Cold Hearted Son of a Witch (Dragoneers Saga)

by M. R. Mathias

  Suddenly alarm shot through him like a whip crack. What if Jade wasn’t sleeping contently? And what about Lemmy?

  Lemmy, He called into the ethereal. Lemmy, can you hear me?

  Hear you? I’m too far away to hear you, Lemmy chuckled. Perceive your voice in my mind? Yes, I can do that. How’s your head?

  Jenka didn’t answer, but rubbed at his knotted skull. He was relieved that Lemmy seemed calm. His cheek was swollen and his eye probably blackened. It hurt like hell, but the slit in his skin was already healing over. What happened? he finally asked.

  We startled Aikira, he chuckled. She’s another Dragoneer.

  Aikira, Jenka repeated stupidly. He remembered seeing the ebon-skinned girl in the golden skullcap. “Don’t startle Aikira,” he mumbled a reminder to himself.

  She said she’s been waiting here for months, Lemmy told him. She’s from the Outland settlements. Her dragon has honey-yellow scales and is called Golden. I met the wyrm face to face and nearly filled my britches for it.

  Jenka couldn’t help but laugh at that. Where are they?

  Can’t you hear her? Lemmy entered the room through a heavy wooden door, bearing a tray of cheese and hard bread. She’s at the top of the spire singing a summoning to the other Dragoneers.

  Are they coming?

  I suppose they are. There’s more, though. She’s seen the star ship and says that the only thing keeping the Sarax from pouring forth and devouring us is the will of Vax Noffa. She says he is exhausting himself and will soon be beyond recuperation.

  She says a lot. Jenka groaned as he rose to his feet. He saw that the room opened into another that had a large open window. The tip of a bright green dragon’s tail was dangling over the sill. He looked around and judged the size of the room. Jade was lazing on the roof, he realized. He looked up, fearing the idea of having his dragon’s weight above his head. He was relieved when he saw the size of the timber beams that supported what was above him. There was a central pillar of stacked stone disks shouldering the load of the center span, too. Once he was convinced he wasn’t going to be crushed, he took a big piece of cheese from Lemmy and munched it down. I wonder, who will the fifth Dragoneer be? He pondered while he ate. I wonder if Zahrellion and Rikky made it back from their quest, and if Mysterian used the mushrooms to remedy Prince Richard.

  You wonder a lot, Lemmy joked. But I, too, worry about Rikky and Zahrellion.

  Jenka gave him a look that said they should change the subject.

  Lemmy obliged him. Aikira also said that there are three of those Sarax embedded in the crystal outside the star ship. She wants us to take them in, so you can know what we are about to face. Lemmy’s tone went serious again. Clover wrote that there were hundreds of them inside the star ship. Aikira says they are frightening to see.

  How could they survive all that time without feeding? Jenka asked. What if the star ship is full of starved to death corpses?

  “They’re not of this world. They breed like gray leapers and they feed on each other,” a slightly accented female voice said from the doorway. “May I enter?”

  “Sure,” Jenka said. His voice sounded thin and he harrumphed trying to get some bass into it.

  Aikira wasn’t old, but she was far from being a girl. Her body was well formed with curving hips and a healthy bust that seemed to be restrained by the custom-cut leather armor girdle she wore. Her chest piece was painted a dull yellow and matched her high boots and gauntlets. The steel plating was all formed of the same gold-tinted metal of which her skullcap was made.. The point of the helmet’s brow line gave her an inquisitive look. The hem of fine steel chain mail she wore under everything hung down over her bare thighs. A short sword hung from her heavy belt and she had a bow and quiver strung over her back. Her eyes were big and sapphire blue, and her full lips parted into a warm smile revealing a gapped set of large, but otherwise perfect front teeth.

  Jenka shook the emptiness from his head. She was beautiful in a visceral sort of way. Only the thought of Zahrellion, and how her beauty was in his heart, kept him from entertaining thoughts of her. Lemmy didn’t seem to be affected by Aikira’s beauty at all. Either that, or he was hiding it well.

  “They can be seen at times moving like hulking shadows behind the star ship’s glazing.” Aikira took a bit of cheese from the tray Lemmy was holding and munched it.

  How far? Can you show us? Lemmy asked.

  I can, she replied. “The rest of the Dragoneers will be along by the morrow, but there’s no sense in waiting until they arrive. Come, but don’t disturb Vax Noffa. Three days’ worth of casting will be lost if his concentration is broken.”

  She took another piece of cheese and started out the door.

  “You said the rest of the Dragoneers,” Jenka hurried to catch up to her. “Who is the fifth? I only know of two others.”

  “There are three high draci travelling toward us,” Aikira said over her shoulder as she led them down a wide hall to a rotunda of sorts. In the center of the cavernous five-sided chamber was a giant stone pillar with a stairway curling up around it. Jenka saw that the tri-coiled Dragoneers emblem was a prevalent decoration on the carved wooden doorways that opened off of the central area. “I felt a terrible disturbance in the ethereal as well,” Aikira continued. “Some of the older Sarax have psionic capabilities. They used them recently to distract Vax Noffa from his diligence by empowering your goblin king. But there is something else. The Dragoneer whose bond was broken has been awakened. I met him in a dream and there was no pity in his blackened heart.”

  “Prince Richard?” Jenka asked as they exited Clover’s castle and started on a mountain trail that led down into the valley.

  His bond was broken when Royal met his end? Lemmy guessed.

  “Linux always claimed that Gravelbone corrupted Richard,” Jenka said. “He wanted me to kill him.”

  “You should have,” Aikira said coolly. “Here is the way...” She took them out of the afternoon’s light into a wide scallop that looked to have been blasted out of the mountain side by some angry god’s wrath. Stalagmites had risen into stalactites to form several natural pillars that seemed to support the massive overhang of rock.

  For some time they descended a steady gradual decline. The light of day still reached them, reflected dimly from the rocky walls. Jenka marveled at the clusters of upside-down hanging bats above them. They had orange stripes, and beady little amber eyes.

  Look, Lemmy exclaimed as he tapped excitedly on Jenka’s shoulder. Jenka followed Lemmy’s pointing hand and was stricken speechless by what he saw.

  A tiny trickle of a stream ran through a large patch of colorful illuminated yellow mold. There, hovering busily at the open bloom of a pastel blue night flower was a wispy winged fairy girl. She saw them staring at her and went zigzagging into the shadows like a dragonfly.

  “The trolls and mudged fear the Sarax and have all but fled this area,” Aikira told them. “The fae think they have nothing to fear, for they are but trivial to the alien beasts, like a fly or gnat is to us. Vax Noffa’s presence draws them. I fear they are careless in their underestimation of the Sarax.”

  The scallop was more like a cavern now. Ahead, Jenka could see something radiating an erratic amber glow. He could feel the dragon’s tear mounted in the hilt of his sword, even though it was still in its sheath. He would have drawn the weapon had Aikira not been so calm and unafraid. A glance back made him realize that what was before them was the crystal-encased star ship, and what they were traversing was the huge penetration its impact had made when it crashed into the mountain. Thoughts of where the Sarax had come from, and how they’d survived such a journey confounded him until he was suddenly face to face—actually face to abdomen—with one of the ferocious-looking beasts.

  Taking in the terrible alien creature, he suddenly felt like … He felt like … He felt like prey.

  Chapter 17

  When white-scaled Crystal, little Silva, and a huge scarlet-scaled wyrm were se
en approaching the castle from the south, Lemmy and Aikira set a newly tapped cask of wine on a table with some modest pewter goblets and some fruit Aikira had found growing in a room-sized terrarium. The dragons were drawn to the landings, and tiled paths led the riders indoors to the central stair that spiraled down into the rotunda. The three newcomers were as grateful for the refreshment as they were impressed by the castle.

  “They’re twice as tall as a man and their claws are like daggers!” Jenka was telling Rikky and Marcherion sometime later.

  All five dragons were still lazing on their own tower tops. Clover’s grasp on the arcane was apparently substantial in her later years, and she’d fortified and modified the castle well. Subtle magical wards carved into the circular landings drew on the planet’s natural forces to relax and accommodate the wyrms. Their presence in turn strengthened the field of protective energy that surrounded the whole structure, and some of the outlying area as well.

  The Dragoneers were in the rotunda milling around; friends who hadn’t seen each other in a long time; friends who each had much news to share. Jenka wanted desperately to speak with Zahrellion alone, but she hadn’t so much as smiled at him. A strange sense of déjà vu passed over Jenka then, as if he weren’t there in the present, but was looking back on this moment in a dream or a memory.

  “Ten will meet the Confliction; they will stand or fall,” Aikira said with a raise of her goblet, her expression one that was decidedly pleased.

  “Five dragons, with five riders, must defend the fate of all,” both Zahrellion and Marcherion finished at the same time. Aikira took time to formally introduce herself to each of the others. She then offered to show Zahrellion to her apartment so that she might freshen herself. Zahrellion readily accepted. Lemmy marveled openly at the way Rikky had overcome the loss of his leg. Jenka, meanwhile, was sizing Marcherion up and finding himself as relieved as he was jealous. He was also wondering why Zahrellion looked away every time their eyes met. Had the situation going on around them been any less intense he might have tried to get her alone and find out. As it was, he was struggling to find words to describe the Sarax and the star ship he’d seen the day before.

  “In Clover’s journal she says that they can maneuver deftly in the sky and that they attack in packs or swarms,” Jenka went on. Seeing that the others wouldn’t get it, until they saw for themselves, he ruffled Rikky’s hair. “So, tell me what happened with Prince Richard. Aikira says he has no good left in him.”

  “She might be right,” Rikky dropped his eyes.

  “He stabbed that druid to death with eyes as eager as a villain,” Marcherion added.

  “He thought he was killing his father,” Rikky wiped a tear from his eye. “King Blanchard is at the Temple of Dou, as are Herald and Mysterian. They were scheming to reestablish King Blanchard when we heard Aikira singing out to us.”

  “You should see them, Rikky.” The sheer disbelief in Jenka’s countenance betrayed the magnitude of what he was trying to express. “The star ship is full of them. And Vax Noffa can’t hold them back much longer. In truth, it matters not who sits the throne. The fate of all men, not just the kingdom, is in jeopardy. We have to figure out how to destroy the Sarax before the encasement gives way. That’s all there is to it.”

  “I want to see them,” Marcherion said boldly.

  “We will together, as Dragoneers,” Jenka assured the newcomer. He knew that Marcherion was a few years older than him, and probably more experienced, but he sensed an indifference to command there. He was disappointed because he didn’t much feel like a leader. He felt that March was good-hearted and strong. He hoped Zahrellion’s lack of interest in him had nothing to do with the new Dragoneer.

  “As Dragoneers.” March smiled at the idea of all five of them finally being together.

  “Dragoneers,” Rikky repeated.

  “Don’t forget us,” Aikira said as the girls rejoined them.

  A short while later the five Dragoneers, and Lemmy, were easing down into the crater shaft. Something seemed different. Aikira suddenly took off at a brisk clip toward the star ship. The erratic glow Jenka had seen the day before was no longer visible around the craft. The gold-helmeted girl broke from a jog into a run when she saw Vax Noffa’s form lying in a sweaty heap on the rocks. A light spell flared, then another, and another. Aikira, Lemmy, and Zahrellion all cast forth small spheres of illumination. Lemmy sent his up high, where Aikira’s orb followed her to the collapsed wizard.

  “What have you done?” She hugged him tightly. He was limp, yet his eyes were open and moving about.

  Crimzon, he spoke weakly into the ethereal. Take them to Crimzon’s lair, Aikira. Leave me to rest. What I’ve done will hold the ship for a time. But I fear, when that time is up, my magic will no longer be enough.

  All of them could hear his weary mental voice, but barely.

  Why Crimzon’s lair? Aikira asked. Jenka couldn’t see her face because she was hovering over the exhausted wizard, but he thought he heard her sniffling.

  The wizard flared his eyes and seemed to fade away for a moment. Then his head lolled so that he was staring right over Aikira’s shoulder at Jenka. He has Clover’s dragon tear ... Vax managed before slipping out of consciousness.

  “What is he talking about?” Marcherion asked. “I have a dragon’s tear. It’s in a medallion.” He pulled the ornate white gold disc that held the nearly depleted dragon tear up out of his collar. Rikky elbowed him and pulled him by the sleeve to stand before one of the crystal-encased Sarax.

  “Jenka has a dragon tear too.”

  “Oh,” March said stupidly as he slowly looked up at the predator before him. A stumpy protrusion of a head filled with jagged shark’s teeth was crowned with two separate rows of knobby scales. The Sarax’s black, pitiless orbs were as empty as they were deep. Its long claws were like razor-tipped daggers. On one hand the creature wore what might be a glove. The idea that the freakish monster was intelligent enough to make and use something such as a glove made it seem that much more terrifying.

  “Its maw looks like that of the thresher we saw on the wharf at Port,” Rikky observed. “I wish I could see the wings better.”

  “Over there,” Jenka directed them to another of the three imprisoned Sarax. Zahrellion knelt next to Aikira and helped her tend the wizard. Once he was covered with a cloak and his head was resting on a pack, Aikira stood. “Crimzon is a fire drake who’s well over a hundred years old,” she informed them. “We must stand before him, though. Clover told Vax as much before she passed. It must be done.”

  “I think arrows with thin, well-sharpened, bladed tips will penetrate them,” Rikky said as he hobbled on his peg-leg around the Sarax that was trapped with its wings open. He wasn’t paying attention to the others. He was studying the enemy. Marcherion was right beside him.

  Lemmy was also looking at the first Sarax closely. I think that here, just below the sternum, is a soft spot. He hurried over to Rikky’s side and found that he saw the same soft-looking indentation just above where the creature’s naval would be, if it had one.

  “The eyes,” Marcherion said as it came to him. “If we can blind them they can’t swarm us in the sky.”

  Where is the other one? Lemmy asked Aikira. She glanced toward the curve of brushed steel that wasn’t buried in the earth, but was covered in fracture-shot crystal. There at the edge of the shell coating the star ship was the third of the Sarax. A shadow shifted behind the milky layers and glazing, reminding them that there were many more waiting to burst forth from inside.

  Jenka saw Zahrellion glancing at Marcherion once, and was filled with a surge of jealous anger. When her eyes met his they darted away. It only made him that much more perturbed. Again he wondered why Zahrellion hadn’t spoken to him. Part of him wanted to forget that they were Dragoneers. That part wanted to wrap his arms around Zah and lose himself in those liquid lavender eyes, but another part of him knew that it wasn’t meant to be. They’d parted lovers, or so h
e thought, but they were Dragoneers now. The fate of mankind rested on their shoulders. It wasn’t easy, but he managed to contain his emotions.

  “We go see Crimzon then,” Jenka said with a bit of anger in his voice. He wasn’t sure of his place as leader, but no one seemed to mind the suggestion.

  ***

  The Dragoneers, rested and refreshed, were a full day into their journey to find Crimzon’s lair. Lemmy was down in the star ship crater watching over Vax Noffa. The wizard was sitting up, sipping water from a wooden cup. They were discussing the kingdom and the Outlanders, and what they might be able to do to warn the men in those more populated places.

  If the rangers rode forth and spread the word, a lot of lives could be spared, Vax said into the ethereal. I know not how men can stand against such creatures, but we have to give them a chance, at least, to get cover where they can.

  They’ve just started back into the frontier, Lemmy explained. Rikky told me of the dragon guns the Walguard built and used against the mudged. If we had spear launchers like those on all the walls we’d be able to keep them away from the cities, or at least make them pay for attacking. He paused as another idea struck him. We could mount them on wagons, too.

  The people must be warned, Vax’s mental voice trailed away as a distant buzzing came to his ears. It was followed by a sharp popping crack of fracturing crystal. The people must flee, not fight, Vax said quickly. A low buzzing sound followed. Something large was in the crater with them now.

  Lemmy grabbed Vax Noffa by the wrist and the groggy wizard stumbled to his feet. Lemmy led him away from the star ship, but stopped when he saw the empty hollow of crystal where the open-winged Sarax had been. Looking around franticly, neither of them saw the creature.

  The other is gone as well, the wizard pointed at another empty hollow of transparent shards. The third Sarax was still imprisoned, but was wiggling and working the shards apart around it.