Rise of the Dragon King (Book two of the Royalty Trilogy): 2017 Modernized Format (Dragoneers Saga 5)

by M. R. Mathias

  Richard giggled and cupped his hands to his mouth. He was at least fifty feet above the water where he was and he couldn’t help what happened next.

  “Roooaaarrr!” Richard growled out into the fog in his best Gravelbone imitation. “Who dare be trespassin’ in my waters!”

  There was a bit of whispering and the sound of oars banging in the locks as the rowers started moving them away. One of them was braver, for he calmed his fellows with soothingly spoken gibberish and then called back.

  “Orand ballin treealing mal shrignottle?”

  “What?” Richard roared. “You’n be Speakin the king’s tongue to me.” He stifled a giggle. He then hurried his way up to the base of his lookout tree. He was disappointed to find that he couldn’t see its top in the fog, and he decided that maybe he shouldn’t scare the men in the rower away.

  “With whom do I speak?” a stilted and shaky voice called up from below.

  Richard, hearing words he couldn’t understand, grew nervous. Who were these men? Outlanders? No, he knew the Outlander dialects well. They had been speaking a whole new language.

  He climbed back down some before answering, but when he did, he still didn’t use his own voice.

  “Who be you trespassing?” He called, putting as much depth into his tone as he could.

  “Garrinvale yon cyclopsians,” one of the men in the boat said.

  “Yah, woggin agon rung,” said another.

  There was the sound of a scuffle, then a thud as if someone was slugged.

  “Shush!” the first voice carried over them all, then the voice that spoke words he could understand replied.

  “We cometh from the Old World,” it said meekly. “We’ve cometh to liberate the banished king.”

  The banished king? Richard stopped again and scratched his head. A strange feeling was sliding over him.

  He was the banished king.

  Did he want to be liberated?

  Yes he did.

  “Why should he go with you?” Richard called back, almost forgetting to accentuate his voice.

  “He will be treated like the king he is.” The voices whispered in their strange language for a moment. “Our king, King Chad, has guaranteed his safety and only wishes to breed one of his most beautiful daughters with New World royalty so that his kingdom will have a better stance in the upcoming trade negotiations.

  Richard knew nothing about upcoming trade negotiations. The idea of seeing, much less marrying, the beautiful daughter of a foreigner stirred places inside him that he’d nearly forgotten about. The touch of a woman, after being alone for so many years seemed as unreal as this situation was turning out to be.

  “Stay still then,” Richard finally called down. “We’ve some thinking to do.”

  Richard thought long and hard for about three heartbeats, and then began making his way back down to his cavern home.

  “Hello?” the man in the boat called out a while later. The fog hadn’t lifted and a light drizzle was starting to fall. “Where haveth you gone? Are you there?”

  The fog was even more dense at sea level, and Richard knew it wasn’t going to clear until the wind picked up. It didn’t matter, though. His fractured mind had already turned over a hundred possibilities, and all of them were far better than staying on the island alone. Besides that, these people had no idea what he was capable of. He hadn’t been banished to the island as a punishment, but because surrounding him with sea water was the only way to dampen his unique arcane abilities. They had no idea that he had once possessed a dragon’s tear, and that he had willing given up its delicious power to keep his dragon alive. They had no idea that he’d survived on the flesh of innocent humans and bathed in their blood. They had no idea that he’d been trained in wizardry by Vax Noffa, and in witchery by Mysterian of the Hazeltine. Not to mention his ability with blade and bow, for he’d trained with the best in the realm since he could walk. He had been groomed to rule the kingdom, and he understood both diplomacy and war and, deep in his subconscious mind, he still had a bit of his dragon-bond left. And here, as if proof that his destiny was not to die on an isolated island, was a way to another life.

  “Hello?” the voice in the longboat called again and again. “Heeelllooo!”

  “Ahhhhgggg,” one of the men yelled as Richard’s wet, over-hairy head splashed up out of the sea alongside the small craft.

  “Ahhhggg,” Richard mimicked the man’s fear, causing two of the other three in the boat to laugh at their startled mate.

  The third man scowled down at Richard and, before he could dive away, had a hold of his hair and was hauling him into the boat.

  Chapter Three

  Rikky was as bored as Prince Jericho looked.

  King Jenka De Swasso stood tall beside Queen Zahrellion. His long brown locks were combed neatly and hung straight to his shoulders. Her hair was as white as snow. At his right, nine year-old Prince Jericho was fidgeting and restless, as any boy would be when forced to dress up and stay still for so long. At Zah’s left, holding her mother’s hand to stay standing, was three year-old Amelia De Swasso. The four were covered in layer upon layer of fineries, and not one of them, save for Zahrellion herself, seemed pleased about it.

  “When can we go?” Jericho asked his father for the seventh or eighth time. “I’m hungry.”

  Jenka blinked, his eyelids moving unnaturally slow. His coral green eyes were unnerving to Rikky. In fact, Jenka seemed as if he was in a whole other plane of existence than the rest of them. The Dour that flowed through him had scorched him so much that Rikky hardly knew him anymore. “It is almost over,” Jenka’s words were quiet and slow.

  “Why is Marcherion going away anyway?” the boy asked. Jenka might have scolded him, but Jericho’s question sounded genuine and Rikky thought his expression was sad.

  “Because he—”

  “Because he is an overstuffed dimbuss in search of a giboon to take as a mate,” Rikky whispered as he stepped over. “You’re the fargin’ king, Jenk,” Rikky went on. “Make this drawn out fiasco end.”

  Jenka made a gesture with his face toward Zahrellion, who was just turning to share her scowl with Rikky. Rikky stuck his tongue out at her and Jericho laughed loud enough to cause the crier to falter his words.

  “...And so… And so… And so we as a collective people, send our beloved Dragoneer on his way, and we hope his journey home is safely travelled and his return to us is swift. Thank you Marcherion Weston for coming so far to fight for us. We can never repay you, but we can honor you by retelling your deeds in our verses and with these meager gifts of our gratitude.”

  Marcherion eased from his place and started saying his official farewells. He stopped before Aikira first, who was farther to Zah’s left. She looked like some ancient goddess, her dark skin accenting her golden helmet and gown perfectly. She kissed March on the cheek and pinned something to his breast. Marcherion gave her a genuine smile and a light hug in return.

  Rikky wondered why her husband and child hadn’t come. After March’s comment earlier, he was thinking about taking on Pascal and Jericho. At least he wouldn’t be bored.

  March moved before Zahrellion and Amelia then. The queen lifted her daughter up and helped her place a necklace around Marcherian’s neck. Jenka looked at Rikky and shook his head.

  Don’t do anything foolish, the look said.

  Marcherion said goodbye to Jenka quickly, and then dropped to a knee before the prince of the realm.

  “Keep loosing at the targets in the yard like I showed you.” March handed the boy a small bundle of something.

  “What is it?”

  “There are three steel arrowheads in there.” March glanced up at Rikky. “Have your father, or this lump, help you mount them on your best shafts and take you hunting. You’ve gotten good enough with the bow to go hunt at the Keep now.”

  March stood and faced Rikky then.

  Rikky wiped at an imaginary tear. When March was before him, he grinned from ear to ear
and casually reached down and smacked the older Dragoneer right in the nards with the back of his hand. When Marcherion reflexively started to double over forward, Rikky caught him in a hug and the whole crowd cheered, for their friendship had grown legendary, and no one save for those on the dais could have seen what Rikky did.

  “I’ll get you, Rik,” Marcherion promised in a voice an octave higher than normal.

  Rikky laughed and shook his head some more. “You can get me back when you get home, Tubby.” He pushed March away and held his friend at arm’s length by the shoulders. “Right now, you have to stand here while ten thousand people stream by and give you trinkets.”

  The look of sheer frustration, anger, and love that contorted on Marcherion’s face as Rikky escorted Jericho from the dais was one Rikky would never forget.

  Richard stared at the reflection in the mirror mounted in the captain’s cabin, where he’d been quartered. He’d seen himself before he’d been shaved and thought he was seeing some strange, filthy lion headed creature that walked on legs as skinny as sticks. Now, shaved and scrubbed, he looked a lot like Jenka. As hard as he’d tried over the years, he couldn’t hate Jenka. Jenka was the only reason he wasn’t a head shorter and in a box. Beside that, Jenka was his brother, for whatever that was worth.

  It was worth his head, he thought with a laugh. And now a king’s daughter, it seemed.

  He decided to try and stay focused. These were no pirates that had liberated him. He really was being treated like the king he’d once been. An older man, named Baru, who was educated in some form of healing arcanery, had been attending him. These people were more than a little cautious and concerned about his emaciated physical condition and, luckily, Baru spoke the kings tongue, if crudely.

  As if the thought had somehow called him, Baru knocked, then entered. He was thick, stout, and as bald as a babe. He was clearly not one who had spent a lifetime at sea. He was carrying a big mug of something steamy and fighting to keep from spilling it as he stumbled about with the roll of the ship. Richard knew it was more of the brothy stew they’d been giving him. He was glad for it. His body was craving sustenance like it never had before. When he drank the stuff, he could feel the nutrients, as Baru called them, soaking into his bones and replenishing him.

  “Where are they taking me?” Richard asked as he took the offered food.

  “To Vikaria,” Baru answered. “To marry one of King Chad’s daughters and unite the lines of the Old World and New.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Huh?”

  “Exactly.” Richard took a deep sip of the broth and savored it. He had no idea what was in store for him. Having once ruled over the whole kingdom, and then just the islands, he knew a King never showed his true intentions. He doubted he was being taken to bed a princess. He’d learned some things from his father, his dragons, and Gravelbone over the years. One of them was that if it seems too good to be true, it probably was. Being taken from his banishment directly back into the lap of luxury just so he could marry and mate with a beaut—

  “Baru, what does she look like?” Richard’s voice came out raspy so he sipped again and waited patiently for an answer.

  The healer smiled and nodded with raised eyebrows. “They will not disappoint you, King Richard. They are dark of hair and round in all the right places.”

  “You say they,” Richard shrugged.

  “There are five daughters of an age to bear children and two that will be soon enough. I think one of them will chose you, no matter what you decide. It matters not, though, for they are all the same, and just like the queen.”

  “What happens after we’ve a child? I mean what happens to me?”

  “King Chad will have you brought back to your island and leave you, of course.”

  Richard looked at the Baru. His blood went cold and his mind flashed back to a moment when he was a prisoner deep in the Grottoes and Gravelbone was slicing pieces off a man while the daughter begged for mercy that would never come.

  Suddenly it was Baru under the Goblin King’s blade and Gravelbone was asking him which piece to cut off next.

  Something on Richard’s face must have given away his thoughts for Baru’s face went pale and he began to tremble.

  “It was a jest,” the big healer said as he eased to the door. “You and your new princess will live out your lives in luxury and peace in a stronghold all your own, I’m certain.”

  Baru opened the door and backed through, stopping before he closed it. “I was jesting, King Richard. Please. I meant no offense.”

  Richard finished off the broth in a long pull and chuckled again, “Did you hear that, Royal? He meant no offense.”

  Part II

  Along Came Clover

  Chapter Four

  Marcherion left for home and spring came and went. It was a good thing, too, for the snow in the mountains beyond Clover’s castle was finally melting away. Jenka and Aikira were both busy dealing with new languages, established guilds, and pirates and thieves of all sorts. With all the new trade, and the influx of new goods coming into the harbors, protecting the interest of the kingdom was turning into a job for scholars, scribes, and footmen, not dragon riding heroes.

  Rikky had taken on Prince Jericho and Pascal’s training and was pleased with the way they both took to the bow and the woods around Crag and Kingsman’s Keep. It was time for them to stop loosing at targets and slow moving varmints, though, and since the herds were done munching spring buds in the lower valleys, they would have to trek deeper into the peaks to find a worthy kill.

  “He is the prince, Zahrellion, and Pascal is the son of a Dragoneer,” Rikky argued. “Their first real hunt cannot be for a straggling doe. The bucks have moved into the thick. And the challenges those two need to face can’t be found in any village.”

  “He is too young, Rikky. Pascal is a year younger,” Zahrellion replied, but Rikky could tell she was thinking of allowing them the adventure he was inquiring about. “You will take two of Jenka’s rangers an—”

  “They are my rangers, Zah,” Rikky cut her off. “Jenka is in a Dour daze most of the time. I don’t know why you let him alone. I’m not asking the queen about this hunt. I am asking my sister Dragoneer. And I am telling you that, until Jericho finds himself without any of the boons and whistles his privileged station allows him, he will not ever find himself as a man. Pascal is just as bad. He is the only Dragoneer’s child in all the Outlands and his mother is the Ambassador. These boys need an adventure that tests them. Hell, I need an adventure.”

  “You’ll take two rangers and two foresters.” Zahrellion smirked and gave him her best ‘Yes I’m still your friend’ look. “Have them travel a half day behind if you must, but hand pick them. Remember what Ankha Vira tried. I couldn’t take another—”

  “Don’t worry, Zah,” Rikky spoke over her softly. He leaned forward in his chair and took her into a sitting hug. “That one lost her head for the attempt, remember? Silva will be there, above us, or nearby.”

  “Take a few men, Rikky.” Her tone was not of a commanding queen, but a pleading friend.

  “We will.” Rikky nodded.

  The two Dragoneers were in the gathering hall off the rotunda in Clover’s grand abode. Their dragons were lazing and conversing on their individual pads above. The boys, and a score of others, were outside with Linux and a few of the ogres that kept the place up. A small troop of rangers and foresters from the Keep had traveled there by horseback with Rikky and his charges as an honorary escort for the prince. The journey was more to give experience than to actually protect anyone, though.

  There was a time, not so long ago, when their whole group wouldn’t have made it this far into the peaks, Rikky understood, but the threats of the past had all been driven to the deepest parts of the Orich Mountains. Letting their guard down wasn’t part of the Ranger’s agenda, though, so the group had travelled as if there were still scores of Sarax loose in the woods.

  Zahrellion’s
concerns were justified, Rikky knew. Out beyond the reaches of the castle’s magic, there was naught but an unforgiving range of mountains that didn’t need a beast, or a reason, to end you.

  Rikky’s body regretted his decision to ride to the Keep with the men instead of on Silva’s back, but it had to be done. He was the high commander and had trained more than a few of the newer captains. He remembered the story of how Jenka’s father died saving Prince Richard from trolls on such an outing and decided to keep that memory to himself. They hadn’t had dragons to watch over them back then, and no trolls had been seen up here in a handful of years.

  Rikky hated the long spiral stair that led from the dragon’s area down to the main floor. He hated it even more now that he was at the bottom of it and would have to climb it in the morning before he singled out those going further into the peaks, and those who would stay, or return to the Keep.

  When they’d first found this place, his leg hadn’t been missing that long. It was only grit and determination that had allowed him to go up and down such a taxing path and, even after all the years, the descent had taken its toll. He hated to concede to pain, but he would have to cast a healing on himself later, probably both before he made the climb up and after he got to the top, as well. Then he chuckled and caused Zahrellion to sit up and smile curiously at him.

  “The stairs here,” he laughed. “I bet March would have to stop and catch his breath twice between top and bottom.”

  Zahrellion laughed back at him. “The last time I saw him here he cast a simple levitation spell and floated up as smoothly as you please.”

  Rikky could cast a levitation spell and suddenly felt stupid for not doing so. Zah must have seen this for she was grinning at him even wider.

  “At least I don’t have to dread the climb up now.” He chuckled with her.

  He wasn’t laughing on the inside. On the inside, he felt like a dimbus. With the power of his dragon tear he could probably just appear at the top.