The Emerald Rider (Book Four of the Dragoneer Saga)

by M. R. Mathias

  If you harm Zahrellion or my son, I will destroy you.

  The Nightshade hissed, and Richard laughed disdainfully. You’ll want to destroy me anyway. Besides, I might just destroy you and the Dragonetts first.

  With that, Richard drew his jagged blade and pointed the tip at Jenka. I’ll send you the pieces of Zahrellion when I am done with her, but Jericho has my father’s blood in his veins. He will be my heir.

  The alien nature that had infused itself inside Jenka combined with the Dour that saturated his blood. His anger flared forth, and his will carried him and his dragon right into Richard and his hovering mount. Jenka left his saddle and, after slapping Richard’s sword out of his hand, he jammed his four fingers into Richard’s mouth and closed his fist over his lower jaw.

  Richard was still moving at a normal rate, while Jenka and Jade were both acting in some sort of hyper speed. Jade raked a claw down the hellborn wyrm’s side, and then Jenka half-hovered, half-strode back over to his own dragon, pulling King Richard with him by the jaw.

  He jerked his brother over Jade’s saddle like a sack, and just as the effects from the swift of movement spell faded, the green wyrm banked away from the Nightshade. Jade took them straight down to the ground, and a dozen feet above it, Jenka dragged his brother after him. He landed on his feet but had to take a knee as Richard’s chest slammed into the dirt. He didn’t want to lose his grip just yet.

  Jenka rolled his brother over and then put his knee in his chest.

  “You’ll tell me where Zahrellion and Jericho are or I will rip your face off,” Jenka raged while looking deep into Richard’s eyes. Every time Richard tried to bite down on his fingers he squeezed his fist tight with just enough force to keep from shattering his jaw bone. Richard’s nostrils flared as he struggled to breathe. His eyes were wide with the terror Jenka knew he was radiating.

  Richard screamed around Jenka’s hand but couldn’t use his tongue. Still, Jenka didn’t let go. Are you going to tell me? he asked with his mind.

  They are to be put under Fedran’s guard in the Dragoneers’ den in Mainsted. The vehemence behind Richard’s ethereal voice was plain. You’ll regret ever trying—

  Jenka squeezed his brother’s jaw so tightly even his ethereal voice stopped. There was no scale grand enough to measure the amount of fury building inside him now.

  You heard him. Jenka craned his neck around, searching the sky for Blaze. The red wyrm and Jade were hovering on either side of the wounded, but still flying, Nightshade. Marcherion was there in his saddle, looking back and forth between the scene on the ground and the slick-skinned wyrm. He looked eager.

  Rikky, Aikira, they’re on their way to Mainsted. Intercept them, Jenka voiced with his mind.

  Them? came Rikky’s reply.

  The witch has Zahrellion, too, Marcherion responded to the others. Then to Jenka: Kill him. Let’s go get Zah and Jericho back.

  Jenka took a long look at the dark king and groaned out a roar of frustration. I can’t kill him.

  Why not? Marcherion asked.

  He is my brother, Jenka huffed. That’s why.

  Just then the Nightshade tried to lift and bank away, but Jade blocked its path and Marcherion urged Blaze to attack.

  In savage fashion, the red dragon opened his maw, and when the hellborn wyrm made to protect itself from his fire, Blaze took a huge bite out of the thing instead.

  Jade snapped his head in and took a bite as well. His teeth caught bone, and he crunched right through a wing member. The Nightshade went spinning, slowly at first, and impacted into the dirt near Richard and Jenka.

  “NOOOO!” Richard yelled as he bucked and kicked Jenka back. Had he not just seen the troublesome beast wounded almost directly over his head, Jenka might not have let his brother go, but now Richard was back-crabbing to get some distance, and before anyone could react, he was running toward the floundering creature and keening out an angry wail of what might have been sorrow.

  Jenka leapt from the ground. He covered the sixty-some-odd paces between him and his dragon in a sudden flash of movement.

  Mainsted, was all he said as he urged Jade in the right direction. As soon as Blaze was caught up to them, Jenka cast a spell that teleported them all right into the old dragon bailey where they and their mounts had once lived as the heroes of the realm.

  Part IV

  Return of the Emerald Rider

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Zahrellion saw Jenka as she was shoved into the dark hall that led to the gathering room where they once held council. Her heart leapt with a thundering of hope. If Jenka and Jade were here, maybe the others were, too. She was flooded with relief until she bumped into something warm and fleshy. Then, in a panic, she cast forth an orb of light and was completely surprised that her magic responded to her. What she saw under the harsh, hissing illumination made her retch. Hanging from the rafters by his wrists, with his feet a foot off the ground, was Rolph. It was Linux in Rolph’s body, she knew, and he was covered with welts and bruises. What caused her stomach to turn, though, was the dangling finger-wide strips of flesh someone had peeled partially down his ribs.

  Zahrellion was suddenly afraid for her son. Jenka might not know he was taken. She was worried for Crystal, too. The huge frost dragon had been backed into one of the dragon stalls and collared with some witchy device that sapped her will.

  A groan escaped the hanging form, and Zah forced her worry away long enough to cast the few healing spells she knew on him. Fighting nausea and revulsion, she used a table knife to cut away the dangling strips of drying skin and healed over the raw spots as best she could.

  Outside, a commotion was causing men to shout and start clanging around in their armor.

  Linux wasn’t conscious, which was for the best. Had he been, the pain would have been excruciating. He was lying on his chest now, on the cold tile floor. He had a fever and was fidgeting fitfully but would probably recover.

  After she caught her breath, she tried to reach out to her dragon, but there was no response. She tried calling the other Dragoneers with her ethereal voice, too, but no one replied. As she was trying to recall the layout of this part of the castle, she remembered something Rikky had once shown her.

  Again hope filled her, for the secret panel that led directly to King Blanchard’s old study was still there. After opening it, she gave Linux’s still form a glance. He’d taught her most everything she knew, including that you couldn’t trust everyone, and that sometimes bad things are done for good reasons.

  She maintained that thought as she extinguished her magical light and made her way into the passage. If any of the city guard tried to stop her, she would do her best not to harm them. They were not evil, like Richard and the witch; they were just following Commander Fedran’s orders.

  As she went, she began thinking through her catalogue of spells for ones that could stop the men without killing them. She remembered a few, but soon something else stole her attention.

  They touched her face first and then she felt the spider webs she was breaking through coming down as if a net had fallen on her. The thump of something landing on her shoulder caused her to let out a little scream. She started running with one hand in front of her and the other brushing awkwardly at her head and shoulders. Even after she was sure the thing was off of her, she felt all creepy and on edge. Thankfully, she saw the rectangular outline of the door to the old king’s study and eased up to listen to what might be transpiring in the room.

  “Who ordered it?” a man asked incredulously. “I do not like this at all.”

  “The commander is leading the men through the wall. Ankha Vira had us put her in with that traitor.”

  “She is a Dragoneer, man,” the first voice said. “She won’t just stay in there. The others have come for her already. They saved us all, and now look at what that fool is—”

  “That fool and the witch, as well as King Richard himself, are about to meet their end,” Zahrellion said sharply as she bu
rst into the room. Both men cowered in fear, for they’d been there when the Royal Dragoneers defeated Gravelbone. Now their commander had men battling her fellow dragon riders from the wall tops. “I’ll not harm you for following the orders you’ve been given,” Zahrellion reassured them, “but I’m giving the orders now.” She glared daggers at them until they both nodded that they understood.

  “Where is my son?”

  “Son?” the first man, a captain, asked.

  “The witch took Prince Jericho. Where is he? Where is my son?”

  Both men blanched from her angry tone, but it was clear they didn’t know what she was talking about. They had no idea where Jericho was.

  “What would you have us do?” the second man, a sergeant, finally asked. He looked at his captain and then back at Zah.

  “Round up all the men loyal to the Dragoneers. Remind them that they’ve been forgotten by their king. Tell them that if they fight for King Richard, or that witch, we will kill them. If they fight with us, the transgressions of the past few years will be forgotten.”

  “But Commander Fedran will—”

  “The Dragoneers are here, man, and Commander Fedran is as good as dead. Now go and start spreading the word. The Dragoneers are coming, and they are going to make our kingdom whole again. And any man who can tell me where my son is will earn a purse he’ll need a cart to haul for it.”

  The captain smacked his lips and then nodded. “You heard her, Kildigger. Go tell the men to spread the word.”

  After the sergeant left, the captain stood and put his hands on his hips. “Those witches guarding over your dragon will know where the prince has been taken. Put this on, and I’ll take you right to them.”

  “Now we are getting somewhere,” Zah muttered as she donned the cloak she was given. “Take me directly to whoever has been giving you orders in Fedran’s absence.”

  “I can do that.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Jenka urged Jade up away from the dragon bailey and found March circling higher. Below, men were hesitantly preparing for a battle they didn’t look like they wanted to fight. Already, a knot of broom-riding witches was forming to meet the two Dragoneers in the afternoon sky. Another cluster of them was excitedly scurrying about the area around the old dragon barn. Jenka knew that if Zahrellion and Crystal were here, the dragon would have to be held in there.

  He used his alien-born ability and the Dour flowing through him to try to sense the frigid wyrm, and he found he was right. Something Richard had said, about Jericho sharing their father’s blood, came to him then, too, and he instantly knew his son wasn’t in Mainsted. After a few more moments of concentrating on the feeling he’d had when he was near Richard, he decided that Jericho was some distance east of Mainsted. He could feel his own blood as plainly as he could feel that of his father flowing in his brother.

  The witches were throwing spells now, but Jenka absently called the Dour to shield him, and their spiraling swarms of angry magic and pitiful fireballs all exploded on a spherical field a few dozen feet before his wyrm.

  Marcherion was under attack as well, but Blaze was impervious to the fireballs and actually caught one in his huge toothy maw before spitting it like a melon seed back at the witch who’d cast it.

  Jenka called forth a mass of raw Dour and let it float away from him. After warning Marcherion and Blaze, Jade banked them away.

  I’m going after my son. I can sense where he is now.

  There are too many witches for us to handle alone.

  Cover your ears, Jenka voiced.

  His hovering mass of Dour exploded then, sending a ring of energy blasting outward at a slightly canted angle nearly parallel to the ground. The concussion caused a handful of the witches to simply fall from the sky, while a few others were knocked backward with violent force. Others were bleeding from their ear holes or outright deafened by the sound.

  Where there had just been two dozen of the broom riders in the sky, there were now less than ten.

  To the surprise of both Dragoneers, in the stark silence that followed the blast, a few cheers erupted from the men in the city below.

  Not too many for you now, are there? Jenka asked, and then he and Jade were but an emerald blur streaking across the sky.

  ***

  Marcherion started into the aerial fight by letting Blaze have his head and firing arrows from his bow. This was effective as March was an ace shot with the weapon, and Blaze’s breath was noxious and deadly hot. Loosing arrows required a cool demeanor, though, and after one of the spiraling hornet sparkles hit him and seared its way into his shoulder, his aim was off and his anger took over.

  The dragon tear medallion at his neck flared cherry, and his eyes began to fill with radiant light. More witches were in the sky now, but he didn’t care. The string-thin lines of light burning out of his pupils sliced through everything they touched. First a broom was ruined, leaving the rider flailing as she crashed into the street. Then he cut one of the witches in half and the attack intensified.

  One witch arced in and cast some sort of glacial spell that caused Blaze to begin coughing and fighting for purchase in the now icy air.

  Another slung liquid across the fire dragon’s scales. The stuff did nothing at first, but then blisters were bubbling up and smoky corrosion was eating into his flesh. March was splattered, too, and it felt like scalding oil was on him, pocking his skin.

  He saw a broom rider cut under Blaze’s spewing flames and knew she was no novice. The woman was older than anyone he’d ever seen, save for maybe Clover when he’d last seen her. She had a flask in her free fist, and she pulled the stopper with her teeth. She didn’t sling it, though; she drank it down. Her eyes bulged almost completely out of her old head, but then she blew out a huge swath of icy, wet moisture.

  Blaze roared out in agony. March wasn’t sure if they were about to crash into the ground or not, but he knew his dragon was struggling to stay aloft. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of gold and silver.

  There is a lake in the merchants’ quarter, Rikky called across the ethereal. Get there now!

  March understood that he and Blaze needed to wash the acidic liquid off of them. The way Rikky spoke told him the stuff was doing terrible damage to them both. For a fire drake to want to be in water was a rare thing, but Blaze would have wallowed in slush if it would end the corrosion of his scales.

  Once Rikky and Aikira engaged the witches, Blaze got out of the thick of it. On their way down into the park pond, which Rikky had described as a lake, they saw something that was staggering enough to make them forget the agony of their wounds.

  “Mudgesss,” Blaze hissed distastefully.

  When they hit the water and steam started roiling from Blaze’s heat, March quickly dove off of the wyrm and swam underwater while rubbing his arms. When he came up for air, he was bleeding and deeply pocked in some places, but the pain was ebbing. One of his eyes was a blurry mess, but he was otherwise intact.

  He looked up, hoping his good eye had been deceiving him, but the evening sky was filling with mudged dragons, and the witches clearly had their favor.

  March knew they should have killed Richard when they had the chance. They were about to be paying the price for not doing so. The Nightshade had always been able to rally the lesser wyrms, and now here they were. Maybe it wasn’t dead, or maybe it was Richard, not the black wyrm, who could call them to battle. It really didn’t matter. Someone or something had summoned them.

  There must have been a hundred of them, too many to count. March knew the fight was about to be on them, and he and Blaze were still floundering in a pond.

  He took in Blaze’s injuries and was heartened to see that, like his own, the pain was fading and the wounds weren’t deadly. There were a few melon-sized scallops eaten out of the dragon, but he was ready to get back into the sky.

  The mudged are coming, Marcherion warned Rikky and Aikira. Watch yourselves.

  When Blaze li
fted up, they flew a few dozen wing strokes toward the battle, but the big red tumbled back to the ground. He was so affected by all the cold and water that he couldn’t maintain his equilibrium. As they stumbled to a stop, two mudged dragons came flapping down over them. Blaze let loose a blast of dragon fire, as much to drive them back as to warm up his muscles. Then another mudged wyrm, this one of a deep blue hue speckled with turquoise and orange down its spine, darted its head in and snapped at him. March’s left eye was so blurred that he didn’t see it coming until it was there. The next thing he knew, he was being dragged out of the saddle by his hair.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Rikky heard Marcherion’s warning and glanced at Aikira, who was flying beside them, to see if she’d heard. Aikira gave him a smiling snarl and pointed at the darkened cloud of wyrms in the sky.

  Go after the witches, Rikky, she voiced. Cover March. Golden has a spell for the mudged that you’ll want to be clear of.

  Silva called forth a shielding spell for her rider and then banked away. They corkscrewed between the sparkling swirls cast by one of the witches, only to narrowly miss a yellow, glowing net formed of witchy magic cast by another. Then Silva unleashed her spew while Rikky loosed Dour-formed arrow after Dour-formed arrow across the sky at them.

  The brooms the witches rode looked more like branches, and most of the riders could maneuver them well enough to avoid his attack, but not all.

  One of his arrows hit a witch in the chest, and a film of harsh, rapidly spreading energy crackled over her as she fell backward off of her flying device. Another of them was left with a fist-sized hole through her middle. Rikky guessed that the effect of each of his Dour-formed arrows was different because the witches were each warded differently. Most of the time the missiles struck and exploded out for an instant then sucked back in on themselves, leaving nothing but empty space where the target had been.