Blood and Royalty

by M. R. Mathias

  The Pegasus on which this elf was sitting intrigued the deeply-guarded girlish side of Clover, though. “Can I ride your Pegasus later?”

  “Follow.” The elf gave Crimzon a nervous glance and urged his winged horse away.

  Canss I eatss a Pegasus? Crimzon asked, his ever-hungry belly thinking for him.

  You are a dragon, Crim. Who am I to deny you anything? Clover replied honestly. But, please, don’t eat that one. Ever.

  Notss thatsss ones, sthen, the dragon agreed as he followed the elf and the flying horse down into a lush forest.

  Crimzon didn’t like learning that there was only one Pegasus. He had already agreed not to eat it, but he was directed to a herd of fleet mountain deer that roasted well on the run. He lay among the burning trees eating the ones he’d scorched, and when he was finished, he slipped off into some sort of half-lidded reverie.

  Clover was led by other elves, a few of them still young enough to be enticing to her carnal side, but her reasons for being there were too important for her to allow herself to be transfixed by the frail beauty some of these creatures possessed. Some of them were eyeing her, too, but now she was directed into a hall carved, or maybe grown, into the base of a tree with a trunk so large that it might have encompassed the castle she’d built for the Dragoneers thrice.

  A series of passages and a few upward-slanting ramps brought them to a platform rigged as a lift. As soon as she and the four elves escorting her were on the platform, it began to rise. It was all done with ropes and weights, and though there were other lifts here that worked using ancient elven magic, this one afforded them a view that was as beautiful as she remembered it being. Thinking of this spread of trees, with their colorful fruits and bloom, was one of the images that had held her together in that mad priest’s spell for so long.

  She’d gone mad for a time in that empty blackness. Her body had been turned into a statue, but her essence left intact in a plane constructed to bind a demon. Jenka had saved her from it all and then she’d had to race time to a fountain her dragon knew of to avoid death. She wouldn’t forget the debt she owed him, which was why she was here.

  The worst part of that imprisonment, besides missing her dragon, was knowing that her son was growing old without her. There was only the slimmest sliver of hope that she’d done enough to inspire and then guide the Dragoneers to the alien threat, anyway. She hadn’t known if the worst had happened or if she would ever be saved.

  She’d dreamed of being here in this sanctuary again, and then spent a score of years thinking she would never be back, but here she was.

  Soon the platform came to a halt. It swayed slightly as they stepped off of it, causing Clover’s heart to flutter. They were standing on the stoop of the Oracle’s knothole. Her skin felt tingly, and the dragon tear in her belt pouch warmed with power, as if just being there was as comforting to it as it was to her.

  The door opened of its own accord, and at the direction of her escorts, she alone went in.

  The Oracle was a shriveled knot of a being, almost crablike in her crumpled form, with short, bandy legs; yet clearly she was once a tall, standing humanoid.

  Clover wondered just how old this woman, if that is what she could call it, really was.

  “What answers do you seek, fortunate one?” the Oracle asked in a husky but thin voice.

  The knothole was dim, and a fresh, citrusy smell filled the room. All of the furniture and amenities had been adjusted to fit the Oracle’s hunched, almost doubled-over form. Clover hoped that she didn’t end up that way. She wouldn’t relish life as much if she were unattractive, even to herself.

  “How can I tell if one is a mystica, before they come of age?” Clover asked quickly. “She has not yet begun to bleed, and she is uncannily unique.”

  “I will meditate on it and see if the gods grant me such wisdom, for only after we’ve sensed a certain change in the saffluxua are we able to know if there is one who needs to be brought here.”

  “Have you sensed anything as of late?” Clover asked.

  “No.” The Oracle’s tone was short, as if Clover were disturbing her now. “Be off. I will send for you soon enough.”

  “I’ve not all the time in the world, and you’ll even your tone with me, or my dragon will take offense,” Clover returned. “Never forget what happened to the elves you sent to hunt me. I will leave you to do whatever it is you do, but do not dismiss me in such a rude way again.”

  “Said she’d send for you?” one of the elves asked Clover as they retook the lift. He was devilishly handsome, probably near two hundred years old. Just a boy to a three hundred-year-old woman. She smiled at him. “She did. How long does this sort of thing usually take?”

  “The last person she said she’d send for is still awaiting a response.”

  “What?”

  “He is in the garden yard, where he sits every day, hoping she will have an answer to whatever question he asked. He cannot speak, so I’m not sure she even got the question.”

  “Is he a man?”

  “No.” The elf gave her a glance that started at her feet and slowly crept up to her breasts. His eyes were indicating he was interested, but he kept the line of discussion going instead of ceasing the moment. “He is a half-breed from the land of the dragon riders who fought in your Confliction. He just appeared here one day, ravaged by trolls, or wolves, or something. I don’t remember. But to answer your question, he’s been waiting a few years.”

  “Can you take me to him, please?” Clover asked, hoping it was the half-elf of whom Rikky used to speak. “After I’ve met him and have seen if he is who I think he is, I’m not opposed to a night at the river.”

  “Lady Clover,”—the elf grinned and smirked at the other elves escorting her, when they chuckled—“it would be my honor to spend time with you, anywhere you please.”

  Clover saw the half-elf from across the garden and knew he was the one called Lemmy. Lemmy had disappeared during the Confliction, before she’d been set free. She’d never met him, but she had heard many a tale, told by Rikky Camille, about the golden-haired mute who helped Jenka and Rikky all grow smart and strong on the hunts of their youth. His face and upper body were injured in some way as to cause him to move awkwardly, yet he was handsome, with hair that shimmered from across the garden like spun gold.

  Maybe after she met with the Oracle, she would see if he wanted to ride back with her.

  Chapter Six

  Richard was tired of waiting. The feeling of impatience, and the power of the latest teardrop, had given him all the confidence he needed to begin the first stages of the attack. He wasn’t so eager as to be careless, though. He knew what Marcherion and the others would be expecting. He was going to oblige them with that little charade and then unleash a taste of his real fury where they least expected it.

  He summoned the Nightshade and told it to be ready to hunt. He was as thirsty for blood as the Nightshade was for getting to absorb all the pain, suffering and sorrow the war would bring.

  The King of Karvacha hadn’t yet knelt before Richard and pledged his allegiance to the war with the New World, so this day’s feeding wasn’t part of all that. This was about respect and power, and making sure there were no enemies left on this side of the world to rival his Vikaria. Karvacha was going to be an example.

  Richard summoned Baru, Dinaqu and Kovin to his study. He led them to the balcony, where there was a table with four goblets and a bottle of wine. Richard poured the three of them a drink and then sipped from the goblet that had already been full when they arrived. There was a short moment of uncertainty that passed among them, but they all grabbed their offered cup and sipped, almost in unison. Richard was making them show their loyalty, for only a guilty man would have balked there.

  “I will be leaving for Karvacha immediately.” He opened his arm out toward the garden, and then pointed at the city beyond the elevated balcony. The Nightshade hovered up and glared at them, as if they were insignificant.
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  “Fetch your mounts and bring three of your most obedient henchwyrms each. I want you all to loom over the city in a great, hovering ring, while I remind all of you, and myself, why I am the one true king!” Richard downed his goblet and then gave a curt nod and a look of disdain. “If you do not hurry, Karvacha will be but a memory before you even get there.”

  He then took three purposeful strides, leapt up to the balustrade, and mounted his hellborn wyrm with a smooth, graceful leap.

  Karvacha was only a short distance away on dragonback. On the roads it would take two days, but the Nightshade carried him there in less than a turn of the glass.

  He had the Nightshade blast its hot, roiling breath across one of the four towers in the darkness just before dawn, and not even an alarm sounded. They did the same with another tower, but didn’t have as much luck. The loud “Dinggggg!” of a single ring carried across the city, and slowly windows lit up with lanterns, and men began peering out of the door stoops to look.

  Richard laughed. “A single ring has no meaning,” he chuckled like a kid who’d just solved a puzzle. “Watch, listen.” Suddenly, the far tower’s bell began ringing in a steady, repetitive alarm.

  The people there didn’t even see the Nightshade as it swept down and landed in the street among them and began killing and destroying everything it could.

  Richard sat confidently atop its back, and with the power of his cluster of dragon tears, began sending grey, nearly invisible dagger-like blasts at whoever he singled out. It was a random thing, for he was waiting on good King Rabbleton to send men out with his agreement of surrender.

  Richard knew the man was stubborn, and as he urged his sleek black wyrm to go find a new place in the city to destroy, he decided he hoped the old fart held out for a while.

  Dawn was breaking and bathing the city in long shadows and blood-red light. Richard hadn’t felt so much pleasure since he’d been held captive by Gravelbone. It was beautiful, and bloody, and delicious. Then the long, keening wail of some woman cut across the morning, and to Richard, the sound was like icing on a cake.

  *

  “I will have to see her,” the Oracle said. “Her blood will still have in it what the Basx despises, if she is one.” Clover shuddered as the Oracle went on. “The variations in the saffluxua only warn us of the potential after a girl is of age, but the Basx will know, even now.”

  The magical yellow blaze fluttering in the center pot did well to warm the room without all the covers, but she looked a little more like an old crone sitting in her rocking chair with the blankets pulled up around her shoulders.

  “Before she starts to bleed, she must come and brave the Basx, as you once did. If she waits, and the suffluxua points to her, we will come for her.”

  Clover knew she meant that Princess Amelia would have to reach into the box that held the Basx or risk being killed by elven assassins when she came of age.

  The Basx was an ancient, spell-carved chest that had a hole in one end. Over the centuries, questionable women were hunted down by the elves and brought here. Each would have to stick a hand in the hole and see if the thing inside tried to feed on her blood.

  Clover remembered that the thing had wanted to feed on hers, but for some reason hadn’t. Her luck had held true, and whatever it was inside hadn’t broken her skin, and that was that.

  If it had, they’d have killed her on the spot.

  She remembered being hunted for a time before that, too, because these elves thought she had willed Crimzon to be; but that was ages ago, and when she willingly offered to put her hand in the box, they began to tolerate her, even though they feared her wyrm greatly.

  “She is a princess with a father who has powers beyond our understanding,” said Clover to the Oracle. “Getting her here won’t be so hard, but if she is a mystica, and you kill her, you’ll have a war on your hands that you can’t win.”

  “I wonder what would happen if Jenka De Swasso put his hand in the box.” The Oracle smiled an unintentionally frightening grin. “I wonder if what is in the box isn’t from the same world as the creature your Dragoneers killed. At the time of that happening, it rattled and shook, and even howled out with what I could only interpret as glee.”

  Clover doubted it. She’d put her hand in the box long before she came across her first Sarax. It was more likely that the Oracle had gone mad. Clover knew she’d end her own life long before she let her body be crumpled by the weight of the world. “I will try to sneak her here and get it over with.”

  “Yes.” The old elf stopped her chair and leaned forward, catching Clover’s eyes for emphasis. “And soon. The will of a child can be most terrifying; and if she is a mystica, and her father is as strong as you say, who knows what her whimsical desire could conceive?”

  Chapter Seven

  Rikky, Jenka and Marcherion were using their dragons to lift the heavy dragon guns from the bailey up to the turrets of the small island’s stronghold. Marcherion doubted these folk out here had a chance against even a handful of mudged. Four shiploads of women, children, and a few of the older men were off to the Mainland, though, so at least it wouldn’t be a slaughter of innocents.

  Marcherion wasn’t sure if a Dragoneer would be able to stay behind when it was time to go fortify Freeman’s Reach, and then King’s Island. They were getting nowhere fast, save for Jenka, who would sometimes move so swiftly they couldn’t see him at all; but even he wore down after two full days of work. Setting the heavy ratchet bows was no easy task. They were once used to protect the survivors of the Dogma wreck from the mudged wyrms nested here back then. It was amazing that they were still in working order.

  Aikira was as angry as a hornet that no one was helping her prepare the Outland defenses, not even Clover. Clover was at her castle with Zahrellion and the children. Marcherion wasn’t sure why, but he’d been unnerved by Jenka’s strange daughter, and since Clover’s hair was as red as the child’s, and she was more than three hundred years old, he was just as unnerved by her. Crimzon and Blaze were both fire drakes, anyway. They couldn’t be agreeable about much, unless there was something to do; then the fire-blood they shared helped them fly in concert. If they were here now, he thought he could probably get thrice as much work done.

  There was a part of him that couldn’t stop thinking about Desira, too. He had half a mind to just go back and snatch her up. Once the war began, Jenka would take it to that land, too. That was the one thing of which March was certain. Desira would probably be better off here, and safer at Clover’s castle.

  “Hey! Pay attention,” a nervous man called from the top of a nearby roof, where he was affixing long, freshly sharpened window spikes.

  March turned just in time to see Blaze’s arse bump into a spike on the next building over. The dragon bucked, but maintained himself. The growl of pain Blaze tried to hold back was loud and excruciating to hear.

  Blaze finished setting the old dragon gun in place and dove away from the hold. March could only shrug at Rikky and Jenka. Blaze had jabbed himself deeply and needed to land so he could treat his wounds.

  The instant his injured dragon’s claws touched the cobbles of a deserted city square, a hole opened in the sky. A dozen mudged flew through, one with a rider, and then the portal sealed itself behind them with a great “WHOOMP!” that clearly startled Rikky and Silva. March looked for Jenka, but he was already a streaking blur.

  Blaze twisted his head back and blasted the stab wound on his arse with dragon fire, then leapt after the mudged carrying a man. Marcherion hoped it was King Richard, but didn’t think it was. He’d heard of the henchmen who did Richard’s bidding back home. This was probably one of them, and it was the perfect time to send a message, because none of the mudged had seen him down in the city, nor Jenka in his blur.

  When Blaze’s dragon breath came up out of nowhere and swallowed the rider and most of his wyrm, Marcherion learned a great lesson about the enemy. His dragon’s breath bent around the man and his mudged. Th
en a grin spread across the rider’s dirty face, and a blast of grey energy hit Marcherion and his wyrm so hard that it sent them tumbling back down into the street.

  *

  Jenka could do little about Marcherion, for he was keeping Rikky and Silva alive. The mudged-rider had sent a massive blast of energy at the one-legged Dragoneer. Even with his hyper-movement Jenka was almost too late, but once the world around him slowed he was able to divert the blast with a blast of his own. He saw that the intense-looking, wild-eyed man had a grey crystal, or maybe a dragon’s tear, in his hand, but he couldn’t worry about that at the moment.

  Once Rikky was out of harm’s way, Jenka raced to cast a spell that would keep March and Blaze’s impact into the street from ending them. Then he was back on the attack, streaking toward the nearest mudged he could see.

  He blasted two of the mudged into yellow-green crackling energy that faded into a mist he and Jade passed right through. Two more were ended with fast, lime-green pulses from Jenka’s dragon tear.

  They are attacking the Outlands in swarms! Aikira sang, nearly screamed, through the ethereal, her melodic voice resonating so cleanly as to be unmistakably clear. It occurred to Jenka that he had heard her song in the normal rate of time she and the others were in, and suddenly he realized he wasn’t in hyper-speed anymore.

  Had her voice reached him so deeply? Had she pulled his concentration away from his task? It didn’t matter. Jade clawed out at the mudged that swept past them, and only Rikky was left to save the men on the wall tops fighting for their lives, for the mudged rider blasted Jenka and Jade sideways, so hard the blow itself nearly ended them.