Like a swimming snake, Jade slithered over to the ship and slid his slightly-horned head up over the rail. She had spoken his true name as correctly as a human tongue could manage it, and it intrigued him. He blinked his melon-sized amber orbs, then flicked his long, forked tongue out at the fishermen counterbalancing his weight as they cowered against the far side of the craft.
He had never been able to just leap into the air like the mature dragons could, but he thought that after the storm blew over he could try. He knew he could slither up into the ship. As small as it was, it was still twice as big as he. If he could eat a meal and rest for a few hours he could try to leap into the air from the ship. Even if he failed to take flight, he could swim alongside the boat until they led him to land. He wasn’t lost anymore. He felt reasonably certain that these friends of Jenka De Swasso that could speak his draconian name held him no ill will, so he decided to trust them.
Jade gave Herald a long, tentative look, then turned to Mysterian. “Thank you, ssswitch,” he finally hissed. Mysterian had no idea how the perceptive young wyrm could know that she was a witch. Jade slithered his bulk over the side of the boat and curled his wet, scaly body around the mast pole, forcing the craft to ride dangerously low, but steadier in the water. It was Mysterian’s turn to be afraid then, not because of Jade, but because the storm had caught up with them, and Nepton’s rage was potent.
Chapter Twenty Six
Prince Richard wasn’t sure if he was alive or not. If so, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be. He felt a thousand years old, as if his skin had been fired in grease until crisp, and his bones felt like … well … They felt like gravel. The very fiber of his being had been scorched with Gravelbone’s evil taint. Richard’s vision was a milky, cloudy haze that revealed only a faint shadow world. His mind was mostly a jumble of incoherent ramblings, but every so often a coherent thought would manifest itself and linger.
He could tell that there were more orcs in the main cavern by all the noise they made. A few of the big, green-skinned ogres had been enslaved into doing the Goblin King’s bidding, as well. All of them had heavy iron tools; Richard could tell by the sound the metal made as it clanged and dragged on the cavern floor. The vermin were excited and restless. There was a pungent plant smell in the air. Something was about to happen, and he was sure it was bad. He had felt Royal absorbing the demon’s insane magic with him. He had felt his bond-mate’s rage, and he knew that the sparkling blue was coming. He knew it was a trap, and he knew that Royal knew. If he could have mustered enough gumption to do more than stare blithering at the floor, he might have tried something crazy again. Anything to give his dragon an edge, but it wasn’t to be. Already, he had forgotten what he was thinking about and was wondering what that clanging metal was again.
His attention refocused when he heard the nightshade's vile shriek. It came swooping into the cavern calling out some preordained signal. Prince Richard heard his dragon, then. Royal was right behind the scale-less black wyrm. Royal landed before he entered the cavern, and when he came loping in, a half dozen orcs erupted into a hacking rage at his sides. They swung picks, axes, and scythes with heavy, penetrating blows. Royal let loose a terrible blast of prismatic energy that sent the nightshade flinging back against the cavern's stony side. Then he roasted more than half of the orcs that had been closing around him.
His neck was decimated by the bladed weapons, but he didn’t retreat. “Come, my friend, and fly with me,” Royal spoke to Prince Richard with his mind. “The demon didn’t kill us, and now we are stronger for the sssuffering.”
Royal thrashed and squirmed, and had all but ended the hacking vermin on either side of him, but the nightshade was regaining its wits and Royal hadn’t forgotten that the Goblin King was around there somewhere, too.
“Come, my Prince,” the dragon coaxed and projected. “Come straight to my voice.”
The nightshade was coiling to strike when Royal saw the dragon-bone cage where his bond-mate was being held. Royal spoke something in Ogrish and two of the enslaved creatures turned on the orcs and the nightshade as it struck. The other ogre went for Prince Richard.
Richard didn’t see the blue-scaled tail that almost removed his head as it bashed away the bars of his cage, nor did he see his blood-soaked, raging dragon set into the hellborn nightshade. He did feel the grip of a large hand as it covered most of his forearm, and he felt himself being pulled into a cooler, quieter place where there weren’t even any milky shadows to see by.
“Grunx druih vhagen cruxa?” the ogre asked. Prince Richard was too afraid to respond to the garbled voice, but he couldn’t remember why. He had no idea what the thing had said anyway.
Behind them, a deep and primal roar resounded. It was followed by another terrible screech. The ogre pulled the Crown Prince deeper into the darkened cavern and loped at a pace that, for Richard, was a steady run. They moved like that for a very long time.
In the main cavern, Royal and the nightshade were in a wild tangle of tooth, tail and claw. The two ogres still helped the blue wyrm when they could, but there remained several orcs and a few trolls to contend with. One of the ogres called something out, and Royal shifted around in his grasp of the slippery nightshade to respond. Royal agreed, in the brutish ogre tongue, that the Goblin King would be on them soon. With all the strength his lungs could muster, he sprayed the wicked black wyrm with his liquid lightning breath. While the Nightshade writhed and squirmed, trying to get the sticky dragon’s spume from its flesh, the two ogres charged up and out of the cavern. Royal backed defensively down the tunnel the other Ogre had led the Prince down. If it was all he could do, he would guarantee that nothing followed after his bond-mate. He was bleeding profusely about the head and neck and would die soon. It didn’t matter; Royal calculated that getting around a dead dragon in a tunnel was probably just as hard as getting around a live one.
The two fleeing ogres were not who Gravelbone expected to see tearing up out of his lair where he was waiting in ambush. When he unleashed the devastating blast of dark crimson power he had intended for the big blue wyrm, he was more than a little disappointed. The two ogres were destroyed instantly, just as Royal would have been if he had come that way. The Goblin King let out a roar of anger, but then turned to find a wild-eyed silver dragon and an even wider-eyed boy flying down the cavern at him. His jaundiced yellow eyes grew scarlet and the makings of a spell began forming on his snarling visage.
Silva was no fool, and she was small enough that she thought she could corkscrew herself around and go back the way they had come. The demon had to duck a shower of flying stalactites that Silva broke from the ceiling with her whipping tail as she attempted her turn. Gravelbone lost concentration, which saved them from the spell he had been about to unleash. When the sleek silver dragon executed the maneuver, she didn’t forget to leave the Goblin King a present similar to the one Jade had given the ancient red that had nearly killed Royal. The blast from her explosive spell sent her and Rikky tumbling up out of the cavern shaft wildly. Luckily, the lake was there, and Silva managed to twist them in that direction, for if they hadn’t splashed down into the freezing clear water, their bones would have surely been broken to splinters on the ground.
Echoing up out of the grottoes, the Goblin King’s raging voice could be heard for miles.
Silva gathered herself and wondered why Rikky was now laughing hysterically. When she asked him what was so funny, he replied: “I can’t help it. Every time I start to swim toward the shore I go in a circle.”
*** * ***
Jade slept until the heart of the storm was upon them. When he woke, he yawned and spread his wings wide. They caught air and started pushing the craft steadily ahead through the downpour. Already, his weight had saved them from being tossed around like a leaf in a raging stream. It was hard to tell where the sea ended and the rain began, for everything was soaking wet. The men all had to bail water, Herald too. It was either that or sink, so they bailed with all they had. M
ysterian helped direct the churning wind where she could, but she was too tired to be much help.
Where the humans were afraid for their lives, afraid of Nepton’s rage, Jade was elated by the experience. It was a terrific feeling, the hot lightning filling the air with sweet static, and the feel of the powerful gusts of wind on his wings. As for the rain, it was better having the wet stuff fall on him continuously than being trapped in the sea waiting to drown.
Jade knew that up above the storm clouds was fresh, wide open sky. He could have lifted out of the boat on a swell and flown away several times now, but he could tell that the boat wouldn’t last without his weight to keep it pressed into the waves as they rolled crazily beneath them. He didn’t want any harm to come to these friends of Jenka, who had saved him from the sea. He wanted to help them through the storm.
The witch had told him that Jenka had come back to the mainland looking for him. It made Jade feel the bond that much stronger. As he hugged the mast pole, he let his mind wander and saw Jenka, all wet and bedraggled, huddled against a beautiful, tattoo-faced girl. They were in the lee of a boulder before a hissing, blue-flamed fire. Jade knew the girl from Jenka’s dreams. She was the rider of the ice dragon. She was one of them.
Back in the moment came a high-pitched, keening call over the booming and rumbling of the storm. It was a sound that only Jade could hear. It was a call from another dragon. He returned the supersonic call as any pure dragon would. A moment later, the icy white wyrm was streaking down out of the roiling clouds, tendrils of vapor trailing from its chilly scales.
Herald gasped, and Mysterian looked up long enough to see the rare spectacle. The two dragons communicated somewhat telepathically, and soon Jade was using the tilt and pitch of his extended wings to guide the boat after Crystal. They began moving faster, for Crystal couldn’t just hover in the violent wind. The boat was sluicing through the storm-ravaged waters so swiftly that the men had stopped bailing and had begun praying again. Herald just stood there watching the mist trail away from Crystal’s wings, as the warm rain condensed near her cold scales. In all his years as a frontiersman and a King’s Ranger, he had never seen anything so strange and amazing.
The storm was getting worse. Lightning, bright and jagged, leapt from the sea and lit up the sky below the clouds. The men all saw the land, then. They were running east, parallel to a length of bluffs facing southward into the sea. They would have been washed into them soon and been bashed into pulp and splinters for the crabs to eat had the white dragon not guided them away from their previous course.
As it was, the man acting as the captain of the boat took up the tiller again and was helping Jade keep them from getting too close to the danger. He ordered his men to start bailing water again, and they complied. Their fear of the dragons had all but evaporated. The crew, with the hope of getting through the storm starting to seem like a realistic outcome, began working together to get the water out of the hull. It was in this manner that they rode the storm out. Hour after terrible hour they bailed and prayed and followed the white dragon through the tempest, until finally they slid out of the darkness into a fresh, sunny afternoon full of calling gulls and gentle waves.
“Clear and blue!” a sailor called. Jade nearly flipped the boat when he leapt out of it and began winging his way after Crystal. He couldn’t wait to be with Jenka again.
*** * ***
The king’s flotilla of ships reached Port just ahead of the storm.
Linux had shaved his pointed beard and donned a mummer’s wig with hair long enough to conceal the dark, walnut-colored triangle on his forehead. The other tattoos, he hid with the makeup from a theatrical kit he had stolen back in Kingston. He moved about the gaggle of young bravados that happened to be on the ship, and cursed himself for his mistake. They tried his patience to the end. If any one of them ever came face to face with a troll they would shit themselves. They were fools, and there were other ships full of eager men just like them, all about to be led into a slaughter.
The king had been on this ship, one of the finer of the Royal Line, but he crossed a plank-way to another just before they left Kingston harbor. He then moved to a third ship and Linux had lost him. Linux had wanted to be on the ship that King Blanchard was on. He had a plan that would save them all a lot of trouble, would have saved them all a lot of trouble to begin with had he thought of it sooner.
Linux had no idea, nor did any man on any of the three dozen ships in the flotilla, that the Crown Prince was the Goblin King’s captive. The rumor was just spreading across the rails now. Men shouted the state of things from the docks to the nearer ships, then from ship to ship as they heard them. The docks were swarming with people come to see their king bringing them aid. Often, cheers erupted for no real reason that Linux could discern.
“The trolls took Three Forks and Outwal … ” a man yelled.
“Killed three thousand women and children in the doing … ” added another.
“There be dragons in the skies everywhere now,” a skittish man repeated what he had been told. “Just look to the north, and sooner or later you’ll see one.”
“They say Prince Richard saved a man and was riding on a big blue dragon over by Midwal … ”
This caught Linux' attention.
“That was afore the Goblin King killed the wyrm and captured the boy!” a more authoritative voice called up, far below them from a row boat holding its position so that one of the many ships could maneuver into the crowded harbor. By the look of his clothes, Linux marked him as a local. “The commander at Midwal has gone missing too,” the man continued. “A whole battalion went out to try and free some holed up folks near Del, but they got eat by them little goblins that are helpin’ the trolls now. They said there was orcs too. I heard ‘em with my own ears, calling the news out to the king’s ship a short while ago. Commander Corda from Three Forks went out on the queen's command to retrieve the crown prince just two days ago as well, and I seen them dragons across the wall with my own eyes, too.”
All of this was news to Linux, and it meant that he had to get near King Blanchard and get him alone just as soon as he possibly could. He didn’t have to worry about Commander Corda seeing him now, and that was a welcome relief, for what he was about to do was sheer treachery. He had to do what he intended before the king went charging off into the frontier with an army of ill-prepared boys. Linux knew he would regret it, but he saw no other choice.
“What ship is the king’s ship?” Linux asked loudly, but he eased back from the rail into obscurity when the man looked up for the asker. Somewhere behind them, way out at sea, thunder rumbled long and low.
“That three mast’d cutter called Moonseye,” the man looked out with his hand held over his eyes, trying to shield them from the drizzle that was starting to fall. He didn’t see who he was talking to, but he pointed out the ship that was easing into a dock ahead of the others. It was a good distance away, and the rain was now starting to fall in earnest.
Transporting oneself over water was always a risky business, but Linux felt that the risk, in this instance, was worth the gain. If he didn’t do something, all of the men on these ships would soon be feeding the enemy. He didn’t feel he had a choice. He only hoped that Zah and Jenka would be about soon to help Prince Richard, and that Mysterian and Vax Noffa wouldn’t hold it against him when he removed King Blanchard from the equation. It was the wisest thing to do, he reasoned. And with that thought, he stepped from the deck of the ship he was on across half a mile of open harbor, right onto the deck of the Moonseye. He appeared directly in front of the wide-eyed king of the realm and began pushing him. He carried the big man right over the ship’s rail into a tumbling fall, where they splashed hard in the warm, salty water.
Half a dozen men came leaping in after them to protect their king, another half dozen dove in and surrounded the man who had attacked him. One of the rescuers had been wearing armor, and several men followed in to pull him up from the bottom before he dr
owned. They hesitated when they saw the tattoos on Linux' face, now clearly visible since the water had washed the makeup from his skin.
“Bah,” King Blanchard bellowed, trying to shake off some of the hands that were grabbing at him. “I can swim, man! Back off! I want that man taken to shore and gagged! He’s full o’High Magic. Bind him, gag him, and then put him in the strongest cell you have, and stay clear of it until I get there! But don’t harm him none. Not even a boot tip! That’s an order!”
Linux almost laughed at how easy it had been to do what he had just done. He only wished he had thought of it sooner.
Part IV
Gravelbone’s Revenge
Chapter Twenty Seven
“The best way to describe it is a stalemate, Your Majesty,” a nervous sergeant said, as King Blanchard and his slightly confused retinue stood on the top of the Great Wall in the pouring rain. They were looking out at the smoldering ruins of Outwal. The precipitation had quelled most of the fires, leaving a steamy, smoking, ash-coated mess.
From somewhere deep in the wreckage, a troll brazenly barked out to its pack mates. As the man continued speaking, several other trolls returned the call. “If we go out and try to reclaim anything, they attack the gates. They’ve even managed to hurl burning timbers onto the wall top, and the trolls that have taken to riding the dragons are treacherous with the stones they hurl. If we just sit here and watch, they stay back from the wall and pillage what’s left out there.”
“Look there,” a young man pointed at the sinuous form of a middling-sized mudge, lifting up out of the wreckage. It winged its way to another section of the decimated frontier city and started circling above the rubble.
The Royal Dragoneers (Dragoneers Saga) Page 23