The Royal Dragoneers (Dragoneers Saga)

by Mathias, M. R.

  “Bah,” the king huffed and sat down on the padded mattress brought for his bunk. “I know I was rash, but my son … That fargin dragon … ” He stopped and put Linux' face in Linux' hands. “Oh, poor Richard,” he half sobbed. “This is all happening because I’m a fool. Has there been any word from Commander Corda’s party? Any word at all?”

  “None, Highness,” Linux told him. “They have been gone far too long to have made it. I must order the ships loaded. I’ll make sure that you’re put in acceptable quarters for your sail.”

  “I’d rather travel with you,” King Blanchard said honestly. “I feel that we should stay close and make sure that nothing happens to the other.”

  “Will you swear you won’t try anything foolish?” Linux asked. “I will have you released into my custody if you give me your oath.”

  “I give you my oath, druid.” King Blanchard pledged angrily. “Just keep me at your side and we will both be the better for it.”

  Linux thought for a moment and decided that with King Blanchard in his body and close to him he might even be able to use some of his druidic magic without drawing suspicion. “Come, then,” he said as he opened the cell door. “If you can pretend to cast a spell then we can possibly clear the skies over the harbor. How do we get the men from Midwal to start coming this way?”

  *** * ***

  Prince Richard found himself in a sea of raw power. He used his rage and his anguish to focus the power of the tear Royal had shed for him. He didn’t understand magic very well, so he called upon the gods themselves, and he asked the impossible. Somehow they heard him, and they granted him his wish by returning life to the great, sparkling blue dragon. But the gods, in their wisdom, put a condition on this resurrection. Royal’s extended life would cost the power of the tear. He would only live until the tear’s power was spent, and then he would have to return to death. Neither the confused blue drake that woke, angry and hungry from the blackness, nor the raging Crown Prince had any idea how long that would be. Prince Richard felt as if it might not be long enough, so he coaxed Royal into leading them out of the grottoes so that they could use what time they had left to find and destroy the foul demon that had caused all of this misery.

  Little did Prince Richard know that Royal was now a soulless entity. The honor and intelligence the majestic blue dragon had displayed in life was gone. He might as well have been one of the mudged. Only an aggressive wyrm of undetermined might was there for Richard to command, and for the moment at least, Royal was agreeable to follow the orders that were being given, but on a whim he could easily decide to act on his own.

  *** * ***

  Gravelbone was irate over losing the silver wyrm and the one-legged Dragoneer who rode her. Part of his plan for the decimation of Port had been ruined when the two had collapsed the tunnel on his horde. There had been several dozen orc commanders in that hole, and they had all been crushed by some wizardly concussion spell. The act enraged Gravelbone, and he resolved to rip the silver’s wings from its body while his hellborn wyrm ate the one-legged boy. He had chased them for a day, and would have had them had that icy white dragon not taken him by surprise.

  He let his rage and the pain of the wound from the stealthy ice wyrm simmer, while he let the nightshade rest a while. He had to return his focus to what he had planned for Mainsted. Once that was done, and the crown prince was on his way to the throne, then, and only then, would Gravelbone be done exacting his revenge on man. After that, his true task, the task of enslaving the haughty humans and making them his chattel, could begin in earnest.

  Returning to the nightshade’s lair, Gravelbone barked and growled orders to the orcs in charge of the enslaved ogres. They had been doing a poor job of clearing out the rubble from the destructive spell the silver wyrm had cast when it had tried to free the crown prince with Royal. Gravelbone wondered if it was the same spell that had collapsed the tunnel near Port.

  He half wished that fool Dragoneer on the pesky silver had succeeded in freeing Prince Richard, because now he couldn’t be certain where the prince was. There were a score of ways in and out of the grottoes, and the prince could have taken any one of them out. The big, sparkling blue would die from its wounds. There was no doubt of it. Gravelbone had the orcs rub their blades in larnax resin. Once in the bloodstream, the foul vegetable substance killed quickly and painfully. A few of his horde had died while poisoning the blades. Prince Richard, however, needed to reach the wall and safety. He had been corrupted; he was but a tool to be taken out of the box when needed. A most important tool, no doubt, for after King Blanchard met his end, the boy would be the king. The boy would lead his people up from the ashes of all of this horror, right into the chains of enslavement.

  To crush all the hope out of man and to end the threat of the Dragoneers and their pointless Time of Confliction, Gravelbone had special plans for Mainsted. He would make it so that no man would ever want to set foot back in his land, and any of the would-be noble dragons that thought that they were better than the other creatures of the kin could perish with them. He had found a poison, a scourge far more potent and debilitating than mere larnax resin. After it was dried and ground it was light and powdery, and the hellborn were immune to it. That meant that after the humans were pushed back into the city, the nightshade could carry a wagon cart full of the infectious stuff and drop it over Mainsted. All Gravelbone’s hordes had to do was push the people of the realm towards the great frontier city, just as men had forced the trolls and goblins up into the mountains over the years.

  A short time after the poison was dropped, the people would start going mad and grow leery of one another. Their skin would fester and crack, and they would seep pus and blood for weeks until they were nothing more than walking scabs. Some would carry the pestilence back to the islands, and a large portion of mankind would become infected. That’s when Gravelbone would call on the prince. That is when mankind would be forced to kneel before him and grovel.

  “Something comes,” the nightshade hissed into the demon's psychotic reverie.

  “Hav da pedalence bin arvested?” The Goblin King dismissed the nightshade's warning. If it was an enemy approaching, he would greet them violently and then thank them for not making him give chase to end them. He was more concerned if the rare roots and caps that yielded his poison had been collected, boiled down, and dried into powder.

  “Another day, massster,” the nightshade responded. “My hellborn kin and I are immune, but the ogre slaves are not. Is the satchel-cart ready?”

  “Yan,” Gravelbone chuckled. “No aw ‘e hav to do is wait. Onz da people of da kingda are convergin on Mainsted dewa dra aw git aw dem an wax em wryth. Da prinz will do da ress fa as.”

  “Can we hunt Dragoneers while we wait?” the nightshade hissed eagerly.

  “Yah,” Gravelbone laughed his deep, sinister laugh. “Dat we ca do.”

  *** * ***

  Prince Richard slinked down behind the eerily silent blue wyrm he had once been bonded to. They were just beyond the light of the blue-green inferno illuminating the nightshade's lair. He had been a prisoner in the grottoes long enough to understand what the Goblin King was saying and he was enraged by the idea that the demon thought him nothing more than a tool.

  “Now, all we have to do is wait,” Gravelbone had said. “Once the people of the kingdom are converging on Mainsted we can drop our gift on them and watch them writhe. The prince will do the rest for us.”

  Needless to say, Prince Richard stayed deathly quiet as he waited for the Goblin King and the nightshade to go hunt Dragoneers. He and Royal had a little hunting of their own to do.

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Zahrellion woke Rikky with a nudge of her boot. She handed him a gourd nut that already had a hole poked in it, told him that the dragons would return from feeding soon, and then turned away while he took care of his morning ablutions. As he stood next to the trunk of a nearby tree and urinated, he took in the beauty of the moment.

>   It was the beginning of what would be a typical summer day. A few birds were calling out and insects were buzzing around a clustering bloom of little yellow flowers. Everything was green and lush. The air was cool, but wouldn’t stay that way. They were far enough south to be free of the mountain chill.

  It would be another perfect day, he knew, and for him that usually meant trouble. They had to fly back to Port and report to King Blanchard. The king needed to know just how bad the invasion had become. They would surely have to shed some blood before the sun went down. It was obvious to Rikky that Mainsted would be where the kingdom made its stand. Master Kember had always said that it’s best to fight with your back against the wall. In this case the sea would act as that wall. He was certain that the king would need them to help protect the retreating men from aerial attacks. Even though Rikky and his dragon had been exhausted and in dire need of the rest the night had afforded them, Rikky felt a pang of guilt for not returning to Port sooner. He also felt terrible about the way that his friend Master Vahlda had died. Falling from a dragon into a swarm of angry goblins was a horrible fate. It had been awful to look upon. As he returned to the fire pit, sipping the tart juice from the gourd, he was overcome with grief and began to cry. Zah saw this and went to his side.

  “It’ll be all right, Rikky,” she comforted.

  Zah didn’t like the idea of seeing King Blanchard. After all, he had put her in the dungeon for trying to keep a spear out of Royal, but she knew that sooner or later she would have to face him.

  Rikky felt a tiny shimmer of hope, then. Knowing that Zahrellion was on their side, and finding out that Jenka would soon be returning from the mountains to join them restored some of the confidence Gravelbone had stripped away from him. Rikky still wanted to kill the Goblin King, but he wasn’t so brazen about it anymore. He was just a kid. The foul demon radiated evil, and when Rikky had felt the intensity of it, it had scared him deeply. That fear caused a tendril of shame to take root. Oddly, crying like the adolescent boy that he truly was into Zahrellion's modest bosom caused some of the shame to melt away.

  “Does it hurt?” Zah asked Rikky, indicating the stump that used to be his leg. She reflected that just few weeks ago he had been whole and hopeful. Now he has maimed and full of rage and fear.

  Wiping a sniffle from under his nose with his filthy sleeve, he shook his head in the negative. “After it first happened, after the goblin ate my leg, I felt the part that was missing. That hurt bad.” He stopped and wiped his face again. “Where do you get the gourd nuts every morning? You were sipping from one way back when we were starting out of Crag.”

  “There is a tree that I visit in my dreams. It is old and bears the nuts as fruit. I take one or two from its branches, and when I wake, they are with me. I don’t really understand it, but it happens. Linux,” the name tasted awful in her mouth as she said it. “He says that Dou has blessed me. I feel more like I’ve been cursed.”

  “Yeh,” Rikky nodded, his guilt and sadness almost forgotten. “I know what you mean.”

  When their dragons returned, they all took to the air and flew back toward Port. It wasn’t the journey Rikky expected it to be. They flew directly there and didn’t have to duck or dodge any pursuers. There were very few trolls moving below, and even fewer mudged in the sky, but that only meant that the feral dragons and the two-legged vermin had moved beyond the wall, and were most likely moving toward Mainsted.

  As they approached the landing area King Blanchard had set aside for them on the wall, they saw that there weren’t many men out on the wall-top. The few men there had the smaller dragon guns at their shoulders and aimed at the dragons until they recognized Silva and Rikky. After that there was some cheering, and a few more men came out and gathered on either side of the landing area. All of them were armed with bows and wearing glittery chainmail armor.

  Crystal was nervous, but Zah calmed her and had her land next to Silva on the wall. The armored men all faced outward then, and every one of them put an arrow to the string and prepared to defend the dragons. There was a considerable amount of fidgeting, as most of the men were trembling in their boots.

  “Our own personal guards?” Zah asked dubiously. “Has King Blanchard really started to see things so differently?”

  “I have,” both Linux and King Blanchard answered as they stepped out onto the wall-top from the landing.

  As quick as a snake, Zahrellion slid off of Crystal's back, marched three long strides over to Linux and slapped him with all she had. The resounding Whack! caused several of the men to glance at them and cringe.

  “What in all the fargin hells was that for, girl?” King Blanchard asked from inside Linux' body. Even though it was the druid’s flesh she slapped, he felt the sting of it sharply.

  Linux laughed heartily from inside King Blanchard’s bulky form, but it was clear that Zah had already become suspicious. Linux would never respond in such a way.

  It took her all of five seconds to figure out what Linux had done. Quickly, she went to the king and slapped him just as hard. This caused the real King Blanchard to burst Linux' body into laughter. It also caused a few of the king’s retinue to draw steel.

  Rikky was dumbfounded, but ready to stand at Zah’s side. His dragon and the frigid white wyrm had gone on alert too. Roiling clouds of cold steam flowed from Crystal’s nostrils in warning. Half the men in the immediate area grew goose flesh as the chill wafted over them.

  “Hold! Hold!” King Blanchard’s mouth yelled, as he rubbed at his fleshy chin. “I had that coming, boys, and I’m man enough to take it. Now turn back around and hold your post. He glared at Zah. “Keep your tongue, Zahrellion. I had to have you hooded because we couldn’t have you retaliating or trying to bust Jenka free.”

  “She is a crafty one,” the real king said from Linux' body. “And I owe you an apology, miss, but I can’t give it here.”

  “I’m in a mood now to be killing vermin!” Zah spat. “What would you have us do?” She ignored King Blanchard’s form and looked at Linux' body knowing that it was really the king.

  “We are sending the men to defend Mainsted via ships.” Linux told her from the king’s body, but she still ignored him and looked to the real King Blanchard for orders.

  He harrumphed and nodded, then looked ashamedly at his feet. “Do as he says, girl. He’s been running things a bit better than I might’ve.”

  “That wouldn’t be hard,” she retorted.

  “There are men on horseback making the retreat from here,” Linux told her. “We need another substantial group to retreat from Midwal as well, to divert attention from the folk that are trying to get inside the wall. We want the Goblin King and his horde to think that the bulk of our defenders are retreating in fear. Watch over both groups if you can. Defend them, but someone should first fly to Farwal and see if they are as bad off as we are. I’m having written orders prepared as we speak. In addition, sweep along the wall and make certain that everyone who can gets inside of it and starts this way. We might not have enough ships for them all, but we closed up the breach nearest here. With the help of your fellow druid, we’ve moved our big swivel guns to the wall-top. We can defend Port until more ships arrive from the islands.”

  “I’ll go to Midwal after I clear the sky over the men leaving here,” Zahrellion said, climbing purposefully back onto her dragon's neck. “They know of us at Midwal. Rikky, if you fly the wall all the way east you can pass the word to Midwal that I’m coming and deliver the orders to Farwal. Silva seems quick, where Crystal is slower and more savage. She can bring down the mudge with her breath, but she can’t cover nearly as much ground as you can.” Zah wasn’t certain if this was true or not, but Crystal assured her that Silva was fast. Zahrellion wanted to vent her rage on the enemy, not carry messages. It didn’t matter. Rikky was glad to take orders from someone he felt he could trust.

  “I’m waiting on scribes, then,” Rikky pointed out the obvious. “What if I come across Jenka? What do I t
ell him?”

  “Tell him to do what he wants to do.” Zahrellion’s tone was sarcastic. “That’s what he’s good at.” With that, Crystal poised to leap into the air. At the last second, Zah stopped her dragon and turned to Rikky. “I’ll see you in the sky over Mainsted soon, I hope?”

  Rikky gave a short salute of respect then nodded his head. “Soon,” he assured her.

  As he waited on the scribes to finish sealing the orders, he looked at Linux and the king and found it fascinating that they had switched bodies. It seemed obvious now, but it was impressive that Zahrellion had figured it out so easily. He wondered how long it had been so, and then he diverted his attention to Crystal’s shrinking form winging away. He felt sorry for the mudged and the goblinkin that crossed her and Zah’s path this day.

  A short while later, he was streaking through the sky high above the wall. There were corpses scattered here and there, marked by the fluttering of buzzard wings, or the feeding scavengers who jostled for position on their prize. There were plenty of dead trolls and goblins too, and it seemed that the varmints had no preference between the human and troll flesh. For some reason, the carrion were leaving the bodies of the little gray-skinned goblins alone.

  It was nearly dark when Rikky and his dragon made Midwal. Silva had to dodge a few arrows and then chase off a pair of smaller mudged that were feeding on the humans attempting to get inside the wall. Silva caught one with a claw and winged it to the ground. The other fled south towards Mainsted and would no doubt be returning with others. Rikky tossed down the bundle of written orders for Midwal, then called down that the white dragon and the druida would be there soon. Silva made one slow circle of the darkening sky to gain altitude and warn away the mudged. Rikky couldn’t believe the amount of carnage around the tunnel mouth and outside the huge, banded-wood gates. There were piles of dead in some places. He wiped a tear from his eye, bit back his anger, then had Silva work her way eastward toward Farwal. He hoped that the vermin had stayed away from the less populated eastern part of the peninsula, but he doubted that was the case. The Farwal gate was a good distance away, and Rikky wanted to get there, pass on the orders he carried, and then go help Zah.