm only had one of Blaze’s legs in its maw, but it didn’t expect what happened when his fire dragon hit the water. March landed right in the boiling, brine-smelling ocean, where his dragon’s raging, infernal nature was peaking.
Then the dragon fire came, evaporating a whole layer of water and scorching the Nightshade good.
The hellborn wyrm let go quickly, and Blaze got a decent snap of its rank flesh as it went. Marcherion tasted it through the bond-link unintentionally and understood why his dragon took in a mouth of salty water to wash it away.
The boiling water around his wyrm didn’t scald March’s flesh; it felt wonderful. It seemed to be restoring his aching wounds even more. Then he was pulling himself into the saddle and feeling the wound on Blaze’s leg where the Nightshade had leapt from the sea and snatched him. Compared to the rest of the injuries they’d recently sustained, it wasn’t as bad as it could be, but landing on solid ground might be a pain-filled ordeal.
We wills fights it fromss the sssky, Blade hissed into Marcherion’s mind, giving him the warning to hang on.
The big red dragon lurched out of the water and up through the cloud of steam he had caused in two heavy wingbeats. When they cleared the condensing mist, they saw Golden hovering over Rikky and Jade. And there was Zahrellion wielding
that sword, blasting the Sarsaraxus’s chest with a blow that sent the thing, magical shielding and all, tumbling backward, spiked heels over head into a grove of gord trees.
It didn’t stay down long, though, and it went into the same sort of ultra-fast motion that Jenka sometimes did. When March looked back at Zahrellion, she was pointing the sword at him. No, at something behind him.
Marcherion turned to see the Nightshade’s sizzling red eyes cutting at him through the sky. His own orbs started to glow the very same way, and then he felt his dragon die. The Nightshade’s searing rays hadn’t done the killing, either. It was a streaking blur of force moving at an impossible speed sent by the Sarsaraxus.
Give Milly the blade, Zah. Only she can move as fast as it– he managed to tell Zahrellion before anguish overcame him. Seeing the huge hole that had been torn instantly through Blaze’s tumbling body let March know that there would be no healing his bondmate.
Blaze was dead.
Desira was but a smoky dream he’d yearned for. There was suddenly an empty space inside his heart so big that he welcomed his coming impact into the island’s rocky hills. And then he hit the ground and heard Rikky Camille scream, Nooooo!
After that, there was nothing.
Part V
Blood and Royalty
Chapter Twenty-Three
Richard and his legions of mudged appeared in the sky over landlocked Three Forks. The people fell like wheat. The screams of agony and pain were nearly overpowered by pleas for the Dragoneers to come and save them, but only Richard and his riders were there to answer. It was wonderful to behold, and Richard let their terror lift him. He felt like the king of the realm should have felt, in total control.
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