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

by M. R. Mathias

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Rikky had nearly been knocked from Silva’s back by a powerful blast of magic that some half-mudged wyrm had mustered up. The hair was scorched from his head and brows, and his flesh was slightly blistered, but he was still clinging to the silver dragon's back, and they were still chasing Gravelbone. The dragon that had blasted them was almost immediately bathed in Crystal’s frigid breath and had ended up pounding into the earth like so much stone. Eventually, Zah and Crystal turned back, and let Rikky go after the hellwyrm alone. The king had ordered her to protect those pike men. She had let half of them or more needlessly perish already. She wasn’t about to abandon the rest of them, especially since the common folk that had been locked out of the city were huddled with them.

  It was all Silva could do to stay close to the tireless hellborn wyrm. Only when the black thing had left Mainsted far behind and then slowed and started into a circling dive did Rikky wish that he and his bond-mate weren’t alone. The nightshade saw them and started back toward them, but Gravelbone told it no.

  “Gons geh da petulenz, ooh ard. Na go,” he ordered, and the nightshade went.

  Down and down into a dark, shadowy valley it circled. Then it swooped across the dusk lit plain until it came upon a clustering of orcs and ogres working around several open fire-pits. The ogres were being whipped and forced to do some sort of shoveling work. Huge sheets of hammered steel spread out between the fires. On them were shriveling lumps of some sort of vegetable matter. A huge, high-sided wagon cart that had been turned into a basket was being filled with the powdery stuff. Rikky figured it was the poison Jenka had told them about.

  He had Silva bank away from the area. In the fading light of the evening they happened to see a trench filled with dozens of ogre-sized bodies, each and every one of them still writhing and groaning. They were covered in bleeding black scabs from head to foot. It was disgusting, and the idea of it set off a deep primal fear inside Rikky. His instinct told him to flee this place, but he couldn’t. His anger at the foul demon responsible for this was overwhelming. If he died keeping that poison away from the people at Midwal, then so be it. It was a death he could live with.

  The nightshade circled back around and went into a slow hover out away from the fire pits. Gravelbone slid deftly from his wyrm and landed in perfect stride, then moved away into the darkness. The nightshade gathered up some speed, came around again, and latched onto the nearly full basket of powdery poison by its crude iron handle. It then started back toward Mainsted, seeming to ignore Rikky and Silva as they started after it. Rikky saw, or rather heard, the roar of a mid-sized fire drake as it swooped in at them from the side. He saw that Gravelbone was riding it and realized his mistake. Only Silva’s agile wings saved them from being roasted in flames, and now instead of being able to chase down and attack the nightshade, Silva had to avoid the crimson-scaled wyrm and its ivory-horned rider.

  Jade dove into the park where Herald battled to win control of the big swivel-mounted dragon guns. Jade tried to use his fire, and was surprised that, even without the tear's power coursing through him, he could do so. The jet of emerald flame cleared the way and soon big grizzled Herald was shouting out orders and spears were flying up at the mudged from the newly-built weapons.

  Jenka reached out to Prince Richard with his mind, but there was no response. “They have usss closssed out,” Jade informed him, as he left the area around the dragon guns and started winging them in the direction that Rikky and the Goblin King had gone. “Voicing in the ethereal is done at one's discretion. You can close my voice out if you wanted to. I cannot find the Royal’s voice either.”

  Jenka found the big blue wyrm in the sky with his eyes, then lost him as he was forced to cling to Jade's back for his life. The young dragon did his best to outrun a dark, jungle-green-colored mudge that had singled them out. It took them a while, well into darkness, to lose their pursuer, but they managed it. Jenka decided it didn’t matter if the crown prince knew about the poison. If he and Jade couldn’t stop it from getting here, then it would be too late anyway. What Mysterian had meant when she had said, “Poison or no, lead the nightshade into the city,” confounded him. He would do as she wished, but only as a last resort. If he could down the nightshade out in the frontier, he had every intention of doing so.

  Far behind Jenka and Jade, Royal’s bright yellow blasts of liquid lightning breath lit up the night. His thunderous roars sent terror through the mudged, but the smaller dragons weren’t running from him as they once had. Royal wasn’t alive, and the repulsion he had once emanated was no longer there. The mudged attacked the sparkling blue in groups of two and three, using one another to keep him distracted. Royal would attack and taunt them in turn. Then he would lead them over the city where Herald’s crew of dragon gunners would try to put a spear in them.

  The dragon gun worked several times. Half a dozen mudged had gone crashing into the cobbles with spears jutting out of their guts. As the night wore on, the draw of the weapon lost its strength, and the missiles were now only doing minor damage to the dragons, if any. Herald left some men there to man the weapon, but he took the rest of them with him to protect the ships that Linux had told the witch about. The ships would be arriving soon, most likely with the morning tide, and the way things were, he didn’t think the mudged would allow them up into the narrow harbor channel unless he did something to contain their attention.

  Herald and his small troop began rolling the other dragon gun toward the harbor side of the city.

  Like a great pie with only a small slice removed from it, Midwal wrapped around the sliver of ocean protectively. The trolls and goblins couldn’t get to the docks from outside the barrier, at least not in sizable groups. The breach the huge scarlet dragon had made with its crash was on the other side of the city, and several inner walls that had once separated the slums from the working class, and the nobles from the merchants, still stood in their way. As a result, the big mudged dragons hauling goblins and trolls in the baskets were starting to concentrate on the harbor area now. It was against a sizable band of vermin that Herald and his five man troop found themselves as they rolled the second dragon gun down an otherwise-deserted lane toward the harbor.

  From an open window above, a woman’s scream fell away. Another voice called down a redundant warning to Herald’s men. After that, the skittering of the goblins filled the air like a swarm of locusts.

  Like a tight gorge during a downpour, the goblins came surging at them.

  Things were looking grim. Herald swung his sword with all the might he had in him. His men were no slouches either, but without the other dragon gun operating to help keep the sky clear, the mudged were dropping goblins into the city by the basketful now. There were just too many of them, and the swarm of little gray skinned, toothy beasts had surrounded them, leaving Herald and his three remaining men no choice other than to stand with their backs to the dragon gun and fight to the end. Right before their eyes, one of their fallen comrades was devoured in a ripping, bloody frenzy. Cold, lifeless eyes, as gray as the skin on the toothy, child-sized monsters that bore them, glared hungrily. The other soldiers, the ones who had already fallen, were but stains in the cobbles now.

  Using his gauntleted fist, one of Herald’s men stepped over and punched a flying stone from its course. It would have bashed the side of Herald’s head in had he not done it. Despite the armor he wore, the man broke his hand in the process. Now the goblins ringed round them focused on him, as he could no longer properly wield his sword. Herald spun around and quickly stabbed one of the vermin, then turned back and took another, but it wasn’t enough. His burly size was great in a brawl, but he didn’t have the wind to hold out much longer. Like beetles converging on a decomposing carcass, the little beasts closed in to finish them.

  As he was going down, Herald could hear the women and children from inside the shops and dwellings along the lane, screaming out in terror as the unrestrained goblins burst in after th
em. The first set of teeth found Herald’s flesh then, and another, and he couldn’t help but scream out himself.

  “Where are you?” Linux called into Zahrellion’s mind from afar. “Zah, can you hear me?”

  “Not purposefully,” she shot back. She was as tired as tired gets, and still doing all she could to protect the troop of pike men she had escorted and the sizable group of refugees the cowardly Duke had locked out in the frontier. It was no easy task, especially when the sky was full of hungry, mudged dragons and the ground was littered with bands of goblins and trolls. “Why did you soul-step into King Blanchard’s body? Have you gone mad?”

  “Never mind that, Zahrellion,” Linux' voice sounded urgent. “I am speaking as your superior in the Order of Dou. I am commanding you this. Blast the prince from the sky. He has been tainted by Gravelbone’s dark power. He is a threat to us all.”

  “I’ll do no such thing, Master Linux,” she responded a little more confidently than she felt. He outranked her in the Order of Dou, and by not following his orders she could be punished severely by the other elders of the sect. She decided he had gone mad, and they would see it as plainly as she did. She honestly feared for him. One of the side-effects of soul-stepping was a loss of mental integrity. The simple fact that Linux had asked her to assassinate the crown prince proved that he had been affected.

  “There is something wrong with the Royal,” Crystal informed her. “The prince, too, but I know not what it is.”

  “See, Zah,” Linux said. “Listen to your dragon. They have been corrupted, they will be on our side till the end of this, but after everything settles, the demon's influence will show itself. I swear it.”

  “Then come kill him yourself,” Zah said angrily. “You had that hood put over my head. Then you attacked and took over the king. The king, Linux. You have gone mad.”

  “Bah,” Linux cursed, in a manner that was more King Blanchard’s than his own. The king was in the next compartment sleeping. He couldn’t allow him to know that he was ordering the crown prince’s death. Switched bodies or not, Rigalt Blanchard would kill him if he learned of it. Their ship had just set sail from Port that morning and they would reach Midwal on the next evening's tide. A lot of people, mainly women and children stayed back near Port, inside the wall, but every able-bodied man had been given a sword and been put on a ship. Most of the ships he and King Blanchard sent were entering Mainsted harbor already, and he had to think about the threat to them as well.

  “All right then. Help Herald hold the sky over the harbor. There are shiploads of men sailing in, and they will need protection from the mudged. I’ve seen firsthand what those feral dragons can do. They destroyed a third of the ships in Port. Protect those men from the fire breathers.”

  “What about the men, women, and children that I’m already protecting? Do I just abandon them?” Her voice had grown angry now. She'd had enough. She closed out her one-time mentor’s voice and gained some altitude so that she might be able to circle out over the knife-shaped thrust of harbor jutting up into Mainsted. It was too dark to see much, but what she saw was disheartening to say the least.

  Mainsted, like Three Forks, Outwal, and Midwal, had been decimated. Unchecked fires were burning everywhere, inside the city walls and out. Mudged flapped and fluttered about the towers and the lesser buildings, picking off the people forced out into the open. Royal was still there in the sky, chasing mudged and snapping at them when he could. He seemed thrilled to be killing them, and the tone of his savage roars carried a hint of the bloodlust that he was feeling. It scared Zah a little bit, for she could feel something was wrong there, too. It wasn’t her place to judge it though. Prince Richard was a Dragoneer, just like her, Jenka, and Rikky. That fact seemed to outweigh her status as a Druid of Dou. Either way, the harbor needed to be protected for the men on those ships were desperately needed in the streets.

  She had no idea how to protect the harbor and the group of people huddled in the forest below her at the same time. If she could reach Prince Richard, then maybe he could help her.

  She tried and tried, but found no response in the ethereal other than Mysterian’s giddy voice, babbling the words of a spell. When the witch finished her casting, an area near the knife-tip of water exploded into a humming green dome of pastel lime-colored energy. Several blocks were encompassed in the bright glow. The mudged that contacted the magical field fell dead instantly, and the other wyrms in the sky moved clear.

  “I have the harbor, girl,” the Hazeltine Witch said harshly, as if holding her massive shield spell was taxing her body greatly. Zahrellion had no idea that it was the dragon’s tear Jenka had retrieved that powered the great protective zone. “Leave the sparkling blue and Prince Richard to me, but if you see the nightshade in the sky lead it to the harbor and call on me. I will be listening.”

  Zahrellion didn’t know if Mysterian’s instruction had merit or not. She was glad the witch had the harbor though, for now she could defend the forest from the mudge now fleeing the city from the humming green shield. A band of trolls had closed in on her pike men while she was conversing. She had Crystal swoop on them and send them scattering. The men on the ground did the rest and closed on the surprised beasts with their spears. This allowed Zah to go ward off another threat. She could see the strength of Mysterian’s magic already fading, and wondered if it would hold till morning. Then a rock nearly smashed her off Crystal's back and she began to wonder if she would make it that long. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had rested, and her dragon had been flying the entire time. It came as no surprise when Crystal suggested they land near the forest so that she could rest her wings for a time. Zahrellion didn’t think it was wise, but she didn’t dare refuse her brave dragon.

  Just after they landed, Zah looked back at Mainsted in the distance and saw a huge explosion of yellow sparks and fire. In the sudden flash of light, she was awestruck by the sheer number of mudged still in the sky. They were wary of Mysterian’s shield, but they were there and they were getting their fill of flesh to eat. Any spark of hope she might have been holding out was extinguished in that flash. The situation seemed hopeless. There was no way they could survive the night, much less hold the sky until the ships docked. And what would happen when the boats were emptied of men? They would just be more food for the feral wyrms to feast upon.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Jenka saw the nightshade coming, low in the distance, and urged Jade to meet it in the sky. Not far behind the black-skinned hellwyrm, the sky was pink with the coming dawn, and the silhouettes of not one, but two other dragons could be seen. Mainsted was a good distance behind him. Jenka figured that, because he and Jade were soaring up in the higher reaches, they had the element of surprise.

  Jenka wasn’t sure where the courage was coming from, but it was there. As always, Jade could feel it, too. An unspoken decision, a commitment to the fatal deed they were carrying out, was made by each of them. Thinking as one, they carved into a sharp dive to attack the nightshade, though it was clear that it was carrying the wagon-sized basket of poison in its claws.

  “We have to take it out,” Jenka thought.

  “Yesss,” Jade hissed and began drawing in breath.

  They dove into a wings-folded streak toward the hellborn wyrm. As soon as they were committed to their attack, Rikky spotted them streaking down from above and called out a harsh warning to stay clear. Rikky’s voice echoed across the ethereal and caused the nightshade to cut sharply away and avoid Jade’s trajectory altogether.

  Jenka cursed aloud, for they could have ended the nightshade had Rikky not spoken out. They had been in a position to slam right into the beast. They could have torn it in two, or at least they could have broken its spine. Jenka couldn’t be mad at his friend though. Rikky had only wanted him to avoid the poison.

  The wyrm following Rikky and Silva moved away and started climbing. Silva went streaking past Jade, still following the nightshade, leaving Jenka stewing in hi
s frustration. Jade gave out a roar that conveyed his rider’s anger perfectly. They just couldn’t catch up. Jade wasn’t strong enough yet. They had to start climbing again, to gain altitude.

  “Be wary of that red wyrm behind me,” said Rikky breathlessly into the ethereal. “The Goblin King is its rider and he is furious that his feeble scorcher can’t match Silva’s speed,” Rikky’s voice sounded confident, if a bit resigned, and more than a little determined.

  Jenka understood that his young friend had made the same commitment to die getting the nightshade down that he had. It was a coffin chore. That is what Master Kember would have called it. Jericho De Swasso had performed a coffin chore when he had waded into that band of trolls to save Prince Richard all those years ago. Jenka huffed out angrily and lent his determination to his bond-mate as they struggled to climb back into the sky. He didn’t have time to ponder who, or what, his father really was.

  “Get the nightshade, Rikky,” Jenka said under his breath. “We’re coming as quickly as we can. Rest assured that we will finish it, if it needs finishing, when we get there.”

  The fading dome of lime-green luminescence protecting the tip of the harbor hadn’t been spelled into existence to serve that task, but it was working. The ships from Port were rolling in with the tide, and even though the men were leery of the strange magical field, they were thankful for the fact that the vermin, winged and legged alike, were staying clear of it. From every part of the city, outside of the glow, people were trying desperately to get inside of its range of protection. Pandemonium reigned. The men on the ships had just come from a city swarmed with mudged, trollkin, and terrified people. They hadn’t been expecting Mainsted to be as bad yet. There would be no defending the wall here. It would be a battle in the cobbles and then, most likely, a full retreat to the islands. There were at least five hundred people in the city for every ship in the bay, and even a retreat could only come about if they could keep the dragons from setting the vessels afire.