“Revenge?” Royal’s voice was weak, but Prince Richard could hear it in his head, like he had before Royal had died. “You, Richard are the only thing good left that I can find.” Royal shook his head and started turning again. “Guide me where you will, Dragoneer. We will settle for revenge.”
As Royal banked back out away from the city, Gravelbone roared out his anger. The mudged fire drake he was riding was quaking with fear of its rider. Exhausted and injured, it was moving sluggishly through the air. Gravelbone didn’t care. He had felt the power of the bond between Prince Richard and his deceased dragon surge back into existence. It was just enough to break the strands of control he had placed over them. He was twice furious, and his rage swelled to unimaginable proportions, because the fool prince had flown right through the poison, and that meant that all of Gravelbone’s planning had been for nothing. Prince Richard would never take the throne. The long days of torturing the boy's mind down in the nightshade’s lair had been wasted.
Gravelbone spoke the words to a terrible spell. He would unleash his anger on the people below with his dark destructive magic. He would have his horde feasting on man flesh for months to come. He finished his casting but was halted from saying the word that would level half of Mainsted when a small, primal scream closed in on him. What he saw shocked him so badly that he didn’t even try finish his casting, much less try to defend himself.
Jenka was about to crunch into the cobbled streets of Mainsted. Rikky and his dragon were racing in to save him. Silva had to dip down between buildings and turn sideways in the air to grab Jenka, but she got him. She kept swimming through the air furiously above the rooftops. Jenka couldn’t tell what was happening, because he was clutched uncomfortably in Silva’s grasp. The silver wyrm wasn’t nearly as large as Royal or the nightshade, and had to hold him awkwardly with both claws. Jenka was thankful for the reprieve from death, and wasn’t about to complain. He just wished he knew what had become of Jade. His dragon had vanished from the sky with the nightshade.
Jenka only got to see part of what transpired next, and the little he saw was spectacular.
Gravelbone roared up ahead and above them, oblivious to the silver dragon streaking across the rooftops from his blind side. He was focused on something in the distance. When Silva curved upward to ride right up the mudged red dragon's tail, Rikky let out a savage scream and leapt from Silva’s back. With his peg-leg held out ahead of him like a spear, he smashed right into Gravelbone’s back, impaling him. The red dragon was so startled by Silva’s stealth that it bolted away, flipping both Rikky and Gravelbone into a tumble. There would be no swooping dragon to save them, for they were barely above the rooftops and there wasn’t nearly enough time to for Silva to turn.
Jenka was tossed and repositioned by Silva’s claw. Then he was let loose to tumble across a gravelly rooftop where he skidded roughly to a halt. He stood and looked back, seeing Silva’s tail dip down below the edge of the building. He half limped, half ran to the parapet and looked down to see the silver wyrm savagely tearing into Gravelbone’s flesh. Rikky was lying a dozen paces away, his amputated leg jutting up like a small tree stump. His peg-leg had skewered the Goblin King through the chest, pinning it to the ground, making it all the easier for Silva to tear away huge strips of meat from the floundering demon. Silva wasn’t interested in eating the meat, but in a matter of moments the foul Goblin King was reduced to nothing more than bloody scraps.
Jenka should have been relieved to see Rikky groan and try to sit up, but he didn’t notice. All he could think about was Jade. With everything he had in him he called out to his bond-mate through the ethereal. There was no response for several long moments, but his dragon finally gurgled out a reply. Jade was floating in the sea again. His wing was injured and he was lost. Silva heard the young green and immediately leapt into the air to go find him. Rikky, taken aback that his dragon had left him, managed a foolish grin up at Jenka.
“What of Zah?” Jenka asked. The last he had seen, she and Crystal were lying still as stone north east of the city, ringed by the soldiers they had been ordered to protect.
“I didn’t go. I hope she is alive,” Rikky sat in the street looking at his one-booted foot for a moment. His whole hairless head was pink and slightly blistered, giving him an alien look. “I decided to stay and help you and Prince Richard. I had sworn to kill this bastard when Master Kember died.” He indicated the bloody mess that Silva had made of the Goblin King’s body. “I want those antlers,” he told a soldier peeking out of a nearby doorway. Then back up to Jenka he continued, “I finally found the courage to do it. It wouldn’t matter if I saved Zah and let Mainsted get poisoned anyway.” He took a deep breath and decided that he had done well. He hoped Zah was all right. “Do you think Prince Richard and Royal were infected?”
“Undoubtedly,” Jenka nodded. “Can you reach out to her? I’m too worried about Jade to concentrate.”
“Aye,” Rikky nodded and sat himself very still.
After a few moments he shook his head sadly. “Nothing.”
“Ssshe isss just unconsciousssss,” Crystal whispered out to them across the ethereal. “We will survive thisss.”
Jenka and Rikky both let out a long sigh of relief at this.
Later, as the goblins and trolls were being beaten out of the city, Jenka looked up to see his dragon flapping awkwardly through the sky toward the building he was still sitting on top of. In the distance, behind him, was Silva. The silver dragon came from a slightly different direction and was carrying something in her grasp. The sky was relatively clear of mudged. Only a few of them were brave enough to linger. When they saw Jade and Silva in the sky they grew wise and disappeared. Jade landed on the parapet, crumbled some of the mortared stone in his claws, then loomed his head in and started licking Jenka’s face as if he were a puppy. His long tail tattooed a rhythm of excitement on the roof, and Jenka couldn’t help but enjoy the warm show of affection.
“I’m glad to see you, too,” Jenka told his bond-mate. “What happened to the nightshade?”
“It livesss,” Jade hissed. “It tore my wing and then fled. I sssaw the Royal drop the basket as it glided into the sssea. I dove down to save the prince. He sat on my back and we floated. The poison has infected him. Silva pulled us out and helped me catch air.”
“It’s Prince Richard,” someone yelled from the street below.
“The silver wyrm brought back the crown prin…dear gods, he has been stricken,” another yelled. “Some of that goblin dust fell on some other folk and they’re all scabbed up, too.”
“Stand clear of them,” an old woman’s voice yelled commandingly. The amber glow of the dragon’s tear in her hand gave her the authority she demanded.
Jenka knew it was Mysterian giving the orders, and he limped over to the parapet to look down at the scene.
A wet, limp body, legs still partially-clad in steel plate armor, was lying in the cobbled street. The body was bleeding freshly in places, which made Jenka wonder if Prince Richard was dead or alive. He tried to see if his chest was moving, but all he could tell was that some of the wounds were already starting to scab. Silva carried Rikky up to the rooftop of the building across the lane from the one that Jenka and Jade were on. They, too, looked down at the horrid fate the crown prince had met.
When Mysterian came upon Prince Richard’s body she wailed pitifully and fell to her knees in anguish. She held the dragon’s tear out, squeezed it in her fist and began casting a spell. This caused her hand to glow so brightly that it revealed the bones inside her hand. When she was done, a bright, lime-green, oval-shaped dome the size of a coffin had encapsulated Prince Richard’s form. Then the not-so-old looking Hazeltine Witch fell over into a heap in the street.
The spectators who braved the open tried to close in on the scene, but Silva leaned out over the rooftop and let out a long, slow warning hiss. Prince Richard had died a Dragoneer. He had been one of them. Needless to say, no one came any closer, at
least not until dusk, when a contingent of soldiers and a fancy carriage pulled by very tentative horses came rattling upon them.
Linux and King Blanchard came out of the carriage in a rush. Jenka, as well as every person in sight of the scene save Rikky, was surprised when it was the druid who ran to Mysterian’s side and tried to grab a hold of the magically cocooned body. “My son,” Linux sobbed. “Oh what has happened to you, my son.”
Jenka was dumbfounded. He couldn’t understand why King Blanchard was looking away as if he were ashamed to be witnessing such a scene.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Over the next few days, Jenka and the other two Dragoneers spent their time on their wyrms, driving loose bands of the trollkin out from behind the Great Wall. The ogres had congregated out in the frontier eagerly waiting for them. They made short work of the vermin when they came, especially the orcs.
For the Dragoneers, it was rewarding work, to say the least. The three of them worked as a cohesive team and, even though Zahrellion was plagued with debilitating headaches because of her crash, and Rikky had a blistered face and head, they made it safe for the people huddled inside the Great Wall to venture out and restart their lives.
Jenka had learned that Linux had soul-stepped into King Blanchard’s body, forcing King Blanchard’s essence to inhibit the druid. It wasn’t easy to grasp at first, but after seeing them interact with other people, he couldn’t deny that it was the truth. King Blanchard seemed passive and withdrawn, while Linux was gruff and rude and trying to drown himself in his cups. Mysterian had sworn him to secrecy about it, but Zahrellion had long since figured it out and had explained it to Rikky. The three of them discussed these things freely when they were out wrangling vermin.
Queen Alvazina’s ship arrived. She'd had a time convincing the captain that if he took her back to King's Island, as the king had ordered, her wrath would be far worse than her husband’s could ever be. The wise seaman did as she asked and they arrived the evening after the Goblin King had been killed. That was two days ago. The queen had been holed up in the candle-rich alter house where Mysterian had Prince Richard’s cocooned body taken.
The king had invited the three Dragoneers to a private meeting in the hall where Prince Richard was being kept. It was to be followed by an open-door celebratory feast in Mainsted’s Great Hall this evening. The survivors of the attack on Mainsted were feeling festive enough to forget their sorrow for a time. Jenka didn’t like the idea of it, but he would go because Mysterian had asked him to attend. She told him that she had a gift for him. When he asked her about why she had started to look older again she told him, “Some things en't all they’re cracked up to be.”
Jenka visited Herald the afternoon of what people were starting to call the “Victory Day.” The old King’s Ranger had a laugh over the fact that Rikky had all the hair, even his eyebrows, burnt from his head. Jenka found it funny that there was a chunk missing from Herald’s arse. Neither of them could muster a smile when the subject of Rikky’s missing leg came up. Neither of them knew what had happened to Stick or Mortin.
“You really got your arse chewed,” Jenka jested, but Herald only scowled at him and explained why Jenka had to attend the functions he thought were so inappropriate.
“The people need heroes, Jenka,” Herald told him. “There will be a time of rebuilding now, a better time than before, because the bigger threats of the frontier are gone now.” He scratched at his hip, causing Jenka to chuckle over the location of the wound again. “Bah! Listen to me, boy,” the King’s Ranger went on. “The wolves, the tree-cats, and the goblinkin will always be out there, but we’ve three Dragoneers to defend us from the wild now. Don’t you see? You, Rikky, and Zahrellion are the defenders of the kingdom now. What good is a King’s Ranger when there are Royal Dragoneers about?”
Jenka didn’t like it. “Mysterian says that the Time of Confliction is coming, whatever that is. That’s why she has been in the books trying to find an antidote to the poison. She says we will need Prince Richard.”
“So it’s true then?” Herald asked. “Prince Richard is alive? They all have a different story.”
“Aye,” Jenka nodded. “He is in a stasis. He will not change for the better or the worse until she breaks the spell she put on him. She refused the queen when she wanted the magical cocoon removed. She said that for every poison there is a cure, and she vowed to find it before she would undo what she has done. She won’t even undo what Linux did to the king.”
“She refused the queen and the king?” Herald cringed. “That blasted witch has got stones.” Mysterian had saved his life. He couldn’t help but like her. The fact that she wasn’t afraid of anyone made him like her even more. She was of his age, or so he guessed. He decided he might try to settle her, though he wasn’t sure a witch could be settled.
“What’s this gathering before the victory feast?” Herald asked. “I was told that they are going to carry my bed to the temple. You tell them bastards I don’t want to be jostled about.”
“I’ll tell them, Herald, on my way down.” Jenka patted the old King’s Ranger on the shoulder and left him. He had to get cleaned up for the event, so he headed for the bathhouse. He would ask the launderer to find him some suitable attire. He didn’t want to stand before the king and queen in the grime-stained field armor that Linux had bought him.
Jenka found a pair of loose-fitting, black leather pants and a balloon-sleeved white shirt as crisp as parchment lying where his things should have been. There was a velvety-black suede vest that fit over the shirt with the look of a uniform about it. Over the left breast was a strange tri-coiled dragon emblem. Reluctantly, Jenka put it on.
Out where the dragons had been allotted a place to laze in the park, Jenka found Rikky and Zahrellion. Both were wearing exactly the same thing as he. Zahrellion's stark white hair looked clean and well-brushed. Her lavender eyes were held low and she had a sad expression on her face. Rikky still had no hair left, and his head and face were as red as beet juice. He looked irritated and as unhappy about having to attend the formal function as Jenka was.
When Zah saw Jenka, her eyes lit up for a moment, but then her nose wrinkled up as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to feel anything at the sight of him.
“They called me a Royal Dragoneer,” Rikky said as if it had a nice ring to it.
“Dragoneers we are, but our loyalty can’t settle on the kingdom alone,” Zahrellion spoke, but with little certainty in her voice. “I mean, we have to face the Confliction, and we may have to do it without a true prince among us. What I’ve read leads me to believe we might have already lost.”
“It isss true,” Crystal hissed from beside her bond-mate. “There is supposed to be one with royal blood to lead us into the storm.”
“Yesss,” Jade agreed. “And another will join usss.”
“What is this confliction you keep talking of?” Rikky asked, but before Zahrellion could answer, a very timid soldier came into the park and told them that the king and queen were waiting for them.
The Dragoneers assured their bond-mates that they would return. The dragons decided to go hunt in the fading light of dusk. As their riders were led away, they took to the air. From somewhere nearby, a raucous cheer resounded as the brightly colored wyrms flew north over the city toward the plains. The people seemed to love them. The dragons, Jenka decided, made the people feel safe, just as Herald had suggested.
The private hall that they were led to had been turned into a makeshift temple of sorts. An altar-like podium with the crown prince’s magically-cocooned body was at the head of the room. At a long table, below the strange lime glowing coffin-like thing, sat King Blanchard, Linux, and Queen Alvazina. Prince Richard’s squire, Roland, was there, as well as Mysterian and another robed man who had his hood pulled so low that his face couldn’t be seen. Herald’s bed was at the edge of the room under a shelf full of flickering candles, but the King’s Ranger was fast asleep.
The Dragoneers wer
e ushered in and seated at the foot of the table. After the servants served them goblets full of sweet honeyed wine, the room was cleared of staff, and the heavy-banded doors were closed and bolted. King Blanchard stood to speak, but Linux waved him down and took the floor. It was a strange scene, because the moment Linux started speaking it was obvious that it was really the king who was behind the voice.
“My son needs you,” he said humbly. “His only chance resides in you. The kingdom needs you as well.”
“Please,” Queen Alvazina stood. “Please listen to Mysterian. She has found the antidote that will cure Richard…”
“That might cure him,” Mysterian cut in. “You may need Richard when the time comes, but he is not the only one of you who has royal blood flowing in his veins. Saving him is important. It is important to me, but we have another storm on the horizon, and just in case the pulp of the scarlet blood cap doesn’t cure him we must prepare to face the storm of darkness without him.”
“What do you mean,” King Blanchard asked from Linux' body. Everyone in the room was looking at her expectantly, save the queen, who was looking at her husband in the druid’s body to gauge his reaction.
“Jenka, I lied to you,” Mysterian told him in front of everybody. “The seed that kindled you to life wasn’t brewed in a kettle pot. The queen, a loyal sister of the Hazeltine, milked the king's seed and your mother was impregnated with it.”
“What,” Both Jenka and the king asked incredulously, causing Herald to startle awake.
“I’m no prince,” Jenka almost shouted. He pointed at the glowing magical cocoon accusingly. “That is the prince. I am a Dragoneer.”
Zah couldn’t help but smile when he said it.
The Royal Dragoneers: 2016 Modernized Format Edition (Dragoneers Saga) Page 33