The Emerald Rider (Book Four of the Dragoneer Saga)

by M. R. Mathias

  An illusion built on a few spells, and a false sense of confidence, was all these foes really were. Ankha Vira and her three protectors might be a little more formidable, but Zahrellion doubted it.

  Ravage them, Crystal. Tear them from the sky, Zah ordered before focusing her druidic magic on the coven’s leader.

  Crystal went slithering through the air around the broom-riding novices. Her tail and her snapping jaws found flesh over and over again. Several of the men fighting below were crushed by falling witches, and for a time blood rained down on them.

  The battle on the ground took a dramatic turn then. Just before Zahrellion sent a powerful fist of energy at Ankha Vira, the leader of the coven cast a summoning.

  From a hole that had opened up below the witch, small goblin-sized demons and a few multi-legged devils came scurrying forth.

  Like being hit in the chest with a ship’s timber swung by a giant, Ankha Vira was battered away from her protective triad by the impact of Zahrellion’s spell. Crystal blasted the hole with her breath and the creatures froze solid. Dozens of them escaped, though, and they quickly began killing Keepers and coven followers alike.

  The men were terrified of them. Even the seasoned Keepers were having a time holding their ground.

  The hovering witches all cast a simultaneous spell that took the frost dragon by surprise. Great launching pulses of magic formed into ropes that wrapped around Crystal, and only Zahrellion’s quick thinking gave them a chance.

  Land and twist around as swiftly as you can, Zah said as she hunkered into her saddle and held on as best she could. When Crystal’s claws touched ground, the dragon used them to launch her body into a twisting spin.

  The witches strung to her by their spells were whipped so suddenly that they came around Crystal’s body and slapped hard against her icy scales. One of them went limp because her head was jerked back so hard her neck snapped. Her magic rope fell away and she thumped awkwardly into the turf. Others were trampled under the dragon, and when Crystal let out a battle roar, two of the remaining witches fled for their lives.

  Ankha Vira and her guards were still there, though, as was another person Zah would have never suspected seeing.

  Lemmy?

  What the leader of the Coven Wisteria was holding in her clutches now did nothing less than stop Zahrellion cold.

  “You are powerless now, Dragoneer!” the witch yelled. “Call off your attack!”

  Zahrellion hated to do it, but she had no choice. Ankha Vira was holding Jericho in her arms. The witch was softly cooing at him while staring victoriously back at Zah.

  “If you hurt him I will spend all my days tormenting you,” Zahrellion said through clenched teeth. She started to blast Lemmy with a verbal tirade but saw that he was changing into the form of a witch now. It hadn’t been Lemmy at all, and she suddenly knew that Rikky and his attack on the Mainsted coven hadn’t been the surprise they had hoped for either. The witch posing as Lemmy had heard all of their plans.

  “Call them off.” Ankha Vira shook baby Jericho, causing Zahrellion’s heart to flutter up into her throat.

  “Stop,” Zahrellion said simply, and the few battles still raging around them slowed to a still. The death scream of a man battling one of the demons must have reminded Ankha Vira that she needed to restrain her fighters, too. With a wave of her hand, her unworldly little band of creatures stood down as well.

  One of the witches wrapped the baby’s ankle with a braided bracelet and then took her from the High Witch.

  Zahrellion knew the anklet was no ornamental offering, but something like a collar.

  Ankha Vira wore her triumph with a satisfied grin. “We will raise him to be a just king, I assure—”

  Just then a streaking arrow formed of Dour came straight down out of the sky, nearly impaling the witch who was holding the baby. Half a heartbeat later, two roars resounded, one from a silvery-colored dragon, one from a one-legged boy.

  They were the sweetest sounds Zahrellion had ever heard.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Rikky wasn’t sure if his arrow had sliced through the binding twine or not, but he felt his aim had been spot on. Baby Jericho wasn’t screaming in pain, and the witch holding him was crumpling from her wounds. Then Silva was leveling out of her dive into a terribly tight corkscrew, trying to slow them. She vomited her molten spew across one of the hovering Wisterites, and the witch fell from the sky, screaming as she went. The sound ended with her impact and served as a warning for the rest of the coven.

  Ankha Vira had Jericho again. All of her remaining followers, and her hellborn devils, were drawing in around her to protect her. The leader of the Coven Wisteria was trying to teleport herself away, and Rikky couldn’t let that happen. He had no idea how to stop it, though, so he took a chance and asked Silva to dive for the baby.

  Rikky saw that Zahrellion was getting herself together. Crystal was icing over the coven’s followers on the ground. This allowed the few dozen remaining Keepers to storm the gathering knot of witches.

  Practiced blade met witchy spell, and bloody magic filled the air again.

  Ankha Vira was near to completing her next spell when Silva’s claws reached out for her. There was no way to snatch the baby by himself without crushing him. Even grabbing them both was risking injury to the child, but it had to be done. There was the loud crackling sound of a spell releasing and then a whirring of impossibly radiant color. Rikky could tell Silva had latched onto the witch and Zah’s baby, but something else happened as well.

  The world around them flashed away, and they were suddenly in a meadow just a few hundred yards from where they’d been.

  Silva roared out to let Crystal know their location as the witch blasted outward, causing her to release her claws. They’d been teleported with the witch, but not very far.

  It was almost comical how the twenty or so remaining fighters from each side of the battle came running over toward where they appeared. Only a handful of witches could be seen at all. And here came Crystal, too. Zahrellion had a look of terror on her usually determined face. She pointed as her dragon carried her past Silva’s hover.

  Rikky craned his head around to see what had her looking so stricken. Ankha Vira still had Jericho, and the witch was casting another teleportation spell. There was no way Silva or Crystal could get there this time, and even if Silva could, her damaged claws couldn’t grab them again. Rikky wasn’t even sure how his dragon would land, but he would heal her once she did.

  As Zahrellion closed on the witch and her son, the two vanished away with a sizzling pop. Even more surprising was that the rest of the coven and the unearthly creatures all disappeared, too.

  Circle up high, Silva, Rikky said. Maybe we can see where they appear.

  There, Silva hissed and was streaking away toward a cloud of dust blooming from a small road. Rikky readied his bow, but it turned out to be just two untethered horses instinctually fleeing the arcane chaos of the battle.

  Rikky had Silva circle up even higher. His dragon complied, but he could feel her pain. After a few more minutes of seeing nothing from the higher vantage, they flew back near the regrouping Keepers and found a soft place for Silva to get her ruined claws down.

  Immediately, Rikky started healing her.

  Not long after, Zahrellion walked over and joined them. It was dark, and Rikky had started a real fire.

  “Where is Crystal?” Rikky asked.

  “Making a wider sweep of the area.” Zah’s dark, saddened eyes never looked up. “I want to thank you.”

  “For losing Jericho to a stupid witch?” Rikky wasn’t pleased about anything, other than the way Silva’s wounds had closed for him.

  “That was brave, what you did.” Zahrellion fought back more tears. Rikky didn’t even bother to hide his. “Just getting here from Mainsted is a feat to be heralded. And you almost got him back,” she finished.

  Rikky’s face twisted in the moonlight. “Jenka would have managed it,” he b
awled. Zahrellion came closer to comfort him.

  “We have prisoners to interrogate,” Zahrellion told him through a sniffle, while stroking his hair with a half-sisterly, half-motherly sort of affection. “They left some of the more injured novices behind. We will soon know where they took him. It will take them some time to enchant another binding anklet.”

  “I got it?” Rikky asked hopefully.

  Told yousss, Silva hissed, causing her rider to chuckle, despite his gloom.

  “You did,” Zah nodded. “It wasn’t on him when they flashed away.”

  “Are they like ogre collars?” Rikky shrugged away any bits of pride he felt for slicing the anklet with his shaft. “I just knew it was a bad thing when I saw it.”

  “I hope not.” Zahrellion heaved a sigh of her own, only her sigh was one of resolve. “Now, let’s go see if we can find out where they’ve taken him. I want him back, Rikky. I want my son back.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jenka came around when the butt of Orthon’s mace-shaft thumped into the floor again. With the sound came a rushing relief from the pain.

  “I will release only one of you,” Orthon told him. “The other, I will hold until the binding comes loose. You must choose.”

  For a long time Jenka contemplated his situation and the implications of everything. Something was there that he couldn’t quite see yet. Nevertheless he didn’t try to grasp at it. Instead, he thought about the worst of his feelings: how he’d grown up fatherless, how his friends Grondy and Solmon, and beloved Master Kember had met their deaths so early; how his dragon was without a bond-mate, and how his friends were unable to depend on him. He was a terrible father, a terrible friend, and an even more terrible mate to Zah. He wasn’t strong like Clover. He was just a fumbling boy fighting in a man’s boots. He had done little but hurt those who loved him. They were better off, would remain better off, without him.

  Those were the thoughts running through Jenka’s head when he decided, but none of them was the reason he chose the way he did. Despite thinking about all of those negative things, one ray of hope shone through. It was a tiny morsel to cling to, but it was a hope he latched onto anyway.

  “Clover?” Jenka asked the darkness around them. He wasn’t certain if she was even in their vicinity. “You’re the more powerful,” Jenka said. “I’ll send you back.”

  “How will I undo the binding?” she asked, forming up out of the darkness. “I think it should be you. You deserve to leave this place. I have done things worthy of such a prison.”

  “Your dragon needs you,” Jenka said. “Trust me in this. You can make the grandson undo Xaffer’s spell. Xerrin Fyl will be putty in your hands.”

  “I’m sure I can, but why would you risk yourself for me?”

  “Because I kept my word to your dragon, and I know the two of you won’t forget that.” Jenka wanted to tell her there was more to his reasoning, but couldn’t without Orthon hearing him. “All you have to do is make Xerrin Fyl undo his grandfather’s spell.”

  “I won’t leave you here with him,” Clover huffed. “How could I?”

  “You have no choice.” Orthon batted Clover away. “I know you do not crave the pain, as you say, wench.”

  “Send her back to her own form, on her own plane,” Jenka said through his fear.

  “I won’t forget you,” Clover whispered as she started to be torn out of that moment and thrust into another.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Jenka hurried his words. “If Xerrin Fyl does not undo his grandfather’s binding, then you have to kill him for sending me here. Even if he does undo it, you have to kill him, Clover.”

  “I understand now.” Her words barely reached Jenka, but knowing she understood filled him with some relief. He hoped he was right about Xerrin Fyl’s spell. If he wasn’t, he had just traded places with Clover forever.

  ***

  Blaze dove first, but Crimzon, flying on wings now fixed with Outlander wizardry, sped past the smaller fire wyrm toward the temple below. Jade still outflew them both and got there before the others. He barely had time to cast a pulse of magic into being and hurl it at the newer temple’s bell tower when a wide-spreading, lavender-colored ray shone up and caught him in its beam. He didn’t feel the effects of Xerrin Fyl’s spell at first, but then he found he couldn’t leave the light in which he was trapped. Worse, Blaze came storming in and spraying dragon fire everywhere, only to get trapped in the sky right there over the structure with him.

  Below them, dozens of priests and acolytes came out and began casting pulsing magic missiles and more powerful fists of energy up at the two trapped dragons.

  It was clear none of them had been expecting two dragons, so when Crimzon avoided the wizard’s trap and blasted half of them to ash, it was a total surprise. Then Golden entered the fray. Her molten spew was deadly, but Aikira was so weary from recasting the complex spells needed to repair Crimzon’s wings that she was of little help.

  Marcherion, trapped beside Jade in the funnel-shaped lavender beam radiating up from the temple, was trying to let his anger force the Dour out of him, but it wouldn’t come. Jade couldn’t use magic either. The two of them could barely fly. When March’s frustration reached its limits, and his dragon was tired of dodging pesky, stinging spells from the priests below, they decided to land right on the source of the radiant energy.

  Blaze’s bulk shadowed the light from Jade long enough for the young green wyrm to escape the air over the temple, but Blaze couldn’t get his claws on the ground, as he had hoped. He ended up stuck in the ray, just that much closer to the priests in the yard.

  Another man came storming out then; this one was wearing a high-collared robe of deep blue. His attack did far more than sting, and by the time his display of brilliant flashing, multi-colored power had exhausted itself, Marcherion was limp and barely clinging to his dragon, while Blaze had to fight with all his strength just to stay aloft.

  Golden saw the source of the trapping spell and used her own Dour to cast a powerful counter.

  It took a moment to take effect, but then all at once the ray of light vanished as the earth around the enchantment’s source stone exploded into a crater large enough to bury a supply wagon.

  The Soulstone? Crimzon wondered, tasting the familiarity of the item on his forked tongue. He immediately went back into the fray to take a look. He had to dive down into the temple yard to see it, and while he was there he set a good portion of the structure aflame.

  More priests came storming out. Great red streaks of magic shot up at the wyrms circling over them, but their feeble craft did little damage. It was only the power of the Soulstone that had been sustaining the trap.

  Crimzon made to land in the crater Golden’s magic had caused, but a few of the priests, these with a glowing aura of protection surrounding them, were already digging through the carnage looking for the prized artifact.

  Blaze and Marcherion floundered in the temple yard, but only until Crimzon wormed his way into it with them. The huge old red forced them to lift up and start circling as he used his foreclaws like a dog digging for a bone, and started sifting through the debris looking for the magic he sensed.

  “You’ll not have my grandfather’s prize, wyrm!” Xerrin Fyl said as he stepped out of a set of huge, banded double doors on a third-level balcony and blasted a chunk out of Crimzon’s arse. Crimzon whacked him, balcony and all, to the ground with his tail before leaping awkwardly into flight. Just for good measure, the old fire dragon set even more of the newer temple on fire as he went. The pain from his gushing wound, however, kept him from going far.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “It’s here!” one of the priests called. “I’ve found it.”

  Xerrin Fyl appeared next to the man. He was covered in blood from a gash in the forehead, and three of his fingers were bent askew from his balcony tumble, but he had no problem snatching the Soulstone from the man and flashing away again.

  Golden’s molten spew spl
ashed across the area only half a beat after the wizard was gone. The priests there, who had been digging, were coated. They crumpled into sizzling fetal balls as the golden stuff cooled and hardened over their skin.

  Xerrin Fyl started casting spells on some of his own priests then. The Soulstone turned them into huge, raging demon-fighters. Crimzon watched from where he was tending his wound as Blaze swept by and blasted one of the three giant man-things with his breath, but another of them grabbed and yanked down on Blaze’s hind leg and he and Marcherion crashed into a block-and-mortar wall.

  For a long moment it looked as if the whole temple would collapse, but it didn’t. Instead, Blaze went limp inside the bailey, and the giant priest they had just scorched began pounding the red wyrm with its barrel-keg-sized fists, while another grabbed hold of a wing and tried to twist it off.

  Crimzon blasted his own arse with dragon fire and roared. The pain wasn’t so bad, and the wound all but stopped bleeding. Strangely, the old dragon was suddenly invigorated. He was feeling something he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

  Clover!

  Could it be?

  He could feel her, and he leapt into the sky so that he could better seek out the source of the feeling. There was no surprise when he found it was coming from deep below the two burning temples. The surprise came when he was suddenly filled with a powerful rush of Dour through their bond-link.

  ***

  Jade wanted to land and get Marcherion out of the bailey area. Blaze’s rider was lying still, and above them a few men were starting to loose arrows down from a window. Luckily, they were not skilled with the bow, for had they been, March would have been shafted a dozen times by now.

  Jade, not sure what he should do, swooped down and braved the yard. One shaft bounced off of his scales, while another stuck firmly in his neck. It hurt considerably but was by no means a mortal wound. One of the giants turned, but it was too far away to get at them. Marcherion was in Jade’s grasp when he lifted back up; that was all that really mattered. He carried the limp Dragoneer out of the fray while Golden dove in to help their red-scaled friend.