Riders of Fire Complete Series Box Set books 1-6: YA Epic Fantasy Dragon Rider Adventures

by Eileen Mueller

  Ithsar didn’t want her sea dragons or the green guards slaughtered because they were too tired to defend themselves, so—despite her dark foreboding that they should push on—she agreed.

  §

  Ithsar and her wings of sea dragons and green guards spent a restless night under the stars in a freezing cold field north of Montanara. They hadn’t dared light a fire in case they were attacked, so the riders huddled on blankets and their dragons draped their wings over them and tucked their snouts underneath, huffing warm breath over them to keep them from freezing.

  Ithsar rose early, as usual, to train with Stefan.

  After the dragons had hunted, fished in the nearby river, and replenished their strength, they flew up over the mountains behind Montanara and onward, north, toward the fierce peaks of Dragons’ Hold. A dark ravine split the wild fields to the east, in a rip that led to the base of mountains that rose like jagged fangs from the plains.

  Bitter air nipped at Ithsar. She tugged her cloak tighter.

  After hours traversing the plains, the dragons finally ascended the piercing peaks.

  Saritha mind-melded, “Meet Dragon’s Teeth, the valiant sentinels that protect Dragons’ Hold.”

  At last they were here, at the home of Ezaara—she of the golden hair, the Queen’s Rider—and the dragons that patrolled Dragons’ Realm. Ithsar let out a sigh of relief. They sped up the pristine slopes, their wingbeats thundering off the mountainside.

  “Ithsar…” Saritha melded.

  Her dragon’s tone was ominous. “What is it?”

  “I can’t see any dragons here. The green guards are saying that the air is usually full of them.”

  The dragons crested the fierce peaks and glided over a beautiful basin, a silver lake glinting in the sun, nestled among bristling carpets of pines. But that beauty was marred by the carnage below. A stony clearing was strewn with carcasses of dark dragons, colored dragons, and the bodies of tharuks and dragon riders. Wisps of smoke trailed across the basin. The stench of charred flesh rose up to greet them.

  Within the peaks of Dragons’ Hold, everything was silent, except for the swish of the dragons’ wingbeats whispering off the soot-and-blood-stained mountainsides.

  Saritha snarled. Fangora, Nilanna, Rengar, and Ramisha answered. Their roars echoed across the basin and bounced off the peaks. Ithsar tugged her heavy cloak again, but the cloak and her thick winter garments did nothing to stop the chill permeating her bones.

  They were too late. Dragons’ Hold had been devastated.

  Ithsar’s throat tightened. Were Roberto and Ezaara still alive?

  The sathir in this basin was stained gray—bleak despair hung over Dragons’ Hold, making Ithsar’s bones ache. Save the plants and trees, there was nothing here, no one alive, and nothing worth saving.

  Misha and Nila turned to her, their faces stark with shock at the torn and bloody carcasses of the dragons below. Corpses of reds, blues, greens, and even orange and purple dragons, lay torn on the blood-congealed stones. Tharuk limbs, bodies, and heads were strewn among them. And shadow dragons, so many shadow dragons. Whoever had killed them had put up a valiant fight.

  Ithsar scanned the corpses for the multi-hued dragon she’d seen in her vision, for a Naobian face, or a glimpse of golden hair.

  Nothing. Not a sign of her friends.

  Even Goren and Stefan’s faces were wan. The other assassins and green guards mirrored their grief.

  Saritha’s usually comforting rumble didn’t help Ithsar feel much better.

  “Dragons’ Hold was never our destination,” the queen of the sea dragons said. “Although this is a shock, think, Ithsar: the vision you showed me was different, over a forest. We just have to find that forest.”

  Ithsar searched her memories. Her vision hadn’t been of this pine forest surrounding the lake.

  Saritha gained altitude, her mighty wings beating at the frigid air as they sped higher, trailed by dragons. They raced over the lake, searching, the green and blue dragons fanned out behind them, their reflections like tiny dragonets on the lake’s silvery surface.

  “Such a beautiful lake, but we will not swim here, not while death taints this basin. Not while we must search for our friends.” Saritha soared higher. “Look, Ithsar. What’s that?”

  Ithsar gazed over the peaks of Dragon’s Teeth. To the south-east, a dark stain hung over Great Spanglewood Forest, shot with tiny pinpoint flashes of light.

  Dragon flame.

  “That’s our destination.” Her fist high in the air, Ithsar let out a bloodcurdling cry.

  The sea dragons and green guards twisted and backwinged, following Saritha and Ithsar as they surged up over the eastern peaks of Dragon’s Teeth. The assassins and dragon riders loosed battle cries that stirred Ithsar’s blood. Their dragons bellowed as they crested the peaks, their roars rumbling through Ithsar’s bones.

  They still had a long, hard flight east before they reached that distant smear of black lit up by bursts of flame.

  They swooped down the far side of Dragon’s Teeth over Great Spanglewood Forest—an enormous carpet of green bordered by the nearby Northern Alps, and spread for hours of flight, all the way to distant peaks in the east.

  “When I was young, my father wove spellbinding tales of spangles, magical beings that lived in Great Spanglewood Forest.” Ithsar paused. Gods, how she wished her father had lived to fly on dragonback with her and see this wondrous realm. She’d been so tiny when he’d told those tales, but she’d never forgotten them. Even after he died, she’d lain awake at night, missing him and reciting his stories to keep him alive. Funnily enough, it had worked. Although it was hard to remember his face, his stories lived on inside her. “Do you know if it’s true, Saritha? Is there really magic among the trees?”

  “My mother Queen Aquaria told me spangles exist. We have something similar in the Naobian Sea, tiny glimmering beings of light that shape the currents in the sea.”

  Dragons beat their wings, racing over the snowy pines. Here and there, Ithsar spied carcasses of shadow dragons among the trees. The northerners must have been fighting these beasts for a while.

  Dark visions swirled around Ithsar.

  A black swarm of screeching shadow dragons; blinding beams of yellow light slicing open blue dragons and rending limbs from greens; a silver dragon howling with grief; a strange yellow beam streaming from a metal box into the sky; roiling flame and riders screaming; strange mages with identical faces, shooting green balls of fire from the back of dark shadow dragons. Bleak despair shuddered through her bones, making them ache.

  Ithsar mind-melded with the queen of the sea dragons. “Saritha, it’s been an honor to fly with you.” She tried to force her vision to show her a glimpse of her future with the queen, but there was nothing. Only emptiness. “You changed my life.”

  “Ithsar,” the queen melded. “We’ve found the battle, so be of good cheer. Don’t give up hope yet.”

  Ithsar nodded, throat too tight to speak, mind too tangled with dark visions to feel anything but desolation. She patted Saritha’s scaly hide and they flew on, the thunder of her heart drowning out the rustle of hundreds of dragon wings.

  §

  As they sped across the treetops dusted with snow, another vision drifted through Ithsar’s head.

  A woman was riding an enormous silver dragon. The shimmering silver sathir around the two nearly blinded Ithsar. This woman had a good heart, a strong heart. Her sathir was pure and vibrant, glimmering in the waning sun.

  Silver tendrils snaked out from the woman’s sathir and enveloped a man riding a bronze, a young male rider on an orange dragon, and Ezaara riding a multi-hued dragon.

  A mage on a shadow dragon blasted mage fire at Ezaara.

  There was a flash of silver. The woman screamed and leaped, her dark hair flowing in the wind as her lithe body shot into the path of the roiling mage flame. Within moments, the woman was a pillar of fire.

  “Ma! Ma!” Ezaara screamed. “
Zaarusha! No, not Ma.”

  The dragon queen roared, diving after the burning woman. The silver and bronze dragons dived too, nearly colliding in their quest to snatch the burning body.

  The towering pillar of green mage fire flared in the sky, and then the woman’s silver sathir and the fire snuffed out. Her ashes swirled in the wind from the dragons’ wingbeats.

  The silver dragon stretched her neck skyward and howled, the mournful keening echoing through Ithsar’s chest. The bronze joined her and they speared through the mass of shadow dragons, chasing the mage that had killed Ezaara’s mother.

  The dragon queen’s roars shook the sky, making Ithsar gasp. Ezaara screamed and snatched up her bow. Roberto and Erob at her side, Ezaara shot an arrow into the breast of a mage and another at a dark dragon’s eye.

  As the vision cleared, Ithsar gazed out over the forest at the dark swarm of dragons they were heading for. Had this happened yet? Or was it yet to pass? Perhaps she could prevent it.

  “Faster, Saritha, we must save Ezaara’s mother.” No sooner than she thought the words, there was a brilliant flash of silver and then a blazing green flame lit up that dark cloud, burning as it plummeted, then extinguished completely.

  A jolt hit Ithsar’s chest, as if she’d been punched, and she knew Ezaara’s mother was dead.

  Mage Gate

  Straight ahead, Ithsar saw the landscape as she’d seen it in her vision: a winter forest sprawled before her, patches of snow in dark shadows, and grass peeking through in the sunlit clearing. And there was the metal chest she’d seen with the strange yellow beam of light jutting from it. Above it all, spread like a giant awning above an oasis, was a legion of foul beasts spitting fire and shooting yellow beams from their eyes. Mages rode on their backs, lobbing green flame.

  There was a flash of multi-hued scales and a cry rang out, “Ithsar!” Blonde hair swirling in the breeze from thousands of wings, Ezaara punched her bow high in the air. She was riding an enormous dragon, the hundreds of hues on its scales rippling in the light as the beast flew.

  Thank the dracha Gods. Ezaara was alive.

  “Zaarusha, the dragon queen and fearless leader of Dragons’ Realm, welcomes us,” Saritha said.

  Joy thrummed inside Ithsar’s breast, a surging, bucking beast. Moons before, Ezaara—she of the golden hair—had healed her, making her fingers whole, and helped Ithsar discover the power of her sathir. And Roberto had restored her faith that kind men like her father still existed. Now, at last, she could repay them.

  Ithsar punched her fist into the air, too, shrieking the ancient Sathiri battle cry, “Avanta!”

  Saritha’s jade scales glinted with silver like a brooding sea as the mighty sea dragons and brave assassins surged into the mass of dark dragons. Green guards speared through clusters of dark dragons, breaking groups apart so they could pick them off.

  Screeches and howls ripped through Ithsar’s mind. Gritting her teeth, she focused on the sathir of the shadow dragons—a purple so dark it was almost black, the shadowy stain rippling around the foul creatures.

  A huge dragon swooped down toward Saritha, its dark, ragged wings blocking the sunlight. Saritha snarled and shot a jet of flame at the beast. Fangora dived past, chasing another shadow dragon, his flame scorching the foul beast’s tail. More shadow dragons blasted flame at dragons of orange, gold, bronze, purple, blue, green, and red.

  Saritha dived, spitting fire at a dark dragon who was chasing a blue. Ithsar whipped her bow from her back and an arrow from her quiver, and fired. The arrow plunged into a shadow dragon’s neck, but it writhed and bucked. With a swipe of its talons, it freed the arrow and breathed a swathe of flame at the blue dragon, who roared down into the forest and crashed into the trees.

  Saritha gave chase. Ithsar fired another arrow, meeting her mark. It pierced the back of the shadow dragon’s skull, and in a writhing heap of flaming wings, it let out a piercing shriek, and plummeted into the trees, setting them ablaze.

  With a flip of emerald wings, Goren’s dragon shot past her, and the green guard leader flashed a grin. Ithsar grinned back. She didn’t need his acknowledgment, but it was nice to know he’d noticed.

  Heat wafted from the forest below, but they had no time to investigate as Saritha spun to deflect the attack of another shadow dragon. Diving at them, its ragged wings outstretched, it breathed fire. They wheeled, but couldn’t shake the dragon off.

  The dragon spurted a jet of flame at Saritha. The courageous sea dragon bucked, narrowly avoiding her flank being singed.

  A yell cut through the mayhem. Roberto swooped in on Erob—the mighty blue dracha Ithsar had met at the oasis. Erob blasted flame at the shadow dragon. It clawed at its flaming wings, trying to extinguish the fire, but the blaze was too great.

  Gods, that screaming, always that infernal screaming in her head.

  Then a flaming ball of green fire shot across Saritha’s head near Ithsar’s face. She leaned back, the stench of her own burnt hair jamming itself up her nostrils. Ithsar whipped her head around and loosed an arrow before she was upright. It sailed toward a young female mage with blonde hair riding a shadow dragon and lobbing fireballs at the dragon riders. Behind her another dragon swooped in, an identical mage upon its back.

  “A mage fighting her own kind? And two the same? I don’t understand.”

  “Zaarusha says they’re evil. Grown from real mages, but unnatural fake mages, made by Commander Zens.”

  “Strong magic indeed.” If he was growing mages, what hope did they have? No matter how many they killed, Zens could grow more. Ithsar loosed an arrow, but one of the mages flung a fireball at it, and the arrow disintegrated in a burst of green flame. She fired two arrows in rapid succession as Saritha blasted a huge volley of flame. The mages wheeled off after a red dragon.

  Ithsar was about to chase them when Fangora shot by. “Look out,” Ithsar called as a shadow dragon wheeled for Stefan, opening its maw.

  Ithsar fired an arrow into the beast’s cavernous mouth. It screamed. Its head jerked back, its flames shooting skyward and missing Stefan. Ithsar followed up with another arrow, piercing the beast’s eye ridge, the shaft driving deep into its face. It clawed at its head and plummeted to the forest below.

  Face pale with shock, Stefan turned to Ithsar, held up two fingers and pointed at her.

  Two saves to her.

  Their dragons beat their wings and headed into the towering mass of rolling flame, dark shadows and howling beasts. Saritha breathed fire. Ithsar and Stefan fired arrows. Heat roiled around them as they bucked and twisted, trying to keep out of the paths of the fiery beasts’ flames.

  §

  A shadow dragon charged at Ithsar.

  “Let’s take this one together,” Stefan yelled, swooping at its stomach.

  Saritha flamed the dragon’s maw, while Fangora fried its wings. Stefan shot an arrow at its belly and Ithsar fired, her arrow punching through the beast’s skull.

  A cry of triumph rent the sky. “Nice shot,” Stefan yelled.

  Goren swooped past on his dragon. He punched his fist high in the air and called, “Well done.”

  Ithsar nearly fell out of her saddle. Knock her down with a vulture feather—Goren had actually praised her! She grinned back and rose in her stirrups to shoot at a snarling dark dragon chasing a blue.

  As the dragon dropped, Ithsar cast about. A lull in battle was rare, but soon more dragons would be upon them. A dark cloud of them was rushing in. She grabbed a waterskin and held it up in a toast to Stefan. He grabbed his too, and, together, they swigged down some water, then stowed the skins back in their saddlebags. Nocking an arrow to her bow, Ithsar scanned the battle.

  Below, men were battling tharuks among the trees, leaving a swathe of dead and wounded behind them—both tharuks and humans. An enormous barrel-chested man, with two strong fighters beside him, led the warrior troops. They hacked and cut their way through the tharuks, surrounded by brave woman and men fighting those beasts, tooth an
d nail.

  “We can’t help there,” Ithsar said. “We’ll accidentally flame our own.”

  Saritha rumbled in agreement and shot north over the trees. A towering inferno of green flame ripped through the forest, driving a horde of tharuks toward a river choked with weeds that waved greedy tentacles above the water. Green fireballs shot from the river, killing tharuks. More tharuks plunged into the water, trying to escape the fire. Bolts of green mage fire slammed into some, while tentacles grasped others and dragged them down, gurgling, to their deaths.

  Some clever mage must be hiding underwater. But what were those awful tentacles?

  As they flew over the inferno, unbearable heat crackled through the air, making Ithsar’s skin itch, and then they were behind the green flames. Was that a man down there? “Saritha, get lower.”

  The sea dragon queen circled above a young mage—Naobian from the looks of him—extinguishing pockets of fire behind him and funneling the wall of mage flame so it drove the tharuks into that seething river. All that fire, from one man…

  “By the dracha gods, he’s a powerful mage.”

  “Indeed. He and the mage in the river have these beasts under control. Our help’s not needed here.” Saritha shot higher.

  “Wait, Saritha. Look.”

  Two tharuks had sneaked around the side of the wall of flames and were creeping up on the mage, about to attack. Ithsar shot an arrow into the front tharuk’s head. The other roared and glanced skyward as Saritha blasted it with dragon flame.

  Surprised, the mage spun, waved a grateful hand and pressed on, pushing those tharuks with his mage fire into the mages’ clever trap.

  Saritha flipped her wings and shot up. “The green guards told me this place is called Mage Gate. Years ago, the mages opened a world gate here and let Commander Zens into Dragons’ Realm.”

  “Stefan said Zens grows those awful tharuks and shadow dragons, as well as those identical mages you told me about,” Ithsar replied.