The Emerald Rider (Book Four of the Dragoneer Saga)

by M. R. Mathias

  Jade left Marcherion lying on one of the elevated seaside ledges he’d used while waiting for Jenka, then returned to the battle. There was no way they were going to leave Blaze unprotected. It was no surprise when Jade found Golden and her rider settling in over the fallen wyrm to defend him.

  Aikira cast a spell that knocked the enlarged priest away from Blaze’s wing, but the one bashing at his head and neck was still there. Arrows rained down, and one actually grazed Aikira’s face. Jade sensed her anger from across the sky and made to help her attack. She turned to blast at the archers, but Jade was already there, claws gripped to the very mortar like a great garden-wall lizard as he filled the room with his poisonous breath through the window.

  He was glad beyond measure that she restrained from casting the spell on her lips. Then one of the men dove out of the opening rather than choke on the terrible green fog. His scream reminded Jade to watch out. The backswing of the hammering giant nearly hit him as he passed. It caught the man who’d jumped, and his scream ended abruptly as he went spinning away.

  Golden knocked the huge, pounding thing back and landed over Blaze’s still body so that the giant couldn’t keep striking the red dragon. Jade dropped down and joined her, and with their tails bumping behind them, they fought back to back to protect their companion.

  Xerrin Fyl used the Soulstone to cast again. Two more of his followers, this time two of the blue-robed men, began to transform. Where the other beasts had transformed into huge things bent on blunt brutality, these giant bipeds were built to move swiftly. The arms of the two men elongated, and their hands transformed into thin, dagger-long claws. Their legs fattened, and muscles bulged under prickly pink skin. Their faces pushed out into wolfish snouts, and their eyes were skinned over. In their place, a pair of finger-thick stalks wavered forth. At the ends of them were different eyes. These eyes were the size of melons and looked to be made of swirling green flame. They took in the two defending dragons, and both of them stormed past the other giants and began zapping Golden and Jade with short, terrible jolts of searing static.

  The dragons used their teeth and claws, as well as spells both defensive and offensive. With his breath, Jade saturated the stalk-eyed giant attacking him. The thing was choking in a cloud of it, but only for a few moments. It gathered itself and then zapped the young green wyrm so badly he fell, jaw first, into an up-swinging clawed foot.

  ***

  Aikira looked around and realized she and Golden were the last ones left to defend Blaze. Luckily he was stirring, because she didn’t think she could handle all of these giant freaks for long. When the next creepy bug-eyed thing came at them, it was deftly bathed in a gout of molten dragon breath. It was still floundering on the ground, but there was another, and two of the other giants who hadn’t yet taken injury.

  Blaze shifted and tried to roll to his feet, but the third giant brute, the one he had scorched, came around and started kicking him. Aikira couldn’t pay much attention to them now, though. The rest of the freakish giants were trying to circle around her dragon before it could lift away.

  Aikira hated to do it, but she felt it was their best chance. Her heart told her to stand over Blaze and protect him, but her mind said otherwise.

  She had her dragon leap for the air, knowing they could do more damage with sweeping passes than stumbling around. Golden’s wings snapped open and they were up, but then came the long-legged, bug-eyed giant, leaping for them like some gargantuan frog.

  Golden had to draw in her tail, and still it missed them by just a hair’s breadth.

  Aikira’s dragon shifted in the sky, moving herself above the reach of the giants, but a ball of unholy fire exploded over them. Fearing for her rider’s condition, Golden bolted through the air like a scalded dog until they were a good distance away from the battle.

  Aikira was blistered across the shoulder, neck, and face, and her hair was mostly gone. The smell of it made her want to retch. She thought maybe her right biceps and forearm were cooked, but she somehow mastered the pain.

  When she urged her dragon back into the fray, they found Blaze had new protectors.

  It was Crimzon and Clover. And the fire-haired warrior who’d built a magic castle in anticipation of the Dragoneers and sacrificed motherhood so the world might be rid of the terrible alien was everything Aikira could have hoped to behold.

  The legendary warrior and her fire wyrm tore into Xerrin Fyl’s handful of giants as if they were nothing more than a pack of schoolyard bullies.

  Part IV

  Together Again

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Clover was a bit surprised that it was an ebon-skinned girl riding the golden dragon speeding into the battle. It wasn’t so much because the rider had darker-pigmented skin, it was that the girl’s skin went so perfectly with the honey amber sparkle of her wyrm’s scales that they had to have been created for each other. The girl looked like some goddess of old. They fought well enough, that was certain.

  The Dragoneer and her wyrm were capable, it was clear, but Clover had found her dragon tear lying beside Jenka’s petrified form, mixed in with his things. The Dour gave her strength and stamina, while the golden dragon grew weary.

  Oh, how Clover had longed to feel that power again, and it had come back to her so easily only because of that determined boy.

  She was soon fighting in a focused rage. The rush was intense, and she felt redeemed and free. The dragon tear’s power kept them moving faster and sharper than Xerrin Fyl and his quickly diminishing forces, but there was something else.

  Clover was aging at a quickened rate. The years she’d been spelled were catching up to her physical body, and it was terrifying. So much so that she was having a hard time concentrating on the battle now.

  There is the Leif Repline Fountain in the Giant Mountainsss, Crimzon told her. It has the power to restore usss. We will kill this wizard for Jenka, then go there to live or die together.

  “I’m lucky I found you.” Clover actually laughed. Even after a few decades of separation, her dragon knew how to turn her mood and give her substantial hope with just a few spoken words. They were dropping down amid the giants again now, each eager to get this done so they could seek the legendary fountain of replenishment. If it really existed, it could heal them both completely.

  Crimzon’s claw ripped across the chest of one of the giant brutes, while Clover swung her fist over her head and smacked it into her open palm before her, causing a ripple of energy to explode forth.

  Crimzon roasted the gashed giant where he stood and then braced his claws on the ground. The back flow from Clover’s devastating ripple spell was nearly as destructive as the rest of the casting.

  Before them, two giants were swept off of their feet and thrown through the toppling walls of the smoldering temple structure. It was all coming down now, and the few enemies left were trying to flee. The remaining stalk-eyed giant was trying to get hold of Golden. Clover just wanted to find Xerrin Fyl and kill him. Her bones were starting to creak, and her hair was graying before her eyes.

  Can you sense the Soulstone? she asked her dragon.

  Only when he isss usingss it.

  Where did you sense it last?

  From the entryss of the old templesss.

  He is seeking another of his grandfather’s artifacts, I’d wager. Clover’s laugh held far less mirth than it had only a short while earlier. My skin is spotting, Crim. I feel like I’m a hundred years old.

  You aress more than a hundred yearsss old, Cloverss. And look, we’ve found our wizard.

  ***

  Aikira dispatched one of the giants, and while gathering her breath, watched Crimzon and Clover battle three of the creatures, ending one in flames, and then two more with a blast that leveled the whole structure of the newer palace. All of this while looking off in a half-dreaming daze.

  Aikira was as envious as she was awe struck by the grace with which Clover gestured her spells from dragonback. And Crimzon had
never looked so fierce. When they banked up and over near the older temple building, Aikira urged Golden to take them there, too. Then suddenly Crimzon was back-flapping awkwardly over them as he tried to get clear of something.

  Apparently, Xerrin Fyl had spelled himself with the Soulstone this time, for he was busting through the smoldering rooftop of his grandfather’s temple with a sword in his hands that was growing with him. The blade sounded as if it were humming and had a glowing amber cast to its sheen. Xerrin Fyl’s facial features never changed, save for his eyes sinking in a bit, and the wildness of his hair, but he was reaching a staggering size. When he raised his sword, he was as big as the old dragon.

  Golden was suddenly forced to dive under a whooshing pass of the glowing blade. It was enormous, too, and all of the sky over both temples was within its reach.

  When he came spinning around a second time, Aikira and her dragon were caught with the flat of the blade and slapped hard to the ground. It was a good thing, too, for Crimzon and Clover sped right over the swinging weapon, and Clover used the power of her dragon tear to cast another slice of energy.

  This time, the devastating ripple tore through Xerrin Fyl’s giant throat like some invisible razor. The attack left him stumbling backward while trying to keep his life’s blood from spraying out of him.

  Aikira, astride Golden, saw that the enemy was demoralized by this. Many began to flee. She immediately went to see how badly the other dragons were injured. She had no idea where Marcherion was, and she was worried sick for him. It was no surprise when Crimzon landed near them and started looking over Blaze’s wounds, but when Aikira saw Clover, she was shocked into open-mouthed silence.

  “Yes, I’m an old maid,” Clover said. Her teeth had fallen out and her face was that of an ancient woman. She was so terribly dressed for her figure that Aikira felt shame for her.

  “Tell Jenka we kept our word and killed Xerrin Fyl,” the feeble old woman on Crimzon’s back said. “If we’re lucky, we won’t die getting where we have to go.”

  “Are you all right?” Aikira asked stupidly. Then an idea struck her. “I know how to use the wyrm holes. If you know where in the world you want to go, I can send you there.”

  Immediately, Crimzon began questioning Golden about the wyrm holes and how to use them. Clover seemed like she might have died already. She was sitting as still as a statue when Jade carried Marcherion back down to the battlefield.

  The oldest Dragoneer was angry about being left on a sea cliff, but his arm was broken, and half of his head looked like a pumpkin. Jade almost dropped him as they came down.

  “I feel Jenkass againsss,” Jade hissed happily. “He is coming.”

  “Killing that foul wizard is what broke the spell holding him.” Clover’s voice was nearly a whisper. The last was barely said at all. “Orthon won’t be happy.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  When Jenka poked his scruffy brown-haired head out of the shattered door of the old temple, Aikira couldn’t wait to tell him about his child and all the things that had been going on back home. It was growing dark, and flies and carrion birds were easing in closer to the carnage to get a taste. But when she saw the look on his face, and the way he was fumbling his sword belt around his waist as he hurried toward his dragon, she could tell he was terrified of something. Then he saw Clover, all old and frail, and he fell to his knees.

  “I’m so sorry, Clover.” He held his head and was clearly fighting tears. For some reason this caused Aikira to envy Zahrellion just a little bit.

  “Don’t be sorry.” Clover smiled a wrinkled old smile. “I’m not dead yet.”

  Blaze had turned his neck and head around and was watching from beside his rider. Marcherion’s eyes were pooled with thick tears. Aikira knew they both looked up to Crimzon as the alpha fire drake. It was clear the old red was about to leave them.

  She would miss him, too.

  Meeting Crimzon in that dwarven flue was one of the most terrifying moments of her life, and she would never forget him. Her tears had been flowing since she’d seen Jenka alive, but now she was bawling.

  “Orthon is coming,” Clover said to Jenka. Now her whitened hair was falling loose. “It will not count against your honor if you leave him be.”

  Goodbye Dragoneersss, Crimzon hissed, and with that he rubbed his eyelids against his foreclaw and then leapt into the sky.

  The Dragoneers and their dragons watched as the pair grew smaller and then disappeared altogether into the wyrm hole Crimzon called forth.

  ***

  Jenka had to duck and dodge his dragon’s sloppy-tongued greeting. He was pleased to see Jade again, but they didn’t have time to enjoy each other. Orthon really was coming, and he was as angry as any being had ever been. He was still bound to the trap, but Jenka wasn’t sure how far the demon could roam from it. The fact that he was now starting to manifest himself in their plane was a shocking development. Jenka had tricked him, and now held the demon’s eternal fate in his hands.

  Orthon had been bound to the trap by Xaffer’s spell, as was Clover. Only Orthon or Xaffer could have released her. Xerrin Fyl had sent Jenka there, not his grandfather, and when Clover killed the younger mage, the spell he hastily cast on Jenka died with him. Orthon had no part in imprisoning the Dragoneer and he couldn’t have stopped Jenka’s release had he tried. He was left with no one to guarantee his unbinding and Jenka expected to swiftly learn what limitations the demon did or didn’t have.

  After feeling a taste of the pain Orthon had to offer, Jenka really wanted no further part of him; at least that is the way he felt until he grabbed his sword by the hilt and checked the draw.

  The instant the blade started out of the scabbard, the Dour from the teardrop mounted in the hilt filled him. This must have ignited the Dour that had saturated him when he was inside the alien because the sea of magic stuff that engulfed him was vast and deep.

  Fear was no longer a part of it.

  Where is Rikky? Jenka asked through the ethereal.

  Probably trying to kill the witches who tried to take Jericho, March responded.

  Jericho?

  Jenka, Aikira’s voice entered the conversation through a sniffle. You have a son. Zahrellion named him Jericho after your father.

  But Jericho wasn’t my father. Jenka was suddenly regretful for thinking such a thing. In his heart, Jericho De Swasso had been his father. He stopped thinking and began dreaming about a boy he’d never seen, a giggling infant with eyes the color of submerged coral, like his, all bundled in silky cloth.

  Jenka was starting to flow away into a Dour dream until Orthon spoke with his terrible, booming voice. The demon had finished manifesting himself amid the rubble, but Jenka had little concern for it now.

  “There are more of you?” the mesh-masked demon roared as he looked around at the bloody battlefield. “How dare you trick me, boy? I am going to—”

  “You are going to sit still, you moronic hellborn giboon! You are barely even here.” Jenka yelled from Jade’s back. He wasn’t sure what a giboon was, but he’d heard March call Rikky one at least a hundred times. He was glad that Orthon wasn’t able to peel himself further from Xaffer’s bind. As it was, the demon could probably only manage a spell or two from where it was. “If you kill me, Orthon, I won’t be able to break your bind.”

  The demon was now twice as large as the giants lying there, but not nearly as big as the dead wizard’s corpse. Jenka turned to look down at Marcherion, who was just getting mounted on Blaze’s back. What is this of witches and my child? Why are you not there protecting them?

  I came to help you and Crimzon.

  Jenka weighed this and the way Marcherion’s head looked like a misshapen lump.

  It’s just some uprising that started in the unruled mainland, Aikira said. Rikky and Queen Zahrellion will have taken care of it by now.

  Queen Zahrellion? Unruled mainland? How long was I trapped with Clover?

  “Not long enough,” Orthon grumble
d loudly. “Break the bind, boy, as you swore to do.”

  “Xaffer had to use the Soulstone to bind you,” Jenka snapped at the demon. “He wasn’t powerful enough to do it himself. The stone is your binder.” Jenka pointed at the enlarged corpse of Xerrin Fyl. The knowledge had just flowed into him and he understood the way of things. The Dour had him feeling invincible, too, and he spoke with disdain to the powerful thing that had once tortured him and Clover. “It is there. Destroy it yourself. That mace should do just fine.”

  Under his mask, Orthon licked his exposed upper teeth with a loud slurp and grunted. His glowing blue orbs narrowed tightly, and he hissed. Then he went directly to Xerrin Fyl’s corpse and started rummaging for the artifact with the head of his weapon.

  How do you know all of these things about Zahrellion and Rikky? Jenka asked as he began urging them all to get away from the area. If I wasn’t here that long, you’d have had to leave right after I did.

  We’ve a new way to travel great distances, March voiced. You saw Crimzon leave. We can be home in a matter of days.

  They were flying over open sea now. In the distance behind them the dark horizon line was eclipsed by the explosive release of the Soulstone’s power when Orthon finally destroyed it.

  We should seek shelter in the sea cave and heal each other’s wounds as best we can, Aikira suggested. The dragons can feed there, and we can catch up. Uh… Your Highness.

  Jenka looked at March, and March chuckled, despite the fact his head was swollen to the point of bursting. Why did you call her Queen Zahrellion?

  Because King Richard gave you the Frontier to rule, King De Swasso, Aikira answered with a mocking grin. As the mother of your heir, Zahrellion is Queen Regent.

  And that is why these witches want my son?

  It has to be, agreed Marcherion.