Perhaps the valley floor he was walking on had once been level with the land atop the cliff above. He considered this as he trudged along. Maybe the land had come apart and this half had sunk away, not the other way around.
The ground was mostly ice-covered dirt, with chunks of crumbled granite mountainside strewn about the scattered pines. In his humid and sticky cell, Jenka’s breath came out in clouds, and his skin began to grow chill and goose-pimpled. A harsh, and somehow loving growl came from ahead of him, and the roiling fog parted, revealing the source of the sound.
It was a gigantic, emerald-scaled dragon, the biggest Jenka had ever seen. It was so huge that it radiated its own heat, causing the cool air to steam and condense into the misty cloud that surrounded it. Its iron-hard claws were covered in flies and gore, but the fact that they were as long as Jenka’s legs wasn’t lost on him. Its tail was thick, like an ancient tree trunk, and its slick-looking green scales were the size of shields. The giant dragon’s eyes were milky and fading as it lay there, its gaze locked with its offspring. It was busy communicating with Jade.
Jenka peered closer at Jade’s mother and saw that the massive dragon had been bleeding profusely for some time. She had been torn open across the underbelly and gnawed on in several places. She lay on a wallowed bed, formed of nothing but the decimated carcasses of the trolls she had killed defending herself. Her wounds were mortal, and she was busy spending the last bit of her existence imparting vast volumes of knowledge into her young hatchling as swiftly as she could manage.
Worry struck Jenka like a hammer blow. He darted through the pines toward the mound of troll bodies, knocking snow from the branches and sobbing as he went. He was worried for Jade. Worse, he was feeling Jade's powerful sorrow, feeling Jade's pain. There was a flaring inferno deep inside the infantile dragon, a fire burning of rage and hatred for the things that had attacked and killed his mother, but there was a longing, too. Jenka recognized the feeling, for he felt it inside of himself. He and Jade were drawn toward each other. They bonded.
Jenka didn’t think that trolls could have made the long deep gash across the dragon’s underside. He figured that only another dragon could have done that, or perhaps the hellborn nightshade that Gravelbone rode.
The hulking, emerald dragon turned her gaze upon Jenka, then, and held it there. For a moment, Jenka’s mind went blank. Then a kaleidoscope of images began streaming through his mind’s eye. Images of land formations, of vast open seas, geometric shapes and strange symbols etched in tablets made of stone. All of this impacted his brain in strobe-like fashion.
“Do not be afraid to turn loossse of it, Jenka,” a deep, yet distinctly feminine voice hissed into his mind. “If it wasss meant to be yoursss it will find itsss way ... ”
Jade readjusted the set of his wings and stepped into Jenka’s line of sight, breaking the enchantment. They shared a look that spoke of untold sorrow. Jenka’s mind felt hot and electric, and his perceptions were so keen and alien that he was almost lost in their intricacies. Something understood passed between the two of them, and after the huge emerald dragon said a few heartfelt words to Jade, the young dragon leapt into the sky and began winging his way south.
Jenka saw a tear form in the old dragon’s eye. The amber liquid pooled and then tumbled over a filmy, upraising, lower eyelid. Jenka watched it flow down hard-plated facial scales and then drip off of a ropy, finger-thick strand of beard tentacle. The golden liquid plopped down on the dragon’s scaled forearm, and should have burst, but it didn’t. It bounced, as if it had frozen on the way down. It then rolled over and fell. The piece of crystallized tear thumped and rattled among the troll carcasses like a dropped stone. Jenka realized that the tear wasn’t liquid anymore. A glimmer of reflection from it caught his eye, and for some strange reason he marked its location firmly in his mind.
Jenka didn’t want to watch the mighty green wyrm slowly die, so he started pulling his mind out of the entranced state he had fallen into. He was down deep, tangled in layer upon layer of finely woven thought strands, all submerged in something as thick as molasses. Like a man swimming to the surface from the depths of an amber lake, he slowly ripped free of the tapestry and rose up and almost out of his reverie.
He stopped himself just beneath the surface. He was in the other reality that Zah had been speaking of, and he knew it. He had to try and light the flame.
With eyes squeezed shut in full concentration, he spoke the two words and then flicked his finger. He opened his eyes and was momentarily blinded by the flaring green flame that erupted from his fingertip. It took him the span of five full heartbeats to realize that the fire he had created was burning his flesh.
“I did it, Zah!” Jenka exclaimed, trying to shake the fire away from his burning finger. His voice was loud, and it echoed through the stony dungeon to her cell. “I made fire!”
Her smiling vision reappeared in his cell almost immediately.
“Jade is coming for me,” Jenka went on to tell her. “They killed his mother. The Goblin King and his horde did.” He stopped to suck on his blistered finger for a moment. “My dragon needs me to temper his anger, or he will destroy himself seeking vengeance. This isn’t about the kingdom of men or the trolls anymore for me. This is about my bond-mate.”
Zahrellion was dumbfounded, but she couldn’t argue the reasoning, or the sentiment behind Jenka’s sudden change of motivation. She felt as strongly for Crystal, and she somewhat understood. “I’ll help you, then. Crystal will help too. I’ll tell her to go look out for Jade.”
“Where is Linux?” Jenka asked. “Can you communicate with him? I would ask his aid too.”
“I can try,” she replied, and disappeared back into her body.
*** * ***
After literally dropping Rikky and Jess, from tree-top level, behind the Great Wall near Midwal, and then having to dodge the worst of the arrows that had been loosed at them, Prince Richard and Royal were flying north on heavy wings. Their destination was Crag, and then Kingsmen’s Keep. The big dragon was tiring and he needed to feed, but the trolls had scared most of the game deep into the forested hills. Troll meat would do, but Royal was content to be hungry and patient. He hoped to spot some stray cattle instead of actually having to eat the filthy trolls that he loved to kill so much.
Prince Richard was tired as well. He had been riding, straddled between two triangular spinal plates, his legs bowed wide, for two full days now. They hadn’t rested at all after the long, excruciating flight over the sea from King’s Island. They had swooped on Three Forks and spent a few hours fighting the trolls now running amok in the emptied Stronghold, but the battle was pointless. When they started away, Royal spotted the trolls converging on Rikky and Jess at the wagon. The sparkling blue dragon had gotten the scent of warm human flesh, and had conveyed that perception to the prince. Of course, Prince Richard dutifully went to rescue the survivors.
Before the sun fled and left them flying sluggishly through the chill moonlight, they had spotted band upon band of trolls, ranging southward through the fields and forests. There were packs of goblins too, and even a few of the bigger, barrel-chested, pig-snouted orcs loping along with the hordes. It was a terrifying sight, and Prince Richard was starting to feel like the odds against them were a lot heavier than anyone could have expected.
The few other dragons they had seen in the sky had stayed well clear of Royal. He was a pure-blooded dragon. Not only was he far more cunning than any of them ever hoped to be, he radiated a potent life-force that warned them of his superiority. To the mudged strains of dracus, he reeked of power and magic. They were terrified of him.
The village of Grove was a rank, smoldering ruin; inhabited now, mainly, by buzzards and crows. Some cattle had settled down near a grassy tree line out by the Strom River. The prince gladly dismounted and let his bond-mate go hunt. Royal promised to bring back some fresh meat for Richard. Then, with a weary groan of exhaustion, the dragon leapt back into the sky to go find
a meal.
Prince Richard was sniffing at a pail of water he had just pulled up from the well in the center of town, when he heard a snuffling noise. He whirled around and was startled by a huge troll. It was bloated and overstuffed from gorging on the abundance of rotting human flesh. It belched out long and slow, then hefted the half-eaten thigh it was holding as if it were a club. Richard took a long deep draught from the water pail and discarded it. He then drew his gleaming long sword from the scabbard at his hip and started forth. In the faint starlight and eerie crimson glow of the smoldering town, it looked like his blade was already covered in blood.
The troll bellowed and charged, brandishing the human limb high as it came. Richard went low, but at the last moment the troll did too. The prince’s sword only slightly sliced into the beast’s thick hide. Richard caught the meaty part of the troll’s grim weapon across the neck and went rolling away hard.
The lanky beast wasn’t as overfilled as Richard had first thought, and it came at him hard and fast. Blow after thumping blow rained down around him as he rolled away as deftly as he could manage. He took a few pounding impacts, but his custom armor deflected their potency well enough. He finally rolled to his feet and spun low again, bringing his blade around in a wide, slicing, ankle-level arc. The troll hopped over it, but came down in an awkward ankle-snapping jumble. Prince Richard stumbled away backwards then. He was glad he did, for the blast of scorching dragon’s breath that Royal bathed the troll in left nothing but an ashy lump, that soon crumbled into a pile of cherry embers.
The sound of several other creatures, be they troll, goblin or orc, could be heard trampling and scurrying into the night, away from the blue dragon’s rage. The thankful prince found his pail and drank some more. He found the chunk of bloody meat that Royal had brought for him, and after washing it in the water, found some wood and fanned a fire to life.
Royal curled up into a mountainous ball, letting his body rest and digest the scant meal he had eaten. After the prince ate some of his meat, he crawled up into the crook of the dragon's forearm and closed his eyes. He didn’t open them until he was tumbled out of his slumber by Royal's sudden panicked movement.
The big blue dragon hissed out furiously at something, and when Prince Richard found what it was in the darkness, he wanted to crumble up into a fetal ball and sob.
The slick, black nightshade loomed over them. Its long, snaking body didn’t have scales like a dragon, and its eyes glowed a soft muted cherry, like the dying coals of a campfire. It was similar in size and form to a dragon such as Royal, but instead of exuding strength and regal might it radiated hatred and fear. It was larger than anyone had described, nearly as big as Royal. Worst was the thing sitting confidently atop the nightshade like the grotesque ivory-antlered monarch it was. It was Gravelbone, the Goblin King. His stealthy hellborn mount had crept up on them while they were sleeping, and the evil demon was grinning a mouthful of yellowed fangs over the pleasure it was feeling over simplicity of the feat.
Instinctually, the prince reached for his sword, but as his long steel blade came ringing free he heard the demon laugh out hysterically. The world flashed lavender then, and a nearly invisible fist of magical power the size of a barrel-keg hammered Prince Richard back against Royal’s scaly side.
Royal roared out angrily.
Prince Richard thought he saw the nightshade take a cautious step back, but was blinded and deafened by the next series of concussions that erupted over and around him. The prince was knocked aside and unable to tell if the powerful magic concussions were coming from Royal or had been directed at his bond-mate. The next thing he knew, he was being jerked violently into the air by a huge claw. Richard knew immediately, by the less than gentle nature of the thing that had a hold of him, that it wasn’t Royal. When the gripping claw squeezed him so tightly that he couldn’t draw breath, there was no room left for doubt. The nightshade had gotten hold of him.
As Prince Richard slipped into a haze of oxygen-deprived darkness, he wasn’t worried about himself at all. He was worried for Royal and the people up in Kingsmen’s Keep that he had intended to save. Blackness soon engulfed his consciousness, but by then none of it seemed to matter anymore.
Chapter Eighteen
Jenka had been pacing back and forth in his musty little cell for what might have been an entire day now. He was anxious and irritable, and the fact that he had to turn around every three paces was compounding his frustration. He was so filthy that he felt like he had a layer of slime coating his skin, and his hair was an itchy, tangled, knotted mat. He was worried out of his mind for his bond-mate. Seeing Jade’s mighty old mamra dying like that had touched him deeply. It made him fear for his own mother. There was nothing he could do to help any of them, though, and that made him feel even less substantial. Jade was probably frightened and sad, out there all alone amongst the mudged and the trolls. Jenka was reasonably certain that Lemmy and the King’s Rangers had aided his mother, but Jade was another matter.
Jade was inexperienced and young, and the trolls and the mudged were many. There was no way for Jenka to know if the yearling dragon even had enough sense to feed and rest before he attempted to fly across the ocean from the mainland. It was a long journey over nothing but the open sea, and there was no doubt that Jade was going to try to make it. The young dragon had spoken into Jenka’s mind when they had shared that look up in the frigid peaks. “I am coming for you.” The hiss of the words reverberated in Jenka’s skull even still.
Zahrellion hadn’t been able to reach out to Linux, but one of the other members of her order, a druid named Frunien, was supposedly coming for her, and had told her so in her dreams. She had shared a dream with her dragon too. Crystal was now searching the skies for Jade, and if Crystal could find him, then she would help him in any way she could.
Herald had returned to tell Jenka that he had delivered his mother's message to the old witch. Herald said that she hadn’t been half as creepy as he had expected her to be, but that she hissed with extreme displeasure and shooed him away when she found out that Jenka was locked in the dungeons.
Jenka wanted to tell the King’s Ranger that they were going to break out, but he didn’t want to involve his friend in the treachery. He wanted to be honest with the man, but there would most likely be severe consequences for the escape, especially if King Blanchard was still on King’s Island when it came time to abscond.
Jenka asked Herald if he had seen Linux, or if he had gotten any word from Rikky, or any news about Crag, but there had been only one bird from beyond the wall in the last few days. That missive had been an urgent plea for help from Commander Corda. He was about to abandon Three Forks Stronghold to the trolls. There had been several messages from Midwal and Eastwal, though. The frontier was apparently overrun with bands of angry vermin, and the skies filled with hungry feral dragons. The mudged pillaged at will on both sides of the Great Wall now, and a few people had reported that some of the trolls had taken to riding on their backs. The future seat of the kingdom, Mainsted, had been swooped upon several times already. There was still no word from Kingsmen’s Keep, but Outwal, the overcrowded city just outside of the Great Wall, had been decimated. The last message from Port stated that there were at least a thousand human casualties in the battle to flee Outwal, most of them common folk.
It was more than Jenka could imagine, so he tried not to think about it. It wasn’t to be, though. The concern over his friends and loved ones kept forcing itself into his thoughts, reminding him that he was as useless as wings on a rooted tree.
Jenka felt Jade's anguish, and more than a little of the dragon’s desire to end this madness. He would have pounded his fist against the moldy dungeon wall, had it not already been raw and sore from doing so earlier. He and Jade would relish exacting some well-deserved revenge on the Goblin King, but no matter how hard he tried, Jenka couldn’t clear his mind enough to find that place where he could communicate with his dragon. There was just too much tension
and worry.
Later, while Jenka was still brooding and pacing, a retinue of well-armed and oddly-robed men arrived at the dungeons. Herald had gotten it so that the head-high feeding slots in the cell doors stayed open, and Jenka watched in utter shock as the large, hooded men came and forcibly took Zah away. She screamed and sobbed and twisted and pulled, but she refrained from attempting to use magic against them. Then they put a hood over her head, and she went still.
It was long after the noisy ruckus had subsided and Zahrellion had been taken away that Jenka thought to ask someone who they were and where they had taken her.
“Back to the mainland with the flotilla, under the King’s own guard,” the jailor informed him.
“They was a-wantin’ to chop your top, but the queen, may the gods grace her forgiving soul, argued against it.”
“Quit trying to scare him, Dink, or I’ll knot your noggin,” Herald growled as he came in. Straight to Jenka’s cell door he went, shouldering the guard out of his way. “Sorry, boy,” he apologized to Jenka. “We didn’t see that one coming. Them druids sent a messenger to the king. The man walked right out of the thin air and told King Blanchard that if Zahrellion wasn’t waiting for them when they physically arrived, then they were gonna blast the wall open for the trolls.” He shook his head, and huffed out a very unsatisfying sigh. “Help the fargin trolls! Can you believe it?”
“It was a calculated bluff,” said Jenka, remembering one of Master Kember’s lessons. He too exhaled, long and slow. “My plan is ruined,” he mumbled under his breath.
“What plan?” Herald asked, rather loudly, then cringed. “What plan?” he hissed the question again in a much quieter voice. “And what’s a calfunatered bluff?”
The Royal Dragoneers (Dragoneers Saga) Page 16