The Royal Dragoneers: 2016 Modernized Format Edition (Dragoneers Saga)

by M. R. Mathias

  Like some ever-widening cavern that they could probably fit completely inside, red-pink stained teeth bared themselves. Long, slitted pupils focused into a fine sliver of a line. Jenka found that he half-wished that he was safe back in his dungeon cell. Then, just as the ancient wyrm roared out and blasted a geyser of orange flame at them, Jade coughed hard and tweaked his wingtips slightly. A purple ball of roiling energy shot from Jades mouth like a wad of spit right down into ancient dragon’s gullet and fizzled out. Like a ball swinging round a pole on a tether, Jade put them into a sharp, banking turn that the young dragon soon lost control of. Jade rolled over into a dizzying tumble. Once, then again, he flipped clumsily through the sky. It was all Jenka could do to keep from losing his mind. As they went skittering over the treetops like a poorly skipped stone, Jenka wondered why the spell Jade had cast, or whatever it was that he had done, had failed. Jenka tried once again to close his eyes. He had no desire to see the tree limbs tear his dragon’s young body apart, but like before, Jade's eyes blinked amber, but wouldn’t close.

  Behind them, a blast erupted, so violent that it jarred the sky out of kilter. The massive concussion silenced the world completely. The force of energy that radiated outward, caught Jade from behind and pushed them. Like some struggling swimmer lifted by a surging wave, they rose above the dangerous trees, just long enough for the young wyrm to get his flight back under control. Jenka tried to turn and look back again, but Jade's long neck didn’t comply. The dragon banked sharply around, and Jenka was immediately horrified by the amount of gore that he saw settling to the ground. He could taste sweet, coppery blood in the air, and the idea of it made him want to vomit. The hulking red’s tail was still twitching lazily, but there was nothing left of its neck above the shoulder, save for the bits that had splattered out and painted the fallen forest crimson. Jenka soon felt the hunger that the flavor and scent kindled in Jade, and he, too, began lusting for dragon flesh.

  “Look,” Jenka spoke with is mind. “He’s still alive, see? Spell him healed, like you did me when the trolls got me. You can feed after. We need Royal.”

  “I am weary, Jenka De Swassso,” Jade hissed into Jenka’s head. “I will try this, but then I must feed and rest. We should be away from here. The trellkin will come to feed, as will the mudged. There will be many of them.”

  “Aye,” agreed Jenka. “But we have to help Royal get away, too. What did you…? How?” Jenka wasn’t exactly sure how to phrase his question, but he tried. “What just happened? What did you do?”

  “I cannot explain it,” Jade replied. “It is complex.” He came flapping down near Royal’s wounded body like a giant, green-scaled duck, and landed awkwardly on the slick, blood-saturated trees that Royal’s crash had laid over. Jenka saw for the first time how huge the red dragon had been. It was as big as the pig barns behind Swinerd’s lodge. Royal was fairly big as well, and he was grievously wounded.

  When Jade eased cautiously up near the larger dragon, the limp blue wyrm let out a long, groaning hiss. “Gravelbone hasss him,” Royal's voice was weak, but plainly audible. “Leave me. Leave me to my fate and go save the prince. The hellwyrm carried them toward the lake. The demon must not be allowed to hold him long. Tell his father, Jenka. Ask the king why my brother’s head sits in his armory, why my dracar was even on that island in the first place.” Royal’s greenish-yellow eyes rolled upward, then, and Jade let out a long, sorrowful whine.

  Something changed around Jenka, something substantial. He started falling backwards out of Jade's mind.

  “Heal him, Jade,” he shouted almost desperately. “Heal him, and then come for me!” The loud reverberation of his own voice echoing off of the stone walls of his dungeon cell was the only response he got.

  Back in the dungeon, Jenka came at the steel door, pounding and screaming for the guards to immediately fetch Herald, or the queen, or even King Blanchard himself. He was frantic. He had to tell them what was happening.

  “Shut your fargin grub-hole, boy!” the guard responded with an angry chuckle. “If you wake me up again, I’ll see that your fast is broken with pissed oats and moldy bread.”

  “Come on, man,” Jenka pleaded. “This is urgent business. Herald’ll have your hide. I swear it. I know you don’t understand it, but I had a dream about the prince. I know where he is, they have to know. He’s in grave danger.”

  “Fall off, man,” the guard grumbled. “That King’s Ranger will be here soon enough. It’s near dawn. The morning tide rolls out soon after, and since they ordered all the able-bodied men to the mainland, he'll be leavin’ with `em. He’s supposed to come around before they shove off!” The guard scooted his wooden stool back loudly, then came over and clanged an empty piss pot against Jenka’s door for a few long moments. The sound was unbearably loud.

  “Now you shove off, `cause if you don’t let me sleep I’ll just keep a banging.” With that, the obstinate man slammed the little food slot and pinned it fast, leaving Jenka in total darkness.

  Jenka dropped to the floor, lay on his back before his door, and started mule kicking it with everything he had. The sound was ear shattering, both inside his cell and out in the larger stone room where the guard was stationed. The guard grew angry and went into a rage of his own, hammering the outside of Jenka’s door with the piss pot while Jenka kicked with all his might from the inside. They went on like that for quite a while, but Jenka started to tire. Then the piss pot pounding suddenly stopped and Jenka heard the guard speaking sharply to someone who had arrived.

  “Who in all the fargin hells are you?” the now furious man asked, through clenched teeth. “What businesses do you have dow—” His voice stopped mid-word.

  There was a bit of scuffling and the sound of rattling keys. The outer door to the cell block came open. Jenka had heard the sounds of the dungeon so many times now that he knew what every squeaking hinge or groaning bit of metal was connected to. A feminine snort, the sound of a disgusted old woman, came to his ears. There was a long, suspenseful moment of silence before Jenka started calling out that he needed to see the king or the queen immediately.

  The piss pot clanged on the door again, but only three sharp raps. In the silence that followed, the slot was unpinned and thrown open. An old woman peeked a bloodshot eye into the cell, but her head blocked what little light managed to find the interior. She cursed herself then pulled herself back a bit so that she could see.

  “Is that you, De Swasso?” she asked. “I suppose it is, with all that pounding.”

  “Who are you? I need to speak to the king or the queen immediately.”

  “No you don’t,” she snapped. “You need to shut your grub-hole like that fool guard said and listen to me.” When Jenka held his tongue, she continued. “You’re wormy, boy. I knew you would be when you was get.”

  “What?” Jenka asked incredulously. He didn’t have time for this nonsense, and he started to say so. But when he got to the door to look out, he saw a look in her eyes that suggested that her words might have some merit. As hard as it was for Jenka to hold his mouth still, he did so.

  “You was a wiggler when you was born. It’s one of the few things I remember well,” she said conversationally. “But that’s neither here nor there. You know where it is, Jenka. I know you know. I have to have it. We’ll need it when the Time of Confliction rolls round.”

  “What are you talking about, crone?” He had heard that phrase, “Time of Confliction” before, but at the moment, he couldn’t remember where, nor did he care. “I need to see the king.”

  “Lisssten,” she hissed. The way her “S” hung long made him think of Jade, and he bit his tongue yet again.

  “I am an old woman. My name is Mysterian, and you should hold yourself still while I unfurl my mind or this could take all day.”

  Jenka recognized the name immediately. Had he not just witnessed a battle between dragons and their powerful High Magic in his mind’s eye, he might have shied away from the old Hazeltine Witch who
had trained his mother. Supposedly this woman was part elvish, like Lem and Zahrellion. Jenka’s mother had told him that she was the oldest of the old, whatever that meant. Either way, he knew her reputation warranted his respect. He would give it to her, but only after she answered the most important question that came to his mind.

  “Is she alive?” His face pressed so tightly against his door that it was painful. “Do you know anything about my mother?”

  “Nay.” She shook her head, sadly. “But as important as that seems it, too, is neither here nor there. What matters is whether you will do my bidding.”

  “What?”

  “Listen, boy! I am old, and my mind wanders. Just sit still, and it will all work its way out of me.”

  Jenka let out a long, frustrated sigh and started pacing his cell. He felt as if he might burst into a thousand crawling pieces of worry. Prince Richard had been taken by Gravelbone, and Zah had been taken by her fellow druids, and this conversation was maddening. After a few moments, he went back to the slot and would have bumped the old witch in the head had the door not been there.

  “I’ll help you out of here and on your way if you’ll go fetch that tear,” she whispered.

  “What tear?” Jenka was fed up. This made no sense at all.

  “Husssh,” she hissed. A spark of warning flashed in her eyes. It was a glinting hint at her own frustration, and it kept Jenka from voicing his annoyance. “If you’ll swear to go get that mighty emerald dragon’s tear, then I will let you out of here. We will use its vast power to kill the Goblin King, and his hellwyrm too, but when that deed is done, the tear is mine.”

  How she could have known that he had watched Jade’s mamra cry that tear in a vision was beyond him, but her offer was one that he didn’t think he could refuse. He didn’t have any idea of the powerful magic contained in that little amber droplet. If he had, he might have thought better of giving his oath to turn it over to her. But at the moment, he didn’t care what use she had for such a thing. If it could help him kill Gravelbone and the nightshade, then he would use it. If he succeeded in ridding the land of the demon and his wyrm, then giving the thing to the witch seemed only fair. Old witches often collected all sorts of odd substances. His mother had kept a jar of fresh bear scat by the teapot.

  “I’ll do it,” Jenka nodded. “But I need a place to hide until my dragon gets here.”

  “Swear an oath,” she demanded.

  Jenka glared at her. His mother had taught him that an oath-breaker was the worst of things to be, and to be wary of giving his solemn word to anyone. After a long moment, he sighed. “I swear that I’ll retrieve the mighty emerald's tear for you, Mysterian. I swear it by the name De Swasso.”

  It was a formal oath that he had heard his mother force several people to swear over the years, and it seemed to please Mysterian that he had worded it correctly.

  She cackled out delightfully, as if the world that Jenka knew weren't hanging in the balance. “I knew you was wormy, De Swasso. I knew it since the day you was get!”

  The rattling of keys resounded, and the heavy steel door creaked open, revealing the hunched old crone and the unconscious dungeon guard lying still on the filthy floor. The only thing more relieving than being free was the blast of relatively fresh air that wafted over him and filled his lungs with hope.

  He didn’t even notice the way the old witch cringed and fought to hold down her gorge at the smell of him.

  Part III

  High Magic

  Chapter Twenty

  Though she could have passed for a maiden of twelve and was as smart as an old crone, Zahrellion was only nineteen years old. She had lived at the Druidom since birth. One of her direct ancestors had helped found the Order of Dou, which was the little-used official name of the sect. He had been instrumental in getting King Ferdok to grant them amnesty from the kingdom and its laws so that they could research the powers of the arcane. Ideally, the sect wouldn’t have had to build their temple up in the lower peaks, but the good folk of the kingdom would have been appalled at some of the things they had attempted with their unique forms of High Magic, so it was for the better all the way around.

  Zahrellion’s ancestor, one Grock Visium, had been a powerful practitioner of all things arcane. His specialty was item enchantment. He had spent the waking hours of his life studying, practicing, and creating ways to instill ordinary objects with power and purpose. One of the items he had created was known as the dampening hood. It was a velvety, drawstring bag, made to put over the heads of the rogue Outland pirates that were the terror of the seas back in the earlier days of the settling. Those bold and brazen outlaws, and a few of their women, often knew enough sea sorcery to cause trouble even after they were captured. The material that Grock Visium’s dampening hood was made of had been enchanted so that it interfered with the brain activity and the voice of the person put under it. Without the ability to speak the proper words or think clearly, there could be no spell casting or walking the ethereal. It was a very effective way to transport a prisoner with the ability to muster the power of the arcane. It was a bitter irony when Zahrellion found herself staring at the inside of her great grandfather's device. Comparatively gentle hands led her down a long wooden dock to board a sea ship as if she were some old pirate’s filthy ship witch.

  The smell of brine was in the air, but it had a hard time reaching her nose. The gulls were calling out crazily around her and her escorts. Underneath the frantic, cawing tirade was the slow, but steady, repeating whoosh of the ocean’s waves rolling past the wooden support columns, and the clomping of their boots on the plank-wood pier. Under the steamy hood, Zah was going mad with worry, and she was more than a little bit angry. After several days in the dungeons, she still hadn’t been given an opportunity to bathe herself properly. Inside the hood, her breath was so vile that it was suffocating her. Frunien, the druid who had come for her, and the four Dourga attendants he had brought along to help escort her away from King’s Island were all deaf to her pleadings. Frunien actually sympathized with her, but he wasn’t about to remove the hood, at least not until they were well at sea.

  They sat at harbor for far longer than anyone had expected. All the while, Zahrellion sobbed pitifully about her unclean state and her hunger. Truthfully, she was no bawling little girl. She was just trying to gain Frunien’s sympathy by acting as one. Finally, the anchor chain was cranked up. Zah couldn’t see them, but she could tell by the noise that there were quite a few ships setting sail together. A cacophony of rattling metal links, shouting sailors, and the pounding of oar drums filled the air, as they eased out of Kingston’s harbor and made for the open sea. After that, Frunien’s will broke quickly enough.

  He ordered one of the Dourga to fetch a platter of fruit from the galley. The ship they had chartered was a fleet little sloop, and they were its only cargo. It was as plush as any in the Royal Line, and since its holds contained only ballast stones, Frunien had it stocked with fruit and a few other delicate staples. They weren’t going to Port with the other ships, so it was going to be a fairly long journey. They were going east to skirt the entire mainland peninsula so that they could then head north and put in somewhere up in the Cut near the eastern foothills.

  “Zahrellion, I’m going to remove the hood now. Do not do anything foolish.” Her older peer explained that there was a copper tub filled with warm water and fresh robes waiting in a private chamber below. “Here comes a platter of fresh fruit as we speak.” He started to fumble the drawstring loose, but hesitated. “Will you promise not to lash out?”

  “I’ll not do anything…” she started.

  He made the mistake of assuming that she had finished speaking, for as he pulled the hood from her tangled, white rat-nest of hair he heard the rest of her words.

  “…of the sort!”

  She went straight to the Dourga who was bringing the fruit and greedily savaged not one, but two juicy, purple plums. The succulent liquid dripped off her chin and ran do
wn her arms as she relished the slightly tart flavor of them. After she swallowed the fruit, she breathed deeply of the fresh salty air and took a moment to marvel at the small cloud of gulls that had followed them out to sea. Off behind them, like a cluster of floating geese, she saw the flotilla that was sailing to Port. She immediately understood why they were moving away from the other vessels. This ship was headed away from the confrontation, not toward it. Her anger washed over the relief she was feeling like some rogue tidal wave. She turned her attention on Frunien then, snatching the dampening hood from him to wipe her hands on it.

  “I’ll ask this only once,” her eyes had suddenly grown fierce, and her tattooed brow dove into a sharp, angry V-shape. “Who ordered you to use my grandfather’s hood on me?”

  Frunien had backed up tightly against the ship’s rail, and a few of the sailors who were up in the rigging laughed at him. They choked off their mirth when Zah gave them a quick glare. She wiped the plum juice from her face with the hood and then turned to face down her fellow druid again. As quick as a lightning strike, he was under the hood himself.

  “No, Zah, please! No,” he pleaded through the soft, suede material. His hands went up to his neck, but stopped several inches before they could grasp the drawstring. It was one of the qualities of the hood. It wouldn’t be effective if the wearer could unfasten and remove it themselves. “Take it off, Zahrellion. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “I don’t hear you telling me who ordered you to do it, Frune. We are supposed to be an order of peers. We are sworn to preserve each other's dignity and act as brethren, to care for our fellow man with a loyalty only equaled by a mother’s love for her own. Explain to me where this act is dignified or caring. I haven’t bathed in more than a week, you fargin bastard!”