We have to warn the Dragoneers, Lemmy started sprinting out of the cavern.
Vax Noffa went after Lemmy, but stopped when he saw the Sarax race ahead across the ceiling, then drop. It fell into a crouch right in Lemmy’s path. It spread its wings out, blocking the way, and hissed menacingly.
Its skin was thick and rough, like tree bark. Its black eyes were dead and glossy, but a fine sliver of fiery orange split them vertically. The Sarax reared back and let out a mind-piercing shriek that caused Lemmy to fall to the ground clutching his ears. Vax didn’t see what happened next. Pain exploded through his entire body as terrible claws stabbed into his back and shoulders from behind. He was pressed into the cavern floor by an alien force so strong that it buckled his knees backward. His chest slammed into the ground. The last thing he sensed before his flesh was devoured from his bones was the eardrum-rupturing buzz that exploded through the ethereal.
Part IV
Crimzon
Chapter 18
The Dragoneers flew for most of the day. It was a glorious feeling, the five of them in the sky soaring above the clouds. Rikky and Silva flew circles around Blaze and Crystal, the bigger dragons unable to maneuver so easily. Golden was magnificent. She could shoot forth with a burst of wing beats just like Silva, but Aikira wasn’t interested in showing off. Her expression was serious, determined.
Jade was having trouble just keeping pace with the others. The green wyrm felt small among the more mature dragons, and Jenka sensed his unease. Now he was finding the way Zahrellion looked at Marcherion sickening. He didn’t feel well at all, and was pleased that Aikira was guiding them.
Looking like some Outland goddess from a bard’s tale, the golden-helmeted ebon girl took them deep into the mountains to places that could never be traveled on foot. Below them the peaks were sharp, jagged, and frozen. Rikky pointed out a huge, sleek snow-stalker with wide spiraling horns as it ran a herd of mountain goats down a steep valley edge. One of the fleeing creatures misstepped and went tumbling. The oversized but agile feline dove on it with practiced skill and devoured its kill.
Over a pine-covered valley they scared up a herd of elk that was easily two hundred strong. The dragons longed to feed, but the will of their riders helped them master the urges.
Before long, Aikira was leading them down into a canyon that an ice river must have cut into the rock. She took them down its winding length, curving this way and that as the narrow gorge dictated. It wasn’t easy for Blaze to manage because of his wingspan. More than once he scraped a tip on one side or the other.
Jenka and Jade felt the warm air before they saw the source of it. The young green dragon had gotten good at riding temperate thermals. His foreclaw was still sore, but Rikky had tended it and assured dragon and rider that the bone was set straight and would eventually be as good as new.
Soon the canyon opened up into a surprisingly green valley that was shrouded in steam so thick that only the tops of the trees were visible. There was a lake, too, and in a moment where the mist thinned enough for Jenka to see through, he glimpsed deep blue water. He felt through Jade a sensation that all the dragons were feeling. The presence of supreme high dracus in the area was palpable.
Golden landed in a field of high grass that was visible when her wings whipped the ground-hugging fog away. The other dragons followed. Soon the Dragoneers were all dismounted and stretching their legs, or leg in Rikky’s case, while the dragons lapped up lake water.
The Dragoneers could barely see each other through the thick, warm air.
“How much farther?” Rikky asked.
“We’re here,” Aikira said. “Close anyway. Did you think we would just fly into Crimzon’s lair? We have to climb the rest of the way. Our dragons must wait behind.”
“They seem to want to stay here,” Zahrellion observed.
“You can stay with them if you’re afraid,” Jenka shot back before he knew what he was doing.
“She dove on the coral serpent when it attacked me, Jenka,” Rikky said matter-of-factly. “I doubt she’s scared at all.”
“It’s all right, Rikky.” Zahrellion’s form faded into the foggy steam.
“You’re dense,” Aikira whispered directly at Jenka. “Don’t you remember what those claws looked like? Those teeth?”
For no reason other than common courtesy Marcherion went after Zahrellion, causing Jenka to have to bite his tongue. Rikky shook his head.
Jenka took in a deep breath and spoke loudly. “Zahrellion, I’m sorry. Let’s just do what we have to do. I’ll work it out.”
“Good boy.” Aikira nodded with some surprise showing on her face. “All of you listen,” she continued. “We will be face to face with those Sarax with no wall of crystal between us if we don’t get Clover’s dragon tear to Vax Noffa. You heard what he said. Let’s just do it.”
“Agreed,” Rikky said sternly in the direction Zahrellion and Marcherion had gone.
“Agreed,” Zah shot back angrily. The last thing she’d wanted to do was break down in front of Marcherion, but she had. It didn’t help that she was now realizing her thoughts of Marcherion were just as foolish as Jenka’s were of her.
“Agreed,” March said as he came back among the others behind Zah. He looked like a boy who was unsure of what he’d been scolded for.
Jenka saw Zahrellion’s angry look. “Let’s go then,” he commanded with a bit of authority in his voice. “You’re leading,” he added to Aikira who was looking at him curiously now.
She gave him a nod of respect and started into the steam. Rikky was right after her, his peg-leg all but forgotten in the waist-deep mist. Marcherion hurried after Rikky, but Zah nearly shoved him aside as she caught up to Aikira.
They zigzagged up a slope and eventually entered the colder air that hovered over the steamy spring-fed lake. ‘Bitter’ was the word that Jenka would have used to describe the cold on his now clammy skin. Soon they were on a rocky face looking up at a cavern that was venting more steam into the cold mountain air. Jenka didn’t have to be told it was their destination.
“I hate caves,” Marcherion called to Rikky. He had fallen back and was now just ahead of Jenka, who was taking up the rear.
“Me and Jenka will protect you,” Rikky jested.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t go in,” March conceded. “I said I hate caves. My best friend was nearly killed when a wyvern attacked us in a cave. Brendly was ripped from hip to ankle.”
“We have to stand before Crimzon, the wise and mighty wyrm,” Aikira absently sang the words out loud and then continued humming in the ethereal as they went.
“My best friend and my mother were killed by trolls just a few short months ago,” Jenka said more sharply than he meant to. As they were walking, he found that he couldn’t get the look Zahrellion had given the new Dragoneer out of his head. Jealousy was threatening to take hold of him again. He fought to suppress it.
“Master Kember, Solman, and Mortin were killed too,” Rikky chimed in. His tone cut some of the edge off of Jenka’s words, but Zahrellion was the one who brought them all back into focus when she whirled and spoke haltingly to Jenka.
“We all know where we really stand with each other.” Her voice betrayed the fact that she wasn’t happy with him or herself. “We have to depend on each other and keep our heads clear, Jenka. It’s the only way.”
“What was that all about?” Marcherion asked Jenka a few moments later. Jenka figured March was beginning to see the problem, and probably wanted to make sure he wasn’t faithfully following an idiot. The narrow trail they were traversing opened into a dried-out stream wash. The rocky bed led right into the cavernous maw.
“I fell in love with her,” Jenka finally answered with no shame, and more than a little hurt in his voice. He didn’t know it, but Zahrellion heard him.
Suddenly a shift in the world caused Aikira’s humming to warble and drag. There was a distant yell, and then the ethereal was gone from them. Only the sound of the wind wh
ipping across the valley and the distant call of a predator bird could be heard.
In a panic, some of them reached out to their dragons, but it was a futile effort.
The ethereal was gone, as if it had never existed for them in the first place.
Chapter 19
Aikira pondered the others as they neared the entrance to Crimzon’s lair. She could tell that Jenka had strong feelings for Zahrellion, and that he was hurting. What she couldn’t figure was what was going on with Zah. When they were alone, the pale-skinned druida seemed cheery and bright, but when either Marcherion or Jenka was around, she shut herself in, and grew quiet. When Zahrellion tried to set Jenka, and her own heart straight, Aikira gained a bit of respect for her; but when Jenka confessed his love for her, Aikira’s heart melted. She’d had her heart broken, too, when she’d left her own love behind in Indale. She didn’t have a choice but to go. The Confliction was calling her. In a sense she had broken her own heart, and it was still a tender thing. She felt a strong sense of loyalty with her fellow Dragoneers, though. She knew the bond forming between the five of them was going to be a potent one.
Marcherion seemed aloof. It was clear that he was the strongest of them. He and Blaze had traveled across continents and oceans unknown to join them. He’d told them of strange yellow-skinned men who were far taller than normal, of vast expanses of various wild terrains and ranges of mountains that reached unimaginable heights. He told them of an elf that rode a white stag, and of a great city built into a cliff face high above the sea. He had killed a wyvern without the aid of Dour magic, and the deep scars on his scalp under all his wavy brown hair lent him a rugged, battle-tested air. Aikira had no problem understanding why Zahrellion looked at him the way she sometimes did.
Of all the Dragoneers, Rikky was the one that intrigued Aikira the most. He worked hard to overcome his deficiency. He worked even harder to make it seem like he wasn’t struggling. Even now, as they were entering Crimzon’s lair, he was straining with a blank expression on his face, using all of his concentration to negotiate the rocky terrain with his worn wooden peg-leg.
The melody Aikira was humming was suddenly stretched from her throat only to return in an almost painful surge. Then the ethereal was gone. She called out to Golden, but her voice never left the confines of her imagination. She called out to the other Dragoneers, but they didn’t hear. She moved back away from the cave opening, going several dozen strides back down the slope, hoping that the loss was from a ward the old dragon had placed on his abode, but that wasn’t the case.
***
Using her druidic power Zahrellion cast a spell to detect various forms of magic. “It’s not a spell,” she informed them confidently. She felt the power of the great wyrm before them, but the ethereal wasn’t detectable at all. “There are some wards we may find tricky, but they are clearly formed with dragon Dour.” She gave Jenka a good look as she continued. “We have a long way ahead of us. I can sense Crimzon. His lair is deep within the mountain. Have you been there before?” The last was directed at Aikira.
“I have been here before, and deep enough in to stay clear of the storm that pinned me and Golden down, but when my dragon could no longer follow, I stopped.” Zah sensed the tiniest bit of shame in the ebon girl’s confession. For the first time she saw Aikira as a girl and not a woman grown. For all her intimidating garb, and her well-formed muscle, Aikira was just like the rest of them.
“Let’s get moving,” Jenka commanded as he started into the steamy hole in the mountain.
“Before the buzzards fly down and eat us where we stand,” added Rikky in a fair imitation of Herald’s gruff voice.
“Take it slow,” warned Zahrellion. “Watch for abnormalities as you go.”
***
Marcherion didn’t want to go, but he strung his bow anyway. He was seriously intimidated by the cave, but after Zahrellion and then Aikira went in, he mustered the courage to follow. Before long, the steam thinned and the hissing magical orbs of light the girls cast into existence were enough for them to see by.
Jenka drew his sword and held it raised and ready as he crept before the others. Rikky moved along right behind him, his wooden peg-leg making a soft thump every time he stepped. Zahrellion drew strength from their calm confidence, but she didn’t let herself think about Jenka otherwise. She was finding Marcherion’s obvious fear of the cave to be a disappointment. He was behind her with an arrow nocked, looking over his shoulder and peering up ahead over and over again nervously. He looked very little like the legendary hero of the Order who graced the paintings in the Temple of Dou now.
Up front, Jenka and Rikky stopped and hissed a warning for the others to do the same.
“Zahrellion,” Rikky called back. “What do you make of this?”
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 20
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.
Cold Hearted Son of a Witch (Dragoneers Saga) Page 10