Zah eased past Aikira to stand by Rikky and Jenka. Ahead of them the cavern narrowed and the rocky floor grew smooth. The rough walls formed the shape of a corridor. Lying a few steps into the hall was a single gold coin.
“I never got this far in,” Aikira said. Marcherion was watching the shadows behind them and walked right into her back.
Rikky started to go after the coin, but Zahrellion caught him by the collar and stopped him.
“This is the first ward. Watch.” Zah reached down and picked up a fist-sized piece of loose rock and hurled it awkwardly out onto the smooth carved floor. When it should have impacted, a static pop sounded and a pit could be seen where there was just cavern floor.
Rikky leaned out over the hole and looked down. Zah gained his side and saw several rusty iron spikes down in the pit waiting to pierce someone’s flesh.
“A dragon didn’t build those,” was all Rikky could think to say.
The next ward they came upon wasn’t as easy to spot. Jenka was easing them deeper into the mountain. It didn’t seem like a mountain anymore, though. They were traversing a roughly square corridor that was big enough to gallop a horse through. It was warm and humid and there were signs that other two-legged creatures, such as trolls, and maybe orcs, had recently been there. Jenka stepped ahead, but the teardrop mounted in his sword sent a jolt of warning through him that was just sharp enough to make him stumble back into Rikky.
A whole block of ceiling, as wide as the corridor, and easily as thick as a man’s waist, crashed into the floor sending a thick gust of dust and scree swirling over them. It would have smashed Jenka and Rikky flat had his teardrop not warned him. After he caught his breath and slowed the hammering of his heart, he crawled over the top of the un-fractured slab of stone and then helped the others past the obstacle. He welcomed Zahrellion with a genuine smile when she joined him in the lead. She returned the gesture by pressing her mouth into a tight line and biting her tongue.
“You don’t know what to look for,” she said.
“Fine,” he shouldered ahead of her protectively. “I’m still leading.”
Just then a husky roar erupted right before them. Jenka instinctively ducked the wooden club that came swinging at him. The orc, at least the first one, felt the sharp edge of Jenka’s blade slash across its body and fell. The body, or maybe the sudden loss of light, stalled the next wild-looking, potbellied beast just long enough for Jenka to see Zahrellion hit the floor at his feet. The club he’d ducked must have hit her square. Her face was a caved bloody pulp. She looked beyond help, her eyes only whites, her left leg twitching on the floor sporadically. An intense Dour-fuelled heat welled up inside him then. His vision went red as he charged like a raving lunatic into the knot of orcs before them.
Chapter Twenty
Somehow Jenka missed the first orc and just before he thrust his sword into the second beast, it sprouted an unfamiliar arrow below its throat. Jenka knew it was Aikira’s. His rage formed a head and exploded from his chest out through his arms and down the length of his sword. It was all Aikira and Marcherion could do to avoid the impressive sizzling streaks of emerald energy that were blasting seemingly at random out of the end of Jenka’s blade.
The third orc, of many, grabbed Jenka as his balance was twisted. He literally threw Jenka ahead. Jenka went stumble-skipping into another orc’s fist, but managed to slice a gash from the hip to the belly of one of them before he was punched. Pulsing surges of energy continued to explode from his weapon in time with the beat of his heart. He didn’t know how to gain control of the power, but he saw how the orcs were blistered by the magic. Rikky yelled out so savagely that Jenka thought he might have wounded his friend. Then a brilliant flash of lavender magic flared through the shaft, its bright light blinding them all.
Jenka rolled over and found that with Zahrellion’s orb of light extinguished, and his eyes full of splotches, he could hardly see. He didn’t care, though. He went hacking and slashing and booting his way through the orcs again until he was pummeled across the chest by a lung-emptying blow from a club. He hit the ground just as a series of concussive blasts flashed amber and green amid the savage beasts. When his head hit the stone floor it bounced.
Rikky struggled in a protective huddle over Zah while Marcherion loosed shaft after shaft into the orcs. Rikky couldn’t believe he’d not thought to unshoulder his bow. He was in a state of shock brought on by seeing Zahrellion’s face battered so terribly. He’d seen Master Kember’s egg split open like a goopy melon by a rock-hurling troll. The fresh scene, and the memory it evoked, had his stomach roiling, but he was trying his hardest to repair the bone structure of Zahrellion’s face nonetheless.
Aikira was surprisingly capable. She threw down her bow when she was out of arrows and attacked with a different sort of magic to any Rikky had ever seen. He sensed a raw, untamable quality to the deadly blasts she sent into the orcs. She showed no fear and held her ground, even when she had to defend herself with her short sword in close combat.
With her wizard magic and practiced skill with her blade, Aikira was able to drive the few remaining creatures away, leaving Marcherion to drag Jenka near the others while Rikky continued working on Zahrellion. When Jenka opened his eyes he was surprised to see Aikira and Rikky hugging into each other over Zah. His heart fell into his guts. A surge of sorrow threatened to overwhelm him again. It wasn’t easy, but he suppressed it. Zah! What happened to Zah?
There was no reply at all.
He struggled to stand and managed the task. His ribcage was cracked and his nose was nothing more than a flattened mound of dizzying pain. He found that the two Dragoneers were not sobbing over Zahrellion’s corpse; they were asleep against each other. Zah’s face wasn’t nearly as damaged as he’d expected it to be, but it was far from pleasing. One eye was closed behind a melon-sized swell of misshapen flesh. The other was clenched closed under a mashed brow. He watched the rise and fall of her chest and wished that there was a way he could restrain his love for her.
Marcherion was asleep with his head leaned back against the wall. As soon as Jenka spoke, an arrow was trained on him at full draw. It was only some miraculous recognition and reflex that saved him from being shafted by the quiet young man’s arrow. Had he been an orc, no doubt, Jenka would be on the floor bleeding out now. He was glad when March relaxed his draw.
He decided he must have been unconscious for a while as the blood around the orc corpses had thickened. “Will she be all right?” Jenka asked Marcherion.
“She was talking,” he replied. “That was at least half a day ago. It’s hard to say.”
“I’m alive, Jenka,” Zah said softly. “Rest. It’s Rikky’s turn to watch.” She shook Rikky then, bringing both him and Aikira awake. “We can find the lair when we wake.”
Jenka decided that she was right. He was dizzy just standing there, and knowing that Zah wasn’t dead or maimed was enough of a relief that he was able to drift back into oblivion.
After waking they traversed the roughly hewn shaft deep into the mountain. Several cobweb-filled rooms and off-shooting halls led away from the main shaft, but Marcherion’s dragon tear medallion and the tear in Jenka’s sword pulled them ever forward down the wider of the corridors.
It was clear that orcs, trolls, and even a cave bear or two had called the various nooks and crannies of the strange tunnel home over the years. There were several rooms that looked to have been made for smaller folk to use, with rotted wooden tables and chairs built for a child-sized frame. Strange carved characters that none of them had ever seen before designated some of the rooms.
A heavy banded door creaked ahead of them and everyone went tense, but it was only a draft of warm air that was venting from some unseen place that had caused the door to move.
“It’s getting warmer in here,” Rikky said. “It’s almost hot.”
“It is hot,” agreed Jenka.
The lair was just ahead of them now. The tear in Jenka’s sword was em
itting a tingly warning vibration. He glanced at Marcherion, but the long-haired foreigner didn’t seem to be feeling the same thing. The shaft dead-ended in a small oval chamber. A soft red glow wavered out of a series of arched openings along one side of the space. As they approached they saw that the portals looked out over a vast cavern. It was as if they were standing on a balcony. Heat radiated up into their faces, forcing them to squint away tears of relief. A river of molten fire churned slowly along one wall of the immense, mostly open cavern, and lazing in the shadows, at the farthest reach of the sluggish infernal glow, was a large red dragon with bright lime swords for eye slits in his otherwise deep amber orbs.
“Crimzon,” Aikira whispered softly.
Yesssss, the dragon’s response startled them, for it cut through the ethereal into their minds like a thunderclap. The century old dragon uncoiled himself and rose until his great head was at the same level as the Dragoneers. He was a well named wyrm, for his scales were the deep color of blood. When his brows narrowed he took on an angry scowl.
“Long and with little certainty have I waited in thisss dismal dwarven flue,” Crimzon growled. “For Clover I did thisss, for her sson.”
For a long time nothing happened. Rikky finally elbowed Jenka, who glanced at the others and could tell that none were going to be able to speak. He could understand their fear. Crimzon was a large dragon, frightening to look upon, with tree-trunk horns and teeth as long as a man’s leg, but at just over a hundred years old he was relatively young.
In truth Jenka wasn’t as bold as he seemed. Some of his boundless courage was a side effect of all the Dour magic that went coursing through him when he was fighting the orcs. He took in a deep, shaky breath. “Vax Noffa sent us to fetch Clover’s tear.”
All of the Dragoneers, save for Rikky, looked at Jenka reverently. It was no small thing to speak to a strange dragon, much less a dragon big enough to eat them all in one bite.
“Yesss, but it isss too late,” Crimzon gave a sad shake of his head. “The encasement is failing even now. Already Sarax are loossse.” The dragon shook his big horned head sadly. “Vax Noffa isss dead. Those terrible things will sssoon find the populousss and feed.”
“We need Clover’s tear to keep that from happening,” Jenka said cautiously. “What of Lemmy? Is he alive?”
“I know not of any Lemmingsss.” Crimzon’s rebuke was deep and concussive, but what started as a scary growling boom turned into an obviously ironic chuckle. “Vax Noffa needed the tear to fortify the encasement. You’ve not any idea how to manage the power of the tear you already possess, much less one the size of your fissst. It would consssume you if you even touched it.”
“What do we do then?” Jenka’s tone showed his irritation. “We are here. The Dragoneers came to finish what you and Clover started. If it’s too late, then spare us the riddles. If there is something we can do, tell us so we can get it done.”
By the time Jenka was finished speaking Crimzon was chugging out clouds of sulfurous smoke from his nostrils as he growled and grunted. The other Dragoneers were wondering if Jenka had gone mad. Aikira and Rikky, who were supporting Zahrellion between them, stepped reflexively away to protect her from the coming blast.
The blast never came. It turned out Crimzon was laughing at Jenka; laughing because he was pleased beyond understanding with the nerve and grit of the Dragoneer standing boldly before him.
Chapter Twenty-One
The great red wyrm directed the Dragoneers to a stairway that led them down into his lair. To their surprise they found that the back of the cave elbowed around and was open to the sky near the shore of a lake that was fed with lava-hot spring water. The steam that rose from the surface was so thick that it was impossible to see beyond a few paces. The hard curve of an amber moon could be made out, a brighter shade of yellow than the rest of the fog. Oddly, as Crimzon ushered them near the shore, the Dragoneers could see, through the swirling mist, their own dragons resting just outside the mouth of the chamber.
Jenka knew it was impossible for them to have traveled all that way down into the mountain to end up back near the steamy lake where they had first landed, but that is what it seemed. To reinforce the truth of it, Jade lifted his head and made a growling mew that Jenka knew was a curious welcome query.
“How is it so?” Aikira asked as her dragon noticed her, too.
Crimzon was still chuckling mildly over Jenka’s boldness and disregarded her question as rhetorical.
Try the ethereal, Zahrellion spoke into their minds.
“He must have warded this place,” Aikira said aloud.
No, it isss only the proximity of my Dour that allowsss you the ethereal. Crimzon loomed his head down among the Dragoneers and their cautiously non-aggressive dragons. Of the wyrms, only Blaze dared raise his head and take in the elder of his kind. The Ssarax are psssionic creaturesss. It takesss great Dour to overcome the noisse they use to wakesss their pupaesss. While they are loossse you will be disssadvantaged. Crimzon turned to settle his bulk. Unintentionally, he let them see that along his back several chunks had been bitten out of him. One of them very near his wing joints.
“It doesn’t matter,” Zahrellion mumbled, loud enough to turn the dragon’s head. Jenka wasn’t the only one bold enough to speak his mind. “We don’t need the ethereal to stand.”
“Ten will meet the Confliction; they will stand or fall,” Rikky said, as he figured out her meaning.
“Five, dragons, with five riders, must defend the fate of all,” Marcherion and Aikira finished at the same time.
Yesss, Crimzon hissed. Your firssst task must be to ssslay the freed Sarax. I will take my mamra’s tear to the ssstar ssship and use it to fortify Clover’sss encasssement. Without Vax Noffa, I am the only one to do thisss.
“I thought it was Clover’s tear,” Rikky observed the discrepancy out loud. “You said it was your mamra’s.”
Crimzon hissed his displeasure as he thought about things long forgotten, things that were best left that way.
Before I met Clover, just after I left the shell, my mamra left uss in the nest to hunt. The big wyrm started into the story. We were days old and had just started eating meat. Of course we wanted more. Treasure sseekers came, thinking they’d found a lair. They killed my hatch-mate. Crimzon shifted his body again as he went on. When my mam returned and ssslayed them, ssshe took wounds that were fatal. Crimzon went on to tell them about how he was forced to feed on the flesh of those men for the long weeks his mamra lay dying. Seeing that the great red wyrm was wing-wounded only made the story that much more sad. The Dragoneers, and their dragons too, listened to the heart-wrenching tale. When Crimzon sang a few verses of the sorrowful song that his mother had sung as she died, a few other teardrops were shed. Aikira, Zahrellion, and even young Rikky cried unashamedly, but to everyone’s great surprise, a tear fell from a dragon’s eye too. Silva’s tear plopped like a pebble onto the shore and rolled into the hot shallow water where it glimmered like the magical amber jewel that it was.
The Dragoneers watched in amazement as Rikky hobbled over and quickly retrieved the tear from the hot water. Silva’s tail came round and found his shoulder for balance when he teetered. He looked at the gem curiously for a moment, then the rush of the Dour filled him, forcing him to rely on his dragon to keep upright.
Let it flow through you, young one, Crimzon suggested. The feeling will lesson soon enough.
“How will you get to the star ship?” Jenka asked, before he could stop himself.
Crimzon’s slow intake of breath displayed well his dislike of the question.
Does it matter? Aikira asked.
I will get there, Crimzon’s tone was harsh. I will do my part in the stead of Clover’s son. Will the Dragoneersss slay the Sarax that have essscaped?
Yes, we will, Jenka answered brazenly.
You must stay together, and fight together. If you separate they will devour you. The Dragoneers, all of you, must know this. Crimzon reached
out a foreclaw and touched Rikky’s head. The wide-eyed boy looked at his companions drunkenly at first, but his eyes finally focused on Jenka, then he turned and stared at the massive red dragon among them.
Using all of the tear dropsss, and all our Dour combined to fortify the encasssement may keep the SSSarax trapped for half a decade, but not much longer. You mussst find a way to annihilate them before that time comes.
“There’s not much more to say then.” Marcherion spoke for the first time. His voice betrayed his unease, but he didn’t falter. “Let’s go find out what these Sarax are all about.”
“Let’s,” Rikky agreed eagerly.
“Zahrellion’s in no shape to travel...”
“No, Jenka.” Zahrellion’s tone was hard and loving at the same time. “Your concern is touching, but Crystal can carry me anywhere we must go.”
You are brothers and sisters now, Crimzon said, sensing the tension between the two. You are Dragoneers. Do not deny your humanity. Love and live with fire in your hearts, but do so knowing that, until the ssSarax are eliminated, until this confliction is resolved, there will be no permanency. You have no one else but each other. Never betray that and nothing else matters.
“I think I’m going to mount it in a ring,” Rikky said after a long moment of silence. He was talking about the fingernail-sized bit of Dour his dragon had shed. “Or maybe by the handgrip in the bow Mysterian gave me.”
At the same moment, Zahrellion said, The Temple is the closest cluster of humanity.
Jenka said, “The King’s Rangers are defenseless.”
Find the SSSarax, Crimzon hissed with more than a little urgency in his ethereal tone. Waste no more time, Dragoneersss. We may have wasted too much already. My part will sssoon be done. After that it isss all up to you. With that, the mighty red-scaled wyrm backed slowly and sinuously into the shadows and disappeared altogether.
Cold Hearted Son of a Witch: 2016 Modernized Format Edition (Dragoneers Saga) Page 11