“It has,” Linux comforted. “It took severe damage in the storm, and was diverted to Mainsted, but I fear that by the time she gets there the goblins and trolls will be there pounding down that wall as well.”
“What can we do?” King Blanchard asked, in a tone that let Linux know that he was willing to listen and cooperate. “Send her ship back to Kingston, on my order. I thought that the fargin dragons were going to help us. Did they abandon the cause?”
“That silver dragon and Rikky Camile, with Master Vahlda’s help, closed the hole nearest Port, allowing me this time to confer with you, so they have done something, but he and that wyrm were last seen leading the Goblin King away from here, and that was a day ago. Master Vahlda wasn’t with them. The white wyrm and Zahrellion were helping defend Midwal for a time, but according to the latest reports, they too have disappeared.” Linux paused and rubbed the king’s fleshy chin with the king’s meaty hand. “I fear they have been taken down as the crown prince was. We might have to abandon the mainland, Highness, but you will have to give that order. I will not make such a decision on your behalf.”
“You stole my fargin body, druid! Why not make the decision?” Linux watched as his own neck and face grew red with rage. “We cannot retreat from this land! We have fought for generations to tame it and I refuse to give it up now. We must march the men, all of them, to Mainsted and make a stand if we have to. We should have been marching already. How did it come to this? What of my Rangers up in the Keep, and your brethren up in the peaks in the Temple of Dou? Would you abandon them too?”
“Their fate is out of our hands. Wouldn’t it be faster to sail round to Mainsted harbor and try to meet the Goblin King’s horde there? Marching through territory they have already invaded seems futile.”
“Yes,” the real king nodded Linux' head enthusiastically. “A third of our force by land though, mounted pike men who are seasoned but dressed as pitiful men running away. It has to be men who can ride well and outrun pursuit if they have to. If the dragons get them then it’s a wash, but if the fargin trolls think that is all of us left and that we are retreating, then we might even have a chance to surprise them at the old wall around Mainsted. We have to think about Midwal and Farwal, too. The troops from Midwal, even the citizens, can make it all the way here inside the wall itself, but that would take days. What word from Farwal and the eastern coast? Richard sent ships there before he was taken from the island.”
“There has been nothing from Farwal,” Linux heaved a heavy sigh. “No word at all.” It would be no easy task to load the ships with men. The sky over the harbor was full of dragons, but the mudged were afraid to go too far out over the sea. Once the ships set sail, they might have a chance.
“When are you going to undo this?” King Blanchard was livid, as he indicated the current body he occupied. Linux almost asked him to calm down so that the heart in his true body didn’t burst. He had never known his veins could bulge so drastically on his tattooed forehead, but he saw them doing so now.
“Only Mysterian the Hazeltine, or the Outland wizard Vax Noffa can undo what I’ve done to us,” he dropped his head. “Sorry.”
“Sorry?” King Blanchard bellowed. “You’re fargin sorry?”
“Yes, I am sorry, Highness,” Linux growled back in the king's huge daunting form. “I never intended for it to go this far. I only wanted to save the men out there you were about to march to their deaths.”
“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 b
oy 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 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 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 slunk 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 any more. 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 was 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 there were 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, g
irl?” 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.”
The Royal Dragoneers: 2016 Modernized Format Edition (Dragoneers Saga) Page 28