Cold Hearted Son of a Witch (Dragoneers Saga)

by M. R. Mathias

  “After it goes, and gets back in the water, Crystal will take me down to the tree line.” Zah pointed at where she meant. “I want you to be in the sky, well above the bay, watching the water around the dung field.”

  “I have your back, Zahrellion,” Rikky said firmly enough that she drew confidence from him. “If the serpent comes, I’ll distract it so you can get what we have to get. I don’t want to stay here until the next full moon.”

  “Me neither,” Zahrellion smiled confidently then. “It won’t be long now.”

  “That’s what the cat said,” Rikky deadpanned.

  “What cat?” Zah was lost.

  “The cat that got its tail sheared off by the outhouse door.”

  “What are you talking—? Oh, ha,” she chuckled genuinely. “Either your jokes are getting better, or I’m delirious, because, that was actually funny.”

  Chapter 6

  The serpent took its time worming and snaking around the beach. It slithered and hunched and rolled for a good portion of the night. Finally, as the moon was getting low in the sky, it relieved itself on the sand and slid back into the water. Zahrellion remembered the command to activate the staff’s magic and zoomed her owl sight in on the dung piles. To her amazement, she watched several little stalks push forth while their umbrella-like heads spread out over them. They weren’t bathed in moonlight, they were basking in it. After the serpent had been gone for some time, she decided to get down there.

  “I’m going, Rikky,” she whispered. “Keep an eye out.”

  “Don’t forget the nut sack,” he said. Mysterian had given them a special bag made from a goat scrotum in which to carry the caps home. “It’ll be hard for me to see you, though.” Rikky studied the sky. “The clouds are rolling in.”

  I won’t be long. Zah urged Crystal into flight. I can see them well enough.

  I’m watching, and Crystal will be right there with you, Rikky reassured as he followed her into the air and began circling slowly.

  Zahrellion was tense as Crystal came down, but she kept her heartbeat steady while she slid to the sand. She was surprised at how well it was going until she was close enough to smell the serpent dung. She retched and heaved, and finally vomited when she had to step into a huge pile of the warm fetid stuff to reach one of the mushrooms. She plucked seven full caps from the dung; over twice as much as Mysterian said she needed.

  Did you get them? Rikky asked excitedly. Hurry up, Zah. The serpent is moving in the shallows near you.

  I have enough, but I’m getting extra to be certain. She wasn’t afraid anymore. She was far enough from the water line that she was sure she could get to her dragon before the sea creature could get to her. It ended up that she could have taken till dawn. The serpent had no other business out of the water and soon Zahrellion and Rikky were back in the wallowers’ cave. Both were full of excitement and the rush of danger, but feeling let down over the lack of either.

  “I say we fly to Fisherman’s Isle now,” Zahrellion said boldly. “The dragons are rested, and the sooner we return, the sooner Mysterian can save the prince.”

  “We can wait until the sun is up,” Rikky said flatly. “I want to get that satchel before we go.”

  “Agreed.” Zahrellion gave him a nod and a grin. “I bet there are explorers’ journals in there.”

  “And the captain’s log from the ship.” Rikky began eating what cooked meat remained, while cooking more in the blue fire. Zahrellion conferred with the dragons about their readiness to take on another two to three day flight. Both wyrms agreed that they could manage the task, but they wanted to spend the rest of the night feeding and the morning lazing off the meal. This left the Dragoneers with little to do.

  Rikky ate and then napped. Zahrellion carefully packed away the mushrooms, putting some in Mysterian’s special sack, and after the dragons returned from feeding, she put the rest in the oiled leather buckle pouch on Silva’s rig.

  The dragons didn’t rest long. They were eager to feed on antelope and elk in the mainland foothills. They were also eager to join the other Dragoneers. Like a deep, thrumming siren song, they could feel the Confliction calling them. They knew that there was much to be done beyond saving Prince Richard.

  Will Prince Richard remain a Dragoneer? Zahrellion asked.

  That is a question worth pondering, responded Rikky’s dragon.

  Yesss, it is, Crystal added.

  “He has no dragon,” Rikky observed as he climbed clumsily onto a chunk of fallen rock, and then onto Silva’s back. After his nap he’d rigged his extra peg-leg into a hook gaff that he hoped he could use to get the satchel away from the crow’s nest.

  Ten will meet the Confliction; they will stand or fall, Crystal told them the line of the song her mam used to sing to her decades ago.

  Five, dragons, with five riders, must defend the fate of all, Silva finished.

  “Let’s get the satchel, go home, and save Prince Richard, then worry about all of that.” Rikky hated talk about the Confliction. He felt a visceral offense at its mention. He urged Silva out of the cave and into flight. Without looking back, he headed his dragon over the ridge toward the bay. Zahrellion was a good way behind him when Silva circled down sharply over the area where the sunken ship was. He found the crow’s nest easily enough and Silva went into an awkward hover just over it. It was only ten feet above the wave tops. The last thing on Rikky’s mind was the serpent as he leaned over and hooked the satchel’s strap with his gaff. To his frustration, it was tied in a tight knot to the iron that ringed the basket.

  Can you just rip the whole basket from the ship? Rikky asked his dragon. She responded before he finished the thought by latching her hind claws onto the iron ring. She flapped down hard and managed to make the wood crack apart, but she had to twist and turn to and fro while hovering to get it to break free. When it came loose, a length of mast came with it. The weight of the waterlogged timber threatened to pull Silva out of the sky, but she steadied herself and slowly began to rise.

  We got it Zah, Rikky spoke into the ethereal.

  Oh, Rikky, no, he heard her reply just before the surface of the sea exploded beneath him and his struggling wyrm.

  ***

  Zahrellion thought the light was playing tricks on her when she saw Silva skimming across the waves with the whole ship’s mast in her claws. Just beneath the surface a long, dark, sinuous form was suddenly snaking toward them. She opened her mouth to warn Rikky, but he spoke over her. Then it was there, erupting violently out of the sea.

  It nearly speared Silva’s underbelly, but her sharp, reflexive turn cleared her of harm's way. The maneuver slung Rikky from her back into a whirling tumble, though.

  Zahrellion’s heart froze in her chest as she watched him. Crystal was diving now, fully intending to latch her jaws onto the coral serpent’s head, but Zahrellion didn’t want to lose sight of Rikky. Craning her neck as they sped past, she was surprised when Rikky stretched out and managed to grab hold of one of the iron bars on the crow’s nest Silva was still clutching. Even more amazing was how strong Rikky’s arms were. He pulled himself up with one and hooked his good leg securely. With his other arm he undid the satchel’s strap and shouldered it.

  Zah focused her attention back in front of her just in time to stop her dragon from diving on the serpent.

  No, Crystal! she yelled with her mind. I’ll be pummeled by the water.

  Yesss, the huge white dragon hissed as she restrained herself by leveling off just over the wave tops. From somewhere behind them, Rikky let out a long, slow scream.

  The dark form of the serpent changed directions sharply then, and when Zahrellion looked back to see what Rikky was screaming about, she saw why.

  He was falling now; the whole iron basket frame had broken away from the rest of the mast. Zahrellion half wished she had let Crystal dive on the serpent because now it was leaping from the sea like some striking viper, trying to spear Rikky from the air with its long, venomous horn. There w
as no way Crystal could turn fast enough. She was just too big.

  Zah did what her instincts told her to do. She began writing in the sky with her fingertip. As her words called forth the power of Dou, a pinkish trace of energy trailed after her digit. With a word, she focused on the serpent’s middle and sent a huge swath of static yellow energy rippling out ahead of her. Her head filled with her own dragon’s scream then. She saw that the serpent was affected too and had missed its target.

  She saw first Rikky, then Silva splash into the bay. After that, Crystal landed badly on the beach and the next thing Zah knew, she was tumbling violently through the sand.

  Part III

  Marcherion

  Chapter 7

  Marcherion had been riding the big red-scaled fire wyrm called Blaze for what seemed like forever. He’d long since sorted out his feelings over leaving his family and his best friend, Brendly Tuck, behind the way he had. It wasn’t like he’d had much of a choice. He wasn’t going to worry himself ill over it. What he’d done had saved his friend from death. That was all that mattered. He was a Dragoneer now. He had other things to worry about these days, like crashing into the sea, or getting blown away in a tempest.

  At the moment, they were flying over open ocean and had been for nine straight days. There was an island up ahead, just an upthrust of rock with some jungle-like vegetation on it, but it was a place the dragon could rest. Blaze was winging toward it laboriously. There was little chance of coming down unnoticed, though. There were two triple-masted ships on the lee side of the formation. A small encampment was built on the shore as well. March was worried about the possible confrontation. His exhausted dragon had every intention of landing there. How those men reacted would determine what happened next.

  “Just avoid them and rest your wings,” March offered hopefully. “I’m sure they’ll be too frightened to cross the island and bother us.”

  “Ha,” Blaze huffed. Twin chugs of gray smoke roiled out of his nostrils and streamed into March’s face. March nearly gagged on the brimstone stench. Humans are too curiousss to leave well enough alone, the dragon’s weary voice sounded in March’s head. You need water. You should let me land among the men and...

  “I have water,” March said flatly. He hadn’t gotten the hang of speaking in the ethereal. “I funneled two skinfuls from that rainstorm the day before yesterday. I wouldn’t mind some fresh meat, but I don’t think you should land near them.”

  I can sssense your reluctance, Dragoneer. I will not go against your will, butss they will come, and they will bring troublesss with them.

  “And if they don’t come?”

  Then I will rest my wings without having to roast them.

  March was certain that Blaze meant what he said. The dragon was willful, and determined to get them to the Confliction. If it meant taking the lives of a few dozen men to get them there, those men would die. March had no idea what the Confliction was, but he knew it wasn’t good, and he knew that there would be other dragon riders there, other Dragoneers. The elf who rode the white stag told him there would be five riders in all.

  March wasn’t sure if the Confliction was a place, or a happening. Blaze knew little about it, other than it was drawing them nearer. They had to get there at all costs. They’d been traveling in the same general direction for over half a year. Blaze had carried them over towering snow-capped mountains and wide open plains full of wild herds and swaying grass. They’d flown over a great city built on the edge of high ocean cliffs. They’d even crossed barren white tundra so large that it could have been a frozen sea. All March knew for sure was that they had more long days of flying ahead of them, and Blaze desperately needed to rest his wings.

  The fact that there were ships anchored at this little atoll was a good sign. It meant that there was a larger landmass somewhere amid all these waves. A ship couldn’t have crossed the oceans that Blaze had just flown them over. The waves would have swallowed it whole.

  March was tempted to have the dragon let him down among the people of the encampment, but he doubted they would speak the same language. The last men they had come across had strange yellow-tinted skin and spoke gibberish. They were unnaturally tall, the whole tribe of them. March wasn’t sure if they were human at all. They hadn’t been that afraid of Blaze, not like most men were, and their eyes were alien, like the eyes of the elf that had gotten him into all of this.

  Blaze would need to rest and feed, and then rest some more. It would be days before the dragon was ready to leave on another extended flight. March sighed at Blaze’s wisdom. As usual the dragon was right. The people of the encampment most likely wouldn’t be able to let well enough alone.

  “Find a place that I can defend, then,” March told his bond mate. “You’ll not be roasting anyone when your lids are up.”

  “Essss,” Blaze hissed aloud and dove into a sweeping arc that would allow them an approach with the land mass between them and the encampment.

  For a while it seemed as if they had landed unseen. Blaze dozed into a deep slumber on the sun-warmed rocks near the shore. Marcherion soaked in the sea for a while, letting the warm water relax his aching muscles. Then he built up a huge fire and cooked crabs he gigged with a makeshift spear.

  The sun left the sky and his fire slowly died down to embers. He had been asleep for a good while when the wavering light of torches woke him into a state of alarm. There were half a dozen flaming brands and twice as many voices trying to be quiet. March’s heart thundered in his chest. He didn’t want to see these men roasted for being curious. He searched through the bond-link he and his dragon shared and was shocked to feel that Blaze was flying. Blaze had gone hunting.

  “You’d better run back to your ships,” March said rather loudly, startling some of the less attentive men in the approaching crowd. They were just curious fishermen, he could tell by the smell of them. They had only two ill-kept swords and a crossbow visible among them. Their faces, the ones he could make out, were full of fear as much as anything. He didn’t know what else to do, so he bluffed. “My dragon is about to set fire to your rigging.”

  “He’s not one of them!” a man’s voice said in surprise. “I seen ’em myself at the king’s victory feast. This ain’t no Royal Dragoneer.”

  “Are you sure?” a voice said above the murmurs.

  “The king’s missive spoke of only the two!” another voice stated.

  “You know of other Dragoneers?” Marcherion asked. The feeling of hope that surged through him was as welcome as any he’d ever felt. “I need to find them. Tell me how to find them.”

  “Keep your dragon from firing our sails then, man,” one of them said.

  “I’ll tell you where they be headed,” said a filthy young woman. “I seen that white-haired witch with the marked up face, and the boy who rides the silver wyrm. They’re off on a grand quest.”

  That was three long days ago. Now Blaze was winging his way west toward the little island the fishermen had told him about. The idea of finding other Dragoneers on an island in the middle of the deep sea was baffling to March. Then he remembered that the men had ships and that one had spoken of a king’s victory speech.

  He and his dragon weren’t alone out over the deep sea now. March was elated. The lack of human company on the lengthy trek had left him feeling a little crazy. He looked at the bright blue cloudless sky and took in a deep breath. The wealth of emotion brewing in his chest surprised him. He was about...

  “Khrahhhgaaahhh!” Blaze roared out as a gut-thumping pulse of energy swept past

  them, nearly tumbling them from the sky.

  There were a few heartbeats of weightlessness for March, and his ears hummed like he had bees inside his skull, but then his buttocks pressed firmly back into place between two spinal plates. “What in all the hells was that?” he called out after he had his breath back in him.

  Dour, was the reply. Then it was all Marcherion could do to keep the wind from sweeping him off of Blaze’s back
as the big fire drake sped them toward the source of the blast.

  Before long, March spotted the island. It wasn’t much, just an open-sided bowl of rock and sand. Then he saw the boy floating near an out-of-place mound of gray stone. The long, limp form of some sort of sea snake was beginning to stir where it too floated on the surface of the bay nearby.

  Dragae, Blaze said the word for female dragons. He told March that he sensed the presence of not one, but two of them.

  The pewter-colored wyrm raised her head and coughed forth a spume that steamed and sizzled in the sea water. The silver dragon’s movement surprised March and Blaze both.

  “Get the boy out of the water,” March commanded his dragon.

  Blaze eagerly complied. Just after the big red wyrm snatched Rikky with one of its claws, March was startled again. This time it was no small shock, it was a heart-stopping second of sheer terror.

  No you don’t! Zahrellion called out into the ethereal. Crystal, with bright scarlet blood streaming down her scaly white neck from her ear holes, was right there in Marcherion’s face about to blast him into a block of ice.

  “Wait!” he screamed just in the nick of time. The frost drake recognized his humanity and pulled up and away from them.

  March was thrown off as much by the white-haired girl’s tattooed face as he was by her sudden appearance above him in the sky. Where did she come from?

  You... You... can speak in the ethereal? Zahrellion asked. Don’t you dare hurt my friend. Sit him gently on the beach.

  Yesss, the big red wyrm hissed back at her. The serpent stirsss. Sssavess the silver.

  March tried and tried, but he couldn’t project any more thoughts. He could hear the strange girl, though. Her fierce concern over the boy was commendable. Seeing her frigid wyrm blast the half-dazed serpent’s head with icy spew until it finally broke away from the body was intriguing as well. He had Blaze set the boy down easy and then waited until his dragon lowered his head before stepping off onto the sand.