Blood and Royalty (10 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Marcherion and Blaze, so sore from their half-healed injuries that they could barely stand the pain, appeared over Gull’s Reach. The men on the tower nearest them suddenly cheered. The other men on the walls followed when they saw.

It isn’t here,
Marcherion voiced to the other Dragoneers.

He gave the men a wave of encouragement, surprised that so many had stayed, even after they’d been told to flee to Freeman’s Reach.

The idea that this whole population and all the folks on the Mainland were the descendants of the survivors of a shipwreck was pretty incredible. What had him worried as he cast the teleportation spell that would take him to Serpent’s Isle, was the sword.

The dragon tear mounted on the medallion he wore was tied to the legendary blade’s destiny. He knew this because both items were with the one man’s skeleton he and Brendly Tuck had found in that cave so long ago.

He’d cut his palms and his scalp wide open while killing a wyvern with
Errion Spightre
. As incredible as that was, he knew its magic wasn’t meant for him. Only Zahrellion, Amelia and Jericho shared the blood line. Since Zahrellion hadn’t known her parents, there could be others out there, but it would be Jericho’s blade. Jericho would be a great king. March had been able to tell from the young man’s gait; the way he made his decisions, the way he minded his tongue, and spoke commandingly. Then he realized something else about that sword, his medallion, and dragon tears in general, but it would have to wait, for even as he heard Rikky calling to him through the ethereal, he saw the Sarsaraxus standing there glaring at him from where it stood on the beach. Its toes were in the surf and crackling bright blue, but it wasn’t in pain or dying from the seawater’s touch.

March remembered seeing the Sarax as they hit the sea and crackled over with the same sort of blue energy he was seeing now, but it killed them. To confirm this assessment even further, the thing stepped knee-deep as it conjured some alien spell and threw its arms toward him.

I’ve found Jenka.
Rikky’s voice was panicked.
March, Zah, Aikira, I need you now! The beast is on Serpent’s Isle, like Jenka guessed, but Jade’s underbelly is opened, and Jenka’s legs are shredded.

Part of March wanted to go help Rikky, for he saw them now, in the distance. Silva was floating beside a barely visible mass of green scales, with Jade’s head draped across the silver wyrm’s back as if to keep it afloat. The part of March that knew he could do little to help Rikky took over then. He was the least proficient at healing anything, even himself, of them all. The anger that this thing had apparently killed Jenka, and maybe even Jade, caused him to vomit forth a hot, cherry blast of dour at it.

March’s anger only grew as Blaze twitched his wing and dropped a few dozen feet so that the Sarsaraxus’s blast went right over them. When the blast March had spat back displaced around an invisible field right before the huge, spike-covered, shark-mawed bastard, it made him even madder.

Then Marcherion was falling, his dragon so startled by something that he was falling, too. March saw the Nightshade, its scarlet eyes full of joy as it pulled Blaze down into the sea like an anchor.

The hellborn wyrm only had one of Blaze’s legs in its maw, but it didn’t expect what happened when his fire dragon hit the water. March landed right in the boiling, brine-smelling ocean, where his dragon’s raging, infernal nature was peaking.

Then the dragon fire came, evaporating a whole layer of water and scorching the Nightshade good.

The hellborn wyrm let go quickly, and Blaze got a decent snap of its rank flesh as it went. Marcherion tasted it through the bond-link unintentionally and understood why his dragon took in a mouth of salty water to wash it away.

The boiling water around his wyrm didn’t scald March’s flesh; it felt wonderful. It seemed to be restoring his aching wounds even more. Then he was pulling himself into the saddle and feeling the wound on Blaze’s leg, where the Nightshade had leapt from the sea and snatched him. Compared to the rest of the injuries they’d recently sustained, it wasn’t as bad as it could be, but landing on solid ground might be a pain-filled ordeal.

We wills fights it fromss the sssky,
Blade hissed into Marcherion’s mind, giving him the warning to hang on.

The big red dragon lurched out of the water and up through the cloud of steam he had caused in two heavy wingbeats. When they cleared the condensing mist, they saw Golden hovering over Rikky and Jade. And there was Zahrellion wielding that sword, blasting at the Sarsaraxus’s chest a blow that sent the thing, magical shielding and all, tumbling backward, spiked heels over head into a grove of gord trees.

It didn’t stay down long, though, and it went into the same sort of ultra-fast motion that Jenka sometimes did. When March looked back at Zahrellion, she was pointing the sword at him. No, at something behind him.

Marcherion turned to see the Nightshade’s sizzling red eyes cutting at him through the sky. His own orbs started to glow the very same way, and then he felt his dragon die. The Nightshade’s searing rays hadn’t done the killing, either. It was a streaking blur of force moving at an impossible speed sent by the Sarsaraxus.

Give Milly the blade, Zah. Only she can move as fast as it...
he managed to tell Zahrellion before anguish overcame him. Seeing the huge hole that had been torn instantly through Blaze’s tumbling body let March know that there would be no healing his bondmate.

Blaze was dead.

Desira was but a smoky dream he’d yearned for. There was suddenly an empty space inside his heart so big that he welcomed his coming impact into the island’s rocky hills. And then he hit the ground and heard Rikky Camille scream,
Nooooo!

After that, there was nothing.

Part V

Blood and Royalty

Chapter Twenty-Three

Richard and his legions of mudged appeared in the sky over landlocked Three Forks. The people fell like wheat. The screams of agony and pain were nearly overpowered by pleas for the Dragoneers to come and save them, but only Richard and his riders were there to answer. It was wonderful to behold, and Richard let their terror lift him. He felt like the king of the realm should have felt; in total control.

For most of a morning, they circled the city, forcing the people to flee either into, or out of, its confining protection. Most of the outer city was deserted, as the people found the sturdier holds in which to hunker down. Richard relished the fear as much as the Nightshade had, and it filled him with an intense bloodlust that was multiplied tenfold by the tainted dour flowing through him from all of his dragon tears. He was lost in the delicious screams of a woman as he had Bruiser slowly squeeze her life from her, but suddenly Richard’s attention, as well as that of most of the mudged around him, was drawn to a point in the sky a little higher above the city than they were. Something was approaching from the north.

Dragoneers.

No, it wasn’t the Dragoneers, but three riderless High Draci: one of them frosty-white, but half of Zahrellion’s dragon’s size, a green so long and dark as to be more than a thousand years old, and a red that was just as big. Then came a fourth High Dracus. This one was scraggly-looking and scaled brightly in blue. The blue had a rider, which surprised Richard, for she was a tiny, red-haired girl, and she was just sitting there smirking at him with her arms on her hips. The blue dragon reminded him so much of Royal, he had Bruiser drop the woman they were torturing and hovered him up a little bit. He wanted to take in these newcomers at eye level.

Hi, Uncle Richard,
the girl said.
I’m Milly, and it’s time for you to go.

Milly?
Richard was baffled, for his spies had told him of his niece, but not of how strange she really was. He’d thought she’d been painting her face white, like the young girls in the streets of the Mainland were all doing. He would never have guessed that it was her real complexion and they were mimicking her, yet it made sense. She was Jenka’s daughter and the sole princess of this land. The girls of the area would try to mimic her look, just like the Vikarian girls all tried to look like his wife.

Just the presence of the High Dracus sent the mudged not directly under Richard’s control fleeing in all directions. Without the Nightshade to command them, they were following their own instinct. Bruiser and Richard’s dozen collared wyrms were still there, but shivering with fear. His two remaining riders and their collared mudged were still there, too, but had moved away from their king as if he had the plague.

Richard was too far gone to remember what fear was, and he knew it. In the bat of an eye, he used his dragon tears to blast her with the fastest pulse of power he could conjure. His intent was to end her and teleport away, and maybe see how these unfamiliar dragons reacted as he was going, but she disappeared, dragon and all, and then reappeared just a rock’s throw directly in front of him.

Had he been on Royal’s back, his mighty blue might have tail-whipped them across the sky where they were. Richard, like everyone else, couldn’t see them when they were moving, but he had been trained by Vax Noffa, Clover’s son, one of the greatest wizards who ever lived.

He did the first thing that came to mind and cast a simple spell to detect magic. After that he could sense where the crafty little girl was, or where she had just been.

He suddenly realized two things then. The first was that his foot was cold, and apparently open to the elements.

The second thing was that he’d sensed her right there, whispering something in his ear. It was an instant of time to him, and he glared at her where she’d appeared, for he hated being mocked more than anything. He was smart enough to know, though, that he might get an opportunity to get away. Still, he had to test her.

You’ve been the Nightshade’s toy, Uncle,
Amelia said, as sure as a princess should be. She had his boot in her hand, and after taking a quick sniff, she scrunched up her nose and tossed it off to the side.

There was silence as it fell, and Richard felt her daring him, even then, as she disappeared for an instant, and his other foot felt the chill of the air.

Suddenly, she was there standing on his dragon.

“You-- can’t-- win--,” she said slowly, her voice deep and warbling. She batted her eyes a dozen times in the short span of the moment. Then she was right back in the sky on the thin, blue High Dracus, almost exactly where she’d been. It only seemed like she’d wavered in place, yet here she was shoving his other boot into the air ahead of her.

It didn’t go as far as her little girl arms had wanted it to, and it bounced off the back of her mount’s head. Her look of dismay when the blue looked back at her and glared was almost comical, but the tone of her voice wasn’t.

The Nightshade is meeting its end on Serpent’s Isle as we speak. You were on that little island a while. Take the coffers here and go find another. Thrive. The great regal prince who saved this world from the anomaly called Gravelbone will always be remembered, but if you do not go away, and stay away, I will bring all the High Draci in the world down on you, and then tear you limb from limb, just like you did all those innocents you kept in the dungeons of King’s Isle.

The simple fact that this little girl had already de-booted him and could put a dagger in his chest before he could stop her was terrifying. He was as scared of being ended at that moment as he had ever been. The commanding way in which she talked to him spoke of true royalty. He was raging angry, but not mad enough to give up all he’d gained on the other side of the world. He had a kingdom. He was still the King of Vikaria. He had a wife.

Richard reached out for the Nightshade one last time, hoping to feel its familiarity return to him, but it wasn’t there. Nothing was there.

No, you will not return to Vikaria, Uncle Bootless. You will find an island, or a forest, or an elven deep, for all I care, but you will not call yourself king of anything as long as my father and brother are alive.
The girl was serious, and firm, and he was ready to leave anyway. Even as two of the High Draci around her flashed away, teleporting from the sky, he understood he couldn’t win here.

Live like a king,
his niece said quickly, as if she were running out of patience.
This world owes you all you desire. For you and Royal saved it from an unfathomable blight. Nothing would exist here, if it weren’t for what you and he sacrificed. We all know that, so just go.

How had she read his mind? He felt Bruiser’s fear reach a peak. He did have a huge dragon tear, and two others. He had Bruiser, too. He decided he could lead his riders somewhere, kill them, and take their teardrops, too.

He let out a heavy sigh.

My father would have liked you,
he told her.
My mother, too.
Then he urged Bruiser and his riders to follow him east. The other side of the Cut was still unsettled. He could take the teardrops from Baru and Kovin there and just leave them. Or maybe he could use them to get a foothold elsewhere. Harthgar was a continent crowded with enough people that he could fulfill his bloodlust and prosper without even being noticed.

Either way, he would have the boots off of one of them. Fortunately for Baru, Kovin would be the easiest of them to kill; he was also the closest to Richard’s size.

*

Rikky did all he could for Jade, and Jenka was thankful. The dragon would survive, but couldn’t currently fly, which meant Jade had to paddle his way to the island, where Zahrellion and March were battling the Sarsaraxus.

Jenka’s legs had long, partially healed-over furrows where the Nightshade’s teeth had slid down them as he fought his way free. He found that he couldn’t use his hyper-movement, or any magic other than that which came from his alien essence, when he was surrounded completely by seawater. He had had to fight his way out of that maw with naught but his own will and strength. He’d been pulled a long way under and passed out as he floated to the surface, too. When he opened his eyes, it was Rikky Camille looking at him, sending a pain-relieving feeling rushing over him, and then shucking him off to the side to drift, as he must have been floating for some time.

Blaze suddenly died. Jenka felt it, as did all of the Dragoneers and their dragons. Then Marcherion hit the ground, and Rikky screamed out with all he had,
Nooo!

“Go,” Jenka croaked. He wasn’t sure what he could do with ruined legs and no dragon, but he would think of something. He was already formulating an idea, and glad to see that Silva dove into the sea and came up under one-legged Rikky, allowing him to gain his saddle easily enough that they were in the air before Jenka’s first coral-green teardrop plopped into the sea.