The Confliction (Book Three of the Dragoneers Saga) (Dragoneer Saga)

by M. R. Mathias

  “What if Herald finds King Blanchard?” Rikky asked. “Will we have to fight a war with the Warlock?”

  “Jenka says it’s none of our concern,” Zahrellion said matter-of-factly.

  “Speaking of Jenka,” Aikira excused herself, “I won’t expect you until midmorning, Rikky. Visit with your friend.”

  “I’ll be there at dawn,” he promised. He hated it that the girls always treated him special, as if he were a needy child. So what if he only had one leg? In the air he was the fastest of them all, and probably the smartest, too.

  Jenka was pleased that Lemmy had come. There was a stair that spiraled the huge central column of the rotunda down from the dragon landings. Jenka kissed Zahrellion on the lips when he stepped off of it. He then spent several hours talking and drinking with Lemmy, Tkux, and the other Dragoneers. Jenka told the story of the time their friend Solman had wiped his arse with poison sumac. Lemmy laughed his strange nasal laugh, and Rikky rolled around on the floor. Eventually Zahrellion informed them that dawn was breaking, and Rikky hustled off on the new, floor-thumping peg-leg Jenka had carved for him in his spare time. It was made out of a straight piece of dragon bone Jade had gone alone and retrieved from somewhere. Jenka shod it with a silver cap.

  Lemmy and the ogres were shown to a gathering hall that was big enough for them to sleep comfortably in, and Jenka was left with Zahrellion and the letter Herald had written him. He wasn’t eager to read it. He held no real loyalty to the kingdom, especially King Richard’s kingdom, but for King’s Ranger Herald Kaljatig he would do most anything.

  “What does it say?” Zahrellion asked as she led him by the hand into the apartment directly under her dragon’s landing.

  “I haven’t broken the seal yet,” he answered.

  She kissed him quickly and decided that she had to know what it said. “Read it, then. Tell me what our favorite King’s Ranger has to say.”

  Reluctantly, he broke the wax and unrolled the vellum. He could sense Zahrellion’s anxiousness, and teased her by deliberately acting as if he were reading to himself. When she elbowed him he said, “What? Let me finish.”

  He was smart enough to expect the slugging flurry of girlish punches that peppered his shoulder.

  “Read it to me.” She pouted then, and he found he couldn’t resist her. He’d noticed how much less alien she looked with the triangle formed in her forehead the color of blond wood instead of sparkling silver. She had ascended to a higher level of reception, or some such. If she were still a druida of Dou, she would be wearing a blue robe now. Jenka was glad she wasn’t. Outside of her and Linux, he’d never met a druid he liked, and as far as he knew, Linux was dead.

  “Come on, Jenks.” She punched him good this time, getting all of his attention.

  “All right,” Jenka laughed. “You read it.”

  She snatched it from him and held it unrolled where they both could see the obviously professionally scribed words.

  “He has a personal dictition now, our Herald,” Zahrellion joked.

  “Read!” Jenka put a hand on hers to still it.

  The text read:

  Jenka,

  If you hear from that fargin witch, you tell her to flash her arse to the keep afore spring. Otherwise, I’ll be expecting you and them other Dragoneers to help me get King Blanchard’s mess straightened. Right when the thaw starts proper, you hear? No matter the situation with Richard, King Blanchard deserves better than to be a prisoner of them ogre-slavin’ dung nuggets of Dou.

  The weather breaks, you come see me, you and Rikky both. His mother is driving me mad with her worry, but she makes the best venison stew there is. Remember your lineage, boy. There may come a day when you are all the kingdom has left.

  Respects, First Ranger, Captain Herald Kaljatig

  Jenka was laughing so hard that he missed Herald’s hidden message, and never read the last part, which would have spoiled his mirth. Any thought about his mother, and who his real father was, sent him into a dark mood. Luckily, Zahrellion wasn’t amused with the colorful language and picked up on Herald’s intended plan.

  Chapter 3

  “He wants us to help the rangers attack the temple when the Strom first rises out of the Gulch.” Jenka explained to the others the details of the hint Zahrellion had pointed out to him. There was an old saying: The thaw don’t start proper till the Strom fills the Gulch. After that it’s spring. Who Herald was trying to deceive with the hints, Jenka couldn’t imagine.

  Zah was currently on watch, and Jenka was up next. He wanted to have an idea of what the others thought about it all so that he would have something to ponder while he and Jade were posted in the cold darkness all night.

  “What’s the Strom?” asked Marcherion.

  “A river,” Rikky and Aikira both answered at the same time. Rikky glanced at her sideways.

  “How do you Outlanders know so much about the kingdom?” he asked. Then to Jenka, “We have to honor Herald and King Blanchard, if only because of Master Kember’s loyalty.”

  “With due respect to your Master Kember, we don’t have to honor anybody we never knew,” Marcherion offered in a respectful, but firm manner. “Let those who owe that loyalty honor it. The others have to guard the star ship from those hungry munchers.”

  “We have to face it, Jenk,” Rikky said. It was clear that he was a little miffed at Marcherion’s attitude. “We can’t stay together all the time like Crimzon said. When the skies clear, we have to start hunting Sarax. We should probably be hunting them now.”

  “All we can do in this weather is get white-blinded and crash into the rocks,” Jenka replied, as if he would change it if he could.

  “The ogres will guard the encasement,” Aikira offered. “We’re more than eager to go terminate some of those sky bugs right now.” The ‘we’ she was referring to was her and Golden. Her dragon, after taking several wounds from the Sarax in the cavern battle, was always eager to exact some revenge. Her rider, Jenka decided, wholeheartedly shared the sentiment.

  “There will be a Dragoneer in range of the star ship until it, and everything inside it, is destroyed,” Jenka said flatly. “We cannot risk any less ... Can we?”

  “It’s something to ponder, Jenksy.” Marcherion patted him on the back, as if he didn’t envy him. “I’ll watch over the Sarax and the ogres while you and Peg-leg go save your bodiless king from those freakish druids.”

  “He’s not my king,” Jenka declared for the hundredth time. But as with every other time he spoke the words, he knew it wasn’t true. By some strange act of witchy design, the king was his father. It was a fact. He couldn’t forget that, or the implications of it. “I suppose, then, whoever wants to aid Herald and the rangers will begin the planning on the morrow with me,” Jenka finally decided.

  “Ahh!” Marcherion held a finger up. He and Aikira shared a conspiratorial look that had them both on the edge of something close to laughter.

  “You’d better check with Zahrellion first,” Aikira chuckled sarcastically. “Isn’t she the chief?”

  “We all know she’s the mother hen,” joked March. “You’re just a rooster.”

  “Nah, you got Zah wrong.” Rikky gave them a look that conveyed the power of the memory in his mind. He was picturing Zahrellion and her blood-streaked, white-scaled dragon diving heedlessly on a sea serpent to save his life when they were a long, long way from home. “She’s a Dragoneer first. Maybe the best of us. She’ll do what Jenka says.”

  Zahrellion looked like some arctic goddess sitting upon her proud, sparkling frost wyrm. They were hard to see, perched on a ledge above the dark cavern in the flurrying snow storm, but once Jenka spotted her, he couldn’t avert his eyes. The icy white dragon loved the weather, and the winter clothes Zahrellion and Aikira had pieced together from Clover’s vast wardrobe loved Zah. A white furred mane circled her neck, and the slightly yellowish triangle on her forehead lent her brows a superior scowl. But what captivated Jenka most were her lavender eyes, and
the loving gleam that formed in them when she saw him and Jade sweeping in to land near Crystal.

  “The climate agrees with you, Zah,” Jenka said as his dragon edged closer to them. “You actually look comfortable.”

  “It’s not so bad,” she hugged herself and Jenka sensed it wasn’t from the cold. Something else had her bothered.

  “What is it?” he asked. She was looking down, and when he followed her eyes, he saw the long, blood-smeared trail where Crimzon had slithered out of the place a few nights after last autumn’s battle. No matter how much it snowed, the deep maroon stains of fire dragon blood managed to show through.

  “I thought I saw something awhile ago,” she said. “I thought I saw a Sarax sweep past at the edges of my sight, but there was nothing when Crystal and I looked.”

  “Are the ogres in there?” He indicated the deep tunnel shaft that led down to the star ship. “Was it one of them?”

  “No, it was in the air, just a dark shadow really. They’re in there.” She forced a smile and rolled her shoulders to ease her tension. “Maybe I’m just tired. Thinking about that mighty wyrm, and all those terrible wounds sickens me. Do you think Crimzon survived?”

  Jenka started to say that he didn’t, but she stopped him from speaking with a raise of her hand. “I just wonder what became of him.”

  In the silence that followed her comment, a deep thrumming buzz exploded into the ethereal. Before either of them could do anything, one Sarax came clawing past from above, ripping Jenka’s shoulder and Jade’s neck wide open. Another rammed Zahrellion from Crystal’s back and engaged the frost dragon violently.

  Jenka drew his sword. It felt as if his shoulder were ripping apart as he pulled it. The Sarax tearing into Crystal didn’t expect the powerful blast of emerald Dour magic that shot forth from his blade. The alien beast went flailing backwards, giving the white-scaled wyrm enough time to draw and release its icy breath on its opponent.

  Zahrellion was standing against the rocks where Crystal had just been. She was casting a spell. Jenka could see a pink trace of light following her finger as she wrote frantically in the air before her. He knew to cover his ears, and did so with his free hand and a shrugged shoulder. He didn’t know her target was coming at him hard from behind. When he turned and saw the Sarax, it was right there. Then he felt a hot warbling flow of static yellow druid magic graze his back and prickle his skin. He was so thankful when his dragon managed to leap away from the perch and take to the air that he didn’t notice the lack of ear-pummeling concussion that normally came with Zahrellion’s casting.

  None of that mattered, he realized, when he saw two other Sarax diving down from the silvery clouds. He pointed his sword at the bigger of the two and sent a deadly pulse of Dour magic at it, then another for good measure. Both blasts found their target, and the Sarax went tumbling away into the darkness.

  Jenka looked up to see Clover’s castle ahead of him. He was pleased to see Aikira on Golden’s back, followed by Marcherion and his big, angry fire wyrm coming to join the battle. Rikky, he knew, was sound asleep.

  The sky lit up with Blaze’s rage when Marcherion entered the fray. Long steel-tipped arrows streaked great distances across the sky and met their target. Jenka knew the arrows would do little to the hard-skinned Sarax, but Marcherion’s shafts distracted the beast in front of Crystal and allowed the white wyrm to glaciate it.

  A Sarax flashed yellow and disappeared from the sky with a static pop, only to reappear on the other side of March. Another disappeared, too, but Jenka didn’t see where it ended up.

  Jenka turned Jade back around to find and guard Zahrellion. On the way, he blasted another Sarax. He felt Jade falter then, and knew they were in trouble. He looked over his shoulder and saw that his young dragon had twin wide-open gashes along his spine.

  “Land, Jade,” Jenka urged at the top of his lungs. “We’ll crash otherwise.”

  “Zahsss iss takenss,” the dragon replied.

  Jenka whipped his head around to see Zahrellion dangling and kicking her legs violently. One of the Sarax had her shoulders in its foot claws. Another Sarax was following.

  Jade started to go after them, but the strain on his wounds was just too much. Luckily, as they crashed into the snow-laden trees in the lower valley, Jenka saw Golden’s ochre underbelly streak by above them. Aikira was speeding after Zah, and Crystal was following, too.

  Jenka was forced to roll away from Jade. They came to a halt in a tangle of snow and half-toppled pines. Jenka heard Jade grunting aggressively and saw a bright stream of flame lighting up the sky from not so far away. A terrible pain consumed his neck and shoulder, and Zahrellion was gone, but the only thing he could do about it was grit his teeth.

  Chapter 4

  Linux huddled on the main deck, among the Nepton’s Angel’s water barrels. It was a large stout ship with a lot of cargo and many passengers. He was in Rolph’s fit body, scrubbing the deck from his arse. The splint on his broken leg wouldn’t allow otherwise. As soon as he was conscious again, the big ebon captain told him it was work or swim. It was hard, monotonous, and bitter-cold labor. Explosions of spray off of the cutting bow sent shivery cascades and misty clouds back over the passengers, but it was better than swimming.

  At the moment, the sun was high and struggling to warm the day. The air was crisp, but the barrels around him were keeping the breeze away. Linux was comfortable, and the sea smooth enough that he was staying relatively dry. He couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that simple curiosity had him thinking about things other than his guilt. He found himself listening to the state of affairs across the Frontier as two witches of the Hazeltine gossiped at the rail nearby.

  “...she’s as angry as a hornet, I tell you,” one of them said.

  “The queen has always had a temper,” the other responded. “She just disguises it well with her smile.”

  “Banished by her own son,” the first witch went on. “That’s a terrible omen for the boy.”

  “He’s a half-dead warlock with a hell-born wyrm, and quite a few wits left to him. I doubt he’s concerned with omens and such. Them nasty star beasts is on the hunt now. Mysterian will soon see them for herself, and then we’ll devise a way to rid ourselves of them.”

  “But what about the kingdom, and Prince Richard?”

  “He’s a king now, dear. Mysterian told the queen that the High Druidon has gone mad and taken King Blanchard. He tried to trick the Dragoneers, but Richard spoiled it for him. She says the rangers are thinking that the druids found a way to control some of them star beasts, too.”

  “How’s she know what them rangers are thinking?”

  “There’s been a witch watching that keep for seventy years.”

  Linux ended up fuming over his twin brother’s insanity. He was High Druidon, not Lanxe. Of course, everyone thought he was dead now. If Lanxe really finished concocting the stuff that would control the Sarax, the kingdom was in real jeopardy.

  Lanxe had always been a rotten person at heart. Twins know these things. Linux used to think that, in the womb, all the bad had gone to his brother, and all the good to him. Now he knew better. He was as rotten and selfish as a person could be. He’d killed an innocent man to save his own life. He’d kept the whole truth of what he knew about the Sarax from the Dragoneers; from his pupil, Zah. He was no good at all. After a while he decided that, since he was determined to kill himself, he could do it with purpose. After all, he owed King Blanchard a body.

  He needed to find out more about the situation. He was also feeling a sick sort of hope. If King Blanchard were still alive, that meant his body was still alive. With the Sarax tamed or sedated, they wouldn’t need the man long. As guilty as he felt for murdering Rolph, Linux was suddenly feeling the urge to get back into his own skin, no matter how he had to do so. If they could swap now, the once fat old king would probably enjoy being in the young, well-built body of the guardsman.

  Two days later the shout came for “Land ho!” It
was a misleading call, and several of the motherly-looking witches grew excited for nothing. Linux knew they would skirt the western coast for days. Eventually they would pass Pvurn, possibly stopping to exchange water barrels, possibly not. Nepton’s Angel was huge. As far as he knew, there could be half a hundred full kegs still below. There was room for them.

  From Pvurn it was a four-day sail north to Avlron. He needed to find out more about the state of things at the temple. He was becoming obsessed with getting back into his own body. It was a base primal urge that he had little control over. Like the desire to breed or eat. Once, he became so intent on gathering information that he almost throttled one of the old hags and choked it out of her.

  He used methods he’d learned in the Temple of Dou and calmed himself into an elevated state that helped him think logically instead of emotionally. He also took the time to experiment and see if his current body could articulate the mechanics of his spells. He was pleased that he could cast, but irritated that he was so careless. He surely made his presence known to the Hazeltine by using magic so casually. He decided that, since he’d already given himself away, he might as well try to knit and strengthen the healing of his leg. He did so hurriedly. When he was done, he squeezed out the door of his tiny cabin, only to find a pair of witches glaring at him. He was shocked to see that one of them was Queen Alvazina. Her long dark hair had been chopped and lightened by the salt and the sea sun, but it was her.

  He almost burst out who he was. He had acted as a go-between for her, Jenka, and Zahrellion when the two Dragoneers were imprisoned on King’s Isle. He’d had her trust, and still had it after he had soul-stepped the king. His state of awareness warned him against revealing himself, though. Instead, he gave her a perfectly regal bow, and then followed them to where they intended him to go.